Sex and Death in the American Novel (33 page)

My breath caught when Alejandro lifted my arms, ran his hands up the insides, letting them drop onto Jasper's shoulders, and instead of running
his strong fingers over my body as I thought he would, as I wanted him to, he stepped back, and performed the most perfect shine I had ever seen. He moved his legs with the deep electronic rhythm, working his arms over his head, and in and out of different poses, offering it all up for my approval. When he was done I pulled him toward me and kissed him on that perfectly gorgeous set of lips, and he pulled back laughing and did it again.

We left at 2:30 a.m. and I drove us back to my apartment. No one spoke. Normally I would have, but I was afraid to break the spell. I stared straight ahead, absorbing the electric shivers each time Alejandro ran his fingers along the back of my neck or over my bare shoulders.

At my door, they shifted on either side of me, as if they were afraid of touching each other. Inside I beckoned them in like we'd all just met. In an attempt to mellow things out, I tuned the radio to a station playing soft nighttime jazz.

“Fix a drink if you want, I'm going to change,” I said.

Jasper nodded, and moved toward the kitchen. “You want one?”

I shook my head. I wanted to be alert for what came next. I slid out of wet clothes that smelled like the club, looked inside the closet, wondering what the best clothing would be to set the tone and encourage forward movement, but wouldn't make me seem too eager. I stood in my bedroom, letting the air move around my body, fighting the chill, playing back the scene that made me want to do this—a scene I played in my head when I needed to push me over, that woman with the thick voice, ‘Please, stop moving, I don't want to come yet.’ The thought of it, the thickness of her voice, two gorgeous men sharing space inside, was endlessly exciting. She was in charge.

Here I was the one with the control, and these men were not strangers, were not merely props. They were both full strong men who each had so much to offer me. To have them at once…the thought made me weak and giddy. My stomach dropped when I considered Jasper. I couldn't lose him. He didn't say anything about the way I lived, though I knew those sorts of things were all far from his comfort level. Was it wrong to ask this of him?

I sat on the bed, still nude, gazing at the floor, steeling myself, preparing, when Jasper came in and closed the door.

“Alejandro is on the couch with a drink.”

“Good.” I searched his eyes.

“What?” He sat beside me, his eyes soft and patient as always. “You want me to send him home?”

I shook my head, picked up one of his hands and kissed it. I wanted to mount him then, feeling so grateful for the way he was willing to do whatever I wanted, to make me happy.

“You are friends…”I said.

“Yes.”

I took his hand and ran it along the side of my body, then stood and smiled down at him. I grabbed the robe on my hook behind the door, feeling luxuriant as I heard the swish of the fabric and felt the silky fabric cover my curves. “Can you come out in a couple minutes?”

He lay back on the bed and gave me a wink. Permission. Next came a surge of adrenaline and I was blasting off.

In the living room, both side table lamps were on, Sade's liquid voice sang of taboos, and Alejandro seemed to be concentrating awfully hard on the back cover of one of my
Weird Tales
that lay on the table. When I came in he set his drink down and leaned toward me.

I came and sat next to him, so close that I could feel his heat through my robe. He placed one cool hand over mine.

He whispered in my ear, “Every day since I met you.” Blood rushed through me, warming my chest, arms and face, and made my head spin. I raked my eyes over every part of him; the powerful thighs, to the curve of his hip, and the absence of bulge there, something I was grateful for. He didn't make anything too obvious, and didn't seem to be straining to hold back.

I turned toward him and he met my eyes, tilted his head. I worried he would see how I was bursting, wondering when Jasper would come out and how that would feel to have him in the room while Alejandro touched me.

Alejandro pulled my robe away, exposing part of my chest and bare shoulder. The sensation of his eyes on me was replaced by the real sensation of the palms of his hands against my throat and my jaw. He ran his thumbs under my chin, holding me like that, pulling me on top of him, laying back onto the couch. I kept my legs straight to hold the contact.

