Time to Pretend (36 page)

“Don’t you have to go to work?”

He expected her to check the clock, but she didn’t glance away from him. “I called in a favor and got someone else to take the morning part of my shift. We have until noon.” Her eyes sparkled in the dim light.

Zach was supposed to return to his parents’ house after school.

Evan had banked on it, planning a relaxing, sex-filled evening for the three of them. He had been after Daniel for months to tell Lainie about them. About six weeks ago, he had ramped up his campaign efforts. Evan was convinced she wouldn’t have a problem with it.

Daniel wasn’t so sure.

Daniel hadn’t protested much. He had faith that Alan Miles would flake on his son yet again. Even though it put off the inevitable, Daniel hated how it was going to crush Zach. He planned to take the boy to an action flick they both wanted to see.

He didn’t wait to be told twice, however, especially since he knew they weren’t going to have privacy that evening. Daniel stripped naked, tossing his clothes over the back of a nearby chair.

Evan squirmed and swore. “You are wicked with that thing, little lady.”

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Daniel slid onto the bed next to them, his gaze drawn to the place where he knew they were joined together. The sight of Evan’s cock never failed to excite him. Watching as it disappeared into Lainie’s wet and waiting pussy made him ache with ten different kinds of need.

Except that Lainie wasn’t sitting on Evan’s cock. His cock lay, limp and lifeless, near her pussy. She hovered just above his balls, her pussy pressing lightly against those sacs.

Leaning to prop himself up next to Evan on one elbow, he wrinkled his nose at the pair. “She’s wicked with what thing?” Lainie giggled again. He loved hearing that sound. It was different from her laugh, which was something he heard quite often now. Her giggle was wanton and wicked. It meant she was up to something, and he had learned to love when she was up to something.

Then he saw it. Splitting the delicate lips of her glistening pussy, the tip of a clitoral stimulator peeked out. Daniel had seen all of Lainie’s vibrators, though he hadn’t yet seen her use them, and he knew this one was a full-size model with an attached arm to stimulate the clit. That was the part he saw.

He reached out and put his finger on the vibrating protrusion, pressing it into her clit. Her smile grew, and a tiny moan purred from her throat.

This was what Evan meant. Daniel knew Evan liked to play with Lainie’s toys, but this was the first time they’d broken them out with him in the room. For his part, Daniel was a tactile person. He loved touching Lainie with every part of his body. If she was going to come, he preferred to be the direct cause. He didn’t need battery-powered help.

The vibrator did double duty. Lainie had situated herself so that it tickled Evan’s balls. She moved her hips, brushing it against different parts of Evan. Daniel chuckled. Without thinking, he slid his finger between the device and her clit, pressing the vibrator down harder on Evan’s sac.

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Evan bucked and swore.

Lainie giggled, her breasts shaking with delight. “He’s not ready for that yet, Danny.”

Evan turned his beseeching eyes to Daniel. “You could distract her, you know. I need about five more minutes.” She reached over and wrapped her palm around his throbbing shaft. “I know how you can distract me.” Daniel closed his eyes, enjoying the way her smooth palm worked up and down his cock. He knew what he wanted. She released him when he shifted and came to his knees. He snagged a condom from the drawer next to the bed and rolled it on.

Positioning himself between Evan’s legs behind her, he put one hand on her shoulder and pushed her forward. The hitch in her breathing told him so much. When Evan had first suggested she liked anal sex as much or more than she liked vaginal sex, Daniel had been skeptical. However, it only took once to make him a believer. Anal sex stripped her of all control, and her passionate responses bordered on violent.

Now Evan chuckled. “I love that look on your face.” He lifted his eyes to gaze over Lainie’s shoulder. Reaching behind Lainie, Evan grasped her cheeks and parted her ass. Lainie gasped and moaned.

“She’s about to come just thinking about it.” Daniel squirted some lube into his hand and massaged it up and down his covered cock. He wanted to take her with nothing between them, the way he did with Evan, but he knew she wasn’t ready for that yet. Or perhaps she was. Maybe it was Daniel who wasn’t ready for it.

