Boston Avant-Garde 6: Chiaroscuro

by Kaitlin Maitland

  “Mattie, it isn’t what you think.” Lars was frowning, but not at her.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Then tell me what it is. Because it looks like the two of you have been screwing around.”

  A sexy smile curved Owen’s lips into the most kissable shape. “That part is exactly what it looks like.”

  “Owen, dammit!” Lars stabbed both hands into his dark hair and yanked so hard she was shocked he didn’t rip it out. “I didn’t come here for this, Mattie. I came here because Selena let it slip that Owen might be in trouble.”

  It was Owen’s turn to be shocked, and if the storm clouds gathering in his expression were anything to go by, pissed too. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Lars looked uncomfortable. “Those three guys that came to see you. Selena said a rough-looking guy named Jason came here to find you last night. I just…” Lars seemed to change his mind about what he wanted to say. “I just needed to see if you were okay. All right?”

  For a second, it appeared it was anything but all right; then Owen’s expression cleared, and he gifted Lars with a smile so soft it made Mattie’s heart hurt. Why the hell couldn’t she get a man to look at her like that?

  Owen glanced from Lars to Mattie. “That’s actually what I meant to discuss with Lars earlier. Then we got distracted.”

  Mattie couldn’t stop herself. “I bet.”

  Owen was obviously peeved. “Can you just give us a chance? Please? Will it help if we put clothes on?”

  Actually she was kind of enjoying staring at them. Her luck in keeping guys might be bad, but at least the two she’d managed to hook up with recently were built like gods. Between Owen’s thick muscular physique and Lars’s sleek athlete’s body, she could stare all day and not get enough.

  Owen’s dark eyes gleamed with seductive heat. “Mattie?”

  “I like the view,” she admitted.

  The two men shared a look. While it didn’t strike her as though they were agreeing on something, it was obvious they’d had the same thought. How odd.

  “Come sit down, then,” Lars urged. He took a spot on the bed and patted the mattress.

  She eyed him with no small amount of misgiving. “Oh sure, because that’s not weird or anything.”

  Before she could make a decision whether to take Lars up on his suggestion or not, Owen swept her into his arms. He was warm and vital, and he smelled so damn good. It felt amazing to be close to him, but it also hurt. He’d rejected her. They both had. And it was going to take her more than a minute to get over it.

  I did come down here to ask for his help.

  Owen set her on the bed and got in beside her. Now she was sandwiched between two hot, naked men on a bed that had looked a lot bigger before she was on it.

  “Why don’t you start,” Owen suggested to her. “You said you needed my help.”

  His words brought her back to the reason she’d come. Unzipping one of the pockets in her baggy cargos, she pulled out the piece of parchment she’d found in her tree. “Someone left this for me in a tree at the edge of my yard.” She opened up the Wheel of the Year and showed them the markings. “I’ve never known anyone to use a noose to symbolize Samhain. I was wondering if either of you had?”

  Owen lifted his hand but stopped short of touching the parchment. Mattie knew without asking that he could feel the evil just as she had. Lars didn’t share the same sense. He took it and examined it from multiple angles, even holding it up to catch the light.

  Owen arranged his stoic features into a glower. “What kind of tree was it hanging on?”

  “A hawthorn, why?” She hadn’t thought that might be significant until Owen mentioned it. “You’re thinking they picked a hawthorn because they’re believed to harbor old magic.”

  “Seriously?” Lars’s voice was laced with the kind of skepticism she was used to but none of the derision that often came with it.

  Owen looked pensive. “It was Daniel Hyde.”

  “How can you know?” Lars demanded. “I could run some tests at the office. Maybe figure out where someone could get parchment like this.”

  Owen tugged the elastic band from his hair. His hair was longer than it looked, flowing over his shoulders like an onyx river. He finger combed it before pulling the entire mass up into a fresh ponytail. Mattie had seen women do that a million times. She’d never thought the process of any particular interest. Now she considered it drool inspiring.

  “The guy who came to see me earlier was my older half brother,” Owen explained. He shoulders slumped as though he’d finally grown tired of carrying the weight of his problems. “We’re not exactly close.”

