Hanging On 2: Surreal Neal [Awakenings 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More)
Page 18
My heart thundered in my chest, grief and horror clashing to form a knot of anger. “I knew there was more to his story than he let on. He’s so reserved, like he’s always on the defensive.”
Drew closed his hand over mine. “He reminds me of how you used to be.”
I stared at Drew’s hand and the way it enveloped my smaller, darker one. “You want more from him than a fling, don’t you?”
“Don’t you?” He threw the question back at me, and I nodded. I wasn’t going to pretend that Neal didn’t mean more than either of us had intended.
“He’s not like anyone else.”
Drew pulled me onto his lap, holding me close. “It’s weird. I’ve been perfectly happy with you, but now that he’s here, I feel like everything’s complete. Like it was meant to be.”
My darling husband was a certifiable romantic. I didn’t share his sentiment, but I didn’t dismiss it either. Being with Neal did feel right. “Are you thinking that you want to ask him to date us?”
He rested his chin on my shoulder. It scratched against my skin, prickly proof of his physicality. “I honestly don’t know what to do next. Flings are easy. Scenes are easy. This is going to be complicated. We have to be in agreement about this, Sophie. No matter what, I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to jeopardize what we have. You’re part of me, and I never want to be without you.”
I lifted his chin and brushed my lips against his. “I love you, Drew. I don’t want anything to happen with us either, so we’re in agreement on that. I think we should take it slowly with Neal. We should ask him if he wants to pursue a relationship with us, and then we take things from there.”
He buried his face in my breasts. It was a comfort thing, but it was also a matter of time before they triggered his sex instinct. I was too tired and still a little sore, so I thought it best to distract him.
“Hey, let’s talk about how you’re a Dom now.”
The breath of his chuckle tickled my nipple. “It’s funny because I never saw myself in this role. Something about Neal brings it out of me. It’s what he wants, so I want to give it to him. I can’t say that I’d like to top anybody else. Just him.”
I laughed now. “You’re so full of shit. You’ve been trying to top me for years. Alpha is in your nature. Now you’re adding elements of bondage and sadism, and you’re making it official.”
Technically he hadn’t made it official. I was hoping he would choose this moment to embrace his inner Dom.
He lifted his head. Light from the lamps outside glinted from his pale blue irises. “You’re absolutely right, but you don’t always let me top you.”
“I give you sex whenever and wherever you ask for it. Think back. When is the last time I turned you down?”
“That doesn’t make you submissive, honey. It just means you’re as horny as I am.” He lifted me up by the hips, turning me so that I straddled him. “Like now. I bet you’re imagining me in tight leather pants, wielding a flogger, Neal strung up with those chains you had installed in the basement ceiling, and you’re sopping wet.”
I hadn’t been imagining it, but now I couldn’t get that image out of my head, and I was no longer tired. “I’m on the other side with another set of floggers. We’re double-teaming him.”
Drew’s breath brushed my lips. “And then he and I double-team you.”
As he kissed me, he circled his finger around my clit and explored my wetness. I thrust against his single digit until he was done teasing. He positioned his cock at my entrance. I lifted enough to let him slide in. Since I was on top, I set the rhythm. He stabilized my hips and helped me grind myself into him the way I wanted. Tension swirled in my core, building tighter and tighter. Drew flicked my nipples, rolling them in his fingers and licking them with his hot tongue, and he sent me over the edge. His warm semen bathed my insides with comfortable familiarity. There was something about being filled by him that fulfilled and soothed my soul.
I slumped on top of him until we both cooled. It wasn’t until I lifted up and let Drew slide out of me that I noticed Neal seated at the table.
He was clothed in cotton sleep pants, and in the half-light, his collar formed a dark slash around his throat. His eyes glittered with a harsh light. “I’ll never give you complete control over me.”
I was taken aback by his vehemence.
He unbuckled the collar and threw it on the table. I stood the rest of the way, intending to reach out to him. He held up his hand. “This is one of those talks where we’re all equal. I think you should both get dressed.”
Drew sensed my panic, but he, as always, remained calm in the face of the storm. “It’s the middle of the night. Don’t you want to wait until the morning?”
Neal shook his head. “I learned the hard way not to sleep on things like this. People have a way of deciding your life for you.”
Two minutes later, with Drew wearing sleep pants similar to Neal’s and me clad in a long shirt and loose shorts, we gathered at the small table. I poured water for Neal.
“We don’t want to have complete control over you,” I said as I set the glass in front of him. His behavior was curiously different from what I’d expected. I knew I’d rocked his world as much as he’d rocked mine. Sex that good should have a mellowing effect. Mixed with a little sleep, and it seemed to ignite Neal’s aggressions.
“I heard you,” he said. “You want to be my Mistress and Master—full-time. I can’t do that.”
Drew shifted in his seat. “We said we wanted to date you, make this a relationship instead of a fling. We didn’t say we wanted complete control.” He glanced at me. “Maybe in the bedroom, but that’s kind of what you find attractive about us.”
