The Gift of Three Read online

  Dom was taller and broader than Alec, and his skin was a shade or two lighter. The breadth of Dom’s shoulders nearly filled the doorway. Powerful biceps flowed seamlessly into corded forearms that testified to the manual labor Dom put in every day on a local construction crew. Alec slowed his pace, utterly distracted by the view of Dom’s back.

  Alec had never wondered why Dom always wore a shirt. There’d been hints of a tattoo at the neck of his T-shirts, but Alec hadn’t thought anything of it. Ink was common enough. Ink like this was something else altogether. There was a spectacular black-and-white rendering of the grim reaper centered on his spine. The reaper’s scythe stretched across Dom’s shoulder blades and formed a wicked curve. A talented artist had tattooed the words JUDGE NOT on the line in Roman block letters.

  “Fuck,” Alec whispered.

  Dom paused to look at Alec over one massive shoulder. “You coming, pretty boy?”

  Yeah, I intend to. Alec knew his world had just flipped on its axis. He’d spent all season fixated on being with Thea. But gazing at Dom’s magnificent ass and muscled legs sent a foreign shot of arousal through Alec’s belly. This was his chance to be with two sexy lovers at once. No strings, no expectations, just intense pleasure shared between all three of them. The mist in the shower room parted, and Alec stepped inside, feeling as if he’d entered a dream world where anything could happen.

  “Beautiful,” Dom said in a gravelly voice.

  Alec was inclined to agree. Thea was standing in the spray with her blonde hair in wild disarray over her shoulders. Her face was lifted, water running over her closed eyes and between her pert breasts to follow the line of her belly before traveling on down her long legs. Her hips were narrow, her mound shaved bare and on display for their viewing enjoyment.

  Alec met Dom’s gaze. They’d never shared a woman before. Alec didn’t even have any notion of how this was supposed to work. Still, it didn’t feel awkward. His imagination was painting a picture of what could happen, and Alec wanted to follow his imagination’s prompting.

  Thea turned her head and pegged them both with an impatient glare. “Well?”

  Dom’s sensual grin did strange things to Alec’s libido. He shoved that thought in a box to deal with later and entered the spray with one thought on his mind: to bring Thea pleasure.

  DOM DIDN’T KNOW what was happening. He’d understood when he’d been competing with Alec for Thea’s affections. That made sense, but the situation didn’t feel like that anymore. Alec’s stares had shaken something loose inside Dom’s soul, and he wasn’t entirely sure where that was leading.

  Alec wasn’t shy about his body. Dom had seen enough of his friend over the years to know that much. He’d teased Alec in the past about looking for any and every excuse to rip off his shirt and showcase his wicked set of abdominal muscles. Each groove looked cut from stone. His dark-brown skin was a perfect complement to his build. His shoulders were lean, his slim torso like that of a consummate athlete, and his ass was firm with not an ounce of excess on it. Still, this was the first time Dom found himself unconsciously violating the unspoken rule of the showering male.

  He couldn’t keep his gaze from sliding toward Alec’s cock.

  Dom had seen plenty of dicks over the years. It was always in a guy’s periphery, even if he told himself he wasn’t paying attention. Alec’s was different. His pubic hair was short and sparse and looked soft as a woman’s. The testicles between Alec’s legs were a study in textbook symmetry, a perfect counterpoint to the length of his cock hanging long and firm against his left leg.

  As Dom watched, Alec’s erection began to arch up toward his belly. Dom didn’t have to look to know his own equipment was following suit. He could feel the intense pressure of blood pooling in his groin, his dick bouncing against his lower abdomen, as if trying to drum some sense into him.

  Then Thea turned to face them, obviously inspecting them both. A mischievous smile turned her expression impish. “Definitely worth the wait.” She put a finger to her lips in an exaggerated motion. “Wonder where to start?”