He impaled her. His thoughts made him a bit rougher than usual.

He stopped, running a hand over her rounded hip. The vibrator hummed against the length of his shaft. When he and Evan were both inside her, Daniel got off on the fact that he could feel Evan rubbing against him as much as from the actual, physical sensation. He had
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never stopped to consider what it would feel like if she had a vibrator in her pussy.

Good God, he was going to die. His eyes rolled skyward, and he was powerless to stop them. His breaths were shaky, and he couldn’t force words from his throat.

Evan chuckled again. “I told you it feels incredible.”

“Yes,” Lainie said. Her voice trembled, and her back arched.

“Incredible. Now move. I need you to move.” He pulled out halfway, unwilling to completely abandon the sweet vibrations, and plunged back inside. She shouted, a high, thin sound of pure pleasure. She was tight and hot. Her muscles squeezed him viciously, and he knew he had touched off an orgasm.

“That’s it, Lainie. One more for me.” He pistoned his hips, pumping into her ass and abandoning everything to see to his own needs. She squirmed and bucked. Evan wrapped his arms around her to hold her steady and to prevent her from bashing her head into either of their faces. That black eye had been difficult to explain, though he had accepted more than one sympathy blow job from both of them.

The high-pitched noises she made came faster as she neared another climax. He gripped her hips and held her ass where he needed it. Looking over Lainie’s shoulder, he saw Evan’s lips move as he whispered licentious things into her ear. That particular turn-on was something Daniel had discovered.

His eyes locked with Evan’s, and he read the raw desire written there. It took every shred of restraint for Daniel to resist sandwiching Lainie between them while he captured Evan’s lips in a hard, hot kiss.

Blinding love pierced his heart with the realization that he could never live without either of these two people. It hit just before his climax pulsed through his cock.

Evan pushed his shoulder so that he fell to the side instead of collapsing on top of Lainie. He reached under her, extracted the toy, and turned it off. Alaina lay on top of him, a limp puddle of sexiness.

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Her face was turned toward Daniel, and he had no doubt the smile on his face matched the sated smile she wore on her lips. She lifted a lazy hand and rested it on his cheek. “I love you.” He melted completely, as he did whenever she looked at him like that and said those words. Energy returned to his limbs enough to lift his head. He kissed her with all the love and reverence in his heart. “I love you, too, Lainie.”

The ache echoing at the end of those feelings stabbed deeper. He wanted to say those things to Evan, too. He didn’t want to wait until Saturday, when they would attend a football game together that would afford them some precious private time.

Later, he made lunch. Evan’s sister called with some emergency only he could fix, and Alaina went to work.

Daniel didn’t have much he needed to do until the afternoon. In the past, he used to stop by Sophia’s house and hang out with her.

Now that she lived more than forty minutes away, it was no longer convenient. He dropped by his parents’ house instead.

His father was at work, but his mother was home. She ruffled his hair as he sat at the kitchen table.

“Should I bother to send your Christmas card to your apartment?” She poured cups of coffee for both of them and brought the mugs to the table.

He shrugged. His mail still went to the apartment. “I’ll get it either way.”

She sat at the seat perpendicular to his own. “Daniel, I want you to level with me.”

Since she often began conversations this way, Daniel did nothing more than give her his full attention.

“How serious is this thing with you and Evan and Alaina?” He sipped the coffee. “Serious.”

She tapped at the tabletop with one fingernail. “Serious enough for me to dig Grandma Zinelli’s rings out of the safety deposit box?”
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Gazing into the dark liquid, he looked for answers. The sounds and smells of his childhood always hit him full force when he was at his parents’ house. Admonitions and expectations replayed in his mind. Men married women and had lots of children. Nothing in his upbringing addressed his current situation.

“Daniel, you’re going to need to get them resized. Lainie is a tiny woman. Grandma had chunky fingers. If you’re planning a Christmas proposal, you need to be prepared.”

Though he had already done it once on the spur of the moment, he didn’t want to propose to just Lainie. Her one-word response put things into perspective rather nicely. Evan was an equal part of things.

He wanted to marry them both.

