Playing the Game (31 page)

“Again,” she begged, recognizing the plea too late to force it back.

“Oh,
very
good, Alice.” Henry lifted her again. And waited.

Alice panted, wishing he would drop her, why wouldn’t he just…oh. “Please.”

Henry’s hands forced her down, and Jay’s hips thrust to meet her as she moaned. She’d pleased Henry by asking. Verbalizing a desire. He’d added the new motion to the rhythm to reward her.

Jay tugged on the tie. Henry pulled her back, raised her up, dropped her down as Jay thrust. Again. And again.

Two actors, utterly dependent on Henry. Without his direction of Jay’s timing and her movement, neither of them would be able to strive toward the need coiling in her now. Despite his unexpected silence in this game, he had complete control. Henry’s knowledge of their needs, his understanding, would bring them to climax or not.

She whimpered, a sound of surrender, an acknowledgement that here, now, he would make the decisions and she would submit to them. His fingers squeezed her hips as he increased the pace.

Henry dropped her again, and this time when Jay tugged her forward, Henry teased her clitoris with darting fingers between her legs. He repeated it, a new beat in the rhythm, an addition that maybe…signaled his pleasure at her surrender? He’d added to the rhythm when she voiced her desire. And now he’d done it again when she voiced her acceptance of his control.

He wanted those things from her. In these hours, he demanded them of her. The intensity of the emotion that washed through her then was beyond her understanding.

She gave voice to a desperate whimper Jay matched, the two of them crying out as Henry urged them faster, his fingers tapping hard against her clit the final push she needed. Her hips moved on their own, uncontrollably, and she gasped for breath as Jay cried her name and Henry’s when she took him with her.

Henry’s pleased growl rumbled in her ear. Because his timing had worked, because she and Jay had found their release together at his direction? Because Jay had called her name
and
his? She’d lacked the breath to fill her lungs as her body seized with pleasure, but Jay had seemed desperate to feel that connection.

She lay back against Henry, just breathing, wanting to ask Jay why. What had prompted his call. But this was Henry’s show. Asking now wasn’t appropriate. Trying to ask Jay during their lunch on Tuesday would earn her a vague answer or a panicked look and a subject change.

Their Fridays didn’t exist on Tuesdays, and their Tuesdays didn’t exist on Fridays. Friends. Sex partners. Two separate roles.

Except her birthday would be Tuesday, and they were celebrating it as a Friday. As sex partners.

And Henry and Jay had put special effort into tonight, a Friday, as friends.

Wasn’t the contract designed to prevent this blurring of lines? Maybe she needed to expand her understanding of the terms. It wasn’t as if she confined her sexual thoughts about them to contract hours. Hell, she’d imagined having them in her bed almost a year before anything sexual had happened.

Sitting atop Jay in the aftermath of such a powerful climax that she still tightened around him at odd intervals, she almost believed she belonged there permanently. Resting in Henry’s arms. Seeing Jay’s blissful smile.

“Well done, my dears,” Henry murmured.

She shivered with joy.

She might be a temporary partner, but she was a valued one. A good friend. Tonight had shown her that. She was someone they trusted enough to bring into their bed, a fun challenge for their skills, maybe. A chance for Henry to demonstrate his prowess and Jay to expand his. Someone they trusted to accept their affection and their arousal and to let it go when things came to their conclusion. When they were ready to go back to being just the two of them.

But for now, for now, she could enjoy what she had. What Henry gave her.

She twisted, trying to look back at him, to thank him for this. Whatever it was. Tonight. All of the nights, and the mornings, too, and the way he and Jay allowed her to feel part of something special.

“Thank you,” she blurted, as Henry’s face tipped toward hers. She repeated it, because once didn’t feel like enough, and she couldn’t stop saying it, the words tumbling too fast and overlapping until Jay was laughing beneath her and Henry’s lips came down on hers. Soft. Warm. Slow and calming.

She sighed against his mouth, a sound that morphed into a giggle when he kissed the tip of her nose as well.

“Sorry. I don’t usually…I mean, I’m not…”

Henry chuckled. His arms tightened from a light clasp into a true hug.

“Jay, I believe what our girl is trying so very hard to say is that she’s quite satisfied with your performance. Shall we take her incoherence as a compliment of the highest order?”

Jay smirked. “Yes, Henry.”

“You were amazing,” she agreed. Sharing seemed easier, somehow, once Henry had spoken first. “I can’t believe how synchronized you were.”

Jay’s grip on the tie had slackened enough to let her lower her bound hands and scratch his belly. “It was a wonderful gift. You followed commands from Henry so well I couldn’t even tell he was giving them.”

He stretched beneath her, arching into her fingers, and his beaming smile lit up his whole face.

“Yes, Jay has done exceptional work this evening.” Henry’s breath warmed her ear. “Go on and untie Alice, my boy, and we’ll have a bit of leisure time.”

Leisure time. Free play, so long as nothing between Alice and Jay got more sexual than a twelve-year-old’s first date. Henry’s way of telling them they could move freely, talk freely. A chance to use the bathroom or get a drink without gaining his permission, because they wouldn’t be interrupting a scene.

She supposed Jay needed it. No, they both did after being so strictly controlled tonight. Time to feel the pressure was off, to bask in the contentment they’d created. And when leisure time was over?

She held back a shiver.

Henry didn’t have to fuck her, of course, but she thought he planned to tonight. He was just making her wait for it. Time for her legs to recover. She stifled a laugh.

Jay’s nimble fingers freed her wrists. She rotated them, wiggling her fingers before Henry asked.

