Downtown Devil: Book 2 in series (Sins in the City) (10 page)

“Baby.” He said it without thought, so close now.

Clare urged him with her hands on his sides, kissed his mouth. He felt her lips but tasted Mica’s, somehow. The man’s smell was sharp, his labored voice intoxicating.

And what has you so hot?
he wanted to demand of Mica. The friction of Clare’s skin against his cock, or maybe Vaughn’s proximity? Maybe both, maybe more. Maybe the knowledge that he’d made all of this happen, drawn the three of them together, right where he’d wanted them.

Mica’s voice broke through the haze. “Fuck.”

Vaughn knew that word, in that tone, set off by those panting, raspy breaths. He’d earned that sound with his hand on Mica’s dick, and felt what came next, warm and wet in his palm. One of the most frightening, exhilarating moments of his life.
Do it,
he wanted to say.
Get there. Let me hear it again.
So easily, this could be the last time he did. So easily, next year Vaughn could be dating someone when the time came to meet up for a climbing trip, could have met the woman of his dreams. If he was single, all bets were off; that had been the unspoken rule for the past six years. Though it cut both ways. Mica was seductive, no doubt, but Vaughn was loyal.

Between their bodies, Vaughn felt a hand. Mica’s? No, a glance told him. Clare’s. The notion jolted him.

“You need another?” he asked.

“We’ll see.” Her voice was breathy, distracted, and he tried to cool himself so she could get there again. She touched herself to the beat of Vaughn’s driving cock, Mica thrusting behind her with a graceless pace that could mean only that he was on the brink.

For the first time in minutes, Mica spoke. His tone had changed, strained almost beyond recognition. “Come on his cock,” he hissed.

She moaned, fingers working faster.

“Tell him how good it feels.”

“It does,” she told Vaughn, barely a whisper against his jaw.

“Tell him how big he is.”

“You’re fucking huge.”

You’re so fucking big.
That was what Vaughn heard, words plucked from his memory. From the night when he and Mica had first taken everything so much further than he’d ever expected they might. His friend’s voice had been strained then, too, sounding overcome, almost fearful.

You’re so fucking big. Lemme take you deep.

Against him, around him, Clare was losing it all over again.

“Good,” he murmured, working to keep his pace steady.

She lost it with a glorious sound, a sharp
ahhhh,
nearly as though she were frightened.

Normally Vaughn would have cooled himself, given her a break, but he was too close himself. He rushed home, too desperate to slow or stop. Every sound and smell, both of the faces he could see.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” He could have said it and meant it to either one of them, but Clare had drawn the words out of him. He pressed his face to her throat as the orgasm struck. He heard Mica groaning. The climax took him hard, turned him inside out, wrung him dry until the lightning strike of the pleasure had sizzled away, leaving only soft, rhythmic pulsations of relief.

As he cooled, he opened his eyes and eased back, wanting to see her face. Her smile and her eyes. Her lips were parted, lids shut, but he transformed both with a mumbled “Fuck
me
.”

She laughed. “Same.”

Had Mica come, as well? He’d gone still. Vaughn let his gaze drift beyond Clare’s shoulder, and he knew with a glance at that face that yes, Mica had. His eyes were shut tight, lips flushed, and he was breathing hard.

“I should . . .” He reached between them to secure the condom, then eased out. He excused himself to the bathroom, and when he returned he found the other two talking softly. Mica was wiping Clare’s lower back clean with his shorts, and something he said made her laugh.

How is this my bed?
How was this now a part of Vaughn’s sexual history, his sexual identity—a three-way? And with two guys, no less.

Don’t be surprised. It’s Mica.

What Mica wanted, he made you want right back. Made his kinks yours. Made your body, your bed, your desires, his territory.

I was a fool to think I’d be able to resist him.
Maybe it had taken a woman’s body between them to get Vaughn there, but Mica had succeeded nonetheless, and not even two weeks into this extended stay. Vaughn had told himself nothing was happening. But something had, if not
quite
the thing he was determined to resist.

