by Taryn Quinn
With fumbling fingers, she withdrew the earrings and slipped them on, their subtle weight on her ears pulling at her heart. Especially when Matt gathered her hair in his hands and lifted it to place a kiss on the back of her exposed neck. “Beautiful. They match your eyes. They were meant for you.”
That she didn’t cry would rank up there with the biggest victories of her life. “Matt,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t.”
“You should. You don’t want me to go back to talk to that cute salesgirl again, do you?”
If she was being fair to him, that wouldn’t matter. None of this would. He was just on loan to her for this weekend until the fairytale ended.
“No.” She turned and met his mouth fiercely with her own. Right now he belonged to her. And right now was all she could focus on unless she wanted to drown them both in her tears. “Thank you.”
“My turn.” Tristan nudged the robe at her.
She shrugged it on and pulled the soft, plush material around her with a purr of contentment. “Oh, God. This feels better than…”
Noticing both guys were studying her intently, she grinned. “My old robe.”
“Nice save.” Tristan started to pat her knee, but she grabbed his hand and brought it to her racing heart.
“Thank you. I love it.” He stuck out his lips and made her giggle. She leaned in and kissed him, sighing a little as she pulled away.
“Time for more cake,” Matt announced, climbing off the bed. Then he turned back with a lewd smile. “Wonder how it would taste from a different kind of dish?”
“Now that idea has possibilities,” Tristan said, rising.
She couldn’t stop the tingle that swept through her any more than she could resist their smiles. “I like mine on a stick, actually,” she said, darting past them out the door to the sounds of their laughter.
Chapter 10
Cait woke snuggled between them. Warm, comfortable, more content than she’d ever been, the advancing light of dawn seemed the cruelest joke of all.
They’d never gone on their date. And they’d only spent one full day together and part of another. Not enough time. Not nearly enough.
But now it was over.
She knew she couldn’t ask for more, that extending their weekend would only make it that much harder to separate later on. She had to focus on what was most important now, mainly all the work waiting for her back at the office. There was so much to do, and she’d had her fun. Now she had to concentrate on—
“Happy birthday, Caity,” Tristan whispered against her cheek, drawing her more tightly into his reassuring embrace. “Love you.”
She didn’t open her eyes, pretending for just a moment that this was reality. Instead of one boyfriend, she had two. One warming her front, the other her back, both of them giving her love and laughter and offering her the kind of security she’d long ago given up on ever having.
She could have everything she’d ever dreamed and more. All she had to do was tell them how much she loved them too, how much she ached for them to be a family for real. She didn’t want to go back to her single bed, and she definitely didn’t want them to go back to theirs.
Did it really matter what people would say? They already lived together. It was no one’s business but theirs.
Dear God, she was already trembling.
“I…” She swallowed hard and opened her eyes, staring directly into Tristan’s. Unprepared for the acceptance she saw there, she fisted her hand in the sheets and started to back away. “I need to…use the bathroom.”
But backing away only made her collide with Matt’s solid form. “Hey, hey,” he said, yawning. “It's barely morning.”
Panic left no room for concerns about dignity. She scrambled up, crawling over Matt and nearly pitching to the floor when she caught her foot in the sheet. She stumbled forward anyway, finally getting free. She rushed into the bathroom and slammed the door, but not before she heard Tristan’s comment.
“Guess that answers that.”
She leaned against the door, her lungs quaking as if she’d run a mile. She was a coward. A fool. Only both would consider leaving the two gorgeous men in that bed because they were worried about public opinion.
Who the fuck cared?
No matter what, people talked. Even if she lived like a nun, they would still say what they wanted. And she would be miserable. Was living a life free of reproach worth losing everything that meant something to her?
This weekend had given her a chance to see the choices a woman—hell, a person—would make when confronted with the possibility of risking everything for love. She sure didn’t feel smug now. She understood too well what she would do to hold on to even a chance of being with the men she adored.
Taking a chance on heartbreak made sense when not trying at all seemed so much worse.
She turned her head and saw Matt’s jeans crumpled on the floor. And the cell phone peeking out of the back pocket.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she knelt and grabbed his phone. She scrolled through his address book, knowing he’d have the number she needed. There it was. All she had to do was call.
She bit her lip as the phone rang and rang. It was early, but that couldn’t be helped.
When the woman’s voice came on the line, relief rushed over Cait in a thick wave. “Mom? I need to move home for a while.”
The drive back to the loft was hell. She hadn’t expected anything else, especially once she’d shared her little bombshell. God, the look on Tristan’s face when she’d said she was leaving…
She’d wanted to snatch the words back, to beg him to forget she’d ever had such a crazy idea. But she couldn’t take the words back. Nor could she pretend slipping back into their usual roles worked for her.
How could she have ever believed she could sleep with them and then go back to her regular life? Every moment she was near them, she wanted them. Sleeping with them had only shown her what she’d been missing.
She’d expected Matt to argue with her, but he just nodded, saying maybe that was best for the time being. His mother was going to be staying with them until after the new year, and then once she’d gone home, they could all talk.