“Even if you plan to wait for, say, Valentine’s Day, there are a lot of good sales now. I have a coupon for a jeweler in Northville. Fifty percent off, but it expires December twenty-fifth.” Before his mother could draw another breath, Daniel held up a hand. Much like Lainie, Anna DiMarco was a force of nature. If he let her go too far down this path, there would be no turning back. Though she wouldn’t give up the topic, at least he could stall her a bit.

“Mom, I’m going to ask her, but now is not the right time.” She narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together. “Daniel David DiMarco, don’t tell me you’re afraid because she’s responsible for her brother. That boy needs a father like you. Or fathers like you and Evan. His own is inadequate.”

Daniel let out a long stream of breath. “No, Mom. I like Zach. I like having Zach around, and so does Evan.” Anna nodded knowingly. “You and Evan are fighting over who gets to marry her.”

Truthfully, they hadn’t discussed it. He and Evan were fighting over telling her they were fucking each other. He tried to make his smile more wry than rueful. “Something like that.” She stared at him with a strange expression on her face, and he didn’t want to know what she wasn’t saying.

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* * * *

The last karate lesson of the night was half finished. His student helpers were already wiping down the mats in the smaller practice room. Wednesday practice was cancelled due to the holiday. Daniel planned to set the crew on this room the second class ended.

When the bells over the front door chimed, Daniel didn’t think anything of it. Many parents left for the duration of the lesson, running errands or hanging out at the coffee shop down the street where he had drunkenly accosted Alaina.

The tiny sniffle caught his ear in a really weird way. He knew without looking that it was the kind of sniffle that accompanied crying, and he knew without a doubt that the sniffle came from Zach.

Only three months with the boy, and he already had Dad hearing.

A glance confirmed his suspicion. Zach sat on one of the plastic padded chairs lining the front of the room, his face buried in his sleeve. Alan Miles sat next to him. He leaned close to Zach’s ear, his hand making short, curt movements to emphasize whatever he was saying.

Daniel didn’t need to hear to know that the old man was abandoning Zach again. The bastard didn’t have the balls to face Alaina, so he brought Zach to the studio, hoping Daniel would wordlessly accept responsibility as he always did.

Not this time.

Daniel jerked a finger at his assistant, a community college student who had worked for him on and off for several years. “Take over.”

He strode across the room, anger rolling from him in waves so thick it rebounded from the walls and smacked against his body.

Alan looked up. His blue eyes hardened in response to Daniel’s threatening demeanor. “Alaina said to bring him here.”
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In the past, Daniel had put Zach’s emotional needs first. He had buried his anger and spent the evening soothing Zach’s hurt. Right now, he was too furious. He wanted to kick the shit out of Alan Miles.

The first time he met the man, he didn’t understand why Alaina behaved so passive-aggressively toward her father. Now he understood. She loved the man even though he was a crappy father.

“This way,” Daniel growled. He strode off, not bothering to make sure Alan followed. He half hoped the man stayed put. It would give him an excuse to drag him out of there. No doubt several well-placed blows would be necessary to subdue his adversary.

Alan had followed him. Daniel didn’t have an office, but the empty break room would do. He paused to let Alan in first.

The man was tall, a little taller than Daniel. His shoulders were broad. In his day, he had been muscular and toned. At seventy, he hadn’t let himself go too bad. A bowling-ball-shaped bit of paunch showed on his belly, but the man was remarkably slim elsewhere.

Seventy. Any other time, reminding himself of someone’s advanced age would be enough to quell the worst of Daniel’s temper.

He had been raised to respect his elders whether or not he agreed with them. He slammed the door, causing the wooden frame to shudder.

Alan sank into a chair. He adjusted his coat so that his seated position didn’t pull it down in back. Then he laced his fingers together and rested his hands on the table.

“I can’t keep him.” His gaze and his words were directed toward his hands.

“Then give him to Alaina. Make it legal. Stop jerking him around and making him think you actually want him.” That wasn’t what Daniel had intended to say, but once the words were out, he knew they were the right ones. It was far more productive to force his hand than it was to call him names.