Checking my phone, I saw that there still no new messages from either of them. Agitated, I began to tap my pen on the desk. Beside me, Emma sighed, then reached over and placed her cool, dry hand over my own, muffling the noise.
When I glanced at her, startled, she winked, then gave my hand a quick squeeze before letting go. Leaning back in her chair, she stretched, and the movement gave me a clear view of her high breasts, pushing against the sweater that was so thin I could see the outline of the lace on her bra.
I didn’t know whether it was because I’d once been conditioned to be aroused at the site of this woman’s breasts, or because I was just a guy and hey, boobs, but when the mounds of flesh jiggled as she sat forward in her chair again, I found myself suddenly grateful for the long desk.
I had a goddamn boner in the middle of civil law. Not cool. Even though I was a guy, and therefore had a hard cock in the morning, during Victoria’s Secret commercials, and various other inopportune moments, I felt vaguely guilty, given that it was my ex-girlfriend’s boobs that had caused said erection.
Watching her from the corner of my eye, I noted the way that she positioned herself in her seat. She was paying attention, but her body language was flirtatious—and if anyone should be an expert on how Emma flirted, it was me.
I wasn’t so vain as to think that she’d come to this school just to try to get me back. But now that she was here I was pretty sure that, despite her protests, she wasn’t entirely averse to the notion. Even though I was far from ready to call it quits with Adele and Dorian, I let the notion play through my brain.
Emma was everything I’d once thought I’d wanted—smart, from a good family, and sexy as hell. My life with her had been completely, blessedly normal.
The vibes she was giving me told me that it could be normal like that again.
“Everything okay?” Emma leaned over to whisper in my ear. A sidelong glance showed me the hint of a self-satisfied smirk that played over her lips. She knew she’d affected me, and it had been her intention.
It pissed me right the hell off, and most of that irritation was directed at myself.
Who cared that my life with Emma had been easier—why was I even thinking about it? I had the life that I wanted, the life that I’d chosen.
The memory of Dorian and Adele and I in that back room at her coffee shop worked through my head, and I felt my skin heat, and this time it had nothing to do with Emma.
No, what we had together—all three of us—wasn’t even a little bit easy. But it was real, and it was fucking hot, and even more, it was ours.
I didn’t fail to notice the way that Emma brushed her arm against mine throughout the remainder of class. I was braced for it when she sinuously rose from her seat after the prof was done, turning to me with a kittenish smile.
“Want to come over and get a head start on our project?” Looking at me with expectant eyes, Emma perched her tight ass on the edge of the desk. “I’ve got beer. And coffee.”
Nothing she was doing or saying was overtly sexual, so I couldn’t really tell her to back off. Honestly, I was tempted.
This girl knew me, and it would be a relief to just set aside my feelings for a night, to focus on something else than my growing feelings for Dorian and my turmoil over Adele.
But if I went home with Emma right now, I could get into a lot of trouble, and I knew it. I was upset, I was tired and confused, and I was really fucking horny. The fact that I knew all too well how good Emma was in bed was like a neon sign pointing my way to sin.
“Mal, come on. It’s just me. What could possibly happen?” Emma’s words said one thing, but the way she widened her eyes and arched her chest said another. I was so damn mad at myself for being tempted.
We did have to get a start on this project, right? Right?
“All right.” I finally said, my heart giving a wild thump as I agreed. I was just agreeing to go work. That was it. But I was flirting with danger and we both knew it.
“I’ve got some of that coffee you always liked.” Emma slid her book-bag over her shoulder, seeming entirely nonchalant about what she’d just said. But it made me freeze in the process of putting on my own backpack.
Emma hated coffee. She never drank it, preferring frou-frou herbal tea blends instead. So the fact that she had not just coffee but the kind I liked, which wasn’t that easy to find...
“Emma, I...” I was going to turn her down. Not like that, because no way was I bringing that up until matters came to a head. But I couldn’t go over there tonight. Not when I was feeling the way I was, all torn up and horny.