  “How not exactly close are you?” Lars asked, tone flat. “From where I was standing, it looked like a fatal dose of sibling rivalry.”

  Mattie tried to harden her feelings against Owen, but it was difficult when he looked so worn down. It was like she couldn’t help herself. Even though this man was more or less her rival for Lars’s affection, her heart seemed hell-bent on getting broken. Hesitantly lifting her hand, she laid it against his warm bicep.

  He smiled at her. Such a simple gesture, but it felt like the sun had come out. Lowering his head, he kissed her fingers where they rested on his arm. “We share the same father, but he was married to Jason’s mother. I’m nothing but a bastard. My mother tracked down my father after she got pregnant, and my paternal grandmother took me in.”

  Mattie felt a wave of kinship. “That’s no small thing. My grandmother did the same for me. I never stopped loving her for it.”

  “It’s not uncommon in our tribe. You only need a drop of Narragansett to be considered one, and Jason is three-quarters, which is more than most. My looks always bothered him because he was the ‘real’ Indian, and I was the bastard.” Owen spread his arms to indicate his complexion, but to Mattie it was much more than that.

  For being admittedly multiracial, Owen looked shockingly Native American. From the coppery hue of his skin to his strong features, he could have been the poster boy for the Narragansett tribe.

  “I think you’re beautiful,” Mattie whispered.

  Owen didn’t bother to hide the heat in his eyes. “Thanks, baby.”

  “Back to the story,” Lars prompted.

  Owen picked up where he’d left off. “I spent a long time trying to fit in with my family, but my stepmother wasn’t a fan. When we were teenagers, Jason used to let me come along when he was making trouble so I’d get blamed. I wanted to hang out with him so bad I didn’t mind. By the time I realized what an idiot I was, we’d done something that couldn’t be taken back. I-I lost control of myself and destroyed a life.”

  Mattie wanted to ask what the “something” was but got the feeling Owen wasn’t going to say. He didn’t strike her as the type to commit anything more than a string of petty pranks. He was sarcastic and irreverent, but he wasn’t a bad person. Whatever had happened, it had scarred him deeply.

  “The worst part?” Owen’s face tightened. “I hurt my grandmother and got myself tossed off the rez. I’m more or less banned. It’s been almost fifteen years since I’ve been home.”

  Mattie was dismayed at the thought of Owen being forcibly estranged from his family for so long. If someone had tried to keep her away from her grandmother, she’d have fought tooth and nail. “Surely you’ve been punished long enough. Can’t you try to go back?”

  “Jason’s grandfather on his mother’s side is on the tribal council. Jason has threatened to have my grandmother’s housing privileges taken away if I go anywhere near Charlestown.” Owen looked pensive. “Every once in a while he shows up and asks a ‘favor.’”

  Lars cocked his head and gazed at Owen with more compassion than Mattie would have ever expected from a man who seemed so adverse to attachments. It should have made her feel excluded, but for some reason it didn’t. Lars nudged Owen with his bare foot. “What kind of favors?”

  “Usually the kind that put me in danger of getting m
y ass kicked for no good reason.”

  Lars snorted. “Then why not kick his ass instead? I saw him. You could take him and his pals with one hand tied behind your back.”

  “Acceptance,” Mattie said gently. “Same reason we all do stupid stuff.”

  Owen didn’t respond to her, heading in another direction instead. “Tonight Jason told me he’s volunteered me to be the fourth guy in a bizarre binding ritual performed by our favorite goat-sacrificing lunatic.”

  Mattie felt as if someone had squashed all the air out of her lungs. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t suspected her yard creeper was Daniel Hyde. She’d just been hoping it was someone—anyone—else.

  Owen touched her shoulder. “I didn’t say no to participating in the ritual.”

  “Why the hell not?” Lars looked incensed.

  “I want whatever information Hyde gives to my brother.” Owen’s explanation sounded so rational. “When I find out, we’ll know how to deal with this asshole’s unwanted obsession with Mattie.”

