Enticement

by Madelynn Ellis

  Kit chased across the landing after her and followed her up the half-rotten stairs to the attic. She carved a long gouge in his hand when he tried to extract her from one of Flora’s old hat boxes. “Ow! Damn, you stupid moggy.” He sucked at the wound, in which blood had begun to pool, then made a second grab for her. This time he hung on, despite her claws. “Hey, it’s okay. We don’t have time for this. We need to get out.” There were no convenient hatches onto the roof. That was damned inconvenient oversight. He’d phone a Velux windows rep tomorrow if he got out of here alive and there was a house left to install them in. Fire brigade, he thought, hurrying downstairs again. No, he needed to get out first.

  The few seconds it had taken to grab Mimmy had wrought extensive damage to the landing. What little wallpaper there was now hung in fiery curls. Thickening smoke obscured the route back to the room he’d inhabited. It was the only room with sash windows that still opened; the others had long since succumbed to layers of paint and wood filler. A few of them had been nailed shut from the outside.

  Kit inched his way along the passage. Flames seemed to line every groove between the floorboards, rows upon rows of pretty orange petals that he had to dance around. If it had been more than a few feet he didn’t think he’d have made it. He paused halfway, gasping for breath and wondered if he’d have been better staying in the attic and trying to knock a hole in the new roof. Having it fixed had clearly been a terrible mistake.

  He laughed, although it came out as a dry cough that morphed into a sob. Mimmy’s wriggling intensified at his distress. “We should have had a puppy,” he told her. “At least dogs are loyal, and they understand the concept of giving comfort not just receiving it. Keep still, will yer.”

  A crack sounded above and plaster began raining from the ceiling. Kit darted, avoiding the falling debris, but he skidded, jarring his ankle. Pain fired up his leg, and on instinct he flung Mimmy through the door to the bedroom and reached out for support, only for every nerve ending in his body to join the chorus of agony as a jet of flames scorched his hands. Kit drew breath to scream but no sound came out. The smoke dried his eyes and got into nostrils. He followed Mimmy into the bedroom, and kicked the door closed behind them. There, he collapsed, as the world began to spin.

  His hands were blacked and dotted with vibrant speckles of red. Kit bit down and made his muscles propel him forward, even though he could feel the fluid seeping between his fingers. Crying, and choking, he crawled his way to the window. It hurt like hell to manipulate the catch. Kit sacrificed an abandoned mug to the cause, bashing it against the stiff lock until it released.

  Air gusted into the room as he raised the sash. There was no time to manipulate the mattress now. And he wasn’t sure he could do it. He pulled the ends of his sleeves down over his hands, leaving just the tips of his fingers sticking out, then the grabbed the yowling kitten again. Ignoring both her squirming and the bite of her claws, he tucked her as best he could inside his jacket and zipped it up. “You’ll thank me later, pussy cat.”

  Kit shimmied out of window and tentatively lowered himself from the sill. He didn’t remember hitting the ground, only being roused from his prone position amongst the trees in the orchard by a man in a large helmet.

  “How is he?”

  Ross turned his head from the partition window separating the treatment room from the waiting area to find an unfamiliar figure stood a few feet away. She stared expectantly at him, her hands raised to the disinfectant dispenser. Another two more familiar figures bustled up behind her. “Molly. Lillianna.” He nodded. Only then did he make the connection. “Sammie!”

  She inclined her chin a fraction. “Hello, Ross.”

  She’d changed. How the hell had they recognised her from a television image? Here she was in the flesh before him and he could only see the vaguest similarities to the girl he once knew. She was still blonde, but where once her hair had fallen in a silken cascade across her shoulder blades, it was now cropped almost to the scalp. And by God, there’d never been much to her, but she had to be three stone lighter. “Sammie?” he hissed again, still not quite believing it. All those years of wondering and here she was in front of him as if there’d never been any trouble.

  “We heard what happened,” said Molly, coming forward to stand between him and her sister, making herself into a human shield. “Lillianna said that Kit was trapped inside. Is he going to be okay?”

