Menage on 34th Street (10 page)

She glanced at the brightly printed wallpaper border over the sink. “They’re fine. Cheerful. They came with the house and we decided to leave the kitchen alone while we worked on some of the other rooms first. The upstairs guest bathroom was horrific. Bubble-gum pink. You would have been very uncomfortable.”

“Completely emasculated,” he agreed.

Kat couldn’t think of a single thing that would reduce Hunter to anything less than all-man. “Good thing we stripped the pink. There’s only enough room for one woman in our bed.”

He redirected the full brunt of his focus to meet and hold her gaze. “So that’s the way it is, huh?”

“I’m not really into women. Are you?”

“I’m into you.”

“Not what I meant.”

“It’s what I meant.” He straightened and walked into the kitchen. The shower was still running upstairs. Her ears filled with the sounds of rushing water and her thrumming awareness of Hunter, who stopped in front of her, so close she could smell Liam on his skin. The pheromone cocktail kicked up a distracting buzz in her head. She tried to shake it off but Hunter cupped her cheeks in his hands, tilted her head back, and held her immobile.

She held her breath and waited for him to come to whatever decision he was silently debating. They’d stood in a similar position only twelve hours ago, wrapped in an entirely different sort of tension. Yesterday’s Hunter was angry in his need. Today’s Hunter still displayed an undeniable degree of ferocity, but he held it on a short leash. Remembering the cold floor beneath her knees and his hard hands in her hair, she failed to suppress a shiver. Hunter answered with a slow, knowing smile and stroked the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip.

“I’m into you,” he repeated. He lowered his head to kiss her, gentle and brief and at odds with the desire vibrating between them. “If you ever need a reminder, let me know.”

Before Kat could disentangle her hands from her robe, he released her. The upstairs shower cut off. She watched him grab a clean mug and fill it from the coffee carafe. In those few seconds, she managed to compose herself. The question of other women still niggled but she was reluctant to broach the subject. Their arrangement as three was new enough without seriously raising the question of whether Hunter would ever want their arrangement to extend itself to four. Asking now likely wouldn’t yield a meaningful discussion, anyway. Liam had proven to her that desires have tremendous capacity for change. If Hunter ever wanted a fourth—a woman—well...she’d deal with that in the moment. This moment was enough in itself without borrowing trouble.

Well. Without borrowing
more
trouble. Bracing herself for a fight, Kat hit him with a new challenge. “Liam and I have plans to meet a few friends later. Adele, her husband, a couple others.”

The muscles in Hunter’s back tightened before she finished speaking. He replaced the carafe with a very obvious measure of calm, which carried over into his tone. “No problem. Just let me know when you need me to clear out.”

“I don’t ever need you to ‘clear out’. You’re welcome here 24/7. I’ll give you one of our spare keys. I—”

“Kat.” He turned to face her but didn’t say anything else.

She frowned at his shuttered expression and stomped on her uncharacteristic neediness before it scared him away. “Well, dinner. I didn’t tell you in order to give you an eviction notice. Will you join us? You know Adele and her husband. It’ll be us and them, Adele’s brother, and his partner.”

“Partner? Michael’s gay?” Hunter didn’t wait for an answer. He shook his head. “I can’t stay. I’m back on duty tomorrow morning so I have to head back to D.C. tonight.”

Kat pressed her lips together and watched him without saying anything. She wasn’t about to kick their relationship off by letting him off the hook every time he referenced the Marines. Hunter looked away from her and narrowed his eyes at the window above the kitchen sink. She could read his thought process in his flexing jaw. The urge to rescue him stirred behind her breastbone but she suppressed it. This was a hook he’d just have to dangle from.

Hunter was still glaring at their small backyard when Liam came downstairs and joined them a minute later.

“Morning.” Liam stopped behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He pulled her back against his chest, comfortable with his affection. Kat turned her face up for a kiss. Liam generously complied. His warm, minty mouth and roaming hands distracted her from Hunter’s internal argument until he broke the kiss and angled his head toward their stone-faced lover.
Problem?
Liam mouthed.

She shrugged and silently answered.
Ask him.

