Rough Stock (4 page)

April reached out and touched his face softly. “I care about you both too.”

Clay laughed on the other side of her. “As it is, Clinton’s not going to be looking so pretty for the graduation ceremony next week.”

“Did you hurt him very badly?”

“Um…” Clay hesitated. Mason didn’t.

“Yes, we did. You okay with that?”

April thought for a second. “I may be a horrible person to say this but, yes, I’m okay with that.”

She flopped backwards to lie against her pillow. Clay and Mason followed, each one lying on his side next to her.

They’d lain like this many times before when they would stay up half the night talking and then fall asleep in her bed, only to sneak out at dawn and pretend to be just arriving to see to the horses’ morning feeding.

“He kept saying he knew that I… That we…” April couldn’t finish the sentence.

Clay nodded and put one finger across her lips. “Shhh, it’s okay. We know. He said the same shit to us.”

“People are idiots. You can’t listen to what he said, to what anybody says.” Mason reached out and played with one of her curls that lay near his face on the pillow.

“Yeah, I know.” April let out a huge sigh and then laughed sadly. “You both stink like horse. Did you at least win?”

“I did and I’ve got the prize money and the buckle in my saddlebag to prove it.” Mason could hear the pride in Clay’s voice.

“Mason? What about you?”

Clay answered that question for him. “He ended up eating a face full of dirt.”

Mason scowled. “Thanks, Clay.”

April squeezed his arm comfortingly and then they were all silent for a bit. Mason thought maybe she’d fallen asleep until her soft voice filled the darkness once again. “I’ve thought about it, you know.”

Clay kicked off his boots so that they landed on the floor with a thud, then swung both his feet up onto the bed. “Thought about what, darlin’?”

Figuring they were here for the night since sunrise was only a few hours away, Mason had just let his own boots drop to the floor so he could get comfortable when April answered.

“I’ve thought about us being together…like that. The three of us.” She stared straight up at the ceiling as she let that bomb drop on them both.

For once, even Clay was speechless. All Mason heard come out of his friend was a soft, shocked wheeze of air at April’s comment. She’d said it so casually, as if she hadn’t just blurted out the most outrageous, tantalizing thing Mason had ever heard in all of his eighteen years.

He realized just how near their three faces were. So close, that when she turned her head slightly on the pillow, her breath tickled his nose. Her hand came up to pull his head even closer. She kissed him softly on the lips.

Then, as Mason’s heart pounded with the possibilities, April turned her head and he saw her plant the same soft kiss on Clay. Only Clay wasn’t as polite, or perhaps not as shocked, as Mason had been. It took barely a second before Clay tangled his hand in her hair, tilted his head and kissed her deeper, just inches from Mason’s face. He watched his two best friends kiss, amazed, aroused, confused…

As their tongues tangled and Clay let out a small moan, Mason began to wonder what the hell to do. Should he leave? Stay? Join in? Mason moved on the bed, sitting up, unsure until April blindly grabbed his denim-clad thigh with one hand and held him there. Her touch sent shockwaves through his body, directly into his now rock-hard erection.

She broke the kiss with Clay and turned her head back to him. In the dim light, Mason saw her lick her lips before she sat up and moved closer. Then the tip of that tongue he’d watched dart out of her mouth just seconds before was parting his own lips. Her mouth was hot and wet and tasted of toothpaste.

His eyes still open so he wouldn’t miss one moment, Mason saw Clay’s hand snake around to cup April’s breast through her T-shirt.

If Clay wasn’t fighting this, he sure as hell wasn’t going to. With one hand stroking April’s bare leg from knee to thigh, Mason let his eyes drift closed to enjoy the intimacy, if not privacy, of their first real kiss together.

Mason sensed as, very near to his face, Clay moved April’s hair, kissing her neck from behind. She let out a soft moan that Mason felt vibrate through her kiss and into him.

Mason let his hand move slowly higher, traveling up the length of smooth skin at the back of her leg, until he encountered the elastic of her panties. He dipped a fingertip beneath the band, playing with the soft warm crease just below the curve of her ass, afraid to move too fast after what she’d already been through that night.

April bent one knee, spreading her legs in open invitation for his hand to explore further. He longed to plunge a finger inside her and touch what he knew would be hot and heavenly, but he hesitated. It was probably too soon for that.

He regretfully moved his hand away from the temptation and brought it up to cup her face as he plunged his tongue into her mouth.

Feeling the bed shift, Mason drew a shaky breath in through his nose as April’s kiss became rougher. When Mason broke the kiss and opened his eyes, he realized the reason why. He saw that Clay was now on his knees at the foot of the bed, pulling April’s panties down and off so he could spread her thighs farther apart and kneel between them.

Clay dipped his head low. April’s body jolted and Mason knew exactly what his friend was doing to her.

Mason watched her squeeze her eyes shut and press her head back against the pillow. Nearly immobilized with fascination, he looked down to watch his best friend’s hands part April’s lips as his tongue darted out to tease her. Her body twitched in response as she drew in a quick, shaky breath that hardened him even further, if that was possible.

Swallowing hard, Mason pulled April’s oversized T-shirt up and over her head and lowered his own head to draw one peaked nipple into his mouth. He scraped it gently with his teeth as, with a shuddering sigh, she pushed her breast higher to press more deeply into his mouth. He gave the other peak equal attention and then turned greedily back to her mouth as her breaths came faster and small sounds that cut straight through to his core came from her throat.

While his fingers took over to work one aroused nipple, Mason thrust his tongue into her mouth. He felt her hips rise off the bed as he kissed her harder. Still joined at the lips, Mason opened his eyes and looked down at Clay again. He felt his balls tighten as he watched Clay work April with his tongue and both hands.

