Oliver (5 page)

Lucas focused on the food, not the woman sitting next to him. It was excellent, of course. He expected nothing less of Oliver. The man was magic. The golden touch came with being well-informed. Within twenty-four hours, Oliver would ferret out every piece of information there was to find about them, and that could come back to bite them both. As much as he loved Merideth, Lucas wasn’t sure he wanted to get caught in the fallout. There were some things too painful to share, even with a man who held their personal future in his skilled hands. Like their promise to be all the other needed. A vow doomed from the start, because neither of them had the skill or motivation to carry it through. Oliver was going to pick that one apart. He’d already started. He’d most likely known their failures long before they’d made them.

Lucas’s stomach knotted. Eating no longer appealed, not that it had in the first place. He set his fork down and reached for his drink.

“How many of those have you had?”

She had nerve, asking that.

“Too much? Not enough? I don’t know right now.” Lucas didn’t care either. It took courage to walk into the lion’s den. It took even more to walk away. He wasn’t sure he could do it a second time.

Yet you can walk away from Merideth?

He took a sip of Scotch to cover the bitter laugh that welled up. There wasn’t much to walk away from.

“If you needed relief, why didn’t you come to me?” he asked.

Merideth reached for her wineglass. Her hand trembled as she picked it up. “It would have been too awkward.”

“And this isn’t?”

“You came to me.” She took a long sip.

Lucas leaned into her space, one arm braced on the counter, the other on the back of her chair. “And that’s what scares me the most. Where would you be if I hadn’t? You’d quit your job, for God’s sake.”

“Not quit, on sabbatical.”

“At least you care enough to argue the point.” It showed she had some life left in her, though not much. It gave them something to work on. Lucas hoped it was enough.

“You’ll be sharing my bed tonight.”

The tone of Oliver’s voice left no doubt he wasn’t talking about sleep. So it began—that hot-and-hotter dance of bodies coming together and straining to reach the stars. Merideth would be like molten glass between them once more, not the elusive quicksilver Lucas had lived with after they’d left Oliver. Their interlude on the sofa proved that. It’d be grand and glorious. And afterward…

Lucas didn’t want to think about it. He’d take what he could get and worry about
afterward
when it came. Or maybe he wouldn’t worry about it at all. This wasn’t about him. It was about helping Merideth rediscover the inner Domme and playful switch that had once shimmered beneath the surface.

For someone else’s pleasure.

Lucas set his glass down a little too hard. Liquid sloshed onto the counter with the thud. Merideth started, but it was so brief an action he would have missed it had he not been watching. She kept picking through the pasta, targeting vegetables, as if nothing had happened.

“I can clean this up if you’d like to leave.”

Meaning that she either wanted some alone time or was stalling in the hope they’d be asleep before she joined them.

“Very well.” He leaned close to her ear as he stood. “Don’t be long. This is Oliver, remember? If you expect to get any help from him, you play by his rules, not your own.”

Eyes downcast, she turned her head his way. “And what about your rules?”

Lucas brushed his fingers up her arm. “I’m leaving everything in Oliver’s very capable hands.” It was simpler that way, less stressful. And God, how he’d missed it.

He cupped her shoulder, absorbing the shiver that wiggled through her. “Despite our personal failure, I have always been there for you, Merideth, and I always will be. Like Oliver, I won’t rest until the men who did this to you are found and punished. Even if I have to do the punishing myself. They will pay.”

That brought her head up, her eyes on his.

“I’d do anything for you.” He drew idle circles over her shoulder with his thumb.

“If I believed that, I wouldn’t have found myself in that situation.”

Truth cut to the quick, but the sword could slice both ways. “You found yourself in that situation because you were careless.”

He put a step between them. On impulse, he curled the tip of her braid around his finger. “People change. I’m no exception. You’ll get everything you need to heal. What you do with it afterward is your business.” Because he wasn’t going to stick around long enough to get his heart stomped on again.

“Don’t be long. Oliver isn’t the only one whose patience is being tested.” He was halfway up the staircase when she finally responded.

“I’ve changed too. I’m not the woman I once was, and frankly I don’t think I want to be.”

