by Cari Quinn
She glanced down at herself, still amazed she’d felt comfortable enough to pull out her Hello Kitty nightgown. He was a new lover, and beyond that, the guy made the word hot seem positively tepid. But he’d never blinked at her choice of attire. His gaze even warmed at the worn spots near her breasts that occasionally allowed a glimpse of nipple.
And he’d called her beautiful. Whispered it as he kissed her and brought her against his side, then fed her and made her laugh.
God, he was dangerous. No wonder she’d warned him to be careful. Too bad she hadn’t done a thorough enough job warning herself.
“You’re a tapestry of food.” He flicked his nail over her nipple, missing the spot a noodle had left entirely. “A little pork here. Some sauce there. And here”—he grabbed her other nipple and twisted—“just sweet, no sour.”
“The chopsticks weren’t the best idea. I should change.”
“Why? You look edible.” He nosed her hair back from her cheek. He’d wasted no time unclipping it, despite her complaints it would get in the way. “You’re going to be naked soon anyway.”
She shivered at the promise in his tone and busied herself collecting the boxes and discarded napkins. “Let me clean this up.”
“Leave it for now.” While she stared, he gathered everything into the takeout bag and dumped it on the floor.
Aidan not only didn’t like eating in bed, he always cleaned up right after a meal. They’d never had takeout, then swept aside the boxes and fucked like bunnies in dirty clothes. That didn’t happen in her world. None of this did.
When Sawyer started to do the same to the stuff spilling out of Con’s expandable folder, she laid a hand on his arm. “Wait. I want to see.”
Together they sorted through the assorted items, commenting on some. Chuckling over others.
“Whoa.” He opened a trifold brochure for a specialty massage center. Not only were the female clients naked on the tables, the masseuses themselves were about a hair away from indecency. A man in a doctor’s coat stood next to a prone woman and appeared to work on her back, his obvious erection tenting the jacket. “Where is this place?”
“The bad end of town.” She leaned her head on his shoulder and tapped the address.
“Aren’t there a few bad ends in the city?”
“Yeah. And we service a lot of them. But some of our customers have more money that you could shake a stick at.”
“Or a dick,” he said drily.
She rolled her eyes and picked up a magazine, flipping through it until she found the centerfold. A pair of guys lounged on a leopard-print couch, their hands in each others’ pants and their tongues down each others’ throats. On the next page, it wasn’t tongues in the guys’ mouths, but thick, erect cocks.
“These are our guys. Clint and Jacob. They’re both sweethearts.”
“Maybe I should’ve been more specific about what poses I wouldn’t do,” Sawyer muttered, glancing at the pictures as she held them up.
She laughed at the faint blush staining his cheeks. He was so adorable sometimes. “They get paid primo bucks. This is actually a terrific magazine for the gay community. Their articles are pretty incredible. No lie.”
“You’ve read them?”
“Sure. Why not?” She came to another pictorial spread. In this one, three naked women cavorted in a pile of multicolored feathers. “Think this’ll be more to your liking.”
He turned the magazine sideways, cocking his head in obvious appreciation. “Hot. Also yours?”
“Yep. Misty, Sharon, and Ella. We’ve gone clubbing a few times when Aidan had to work late.”
“Now when Aidan has to work late, you invite me over.”
“You’re more fun than drinking any day.” She snatched the magazine and continued turning pages, eventually stopping at a photo of Clint and Jacob again. Clint knelt at Jacob’s feet and stared up into his eyes while he wrapped his hand around the other man’s hard-on.
After a moment or two, Sawyer cleared his throat. Evidently she’d spent a bit too much time fixated on that photo, no matter its artistic merits.
“Would you ever take pictures like this?” she asked, shocked that her throat tightened on the question. He’d already indicated he wouldn’t, so why press the issue?
“No.”
“Not even if the money was amazing?”
“No,” he repeated. “Not even.”
Layla forced herself to meet his gaze. “Why not?”
