Zane’s hands drop down to pull at the sheet, but before he can get any ideas, I slap at his hands and grumble, “It’s four in the morning. Way too early for sex. Can we go back to sleep?”
“It’s never too early for sex.”
Jake’s words vibrate along my jaw and I swat at him, but he ducks away from me and leaps out of bed on the shadowed half of the room. The city’s light pollution is such that through the coverless window, both Zane and I can see him slipping out of his clothes. Little of his stacked form is displayed in the grim illumination but just enough to please the senses.
Outside of the duvet, it must have been cold, because his return to the bed is swift, and in that short space of time, his skin has chilled enough to make me shiver upon contact.
“At four AM, after a long day, there’s no way in hell this bed is seeing more action than sleeping.” And it had been long. Jake wouldn’t know why, but still, Zane and I have spent the day trawling all over Manhattan.
“Pussy-whipped, already,” Zane mutters. There could have been annoyance in his tone, but I didn’t hear it. Nor do I sense it as he maneuvers back between the sheets and flops on to his belly in preparation for bed. Especially as the next thing he does is yawn. Loudly.
I don’t think he could be too annoyed. The body might be willing, but the soul is weak.
I think being the woman, I have to be the rational one. I know how tired Zane is, because I feel the same fatigue, and Jake must be jet lagged to hell. Just because appendages get hard, doesn’t mean they have to be stuck into something.
Feeling very self-righteous and sensible if a teeny-weeny bit horny, I snuggle down into bed and sigh with relief as Jake curls into me. Within minutes, his snores rumble along my eardrums.
Zane’s start soon after and the irony is, I’m the one left awake.
But I don’t mind, because both my guys are here.
It’s amazing how much better I feel now Jake’s with us. And if I’m being honest, I can’t really describe it, either.
I could have felt resentment, bitterness. Intense annoyance at his showing up. Instead, I’m happy. Bone-deep.
I’ve never felt this way before. Even during those last few weeks in Maine. Everything had been coming together. As a threesome, we’d been turning into a unit. But outside of the little world we were creating for ourselves, we’d been just that. Outsiders. And while I know Jake and Zane were that all along, because they weren’t born and bred Bayling Covers, this level of exile was on a whole other scale.
No, I feel happy, because we’re all together, but also, we’re in a semi-anonymous place.
Yeah, I haven’t forgotten that this is where the shit originally hit the fan. Where Jake discovered the depths of Zane’s adultery thanks to snap-happy amateur photographers. But we’re just three small fish in a huge pond of sharks. I like that. We’re hiding in plain sight.
It takes a while for me to drop off, but eventually, I manage it. By the time my eyes pop open, Zane’s still snoring beside me but Jake isn’t.
The only way Zane doesn’t wake up is if I do a half-push up off the bed. The last couple of days, I’ve been perfecting the move, and in fact, I’m thinking of patenting it. It involves me edging my way to the side of the bed, pressing both hands to the ground, and dragging first one and then the other foot down to the floor so I’m in a plank position. What a woman will do for the man she loves.
Pathetic, really, but do I care?
A big fat no, I don’t.
Rolling off the mattress, I notice that my impromptu morning exercise is building up my core strength. The first morning I tried to do this, I fell flat on my face. Now, I can hold the position with ease.
Feeling smug, I jump up and wander out of the bedroom toward the bathroom. Morning ablutions taken care of, and feeling a tad more alive after a quick scrub of my face, I head to the kitchen in search of Jake. When he isn’t there, or in the living room, a small pout forms on my lips.
My discontent at realizing Jake isn’t at home soon disappears after preparing a coffee for myself and drinking half of it. The squeak of the door hinges alerts me to his presence. Call me eager, but I jump up and off the stool, and pad out of the kitchen and into the hallway. The instant my eyes make contact with Jake, I feel a huge grin crease the lower half of my jaw. It’s so good to set eyes on him, and that bone-deep contentment fills me again. Something that I never thought existed, never thought to experience.
“Hey,” he murmurs, a smile of his own creasing his lips.
