A Smile as Sweet as Poison (6 page)

“I would’ve taken care of it,” she protested, once Dylan had sent the delivery man on his way.

“I know.”

Far from pacified, Hazel trudged back to the couch. She didn’t mind her orgasms being thwarted—that was one small part of the games they played—but being treated as though she was weak rankled.

“Hey.” Ward tried to catch her gaze, failed, and curled a hand around her knee, over the reddened mark he’d etched onto her skin. “You okay?”

“Just hungry, that’s all.”

“You’re in luck,” Dylan replied cheerily. He brought plates to the coffee table, having long ago confessed to being a neat freak. Soy sauce stains on the white rugs could turn him from a reasonable human being to a berserker.

His weapon of choice was more often soap than remonstration, but Hazel had taken note. She wanted to keep the peace. It was why she kept her mouth shut and let frustration ebb back as he laid out sashimi and California rolls, wasabi and sliced ginger.

“And for you,” he added, freeing one last container from the white plastic bag.

Hazel’s heart liquefied at the sight. “Tempura?”

Dylan nodded, something vaguely shy in his smile. “I know you like it.”

She could have kissed him.

“The way to a woman’s heart,” Ward muttered under his breath, already tucking in. But he was grinning, too. A minute ago, he’d been playing along the tightrope cord of Hazel’s self-control, winding her taut like a bowstring and seemingly feeling no shame for the discomfort he wrought. He was a different man now—carefree, glib, ravenous.

Hazel watched Dylan fill his plate, then the subsequent squabble over wasabi, and wondered if this was how normal relationships worked. Rules and protocols had washed away in a heartbeat.

Dylan held out a plate laden with fried shrimp and slices of fresh salmon. Hazel took it, their fingers touching in the exchange. He smiled absentmindedly.

This was normal enough for her. To hell with the way things
should
be.

* * * *

“Did you think we’d leave you hanging?” Dylan wondered, holding up the bathroom doorjamb with a shoulder.

Hazel spun around. She’d stripped off the negligee, let down her hair—even made a valiant attempt at combing out the knots. The collar was still on, less forgotten than intentionally left around her neck as a reminder. She liked wearing it. She missed it when she slept without it.

“I’ve got an early shift tomorrow,” she answered obliquely.
I know you have to work
.

“That’s never stopped us before.”

A couple of wide strides and Dylan was nudging her back into the damp counter, his hips flush against hers. Hazel scrabbled for purchase against the marble edge. Dylan had changed for bed already, navy sleep pants hanging low on his hips. It wouldn’t take much, Hazel mused, to help them along to the floor. She couldn’t help a shiver when he traced the contour of her plump cheek with a finger. She’d been told she was baby-faced so often that she made up for it with eyeliner and lipstick whenever she could—whenever she had the time to doll herself up.

She wished she hadn’t taken off her face before Dylan came in.

Then why leave the door open
? It wasn’t as easy as claiming ignorance. She knew what she was doing. She always did.

Dylan leaned in slowly, his nose brushing hers. “Come to bed.”

“Whose?” Hazel shot back. It seemed like a good joke until Dylan slid a finger through the O-ring that dangled from her collar and she realized that no, jokes were definitely not for her. Not right now.

He didn’t kiss her before pulling back, but a promise of satisfaction lingered between them. Dylan never let her down.

Leashed by the collar around her neck, Hazel followed him out of the bathroom on tenterhooks. She couldn’t disguise her surprise when she found the bed empty, no sign of Ward anywhere.

“It’s just us tonight,” Dylan said, deciphering her expression before Hazel could school her features into a mask of nonchalance. “He fell asleep on the couch. Go ahead,” he added, “you can laugh. He was better about holding his liquor before you came along.”

“Oh, this is my fault, is it?”

Dylan nodded solemnly. “Yes. You’re entirely to blame that I have you all to myself…”

The backs of Hazel’s knees hit the bed. Dylan kissed her hard, as though staking a claim. She reveled in the notion. Of their own accord, her hands flapped uselessly at his hips for a beat before finally catching in the fabric of his loose T-shirt. When Dylan didn’t protest, Hazel slid her palms up his spine, pushing the soft cotton as she went. It didn’t bother her to be naked when he was clothed, but right then and there, she craved the contact of skin on skin.

