Control (Xcite Erotic Romance Novels)

by Stein, Charlotte

  While the safeword goes completely untouched.

  ‘Pass me the lube, Gabe,’ I say, and he does so gingerly. It’s still on the bed, and almost underneath Andy’s body, so when he leans forward to grab it his cock gets very close to brushing a whole bunch of stuff.

  I don’t think he can take the slightest pressure on it. Especially not any pressure that involves Andy’s skin.

  But once he’s passed me the small tube, he does lay a sudden and inexplicable hand on Andy’s curved back. Tells him: feels good, doesn’t it? It’s somehow the sweetest gesture, and Andy doesn’t say a word in reply.

  But he does come very close to pressing back against my slick finger, when I slide it back between the cheeks of his arse. And Gabe glances up at me, those sharp little lower teeth bared, and says in this wondering voice:

  ‘He’s really hard. Really hard.’

  ‘How many do you think I should fuck him with? One?’

  I can’t tell you how thrilled Gabe looks, to be consulted.

  ‘No – no. Two. Use two.’

  ‘Is that what you want me to do to you, baby? Do you want me to fuck your sweet arse like this?’

  I circle Andy’s fluttering hole, and hear his breathing roughen.

  ‘No,’ Gabe says.

  Strangely, it’s his denial that makes me pause. And almost giggle, when Andy clearly backs into me for a little more of that stroking action. I don’t blame him – no matter what I said about girls and nerve-endings and what the fuck, having your arsehole circled with a slippery mess of lube is just … glorious.

  ‘No – I want you to … I want you to bend me over and fuck me with something. I want you to really fuck me – I do. Like in Boss Lady – like in that.’

  He doesn’t even look mortified about saying it, either. It comes out all in a rush, but only because he’s semi-touching himself as he says it.

  I hardly notice Andy’s arse giving, to let one of my fingers slide smooth and slow, inside. I’m too busy growing jelly-legged and so swollen and slippery between my legs, it’s painful. I fuck in and out of Andy almost absent-mindedly, because I’m too busy thinking of Gabe’s lithe body spread out beneath mine.

  I’m too busy watching him rub and then tighten his hand around his cock. Rub and then tighten, rub and then tighten. His thighs are trembling.

  ‘He feels so silky – I didn’t even think,’ I tell Gabe, and both men give these little shocked cries of pleasure.

  ‘What else?’ Gabe asks, and I thrust in deeper, harder.

  ‘I can feel his arse clenching around my finger, and if I twist just a little, like this –’ I do so. ‘ –you can see him reacting to it, even when he’s trying not to.’

  Andy shudders – though in all honesty, I don’t think he’s trying not to, any more. He’s rocking back against my slowly thrusting finger, and when I add a second one, he mumbles something that might be so good.

  ‘I didn’t think he’d like it so much,’ Gabe says, with a little frown that comes and then goes as soon as it appeared, but Andy doesn’t even argue with him. He’s too far gone, now, and I’m pretty sure I’m hitting his prostate on every stroke. It’s much more distinct than I would have imagined, in both feel and its effect.

  ‘You know what I think he’d like even more?’ I say, while Andy moans fuck no, no. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d guessed, before I finish what I’m bashing on about. ‘I’d bet he’d love your cock in his arse, Gabe. I bet he’d love that so much, getting filled and fucked with that great big thing of yours. Don’t you think, baby?’

  Andy strains against the leash, snaps his head around and spits out a no, no, you’re not doing that, Maddie, fuck!

  But yet again, he doesn’t say the safeword. I mean, it’s entirely possible that he’s forgotten it. Or maybe I was just too cruel in the choosing of it, and now he’s all emasculated and messed up inside.

  Only he goes right back to moaning, when I stroke and rub my finger over that neat little bump inside him.

  And Gabe is just a shuddering, dissolving mess. I think he knows more than Andy that I’m not serious, but he’s sweating just the same, and when I tell him to lay a hand on Andy’s arse, he obeys me. I tell him to slap down hard while I fuck in and out, and he comes close enough to trail the tip of his cock along Andy’s side.

