A shadow darkened his eyes and his normally quick smile disappeared when he spoke about his work with the police, but he was happy to tell them about the string of clients he’d worked with since starting at McCormick Associates.
The most entertaining part of the entire meal was watching David eat. The hotel’s food wasn’t remarkable, but it was pretty swanky for room service, and certainly decent enough not to warrant the deeply confused faces David kept making at his plate.
“Is your food okay?” Mati asked.
David squinted at her pasta. “Does your tomato sauce taste fresh?”
Mati blinked. “No? I mean, I’m sure it’s from a jar. But it’s not bad.” When he kept eyeing her food, she turned her plate toward him. “Go ahead. Try it.”
He swiped his fork through the marinara, popped it in his mouth, and made another hilarious face. He eyed Reese’s roasted brussels sprouts next.
Reese nudged the bowl toward David. “By all means.”
David ate one and was clearly offended.
Reese shoveled a bite of his dinner into this mouth to disguise his laughter.
Mati grinned. “A bit of a foodie, are you?”
“Not really,” David mumbled, focusing back on his own plate and making another face.
Reese nudged his leg under the table. “I’m sorry we’re trapped in this room and you can’t take us on a gastronomic tour of the city.”
“Me, too. There are so many great places,” he said, his whole face lighting up. “I could blow your minds.”
Mati had no doubt.
Reese looked like he’d already had his mind blown. Quite thoroughly.
He cleared his throat. “Maybe we’ll get a chance to when this is over,” he said, casting a glance at Mati.
She smiled back, forcing herself to keep a lid on the hope percolating in her. “That would be great.” And it would, no matter what, but right now she was desperate for more data. For any shred of hard evidence that she wasn’t imagining what she was seeing and feeling.
After dinner, she flopped on the couch and enjoyed the view of the beautifully lit parks while Reese checked in at home. David sat beside her, close enough to feel his warmth, but not touching. She let the silence stretch between them while she gathered her thoughts and decided what she wanted to say.
“I’ve never seen him flirt with a man,” she began, keeping her voice low so Reese wouldn’t hear her over his affectionate bickering with Hodges. “Not like this.”
David cocked his head. “Is that good or bad?”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to judge him. I like flirting with you, too.”
David grinned. “Same.”
“And if you’re worried I’m feeling territorial, you shouldn’t.”
“No?”
She shrugged, fighting to sound casual when her fingers and toes—hell, her whole body—tingled with daring and desire. “I haven’t talked to him yet, but this is all new for us. I’d like to think we’re a blank slate and anything is possible. And if he’s okay with sharing, I am, too.”
David looked out the window, his cheeks flushed. “That’s ridiculously hot.” He sounded almost distressed. He glanced at her. “But are you saying he’s never—”
“I don’t think so.”
“Huh.” David paused and licked his lips. “That’s hot, too, right?”
Before Mati could agree that it was insanely fucking hot, Reese said farewell to Hodges. She held out her hand to Reese. “Come sit.”
Reese did, taking her hand in his and folding one leg onto the couch so he sat facing her. His smile was shier than she’d ever seen it, his green eyes bright and curious, his lips shiny and pink. She wanted to taste them again. She wanted David to taste them and tell her they were as soft as she remembered.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Reese asked suspiciously.
David laughed and stood. “I’m going to leave you two to sort that out while I call Chance. He said he’d send me the video from the house and I haven’t gotten it yet.”
Mati twisted toward Reese, and they watched, heads together, as David walked into the kitchenette, every step showing off his powerful build.
Mati smirked and squeezed Reese’s hand when he was slow to drag his eyes away.
“Okay, on a scale of one to ten, how freaked out are you right now?”
Reese’s gaze flicked between her and David. “About what?”
There was a pretty good list of possibilities. She started with the simplest. “The house.”
Reese shrugged. “Since I’m not there, not very. More pissed off about the break-in and worried about Hodges, though he swears he’s being careful.”
Mati rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. She was worried about Hodges, too, and had no delusions that he was actually sleeping in the panic room. “Okay, how do you feel about being in Boston?”
“I like Boston,” he said. She shot him her best don’t-give-me-that-bullshit look. “What? It’s true. I’ve been here a couple times. I’d rather we weren’t here under these circumstances, of course, but recently I’ve been missing things like this.”
“Being trapped in hotel rooms in strange cities?” she asked.
“No,” Reese said with a laugh. “Traveling. I’d love to show you the sights. You haven’t been here before, right?”
Mati smiled. “I haven’t. I’d like that, too.”
“I used to travel all the time. Before.”
Before he’d stopped leaving the house, let alone the country. She’d seen some of the pictures, the ones he had framed around the house. They often included Rupert at Reese’s side, and always featured an iconic landmark or building in the background. London, Venice, Cape Town. Reese used to travel the world. She’d always been curious, but any time she’d caught Reese looking at the pictures, he’d appeared sad, so she’d never asked.
