by Brit M.
Paul ruffled her hair and grinned. “They won't question it, trust me. They're all used to Adrian. Nothing shocks them anymore.”
“What can I say? I like to play games,” Adrian said with a shrug.
“You certainly do,” Marissa replied, and the teasing in her tone made him smirk.
“Let's go,” Paul said.
She climbed out of the backseat and offered a hand to Paul, who wrapped his fingers firmly around hers. Her heart skipped a beat, one dizzying off-thud in her chest as emotion rushed through her. Adrian came up beside them, kissed Paul on the cheek, and took her free hand. The warmth of their grip on her hands hid her sudden chills. This was different than the hotel; there were people from teenagers to elderly couples drifting into the mall and returning to their cars.
Marissa regretted for a moment saying she was ready, because she was suddenly terrified and embarrassed. Her shoulders fought to rise up with tension and her grip spasmed tighter on their hands. Adrian crowded close, pressing the length of his body against hers.
“What's wrong?” he murmured.
“Leave her be,” Paul said. His gaze was sympathetic. “Remember the first time you went out holding hands with another guy?”
“Ah,” Adrian said. “Sweetheart, everyone's going to be jealous. Even the ones who give you the eye are just jealous.”
“Okay,” Marissa breathed, calming herself.
She knew it was stupid to be afraid, stupid to suddenly want to crawl back into the car and go back to the hotel and hide. Where had the confidence she'd felt facing down their waiter gone?
“It's—” she muttered as they walked slowly, still hand in hand. “Different. The hotel is farther away. It's like a little universe, no one will know. This…”
“We can pretend we're just friends hanging out,” Paul offered.
“No,” she said, shaking her head for emphasis. “Why am I like this? It's not fair. I like you guys. I liked what we did together. I want to go on a mall date with you.”
“You can't kick all the baggage in a day,” he answered.
Though Adrian played therapist best, when she looked up at Paul and his handsome face and curly dark hair, stared into his warm brown eyes, she knew he was the one who had experienced more of what she was feeling right then, even if it was a different context. He knew. It soothed her racing pulse just a bit. He wasn't going to judge her for her fear.
“You going to let some grannies and high-schoolers tell you who you're allowed to be?” Adrian asked, his voice gentle though the words were not.
“No, dammit,” she said. “Kiss me?”
He smiled, tossed his hair out of his face, and planted a slow, sweet kiss on her mouth. His lips caught against hers, soft and silky. She sighed with pleasure and nipped his lip. He pulled away with a smile and she stood on her toes to give Paul the same, the lush velvet of his lips slipping against her now-damp mouth. She smiled when she dropped back onto her heels. Her heartbeat had calmed back to normal.
“Inside,” she said and set off walking.
They followed her with chuckles that had a harmony, despite the difference in their voices. Adrian had a spring in his step and Paul was a steady, comforting presence beside her. Their hands were anchors in hers, grounding her to the moment. They flowed inside with the crowd, through the food court with its bustling customers and yelling children, and Marissa's eye caught on a sweets shop.
“Oh, I'd kill for a cookie,” she said.
“Consider it done,” Adrian said.
They gravitated toward the line, hands still locked, and Marissa swore she felt the weight of people staring. She was probably imagining it. Adrian nuzzled close and planted a teasing nip on the top of her ear. She jumped with a tiny yelp, prompting Paul to give her fingers a comforting squeeze. Her pulse sped again, though this time for better reasons than before. The line moved forward and they pressed in close, sandwiching her between their larger bodies, sharing warmth and space.
The clerk, when they reached the front, gave them a snotty look. Marissa guessed he was maybe sixteen, still pimpled and sporting an awkward haircut probably chosen by a parent. Adrian was smirking at him salaciously, which probably didn't help. She cleared her throat and tugged one of her hands free from Adrian and pointed to the peanut-butter cookies.
“One of those, please?” she asked.
