Burning Up (2 page)

So it had to be Rob. Rob was turning her on. Yet…hooking her arm through Rob’s had been funny. It wasn’t until she’d found herself flanked by him
and
Steve that her hormones had run riot.

Oh dear, Lord. Did she want them both?

She let out a wry sound, something between a groan and a laugh. “Now I get it.”

“Get what?” Rob asked.

“How Erica feels. A girl could easily get used to this.” At their blank looks, she elaborated. “You know, two men. Double trouble. A bit of sandwich action.”

She’d meant it as a joke, a little humor to ease the tension. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. It was an inadvertent admission that she was aroused, and when she saw a look pass between the two men, she knew they’d interpreted it clearly.

“I’m just saying. Not that
I
want that, but I can see why
someone
might go that way. That’s all.” Pam laughed, and it sounded awkward in the stillness of approaching evening. “I’m not making a pass, guys. Seriously.”

She was babbling. She was a giggling, babbling breathless mess and the guys still hadn’t said anything. They continued to escort her, continued to wind heat all around her as they walked. And she saw that look pass between them again, as if they were asking each other a question through telepathy.

When she glimpsed Erica’s place up ahead, she jumped at the chance to extricate herself from the embarrassing situation. “Look, we’re here.” She pulled her hands away from each man and increased her pace, putting distance between her and them. “I’m going to find Erica and ask if she needs a hand in the kitchen. See you in there.”

Damned if her voice didn’t rise three octaves on that last word.

Where was a great gaping hole in the ground when you wanted one to swallow you whole?

****

Once inside the large open-plan house, Steve Waller scanned the group of party guests. It only took a couple of seconds to find Pam. She was in the gleaming stainless-steel kitchen talking to Erica.

Steve’s groin tingled again at the sight of her. She’d left her straight, pale-blonde hair out so it brushed against her shoulders, which he loved. Her grey-green eyes had the same over-bright look in them that they’d had outside and her cheeks were as flushed as they had been then too. No doubt about it, the woman was turned on.

“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”

He’d been talking to himself, but Rob, who’d followed Steve into the house, heard him. “What?”

“Oh. Nothing.”

Steve wasn’t going to admit to Rob that he’d been more than a little preoccupied of late with Erica Shannon’s slender blonde friend, a woman he’d given very little thought to when he’d first met her. He’d seen immediately that she wasn’t the type to be dazzled by a quick smile and a pair of impressive biceps, so he’d dismissed her as a possible bedmate and moved on to more willing women.

Yet sometime over the past few months, something had changed. Steve could only pin it down to a night at the Sovereign Hotel when Pam, Erica and a few other teachers from Ashton Heights High had come in for Christmas drinks. Pam had been wearing a slim black skirt, spike heels and a fitted red singlet top with lace trim at the cleavage. Until then, Steve hadn’t even been aware Pam
had
cleavage, but that night she’d worn some kind of wonder bra and
wham
, there they were. Her pretty little breasts all dressed up, inviting him to take a long, slow, appreciative look.

And he had. He’d taken a mental picture he’d never been able to erase. Now whenever he jacked off, it was Pam’s tits he pictured. Pam’s pretty face and full lips he imagined. In his fantasies, she gave him a come-hither look instead of the pissed-off one she usually wore around him. That expression, along with a lazy finger she’d circle around her nipple and the dirty words he imagined her whispering was usually enough to set him off.

He’d never even gotten as far as having fantasy Pam suck him off and he came every time. He had premature-ejaculation trouble in his fantasies. It was fucking humiliating.

“Good turnout,” Rob said, rousing Steve from his dark thoughts. “Still don’t think Griff is going to like it.”

“A surprise party for Griff? He’ll hate it,” Steve agreed. “But he’ll pretend to love it for them.”