She was sure he’d dance around the question, as she suspected Aidan might’ve. He always seemed reluctant to part with his erotic leanings, though he couldn’t seem to hear enough about hers.
“The big appeal to photographs is the fantasy they sell. A big part of selling it is the shot’s inherent honesty. If you can’t make the person looking at the picture—or movie or whatever—believe what you’re depicting, then it won’t work.”
Hoping he would say more, she remained silent.
“Seeing a guy come on camera doesn’t shut me down.” He didn’t break their eye contact. “Watching any orgasm triggers the right neurons in my brain, if you get me. But beyond that visceral feeling when I’m already turned on, I’m not aroused by guys. They don’t push my buttons.” He threaded his fingers through her hair, adding another tactile link between them. “Aidan coming on you was hot, but not because of him. It was that moment of losing control that shoved me over. And knowing you were so close too.”
She nodded. “Seeing someone come is arousing to me, male or female, but women themselves don’t make me wet.”
“Humans are sexual creatures.” He brushed a kiss over her temple. “There’s nothing wrong with getting turned on by the same sex. Also nothing wrong with pursuing them or falling in love with them, if that happens to be your thing. It’s just not mine. So I couldn’t be a part of pictures depicting that, because I’d be lying. No money’s enough to compensate me for portraying a lie.”
Her lips curved, more to hide the sheen in her eyes than because she felt like smiling. Why what he’d said had nudged her to the verge of tears, she didn’t know. Nor did she want to. “I haven’t met anyone like you in so long, Sawyer Blake.”
Had she ever known anyone like him? So honest and open? He made her feel tainted just by virtue of sitting next to him. She wasn’t that pure or truthful, that was for damn sure. But he also made her wish for more. Ache for it.
Believe it really existed, if she could summon the balls to go after what she truly needed.
“Ditto, Layla Palmer.” He kissed away her smile, then he picked up the next item. “A DVD. Uh-oh.”
“Two DVDs. Here’s another one.”
“Man. Gotta see these.” A line formed between his brows. “If you’d rather not watch, I can view them at home.”
This time she didn’t have to fake her smile. “Even after everything, you treat me like such a lady.”
“You are a lady.” He leaned in to kiss her nose. “So yea or nay?”
“Yea,” she said, already rolling over onto her stomach to watch.
“Okay.” He rose and crossed the room to the flat screen TV mounted on the wall. After a few muttered curses, he loaded the movie.
“Just like a regular date,” she teased. “Too bad we don’t have popcorn.”
“Funny girl.” He flopped down beside her on the bed and slung an arm over her waist. “How bad can this get?”
“We don’t do anything too hardcore. Most of the movies we’ve provided people for are for Etienne Gagnier’s production company. Softcore marital aids, they’re called. Upscale porn,” she said, inclining her chin when Etienne’s logo splashed across the screen. “Yep, there you go.”
“Con didn’t like me calling them pornos.”
“Well, we sell an image. Classy sex. The term porno’s a bit too crass for Hot Shots.”
“Whatever you say, Nebraska.”
The warmth that spread beneath her breastbone at the casual nickname made her smile. As did the
weight of his arm on her back.
A man and woman appeared on screen. They sat on a couch quietly talking while a fire roared in the fireplace behind them, bathing the couple in a soft orange glow. That glow nicely tipped the woman’s breasts as they started to undress. Added a fiery gleam to the man’s shaft when he removed his pants.
She watched Sawyer out of the corner of her eye, more interested in his reaction than in the movie itself. He had such a guileless face, every reaction on full display as if he didn’t bother tempering his emotions.
After living with a man like Aidan, Sawyer’s honesty was as refreshing as a gallon of water on a scorching summer day. As arousing as—
There were no comparisons she could make. She hadn’t felt this edgy and needy for so long. It wasn’t just desire driving her either. There was more. He made her more.
