by Lily Harlem
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My words hung over the table like a great heavy cloud above us, the calm before a storm. She studied me, then Quinn, and tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth.
“But I asked him last night and he said no,” she said. “He said no very firmly and very definitely.” She leaned back in the chair and dropped her hands to her lap.
“That was because we hadn’t discussed it,” I said. “We have now.” She creased her brow. “Are you giving us permission to have an affair, Ariane?”
“Hell, no,” I snapped. I suddenly wanted it out in the open. I didn’t want the words in my mouth any longer. “Once, you can fuck once, here, now. Then that’s it, over.” She laughed. “That’s one hell of a strange offer to get across a dinner table.”
“It’s a nonnegotiable offer.”
“What if I don’t want to sleep with him anymore?” she asked, taking a sip of her wine and holding out her little finger as though she were the Queen. “What if the moment has passed?”
“Oh, come on,” Liam said with a dry laugh. “You’ve hardly taken your eyes off him all evening. You want him, you want him naked. Even a blind man could see that.” Quinn and I turned to Liam, surprised by the antagonistic tone in his voice.
“What, it’s true,” Liam said with a shrug, running his finger around his left eye socket. “I’m only saying what I see.” He pushed up from the table and began to stack the empty plates.
When Liam left the room, Quinn let go of my hand and placed his on the scarlet tablecloth. My gaze locked on his graceful fingers and his thin silver commitment ring, at the dark hairs that led from his forearm to his wrist, caressing his bones and tendons and running onto the back of his hand.
“Eve,” he said. “I’m sorry if I was abrupt last night, but Ariane’s feelings were my priority.”
Eve reached out and touched the tip of her finger against his ring. “Of course,” she said quietly. “She’s your wife.”
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“Yes, but I did want you.” He swallowed and a small muscle in his cheek flexed.
“And I still want you. Very much.”
My heart became fluttery, my eyes struggled to focus. I forced myself to stay upright in the chair. I’d given my consent to this. I had to see it through.
“Well, I’m a single woman with needs,” she said, tilting her head so that her hair swished down her arm. “Needs that sometimes a vibrator just doesn’t fulfill.” She gave a little laugh then her face fell serious. “And in all honesty, Quinn, that was all I wanted last night, a shag. I’m not after a relationship or an affair. I’m too damn busy. I just wanted sex, some good sex, some good sex with someone I respect and who respects me.”
Quinn shifted in his seat and I noticed a flush of color on his cheekbones. He was getting hard. I could tell because he was fidgeting and his fingers were twitching.
“So go,” I said, standing and using the table to support my weak legs. “Go upstairs and have sex. That’s what you were invited here for, Eve. Not to make friends with me, not to eat, but for Quinn to have sex with you.” The side of her mouth tilted upward, and as her gaze slid over Quinn, a glint of triumph sparkled in their depths.
“Make sure you use the spare room,” I said to Quinn. “And I hope you bought condoms.”
He reached for my hand. “Ariane, it’s not too late,” he said, staring up into my eyes.
“Just say the words.”
“Go,” I said again, then turned and fled into the living room.
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Chapter Eight
Liam was stabbing at a roaring fire, the metal poker crunching into the logs. He looked up as I flopped onto the couch. “Have they gone upstairs?” he asked.
I nodded and squeezed my lips together, folded my arms tight over my chest.
“You okay?” He replaced the poker and came and sat next to me, wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. “Silly question, sorry.”
“Why did I ever agree to this?” I dropped my head onto his collarbone.
“Because you were treating Quinn like a butterfly, remember, giving him his freedom?”
I pushed forward on the couch and wrung my hands together like Lady Macbeth. “I don’t know if I can stand it.”
“Ah, baby.” He rubbed a soothing hand on my back.
“I have to go up there,” I said, jumping up. “I have to know how they do it, what they do.” I walked toward the door but I’d only gone four paces when Liam’s arm circled my waist and my back slammed against his chest.