Talk. There weren’t any words to convey the sound of her heart breaking.
Tristan had just looked at them both as if they were strangers and gone out to load their bags into the car. Clearly, he was through arguing.
Just because Tristan refused to deal with how things were didn’t change that they all had families to consider. It wasn’t as if they could simply follow their own needs and to hell with everyone else. What did he expect them to do? Share Tristan’s king-size bed while Matt’s mom slept in the room next door?
Cripes, he probably did. Was he really that naive?
Or was he the smartest one of them?
The hand on her knee jolted her from her distracted reverie. She glanced at Matt, who sat beside her in the backseat. Tristan was driving Matt’s SUV, and their bags were stowed on the passenger seat. Tristan had rented a car to come up to the cabin since his own was in the shop, so they’d returned it to the lone rental dealership on the mountain, and he’d taken over the task of driving. That left Matt to sit with her in the back, though he’d done little more than brood since they’d started the trip.
None of them were behaving typically. Normally the biggest truth seeker of the three of them, she had become the biggest liar. And the biggest fake.
Cait looked from Matt’s golden hand on her leg to his face. What she saw there made her heart tumble.
“We’re not home yet,” he murmured, nudging her knees open.
Her blood thickened in her veins. No. She couldn’t. If he touched her again, she’d shatter. She’d plead with them to forgive her and ask their understanding for all her screwed-up thoughts. She’d believed she’d moved so far beyond the young, confused girl who’d wanted so badly to blend in with the crowd, but she hadn’t. She was nothing but a traitor because when she
’d made the biggest mistake ever, what had she done?
Run home to her mommy.
“Matt,” she breathed, lacking the strength to tell him to back off. That was another of her problems. She’d thought she was strong? She was nothing but a shivery mess in their hands. Just one look from hot brown eyes in Matt’s case—or green in Tristan’s—and she was willing to do anything they wished.
“Lift up your skirt,” he commanded, already kneeling. “Open up for me.”
She saw Tristan’s gaze flick up to the rearview before his jaw firmed and he returned his attention to the road. Apparently he had no interest in playing voyeur.
Arguing seemed stupid. Not when she wanted desperately to know Matt’s mouth one more time. She spread her thighs and peeled her panties aside, pressing her lips together as she realized how the fabric clung. Just his demand made her wet. Just knowing he’d bend his head to her pussy and lick her until she forgot she was supposed to not want this made her piston her hips, driving herself up toward his waiting mouth.
He didn’t give her time to regret her impulse. He dove in deep, swirling his tongue over her swollen labia again and again, gripping her thighs to bring her closer while he ravished her with every ounce of passion she’d come to expect from him. From them both. His lips sealed around her clit, and he sucked hard while he slid a finger inside her, then two, building her orgasm so fast she couldn’t fight to hold on. Her legs shook, the need rising from so far down inside her she was afraid she’d scream when he brought her to the inevitable conclusion.
There was no staving it off, the scream erupting inside her or the climax speeding through her system like a bullet train, taking down everything in its path. Her fears, her reservations, her denials. She could only drive her fingers through his hair and drag him against her, mashing her cunt to his masterful lips without shame.
He eased back after he soothed her quivering flesh with sensuous openmouthed kisses she knew she’d crave for the rest of her life. He lifted his gaze to hers as he licked his lips, drawing out the moment. Strengthening her need.
She gulped in air, summoning her control. She couldn’t fling promises at them she knew she’d never be able to keep. It was just sex. They were good at it, and she was a novice. Once she found a way to sate this suddenly uncontrollable desire inside her, she’d be fine.
Wordlessly, Matt pressed his mouth to her knee, a sweetly chaste kiss. And her eyes filled with tears that scalded her skin as much as the release still coating her inner thighs.
“Almost there,” Tristan said in a wooden tone unlike any she’d heard from him before. “Might want to belt in before we hit the city limits. Lots of cops out this way.”
Matt clambered back onto the seat beside her and grabbed her hand, squeezing it once. Then he fastened his seat belt and turned his face toward the window.
Almost there were the coldest words she’d ever heard.
“Abe’s not happy with the campaign.”
Four o’clock on Christmas Eve, and her boss was standing next to her desk, glowering as only Tristan could glower.
At least he was speaking. He hadn’t done much of that since they’d returned on Sunday. Though from the expression on his rigid face, at any moment he’d start throwing punches.
Cait reached for her water glass and sipped, making sure her face betrayed nothing when she looked up at him again. “I did as he asked. You requested spec designs, I gave you spec designs. I’ve spent all day doing two completely different full-page ads.”
“He’s not happy with them. Since he’s our most lucrative customer, we need to give him what he wants. Do you have any clue how much money he’s bringing into this firm?”
“No.” She tugged on her hair and then threw it over her shoulder. “I’m just the dumb office blonde. What do I know?”
Matt choked back a laugh from his computer, but he averted his gaze when she looked his way.
