by Katee Robert
Derek’s arms come around me and he pulls me back against his chest. “Pretty sure this goes down as most memorable Christmas ever.”
“Pretty sure?” I inject my tone with some mock outrage and turn in his arms. “You’re going to irreparably damage my self-esteem if you tell me I don’t measure up to the bicycle you got when you were eight.”
He grins. “It was a really cool bike. It had flames on it and everything.”
“So rude.” I laugh and snuggle closer. “Merry Christmas, Derek.”
His expression goes soft and he smooths my hair back from my face. “Merry Christmas, Emma.”
It strikes me that this is the final day. Christmas. By morning tomorrow, we’ll go back to being the two most important people in Grayson’s life who don’t exchange bodily fluids. Something like panic flutters in my chest. I thought it would be simple to put Derek back in the “safe” box in my mind once this was over, but now I don’t know if it’s possible. “What if this was a mistake?”
His fingers feather over my temple. “This stops when you want it to. If you’re not comfortable with it, we can stop now.”
But what if I don’t want it to stop?
I don’t say it. It feels like a betrayal to take this gift Grayson gave me—gave us—to ask for more. “I’m okay.” I manage a smile. “It’s just a little surreal that this is happening at all.”
“Fuck yeah.” He leans down and brushes his mouth against mine.
I should leave it at that, but I’ve never been good at sitting back and letting something I want drift past. I run my hands up his broad chest. “It’s the same for you, you know. If you want to stop, we stop.” I hesitate. “If you don’t want to fuck Grayson, you don’t have to. I just—”
Derek catches my mouth with his. He kisses me hard, hard enough that I can’t help writhing a little, my body already demanding more despite the two outstanding orgasms I experienced not too long ago. When he finally lifts his head, we’re both breathing hard. He runs a big hand down my back and over my ass. “It’s complicated.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Guess not.” His gaze falls to my mouth and he looks like he’s considering kissing me until I forget what we were talking about. “But it’s the truth. It’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
Derek huffs out a laugh, though it sounds strained. “Grayson is…” He rolls onto his back, but keeps me tucked against his side. “We’ve been friends for most of our lives.”
I have to press my lips together to keep from peppering him with questions, from dragging his thoughts out one by one. He’ll tell me or he won’t. I have to learn some freaking patience.
While I’m wrestling with myself, he keeps going. “There was always something more, but the timing was never right, you know? We went to separate colleges and I had a boyfriend when I came back home for Christmas. Then I was single at graduation, but he was talking about moving in with that guy he’s been fucking semi-regularly.” He studies the ceiling as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world. “We were both single for a hot minute before he met you, but I was stuck in London for a few months working with a new client. By the time I got back, he’d met you and that was that.”
My chest pangs and I sit up. “I didn’t know.”
“We’ve never talked about it.” He still isn’t looking at me. “Easier to just be friends and stay in each other’s lives. And, fuck, Emma, I like you. You’re cool as shit, and you’re good for him. He lights up whenever you walk into a room. I can’t hold it against either of you.” Derek gives a faint smile. “Though I’m not even going to lie; wanting both of you has been irritating as fuck.”
“Derek—”
“It’s enough. It will be enough.” He moves before I can come up with a response, toppling me back to the bed and kissing me hard. He slides down my body, pausing to worship my breasts for several long moments before he kisses his way down my stomach.
“Derek, we haven’t—” My breath hisses out at the first long drag of his tongue. “You can’t distract me with this.”
“Mmm.” He works my clit slowly. “If you say so.”
“If you don’t want to—”
He exhales harshly and lifts his head. “I want to, Emma. I want to so fucking bad, I can barely stand it. My control is hanging by a thread. So yeah, if it happens today, I’ll happily fuck Grayson. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Yes.”
He laughs, and this time it doesn’t sound quite so rough. “But not yet. First I’m going to give your pretty pussy the attention it deserves.”
