“So, I can draw up a contract if you’d like,” Dylan said.
“Why would I want—”
“Because, Laura.” Mike cut in, his face serious. “You’re getting every fantasy tonight. Right now. Here. You get to have ultimate control by handing over every shred of it to us.”
Every cell in her body turned from hot to cold, her skin like a live wire.
“I don’t—they’re just books,” she laughed, her voice tinny and utterly unconvincing. The promise of what they were offering was readable on their faces, both men hard and ready to play out what she’d only read. What they, too, had read. It made her wet to think about it, and she squirmed, trying not to be obvious. “Just something to read while I’m bored,” she choked out.
“We won’t make this boring,” Dylan whispered in her ear, making her jolt. They were serious. This was real. What they offered her was...
Impossible.
Neither of them had shown the slightest inkling of interest in BDSM in the bedroom before. Why now? What was this?
“I, I’m sure you won’t,” she stumbled, face bright red with a flush of embarrassment and incredulity, breasts smashed against her knees, her panties her only clothing, “but we don’t need this to be intimate,” she said, her voice trailing into a hush as she gestured toward the box by Mike’s hand.
“We don’t need it,” Mike agreed. “But you want it.”
“I never said that!”
“You didn’t have to.”
An excited rush of embarrassment filled her. Telling her deepest desires to Mike and Dylan should be part of their relationship, right? If you can’t share that central part of yourself with the person(s) you choose to spend the rest of your life with, then who can you share it with? Inhibition was normal; being mildly shy and a bit hesitant made sense, because sexual fantasy was a funny thing. Dreams and wishes didn’t have to make sense. They were hers. And if they asked too much of her guys, or seemed silly or self-indulgent or—her greatest fear—were something they found unappealing, then the risk of asking and being rejected was too much.
Letting the mind wander to places where you lost all control, where a man wanted to dominate your body and completely pull your sexual strings muscle by muscle, gasp by gasp, was a kind of world that she should be able to access with a single request to her men.
So why was it so hard to look Mike in the eye right now? Or to even glance at Dylan? They offered her a willingness to give her some wonderful sex play that she’d been too...something...to request.
And now...they’d read her mind.
Or, at least, her eReader.
“Laura,” Dylan said gently. “We love you. We want you. We desire you. Tonight isn’t just about the sex. It’s about being intimate and feeling whole with you.” He took her chin in his hand and tipped her eyes up to meet his, pupils dilated and so full of heat she felt her skin tingle. “When I touch you, the connection makes me feel like a better Dylan. Stronger, more real. And when the three of us are together, we go places none of us can go as individuals.”
“Let us make love to you the way you want to be loved,” Mike added, stroking her back.
Bzzzz. The sound of a phone interrupted before Laura could answer. Her phone. The phone! Jillian! Something was wrong with the baby. Laura’s sexual self died in half a second as Mommy Brain kicked in.
“Where’s my phone?” she shrieked, the moment ruined as Mike and Dylan deflated, Dylan’s disappointment registering in her mind briefly, while Mike appeared to be angry. She couldn’t think about them; something might be wrong at home. Heart racing, her chest suddenly chilled with a flush of sweat, she fumbled for her discarded skirt, dropped the phone, picked it back up and answered, running for the sanctuary of the bathroom.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” she shouted into the phone.
“Shhhhhh!” Josie hushed quietly. “You’ll wake Jillian. She’s right here and sound asleep.”
“THEN WHY ARE YOU CALLING? WHAT HAPPENED?” Laura bellowed.
“Did I interrupt you guys?” Josie said, the sly tone in her voice making Laura want to rip her ears off and wear them on a chain around her neck.
“Why are you calling?” Laura snapped. “And no, you didn’t interrupt anything,” she lied. “We’ve only been here for what? Half an hour?”
“Shit,” Josie said, “it sounds like things aren’t going well there.”
And with that, Laura burst into tears, sat on the toilet lid, and realized she was wearing nothing but panties.
“Aren’t going well is...oh, hell, I don’t know,” Laura whispered through a sob.
“Oh, honey,” Josie said, her voice so comforting it made Laura cry harder. “Are you guys having a hard time?”
“You told them to read my eReader?” Laura asked quietly, wiping her tears with a piece of lavender-scented tissue from the box built into the log-cabin wall.
“I...shit.” Josie blew out a long sigh that gave Laura a chance to blow her own nose. “Yes, I’ll own that. I did.”
“Why?”
“Because Mike and Dylan told me and Alex you have only had sex twice in six months.”
The hand holding the piece of tissue curled into a tight fist. “They WHAT?” she hissed. The distinct sound of a champagne cork popped in the distance, and Laura heard Dylan’s muffled voice say something with urgency.
“And they said the only thing you seemed interested in were your books, so...” Josie’s voice faded. A sharp inhale came through the phone. “I never realized how good a baby’s head can smell,” Josie said, as if naming an embarrassed confession.
Snorting, laughing, and fuming all at once, Laura felt like a vortex of too many emotions crammed into one body. What a mess. Her two amazing men were out in the living room of this gorgeous cabin, getting champagne ready, with hundreds of candles lit and an assortment of pleasure-driven sex toys purchased based on her deepest desires, and here she sat sniffling into the phone and berating her best friend, who was watching her precious baby.
Could she be any more screwed up?
“She’s really OK? No problems?” Please say yes.
“Laura,” Josie ventured, “don’t ever tell Alex I said this, but I think I like this whole baby thing. Jillian is adorable and even when she cries—”
“She cried? Why?”