by Ophelia Bell
“I love the way you taste on him,” he says. “It’s a dream come true, really.” He slides close, and I part my legs to let him in but keep my hands parked on the sides of the chair. “Let’s see if he likes your taste on me, huh?”
He smiles and tweaks the nipple he sucked on earlier, then bends and presses his lips to my neck, just below my ear. Leo watches, flushed and still panting, his cock a rigid, swollen length between his thighs. He grips himself and squeezes once, but Maddox turns and shakes his head.
“No touching until I say. Trust me.”
“I’m dying here,” Leo says.
“You’re about to have the best sex of your life soon. Just be patient.”
He sounds so confident, but I can’t help but empathize with Leo. My panties are soaked, my clit throbbing, and I’m still gripping this stupid lime in my teeth. I’d love a shot of tequila, but it’s become apparent all three shots Maddox poured were for him, not us.
He dips his head and resumes nuzzling my neck, inhaling deeply, then grazing his teeth along my collarbone. “I can’t wait to show him how to take your ass, Celeste. We’re both going to love every second of it, and I know you will too.”
I wince, and my body lifts as my butt muscles tighten.
Maddox shakes his head, tutting softly and touching my chin. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing. And don’t worry, he’s still going first, just like you asked.”
That’s some consolation, but the reminder of my offer makes me nervous even though the idea of it turns me on. I think it’s imagining the two of them both using me for pleasure that does it though, more than exactly how they intend to use me.
The sensation of his tongue on my nipple shocks me back into reality and I jerk, causing tequila to slosh over the edge of the glass. Maddox laps at my breasts before taking the shot in his teeth like he did with the other. His neck flexes and ripples as he swallows, then sets the glass down and bends close. His gray eyes meet mine a split second before he grabs the lime. Our lips brush, his chin grazing mine, the rough stubble making me tingle. Just like he did with Leo, he leans in after tossing away the lime and devours me while he toys with my breasts.
He pinches my nipples until I squirm, then leans back and pushes my knees wider, looking down between my thighs. I wore sheer panties, and I don’t have to look to know the delicate red silk is soaked through. Maddox lets out an interested rumble and reaches between my legs, running the tips of his fingers along my crotch.
“So fucking wet. Tell me, sweetness, what turns you on more, the idea of both of us fucking you, or Leo and I fucking each other?”
My mouth might be free now but I can’t answer because I can’t decide. Finally I just offer a pithy “Yes,” which earns a deep, amused laugh. I take a breath and add, “I want it all, Maddy. Whatever you want to have with us. That’s what I want.”
His hand stills between my thighs and he looks into my eyes with such tenderness my heart lurches. Then I realize I just called him Maddy, the name that crying eight-year-old girl gave him when he first comforted me after Mama’s death. He was always Maddy to me after that.
His look hardens, and he sighs. “Maddy’s dead, Celeste. Your father killed him. If you really love me, you need to know who it is you love. Because I’m not that horny teenage boy anymore.”
He crowds close, gripping the back of my head hard and forcing me to look up at him. His fingers tug my panties aside with his other hand and in one rough stroke he shoves two fingers into me. His mouth descends on mine at the same time and I gasp, clutching at his shirt as he obliterates all my boundaries within a span of seconds. His thumb finds my clit and I’m rocking against his hand, eager for the swift release he’s pushing me toward.
Just when I think he’s going to put me out of my misery, he stops so fast I’m left panting and confused by his abrupt departure. When I regain my senses, he has Leo gripped by the hair, kissing him hard and rough.
“Open,” he commands, pulling away and holding his wet fingers up in front of Leo’s nose.
Leo doesn’t even hesitate. He opens his mouth and takes Maddox’s fingers in, sucking my juices off like he’s been given a gift. His eyelids lift and he looks at me, every secret confession of every dirty desire contained within his gaze. There was more to this fantasy than letting Maddox call every shot though. More to my version of it, anyway. Last weekend, I caught all the tortured looks Maddox gave us when he wasn’t hiding behind the camera. I wished then that I could invite him to join us, but I wasn’t confident Leo wouldn’t reject the idea. Now I know better. But I want to give Maddox the attention I so wanted to then, to pay him back for all he’s given us.
