by Cari Quinn
Tony rubbed the back of his neck. He’d never heard her sound so vulnerable before. She also obviously hadn’t looked closely enough at Diana to suspect who she was. Thank God for dim lighting and Marcia’s fixation on Cale’s cock. “You’re actually jealous? We were at a sex club. Christ, you’re the one who loves when anything goes.”
“Of course I’m jealous. She was gorgeous and you asked me to leave.” She shifted her face away but not before he glimpsed the tension drawing her features tight. “Anything goes might’ve worked a few years ago. Not anymore.”
“Why not?” he asked softly.
Rather than reply, she turned to leave.
“Marcia, wait,” he called when she headed down the hall.
Nothing.
He followed her into her bedroom and stopped dead at the desolate look she shot him. Shadows rimmed her eyes and she was way too pale. It was as if someone had switched off the light inside her. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk anymore tonight.”
If she’d yelled at him, thrown things, even pouted, he would’ve stayed to fight it out with her. They’d argued so many times and usually didn’t stop until the rafters shook. It had been a while, true, but they were still the same people.
Except they weren’t. The woman staring at him right now wasn’t the vivacious party girl who always came out swinging. This version looked as if she didn’t even have enough strength to remain standing.
Falling for her had changed him too. He hadn’t even figured out all the ways yet.
“If you’d like to be alone, I’ll go. It’s up to you.”
He didn’t expect her lips to quirk. “Selfless Tony, always putting his own needs aside for the greater good. It must be tiring hefting those wings all the time.”
“I care enough about you to give you room even if all I want to do is hold you,” he said, his tone even. “I keep hoping if I give you enough that eventually you’ll decide you want me more than the space you put between us.”
She swallowed jerkily, her eyes suddenly bright. “I already do.” She crossed the room to him and simply folded herself into his arms. “Stay with me, Tony.”
He stroked her back, surprised by the quiver in her muscles. By the fragility of her body as it wilted against his. She never gave him this part of her. He’d only ever seen the shiny, happy, strong Marcia. The one who didn’t take shit from anyone and wouldn’t back down for any reason.
God, he’d never once seen her cry.
Not that she was now either. But her thick blonde lashes lay heavily on her cheeks as if she couldn’t bear to keep her eyes open. Was she that upset with him about what had happened at the club? Did she honestly think she had anything to worry about when it came to him? Them?
“Just sleep with me,” she whispered. Her arms came up to encircle his neck. “Hold me. Please.”
Wordlessly, he scooped her up and carried her to bed. Without shedding their clothes, he settled beside her and turned out the light.
She curled into him and tucked her head under his. Her breath tickled his throat as she stroked her hand up and down his arm. “I didn’t know,” she murmured. “I didn’t realize how much we had. The last few days, it all slammed home. That I need a place that’s just for me, that I want someone waiting there who wants me just as much. Someone who’ll always leave a light on and look forward to hearing about my day, even if I spend too much time talking about other people’s business.” She snuggled against him. “I want this, Tony. You and me, alone in the dark.”
Her sultry, sleepy voice curved around him, blanketing him in a warmth that had nothing to do with sex and everything with the space that belonged to them alone. God, maybe they really could have it all. She wanted what he did. Even if she hadn’t fully articulated it, he knew her heart as well as his own. Deep down, he got what made her tick. He could make her happy, as happy as she made him. It didn’t have to be complicated and they didn’t have to fight every damn night. They’d argued tonight but it hadn’t turned into some huge blowout. That showed how far they’d come. And they could go a lot further, if she only gave them a chance.
He rubbed his cheek against her hair, exhaustion pulling him down. He’d love to fall asleep just like this, with his world in his arms and her breaths matching his. First he had something he needed to say. “Baby, I… God, I love you.” At her silence, he closed his eyes and forged ahead. “I know you’re reluctant to put labels on things and I’m not interested in rushing you. All I need to hear is that you’re willing to put in the time to see where this goes. I have faith in us. And you’re so worth the wait.”
More silence, broken by a snuffling noise from Marcia. He’d finally scraped his soul bare.
Damn shame his girl had fallen asleep.
* * * * *
The sound of her buzzer made Marcia tug her pillow over her head and groan. It couldn’t be morning yet, could it? Where was Tony? He’d slept over. At least she thought he had.
She threw the pillow aside and glanced around blearily. After a moment her gaze landed on a folded note on the nightstand with her name on the front in her lover’s block printing.
Bzz. Bzz. Bzz.
“I’m coming!” She rolled out of bed and started to reach for her robe, only to realize she was still wearing last night’s purple dress. Tony had hauled her into bed fully clothed and she hadn’t awakened until now.
She quickly opened Tony’s note and smiled at the single word written inside.
Tonight.
Sounded promising. And scary as hell.
The buzzer sounded again and she hurried down the hall. God, she must look awesome. She tucked the note in her bra and swiped her fingertips under her eyes. Raccoons probably had nothing on her.
Let it be the mailman with some random package. Or a traveling salesman peddling life insurance.
She swung open the door and swallowed at the sight of Cale, looking way too luscious in dark-gray jeans slouched over boots and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
“You’re not the mailman,” she muttered.
