Blame It on the Bass (14 page)

“Stone,” Sonja offered with a playful smile.

Marco Lee studied her for a brief second, flicked a look at Corbin and then returned his focus to Sonja. “Ah, Ms. Stone. I have loved all your movies, especially the one with Woody Harrelson.”

And with that, he gave a quick bow at the waist. “Enjoy the rest of your evening at Mizuku.” He pivoted on his heel and disappeared into the surrounding shadows.

Corbin cocked an eyebrow at Sonja. “Ms. Stone.”

Sonja snorted, dropping onto her side of the booth and wriggling to the middle of the seat. “Y’know, I almost said Portman.” She grinned. “Just for shits and giggles. Being mistaken for Emma Stone, though? That’s a first.”

“You’re right.” Levi lowered himself onto the other bench seat and slid over, making room for Corbin. “Emma is much hotter than you.”

Sonja threw a coaster at him ninja-style. “Screw you, Stan.”

Levi plucked the coaster from the air and spun it back at her with a grin. “And far more a lady. Isn’t that right, Cor?”

Corbin shook his head with a laugh. “I’m not taking sides on this one, lover. But I will say, Emma’s never given me a…well, you know.”

Levi’s cock jerked in his jeans, all too eager to resume its earlier rigid state. The talk of Corbin being aroused by Sonja was affecting him again, big time. As did the hope Sonja would agree to their request, despite her earlier refusal.

Sonja smirked, blew on her nails and polished them on her right boob. “There you go, Stan. I’m so hot I can make gay men horny.”

“That you can, Ms. Stone,” Corbin agreed, his smile wide. “It’s a first for me.”

Cocking her head to the side, Sonja fixed him with a direct stare. “Which leads me to ask, why?”

Corbin raised his eyebrows. “Why do I find myself aroused by you?”

She nodded.

Mouth dry, Levi poured them all fresh sake. In his jeans, his dick throbbed again. In his chest, his heart bashed against his ribs. What was his partner going to say?

“Because you bring Levi to life,” Corbin stated, his voice clear and calm.

Sonja narrowed her eyes at the simple response. “And that’s it? It has nothing to do with my tight arse? My eyes?” She cupped her round breasts, somehow even more incredible—in Levi’s opinion—in the snug AC/DC tank she wore. “My boobs?”

Corbin chuckled. “Well, here’s the thing, until last night, boobs have never really been on my radar. But I have to admit, watching Levi squeeze yours in the Do Re Me…well, I’ve been finding myself curious ever since.”

“And my arse?”

“Now your ass is a thing of beauty.”

Levi realized he was leaning slightly over the bench, trying to get a peek at Sonja’s butt when Corbin laughed beside him. “See what I mean? You bring him to life. I’ve never seen Levi openly check out anyone’s ass before.”

Sonja slid Levi a steady glance, a smile playing with her lips. Her gaze connected with his, the molten desire of their teenage romance burning in the blue depths of her eyes.

A thick spasm claimed his cock and he shifted on the seat, trying to get comfortable.

“What about you?” she asked, returning her attention to Corbin. “Doesn’t he openly check you out?”

Levi turned to Corbin. “Fucking oath I do,” he murmured. And before Corbin or Sonja could say a word, he leant forward and kissed Corbin’s parted lips. Thoroughly. Passionately.

Aggressively.

“Okay, okay,” Sonja grumbled. “Get a room, you two.”

The words were in jest, but there was no mistaking the shallow breaths Sonja pulled as she uttered them.

Breaking the kiss with a sucking nip on Corbin’s bottom lip, he swung back to face her. “We
have
a room, Sonny. We have a whole apartment. Come back to it with us.”

Corbin’s swift inhalation stoked Levi’s mounting need. As did the way Sonja’s pupils dilated. The way she swiped her tongue over her bottom lip.

His cock pulsed with fresh blood. “Now, Sonja. Before I fucking burst.”

