The Evolution of Man

by Skye Warren

  The most unhealthy, fucked-up kind of obsession.

  No, this is only something that can be felt. The way that works with Gold Rush in that corral, both gentle and firm. The way he has to break her to make her trust again.

  Christopher comes to me, a little wary. Even when I order him around, he’s still tall enough that I have to look up. He gazes down at me with an impassive expression. Only the faint tremor running through his hard body gives him away. He wants this. Whatever wild thing happens next, even if it involves the bristling man on the bed.

  I reach up and lick the corner of Christopher’s lips. He sucks in a breath.

  “How are you doing this?” he asks, but I’m not sure what he means. Ordering two men around? By giving them what they secretly want, that’s how. Even if they want each other.

  Even if I’ll be left alone in this room after.

  My hands go to Christopher’s shirt, pulling it up to reveal his abs with slow precision. I could be performing surgery, that’s how careful I am right now. I could be cutting out my own heart with a goddamn scalpel. His chest looks bronze in the moonlight, like he’s forged and molded. Like he’s hollow inside. Except he’s warm to the touch. I press my palm against his chest and feel the steady beat of his heart.

  He’s the one who moves to his pants, his gaze never leaving mine, as if obeying some unspoken command. Undress, I could have said to the most severe man I’ve ever met. He pushes down his sweatpants and kicks them off, revealing the hard length of him.

  Only our breathing can be heard after that.

  His pants are open, slack. He’s so put together. It’s a privilege to see him like this, coming apart. His hand twitches when I reach for him—maybe to stop me. Maybe to pull me closer. In the end he leaves his arms at his side. I run a finger down the center of his chest, feeling the indent of muscle and flesh. The wiry hair at the base.

  My fist closes around him.

  “God,” he groans, throwing back his head.

  He’s beautiful like this, but I can’t look at him. I need to see what Sutton’s doing. He doesn’t disappoint. He has his jeans undone and shoved down his muscular thighs, his cock in hand. He’s staring at Christopher’s body, lips parted, eyes heavy.

  This is a man getting his deepest wish, and it gives me a sense of power to be the one who can fulfill it for him. Even as Christopher bucks against my hand. “That’s right,” I whisper.

  Christopher stares at me through slitted eyes, his lips pulled tight. “You want me to embarrass myself, is that it? This some kind of revenge fuck?”

  This is the farthest thing from a revenge fuck. The exact opposite. I’m putting together something that I broke. The partnership between the men. Maybe more than a partnership.

  “Would you mind?” I ask, a smile flickering at my lips.

  “Fuck,” he says, lean hips fucking my fist. “Christ. I wouldn’t.”

  Seeing Christopher in command is enough to make me wet, but seeing him this way, surrendering—it’s enough to make me want to weep. It’s like having a star on my palm. I know I won’t be able to keep it, but I’ll stay very still to make this last.

  I turn and climb onto the bed. When I glance back Christopher is looking at my ass, almost forlorn now that he’s the only one standing. “Come here,” I murmur.

  He follows me, but I move back. He has to chase me on the king bed.

  And then I’m pressed up against Sutton’s body, his hard body jerking on impact, his cock like a brand through my dress at the back. Then Christopher is on me, his lips hard on mine, payback for the orders, punishing. His tongue pushes inside my mouth.

  I want to be the calm and unaffected seductress, but my body is melting between these two men. It would be impossible not to melt. There’s hardness behind me. Hardness in front. A slickness between my legs like a goddamn river, and Christopher knows it.

  “Push your panties out of the way,” he says against my lips.

  There’s a tight squeeze in my sex, a clench around nothing. “Why should?”

  “Because I’ll kiss your breasts, sweetheart. Sutton will hold up your tits for me, and I’ll suck your nipples. You’d like that wouldn’t you? You’d come for me.”

  Oh God. I close my eyes. “It’s not about me tonight.”

  A soft laugh. This isn’t a man scared of what happens next. “It’s always been about you, Harper. Now push your panties aside. Do it, or I’ll fucking tear them.”

