“Any better and I might die.”
“Sweetheart, you just keep proving how perfect you are for us.” Cord’s compliment pleased her. When he thrust his hips toward her, she gladly opened her mouth to take him in.
“Just make your mouth a snug little O around my cock, Red. Hang on to my legs and let us both just fuck you, mouth and cunt.”
Ari wasn’t used to relinquishing control. That she could do so now without a worry or a second thought told her how very far she’d progressed, and just how much she trusted these men.
They moved in her, two virile men fucking her above and below, their thrusts in sync. They grunted and hissed and groaned and she felt such a sense of pride fill her it nearly made her cry. This was more than physical, and now she understood the underlying emotions from the day before when Cord had told her they were making love to her, not just having sex.
Thoughts and sights and sounds, scents and tastes and sensations combined in a velvet ribbon of Eros that wound around her, took her over, heart and mind, body and soul. She shivered because her arousal climbed higher and higher, became sharper and sweeter than she’d known could exist.
She whimpered, the need and the greed tearing away the civilized.
“Yeah, baby. Fuck, your mouth is…oh, yeah, I’m close, so close.” Cord’s words tapered into primal sounds.
“God, yes, so hot and tight and good.” Jackson increased the pace of his thrusting. Then he reached around and began to play with her clit, brushing it with his fingers. Then he grasped it and pinched.
“Come for us, baby. Come now.”
Her body obeyed, her emotions and her arousal tossing her over the cliff. Screaming around the cock in her mouth, she sucked and swallowed and came harder and longer than ever before. The sensation of Jackson thrusting one more time, hard and deep, and holding himself still within her made her own orgasm stronger. His body heated hers as he tented her, his head on her shoulder. Her hands gripped Cord’s legs and his fingers clenched in her hair as she swallowed the last of his cum.
They were connected in a way she didn’t know three people could be connected, and as the last of her rapture washed through her, she knew she couldn’t imagine wanting to live any other way.
Cord bent over, his hands stroking her head as he tried to catch his breath. She’d already released his cock, and now she gave it a tiny parting kiss. Jackson slid his arms around her waist. His head still rested on her shoulder and the heat of his breath brushed her skin.
“I didn’t hurt you?” Jackson’s tone was tender. He kissed her shoulder again.
“No. Never.” She sighed when he eased his cock out of her body.
As Jackson moved away from her, Cord reached for her. He picked her up and carried her the half a foot or so to place her in the middle of the soft blanket. Following her down, he wrapped his arms around her and eased her head onto his shoulder. Moments later, Jackson spooned her.
She listened to the night sounds, the crickets and the cicadas, and the breeze tumbling through the brush. They’d have to get dressed soon, and head back toward Lusty. They’d drop her off at her apartment…
Ari let the thought end. She’d ask them to stay. It would be a tight fit in her bed, but it would be better than sleeping alone.
Tonight she didn’t want to sleep alone. And maybe not tomorrow night, either. Had it only been a week or so ago that she’d proclaimed, to anyone who would listen, that she wasn’t interested in romance?
I don’t feel that way anymore, and I don’t know how to feel about that.
“I’ll tell you what. If you get that house in town,” Ari said, “I’ll bring over some things so that I can stay with you on a kind of trial basis.” It was as close to a commitment as she felt comfortable making—and more of a one than she had ever dreamed she would ever extend.
“Thank you, sweetheart, for that,” Cord said. “We’re going to call Jake first thing and see what we can do.”
Chapter 13
Ari loved the rhythms of the Lusty Glow Day Spa. She had several clients that came exclusively to her—a situation that wasn’t as common in either Dallas or Austin. In her experience, not as many patrons developed loyalty to their estheticians in the larger cities, at least not at the nail salons and day spas she’d worked at.
