Surrounded [Running to Love 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) (2 page)

Ashley had approached him privately some months later, and he’d acted like an outraged maiden aunt when she told him she knew about him and her girl and that she was willing to share with him. His reaction had actually made her laugh, and she’d walked away saying he knew where to reach her if he changed his mind. It had taken maybe a week, actually five days, before he capitulated and had a detailed conversation with Ash, who’d been pretty kind to him, considering. Then Jackie agreed that he join her and Ash as their third, kind of like a trial, maybe an audition, and it was a measure of how far he’d fallen that he’d jumped at the opportunity. Pride definitely goeth. Or maybe it was just a measure of who held all the pieces of his heart in her little hands and probably didn’t even realize it. He could only hope she would put him back together.

He took another swallow of club soda and again wondered if he could do it, go through with it. He was a Dom for god’s sake, an experienced one who started up and ran this club right after he was discharged from the military. He relished being in control, craved it, and knew little else. And here he was, about to embark on a sexual adventure totally foreign to him despite his varied experiences over the years. He had shared women and dominated women, although he didn’t live the lifestyle full time. That would be hard to do without a full-time sub, and he had never considered a long-term relationship after Jackie. But he’d never been with two women where one was not submissive and the other was the submissive love of his life. His cock assured him he was totally up for it, no pun intended, but it was so freaking different! Shit.

Ashley moved toward him, lean and striking with those cool eyes and titian hair, confidence showing in her loose-limbed stride, and he worked hard at maintaining his poker face. He could do this. He had said he could, and he would. Jackie hung back, her sweet, expressive face mirroring her own reservations, and Alistair’s gut clenched even as his shattered heart lurched. He worried that she had lost her spirit, and he hadn’t known how to ask Ashley about that. He got to his feet.

“Evening, Alistair.” Ashley’s low voice somehow carried over the noise of the game on the big screen.

“Ashley.” Alistair moved past her to stand over Jackie, who immediately submitted, casting her eyes down, clasping her hands as if in prayer before her. Her light blonde hair was like a halo around her head, highlighting her angelic appearance, although Alistair knew appearances were very deceiving. There was a huge difference between buying safety with compliance and showing respect, and Alistair’s spirit soared when he recognized the latter in Jackie’s response. He set a finger beneath her chin and gently lifted her face until he could stare directly into her eyes, the dark blue of violets. She looked back at him, unblinking, and there was no weakness to be found there. His heart swelled right along with his cock, and mended a little. A submissive with spirit, just as he remembered. He could definitely do this. “Do you remember your safe word?”

“Afghanistan.” Her musical voice reflected even in the one utterance, and he just managed not to throw her over his shoulder and make off with her and to hell with Ashley. He throttled his caveman self back another notch.

“You may well need it tonight, honey. This is going to take some adjusting to, and I want you to use it whenever you feel overwhelmed, is that clear?” Alistair felt her safe word was more for his benefit that hers in that moment because he was so overcome with his need for her that he worried he would be unable to read the situation and pick up on the cues like he usually did. Like he failed to do on that weekend so many years ago. A flicker of anger glimmered in the recesses of his mind, suggesting that she held part of the responsibility by withholding her desires, but he snuffed it out. For now.

“I understand.”

He turned to Ashley, who watched them both with utter calm, but Alistair saw the love and devotion to Jackie in her eyes, the trust of the confident other half who knew where her future lay. Ash was doing this for Jackie, who truly sought a committed ménage relationship, and he wondered at her ability to be so selfless, at the lack of jealousy. She totally knew her sweetheart, trusted her, cared about her enough to do this for her. He needed to take a page from her book because if he had to share Jackie, he would. He was going to establish himself in this relationship, carve himself out a role, because she wasn’t getting away from him again. There would be three confident
thirds
in this relationship.

“I have a room ready.”