Neal didn’t react to Drew’s easygoing charm. He scowled. “I work for you. When we started this—not even a week ago—you said that we would keep this separate from work.”
“And I meant it.” Drew seemed to take Neal’s hostile tone in stride.
Inside my chest, my heart and stomach were doing floppy, twisty things that hurt. The small, round table had two chairs. I dragged another over from the desk. Over the years, I had become adept at controlling my tells. When I was nervous or anxious, I’d perfected the art of radiating calm.
This time was different. I played with the hem of my shirt, picking at the fold in the smooth fabric. I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind that something wasn’t right.
“Relationships bleed over into the work environment. Feelings weren’t supposed to be involved.” Neal didn’t share my problem with anxiety. His fists were on display, sitting on the top of the table. “This wasn’t supposed to get messy.”
“But feelings are involved,” Drew said. “That’s not a bad kind of mess.”
“We care about you,” I added. Neal turned his icy glare on me, and that gave me the courage to continue. I hated being challenged. “When we first chose to do this, I think we all based that decision on attraction. As we’ve come to know you better, we both feel more connected to you than we have with anybody else except for each other.”
Drew cleared his throat. “We’re not asking you to give up anything you haven’t already given up. Control in the bedroom, mostly. Neither Sophia nor I are interested in a 24/7 lifestyle.”
I reached across the table and rested my hand over his fist. It didn’t relax as I had intended, but he didn’t shake me away, and I found comfort in that. “Neal, everything is open for negotiation. We’re not asking for the keys to your life, just whether you want to have dinner with us.”
He blinked and curled his lip derisively. “A date. You’re serious?”
“Yeah,” Drew said. “A date. Look, Sophie and I aren’t looking to rush into anything. We recognize that what we’re doing is unconventional, but we feel too strongly about you to just let you go, and we respect you too much to pretend we don’t both have feelings for you.”
I wasn’t sure if Drew’s assurance took some of the steam out of Neal’s sails, or if he�
��d even heard what Drew had said. He removed his hand from underneath mine, his temper tightly contained, roiling just beneath the surface. Something more was going on than this.
He clenched his teeth. “I want time to think about it.”
I nodded. “Of course. Take all the time you need.”
Chapter Fifteen
Neal
To say I was stunned would be a severe understatement. I liked Sophia and Drew because I’d thought they had ethics. Priorities. That included preserving their marriage. Having an occasional or ongoing fling with me was one thing. For them, inviting a third person into their bedroom was like dining out. They did it once in a while for fun, but the real food events happened at home, between the two of them. I mean—holy fuck—I had just heard them reaffirming their love for one another.
Anger surged through me for a variety of reasons, none of which I wanted to discuss right then. The suite where we were staying had two bedrooms. One was small and the other was massive. I stood. “I’m going to sleep in the spare bedroom.”
Sophia rose to her feet, facing me like an avenging angel. Her sable hair was a mess, the fullness—a sign of a well-loved woman—had been beaten down with finger tracks. Somehow she managed to remain beautiful. If anything, the dishabille accentuated her striking loveliness.
Her dark eyes flashed, pummeling me with a boatload of feeling. I was taken aback by her emotionality. Master Geordie almost never displayed emotion. He had moods—happiness, playfulness, discontent, anger—but that wasn’t the same as showing he had feelings.
“Sit down, Neal. This is a conversation, not a negotiation and not a role-reversal. You can’t just throw down a couple of angry statements and leave. You haven’t heard a word we’ve said. You’re mad about something, and you’re using this to push us away.”
Months of being on the street and almost a year of selling myself taught me to never back down. Placing my hands on the table, I leaned toward her, intimidating her with my stance. She might be the Domme, but I was bigger and physically stronger. Though I kept him in my periphery, I didn’t worry about Drew. If it came to it, I could take him.
“Can’t I?”
“No. We haven’t actually had a conversation yet.”
Drew settled back in his chair, relaxed and unconcerned.
“We’ve talked enough.” I tried to leave, but Sophia blocked my path. Damn, but she could move fast.
“Neal, I understand that you’re upset, but you can’t run away in the middle of things. Nothing’s been settled.”
In my mind, enough had been settled. I had let them both know that they would never be in a position to control my life. I’d made that mistake once, and I wasn’t going to make it again. Rich people had a way of treating the poor like we were property. I might like to feel owned in the bedroom, but even that was limited. I had initially ignored my attraction to these two precisely because I didn’t want to put myself in a weak position.
I clamped my jaw together, grinding the words between my teeth as I spat them at her. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s been settled. I said I’d think about it.”
“And I want to know why you’re angry.”
I put my hands on her arms, intending to set her aside so that I could pass.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Drew didn’t make a move. If anything, he sounded bored.
“Neal, let’s put aside the proposition we just made and talk about what’s really wrong.”
My life was none of her business. I gave her a gentle shove, but she didn’t move. Most people automatically moved their feet to counter the momentum of the top half of their body. Sophia did not. She brought her arms up and chopped them down sharply on my forearms, breaking my grip.