  Mattie didn’t want to seem ungrateful. She’d come to Triptych to ask for help, which they were willing to give. Apparently the situation was in a holding pattern, so there was no reason for her to hang around and intrude on what was obviously Owen and Lars’s together time.

  Initially she’d thought to ask Selena’s men for help, but Selena had been the one to send Mattie down to Owen’s room. Had her friend known that Lars was down here as well? Mattie was going to have a chat with Selena about awkward moments and how to avoid them.

  Speaking of awkward moments. It was time to go before she really wore out her welcome. Mattie started to get off the bed. “That was my only reason for coming here. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  OWEN FELT BOTH lighter and more burdened than ever. He’d never shared his past with anyone before. Granted, he’d left out a lot of details. Stuff about the illegal fight club Jason had run with Owen’s help. Things like what had actually happened the night he’d gotten thrown off the rez. Still, it felt good to share even that little bit of himself.

  Except Mattie was trying to leave. Owen decided to put an immediate stop to that nonsense. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I walked in on the two of you in flagrante delicto.” She couldn’t even look him in the face. “I thought I’d let you get back to it.”

  Owen snorted. In flagrante delicto? Really? “So you think we’re going to jump each other’s bones the minute you walk out that door, and your first instinct is to hurry up and leave?”

  Lars was shooting daggers in Owen’s direction, warning him to back off, but Owen didn’t want to back off. There was a very large part of him screaming that he was a complete idiot. He had zero experience with relationships and good reason to doubt the existence of that fickle emotion called love.

  All that aside, he couldn’t deny what he’d felt earlier when he’d contemplated a life without ever meeting Lars, without meeting Mattie. The moment he’d met her, he’d experienced a sense of destiny, as if they’d met before. It was time to admit he didn’t want to risk letting that slip away. Owen was tired of a life where he doggedly put one foot in front of the other while trying to atone for a sin that wasn’t really his.

  Mattie hadn’t responded to his somewhat rhetorical question, but she hadn’t scooted the rest of the way off the bed either. Owen looked at Lars, willing him to say what needed to be said, to be honest with her. Owen couldn’t do it. It wasn’t his secret.

  “Just tell her the truth.”

  The apprehension on Lars’s face was like a knife in Owen’s gut. He could sense the exact moment his lover froze. Lars stiffened in place on the bed, his arms and legs rigid. Even though Lars looked faintly ill, Owen wasn’t going to let him off that easily.

  Owen couldn’t stand it any longer. He gazed straight at Mattie. “Did you enjoy having sex with us?”

  “Um, yes.” Her cheeks flushed bright pink.

  Owen made a gesture to indicate the fact that he and Lars were currently nude. “So why would you turn down a chance to do it again?”

  She appeared so vulnerable. “The two of you just seem so comfortable together. I feel…unnecessary, I guess.”

  Chapter Ten

  Lars was mentally reeling from the notion that Mattie had decided he and Owen were somehow better off without her. It was insane she could believe that after the incredible experience the three of them had shared less than twenty-four hours ago.

  Owen’s dark eyes gleamed. “That sounds like a challenge.”

  “A challenge? No! That’s not what I meant by it at all.” Mattie tried to hustle off the bed, but Lars caught her first.

  She was soft and warm against his bare skin. He wanted more. He wanted her naked in his arms. He wanted to watch Owen fuck her before he did the same. They could share her. And between the two of them, Mattie would never go unsatisfied.

  Owen is right.

  Lars wanted to show Mattie they needed her as much as they needed each other. Before she even realized his intention, Lars peeled off Mattie’s hoodie. She tried to grab it, but he flung it across the room. He could see her firm nipples beneath the thin cotton of her camisole. His cock was already hard again, though he’d come in Owen’s mouth not an hour ago.

  “Kiss her,” Owen told him.

  Mattie made a squeak when Lars took her mouth in a hot, probing kiss. He slid the tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips until she welcomed him inside. He boldly explored her depths, watching her eyes flutter closed as he mimicked the rhythm of sex.

  From the corner of his eye, Lars saw Owen caress Mattie’s curves. He unfastened her pants and slipped them down her legs. Her shoes hit the stone floor one by one, followed by her cargos. When Owen began running his hands up her sensitive inner thighs, she whimpered into Lars’s mouth.