It’s going to be a long summer.

A long, hot, nerve-racking summer, if Vaughn intended to hold fast to the promise he’d made to himself.

C
lare came down slowly. Her own orgasm had faded minutes before, but the intoxication of the sex itself was only now starting to thin, to cool.

That really just happened, didn’t it?
She’d really just had sex hotter than anything she’d ever seen or read, or manifested in her own imagination, hadn’t she? Jesus.

Beside her, Mica. He was facing her, tracing light lines along her upper arm with his fingertips. In her periphery his chest rose and fell with slowing breaths, and she sensed his calm as she might hear his voice or taste his kiss.

On her other side, Vaughn. He lay on his back, one arm flopped across his ribs, fingers flexing thoughtlessly on his belly. His other arm was stretched between their bodies, his knuckles brushing Clare’s hip.

I wonder how long we’re supposed to linger, before he expects to get his bed back.
This night, as decadent and perfect and mind-blowing as it had been, didn’t feel as though it would end with the three of them cuddled up under one blanket, falling asleep and waking up together.

Waking up . . . waking up, would these two men even be able to look each other in the eyes? she wondered. Ultimately, that wasn’t her problem, though it would definitely tarnish the memory some, should she ever find out their friendship had gotten banged up in the wake of this crazy, impulsive one-off.

Wait
.

Had
this been a crazy, impulsive one-off?

With sobriety growing, and hindsight snapping into focus, she had to wonder. Had she been groomed for this, the entire scene hatched, planned, and orchestrated in Mica’s mind the very hour they’d met? He could have known all along that Vaughn was due home when he had been, and only pretended to think he was on a night shift.

And Vaughn could’ve been in on it just as easily. Was this maybe an actual
thing
that they were into, and that they’d done before? Was that something that went on—two kinky guy friends getting off on sharing a girl?

A surge of misgiving settled like a chill, and she panned the room, searching for a light—a tiny red or green light, some sign of a camera, some proof that this might have been creepy all along. She found nothing, though. The closet door was shut, the dresser uncluttered, the bookcase looking dark and innocent. And both men had abandoned their phones on the coffee table. Her heart slowed.

So worst-case scenario, they’d planned it. Both gotten what they’d been after, perhaps.

And if so, I was only too eager to be what they wanted.
Hell, it had been the hottest night of her life.

As a woman, it was hard not to bump up against the sexual motives of men and not feel a touch manipulated, a touch paranoid or exploited. But she didn’t want this night to be marred with that
thinking. She wanted to remember it fondly, in fact, as the dirtiest, hottest, kinkiest thing that had ever happened to her. Even if it had been planned, she wanted to choose to view it like a surprise party, and she its unwitting—but nevertheless delighted—target.

Though some questions did need to be answered.

She turned to Vaughn, spoke softly. “We should probably give you your bed back, now that we’ve all desecrated it.”

No reply. His hand had gone still atop his middle, chest rising and falling subtly; he was asleep.

“It’s fine.” This from Mica, barely a whisper. He sounded about ready to drift off, himself.

“You think?”

“We all shared far more than a bed tonight,” he mumbled, and turned over.

True.
She turned as well, pressing her body to his, front to back, wrapping her arm around his waist. He closed her hand in his and squeezed. The room was warm, no need for covers just yet.

I’m going to wake up and be very confused for half a second.

And then I’m going to panic, and worry about all the ways this was maybe too weird, too far.

And then she’d catch her breath, slow her thoughts. Regain her senses and her perspective, and revisit all this for exactly what it was.

The single hottest night of her entire life.

—

It was nearly déjà vu—the warmth of morning light on Clare’s face, the shadows of an unfamiliar space. The smell of sex and the smooth caress of cotton against her bare skin. The only difference this time was that she wasn’t in Mica’s room. She was in Vaughn’s. The realization woke her like a smoke alarm, launching every nerve into high alert. But a moment later it all eased, and heat washed over her as she
remembered everything that had led up to her waking in these sheets.

