by Julia Kent
Complete Harmony
by Julia Kent
A Her Billionaires novella
Copyright © 2014 by Julia Kent
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
Sign up for my New Releases and Sales email list at my blog to get the latest scoop on new eBooks, freebies and more.
Go to:
http://jkentauthor.blogspot.com
Click on “Get a Text or Email for New Releases” and follow the instructions there.
Author’s Note
This novella is not a standalone book, but rather is a continuation of the series I started with the Her Billionaires: Boxed Set book, and continued in Random Acts of Crazy and It’s Complicated. While new readers are absolutely welcomed into the world of Laura, Mike and Dylan and Laura’s best friend Josie and her boyfriend, Alex, Complete Harmony will make more sense if you’ve already read the Her Billionaires boxed set, It’s Complicated, and Complete Abandon.
Laura
Mama.
The word was so perfect. So delicious. So utterly sweet and endearing it was like helium pumped directly into Laura’s heart, helping her float and fly, sweet little Jillian looking at her with those wide green eyes, her brown hair now darker and curled at the ends, and that button nose flared as her bow-tie red lips moved in concert with her little vocal cords.
Mama.
No word anyone ever spoke could be as precious.
“Shit!”
Especially not that one. The sound of Dylan cursing from the living room, hands balled up over his crotch, bouncing from one bare foot to the other in a dance of pain, made her bite her lips and laugh. Not out of meanspiritedness, but out of the comical nature of what was going on. Now that Jillian was crawling and grabbing small objects, she’d become quite accomplished at tucking tiny items into seemingly impossible spaces.
Like Dylan’s car keys into the heating vent.
“Is that some sort of ritual dance, like calling for rain? The key dance?” Mike strode into the living room and began to imitate Dylan, bent over his crotch, head tipped back in a mock-painful howl, as Dylan sucked a sore thumb and glared.
Jillian’s giggles made Mike dance harder.
That made Dylan glare more.
“Your daughter put my keys down the grate!”
“Why is she always my daughter when she shits up her back or bites you or puts your keys in things? Quit leaving your crap all over the house. We have a key rack.” Mike’s answer came in an even-toned voice, a deep chuckle behind the words.
“Because my daughter would never do such things.”
Their daughter let out a juicy fart. Both men scattered, suddenly busy in other rooms.
“Why is she always my daughter when she does that?” Laura called out, sighing as Jillian gave her a drooly grin, sitting up on her well-padded bottom like a stinky Buddha.
Mike reversed course before Laura's eyes, his pivot far more graceful than any man six feet and a half had a right to be. He scooped up the baby and made her fly in the air like an airplane. Jillian rewarded him with laughter that could have doubled as fairy dust.
“I'll change her if you take out the garbage,” he called back.
“Deal!” she replied. “I got the better end of the deal,” she added under her breath. They'd hired a lovely housekeeper, but they all wanted to keep it real, too. No live-in help. Besides, they didn't want the added scrutiny. Trying to explain the situation would be awkward at best, fodder for tabloids at worst. Creating a threesome dating service had been iffy enough, giving the three more potential exposure than any of them wanted.
Dragging the overloaded, diaper-laden bag of stink out to the huge cans in the garage felt like a mini-vacation compared to changing a teething baby's poopy diaper. Keeping it real, all right.
A quick wash of her hands and a check in the mirror showed a more refreshed version of herself than she'd seen in months. Good. About time the old Laura came back.
Mike and Dylan, with a little help from Josie and Alex, had seen to that. A month ago they'd taken her off for a night of sex. What they'd actually gotten out of that crazy, staged, over-the-top night had been, well…
An awakening.
And a lot of really awesome, inspiring, devilishly delicious kinky sex.
As if their menage a trois weren't kinky enough? Guess what. It turned out there were levels of kink Laura didn't know existed. Maybe others did and she was just naïve, but the realms they'd entered recently had—
Damn. There it was. Her libido, tapping its foot, demanding to be acknowledged. Its return had shocked her—a night with a sex swing, a week with a Sybian, another week with a Liberator and Determinator, and then a week of all of them should have tempered her desire, right?
Nope. Not one bit. In fact, the guys had actually offered up a schedule where they took turns. One day with Dylan, one day with Mike, one day together.
“What do you mean, ‘day’?”
“Now that you want sex two, sometimes three times a day, we figure this is the best way to, um…”
“Pace ourselves,” Dylan had finished for him.
“You want to ration my access to sex?” she'd asked, incredulous.
“We're tired,” they'd said in unison.
Dylan had tried to be helpful. “And you can always use your toys if you—”
She had cut him a death glare. “Are you fucking kidding me? You two went to my best friend and her boyfriend and did the ‘poor me’ act to find out how to get more sex in our lives, and now you're acting like I'm the freak?”
“No one's calling anyone a freak,” Mike had soothed.
“Actually, that thing you did with the pearls last night was pretty freakish,” Dylan had countered, one eyebrow cocked at Mike.
“No one is calling anyone a freak,” Mike had repeated archly.
