Repercussions (Siren Publishing Menage Amour)

by Rainey Daye

  Maggie collapsed from the force of her orgasm and then rolled off him, breathing heavily. She heard frantic movement but didn’t have the energy to open her eyes. But when her legs were nudged apart, she looked up to see Alex settling himself within the curve of her body, naked now as his engorged penis prodded her. She sighed in bliss and let her legs fall open, reaching up to encase Alex in her arms, welcoming the fullness inside her as he seated himself deeply. And then they were kissing and straining together, their hands eagerly stroking and petting until they attained that perfect moment of bliss.

  As she collapsed on top of him and felt him kiss her neck, Maggie gasped, “You distracted me from something, didn’t you?”

  She felt Alex’s lips curve in a grin as he whispered, “Yep.”

  And not having the energy to protest, Maggie snuggled against his chest and allowed herself to drift, enjoying the feel of his hands gently stroking her body and admitting to herself that she had thoroughly enjoyed being distracted.

  * * * *

  While Maggie slept the sleep of the thoroughly loved, the two men downloaded to disk the pictures Jess had snapped earlier that night and erased them from the memory card. They then sat before the computer, slowly perusing them.

  “We are definitely buying a video camera for Christmas,” Alex said, and Jess nodded his wholehearted agreement.

  Chapter 19

  When not attending class or studying for finals, Maggie, Jesse, and Alex discussed their game plan concerning dinner with Troy. He would be leaving in a few short days to spend the holidays back home, and with any luck, he would not be returning until the birth of his child, which should be after graduation. They were all agreed that they did not want to meet this Maria or get further involved than they were. If things went the way that Troy had outlined to the guys, he would be taking the baby back to his parents and would likely spend the summer months bonding with his offspring if he wasn’t playing ball. Their agenda was to reinforce Troy’s plans to him to assure that he removed himself from their lives.

  Maggie worried that without any of them to nudge him, he might gloss over the impending birth with his parents. After all, this was a life-altering decision that Troy was making. It might be better to allow the baby to be put up for adoption, thus severing all ties between Troy and Maria so that he wouldn’t have a reason to return to their city in the future. But that was not their decision to make, and Maggie pointed out that it was extremely selfish of them to push Troy toward something because it was convenient for them, while totally disregarding Troy’s feelings about the matter.

  “Did he want to have kids?” Jesse found himself asking.

  “He had always planned on having kids someday,” Maggie said.

  “With you?” Jess had to know.

  “We never talked about it as it pertained to us as a couple,” Maggie said with a soft smile at him as she tried to soothe his ruffled feathers. “We just had general talks about how we wanted our futures to unfold, what we wanted in the future, you know?”

  “Let me guess,” Alex said flatly. “Troy wanted to be a big-shot baseball star with a wife and 2.3 kids.”

  Maggie laughed. “Actually, he said he wanted enough kids to form his own team, so nine.”

  “Whoa, that’s a lot of kids,” Jesse said. “What did you think?”

  “I thought he was nuts,” Maggie replied. “No way I’d want that many. That’s a hell of a lot of responsibility. And the thought of going through labor nine times was enough to make me think about padlocking my legs closed.”

  The guys both laughed appreciatively and neglected to point out that adoption would solve part of the problem.

  “So what did you foresee for your future?” Alex found himself asking and then mentally kicked himself since a future with him and Jess most definitely did not fall within her worldview.

  “Well, I thought I’d get married eventually but not until I had an established career,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “And call me bland and uninteresting, but I always thought a boy and a girl would be perfect. And I guess I’m old fashioned enough that I want a boy first, so that he would take care of his little sister and she would grow up hero worshipping him,” Maggie added with a self-deprecatory laugh. “Silly, huh?” she asked.

  “Not silly at all,” Alex said. “Jess and I always said the same thing.”

  “Really? I mean, thinking about having kids and all? Never mind, you don’t have to answer that,” she quickly said, embarrassed.

  “Look,” Alex said. “We’re bi, not gay. We both assumed that someday we would actually fall madly in love with some woman, and when that day came we would end our sexual relationship together.”

  “Really?” she breathed again.

  “Really. Don’t think a wife would look too kindly on us cheating on her, and with another man, no less. Might wig her out a bit, you know,” he said with a grin, and Maggie found herself responding likewise.

  “So we figured we had an expiration date and that we would go from lovers back to just being best friends once one of us fell in love.”

  “And you think that could still happen?” Maggie had to know.

  “Well, we did fall in love with you,” Jess pointed out.

  “But I accepted you. Both of you as you are. I haven’t asked you to give each other up.”

  “That’s true,” Jess said, and Maggie frowned, confused.

  “I think we’re getting off subject,” Alex said, steering the conversation away from a relationship talk that he personally felt it was too early to embark upon, and both of his lovers allowed him to take over the helm of their discussion with much relief.

  They all adamantly agreed that the one thing they would not allow Troy to try to discuss was the pictures he had downloaded. That subject was taboo. Not only because it was frankly none of Troy’s business but because they feared that someone would slip up and say something that would arouse Troy’s suspicions. And they wanted him to leave, not find more reasons to stick around keeping an eye on the three of them. So they had to come up with a plan to keep him from trying to discuss them. They would also warn him in private that Maggie was still extremely embarrassed about Troy having seen those pictures and that he should not make mention of them for her sake.