Wrapping one arm more tightly around her, Mason groaned himself as he felt April get more aroused, nearing closer to orgasm.

Whatever Clay was doing worked. Only Mason’s mouth being on hers muffled the sound as April cried out, hips thrusting as her one hand grabbed blindly at Clay’s head, holding him tighter against her.

Feeling April come apart in his arms was nearly enough to make Mason come himself. Nearly, but not quite. He was so hard he throbbed, feeling every beat of his pulse vibrate through his cock.

She finally began to quiet, pushed Clay away and broke from Mason’s mouth. She lay back, breathing as hard as if she’d run a marathon. Mason glanced down and saw Clay grin while wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Unable to face the reality of this just yet, Mason flopped back onto the pillow and threw his free forearm over his face. April’s head still lay on his right arm, pinning it beneath her.

Mason was just trying to slow his own breathing and heartbeat when he felt Clay crawl back up the bed to lie on the other side of April. One hard muscular arm came flying over April’s nude and still-gasping body to accidentally land on Mason’s jean-covered leg. At that point, Mason realized exactly how entwined the three of them now were, and he wasn’t just talking about the tangle of limbs in the bed either.

Chapter Four

Clay woke about dawn, still fully dressed and not nearly rested. As his brain slowly came into focus, memories of last night flooded back, making his morning hard-on even harder than usual from being neglected for so long. It currently nestled against the temptingly bare crevice of April’s ass, the thickness of the denim of his jeans between them not nearly enough. She was turned away from him, sleeping on Mason’s chest. Clay heard both of their breathing, even and measured in sleep.

If Clay were less of a gentleman, he’d take advantage of his position. All he needed to do was lower his zipper and slide into what he had felt firsthand was hot, wet and wonderful.

He pictured what they’d done together last night and decided he better not use that term
gentleman
again in reference to himself for a little bit. He’d had both his tongue and his fingers inside of a girl he not only cared a lot about both as a friend and more, but who he knew was a virgin, all while his best friend had his own tongue down her throat while playing with her tits. Not exactly gentlemanly on either of their parts.

Clay gingerly pulled back both the arm and leg he’d thrown across her body in his sleep and rose as quietly as he could from the bed. It was Sunday. April’s parents would be waking up to leave for church service soon, but Clay had to pee. Short of aiming out the window, he figured he’d be safe enough slipping into the hall bathroom since her parents had their own bathroom at the other end of the house.

Thank goodness the master bedroom was on the opposite side in a wing past the kitchen. That architectural configuration had made it easy for them to sneak through the window for many late-night talks in April’s room for many years now. Clay would remember that when designing his own house in case he ever had a daughter of his own. His daughter’s room would be right next to his, possibly guarded by a big dog to prevent any boys slipping in and doing to his future daughter exactly what they’d done to April last night.

With that surreal image filling his brain, Clay opened April’s door slowly, carefully, and peered out into the hall. From his muffled position between April’s legs last night, he couldn’t be sure how loud the three of them had gotten. Though he supposed if her parents had heard, they would have been in her bedroom long before now. That would be all Clay needed, her daddy in his face with a shotgun for taking advantage of his only daughter.

Peeing took longer than usual due to the rock-hard, April-induced erection that refused to go down. By the time he got back to the bedroom, he saw Mason’s eyes were open.

“We should get out of here,” Clay mouthed to him.

Mason nodded. Glancing down at April’s head, he slowly pulled his body out from beneath her. Clay bent to retrieve his boots and pulled them on.

Mason did the same and joined him by the window. “Poor thing is exhausted. She didn’t even wake up.”

“Yeah.” Clay glanced back at the still-sleeping figure on the bed. At some point in the night, she’d pulled her T-shirt back on, so at least she wasn’t nude in case her parents came in to wake her. Then he noticed for the first time the bruises on her arms and the split in her lip. It had been too dark last night for him to see them.

Angry all over again, he slid over the windowsill, jumped to the ground and strode fast toward the barns before he blew up within earshot of the house. When Mason caught up to him, Clay stopped next to the paddock, spun and mouthed a foul curse. “Did you see those bruises on her?”

Mason nodded as he unzipped his jeans and relieved himself with a long morning piss on a fence post. “I saw them last night, right before I got into the truck intent on killing Clinton.”

Clay remembered that portion of the evening with as much fondness as what had happened later. “He deserved what we gave him and more.”

Zipped up again, Mason bent to grab the hose to wash his hands and face before he rinsed his mouth with the fresh water. Clay was feeling a bit grimy himself after a night spent in his clothes. He could use a shower and some toothpaste, but this would do for now. He took his turn at the hose as Mason asked, “You think he’ll press charges?”

Clay finished up and turned off the water. “Against us? When she can press charges against him for attempted rape? No way.”

“It was two against one.”

“It was three against two. Not our fault his friends are chickenshit. Even then, we played fair. We took him on one at a time until he said that shit about April. After that… Well, he’s lucky to be alive.”

Mason nodded. “Thanks for pulling me off him.”

Clay grinned. “No problem, man. That’s what friends are for. We’re a team.” His mind went back to what else they had done as a team the night before and he shook his head in amazement at the memory. “Last night.” He let out a short laugh. “Mason, that was something.”

Mason let out a wry laugh and glanced back at the house. “Yeah, but I wonder how she’s going to feel about it in the light of day.”

Clay frowned. “Why would the sun being up change a thing?”

“You know damn well that things that seem like a good idea at the time look stupid as shit the next day. Like the night you emptied your daddy’s liquor cabinet and threw me a birthday party down by the lake.”

Clay couldn’t sit for a week after the beating he’d gotten over that stunt, but he certainly hoped Mason was wrong about April, because last night was just the beginning of all that he wanted to do with her.