The Muse

by O'Brien, Meghan

  She clapped her hands together as though announcing the upcoming conclusion. “My father opened a bakery—his lifelong dream—when I was a child, but he struggled to keep the business afloat and it ultimately failed when I was away at college. We started baking together when we were both in rehabilitation, to combat the boredom. That’s when we decided that I would help him reopen the business once we were healthy enough to make it successful. That became our motivation to heal.” She paused, then sat back against the arm of the couch with a bittersweet smile. “It worked beautifully.”

  “To say the least.” Kate squeezed Olive’s hand. “And you’re happier now?”

  “Much.” Olive’s voice caught, but she waved a hand in the air and laughed off her rising emotion. “I mean, I’m single and motherless, but at least my life seems to have attained some deeper meaning.”

  “And you have a bucket list that’s shrinking every day.”

  Olive chuckled. “Since I met you two, at least.” She shot Erato a friendly smile before returning her attention to Kate. “Anyway, that’s enough about me. Tell me something about you that I haven’t already learned from your back-cover blurb.”

  Kate shrugged, never pleased to be the center of attention. “There’s not much to tell. I’m the oldest of three, and my younger siblings are twins. My brother is a programmer at some start-up in Palo Alto, and my sister moved to London with her husband the banker last year. It sounds like she’s carving out a career as a professional socialite, which is good, since her only real skill seems to be marrying up.”

  “And your parents?”

  “They’re retired and spend most of their time traveling. We get along well and visit each other when we can.” She shrugged again. “Like I said, not much to tell.”

  “How do they feel about their little girl writing dirty lesbian-sex stories?”

  Kate blushed. “I haven’t really delved into that subject with them. Too awkward.”

  Olive laughed. “I’m sure they’re proud of you.”

  “Well, I hope so.”

  “Have they read any of your books?”

  Cringing, Kate tried not to think too hard about the potential answer to that question. “I asked them not to tell me if they ever did.”

  Olive snorted in amusement, which made Kate smile despite the fact that she was the punch line. “Fair enough.” Turning her attention toward Erato, Olive asked, “How about you? I’ll bet you had an interesting upbringing.”

  Kate barely had time to panic about the possibility of Erato being overly candid before she answered. “I’ll say. But you don’t want to hear about my family—even if they have been the source of enough drama and tragedy and comedy to inspire multiple tales.” Erato shot Kate a conspiratorial little smile. If she was trying to be subtle about the fact that she thought she was being clever, she was failing. “Epic ones.”

  Olive smiled along with Erato. If she was at all perplexed about the response, she didn’t show it. “Well, whoever taught you to cook did something right. The food is wonderful.”

  “Hestia, yes. She was a tremendous mentor in the kitchen.” Erato’s gaze went far away for a moment before she snapped back into the present. “Anyway, thank you. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the food.” Her expression turned wicked. “Even if it is keeping you from dessert.”

  Even a subtle allusion to sex was enough to bring Kate’s clit to immediate attention. A quiet groan escaped her as she shifted on the cushion, positioning herself so the seam of her jeans pulled tight against her arousal. Instead of sating her overactive sexual appetite, Olive’s little hand-job had achieved the opposite effect. Even after all the talk of grave injuries and catastrophic losses and guilt, she burned to reciprocate the sweet pleasure Olive had given her. And if the way Olive gazed at her now—all hooded eyelids and flushed cheeks—was any indication, the desire was very much mutual.

  “Kate, since tonight is your reward for a job well done…” Erato waited until Kate dragged her attention away from Olive to finish her thought. She gave Kate an indulgent wink. “Go ahead and have your dessert.”

  Kate knew immediately what Erato was suggesting, and where she once might have felt shy, tonight she didn’t even hesitate. Turning to face Olive, she carefully placed her hands at the hemline of her dress, over her knees. “May I?”

  Olive blinked rapidly, her gaze fluttering back and forth between Erato and Kate for a second longer than Kate expected. Briefly alarmed that she was having second thoughts about another threesome, Kate squeezed Olive’s knee and craned to look into her face. She didn’t want to pressure Olive into something she didn’t want. That would ruin everything.

