“No, I didn’t. I was plagued by regret the moment they took him from my arms, until now.” Maud stared at Faye, and Faye knew what she was trying to say.
“I was thinking about him the night of the crash. I wondered where he was, if he was warm enough, if he’d been fed. I hit a patch of black ice, and then—when I found myself like this, in limbo—I thought I’d never know if he was warm enough, and how he fared. But now I do know, because you came here.”
Faye swallowed down the lump in her throat. “I’m glad I helped you, Maud.”
“Now you must help yourself.” Maud nodded her head upwards. “Give them a chance to explain themselves, and you won’t regret it.” A faint smile appeared on her face.
“Go on, shoo!”
Then she faded away and was gone.
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Chapter Seventeen
As soon as Faye walked through the door, they both started talking at the same time, then shushed each other to silence, then began talking to her at the same time again.
The words came at her in a rush, and she couldn’t take any of it in.
“Be quiet!” She waved her hands.
They went quiet. She dropped onto the sofa. “Maud saw her son.”
“Faye?” Jai stared at her, looking for a response.
“I’m sorry, tough day at the office.” She felt the mad urge to laugh. They were both looking at her as if they were in suspended animation. “Just give me a chance to say what I have to say.”
She took a deep breath and stood up. “First of all, I want to apologise for walking out the other night. I couldn’t handle it. I’d been through the ringer with Maud that night.”
“I felt awful about that,” Garth said, “when I realised. The timing was poor.”
“I overheard what you were saying and it made me wonder about your motivation for getting involved with me.” They both opened their mouths to speak. Faye put up a hand.
“Let me finish. Then, when I got some distance on this, I realised that the past is the past and I had no right to get upset about it. My main reason for being upset and regretting this is that I made you two fight, and hated myself for that.”
They both shook their heads.
She paused, but she’d prepared her speech and she had to get through it before she blubbed. “You have a wonderful friendship and I refuse to jeopardise that.” Now for the really hard bit. “I didn’t want us to part the way we did, with bad feelings. I came up here to clear the air, and to thank you for a wonderful weekend. Please don’t fight because of me.
Don’t let last weekend come between you and the bond you have in your friendship and your work. I need to know that you two will be okay.”
They both stared at her as if she were mad.
She was getting that a lot lately.
Jai spoke first. “We’ll be okay, but we need you to stay in our lives.”
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“Yes, we will be okay,” Garth agreed, “but we’ll be better than okay if we still have you.”
“I can’t risk—”
“Faye!” Garth pushed his fingers through his hair. Tension throbbed in the atmosphere around him. “Faye, please believe me, you were our motivation for getting involved. There was someone a long time ago, it was nothing like what I…we, feel for you.
The opportunity had been there to have a threesome in the past, but I didn’t want it then.”
“No, he didn’t. Not the way he wanted you.” Jai added. “Back then I was a student out for a good time. Not now. We both really wanted you, we still do.”
“But you still talk about this Izzy woman, and you were arguing.”
Garth looked at her with a pleading expression. “We haven’t talked about Izzy since we knew her, over ten years ago. You reminded us of that situation, yes, because she wanted a threesome with us. The difference is it didn’t happen with Izzy, and it did happen with you.”
When Faye took that on board, and remembered how he’d broken through his own personal barriers, she felt floored.
Garth sighed loudly and reached out for her hand. When she folded her arms across her chest, resisting him, he beckoned. “Please Faye. I need to touch you. This is driving me crazy.”
Faye stared at his hand. If she took it, it would be fatal. She couldn’t resist the big guy, and if he apologised and she let herself feel more than she already felt for them it would be harder still. This conversation had to happen, but when it was done she’d still have to walk away because she didn’t want to come between them as friends and business partners.
Try as she might, she couldn’t resist slipping her fingers into his large palm, and when he closed his hand over hers, it seemed to unravel some of the tension she carried.
He makes
me feel safe.
In that moment she saw it, clear as day. Jai was the one who set her loose and Garth was the one who kept her safe while she took the ride of her life.
Garth’s grip grew tighter. Then he sat down and reeled her in.
Within a heartbeat Faye found herself sitting on his lap, tucked in against him. He held her close, not allowing her to break free.
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“I’m so sorry we put you through this. We had no right to assume anything, we both said things we regret in the heat of the moment. It’s not up to us who gets to keep seeing you.
We can only hope that you will keep seeing us, at least one of us, or both of us. It’s up to you.” He drew back and looked into her eyes.
Jai sat down next to them. Their proximity made her melt.
She shook her head, stubbornly sticking to her plan. “I can’t keep seeing you, either of you. It would jeopardise your friendship and your business partnership. I’m not going to do that. When I thought about it, once we’d got involved, I realised how much you both had at stake. All I risked was getting too involved and getting hurt.”
“And having too good a time,” Jai interjected.
“Shut up you, you always make things more difficult.” Even as she said it she knew it wasn’t true. Jai made things easier, and the humour in his comment made her smile and broke the tension. She sighed. “You’re right, I was having a good time, but I would never forgive myself if I altered your friendship.”
“Our friendship has been altered by you,” Garth said, “but not in a bad way. Being around you made us realise what we’re like. You were right, we are just like an old married couple, but it works for us. Having you there…it’s crazy I know, but it felt like the three of us fitted together really well, and we both missed you like crazy when you were gone.”
Faye took in the sincerity in their expressions.
“The other day, I lost it. I was afraid that you might want to see one of us, and it wouldn’t be me. After only three days, the thought of that happening was doing my head in.
I was prepared to fight for you. I’m so sorry that you heard us fighting. What was said was wrong and it was heat of the moment stuff.”
“All we’re asking,” Jai said, “is that we wind the clock back. We have fun, we get to know each other some more, and we move forward together. If you’ll have us?”