After a moment, an uncharacteristically silent Dylan withdrew and helped her divest him of his clothes. He didn’t smile, smug in the knowledge that he’d won big in the genetic lottery, but he didn’t shy from her questing gaze, either. Hazel raked her fingernails down his perfect chest in retribution and watched his cock jerk between them in echo.

“Let me get a condom,” Dylan murmured.

No one should look so good and be this kind. No one.

With great effort, Hazel kept her hands to herself as he put it on. Ward was big on rubbers and as long Hazel played with both him
and
Dylan, she knew it wasn’t fair to use separate measures for each.

The reprieve was short-lived. As soon as Dylan knotted a hand in her hair, they were kissing at a different speed, the heat between their bodies ratcheting up from tepid exploration to roiling need. It was a welcome change of pace. Her knees already weak, Hazel dropped to the edge of the bed, folding her feet under her and using Dylan for an anchor.

He let her get her bearings—for the space of a breath—then cupped the back of her neck, holding her steady as he guided his cock to her lips. She parted her mouth to him willingly, eager for the taste of him.

Enough men had landed in her bed over the years that she wasn’t fazed by the twinge of discomfort in the back of her throat or the creak in her jaw. But most of her one-night stands would never have dared to flex their fingers in her hair and guide her down without her tipping forward into the push. They would’ve been out of her bed in a heartbeat if they did.

Dylan was different. Something about the way he moaned her name as she swirled her tongue along the head of his erection sparked little fires beneath her skin. He seemed to enjoy her licking at the underside of his length, too, but not as much. Hazel switched tactics, eager to please. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so desperate to satisfy a man—

Not true.

She pulled off with a cough, eyes watering. It was the first sign of resistance she’d offered Dylan in some time.

“You okay?” he panted, relaxing his grip in her hair. This wasn’t part of the game.

Hazel shook her head, but that only made him back off even more. Alarm kindled in her chest. “What’s the matter?” she forced out, determined not to let her jitters show. They would pass. They always did. “Afraid I’ll bite it off?” She raised her head, forcing a defiant sneer onto her face.

If I want you to stop, I’ll tell you
. She didn’t need a gentle hand.

For a moment, she feared Dylan might stop anyway. Her heart pounded faster as she considered of all the ways to excuse her conduct without peeling off one more onion layer on her sordid past.

Dylan saved her having to make excuses by shoving her down to the bed.

Hazel hit the mattress hard, air fleeing her lungs in a startled gasp.

Before she could get her bearings, Dylan followed, pinning her arms down as he shifted up and onto his knees. Hazel could only suck a couple of half-breaths into her lungs, the weight of him on her chest almost suffocating.

“Open your mouth,” he ground out. This time, it wasn’t a question and there was no room for lies.

Hazel did as she was told. Taste and texture were blissfully familiar, but the angle was not.

Dylan tilted his body forward and gripped the headboard with one hand. It took a few testing tries before he figured out how deep he could thrust without making her gag—he didn’t stop in between, trusting that Hazel could catch her breath without reprieve. His confidence buoyed hers.

Yes. Yes, fucking use me like you need to.

Her body was a tool—his tool—to do with as he pleased. Every rough thrust sent shivers down her spine. Every inch of pressure in the back of her throat had her pulse skipping beats. Her irregular breathing probably played a part, too, but Hazel didn’t care. Suddenly she wasn’t just a no-name waitress fleeing youthful mistakes. She wasn’t too heavy, too timid. Too
disappointing
.

She wasn’t anything more than what Dylan needed her to be.

His hips stuttered, rhythm crumbling as he tipped over the edge without warning. Hazel turned her head, gasping for breath as his length slipped out of her mouth. Adrenaline pounded in her temples.

Point one for condoms
. No clean-up to worry about.

Chest heaving, Dylan dropped down to the bed beside her. He knew his strength too well to linger. “Fuck… You okay?”

Hazel nodded, her jaw a little sore. No need to mention it. She had no complaints, let alone for such little discomfort.

“We gotta do that again,” Dylan panted.

“Easy there, tiger.” Ward yawned in the doorway. “Ladies first.”

