A conversation in body language and eyes.
One that made his cock hard.
Really hard.
It should have made him jealous, the woman he craved with flirting—via tech speak and gaming terms—with the man he once loved, but Ruckus didn’t do jealousy.
What he did was acceptance.
He wanted both of them. At once. Together. He wanted to watch Bran sink into RG’s exquisite pussy. He wanted to sink into Bran’s incredible arse.
It unsettled him; it was unexpected, but he accepted it all the same.
The fact he didn’t utter a word during the “professional” side of the conversation didn’t seem to rattle either of his dinner companions. In fact, by the time their waiter offered the dessert menu, it appeared both RG and Bran were so absorbed in their professional reason for being there, Ruckus suspected if he coughed, both would jump in distracted fright.
He tried it, just to see what would happen.
RG raised an eyebrow at him over her menu. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you’re there, Ruckus.”
He lifted an eyebrow back at her, his heart pumping a tad faster. He slid his gaze to Bran, who studied him over tented fingers, lips curling. “Didn’t like the vegetables?”
Ruckus grunted. In his trousers, his rigid cock pulsed. If he were forced to rise to his feet right now, the restaurant would get an eyeful of how horny he was.
Thankfully, RG ordered dessert.
It didn’t surprise him.
“Hot fudge chocolate mud cake, please?” She smiled up at the waiter, who was obviously completely smitten with her. “A big slice.”
“Make that two.” Bran closed his dessert menu.
Ruckus let his own smile stretch wide as, still silent, he held up three fingers when their waiter turned to him.
“Now.” RG’s husky voice played with the tension between them when they were once again alone. “To the real reason for this dinner.”
Bran sucked in a swift breath.
RG chuckled. “You already had my business, Brannum. Now, we’re going to talk about my pleasure. Or should I say Reaper’s pleasure—and your part in it.”
Ruckus closed his eyes for a second. “Fuck.”
She shot him a pointed look, mischief dancing in her eyes. “Busted.”
He opened his mouth to explain, to try to justify showing Bran the backdoor—as it was—to the restricted area of her game, but she shook her head and returned her focus to Bran. “Ruckus here gave you the super-secret-handshake backdoor pass.”
Bran swallowed.
Ruckus did the same.
“And,” RG traced the rim of her water glass with the tip of her middle finger as she regarded Bran, “he would only share that privileged piece of information with someone he completely trusts, and I know for a fact Ruckus trusts fuck-all people. In fact, until tonight, I thought I could count them on one hand with three fingers left over. I’m one of them, his cousin is another—have you met his cousin? The tattooist? Insanely talented. Almost freakishly so. And so freaking sexy.” She grinned, dipped her finger into her water and then resumed tracing the top of her glass. “But I digress. Ruckus trusts me and his cousin. And, as it turns out, you.”
She stopped. Dipped her finger into her water again, and then brought her finger up to her lips.
He watched those lips part. Watched her place the very tip of her wet finger on the very tip of her tongue, before closing her lips around that tip and withdrawing her finger from her mouth.
His cock throbbed harder in his trousers, an impatient, insistent pulse that damn near stole his ability to think.
To his right, Bran shifted on his seat. He didn’t need to look at him to know he was just as affected by RG.
“Do you have a question?”
Bran’s words, uttered with calm control, licked at his sanity.
“I do.” RG placed her elbows on the edge of the table and leant towards Bran a little, the position turning her already incredible breasts in the corset to the stuff of sexual rapture. “Were you fucking him at the time he gave you access to the restricted expansion pack, who was top, and when can all three of us partake in a threesome?”
Ruckus bit back a groan. Just.
He shot Bran a look, his breath choppy.
Bran leant his own elbows on the table, his gaze holding RG’s. “That’s three questions, Ms. Bailey, and the answers are not at the exact moment he showed me how to get in, but yes, we were in a sexual relationship. I was bottom—always bottom—and Rick, or should I say, Ruckus, was top. And as soon as we’re finished here is fine with me.”
Something Ruckus couldn’t quite make out gleamed in RG’s eyes. She studied Bran, silent, and then turned to their waiter as he arrived at her side, carrying three exquisitely plated slices of chocolate mud cake. “Sorry to be a pain, but we’re going to have to take those to go, thanks.”
Without blinking or any sign of irritation, the man dipped his head in a nod. “Of course, Ms. Bailey.”
“Come here often?” Bran asked, as their waiter walked away with their desserts.
“It’s my favorite place to conduct business not suited to an office.”
Ruckus chuckled. “Apart from Hell’s Harbour.”
Bran gave him a quizzical frown.
“I’ve watched her destroy more than one rival game developer in-game.”
A sense of pride washed through him at the words. When it came to her business, the business of the online gaming world—with all its subculture, unwritten etiquette, and misogynistic morons who believed the only good female gamer was a sexually violated one—RG knew how to decimate her competition.
She hadn’t become the gaming phenomenon she was by playing it safe and being timid.
He ran a slow look over her. There was nothing timid about RG. Not on the surface.
Beneath that, however…well, her parents had truly messed her up. The fact she was so fierce was a marvel.