Lucas stared down at her. She stood at the foot of the stairs, her robe slightly agape. “Then why are we here? What is it you want?” he asked.

She slowly shook her head. “I don’t know anymore.” Shoulders slumped, Merideth returned to the kitchen.

Lucas waited until she began clearing the dishes and then continued up the stairs before temptation dragged him back to her side so he could prove to her—and himself—how much he’d changed. He took the stairs two at a time. Fired up, determined…scared of screwing up, of jumping back into the fire that was
them
. Someone was going to get burned, and it was most likely to be him. Again.

He jerked to a stop in front of Oliver’s open door. A deep breath shored up his nerves. A flex of his shoulders, a crack of his neck…

“Should I be frightened?” Oliver called out. “Or just very excited?”

Lucas’s light laugh led him into the room. “Dare I hope a little of both?” Oliver sat in bed dressed in gray silk boxers, his long legs stretched before him, a tablet in his hands, reading glasses perched on his nose.

“One crack about the glasses, and I’ll have you bound to a cross and a flogger dancing over your skin so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

Lucas stripped off his shirt. “Talk about being frightened and excited at the same time.”

Oliver grinned. “Flattery will get you anything.”

“Including your help?”

“You already have it.”

“Thank you.” Lucas doffed the shorts and stretched out on the far side of the bed in his boxer briefs. “The house looks amazing. I’ll expect the grand tour tomorrow.”

Oliver shut down the tablet. “I’m sure you can case the joint on your own. I’ll need some alone time with Merideth. You can amuse yourself.”

Lucas folded his arms behind his head. “I remember when we first saw this place. You said you’d have it one day, ‘By hook or—’”

“‘By crook,’” they finished together.

“And in the end, it was a perfectly legal transaction.”

Lucas didn’t doubt otherwise. He and Merideth were there the day Oliver’s fortune came his way via the death of a grandfather Oliver barely knew. The shock, the responsibility, the obscene amount of money. It was the only time Lucas had ever seen Oliver rattled.

“You did good with it, Oliver.” Helped others reach their dreams and potential. Lucas included.

“I tried.” Oliver slipped the tablet and glasses into the nightstand drawer.

Lucas glanced his way. “Lonely at the top?”

Oliver gave him a noncommittal shrug. “Let’s just say I’ve learned to surround myself with trusted individuals.”

“So I’ve heard.” He rolled to his side and braced his head on his hand. “An inner circle that’s almost tripled over the last year. How long before one of them shows up to kick my ass?”

Oliver grinned. “I’ve warned them off. For now.”

“They have any information on which group hurt Merideth?”

“Not yet.”

Lucas met his gaze. “I’m with you on holding them accountable.”

“Good to know.” There was a beat of silence before he continued. “You didn’t know the extent of her injuries.”

Lucas shook his head. “Only that she’d been hurt and had become reclusive.”

“The two of you didn’t last long as a couple.”

“Barely six months.” The admission twisted his heart and what little pride remained buried in his soul. “How do you want to proceed here?”

“You follow my lead. Do as I say.”

A curt instruction that gave Lucas untold relief.

“What is it you want out of this experience?” Oliver asked him. “Not what you want for Merideth, what you want for yourself.”

Lucas struggled for an answer. “I didn’t think beyond helping her. Now that we’re here… I don’t know what I want, or if I want anything at all.”

He turned his head to gauge Oliver’s reaction and found him watching the door where Merideth stood, toying with her robe belt.

“And you?” Oliver asked her. “What do you really want?”

She raised her chin a little higher and walked to the foot of the bed. “I thought I was—”

“We’re setting boundaries and rules,” Oliver said. “Something you’ve neglected or forgotten entirely. I will have my question answered.”

The flash of defiance faded from her expression. She dropped her gaze to the mattress. “I want to be myself again. The problem is, I don’t know who that self really is anymore.”

“Then let’s see if we can help you find the answers you both need.”

Merideth shot a glance to Lucas and then another to Oliver as he swung from the bed and walked her way. She backed away a couple steps. “I’m not in the mood for more discipline.”

Lucas couldn’t tell if that was fear or anger in her eyes. Oliver smiled and brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek.

