Emma Holly (40 page)

"Furthermore," B.G. said, pressing stiffly onward, "both Eric and I would be grateful if you would make room for us in your life—assuming you don't wish to choose between us or, um, avoid us altogether in your quest for independence. As to that, for myself, I should like to express my belief that you are standing on your own two feet and, mostly likely, always have been. There are, after all, only your feet under your legs."

For a moment, Charity was too choked up to speak.

"That," she said, her vision sheening with tears, "is the nicest weird thing anyone's ever told me."

"I could repeat the part about my loving you, if that seems more appropriate."

Eric hugged her shoulders, but it was B.G. he reassured. "She liked all the parts," he said. "You done good."

"Well. Then." B.G. set his pad and pen on a shiny black end table. "Perhaps you'd care to enlighten us about your feelings."

His tone was endearingly defensive.

"I love you right back," she said, her voice gone thick. "I love you both."

"But?" B.G. prompted.

Now she let herself grin. "There is no 'but.' I survived my first semester. I didn't date—okay, except for going out with girlfriends, but I was always in before midnight. I wasn't late. I almost got As—which wasn't as hard as I expected because, let me tell you, college is a lot more interesting than high school!

Anyway, I think I'm ready to be with you guys." Overwhelmed with emotion, she crossed her hands atop her heart. "My guys."

"So you'll move in?" Eric said. "You can have your own room, your own bathroom, if you like."

"You know the way to a woman's heart." She turned to squeeze the muscle of his shoulder. "I'll move in, but if my grades go south, that's the end of that."

Eric laughed and bent to kiss her forehead, his eyes sparkling like stars. "B.G. would never let that happen. He'll positive-think you onto the dean's list."

"Nonsense," B.G. said. "She has to do that herself."

He had stepped to where she could see him, and over Eric's shoulder their gazes met. She felt as if their souls were looking at each other, though what they said was in a language she didn't know. All the same, some communication was exchanged. Suddenly, the air was heavy and hot. A flush moved over B.G.'s face, and Eric's hand slid into her hair. The pulse at his wrist was noticeably quick. Her attraction to B.G.

had attracted him. The lust that fisted inside her as a result would have frightened her if it hadn't been these men she felt it for.

She knew they wouldn't leave it unsatisfied.

"Do I have to do
everything
myself?" she asked. "Because, considering my self-imposed no-dating policy, that's what I've been stuck with all semester."

Eric groaned at her implication and buried his face in her neck.

"Oh, no," B.G. assured her softly. "I think the two of us can help you out quite a bit."

Eric's
bedroom was a variation on the rest of the apartment's theme. The walls were matte black, the bedclothes dusty blue, and the carpet a textured cream. Navy sheers draped the broad windows, almost but not quite blocking out the view. Above the bed, which was very low to the ground, a single picture held pride of place, an eerily lovely black-and-white photo of an old growth maple encased in ice—probably captured after a storm.

Once she got over the initial shock of the black walls, Charity decided it was one of the most peaceful rooms she'd ever been in. Seeing it made her realize this man she loved had depths she hadn't explored.

At the moment, of course, she was most interested in exploring the king-size bed. The goosedown coverlet at its foot seemed especially inviting.

"Wait," Eric and B.G. said as she moved forward.

Then both of them laughed.

"We want to undress you," Eric said. "Bit by bit."

"Bit by bit quickly," Charity urged. "It's been months."

Despite her words, they didn't hurry much, though she supposed the process of getting her naked might have seemed quick to them. She had to admit it was pleasant to watch them work in coordinated silence, to shiver beneath the gentle caresses of their hands, to hear the changes in their breathing as the different parts of her appeared.

Being treated like this, a girl could get to thinking she was a goddess.

When her clothes were gone down to the last sock, Eric knelt at her feet. "Beautiful," he said, his touch feathering up the back of her calves.

B.G. nuzzled her hair aside to kiss her nape. His hands smoothed circles around her hips as the ridge

behind his zipper brushed her bottom. That they were dressed and she was naked made her feel vulnerable.

"Tell us what you want," B.G. murmured against her vertebrae. "Let us be your servants."

Eric leaned close enough to lick her belly. She knew, if she let him, that wouldn't be all he tasted.

Before she lost the will, she slipped from between them and sat cross-legged on the bed.

"Undress each other," she said. "I want to look at you."

To her amusement, this they did quickly, with a good bit more cursing and less grace than they'd spent on her. It hardly mattered to her enjoyment. They were beautiful specimens of their sex, both muscular—even if B.G. was leaner—and both imposingly aroused. The sight of their erections made her lick her lips, but they didn't do more than brush each other as they undressed, a restraint she had plenty of sympathy for. When both were bare and panting, Eric looked at her, then at B.G., then pulled his partner into a deep open-mouthed kiss.