  Anger surged inside him. They had no right. Molly had made Kit’s life hell for years with her accusations, and as for Sammie, she had a huge apology to give and a hell of a lot of explaining to do before she learned anything from him. Her selfishness had saddled Kit with a lifetimes worth of guilt. More than that, Sammie was the reason Kit was lying in a hospital bed.

  As for Lillianna—her interference had damn near split them up, but he acknowledged that hadn’t been her intention. She was simply trying to protect Evie by presenting her with the facts.

  “His hands are grim,” he began, avoiding eye contact with any of them. Ross turned back to the glass divide and the activity around Kit’s bed. “I don’t know if they’ll ever be right again. The burns are pretty bad. They’re going to get plastics to look at them.” They had Kit wired up to a drip.

  “I’m sorry,” Molly said.

  “Do they know how the fire started?”

  “No,” he said firmly, hoping she understood the conversation was over. Kit had babbled something to the fire officers about petrol and a smashed window. They were looking into arson, but the two primary suspects were already accounted for. Molly had been off meeting Sammie, and Tony had never left the pub. Kit kept saying he didn’t want any fuss, that he wanted the whole episode forgotten, but he was high on a cocktail of pain meds.

  “Drink?” Molly asked.

  Ross shrugged.

  “I’ll help,” said Lillianna. The pair of them walked off towards the main entrance, leaving him alone with Sammie.

  The scent of her perfume wafted over him, light and fruity with a sharp after bite, as she moved to stand beside him. “I had to go, Ross. I can’t explain why, but I had no choice.”

  “Would it have hurt to tell one person that you were okay?” He didn’t want to hear her story. At this moment, he didn’t want to understand. Her past choices had nearly stolen Kit from him forever. Six years while Kit hid in Japan had hardly passed in the blink of an eye.

  “I never meant to hurt him.” She pressed a hand to the glass, another liberty at which he ground his teeth.

  “But you did.” His words must have pierced the glass, for Evie waved to him, and gave him a rallying smile.

  “He’s doing okay,” she mouthed. “You can come in.”

  Ross left Sammie in the corridor and headed into the private room. They’d been told only one visitor at a time by the original nurse, but no one protested his entry. Kit’s hands were swaddled in dressings, and he was connected to an intravenous drip, but he was sitting upright and now his skin was clear of soot, he didn’t appear nearly so ill. Ross threw his arms around his neck. “You fucking idiot. The cat’s not worth your life. What were you thinking?”

  Unable to pat his back in response, Kit gave him a gormless grin. “I didn’t want another disappearance on my conscience. One is enough for any man. I’m okay, Ross. The doctors aren’t too concerned. Leastways they’re not talking about the prospect of taking skin grafts off my arse.”

  Kit’s attempt at humour brought tears to Ross’s eyes. “I love you, you stupid bastard.” He nuzzled against Kit’s shoulder, not conscious that he was crushing him until Evie tentatively eased them apart.

  “They are however, pushing enough meds into me to make up for all the times I’ve refused them.” Kit rolled his eyes at the drip. “I don’t suppose you could have a word with them about my preferences for natural methods.”

  “No, he can’t.” Evie patted Kit’s leg through the sheet. “They’re probably the only reason you’re sitting upright and aren’t screaming
like you were the whole way here in the ambulance.”

  Kit raised his brows, feigning scepticism. “Did I scream?”

  “Like a girl,” said Ross. “But don’t worry, we won’t put it about.”

  “I bloody hope not. I’m not planning on being away from home that long.” Ross starred at him a moment, then let a smile crack his lips. If Kit was thinking of sex, then he really wasn’t that badly hurt. He crushed his lips to Kit’s, thrusting his tongue deep. He didn’t care who saw: Sammie or the various members of staff. He wasn’t going to hide their relationship anymore. No one would get away with thinking they were simply sharing Evie. They’d make it plain it was a proper three-way relationship. As if to prove that, Evie rubbed up against his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her back and drew her into the huddle, kissing her too. “Shall I wait to mention the lease?” he asked.

  Evie thumped him.

  “Is that Sammie?” Kit sank back against the pillows, his gaze focused on the woman standing in the corridor. “I want to talk to her.”

  “Tomorrow,” Evie barked. “When you’re okay.”