I slip off my seat and shed my dress, unclasp my bra and let it fall to the floor, then slip out of my soaked panties. Maddox seems too engrossed in having his fingers sucked to the bone by Leo, so he stiffens when I slide my arms around his waist and squeeze his erection through his jeans.
“Show me who you are now, Mad Dog,” I say to his back. “Let us make love to the man you’ve become.”
30
Leo
Celeste’s sentiment is well intentioned, but the glint in Mad Dog’s eyes is enough to tell me that he’s not at the stage where making love makes sense just yet. His fingers press down on my tongue and I suck harder, not just to devour my girl’s taste off them, but because I want it to be clear that I’ll give as good as I get.
I could argue that I’ve already given her, but not only is Celeste very much her own woman, I realized tonight that she was always his in a way, and that he was the one who gave her to me to begin with. Or the coveted spot as the man in her bed, at any rate.
When she slides a hand beneath the hem of his shirt to caress his stomach, he flinches hard and yanks his fingers from my mouth to grab her wrist. The change in his demeanor is so abrupt my head spins, and when he rounds on Celeste like a wild thing, I yank hard at the shirt binding me until my hands finally wrench free.
“What the fuck?” I reach out and grab his shoulder, hauling him back. He turns, pulling Celeste with him, and I see he has her held by both wrists, and she’s staring up at him in shock. After a second, grave understanding replaces the shock.
“Leo, let him go,” she says in an even tone. “Maddox, I just wanted to touch you. You don’t need to be afraid.”
Afraid? Since when is Mad Dog Santos afraid of anything?
He’s still hard, his jeans bulging at the front. I’m still fully hard too, and on the verge of blue balls, but I tuck myself away because shit just got serious. His jaw flexes, and I’m not convinced he won’t hurt Celeste, but they seem to be in a stare-off so I sit back, ready to jump in if she looks like she needs help.
“I can’t. It’s too soon, the scars—you can still see half of them.”
She spreads her fingers as if to placate him. “You are not your scars, Maddox. Leo and I both know that. What we love is deeper. Besides, we all have scars. Some you just can’t see.”
Her voice breaks, and my throat tightens. I grit my teeth against the emotion that wells inside me—fresh grief over Manny’s death, but also a deep, soul-defining love for what both these people mean to me. I reach out, but rest my hand on the counter next to him rather than touching him.
“You’ve seen all my scars, Mad Dog. Every last fucking one. Even the ones nobody else but Celeste gets to see. Maybe even more. I’m the last person who will judge you. And it’s not like I’ll be able to look while you’re nailing me, anyway.” A hot flush rises up through my torso when I say that. It’s the first time I’ve admitted out loud that I plan to let the guy fuck me. My dick jerks in my jeans, the throbbing ache returning with a vengeance.
He cuts his eyes to me. “Oh, I plan to look you in the eyes when I fuck you, Leo. You’ll see everything.”
“Then let us look. You can’t really get much scarier than you already are.”
The tension doesn’t leave him, but he releases Celeste and lowers his hands, his fists still clen
ched. “Nobody’s seen me naked since before. Since Zag . . .” He trails off with a choked sound. I’m not sure what “Zag” means, but I sit forward to show I’m listening. Celeste rests her hands on his chest, caressing with her thumbs. She’s still delightfully naked but he’s off in his own little world, struggling to get something out, and I’m positive it’s the heaviest thing he’s ever carried.
He shakes his head. “It’s not important. We can keep going.”
“The hell you say,” I blurt. “You’re not sticking your dick in me until you let out some of that pent-up . . . whatever. What about Zag? Was that a place you were stationed or something?”
Celeste touches his cheek and he lifts his gaze, the distant look focusing on her so intently some of the spark finally comes back.
