by Cara McKenna
The silence thickened, neither strained nor easy. Mica was awake; she wasn’t so sure about Vaughn. Beneath her palm, his chest rose and fell slowly. She wasn’t nearly so dozy herself, still keyed up from everything that had gone down. Everything she’d done, everything that had been said, everything that had been shown to her here in this room, in this bed. She hoped she’d remember every detail of these unexpected nights with these men years after they’d all fallen out of contact.
But would they remember her?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Clare felt Mica’s lips on her shoulder, heard the soft hum of a sigh warm her skin there. The arm around her waist tensed affectionately, then went slack on a long exhalation.
Some minutes later, just as Clare was flirting with unconsciousness, Vaughn left the covers without a word, gathered his clothes, and slipped out of the room, shutting the door softly. Clare released a held breath. She’d been anticipating this moment—finding herself alone with Mica in this bed—with both impatience and nerves. She hoped he was even awake.
She turned around under his arm and found his eyes half-open, his lips half-smiling.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.” He kissed her, light and lingering, a romantic, sweet gesture that didn’t match the night’s tone and thrilled her all the more for it.
“Just you and me, I guess.”
“I guess so. What did you think?” he asked.
“About . . . ?”
“Everything. Tonight. The sex.” The drowsiness had left his voice, eagerness charging the words. “Me and him. Everything.”
“I loved it.” I love this, too. Just us. What they did with Vaughn . . . that was some once-in-a-lifetime shit, a destination that took her miles beyond the sexual adventure she’d been craving in the wake of her breakup. What she craved from Mica—to be looked at the way he did, to feel in his touch and hear in his voice the way he wanted her, so physically, so raw, after all that time with a lover who’d grown all but indifferent to her . . . That was what had her hooked. That was what made this affair so addictive. The stuff with Vaughn? That was just gasoline on the fire. She didn’t regret it, not a second, not a single boundary they’d blown past. But this . . .
She snaked an arm around his waist and dragged her knuckles lightly up and down his spine. She kissed his lower lip, then his chin, feeling playful. That was something they weren’t, during sex. These adventures were many things—shocking, erotic, exciting, edgy—but playful wasn’t one of them. She craved it now, a little taste of how this man could be when their clothes were still on.
“I love it when it’s just us, too,” she added.
“So do I. But tonight . . .”
She’d never seen him at a loss for words. “Have you done that, before? Let a woman see you with a man?”
“It’s different with Vaughn,” he said, not answering her question. “No one knows about us. No one’s been told about it, let alone seen it. Been a part of it.”
“Guess I’m a lucky girl, then.”
He brushed his lips across hers. “Guess you are.”
“How long have you known you like guys?” she asked.
“Pretty much always. Since I was old enough to feel attracted to people.”
“Were you out about it? About being bi?”
“Not right away. I mean, I grew up in some rough neighborhoods. I already looked different from everybody else; last thing I needed was to be the neighborhood queer, on top of that. Plus, I knew I liked girls. I just shut my attraction for guys off, at first, kept it to myself, only explored it in my head. I think I was seventeen the first time I messed around with a guy, which is late, considering how early I started with girls.”
“And?” she prompted. “How was it, the first time you were with a man?”
“Hot. Real fucking hot. But also . . . cold. I’ve rarely had feelings beyond physical attraction for men.”
“Rarely? You mean Vaughn, right?”
“I guess. Though I’m not in love with him or anything, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I’m not sure what I’m getting at, except he wouldn’t be your best friend if you didn’t feel more for him than just the physical.”
“Fair enough.”
After a long pause Clare said, “You were different tonight. When I was on top of you and he was calling the shots.”
He smiled. “I was?”
“Yes, and you know it, so don’t act coy,” she teased. “You like it that way, too, huh? Usually you’re the bossy one, but you can handle getting bossed around, I take it?”
“I can. And yes, I like it.”
“Are you kinky?” she asked, both thrilled and intimidated at the prospect. “You like getting tied up or anything?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Oh.”
“Kinky, sure. But not getting tied up. Same reason I won’t go to climbing gyms—they make you use harnesses, and I can’t stand being bound like that.”
“Oh,” she said again.
He smiled at whatever show of worry her face gave away. “I had a fucked-up childhood. My foster parents used to tie me to a high chair while they went to work.”
Her body went still and chilly in the dim room. “God. For how long?”
“Hours. They left me with food and water, but I was, like, two, three years old. If I knocked it to the ground, that was that. And don’t ask about the diaper situation.”
“Jesus. You remember all that? From so young?”
“Bits and pieces. But a social worker told me about it, when I was older. They had a record of me being found like that, when neighbors called the cops about the crying.”
“That’s seriously fucked up. You must’ve gotten taken away from them, right?”
“Yeah, but things didn’t get much better. The next woman who fostered me locked me in a closet when she couldn’t handle me. I’m still not a big fan of small spaces.”
“How long were you living with her?”
“Ages. From when I was four or five till sixth grade. The older I got, the meaner I got, and eventually she started hitting me regularly. And hard. She fucked up and hit me in the face one time, and that was the end of that.”