“No,” he said firmly into my ear. “Wait.”
“I can’t, Liam, it’s the not knowing I can’t bear.” I pressed his forearms and wriggled my body.
“I know, baby, but look.” He spun me around to face the TV.
“What are you doing?” I asked, writhing in his grip. Normally I would enjoy his big arms around me, holding me tight, but I was beyond frustrated, my head spinning, my heart bursting.
“Wait a second.”
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He grabbed the remote from the arm of the couch and flicked on the TV. The black screen came alive. I peered forward, stilling, instantly recognizing the furniture, the double bed and the desk with the high-backed chair. I’d picked those wall and duvet colors, lemon and pistachio. I clasped my hand over my mouth as two figures walked into the frame. Two figures I knew only too well.
“Oh my god, Liam, you didn’t?”
“I did,” he said against my ear. “I took the camera from Bramble’s stable and hid it in the bookshelf. What do you think?”
“I think it’s genius but so very wrong.” I was shocked that he’d thought to do it.
“Why? Why is it so wrong?”
“Because they don’t know we’re watching.”
“They don’t ever need to know. Quinn wouldn’t care anyway. Hell, we’ve seen him in action enough times and Eve, well, she owes you big-time. Come on, sit down.”
“Oh my god,” I repeated, falling heavily onto the couch again.
He sat close and curled an arm around my shoulder. “Do you want me to watch with you? I’ll leave you alone if you’d rather. I’ve got to get into the office soon anyway.”
“No, no don’t leave.” I leaned against him, placing one hand on his wide thigh and balling the other into a fist at my chest. It was wrong but the thought that we could watch unknown sent a thrill rushing through my body. I would know exactly what they did, how he looked and how they were together. I wouldn’t have to use my imagination at all. I would know every tiny detail.
The camera was angled toward the base of the bed, a little high and slightly to the right. The desk and chair were also in the main view.
“There’s no sound, I’m afraid,” Liam said as Eve turned to Quinn, her mouth moving but with no words for us to hear. She dropped her enormous handbag on the bed covers.
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“That’s okay.” Sound was too much to cope with. I could live without hearing their cries of pleasure.
Quinn reached into the top drawer of the bedside cabinet and pulled out a box of condoms. He tossed them on the desk and stretched his arms out for Eve. She sidestepped, batting his hand away. I lip-read him say, “What’s the matter?” His brow creased in confusion.
She shook her head and placed her hands on her hips. She spoke, he shrugged. She turned to the door. He grabbed her arm. I could hear their faint footsteps on the floorboards above us.
“She’s leaving,” I whispered to Liam.
“No, she won’t, she wants him too much.”
Eve turned and flicked her hair over her shoulders. Quinn stared at it. Her hair was the complete opposite of mine. Mine was dark, curly and a little unruly, hers pale and straight and perfectly coiffed. I fingered a tendril sitting next to the cross on my necklace. What would it be like to have such straight, fine hair t
hat slipped through fingers instead of curling into a knot? I couldn’t imagine it.
She looked at his hand on her arm. She spoke, he let go and his arm hung at his side once more. She pointed at the chair by the desk and he took four steps to it, pulled it out and set it in the middle of the floor, side-on to the camera. The chair had three straight rungs up the ladder-back and a threadbare russet cushion on the seat. I’d picked it up in an antique shop two years ago and never gotten around to having it reupholstered.
Now it seemed it was going to be a prop in the show.
Their show.
Our show.
Quinn stood before the chair, arms at his sides. I thought how handsome he looked, tall and regal, his intelligent eyes glistening in the lamplight. She walked up to him, reached out and began to undo the buttons on his shirt, the crisp white shirt that I’d ironed the day before. She undid the buttons slowly, watching her own movements 110
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intently. When they were released, she pushed it over his shoulders, slid it down his arms and let it fall to the floor.