  ‘Would you like that baby?’ I whisper to him, and he kisses me – long and wet. He only pulls away so that he can slap Andy’s arse again, and this time he really gives no quarter. He brings his hand down so hard it leaves a red print, and Andy calls us both fuckers, absolute fuckers.

  ‘I’d do anything for you,’ Gabe says, and though I think he’s doing it to tease Andy, I think he really would. He honestly would. So I tell him, in reply:

  ‘No, baby. I’d do anything for you. Anything you want, just say the word. Anything.’

  ‘Really?’ he says. ‘Really?’

  ‘I promise – just tell me.’

  He hesitates, and let’s his gaze trail over Andy’s curved and gleaming back. And when he speaks it’s shy, like it was before when he asked for the same thing. But I give it to him – I want to give it to him.

  We go through to the living room and make love on the couch, while from the bedroom Andy calls us every name his extremely inventive brain can think of.

  He’s as mad as hell when we finally get back to him. I won’t lie – I did a lot of it for show. But then again, Gabe makes it extremely easy to cry out oh, it’s never been like this before and do it harder, God, harder, yes – now, now!

  At which, Gabe actually giggled. Like he understood exactly why I was doing it, and found the whole thing hilarious – especially Andy’s angry cursing. And when he came inside me, juddering all over and digging red marks into my hips, he said those words again.

  But it’s OK, this time, it’s OK because I actually said – I do too. I said I do too! I am as giddy as all hell and standing on some sort of precipice when we saunter back into the bedroom, but it’s OK. Because I really don’t think the drop is all that high, from up here.

  ‘Did you enjoy that?’ Andy says, in this sneery sort of voice. But I can hear the frustration underneath it – it’s raw and broken up, and he seems to have come very close to rutting himself against the mattress. And there are weird red lines all over his wrists, as though he’s tried to do some pretty spectacular contortions in order to either a) get free or b) jerk himself off.

  On all counts he’s definitely failed, however, because I can see his stiff prick from here. It looks as angry as he is.

  ‘Aw, what’s the matter, honey? Don’t like waiting for it? You know – Gabe loves waiting for it. You’re just coming up short, I’m afraid.’

  Gabe smiles with the whole of his mouth – though said smile falters just a little bit, when Andy snaps back, ‘I can wait. I’ve waited, haven’t I? I could have done something to fuck myself and didn’t, so fuck you.’

  ‘Language, Andy. Really – you’re upsetting my guy.’

  I was going to go with boyfriend, but really. I’m a grown woman. Wait until he’s my husband, and then we’ll talk about epithets.

  ‘Just – please, OK? I get it, you’re torturing me. It’s awesome, but please – he can fuck my arse, you can stick whatever you like up there, just get me off. All right? Please.’

  I step towards him, and run a hand over one still hand-printed arse cheek. He actually whimpers, in response.

  ‘You beg so prettily, Andy, really. Almost as prettily as Gabe.’

  ‘I can be as pretty as you fucking want. I’ll dress up in girl’s clothes and a wig, if that’s your thing. Please, Maddie.’

  I glance at Gabe, who oddly still looks … what? Concerned? I have the urge to reassure him, but seeing to Andy’s wellbeing would kind of shatter the whole illusion. I mean – he knows that it’s an illusion, right? Andy can say the word any time he likes, and do himself until the top of his head comes off. He can fuck me through a wall – if it’s OK with Gabe.
>
  But then, maybe that’s it. Gabe knows that things are different, now. He knows that I don’t want Andy to fuck me through a wall – that I want him, and him only.

  ‘What do you think I should do to him?’ I ask Gabe, but he doesn’t answer. He just watches, as I lean over Andy and wrap my hand tight around his straining cock. Andy pants yes, yes, oh Maddie I love you you crazy bitch, but again Gabe doesn’t say anything when I ask him if I should show Andy mercy.

  However, I do so anyway. I give one rough little tug, and that’s all it takes. He comes, copiously, all over my sheets – just like Gabe did.

  Chapter Seventeen

  WHEN I WAKE UP, both boys are gone. I let Andy stay over – as shaken up and handsy as he was – but I told Gabe that it was going to be the last time. And found it kind of disturbing, how non-excited Gabe seemed at that idea.