Most days, her appointments didn’t start until nine thirty. Rarely did they extend beyond six. She was always willing to stay later, if she was asked to do so. But rarely was she asked. Chloe kept the spa open until seven each evening. Some of their clients worked in Waco, and by the time those women got back to Lusty it would be after five. The later hours allowed women to get their manis, pedis, and facials on a workday instead of Saturday, if they wanted to.
Ari recalled discussing the proverbial crabby or bitchy client with Chloe, as an academic exercise after she’d been hired, before the spa had actually opened. But except for one teenaged young lady who’d broken up with her boyfriend the day before her visit to the spa, there hadn’t been a single one.
That wasn’t to say that every woman in Lusty was in a cheery mood every single day. Every human being had ups and downs and the people of Lusty were no different. There would be wives who would have disagreements with husbands, mothers whose children were being either petulant or downright rebellious, and women who might be wrangling with issues at work.
Ari never minded any of those situations because they were real. People, if they were living life properly, got to enjoy every mood under the sun—and a few under very dark clouds. Sometimes, the most important thing she did on any given day was listening to her clients as they talked about whatever was on their minds.
The best days were when a lively conversation would unfold involving several clients and estheticians. Laughter beat the doldrums in the spa at a ratio of roughly five to one.
Those were damn good odds as far as Ari was concerned.
She looked up from the front desk and smiled as she caught sight of Tamara Kendall making her way down the sidewalk toward the spa. The woman was always on time. Ari and Tamara shared a similar size, which Ari thought felt a lot more petite than it used to since she’d come to Lusty and was surrounded by so many tall and buff men.
Tamara’s pixie-like features hid a temper that could burn hotter than the fires of hell. Ari had seen it in action once and had been impressed. She herself could boast a similar temperament, although it had been a long time since it had erupted.
The woman burst into the spa in a ball of energy—typical Tamara. She held up her right hand with her palm facing herself and said, “It’s not my fault. Well, mostly it’s not.”
Ari took one look at the two broken nails and raised one eyebrow. She could easily imagine how that had happened. So she said, “Sure it is. You keep using your fingernails as tools, my friend, and they’re going to keep breaking like that.”
“But that one bolt was very stubborn. I had to get it off so I could get to the oil pan.”
Ari just shook her head. “And how would your husbands, who don’t, by the way, have gel nails, manage the task?”
Tamara didn’t blush. She just grinned. “Well, they might have superior strength and more patience than I do.”
Ari laughed and led Tamara into the serenity room. Celtic music featuring pan flutes was playing ever so softly and the lighting in the room had been dimmed to simulate candlelight.
“Please have a seat and relax. Would you like a hot pack? Some hot tea?”
Tamara sighed as she settled into one of the oversized and very comfortable chairs. “Yes, and yes, please.”
Ari liked this part of her job. Tamara was usually upbeat and almost always traveling at a hundred miles an hour. But whenever she entered the serenity room and sat, she would sigh, and put aside whatever stressful thing she was dealing with at the moment, and simply relax. Ari could facilitate that. The five to ten minutes spent here could have the same effect as a half-hour nap. It was all just a matter of letting things go and relaxi
ng.
It only took a couple of minutes to heat one of the hot packs. Whatever did people do before the microwave oven? Ari sure didn’t know, but she figured what people mostly did, was without.
When she reentered the serenity room, Tamara was sitting with her eyes closed, doing neck-stretching exercises. Ari waited until she opened her eyes again, and then placed the hot pack gently across Tamara’s shoulders so it surrounded the back of her neck.
“Why don’t you close your eyes? Take a nice deep breath, hold it for a count of three, and then let it all go. Then sit back and just be for a few minutes.”
“Yeah, why don’t I?” Tamara rested her head against the back of the chair and sighed again.
Ari returned to the small kitchen and brewed Tamara her favorite of the hot teas the spa served. She herself hadn’t been a fan of hot tea until she’d come here to work. Her favorite and Tamara’s were the same—a green tea infused with mandarin orange. While it steeped, Ari performed her own neck exercises. It was just after twelve noon, and she only had another couple of clients after Tamara.