Sawyer fisted his hand in her nightshirt when the man rolled the woman beneath him and drove into her pussy in rhythmic strokes. This movie wasn’t about camera angles on body parts. The focus here was the couple’s faces. Their longing, their excitement. And when the woman began to caress the man’s face, their love.
They watched silently, neither speaking or moving, except for Sawyer’s offhand clenches. The DVD didn’t last long, maybe twenty minutes. When it was over, Sawyer exhaled and stood up to switch to the other movie, his visible erection proof he hadn’t been uninvolved in what they’d witnessed. But he hadn’t tried anything. Hadn’t even kissed her again.
She frowned as he settled beside her to watch the second one. Why hadn’t he made a move? She tried to bite her tongue. And it worked, for all of a minute.
“You haven’t touched me,” she said, surprised at how stupid that sounded.
“Sure I have.” He flexed his hand on her lower back, and heat pooled between her thighs. “I’m touching you right now.”
“I mean…you know what I mean.”
He grinned at her, and she had no choice but to grin back. “You didn’t touch me either.”
“No. But that’s—”
“Lemme guess. Making the first move is my job as the male.” He tucked one of her curls behind her ear. “Does Aidan always make the first move with you?”
“Yes.” She gazed down at the hands she’d fisted under her chin. “Well, he used to. When he stopped, I did for a while. Now I usually ask if he’s interested rather than just going for it.”
“Spontaneity’s gotta be a real wrinkle in his shorts.”
For a moment she could only be grateful he hadn’t commented on her admission that Aidan had mostly stopped making any moves—this past weekend aside—with her. Then she heard the rest of what he’d said. “He’s spontaneous sometimes. Pushing for the threesome, that was sudden.” And odd, but she didn’t say that aloud.
“How do you feel about it?” he pressed. “Making the moves?”
She looked at the TV screen, noting this scene was again a man and woman. This time they were in the back of a bar, and the guy had already tugged the woman’s wrists above her head and pinned them to the wall.
“I’m okay with it. In theory.” She kept her gaze on the TV, but she still noted how Sawyer tensed. “He never said he didn’t want me to be spontaneous. It just doesn’t work as well when I approach him.”
“Doesn’t work how?”
“He barely responds. Or at least he doesn’t anymore.”
The guy onscreen unsnapped the woman’s jeans and yanked down her zipper. She wriggled against him, her breasts taut against her leather bustier.
Layla shifted at the pulse between her legs. Holy fuck, this was hot. But Sawyer didn’t seem to be paying attention.
“How long’s it been since you’ve had sex? Just the two of you?”
“Saturday. But I think that was—” She heaved out a breath. Why were they having this conversation? Why wasn’t she telling him to stop, that she didn’t want to answer these questions? “I think that was more about claiming me than anything else.”
“Before then.”
She tucked her hands under her arms. “Actual sex? More than toys? Or fingers?”
“Actual penetrative sex, Layla.”
God, this was embarrassing. “A while. I don’t know how long.”
He let out a sound that could only be described as a growl. “He’s a goddamn idiot.”
She swung her gaze to his, surprised to see his mouth pulled into a tight, hard line. “He works a lot. It’s been so hard for him to adjust to not being a doctor.”
“When you have trouble adjusting, you turn to your partner and lean on them. You don’t shut her out and shut her down so that she’s forced to invite another guy into your fucked-up relationship.”
She jerked into a sitting position. “Our relationship isn’t fucked-up. And I didn’t ask for another guy. I’d never do that. He put it out there and turned it into a possibility. He’s the one who wanted me to have someone so he could—”
Sawyer glanced over his shoulder and asked gently, “So he could what?”
“So he didn’t have to be bothered with my demands anymore. So he could take a break from having to be my lover, something that’s obviously become too much for him.”
She whipped her head away and stared hard at the headboard, shocked that her face had gone as hot as the backs of her eyes. She was not going to cry. She also wasn’t going to let Sawyer gather her close and murmur soft, soothing words against her hair.
Except she did.