  My fingers are somehow between my legs. The placket of my panties is already damp. I hook two fingers against it and push it aside. On the backs of my knuckles I feel the burn and velvet of Christopher’s cock. Then he’s pushing inside, opening me wide, making me moan.

  A low masculine sound fills the room, and I have to open my eyes.

  Christopher’s expression is hard with pleasure, only an inch away from Sutton’s face. It’s like Christopher is fucking Sutton, with me in the middle. I’m a conduit right now, the thrust of hips and cock pushing me back against another body. Both of them rocking and grunting and using me in the most carnal ways.

  At first it seemed like Sutton and I were the ones seducing Christopher.

  Now it’s the other way around. Sutton is the one being seduced.

  He grasps my hips hard enough to leave bruises. “Ahh fuck,” he says, his breath hot on my throat. “Fuck. Like that. Don’t stop. Don’t fucking stop.”

  His words spur Christopher to fuck me harder, and faster, and he doesn’t stop.

  Sutton’s cock is only rubbing against my back, almost a juvenile comfort, but he sounds more turned on than I’ve ever seen. The most out of control. “Harper,” he says, and it sounds like he’s dying.

  “Don’t talk to her,” Christopher says, baring his teeth.

  The words are confusing until I feel Sutton buck against me. He likes being warned away. He called it fucked up and I think he’s right about that. This isn’t a normal kind of lust. Obsession. I turn my face and place an open-mouth kiss on Sutton’s cheek.

  A hand grasps my face and turns me back. “Me,” Christopher says, almost primitive now. “You look at me. You fuck me. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Say it.”

  “I want you,” I whisper, but I’m not giving in all the way. He made me work too hard to get his attention. He made me wait too long for even a speck of sexual interest.

  He punctuates each of his words with a hard thrust. “You. Want. Me.”

  I close my eyes, but he doesn’t let me keep them that way. A little shake. A particularly hard, angled thrust that makes me squirm against Sutton. His whole body turns taut behind me.

  “Harper,” Christopher says, but his voice doesn’t sound as hard as before. He seems a little breathless. On the edge of something he can’t quite hold back.

  His fingers work their way down my stomach, into the slick space between us.

  The press together around me clit, and I shoot up toward him. “Please.”

  An unsteady laugh. “You were right,” he says, except he isn’t talking to me. He’s talking to the man behind me. “She is too tight. Are you going to help her?”

  Sutton reaches around to stroke my breasts. To pinch my nipples.

  To hold up my tits, the way Christopher said he would.

  The warmth of Christopher’s mouth makes me cry out and clench hard. His lips are only an inch away from Sutton’s fingers. His chin is probably brushing him. Christopher closes his eyes in pure ecstasy, and I want to watch, I do, but he sucks, and I have to throw my head back onto Sutton’s shoulder and moan in sensory overload.

  Christopher moves to my other breast, flicking his tongue against me. Sutton doesn’t hold me up for him this time. Instead he reaches a hand up to stroke down Christopher’s temple, the gesture so tender it makes my eyes prick with tears. And I think we should talk, we should; except Christopher pinches hard around my clit, and then I’m coming, coming, bearing down on Christopher’s cock, making him gasp and hold me tight, Sutton behind us
moaning, yes yes yes as a warm spot spreads across my back.

  In the aftermath I mostly expect for Sutton to disappear. That’s what he did after the poker game, and he was a lot less exposed then. I can’t do this, he’ll say, and leave the house. Except he sits on the edge of the bed, looking shaken.

  It’s Christopher who stands and puts his clothes back on. There is no visit to the bar to get us drinks this time around. He doesn’t have some kind of post-sex bartender habit after all. Instead he seems actually pissed, which makes my stomach feel upside down.

  “Christopher?” I say, my voice tremulous.

  “Don’t.”

  That makes me want to push harder. “Christopher, don’t be mad at Sutton. It was my idea. This whole thing was my idea. I don’t think Sutton even liked it to be honest—”

  “That’s you being honest?”

  I fall silent, acutely aware of the damp spot on my back, the proof of how much Sutton liked it. “You liked it too,” I finally say, pulling the sheet over my lap as a shield.

