Three Men and a Woman: Caroline
Wearing nothing but a smile and his best friend’s shirt, Caroline Freeman is the last person Matthew Churchill expects to find in his kitchen on a Saturday morning. She was fifteen last he saw her, a sweet, unforgettable summertime crush.
Hell, if he’d known that lovely Caroline was the woman Jackson Roberts has been wooing, Jack would never have gotten her to his bed last night.
Jack and Matt are as close as brothers. For five years, they’ve shared a house and the trials of grad school. When they both want the same woman, Jack suggests they continue sharing.
Professor Daniel Ryan isn’t blind to the heat in their relationship. He wants to be a part of it and suspects Caro wants it, too, despite her denials.
The day after Matt and Jack graduate, Daniel has what he wants. He’s got them in his home, and a ring—three bands united by one whopping big stone—on Caroline’s finger.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 68,610 words
THREE MEN AND A WOMAN: CAROLINE
Rachel Billings
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
THREE MEN AND A WOMAN: CAROLINE
Copyright © 2013 by Rachel Billings
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-862-5
First E-book Publication: April 2013
Cover design by Harris Channing
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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www.SirenPublishing.com
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DEDICATION
To Ton, Alex, Ulysses, and Eleanor. Thanks for always supporting me, indulging me, and making me laugh. I love you and forgive that whole chocolate-chip-cookies-in-the-toaster fire thing.
To Melissa, who convinced me to stop just dreaming about it and start writing.
To Sheri, who epitomizes grace under fire and sets the bar high.
THREE MEN AND A WOMAN: CAROLINE
RACHEL BILLINGS
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
Fucking knock.
Caroline stood outside his door. Jackson Roberts knew it—he’d heard her come up the stairs because, goddammit, he’d been listening for her. So he stood on the other side of the door, willing her to commit.
He’d been wooing her for almost two months.
They were both busy. He was working on his doctorate in biochem. Pushing to get done, he was spending nearly every waking hour in the lab.
Caro had a job at the med center and was studying part-time for a master’s in genetic counseling.
They didn’t have a lot of time together. This was their night, so she needed to fucking knock.
He’d spotted her at the med/bio sciences dining hall and, after watching for her for a couple weeks, figured out she went there for a late lunch after a Tuesday-Thursday class. On the next Tuesday he’d taken his tray over and asked to share her table.
She was very pretty in an innocent, kind of quiet, hometown way, unaffected and natural. She had sleek, light-brown hair that was cut bluntly at her shoulders. Her body was very toned—she moved with grace and strength. She was slim but extremely shapely with a rounded ass and breasts that he knew would just fill his hands.
She’d looked up at him with those soft brown eyes, smiled with those full, sexy lips, and said yes.
He’d wanted to kiss her right then—had almost leaned down to do it. He wanted to smell her, breathe her in, touch her, feel her skin, and bring her body fully against his. But mostly, he wanted her mouth under his.
She seemed to get the idea right away. Not that she reached up and grabbed him, pulling him down to her lips, or anything. That would so not be Caroline.
But she appeared to quietly accept that he was locked in on her, and she didn’t act at all opposed to the idea.
She was just freaking skittish about sex.
So he’d taken it slowly and dealt with his blue balls in the time-honored ways. He’d come to learn that jacking off after a date with her was both more effective and more fun than a cold shower. His imagination was good—he had no trouble picturing her breasts in his hands and her pussy wrapped around his cock.
Gradually their lunch meetings had become regular and assumed. Then he’d asked her to a movie, and she’d accepted, and they’d followed that with dinner out.
After the movie he’d finally gotten that kiss in.
It had been worth the wait.
They’d walked to her apartment. He’d stood on her front porch and stupidly said good-night with a little squeeze of her hand. When she closed the door, he’d turned and gone down the steps and about six paces farther, practically bent over with a hard-on. At that point he stopped and turned back, deciding his dick had more sense than he did. He took the steps two at a time. By the time he got to the door, she had it open. Then she was in his arms and kissing him back.
He’d never forget that first kiss. She’d tasted so sweet, been so responsive to his need. From the first touch of their lips, they’d both been consumed.
