It Stings So Sweet

by Stephanie Draven

  “Don’t you want to please me?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I breathe in utter surrender. My god, yes. I want that desperately.

  “Good.” Bending my knees up and back, he rests my legs over his shoulders. “Because every machine in existence has a purpose, and yours is to perform.”

  Leo Vanderberg then sets about the business of giving me the hardest ride of my life. He batters his body against me with the stamina of a soldier. Whatever fitness regimen Leo subscribes to lends him a superhuman strength that nearly destroys me and the billiard table beneath us, which creaks as if the legs might give way.

  Each stroke makes me gasp until I’m hyperventilating. And when I turn my head to the side, I see that our voyeur is excited, too. Robert holds a watch in one hand and his cock in the other, slowly stroking. His eyes trail hotly over my body, his gaze filled with lustful admiration.

  Seeing the effect I’m having on the other man is so electric that I throw my arms tight around Leo’s neck, cries rising in pitch. I clutch at Leo as if he were the only sure thing in the world. Leo called me a force of nature, but I’m caught up in the storm of his making and I can’t stop it. I don’t want to stop it. I’m going to come again. I want it. I need it. I want to be under him, just like this, forever. Even if it leaves me raw and weeping.

  He angles his strokes to drive me over the edge and I hear myself shrieking. It feels so good that I revel in pure bliss.

  Red-faced and perspiring, Leo speaks with utter glee. “That makes three …”

  He doesn’t need to count anymore. It’ll happen again if he wants it to. My body knows no limits now. I must be sore and swollen, but I don’t feel anything except pure exhilaration.

  “Sorry, old boy,” Robert says, snapping the watch shut. “Didn’t beat the record.”

  Leo doesn’t seem disappointed or in a hurry. He rolls onto his back, carrying me with him. I spread over his body, melting like butter, too weak to lift my head from the pillow of his chest. He can do whatever he likes to me. He can make me come until it kills me. I don’t care. I’ll let him do anything.

  “I could use a bit of assistance,” Leo says.

  Robert rises from his chair. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Where Leo threw his clothes on the floor, Robert folds his and tucks his shoes neatly under the table where dinner has no doubt gone cold. But it’s the only thing that has. Watching Leo’s friend undress is like a spark to kindling. I thought I was spent, but now desire roars awake again. The sound that comes out of me is a low, throaty moan of eagerness. All I’ve wanted of Leo is more, more, more. Now his friend seems to be a deliciously sexy extension of him. It’s not in me to even pretend that I don’t want Robert Aster.

  The other man hops onto the table with us and takes it upon himself to undress me completely—removing my shoes, rolling down my stockings and removing my garters. When he’s done, I find myself between both men, a pampered pet, being kissed and stroked.

  I do my own bit of exploring.

  Where Leo’s skin is tan and weathered, Robert’s is freckled and fair. Where Leo’s hands are calloused, Robert’s are soft and well manicured. Where Leo’s body is sinew and steel, Robert is fleshier but strong. He has the hands of a patrician but the body of a farm boy, and when I scratch over his nipples, he hisses with pleasure. He seems almost giddy to be touched by me, easier prey than Leo has ever been.

  Watching me toy with Robert seems to amuse Leo, who rolls me onto his body again, palming me, flesh to flesh. Leo is still hard and needy—he hasn’t found his own satisfaction yet and I want to give it to him. It doesn’t take much urging for me to mount him. There’s something incredibly arousing about the way Robert Aster helps me into position. Enticing both men with every roll of my hips, I ride Leo’s cock with shameless abandon.

  Well, that’s not quite true. There’s plenty of shame; it’s just that my sense of shame never stands a chance against my fevered lust. I keep waiting for Leo to rein me in. But it’s Robert whose hand goes into my hair, gently pulling me up so that I need to rest my palms on Leo’s chest for balance. “If you don’t mind terribly, Miss Cartwright, I’d like to see your breasts while you fuck.”