  It took obvious effort for Olive to meet her eyes, but her consent was clear even before she spoke. “You may. I am your reward, after all.” She bit her lower lip, shy and sexy and, as Kate well remembered, even more delectable than Erato’s best dish.

  Kate leaned forward to kiss the piece of lip Olive had been worrying with her teeth. “Thank you,” she whispered. “And please don’t be shy about making sure you get exactly what you want from me.” She flicked the center of Olive’s upper lip with the tip of her tongue. “Deal?”

  Olive nodded, already winding her hand into Kate’s hair. Guiding her toward her lap, she murmured, “On that note, get your ass down there and take care of the mess you created earlier in the foyer.”

  Kate dropped to her knees on the floor in front of Olive. She’d barely registered the pain from kneeling on the laminate flooring when a pillow landed next to her, tossed by Erato. Startled, Kate looked up to find her muse contentedly sipping her glass of wine. Gesturing at the soft projectile, Erato said, “Be comfortable. I know you’ll want to take your time.”

  It was true. With a murmur of thanks, Kate arranged the pillow under her knees. Much better. Prepared to go down for hours if that’s what it took, Kate stared into Olive’s eyes as she very deliberately pushed the hem of her dress up over her hips. Her desire to tease Olive outweighed the need for instant gratification, so rather than taking a long look at her prize, Kate instead held their shared gaze with an expression of feigned calm.

  Olive, on the other hand, was the opposite of placid. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. She rolled her hips beneath Kate’s palms, triggering an instinctive desire to grab hold of her tightly and keep her still. Gasping, Olive loosened her grip on Kate’s hair as though acknowledging that she wasn’t exactly in the position of power. “Don’t you want to see what you’ve done to me?”

  “Of course I do.” Kate waited a full ten seconds before finally lowering her eyes. Delighted by the sight of silky red panties soaked with incredible wetness, she took a moment to savor the undeniable evidence of their electric chemistry. Olive’s inner thighs glistened with it, and the sweet fragrance nearly sent Kate diving in. Drawing on the last of her self-control, Kate traced a slippery path to the edge of Olive’s panties with her fingertip. She was getting off on the game they were playing too much to end it before Olive forced her to. “You want me to lick all this wetness up?”

  With a rough nod, Olive pulled her hair almost hard enough to hurt. “I want you to eat my fucking pussy until I come all over your pretty face.”

  Kate raised her eyebrows. “Damn, girl. That escalated quickly.”

  Olive’s aggressive demeanor melted away in an instant. “I’m so sorry, I thought—”

  “Don’t apologize,” Kate murmured, then bent to kiss the side of Olive’s knee. “I like it.” She kissed the other knee. “And you do know my safe word.”

  “Apple?” A hint of steel crept back into Olive’s voice. The fingers that had eased their grip tightened again.

  “That’s the one.” She reached under Olive’s skirt and grasped the waistband of her panties. “Lift up?”

  Olive raised her hips to allow her to slide the panties off. Kate balled them up and threw them in Erato’s general direction, which elicited a giggle and a murmured “Thanks” from their audience. Sensing Oli
ve’s comfort level dropping slightly with the reminder of Erato’s presence, Kate pushed her knees apart and placed her hand over Olive’s hot, noticeably throbbing sex. She flashed a grin, relieved when Olive returned it with apparent ease.

  “Look at me while I’m tasting you,” Kate said, deliberately echoing Olive’s earlier words. She massaged the supple flesh beneath her fingers, delighted by how effortlessly she was able to trigger a blissful little moan. “Watch how much I love sucking on your pussy.” Scooting backward on her knees so she could lower her head, Kate kissed one inner thigh, then the other. Licking her lips to sample Olive’s flavor, she looked up into expectant brown eyes. “Will you do that for me?”