Brow furrowed, he shook his head, squeezed her butt and headed for the coffee. “It smells amazing down here. Hunter, you’re in for a culinary treat.”

“Cinnamon rolls need a few more minutes. I’m going to go up and get dressed if you’ll pull them out when the timer goes off.” She glanced at Hunter, who was now watching them instead of staring out the window. “Let me know what you decide about dinner.”

Hunter rolled his shoulders, an action that did interesting things to his pecs. “If we’re going to be seen together in public, we need some rules.”

Liam set his coffee on the counter and folded his arms across his chest. Even though he had a different, slimmer build than Hunter possessed, he cut a tempting image of his own. “Well, neither Kat nor I have any restrictions so rule-setting is going to be your show. Let’s hear them.”

“Fine. When we’re in public, you refer to me as a friend and we don’t touch each other.”

Kat was shaking her head before he even finished speaking. “I can’t promise not to touch you. I’m a touchy person. I even touch Adele.”

“I think we can agree to no overt PDAs,” Liam said. “But Kat’s right. If you’re going to get bent up over casual touches, we should avoid public situations completely.”

Hunter’s jaw worked. “No hand-holding, no touching below the waist. Nothing that will make a casual observer wonder about the nature of our relationship.”

Liam’s features relaxed. “That seems reasonable. Kat?”

She didn’t want to agree—wanted to spend all her time making up for the years they’d lost—but Hunter wasn’t making draconian demands. Even though he stood there with his rigid posture and shuttered eyes, his PDA limits were reasonable. They weren’t anything new, either. He’d never been the touchy type in public, not even when their peers had gone through an odd kissy-cuddly phase in high school. While the guys pretended to French kiss and the girls sat on each other’s laps at lunch, Hunter had remained aloof.

With a sigh, she nodded. “Fine. But I want a protection clause for this rule. For all rules, if we’re going to have a relationship that includes them.”

Both men glanced at each other with different degrees of wariness.

Kat rolled her eyes and continued without waiting for them to ask. “Rules come with consequences. That’s just the nature of rules. Break one, there’s a consequence. I want your assurance—both of you—that the consequence of a broken rule isn’t a broken relationship. And if either of you have a hard limit that would result in an immediate end, you need to say so up front. I’m not going to live my life tiptoeing around in fear of accidentally tripping the ‘game over’ button.”

She watched Hunter, figuring he would have a whole list of lines they weren’t allowed to cross, but he didn’t say anything. Liam’s voice surprised her.

“You just issued a tall order, K-K. Do you need a list of limits right now or can we all take a few days to think?”

The thought that her relationship with Liam might have a breaking point was unsettling. Even as emotion rolled through her, she logically acknowledged that she shouldn’t be surprised. Ten years of marriage hadn’t prepared her for the things she’d learned about him the night before. If Liam had kept details to himself of Hunter’s interest in her, and his own interest in turning their traditional relationship into a trio, he probably had other undisclosed layers. She’d meant to toss the ball into Hunter’s court. Having it served back to her caught her off guard.

“Liam’s right,” Hunter said. “And so are you. We all deserve to know where the landmines are planted so we know how to approach them. Let’s take a week.”

“A week.” Kat looked between them. “That puts us at New Year’s Day for our first relationship meeting.”

“I can’t think of a better way to start a new year.” The oven timer went off. Liam grabbed a pair of oven mitts, pulled the cinnamon rolls out of the oven and set them aside to cool.

She could think of plenty more ways, but she nodded her assent. “Okay. We’ll let it go for the week, but Hunter, that means none of us can walk away from this between now and then. No matter what mistakes we make. Agreed?”

Hunter finally relaxed. “I can live with that.”

“Okay, then. I’m going to go shower and get dressed. I’ll be back down in a while.” Having both Liam and Hunter standing against her as a unified front had sucked the energy right out. She needed a dose of caffeine and sugar, but the tension had turned her stomach sour. Both Liam and Hunter had the right of it, though. Twenty-four hours of frantic fucking wasn’t going to glue them together permanently. Only communication, respect and love would see them through.

Chapter Nine

After Kat left the kitchen, Hunter set his mug in the sink and ran both hands over his head. “Fuck.”