“Zag’s a person,” she says, caressing his stubble so I can hear the light rasp.
He gives the barest nod, then drops his head back and sighs. “Boyfriend.” He clears his throat and looks at me. “You’ll have him to thank for pretty much everything you experience later. We were together five years until he died. He taught me everything I know.”
“So I guess I’m stuck with your rudimentary woman skills, huh?” Celeste teases.
Maddox gives her an incredulous look. “Sweetness, I’m an expert in you. Have you had any complaints with what I’ve done so far?”
“Only that you refuse to get naked for me. Look at me. I’m already undressed. Leo’s halfway there. It’s your turn. So unless you got a tattoo of my butthole somewhere on your body, we aren’t going to laugh.”
“Your . . . what?”
I bark a laugh. “I told you there were other tempting photos in that batch,” I say with a shrug.
He shakes his head and gives her a bemused smile, then takes a long breath. “You’ve been warned. I’m working on getting them covered, but it’s a long, slow process.”
“So someone has seen you with your shirt off.”
“Just my doctor and my tattoo artist.”
He goes for the hem of his shirt, but Celeste stops him. She grabs his hands and leads him a few feet away from the counter. At her head tilt, I move to stand behind him, and when Celeste urges him to lift his arms, I take the initiative and grab the bottom of his T-shirt to peel it up his torso. It’s a weird sensation, standing here and undressing another man, and as his skin is revealed, I understand why he was so skittish. He has a web of alien-looking pink scar tissue covering his back on his left side. It stretches from the peak of his shoulder diagonally to his spine in a mottled, half-melted, irregular mesh, then extends down his ribcage. There are smaller pink blemishes lower, but nothing as pronounced, though “smaller” is relative because they’re still larger than the bullet scar on my shoulder.
“Jesus,” I blurt when he’s shirtless. I touch the edge of his tattoos, which cover his left arm but end at his shoulder.
He emits a mirthless chuckle. “Yeah, it’s bad. I’m just lucky it’s easy enough to hide under my clothes. Zag took the worst of the blast, threw himself on top of me in his blast suit, but the suit wasn’t enough to save him.”
I remember a few of his stories about missions, then it clicks that Zag is the Zagorski guy he mentioned on a few occasions, who was the CO of the EOD squad Maddox covered as a medic. He never mentioned getting injured or losing anyone though.
“You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Celeste says. She’s standing close to him, staring up into his eyes.
“I do, but maybe not tonight.” His voice takes on a rougher tone, and I rest my hands on his shoulders, lean in, and kiss the back of his neck. He tilts his head back, leaning into me, and I squeeze his shoulders, glad when some of the tension eases out of them.
Skin to skin, he feels good, and I press closer. I know how fantastic it feels when Celeste spoons up against my back, not to mention how she always seems to sink right through the bed like a contented cat when I do it to her. I just hope the presence of my hard dick doesn’t ruin the moment. His hips tilt back, his ass pressing harder against my groin, and the mood shifts so effortlessly it’s uncanny. One second he seems too self-conscious to move, the next he hauls Celeste into his arms, growling into a kiss.
Despite the scars that tell the tale of one epic injury, the muscles beneath are strong, and they flex and bunch under my hands when he lifts her. She lets out a surprised, breathy laugh and meets my eyes over his shoulder just before she kisses him again, then she pulls away and whispers something in his ear.
“Mmm, I didn’t forget,” he rumbles back. He lets her slide down his front again, then releases her and smacks her ass with a hard thwack. “Meet us on the bed.”
She strides off, casting a seductive look over her shoulder. I watch her walk, enjoying the view of her smooth, plump ass and its inverted heart shape, the way her long hair brushes the center of her back just above the pair of dimples there.
Just as she disappears around the folding screen that conceals his bed, Maddox turns to me, but instead of embracing me, he slides his hand down the back of my jeans, squeezing my ass in a not-so-subtle reminder of why I’m here. “You know what has to happen before you get a taste of that.”