“That must’ve been a relief.”
“Not really. I mean, kids like predictability. Routine. My routine fucking sucked, but I was used to it. It didn’t scare me as bad as where I might end up the next time.”
“And where did you end up?”
“Nowhere, for a while, group homes and shit, then eventually with this black family—mom, dad, two young daughters. They were pretty cool. They were doing it for the check, but they fed me, gave me my own room, didn’t smack me unless I was really being a shit. I wound up moving out when I was seventeen to crash with some friends, but they weren’t bad. But this shrink the state made me see told me I’d already gotten fucked up big-time, from the ones who came before. So too little, too late.”
“Sure . . . God, that’s just terrible. I’m sorry to hear all that.”
He shrugged, rumpling the sheets with his shoulder. “It was what it was. Too bad, though—I might’ve enjoyed getting tied up, in another life.” He smirked, and her heart unknotted a little.
“Enough about that sad crap,” Mica announced, then pulled her closer, his thigh inching between hers and their faces almost near enough to kiss. “What did you like best about tonight? What was the hottest thing?”
She considered it. “Your voice, telling me what to do while I was going down on him.”
“You like taking orders, too, then.”
“Maybe. And I liked when he was taking me, and you were in my mouth. So yeah, maybe I kinda like having the shots called for me, sometimes.” She’d never self-identified as submissive in bed, but there was no denying she was getting hooked on Mica’s pushine
ss. “I never know where you’re going to take me,” she said, and reached up to rub his stubbly jaw. “And that’s a little scary. But way more exciting than scary.”
“You said you always like where we wind up.”
She nodded, gave his chin a silly squeeze. “I do.”
“And I like watching your face when I take you there.”
“Oh?”
He palmed her butt and pulled her tight to him. “Oh yes. Like when he’s eating you. When you come from his cock and my hand. How you look when you touch yourself.” His eyes shut as though he was savoring the memory. “I’ll be thinking about that last one the next time I’m getting myself off.”
“Oh, will you? Does that mean you won’t be interrupting my shopping trips every time you need a friendly assist?”
“You wish.”
She laughed. “You were lucky I wasn’t at work.”
“So were you.”
She quirked her lips, hesitating before sharing her next thought. “You could’ve asked me here, you know. Pathetic as it sounds, I’d have run right over.”
His eyebrow rose in a cocky little show. “Oh yeah? Good to know.”
“For a chance at wasting a couple hours in your bed in the middle of the day?” Just the two of us? “Yeah, I hate to say it, but I’d have ditched my friend if you’d said the word. I’m probably not supposed to admit that, though.”
He pushed some errant curl behind her ear. “Why not?”
“I should be playing it cool, I bet. Keep you guessing just how tight you’ve got me wrapped around your finger.”
“Games are stupid. All but the kind you play in bed, anyhow.”
“I should be acting harder to get.”
“Fuck that. All that does is leave us both impatient and frustrated when we could be in this bed.”
“Amen.” But what about outside this bed? she thought. In a coffee shop or at a bar, in a restaurant or walking along the river—what would it be like to explore those more innocent places with Mica? What would the thrill feel like, to be seen out with such a gorgeous man, hand in hand, or kissing in some sultry corner of a club? Did he dance? she wondered. She hadn’t gone out dancing in far too long. Ages.
“Do you dance?” she asked. “Just, like, club dancing.”
“Sure.”
“We should go sometime. I know a couple good places around here.”
“Long as we wind up naked at the end of the night,” Mica said through a yawn, “I’m willing.”
“I’d say that’s a given by now. I mean, we had a three-way on the second date. Or whatever you want to call it.” More of a booty call, that second hookup. And the first one had ostensibly been a professional outing.
“Turn over,” he murmured. There was a smile in his voice, and as Clare flipped to face the wall, she imagined him saying that in a different tone—darker and hungrier—in a different context. She’d take the command without knowing what came next, breathless and just a little nervous to find out.
Good God, you can’t have any idea how doomed I am, with you.
But a part of her had to think he did. He knew exactly how bad she had it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Vaughn woke in a funk, a mix of confusion and shame and lust, a hangover of emotion.
Did he regret last night? Not exactly. Not completely.
No one had been hurt, they’d all gotten off, so what was there to feel bad about?
She knows. She saw.
He had no business having a crush on Clare. Well, hold up. On the one hand, he had the perfect reason. He was sleeping with her. And he’d liked her before that, whether he’d wanted to admit it or not. She was all the things he valued most, romantically—creative, funny, adventurous. All the things that kept him from taking life too seriously, plus . . . she was just cool. The way she looked at objects and shadows and people through her photographer eyes, like she saw a million tiny things that others missed. Vaughn witnessed a lot of ugliness in his day-to-day world, but he bet she saw beauty in the most unusual places.