My goofy grin widens. “Back at you. Where have you been?”
It’s only then, as he jerks his arm up, that I realize he’s been out for donuts. A thin cardboard box is perched on his palm. “Fancy some breakfast?”
“Always.”
I walk over to him, and with an inch between us, stand on tiptoes to brush my lips against his stubbled jaw. Even though it scratches, I nuzzle into him, and feel another burst of joy as he reciprocates.
Jake’s a funny one. And I don’t mean ha-ha. He’s difficult to weigh up, not that Zane isn’t, but Jake is somehow more complex. He’s difficult to understand. In many ways, the façade he presents to the world stops me from being able to discern how he feels for me. Really feels. And that’s even after he told me he loved me last night.
I get that he’s happy with me. He finds me attractive and he’s pleased that Zane is settled. But I can’t help but want to hear the words again. Just to make sure he hasn’t made a mistake.
I’ve never heard Jake tell Zane he loves him outside of that make-or-break argument back in Paris, and Zane is hardly vocal. It’s difficult for me, because every day, I want to murmur those words into their ears. I want and need them to know how I feel for them. And maybe with Jake, it’s even more important, because these feelings are unexpected. They’re a surprise and all the more precious because of that.
Shrugging off the desire to tell him I love him and have him tell me he reciprocates, I chide myself for being greedy and steal the box of fried goodness from his hand. With my back to him, I call out, “The coffee’s fresh.”
The sounds of his shoes hitting the bare floorboards tell me he’s removing them and within seconds, he’s in the kitchen, at my side, and preparing a mug of coffee for himself as I peruse the donuts he selected.
Stealing one covered in what smells like maple syrup, and what looks like and can only be bacon sprinkled on top, I bite into it and groan in pleasure as salt and sugar hold a mini battle on my tongue. Hunched over the counter, with Jake bustling around behind me, I savor the calorific delicacy and when a sudden wall of scorching body heat brushes against my back, I jump a little, shocked out of my donut daydream. Within seconds, I settle and relax all the more as his hands slip around my waist and he drags me closer to him, so that I’m pressed fully against him. His head lowers to my shoulder and the embrace is so all encompassing, so loving that I don’t need the words I’d wanted to hear earlier.
“Aren’t you going to share?” he complains.
With a laugh-garbled mutter, I shake my head. “No way.”
“That good, huh?”
“Yeah.”
His head turns to the side and his lips brush my cheek. He busses me and whispers, “Go on. Give me just a little.”
“I’m not a good sharer,” I retort, tongue-in-cheek.
The sound of a snort from the doorway has both of us looking up, and both of us sucking in a breath, the harsh whistle almost in unison at the sight of Zane without any clothes on.
Butt naked.
His body is like a statue, but it’s like no other statue that you’ve ever seen because this isn’t marble, it’s warm gleaming flesh. Rippling with muscles, ink, scars—life. Vitality.
He has one arm raised against the doorjamb and somehow, the positioning has every single muscle appearing delineated. The tattoo around his bicep, a snake coiled and ready to pounce, flexes and the serpent appears to jostle with the movement.
H
is cock is impressively hard. Unabashed, unashamed, he wanders in as the pair of us stare, and reaches over, grabs the box and like I did, peruses the contents.
As he decides upon which donut to feast, he murmurs, “Mona, honey, we wouldn’t be here if you weren’t willing to share.”
“Yeah, he’s right,” Jake retorts, pressing another kiss to my cheek.
With our bodies so close, I can feel his impressive erection nudging against my lower back. And he isn’t the only one affected. Beneath the lightweight Tee I slept in, my nipples are hard as bullets and beneath my panties, the gusset is getting wet.
“Sharing two guys and sharing donuts—they’re two completely different things.”
Zane’s snort of derision has Jake chuckling and me too. As he selects one with a lurid pink frosting and raises it to his mouth, he murmurs after biting and swallowing, “I’m sure.”
“What can I say? I’m a woman who likes her food?”
