The Face of Scandal (25 page)

The clothespins clattered to the floor like so much kindling, a fraction of a second before Ward entered her, without warning, bottoming out on the first thrust.

If Hazel could’ve cursed, she would have. As it stood, she made do with a slurred groan buried into the crease of Dylan’s thigh.

Some nights, she liked the gag. It let her make all the noise she wanted safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t matter. Others, she wanted nothing more than to spit it out and latch onto flesh and sinew with her teeth.

She couldn’t decide which she needed more tonight.

“What’s the matter, babe? Too much for you?”

Dylan’s taunts lit up the banked coals of her arousal.

She loved this—the shot of adrenaline that pulsed through as they took control, the knowledge that they wouldn’t stop until they were satisfied or she resorted to their prearranged hand signals. The latter hadn’t happened in ages. Whether it was because Hazel had learned how to cope with the dusty vaults of memory creeping open, or, more likely because Dylan and Ward were fast replacing what little experience she’d had before them with their very own brand of torture, she didn’t know. As long as they didn’t stop, she didn’t care.

Dylan crouched down. He was naked but for the pair of faded jeans slung low on his hips, the zipper parted all the way down. “Or is it that you need more?” He traced her collarbone with a fingertip, tracking lower and lower down her chest.

Hazel whimpered when he seized hold of her nipple, twisting hard, then cried out when Ward nailed her G-spot on his next thrust.

“Greedy little bitch… You can fuck her harder than that, Ward. She’s falling asleep on us.”

Ward’s answer was an uptick in tempo, the familiar echo of skin slapping skin filling the playroom as the ropes creaked and Hazel forgot to keep quiet.

She didn’t realize she was speaking around the gag until Dylan undid the fastenings at the back of her neck and guided it out of her mouth. “Fuck, oh fuck, that’s good.
Yes
, just like that,” Hazel keened, “oh, please, please—”

“What did I tell you?” Dylan purred. “She can take whatever we give her. Let’s see how she multitasks…” He rose elegantly and, a hand in her hair, pulled her down onto his cock without much in the way of warning.

Hazel barely had time to suck in a startled breath before he filled her mouth. The sensations were overwhelming—Ward pounding her pussy and Dylan between her lips, slick and hard, battering the back of her throat when he pressed in deep. He held her there for a long, breathless moment, groaning out his pleasure, before withdrawing.

“Cut her down,” he grunted.

“What? But I’m enjoying myself…and so’s she.” Ward slapped her hip, digging his fingers into flesh already ample abused with switch and paddle.

Hazel was past the point of sobbing with the sting of the blow. She reserved her moan for Ward slipping out of her before he could bring her over the edge.

This was what she loved—carrying bruises around for days, under pressed black slacks and flattering blouses, carefully tucked away behind a scarf or bra strap when her boys got adventurous. She treasured every mark, physical or otherwise, as reminders of the commitment she’d made. She didn’t have a ring to prove it, but the collar in her handbag or doubled discreetly around one ankle served the same purpose.

“Cut her down,” Dylan repeated.

This time, there was no demurral. Cold, blunted steel scissors liberated Hazel’s ankles from their fetters. Ward was methodical about it, following the line of her calf as he sectioned off the ropes so as to avoid cutting off her circulation. “Don’t know if you knew this,” he muttered as he worked, “but your boyfriend’s a control-freak.”

“Our,” Hazel corrected.
Our boyfriend.

Ward pinched her hip. “Smartass.”

With his help, Hazel got her feet back on the floor and slowly levered upright on quaking legs. She winced when her reddened ass pressed into Ward’s lap.

There was no way for Ward to miss her sharp intake of breath. “Aw, does it hurt?”

“You have no idea.”

“He will,” Dylan said from somewhere behind them. “Next time.”

A shiver raced through Ward. Hazel felt it as though it rippled over her own flesh and reached back to bring his lips to hers. She’d never expected to find herself in the position to comfort a lover—not with her checkered history and pernicious habit of saying the wrong thing. Then again, she hadn’t expected to want to share a lover after Malcolm’s mind games, either, but here she was.

With her hand around his wrist, she led Ward’s fingertips down the slope of her belly, over the slick, coarse blonde hair at the apex of her thighs.