  Oh, hearing that from him shocks me. And that hard look in his eyes under the civility makes me start to wonder if I’ve misjudged the rich boy completely. He caresses my breasts, catching the nipples between his fingers and giving them a squeeze. Being touched by both men sends a jolt of electric heat through my body. Leo likes it, too. I know because his cock swells even bigger inside me. Right now, pleasure is the only thing I know. Maybe my mother was right and I was a born whore, because I begin to make frantic motions with my hips, trying to prove to them both that I can take anything. Leo lets me thrash against his body, until I’m filled with frustration, and pleading with him to fuck me even harder.

  “I really like when you beg …” Leo says, using his legs and back for leverage as he gives me just what I want. He strokes up into me like a jackhammer until my teeth rattle. Meanwhile, Robert squeezes my nipples, twisting them between his fingers to the point of pain, and I wail with pleasure.

  Pink and breathless, I’m vaguely aware of Robert sheathing himself just as Leo pulls out of me, his shaft resting like a broom handle between my belly and his. Even so, my whole body stiffens in shock when Leo asks, “Are you going to let him fuck you, Clara?”

  I’m shamed by how eagerly I say yes. Then Robert Aster, a man whose acquaintance I’ve known less than the length of a feature film, slowly sinks his cock into the emptiness that Leo has left behind.

  I can’t see my new lover, but his breath is warm on my back. The feel of his groin pressed tight against my upturned bottom is warm and arousing. No two men fuck in the same way, and these two are no exception. Robert is gentler, sliding smoothly against the flesh that Leo has left sore and swollen. Meanwhile, Leo cushions my body for the other man. He holds my hair back so that he can see my reddened face, my parted lips, the wanton desire in my eyes when he says, “Make him feel good, Clara …”

  The expression on Leo’s face is one of complete mastery. He’s entitled to it. I’ve never felt like I belonged to anyone before, but there isn’t a doubt in my mind that I belong to him.

  How strange that I should realize it while another man is thrusting up inside me.

  They trade me back and forth between them. First Robert is stroking into me, then Leo, then Robert again, until we’ve all melded into one humping, panting, undulating creature. It makes me shameless. It makes me wild. It makes me want to scream. It makes me want to come.

  Leo knows it and he increases the tempo of his fucking. I bite down on his shoulder till I think it’ll draw blood. It doesn’t stop him. And while Leo has me so distracted, Robert produces a tiny bottle of oil and dribbles it over the puckered entrance I’d rather no one ever touched. He’s lubricating me, and I know just what for. I try to evade his slippery fingers as they press into the tight hole, but I can’t escape them and I squeal at the indignity.

  It isn’t only that I don’t like being penetrated there; it’s also that Leo hasn’t done it to me first. I don’t want Robert—whose winsome manner would have led me to believe him incapable of this particular obscenity—to be the one to take me there first.

  Ignoring my objections, Leo spreads the cheeks of my bottom with both hands. “Let him do it, baby. I think you’re going to like this an awful lot.”

  I’ve never liked doing it; it always hurts. I’m already so full that I can’t possibly take more. But I do. Robert prepares me with his fingers, until the pain dissipates into raw pleasure. Then he works his prick into my ass. Leo hisses as if the tightness hurts him, but he grinds his teeth against it. Then they’re both inside me.

  My god, they’re both inside me, and I’m a glorious object of pleasure once again.

  Robert strokes himself into me slowly, alternating strokes with Leo until I think I’m going to shatter into a million pieces. The sounds I mak
e this time are low growls of pure primal instinct. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”

  Nothing in my life has ever prepared me for sex with two men at the same time. It’s all new. All of it. Everything I’ve ever done has been child’s play. I must have been a virgin because I’ve never felt like this before. Not my body. Not my mind. Not my heart.

  Suddenly, my eyes are watering.

  Leo takes hold of my face. “You don’t like it?”

  “I love it, you bastard!”

  Leo looks like he might burst with pride. “You wonderful little slut …”

  The word doesn’t sting, but I sob, “I love it …”

  Robert curses, as if this statement of mine was designed to make him spill his seed with embarrassing haste. I’m too greedy to give him even a moment to steady himself. “Please don’t stop!”