“Nope.” He sounded entirely too cheerful considering it was early morning. At least it felt early. He swept his gaze up and down her body. “It’s also not still last night.”
“Yeah. I know.” She pushed a hand through her hair then stepped back and waved him inside. “Which means you should be at work, not seeing me looking like death. Something you will never tell anyone unless you want me to hurt you.” She shut the door behind him and leaned against it, surprised at the skitter of nerves down the back of her neck.
This wasn’t some stranger. This was Cale. Her pal. Your lover.
Again his gaze traveled down her body before returning to her face. The look wasn’t overtly sexual, merely curious. “You look great. Like you always do.”
“Uh huh. Anyway, to what do I owe this visit? And why aren’t you at work?”
“I took an early lunch. Can we sit down?”
“Can I take a shower and brush my teeth first?”
He smiled. “No. Sit down with me for a couple minutes.” He held out his hand and she took it, trying to ignore the sudden tightening in her throat.
Friends held hands, right? They even sat down side-by-side on the couch and leaned against each other when boy friend extended his arm around girl friend’s shoulders and pulled her close.
“So, ah, I forgot to tell you. I talked to Spencer yesterday. About the website,” she said, well aware her words were coming out in a rush. “He said you’d sent him the site comps you did.”
“Yeah. He left me a voicemail yesterday but I haven’t had a chance to get back to him. What did they think?”
“They loved your ideas.” She cocked her head and smiled. “Especially the Weebles. The VR site’s a go.”
“Yeah? Fucking awesome.” Cale grinned. “And you didn’t have to convince him?”
“Only a little. You know him. He’s a traditionalist at heart.” Sex club screwing aside. And since Spencer and Kink s
quicked her out, she quickly diverted her thoughts back to the website. “But he saw the appeal in the VR one. So did Kelly. They’re ready to try it. A lot of people already think bookstores are a dying breed. Anything that makes them seem firmly rooted in the future is a good thing.”
“Well, hot damn. That site will be fun to finish putting together.” He leaned forward and gave her a brief kiss. “Thank you for using your considerable influence.”
She shrugged, her lips still tingling. A woman would have to be dead not to like kissing Cale. But it wasn’t even about that. Now that she’d slept with him, every action seemed to take on a significance it hadn’t before. Especially since she wasn’t sure how he was reacting. “I didn’t do anything. Just mentioned how much I loved the site and what amazing work you’d done. All true.”
Cale heaved out a breath when she aimed her gaze at the couch. “Are we going to be weird now?”
She laced her fingers together and hated that he had to ask. “If we’re honest with each other, no. We aren’t. We’re friends.”
“Good friends.”
“Yes. And I don’t want that to end.” She slanted him a glance. If they had a chance of going back to the way things were—or better yet, of being closer friends than ever—they had to lay their cards on the table. It was now or never. “You don’t have feelings for me, do you?”
Chapter Eleven
“Yeah, I do.” Cale’s eyes seemed particularly blue today. Chambray blue. “Tons of them.”
“Um…”
“I love you, Blondie.” He laughed huskily. “As a friend. That hasn’t changed now that I know just how good it feels to be inside you.” He rubbed his lips over her hair and she sighed. He made it really hard to stay anxious around him. “Really inside you.”
“Thank you for reminding me.”
“Welcome. So you gonna stop pressing your thighs together like you think I’m about to start diving for treasure?”
She couldn’t help laughing. “I am not. It’s just new.”
“Do you have feelings for me?”
“Many of them. Most are even positive.” She gave in to the urge to settle against his chest.
“Now see, that’s better, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
He ran his hand down her hair and made a noise at the back of his throat, somehow managing to sound like a contented kitten and a rumbly male simultaneously. “We should talk about last night.”
“Without Tony?”
“This time, yeah. Because it’s about time for me to bow out of your relationship and there’s stuff I need to say before I go.”
“Uh oh. Stuff.”
“Even worse, big stuff.” He wound one of her curls around his thumb. “When are you going to tell him you’re in love with him?”
She toyed with one of his buttons to avoid looking at his face. She just knew those perceptive eyes would be trained on her, seeing things she didn’t want anyone to see. He’d never let her get away with burying her feelings like last year’s skinny jeans at the back of her closet. “Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Tonight.”
“Good. He loves you too.”
“You’re just full of knowledge all of a sudden, matchmaker.” She frowned at his serious expression. “I’m still not sure of that myself.”
“Trust me.”
“I do.”
“Then believe me when I say that man would do anything for you, even share you with his best friend. He’s not into that. He’s also not into Kink. But he wanted to make you happy. And he enjoyed going there for you too. He could’ve acted sullen and put out but that wouldn’t have been your fantasy.”
Her lips twitched at the memory of Tony’s explosive orgasm in the steam room. “If you say so.”
“We’ve been friends since we were kids. I know him. There’s a reason we never shared a girl before you. That’s not his thing. It sure as hell is mine though, and he knows it. So maybe some of it was for you, maybe some of it was for me. Either way, he deserves to know how you feel.”
“Just how many women have you shared with other guys?”