Jackie accompanied Ashley and Alistair through the green door and into the private, scene, and viewing rooms at the back of the Club. She hadn’t been back here often, partly because it awakened things in her she didn’t want to pressure Ash to fulfill, but primarily because this was Alistair’s territory. The irony of meeting the woman she’d longed for all these years while struggling with such censure, and having that woman be a member of the Club owned by the one man she had never forgotten and who could never be replaced in her heart, well, it was indescribable. Cops seemed to think there was no such thing as coincidence, and one on this scale? Jackie dared hope, dared to imagine that Alistair could become part of this wonderful thing she had with Ashley, even if this had been set up as a one-off. Because she had never stopped loving him, and running from him, not even giving him a chance to hear from her lips what she’d confided to her brother, had been the absolute height of cowardice. Oh, she’d only been nineteen and anxious and worried about her sexual orientation and the implications of that within her family, but it hadn’t stopped her from spending a weekend and half a day with Alistair. Doing things, learning things that set free her sexuality from a different viewpoint. She had crushed on him since her preteen years, worshipped him from afar, but never dreamed he would notice her. To learn he had held back and done the honorable thing didn’t surprise her, only made her regret the disparity in their ages, even as she struggled with the certainty that she wanted both men and women. Yes, she had wanted it all and hadn’t known how to tell him. She had been afraid of his response, that he wouldn’t be able to cope, and he’d been gone so long overseas. It had torn her up to have him leave that day. Her mind had played tricks on her until her confidence and memory of his certainty that they were destined eroded like sand in a driving rain. There hadn’t been any letters or phone calls to sustain her either because Alistair’s work had been top secret. Jackie so regretted her immature weakness but had been powerless against it. Her family pressuring her to be a good girl and marry and all the rest of it had been the final straw, so she decided to follow her original career plan to become a teacher, go to college far from home, far from anyone who might know her and suss out who she really was. She knew she had hurt Alistair, and more than just his pride, and wondered if he could forgive her, if she could make it up to him. Because she had always reserved a place for him in her heart.

It had been totally overwhelming for her that first night here, when he had come to tell her and Ashley that Rowan wouldn’t need a ride home, that she would catch a ride with Jace, who she’d just met. Ash had told her that a Dom named Alistair owned and ran the Club, and it was hard to think that there would be another Dom with such an unusual name, but he hadn’t shown himself until then, so she had dismissed the possibility. She had frozen in place, her heart trying to beat its way right out of her chest, right over to Alistair like a puppy who never thought to see its master again. She’d said nothing at all, merely stared at him when Ash had introduced them, although she managed a brief nod. His grape-green eyes had flared momentarily and lingered on hers before frosting over, dismissing her. If she hadn’t been sitting down, Jackie was sure she would have collapsed, but she hid behind her practiced neutral face, the one that hid everything she didn’t trust the world to see. He hated her. That thought had struck her like an actual blow before a little voice in her head pointed out that at least he still had feelings for her, hadn’t forgotten her.

He really hadn’t changed much at all, physically. He still wore his blond hair short, although she knew it would curl if he let it grow even a little, and the barely there silver hairs at his temples made him very attractive and distinguished. He appeared to be in really good shape, although she tried not to be obvious about looking him over. He wasn’t a big tall man, but his way of presenting himself made him seem larger than life. Her heart had finally stilled its wild motion, and she’d willed her body into a semblance of nonarousal, but she thought everyone must have noticed. She and Ashley left soon afterward, with Max, and that evening was one she worked hard to bury in the depths of the walk of shame moments. Buried right alongside the reprehensible moment she broke her promise to Alistair and fled to Tulsa. Nothing against Max, but seeing Alistair again had simply put it all into perspective. The only thing that kept her from drowning in shame was the fact she had refused to fuck Max, although certain other things had taken place, all because she hadn’t known how to tell Ashley what had just happened. She had focused on Ashley that night and managed to pretend that Max really hadn’t been there at all.