“I'd like a marbled brownie,” Adrian added.
“One of those chocolate icing cookie-cups,” Paul finished.
Adrian made it to his wallet first and forked over a twenty. The clerk raised an eyebrow at the three of them, waited a beat to take the proffered money, and rolled his eyes as he got their desserts.
Marissa bristled. How dare he? Who was he judging, anyway—Paul and Adrian, or her? He was probably a virgin.
“Shy-girl's getting pissed,” Adrian singsonged into her ear, under his breath.
It shocked a snort out of her, then a laugh. She reached out for their cookies when the teen put them on the counter and, when she turned back, saw Adrian with his arm around Paul's waist. Now the kid's face was turning red.
“Brat,” she said, loud enough to be heard, and wedged herself in between them again with her hands full of cookie bags. Adrian hugged her around the waist and Paul looped an arm over her shoulders. She offered them their desserts. “Eat up, boys. And why do you keep taking the checks? I can treat, too.”
“Marissa,” Paul said, and hearing her name shocked her into pausing for a moment. “It's our treat because it can be, and we want to. You can have the lunch bill, if you want.”
“Okay,” she said.
The fact that they'd gotten so comfortable she didn't need to have her name said to know they were talking to her made her feel something not unlike discomfort, but also happiness. It took a long time to get so close to someone you didn't need to use their real name, until you found your own for them. This had only been a few days, really, and a lot of e-mails.
She settled into their arms again, letting them propel her through the loose crowds while she nibbled her cookie and peered at shops. The lingerie store caught her eye, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to go in—buying something for them might be nice; dressing up for the night, maybe.
“You want to pick out something slinky?” Adrian asked. “I think you'd look divine in a corset.”
He pinched her butt and her breath caught at the pleasant sting.
“Marissa?” someone said behind her, incredulous and not pleased.
She froze. Her heart seemed to stop. Paul and Adrian flinched with her reaction but didn't let go, and she nearly panicked, but held her breath until the urge to run passed. Too late, now—she'd been caught. She turned, and they turned with her, a move like a dance.
“Eric,” she said.
Her cousin's brows were furrowed, his mouth pinched. His wavy brown hair was cut shorter than it had been when she'd left here Grandmother's house, when they were both living there. Eric still was. She felt for a brief moment like she might pass out on the floor. Of all the people—
“Who's this?” Paul asked nicely.
“My cousin,” she managed.
“We both grew up with Gramma Ford,” he said, and he was glaring now, hard, at Paul and Adrian both. “Who are you?”
She took a breath before they could answer. “My dates, Eric. They're my dates.”
“Dates?” he repeated.
“Yes. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't pass it along.” Her hands were shaking, but their support hid it. Her knees were weak. “Grandma doesn't need to know.”
“I think she does, Marissa,” he said, shaking his head. He jerked his chin toward them. “Look at you, parading around like you're proud to be a—”
“Say it, and I'll beat your ass,” Adrian said cheerily. “You go ahead and say it.”
Eric's lip curled. Marissa was reminded abruptly why she didn't like her cousin, why she'd never liked him. He swallowed all the hate and the ideology whole, and believed
every inch. She'd never had that kind of blindness in her.
“I'm a grown woman,” she said. “And who I date is not your business.”
“Whatever,” he said. “I'd keep your phone open tonight. She's not going to be happy with you, and after all she did for you, too.”
He walked away before she had a chance to think up a retort. Her eyes burned. She fought her hands free and pressed the heels of them against her eyes, breathing deeply. Her face felt like an oven. She must have been blushing bright red. Of all the people to come on her in public, to discover her secret, it had to be Eric, the smarmy little tattletale.
“Do you want to go?” Paul asked, rubbing circles on her back.
“We should talk, I think,” Adrian murmured. His hand found her hip. “Have a few drinks, relax in bed. I don't want your day to be ruined because of that asshole.”
“He's right,” she said into her hands. “I am acting like a whore. But I like you, I like this!”