“What’d you expect, that she’d just stand around accepting your barriers without asking you to compromise?” Liam spread white frosting over the tops of the rolls he’d pulled from the oven.

“I thought I’d made myself clear about my public image.”

“You made yourself clear about your military image. A private event with friends is different. Are you going to back out?”

Upstairs, Kat started the shower. His mind’s eye immediately zoomed in on an image of her standing under the water, running her soap-slick hands over her tits. His dick hardened in an instant. Christ. Nobody but Liam and Kat, together and as individuals, had ever challenged the control he had over his body. Some part of him had figured he would regain a measure of that control once he stopped fighting and fed the beast. Instead, he’d roused a bottomless hunger.

“No. I’m going to get dressed, head back to my place for a change of clothes, and show up for dinner.” Backing out had ceased to be an option the minute Hunter answered Liam’s call yesterday. Hell, even before that.

“You made the right choice.” Liam reached past him to drop the empty bowl into the sink. “Kat needs to know you’ll be part of our lives outside the bedroom. She’s not trying to push your limits, she’s trying to find out how much of yourself you’ll give. You should think about that between now and our discussion next week. If all you want is sex, say so. It’ll be easier if we know where we stand.”

“Sex isn’t all I want but you two might be better off if you decide you’d rather keep it at that. You’re signing up for a hard life.”

Liam’s jaw flexed and challenge flashed in his blue eyes. “I’m no stranger to hard lives.”

Hunter studied him, seeing all the sharp edges and haunted corners Liam usually hid behind a relaxed posture and an easy smirk. He didn’t know all the details of Liam’s life but he knew enough to know Liam carried scars that couldn’t be covered and glorified with ink. The skin on Hunter’s back tightened with recognition. He and Liam had taken different paths, but they’d started out the same. For the second time, Hunter was struck by the inevitability of this moment.

He’d never had a fucking chance.

Suddenly, Hunter’s hard-on was eager for more than Kat. Goaded by Liam’s challenge, Hunter seized a fistful of the other man’s shirt and hauled him close. He slanted his mouth across Liam’s firm lips and took without asking or apologizing. Liam didn’t stand there meekly accepting. He gave as good as he got, serving up a measure of aggression that fired Hunter’s blood. Marble bit into his sides as Liam backed him into the corner formed by the L-shaped counter.

They broke apart when Liam’s ringtone erupted between them. Liam swore beneath his breath as he dug his phone from his pocket. And then he cursed again before sending the call to voicemail. “I have to return this call.”

“I need to go anyway.”

“Don’t leave without saying goodbye to Kat.”

“If I go upstairs right now, I’m going to get in that shower with her and see if she’ll finish what we just started.” He watched Liam carefully. Heat flared in the other man’s eyes, but nothing else. Still, he needed confirmation. “That cool with you?”

Liam cocked an eyebrow. “Are you asking me for permission?”

“She’s your wife. You can talk all you want about a three-way relationship but reality is Kat is your
wife
. Traditional marriage or not, she’s yours. This,” Hunter waved to encompass the house, “is yours. Your home, your wife, your life.”

“Yeah, she’s my wife, but being my wife doesn’t define her. She’s your lover. It’s her body. You want permission, go ask her.”

Hunter pushed harder. He couldn’t wait a week to find out where some lines were drawn. “I’m interested in more than the three of us. I want you and me alone. And I want me and her alone. Sometimes you’re going to want to be alone with your wife. I’m not asking permission to fuck her. I’m asking if it’s going to be a problem with me and you if it’s not always me
and
you and Kat.”

Liam frowned. “The truth?”

At Hunter’s nod, he continued. “The truth is I don’t know. I don’t have a crystal ball to tell me how the day to day is going to go for the three of us. Today, right now, if you want to be with Kat and she wants to be with you, then perfect. Enjoy each other. God knows I loved having you to myself this morning.

“If a day comes and that’s not the case, I’ll do my best to let you know. That goes both ways. If you need me or her or, hell, you need something or someone besides us, you have to say so. We’ll eventually be pretty good at picking up on cues, but relationships need communication. Especially the kind of relationship the three of us have.”

“Christ. This isn’t going to be a picnic.”

