Apparently, he sensed it. He held up a hand. “No, nothing bad. You and I don’t get to talk alone very often anymore, and I wanted to take you out for lunch, if you haven’t eaten yet.”
“I was just going to go grab something and bring it back.”
“No, we’re going to go have a nice, long, sit-down meal, on me.”
“Okaaay.”
“No laptop, either.”
She’d leaned over to grab her laptop case. When he said that, followed by a smile, she sat up again. “Wow. What do you do for your next trick? Pull a rabbit out of your ass?”
That made him laugh. She could talk like that to Stu, who she’d known literally her entire time with the company. He’d had her current job before he got promoted and had recommended her for his old job.
“I want this to be a lunch between friends,” he said, “not between a boss and an employee.”
She sat back in her chair. “I’m okay.”
“You only took five days.”
“Yeah, and I have a lot of stuff backed up to deal with as a result of taking that much time off.”
“You have six weeks’ vacation accrued.”
She could see it was going to be one of those kinds of conversations. “I’m okay.”
He stood and motioned for her to follow. “No arguments. Grab your purse and let’s go. I’m driving.”
She watched him walk out of her open cubicle in the rear of the store’s back area, which held her desk, a shelving unit, and her locked file cabinets.
“Dammit,” she muttered as she grabbed her phone, purse, and headed after him.
He drove them over St. Armands Circle, to the Colombia. On a Monday, there weren’t a lot of lunch patrons there on that summer day, much to her relief. He asked for a quiet table in the back somewhere, and once they were seated, she decided to cut right through the bullshit.
“If you’re here to psychoanalyze me,” she said, “you wasted a trip. I’m good.”
“Reeeaally?” He arched an eyebrow at her. “You haven’t taken a sick day in nearly a year. In fact, except for a Friday and a Monday last July, you haven’t taken any days off. Not even the paid holidays you’re supposed to be taking off, like Memorial Day and Labor Day. As far as I can see, the only days off you’ve taken were Christmas and Thanksgiving, when the stores are closed. And yes, for the record, I was curious and checked and found where you’d been handling emails on those days, too.”
And those two days off she’d taken had been a long weekend Tony had wheedled and begged her into taking with him, where they’d driven down to Key West and spent the time playing tourist.
“The stores are open on those other holidays, meaning I should be working, too.”
“The stores are also open on Saturdays and Sundays, and you take those off. Or have you been sneaking in extra hours there, too?”
She glared at him. On Saturdays and Sundays, she usually did check her work e-mail, handle phone calls and voice mails, and deal with any problems that cropped up.
In fact, the past two weekends were the first two weekends in forever that she was in town and hadn’t seriously kept up with work matters.
He sat back in his chair, shaking his head. “I have three daughters around your age, kiddo, and trust me, I know every look there is. You can argue with me all you want, but the truth is, whatever game face you think you need to put on for everyone else? It’s not going to work with me. I took three weeks off when my sister died. I needed the decompression time. You can’t lie to me and say that all you need are five measly days, especially when it was so sudden. I had two years of cancer treatments to come to terms with my sister’s impending death before we actually lost her. I know how much you loved your brother. I was there from the beginning, remember?”
Yes, he had been. Not only had he recommended her for his job, he’d been the area manager when she’d first been hired in as a part-timer and had asked him how she could best go about advancing in the company.
He’d helped guide her every step of the way. And he’d been one of the few people she’d invited to the funeral service. He’d driven in from Jacksonville for it.
“Believe it or not, I did spend a good chunk of the weekend with friends,” she shot back. “I even went out on a boat Saturday for the first time. In the Gulf. Fishing.”
“I don’t believe it.” He smirked. “You? Do something fun?”
“It is possible.”
“It’s also possible I’ll hit the lotto but it’s not very damn likely.”
He knew her too damn well. He was right, she couldn’t fake things with him. “I’m going to take some time off and visit my parents.”
“When?”
“Not right now. I’ve got an inventory cycle coming up. I refuse to be out of town during that. Once the reports are finalized, I’ll make the arrangements, depending on my parents’ schedule.”
He pulled out his phone and started tapping into it.
“What are you doing?”
“Making myself a calendar reminder to check on you.” He arched an eyebrow at her. “Middle of August, I’d better see some time off in your schedule when I check, or I’ll be hounding your ass about it.”
“I can’t guarantee it’ll be then when I go.”
“I know. But by then you should have an idea of when you can and have put in for the time off.” He finished and laid his phone face down on the table. “So it’s a reminder to me to start going through your schedule to make sure you’ve put in for it.”
She picked up her menu. “Is that why you brought me out here? To bug me about that?”
“No, I brought you out here because I know how tough you try to be in front of everyone else and I needed to talk to Vanessa, not Regional Manager Riddick.”
She glared at him, making him laugh. “Again, I have three girls. Try that shit on someone else, because it won’t work with me, kiddo.”
* * * *
For the first time that she could actually remember, she was eager to get out of work that evening at what was supposed to be her scheduled time. Usually, she had “Just One More” syndrome, where she’d start to get ready to leave at her scheduled time, handle one more e-mail, one more voice mail, one more phone call, and an hour later she’d look up and realize she was supposed to be heading home.