The crowd was parting around them in curious waves, and she was too humiliated to look up. Adrian shushed her, Paul guided her, and by the time they were outside the blur in her eyes was just tears.
“You're not a whore, darling,” Adrian said, hugging her tight against him as soon as they made it out into the sunlit day. “You're a proud, liberated woman who knows what she wants and loves getting it. He probably hates queers, too, doesn't he?”
She choked on a laugh. “Oh, God, do they ever.”
“They, huh?” Paul asked.
“My grandmother raised me,” she said by way of explanation. “She had…ideas. Some strong ones.”
“Aha,” Adrian said.
“There's your baggage,” Paul said.
She gladly climbed into the backseat, strained and suddenly tired, waiting to hear the accusing ring of her cell phone. Preemptively, she took it out and turned it off. Adrian crawled in with her and cuddled her against his body while Paul started the car. He murmured pleasant, nonsensical things in her hair, lips pressed to her scalp and hands smoothing up and down her arms. She wouldn't admit she was crying, because it seemed so trivial, just Eric acting like Eric and Grandma being disappointed—but it was a devastating blow, somehow.
She wished she hadn't ruined their date, more than anything.
Chapter Nine
“Because I am your self-appointed sex therapist,” Adrian murmured to her as they waited for the elevator in the hotel, “I have devised a novel and intriguingly sexy way to make your afternoon better than your morning, and also serve a psychological purpose.”
She laughed at the tone—goofy, overly self-important, designed to amuse her—and reached out to touch Paul's arm. He was giving them a little space while Adrian cheered her up, but she didn't want him to. He belonged even more than she did. It seemed to her that her own issues were waking a few of his, and maybe they could all deal with it together.
“But I will need to consult with my lovely assistant,” he continued, nodding to the other man as he stepped in close again with tiny, quirky smile. “So when we get to the room, I want you to sit your pretty self on the couch in the foyer and let me put my plan into action. Can you do that?”
“Is that an order?” she asked, genuinely interested.
“Do you want it to be?” he asked in return as they crossed the threshold into the elevator, the three of them alone as the door closed. It seemed smaller, hotter, with their bodies next to hers.
What was the game they were about to play? The thought of diving more into those submissive urges and Adrian's skill at manipulating her desires as a top made her shiver. She definitely wanted more of that, more of the skin-tingling, loose-limbed sensation of giving it up that she couldn't get enough of.
That, she had less trouble embracing. It bothered her on one level to be a proud, independent woman and still enjoy being ordered around and manhandled, but on another level she could accept that what she liked sexually wasn't what she wanted out of every moment of her day. She knew she wasn't inferior, or anything stupid like that—she just wanted to give away her rigid control. That wasn't wrong.
“What if I say yes?” she countered.
“Then I don't have to ask you if you want to sit in the living room while we get something ready for you,” he murmured, voice lower. “I'll tell you to take your clothes off, fold them next to you, and wait on the couch until I come to get you.”
“Oh,” she managed. Heat raced from her belly all over her body. “Okay.”
“Then consider it an order,” he whispered, kissing the side of her jaw briefly.
She looked up at Paul to see what he thought, and found his gaze hot on hers, obviously interested. Adrian was the more practiced top, obviously, but Paul had it in him, too. They were so flexible.
“Will I ever want to—do the part that you do? Be the dominant?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Paul said before Adrian answered. “I'm a switch. Adrian is, with an emphasis on topping verbally if not literally, physically.”
“I like the sensation of being fucked,” Adrian said with a shrug. “Trust me, that doesn't make me a bottom in the D/s sense of the word. I can very much be topping gorgeous there even when I've got his dick in me.”
She swallowed hard. The image of that in her mind's eye was breathtaking, and she could so see it, Adrian with his cocky smirk riding Paul's lap while the bigger man was tied down.
“There's still so much I don't know,” she said.