B.G. hesitated a second, then kissed him back, groaning as he gave in to the pleasure. The sound slid through her like molten gold, pooling low and heavy between her legs. She gasped at the force with which their arms wrapped each other's backs, at the clenching of their well-developed sinews. Their intensity told her they hadn't been playing much while she was gone, that they were close to desperate.

She could have watched for longer, especially when they began to slide their cocks together side by side.

Somewhat to her disappointment, as soon as the friction got enthusiastic, they broke apart and turned in unison to her. Both their faces were dark.

"Who do you want inside you?" B.G. asked raggedly. "You can have us both if you want, but one of us has to go first."

Hardly aware of what she was asking, she glanced at Eric. He was rubbing his palm across his diaphragm as if he wished he were rubbing something else. He was certainly ready; his erection was huge, the tip taut and red. When the three of them had played at Mosswood, Eric had usually been the one to take her. It had seemed more comfortable for everyone. Now that she knew B.G. loved her, she wondered if "comfort" was really what that arrangement had been about. Maybe B.G. had conceded that intimacy to his friend because he thought he didn't have the right to push himself forward.

As if he could read her mind, Eric smiled and gave her a tiny nod. His friend was more important than his hard-on.

"You," she said to B.G. "You take me the way you want."

He
wanted to be slow and suave, but the minute she said
you
, desire rolled like an avalanche through his body and shut off his brain. He pushed her down on the bed and took her mouth like the marauder he'd never known he could be. Her thighs came up on either side of his waist, soft, warm, hugging him as tightly as he hugged her. He couldn't keep from grinding his erection against her abdomen, even when it made him swell dangerously.

The sound of his moans embarrassed him, but the sound of hers wouldn't let him stop. He loved her. He loved her and Eric, and they were all going to fuck each other like madpeople.

If Eric hadn't flipped the condom wrapper against his ear, he would have forgotten it entirely.

"Let me," Charity said, a plea whose power to gratify was only exceeded by the careful motions of her hands.

He had to sit back to give her room to work. Now muscles tightened all over his body as she got him sheathed.

"There," she said, patting his hip. "All ready to rock and roll."

He kissed her because he had to, kissed her until she trembled as hard as him, kissed her until her arms clutched him back. When Eric sat on the bed beside them, B.G.'s excitement increased. Eric's heat was palpable, the sound of his shallow respiration sexier than a moan. B.G. had to stop kissing Charity then because he couldn't catch his breath. She must have known Eric was there, but she looked only at him, her palm petting his cheek, her eyes big and shining.

"I love you," she whispered. "You have your own place in my heart, and it's just as important as his."

He couldn't doubt her. He understood exactly how she felt.

"Ditto," he said, or tried to. He was sounding a tad asthmatic at the time.

She must have understood him, because she laughed.

"Are you ready?" he asked, and she nodded with endearing eagerness.

As he lowered himself back into position between her legs, Eric sat close enough that his naked hip pressed Charity's shoulder. His erection was high and pulsing, each snaking vein etched by a master pen.

"He is pretty," Charity said, noting B.G.'s distraction.

At the comment, Eric's cock gave a little bounce, clearly liking both their attention. B.G. felt as if he were acting on his friend's desires as much as his own. He pressed forward automatically, only stopping when her folds closed around his crown. At this singular pleasure, B.G. remembered he didn't want to rush.

Neither, apparently, did Eric. "I want to feel you go inside her… if that's all right."

"Be our guest," B.G. rasped back. "I don't believe either of us would complain."

Eric eased his arm between their bodies, brushing Charity's pubic curls along the way. When he reached the softness of her cleft, she twitched, then gushed against B.G.'s tip.

It was too much. Eric had bullied him into going without for too long. Doubly held by her body and by the circle of Eric's finger and thumb, B.G. pressed smoothly inside. The sensation of engulfment was exquisite, not only because here was this soft, wet, sexy woman, but because the soft, wet, sexy woman was her: a woman he loved and was loved by in return. What a gift that was. What a rare miracle.

B.G.'s eyelids drifted shut as shudders of bliss rolled down his spine. Eric must have known how close he was to losing control. His hold tightened painfully on his base, calming the warnings of imminence.

All of them stopped then, breath held, muscles tight, none of them wanting this treat curtailed. Charity was the first to relax.

"I think you can let B.G. go now," she said softly to Eric. "I think he's ready to move."

B.G. moved the moment Eric released him, deeply in and deeply out, savoring every millimeter of every stroke. He loved the way Charity squirmed beneath him, growing stronger and wilder in her impatience.

To torture a woman with slowness was his idea of paradise, her sighs of longing his favorite accolade.

He reduced her—finally, wonderfully—to growling with frustration and amusement. She rolled their clinched bodies over, the bed so big they were in no danger of falling off. When the rotation finished with her on top, he was still inside her, a victory she seemed to enjoy.