&n
bsp; But when he’d tightened his arms around her, bringing her up against his boner, she’d shied.
She’d had some difficult experiences with sex—she had good reason to be nervous. At the same time she ran incredibly hot. He could turn her on now with just a look, and she lit up when he touched her.
He was dead certain that having her in bed was also going to be way worth the wait.
They’d had the talk. They’d both had testing, and Caroline was now wearing a significant little adhesive patch. His housemate Matt was out at a concert, so they had the place to themselves.
Tonight was the night. It was Friday, and he hoped to have the whole weekend with her.
All he needed was for her to fucking knock.
* * * *
Caroline Freeman trembled as she stood outside Jack’s door. Already she’d raised her hand twice to knock and then let it fall.
Not that she wasn’t looking forward to the night, she was.
She was falling for Jack. He’d laid a determined siege and, God knew, she didn’t have the wherewithal to resist. He was extremely hot in his nerdy way, handsome, with light-brown curls that he couldn’t be bothered to cut often, and those sexy, brown, brilliant eyes. He was five eleven with a tight body that was unexpectedly strong—he’d been a varsity swimmer through high school and college.
And for some reason she didn’t entirely get, he wanted her.
That part, she did get. He’d made it very plain very early. Even that day he first approached her in the dining hall, she’d felt like what he’d really intended to have for lunch was, well, her.
He was hot for her. Oh, he’d been willing to put some time and effort into pursuing her. But they were going to end up in his bed.
And she couldn’t really object. The man was irresistibly attractive. Plus, he appeared to know his way around a woman’s body.
The problem was, well, sex had never gone well for her.
She’d first tried making love with her boyfriend when she was a senior in high school. After a handful of unsuccessful attempts—painful to her, frustrating to him—they gave up, and he moved on to a slutty little cheerleader. She tried again when she was a college sophomore, this time with a guy who at least had been around that block a time or two. A couple stabs at it with him, so to speak, followed by a trip to a nurse practitioner at the student health office, and the problem was diagnosed.
Imperforate hymen. Who’d ever heard of such a thing, and how was a girl to know?
A small surgical procedure had taken care of the issue. And yeah, she’d taken it for a trial run a time or two after that, but, really, with college and work, and then work and grad school, who had time for it?
It appeared likely she was the sort of woman who wasn’t going to be satisfied with a casual fling. She hadn’t experienced one that worked for her so far, anyway.
But tonight, with Jack, was something different.
It wasn’t casual.
Plus, he knew how to make her want him.
From that first kiss he had her all tingly, feeling very good in places that had never tingled before.
And he was so sweet. He said he had a bit of experience. She’d seen the way women looked at him, and so she took that for a gross underrepresentation of the facts. In any case, he reminded her, he was a scientist. If there was anything he was good at, it was research and experimentation.
They’d find a way to make it good for her.
He’d promised.
She didn’t have any trouble trusting him about it. The last time he’d taken her home, he’d gotten his fingers inside her panties, and she’d had her first orgasm ever that wasn’t self-inflicted, so to speak.
In its aftermath, he’d held her, breathing hard until his hard-on subsided. She’d tried not to think about how huge it had felt, pushing out against his jeans like that. Then in his cute, intellectual way he’d laid out a very rational plan for making sure they were both protected against untoward consequences.
The next time they were together, they were going to make love.
He’d said it very determinedly, even a bit domineeringly.
To her surprise, that last had been incredibly arousing.
For a third time she raised her hand. This time she let it rap softly on the door.
* * * *
Thank God he was standing right there or he wouldn’t have heard it.
He didn’t care if it had been the softest, most tentative of knocks. Or if a smarter course would have been to quietly open the door and gentle her in, seducing her with words and wine before carrying her to his bed.
But he’d freaking waited too long already, and she was there, and she’d knocked.
So he opened the door in, like, a nanosecond.
No one filled out a pair of blue jeans exactly the way this woman did. There was none of that spandex, stuffed-like-a-sausage kind of thing, just soft cotton denim clinging to long legs and those spectacular curves. She wore a short sweater—a thumb or finger slipped under would find skin right there, above the jeans. It hugged her breasts and dipped precisely low enough to reveal their upper swells. It was a soft yellow that enhanced the color of her eyes.