  They also agreed that they would keep any discussions centered on Troy while he was there so that Troy’s attention would be directed inward. They briefly debated as to whether they should allow Troy into their home or if they should call him and tell him to meet them at some restaurant instead. But in the end, they decided that Troy would be more communicative in a private setting, so their house it was.

  It was also determined that they would not let Troy out of their sight. If he got up to go to the bathroom, then they would keep an eye on the bathroom door to make sure that Troy did not wander alone throughout their house. Just in case. No house tour would be offered, either. Just the dining room for dinner and the living room. Troy was not to be given access to any other room. They were entertaining the enemy, after all, and bad things could happen if the enemy managed to infiltrate their camp. So they would remain on high alert while he was under their roof, and they reminded Maggie of that constantly, afraid that she would suddenly become a bleeding-heart liberal where Troy was concerned if they weren’t on guard.

  They also decided that the guys should give Troy their cell numbers and their e-mail address, to further the illusion that they were all friends here. Maggie warned them that Troy might abuse this so-called friendship, but both Alex and Jess were willing to take the risk if it meant that Troy was willing to leave Maggie in their capable hands instead of watching over her himself.

  So, just as they had worked out all the angles when it came to their dating each other, the three of them hunkered down and tried to work out all the possible angles of this upcoming dinner. And when Maggie started to stress out, the men took it upon themselves to relax her in the most pleasurable ways possible. Thus Maggie was treated to severa
l massages, a long hot soak in a shared tub, a midnight trip out to the hot tub by the pool, and lots of cuddling, which invariably included a lot of intimate touching and stroking. Maggie tried to complain that they were expending all their energy toward making her feel good and not enough anticipating the different directions this dinner could take, but as she was always silenced with kisses, which always led to other pleasurable activities, Maggie finally gave up and allowed the men to distract her to their hearts’ content. After all, they were really quite adept at it.

  * * * *

  By the time Saturday rolled around, Maggie was quite pissed at Troy. Jesse and Alex had kept reminding her that he had seen and held onto those pictures for months. He could have done the honorable thing and destroyed them immediately, but instead he had printed them off. Every single one of them! And they hinted incessantly that he must have regularly viewed them. And so the first thing Maggie did when Troy walked through their door was to slap him soundly across the cheek.

  Troy stood in the foyer, utterly flummoxed as he watched Maggie stalk away. Jess and Alex had winced in sympathetic pain and then gave him tight-lipped looks as they shrugged their shoulders to indicate their shared understanding that the female of the species was a true mystery, while secretly wondering if it had been such a good idea after all to encourage her antagonism toward him.

  Jess stepped into the breach. “Here, let me take your coat, man. Would you like a beer?”

  Troy shrugged out of his coat and declined the offer. “Think it’s best if I keep a straight head tonight around Maggie. What was all that about, anyway? Is she upset about the baby?”

  Alex and Jess exchanged disgusted looks that Troy would view her behavior selfishly.

  “Well,” Alex said slowly, “I think she’s more embarrassed than upset.”

  “Embarrassed? Why is she embarrassed?”

  “Why am I embarrassed?” Maggie practically shrieked as she came back into the foyer. “Are you serious? You saw some very private photos of me and then turned them over to my roommates! Of course I’m embarrassed.”

  “Maggie,” Alex said soothingly. “I already told you that I only saw the one picture that Troy showed me. I had no desire to look at the others. And I handed them over to you immediately. Jess never even saw one of them. There is nothing to be embarrassed about. We’ve all done stupid shit.”

  “Oh! Now you’re accusing me of being stupid?” Maggie cried, shooting him a fulminating look.

  “No,” Alex said patiently, drawing a deep breath. “I said we’ve all done stupid shit. Haven’t we, Troy?” he asked pointedly.

  “Uh, yeah. Really stupid shit,” he replied lamely.

  “You mean like spying on me?” Maggie asked, too sweetly.

  Troy looked highly uncomfortable. “Uh, well, it was like this, Magpie,” he began.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Maggie interrupted him. “There is no excuse for what you did, Troy. None at all. You had no right to come here and spy on me!”

  “I wasn’t spying, Magpie. Not really.”

  Maggie glared at him in disbelief. “Then what do you call watching my house? Following me around on campus? Even sitting in on my classes?”

  Troy looked helplessly at Alex. “Didn’t you explain it to her?” he asked desperately.

  Alex shrugged again. “I tried to explain your reasoning, but truthfully, dude, I didn’t quite follow it myself, so I probably wasn’t very clear.”

  “I think that’s why she had us invite you to dinner,” Jess whispered in an aside, “so you could clear things up for her.”

  “I was trying to help you, Magpie,” Troy exclaimed, radiating sincerity.

  “Stop. Just stop already,” Maggie cried. “You no longer have the right to call me that stupid nickname you gave me. If I hear it one more time, I’m going to bash your teeth in.”

