“It’s fine.” Ross sleepily patted her shoulder. “If you want to fuck him, that’s okay as long as you don’t mind me humping him too.”
Her initial shock—she would never have dreamed of asking him that—transformed into surprise. Mirth spread across her face. “Oh, yeah, I can just see you and him giving each other a knuckle shuffle.” It didn’t matter how hot she found the thought. It wasn’t ever going to happen. She laughed, but her merriment soon died away, and she settled against Ross’s shoulder. “Were you serious?” she asked a moment later, afraid of how excited the almost permission made her.
Ross yawned making a braying sound reminiscent of a donkey. “Damnit, Evie, if you want any more action tonight it’s going to have to be with him. The only loving I’m fit for now is a date with my pillow.”
“So, you were serious?”
He looked at her, but his eyes soon slid closed again, and he gave another terrific yawn.
“It’d be okay?”
Ross mumbled something which might have been a yes and she thought he nodded. The question was, how compos mentis had he actually been? Could she actually interpret his sleepy mumblings as permission to act on her attraction to Kit, or would Ross wake up and think they’d been talking about frogs?
“Really, it’s okay?”
In response he curled his big body around her, so that she lay tucked tight to his side. Since Ross wasn’t normally one for snuggling she took that as a reassurance, but it still didn’t entirely eliminate her guilt.
Chapter Ten
Evie sat up and folded her legs before her. She watched the gentle rise and fall of Ross’s chest, even bestowed a few kisses upon it where his hair formed a diamond-shape over his heart. She couldn’t settle though, she kept thinking of Kit, and how he was probably stretched out next door, pleasuring himself having eavesdropped on the entirety of her and Ross’s lovemaking. In a way that seemed fair, considering they’d made him part of the scenario.
When she crept to the bathroom over an hour later, a faint gleam of light showed beneath the bottom of the guest room door. Evie hurried passed, afraid he was waiting up for her. She hadn’t forgotten his request that she come to him with Ross’s sweat fresh upon her skin, and though the idea left her curiously excited, she wasn’t about to act it out. Instead she waddled across the landing, intending to soak way the cricks in her limbs and the ache in her heart with half a bottle of Radox.
She left the main light off in the bathroom opting for the dim shaving light over the mirror instead. Evie looked at her reflection, barely recognizing herself. Oh, outwardly she remained the same, slightly overweight, blue eyes, streaked mousy brown hair, but inside something had changed. Her vision of domestic goddesshood had been blasted to smithereens by a black-eyed rogue, with snaky hips and a silver-tongue. A man who claimed that being with him wouldn’t upset the balance of her current relationship, and whom she truly wanted to believe, only he’d already upset the balance, and surely a threesome wouldn’t be more than a one off. What happened afterwards?
She jumped at the knock on the door. Kit let himself in. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
Evie didn’t grace him with an answer. If everything had been okay, she wouldn’t have been lurking in the bathroom at one a.m.
“Evie?” He padded barefoot over the tiles to reach her, a black silk kimono covering his nakedness. “I could hear you. I heard what Ross was saying. What did he do to you?” His image swam in the mirror beside hers, dark hair swept across his brow to mask his eyes.
“None of your business.” She dropped her gaze to the mug holding their toothbrushes, three of them, squashed together where there’d recently only been two.
“Is it not?” Kit spun her around. He held her facing him with his hands upon her shoulders. “Seems to me that I was involved, considering how many times my name got mentioned.” He leaned closer, as if he was about to kiss her. The dark line of stubble above his lip had grown thicker. There was a shadow to his jaw line too. “What sort of make believe did you play?”
“Did you tell him?” she asked, seeking out the truth in the dark depths of his eyes. “Have you had a nice chat about me, discussed what’s allowed?”
Kit’s brow furrowed into numerous tiny lines. He eased back a little and pressed a finger to his lips in quiet deliberation. “What are you suggesting? That we’ve been debating access rights?” He brushed a stray lock of hair away from where it clung to her cheek, and tried to lift her gaze. Evie stubbornly resisted. “You’re your own person. Only you can say who you’re with.”