  “Yes,” he says simply.

  “Do you think that you’re—”

  “Gay?” Christopher asks. “No, sweetheart. I like your pussy too much for that.”

  “It’s possible to be bi.”

  “Is this sex education night at the St. Claire household? I know what it means to be bi. And I know what it means to be straight. I’m not really any of those things. I’m wasted over a single person, Harper. Over you.”

  Goose bumps rise on my skin. Over you. I want to believe him, but it’s hard to be joyful when it looks like Sutton is crushed. When it looks like he’s questioning his sexuality. “You never said that to me.” It pisses me off, suddenly. “Why didn’t you ever say that to me?”

  “Because it wasn’t something I could buy,” he says, his voice grim. “And that’s on me, for wasting the time I should have been with you. For letting you be with Sutton.”

  My eyes narrow. “For letting me? You don’t own me, Christopher.”

  He doesn’t argue the point, but he doesn’t agree either. “You aren’t gay,” Christopher says, his voice thoughtful now. He looks at Sutton as if seeing him for the first time.

  “So how do you explain what just happened?”

  “Harper happened. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

  “That’s the problem,” Sutton says, his voice hard. “Maybe I want it to.” He stands and leaves the room, grabbing his jeans as he goes. The space he sat on the bed is still depressed from his hard, muscled weight. There’s no filling the space where he’s been.

  Christopher meets my gaze. “I’m done sharing you.”

  There’s an ache in my chest. If he’s done sharing me, does that mean he’s done having me? I’m not sure if Sutton and I are a package deal. “What does that mean?”

  “Ask him about the library,” he says, ominous.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I think he needs you more. Tonight.”

  I follow him down the stairs and watch him pull out of the driveway. Sutton comes to stand beside me, watching the corner where the red taillights disappeared. He looks broken, and I feel bad asking him when he’s like this but I have to know. “The library.”

  He sounds almost absentminded. “What about it?”

  “The foundation issues. The termites. The plumbing. Is it really fixable?”

  “I said it was, Harper.”

  “So you’re telling me the truth?”

  Sutton looks behind us at the house. I’m not sure what he sees. Does he recognize the Gone with the Wind columns? Or does he only see a place with pumpkin-carved cocks and cookies inside? “Honest to a fault,” he finally says. “That’s me.”

  Then he lopes to his car, moving slowly like someone who’s been delivered some fatal blow. As if Gold Rush kicked him in the ribs the last time I went, except I know he was uninjured only a few hours ago.

  Sutton may have meant to push Christopher to his breaking point, but I think he found his own instead. He doesn’t look back as he gets into his car and drives away. Only when I’m standing alone in the lightening sky does it feel like I might never see him again.

  “Graham.” My mother’s voice is thin as paper, as wavery as the wind.

  I stroke her hair and she quiets. I came in to check on her after the men left, and she seemed fine. This morning everything changed. She barely woke up when I spoke to her, even though she’s always been an early riser, doing her sun salutations every morning with a yoga mat on the porch. Her sessions have been shorter and shorter, but this morning she doesn’t even get out of bed.

  Guilt suffuses me as if somehow she’s doing worse because I had such a great orgasm bent over the couch downstairs with Sutton last night. I don’t know if the universe really works on such a terrible balance sheet, but if I learned anything from Daddy, it’s that if you’re losing, someone else is winning.

  Mom shifts in her uneasy nap, her skin flushed. It seems unfair that she should still dream about Daddy when he humiliated her at the end. He knew the society wives would shun her after being publicly left out of his will. And here she is, missing him and in pain—I suppose those are the same things.

  “Don’t go, Graham. Don’t.”

  A sharp pain in my heart. “Mom,” I whisper. “Wake up.”

  Except I don’t want her to wake up before it’s time to give her another dose of meds. That was the only prescription she accepted from the doctors. They couldn’t save her life, and right now they can’t even keep her comfortable. The nurse showed up this morning and checked Mom’s vitals, but I sent her back downstairs. If she’s going to be hurting, the least I can do is sit with her.