His kisses were so very different from Jasper's tentative, testing ones, which only grew passionate as the heat built. Alejandro held my face, moving his jaw for a more powerful kiss, leaving nothing untouched, his lips and breath came needy. As suddenly as he had started, he stopped, raking his eyes over my face, and moving one hand to my head, pushing it back so my throat was exposed, and kissing me there. My limbs were as useless as a pile of rags. I imagined myself as a paper boat tossed on unpredictable ocean swells.

His eyes had become heavy, losing the quality of testing and control. I put my hands on his chest and braced myself before pulling away, and to my surprise he let me go. I partly imagined he never would. His shirt had ridden up his chest, and when he strained to move forward, I saw several tight muscles burst forth. I met his stare, put my hands under his shirt and worked them toward his shoulders. He braced his feet on the floor and sat forward allowing me to strip his shirt off. As he hunched over and the fabric
came off, I got to take in the wide expanse of his back. I moved behind him and ran my hands along the nape of his neck, his shoulders, down the ridges of muscle, to the ones at his sides that made him look like the back of a cobra's head. He tipped his head back and I ran my hand over his forehead.

The next thing I felt was Jasper's hand on my face. Jasper pulled my robe the rest of the way off and I was finally between them. With Jasper's bare chest behind my head and shoulders, I pressed my breasts with erect nipples into the skin of Alejandro's back.

Hands and lips worked for several glorious minutes. I strained for more, but nothing else would be possible in this position. Someone would have to break contact if we were to go further. I slid out from between them, feeling awkward, my breasts swaying in the open with nothing to restrain them.

I went to a spot on the floor, and when I felt the rough carpeting against my bare skin I went to the bedroom and dragged the comforter out and opened it across the floor, sinking to my knees, a position I felt gave me the best leverage. Jasper came to my side. He took my face in his hands and kissed me so that seemed he was trying to slow everything down to that moment. I wound my hand over his shoulder, leaving one hand free, inviting Alejandro to come over.

Jasper turned from me and gave him a nod. I remembered the way their hands wound together just for the moment while we were dancing and a crackling tension shot through me. I sat back on my ankles, and Jasper moved behind me and stroked my hair, leaving Alejandro with full access to my face, my chest, my belly. Alejandro cupped my breasts and held them tight, stopping just before the point of pain. When he released them, he met my nipple with his generous mouth, slicking his tongue over just the tip; then he ran his lips over the sensitive skin at the sides of my breasts, where his hand had been. He stroked my hips with his open palms while Jasper stroked my thighs, then my calves. The sound Alejandro's hands made against my skin and the scratching of his chin along my bare shoulder was sweeter than any formal music.

I closed my eyes and allowed the scents of both of them to fill my nostrils, making sure every part of me could absorb what was happening. Two of them. Two sets of hands, two sets of lips, two…

I scooted closer to Alejandro and reached up to trace my fingertips along his collarbone, dipping into the wells between the bone and his neck, wondering if anyone else had ever done this. My hands slid over the muscles at his shoulder, over his triceps, loving the firm flex he gave me when he placed his hands on my hips, ran my hand over the dark hairs on his forearms, let my eyes wander to where his hand rested, heating the skin. I
undid the button on his pants, pinching the end of my shaking fingers on the zipper in my haste to do it quickly.

He groaned and exerted more pressure on my hips, and I felt for the first time an immediate surge of wetness between my legs. It was a new sensation, not the gradual change that usually occurred. I wished I could hold onto that minute forever, the first feeling of discovery.

Jasper worked his hands around to my breasts, kneading them, stroking my stomach, his weight pushing me toward Alejandro until there was no space between our bodies. Just as with Laura, I began to feel his eyes moving somewhere I couldn't see. Alejandro leaned forward, and then their mouths came together over my shoulder while their hands began working over the curls between my legs, darting over the slit and moving back to my stomach, then around to my lower back. I was sure it was Jasper who used the knobby corners of his knuckles on me, grazing the skin for a different sensation. Imagining whose hands were where was a game I could have played forever.