“Oh.” Faye’s eyes smarted. Maud’s comments whispered around her mind.
Don’t live
with regrets. Hear them out.
Maud had been convinced Faye should stay with them. That’s what she was saying, and she’d been privy to their private conversations.
“If we promise, Scouts’ honour, not to fall out as friends, will you give it a go?”
“Say you will,” Jai blurted.
“Okay, I’ll think about it.”
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“Thank god!” Garth showered her face in kisses. “I really meant it when I said it was doing my head in.”
Faye laughed, she couldn’t help herself.
“What?”
“You do have a bit of a wild-eyed look about you.”
“Yeah,” Jai said, “like a mad dog, a hound that’s been locked out and can’t get to his beloved mistress.”
“You didn’t fare much better,” Garth shot back. “He’s been pacing around here like a scabby stray. He didn’t use a comb for three days and the beard went wild.”
Faye laughed. “Okay, okay, I get the message, if I don’t check up on you from time to time you’re going to scare away your clients, right?”
“That’s it exactly.” Jai winked at her.
“In that case, I’d better give it another go.”
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Chapter Eighteen
Cosseted between the two of them on Garth’s bed, Faye pressed her head back into the pillows and savoured their hands on her. She felt free and high, like she was on a magic carpet, and the doubts that had clung to her were getting loose and flying off in the breeze. If she let them all go, this could be everything she’d ever dreamed of.
“I was thinking,” Jai said, “if we merged the two top floors of the house into one unit we could make a home big enough for three, right above the business.”
“So now you want to move in, now Faye is in the picture.”
“Like I always say to you, the stars have to be in alignment.”
“I thought we were taking it easy, winding the clock back, and you—the laid back one—are now making housey-housey plans.”
Jai grinned. “Did I peak too soon?”
“It’s fun to think about, but maybe you should get the business up and running before you redesign the building again.” Faye couldn’t help laughing.
“I notice the lady didn’t say no,” Jai said to Garth.
“You’re happy, aren’t you?” Garth nuzzled her neck.
“Mmnn. I just wish that I could have you both, at once, properly.”
“You can,” Jai responded with a more serious, focused tone, “it depends how you feel about anal sex.”
Faye experienced a flood of arousal at his suggestion. Somewhat embarrassed, she lifted one shoulder. “I’ve never…I don’t know.”
Jai looked at Garth.
“It’s not something I’m familiar with,” Garth said.
Faye noticed that he looked a bit coy as well and was fixed on Jai as if for guidance.
“Not familiar with giving, or receiving?” Jai directed the question to Garth and grinned.
Garth narrowed his eyes. “One of these days you really will go too far.”
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Faye laughed softly. “My guess is that if he hasn’t already gone too far in the last ten years, it’s not going to happen.”
Not now we’re together.
She knew it deep in her heart, even though she didn’t say it out loud.
Jai nodded. “Listen to our psychic girlfriend.”
Our psychic girlfriend
. Faye liked how that sounded. Apparently so did Garth because the tension in his expression vanished and he smiled at her.
Jai gave his approval. “That’s better. Stop taking everything so seriously, Buddy. I wonder about you, really I do.”
Garth rolled his eyes.
Having broken the tension, Jai wrapped his arm around Faye. It was a tender cuddle, and he kissed her softly on the mouth. “If you really want to try, and you’re willing, then I’ll take care of you.”
Faye wilted against him. Every iota of energy in her body condensed into a hot spot in her groin. His loving, caring approach stole any last doubts away. She nodded her head.
Jai got up and went for his jacket.
When he returned he had a handful of condoms and a sachet of lube. And an erection.
“You look well prepared,” Faye said.
Garth turned sideways and jammed his cock against her side, as if to let her know he was well prepared too.
Delighted, she squirmed against him. He locked one hand over her hip, holding her against his erection.
Faye watched as Jai tossed Garth a condom packet. Then he stood by the bed, rolled on a condom, then coated it in lube and put the sachet down on the bed. He encouraged her to face Garth, who was ready for her, sheathed cock and all.
He stroked her thighs. She opened them in response.
“Touch me,” she begged.
His fingers slid against the wetness of her sex folds. She stroked his head. He muzzled against her.
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“Go on,” Jai murmured, his body extending itself against hers, his mouth against her neck. “Don’t stop there, give her all you’ve got.” He chuckled softly. He pressed his erection against the seam of her bottom. It felt very slippery.
Faye gasped, completely aware of the male forces surrounding her. She closed her eyes and let the feeling of Garth’s fingers questing through her wetness take her to heaven again. The hard, contained force at her bottom made her want penetration, double penetration.
Garth shifted his fingers inside her.
She began to move on them, her head falling back. “I want you both.”
Garth moved so that he was between her legs, tucking her lower leg in line with his waist so as not to lie on it more heavily. Then his cock quickly found the wet niche between her legs.
Faye cried out with joy as he thrust inside her.
He drew back and lunged again.
She held him with her eyes, urging him on, swept up into his rhythm, molten inside, sensitised to every movement. “I want more,” she cried out.
Garth swore under his breath.
“Shallow strokes a while,” Jai instructed.
Garth nodded his way and slowed his pace. “You look so bloody good,” Garth whispered.
Her core pounded, waves of pleasure surging through her.
Jai moved his cock to her anus, offering it to her. Faye nodded her head. She wanted to feel it fill her, she wanted his passion there.
“Do you still want more?” Jai asked her, his voice controlled.
Faye groaned, her body ricocheting with a riot of opposing signals. She was unable to form words.
“Yes?” he murmured, and she nodded her head, her hair trailing over her face as she did so, intoxicated with it, overwhelmed with shame, shame that flooded her sex when she was forced to concede that she did want more.
“Yes, I want you to fill me up,” she blurted it out.