Full Position (3 page)

Ned dropped down into the chair across from Justin and considered the past six years. He’d convinced himself that Bella had captured his attention with her talent as a graphic artist and she’d earned his friendship because of her quick wit and straight-shooting, no-nonsense approach to life.

But now he realized it wasn’t those things that had captured and held his attention at all. The blinders had fallen away, opening him up to a weekend spent fantasizing too much about their pretty young artist. She was a submissive, and she’d been obeying him in very subtle, sexy ways for years. That idea had kept his cock hard for days. He’d jacked off more times than he could count since Friday—his dick was actually sore—and he’d slept precious little.

Justin’s idea of claiming her, seducing her, trying to win her heart, had driven him nearly insane with lust and longing. Ned liked to consider himself a practical, reasonable man, but nothing about Bella felt rational. He’d been walking around since that damn happy hour like a man holding on to a live wire. He knew he should let go, but he was addicted to the shock, the current. He needed more.

Then he’d run into her this morning—literally—when he had stepped off the elevator. Her fresh, floral perfume and the slight pink hue that touched her cheeks had sent him from soft to erect in an instant. The way she lowered her eyes for just a split second—she’d obviously done a bit of fantasizing this weekend too—when he apologized for bumping into her made him long to touch her in extremely inappropriate ways.

Ned had never felt such a powerful lure to anyone before. Typically he was able to control the Dominant lurking beneath the surface, keeping the beast contained until nights when he could unleash him in the sex club…with true subs who longed for his commands.

But it wasn’t simply his physical needs driving this overwhelming attraction. Bella was intelligent, determined to succeed and funny. Her sense of humor rivaled Justin’s and the three of them had spent many late nights at work as she and Justin traded cutting, witty barbs.

Bella wasn’t a doormat. She wasn’t weak or easily controlled. While she may have submissive qualities, she wouldn’t accept them. In fact, he suspected she’d wage quite a battle against them, which poked the beast even more.

For the first time since meeting her, Ned struggled to remember Bella’s place in his life. She was an employee, a friend, not a sub or a lover. Friday night, Justin had turned on a light, blinding Ned and making it impossible for him to find the switch to turn it off.

“I’m amazed we didn’t notice her submissiveness right from the start.” Justin pulled his feet off the desk, leaning his elbows on the surface. “She was all but smacking us in the face with it.”

Justin confessed he’d recognized what was lurking beneath the surface about six months earlier, but he’d dismissed it. Ned had to hand it to Justin. His friend had hidden his feelings well.

“She doesn’t know she’s a submissive.”

Justin shrugged. “Maybe not, but it’s still there. It would only take a Dom—or two—to expose her to all that she’s missing. Not understanding something about yourself doesn’t mean it’s not who you are. You should know that. How many years did you struggle with your stronger sexual urges before you discovered BDSM, before you realized exactly what was missing for you in the bedroom?”

Too many years. Ned had been raised in a very conservative, religious home. As such, he’d never even heard of bondage or sadomasochism or Doms and subs until Justin found a sex club on the outskirts of the college campus during their senior year. While they’d indulged in countless threesomes prior to that, Ned had never realized how much more was out there. Justin had dragged Ned there one night and in three hot, eye-opening hours, Ned’s entire life changed.

Justin was right. Not understanding his urges hadn’t made him less Dominant. It had only confused and frustrated him. It was clear Bella was feeling the same way. After all, hadn’t she confessed as much at happy hour? She knew something was missing, but she didn’t know what.

“I’m not disagreeing with you about Bella’s submissive nature. We both know it’s there. And I’d love nothing more than to expose her to everything she’s missing, but Justin, she works for us. We’re her bosses.”

Justin waved his hand, dismissing Ned’s argument as unimportant. “That’s a lame excuse and you know it.”

“Not to her. Or to me. She uprooted herself and moved at least half a dozen states away from her family to work for us. She’s worked overtime in her personal life to switch from the mentality of small-town girl to the frenzy of the French Quarter. She won’t risk losing this job. Not easily anyway. And I don’t want to put her in that position.”

