If being angry and embracing it was a stepping stone to a better understanding of who she was within this crazy relationship, then so be it.
Besides, if Mike could be pissed for two days and take it out on her, she should be able to have a couple of hours where the guys were in the wrong, right?
Balance and all that.
Balance was increasingly overrated.
Mike
Run. Run and just…run some more. His body started the low, deep rumble, the vibration that made his soul scream out for release. Whatever was going on inside him didn’t have words, and that made interacting with Laura and Dylan so damn hard.
Words were hard.
Running was easy.
The pounding of his feet on the pavement, the blur of trees and sunshine and clouds. Or, hell, rain pelting him while he ran in the heat, stripping off his shirt and being as close to nature as he could. Within public nudity laws and basic physics, because naked running would, um, hurt. Rebound effect and all that.
As Laura’s speckled green eyes glared at him, he stood shirtless and commando, his jeans an afterthought, his body pulsing now with the desire not to escape, but to push his body into a zone where emotions could be handled one by one, instead of on top of each other in a giant pile.
Right now, his inner world looked like a fucking garbage dump.
And no one wanted to smell that.
“What’s wrong, Laura? What did I say?”
“It’s what you don’t say,” she said with a sigh. Mike knew that sigh. He’d thrown it around these past few days. No name for it, unfortunately. It just was, like a stray cat that shows up on your door and proceeds to piss all over the perimeter of your home, claiming its territory and making life miserable for you.
Until it decides to leave.
He had no control over these feelings. None. It made his jaw tighten, because holy shit—if he couldn’t control his own feelings, how could he reach out and help Laura with hers?
It made him feel like a giant failure. As he towered over her, standing behind her at the sink, he saw their height difference and realized that compared to her, he really was a giant.
Failure, too.
These damn feelings…and talking. Laura had been content, when they’d first met, to have him be silent and to just be with him. In fact, she had seemed to like his stillness. Years of meditation, practice, and thousands of miles eaten up by his legs had gotten him to that point. The reality of being centered on the inside was that it took a lot more work than it seemed from the outside.
And now, Laura had worked to pierce his shield and succeeded, not just with sex but with the expression of caring, of wanting to ride out his confused mood with him. Not just to help, but to walk alongside him on his psychological journey as he plumbed whatever these emotions were.
That was love.
That was rare.
She tilted her head to the side and the expanse of her creamy skin, where the neck and shoulder met, called out for a kiss. Not knowing what else he could do without screwing this up more, he planted a tiny kiss there, his tongue slipping out to taste her. Salty, with a touch of something more. Laura seemed to have an essence about her, and not just in her sensual juices when they made love.
She tasted like Laura. He couldn’t describe it any more than he could detail what an orgasm felt like, or how he’d experienced the moment Jillian’s head had crowned, watching his daughter emerge into the word. Like trying to define love, it couldn’t be contained within something so rudimentary as language.
It was a flavor he savored.
Her anger—he guessed it was anger, at least—melted as his lips caressed her neck, dipping over her to the collarbone. The jeans tightened, his shaft down his leg and pressed against his thigh, now thickening.
Already? Not bad for a guy in his thirties. When he was seventeen he could be rock hard ten minutes after a rousing batch of sex. Lately it took longer.
Apparently, this was different. He took a deep breath half filled with pride and amusement, his lips turning up in a smile he couldn’t stop.
“What’s funny?” Laura asked. Could she feel his smile on her skin?
And then he looked up. The mirror. Of course. Yet it wouldn’t surprise him if she could read his emotions purely by touch. Their connection was that strong.
All three of them.
“I’m thinking about how hard I’m getting.”
“Again?” Her voice turned up with a questioning surprise and a sultry tone that made him remove one hand from her shoulders and dig into his jeans, adjusting himself as the seam irritated the head of his cock.
Oh, yeah. Again, all right. He was hard as granite.
“You said you didn’t want we right now. How about me?” he asked, his tongue now seeking the sensitive spot beneath her earlobe, the part he knew she could barely tolerate having touched. That spot made her wet, though.
And Mike definitely wanted her nice and wet for what he was about to do with her.
Something that required very few words, half of them variations of “Oh, God.”
Those words he could handle right now.
Laura spun around and reached up on tiptoes. He slid his hands over that hot ass and, cupping it, lifted her up. Just as he hoped, her legs wrapped around his waist as her hands plunged into his hair, mouth slanting across his and tongue burying itself. His tongue sought her heat, craved her touch, needed more connection than they’d just had.
And he’d thought that had been just fine.
Tired of accepting just fine, Mike shifted into some predatory mode that fueled him, his body taking everything she gave and insisting on more, his hands hungry on her ass, her back, prowling over her breasts and stroking each nipple to a peak, the way he claimed her absolutely and utterly complete.
He owned her.
He wanted her to know that. While he and Dylan shared Laura, and she shared them, there was no reason she shouldn’t also know that she was his one hundred percent. Relationship math did not have to balance out.
Ever.
There was room for New Math in plenty of places.
Barreling out of the bathroom, he threw her onto the bed where she’d just sucked him off, where his body had shimmered and convulsed under her steady and knowing hands.
His turn.
This really was his day. In full. He raked her clothes off, hands moving so fast they felt like a blur. Making love with Laura, with or without Dylan, was always passionate and sweet and loving, but sometimes…sometimes he wanted more of an edge.
The thought passed through his mind that he needed to slow down, to contemplate, as her bare body wiggled under his, her gasps and wide eyes telling him she was aroused and excited, and then when her hand unbuttoned his jeans and he kicked them off, the full length of his muscled heat pressed against her hot, lush curves, he kicked that thought away like a ninety-yard punt.