Jackie accepted that she was bisexual, she totally accepted that she held Ashley fast in her heart, but after that she couldn’t imagine letting another man into what they shared, regardless of her needs. Max was never again invited to join them, no man was, and Ashley seemed to accept that Jackie wasn’t going to explain why, although it had strained things between them for awhile. And then big brother Dave came to stay with them on his way to nowhere. Dave and his big, fat mouth. Although, while she’d been really annoyed with him, her worry for him far outstripped it…

“Jackie.” Alistair’s voice was quiet, but it didn’t need to be raised to reflect his authority. Jackie snapped back to the present and blinked. Ashley was already stripped to her underwear, although ’Stair was still fully clothed. His leathers fit his slender hips like a supple glove, and the bulge in the front drew her gaze like a magnet.

“Remove your clothes.” So that was how it was going to be. Of course it was. Alistair had taken charge in the bedroom back then and would have done so out of it if she’d given him an inch. And Ashley was the more dominant in their relationship. Jackie wondered if she would survive the night, survive the pleasure. Because that was what this was about. Pleasure. Ash had finally worn her down, gotten her to agree to give this a try, although in truth her protests had been halfhearted. Once. She daren’t ask for anything more. She didn’t deserve it. Her hands curled around the hem of her shirt and drew it up and over her head, folding it just as Alistair expected her to. A hint of approval flickered in his eyes, and the skin over his cheekbones tightened as he stared at her breasts, confined behind her best and laciest bra. Jackie quickly dispensed with her skirt, and then her underwear, carefully placing all of it on the bench at the foot of the bed. She stood before him, widening her stance and clasping her hands behind her back.

For a moment, she worried what Alistair was seeing. She wasn’t that nubile nineteen-year-old anymore. She was a bit heavier, curvier, a mature woman, and she had no body hair. His face told her nothing, but he ate her up with his hot gaze and all her fears vanished. She was transported back in time to that night when he’d first stripped her, and for a moment Ashley didn’t exist. But only for a moment. Jackie looked to her and saw the love and lust mingling on Ash’s face. Ash had done this for her, was quietly confident and trusting, despite how unfairly Jackie had acted by not confiding in her. Jackie felt her heart swell, and tears pricked and then slipped, unbidden, down her cheeks. Alistair and Ashley were at her side in a heartbeat, surrounding her with their concern, and she smiled through the overwhelming emotion, and surrendered.

Alistair seemed to recognize it a split second before Ashley did. He fisted his hand in her hair and dragged her head back to give him access to her mouth. He ravaged it, stealing her breath and what was left of her sanity. She felt him pour a myriad of feelings out and into her as she opened for him, his tongue conquering hers, the sensation instantly familiar. Ash’s gentle touch at her breasts had her arching for more, and Alistair dropped his arm and forced her backward over it, never releasing her lips as Ashley then suckled and nipped her. Jackie’s legs failed her, and she heard Ash’s low laughter as she stepped away, leaving her swelling breasts bereft, the cooling tips beading even harder. Alistair swept her up and carried her around to the side of the big bed, laying her down on it as though she as the most fragile, precious bundle in the world. She could feel his tension. He absolutely vibrated with it.

She forced her eyes open and watched him strip away his shirt, flinging it impatiently across the room, and then force his leathers down, struggling out of them with none of the remembered control. His lean body was still that of a swimmer’s, long, firm muscles sliding under his smooth skin, although there were more scars than she remembered, and her hand lifted involuntarily, wanting to smooth the jagged one across his ribs. Then his cock came into view, long, thick, and hard, bumping his belly, the cockhead darker and wet with his need. Jackie’s pussy clenched on itself, her natural lubricant flooding in welcome, and Alistair smiled at her. The dark promise in that gentle upturn of his sculpted lips aroused her further, even as she knew that reparations would be in order at some point. She dropped her hand to the mattress, and he came to stretch his length beside her, and Ashley lay down on her other side. Surrounded. It felt heavenly, and she closed her eyes to savor it. A mouth on either nipple had them flying open. Ashley knew what women liked, and Alistair remembered what she liked. It was amazing. She reached for them both.

“Keep your hands by your sides or I’ll tie them.” Ah, the Dom was back. She obeyed and was rewarded with fingers coasting down her rib cage and over her waist and hip to lie with heavy heat on her thigh.