Jake hums under his breath, and his hands slip down then back up again as he traces the curves of my body. But there’s no maliciousness here. There’s a lingering element to his touch that tells me he likes what he feels. His words merely confirm my thoughts as he says, “That’s easy to tell. More for us to love, honey.”
The giggle that escapes me is almost embarrassing, but I manage to shove it away by muttering, “All these compliments for some of my donut?” If my voice is breathless. Can you blame me?
Christ, I challenge you to sit between two erection-sporting hunks and not feel in any way overwhelmed.
My hand and arm are shaky as I lift them, raising them toward Jake’s lips. I can hear the crunch, and then the squelch as he bites into the treat, and his moan of pleasure vibrates through my system like a massage chair pummels at stress-knotted shoulders.
If my pussy lips feel a little more slippery, well, that’s nobody’s business but my own.
His tongue, still sticky with maple syrup glazing, licks along the lobe of my ear. He laves it until the glazing has gone and my insides have turned to mush.
Just when I think we’re about to break a world record, climaxing from ear licking alone, he drops a kiss to the flesh he’d just been tormenting, stands upright and moves away from me. He rounds the corner of the counter, but doesn’t approach Zane. At the head of the breakfast bar, his face suddenly turns serious, brows lowering and eyes turning hard, enough so that Zane lowers his donut and stops eating. Spotting this, Jake grimaces and mutters, “I need to talk to you guys. I found something this morning and I think we need to discuss it before this goes, where I think this is going to go.”
He sighs and it’s a mixture of his irritation and his displeasure. There’s no hurt or anger. In fact, the existence of those two emotions tells me that this, whatever he has to discuss, isn’t all that bad. I’ve seen Jake in a highly emotional and intense situation. He freezes up, literally turns to ice until nothing affects him. Nothing at all.
Obviously, what he has to discuss doesn’t merit his concern. Not overly at any rate.
So when he disappears out of the kitchen and Zane makes to follow, I reach out for his hand and grab it. With a quick shake of my head, I whisper, “No, you don’t have to worry. It’s going to be fine.”
Zane’s forehead puckers with his confusion, and his scowling mouth screams of his need to resolve a situation before it escalates and grows out of hand.
In a low voice, I tell him, “Jake doesn’t react when he’s upset or hurt. He’s very emotionless, when there’s something wrong. That he’s showing irritation at all, tells me whatever he has to discuss is nothing to be concerned about.”
Jake returns and apparently, he overheard the tail end of my words, because he directs at Zane, “She’s right. There’s no need for worry.” The heavy plunk of expensively published catalogues is loud in the otherwise silent kitchen as he dumps the brochures Zane and I have been collecting on the counter. The pair of us have trawled all over the island in our search for real estate that Jake would approve of.
Surprised that he’s found the stash already, I quickly get over my shock. A part of me is glad Jake is the one to broach this subject rather than Zane or I.
I reach for the top one and flick through the pages until I find the one Zane and I have separated from the rest.
Jake murmurs, “It’s strange how much we know about each other, Mona. You know how I react and Zane doesn’t.”
His words have me tensing a little. I look up out of the corner of my eye and take note of the wry twist to Jake’s lips, and the faint confusion still tracing Zane’s features.
Not wanting to be compared, my words are earnest, “We were going to tell you about this, Jake. We weren’t trying to hide anything.”
“No, you’d have to be stupid to do that.” Jake rolls his eyes, but quickly settles into leafing through another brochure. “I’m not stupid. I can put one and one together and I don’t get three. You want to sell the house at Bayling Cove?”
“We don’t want to, Jake. It’s not about want. We’re not welcome there. We never were and never will be. That situation isn’t going to improve. It’s only going to deteriorate. As it is, we were all turning into some kind of fucking hermits. We didn’t leave the house for two weeks straight and that’s just weird. Especially for Mona, because every day she pops out for some reason or another. Even if it’s just to grab some onions, for Christ’s sake. So I’m just saying that I think we need to find somewhere else more suitable for our situation.”