Or maybe it was excitement that did that.
He hoped it wasn’t fear.
Too damn late. He reached out with one hand, tucked his fingers a couple inches into those jeans, right at her center, and tugged her in. He closed the door behind her, cutting off her retreat. Just in case.
Then he had her against it, pressing his body fully against hers.
She was five seven, and he’d already learned that all he had to do was drop his head down a little while she tilted up and he’d have her mouth. He took it now, whispering her name roughly once on his way in.
With the door hard behind her, he didn’t have to hold her but could use his hands to touch and stroke. He started with her head, bringing her up for his kiss, steadying her against the invasion of his tongue.
He fucked her mouth with it, pressing in with the same rhythm he used to hump a little against her, his cock already hard and nestled into her lower belly.
He stroked her face, along her cheeks, thumbing her jawline. Then he ran his fingers through her hair, using a handle on it to tilt her further back, making her even more vulnerable to him.
“Caro,” he said again, and there was a plea in it. Please be with me. Please don’t shy away. Don’t ask me to stop.
Or maybe it was a command. And it didn’t really involve the word please.
He was encouraged by the way she slid her arms up, circling his shoulders with a good, tight grip. She’d played Division III volleyball through college, a setter, so she had speed and strength.
He could only pray she had some stamina. He’d know before the night was over.
Still, he lifted up to look at her. “Okay?” he asked.
She was breathing fast, and he took that to be a good sign, too. “Yeah,” she said and gave a small nod.
“I’ll stop if I have to, but I’m not going to want to.”
“I trust you, Jack.”
“Thank you.” He might have got that out, though possibly it had been lost in her mouth. He took her again, lifting her up so there was a better, dead-on fit between his hard dick and that vee between her thighs. She wrapped her legs around him, seeming to be as happy for the good, firm contact there as he was. Bless her hot little soul.
He grabbed her ass with one hand to hold her and wasn’t too careful about where his fingers ended up. With the other, he groped her front until he found her breast. He rubbed with his thumb and found her nipple already peaked. He palmed her, massaging that lovely, full, firm tit and then nudged at her nipple, chafing it with his thumb, scraping with his nail.
He’d already learned that her breasts were very sensitive and that playing with her nipples was a hot turn-on for her. Tonight, he was going to taste them, and she’d find out how it felt when he sucked them deep into his mouth.
She was very t
urned on already. She rocked back against him when he nudged her with his cock, and she started panting when he took hold of her nipple to squeeze and tug. She had a grasp on his hair at the back of his neck, and it wasn’t gentle.
That gave him a freaking jolt of hope. He nearly threw his head back and howled in feral joy. He was going to make this woman his, and she was going to be every bit as wild a fuck as he’d thought she’d be. He was sure she had no sense yet about what she had inside her. Tonight he’d make sure she got a clue.
He took his hand from her breast to slide up under her sweater. Smooth skin, slightly ripped abs, and then that big, beautiful tit again. He tried slipping it out from the cup of her bra, but his chest was pressed too hard against her, holding her up.
“Bed,” he said, again into her mouth.
She got the idea, though, clinging as he held her against him with both arms and walked to his bedroom.
The apartment was shit. Matthew and he had inherited it from a couple grad students who’d been ahead of them in the program. They cared more for location, close to the university, than space and elegance. And in a town as pricey as Boston, that pretty much meant the place was nearly a dump.
The furniture had been well used even five years ago, when their predecessors had collected it from the street on the night before garbage day. It was almost an embarrassment. Okay, it was an embarrassment. Matt and he didn’t much care because they were so seldom home.
But since he liked to sleep when he got the chance and when he wasn’t alone at night things tended to get pretty active, he had a decent king bed with a good mattress. And, not being an idiot, he’d put brand new sheets on the bed and towels in the bathroom, washed once to clear out the toxins. He presumed that wasn’t just some bull his mom had handed him. She was usually a trustworthy source for that sort of stuff.
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