I lace my fingers through his hair and lift my hips. “I still can’t believe we’re doing this.” There are other things that need to be said, subjects that need to be broached, but now isn’t the time. I’ve pushed both Derek and Grayson enough for the moment. Even I know when to dial it back. Sometimes. “It feels wicked.”
“You taste wicked.” He gives me another lick. “Even more wicked than normal because I can taste him in you.”
I rub myself against his mouth a little. “You did promise to clean me up.”
Derek’s laugh vibrates through my body. “That I did.” He takes his time, eating me out slowly as if he doesn’t really give a fuck if I come or not. As if he’s doing it purely for the pleasure of having my taste on his tongue. Or maybe it’s the taste of Grayson that has him kissing my pussy so thoroughly.
Time ceases to have meaning. There is just this moment, this pleasure. At some point, I look up and find Grayson leaning against the doorframe and watching us. The heat in his eyes… God, he looks at us like he owns us. So possessive. So sexy.
He clears his throat. “Breakfast is ready.”
Derek sucks on my clit. “I’m not done.” His big hands bracket my thighs, holding me in place. The reality of have him licking my pussy while my husband watches has my orgasm drawing closer.
And then it gets better because Grayson crosses to the bed and leans down to grip the back of Derek’s thick neck. “You can have her for brunch, too, if you want, but you both need an actual meal. Make Emma come. Now.” When Derek just keeps up those long, lazy licks, Grayson curses. “Fine. I’ll do it myself.” He reaches down with his free hand and spears me with two fingers. It takes him half a second to find my G-spot and then I’m orgasming. My toes curl and my spine arches and I think I might be shrieking but I can’t hear myself over the buzzing in my head.
Grayson tows Derek up and kisses him. For a second, I think we might just keep going, but he finally lifts his head and gives us an indulgent look. “Breakfast. Now.”
“Yes, Sir.” I make a half-hearted salute with one hand.
Derek laughs and hauls me up with him. We go our separate ways long enough for me to pull on my robe and the guys to grab their lounge pants. I stop in front of the windows in the living room. Snow falls so thick, I can’t see the trees that were so prominent in the view yesterday. Or the mountains. Or anything but white. White that’s building up against the glass. I frown at it. That has to be at least a foot of snow and it’s showing no signs of stopping. “Um.”
“Yeah.” Grayson doesn’t look over as he goes about dishing up three plates. “I called down to the lodge while you were occupied. The storm came in fast and is expected to linger in the area for another day at least. They won’t be able to clear the roads until it passes, and it might be longer to get to the farther cabins like ours.”
I blink. “Our flight is tomorrow.”
“Doesn’t look like we have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it.” He doesn’t seem the least bit upset by this. Neither of us have work until after the New Year, but we had planned on spending the next week winding down and taking care of some projects that we had been putting off forever. Painting the living room. Finally go through the stuff in storage so we can donate what we don’t want and keep the few irreplaceable things. Not to mention I was looking forward to a week of just us. Life can get so bus
y, it’s easy to become ships passing in the night. I mean, we’re hardly at that point, but it happened to my parents and I work hard to ensure it doesn’t happen to me and Grayson, too.
That said…
I look at Derek. He’s grabbed a plate from Grayson and eats, very pointedly not looking at either of us. If we’re forced to stay here… “I guess we’re snowed in.”
Chapter 11
“Definitely snowed in.” Grayson sets my plate at the little dining room table across from Derek. I slide into the seat and he presses a quick kiss to my temple before retrieving his plate and taking the seat at the head of the table. We eat in silence, and for the life of me I can’t tell if it’s comfortable or tense. Maybe I’m the only one tense.
It was going to be difficult enough to move forward and pretend things with Derek hadn’t changed if we went back to our normal life at the end of the twenty-four hours. Were we supposed to do it while still in this cabin, with memories of our fucking imprinted on every room in this house? Well, it wasn’t yet, but give us a little time. I’m sure we’ll make the rounds.