Hey, I’m a guy. It factored into things.
In my hand my phone vibrated. I jolted as though a cattle prod had pressed against my skin. From the corner of my eye I caught Emma’s scowl as my fingers clenched and I turned my full attention to my phone, entirely forgetting what I’d been about to say.
Finally, finally, it was Adele.
I’m at yours and Dorian’s apartment. I need you.
“Hot date?” Emma’s voice held more than a hint of some kind of girly aggression that I had no interest in placating. Ignoring the question, I shoved my phone into my back pocket and strapped my bag fully onto my back.
“We’ll have to catch up later.” For a moment, just a split second, Emma’s features twisted, and I was a bit taken aback—the Emma I’d known hadn’t been given to strong emotions.
“What about our project?” She bit the words out, and I felt the urge to run far, far away. She had absolutely no reason to be jealous. We’d broken up months ago, and we’d parted because we’d both agreed that something had been missing between us.
I was with someone else. Two someone’s.
And yet a quick glance at her face told me I wasn’t imagining it—Emma was jealous.
My gut twisted a bit—I’d once loved this girl, or at least I’d thought I had. I didn’t want to hurt her.
But as my phone vibrated again in my hand, the callback from Adele’s text, I knew I’d do a lot worse than hurt an ex’s feelings to make my woman’s world right. As I hurried out of the lecture hall, leaving Emma behind, I knew that, in itself, was a choice.
I chose Adele.
I found her in the bath tub. Steam wafted off the water, giving my redheaded girl a ghostlike appearance as she sat, entirely still, in water fluffed high with boy bubbles—Dorian’s body wash, I realized after a quick sniff of the air.
“Hi.” I knelt down beside the tub, worrying clouding my mind just like the steam fogged the small room.
She was sitting in a tub of water so hot that it scalded my hands, and yet the skin of her shoulders was icy to touch. Her eyes were glassy too, glazed over in a way that had me surreptitiously checking the pulse in her throat.
It was there, faster than normal, but steady and strong.
Gently splashing warm water up onto her back, I pressed a kiss to her temple. She looked at me with those wide eyes, but didn’t say a word.
“Babe?” Beneath my fingertips, she began to shiver, then shake, and then she was crying, great silent heaves that had the water sloshing against the side of the tub.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The words were raw, as if she hadn’t spoken for a very long time, underlain with that raw weeping that tore my heart out.
“Ssh. It’s okay. It’s okay.” Wrapping my arms around her, ignoring the splashes, I tried to settle her down. Tried hugging her tightly, stroking a hand through her hair, and finally just climbing into the tub with her, clothes and all. Turning her so that she straddled me and I could pull her in against my chest, I held her as close as I could while she cried, feeling all kinds of helpless and with a ferocious need to take away her pain.
“I can’t, I can’t.” The sounds muffled against my chest were barely legible, but I caught this at least.
“You can’t what? Baby, what’s going on?” She was scaring the hell out of me. Tangling my fingers in her hair to get her attention, I tugged back gently,
trying to get a look at her face. Her skin was pale, her eyes bloodshot... and when I got a whiff of her breath I realized that they were red from more than just the tears.
“Have you been drinking?” I asked in astonishment. She moaned and buried her face in my chest in response.
Holy shit.
“Adele?” Clasping her shoulders in my hands, I tried to force her back so that I could look her in the eye. She struggled against the movement, and a tidal wave splashed out the side of the tub.
Finally I had her at arms’ length, and gentled my hold. “Baby, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong? You have to tell me.”
I wasn’t upset by the booze that lay heavy on her breath. If she wanted to drink, that was entirely her choice.
But I also knew that not a drop of booze had passed her lips for well over a year. Adele blamed the situation she’d found herself in the night she’d been raped heavily on the fact that she’d been hammered, and after she’d tried to party the shame out of her system, she’d gone one hundred percent sober.
