Coming right over her, on his elbows with both hands holding her face to him, his gaze locked on hers, he pushed into her. As though he wasn’t the least aware that J.J. was next to her, holding her hand in a secure, unwavering grip, he…loved her. Made love to her. Watching her eyes, sweetly kissing her. Gently thrusting in, engaged with her rather than giving her a hard fuck. Waiting for her response, for her excitement to rise before he let his own show. And still keeping a rein on it, making it sweet and taking. Involving. Loving.
This brash, physical man, impudent, slightly arrogant, was giving her his heart.
In one of the sweetest moments of her life, he brought them both to a gentle, binding climax.
He didn’t give her the words, and maybe he never would.
But he gave her enough. He gave her plenty.
Chapter Eleven
Tyler, J.J., and Indiana settled that week into a sort of routine. Indy smiled as she thought it, because routine was hardly a word that applied when she was a woman with flexible work hours essentially living with two randy men whose own schedules were temporarily open.
Pretty much, they started each morning with a breakfast that she or J.J. cooked. J.J. had excellent gourmet skills and could put great meals on the table without leaving a nuclear disaster in the kitchen. When she commented on it, he merely looked at her knowingly. Like he could read her mind and figure out that she was thinking of her ex, who’d made such a mess with even the simplest of meals that she’d given up and done all the cooking.
She smiled, because she could read J.J.’s mind too and knew Keith was silently being called a douche again.
Tyler had no cooking skills at all and didn’t even make a pretense at being ashamed about it. He’d give her a smirk, fondle her ass, and tell her he brought other skills to the table. Which…he had, at one memorable shared—very shared—breakfast.
The guys had researched all the gyms in the area. No surprise, they were warmly welcomed everywhere. They signed up at the best of them, registered Indy for membership, too, and they all worked out each morning. Tyler and J.J. were much more serious about it than she was, so she’d spend part of the morning doing some business on her laptop or meet a friend for coffee.
Or grocery shop, though J.J. did a lot of that, too.
The two athletes enjoyed a soak in the spa at the end of their training, and Indy would often join them for that. There wasn’t a lot of privacy, but the three of them were sometimes alone in the gym’s big hot tub, and the two guys didn’t seem to care one way or the other. They didn’t exactly compromise her, but they made no effort to hide their sexual interest in her. After a couple days of trying to restrain them, Indy gave in to it. As often as not, she had an arm hooked around one or the other of them as they soaked their muscles into relaxation. And if the women who watched were jealous, well, that was on them.
Tyler and J.J.’s attention was all for her.
Point of fact, she’d sussed out that, as Tyler worked out, his gaze often landed on whatever woman was in view, working on abs or thighs in her high-end spandex. That was just who he was, like it was a reflex no different than blinking. But his gaze never stayed with them, and, when he changed weights or machines, he always made a point of knowing where Indy was and would demonstrate his awareness with a sweaty little pat or kiss.
They lunched in town or back at the cabin. Indy carved out some writing time then, fewer hours than she usually gave to it, but she was fully aware her men wouldn’t be able to stay with her forever. They learned to entertain themselves during that time—J.J. often did academic work, sometimes even joining her at her desk.
Little by little—or, maybe, a bit faster than that—they made themselves at home in her place. Her living room soon included an entertainment center, and sometimes she’d hear Tyler hollering for help from J.J. or his online gaming buddies. Her snow room cluttered up with more gear, including two pairs of cross-country skis. If neither of the guys spent the afternoon downhill skiing, they’d join her for an evening ski from her cabin.
They’d eat dinner out or in. She enjoyed the couple of nights they all dressed up and went out, but it turned out they all liked best a quiet evening at home. Tyler was maybe the only one surprised by that, but he settled into it with reasonable ease. His edgy energy often—okay, always—found another outlet.