  Dom felt instead of saw Alec’s intentions. As if they’d choreographed it earlier, they moved toward Thea and surrounded her water-slick body with theirs. It was heaven to finally place his lips on her pale skin. Dom kissed her right shoulder, laving his tongue over the hollow at her throat before reaching up to cup her breast. On her other side, Alec followed in perfect synchronicity.

  THEA DIDN’T BELIEVE they had rehearsed this, but it seemed entirely possible. She was lost to their touch. Their hard bodies enveloped her, their hands stimulating her to new heights of arousal.

  With Alec on the left and Dom on the right, she didn’t lack for attention. Dom’s fingers plucked at her pebbled right nipple while Alec lowered his head to use his teeth and tongue on the left. Her knees wanted to buckle, but the men held her steady between them. She arched her back into the contact. Dom brushed her throat with his lips before claiming her mouth in a searing kiss of possession.

  Thea moaned and let herself go. She became nothing more than the quest for satisfaction. She reached out and connected with hard male flesh. She didn’t know whose it was and didn’t care. Her nails skidded across a hip, the fingers of the opposite hand sliding down a muscled belly toward someone’s cock.

  Dom groaned, suggesting it was his dick beneath her hot hand. Alec settled his teasing mouth over hers as she palmed Dom’s shaft and learned its every contour. He was satin skin over hard steel and huge. It entered her mind to try to swallow him whole, but she wanted more.

  Thea didn’t do demure or cutesy. She didn’t know how. Forcing her brain to form words, she pushed them past her lips. “I want your dicks in my mouth.”

  Two male gazes settled on her, their uncanny dark eyes full of desire. Thea sank to her knees and took a cock in each hand. She was almost giddy with the bounty. It’d been so long since she’d had a man, and now she had two. She wanted so badly to get this right because for the first time in her life, she felt as if it mattered.

  She stared up the lengths of their bodies to their faces. Wondering if she was pushing them too far, she took both their cocks into her mouth at once. The fullness was magnificent. Dom thicker and longer, Alec harder and wonderfully responsive. She sucked them both as if she would never again have the chance.

  She traced the veined surface of each man’s shaft with her tongue. Then she pressed them together with her hands and sucked the heads. They made guttural noises of pleasure and arousal. Their bellies flexed and rolled as she took their cocks into her mouth until she nearly gagged. She swallowed around them, milking them with her throat and letting her teeth lightly scrape their skin on her way back up. The power of their combined need sent her to the next level of wantonness. Her pussy was soaking wet with her juices.

  It was Dom who called a halt. “Enough.” He grabbed her head between his hands. “I want to come inside your pussy, not your mouth.”

  “Did you bring condoms?” Alec’s voice sounded strained.

  Dom’s big frame shuddered. “Fuck.”

  Thea plowed through the haze of lust in her brain. She stared up at them from her place on the floor, almost overwhelmed by their presence. “I don’t let my lovers come inside me anyway. I’m clean, and I’ve got the pregnancy thing covered. I believe you if you say you’re clean. You can fuck me and pull out.”

  Something in Dom’s expression suggested he didn’t like that answer. She could only hope he was willing to overlook it for the moment. He tugged his cock out of her hand and stepped away.

  Thea was suddenly afraid he was leaving. Her confidence faltered, and she struggled not to give in to the darkness of insecurity. Casting about for something to hold his interest, she gathered her legs beneath her, stood up, and bent over. Dom’s low noise of appreciation soothed her fears. She arched her back and spread her legs to invite him closer.

  Alec inhaled sharply. “Sweet Christ, Dom. She’s begging for your cock.”

&n
bsp; “Beautiful girl.” The words were punctuated by Dom’s hand on her ass. He stroked her cheeks before sinking his fingers into her slit.

  The intimate touch felt better than she could have imagined. Dom was unbelievably gentle. He held her pussy open with his fingers while the round head of his cock teased her entrance. She shuddered in response. Her hold on Alec’s shaft tightened. She placed a teasing kiss on the tip of his penis and shot him a hooded gaze before swallowing him to the back of her throat.

