The Face of Scandal (22 page)

“Stop.”

Ward’s voice was a clear, dictatorial foghorn cleaving through Hazel’s need. She sobbed as Dylan went still against her back, his cock throbbing between the cleft of her ass cheeks.

He was in no better shape than she felt, a fact revealed by the tightness in his voice when he gasped out, “What—”

“First take your clothes off,” Ward said.

A couple of seconds elapsed before the request sunk in. To Hazel, they seemed an eternity.

Then Dylan leaned in, his lips blistering against her ear. “Don’t move.”

Hazel locked her muscles, quaking all the worse for it. Arousal gushed down her inner thighs as she recognized the sound of Dylan shedding his clothes. Her breaths quickened in anticipation. She wanted to turn, to see every inch of his body exposed, but the urge to obey was stronger.

“Better,” Ward said, suddenly close. “But not quite there.”

Dylan huffed out a breath—it might have been a laugh, Hazel was past the point of telling—quickly sanded down to a muffled sigh.

“You want to fuck her?” Whatever response Dylan gave, it wasn’t loud enough for Hazel to hear. Ward chuckled. “Then go ahead. But you don’t get to come until she does.”

That’s not going to be a problem
.

Hazel braced both hands against the door and still she nearly slammed her forehead into the steel as Dylan clutched her hips and worked himself inside her in a slow, heart-achingly rough thrust. She had to curl her toes into the oak boards to keep from losing her balance as he pulled out with the same single-minded purpose.

It was the oddest rhythm—long, dragging strokes and far too little contact between them—and it shouldn’t have done a thing for Hazel. She didn’t know why it worked, only that when Dylan released her hips to grab her hair instead, she nearly climaxed from the sharp tug alone.

Tears sprang to her eyes. Dylan had learned her limits and knew not to handle her with kid gloves. But Dylan wasn’t alone. Caught between his deliciously uneven pace and the sturdy wall, Hazel might have been able to hold her orgasm at bay. She couldn’t do that when Ward claimed her mouth in a brutal kiss, reaching into the modest cleavage of her dress and squeezing her breast hard enough to bruise.

Hazel ignited like a stick of Acme dynamite, her sobbing gasps pitching with an upward squeak. She clenched around Dylan and tore her lips away from Ward’s as climax burned through the last of her self-control. Her knees buckled, but there was nowhere for her to fall.

“I’ve got you,” Ward murmured in her ear. “You’re in good hands, sweetheart.”

Punch-drunk and shaking with every consecutive drag of Dylan’s cock against her sensitive walls, Hazel believed him wholeheartedly.

“You liked that, huh? We’re almost done. Dylan’s turn now, then you can—”

Whatever else he’d meant to say was cut off abruptly as Dylan yanked him back by the hair. The echo of his sharp cry jolted Hazel from the familiar, comforting glow of post-coital bliss. She winced when Dylan pulled out of her, her legs nearly giving way.

“Dylan, what the hell…” Leaning against the door, she caught a glimpse of him prying her panties from his mouth—Ward’s doing, she grasped between one heartbeat and the next. Ward, who had stumbled into the side table where they usually stowed keys and cell phones, and more recently handbags. Ward, whose eyes were wide, astonishment warring with fear in his gaze.

One of Hazel’s knockoff Chanels tumbled to the floor as Ward caught the edge of the table and started to right himself. He didn’t make it any further than the attempt. Dylan was on him in a heartbeat, naked and sheened with perspiration, mercilessly shoving Ward into the wall.

Their bodies clashed together, a contentious union opposing Dylan’s naked flesh to Ward’s—still, impossibly—pristine suit under what little moonlight traversed the many-paned windows. They wrestled for dominance like animals in the wild. Ward grabbed Dylan’s shoulders only to tear his hands away as though burned when he touched bare skin.

Dylan had no such qualms. He grabbed Ward by the shirtfront, the lapels, pinning his hips against the wall and grinding into him with his bare, flushed cock. His ass clenched as he rutted against Ward’s lap, a moan shuddering out of him. And all the while, they were kissing—or at least Dylan was kissing Ward, whose efforts to break free seemed to be draining away fast.

Even with her mind addled by orgasm, Hazel had little trouble deciphering the hunted, panicked look on Ward’s features. Their eyes met entirely by chance.

Just give in. I know you’ve wanted this for a long time. Don’t fight it.