She brushed her fingertips down his cheek, enjoying the drag of stubble as she got nearer his jawline. She loved being able to touch him like this, watching his eyelids flutter. “You can do it again, now. Travel the world, if you want.”
Eyes closed, he smiled. “Only if you come with me.”
Her hand hovered, her heart in her throat. “As your employee?”
Piercing green eyes blinked open. “No.” He sighed and sat back. “I swore this would never happen.”
Mati let her hand drop. “What do you mean?”
Reese gestured between them. “You. Us.” He sighed again. “I never wanted to be that boss, to have you worry I would ever do anything to make you uncomfortable.”
“You haven’t. Not once.”
“Well, then I kissed you.”
“Actually, I kissed you. With your permission, I think. You said whatever I want.”
Reese smiled. “I meant that.”
Mati leaned forward, and Reese met her halfway for a long, sweet kiss. Reese curled his hand around the back of her neck, his fingers slipping into her hair, his lips gentle and warm. It felt like nothing else was happening in the entire world except this.
This was what she wanted.
She hadn’t been paying attention to the low drone of David’s conversation, but she noticed when it stopped. She and Reese parted and turned their heads to see David in the kitchen, the phone to his ear, watching them with a little smile on his face.
Reese caught her eye, both of them achingly aware of their audience when they kissed again. She pressed a thumb to his jaw and traced the seam of his lips with her tongue.
Electricity sizzled down her spine when he opened to her and their tongues met and tangled. She tilted her head to get closer, to get more. A note of joy escaped her throat.
A choking sound came from the kitchen.
They broke apart to look.
David jerked and said, “What? Oh, yeah, sorry. Got distracted,” into the phone, casting them a baleful look before turning his back.
She’d never seen this particular smile on Reese. It was a little bit
shy, a little bit proud, and one hundred percent dead-sexy.
“So…” she said, trying to figure out where to start a conversation that was, at its heart, a discussion of whether they should begin a relationship by inviting another man into bed with them.
“Yeah,” Reese said.
“We should talk about this. The three of us.”
“The three of us. That’s not a sentence I ever thought I’d say, to be honest.”
“No adolescent fantasies of having two women to fawn over you?”
“What? No, I—”
The redder he turned, the harder she giggled.
He glared at her. “I’m not answering that,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster. “And I certainly never thought I’d find myself in this position. There’s never been a man, Mati. Not ever.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never been attracted before.”
David should be flattered. Though, if Reese was going to start somewhere…
“But you are now?” she asked, just to be sure.
“Definitely,” Reese confirmed.
“In a slightly more than friendly way? Or a curious, experimental way? Or a know for certain you want to get naked and lick every inch of his body way?”
Reese’s cheeks warmed again. “That last one.”
“Okay, that’s…that’s good,” she said, then took a deep breath and forced all those images right back out of her head. “So, on a scale of one-to-ten, how freaked out are you about that?”
Reese rolled his head side-to-side. “A seven?”
“That’s pretty good. I’m easily a five at the idea of you wanting me.”
“I have. For a long time. I don’t want you to think my attraction to David changes anything about that.”
She squeezed his hand. “Same.”
“So…now what?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I guess we take it slow. Try things. Say what we like. What we don’t like.” She pointed at him. “That goes especially for you, since there’s going to be some new stuff.”
“More than just some,” he muttered.
Mati’s mouth dropped open in shock.
Reese rolled his eyes. “I’m not a virgin, for Christ’s sake. Stop making that face.”
Mati laughed at his indignance. She tried to kiss the scowl off his face, but he kept his lips pursed instead of kissing her back, feigning offense. She could feel how he fought a smile, so she climbed to her knees and planted loud smacking kisses all over his face until he was batting her away and making disgusted noises through his laughter.
David came around the couch. She hadn’t heard him end his call.
“What are you two doing?” he asked, sounding amused.
Reese gasped with laughter. “Help! David, you have to save me.”
A strong arm hooked around Mati’s hips, lifting her off Reese and into the air until her back hit David’s chest. He sat facing Reese, leaving her sprawled in his lap, her legs on either side of Reese, her butt cradled in his enormous thighs.
She laughed breathlessly and tried not to squirm—yet.
David stretched his arm along the back of the couch and brushed his hand over Reese’s shoulder.
The laughter in Reese’s eyes gave way to something hotter.
“You two want to tell me what you’ve been giggling about over here?” David asked, his fingers tracing the seam of Reese’s shirt. His other hand dropped from Mati’s stomach to rest on top of her thigh.
“Just some things we’re working on,” Reese said smoothly.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” David asked.
Reese smiled—a slow sexy smirk that made Mati squirm after all.
“Believe me, you’ll be the first to know.”
Chapter Eight
Reese spent the next hour hanging from a cliff of anticipation. Every look, every gesture, felt loaded, as if they teetered on the edge and the merest shift, the gentlest breeze, could send them plunging.