Steve tilted his head in the direction of the kitchen, where Corey had now joined Erica and Pam. He said something to Pam that made her laugh, and the way she threw her head back and exposed the pale column of her throat made Steve’s gut draw tight and his loins ache. Then Corey leaned down and gave Erica a quick but passionate smooch, and the expression on Pam’s face as she watched them made something else hurt, something in the region of his chest.

Longing. The look in her eyes was pure, unadulterated longing, so raw and stark that Steve had to turn away lest the pain in his chest burn into a hollowness that made him long for things too, things he’d never wanted and didn’t want to want, ever. Like commitment. That wasn’t something Steve was after. A product of divorce and a subsequently fractured family, Steve wasn’t keen to repeat his parents’ mistakes.

He strode across the living room, making his way to the back deck and the tubs full of ice lined up against the wall of the house. He grabbed a lite beer, twisted the cap off and took a long swig. He’d downed a third of it before Rob joined him again.

“Do you think she meant it?”

Steve looked at him, decided to play dumb on the off chance the other man would take a hint and drop it. “Who meant what?”

“Pam,” Rob said, extracting a beer from the ice for himself. “Do you think she was serious about wanting, you know—” he lowered his voice, “—two guys. Us.”

Steve’s mind careened away from the possibilities. Whenever he’d pictured getting together with Pam, he hadn’t pictured sharing her. “She said she was kidding.”

“But was she though? I’m not so sure.”

Neither was Steve, but he wasn’t going to say so. “Why are you pursuing this, Curly? You into that sort of thing?”

“No. I mean, I don’t think so.” Rob made a face. “I wouldn’t know.”

Steve said “Ah,” and took another swallow of pale ale.

“What about you, have you ever…?”

“No,” Steve admitted with a smirk. “I can satisfy a woman on my own.”

“Yeah, well, so can I.”

“Don’t get snitty about it,” Steve drawled. “Just because I’ve never felt the need for a substitute during sex, doesn’t mean you should feel bad for not being able to go the distance.”

“Fuck off, Waller,” Rob said with a smile. The crew of firefighters at Ashton Heights station had a good rapport going—meaning they ragged on each other regularly, and it was all done with good humor. Steve talked as tough as any of the other guys, but the truth was he’d lay down his life for any of his fellow firies—Rob included.

“It was Pam who brought it up,” Rob reminded him. “She’s obviously into the idea.”

Yes, Pam had brought it up—the idea of a threesome. It was the first time she’d shown even the slightest interest in Steve sexually. It was definitely progress—in a different direction than Steve had hoped, but still progress.

Was this going to be his only chance with Pam?

He took another swig of beer, sending Rob a sideways glance. He had to think it would be awkward, sharing a woman with a bloke he worked with. But they shared a locker room at the fire station, he’d seen the guy with little more than a towel wrapped around his waist. How much worse could it be seeing him naked? He’d probably only look at Pam anyway.

At Pam, writhing in ecstasy as Rob kissed her naked body, as he played with her tits and fingered her pretty golden pussy. Would she extend her hand to Steve and ask him to join them? Or would Steve be the one kissing her, moving down her body, tasting her sweet juices while Rob stuck his cock in her mouth?

Jesus.
His thoughts were making him hard. The idea of sharing Pam with Rob obviously appealed to at least one part of his anatomy.

“Well, if a three-way is off the table, I hope you don’t mind if I have a crack at her.”

Rob’s statement almost caused Steve to drop his beer. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Pam.” Rob frowned at Steve’s snappish reaction. “I want to ask her out.”

“You?
You’re
going to ask Pam out?”

Rob shrugged. “I like her.”

“A bit old for you, isn’t she?” Steve knew Pam was at least thirty, his own age, because they’d shared thirtieth birthday stories one night at the pub when she was a little tipsy and consequently less resistant to chatting with him. A woman in her thirties wouldn’t be into someone as young as Rob.

Would she?

“I don’t care that she’s twenty-eight.”

Twenty-eight? What the fuck?
Steve hid his smile behind his beer bottle when realization hit. Pam had lied to Rob about her age. That was too funny.