It happened gradually, first the white-knuckled grip on Dylan’s shoulders, then the tension in his limbs, but eventually Ward stopped resisting. He fixed Dylan with a pair of deep blue eyes as they broke the kiss. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Ruining you, I—”

Dylan cupped his neck so harshly that Ward’s head struck the bare brick wall behind him. “I’m only going to say this once. You never did a thing to me that I didn’t want. Understand?”

Hazel had never seen Ward more vulnerable—or more aroused—than he did in that moment, nodding shakily. Afraid to upset the precarious equilibrium he seemed to have arrived at, she nevertheless stepped out of her dress and padded in silk stockings to their side. “Room for one more?”

With a hand in her hair, Dylan guided her to Ward’s kiss-swollen mouth. He tasted of Dylan and her, of Dylan’s pre-cum on her tongue.

It was a start.

Hazel pulled back on wobbly knees. “Bed?”

She didn’t wait for Ward and Dylan to disentangle themselves. Now that it no longer seemed as if Ward was about to have a coronary, she didn’t feel the need to keep an eye on them. She pushed comforter and blanket off the bed, shedding her bra with a careless hand mere seconds before Ward crawled into her arms.

They had no need for words. His lips were warm on her skin, trailing lower and lower as Dylan slid into place behind him. Hazel curled a hand around Ward’s nape and clasped Dylan’s with the other. For a moment, they were suspended like that, holding each other as much as building to the next plateau. Then Dylan released her hand.

“Suck her tits,” he ordered, voice nearly drowning out the click of the lube bottle.

Ward’s exhale gusted onto Hazel’s cleavage, but he wasted no time complying. Their dynamic had shifted irrevocably. Ward seemed to welcome the shift, if the insistent press of his erection into the crease of Hazel’s hip was anything to go by.

He swirled his tongue around the hardened peaks of her nipples, pulling out all the tricks Hazel enjoyed. The sole moment he faltered was when Dylan slid a finger inside him. Hazel might have missed it if Dylan didn’t feel compelled to keep up a running commentary.

This time, no one thought to silence him.

“You’re so tight for me. Bet no one’s had this since the last time we fucked…has it? You been saving yourself? I can feel it. That’s it, moan for me. Let me hear what a cock-hungry slut you are.”

Hazel’s cheeks burned on Ward’s behalf, but he didn’t object to the harsh words.
I thought I was the only one who liked that side of Dylan…
Something akin to relief flooded her insides at the thought. “Is that true?” she asked, softer, unused to playing on this side of the divide. “You want Dylan’s cock more than you want my pussy?”

Ward whimpered, shaking his head. For a man who never ran short on quips, it was at once overwhelming and vaguely cowing to think that they had reduced him to this shaking, breathless creature.

“Lucky you,” Dylan said, picking up the thread of her taunts. “You can have both.” He leaned over Ward to suck a bite into his shoulder blade, the weight of him bearing Ward into Hazel’s arms. “I’m going to fuck you through him,” he told her, eyes blazing.

“Fighting talk,” Hazel choked out. She could barely breathe and not just for the two men in her arms, weighing her down like concrete.

Dylan smirked and edged back to align himself with Ward’s puckered hole.

Between them, Ward suddenly went very still, gulping down breaths as if they might’ve been his last. A grimace twisted at his lips, the creases at the corners of his mouth deepening.

Dylan hadn’t taken enough time. He wasn’t being as careful with Ward as he might have been with her. Yet in that moment, Hazel didn’t worry. She kissed Ward through his garbled, keening moans, and reached between their bodies to guide his cock into her. Neglect had softened his erection, but he thickened swiftly once he felt her heat.

Then he was inside her, the head splitting her open as it’d done so many times, and the sense of new, of different, dimmed completely. Hazel wrapped her arms around Ward as Dylan pumped his hips with short, tentative thrusts and drove Ward farther into her cunt, surrounding him in slick warmth and breathtaking pressure.

“Oh,” Ward gasped. “Oh, G—”

He came without warning, a mere handful of thrusts into it. Hazel’s inner muscles clawed at him, independent of anything she might have wanted to do. Through the blur of sensation, torn between Ward’s hitching breaths in her ear and Dylan’s groans above them, she felt him spend inside her, his cock pulsing through the aftershocks. No condom, this time, no barrier between his body and hers.

His moans faded to a hiss as Dylan rutted against him for a minute more, chasing his own release. The rough thrusts aborted on a harsh grunt, until finally he went still.