  A low moan comes from her throat, and she thrashes weakly in the thousand-count bedsheets. Not even money will save us in the end. I bend down low, murmuring in her ear, “He’s not going anywhere, Mom. He loves you. He’s right here, and he loves you.”

  Sometimes the truth isn’t going to help you. Only lies will do that.

  Her brow smooths out, and her breathing becomes even again. She’s drifting off to sleep, but I keep running my hand over her hair. It feels light somehow, as if she’s made of air, as if she’ll blow away if I don’t hold her here.

  I must fall asleep because at a sudden sound I wake up. For a second, with one foot still in dreams, the other in a bleak reality, I think it’s Christopher knocking on the door. Relief is cool and sweet through my body, a cube of ice at the base of my throat on a hot summer day. Then I realize it’s not Christopher. There’s no one at the door. It’s my mother coughing, groaning—a terrible rattling sound that makes my heart beat double time. “Mom?”

  There’s no response, and I shake her, hard, too hard, need her to answer. “Mom! Wake up! I need you to wake up right now.” I’m crying because the terrible sound doesn’t stop, the rasping precursor to death. I knew this was coming. I should have been prepared for this, but I’m not. I’m not.

  I’ll never be ready to lose her.

  I stare blankly at the still form under the covers, the sound of her sawing breath like a blade against my heart. The realization comes to me slowly, that she won’t die this second. Or the next. The panic fades to a dull ache of grief. My hands are shaking as I find my cell phone in the mess of blankets, still warm from where I’d been sleeping, rumpled from where I’d startled awake.

  The nurse is only downstairs, probably preparing a light lunch that my mother will never eat. In the same house, but I don’t think I could yell for her. I can barely speak into my phone when she answers. “I think it’s time.”

  The ambulance arrives without its lights flashing. This isn’t an emergency. This has been painstakingly prepared. This is the Death Plan. The one I never could bear to read.

  I guess I’ll find out what it says.

  Freida was right about that—I couldn’t avoid it forever. She stands with me, holding my hand while the EMTs move my mother’s still-breathing body onto the stretcher and into the ambula
nce. I follow them down the stairs, a cold sweat breaking out over my skin.

  Avery meets us at the hospital, which means Freida must have called her right after the ambulance. Part of the Death Plan, no doubt. The plan that’s supposed to make this easy. Or at least, not hard.

  She grasps me in a hard hug that I barely feel. I’m going numb, the tips of my fingers already gone, a frost spreading from the outside in. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, squeezing tighter. It would probably hurt, but I’m too far gone. “What can I do, sweetie? We’re here for you.”

  That makes me look up, and I see that Gabriel is with her, looking stern and faintly sympathetic, a dark slash of suit against the sterile white hospital backdrop. He gives me a nod, which makes me want to punch him in the face. Does he know how much Avery worried while he was gone? He should just have a heart attack right now and spare her the agony of a slow death later.

  I’m being totally irrational, and I break out into tears on the shoulder of my old friend. “I’m sorry,” I gasp, clinging to her. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t want Gabriel to have a heart attack.”

  Gabriel coughs. “I appreciate that,” he says, his voice grave.

  “Do you want to go sit down?” Avery asks. “Gabriel will make sure your mom has everything she needs. You should take a little break.”

  I shake my head, eyes closed tight. “The hospital already has the Death Plan.”

  Avery pulls back, her hazel eyes searching and sympathetic, not even a little bit jarred by the words Death Plan. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Wait. Have you read the Death Plan?”

  “Yes,” she says, her voice overly reasonable. “I had a meeting with your mother.”

  “Is there a section titled People To Console Harper?”

  “No.” Her voice does a high-pitched thing at the end which means I hit close to the mark.

  Footfalls approach from behind me, and I whirl around to face Sutton. He looks warm and empathetic, and I take a step back as he nears, bumping into Avery, afraid that he’ll melt the ice around me, and then what would happen? I would feel everything. All the pain. All the loss. Those blue eyes hold a wealth of understanding. “I can go if you want,” he says softly.