Up All Night (14 page)

He took a breath. “Not sure it could
be labeled as serious, but let’s say Beth’s the first woman I could maybe
stretch my one month rule for.”

“Then put the idea to her,” Amber
advised. “See how she feels about it.”

The nausea swimming in Marco’s
stomach intensified. He was more than happy to push the sexual boundaries with
Beth while it was the two of them. He was in fact relishing the idea of
introducing her to his arsenal of favored activities between the sheets. But
the thought of sharing her? The thought of breaking his one month rule for
her?
 
He’d never had a woman who pulled
at him enough to make him question himself on either of those things. And what
if Beth was up for Amber’s idea? What the hell would he do then?

He looked down at the remains of the
chocolate dessert sitting in a pretty glass bowl in the center of the table and
was thankful he’d saved this particular conversation until after he’d had a chance
to devour two helpings. Right now he wasn’t sure he could get even wine or
coffee down his rigid throat.

“I have to get back.” He had another
thirty minutes before last orders were called at the bar, but he needed to
escape from the confines of his own angst-ridden thoughts. He needed to drive
along the coast road with the top down on his car and let the air blow some
clarity into his brain.

“How’s the new man working out?”

Marco looked across at Ethan who
still looked as shaken by the recent conversation as he felt. “Okay. Few more
nights and I reckon I can leave him to it.”

“You can spend more nights at
Beth’s.” Amber’s green eyes twinkled. “It’ll work out with her too, Marco.”

“Maybe.”

But as he drove back through the
light fog that had come in from the sea, Marco wondered if it would work out
for him and Beth. If she said she wanted to go ahead with this damn fool idea
of Amber’s, he wasn’t sure what he would do.

Again he wondered how in hell Ethan
could have offered Amber up to him all those months ago. If Ethan had loved
her, how was it possible to watch while another man had sex with her? Yet it
seemed Ethan had loved her enough that he was able to put his own feelings
aside for Amber’s sake.
 

As for himself? Well, he wasn’t even
in love with Beth, but he wasn’t sure he had it in him to do the same.

Chapter Eleven

Since by breakfast his head still
hadn’t cleared, Marco planned to take that long drive along the coast to get
his thoughts straight before the bar opened at eleven. He’d spent a restless
night while his mind churned over Amber’s fool idea. It didn’t matter from what
angle he looked at it, the scenario she’d suggested was still a crazy idea.

The sun had broken through the early
morning mist with the promise of a fine, if chilly, day. So he again released
the hood of his black convertible and hoped the fresh air would drive away the
fuzz in his brain.

He’d gotten a mile along the coast,
when he found himself turning north and heading out in the direction of the
rescue Center. With a glance at the dashboard clock, he wondered if Beth would
even be up. Since it was barely eight, he might be pushing his luck. She’d
caught the late shift last night and hadn’t been due to finish until midnight.

When he pulled up outside her
cottage he saw the front door open and a flash of movement inside. He killed
the engine and got out of his car. He heard her before he saw her, and
something inside him lifted as quickly as the early morning mist had done.

Roscoe padded out and took a flying
leap at the gate when he saw Marco.

“Hey, boy.”

As Marco stroked the dog’s head,
Beth appeared in the doorway.

“Hi.” Her sunny smile drove away any
remaining angst in his chest. “Wasn’t expecting to see you this morning.”

“Out for a drive. Hoped I might grab
a coffee.”

He wondered how anyone who’d worked
past midnight could look so good at this hour. Her hair was pulled back in that
ponytail she favored for work. Her battered blue jeans had seen better days,
but on her the distressed fabric looked sexy and provocative. Even her blue
fleece jacket, zipped to the neck and bearing the rescue center’s emblem above
her left breast, managed to incite his lust levels to riot.

“We’re just off for walkies. If you
want to join us, I can promise coffee after.” She snapped her fingers at Roscoe
who was still trying desperately to get to Marco over the gate. “Off. Good
boy.”

Roscoe plopped his butt down and
gazed adoringly up at Beth.

“Looks like you have a mutual love
affair going on.” Marco watched as Beth clipped the lead to the dog’s collar.
“Have you moved in together?”

With a laugh, she stepped through
the gate. “Not exactly, but he seems to have bonded with me and gets a little
miserable at the Center. He’s been off his food, so we decided I should bring
him home for a few days to see if he’d settle.”

“Is that a good idea? Won’t he get
too attached to you and be miserable when he goes back?”

Beth looked up at him as they
walked, her smile wry. “That’s just it. I’m not sure I’ll be taking him back.
If he’s okay with me I’m thinking of adopting him. He’s a sweetie.”

Marco looked down at the dog. Was it
possible to label a Mastiff a sweetie? The dog was pretty ugly, but he seemed
good natured enough, at least from Marco’s limited experience with animals.

Besides which, if Beth was
considering adopting the canine, least he could do was make friendly with the
guy. He reached down and petted Roscoe. The dog spared him a glance, then
promptly ignored him.

“Looks to me like he’ll settle.”

Marco snuck a long look at Beth as
they walked. Her ponytail, thick and lush brown, swished across her shoulders.
The fleece jacket hid her sumptuous breasts, but he remembered how that ripe,
plump flesh had filled his hands. It seemed his cock knew too, seeing as it
jerked to attention and began to throb against his zipper. He held back a beat
so he could survey the outline of her ass encased in those fitted jeans.

The sway of her hips shot heat
through his entire body. Damn. He wanted her. It seemed he always wanted her.
Fuck. How in the hell could he share her with anyone else? How could he watch
another man touch her, taste her? The heat in his chest intensified at the
thought and he felt his jaw go tight.

“How did the dinner go last night?”