Lyle and Reed would be coming over around seven.
She stopped by a drugstore on the way home and found herself growing red-faced in the condom and lube aisle. Remembering her name tag, she pulled it off and stuck it in the pocket of her white uniform shirt that all management wore when they worked in stores.
After hemming and hawing, she tossed two boxes of condoms and a bottle of lube into her hand basket, then also grabbed some other sundries, like deodorant, toothpaste, and tampons, things she didn’t really need but it made her feel a little less self-conscious than simply going up to the register with an “I’m getting fucked tonight” shopping haul.
She was on the pill, had been for years, because of migraines and pain. So that, at least, wasn’t an issue.
And she’d made sure at her first doctor appointment after she’d ditched “desperate fat chick easy sex” guy to get herself tested for STDs. That had been eight months after the fact. Since she hadn’t been with anyone since then, she figured she was probably okay.
God, I hope they’re not man whores. That might just break her heart.
Then again, if Tony had thought they were, he likely wouldn’t have been playing with them. While he wasn’t a prude by any stretch of the imagination, he also wasn’t into meaningless hookups. That much had been clear both by the actions she’d seen after his divorce and his own words in his journal. She could get how play wasn’t sex. It wasn’t a contradiction to her.
Tony trusted them, she repeated to herself as she drove home. If he trusted them, that means I can trust them.
Even better, Jenny and Eliza seemed to trust them, as did ferocious Tilly.
And the
y’d passed the Carlo test.
What more could she ask for?
A few more orgasms would be nice.
Chapter Seventeen
The men arrived a little before seven. Carlo was ecstatic to see his new friends, immediately coming after them with loud mumbles and a mouth full of wubbie. Then he dropped that one for a different one when they headed for the kitchen with the grocery bags in their hands.
“What did you get?” she asked.
“Well, we knew there’d still be fish left, so we planned for that,” Lyle said. “Time for me to cook you one of my specialties.”
Once they had their hands empty, the grocery bags on the counter, first Reed, then Lyle grabbed her and kissed her, hard, leaving her breathless.
“And then for dessert,” Reed said, pulling out a can of whipped cream, “there’s this.”
“What’s it going on?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Wherever you want it to go.”
She felt herself growing wet.
Before they’d arrived she’d taken a shower, shaved everything thoroughly from the pits down, including her cooch, and had put on a sundress she usually only wore around the house because it was a little too tight across her breasts.
And no bra or panties. She was hoping she wouldn’t have use for them anyway.
Lyle stepped behind her, pulling her hips against his. “I know where I’d like it to go,” he said, nibbling down the side of her neck.
Hell, she was crazy. This wasn’t like her, just falling over two guys she barely knew.
But Tony had known them. And Eliza and Jenny, as well as Tilly, were all-in on her getting together with them.
If she couldn’t trust her brother and her friends, who could she trust?
She pulled Lyle’s hands up, over her breasts. “I’m sure I can think of a few places.”
She felt his cock harden against her ass.
“Mmm,” Lyle said. “Dude, check it out. No panties. Or bra.”
“Really? Good girl.” Reed lifted the hem of her dress. “Oooh, that’s a nice surprise.” Before she could ask what he meant, he’d dropped to his knees and she felt his lips close in on her pussy.
Then the world basically ended, for all that she cared. She had her head thrown back against Lyle’s shoulder, and he was practically holding her up as Reed quickly worked her up toward an orgasm.
“Oh,” Lyle said. “I should have mentioned something.” He nipped her earlobe. “We both love a freshly shaved pussy.”
With that, she tipped over the edge, Reed’s hands clamped around the backs of her thighs and Lyle with one arm around her waist to keep her upright.
The other hand worked back and forth, grazing his fingers across her nipples through the taut fabric of her dress.
“That’s it, baby girl,” Lyle murmured in her ear. “Let him make you feel good. That’s all we want to do. FYI, your pussy is gorgeous, but we prefer it shaved so you can feel every little thing we’re doing to you. So make this a new and regular part of your preparations before we get together, okay?”
“Yes…Sir.” It felt right to say that.
Both men froze. Reed emerged from under her dress. “Honey, you don’t have to call us that if you don’t want to,” he assured her.
“I do want to,” she said. “Just like I liked it when you called me your good girl last night.”
The men exchanged a glance. Had she fucked something up? Some protocol she didn’t know about?
Reed stood, cupping her chin in his hands. “Okay, seriously. We’re not about forcing someone to play with us. You want sex, well, honey, we’ll give you every bit you can handle and then some, as much as you want. We are absolutely cool with that, and we’re not having sexy time with anyone but each other and you, I promise. But play is different.”
“I want you to play with me like you did him.”
Now Lyle turned her to stare into her face. “You don’t even know if you’ll like the same kind of play he enjoyed. He was on the road to becoming a fairly heavy masochist.”
“Okay.”
“No, not okay,” Lyle insisted. “You have no idea what that even means and we are not going to do something to hurt you and fuck this up and lose you before we even get a chance to be with you.”