  It has occurred to me that perhaps Gabe truly does enjoy the whole ménage dynamic, and didn’t want it to end. And yet when I come to in an empty bed, I feel somewhat uneasy about the whole thing. His troubled expressions play on a loop in my head, and as I tug on a robe and try to convince myself that he’ll just be out there, eating breakfast, I keep going over possible explanations.

  Like maybe he’s realised he’s actually gay. Or possibly he can’t function outside of weird humiliation games. Or some other daft thing that’s thrown him, that I can’t possibly even imagine.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said I do, too. It just sounds stupid, now, in my head. And even more so when there’s just Andy out there, sitting on my couch, eating cereal.

  At least he’s wearing pants, I suppose.

  ‘Christ – you slept like the dead,’ is the first thing he says, and for some reason that sounds even more ominous than all the irrational thoughts that are currently flooding my brain. I resist the urge to ask him where Gabe is.

  I mean, it’s a Sunday – but Gabe could still be downstairs. Or in the shower I don’t hear.

  ‘I thought you’d be gone,’ I say, though it doesn’t come out as dismissive as I intend. I appreciate Andy a whole lot more for the hug he gave me last night, and the little that was awesome. I think I appreciate any guy who’s willing to bend in many different ways.

  ‘Why would I be gone, now that I’ve got you all to myself?’

  To his credit, he doesn’t look happy about this fact. He looks more disturbed, than anything else. But that’s OK, because I think that means we now have matching expressions.

  ‘I was going to come and wake you, but he seemed pretty stressed out. Thought I should just let him go and then, you know. You can be the hero, running after the damsel in distress.’

  I knew something was wrong, I knew it. I think I actually stamp my foot at him.

  ‘Don’t call him a damsel, you shit!’

  Andy’s immediate contriteness is not a comfort. I want him to be an arsehole again, so that I can fucking punish him.

  ‘What did you say to him? No – don’t stand up. Don’t. What did you say to him, tell me now.’

  The level of discomfort on Andy’s face is also unwelcome. It doesn’t bode well, for all the rational, calming thoughts I’m trying to have, such as – he’ll just be a bit freaked out, like in the shower. He’ll have gone back to his apartment, and locked himself in some flagellation closet he’s got in there, somewhere, and I can just talk him down again.

  As soon as I find out what exactly has been said, and what crazy ideas Gabe has jammed into that brain of his. Because God, I know that’s what he’s done. All the little things he’s been saying and saying – they’re trying to eat my brain, currently.

  ‘Look – I’ve got no idea what that guy’s going on about, most of the time! I didn’t mean to upset him, or anything, for Christ’s sake!’

  Lord. Lord. Lord. Just don’t put your face in your hands, Madison, don’t put your face in your hands – because God knows you’ll never get it back out again.

  ‘I told him I had fun, he went all tense. That was it!’

  ‘You must have said something else, Andy – Jesus, all your pansy talk, I mean, what the fuck is wrong with you?’

  Andy throws up his hands.

  ‘Come on, Maddie – you know I never meant it to fuck with him this much. But I swear – I never said anything like that to him. I said you were really fond of him, for fuck’s sake!’

  I think my shoulders sag through the ground. Of course, I genuinely feel he meant well. I do. But fond? Like the way I feel about my elderly grandmother?

  ‘You seriously said that?’

  ‘I said you liked him more than me, too! But he didn’t seem to believe that. He didn’t believe it before, when we were talking, in the kitchen.’

  It takes every effort in my body not to hurl myself at Andy and claw the answers out of him. Stopping myself requires thinking intensively about Gabe being there, in his apartment, just waiting for me to calm him down. That’s what’s going to happen. Everything is fine.

  ‘What. Exactly. Did you talk about. In the kitchen.’

  Despite my best efforts, my voice comes out like a maniac’s. And I think Andy believes so too, judging by his terror-filled expression.

  ‘He said you liked me more, and he could prove it.’

  Oh no. Oh no.

  ‘That I could do things his way, but he couldn’t do things my way.’

  Oh my God, I’m too stupid to live. Why didn’t I just ask Gabe what they’d talked about? Though even as I’m thinking it, I’m guessing Gabe would have lied. He’s set me up in some sort of … I don’t even know. Some bizarre neurotic trap.