Don’t think about next time. Think about me.

Dylan was right. She was greedy and she was easy for them. A gentle, fluttering touch was enough to have her squirming in Ward’s lap, her nipples stabbing the air as she arched her spine. So close, so close—

“Can’t leave you two alone for five seconds,” Dylan clucked, forcibly seizing Ward’s wrist and pulling his hand away. “Did I say you could make her come?”

“It was implied?”

Hazel couldn’t see his grin, but she heard it loud and clear, over the rush of adrenaline pumping in her bloodstream. She had no trouble making out Dylan’s efforts to conceal a smile.
Admit it, you love us.
Before she could risk her neck—or rather, her climax—on a taunt, he looped a finger around her leather collar and yanked her none too gently out of Ward’s arms. “You, too,” he said, when Ward made no move to follow them.

“Maybe I could get a leash. You know.
Next time
…”

“Maybe you could get a gag
this
time,” Dylan retorted. “On the bed.”

For all his quips, Ward wasted no time flipping onto his back in the center of Dylan’s mattress. Previously pristine navy sheets contrasted beautifully with his pale skin. Hazel would’ve gladly stood by and watched him jerk off if Dylan asked her to.

He had other ideas.

“Straddle him,” he urged Hazel.

“Oh, fuck yeah…” Ward laced his hands behind his head, the picture of debauchery with a crooked grin.

It was barely a year since they’d met and Hazel decided, during the course of a tenuous first meeting, that he was too cocky and stuck-up to like. The thought of sinking onto his cock back then would’ve struck her as a cosmic joke. But there was no disguising how profoundly she reveled in the slight burst of air that escaped his lips when she eased down his stiff length.

He didn’t rush her, though he must’ve known Hazel was loose and ready, that he couldn’t hurt her. Some hang-ups were too deeply rooted to eradicate in a year’s time.

Hazel brought his hands to her hips, smiling shakily. “I’m really close.”

“Hear that, old man?” Ward smirked. “Best figure out your next move fast.”

Taunts were currency in the loft these days. Ward traded in them more readily than either Hazel or Dylan. He seemed to find it easier to challenge than to ask, or to admit he wanted to try something new.

“You say that like it’s a given that our girl’s going to get what she wants,” Dylan mused, sliding in between Ward’s legs. He grasped Hazel’s shoulders in his delicate, long-fingered hands and unceremoniously bent her forward. “She doesn’t call the shots here.”

Fire licked at Hazel’s veins as she fell into Ward’s arms. The brush of his chest against her aching nipples was enough to trigger a moan.

“I’m intrigued,” Ward admitted.

Hazel gasped out a laugh. “I’m terrified.”
Don’t stop.

Dylan knew better. He used two fingers, slicked with lube, to slide up her folds to the stretch of her cunt around Ward’s dick. On its own, the caress would’ve driven her crazy, but Dylan pressed in, working his digits in alongside Ward.

Both of them swore, but Hazel thought she did it louder.

“Relax for me,” Dylan said, stroking her hip. It wasn’t a request.

They had done fists and inflatable dildos before, although Hazel hadn’t gotten much out of the latter. It was hard to opt for a plastic cock when she had two warm, slick specimens to choose from. She was lucky that her lovers knew how to fuck her with them. Those nights when they were all up for a little adult play were the highlights of Hazel’s week. She didn’t care if she had trouble sitting down the next day. Her work involved a lot of dashing around, anyway.

After a minute or so in which Hazel was sure Ward had stopped breathing, Dylan eased his fingers free. He pressed his chest to her back, leaning to nuzzle at her ear. “Ward and I are going to fuck you. Together. You can come if you want.”

“If I can,” Hazel panted, only half-joking. She was keenly aware of the stretch, of Ward thrusting into her with small, aborted movements.

Dylan gave her a moment to make up her mind. She knew the magic word to make everything stop. She didn’t say it.

She had only herself to blame for the slow, agonizing sensation of Dylan working his cock inside her alongside Ward’s. It was a tight fit, neither of them average, and her vaginal walls pulled tautly around them, straining to accommodate their combined girth.

Ward kissed her ear, her cheek, whatever parts of her he could reach. His voice was a litany of unearned praise reminding her how good she was to them, how beautiful she looked right now. Dylan slid back until only the head of his erection remained inside Hazel, and pumped his hips forward again, giving away the lie of that last compliment.