  “Hell, I can’t hold back anymore.” Dom impaled Thea in one long stroke. “I want to watch you suck Alec while I’m inside you.”

  His erotic words added another layer of titillation, and Thea cried out with the intensity of her desire. She clung to Alec’s thighs, her nails scoring his flesh. He threaded his fingers through her hair and began moving his hips to thrust in and out of her mouth. He was muttering soft words in Spanish that she didn’t understand, but the husky tone of his voice was like a physical caress.

  Friction built between them—Dom in her pussy and Alec in her mouth. She lost all sense of self and sank into the primal ebb and flow of sex. Until the perfect moment when the heat pooled like fire at the base of her spine, and she unraveled in an earth-shattering climax.

  DOM’S BALLS TIGHTENED as Thea screamed her release around the cock filling her mouth. He felt his own climax riding him hard. He didn’t want to pull out. He wanted to imprint Thea with his essence and leave it there to mark her as his, but that wasn’t his choice to make.

  His lungs nearly burst when he jerked backward with a monumental effort and let his seed spill across Thea’s lower back. It looked wrong. The white fluid dribbled over her side, where it fell to the shower floor and joined the water streaming toward the drain.

  “Fuck me, I need to come.” Alec’s words were harsh in the close, tiled room.

  Dom gazed at his friend, noting the tension lines bracketing his mouth and eyes. Alec was bordering on desperate, though it was damned impressive he’d held off this long. Thea was still clinging to Alec’s midsection with his cock in her mouth.

  Dom gently tugged Thea to her feet. “Come here, sweetheart. Let’s give Alec a chance to fuck your pussy.” Since he could feel her knees shaking, he kept her propped against his body. Dom pulled her arms up around his neck and lifted her off the ground. “Come on, Alec, it’s your turn to give her an orgasm.”

  With Dom cupping her ass and Alec holding her legs, Thea was suspended between them. Dom grunted when he realized the intimacy of his view. He watched Thea wind her legs around Alec’s waist. Alec penetrated her slick sheath, the root of his cock brushing the spread hood of Thea’s clit.

  There was a certain undeniable magnificence to the sight. Dom focused on the way Alec held Thea’s narrow hips so gently while he thrust in and out of her body. Her breasts bounced with each movement, and she made tiny noises of pleasure. Dom could see her climax building. It began with the tension in her thighs as she gripped Alec tightly. Then the undulating contractions rolled through her belly muscles. Her whole body convulsed with the power of her release. Dom soaked up her reaction, reveling in both her and Alec’s responsiveness.

  It was in the back of his mind to wonder why he was so attuned to Alec’s pleasure. The way his friend’s familiar features contorted as he shut his eyes and let himself dance so close to the razor-sharp edge of ejaculation.

  “I’m there. Fuck, I’m there,” Alec panted. “I can’t pull out, Dom. Help me.”

  Dom swept Thea’s slender body all the way into his arms and pulled her pussy away from Alec’s cock. He registered the regret on his friend’s face. Alec fisted his dick and pumped until a thick stream of white semen spurted from the tip. The agonized expression was one Dom could wholly comprehend.

  Thea began to laugh, the sound incongruent with the circumstances. Bemused, Dom gazed down at her lovely face and wondered if they’d fucked her silly.

  She inhaled deeply. “I’m not sure how the two of you expect me to choose one of you after that.”

  Her words hit their mark. Dom lifted his gaze to Alec’s and saw his own thoughts mirrored there. There was a choice to be made. At least, that was how it was supposed to be. And how the hell was the loser supposed to keep putting one foot in front of the other after being denied heaven?

  Chapter Three

  Thea gazed into the bathroom mirror. She’d been holed up inside her garage apartment, trying to get ready for tonight’s party, but she just wasn’t feeling it. Now she was trying to apply eyeliner with a hand that wouldn’t stop shaking. She was fast beginning to think she was losing her mind.