Below the hem of Kit’s kimono his knees were battered and scarred. Evie concentrated on them in an attempt to push everything else aside. “What happened?”
“That’s right, change the topic.” Kit began to laugh. “Hell, I know my knees are ugly, but I’d hate to think they were a deciding factor in all this.”
“Why did you come here?” she asked.
“Bathroom, here, or Kirkley?” he asked as he hooked the side of his fingers under her chin, in order to lift her gaze.
Evie found it hard to look at him. She was still psyched up after the fantasy she’d just shared with Ross, a fantasy in which Kit had been far more than a friend, or just their house guest. It was a good fantasy, but she needed to remember that’s all it was. Three people would always equate to a crowd, one person in the middle, one person always left out. She knew how she’d feel if Ross became involved with one of her close friends, and it wasn’t a pleasant emotion. Jealousy—everything about it implied heartache.
Kit brushed his thumb over her lips and slowly began to circle them. “I had unfinished business here. That’s why I came. There are some things you just can’t leave hanging forever.”
“How—will you finish them?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Like this maybe?” He tugged the belt of her dressing gown so that the knot gave and unravelled, causing the edges of the robe to part. Evie quickly drew the towelling around herself, hiding the flash of creamy skin and the shadowy hint of curls over her mound.
“This is crazy,” she gasped.
He squinted at her, but didn’t prevent her hiding. “No, it’s honest.” A smile lighting his expression, Kit feathered his fingers over the front of his kimono, so that he traced the plane of his stomach through the silk. A tingle of excitement grew inside her at the display. Her fingers twitched with the urge to reach out and trace the wiry slabs of muscle that graced his torso, to explore each hollow and ridge, and make his nipples pucker into two sharp points. She wanted to caress his balls with her fingers and tongue, fall upon his cock again, wrap her fist around the shaft as it stood tall, and watch the resulting erotic meltdown occur in the depths of his eyes.
Kit shrugged off the mantle, and let it drop to the floor behind him, where it formed a puddle like an oil slick, full of rainbow hues.
“Kit…” She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Evie loved Ross’s rugged physique, the smattering of hair upon his chest, and the way his veins popped out and ran across his biceps, but Kit naked… Words really didn’t do him justice. Ripped and smooth, all long limbs and snaky hipped, he oozed the sort of magnetism that made you want to reach out and not only touch, but rub yourself against him. Bloody gorgeous didn’t come close to describing him.
Teetering, she stretched out her hand towards him, wanting the contact of skin against skin. Kit took hold and pressed her palm flat against his stomach, just shy of his erection.
If only she was as certain as he was that Ross wouldn’t object.
It wasn’t about making a choice in the end. Kit held her and he kissed her. She couldn’t avoid it, nor could she get him to release her once their lips met. He held her fast against the tiles, his naked body pressed to hers, a hot contrast to the wall behind, as he coaxed her with his tongue.
His hands slid inside her robe to rove lightly over her skin. He pinched her nipples, while his lips traced the pulse point in her neck. He sucked hard, making her wh
imper and cling to him, as sparks fired and joined together to zip between all of her pleasure points. Edging down onto his knees, he cupped her pussy and pushed his fingers into her cunt, to the welcoming slick sounds of her arousal.
“Do you remember earlier I said I wanted to smell where he had been? Well, I can smell him on you now. I’ll bet I can taste him too.” Naked before her, he crouched and drove his tongue between the wet lips of her sex.
Evie clung to the towel rail, unable to do much beside groan and support herself. That boy was downright wicked with his tongue and downright cheeky too, since he kept slipping it places he really shouldn’t. Not that he was going to taste Ross there, since he’d been fucking her bottom.
“Let’s do this right, this time, shall we?” Kit flopped back onto his haunches in order to rifle through the pockets of his kimono, from which he drew a tiny foil packet. Evie watched in mesmerized silence as he rolled the condom down his shaft. When he got to his feet again, reality struck like a bitch slap.
“Kit—I don’t know.”
“Come to bed with me.” Lie amongst the jumble in the spare room and let him make love to her, he meant.
“I’ve just…with Ross. Still smell of him…need shower.”
“The shower’s fine by me.”
“Huh!”