“I think,” she said, her voice a raspy whisper, “dinner first. I still haven’t decided if I even like you anymore. It’s been a long time, after all. And I don’t
know
Mr. Hollywood over here at all. I mean, what’s his favourite book? Album? Movie? These are important things one must consider before committing to a threesome, don’t you think, Stan?”

“
1984
. The Beatle’s
White Album
. And
Citizen Kane
,” Corbin said, his voice as raspy and strained as hers. “All clichés, I know, but there you go.”

Levi waited for Sonja’s response. If she said, “Okay, let’s go,” he didn’t think he’d survive. The need to taste her lips again, as Corbin sucked on her full, soft breasts was an urge so powerful he could barely think.

If she
didn’t
though, if she said
no
to heading back to their apartment at that very second…well, he didn’t know if he could survive
that
either. There was something utterly arousing about their three-way flirting in such a public arena, one in which a member of the media was already present and from which a member of the paparazzi had been already ejected.

Swallowing the thick tension in his throat, he regarded her with an unwavering gaze.

“Perhaps,” she finally said, licking her lips and darting her stare between him and Corbin, “we should eat first. Food. Something to lessen the kick of the sake.”

Levi’s breath left him in a fierce stream through his nose. He bunched his jaw. His gut clenched.

“Good idea,” Corbin agreed. It was only because Levi knew him so well that he could hear the note of impatient disappointment in his lover’s voice. “Food. Some more sake, another song or two from you both, perhaps even coffee and dessert somewhere else after.”

“Fuck that,” Levi growled.

Sonja rolled her eyes. “You so haven’t changed, Stan.”

Surprisingly, the accusation made him smile. “Neither have you, Sonny.”

She smirked at him, no doubt proud of his declaration.

“But you will,” he promised. “I’m going to make sure of it.”

Her eyes widened. Her lips parted.

And then they were joined at the table by their waitress with fresh sake and tempura, compliments of the house. Which was lucky for them all, given how easy it would have been for Levi to unzip his fly and wrap Corbin’s hand around his dick as he gazed at Sonja while she watched it all.

Chapter Eight

Of course, the first three submissions from the slush pile
would
be ménages.

Sonja slammed her laptop shut and drummed her nails on its lid, staring hard at the morning sky stretching on forever over her backyard.

She still couldn’t believe she’d said no. No to coffee and dessert. No to Corbin and Levi’s invitation back to their apartment.

No to Levi’s suggestion.

She still couldn’t believe she’d even considered it all in the first place.

Goddamn it, could she be more confused?

Corbin had accepted her refusal with good grace. Christ, he was yummy. All tall, blonde and deliciously American, with broad, broad shoulders and a smile so sexy it was almost orgasm inducing. If it wasn’t for the fact she knew he was gay, she’d be all over him.

But the way he’d flirted with her during the course of their dinner at Mizuku… Oh boy. Was there such a thing as a hetro-for-you phenomenon?

She knew all about the gay-for-you trope in the erotic romance-writing world, where a previously heterosexual man found himself sexually attracted to another guy, but
only
that guy. She’d edited a few books that dealt with that very premise. Come to think of it, hadn’t some famous heterosexual Hollywood actor announced to the world a few years ago he was in love with an Australian body builder? Or bodyguard? Or firefighter? Something like that. Chris Huntley. That’s who it was. Hadn’t Huntley confessed to being in love with the guy when the entire world—and all the women he’d had sex with—had thought he was as straight as they came? Hadn’t that happened? She was sure it had.

So if
that
had actually happened, wasn’t it possible she could be currently living her very own fantasy and Levi’s gay lover
was
legitimately sexually attracted to her? That
could
happen, right? And if that
was
the case, why the fuck had she said no last night when Levi asked her—huh, commanded her, more like it—to return with them to their apartment so they could all fuck like bunnies?

She drummed her nails on her laptop again, her stare tracking a flock of birds heading who knew where above the stubborn gumtree growing—despite her utter failure to water it—on her back fence line.