I look over at Grayson and he seems entirely too pleased with himself for him to be contemplating the end of this arrangement. “What are you thinking, husband?”
“No reason to stop as long as we’re here.” He very carefully doesn’t look at Derek. “As long as everyone is in agreement.”
Derek stays focused on his food. “I’m in.”
“I am, too,” I say slowly. There’s no point in speaking my misgivings. They’re not about the extended time. I’m worried that we’re never going to want to stop. Except is that a problem? We already spend an inordinate amount of time with Derek. What if we…
I push the thought away. Later. I’ll think about it later. Better to live in this moment right now and ride it as long as we can. I finish eating and take my plate to the sink. I turn around and nearly run into Grayson. He leans around me to set his plate in the sink, too, but doesn’t move back. “You’re thinking very hard, wife.”
“Of course I am.” I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him close. “It’s what I do.”
He presses a kiss to my temple and holds me close. “We have things under control.”
“I know.”
We’re both lying, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to stop, and obviously neither does he. I don’t know what life looks like on the other side of this, but we’re not there yet. We get to live in the fantasy awhile longer. And if we’re not finished with each other once the snow is cleared and we’re on our way to the airport, maybe then I’ll have the courage to bring up the messy thoughts tangling in the back of my mind.
I give Grayson a squeeze, enjoying the familiarity of the way his body fits to mine. “You know…” I tilt my head up enough to kiss his neck. “We haven’t had a chance to try out the hot tub yet.”
He releases me with a laugh and gives my ass a playful swat. “Go put on a suit and meet us out there.”
I pout a little. “But what if I don’t want to wear a suit?”
His expression goes heated. “Play along, Emma. I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
I’m already nodding. “Good thing I packed my new one for this trip.” Over the years my bikinis have gotten smaller and smaller. One of those things that I refuse to think too hard about, especially since I bought them right before our holiday trips. Grayson never commented on it, but he also loves taking them off with his teeth.
I pause by the nook table where Derek still sits. It’s barely a choice to walk to him. More like a compulsion. I wrap my arms around him from behind and kiss his cheek. “Want to know a secret?”
“Always,” he rumbles.
I press my breasts to his back and whisper in his ear. “I was thinking of you when I bought my suit this year.”
He catches my hands, holding me against him. “You’re playing with fire, baby.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” He runs his hands up my arms, but releases me before we get anywhere interesting. I almost push him, but ultimately decide that the swimsuit will do the heavy lifting for me.
It takes a few minutes to brush my teeth, fasten my hair up in an artfully messy bun, and pull on the swimsuit. It’s…scandalous is a good word. It’s not quite a thong, but the back is cut high and narrow, leaving most of my ass exposed. The front triangle barely covers my pussy. The top is just as tiny, leaving my breasts looking like one wrong move could expose me.
And it’s white. The second it gets wet, I might as well be naked.
I am, most assuredly, an asshole, but to be fair, I didn’t honestly think we’d end up in the hot tub while we were here. Or if we did, I’d just wait for Derek to leave before I showed Grayson exactly how see-through my suit became. What can I say? I love tempting my husband into reckless fucking where we might be caught at any moment.
Being the reason Grayson loses control is like a drug to me. I am constantly teasing him when we’re on dates, seeing how far I can nudge him until he drags me somewhere semi-private and we have our way with each other.
I half hope to find Grayson and Derek making out when I get out to the hot tub, but they’re sitting on opposite sides, chatting about a mutual acquaintance. It’s such a sheer shot of normalcy, it’s almost enough to make me doubt what we’ve spent the last twelve hours doing. Or at least it is until they look at me with identical heat in their eyes.
Grayson raises his brows. “I think you left the rest of your swimsuit in the room.”
I run my hands down my bare sides. “You don’t like it?” I turn slowly, giving them plenty of time to ogle my ass. “I mean, I can go change if you really need me to.”