  Kit did eventually talk to Sammie, but not until the next day. If she gave him anymore details about her disappearance than she’d admitted to anyone else, Kit didn’t let on. When asked, he just smiled and said he was satisfied, and that he only wished she’d felt she could have trusted him better then. And no, actually, he wasn’t a dad; he made a point of informing Evie while Lillianna was also present, just to nip that particular rumour before it started. Lilli liked to be at the forefront of any gossip, but she also liked to be right.

  The police came to speak to him too, but Kit refused to name potential suspects or press charges. He explained what had happened and left it at that, keen to put the past behind him. Flora’s legacy was a wreck, little more than a smouldering, blackened shell, but he asked as the officers left how soon he could start repairing it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Blinking hell! It’s like a funeral parlour in here.” Kit laughed at the abundance of cards, flowers and get well soon balloons taking up space in the living room. “Amazing what rescuing a cat does for one’s reputation.” He nudged one particularly garish offering of a black sequined heart and smiled at Lillianna’s “get well and smoochy” message inside.

  Following Sammie’s brief reappearance, the villagers had rallied round, each more eager than the last to express their sympathies over Kit’s injures, and to dismiss any suggestion that they ever thought he had anything to do with Sammie’s disappearance. An assertion Evie had learned to accept with grace.

  Not that any of that mattered now. Kit was finally home, and so was Mimmy. The little kitten had suffered a bad dose of smoke-inhalation during the fire, but she was now fully recovered, thanks to Ross’s partner at the veterinary practice, who had thoroughly cleaned her up and taken her home to nurse, since Ross and Evie had their hands full travelling back and forth to the hospital to visit Kit.

  Evie left Ross aiding Kit to remove his coat, and padded through to the kitchen to shove a pizza in the oven. The current plan was for the three of them to curl up on the sofa and watch a movie together. Only, when she returned, the boys seemed to have forgotten their coats. Ross’s lay on the carpet, and Kit’s still had one arm in his jacket. Evie hung back in the doorway, watching, as her lover tenderly rained down kisses upon Kit’s upturned face. “Making up for lost time?” she asked.

  Neither of them replied.

  “Keep kissing me and you’re going to have your work cut out for you,” said Kit. With his hands still covered in swaddling bandages, he was neither in a position to push Ross away or draw him closer. “I’m not sitting up all night with a raging hard-on that I can do nothing about. It’s been bad in enough in hospital. I’ll come and slap you in the face with it until you wake up.”

  “Promises, promises,” Ross scoffed. He finally helped pull Kit’s other arm free of his coat sleeve. “You know I’m feeling a little frisky in that regard myself.” Ross rolled his hips so that his loins pressed tightly to Kit’s abdomen, in response to which Kit gave an anguished groan.

  “Evil,” he cursed.

  “What did you say about Evie?” Ross glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of her standing in the doorway. “Coming to join us?”

  She took a few steps forward, but still didn’t intrude. It was great to have Kit home again, but she wasn’t sure the three of them getting frisky quite so soon was such a good idea. Ross apparently thought otherwise.

  “Damn, you’re hot like this, Kit. I love the fact that you can’t do a blooming thing. I can do whatever I like and you can’t stop me.”

  “Who says I can’t?”

  Evie laughed at the challenge in Kit’s voice. She was pretty certain he’d come out on top of this power play scenario, even taking into account his injuries. However… “Ross, he’s still—” She was going to say injured, but Kit cut her off.

  “—just fine. I’m just fine,” he said, and the purr that escaped Ross’s throat as Kit’s mouth closed over one nipple attested to that fact. “Who says I need hands to get either of you off?”

  “Kit. The doctor told you to take it easy.”

  “Yeah, and he also told me that Margaret Thatcher was the best thing that ever happened to this country, and that he thinks he’s emo son is gay.”

  Evie came and perched on the arm of the sofa beside them. “You should still—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get it. Take it easy. Work up to things gradually. I’ll not do a thing. I’ll just sit here. That okay?”

  She nodded, but the moment she’d done so, Kit exchanged a secretive look with Ross, and the latter slipped off Kit’s lap and knelt between his spread thighs. “Ross, no!”