Jake’s reply shocks the pair of us. “I agree.”
“You do?” Zane asks, eyes wide. Those beautiful, coffee-bean brown orbs are filled with bemusement.
“Yeah. You’re not telling me anything I didn’t already know, Zane. It’s unfortunate, because I love the house. I know you don’t as much as me, but I’m aware of the situation. I’m not a complete idiot. Even knowing that, I just don’t think I could live in New York on a full time basis.”
“America is a huge place, Jake,” I slot in, my tone as soft as can be. “There are many places we can live that aren’t as isolated as Bayling Cove, and maybe not so straitlaced. Connecticut? I don’t know, somewhere similar. We need to find a place that’s close to town so we’re not alone, but far away enough that we won’t cause gossip.”
“No. You’re wrong there, Mona. Wherever we go, we’re going to raise eyebrows. We need to get over that. People are always going to question why there are two men and a woman living together.”
“I don’t see why that has to be, not if we’re private. And not necessarily secretive, but just reticent about our lives. Nobody needs to know,” Zane butts in.
Another shake of the head from Jake. “You live a public life, Zane. No matter where you go, people recognize you. You know that. What you do makes our lives a goldfish bowl. We’re never going to escape the public eye when you live in it. While it’s your career.”
“So what, I should quit being a writer?”
“Did I say that?” Jake snaps. His jaw turns to granite with his annoyance at Zane’s brattish retort. “No, I didn’t. I’m just telling you both that our situation is always going to cause problems. You’re just going to have to get used to that.
“But, you’re both right. It’s too late for Bayling Cove. We’re going to have to find somewhere else. Somewhere we can start afresh.”
“We saw this place in Virginia, Jake. In Chesapeake Bay. Maybe you should look at it?” I tell him and having found the page, push the magazine over to him and let him look at the glossy photos of the house I could never imagine, in the past, as being within reach.
It’s the size of the Bayling Cove house, but there’s about four times as much land.
We haven’t visited, hell, we haven’t left Manhattan these last couple of days. And we wouldn’t visit without Jake. But there’s something about it that has resonated with Zane and I.
I’ve always dreamed of having a garden, and here, I could have that. One filled with herbs and f
lowers. The house is an ex-farmhouse. The land was cultivated once upon a time, but now it’s just gone to ruin. The actual building is in a semi-decent state so nothing too terrible, but it needs some touching up and redecoration. Especially with these guys’ tastes.
I really think we could make it a home. There’s something about it that connects with me. Through the pictures and pages, it just feels right. And there’s a faint glint in Jake’s eye, a softening in his face that tells me he feels that connection.
Maybe that’s because the pair of us like the traditional. Zane prefers the more modern aspects of interior design and this isn’t a minimalist property. It suits Jake and me. But there’s no reason Zane, Jake and I can’t have our own living areas, just like we have now.
The possibilities are endless.
Jake looks through the rest of the pages pertaining to the property and murmurs, “I’ll think about it. I just wanted you to know I was aware of what you’re both up to.” He nods at the pair of us and says, “I need to catch up with some work. I’ll speak to you two guys later, okay?”
In turn, we catch his eye and Jake makes to leave, but before he does, he moves toward Zane, leans up slightly because he’s a few inches shorter, and presses his lips against Zane’s. It’s a brisk kiss, but nonetheless, the feeling imbued upon that one gesture is so immense, my heart clenches.
At that moment, I feel so fortunate to be the witness to such emotion.
I never thought I’d be so lucky.
Ever since I’ve met Zane, I feel like I’ve been on Cloud Nine. That I’ve been as fortunate as any one of the lottery winners, and that feeling has yet to dissipate.
Maybe it never will, and in a way, I hope it doesn’t. Because I should feel this way. The day these two men entered my life was the best day ever.
And that’s the truth.
Regardless of what has happened and what will, the confusion, the earlier pain and worry… it’s nothing in the face of all that.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The one thing I’ve never liked about porn is the charade.
Sinfully Theirs: Naughty Nookie Part I Page 37