“Boo-hoo. Too bad, so sad,” Laura said.
“You sound like Josie!” Dylan had protested.
“On this topic, I'll take that as a compliment,” she'd challenged.
The two men had whispered something to each other, infuriating her.
“This is so unfair!” she'd declared. “It's two against one.”
Both had shrugged at the same time, as if they'd planned it. She'd stormed out of the room. Sex resumed that night.
But the guys prevailed. They had a schedule now.
Other women didn't have to deal with this. She'd been a one-man woman for her entire life until a year and a half ago. The sense of wonder and unreality in her relationship with Mike and Dylan could be overpowering at times, counterbalanced only by the exceptional feeling of being loved more than enough.
If she complained to Josie, she'd hear her own words echoed back.
“Too bad. So sad.”
Completely absorbed in her thoughts, she was caught unaware as warm, rough hands wrapped around her waist and yanked her into the playroom as she wandered absentmindedly down the hall to check in on Mike and Jillian. Dylan's scent filled her as he nuzzled her neck, then he pulled her to the ground.
Squeak! A little rubber giraffe protested as they fell on it. “A different kind of threesome,” Dylan said in a low voice that never failed to make heat pool in her belly. And lower. Of course, it didn't take much these days to arouse her. She was like an eighteen-year-old boy assigned to check bathing-suit seams at a beauty pageant.
Perpetually ex
cited and very, very motivated to make sure every detail was perfect.
“You want me to put that giraffe where?”
Booming laughter filled her ear, then hot hands slid up under her shirt, his palms venturing forth and pulling back, clenching her curves with a primal ownership. Faster than she realized, his mouth was on her nipple, biting lightly, sending white-hot signals straight to her clit, her body so ready for touch she seemed custom-designed for nothing but sex. Hot monkey sex, the kind you do seven times in twelve hours and then go eat ice cream in bed while watching '80s movies on cable.
That sounded even better than the sex cabin right now.
Hot monkey sex wasn't on the table, but Dylan's mouth was on her clit now, his hands unrolling her yoga pants and undies with ease, the soft carpet a lovely cushion for her bare ass as his intense face dove between her legs, tongue on a mission as Laura arched her hips and groaned.
As she rolled one hip, eager for his tongue on that spot, she yelped in pain.
Hot giraffe sex after all.
The damn toy cut into her thigh, the pressure making her leg muscle spasm. Dylan slid it out from under her and flung it across the room, where it struck a musical toy, the sound of bells and whooping alerts alternating with green, red, blue, and yellow flashing lights.
Giggling, she pushed him back in place, warmth flooding everything as his little groans of pride from giving her pleasure made her want to climax even more. Nothing turned her on as much as the sounds they made during sex—so real, intimate, and primal. Dirty talk was great, but the sighs, the moans, the licks and smacking sounds of really juicy sex was a layer of her own enjoyment she hadn't known existed until recently. Being even more real with Mike and Dylan meant being a sexual being who was open, willing, and realistic about what sex really was.
And right now, sex really was about grabbing fistfuls of his hair as his tongue danced on her and elicited an afternoon delight she hadn't seen coming just minutes ago.
But she could see herself coming, right—now.
The sound of a baby show on the television in the muted distance barely registered as Dylan’s hand traveled up over the curve of her belly, the rounded slope of one breast, his finger and thumb teasing her nipple in time to the rhythmic strokes of his pointed tongue, the rapid flicker bringing her to her own hum, and she tipped over the edge into a writhing orgasm, riding his face, the man so caught up in the pointed focus on making her lose it that his intensity became her and drove her climax further and deeper.
“Dylan,” she gasped as her ab muscles clenched into a wall that took over her ass, her clit, her internal passages, and every core muscle from pussy to navel, turning them into a steel vise of pure, unadulterated pleasure.
The push of her hips against his face and his determination to make her multiply satisfied made her relax completely into his mouth, knowing that he was at the ready for more, her hand reaching down to stroke his thick cock through his pants.
The gasp of hot air against her folds, the baring of his teeth that rested against her as he reacted, made her smile as she pushed his head away, her orgasms peaked and leaving her panting, something animal inside her wanting to wrap her lips around the base of him and give back at least—if not more—what he’d just given her.
Squeak.
Halfway down to his cock, her head tipped toward Dylan’s now-bare, tantalizing navel, the sound made her halt. Dylan’s legs tensed and his sharp inhale this time had nothing to do with her. Following his gaze, which looked…guilty?…she turned toward the doorway, where she found Mike towering over them, two steps in the cheerful room, his face anything but.
Before she or Dylan could open their mouths to explain, he held out a palm. Mike said exactly three words before he turned on his heel and left the room.
“It's my day.”
* * *
Laura had to find a way to fix this. Day two of polite interaction with Mike, no affection, and a tight smile that reminded her of her old Republican congressman being forced to share a lunch table with Dan Savage. And his husband.
Dylan wasn’t having much luck either.
“I’ve tried,” he’d hissed over coffee that morning, both attempting to talk about what Mike wouldn’t.