“This moment we’re about to enjoy has nothing to do with discipline. This is about pleasure, about becoming reacquainted at a leisurely pace.” He hooked his finger through her belt, slowly releasing the knot.

“You’ll…you’ll be having your way with me.”

Her softly spoken words raised Lucas’s cock. A glance at Oliver’s crotch revealed an equally hard erection straining for freedom.

“Or…you’ll be having your way with us.”

Oliver turned her to face Lucas and peeled her robe down her shoulders. He refused to look at those hideous red scars marring her once beautiful back and focused instead on the nipples thrusting out through her short white nightgown.

“Look at that beautiful man stretched out before you. Look how he aches for your touch. How in the world could you possibly resist when you know he’s yours for the taking?”

Lucas dragged his gaze to her face. Her eyes were glazed with a lust he thought had died ages ago.

“I can tell you like that idea.” Oliver leaned close enough to lick the pulse throbbing at her throat. Her breath caught. Her eyes closed. “Show her what she’s been missing all these years.” Her eyelids drifted open.

Keeping his gaze riveted on hers, Lucas pulled his underwear down and off his legs. He fisted his hand around the base of his erection and stroked just enough to draw a lubricating drop of precum into his grip.

“Impressive as always, isn’t he?” Oliver pressed his palm against her belly. “Remember how he used to feel inside you? How that upward curve of his cock used to hit you in all the right places? Give him a peek of what he wants.”

He inched her nightgown up until Lucas could see the auburn curls at her crotch.

Oliver lifted her arm in a loose hold. Goose bumps dotted her skin as he made his way toward her hand. He folded his fingers over hers and guided them to her pussy.

“Show him how wet that makes you.”

Lucas squeezed his cock to stop the rush. Oliver was a master of seduction. A skill Lucas had learned and executed very well…with every other woman except this one. Now he understood one of the reasons why. He’d been afraid of her judging him against Oliver and finding him lacking. In the end, he’d sealed his own fate.

No more
. This was his chance at redemption. Not in Merideth’s eyes but his own.

Her middle finger slipped between the cleft of her body. He got a glimpse of her ripe clitoris before the rest of her hand hid it. She dipped inside and drew out a glistening digit. Oliver lifted her hand until he could burrow his nose into her palm.

“Heavenly.”

A long sweep of his tongue traveled over her palm and up to the tip of her finger. Oliver inhaled, then sucked it into his mouth. Lucas’s balls tightened. He shifted to his knees and crawled forward. Oliver wedged his knees between hers and parted her labia for Lucas’s mouth. He latched on without hesitation, sucking the hard flesh between his lips, reveling in her deep-throated groan and the way she pivoted into his face.

Lucas dug his fingers into her ass cheeks, holding her in place while he sucked and tunneled his tongue into her heat. She dropped her hands to his head, tugging frantically at his hair. At some point, he realized Oliver had stepped away. He heard a drawer slide open, the rip of a condom package. The mattress dipped ever so slightly with Oliver’s weight.

Merideth’s juices covered his face. Tension locked her thighs. She gripped his hair, her groans falling upon him like a benediction from the sex gods above. He felt the quiver of her approaching orgasm and sucked harder. Merideth thrashed into him. He loved the way she unconsciously tried to take control. Loved it too much. It was all he could do to remind himself this was about her, not him. That this was another way in which he’d failed her.

He delivered a stinging slap to her butt cheek. “Be still,” he ordered around a mouthful of clit.

Merideth whimpered and ground once more. That earned her two more smacks.

She groaned and arched forward. “Oh please,” she gasped.

Lucas growled and sucked harder, spanking each time she tried to take over. It took every ounce of self-control he had not to fuck the bed and come with her. Lucas clutched her to him in the throes of her orgasm, drawing her to the bed before her legs gave out. But he gave her little time to rest.

“Oliver’s waiting for you.” He kissed his way up her torso. “And you remember how impatient he can get when he’s kept waiting too long.” He rolled her to her belly and the shrouded cock waiting to fuck her.

Oliver clasped her wrists and gently pulled her over him. Merideth crawled astride his body, but it was Oliver who moved her into position. He seated himself in a slow plunge that bowed her back. Then he drew her into his arms and spread her butt cheeks in invitation.