He went to touch her face with his left hand. She forced it back to his side and frowned as she said something through stern lips. His jaw tensed and his mouth pressed tight.
“She’s in no rush,” Liam commented.
“Mm, no.”
I watched Eve staring at his hairy pectoral muscles and tight brown nipples.
Quinn’s chest was rising and falling fast, I could almost hear the breath in his lungs, feel it on my cheek, my back, my inner thigh. I shifted on the seat. Liam tightened his arm around me and dipped his head nearer to mine. I felt Liam’s breath on my cheek and let out a shaky sigh.
“Shall I turn it off?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Leave it on.”
I was becoming fascinated. Liam was right, they weren’t in a rush. I thought they would be hard at it by now, her on the bed with her perfect long legs wrapped around his waist and him thrusting and pumping into her. But it seemed she was running the show. He was standing placid, letting her slowly undress him.
Quinn was never placid.
She reached out one long finger and dragged it from one of his nipples to the other and back again, circled them until they were tight little beads. Slowly she bent her head and kissed his left nipple—a long, lingering kiss with her pink lips.
Quinn’s chin tilted, as if summoning self-control, his hands squeezed into balls. My own breath quickened.
She raised her head, smiled and trailed her long fingers down his hair-coated sternum, over his flat stomach, his navel and stopped at his belt. She undid the buckle, 111
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slid it from every loop on his pants and held it before him as though it were a long black snake she’d slayed.
I stared at her face. She had an expression of softness, a smiling tilt to her lips and desire-heavy eyelids, but there was also something about her up-angled chin that was hard and determined. She was beautiful in her self-assurance. She was also mysterious in the way she was controlling the situation. She wasn’t fazed by Quinn’s confidence and sexual energy. I was as spellbound by her as Quinn appeared to be. I wanted to find out what she had in mind for him.
Hooking the belt behind her neck, she undid the zipper on Quinn’s pants. She spoke on to his lips and he hastily pushed them down. He wore black boxers beneath—
he always wore black boxers. She turned toward the bed, still speaking.
Quinn stepped out of his socks and shoes, shucked off his pants and left them in a knot of material, then slid his boxers down so they landed at his ankles and kicked them away. I looked at his cock. Long and lean, it jutted forward from his blacker-than-black pubic hair. Even in the subdued light of the bedroom I could see how red and aroused he was. The head had flushed a deep burgundy and his veins were purple and twisting up the shaft. I shuddered in a breath. That was my property, my cock to pleasure, and seeing it removed from me, aroused by another woman, was as mesmerizing as it was heart-wrenching.
“Are you coping, baby?” Liam asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I am, so far.” I squirmed my hips. I was getting turned-on, my body responding to seeing Quinn hard and ready. My pussy didn’t care that there was another woman in the room with him, it buzzed and wanted him like it always did.
I forced myself still as Eve placed her hands on her hips, cocked her head and surveyed Quinn as though checking out a stallion at a horse market or a piece of art in the Louvre. Her tongue swept over her bottom lip and I could tell she liked what she saw. Hell, what was there not to like?
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She pointed at the chair again and he sat, instantly and obediently. It was a little low for his long legs and his knees were a fraction higher than his hips. She walked behind him, leaned forward and spoke into his ear. He stretched his arms behind himself and straightened his spine. She retrieved the belt from around her neck and began to wind it around his wrists, through the ladder-back slats, harnessing him to the chair.
“Liam,” I said, excited and apprehensive all at the same time. “We hardly know her.”
“We’re seconds away if he needs us,” he said quietly. “All the more reason for us to watch and make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.” I glanced at Liam. He looked as enthralled as I was, his gaze glued to the screen.
Eve walked in front of Quinn again. She paused for a moment. He spoke with a frown and she smiled as she reached slowly for the base of her sweater and pulled it over her head. She wore a pale blue bra with lace scallops around the cups.
I glanced at Quinn.
“Take it off,” he mouthed.