She’d been stupidly horny at the end of the evening. She’d been as sober as they come, more nervous than she’d ever been and stupidly horny. As their dinner had slowly disappeared into their stomachs, Sonja’s erotic dreams from the previous night had started coming back to her, dreams of Corbin doing stuff to her while Levi did stuff to Corbin.

The closer it had come to ending their meals, the more she’d remembered how turned-on she was by the thought of both men sexually pleasuring her. And the more turned-on she was, the more nervous she grew.

So when they’d exited Mizuku, she’d damn near squealed when Corbin had taken her hand and drawn her close to his body. Had almost whimpered as he’d lowered his face to hers and brushed her lips in the softest, most exquisitely hesitant kiss ever. Fuck, she’d almost come there and then.

The fact Levi was holding her other hand to
his
mouth, his warm lips on the centre of her palm, tracing tiny circles on her flesh with the tip of his tongue, had only exacerbated her arousal.

If it hadn’t been for Marco Lee interrupting the moment with Corbin’s jacket, Sonja had no doubt the morning sun would have found her in an entirely different bed when it broke the horizon.

But Marco Lee
had
interrupted them, and the jarring intrusion had been enough to break the erotic spell Corbin and Levi had weaved around her.

She might fantasize about what they’d suggested, might dream about it, but do it? Different story altogether.

She’d said no. Had shaken her head. Disengaged herself from their enticing hands and caught a cab back to her own home. Had spent the night refusing to think about Corbin’s easy nature and sexy smile, and the shattered want and hunger in Levi’s.

She’d woken this morning, determined to put it all behind her.

She’d poured herself an extra-leaded cup of coffee, grabbed the half-empty packet of Tim Tams from the fridge—what all awesome editors of erotic romance ate for breakfast—collected her laptop from the living room and made her way out onto the back deck overlooking her neglect-resistant yard. She was going to read at least five submissions from the slush pile. That would get her mind on sentence structure, character arcs and possible best-sellers waiting to be discovered. Thinking about those elements of her job would dampen the hot need in her core.

Except the first three submissions she’d read were so well written and so evocatively sensual, they made her tummy flutter. And all ménages. Not male-male-female ménages, but ménages all the same. And now here she was, frustrated beyond measure with an itch her vibrator didn’t have a hope of scratching and a head full of Levi and Corbin doing wicked
stuff
to her. And each other. Often. Stuff that most likely
would
have happened if she’d only said
yes
last night.

Letting out a sigh, she pinched her bottom lip between thumb and forefinger and glared at the birds whooping it up way up high in the sky.

If she rang Levi now and told him she’d changed her mind, what would he say?

Have you? Changed your mind?

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, woman,” she grumbled, flipping open her laptop again. “Of course you haven’t. For starters, you don’t sleep with guys after only one date, even if he
is
the famous Hollywood screenwriter boyfriend of your ex-high school boyfriend.”

A wave of embarrassment flooded through her at how ludicrous the situation was when uttered aloud. Christ, why hadn’t she done this, vocalize her predicament hours ago when she’d been tossing and turning on the bed, aching for two sets of hands to relieve the thick, heavy need in the junction of her thighs? Craving two sets of mouths to suck on her tits. Yearning for two hard, big dicks to—

“Next submission,” she burst out, killing the desperate thought.

She clicked on the fourth submission down from the top of the email list and scanned the query letter:

When Gary Winslow spies the topless hunk striding out of the river carrying Gary’s lost dog in his perfectly sculpted arms, his body rippling with sublime muscles, Gary feels something he never expected. Arous—

“Oh, come on!” Sonja slammed her laptop shut, propelled herself to her feet and stormed inside. Screw this. She was going for a jog.

The jog didn’t help. With every footfall, her nipples rubbed against the cotton-lined cups of her sports bra. Weren’t sports bras meant to keep one’s boobs under control? Not become instruments of sexual torment during a simple run? And while she was in a complaining state of mind, just when did she become so fixated on a ménage she forgot all about the basic importance of checking the road before crossing it? She’d almost been run over. Twice.