The slight edge to Beth’s question
tugged him back a few steps from his own journey toward full-blown pissed. “It
was okay.”

Despite Beth’s attempts to lay it to
rest, it seemed the wound obviously still festered. In the circumstances, Marco
supposed Beth didn’t need to know Amber was a great cook, or that she’d
prepared such a spread he didn’t think he’d eat for a week. “I’m just sorry you
couldn’t make it.”

“We’re short staffed. It was good of
Amber to invite me though.”

Despite the fact her teeth were
clenched as she spoke, Marco realized he had the perfect lead in. Make it
casual, he thought. Non committal.

Speaking of Amber, she wondered if you’d like to join us for a foursome.

Shit.

Since he couldn’t choke the words
out, they fell silent as they walked through a gap in the fence that led to
wooded parkland. He sensed Beth was holding back a little just as he was. Was
she still thinking about their conversation? Was it doomed to sit between them
like the proverbial elephant in the room?

Maybe he should just come out with
it. Tell her about Amber’s suggestion and get it over with. Except he didn’t
only have his feelings to think about, he had to consider Ethan. He could
barely believe Amber had suggested it. However hard he tried to fathom the
ramifications of such an arrangement, he knew for sure that Ethan, like him,
would be screwed over with the idea, hating it to hell and back again.

If by some chance they did go
through with it, he doubted his relationship with Ethan would survive. The
thought of Ethan’s hands on Beth sent a fiery rage spreading through his chest,
searing up into his throat. How was any friendship supposed to weather such a
storm?

“Have I ruined things between us?”

At Beth’s question, he stopped in
his tracks. “Why would you say that?”

“Because you’ve been quiet, edgy,
and there’s obviously something on your mind. Why else would you be here so
early when it’s a busy day of the week for you with deliveries and everything.”
She bent to unclip the dog’s lead and Roscoe went sniffing across the grass.
“Are you finishing it between us?”

As Beth brought her steady gaze to
his, Marco’s stomach took an uneasy dip. “Hell, no. That’s not why I’m here.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets to stop himself reaching for her. “I wanted
to see you. Wanted that coffee.”

She nodded but looked unconvinced.
“I’ve been thinking being with me might not be enough for you. No, let me just
say this.” As he took a step toward her, she held up her hand. “Since I’ve been
with you I’ve heard things around the bar and stuff. Things like you’re a
player, that you like mixing things up. At first, I thought you were pretty
much out of my depth, that the things you’ve done were too far out there for
me, until I realized that I want to try things, too. I want to mix things up.
The thing is I—damn I’m messing this up.”

Marco pushed down the growing sense
of panic filling his chest. Was
she
breaking up with
him
?

Beth took a long breath. “What I
want to say is that I have needs and desires, and I want them fulfilled, but
not necessarily the same way you do. You have the right to live your life the
way you want to live it, and so do I.”

Marco considered her words and
couldn’t argue her logic. She was telling him she was no longer blaming him for
sleeping with Amber, for being part of the threesome with her and Ethan. But
she was also reminding him that she wanted to experience the same thing
herself. If he wanted to keep Beth, he’d have to suck it up. But not with Ethan,
or Amber. He’d have to find another of his friends he could trust. Several
would be up for it, of that he had no doubt, but he’d need to give some serious
thought to how he was going to set it up.

“We can work things out to suit us
both,
bella
. Whatever you want, we’ll
work it out.”

She stepped toward him and touched
her fingers to his jaw. Marco wrapped his arms around her and knew he’d damn
well move heaven and earth to give her what she wanted. He’d just have to shut
down his emotions for a few hours, or however long it took for her to have
those needs and desires fulfilled.

When she raised her chin and pressed
her lips to his, he felt like a man starved of air and now being given a shot
of life-giving oxygen. He took her mouth in a long lingering kiss that soon had
them both breathing heavy.

Beth eased away, glanced over her
shoulder at the dog who was happily sniffing something he’d found near a tree,
and turning back to Marco pressed her mouth to his again.

When her hand slipped down to his
cock, Marco sucked in a breath. “Not especially wise to start something we
can’t finish right now.”

She ground her hips against his.
“Who says we can’t finish it now. There are a lot of big trees around here and
I can’t help but wonder how rough bark would feel against my back as you take
me.” Her eyelashes fluttered over sultry blue eyes as she held his gaze. “It’s
one of the things I’d like to try.”

Marco hissed against her mouth as
his cock grew heavy beneath her eagerly ministering hand. Seeing as he’d made a
promise to himself that he’d be the one to school her and guide her into the
unknown, how could he deny her her first experience of outdoor sex against a
tree? Except… “One small problem.” He eased her hand from his cock. “Nothing on
me.”

She nibbled on his bottom lip.
“That’s not a problem at all.”

His head swam at the thought of
taking Beth with no barrier between them, of his hot cum spurting into her
tight sheath as she clenched around him. “Are you sure?”

Beth drew back. “Of course.” She
tapped the pocket of her jeans. “Always carry the staples with me. Poo bags,
treats, condoms.”

His hormones sang Halleluiah. “You
carry condoms?”

“Well not normally, but since you
and I tend to have sex whenever we see each other, I thought it best to be
practically prepared.”

With a grin, he pressed her back
against the nearest tree. “God love a practically prepared woman.” He swept
aside her ponytail and scraped his teeth against her neck.

Reaching beneath her jacket, he
tugged her tee shirt from the waistband of her jeans. She jerked. “Your hands
are cold.”

“I know somewhere they’ll warm up
nicely.” He slipped the zipper of her jeans and pushed his hand inside. The
heat from her pussy was like a beacon to his desperate fingers, and as he slid
his forefinger into her fire they both groaned.