She shook her head and began to undo her jeans, wriggling her slim hips and pushing the material down her legs. Stepping out of her shoes, she proceeded to tug the jeans off until she stood in just her underwear. Her knickers matched her bra. I couldn’t tell if they were thong as she was angled toward me. I scanned down the length of her body. Her limbs were ballerina-long and she moved them with elegance and grace. Her torso was long too, her belly completely flat and her hips narrow. I couldn’t help but wonder, as no doubt Quinn was doing, what her pale, sweet-smelling flesh would be like to touch―to taste.
She reached behind her back and spoke. Quinn nodded and his cock twitched. She laughed, undid the bra and let it slide down her arms to the floor.
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I heard Liam swallow as Quinn’s eyes widened. Her breasts were lovely, pert and small, her nipples upturned and the same pale pink as her lipstick. I reached for my own breast and felt its generous, dense weight in my palm through my blouse.
“I like yours better,” Liam whispered, resting his hand over mine.
“You don’t have to say that,” I said quietly.
“I know I don’t but it’s the truth. Yours are heavy in my hand, they jiggle a little when you walk and a lot when I make love to you.” He pressed a kiss to my hair.
“Yours are the breasts of a woman who has given me children.” He kept his hand over my breast as we watched Eve close in on Quinn. She stooped and let her left nipple hover by his mouth. His neck strained forward, trying to take it.
She pulled back, then she closed her eyes and allowed his lips to curl around her taut bud. He latched on eagerly, his cheeks hollowing as he treated her to a luscious suck. I knew how his mouth felt—it was divine. I knew what delicious heat and suction Eve would be experiencing right now.
Liam dipped his fingers between the buttonholes of my blouse and tweaked my nipple. My body was twitching, my mind racing. I’d anticipated many emotions while Quinn was with another woman, but feeling turned-on was totally unexpected.
She scooped her other breast into her hand and offered him that one to suck. Quinn took it eagerly, stretching his neck forward and closing his eyes. I watched as she ran a hand over his head, mussing his hair, stroking his neck, holding him close.
Suddenly she straightened
and walked behind the chair. His moist mouth followed, as did his eyes. But when she stood directly behind him he was forced to straighten his head and look at the doorway.
Liam’s finger lazily stroked around the tight tip of my nipple. It was beading and rolling through my thin bra. My attention was springing back and forth between sensation and observation. My pussy was swelling, heating up at the sexy show.
Eve ran her hands from the back of Quinn’s head onto his neck. I could see now she did wear a thong—her butt cheeks were round but small, the top of the thong sat just 114
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below the dimples in the arch of her back. She had a butt that spent time in the gym— I could tell, being the owner of one that didn’t.
I swallowed tightly as she caressed the nape of my husband’s neck. His hair was due a trim. Tiny licks of black curls hugged his pale skin. Her inquisitive hands lowered, scooped down into the groove between his scrunched-up shoulder blades. She watched her own movements, her head tipped, her back slightly bowed, his bound hands level with her lower thighs.
She completed the circle around the chair and stood in front of him again. She cupped his cheeks and lifted his face, dropped her head and kissed him.
Slowly. Delicately. Thoroughly.
My heart skipped a beat. It was soul twisting to see his head tilted for her lips, his eyelids shut as though he were lost to her. Eventually she pulled away, still holding his chin in the cup of her hand.
She smiled.
He frowned. His eyes had glazed with lust.
I snatched in a breath.
“You all right?” Liam asked.
“Yes.” I tightened my grip on his thigh. “I think so.” She moved to the desk, picked up the box of condoms and plucked out a red-wrapped square. With her teeth she tore the foil. Quinn’s cock bobbed again and the outline of his shoulders rounded as he pulled against the belt shackling him to the antique chair. His feet moved on the floor as though he wanted to get up and claim control of the situation.
She rested a placating hand on his right shoulder. He stilled and his mouth parted, dragging in air.