“All’s well, Alice?” Henry raised his hands to hers. “No tenderness?”

His touch was tender, but her health was fine.

“Nope. Everything’s in good working order.” Not that she’d expected otherwise. Henry was so careful about–
wait, back up.
Henry had let Jay tie the knots. With supervision. First time? “Jay must’ve done a great job on those knots. My wrists don’t hurt at all.”

“Wonderful.” Henry had to be smiling, given how Jay wiggled like an eager puppy greeting its owner. “Jay?”

Henry’s voice was prompting, and Jay’s right hand slipped between her body and his where they joined. He smirked. “Ready for liftoff.”

Alice giggled as Henry helped her to her knees and toppled her beside Jay, who held his condom in place with no hint of self-consciousness. Her adorable playmate.

She rolled onto her side and called his name. Jay swung toward her, his expression open and eager to please.

She leaned into deliver sweet kisses, mouth and forehead both.

“Thank you, Jay.”

“It was good?”

“
You
were good.”

“You’re happy?”

“
Very
happy.”

Jay heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief and wiped imaginary sweat from his brow with one arm.

Alice laughed.

Henry smiled, his right hand stroking Jay’s left thigh. “All right, my little comedians.”

Rising to stand alongside the bed, Henry sported rumpled clothes, not so crisp as when she’d first seen him tonight, formal and dignified. The sight of Henry mussed, his collar open and askew, his shirt crinkled, sent the same thrill humming through her veins.
Yum.

“We’ve more juice and snack in the kitchen, and I want to see you both make use of it. Alice, please bring the plate and glass with you. It seems Jay has his hands full.”

Jay did, indeed, have his hands full, holding the condom against his softening cock as he rolled off the bed. She struggled not to laugh again. “Yes, Henry.”

She hummed to herself as the boys left the room. Jay to the bathroom, she assumed, and Henry to the kitchen. Lounging in their bed without them felt decadent, like the morning she’d awakened in time to witness Jay’s devoted attention to Henry’s cock. She stretched, gleeful, giggly, wondering if Henry would ever offer her the same opportunity.

As she closed her eyes, she caught the faintest murmur of masculine voices. For a moment it seemed a trick of memory, but Jay’s quiet laugh broke the spell. Henry. Aftercare. Should she wait here? No, he’d asked her to bring the dishes, so he must have meant for her to go to the kitchen. She lay still a moment longer, indulging herself.
Don’t get too comfortable, Alice. It’s not your bed.

Her eyes popped open to the sight of Henry passing the doorway on his way to the kitchen. But if she took a deep breath of the pillow as she rolled to stand up, well, no one was there to witness it but her. And if the voice in her head had something to say about it…
stuff it. I can indulge on my birthday.

She carried the plate and glass to the kitchen, where Henry was setting out another plate of sliced fruit. Apples, bananas, oranges. Bowls of honey and peanut butter for dipping.

Three glasses of juice stood on the counter. She put the used dishes in the sink and snaked an arm under Henry’s to pop a banana slice in her mouth. He pushed a glass closer to her hand, and she drank. They shared the snack in silence.

Henry looked past her shoulder. “Ah, thank you, Jay.”

She started to turn and gave an ungraceful yelp as Henry grasped her waist and lifted her to the counter, setting her down near the edge. He nipped her ear.

“You didn’t think I’d neglect you, did you, Alice?” His hip nudged her thigh. “Open your legs for me, dearest.”

She leaned back on her hands and let her legs fall open, unquestioning.

Jay laid a washcloth across Henry’s open hand before he came around the counter and fell upon the snack with the appetite of a teenage boy.

Henry hummed as he bathed her thighs and sex, a melody she didn’t recognize, for all that she found the music as soothing as the gentle motions of his hand. He hadn’t said what would come after leisure time. He might dress her and send her home.

Her fingers twitched with the urge to tousle his hair as he bent his head. She wouldn’t have resisted with Jay. But how Henry would take such playful behavior directed at
him
, on his time, was a mystery, even if they were at leisure right now. She pursed her lips, considering.

Jay slid his hand across the counter and squeezed hers. “Don’t look so sad. Your night isn’t over yet.” He smiled at her, not childlike or teasing but seriously. What she assumed he meant to be reassuring, though a hint of nerves seemed to tug at the edges.

Henry stopped humming and raised his head. He studied her face.

“Jay’s correct, Alice.” His voice was soft. Coaxing. “There’s a tradition we haven’t indulged yet. The birthday spanking. One for each year and one to grow on.”

She stopped breathing. Stared at Henry.
That’s why Jay’s nervous. But I’m…not. Not exactly.
Her lungs sucked in air on their own, making her jump.

“Twenty-nine,” she whispered, equal parts terrified and thrilled. She’d turn twenty-eight on Tuesday, which meant twenty-nine spanks.

“Plus one, Alice,” Henry added in a mild tone. “To remind you not to tease your gifts before unwrapping them. Thirty, altogether.”

Jay’s fingers tightened around hers, and she rubbed her thumb against his in an automatic attempt to soothe.

She wanted to argue that Jay had gotten to play with her before unwrapping her. But one extra spank wasn’t a terrible punishment. Jay’d had Henry’s explicit permission. And she wanted her spanking.

Her mind raced to picture where he’d position her. Wondered how spanking would compare to the flogging he’d given her two weeks before and if she’d reach that odd floaty feeling where she couldn’t quite hold a single thought. Thirty. Surely that was so much more. What if she disappointed him?