by Mari Carr
Asher expected Fiona to either laugh or correct him, but instead she merely nodded. “You come off as so nice when you’re Clark Kent. Then boom, Sexy Superman.”
He couldn’t resist her a second longer, so he gave her a kiss. He’d meant to keep it quick, mouths closed, but Fiona wasn’t finished fighting yet. She wrapped her arms around his neck and opened her lips, her tongue seeking his. He let her guide the kiss because he was nobody’s fool. He loved kissing her.
When they parted, he unclasped her hands from behind his neck and tugged them upwards again, twisting the leather around her wrists and tying it off.
“Not your first time doing that,” Owen said softly.
It wasn’t a question, so Asher didn’t bother to answer. The proof was in the efficient knot anyway.
“Leave your hands above your head, Fee.” He didn’t say “or else,” but from the way she shivered slightly, he knew it had been implied.
Asher lowered his head to Fiona’s breast, gripping the flesh firmly. He shot a quick glance at Owen, indicating he should hop in and play with the other.
Hopefully, once the shock of what they were doing wore off, Owen wouldn’t keep reverting to spectator.
Together, they each played with her breasts. Asher would occasionally catch a glimpse of what Owen was doing, and he got a sense his friend was actually mimicking him, following his lead.
Fiona wriggled beneath them, her soft cries, her moans telling him when he’d done something she liked.
Asher deepened the suction on her nipple, keeping it in his mouth, as his hand slid lower, the back of his knuckles brushing along her stomach until he reached her pussy.
Fiona’s legs were clenched as she rubbed her thighs together. She was desperate for stimulation and failing to find enough on her own.
The second she felt his fingers near her clit, her legs fell apart, inviting him to play.
Asher raised his head, his gaze on Owen, capturing his friend’s attention.
“Want to touch her?” Asher asked.
Owen nodded, his own hand caressing Fiona as it drifted lower. He paused when his hand rested by Asher’s.
Asher was perfectly capable of taking the reins, of telling Owen what to do. But was Owen okay with that? It wasn’t like this was Owen’s first time with a woman. Hell, it wasn’t even his first time with Fiona. So why all the hesitance?
“Touch her,” Asher whispered, when Owen made no further movement.
Owen’s finger grazed her clit. Fiona jerked at the sudden touch but didn’t make a sound. Owen was too gentle—in everything.
Asher gave up trying to be a team player. “Like this.” He put his hand on top of Owen’s and applied pressure, his finger pushing Owen’s against her clit.
That time, Fiona responded with a loud, “yes,” and Owen grinned.
“Rub it. Fast and hard. But don’t let her come.”
Owen frowned. “How will I know if—”
“Pay attention. Listen to her. Feel what her body is saying.”
Fiona’s neck arched. “Stop. Talking,” she groaned. “More.”
As Owen stroked her clit, Asher took advantage of other areas. He pushed two fingers back inside her, matching his thrusts to Owen’s motion.
Fiona’s hips lifted and fell and once again, Asher was overcome with the need to unzip his pants and take her.
He thought the only thing stopping him was that they’d agreed to take sex off the table, but Asher forced himself to admit the truth.
He didn’t want Owen there when he made love to Fiona.
“Fuck.”
He hadn’t meant to say the word aloud. Fortunately, neither Owen nor even Miss Tone Fiona realized it was frustration, not arousal behind it.
Once more he felt her reaching the peak, so he withdrew his fingers, letting one wet digit drift lower, wiggling it around her anus.
“Asher,” Fiona cried out, her reaction in direct opposition to her earlier comment about anal play.
She liked it. He knew she would.
Owen glanced down and realized what he was doing.
“She’s going to kill you,” Owen muttered, “the second she stops coming.”
Asher grinned, then pressed the tip of his index finger into the tight ring of flesh. He wouldn’t do more than that tonight, but he definitely wanted to give Fiona something to think about for next time.
For the first time all night, Owen took some initiative and pushed his own fingers inside her pussy. Asher was impressed when his friend even managed to keep the pressure on her clit by using his thumb.
It didn’t take more than a few thrusts before Fiona went up and over, her body shuddering with her climax. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes closed as she trembled. He loved the little sounds she made—the perfect blend of surprise mingled with mews of pleasure. Neither Owen nor Asher stopped touching her, stroking her, as wave after wave passed through her, and she cried out, “Holy fuck! God. Jesus.”
Asher had promised her an explosion. Looked like he—they—had managed it.
When she landed, Owen was the first to withdraw, leaning over to give her a soft kiss.
Fiona gave him a drowsy smile.
“Going to the bathroom,” he said. “Need a few minutes alone with my lightsaber.”
She frowned. “Owen, wait. I know we said—”
“No, Fee,” Owen interrupted her. “It’s better this way. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
She nodded slowly as Owen pushed himself up from the floor. Asher noticed his friend never looked in his direction as he walked out of the room.
So, Owen felt the same way.
This time, Asher managed to keep the fuck inside his head. He crawled alongside Fiona, reaching up to free her hands.
“Bondage, huh? That was a surprise,” she said saucily.