Ned stood again, his circuit back and forth across the room starting anew. Walking usually helped him think, but right now, his thoughts were a jumble—desire and common sense working in direct opposition of each other.

“We’re not going to fire her, even if things do go south. Which they won’t.”

Ned closed his eyes and shook his head. Justin lived his life in a perpetual state of optimism. It was refreshing…and annoying as hell.

“Goddammit, Justin. There are a million ways what you’re suggesting could fail. If we do decide to go through with this—”

“
When
we decide to go through with it,” Justin interjected.

Ned released a long sigh. “If or when, I think we need to be able to answer all of Bella’s concerns—logically, practically. We can’t just look at her and say, ‘We won’t fire you.’”

Justin pulled a sheet of paper from the mountain of crap on his desk. Ned tried not to marvel over how easily his friend had put his hands on exactly what he was looking for. “Here.”

Ned glanced at the paper, his eyes widening. “A contract? For sex? You’re out of your fucking mind.”

Justin was undaunted. “Just consider what it’s saying. We’ll ask Bella to give us one night to experiment. It’s totally risk-free.”

“I’m not giving her that goddamn piece of paper to sign. Besides, I thought you were thinking lifetime, not one-night stand.”

Justin shrugged. “I’ll admit I’m struggling with how to get this ball rolling. I think once we start, once she understands what we’re offering and how perfectly the three of us fit together, she’ll be all-in. But, like you said, that first step is tricky. Thought the contract would ease the burden.”

Ned rolled his eyes, letting the expression answer the obvious. Bella wasn’t the type of woman who would agree to sleep with someone—two someones—in such a businesslike, emotionless way. While she didn’t have a problem with casual affairs, Ned knew her well enough to know she probably didn’t sleep with someone on the first date. She was the type of woman who would want to get to know her potential lovers well before taking the leap.

Ned rubbed his brow, trying to ward off the coming headache. “You realize we’re asking for too much. Even if she would consent to sleeping with the boss, we’re not asking her to take just one, but both of us. Then, on top of that, we want her to bend to our will in the bedroom—and beyond.
And
, just when we’ve dropped those bombs, we add the
forever
caveat at the end. It’s preposterous.”

“I disagree. Besides, we’re not going to walk out there to her cubicle and propose. That’s a little too impulsive…even for me.”

Ned had always chastised his friend for being impetuous, for failing to consider all the angles before jumping in with both feet. Of course, he also realized that was one of the reasons their friendship—and business—had flourished. They were polar opposites, but Justin’s spontaneity and Ned’s conservativeness seemed to blend in such a way that it could only be described as the sweet spot.

“Well, I’m glad to hear you’ve retained enough of your wits to make that call.”

Justin chuckled. “It’s not easy. My fucking cock has been rock hard since Friday night. Considered calling you to see if you wanted to hit the club to blow off some steam, but then I realized I didn’t want to have sex with anyone except Bella.”

Ned sympathized. The same had been true for him. “That doesn’t change anything. We still have too many problems to overcome.”

Justin’s brows gathered. He was obviously deep in thought over their predicament.

Ned’s mind was churning as well over the trouble they’d somehow borrowed without even asking for it. He took a strange comfort from Justin’s expression, from his friend’s determination. Justin had a stubborn streak a mile wide. When he saw something he wanted, Justin plowed forward.

Problem was, he rarely stopped to look left or right before barreling straight across the four-lane highway—and that was what concerned Ned the most.

“I’m not sure we have as many issues as you think.”

Ned sighed heavily. “Bella’s submissiveness is buried in a mountain of practicality. You don’t really expect her to simply jump into something so extreme and unorthodox as a committed ménage, do you?”

Justin picked up a pen, tapping it rapidly on the surface of his desk. “Actually I do. Because I think she’s experiencing the same conundrum as us.”

“Meaning?”

“She’s attracted to both of us and can’t figure out a way to choose. We’d be taking that problem off the table.”