But he knew too well she was into Mica, and once his friend grew bored with the woman and phased her out, Clare would probably be feeling understandably pissed or hurt and have precisely zero interest in seeing Vaughn—not romantically, and not randomly, out around Pittsburgh. So yeah, no point liking her as much as he did, but you didn’t get to control that crap, did you? And he did like her. And she’d seen him.
Seen him with Mica.
He felt fire in his cheeks and shut his eyes, blocking out the stripes of early sunlight patterning the ceiling.
She liked it, though. And she’s got no reason to use it against me. He’d been nothing but nice to her, plus, they didn’t run in the same social circles. He trusted her with his darkest secret, as perhaps she trusted him with the same. But it couldn’t quiet the nagging voice telling him that he’d lost a chunk of his manhood, in her eyes. And yeah, that stung.
There was more, as well, he thought as he kicked the covers aside and sat up. There was anger inching through his veins this morning, and it wasn’t tough to trace it back to the source.
Mica had gotten what he’d wanted all along. He’d gotten Vaughn to break that one rule he’d laid down when Mica had moved in. And he’d gone about it the shady, sneaky, tricky, patently Mica way—he’d gotten Clare to break it for him.
The kid might never earn himself a degree, but he deserved some honorary PhD in manipulation.
“You should be a lawyer,” Vaughn muttered, grabbing his towel off the doorknob. The loopholes his best friend could conjure for the sake of sex . . .
He stepped out into the hall and found the bathroom empty. Mica’s door was shut, and a little bolt of jealousy or desire shot hot and cold down Vaughn’s back, to know that Clare was beyond that wood, maybe lying naked in a tangle of covers, lit by the early-morning light.
It was stupid to feel jealous, though. I mean, I’ve slept with her. Twice. Done more with her than I usually manage with a new girlfriend in a month, let alone two nights—
He paused at the bathroom threshold at the sound of clacking in the kitchen. Mica came into view, crossing into the den with his phone in hand, eyes on its screen. Vaughn leaned into the bathroom to toss his towel on the tub’s edge, then headed to the front of the apartment.
Mica was texting, by the look of his fingers, sitting on the couch’s edge.
“Hey.”
He looked up. “Hey. Morning.” He smiled. “Bet you slept like the fucking dead, huh?”
“Not bad.” Not bad, considering the cloud of uncertainty Vaughn had wandered into, the second he’d left Mica’s room. “Clare still asleep?”
“Yeah.” With a final glance, Mica switched off his phone and slipped it into his back pocket. He passed by Vaughn to return to the kitchen. “Tell her bye for me, will you? That girl’s a sound fucking sleeper.”
Vaughn whipped around. “Whoa—hold up. You’re taking off again?”
Mica grabbed his keys off the counter. “I’m seven to three today.”
“You get how rude it is that you’ve not once been around when she wakes up here? In your bed?”
He shrugged. “I told her. And you’re here. Till ten, right?”
“That’s not the point. She’s your guest. She’s your date.” It was all he could do to keep his voice down.
Mica smiled. “She’s both our lovers. She make you nervous or something?”
“No, it’s just . . . You don’t even fucking wake the girl up to say good-bye? I mean . . .” He sighed and rubbed his face. “Jesus, you just don’t fucking get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“How people expect to be treated, when you hook up with them. How they deserve to be treated.”
Mica grabbed his mug off the table and held Vaughn’s stare. “I invited her over.
We got her off. She had a good fucking time, and nobody’s kicking her out at two in the morning. She can sleep in, shower, have a coffee with you—I thought that’s how this was working. Sounds pretty fucking nice, if you ask me. You think I want to go to work? You think I wouldn’t rather be rolling around in that bed with her all morning?”
Vaughn narrowed his eyes and spoke the truth. “I do, actually. I think that disappearing out the door before she wakes up is exactly what you want.” He’d done the equivalent enough times to Vaughn, after all.
Mica wasn’t typically an early riser. He’d often been the last kid the counselors managed to get up for breakfast before a morning hike, back in their teenage years. But whenever he and Vaughn had messed around, Vaughn always woke to find him gone. Up with the sun, sitting by a fire making a pot of coffee or a pan of oatmeal. Without fail. That was Mica—he always left first, even if he escaped only a few yards away.
So nobody gets a chance to leave him first.
Christ, it was fucking maddening.
“I can’t help when they schedule me,” Mica said.
“That’s not what we’re talking about and you know it.”
“Then what are we talking about?” He raised his brows and sipped his coffee. Prick.
Vaughn sighed, exasperated. “Forget it.” The kid had been analyzed enough, he supposed. And Vaughn didn’t like lecturing, didn’t relish the role of the parent. They were too many things to each other as it was. Though questions still nagged . . .
“Last night . . . This entire thing with Clare. Tell me this—do you actually, really like her?”
“Sure.”
“This wasn’t some roundabout ploy to get . . . for you and me to . . .”
Mica smiled, brows rising once more. “You think I started seeing her to get to you somehow?”
“I’m just asking.”
“You think I couldn’t have gotten there without her, huh? With just you and me and a fifth of whiskey, any night I wanted to.”
Anger edged in. “Oh, fuck you.”