Despite the tightness in his chest that told him things were going to take a bad turn really soon, he laughed. “That’s just one surprise.”
Once she was free, she tugged him toward her.
“I should wash my hands, Fee.”
“In a minute.” She pulled his head down toward hers and kissed him. Though she initiated it, he took over, deepening the connection, wishing there was an easy solution to all of this.
Because kissing Fiona was the closest he’d ever been to heaven…and Asher really didn’t want to leave paradise.
9
The sky was only just starting to brighten the room when Fiona felt something tapping the bottom of her foot.
She blinked, trying to make the room come into focus. That was when she felt the first twinges of some serious stiffness. Sleeping on the floor sucked.
What didn’t suck was waking up naked between two super-hot guys.
That was when she felt the tap on her foot again—and she realized Teddy was standing in her room, looking down at them.
She tugged the blanket higher, concealing her nakedness.
Teddy jerked his head toward the living room.
She nodded, then waited as he left the room before carefully shimmying out of their makeshift nest. It wasn’t that hard, really. Owen had rolled over, his back to her.
All she had to do was gently move Asher’s hand from her stomach and push herself up and out. She tiptoed to the hook on the back of her bedroom door and grabbed her terry cloth robe, shrugging it on before heading to the living room.
A glance at the clock told her it was six a.m. She, Owen and Asher had turned off the light and gone to sleep shortly after three thirty.
Teddy was standing by the coffee table. The room was wrecked, which only drove home how badly she wanted to crawl back into the nest she’d just left and sleep for the next four days.
“What the hell, Teddy? How did you get in here?”
“Riley was already in the kitchen, cooking for the breakfast shift, so she let me in the back door. I couldn’t sleep.”
“That’s fascinating. I could. I was.”
“So?”
“There are details?”
Fiona blew out a long, frustrated breath. She’d been friends with Teddy long enough to know he wouldn’t leave until she gave him what he wanted.
Then she realized he was here because he knew her too. Knew she would need a chance to debrief, to discuss what had happened. Sometimes it felt as if the two of them shared some sort of mental connection, like twins, where one of them always knew when the other was hurting or needed to talk.
“We didn’t have sex.” She felt like that was the most important detail.
“But?” he prompted.
“We did a hell of a lot else.”
“And?”
“And it was amazing, but…”
“But?”
“Dammit, Teddy. I’ve had too much to drink this week and precious little sleep. Please don’t ask me for answers. I don’t have any.”
“Yeah. I can see that. So, let’s start small. What’s ‘a hell of a lot else’?” he asked after a brief pause.
“Seriously?”
“Maybe you’ll figure out the big stuff if you analyze the good stuff.”
“I’m not going into details.”
“Give me one detail then. One juicy one.”
Fiona was frustrated by the whole conversation. When Teddy didn’t say anything else, she raised her hand and waved it around, clueless to what he might want to hear. “Like what?”
“How far did you go with Asher?”
Fiona wasn’t sure how to answer that. She’d always thought Teddy’s teasing about Asher turning gay was just that—a joke. If she found out that Teddy was in love with Asher, she’d move to fucking China. This triangle was already a hot mess. She wasn’t looking to turn it into a square.
“Why?”
“Did he take off his clothes?”
Fiona took the bait. “Just his shirt.”
“Did your hand linger below the waist?”
She shook her head. “No. We took sex off the table pretty early on. Instead, they just touched and kissed me and…” Made me come so hard I thought my head was going to pop off.
“Wow. That’s some blush. And you didn’t even get a gander at the good stuff.”
“What am I missing?”
Teddy plopped down on the couch with a chuckle. “You already know.”
She sat next to him, shaking her head. “No, I don’t.”
Teddy tilted his head. “Biggus Dickus.”
On their list of long-running jokes, Biggus Dickus ranked right up there with Teddy trying to convert Asher to homosexuality. “That’s a joke.”
“All jokes are based in reality.”
It was something they said all the time. Because of that, she’d always sort of wondered…okay…fantasized about Asher’s dick. Curious to see it. To feel it.
Too many times they’d find the humor in something that was very real and probably not funny, but they were all firm believers that if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry.
“Asher’s packing some serious heat.”
She grinned. “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing. What are we talking about here? Inches? Girth?”
“Both. Why do you think I keep trying to bring him over to my team? It’s pretty fucking impressive. Sort of a challenge, you know?”
Fiona closed her eyes, rubbing her temple. She threw her legs over Teddy’s lap and he pulled her closer. Teddy was the greatest hugger in the world, and right now, she needed one. She was feeling confused and stressed.
“Did you seriously come over here to talk about Asher’s dick?”
Teddy shook his head. “No. I’ve been lying in that damn bed for hours wondering what was going on with the three of you, and finally I just gave in and came over to see.”
“You don’t approve of this, do you?”
“It’s not my place to say.”
Fiona wasn’t sure she agreed with that. Last night might have been a threesome, but after so many years of close friendship, of functioning as a unit of four, she sort of thought Teddy did deserve some say. Because what happened next didn’t just affect her, Owen, and Asher, it impacted Teddy’s life as well.
“Say it anyway,” she urged.