Ned considered that, tried to reconcile Justin’s assertion with past evidence. It was amazing how clear everything was now that his eyes were wide open. There had been countless tells in the past. The way Bella would touch each of them, nothing inappropriate, of course, but it wasn’t unusual for her to reach out and lay her hand on theirs whenever they were laughing or worried about something.

And neither he nor Justin had been shy about returning those casual touches—offering a friendly hug whenever she got dumped or placing an arm around her shoulders whenever she created something truly amazing on the computer.

Then Ned spoke the one thing that concerned him the most. “I don’t want to scare her, Justin. I don’t want to freak her out so much that she goes away.”

Justin rose slowly. Something in Ned’s tone must have alerted Justin that he was weakening, that he was actually considering this idea. Ned was afraid he didn’t have any choice. Now that he was aware of his feelings for Bella, he knew himself—and Justin—well enough to know nothing would stop them. Not pragmatism or common sense or even fear.

“We won’t, Ned. We’ll plan it out. Take it slow. This will work. I really believe that.”

Justin’s confidence went a long way toward soothing Ned’s nerves. In fact, he felt a spark of hope emerging.

“It has to work, Justin, because failure isn’t something I can even consider at this point. I want her too badly.”

Justin released a short, almost sad snort. “Join the club.”

Chapter Three

“I need a favor, but I don’t want you to judge me when I ask.”

Justin looked up from his desk as Bella hovered in the doorway to his office. “I’m from New Orleans, Bells. I think it’s safe to say I’m as jaded as they come. Nothing you say will shock or appall me.”

Bella stepped into her boss’s office and closed the door behind her. She’d decided to approach Justin with her question as opposed to Ned for the very reason he’d just stated. Justin rolled with the punches and took everything in stride. He was easy to talk to and really funny. There was something totally attractive about a man who could make a girl laugh. Plus, he’d said something last Friday night at happy hour that made her think he could definitely provide the information she needed.

While Ned was a really cool boss, he was definitely more serious than his party-guy business partner. Plus there were simply too many times Bella went tongue-tied around Ned. He was quieter, more mysterious and sometimes, when he looked at her, she felt the overwhelming urge to rip off all her clothes and kneel in front of him.

Which was equal parts disturbing and weird and…well…hot.

Whenever she was around Justin or Ned, her nipples tightened and her face flushed. It had actually been like that from the beginning and she’d worked hard to overcome her racy desires. She was proud of her efforts—or had been. Her attraction to the two of them had gotten worse over the past few months—or hell, maybe even the last year. She wasn’t exactly sure when she’d lost control of this annoying schoolgirl crush on her bosses, but it was really starting to piss her off. She knew better.

She had thought she’d done a great job hiding her feelings. Bella actually prided herself on her poker face, but she feared she’d let it slip last Friday. As a result, she’d spent the past three days at work dodging Ned and Justin, while searching for some way to rein in her raging hormones. Unfortunately, they weren’t going anywhere. If anything, her body was in a constant state of sex-starved need. It was becoming painful.

However, she needed their help and time had run out. Bella took a deep breath and plowed forward with her request. “My girlfriend, Missy, is coming to visit tomorrow. We went to high school together and I introduced her to Tim, the new guy from accounting. They’ve sort of made this online love connection so now she’s traveling here for a face-to-face meeting.”

“Wow. Someone else managed to break free from the hold of Carlisle, Pennsylvania? I didn’t think anyone besides you ever
willingly
left that Mecca of the East Coast.”

“Very funny. You know, you really should visit there before you make fun of it.” Bella didn’t bother to hide how enamored she was of her hometown, frequently declaring it one of the best places on earth. Maybe to people who’d been raised in the Big Easy, like Ned and Justin, her little Podunk town looked boring by comparison, but she loved where she’d come from and she wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

Justin picked up a pen, tapping it on the desk in his usual way. “So Missy and Tim are checking each other to make sure neither of them is hooking up with a catfish. Cool. So what’s the favor, Bells?”

Bella tried to ignore how gorgeous Justin looked in his royal blue polo shirt. It matched the color of his eyes almost perfectly. Of course, he’d look a hell of a lot hotter without it…and the jeans, now that she thought about it.