  “Please,” murmured Kit, a plea she hadn’t the heart to argue with. “All rest and no play makes Kit a growly sourpuss.” He pouted.

  Evie raised her hands in capitulation. Ross immediately dived on Kit’s belt, and helped him wriggle far enough out of his trousers and underwear that the fabric bunched around his knees. His erection swung free of the restriction, the head already ruddy and ripe for a touch. Ross wrapped a large hand around the base of Kit’s cock and applied tongue to the head.

  Thirty seconds of watching his head bob was enough to crumble her resolve. Evie clambered onto the sofa beside Kit and lavished kisses upon him. God, she’d missed this, even in the few short days they’d been apart.

  “Evie.” Kit nudged her away with his words. “I want to watch him. I want to watch you.” There was no need to ask for further clarification. Evie shuffled off the sofa again, and stood a little to the right of Ross so that Kit could see them both without the need for movement.

  “Which bit of me do you want to see first?” She coyly pressed her palms together and touched her fingertips to her lips.

  “Lose the denim. You know I hate the stuff.”

  Evie looked at him from under her eyelashes as she tugged down her zip, then she turned around to shimmy out of her three-quarter length cut-offs. The lace of her panties skimmed across the surface of her buttocks, rising up as she bent, no doubt giving Kit an impressive vision of her curves. Ross, she noted, when she turned to face them again, had adjusted his position so that he could keep one eye on her too. He was also struggling one handed with the buckle of his belt.

  Clearly the moment demanded more than just the pleasure of giving.

  “Want some help with that?” She released his fly and ran her cupped hands up and down the length of his smooth shaft. He was just as primed as Kit and leaking shiny beads of precome that she rubbed into the taut skin. Evie rolled onto her side on the carpet and wriggled into the space between the two men. The warmth of Ross’s body, coupled with the soft brush of the thick hairs around his loins felt great against her palms. So close to him, she revelled in the scent of his body, that earthy smell that made her want to snuggle up close to him and coat herself in it, as if to mark herself as his. His cock bobbed eagerly th
e closer she got, but she eschewed touching him there, choosing to tickle the underside of his balls with the very tip of her tongue instead.

  “Oh, man. Evie! I can’t suck while you do that.”

  “Sure you can,” she whispered close to his skin, knowing the stroke of her breath would tantalize him almost as much as the lick.

  “I can’t.”

  Ignoring the plea, she did it again, and somehow he managed to keep it together enough to continue fellating Kit, his body moving back and forth with the rhythm of his sucks. However, when she ventured toward the delicate nerve-endings around this anus, he jerked rather more violently, and clamped a hand upon her stomach. “Evie, no! Really no. This is about Kit’s pleasure, not mine.”

  “Isn’t it about us all pleasing each other?”

  “She’s right, you know, Ross,” Kit interjected. The sofa springs creaked as he strained forward trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on, but she doubted the angles involved allowed him much visibility. “Evie, how about you swivel yourself up here beside me and let me put my tongue to work too.”

  Having just claimed this was about them all being equal, she could hardly refuse him on the grounds that he was supposed to be resting. Evie climbed onto the sofa. It took a moment or two of wriggling to negotiate the contortions involved in positioning herself so that Kit could reach her cunt without the benefit of using his hands, and so that she could still reach Ross well enough to suck him. She concentrated on doing that, rather than continuing to tease his puckered hole. Nevertheless, Ross seemed to be on a hair-trigger, his cock bobbing high, the skin stretched taut like that of a ripe plum. He groaned, despite having his own mouth full of Kit’s cock, and he was soon coated with a fresh glow of sweat.

  For her own part, she tried not to concentrate on what Kit was doing with his tongue, although, he made that extremely hard. Kit had a way of touching her clit that seemed to pool warmth just behind her navel, that would then zip downwards turning her hardened clit into the centre of a magical explosion. She jiggled her hips, thinking about how good it would feel if one of them were to fuck her while the other licked. They hadn’t done that yet, but she was making mental notes for future possibilities. Right now, though, they were seriously making her buzz. Her thigh muscles involuntarily spasmed and clamped either side of Kit’s ears. He laughed, and the sound of his mirth amplified the sensation of ascent. This was going to be over very quickly.