It had to have taken something pretty major to get her to have not just a drink, but to get drunk, as I was now understanding she was.
“I can’t.” Shaking her head wildly, long strands of wet red silk whipping me across the face, she began to shake again. Feeling entirely helpless, I wished like hell that Dorian were here—and since he wasn’t, tried to do what I thought he would.
“Tell me.” I felt a bit like a jackass, infusing my voice with that commanding tone, but when Adele whipped around to look at me and I saw that I had her attention, I schooled my face into stern lines.
“You tell me so that I can share the burden, babe.”
She shook her head wildly, but this close, it was easy to see the dichotomy in her eyes.
She wanted to tell me... but the words were stuck.
What would Dorian do?
“Tell me or I’ll spank you.” Normally saying this would have made me cringe, but right now... right now I meant it. Drawing back, I looked her straight in the eye, and I saw that she knew I meant it.
Still, she shook her head. “I... I can’t.”
I felt like someone had taken over my own body. “You can. You will. You have to.”
A hint of mutiny mixed in with the other emotions on her face. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
Eyes blazing, she glared. “This is my problem. Mine. And I’ll get through it alone. I’m not dragging you or Dorian though this. So you need to go. Go find someone less fucked up.”
My heart stilled for a moment, and then ice cold fury begin to drop through my veins.
“Did you just try to break up with me?” I barely recognized my own voice.
Adele let out a strangled scream and shoved at my chest. “I didn’t try to do anything, you ass. I just did break up with you! Now you have to go!”
“Oh, no.” Wrapping my arms around her waist, I stood, water cascading out of the tub. Adele was shivering as I flung her over my shoulder, so I threw a towel over her, which partially muffled her outraged shriek.
“Malachi Hunter! This is not okay!” Pounding at my back with her fists, kicking and very nearly getting me in the balls, she did everything she could to release herself.
Carrying her into my bedroom, I flopped onto the bed, splaying her over my lap. A fistful of her hair in my hand, I tugged gently until she was forced to look at my face.
“You know what’s not okay? You shutting down and hiding.” I did my best to keep my voice mild, but I was even more furious with her than I’d been the other day. “You think that whatever you’re going to say is going to scare me away? Scare Dorian away? Nothing you say or do ever will.”
“You don’t deserve all of this crap.” Her body was still tense, but she laid her cheek on my thigh. “I bet with your ex you didn’t have all of this crap.”
Even with all this drama with Adele, even though I was so fucking furious with her right this moment—there wasn’t even a single cell in my body that wished I’d gone to Emma’s tonight instead of coming to my woman. I would do anything for this relationship... and that was eye opening for me.
“After you tell me what’s going on, after we work through it together... then, if you want to tell me to take a hike? Fine. I’ll respect that.” It would tear my heart out, but I’d go, if that’s what she truly wanted. Right now, though? I didn’t think she did. “But right now? I don’t accept.”
Craning her neck, Adele looked up at me, incredulous. “What do you mean, you don’t accept?”
I could see her own temper start to rise. The situation was about to careen out of my control, and I wished like hell that Dorian was there.
What would Dorian do?
Before I could even think it through, I smacked her across the ass. Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to get her attention, and when she yelped I felt shock ricochet through me.
Oh my God, what had I just done?
We were still for a moment, nothing but the sound of our harsh breathing, rasping through the air. I’d never struck a woman in my life, though Dorian had playfully swatted Adele on the ass a few times during sex.
This... this was different. This was full of meaning.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Shit, but I’d fucked this up.
I fully expected Adele to shove me away and run. But I should have known by then that my girl always did the unexpected.
“Did you like doing that, Mal?” She buried her face against my thigh. The answer that rose to my lips was instantaneous, though I had to work to actually spit it out.
“I did.” It wasn’t something I’d ever thought I would enjoy, but she’d been pushing me away, and that light smack had brought her attention right back to me. She looked so incredibly hot, wet and naked and splayed out across my lap.