So they’d been playful and spontaneous and had sex on a plastic giraffe. That whole “assigned days” thing had been a general guideline—not the equivalent of tax policy, right? It wasn’t like they could be audited and emotionally fined for sexing outside the box.
Right?
Mike, though, was acting as if she and Dylan had committed sex fraud. Tongue violations galore. Blatant disregard for orgasm limits. If their sex life had an alternative minimum tax, this would be Mike applying the formula and forcing her to give up a share of her last handful of climaxes.
She was taking this way too seriously.
Or personally. Likely both.
Then again, so was Mike.
Marching into the kitchen, determined to get more than three consecutive syllables out of him, she found him blending some ungodly green glop and pouring it into an ice cube tray.
“What is that?” It looked like something she’d vomited up after having her wisdom teeth removed after college.
“Kale/pear sauce. I figured Jillian could give it a try next.” The slow march toward solids was not going as well as planned, as Miss Jillian The Milk Vacuum had decided that warm and directly from the tap was how she liked her nutrition.
Like an Irishman and his Guinness.
“Sounds delightful,” she lied. “Now, can we talk about something other than the latest vegan baby trend and get to you let me in? I am so sorry, and I’ve said it a thousand times, but I can’t apologize if you won’t hear me.”
“I hear you.”
“No, hear me. Really hear me. Let me understand what’s going on and tell me how you’re feeling and then let me reflect and all that gooey interpersonal interplay that the Mike I thought I knew was into.”
“I’m sorry I’m not being the person you thought I was.” His voice was pleasant enough, but the words felt like little poison darts aimed right at her soul. That kind of detachment chilled her and made a deep part of her suddenly very, very vulnerable and afraid.
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
Oh, this game. She knew what he was doing. Saying words she was supposed to turn around on herself and take on, as if she were the one acting like a different person, as if she were in the wrong here, when all she’d done was had a lovely romp with one of her men. Mike’s head games weren’t going to work.
Maybe he’s right, her guilty conscience chimed in. You haven’t been as eager in bed with him as you have with Dylan lately.
Fuck off.
The voice skittered away.
She must have been glaring at Mike, because his eyes narrowed and matched hers. Great concentration was the only way she could relax, and as her face muscles shifted down to neutral he mimicked her subconsciously. Whatever was going on inside him wasn’t intentional—that was helpful to realize.
Didn’t make this any easier, though.
Glop delivered and smooshed into the trays, he put the entire mess in the freezer and washed his hands. Was he pretending the conversation was over? Acting like she wasn’t there? Uncertain and confused—and also quite upset—she stood in the doorway. Dylan had Jillian right now, so they could avail themselves of all the time in the world. Talk. Sex. Coffee. Even—God forbid—a few runs down the slopes. Laura hated skiing. Hated it almost as much as childbirth. But she’d do it for Mike.
She’d do damn near anything for him and Dylan, and he knew it.
Which made this all the more perplexing. Had she been unfair? Yes. But they’d never treated their relationship as something to be equally doled out, as if each needed exactly 33.3333333333333 percent of some kind of relationship pie. This wasn’t about making percentages add up. Emotions and time and sex and attention weren’t li
ke that. If they’d tried that kind of math they’d have failed long ago.
Instead—she thought—they’d all loosely fallen into a less-distinct process, a more cooperative way of living that involved everyone giving their best and hoping it would work out. Take when you needed to take and give when you needed to give. For nearly a year and a half that had worked, but this breakdown now showed her that clearly, something wasn’t working.
As his strong back faced her, arms scrubbing furiously as he washed his hands, the scent of orange mint floated over his shoulder, the new dish soap inviting and fresh. Too bad life couldn’t really be as clean and open as that soap seemed to promise, as if a scent could make the atmosphere happier than it really was.
Hesitant, then plunging in, she raised her hands and touched his shoulders, gradually laying her palms flat against the broad crossbar of the T that made up his shoulders and backbone. She expected him to stiffen, knowing that breaking through with Mike could be a slow-to-warm process.
Having him slump forward and rest his hands on either side of the sink as a slow, deep breath changed the landscape of his entire body was definitely a surprise. This was the act of a man deeply conflicted, of someone grappling with a core issue.
“Laura,” he said with the rush of an out-breath, his tone of voice so hard to read. Was that passion? Exhaustion? Discord? That he said anything at all, though, was good.
Had she miscalculated? Invalidated his feelings? Misjudged so badly that she’d compromised the very center of what she held dear with him? Tears filled her eyes before either said a word, and as he turned to her there were so many layers of emotion in his face that she could spend an entire year alone with him before she could unpack all those messages.
“I’m not jealous,” he said, the words coming out around a second sigh. His head tipped down and alarm shot through her at the way he said it. The hair on the nape of his neck was a golden brown, the same color as Jillian’s, and much like her own blond locks. His shoulders slowly released as he added, “I am hurt.”
Oh.
Ouch. Her hands would have started to shake if they weren’t firmly flattened against his shoulders. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.