“It’s not a case of approval. I’m not sure it will work. Too many factors at play and none of you has access to the whole picture. You’re all looking at each other through foggy glass.”
Fiona didn’t have a clue what that meant. “I hate this feeling, Teddy. I’ve always been this ‘see what you want and go get it’ girl. And I nail it…in every aspect of life. Except romance. The second my heart becomes engaged, I fuck everything up.”
“Maybe you fuck it up because of that personality trait. You know what you want from a relationship, Fee. You always have. You just approach it the wrong way, trying to twist the man into your image of true love instead of finding the person who falls into that role naturally.”
She hadn’t considered that. “Owen and Asher…” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence the second she started it.
“You in love with both of them?” he asked. “Does it feel like something the three of you could make a run at?”
“Honestly?” She shook her head. “No.”
Her response didn’t just take Teddy by surprise, but her too. “Wait. What? Seriously?”
“I wanted to try because it seemed like the easy answer.”
Teddy chuckled. “You realize that’s a ridiculous outlook, right? I mean, who approaches the problem of which guy to date with the thought, ‘Oooo…ménage. That’ll be easy.’”
She rolled her eyes. “My family.”
“Fuck. Yeah. Point to you.”
“What am I going to do, Teddy?”
“Pick the right one.”
She put her head back on his shoulder but didn’t respond.
“You know who you want, don’t you?”
She nodded.
“Want to give me a hint?”
Fiona lifted her head. “I can’t. I need to talk to—” She paused, stopping short of saying the name. “Do you think this is going to ruin things? Mess up the friendship?”
Teddy considered that, then shrugged. “I don’t know, Fee. I hope not.”
The second time Fiona woke up, she rolled over, stretched, and glanced at the clock. It was almost noon. She and Teddy had hung out on the couch for nearly an hour, talking very little, both lost in their thoughts. When she started to drift off, Teddy shook her, told her to go back to her room and then left, heading back to the hotel. The dark circles under his eyes proved he hadn’t lied about struggling to sleep. She hoped he’d managed to grab some after he left.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Asher still sound asleep on the floor next to her. Her body ached. After Teddy left, she’d been tempted to crawl into the bed, but that didn’t seem fair to the guys. Next time, they were pushing the beds together.
Her heart clenched. Once she told them her feelings, there wouldn’t be a next time.
That was when she realized Owen was missing.
She sat up slowly, careful not to wake Asher. Pulling on her robe once more, she knotted the tie around her waist and went in search of Owen.
He was sitting alone on the couch texting someone, fully dressed and clearly waiting for them to wake up.
“Hey, you,” she said, joining him.
Owen smiled, reaching out to take one of her hands in his. “Hey, yourself. Feeling okay this morning?”
“Stiff. Sleeping on the floor is for teenagers.”
“You can say that again.”
“What are you doing out here all by yourself? You should have woken me up.”
Owen sighed. “You both looked too peaceful.”
Fiona struggled for what to say next. For someone who made a living with words, they were failing her here. Owen seemed to be suffering the same loss.
&nbs
p; “So,” he said at last. “Asher was a surprise.”
She grabbed the subject and ran with it. “I know. Who the hell was that guy? He’s so easygoing and friendly most of the time. Then you put him in bed and boom, he pulls out that gruff, deep, sexy voice.”
“Yeah. He was…wow. No offense,” he hastened to add. “I mean obviously I was mainly focused on you.”
She laughed. “No offense taken. Believe me.”
“Fee, I—”
“Owen, listen—”
They both stopped short when they spoke at the same time.
“You go ahead,” she said, cowardly trying to put off saying what needed to be said.
“I got the audition.”
Thoughts of the previous night flew out of her head. “Oh my God! That’s incredible!” She wrapped her arms around him, offering a congratulatory embrace.
Owen had read a script several weeks earlier that had knocked his socks off. The role, a serious Denzel Washington-type part, would propel him out of sitcom land and into major motion picture superstardom. There were several huge names up for the role, but that hadn’t stopped Owen from begging his manager to get him an audition. When they’d heard—through the Hollywood rumor mill—that auditions had already taken place, they’d figured he’d been knocked out of contention before even getting his shot.
“It’s tomorrow.”
“Oh. Shit. Wow. That’s soon.” Fiona tried to wrap her head around his bombshell.
“I know. The timing sucks. My manager just texted, said the casting director hadn’t found anyone who felt like a good match.”
“You have to go.” She knew what this meant to Owen.
“Fee. How can I? We have the script to finish, and after last night…I feel like we need to…”
She shook her head. “Asher, Teddy and I can finish the script. It’ll be easier without you there, encouraging us to succumb to happy hours and such.”
He laughed at her joke but didn’t bother to correct her. “Teddy’s usually the bigger distraction.”
“True.”
“Which leads me to the next thing.”
Fiona sighed. “There’s more?”
“When I told Teddy about the audition, he insisted on flying back with me. There’s a flight out of BWI in a few hours, and my manager has already sent the script to my place. Teddy said he’d run lines with me all night if necessary. Then I’ll audition tomorrow night and fly back here the next day. We’d be gone less than forty-eight hours. I swear.”