I wonder if those two quarterbacks were able to lease themselves a house?
She’d heard how quickly Mel Richardson and Connor Talbot had accomplished that particular deed when they’d been courting Emily Anne. She’d also seen a “Lusty-sized” bed and master bathroom when Chloe had given her a tour of the house she shared with those firemen of hers.
Ari could hardly wait to enjoy a larger playground. Not that getting naked outside was a bad thing. Thinking about their date a couple nights ago made her nipples hard and her pussy damp.
Okay, get your mind off your girl parts and back onto business. Though she had to admit it was kind of nice knowing that her girl parts all worked just fine.
Ari took the tea to her manicure table, and then went to get her client.
“I’m going for this one.” Tamara held up the sampler, her finger on one of the newer shades they just got in.
“‘Iris My Case.’” Ari quoted the name of the color from OPI, and grinned. Tamara had a true adventurous spirit. The purple was an attractive shade. She tilted her head to one side. “You can get that color on your toes, too, if you like.”
“Egad, are you suggesting I should coordinate my colors?” Tamara had widened her eyes in mock horror. She looked down at her toes, visible thanks to the sandals she wore. The orange digits blinked back at her, cheery as the day they’d been painted—two weeks before.
“A shocking concept, isn’t it?” Ari had trouble controlling the urge to laugh. Tamara was forever picking colors that should clash, and on anyone else, she knew, they would. But on Tamara, they always just looked…right.
“It’s so shocking that I think we’ll do just that. Okay, decision made.” Then she giggled. “I’m going to have fun seeing if I can match my clothing to my nail color over the next two weeks.”
Ari had no doubt she’d succeed.
“Okay, pal, put your hands up on the table and keep ’em where I can see ’em.” It was a bonus, Ari thought, when your client was a friend.
“Yes, ma’am.” Tamara complied, then giggled as she grabbed up her tea cup with her right hand just as Ari reached for it.
“So how’s business?” Ari began the process of soaking off the current nail gel. It involved the use of pure acetone. Almost every client agreed it was easier to have the esthetician do it than for her to do it herself.
“Apparently, it’s good enough to blow off a huge contract.” Tamara sighed. “That damn pigheaded alpha male I’m married to was adamant, however.”
Ari didn’t have to ask which husband her friend was referring to. “I’m sure Morgan had a good reason. He’s a smart businessman.”
“He says he did. Really, I guess, I have to kind of agree with him, because guys like this one can end up being more of a pain than they’re worth.” She shivered. “I hate political types. But don’t tell the boss-man—at least not yet. I’m having too much fun giving him the gears about his unilateral decision.”
“I have to admit I don’t much care for political types, either. Politicians should all be kept in fenced runs and not let out in public.” Ari knew she’d let her own experiences as a child bias her. However, she could see no reason to change.
“Well this one wasn’t a politician, exactly. He was what Morgan called a political hack.”
“That could be worse.”
“Yeah, that’s what Morgan said. The guy was pretty self-important, too, when he called, wanting to hire us.”
“You wouldn’t like having to deal with a client like that. It would remind you too much of bullies.”
“I’ve decided self-important political hacks are bullies.”
Ari chuckled. She’d already wrapped the fingernails on Tamara’s right hand in foil. Now she began to work on the left. “It’s just as well, then, that he won’t be a client. You’d go nuts if you had to deal with someone like that for more than a minute or two at a time.”
“That’s what Morgan said, too. I don’t get it. I can be diplomatic when I have to be.”
“Of course you can, if it’s for something that matters to you. But one of the things I like best about you is that you’re real—not an ounce of the hypocrite in you.”