He watched Mati’s lips when she spoke, and David’s when he laughed. Mati held Reese’s hand, her knees bumping his ribs, while David practically spooned her from behind, smiling at Reese over her shoulder. No one who saw them would think the scene anything other than what it was—intimate.
What was it like to have David pressed along her back like that? Like snuggling up to a warm, living, breathing brick wall, he’d bet. Her ass had to be wedged against David’s cock, but neither moved as Reese’s imagination so desperately wanted.
The only time any of them moved was when Reese went to raid the mini-bar, retrieving wine for Mati, a bourbon for himself, and water for David. Mati bent her legs so he could slide between them again when he came back.
He settled on the couch as close as he’d been before. Maybe a shade closer, his bent knee pressed to David’s.
Reese thought he’d understood need. The burn of desire that could build under his skin while he’d flirted through a dinner date, the spikes of excitement when eyes met or hands brushed, the tickle along his spine when a date had come home with him and the door had shut behind them.
All of it paled compared to this.
Part of that was because it was Mati, who he had loved for so long. It was no small thing he no longer had to hide that, but it wasn’t that alone.
It was Mati and David. The combination was proving lethal for his libido and his attention span.
Fortunately, the conversation wandered as much as Reese’s imagination, sticking with nothing in particular and anything that came to mind: the news, work, family, and the story of a particularly raunchy bachelorette party Mati had once been roped into. She told them how she’d attempted to sneak out the stage door at the male strip club in Montreal, only to end up drinking whiskey in the dressing room with the dancers who took turns reporting back on her friends out front.
David threw his head back with laughter, his big hand running up and down Mati’s thigh. His bright smile did things to Reese. It made him brave. It made him want.
Reese ran his hand up Mati’s other thigh, dragging his thumb along the seam from the inside of her knee.
Her eyes met his.
David must have felt how she’d gone still, because he tipped his chin down and took in what was happening. Reese liked that about him. How his eyes were always moving, assessing. It was one of the reasons Reese had felt safe with David from the moment they’d met.
And why he felt safe now, leaning forward and kissing Mati while she sat in David’s lap.
Her lips parted, and he licked into her mouth, desperate to taste. He didn’t linger, though.
She made a disappointed noise when he sat back. Her eyes opened slowly, and she bit her lip, peering at him through those damn glasses.
“I can leave you two alone. Step out into the hall,” David offered cautiously.
Mati shook her head, and Reese tore his eyes from her face to look at David. His heart beat against his ribs so hard it was a wonder Mati and David couldn’t hear it.
“We don’t want you to leave.” Reese wasn’t sure what exactly he did want David to do, but he knew it wasn’t that.
David looked at Mati. “You sure?”
She smiled. “Very.”
David somehow managed to look sweetly pleased and drop-dead sexy at the same time.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked Mati
She twisted in this lap and lifted her chin. “Please.”
Reese didn’t expect the soft, sweet kiss David pressed to her lips.
Mati clearly didn’t either. She looked disgruntled when David pulled away so soon.
Amusement sparkled in David’s dark eyes and he kissed her again.
Reese couldn’t tell whose mouth opened first, but with a flash of pink tongue, the kiss went from sweet to hot in the blink of an eye. David’s hand cupped Mati’s cheek to help with the difficult angle while Mati strained to get closer.
Reese couldn’t look away. He’d never watched tw
o people kiss like this. Not that it hadn’t happened in his presence—he’d gone to boarding school after all—but he’d always turned away. Maybe even snarked about the offenders getting a room.
No part of him wanted to turn away now. The itch that had been humming under his skin all night burst into a steady burn, his heart pumping harder, his cock trying to find room to grow inside the confines of his clothing.
David ended their kiss, leaving Mati blinking hazily.
He pinned Reese with his gaze. “Can I kiss you?”
Reese’s stomach bottomed out, his chest tight with need, with desire, and the added thrill of it all shot through with a touch of fear.
He nodded, probably too quickly since David didn’t look convinced. Reese gripped the back of the couch and lifted onto one knee. He came perilously close to overbalancing and smashing their mouths together, nerves and the awkward position making him graceless.
David’s big hand cupped his jaw, steadying him.
Reese pressed the same sweet, lingering kiss David had given Mati onto David’s lips.
Of all the sensations bombarding Reese in that single moment, none struck him as profoundly as the prickle of stubble against his lower lip. He was achingly aware of David’s taste, the maddening hint of musk from his skin, and the size and strength of the hand holding him, but it was the rough drag of coarse hair against the thin, sensitive skin just inside his mouth that sent a bolt of pleasure straight down Reese’s spine.
David pulled back and studied Reese’s face.
“Fuck, do that again,” Mati whispered from between them.
David stared at him, his brown eyes even darker with the pupils blown wide. Reese hung in his grasp and waited.
He was beginning to worry his cock would snap in two if he didn’t find a way to reposition it soon, but that, and every other thought in his head, blew away when David dragged him forward and captured his mouth. David’s thumb rubbed the hinge of Reese’s jaw and he let it fall open. He let David in.
Breaking Out Page 9