Sexual Healing for Three (35 page)

He definitely was in a bad place, had been ever since that scene with Donna and Suzie. Handling one irate woman who didn’t want to listen to reason was bad enough, but handling two was beyond frustrating. And to top it off, neither Suzie nor Donna had called him yet, just leaving him swinging in the wind, ass out and in the dark.

“Knock, knock.”

Russ looked up from his computer monitor to see Amy, his administrative assistant, standing on the threshold of his office.

He smiled, couldn’t help himself. She had the kind of clean-scrubbed, fresh beauty and sweet personality that brought a smile to everyone’s face, especially the guys in the company.

Stu, in particular, seemed to have a genuine fondness for the girl, Russ noticed. He had caught the man hanging around her desk chatting on more than several occasions since Russ had hired her almost a year ago, intense, secretive conversations that made Russ wonder if there was anything going on between the two. It wasn’t totally improbable. Despite his being close to Russ’s age and Amy being twenty-two, Stu could still pull the women, had the looks and kind of charm that never went out of style.

Russ didn’t miss all the interested looks, suggestive remarks, and invitations that Stu got when he and Russ went out on a job together, looks from the lonely and not-so-lonely housewives and career women who contracted the services of Merrick Outdoor Designs, looks from the old and the young that all just seemed to go unnoticed by Stu.

It made Russ wonder now about the man’s sex life, why, before now, he had never noticed that Stu’s seemed about as active as his own. But then who was he to judge when, before Donna, he had practically been living like a monk himself?

“I buzzed you, but you must have been really engrossed.”

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“I was, but not with anything important. What’s up?”

“I know you said you didn’t want any interruptions and to let Stu handle any emergencies, but your daughter’s on line three.”

His heart skipped in alarm. His kids never called him at work.

“I’ll take it.”

Amy nodded, backing out of the door and closing it behind her.

Russ pressed down the blinking red light on his console. “Kim, what’s the matter?”

“Daddy, why don’t you want us to come to your house for the summer?”

His heart sank at the sound of her shaky voice, the thought of the tears he knew were in her eyes. “Who told you I didn’t want you for the summer?”

“Mom said you needed to decide whether you really wanted me and Wes to come and spend the summer with you. She said either you were going to be a proper father or you were going to live your life instead. What’d she mean by that, Dad?”

He’d like to know the answer to that himself. And he could just imagine the sarcastic tone Suzie used when she said “be a proper father” and “live your life.”

Was she insinuating that, because he loved the same woman as his brother, because they
shared
the same woman, that he wasn’t a proper father figure? Never mind that Suzie had been the one always pushing him to get out there and date and
he
had been the one who wasn’t in a rush, who wanted to hold back and stay single until the kids got a little older. Now that he was ready to share his life with someone, she wanted to take issue.

He really hated that Suzie had dragged the kids into their disagreement like this, especially when it and her innuendos were totally unnecessary. But from what Kim said, her mother hadn’t seemed to go into too many details. Russ guessed that was something in Suzie’s favor and she hadn’t totally lost her mind.

280

Gracie C. McKeever

“It’s nothing for you to worry yourself about, honey. Your mother and I just need to talk some things out.”

“But what happened? You two were so cool with each other and everything at the barbecue, and Mom really liked Donna and…” She sniffed and hiccupped. “Was it anything we did to make Mom upset?

I asked her, but she just clammed up and won’t tell me anything.”

“It’s nothing you did, sweetheart, nothing at all. This is between me and your mother.” Of course he couldn’t leave Donna and Chance out of the equation because they were so a part of this, a part of his life that he
wasn’t
giving up no matter what Suzie said.

She was giving out ultimatums? Either, or, and instead? What the hell?

“Dad, is Mom going to take you to court for full custody and stop your visitation?”

She’ll get full custody and stop my visitation over my dead body.

Russ gritted his teeth and counted to ten before he answered. “Don’t you worry about that, baby. We’ll work this out.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay.” She took a deep, trembling breath. “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too, baby. Talk to you later.” Russ waited for his daughter to hang up before he did. He ran a hand down his face and took a long, deep breath.

He couldn’t lose his kids, wouldn’t let Suzie take them from him.

But what if she decided to punish him, to take this situation to the max and go to court, contesting his suitability as a father? He was sure the court wouldn’t look kindly on the father of two impressionable children sharing a household and woman with his brother.

What had Suzie called the living arrangement? A kinky commune? She always had been fond of alliteration.

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But this was all jumping the gun considering Donna looked like she didn’t want to have anything to do with him or Chance—again.

Seemed he wasn’t going to have his cake
or
eat it.

God, he missed her, and they had only been together a few times, granted a few very intense, exhilarating, and satisfying times that made him hungry for more, so much more of what he knew Donna was capable.

Russ hadn’t known just how much he’d missed sex, missed the Life, before he’d experienced the feel of Donna’s tender flesh giving beneath the weight of the riding crop he’d wielded, hadn’t known how much he’d missed a woman willing and ready to give herself—

body and soul—to him before he’d experienced Donna breaking and opening up to his grilling.

Life with her and Chance would be so stimulating, the angst that they both carried around melding and twining with his for a dynamic he had only fantasized about before meeting Donna and his brother’s long overdue return.

They were a perfect threesome, and they were being threatened by petty-mindedness.

He had to talk to Suzie sooner rather than later, before she got any more crazy ideas in her head about what he, Donna, and Chance were doing together, about how the three of them were living. Problem was how to approach his ex without antagonizing her any more than he already, unintentionally had.

Normally, he didn’t have a problem talking to Suzie. For ex-spouses they had pretty good rapport and were usually in agreement on how to handle the kids. But after dropping his initial bombshell about his proclivities, he had to admit things had been strained between them before Suzie came around to understand that they weren’t meant to be together and that staying together for the sake of the kids wasn’t wise for either of them. Pretty soon, their disenfranchisement with each other would have spilled into their relationship with the kids, never a good thing.