Kit scrambled to his feet and turned on the spray. He stood under the silver shower head and let the water cascade down his body in sinewy rivulets.
“I’d like to, but—”
“Forget the but in that sentence, and get your arse in here.”
“What if I can’t?” She clung to the edges of her robe, but failed to find any comfort in the soft loops of towelling.
Kit flashed her a devilish grin. “Then maybe I’ll go climb into bed with Ross, instead. It was 50/50 which way I went when I heard you cross the landing. He’s pretty hot stuff.”
More doubts and questions leapt through her mind. “He’s asleep, and he’s not into guys.”
A black hole opened in her reality when Kit began to howl with laughter. He flipped his wet hair out of his eyes and held his hand out towards her. “Keep telling yourself that, Evie.”
“He’s not gay,” she reiterated.
Merrily splashing about under the water now, Kit squirted a large dollop of Ross’s shower gel into his hand. “Never said he was. He’s bi. I’m bi. Likely we all swing that way a little bit, even you. Have you ever kissed another woman?”
Evie shook her head. “And I’m not about to.”
“Good, 'cause the only person I want you to be thinking about right now, is me.”
“Is this actually about us, then?” she asked, fanning her hands out to indicate them both. “Of simply some weird fucked-up way of you making a play for Ross?”
Kit gave another chuckle. “Did that years ago. No—” he stepped out of the shower in order to take her hand, “—this is about you and me, and how desperate I am to see you come. You look bloody fantastic when you come, did you know that? You get this glow about you, and there’s this light in your eyes.” His lips traced her knuckles, and his tongue dabbed between the join of her index and middle fingers. “Make a decision, Evie.” He glanced at the shower and then at the bathroom door. “And make it quickly, or I’m going to do it for you.”
Although she couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was, Evie sensed a switch in him. Maybe it was down to stance, or the hardening of his expression, there was certainly a flare of the dramatic burning behind that ultimatum.
It would be so easy to step forward, wrap her arms around him and forget everything, but loyalty to Ross kept her rooted to the spot. Before today, she’d never cheated. Not once. Ever.
“Okay, answer me this? What’s it going to take?”
“I need to talk to Ross.”
Kit grabbed a towel. “Okay, we’ll go talk to him now. Then we can both fuck him after.”
“No!” Horrified at the thought of waking Ross to have Kit ask him if it was okay for them to have sex, she snatched the towel away from Kit. “Don’t you dare!”
“Why not, what are you frightened of?”
“I’d rather be crucified for actual crimes than the suggestion of them.”
Kit stopped struggling with her for the towel. “That settles it then.” He grasped her upper arms and somehow manoeuvred her into the shower, while simultaneously stripping the dressing gown from her back. He backed her up against the glass bricks, lifted one of her legs up against the top of his thigh, then clasped her wrists together high above her head. His cock nuzzled against her body. She jerked and bit her lip as he pushed inside. His lips ravaged hers. He lifted her off the floor, drove into her over and over, fucking her until he jerked in a quick urgent climax.
Still inside her, he rubbed her clit. Rubbed until she tore shreds in the skin of his back, and her climax broke. She cried into his shoulder as its torrent washed through her, and the shower spray turned icy cold.
As they sat cuddled together in the bottom of the shower, Evie realized she understood something about Kit, and how he dealt with the world. Sex was his comfort zone. She retreated into chocolate; Ross went walking in the rain, but Kit… When Kit sought an answer, he looked to the comfort he could find in another’s body. She wondered how many one-night stands he’d had as a result. Had he actually been a host, or just a full on whore?
Evie eventually spent the night alone on the sofa. Kit tried to coax her into bed with him, but she was having none of it. Bad enough what she’d done already, she’d been weak, and had given in to her lust when she should have held her love for Ross in higher regard and stayed faithful. It’s just that Kit had a way of moving, of looking at her that left her feeling intoxicated. When she closed her eyes, she found she could still sense the scent and shape of his body pressed against hers, like a psychic impression upon her skin. And despite her guilt, she still wanted him again.
That was the really sickening part.
Once hadn’t put the flames out, it had merely fanned them to new heights.