Now her jaw was set hard, matching mine. “If you get physical with me, I’ll get physical right back.”
“She means it,” Drew said. He looked a little more concerned, but he still didn’t make a move to come save his wife from the pissed-off sub.
Losing my patience wasn’t something I did very often, but when my temper got the better of me, I usually did something I later regretted. Like now. I shoved Sophia out of the way. I didn’t use enough force to knock her down, not if she kept her feet under her.
I can’t recall exactly what happened next, only that I felt weightless, and then I was facedown on the floor. Sophia’s knee pressed into my spine, and I vaguely remembered Drew saying something about Sophia teaching martial arts classes. I hadn’t fought her yesterday morning, so I’d chalked her success up to having taken a few self-defense classes.
“I practice with my brother,” she said. “He doesn’t go easy on me because I’m a girl. Do you have more moves than that? Because I certainly do.”
As the surprise of what she’d done wore off, my anger returned. “Get off me.”
“I will, but you have to promise you’ll stay and talk.”
“I have nothing to say.” That was the truth. The first thing manipulative people did was to get close to their victim, weasel through their defenses.
“I have questions, and I want answers.”
“Fine,” I grunted. My return ticket was still hidden in my luggage. I had checked it before coming out here to see what they were up to. Having an escape at my fingertips made a difference.
She eased away, and Drew helped me to my feet. His icy blue eyes penetrated the haze surrounding me, and I realized that I’d mistaken his calm demeanor for complacency. He was pissed, but he’d trusted Sophia to take care of the situation. I couldn’t imagine trusting somebody that much.
“While I know Sophia is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, seeing somebody put his hands on her makes me very angry. Never put your hands on her again.” He shoved at my shoulders, pushing me back down into the chair I’d recently vacated. “That’s twice that she’s had to subdue you. It’s in your best interest to talk with us about what the hell is going on with you.”
Sophia sat on one side of me, scooting her chair closer, but not close enough to make me feel closed in. Drew remained in his position on my other side.
She folded her hands on the table in front of her. “Neal, did you really have subdrop this morning, or is something else going on?”
Subdrop messed with my head, but so had Master Geordie. I wasn’t sure which parts were due to coming off that natural high and which parts were due to my life experiences. It wasn’t so easy to separate those things in my head. I pressed my lips together as I thought, but it didn’t help me arrive at any conclusions. “I don’t know.”
The stare she leveled at me never wavered. She was going to wait until I threw her something she felt she could work with.
Exasperation drove me to comply. “It was a little bit of subdrop. I sometimes get a headache later, or I get restless.”
“Or irrational?” Drew scowled at me. Of the pair, he had less patience with the conversation, and he wasn’t bothering to hide it.
Well I had news for him. Out of the three of us, I had the least patience for this conversation. I shrugged off his question. “You want an apology?”
“No,” Sophia said, though a glance at Drew showed that he probably did want one. “I want the truth. Why are you so angry? Nothing has changed. If you hadn’t overheard Drew and me talking, then you wouldn’t know anything about the fact that we want a deeper relationship with you. We had no plans to spring it on you, and we definitely don’t want to move faster than all three of us are comfortable moving.”
She’d thrown me the meat, now all I had to do was make a sandwich. “It’s just that you’re married. You have this long-standing relationship, a past, a history, you’re planning to spend the rest of your lives together. There’s no room for a third party, and I don’t want to be some afterthought or long-term sex toy or worse.”
Shit. I’d said more than I had intended.
Sophia winced. She looked a little like I had pushed her. Drew’s frown spoke volumes. I just didn’t know what it said.
I felt a gentle touch on my wrist, and I looked down to see Sophia’s fingers resting there. Not grasping or holding, just resting, offering strength and reassurance.
“Thinking you’re a threat to our marriage, which you aren’t, isn’t your real problem. It’s nice that you’re concerned, but there’s something else going on, Neal. You’re angry for another reason.”
I liked the way she said my name. The word rolled from her tongue, a caress and a warning wrapped in a dulcet package. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Coming on this trip was a mistake. I wanted to work for Drew and learn his style of cooking. I wanted to submit to you and Drew. I wanted to have scenes and go home afterward to the solitude of my own home. I don’t want an emotional entanglement. When I’ve learned what I can and I leave here, I want to leave with fond memories and no regrets.”
“No emotional entanglements,” Drew said, echoing my statement. “That’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. Emotional entanglements are what makes life worth living. It’s the salt and pepper, ginger and cinnamon. It’s flavor and color, texture and sound. Without it, you have nothing.”
His eyes met Sophia’s, and they shared a moment of silent connection. The air was heavy with the weight of what was passing between them.
I understood his sentiment, but I didn’t share it. “I prefer my life on an even keel, the appropriate ingredients measured out and the spices used sparingly.” I was sleeping with a married couple. He couldn’t argue that I’d left out the seasoning completely.
The storm in his eyes grew fervent. “You leave no room for surprise or discovery.”