282

Gracie C. McKeever

So Suzie had come around to see the sagacity of divorce and signed the papers—irreconcilable differences.

As many times as he used to see and hear the term on TV, as many of his friends and coworkers who had gotten divorced for the same reason or others, Russ had never thought he’d be using the identical, what he thought of as, cop-out reason to divorce Suzie. But he had, had had no choice. It was either divorce or languish in a land of bland matrimony with no hope of ever reaching fulfillment ever again, emotionally and spiritually wasting away beneath the twin weights of loyalty and obligation.

Someone knocked on the door, and Russ shook his head to clear the fog that had settled over him. “Come in.”

Amy opened the door and stood on the threshold. “I thought you should know, Derek called again to say he more than likely wouldn’t be in tomorrow. He’s still not feeling up to par and doesn’t anticipate feeling any better tomorrow.”

“That’s just great,” Russ mumbled, wondering what the hell was going on with one of his better workers. Even though he had barely been with the company a year, Derek knew his job and jumped right in to do it. His unassuming quietness and attention to detail made him a perfect fit with the rest of his coworkers, and before last week, he’d never called in sick.

But shit happened, of course, and people got sick. He just hated that it would leave him shorthanded again tomorrow. “Thanks for letting me know, Amy.”

“Is everything okay with your kids?”

He glanced up to see the genuine concern shining out of her eyes and wanted to reassure her, didn’t want to burden her with his personal problems. That wasn’t him. He hated bringing his personal life to the job and vice versa. But sometimes, it couldn’t be helped, like losing his train of thought in the middle of a project because he was too preoccupied thinking about a certain luscious, chestnut-haired woman who had a serious attitude problem.

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Russ smiled as he thought about Donna and her façade of toughness. He had only gotten a hint of what was beneath all that bravado, but he knew she wasn’t as tough as she tried to seem. He also knew why she thought she had to be so tough and respected her dedication and passion for her clients.

“Everything’s fine,” he said finally, lying through his teeth. But he knew, even though things weren’t okay now, they would be as soon as he talked to Suzie and Donna and straightened things out.

He would accept nothing less.

284

Gracie C. McKeever

Her heart already pounding after hearing Russ’s voice over the intercom, Donna unlocked and flung open her apartment door without looking through the peephole. Her breath hitched in her chest when she saw Russ’s broad-shouldered figure filling her doorway, the reality of him reaching in to grasp her lungs.

He frowned. “You didn’t ask who it was, and you didn’t look through the peephole.”

Despite the fact she’d buzzed him in and been prepared for his arrival, seeing him in the flesh and hearing that deep baritone up close and personal, unfettered by mechanical static, was another thing altogether. “I knew it was you.”

“How did you know? Anyone could have gotten up here before me and knocked on your door. You just didn’t know.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but couldn’t. He was right.

Usually she was much more cautious, but she guessed the cop parked outside her building gave her a false sense of security that she never should have fallen victim to.

Donna opened the door all the way to let him into the apartment.

“You look like shit, by the way,” she murmured as he walked past her and stood in the middle of the living room, feet planted and spread apart and fists on his hips.

“Thanks.
You’re
as beautiful as ever.”

She smiled, happy now that she hadn’t slammed the door in his face when he’d started in on her careless behavior. Russ in the flesh and in disciplinarian mode was bad enough on her hormone levels.

But a Russ all tousle-haired with a day-old growth of whiskers
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covering his square jaw and stubborn cleft chin definitely wreaked havoc on her libido.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him until this moment, but she’d be damned if she told him and gave him a bigger head than he already had. “What happened to make you look so stressed?”

“Nothing a little TLC won’t cure.”

“And you thought of
me
for a little TLC?”

He shrugged. “I know. Crazy, huh?” He grinned, and it just about did her in. “Besides, I’m always thinking about you.”

Donna felt the telltale heat of a blush rush to her face.

I am not going to fall for this man. I am not…Too late, honey.

“I’ve missed you, Donna.”

“It’s only been two weeks.”

He looked at her as if she had grown another head. “Two weeks too long.”

Did being so open with one’s feelings come with being a Dominant? Donna wondered because she was finding it decidedly difficult to tell this man exactly how she felt about him, at least when she wasn’t upset with him.

“I’ve missed you too,” she finally rasped.

He arched a brow and smirked in response.

“Don’t be such a wiseass. I know I don’t always act like it, but I am only human, after all. I have my weaknesses.” What she didn’t say outright was what he already knew—that he was one of them.

“Come here.”

“Is the word
please
a part of your vocabulary at all?” She huffed, crossing the room to stand just in front of him, at arm’s reach as she glared up at him.

“Pretty please.” He slid his arms around Donna and drew her close.

She giggled as he bent his head to nuzzle her ear, admired his resilience and how he didn’t seem to let anything get to him.

286

Gracie C. McKeever

She knew she had hurt his feelings their last time together, but couldn’t bring herself to say sorry even though she hadn’t meant half the things she’d said. Sure he was bossy, but that was a part of his charm and main attraction to her.

While Donna was busy beating herself up over how she had treated him, Russ was busy kissing and licking his way from her ear to her lips, taking possession of them with one hard kiss before thrusting in his tongue.

Donna met his strokes and caresses with her tongue, reveling in the taste of him before he swept into her mouth and totally subjugated her senses.

He moved his hands from her back to her front, palming each breast and rubbing her already hard nipples through her T-shirt with the heel of his hands.

Donna moaned into his mouth right before he pulled away to lick his way from her throat toward her ear again, nipping her lobe. “Will you let me have you the way I want?”