Hazel locked her elbows as she propped herself up. “Oh, sweet
fuck.”

“Too much?” Ward asked.

He seemed sympathetic to her plight, but that impression might have been colored by the blur of tears obscuring Hazel’s vision. She shook her head frantically. It was just the right amount of pain and pleasure, the precise harmony between desire and discomfort to help take her out of her head.

As Dylan picked up the pace, rubbing against Ward’s cock as well as her tight channel, Hazel lost herself to the cadence of their slapping flesh, thrilled by the echo of skin on skin, of groans rising in pitch as her boys chased their own need.

Ward dug fingers into her hips, holding her to him as he choked off a moan. She knew he was coming before he thrust up, once and violently, spilling warm into her. The tendons in his neck stood out in the hellish orange afternoon glow as he arched his head into the pillows and surrendered.

Hazel ducked her head and bit down at the joint of neck and shoulder, riding him through his orgasm as her own built and built. Her cunt clutched at his spent length and Dylan’s relentless erection, until she could take no more. Pleasure swelled, then ebbed, then swelled again, an endless undertow tugging her down whenever she thought she was about to surface.

Some of that she blamed on Dylan, who fucked her through each quaking shiver—methodically, at first, then with less and less control, his rhythm falling apart in those winded, gasping moments before he followed suit.

Boneless and glossy with perspiration, Hazel climbed off Ward as soon as Dylan would give her the space to move. She made it to one side of the mattress and no farther before her elbows gave out.

“Fuck
me
,” she surmised, with great emphasis.

“Indeed,” Dylan agreed.

Ward was the dividing line between them, his ribcage rising and falling like a bellows that periodically concealed Dylan from Hazel’s single open eye.

It wasn’t only once she’d rolled over that she saw the tangle of their clothes scattered over the bedroom floor and the books spilled from the bedside table—her books, from school. Dylan’s mystery novels lay on the other side of the bed, as well as in Ward’s room, strewn around wherever the three of them decided to make their bed for the night. The wreckage was familiar, safe.

Hazel ran a hand down her belly to cup her throbbing pussy. She could still feel them inside her, thick and warm, hers in every way that mattered. She couldn’t remember why she’d ever harbored insecurities over this. A sense of contentment settled over her, stretching into the pleasurable afterglow as she listened to Ward and Dylan kiss.

She joined them after a moment, trading caresses and easy laughs as they all came down from their shared high.

“We still on for dinner at your folks’?” Hazel wondered as she propped herself up on her elbow.

Dylan nodded into the curve of Ward’s pectoral before pressing teeth into flushed skin.

“Shouldn’t we start getting ready?”

“Soon,” Ward decided, and pulled her down into the tangle of limbs and kisses and wandering hands that seemed to come so naturally after a good fuck.

Hazel extricated herself after a while and grabbed her peignoir from the ottoman at the foot of the bed. At least that hadn’t been trampled during their romp. “I’m making coffee,” she announced. “Try not to share the shower. You know what happens when you do.”

“Gets so much more enjoyable?” Ward quipped.

The echo of their play-wrestling trailed her out of the bedroom.

The loft hadn’t changed much over the past months. It was still minimalist and austere—an apartment designed to suit the tastes and needs of two bachelors. But now the walk-in wardrobes concealed handbags and kitten heels as well as Ward’s impressive collection of leather belts. Dylan’s pantry made room for the brand of cereal Hazel liked best. She had infiltrated their domain so thoroughly that sometimes it felt as if she’d always lived here.

Only right,
Hazel told herself as she loaded up the espresso machine. She paid half the bills, while Ward got used to being their kept man for a while. It was a better deal than having him pull his weight by struggling to hold together a moribund company.

He was happier now. They all were.

Hazel snagged her phone off the kitchen island while she waited for her coffee to brew. The video app loaded at a touch. She checked it less and less these days, but still religiously enough for Dylan to lovingly dub it her
habit
. Hazel smiled. It was too easy. Without sound, she didn’t have to worry about headphones and the small screen made it perfect to load up her own little home movie in waiting rooms and restaurants, while she idled in line at the DMV or in a coffee shop.