The fact she was so confident a testament to her strength.
The fact she was so relaxed with him, in all the time they’d known each other, not just since they started fucking, proof of that which she still continued to deny to herself.
Their waiter arrived back with their cake before either Bran or RG could respond to his boast.
As always, RG paid for dinner.
Ruckus had never felt like a kept man since their unusual version of a relationship began—he made his own very comfortable living thanks to his security work, and the off-radar government work he picked up via his cousin paid very well. Like so many of RG’s actions and behavior, she did it because she reveled in being able to do so. Not for some narcissistic desire to gloat about her success in life, but because she genuinely enjoyed sharing the fruit of that success with the people she cared for.
Like him and the limited number of people he trusted, the list of people RG cared for was short. He was on that list, as were her brother and her sister-in-law, along with a few of her core coders, but that was it.
Would Bran be joining that list?
Or was the threesome RG suggested nothing more than a little bit of fun for her?
He swallowed at the thought, his cock once again throbbing.
Shifting on his seat, he let out a low groan.
Shit, standing up now was out of the question. Not unless he wanted to embarrass himself.
“Ready?”
He started at her question.
“No.”
She grinned, approval at his blunt honesty in her eyes. Turning to Bran, she raised an eyebrow. “How about you?”
Bran laughed.
Beneath the table, his foot touched Ruckus’s.
Ruckus bit back another groan before it could fall from him. “That’s not helping, Brannum.”
“Want me to get under the table?” RG inched her chair back a little. “Deal with the situation for you?”
He fixed her with a steady look. “Sure.”
Her lips curl
ed. She pushed her chair back farther.
“And we’re out of here.” He jolted to his feet.
Fuck it. If he walked quickly, the other diners wouldn’t be able to make out the mountainous peak in the crotch of his trousers.
RG laughed.
The late-summer evening air wrapped around him like a blanket as he came to a halt on the footpath outside the restaurant. He shoved his hands in his pockets, fists balled, and watched Bran and RG exit the restaurant side by side.
Christ, they looked incredible together.
Bran had had his fair share of female partners before Ruckus came into his life, but in their time together, Ruckus had never seen him so charged when in the company of one.
They radiated a sexual energy he found mesmerizing.
His damn cock grew harder in his trousers and he pushed his fists against its sides through the lining of his pockets.
He was in trouble.
Big trouble.
One night of losing himself to the pleasure of RG and Bran at once and all hope of walking away from them both would be destroyed.
Just one night.
This night…
“So,” RG flung her bright yellow leather jacket behind her body and slipped her arms into it, “change of plans.”
Ruckus’s chest tightened. His balls did the same.
Her smile stretched wide. “My place or yours, Bran?”
Ruckus let out a shaky sigh.
Fuck.
He’d been with RG for months now, craved her beyond all others, even as he questioned his own ability to deal with that fact. He had planned to seduce her into admitting she was in love with him so he could use her confession as the reason for walking away from her, from them. So how did he align the crushing desire and hunger consuming him now not only for her, but for Bran? How could he want them both so much he could barely draw breath?
And how could the thought of not having them both do the same?
Fuck. Again. How the hell did he deal with the realization that when it came to RG and Bran, he wanted it all?
So much for life not being complicated.
Chapter 4
Bran owned exactly the type of home RG suspected he would.
An impressive and understated glass-and-steel construction built into the side of the cliff in one of Sydney’s most exclusive suburbs. Its sweeping views of the harbor through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows were breathtaking, as was the exquisitely decorated interior, the glass-and-steel theme continuing throughout.
RG spied more than one piece of designer furniture, as well as a baby grand piano she knew cost well in excess of fifty thousand dollars.
She also couldn’t miss the impressive Alienware gaming PC sitting pride of place in front of one glass wall.
“Nice setup.” Admiring the three large monitors, she made her way through the living room.
She flicked Ruckus a glance, her stomach tightening at the relaxed way he crossed to the room’s bar and removed a bottle of sparkling mineral water from the mini fridge.
He’s been here before. Is comfortable here.
The fact both irritated her and turned her on, a rather surreal combination of emotions unfamiliar to her.
Holding her gaze, he crossed to where she came to a halt next to the glass desk and its gaming system, and handed her the bottle. “Drink up. You’re going to need your fluids.”
From the entryway of the living area, Bran chuckled.
RG’s stomach clenched some more, the effect the man’s laugh had on her body, her lust, unsettling her. Holy hell, perhaps she’d bitten off more than she could chew?
Somewhere between climbing into his car—a black convertible Audi TT—at the restaurant and opening the door for her here, Bran had transformed.
At the restaurant, he’d been a professional businessman with a sophisticated understanding of the online RPG industry trying not to let the sexual hunger simmering beneath the surface interfere with his professional business purposes.
Here in his home, however, that restrained persona had been stripped away. He still exuded control but he made no attempt to temper either the desire in his eyes when he looked at her, or his supreme confidence and self-awareness.
From the second she’d walked into his office that morning, she’d found him sexually attractive, but the man watching her now… Christ, he could make her come just by running a slow gaze over her.