Ward grunted as Dylan withdrew but he remained where he was, sprawled between Hazel’s thighs, unable to stir. He hid his face in her crook of her neck when Dylan petted his hair.

“You gonna get her off?” Dylan wanted to know.

Hazel shook her head, keenly aware of Ward’s cock slipping out as he softened. “I can wait.”

“No, I can—”

She silenced Ward with a scrape of nails up his spine. “Don’t you move,” she growled, borrowing Dylan’s earlier warning to her. It felt right to trade in words already spoken, particularly Dylan’s. They were nothing if not interlocked together in this strange, shaky arrangement.

Maybe not so shaky
.

Hazel let her head fall back to the mattress and brushed her knuckles to Dylan’s thigh as he settled on his front beside them. The future had never been less certain, but Hazel decided she didn’t mind.

Dylan caught her hand and laced their fingers together. His smile was only a little tremulous.

* * * *

“Morning,” Hazel greeted, on the cusp of a yawn. “Coffee?”

Ward glanced at her, then away just as quickly. “I can make a fresh pot—”

“Nah, I’ll go for the espresso.” Barefoot on the tile floor, she liberated a dainty cup from the dishwasher and slotted an aluminum capsule into the machine like she had seen Ward and Dylan do when they were in a hurry. Imitation, she told herself as she slid an arm around Ward’s midriff, was the sincerest form of flattery. “You’re up early… Couldn’t sleep?”

“Early meeting.”

“Not so early you couldn’t make pancakes, though,” Hazel noted. The batter had already begun to crisp in the pan. Ward had woken up early enough to combine the ingredients, dress himself and shower—none of which had woken Hazel from her not-so-pleasant morning dreams.

He didn’t try to deny it. He slipped out of her arms to maneuver around the cramped kitchen under the guise of putting ingredients back where they belonged. The gurgling of the espresso machine dulled the thud and sigh of cupboard doors.

“Ward,” Hazel started, confusion giving way to worry.
If we misunderstood…

“Thought I smelled something good!” Dylan emerged from the bedroom, gray linen armor already on, ready to wage battle.

Hazel’s breath caught.
We fucked up. We shouldn’t have jumped him like that. Dylan, oh crap.

The magnitude of their screw-up threatened to crush her. She hunted for the words to warn him, but her vocal cords wouldn’t cooperate and Ward was clutching the spatula like a lifeline, as if he didn’t want to be here.

“Hey, babe,” Dylan said. He kissed Hazel’s temple as he had dozens of times before, then released her and marched up to Ward to do the same.

Ward sucked in a breath, visibly quaking, but didn’t pull away. The spatula didn’t become a makeshift weapon in his fist.

Under the guise of fetching the milk from the fridge, Dylan kept a hand on Ward’s flank, grounding him. “You sleep okay?”

Her cell’s familiar ringtone drowned out Ward’s answer. Although the battery had been flickering in and out of order for weeks, it had chosen to work this morning.

Hazel swore, darting away. She had dropped her handbag by the door last night. Dylan must have picked it up and stowed it on the side table with all her other discards.

“Someone trying to sell you insurance?” he guessed.

“No, it’s…” Caller ID didn’t lie, but Hazel still frowned at the phone, bemused. “It’s my lawyer.” Ward’s lawyer, actually, but tasked with helping to keep Hazel out of prison. “Hello?”

Seven in the morning was early even for the most devoted legal counsel in the business—and, sure, hers was paid enough to work round-the-clock, but no one expected them to. There was no need, no hurry. The court date was almost a week away. Hazel’s throat seized as she braced for word of explanation. She wasn’t the only one.

In the kitchen, Ward had given up on the pancakes. Dylan stood, clutching the milk carton in one hand, a look of nervous apprehension on his face.

“All right. Thanks…” Hazel hung up as if in a trance.

“If they’ve moved up the court date,” Ward started, always ready to be the first one on the grenade.

Hazel shook her head. “He dropped the charges.”

“What?”

“Malcolm dropped the charges.” She should have been elated, relieved, but all Hazel could think of was,
why?

Chapter Sixteen

The Volvo groaned and clanged over potholed roads as Hazel peered through the windshield. She hadn’t been to his part of LA before and the city grid was making her life inexplicably difficult. She’d found her way to Olympic Boulevard just fine, but after that the previously square streets became wobbly lines and Hazel couldn’t find the turn that her phone insisted she was meant to take.