I force myself to look him in the eyes, but my mouth has gone too dry to speak. He takes pity on me and releases my ass. He backs up, nods for me to take a seat, and pours three more shots of tequila.
“Lubrication is key,” he says with a smirk, pushing all three shots my way before sitting across from me.
I take the first shot, and the burn of the liquor going down gives me courage. “How does this work?”
“How do you think? You must’ve had a plan for fucking her if you were so determined to do it. Me fucking you is no different.”
I frown and grab the second shot, feeling put on the spot. Like the teacher just called on me but I didn’t bother reading the lesson. Manny always gave me hell when I’d come home with a failing grade. He worked his ass off so I could at least graduate high school, so this feeling is way more familiar than I’d like to admit.
“Shit, don’t tell me you’ve never tried anal with a girl before.”
“Have you?” I shoot back.
“That’s not the point,” he growls. “We’re made the same back there, more or less. The biggest difference is her G-spot is in her pussy. Yours is in your ass. Prepping is the same either way. It’s just a matter of how involved you want her in the process.”
Whether or not Celeste would be involved never crossed my mind, but now that he mentions it, I realize in my mental experiments with the idea of letting Maddox fuck me, she was never there, or if she was, she just watched from the sidelines.
When I don’t answer immediately, Maddox says, “If this . . . relationship we’re starting tonight is going to work, we need to establish some ground rules to follow at the outset. Just because we’re having some fun doesn’t mean we should let things slide. Nobody gets left out when we fuck, even if the other person just watches, and if someone isn’t in the mood, they can opt out without the other two feeling like they have to stop. Communicate, got it? Now try it.”
He shoves the third shot at me. I spin it between my fingers as I stare at it, baffled by my own silence. I toss back the shot and clear my throat. “You know you sound like my brother right now.”
“You’re probably not going to think of me that way after tonight,” he says with a smirk.
I stare into the empty shot glass and then look at him. His serious intensity returns as he holds my gaze and seems to see right through me.
“I need this,” I say, some of the tension unwinding as the confession comes out, but I only manage those three words.
In my head I trip over all the other truths I can’t say out loud. I don’t want this just because Manny’s gone and I’ve got a fucking chasm a mile wide inside me now. I need to prove that there’s something real between me and Maddox. I think Celeste wants to prove to herself that the three of us can work, but she has her ow
n reasons for that. I don’t doubt it for a second.
But for some reason, I can’t articulate the rest of what’s churning around inside me. Celeste’s love feels different than the love I want from Maddox. It sounds too weird in my head to admit that he’d go a long way to filling the hole Manny’s death left, because I don’t think I ever thought of him the way I think of my brother. But it feels like sealing this bond with him is the thing that’ll finally prove I’m a man in my dead brother’s eyes.
“So do I,” he says, somehow fine with my lack of a more detailed explanation, but his mind is already moving forward. “What I need now is for you to stand up and strip and go join our girl. When I come in, I want your ass in the air and your face buried between her legs. The prep will go easier if you’re distracted.”
The order makes it easier. I’m used to taking commands from men more powerful than me, but I’ve never gotten off on it quite this way before. I stand and hold his gaze, pushing my jeans and boxers off my hips, then kicking out of my shoes as I slide my pants down my legs and push them off my feet along with my socks. I leave them in a pile on the floor, weirdly satisfied by the mess we’ve left out in the open in his apartment. I flex a little when I straighten up, smiling at the way his gaze lingers on my half-hard dick, so I fist myself and stroke once for his benefit.
“Go before I bend you over and fuck you here,” he growls.
I turn with a smirk, and saunter away, hard again with the heat of his gaze drilling into my back.
When I round the screen it’s like slipping from hot sun into cool water to see Celeste lying naked in the very center of Maddox’s bed, curled on her side. She’s apparently gotten bored and picked up a book, but one hand toys with her nipple while she reads. I reach the end of the bed and climb on, and she rolls to her back to watch as I crawl toward her.