Two men.

Two men mastering her body, yet she was alone in this bed now. Again.

She rolled over. How long had Mica lingered? she wondered. Had he woken in the night with the spell of the sex gone and decided his best friend’s bed was a step too far? Had he left for work? Was he making her breakfast? It was impossible to guess with that man. And as for Vaughn, well, she barely knew him, couldn’t begin to theorize where his head might be at—

The bedroom door swung in slowly, and Vaughn’s face appeared. Upon finding her awake, he pushed it wide, offering a faint smile, a raising of his hand.

“Morning,” she said, and sat up, holding the covers over her breasts.

“Sleep okay?” He was wearing track pants, no shirt, and the scent of shaving cream accompanied him.

“Yeah, like a rock.”
Like I got three orgasms last night, from two different men.

“Cool.” He strode to a tall dresser facing the bed. Clare admired the long, toned expanse of his back until he tugged an undershirt down to wreck the view.

“You working this morning?” she asked, abandoning the covers to dress. He’d seen it all last night; it was silly to be acting so modest now.

“No, I have the day off. Mica left around seven, though.”

“Ah.” She tugged her shirt over her head. “A familiar development.”

He shot her an apologetic look on his friend’s behalf, his gaze making a shy, brief scan of Clare’s bare legs as she pulled up her jeans.

She shrugged. “It’s okay. Small price to pay for crazy sex, right?”

He laughed, the sound nervous or a trace uncomfortable. “Fair point.”

“I’ll get out of your way,” she said, stooping to peer under the bed, “as soon as I find my shoes and make a pit stop.”

“No rush. You want coffee before you head out?”

The “Hallelujah” chorus crescendoed in her head. “I wouldn’t mind it.”

He shot her a smile over his shoulder, a deep one, as he pulled a long-sleeved thermal down his trunk. “I don’t usually wake up this way,” he said. “If I’m supposed to be a dick and rush you out the door, sorry—my dad didn’t raise me like that. Feel free to escape whenever, but after everything that happened last night, I can at least offer you some cereal.” He stooped, straightening with one of her sandals in his hand, and brought it over.

“Thanks.” His tone and his words had relaxed her entire body. “I don’t really know what I’m doing, either,” she admitted. “But I’d love a coffee.”

“Remind me how you take it. I’ll make you a cup while you use the bathroom. Oh—there’s a couple of spare toothbrushes in the top drawer under the sink. Help yourself if you want.”

“Thanks. And cream and one sugar, for the coffee.”

“Milk okay?”

“Fine.”

“Cool. I’ll see you out there.”

She smiled until he’d passed and disappeared back into the hall, her chest feeling weird—tight and loose at once. A small jab of irritation caught her, just as she spotted her other sandal under the far end of bed.

Both of those men were her lovers now, she thought as she circled
to the other side, but she’d been
Mica’s
guest. He could have let her know he’d be disappearing early, before they’d fallen asleep, could have warned her she was going to get passed off like a baton to Vaughn this morning and left to stumble through what felt weirdly like a blind date. A blind date done in totally the wrong order—kinky three-way first, followed by coffee and small talk.

But even as she could claim to barely know Mica, this felt right. Or if not
right
, predictable somehow. He was tough to nail down on details and arrangements, tough to read, emotionally. Not cagey, just . . . slippery. It seemed only natural that he also be the type to fail to mention that he’d be leaving early, and to fail to wake her to say good-bye when he did. He was the sort of thoughtless—but not
heartless
—man for whom those courtesies simply didn’t register. Like a teenage boy in some ways, oblivious to such subtle social customs.

Annoying, but not such a high price to pay for life-altering sex.