Stopping him wasn’t an option. Not when she needed to be held so damn much.
“We were so happy once. I know we were. I try to tell myself that this is normal, that all couples change, but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels…”
“What?”
“Like he doesn’t want me.” She forced out the words. “What if he’s fallen out of love with me? What if he doesn’t know how to let me down gently?”
For a long time, he rubbed her back and just let her cry, not saying anything.
“If you were mine, you’d never have to wonder if I wanted you.” His voice barely rose above a whisper, but she felt his words down to her soul. “You’d never be afraid to ask me for anything. I’d give it before you could ask. And I’m not talking about some other jerk’s tool.” He lifted her chin and caught her tears with his thumbs. “I’d give you everything I had. All of me. Even the warty, ugly parts you probably wouldn’t want. But they’d be yours.”
Guilt tangled with the sense of grief she hadn’t been able to shake for days. The lump in her throat felt so big she was amazed she could still swallow. “I’m sorry. This was supposed to be a fun, sexy night. When Aidan came home, he’d get to see us together.”
“That’s what he wanted,” he said flatly. “You didn’t invite me here on your own. He told you to, so you asked me.”
His anger wrapped around her, thin threads of wire that would choke her fragile hold on her emotions if she let them. “He wanted it, yes, but I wanted it too. I admitted on Sunday I wanted to see you again. God, I had to see you again.” She raised her eyes to Sawyer’s. “I know it’s not fair to bring you into this. Sex is one thing. But dumping this in your lap isn’t right. And it’s not right to talk about Aidan when he’s not here to defend himself.”
“You know what’s not right, Layla? You thinking you aren’t allowed to actually feel your feelings. That you need to vet them with him for authenticity before you acknowledge you have a reason to be upset. That’s not right. If we’re anything to each other, we’re going to be honest.” He rubbed his thumb over her lip, letting her taste the salt from her tears.
Those tears were the proof she wasn’t as happy as she’d struggled to make everyone believe. Especially herself.
“I’m scared of what I’ll see if I face myself,” she whispered. And if she faced Aidan.
“I’m not. I want your warts.” He kissed her forehead. “Every prickly bump and scar. If you won’t give them to me, well, I guess I have to go find someone uglier than you.”
The laughter escaped her so suddenly that she had no choice but to give in. She laughed and laughed, wiping away the tears that flowed now from mirth, not misery.
How long had it been since she’d laughed so completely? That painfully, so that her belly ached and her eyes burned? God, it felt good.
“Now there’s a welcome sight.” Something about the way he spoke triggered a memory of home, and for the first time since their first phone call she could hear the Nebraska in his voice. She wanted to hug that sound to her, revel in it. Bury herself in its warmth and lose herself in the simple joy of being with someone else.
Even if that someone wasn’t—couldn’t be—Aidan.
“It’s been so long.” She took an unsteady breath. “I didn’t realize how long until all of this shook loose from my chest.”
“Bottling stuff up only works for a while. Eventually you need an escape valve.”
“I know. What frightens me is that you’re mine,” she said, afraid to look at him. Afraid to look away.
He didn’t ask her what she meant. He also didn’t shy away from the intensity of her stare. Here, finally, was a man who didn’t shirk the emotions she’d been shoving down for so many months they’d started to fester. Though he hadn’t caused them, he bore the brunt.
“You know what happens to valves. Pressure builds and builds, then whammo, the steam explodes.” His lips quirked. “I’m just fine with you exploding all over me.”
She chuckled with him, but they both knew it wasn’t a joke. He’d given her permission she hadn’t sought. To be honest. To be herself. Whomever that turned out to be.
“So back to that touching thing,” he murmured, reaching behind his head to yank off his T-shirt. “With you and me, things are going to work a little different than you’re used to.”
Her gaze dropped to his chest. All those sleek muscles encased in golden skin, with just enough honeycomb-colored hair to make the dips and grooves more interesting. “Is that so?”