Tamara beamed. “Thanks, pal.” Then she sighed. “It isn’t that I don’t suffer fools gladly. It’s that I don’t suffer them at all.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“I felt marginally better about Morgan’s decision to say no when the man said what he did to him when he turned him down.” Tamara cleared her throat and pitched her voice into a good impression of snoot. “‘Clearly, I’ve called the wrong airfield. I should focus in major cities and not reach out to a hackneyed, hayseed outfit. A pity, because you had a golden opportunity to be a part of what is going to be the hottest story of the year. Your loss.’”
“Wow, it is really just as well he won’t be a client.” Ari shook her head. “What did he propose to do? Hire you to look for Amelia Earhart?”
Tamara actually snorted. “Naw, nothing so grandiose. Some congressman from Indiana is looking for his long-lost daughter. The girl apparently left home as a teen, and hasn’t been seen since. This hack said he had it on good authority she was in Texas, which is why he called Kendall Aviation in the first place.”
Ari felt everything inside her go cold. It took every bit of her will to hide the shock, to suppress the dread that mushroomed inside of her. She inhaled deeply, and then flicked just a quick look up at Tamara. Her friend was staring down at her hands, and not paying much attention to Ari’s reaction to her bombshell.
She doesn’t know it’s a bombshell, and she won’t know unless you tell her.
“Seems to me if the girl has been ‘long lost’ for so long, she might prefer it that way,” Ari said.
Tamara laughed. “That’s what Morgan said, too.” Tamara looked up and met her gaze. “And you know what? I remember what it was like to leave my dad’s house and head over to my Uncle Goodwin’s. At the time, I felt that if I didn’t see either of the people who’d spawned me ever again, it would be too soon. So yeah”—she nodded her head—“I think I better tell Morgan that I agree with him. Because I really do.”
“Good.” Ari let her mind grapple with what this political hack looking for her could mean. She recognized the urge, the whispers, running through her like hot lava. Run, run while you can! Get away!
Ari bore down on that instinct. She bore down on it until it quieted. That was the voice of a frightened teenage girl, living in terror in her own home. It was the voice of a defiant, older teen, determined that she would rather be dead than return to that place of torture.
Ari wasn’t a teen anymore, and she didn’t have to do one damn thing she didn’t want to do.
A new voice began to whisper to her and a new urge rose up, an urge she never would have thought she’d have. The thing she wanted to do the most, right then and there, was find those two Ben
edicts.
Just thinking about them made her feel calmer. She’d been alone for a very long time, running for a long time.
Maybe it was time to stop running. Maybe it was time to fight back.
* * * *
He ran a hand through his longish blond hair and took a minute to rub his eyes. He held off mentally castigating himself again.
I‘m the one who fucked it up. Now I have to move on and do what I can to fix it.
He had her name now, the name she’d been using since she tossed the one she’d had as a child into the trash. That was on the plus side. On the negative side of the equation, he wasn’t the only one who was looking for her.
You have to be the one to find her first, asshole, so get back to work.
All right, maybe he was going to castigate himself some more. He had nearly come to the point of, if not forgiving, at least understanding what he’d done. He’d been just nineteen, heading into college, and seized the excuse of needing to apply himself with both hands.
He hadn’t wanted to go there to his house, hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near the bastard. He never even considered for one minute that the horror that had happened to him so many years before, a horror barely remembered because of the extreme trauma of it, could be playing out all over again in his new home.
He’d been too selfish, too self-absorbed at nineteen to look beyond himself. I should have looked. I should have known.
Guilt had eaten at him since he’d learned she’d run away, and he had figured out why. Then three years ago, everything changed. And he’d made another mistake, this one completely unawares. He’d been so shocked about seeing her, he’d told a man he’d thought was a friend.
It had never occurred to him that Drake would have gone running to the Congressman with the news that he’d seen Connie. Fucking bastard thought to ingratiate himself with a man of power. Asshole. He never wanted to see Drake Carson again.
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He was done avoiding taking responsibility for his actions—or his inactions. He was done hiding from reality.
Love Under Two Quarterbacks [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 14