  Olive dragged Kate forward by the hair, practically shoving her where she wanted her. Kate giggled until the second her face pressed into the succulent, juicy bounty she’d been dreaming about all week. Her amusement fled when she realized she was exactly where she wanted to be, doing exactly what she wanted to do. No longer capable of teasing, she explored Olive with her hands and mouth simultaneously—sucking lightly on her labia, rubbing one finger around her opening, batting at her erect clit with her thumb. She was every bit as tasty as she’d been the first time. More, even, now that Kate knew her better.

  Loosening her grip, Olive nevertheless continued to hold her in place with a hand on top of her head. “Oh, fuck,” she moaned, then, “Right there. Yes, and now—” Her back arched as Kate instinctively changed the rhythm of her tongue, painting quick, light circles around Olive’s fat clit. The fingers in her hair pulled, nearly bringing tears to Kate’s eyes and triggering an answering pulse of sensation between her legs. “Fuck, that’s so fucking nice.”

  Thrilled by the praise, Kate stayed the course. When it seemed that Olive might be approaching the edge, she backed off just enough to allow her to recover. She was only slightly surprised when her actions didn’t elicit a complaint but rather earned her a few grateful, trembling strokes of her hair. As she’d sensed, Olive didn’t want this reunion to end any faster than she did. Lifting her head slightly, Kate smiled at the immediate groan of disappointment. She gazed up into dark, frustrated eyes with a playful smirk.

  “Just wanted to check to make sure you were still looking.” Kate kissed the inside of Olive’s knee, as eager to get back to work as she knew Olive must be. Maybe even more. She moved to the other leg, pressing her lips to a spot higher on her inner thigh. A quick glance confirmed that Olive was staring at her with rapt, unwavering attention. Using her thumbs to gently spread her labia apart, Kate bent and covered Olive’s clit with her lips, moving her head up and down as she sucked. She focused on creating a great visual that would enhance the pleasure she knew she was delivering, painfully aroused by the knowledge that more than one pair of eyes was watching.

  Olive tightened her hand into a fist atop Kate’s head, holding on to her hair as she pumped her hips against her face. “You want me to fuck your mouth, baby? I’ll fuck your mouth. I’ll even come inside it.”

  Vaguely, Kate mused that publishing one’s sexual proclivities and turn-ons for the world—or at least for a potential lover—to read had benefits. The dialogue might as well have been lifted from one of her books, although she’d never written those exact words. She could have, for they swiftly and powerfully aroused her. Surrendering to the surge of dominance, she relaxed and allowed Olive to use her face and mouth as she desired. Eyes closed, she savored the hot, slippery folds Olive ground against her mouth and chin and cheeks and nose, licking and sucking on instinct and in response to Olive’s specific, breathless commands.

  This time when Olive neared her climax, she didn’t give Kate the choice to draw things out. On the contrary, she rubbed herself against Kate’s mouth with renewed vigor, begging for more tongue and harder suction in a voice made hoarse from so much unrestrained moaning. Even if she’d felt shy in Erato’s company before, she’d clearly managed to shed her inhibitions now. Olive’s raw enthusiasm—in tandem with the unrelenting grip on her hair—drove Kate to redouble her efforts. She chased Olive’s impressively swollen clit with the flat of her tongue, then captured the rigid shaft between her lips and sucked hard. The reaction was explosive. Olive cursed loudly, grabbed Kate’s head with both hands, and rode her face while hot, liquid satisfaction poured from her along with a stream of obscenities.

  When the grip on her hair finally loosened, sometime around the twelfth “fuck” muttered from above, Kate sat back on her heels and beamed up at Olive. Once composed and elegant, now she was a well-fucked mess—dress askew, her pussy swollen and covered in come, the leather sofa below her bare ass stained with the same juices that continued to trickle out of her opening. Kate took a mental snapshot of the image for the next time she spent a lonely night with her hand. The expression of dazed contentment on Olive’s face was the icing on the cake.

  “That was worth the wait.” Kate squeezed Olive’s knee and pulled her skirt down to cover her nakedness. Then she crawled back onto the couch next to her, giving Olive a brief but heartfelt kiss on the mouth. “Did you like that?”