Dylan snickered, but it was a breathless, wrung-out burst of sound. Hazel was dimly aware of his stripping off the condom and disposing of it in the trash, her attention already on Ward. Where Dylan was tan, golden skin and raven hair, Ward was pale and rangy all over. A faint dusting of hair drew the eye down from his navel to the bulge inside his wool slacks.

“Take them off,” Hazel said.

Ward crooked an eyebrow but made no move to obey.

“Take your clothes off and get over here,” she bit out, imbuing her voice with a fierceness she didn’t particularly feel.

The bed dipped as Ward stepped closer, bending one knee to the mattress. “Quite a mouth you’ve got on you…”

“Maybe I need something to fill it,” Hazel shot back, defiant. Heat coursed through her body, the memory of their earlier play still alive and well beneath her skin.

Ward shot his friend a sardonic glance. “Hear that, Dylan? Sounds like you’re not enough for our little minx.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Hazel barely had time to suck in a breath before Dylan captured her chin in a steady hand and forced her to meet his eyes. The sweetness of the afterglow was already gone, replaced by a surprise resurgence of the hardass who regularly took a flogger to her.

He kissed her roughly, his lips warm and brutal against hers. He knew her limits too well to stop at a peck.

She didn’t see Ward slide into bed beside her until she felt his suddenly naked body against her flank. Only the chill of his St. Christopher medallion against her shoulder threatened a small shiver.

Little earthquakes pulsed in her cunt. She needed to be touched so badly that she didn’t dare ask for satisfaction. Between Ward and Dylan, she’d known no end of delays and misdirection. In just a few short weeks, they had learned how to play her body like an instrument. Hazel pressed her thighs together, humming into Ward’s kiss.

“Aren’t you sweet,” he murmured, pulling back. “All freshly plucked rose, hmm?”

“What?”

“And now she blushes…” Ward sucked her earlobe into his mouth, biting down lightly.

Electricity snaked down Hazel’s spine. “Oh—oh,
fuck.”

The nibbling became a stinging prick of teeth. “I can taste him on you,” Ward whispered, so low that Hazel almost thought she’d made it up.

He was on her in the next breath, forcefully nudging her legs apart and hooking her ankles around his hips. Dylan held out a condom. Ward ripped it open wordlessly, his hands shaking a little as he rolled it down his thick shaft.

The first thrust of his cock into her was a far cry from gentle. Hazel gasped, clutching at him with her knees. She would’ve done it with her hands, too, if Dylan didn’t pick that precise moment to take hold of her wrists. He liked her pinned down, she’d noticed.

So did she.

Ward set a punishing rhythm, his pendant sliding between her breasts with every rough motion of his hips. The metal seemed to heat from contact with her skin, but even if it ignited spontaneously, it couldn’t possibly match the blaze in Ward’s eyes. He grasped her neck, finding the gap between collar and flesh with his fingertips and settling there, each pulse beat laid bare beneath his touch.

Hazel felt the frayed ends of her self-control slip away long before Dylan slid a hand down her body and pressed the tips of his fingers to her clit. She tried not to think about the two of them touching while they touched her. She tried not to fuse her focus to the place where all three of them were so intimately connected. It was a lost cause. Orgasm spread outward, from her core all the way to the top of her head, then down again, in greater and greater waves, until Hazel could no longer control her trembling, or the litany of sounds spilling from her lips.

She felt Ward coming inside her mere seconds later, his final thrusts pushing her hips down and into the mattress.

Like Dylan, he was mindful not to crush her with his weight. They seemed to think she was fragile, somehow, and Hazel was too spent to contradict them.

Someone—she thought it might have been Dylan but couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes—brushed a hand through her hair.

“You okay?”

“Mm, tired,” she got out.

“Sleep,” Ward murmured, his body a welcome furnace against her spine. “We’re not going anywhere.”

As she slid deeper and deeper into the arms of Morpheus, Hazel mused drowsily that he seemed to mean it. Then again, it was no surprise.

They all thought they did.

Chapter Five

With Ward and Dylan in the apartment, there was no way Hazel could indulge in her favorite new pastime of surfing porn sites and predominantly loathsome forums. The break had made for a good night’s sleep but by morning Hazel was already feeling the effects of withdrawal.