They made love often and in every way possible. Indy learned that a single fuck with one of them could be as wildly rousing as their most vigorous double fuck. And that she could be filled with both of them, double-penetrated and as given over to them as it was possible to be, and still stare into the eyes of one and then the other, or kiss one and then the other, in the sweetest of lovemaking.
She was usually with both of them when they came back from their workouts—the morning spent eyeing fit women in spandex and then warming up with Indy in the spa always left Ty in a randy mood. The three of them would get home and she’d be wrapped up in Tyler’s arms, his busy hands removing her clothing and finding all her best spots.
He also, he claimed, slept best if he had a little “sexual workout” before bedtime. Indy couldn’t complain—he certainly had the magic to fuck her to sleep. But J.J. liked sleeping with her the best, liked fetching her from Tyler’s bed to his, sleeping with her in his arms, and waking her with sweet morning lovemaking.
But anything could happen, and everything did. Indy was very aware that they loved sharing her body—that their best wild and raucous orgasms came when they were fucking her together. That even the emotional connectedness of it was greatest when they were all three in the same bed—or room, at least. And so J.J. would follow sometimes when Tyler carried her up to the master bed. Or Tyler would join J.J. and her in the guest room as the sun came up.
As days passed, they were as present as they could be with each other, and it felt natural and right and endlessly satisfying.
Except for the fact that Sigge wasn’t there.
Indy spoke with him every day at least once, and she could hear his frustration rise as well.
He was more than two hours away. Far enough that, with his rehab regimen—physical therapy, rest, ice, and ultrasound treatments—travel back to Vail was too impractical to manage.
His calls to her were sweet but not enough. And she didn’t answer when she was in the arms of one of her other lovers, a fact that tore at him with increasing severity.
On his fourth call, Wednesday morning, he grasped what was going on when she didn’t pick up for him immediately. She could hear it in his voice when she returned his call.
Things got worse on Thursday evening, when she slid out from under Tyler nearly before he’d caught his breath, certainly before he’d given any indication that he was done with her. He kind of gave her the stink eye when she tucked into her robe, took her phone, and walked out of the room to call Sig back.
“Who were you with just now? Which one of them? Or was it both?”
“Sigge.”
“Indy. Dammit.”
In previous calls, they’d established that Tyler and J.J. were staying at the house with her. He’d told her again that she shouldn’t let them impose, that she should toss them out if she wanted her space.
She’d also heard Sig’s rising anxiety over the extent of his injury, though he didn’t express those feelings directly. He told her his trainers were treating it more seriously than he’d expected, that they were likely to want him to stay more than just these few days. She knew he’d talked to J.J. and Tyler about it, too, and they all were very careful not to say what they most feared—that a serious injury at their age could be career-ending.
He couldn’t talk about that, but he could tell her how frustrated he was to be separated from her. He could, in fact, focus on that, as he did now.
He took a breath, like maybe he was trying to rein in his irritation, but he wasn’t very successful. “This isn’t easy for me,” he told her. “I didn’t really expect it would be. But it’s worse than that.�
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“Well, they’re here and you’re not. Of course that’s hard.” She took a few steps down toward the landing and then sat, her head against the rail. She was sympathetic, she was, but it felt like he was blaming her.
“Have you been with both of them? Together, I mean?”
“Sig.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it, or even that he really wanted to know.
But he thought he did, apparently. “Tell me.”
She sighed. “I’ve been with both of them.”
“Together. At the same time.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck.”
“What does that mean, Sigge? Isn’t that what you expected when you proposed this? You did, remember? You’re the one who asked for this.”
“I know that, Indy.”
“But you sound disapproving now. Like I’m doing something wrong. Like I’m—”
Like she was bad, she thought. Like she was a…whore. A slut, at least. She drew a hard breath. Indy had worried about what others would think of her, but she wasn’t prepared for disapproval from Sigge.
She took another long breath, resentful at his silence. That he wasn’t there for her, reassuring her that this was what he’d wanted. That she was what he wanted.