He gave her a mercurial little smile. “Count on your fingers and toes.” Then he lifted her hand and kissed the tips of those fingers. “None of them held a Girl Scout cookie to you, Blondie. Tony is one lucky sonofabitch.”
“You’re surprisingly sweet sometimes. And I hear you,” she added quietly. “I’ll tell him. I promise.”
No matter what it meant for them afterward, she would be honest. Even if he refused to let her in on last night’s secret. Even if he said “you had your chance before you screwed my best friend, not interested”.
She didn’t believe he would say that. She also hoped he understood how sleeping with Cale, as amazing as it was, had finally pushed her to see all she had at home. That finally she might be ready to make a home with Tony, if he wanted that too.
“Good. I want you both to be happy.” Cale’s kiss glanced off her temple, the same kind of kisses he’d given her before they’d become lovers. They’d settled comfortably into the friend zone again and she wanted to hug him for being so fucking incredible about the whole thing.
Someday he would make some woman very lucky—assuming he ever finished whipping his wild oats into a frenzy. She almost hated the chick on principle. Who could possibly be good enough for him?
“Mmm-hmm. You know, last year you wanted to matchmake Kelly with Spencer,” she teased.
“So did you. And I think we did it pretty successfully, considering hearts shoot out of their eyes whenever they’re near each other.”
“They’re completely sickening together.” But she grinned as she popped open one of his buttons and poked him in the chest with her nail. “Now it’s your turn to ’fess up. Why’d you go all Dom-tastic last night?”
“Dom-tastic?” One brow winged up. “I told you I was into stuff.”
“More stuff.”
His grin lit up his eyes. “It’s an all-purpose word.”
“For caveman males, sure. I get that you’re into things Tony and I aren’t. So why did you feel you needed to demonstrate?”
“You don’t know all there is to know about me. And maybe I thought you should know more.” He jerked a shoulder. “My needs aren’t what you’re used to.”
”Even so, there’s no way you could’ve really needed to fuck again that fast.”
“Did you see me fucking anyone?” he asked mildly, a succinct evasion if she’d ever heard one.
As odd as it had been watching her friend—and her new lover—step into that scene in the dungeon with only a modicum of hesitation, this was even worse. She’d never seen Cale act so strange before. Not even what he was saying or doing, but what he wasn’t.
Did he think she was freaked out to know he was dominant in bed? As if she’d had any doubt. Or was something else going on here?
She swallowed hard, hating that she needed to fumble around for the thread of their conversation. “No, but you could’ve from a few feet back with the size of that thing you were packing.”
“Still talkin’ about my crop?” She poked him again when he started to laugh.
“That wasn’t your crop. You had no place to hide one of those. Though you barely hid your—barely hid anything,” she amended, laughing.
“So touched you noticed.”
“Sure did.”
She tucked her fingers into her palm to keep from reaching up to smooth his brow. As close as they were, she wasn’t used to falling into the caretaker role with him. They spent most of their time joking around. She didn’t know how to offer something deeper to Cale, as much as she wanted to. Even if it was only a gut-level reaction that told her he needed it.
“Your submissive was pretty hot,” Marcia admitted, with the distance of a new day. Last night she’d been too consumed with making sure Tony didn’t find her sexy. Now she’d obtained some objectivity.
Not much but some.
; “You thought so, hmm?”
She didn’t like his smile. It was too close to a leer. “For a woman,” she said with a sniff. “Anyway, what happened last night?”
“What do you mean? You saw what happened.” He flicked back the dark hair that had fallen into his eyes. “I went to the dungeon. I used a crop on—”
“On?” she prompted when he fell silent. “Do you know her? And why the hell are you fidgeting if you’re Mr. Big Dom?”
“I said I was into stuff. I didn’t say I’d practiced it before in that setting. What I’ve done’s all been one-on-one with a woman who consented—hell, even asked for it—ahead of time. None of this public performing crap. I didn’t expect some guy to toss that crop at me but Jesus, she was making all those crazy sounds, begging, pleading. I couldn’t stop myself.” He balled his hand into a fist then opened up his fingers. “Usually I use a flogger. But that crop felt good in my hand. Right. And she wanted it.”
“I’ll say,” Marcia said drily. “She was one sneeze away from an orgasm the entire time.”
“It’s intense.”
“If you say so.”
“I know it’s not your scene.” He stroked her thigh almost absentmindedly. “Why do you think I went up there?”
It took her a minute to realize he wasn’t fully aware of what he’d said. His faraway expression was her first hint, his tense posture another. He was there, in that dungeon. With her. Not platonically cuddling with Marcia.
“You wanted to put distance between us?”
Cale’s snapback to the present was a visible, tangible thing. He blinked, squinting as if it took great effort to focus on her. “What?”
“You heard me, jerk.” She shook her head. It was all so plain now. God save her from chivalrous men. “You didn’t need to stage a scene to get me to back off. I was cool with the two nights. Actually I would’ve been fine with one. That was enough to satisfy my curiosity about what it’d be like with you.”
“Was it now?”
His slow, simmering smile made her roll her eyes. “It was amazing, just as I’d expected. But I also expected the threesome to only last one night.”