Liam grinned. “Not one you can enjoy in a family-friendly park, anyway.”

Shaking his head, Hunter straightened from the counter. “I’m going upstairs to let Kat know I’m leaving.”

“We don’t keep condoms in the shower so you’d better take one with you. Lube, too. After last night, she might need a little help.” With that final piece of advice, Liam looked down at his phone and started a text.

Hunter left Liam to it and went upstairs to find Kat.

On the second floor, the door to the master bedroom stood open but the door to the master bath was closed. Hunter opened the bedside drawer to get a condom. A small bottle of lube slid from the back of the drawer, along with a pen, a few hair clips and a slim blue vibrator. He grabbed the lube as well as the condom before heading for the bathroom. The knob twisted easily and he pushed the door open a few inches. Steam fogged the mirror and shower doors but the sliding doors were clear instead of frosted, so the steam didn’t hide much. While he watched, Kat propped one foot on the rim of the tub and slid her hand between her legs.

Fuck asking permission.

Hunter stepped inside and closed the door at his back. Thick, humid air filled his lungs. The warm, spicy scent of her soap got under his skin and heated him from the inside. His dick bucked against the confines of his jeans. He made short work of his pants but instead of immediately climbing into the shower, he fisted his shaft and watched her.

After she’d left him and Liam in bed, he’d shocked himself by leaning down to take Liam’s cock into his mouth. Hunter had held back on his own release, instead focusing on wringing another orgasm from Liam. Now, after that kiss in the kitchen and confronted with Kat’s gorgeous ass, his balls felt like they were going to explode. Remembering the way she’d fit him last night, so tight it was almost painful, he flexed his hand hard around his dick.

Double-teaming Kat was up there in the top three most memorable events of his life. He would never forget the connection he’d felt, like he was anchored to something bigger than himself, with Kat undulating beneath him. Hunter had held Liam’s gaze over Kat’s shoulder, and the intensity of that moment was still indescribable. He’d remained awake long after Kat and Liam fell asleep, trying to find words and coming up empty.

Not empty. More full than he’d ever been in his life. Fuck. He couldn’t screw this up.

And he couldn’t wait any longer. He grabbed the condom and, so he wouldn’t scare her, said her name.

Without a word, she reached over and slid the shower door open. Hunter didn’t think twice about accepting the quiet invitation. He closed the door behind him and drew her to him, back to front. Her wet skin stuck to his chest in interesting ways. After a minor adjustment so he wasn’t stabbing her with his dick, he lowered his head to kiss the side of her neck.

“I need to drive back to D.C. so I can pick up some clothes. What’s the dress code for dinner?”

“We have reservations at Ruth’s Chris in the Inner Harbor.”

“I’ve never eaten there.”

“It’s casual but upscale. Button-up shirt and slacks would be fine.” She tilted her head back against his shoulder. From his vantage, Hunter could see straight down the front of her body. Soap suds clung to her tits, which were capped by the hard points of her nipples. He shifted his hold and teased one stiff peak with the corner of the condom packet.

Kat sucked a startled breath. “Ouch. I’m not much into nipple torture.”

Since he wasn’t either, and pain wasn’t his intention, he reached over to put the condom on the soap dish for safe keeping. “Tell me what you
are
into.”

Her eyes were closed but she smiled. “I thought we’d covered that. With words and actions, and in multiple rooms of the house.”

“Yeah, but there’s more to Katrina Holland than a voyeuristic desire to watch two men fuck each other. What are you into one-on-one? Roleplay? Sex toys?” He grinned against her hair. “I’m not wearing women’s underwear for you. I draw the line.”

“Penetration.”

“Tell me something I haven’t figured out.”

“No, I mean it. I’m into penetration.” She turned in his arms and tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “I like to penetrate. Do you think you’d ever let me play with your ass?”

“Jesus, Kat. You don’t go easy on a man.”

Her lips tilted at the corners. “I can be very gentle with my small hands. Or my big dildos.”

Interest coiled inside him. Before he could ask, she broke from his loose hold and slid behind him. The water, still hot, pounded his chest. Hunter started to turn but Kat had other plans. She ran her nails down his spine, not stopping until the heel of her palm pressed against the base. Exerting directive pressure with her fingertips, she said, “Lean against the wall and spread your legs for me.”