Add in the fact he regarded Ruckus with an equally hungry desire, and RG balanced perilously on the cusp of an orgasm without anyone even touching her.
Talk about insane. And intense.
Taking the water Ruckus offered her, she raised it to her lips and took a sip.
Two sets of eyes watched her.
Her nipples ached for attention in the confines of her corset. Her clit did the same between her thighs.
Swallowing the cool water in her mouth, she let out a soft “ahh,” and wiped at her lips with the back of her hand in a slow drag of flesh over flesh.
Bran’s Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat.
Ruckus’s nostrils flared.
He hadn’t travelled with either her or Bran to Bran’s house. RG had no clue how he got here—there was no sign of his car in the driveway—but he’d been leaning against the front door, ankles crossed, arms in the same position over his broad chest, watching her as she climbed out of Bran’s Audi.
“Nothing will be the same after this, RG,” he’d said as she ascended the small flight of stairs leading to the entryway. “Are you prepared for that?”
She’d looked at him, her pulse dancing in her throat. “I am as long as you’re with me.”
Crap, why had she said that?
Because it was true? Because it was hard to deny the truth when it stood directly in front of her?
The shadows of the night kept Ruckus’s eyes hidden from her, but she suspected the raw honesty of her answer had affected him. He’d stepped towards her, cupped her face in his hands, and brushed a kiss over her lips.
Ruckus didn’t do brushing-type kisses often. That he chose to do so at that moment spoke volumes to her.
And terrified her at the same time.
Brushing-type kisses were the kind of kisses a guy gave a girl when love was involved. Was she ready for that? Given she was pretty fucking certain the thing between him and Bran was more than just sex as well?
“So tell me,” she turned to the massive window in the pretense of studying the view of the harbor beyond, “just how long have West Wind and Stoneheart known each other?”
Both Ruckus and Bran flicked each other unreadable glances.
Bran, RG noticed, hadn’t moved from where he stood at the entry to the living room.
Ruckus chortled, dropping into the closest armchair. At some point between the restaurant and here, he’d ditched the suit jacket, the sleeves of his black silk shirt now rolled up to mid-forearm. At the sight of the intricate ink on his arms, RG’s stomach fluttered. Tattoos had never done anything for her until Ruckus entered her life. Now, at just a glimpse of his, her horny levels jumped to eleven.
“Stoneheart,” his grin widened and his eyebrow arched as he said his online gaming name, “and West Wind have known each other for quite a while. As have Ruckus and Brannum. Stoneheart and West Wing first fucked in Hell’s Harbour.” He settled back in the armchair, draping his arms over its wide leather back. “Ruckus and Brannum had been fucking for some time before that.”
“No,” Bran interjected, levering from the entryway, an unreadable gaze leveled at Ruckus. “Brannum and Rick had been fucking.”
Ruckus chortled again at Bran’s not-so-subtle reproach, lifting one shoulder in a casual shrug. “You didn’t look like the type to go for a bloke called Ruckus.”
Bran crossed to where Ruckus was sitting. Like Ruckus, he’d removed his suit jacket and now only wore charcoal-gray suit trousers and a white shirt so pristine and immaculately pressed, RG wanted desperately to mess it up.
Along with Bran’s hair. And his control.
“But you introduced yourself that way. Why?” Bran lowered himself to perch his butt on the edge of the glass coffee table directly in front of Ruckus. “Now I understand the curious looks I got from your team every time I called you that when you were at Virt.Real.”
Ruckus let out a sigh. “I got hard for you the second I saw you. Wanted you. But what kind of man wearing a two thousand dollar Hugo Boss suit wants someone named Ruckus?”
“You, or should that be Rick, were wearing a pair of faded Levi’s and a SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt,” Bran shot back. “And I wanted to fuck your brains out there and then. Do you think I gave a rat’s arse about appearances? Or names?” He leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees to stare hard at Ruckus. “It wasn’t the way you looked or what you called yourself that got me hot, Rick, or Ruckus, or whatever the hell you call yourself now. It was your brain, your sense of humor, the sense of danger that radiates from you like an inferno.”
RG couldn’t help but notice Ruckus stayed perfectly still under the intensity of Bran’s glare. Nor did she miss the way his jaw bunched at the other man’s declaration.
And there was no way in hell she could miss how freaking turned on she was, bearing witness to the showdown. It was all she could do not to shout “kiss him already!” at them both. As it was, she kept squeezing her thighs together in a lame-arse attempt to alleviate the throbbing demand for attention in her clit.
“And it was your sense of confidence,” Ruckus mimicked Bran’s move, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, “that got me hot. So hot I could barely—”
Bran did exactly what RG wanted: he grabbed the back of Ruckus’s head and yanked their mouths together, shutting Ruckus up with a kiss RG felt all the way to the very core of her being.
“Hell yeah,” she groaned, sinking into a chair beside her, stare fixed on the erotic sight.
The fact she’d kissed those lips earlier that day didn’t upset her. The fact she’d wondered what Bran’s lips would feel like during their business meeting in his office, and then later at dinner, didn’t unsettle her.
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