Sitting shivering in the dark was her penance. Initially, she’d tried to climb back into bed with Ross, but guilt wouldn’t let her keep still, especially when he’d tried to snuggle against her back. She didn’t deserve to curl up with Ross or Kit, or even both of them together.
Yes, both of them together… Kit had firmly planted that image of him and Ross in the tent with that girl in her head. Every time she saw them together, it’s what she pictured. And she kept thinking that’s what Kit was driving at when he said Ross wouldn’t have a problem with them getting it on.
It’s just, if there wasn’t a problem… Why hadn’t it happened tonight? Ross’s actions on the sofa could easily have built to a fun time for all three of them. Instead, they’d hidden themselves in the bedroom and he’d tortured her with the fantasy of Kit.
“What’s going on, Ross?” she silently asked the darkness in the living room. “Won’t you talk and explain it to me?”
Chapter Eleven
Evie woke stiff and cold. Ross had thrown a blanket over her on his way out to work, and Mimmy lay curled upon her feet. She scampered upstairs, afraid of facing Kit in the daylight without Ross around, although really she ought to face him and reiterate that what had happened last night wasn’t occurring again, unless Ross specifically said it was okay. Though how exactly they were supposed to broach that topic, she wasn’t entirely sure.
To her surprise, the spare bedroom was empty. Kit, too, had slipped out, leaving her to sleep off the night’s excesses. Having dressed, Evie pottered back downstairs. She tried to eat breakfast, but only managed a spoonful before she pushed it away.
She had to be brave about this. She’d go over to the surgery and see Ross, explain what had happened with Kit and see if they couldn’t make sense of it. It meant risking her relationship, if he didn’t react how Kit anticipated, but if she said nothing, her own guilt would gnaw away at all that was good between them and destroy the relationship anyway.
They had to be able to trust one another.
Evie phoned ahead to Ross’s mobile; unfortunately, his phone had been switched off and the call transferred to voicemail. She hung up and tried the surgery reception desk instead. “He’s done for today,” said Iris. “Came in at seven and left at eleven. Bob’s covering the walk-in clinic.”
They chatted a moment, then Evie hung up and glanced at the clock. Ten past twelve. Even if the traffic was bad or he’d stopped at the shops on the way back he should have been home by now. She tried his mobile again, but it was still switched off.
Evie stared thoughtfully at Mimmy, then grabbed her coat and keys and left the house. She headed across the muddy green and down the lane. Rose Cottage was only couple of minutes walk away, and she needed the fresh air to clear her head. If she couldn’t talk to Ross, then she’d talk to Kit, assuming—and she had a deep suspicion—that she didn’t find her boyfriend over there too.
Sure enough, Ross’s car sat on the drive beside Kit’s.
Evie climbed the step to the front door and knocked, but there was no reply. She tried again, and met with the same response, so she went around the back and tried the kitchen door, which swung open on squeaky hinges.
“Ross…Kit…” Maybe Ross had agreed to help out with some of the work. They’d probably made the arrangement while they were playing video games last night, and he hadn’t exactly had the opportunity to mention it to her.
“Anyone home?”
Strange that he hadn’t come home to get changed first.
The kitchen stood empty, stripped to the stonework of everything save the Belfast sink and the Aga in the hearth, but Ross’s work bag stood by the door to the lounge, and a faint thread of music hung in the crisp spring air. “Ross?” She lifted the latch and let herself in.
Bright daylight streamed through the huge bay window. Dazzled, Evie squinted and took a few baby paces forward as she waited for her eyes to adjust.
Ross stood a little to the right, with his back to her, completely naked. She squawked in shock at seeing the golden light illuminate his skin. Pleasing shadows cast interesting shapes across his bottom and highlighted the breadth of his shoulders. Confused, she took a step towards him, only to realize as her vision cleared, that Kit lay equally naked, stretched sidewards across the wingback chair from Ross’s office, with his legs aloft and his bottom resting upon the chair arm. The old patchwork cushion she’d inherited from her Gran sat supporting his lower back. They were fucking, Ross’s pale glutes tightening and relaxing with each stroke, Kit grunting slightly at the penetration, his palm pressed flat to Ross’s stomach as if to stop him going too deep.
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