Kat’s low voice hummed with a level of authority Hunter granted very few people, none of them civilian. While he decided whether he was going to obey her, she reached around him and grasped his dick. Hunter ground his back teeth together as she worked her tight fist up to his crown, down again, back to the tip. She loosened her grip slightly and slid one fingertip across his slit. At the same time, she moved her other hand and drew a line from the top of his ass crack down to his balls. Hunter shuddered.

He braced his forehead against the shower wall and the spray hit his shoulders and upper back. “Kitten...”

“Uh-uh. That’s not me purring this time. Hands against the wall and relax, Marine. There’s nothing I could possibly do to hurt you.”

Wrong. So fucking wrong.

When she cupped her fingers around his balls and slid her fist back to his root, he gave in. He planted his hands against the wet tile and braced his feet apart as instructed. The position put him at a good angle to watch her hand as she jacked him, the strokes slow and easy. Her wedding ring flashed into view when she rolled her palm over his flushed head.

She released his sac and traced the seam of his ass again. “Has anybody ever been here?”

“No.”

“That’s it? Just ‘no’?”

“There isn’t a story to tell. Just ‘no’.”

“Would you let me?”

His whole body tensed. Hunter closed his eyes, which was a mistake. Vivid images surged to the front of his awareness, most of them featuring Kat and the strap-on she’d verbally thrown at him the night before. He hadn’t given her words more than a passing thought at the time but now he had no choice but to acknowledge them. She forced his hand when she rubbed hers over his hip and dipped her thumb between his cheeks.

“Hunter?”

“Do you finger Liam?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes he’s up for more.” She found his entrance and flexed her fingers.

He shuddered. Her touch was light but firm, and her intention was transparent. Despite her instruction to relax, he couldn’t shake the tension knotting his shoulders. He had to know. “I want to watch you do it.”

“You want to watch me fuck him? I can’t say yes to that. It’s Liam’s choice.” She continued to pump his cock, faster and harder, but took her other hand away.

Hunter didn’t answer. He didn’t have the greatest command of speech anyway, not with her nipples stabbing his back and her fist bumping his groin. His breath hissed through clenched teeth. He couldn’t shake the image of Kat kneeling between Liam’s legs, a fake dick poised to plunge into Liam’s ass. When she reached around him and plucked the bottle of lube off the soap dish, the visual became more vivid.

He barely registered when she touched his hip and parted his cheeks again, but he heard her pop the top off the lube. The new pressure at his rear passage was unmistakable. Kat’s slippery fingers slid into position but instead of pushing into him, she hesitated. He reached down and clasped her wrist, holding her hand still on his cock.

“If you’re going to do it, do it.” The words came out harsh, but he didn’t have any softness in him at that moment. Every muscle was wound tight, every tendon strained to its limit as his balls waited for the cue to blow.

Kat rested her cheek on his back and the exploratory quality of her touch changed. She swirled her fingertip around his rim one more time before she started to probe. The heat of his skin and the steam of the shower loosened his muscles, allowing her in more easily than he’d expected. Goosebumps broke out over his arms as the foreign sensations spread through him. This was new territory, physically and mentally. The thought of such a small woman possessing so much power was explosively hot. It was also at complete odds with his sexual self-image. His body responded on an instinctual level and his muscles tightened up reflexively. Kat squeezed her fingers around his cock, managed one short stroke before Hunter could stop her. That was all he needed. He relaxed into her hand long enough for her to slip through his barriers, and Jesus fuck, he didn’t expect the darts of pleasure that little touch fired inside him.

She rubbed her lips below his shoulder blade and slid her finger a little deeper, staking her claim with incremental movements that set off a new ripple of tingling sensation. His nipples drew up into tight points and his cock jumped in her grip, begging for attention. Needing her touch, but also needing to control the pace, Hunter covered her fist and guided her to a rhythm he could handle.

Kat’s appreciative moan was audible even over the sound of the shower. She worked a second finger alongside the first in his ass. Once she was settled deep inside him, she paused. “Hunter?”