I tipped my head to the side, allowing more room for their intimate conference, low whispers, and I heard the soft sounds of their lips sealing and caught sight out the corner of my eye of Alejandro's jaw line moving as he kissed Jasper. My legs grew weak and I placed my palms on Alejandro's chest to steady myself. A jolt of panic set in. Feeling them together was exciting on a galactic level, but the thought of what might happen if they got too carried away terrified me. What if I was just an excuse to be together, and soon, like Eric, both of them would be gone?

I stiffened, and they felt it too. Jasper's face went back to my throat. “Still here,” he whispered and moved to the other side of my head, his breath and tongue warming my throat and shoulder as he tasted my skin. I worked my hand into his hair and yanked his head to my shoulder, wanting him to know how much I wanted him, for a moment regretting everything. I felt his teeth grind into the skin and he pulled away laughing softly.

In my other ear was Alejandro's even breathing, stroking my arm with the back of his hand. “Tell us how you want this.”

I reached back and squeezed Jasper's cock.

“I want to feel both of you at once…” I ran my fingers along Alejandro's jaw. Jasper tilted his head so that I heard the familiar melody of his hair mixing with mine.

“We could start like this,” and I lowered my head, slipping Alejandro inside my mouth.

“Whoa,” he said. “Oh, wow.” his voice deepened as I worked my head and he moved in and out, then I let him push farther in. His hands moved to my shoulders, pushing me back. “Slow.”

I met his eyes, enjoying the changes in his face, the opening of his nostrils, the sparkle in his eyes. I thrust my hips back to Jasper, who curled
over my ass and stroked it for a moment before he positioned himself inside the silken heat between my legs.

The man I had loved the longest entered harder than he had ever done before. I fell forward and cried out and then felt gentle kisses on my back. Once he was inside, he didn't move, and after almost a full minute he moved his hands around to work my breasts again, then his fingers slid down to massage all the delicate parts around where I held him. I still had Alejandro in my mouth, it felt like he was as big as he could get, I sucked hard on the tip, and ran my fingers over the silken skin around the head, examining it before he pulled away. He took my head in his hands, moved it from side to side, and then covered my eyes. There was a long moment where air moved around my torso and back and I heard a deep-throated sound of approval from Jasper, then both sets of hands repositioned me. I looked down, Jasper was sliding beneath me.

“You knew I would want to look in your face…” I said and ran my lips over his eyebrows and let the lashes tickle the skin beneath my chin.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Emotion caught in my throat, wondering if I would be able to handle this. I pushed it down, wanting more than ever to fulfill this fantasy. With both my elbows and forearms on either side of his head, I stroked Jasper's hairline, kissed his bottom lip and worked a hand down to put him inside me. I ground down and he flexed once, then his arms wrapped me up and it was like any one of a hundred times before.

I leaned down, so his ear was close to my lips and with a hand over his mouth, and bracing myself with the other one I whispered, “I love you.”

He pushed his face against mine, and ran his head against my cheek and I kissed him long and slow. My lower half was full of him, and my heart surged thinking about what we were doing. I squeezed him inside me again as tight as I could; then when I felt Alejandro's hands on either side of my hips, parting my ass, I made myself go slack. I looked down to Jasper who had begun to work himself in and out, and Alejandro was in my ear, “This is your gig,” he said and his hands began to stroke over my face and around to my back.

I nodded, picturing his thickness. One thing I'd always felt women had the advantage on was the ability to hold another person inside of us in such an intimate and definitive way, making them a part of us. How amazing to have both of them; Alejandro like a super-charged lightning rod, Jasper so easy and patient—my home. I squeezed Jasper again, got strength from the groan that came from deep in his chest, felt his hands graze my breasts and he took my shoulders, bracing me.

I tipped my head as far back as it would go, and Alejandro came close, but this time I couldn't speak. He whispered in my ear, “Afraid?” There was both excitement and patience in his voice. I nodded. His hands settled over
Jasper's so that both of them were holding me, then Alejandro pulled me back so that I was almost sitting against him with Jasper still inside me.

Alejandro spoke so close only I could hear him, “Do you like the sound of my voice?”

I nodded, the effect of his voice was indescribable. I got wet again. My arms, legs and every single layer of skin burned for him to touch me.