  With my encouragement Robert grips me by the hips and drives into me. The searing, shocking pain of it makes me scream. But I’m not sorry. I find myself moaning, crying out filthy words, thanking them, begging them. I’m sandwiched between them. My breasts glued to Leo’s chest. My back sucked tight against Robert’s body. Bodies slick and tangled, hands on me everywhere, and their mouths … oh, the feel of their mouths pressing kisses to my fevered skin.

  Two men are working inside me and I’ll do anything—anything—to please them.

  I throw my head back, and Leo’s mouth finds the scar on my neck. Kissing it, running his tongue over it like an animal licks at a wound to heal it. Maybe that’s what he’s doing. Trying to heal me. Or maybe he’s broken me completely. I’m raw and vulnerable in a way I’ve never been before. He’s taken me apart to see how I work, but what if he can’t ever put me back together again?

  Leo’s eyes flash, the look of a man about to find his own pleasure. “Baby, do you want to make us come?”

  That’s all the encouragement I need. All I want is to make them come, to feel both men stiffening, to hear the erotic symphony of their grunts and groans. Robert thrusts home, pushing into me with more urgency.

  I think he’ll be the one to find release first, but I’m wrong.

  I do.

  The sensation of coming on both men’s cocks is more than I can bear. My insides clench tight on the men inside me, and I start sobbing.

  “Jesus Christ!” Leo cries, tapping his head back against the table a few times before he lets go completely. A moment later, Robert groans as he thrusts home, twitching with orgasm.

  We are, all three, doing it together, and my senses give out.

  The world becomes a blur of panting breaths and slippery skin and stuttering sighs.

  And when I finally open my eyes again, Leo kisses me.

  He kisses me full on the mouth. Our first real kiss. I taste the salty sweat of his upper lip. I feel the caress of his breath on my cheeks. His lips are soft and masculine. Sweet enough to make my teeth hurt. The tenderness turns me inside out.

  He kisses me like he cherishes me.

  He kisses me like I’m something precious.

  He kisses me like he loves me.

  And it breaks my heart.

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  The regrets come later when I’m soaking in a hot bath, listening to jazz phonographs playing in the bedroom nearby. In Leo’s claw-foot tub, I loll shyly in the steaming water while he washes my back with lavender soap and a soft scrubbing brush. All my life, I’ve chewed up men and spit them out and never cared a damn what anyone thought about it. But all that’s changed now; I’m terrified that he’ll see it.

  “How badly do you hurt?” Leo asks.

  More than he’ll ever know, but not the way he means. “I’m just sore, is all.”

  “So what do you say? Did I keep my promise?”

  “You’ll wish you didn’t,” I say, trying to put some distance between us. “Now I’ll just want to do it again.”

  He grins, sliding his hand under the water. “Can’t I keep you sated for even a few hours? If you need more …”

  I hiss like a cat. “Don’t you dare. I’m quite sated.”

  “Good.” Leo kisses my wet shoulder. “I wanted to wreck you just a little bit.”

  “You certainly did that.”

  He’s holding me, caressing me, kissing me, practically humming a little tune against my skin. I’m all broken inside and yet, he seems so … happy. “That was even more fun than I thought it would be, Clara. I think you’d better tell me everything else you’ve never done before.”

  “I’ve done everything.”

  Doesn’t he, even now, know what kind of girl I am?

  “Well, I don’t object to revisiting old favorites. But I’m sure there’s something else you’ve never done before.”

  “Nothing,” I snap.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, I’ve never been in love before.” It just slips out, and when it does, my eyes fill with tears. It’s not like me to be so careless with words. Not like me at all to tell the truth when artifice would suffice. And now that they’re out, the words just float there in the bath between us.

  Leo clears his throat. “Are you saying that you’re in love with me, Clara?”

  I try and fail to swallow back my tears. “Don’t be silly, Ace. If anything, I’ve fallen quite helplessly under Mr. Aster’s spell.”