“Do you mean to hurt me?”
He scoffed. “I’m hurting you? I’m alone here in my bed. Where are you?”
“You know that’s not fair. I’m sorry you’re alone, but—”
“It doesn’t seem like you’re that sorry.”
Indy bit her lip, struggling hard to keep tears back. Then J.J. was in front of her, dressed in flannel pajama bottoms and a Henley. He took the phone from her hand.
“Hey, Sig,” he said brusquely into it. “You’re making our girl cry.” He had his hand on her cheek, his thumb brushing away a tear. “He says he’s sorry,” he went on, his gaze on hers, before Sig would have had a chance to say anything at all. Then he looked up, and Indy realized Tyler was there, too, listening from the top of the stairs.
“We’ll come down tomorrow. All of us.” J.J. said it into the phone, but he looked from Tyler to Indy, informing them at the same time. “What time will you be back to your place?”
For the first time, J.J. paused long enough for an answer from Sig. “Okay. We’ll be there then. And be prepared to grovel, buddy. Or answer to me.” He closed her phone and slid it into his pocket.
Like there’d been some communication between him and Tyler, J.J. picked her up and carried her back up the stairs. They all went to her bed, where J.J. tucked her down in the center and then climbed in with her, removing nothing but his own lambskin slippers. Tyler came around and scooted in the other side. They both held her, an arm across her waist, lips pressed into her hair.
“You know he’s worried, right?” J.J. asked. “About his knee. You know injuries put the fear of God into all of us, right?”
She nodded. Yes, she understood that.
“Worry, schmorry,” Tyler said with a squeeze of his hand on her hip. “Sig was being a dick.”
Indy sniffled a little and gave Ty a weak smile.
He kissed her, a simple peck at her lips. “Of the three of us, I’m the one who’s usually the dick. It’s good for it to be someone else once in a while. I’ll enjoy giving him a hard time about this.”
J.J. touched her chin and drew her head over to face him. “Ty’s right. He’s usually the dick.”
“Hey,” Ty put in, but he could hardly object.
J.J. smiled and rubbed his thumb gently along her cheek. “And we should all agree that, whatever Sig is facing, or any of us, it’s not right that we should take it out on you. But…”
“He needs us,” Indy said into the opening J.J. left. “Not just me, but you guys, too.”
“Yeah.” He looked over at Ty. “We should have gone with him. We would have,” he said, looking back to Indy. “If one of us, any of us, was hurt, and the others could be there, we’d have done it. Except…”
“For me.”
He nodded. “Yeah. So it’s our fault, too. For not thinking enough about him.”
She smiled at him. “You’re a good friend.”
“And you’re a mighty temptation.”
* * * *
They slept together, the three of them, that night, in Indy’s bed. And they spent a usual morning together—breakfast, then their workout in town.
Usual except for no lovemaking. J.J. would have put a stop to it if Tyler had started something up. He knew that Indy was a bit shaky, that her call with Sig had rocked her, made her reconsider what she was doing. Even Tyler, not always a dick, had cottoned onto that.
Personally, J.J. wanted to slug Sig. He’d listened, from the living room, as Indy had taken that call. And, yeah, he understood that Sig wasn’t himself. He knew, as though it were happening to himself, the fear Sig was facing. All of them had that primal desire to keep playing the game they loved, to eke out a few more good years. And they all knew one wrong move, one seemingly minor injury, could bring it to an end.
So Sig had a case of the jitters, and no one who comprehended anything about his love of the game would blame him for it. But his fear had found the wrong focus. He’d brought it down on Indy, and that wasn’t fair.
Unless Sigge was stressed over something else, and that thought had J.J. worried.
Of all of them—well, of the three guys, anyway—Sigge would likely have the most trouble with…polyamory. He still smiled as he thought the word, entertained by Indy’s methodical approach to a new idea. He’d enjoyed following her bright, creative thought processes as he’d pushed the edge of polite behavior, invading her privacy enough to check out her internet search.