  The sound drove Lars crazy with lust. He nibbled the soft skin on her neck and groped for the bottom of her cami. She gasped when he pulled it up and off. Her blue eyes were hazy with arousal, and Lars noted with satisfaction that she’d stopped trying to leave.

  Owen spread her legs and crouched between them. “I’m going to eat your pussy, baby. I’ve been wanting to lick your cunt since I tasted your honey on Lars’s lips.”

  When Owen buried his face in her sex, Mattie arched her back. Her breasts jiggled enticingly, and Lars gave in to the urge to enjoy them. He laved his tongue around each nipple in turn. They grew tight and flushed with the attention. When he began to suck in earnest, she moaned and pushed them into his face to beg for more.

  Lars cupped both her breasts in his hands and gave them a squeeze. “Have you ever taken a lover in your ass?”

  The question alone was enough to push her over the edge. She cried out and thrust her hips into Owen as the climactic tremors shook her body. Lars groaned and watched Owen ride out Mattie’s intense orgasm with his mouth on her clit.

  Lars reached into the drawer of Owen’s nightstand and withdrew a tube of lubricant. “I’m going to loosen up that sweet backside of yours so Owen can push his thick cock inside you.” Lars felt almost euphoric. He couldn’t stop talking. “It will feel good, Mattie, I promise. When Owen pushes inside my ass, it’s all I can do to keep from spilling my load on the first thrust.”

  Owen looked up from her pussy, catching and holding Lars’s gaze. It was obvious Lars’s description was a turn-on to all of them. Owen lapped slowly at Mattie’s feminine folds. He gave her long strokes with the flat of his tongue while still staring at Lars. It was erotic beyond endurance to know that Lars would be able to taste the sweetness of Mattie’s cream on Owen’s lips. He wanted to join Owen and feel the silk of their tongues mingle together as they brought Mattie to climax, but there was something Lars wanted even more.

  Lars dispensed a good amount of lube onto his fingers and got a firmer hold of Mattie with one arm hooked beneath her breasts. He moved his other hand down her curvy backside and spread her nether cheeks to find her tight anal star.

&nbs
p; Owen grunted as she arched up off the bed. He hooked both arms beneath her legs to hold her still as he continued his assault on her pussy. Lars made soothing noises and slipped one finger into Mattie’s ass. She moaned and pushed her backside against his hand.

  Her response was like a fire in Lars’s belly. He imagined the sensation as he experienced it—the stretching, the friction, and the hunger for more. Wanting to give her what she needed, Lars inserted another finger into her ass and began to fuck her with them. Never had a woman been more ready for a lover to claim her from both the front and the back.

  Owen left off eating her cunt and trailed kisses up her midline. When he was on his knees before Mattie and Lars, he leaned over her shoulder and kissed Lars on the mouth.

  Lars savored the taste of her juices on Owen’s lips and the feel of her anal passage on his fingers. It was good but not enough. He wanted to be inside her. His cock was throbbing.

  Owen seemed to read Lars’s mind. He grabbed Mattie’s waist and lifted her free of Lars’s hand. She moaned when the fingers slid out of her ass. Owen kissed her neck. “I’m going to turn you around and put Lars’s dick in your pussy. He’s dying to feel you, baby.”

  She eagerly moved into position, straddling Lars’s hips and gripping his shoulders. Lars’s thoughts turned to mush, his focus narrowing to the sensation of Owen grabbing his cock and fitting the damp head to Mattie’s slick hole. Then Owen backed off, and Mattie sank slowly onto Lars’s shaft. The bliss on her face sent shockwaves of emotion over Lars. He couldn’t name them, didn’t even want to, but he didn’t want to let go of those feelings.

  Now it was Owen’s turn to join with them. Lars got lost in the intensity of their lover’s dark gaze as he sensed Owen spread Mattie’s round cheeks to expose her anus.

  Lars pulled her flush against his chest and wrapped his arms around her curves to hold her still. She twisted her head to look at Owen, each shallow breath a testament to her rising excitement.