  But I told him I loved him! I did!

  Only no wait I didn’t. I said something stupid and cop out like I do too, and in the face of glaring me-loving-Andy evidence, that probably sounded like cracking icing sugar. Like something made of nothing.

  ‘And then we talked this morning and he said that I’d be better for you. That girls like guys more like me, you know – and I swear to God, Maddie, I tried to tell him. I mean, Jeez, even I can see you’re mad about him. It pisses me off, but hey – you win some, you lose some. I’m man enough to admit when I’ve lost.’

  I don’t know why, but I break down crying when he says that last bit. Whatever anger I was storing up towards him gushes away and out of me, and then I’m just a mess. A mess that blubbers out I love Gabe, when I’ve never even properly said the words to him.

  ‘Oh. Oh,’ Andy says. ‘I’m sorry about all this, then, babe. Really am. I thought he kind of knew that he’d won, last night – swear to God. When you were out here fucking his brains out I wanted to deck him one.’

  Is he trying to say stuff that makes me cry harder?

  ‘But this morning he was all … I dunno. And I told him he should let you make your own choices, but I think he felt you’d made it, you know?’

  I don’t even flinch, when Andy gets up and steers me towards a chair. I even let him make me a cup of coffee, though I don’t drink it. People who’ve made total messes of things don’t deserve coffee.

  ‘You all right now?’ he asks, but I can’t answer that. Instead I just ask him if Gabe went back to his apartment – at which Andy doesn’t look as positive as I could have hoped. In fact, he looks downright grim.

  ‘Uh, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Please don’t tell me he’s flown to Brazil. I’m not an exotic billionaire – I can’t chase my pregnant mistress half way around the world.’

  Andy laughs. Makes me wonder if he’s been reading some of my stock, lately.

  ‘No, no! I don’t think he’s taken the first flight out of here, or anything. He just said …’ Andy makes a sound best described as an awkward eh. ‘… that he was going away for a couple of days. And he kind of … handed his notice in.’

  ‘Save the best for last, huh, Andy?’

  At least he looks like he’s swallowed something bitter, when he passes me a little white envelope – one of the ones I use, for the shop. I’d say how dramatic, but
really it just seems woeful and sad. I’m probably going to start crying, again.

  Of course I don’t open it expecting a fond farewell and some love hearts on the bottom. But even so it turns my stomach to see Dear Ms Morris at the top. He’s even put his address in there, and my address, and a yours sincerely at the bottom.

  God, he’s such a fool.

  ‘Does it say where he’s decided to flit off to?’ Andy asks, and I just shake my head. I’m crying again, even though I know he’ll have to come back to his apartment at some point. He will, won’t he? And then I can just camp out on his doorstep and shake him until he knows he’s an idiot and say in a big outside voice, I love you, Gabe, I love you.

  Even though I know it’s never that easy, in romance novels.

  The first place I go is to his apartment. Of course it is. Though when I get there, I wish I hadn’t. When my guy follows his own insane reasoning, he follows it all the way and one hundred per cent. I’m starting to suspect that romance novels have poisoned his brain, because he’s only gone and given up his apartment.

  An old lady even comes out and tells me, when she gets tired of me banging on the door and trying to peer through the peephole. He’s gone, she tells me – moved out yesterday. As though I’m actually trapped in some awful horror movie in which Gabe never existed and he was really the ghost of a nineteenth-century priest trapped on earth by his need for sex.

  I ask the old lady from a horror novel how he could have possibly moved out in, like, hours, but she tells me no. He’s been moving out for the better part of two weeks. Not only that, but his landlord tells me he left no forwarding address.

  And, I have to say, I hate Gabriel Kauffman in that moment. I hate me for not spelling things out for him, but I hate him for not asking, not telling, not being clearer. All the little cryptic hints he gave me – the frowns and the little did she think Andy was your boyfriends and all that bullshit.

  And now disappearing like this!

  Gah, I could just kill him. I’m going to kill him, when I find him. And I know where to start, too, so he needn’t think he can hide from me. Unless he’s hiding from me because he’s started seeing someone else – probably a man – in which he case he can go on hiding for ever.