He fell silent, as if he felt maybe he’d gone too far.
Hell, they’d just given her another fantastic orgasm and she wasn’t complaining. What more did they want?
Reed moved to stand next to Lyle. “What if we were to start ordering you around and giving you a bunch of protocols to follow?”
“I…I don’t know. I’d have to know what they are first.”
“Exactly,” both men said. Reed continued. “Are you willing to give up say-so to us for stuff? Let us rule the roost, so to speak?”
She wanted to say yes, but she knew the truth. “I don’t know. I’m used to running my own life.” She felt like crying. “I guess I’m not very submissive.”
They held her close. “Baby,” Lyle said, “you don’t have to be our submissive to be with us. We’re cool with that. If you want to explore things, we’re cool with that, too, but a little at a time. We don’t want to burn you out and then you hate us. We’re good with hot sex and orgasm and sensual play even if you don’t ever want to try anything else.”
“Sensual play?”
“Yeah,” Reed said. “Like forced orgasm play. A little bondage. Leather cuffs. Me holding your hands over your head while he makes you come over and over. Maybe a little light spanking at first. You have to crawl before you can walk.”
“I thought I had to be a submissive to play.”
Both men groaned. “Please don’t tell me you got that from books,” Lyle said.
“But I thought with what I saw at the club…Okay, yes, from a few book.”
Both men laughed, kissing her in turn. “No,” Reed said. “You do not have to be our submissive to play with us. All we ask, since we’re obviously moving into a sexual realm here, is that you stay monogamous to us. We won’t be with anyone but each other and you. Deal?”
“Deal. Easy deal to keep, honestly.” She felt a wistful pang. “I saw all those different roles on FetLife when I’d joined and now that I know what some of them mean I thought it meant I had to pick one.”
“You don’t have to pick anything you don’t want to,” Lyle said. “You get to define your label.”
“I don’t know what it is. I’d rather you do it.”
The men exchanged a look. Reed had an a-ha expression. “Okay, how about this? Sense we’re going to start out at the sensual end of the scale, let’s say you’re our baby girl.”
She frowned. “What’s that?”
“It’s not age play,” he said, correctly guessing what her tone had held. “It’s like a very loving, nurturing dynamic. And we’ll be your Sirs. How’s that?”
She nodded. “Okay. So what are the rules?”
Lyle cupped the back of her neck and leaned in close. “You don’t lie to us, and we won’t lie to you. You don’t cheat on us, and we won’t cheat on you. It’s a committed relationship until all three of us settle in and decide where else we want to go from this point. If you decide after a while you want to try being a submissive, or try stricter play, we can do that. If we’re together long enough, if you want to move from submissive to slave, we might try that.”
“That sounds too easy.”
He smiled. “That’s because it is.” He kissed her, slowly, deeply. Then, keeping his hand cupped behind her neck, he drew Reed in and kissed him, deep, sucking, licking.
Then she realized what he was doing—tasting.
“Fuck,” Lyle finally gasped when he let Reed come up for air. “I can’t wait to have my turn.” He grabbed her, and seemingly effortlessly lifted her up and onto the counter. Before she realized it, he’d spread her legs, shoved the hem of her dress up, and had his face buried between her thighs.
His technique was different but just as good
as Reed’s. Her eyes fell closed as she tried to keep her balance.
Reed grabbed her hands, putting one on top of Lyle’s head. “Grab a handful of his hair,” Reed told her. “He loves it rough.”
She did, and he practically growled into her pussy.
Thus encouraged, she held on tight, Reed’s arm supporting her back as she crashed into yet another breathless orgasm.
When Lyle emerged from there, he grabbed her and kissed her. “If we don’t get this meal cooked, your dinner’s going to consist of nothing but a liquid protein diet from us fucking that gorgeous mouth of yours.”
She felt dizzy, her world spun round. “Yes, Sir.”
He grinned, and it was gorgeous, handsome, setting fire to walls within her, breaking her to pieces inside in the good way. “Baby girl,” he hoarsely said, “I do think I will quickly grow used to hearing you call me that.”
“A-fucking-men,” Reed said.
* * * *
The men did get dinner cooked. They wouldn’t let her help other than to point out where things were in the kitchen. They were content to have her sitting there on a barstool at the counter, talking to them, and them teasing and tormenting her, working her up into a frenzy until she was ready to say fuck the meal, please fuck me!
And from the size of the bulges pressed against their shorts, she could tell they were eager to get through the main course, too.
Life is short. I’m an adult.
And they’re hot and want to fuck me.
Tony trusted them.
And when she boiled it down to the most basic equation, the argument that held the most sway with her, that’s what it came down to.
Yes, please!
It didn’t hurt that they were, so far, great guys. Nothing they’d said or done had led her to believe otherwise. Yes, something might crop up at some point, but unless or until it did, she’d take them at face value.
They ate at the table, on real plates, like adults. Like they had the night before.
Many nights, she and Tony, if they’d eaten together, it’d been off paper plates on the couch in front of the TV, chatting with each other. Casual.