Clearly, when she got a new idea in her head, she worked the hell out of it. It made him like her more, made him look forward to seeing what would be the next thing to tweak that inquisitive mind. Most recently, he’d seen, she’d learned about xeriscaping. He knew now she had a plan for landscaping her space, for improving on nature to add color and texture without expecting more of the land than it could give. He saw the plants she had ready to order, could see, even, her rough drawings, because that was what her organized brain did.
She’d taken the same approach to the prospect of shared love. She’d studied up on it from a cultural-anthropologic point of view, historically and present day. She’d run through the relationship and psychology literature. And, like the practical, intrepid woman she was, she’d surfed YouPorn. No doubt, she’d confirmed with her own eyes that a woman could, indeed, take two cocks up the ass.
Everything about her made J.J. sure they were doing the right thing.
He figured pushing the envelope into polyamory be easy enough for Tyler. That one was game for just about anything. J.J.’s first concern had been that Ty wouldn’t be able to commit, that they all—and Indy especially—would have to deal with Ty’s wandering eyes. Not really his eyes though, because that was inevitable, and Indy seemed to understand that. A wandering dick was more the concern. But J.J. wasn’t worried about that anymore. If nothing else, the way Ty had made love to Indy the night she’d told him she loved him had convinced J.J. that Ty was all in.
The man’s heart was taken.
Ty wasn’t one to care much about what anyone else thought of how he lived his life. And his parents had been pretty much absent from his life for years, so J.J. didn’t think the senior Lawrences’ opinion would matter to Ty. To one extent or the other, all three guys had a bit of concern about their public image, but Ty was probably the loosest about that. He played football, he said. His fans had the right to expect him to put everything on the field when he was out there, and that’s what he did. But his private life was his own. He wasn’t required to meet anyone else’s expectations about it.
The issue was a bit more complicated for J.J. He did care what his parents thought, and he felt he owed them the best he could give. He lived pretty conservatively—by NFL star standards, very conservatively, in fac
t. But the bottom line was, he loved Indy. And his best friends loved her, too, and so that was where they were. If nothing else, he’d always had an open attitude, never feeling he knew best how others should live their lives. He’d never judged.
He’d learned that from his parents, and he trusted they’d remember imparting that lesson when he took Indy home to meet them. When they all three took Indy home, he supposed.
The Swede, on the other hand, was a bit more rigid. Sig tended to scoff, watching the young pros coming up make fools of themselves. He didn’t accept so much that fame and glory and a bunch of money might make guys stupid for a while, might lead to mistakes. He figured they ought to handle it in the same reserved, constrained way he had. A way that wouldn’t lend itself easily to loving a woman he had to share with two other men.
So that was a problem, and now maybe the fallout from it was landing on Indy. J.J. knew Sig had made her feel bad, had made her doubt she was doing the right thing. She’d seemed to accept J.J.’s reassurance, last night, as she’d curled onto her side facing him—yay!—and slept, both his and Ty’s arms around her. But he’d lain awake for a while mulling it over.
She’d been pretty much her cheerful self that morning, working with him to fix breakfast and then driving down the mountain to the gym. But he could see the little shadow of concern in her eyes, that bit of doubt. And he was a hundred percent certain that any lovemaking was off the table until they’d met up with Sig again and figured out where they were with it all. He could tell she’d been relieved when even Tyler had gotten that, when he’d done nothing but wrap her up in a good hug as he’d come into the kitchen for breakfast.
Indy spent a little more time than usual off by herself while J.J. and Ty had worked out. And she hadn’t come back to join them in the hot tub. Turned out it wasn’t nearly as much fun with just Tyler there looking back at him. Even Ty didn’t show any serious interest when a couple of bikini-clad chicks were forward enough to join them in the tub. He gave them a little once-over and a nod, but J.J. could tell it was for form only. Reflex.
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