She did indeed find spare brushes in the bathroom drawer, wrapped in cellophane and stamped with the phone number of a dentist’s office. She gave her face and hair a study. She looked rumpled but not awful. Not hungover or slovenly, but Vaughn would be witnessing her with her hair wild and her freckles in full effect, not a drop of makeup. He’d be getting Clare, unfiltered, she thought as she cleaned her face with a washcloth, a version of herself she usually held in reserve until at least a few dates into a new relationship. At least one actual
date
, for heaven’s sake. She helped herself to a dollop of someone’s body lotion to moisturize her face, tamed her curls with her hairband, and deemed herself presentable.

The worries were silly anyway—it wasn’t Vaughn she was hung up on. Let him see her without mascara. He seemed like a practical, down-to-earth sort of man, the type who wouldn’t notice the difference anyhow.

Before she left the bathroom, she gave their cabinet a quick snooping through. Sporty deodorant, Claritin, bandages, mouthwash, some sort of muscle-building supplements. Pretty standard manly stuff. She flipped off the light and headed to the kitchen, nerves spiking just a touch.

Vaughn was sitting at the dining table, a steaming mug in his hand and another waiting on the other side. He looked up from a magazine as she entered.

“Smells good.”

He smiled. “Perk of living with a barista—he brings home way better beans than I’d ever buy for myself.”

She took a seat and slid her mug close.

“This is a little weird, right?” he asked.

“Maybe. A little less weird than the first time, though, since at least
one
of the men I slept with last night is having a coffee with me.” She smiled back. “Which is fine, by the way—Mica hasn’t given me any reason to have any expectations. Apart from the crazy sex, I mean.”

Vaughn nodded, and she sensed a blush behind that dark skin.

“I’m realizing that he’s not really boyfriend material,” she added. “Not that I’m in the market for that anyway. But if I were, I’m smart enough to know he’s not the ideal candidate.”

“But for random Wednesday-night three-ways . . . ?”

She laughed, glad he was being candid about it. “Yeah, for those, he’d be the first one I’d call.” The funny thing about this morning, she thought, was the fact that the man she was sitting across from was now her lover. And yet to greet him with a kiss felt absolutely wrong—absolutely strange. Did that make her Mica’s, in a way? She could kiss Vaughn when Mica directed her to, and really mean it, really feel it, and enjoy every second of it, and yet the thought of going there on her own felt a hundred percent counterintuitive.

When I’m here, I’m his.
Mica’s plaything, basically. She’d tell him no if he asked her to do anything that truly crossed a line, but she also knew she’d let him lead her further than she’d ever expect she’d want to be taken. Places she’d not follow most any other man. He was magical in that way. And powerful, and a little addictive, and he undeniably had a hold on her.

I’m his,
she thought again, and the notion aroused her even as it put her on edge. She wasn’t the sort of girl who went looking to be a man’s possession, yet the idea sizzled.

Everything wrong is right, with him.
And it had been so long since she’d felt so exquisitely
wanted.

The kitchen looked different in the morning. There was only one window, but it got nice eastern light, and for the first time she noticed a spider plant hanging above the sink. There was something encouraging about a guy who had houseplants. Something reliable. It jibed nicely with Vaughn’s day job. She’d feel very confident indeed if this man showed up and busted down her door, carried her to an ambulance in her hour of need. She wondered how he’d wound up in that line of work.

“At the risk of sounding like we’ve woken up on a blind date,” she said to Vaughn, “can I ask how you wound up in your field?”

He laughed, and his broad smile transformed his face, making him about handsome enough to be a model, she felt. It eased her lingering nerves, softened her posture.

“I was thinking the same thing,” he said. “About this feeling like a blind date. Or like, Mica tag-teamed me halfway through the date and now it’s my job to close for him.”

“It’s a little fucked-up,” she admitted. “We can agree on that. But it’s good coffee.”

“Sorry about that, by the way—him taking off. Again.”

“It’s not your job to apologize for your roommate.”