“Research and practical exploration,” Paul said with a sage tone.
“Maybe I'll try it,” she said.
The elevator dinged on their floor and they walked out. The press of their hands on the small of her back now seemed weighted, somehow; they were guiding her, stripping away the vestiges of her control with the simplest of touches. After the disaster at the mall and the tenuous ball of hurt in her chest, lingering and expanding at intervals to make her eyes water again, it was a heady relief. They would take care of her, for now.
I could take care of someone, she thought, but could I do what they do? Could I be that masterful?
“Strip and wait patiently,” Adrian said when they entered the suite. “I expect you to keep your hands on your thighs, and no wandering.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
The words flowed off of her tongue, taking with them another of the burdens weighting her down. It was like flying. She loved the freedom.
They went through the door without her and closed it. Her fingers were shaking, clumsy at first as she stripped out of her shirt and she had to fold it twice to get it neat. She assumed they would want it neat, or Adrian wouldn't have told her to fold them. Next came her pants, and then she unclipped her bra and laid it on the pile. She slipped off her socks, glancing at the door in curiosity, then underwear.
The couch was soft under her bare butt, and she hoped no one else had been sitting on it in the nude, but honestly, it was a hotel room—everything they touched had probably been touched by parts of other people she didn't want to think about. She laid her hands on her thighs, itching with anticipation and the growing warmth between her legs, and waited. Goosebumps prickled her arms at the chill of the room but the core of her body was hot.
What were they planning? Did they want to tie her up? Were they going to roleplay something? Her mind filled in what it could be as she imagined a hundred more and more fantastical scenarios from discipline to bondage to another one of those baths they'd given her where Paul washed her and Adrian fondled her soap-slick skin. She could see where that sort of thing played into the kinky half of the relationship.
The door opened and Adrian leaned out. “Are you ready, sweetheart?”
“Yes, sir,” she repeated.
“Then get up and come in here.”
He leaned in the doorway as she stood, legs weak at the pressure of his eyes skating down her nude body, past breasts that suddenly felt heavy and in need of touch, to the curve of her hips and further. He made his appreciation bla
tant with a pleased noise, a low rumble in the back of his throat like a growl, and she let out a quiet breath when she came to stand in front of him, as bare as he was clothed. His hands circled her wrists and he guided her into the room.
Paul had his arms crossed on top of the chair that had previously been at the desk in the corner. It was wood and leather, sturdy, and they'd laid one of the fluffy hotel towels down on it. His smirk was wicked, chin tilted up a bit so he inspected her down the length of his nose, like something he might decide to buy. Her throat was tight and dry, but between her legs was a growing slickness. Adrian guided her to the chair and she sat, one of Paul's hands playing in her hair and twirling locks of it through his fingers.
Adrian said nothing for a long minute, staring down at her with an unreadable but sexy expression. Paul's hands drifted down until they found her arms and he lifted them onto the chair's armrests. The polished wood was cool under her skin. From the bed, Adrian picked up a length of silk that looked to be a green tie and her breath sped.
“I'm going to tie your hands to the chair,” he said to her, conversationally. “Because today's about a lesson you should learn all the way to heart, do you understand?”
“What?” she asked.
“I want to make you understand how much you love this,” he said, smiling. It was wicked but tender. “You're going to watch. We're going to get naked and do whatever we want to do while you sit and enjoy.”
“But I know I like—” she protested.
He cut her off. “Hush. No talking back, darling. You know you like to see your men together, but I don't think you know exactly how much. When you're crying for us to come and touch you, you'll know.”
“Oh,” she said.
Paul's voice came from behind her, rich and husky with arousal. “When we're done with you, you'll be very, very sure of how much you love this, and no one can take that away. It doesn't matter what they think—it matters what you want.”
“Plus,” Adrian said as he tied the green tie around her wrist and the armrest. “We'll get to watch you squirm and beg and plead for us. That's definitely a bonus point.”