As quickly as it had appeared, Steve’s smile slid away. It wasn’t so funny if she’d lied to Rob because she liked him. Did Pam want Rob that bad?

“She’s still older by five years. That kind of thing is important to some women.” At least Steve hoped so. Otherwise it meant he was competing for women with twenty-three-year-old puppies like Rob. He knew how far Rob could run on the treadmill, how much he could bench press. He also knew women went ga-ga over his soft brown eyes and curly golden locks.

He didn’t need that kind of competition.

If Steve wasn’t mistaken, he detected a blush on Rob’s cheeks when he confessed, “She thinks I’m twenty-five.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Steve muttered. Then he started laughing at the ridiculousness of it—Rob and Pam subtracting and adding birthdays to make themselves look better. He’d love to be around when they started talking number of sexual partners.

“Don’t tell her, please, Waller,” Rob beseeched. “She already thinks twenty-five is too young.”

Because she’s actually thirty plus, you numbskull.
Steve could probably blow any chance Rob and Pam had of getting together by telling them each the truth, but something held him back from letting Rob know Pam was older than she’d said. He couldn’t bring himself to out her. Steve thought her little lie was silly—he, for one, found women his own age hotter than girls in their twenties—but it was her lie to confess to if she chose.

Steve let out a sigh. He couldn’t out Rob to Pam either. He didn’t play dirty. If he was going to win Pam, he was going to do it fair and square. “Fine, I won’t tell her,” he said. He held up a finger to silence Rob before the other man could thank him. “On one condition.”

“What condition?”

“We do this together.”

Rob’s eyes widened. “You mean…”

Steve smiled and lifted his nearly empty beer bottle to his lips. “I never said a three-way was off the table, did I?”

Actually, the more Steve thought about it, the more upside he saw to the idea. It would be wickedly sexy, if his body’s reaction was anything to go by. And it would ensure Pam didn’t read more into the situation than what was there. Steve was hot for her, had been for months, but he wasn’t ready to settle down. Pam was looking for true love. He only had to remember that expression of longing on her face when she’d watched Corey with Erica inside. She wanted adoration, commitment, the whole shebang.

There was nothing romantic about a threesome. It was all sex—raw, base lust. There was no way Pam would get the wrong idea.

In any case, it seemed Rob was the one she wanted. Steve figured this might be his only opportunity to slake his desire for the woman who’d kept him hard more nights than he wanted to count.

“Are you serious?” Rob asked him.

“Deadly serious,” Steve replied. “And I think it’s time we started talking strategy.”

“Okay, everyone, it’s time to hide.” Erica’s urgent announcement made each assembled party guest spring into action. Or should that be inaction, as the object was to stay as still and quiet as possible in the darkened living room while Griff came up the walk.

Corey turned off the lights, and Pam took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the newfound darkness. Then she found a spot at the back of the group, preferring to remain unobtrusive. She liked Griff and they got on well, but she was sure he’d rather see his closest friends from the fire service before he saw her. With that in mind, she figured Steve and Rob would head to the front of the pack, but to her surprise, barely a moment after she’d positioned herself, Steve’s familiar brash voice intoned in her ear. “You by yourself back here, Pammy?”

Pam bit back a groan of annoyance. Ever since the humiliating scene that had occurred as they’d arrived together, she’d been avoiding Steve and Rob. They hadn’t made it easy. They’d fetched her drinks and offered to help her with the job of laying food on the outside tables. When one or both of them weren’t hovering around her, she had the oddest feeling that she was being watched. She’d turn and catch Steve’s eye and he’d wink. Or she’d find Rob smiling at her with his easy grin.

It was unsettling.

“I was trying to stay out of the way,” Pam answered Steve’s query, turning a little so her back was to him.

Right then, Rob approached her from the front. “You shouldn’t hide yourself, Pam. I like looking at you.”