  Olive wrapped her up in a hug that Kate desperately hoped was intended to be as intimate as it felt. “Couldn’t you tell?”

  Chuckling, Kate kissed Olive’s neck. “I still enjoy hearing it.”

  “All right, well then, I loved it.”

  “So did I.” Erato spoke up quietly, clearly aware that she was inserting herself into a moment they were trying to keep exclusive. Surprised by her uncharacteristic passivity, Kate glanced over to find her muse watching them thoughtfully. She had set aside her food and drink at some point during their encounter, and from the position of her own dress as well as the deep flush on her cheeks, Kate assumed she’d indulged in a little self-pleasuring along with her voyeurism. “You two are undeniably sexually compatible—and delicious to observe.”

  Ashamed that they’d so thoroughly left Erato out, Kate extended her hand. “Why don’t you come over here and let me take care of you, too?” She tried to ignore the strange twinge of guilt she felt about touching another woman in front of Olive.

  This is a threesome, for fuck’s sake. Casual sex. Fucking each other is why we’re all here. Even as she reminded herself of the supposed reality of the situation, she studied Olive’s face.

  To her enormous relief, Olive beckoned Erato over with an easy grin. “We’ll both take care of you.” She laced her fingers in Kate’s, a gesture that felt entirely nonsexual yet enormously exciting. “Since this is Kate’s reward, I’ll even give her the first choice of holes.”

  Kate shivered at Olive’s expertly delivered dirty talk. She had definitely gotten bolder since their first encounter. “I appreciate that, and I already know which one I want.”

  Erato batted her eyelashes at them, apparently enjoying the attention. “How do you want me?”

  “Naked and across our laps,” Olive responded immediately.

  That was the moment Kate realized she was falling in love.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Somehow, with Olive, even the act of making love to another woman together felt intensely intimate. Once Erato had stripped off her dress—slowly, per their instructions—and assumed a facedown position over their thighs, Kate turned and captured Olive’s mouth in a heated kiss. Not wanting to neglect the woman on their laps, she lowered her hand to rest on Erato’s perfect ass, stroking the crevice between her cheeks with the tip of her middle finger. Erato wiggled her hips in anticipation but stayed quiet except for her audible, measured breathing. Because Erato’s pelvis was positioned directly over her lap, Kate was very aware of Olive’s hand as it snaked its way between them. She whimpered as Olive began to fondle Erato, causing her hard knuckles to brush against the seam of Kate’s jeans.

  Kate broke their kiss with a sigh of regret, all too aware that she could easily stay there with Olive all night. Turning her attention back to Erato, she moved her middle finger lower until she found wetness. A lot of it. Erato whimpered and spread
her legs wider, pressing herself into Olive’s busy hand while Kate gathered up the copious natural lubrication her muse never seemed to have trouble producing. Little shivers rolled through Erato’s body with every one of their combined strokes, which made her plump bottom jiggle so enticingly it was difficult not to plunge right in.

  Ever mindful of her manners, Kate circled the opening of Erato’s vagina, gathering wetness. “Do you want me in here?” Then she trailed her finger up to massage her preferred hole. “Or here?”

  Erato lifted her hips, chasing Kate’s finger with her slick, eager anus. “Your decision.”

  Emboldened by the power she was being granted, Kate drew back and cupped a cheek in each hand, spreading them to expose Erato’s ridiculously photogenic, hairless pink asshole. She glanced over to make sure she had Olive’s attention before teasing the puckered opening with the pad of her finger. Olive half smirked, shot Kate an upraised eyebrow, and increased the motion of the hand that was trapped between her and Erato. Kate exhaled quietly through her nose at the increased friction against her own clit, while Erato’s reaction to the new rhythm was much less subtle. Her arms shot up and she grabbed the side of the couch, using the newfound leverage to roll her hips against Olive’s hand while still eagerly backing into Kate’s questing finger.

  “Fuck me.”

  Kate blinked at the gravelly, demanding quality of Erato’s voice.