So much for enjoying the freaking holiday. Snow swirled around outside, making the world into a Christmas postcard. Other people were home with their families. But they weren’t. Oh no. Matt’s mom was out doing some last-minute shopping at the mall, and when she returned, they’d be visiting a relative in nearby Stockton. Tristan’s parents were having dinner at seven, and she’d overheard him snapping at them on the phone that he wasn’t sure when he’d be able to make it.
As for her, her mother and sisters were doing their annual chip-and-dip party. There would be drinking and carols and tons of delicious bad-for-you food. She never drank at the party, but she had a feeling she’d be drinking tonight. Heavily.
“Since you’re so smart, you know what losing this account would mean to us. How much of our budget hinges on pleasing a customer we’ve always managed to please in the past.”
Cait stabbed the Enter key and deleted half of the collage she’d been working on. She apparently couldn’t design anymore, so why bother? “I’ve been doing my best, Tristan. Who else do you think would work on fucking Christmas Eve but me? I’m not your fucking slave.”
“Think you can get any more fuckings in there, Cait?” Matt asked, sipping loudly on his takeout cup of soda when she would’ve hissed at him.
“You have a problem with the working conditions here?” Tristan ground out, shoving her mouse pad until her mouse clattered against the keyboard. “Then you know where the door is. Run through it, why don’t you? Just like you ran out of the loft.”
She stared at him, shocked he’d voiced the elephant that had thundered through every room they’d been in together since the weekend. This wasn’t only about work, and she knew it.
How dare he act as if she wasn’t hurting too? As if she hadn’t spent the last five days in a fog, trying to do her job when all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry.
“You want me to leave?” she asked, rising slowly from her chair. “Is that what you want? Because I’ll call your bluff. I don’t need this.”
“Tris, Cait, ease off.” Matt rose and came to stand between them, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. “We’re all exhausted. It’s Christmas,” he added quietly. “Not the day for this.”
Tristan turned away and shoved a hand through his hair on his way back to his desk. “Go home,” he said gruffly. “Both of you.”
“I am home,” Matt reminded him, slipping his hands into his pockets. He’d finally gotten his hair trimmed the day before in the severe military cut he favored when he wasn’t being lazy. Probably a good thing because their trade wasn’t ever going to happen.
Hell, she might as well go for that Brazilian at her salon. It would be the closest thing she’d be getting to sexual activity for a very long time.
“Then go meet your mom at the mall. I’ll handle this.”
Matt glanced back and forth between them and shrugged as he went to collect his jacket. “Coming, Cait?”
She swallowed the bitterness on the back of her tongue as she dropped back down into her chair. “I have work to do.”
He shook his head and zipped up. “Fine, suit yourself. I’ll go meet my mom at the mall. Can I trust you two to play civilly when I’m not around to supervise?”
“Get out of here,” Tris said without looking up from his computer. “Merry fucking Christmas.”
Matt laughed and swung by Cait’s desk on his way to the door. He bent down to kiss the top of her head as he had a million other times. She’d never stiffened before. She also hadn’t caught her breath and tensed her fingers on her mouse and wondered if he could somehow sense how her nipples hardened from the simple brush of his lips over her scalp. “Merry, merry, short stuff,” he murmured. “See you tomorrow.”
“Have a nice Christmas,” she said evenly. “Come over whenever.”
When he’d gone, she turned on the small clock radio on her desk. They’d have some Christmas cheer in here if it killed her.
“I said you could go, Caity.”
She ignored Tristan and the hot pokers of need jabbing her body.
She hadn’t been alone with either guy since the weekend. Five short days ago that seemed like a lifetime.
She’d only just turned twenty-five and already felt as if she were closing on fifty.
“I’m not leaving you here,” she said when she was sure she could control her voice. “If you’re working, I’m working.”
Without waiting for his approval, she went back to her collage. She could do this. The feel was fun, spring, carefree. Sexy, playful. Even if she’d never felt less like any of those things, she would make him proud of her.
Not Abe. She didn’t care about his opinion. Well, she did, but obviously not the way she cared about Tristan’s. She hated to see disapproval in his eyes, ever.
So she’d just have to damn well make this work.
Four bleary hours later, she shoved away from her keyboard and held a hand to her growling stomach. She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime, eight long hours ago. Tristan was still hunched over his desk. He’d scarcely moved in the last four hours, but he wasn’t sleeping. His shrewd green eyes were trained on his screen, and he tapped the keys at a steady pace.
“Come see what I have,” she said, fighting a yawn.
“You come see what I have,” he countered, swiveling in his chair to face her.
She came over to his desk and leaned in. The colors were vibrant and kick-ass, the models beautiful, young, and fresh. Abe Donnelly would be scrambling to shell out his money for this ad campaign, no doubt about it.
“Holy shit, Tristan. How’d you come up with this?”
“The possibility of losing an account always spurs me to greater heights.” With a shrug, he rose and went over to her computer. “Besides—” He broke off, his gaze glued to her screen. “Caity, this is incredible. This is just what he wanted. I know it.”
In spite of her hunger, fatigue, and general misery, she grinned and gripped her elbows. “You really like it?”
“Not like, love. It’s perfect.”
“I love yours too.” He returned to her side. “So which one do we send him?”