Oh yeah. I’d liked it.
“Do it again.” Her voice was raw, muffled partially by my leg. “Just... take me someplace. Like you and D would together. Someplace hard.”
She didn’t have to say the rest... she wanted to be pushed past her limits, so that in contrast telling me seemed easier.
“All right.” Again, my words seemed less like my own and more like Dorian’s—like in his absence I had to be part of him, because our relationship didn’t work with just two. “But... I’ve never done this baby. You know that. So... just say no when you want me to stop. I’ll stop.”
“Yes.” Letting the damp scarlet tangles of her hair fall over her face, Adele nuzzled her cheek against my leg and raised her ass in the air. The pale skin was still slightly flushed from her shower, still lightly beaded with crystal droplets of water, and I could clearly see the tangle of darker red between her thighs.
My cock, already semi hard just from being around a naked Adele, filled to the point of pain, pressing against my jeans. I didn’t adjust it, somehow relishing the bite myself.
“Just fucking do it.” Her voice was dark, stirring something shadowy inside myself. I found that I wasn’t surprised by her request. Ever since we’d come back together, and ever since Dorian had come into the picture, I’d picked up on hints that Adele wanted more, needed to be taken deeper.
I was surprised by how much I wanted it, too.
“I’m going to spank you five times.” Did I really just say that? “When I’m done, if you feel ready to talk, I’ll stop. Otherwise, I’ll give you another five. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She was breathless, and squirmed in my lap. I swallowed the groan that her rubbing over my cock elicited, putting my focus all on her.
I could already see the muscles of her back relaxing, the flight of the raven tattoos across her shoulder blades seeming less frantic.
This was the right thing to do.
We both cried out with the first spank, a blow from my cupped palm that landed on her right cheek. She bucked against me, and I stared for a moment, transfixed by the sight of my palm print on her pale, pale skin.
It was...
it was fucking primal, is what it was. It said that this was my woman—mine to protect, through better and worse.
Raising my hand, I spanked her again, this time landing on her left cheek. Once more each to the right and left, and then one over the middle, the crease where her ass met her thighs. She moaned, pressing the curves of her behind into my palm.
I opened my mouth to ask her if she’d had enough, if she could talk now, but she shook her head wildly, her breasts swaying against the side of my leg.
“More,” she gasped, clasping my thigh with both hands, her nails digging in until I hissed. With one hand I tilted her face back so that I could see it...
Her cheeks were deep red, her eyes bright. The look on her face said that she wanted more.
I would have made her say it out loud, just so I didn’t overstep, but I didn’t have to—she held tight to me and chanted the word, over and over under her breath.
No matter how this had started, with her distraught and me angry... I would have been a liar complete with pants on fire if I hadn’t been able to own how incredibly turned on I was, Adele naked and begging on my lap, her skin marked by my hand.
I’d never quite understood what Dorian got out of being dominant—or topping, as he called it—at least, I hadn’t fully understood. But here, in this moment, with Adele strung tight as a bow, waiting for me to take her over?
I felt like a fucking god.
“Five more.” I whispered, bending to press my lips to her temple. She nodded wordlessly, sucking in a deep breath.
I dealt the last five spanks slowly, deliberately placed over her exposed sex. I felt her wetness on the palm of my hand with every strike, and ached to replace my hand with my tongue.
We both sounded savage when the final blow had been laid across her skin, when she whimpered at the touch. I stroked a gentle hand down her spine, trying to gather my thoughts enough to encourage her to talk now, to ride the wave of endorphins that were surely rioting through her body.
“Now.” I wasn’t prepared for her to twist on my lap, to shove me down on the bed. I grunted as her fingers found the hem of my soaking wet T-shirt, yanking and pulling until it was over my head, a sodden piece of cotton on the floor.
Kiss Me Twice Part 2 (Three Little Words) Page 2