Grayson shakes his head. “Get your ass in here.”
I climb carefully into the hot tub and sink down next to Grayson. He’s obviously got a particular way he wants to play this, so I’m content to follow his lead. Except he just keeps chatting with Derek. It’s strange and so normal, all at the same time, and I settle down to relax in the warm water. The snow hasn’t stopped falling, and it peppers my exposed skin with cool kisses, offsetting the heat permeating my body below the surface of the water.
“Emma.”
I open my eyes and look at my husband. “Mmm?”
His brows lower, and my stomach gives a delicious little kick. I love it when he gets firm with me. “That suit is fucking ridiculous.”
“I think it’s sexy.”
“No shit.” He moves fast, grabbing me around the waist and towing me over to him. I end up kneeling on the seat next to him, which raises my upper half out of the water. Grayson glares at my breasts. “Baby, I can see your nipples.”
“Whoops?”
“Don’t even pretend like you’re sorry.” His gaze follows the water dripping down my skin. The cold kicks in almost immediately, pebbling my nipples against the thin fabric of my suit and raising goosebumps across my exposed skin. Grayson’s still glaring at the water. “I bet if you stand up, I can see your pussy through those tease of bottoms.”
“Maybe.” I can’t help smiling a little.
He turns to Derek, who’s watching us with a closed expression on his face as if he’s not sure how Grayson’s going to play this either. My husband doesn’t make us wait long. He looks at his best friend and then looks at me. “You wore this suit for him.”
True guilt flickers through me because I did consider what Derek might do think if he saw me in this suit. “No, I bought it for you.”
“Don’t lie to me, Emma.” He skates a hand up my spine and wraps his fist around my bun. One tug has me bending back against his arm. “You want him to look? He’s going to fucking look.” His voice snaps. “Get over here, Derek. Look at what my little slut of a wife put on for you.”
The water moves slightly as Derek shifts closer. “Emma likes to put on a show. No harm, no foul.”
“Your hard cock says otherwise.” He tugs my hair again. It doesn’t hurt. In fact, the sensation has me fighting back a
moan. Grayson cups one of my breasts with his free hand. “I’ve seen the way you look at her, too, Derek. The way you’re looking at her right now.” He rubs his thumb over my nipple through the swimsuit. “If I wasn’t here, you’d have your mouth all over her.”
“She’s your wife, man.” He’s not exactly protesting, falling easily into the roles Grayson has us playing. Except they aren’t really roles, are they? The best friend and the wife. The wife and the best friend. That’s what we are. That’s all we’re supposed to be.
“My wife wants to flash her pussy at you.” He moves, hauling me up to sit on the edge of the hot tub and spreading my legs. Grayson runs his hand up my thigh and drags his thumb down the little triangle covering me. The one where we can all clearly see the shadow of my slit. “Fuck, she’s not even pretending it’s not true.”
“Grayson—”
He gives me a forbidding look. “Not another word out of you.” He pulls me back into the hot tub and nudges me back into the seat I originally occupied. “Sit there and think about what you’ve done.”
“What have I done?”
His lifts his brows. “You’ve got Derek so turned on, he can’t think straight. And my cock is hard and in need of fucking, but I’m hardly going to reward you for bad behavior. Am I, Emma?”
I clench my thighs together. “No?”
“That’s right. No.” He jerks his chin at me. “Hands on the side of the hot tub. You manage to be good until we’re finished and I’ll let Derek play with you.”
I’m already nodding. “I can be good. I promise.”
“Evidence suggests otherwise.” He waits for me to put my hands where he could see them and then turns to Derek. They look at each other for a long moment, and then both seem to move at once. They meet in the middle of the hot tub, crashing together hard enough to send a wave of water splashing me. Grayson digs his hands into Derek’s hair as he takes his mouth and Derek’s hand is already moving below the water, obviously wrapped around my husband’s cock.