  Troy rocked back on his heels in shock at her vehemence. Alex and Jess took wary steps to the side, conceding silently that maybe they had gone overboard in fanning the flames of her anger prior to this get-together.

  “Uh, maybe we should go sit down,” Jess suggested cautiously.

  Maggie scowled at Troy for a long time before she stalked back out of the foyer. Jess took Troy’s arm and steered him in the opposite direction and into the living room while he shot Alex a concerned look over his shoulder. Alex nodded his understanding and followed in Maggie’s wake.

  “Maggie,” he said hesitantly as he entered the kitchen to find her viciously stirring the vegetables simmering on the stove. “Do you want me to tell him to leave?”

  Maggie, who had stiffened when she heard him enter, allowed her shoulders to sag in defeat. “No, he has to stay.” She sighed. “I just wasn’t anticipating feeling this way.”

  “What way?” he asked gently, coming to stand behind her.

  “Violated,” Maggie whispered.

  Alex nuzzled the top of her head with his chin while he hugged her from behind. “I know, baby, I know. It’s even worse when it’s a friend.”

  Maggie turned around in his arms and cried into his broad chest. “I hate this, Alex,” she sobbed. “I really, really hate this. You think you know someone. Grew up with them. Maybe even loved them. And then they do something like this, and it makes you wonder if you ever really know anybody at all.”

  She pulled back and wiped her tears with the backs of her hands. “Seriously. If someone would have told me a year ago that Troy would wind up stalking me, I would have accused them of smoking crack or something. After all, all-American Troy, do something so insane? It’s ridiculous.”

  “But he has done it,” Alex pointed out tentatively.

  “I know. It makes you wonder about the secrets hidden in the hearts of those around you,” Maggie confessed. “Makes you doubt everything and everyone.”

  Sudden enlightenment engulfed Alex. This wasn’t about Troy, per se. It was about Troy’s actions making her question her own judgment, her own acuity about reading people. If she could be so wrong about a man she had practically grown up with and had cared deeply about, then who was to say that she wasn’t also wrong about her current unconventional relationship?

  Alex tried to forestall the coldness that started to ice his veins by gently placing his fingers under her chin and tilting her face up to him. He searched her eyes intently and accurately read the fear and doubt there. Sighing, he pressed his lips to hers in the lightest of touches and said, “I don’t know what Troy said to you in the past while you were still together, and I don’t want to know. But I do want you to know this.” He caught and maintained eye contact with her before he spoke softly and sincerely so she would not doubt the veracity of his words. “I love you, Maggie. I am deeply and irrevocably in love with you. It’s okay that you don’t feel the same way, so wipe that look of guilt off your face. I just want you to know that the type of love I feel for you goes bone deep. Soul deep. It’s unconditional. I will always support you, and I would never do anything to hurt you, now or in the future. I know that you think our relationship has an expiration date, and though I’m not okay with that, I do understand it. Thus you can rest assured that I would never turn into a Troy.”

  Maggie simply stared at him, flabbergasted at his admission. And then she felt the faint stirrings of panic. Her eyes started to dart wildly around the room, and she looked like she was ready to bolt, so Alex gently yet firmly gripped her upper arms, giving her a little shake.

  “But how can you be sure? Troy claimed to love me, too,” Maggie whispered.

  “Did he?” Alex murmured. “Did he say ‘I’m in love with you and want to spend the rest of my life with you’? Or did he say ‘I love you’?”

  Maggie frowned. “What’s the difference? I hear a difference in your tone of voice, but I just don’t get it.”

  Alex sighed. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said with a tender smile and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “It’s something we can discuss later. But for now, know that Jesse and I have your back.
You lay into Troy all you want, if that’s what you need to do. He deserves it. He needs to understand that he violated your trust, at least. That what he did was wrong and that he didn’t even have a very good reason for doing it. And once that point gets hammered home then maybe he will finally wake up and take a good hard look at the mess he has caused and made of his own life.”

  “He wants me back,” Maggie whispered. “I saw it in his eyes. Even though he knocked someone up and is planning on keeping the baby, he still envisions a future with me in it. He still hasn’t embraced reality.”

  Alex hugged her then, offering her comfort and protection, wanting to banish the horrified, hunted look in her eyes. “I know, baby, I know. But you belong to us now. With us. We are yours, and you are ours. And we won’t let him get you, even if we have to pound reality into his head with a brick, I promise.”

  Maggie snorted. “I was serious about bashing his teeth in. I can take care of myself, you know,” she pointed out.

  Alex chuckled. “I know. But you are afraid that he’s in denial. That’s what I meant. That we will help you make him see reason. Convince him once and for all that he has no hope of a future with you.”

  Maggie opened her mouth to argue, but Alex shushed her by covering it with his own, his tongue tangling with hers as he swallowed all her arguments. When he pulled back, he looked tenderly down upon her and said, “Just keep your mad going and get rid of your fear. Can you do that?”

  Maggie nodded hesitantly, and Alex dropped a kiss on her nose before he chucked her under her chin. “Let’s get back in there, then. Makes me nervous leaving Jess alone with him too long. No telling how wound up Jess is getting.”