  His expression falls. “You’d better be joking …”

  “Of course I am,” I say, wiping my tear-streaked cheeks with the backs of my hands. “I don’t fall in love. It would ruin our arrangement and I’m enjoying our sordid affair too much to spoil it.”

  He isn’t fooled for one moment and rushes forward in gallantry. “Well, I’m in love with you, Clara. I have been from the start.”

  “Leo, stop,” I say, trying to get out of the tub before he feels the need to save me from further humiliation.

  He folds me into a towel. “I’d have said it before now if I thought you’d wanted to hear it.”

  “Well, I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Too bad. You’re gonna hear it. I’m busting to say it. I loved you the moment you said, ‘When I take a man to bed, it’s got everything to do with the size of his bank account and what he’s got between his legs.’”

  I’m appalled at myself for having said it and at him for remembering it, but now he has me laughing through my tears. “You really are the strangest man.”

  “Clara, I loved you the first time I met you. Maybe even before I met you.”

  My heart swells inside my chest until the ache is unbearable. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Leo. Every man in the country thinks he’s in love with me if you believe the papers, but that doesn’t make it true.”

  “Every man in the country probably is in love with you, Clara. But they don’t know what to do with you. I know exactly what to do with you, or do you still have any lingering doubts?”

  His words recall to mind the wicked way we spent the afternoon, and I can’t look at him.

  “I love you, Clara Flannagan.”

  At the sound of my real name, I flinch.

  “I do, Clara. I love the way you taste. I love the way you smell of gardenias. I love the way you sound when you come. I love the way you respond to my touch, to my words, to my every perverse desire …”

  “That’s lust, not love, Leo.”

  “I’m not finished. I love that you’re loyal as a hound. I love that spunky kid inside who stole a giant pink ball of fairy floss. I love the hard-boiled act you use to hide your big sappy heart. I never thought I’d meet a girl like you—never thought a girl like you existed. You’re bright and talented. You’ve got something about you, Clara. You sparkle. So I want you to know, right here, right now, that I love you.”

  “Oh, Leo …” I stroke his beloved cheek with my wet hand, terrified to believe a word. “You’ll feel differently in the morning.”

  “Why the devil would I feel differently in the morning?”

  I’m silent. My insides writhe
like snakes. I think I’m on the verge of a breakdown.

  “Clara, is there something you need to tell me?”

  I shake my head, unable to speak.

  Bitterness seeps into his voice. “Am I going to find out you never broke things off with Teddy Morgan?”

  This finally loosens my tongue. “Of course I did. I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.”

  Leo grunts. “Good.”

  “But I don’t see what difference it makes to you. Whether it’s Teddy Morgan … or Robert Aster.”

  “Ah,” he says, as if a lightbulb has blinked on. “At least twenty years difference in age, for starters. But the important difference is that Teddy Morgan wants you for himself whereas Bobby knows you’re just on loan.”

  “Why, Leo, you sweet talker.”

  He’s unapologetic. “We Germans can be very territorial …”

  “Well if you’re so territorial, I don’t see why you’re not angry about the way I behaved today.”

  “Now that you mention it … I am a little sore at you. I was looking forward to the expensive meal at the Moroccan you caused to go to waste. I’m willing to forgive you because you turned out to be far tastier than anything the chefs could have prepared.”

  “You know what I meant, Leo.”

  “Haven’t you figured me out yet, Clara? What thrills me is getting in your head. I’ll exploit every fantasy you’ve got as long as I can make you look at me the way you did this afternoon. Fuck Lucky Lindy. What I did with you today was better than flying a solo flight across the Atlantic. Every single thing we did proved that you’re mine. Today, you let me give you away. And a man can’t give away what doesn’t belong to him. So I’m glad to hear you say you wanted to do it again. Because we are going to do it again.”

  I slant him a glance. “Oh, are we?”

  “Yes. We are.” Leo’s tone brooks no argument. “We definitely are.”

  The thought of it makes me shiver before I can put on a false mask of modesty. “With Mr. Aster?”