  Talk about your classic backfires.

  There hadn’t been a lot of lovers in Thea’s life, but there’d been more than a few. Never had she come away from a sexual encounter feeling so simultaneously satisfied and let down. It was one big confusing morass of doubt, and Thea didn’t know where to begin trying to unravel it.

  Okay, so begin at the beginning.

  It should’ve been simple. Thea had loved every damn minute of the experience with Dom and Alec. There was no questioning that. So why did she feel so unfinished?

  “Ugh! I’m such a twit!” She threw the eyeliner to the counter, where it clattered across the flat top and wound up on the floor. She glared at her reflection and smoothed her hands over the black fabric of her dress. “Letting guys fill you with a big wad of cum is just a bad idea all around.”

  There was a certain amount of power and control in forcing her lovers to pull out. She’d had semen on her belly, her back, and even on her face once or twice. It wasn’t always her favorite experience, but it felt good to make a man respect her boundaries, even when he was almost out of control with lust.

  She leaned forward, bracing her weight on the countertop and gripping the edge until it cut into her hands. Why was it different with Dom and Alec? She shut her eyes and tried to excise the unwelcome mental images from her mind. Images of Dom straining into her as he pumped her full of his essence, of riding Alec’s cock until she felt the hot eruption of his orgasm inside her body. What would possess her to even imagine such things? And why now of all times?

  A knock on the front door made her jump. She was feeling grumpy and out of sorts, a total deviation from the postcoital bliss she should’ve been experiencing. She didn’t really want to attend the Mistletoe Madness tournament wrap-up. Her brother had rented out the bar downtown and planned to throw a Christmas Eve party and award ceremony at the same time. Personally, Thea was getting a little tired of Jax scheduling every single event at McKinloch’s Pub just because he and Ossian McKinloch had become inseparable besties in the last few months.

  Another knock, this one more insistent. Thea frowned at her reflection and shut off the bathroom light. “Calm the fuck down. I’m coming!”

  Thea swung open her front door and glowered at Jax. He was dark where she was fair, his tousled black hair a wild contrast to his blue eyes and olive-toned skin. She often wished she’d gotten the dark hair, since there were so many blondes in the world these days.

  “You look nice,” Jax said with a smile.

  Thea reached for her clutch and wrap before slamming the door. “You say it like you’re surprised.”

  “It’s just a compliment.” Jax’s voice was tinged with irritation. “Can’t you just take a compliment for once and not get pissy about it?”

  “Yeah, not really.” Thea didn’t bother reminding him that the older she’d gotten, the more she’d realized that most compliments could be double-edged barbs. She only thought they were genuine until someone used one to make her feel like shit.

  Jax grabbed her arm and began steering her toward her car. “Fine, whatever. Let’s go.”

  “What, no motorcycle?” she asked, her voice dripping sweetness.

  He opened the passenger door of her truck. “You really want to ride downtown on the back of my Ducati with this subzero wind chill? I always thought you were smarter than that.”


  “People say I’m a stone-cold bitch. Maybe I won’t feel it.” Thea pulled the door closed and gave him a sarcastic smile through the window.

  Jax ran around and slid in the other side. “You know, you don’t have to act like a bitch. You could be nice.”

  Sometimes Thea considered it. She met people like Dom and Alec, who made her believe for a moment she could let down her guard. Then something would happen. She would try to show interest in a guy, but it would backfire, and she’d wind up looking like an idiot. Getting burned multiple times made her realize there was no place safer than the spot behind a wall of bad attitude.

  * * * *

  Alec wasn’t in much of a party mood. He was still trying to figure out exactly what had happened earlier that afternoon in the locker-room showers. Everything should’ve been fine—normal, in fact—especially since there hadn’t seemed to be any postsex awkwardness. The three of them had finished their shower and gone their separate ways as if nothing had changed. In fact, they’d had what amounted to an epic water fight that involved swapping the hot and cold water and then howling with laughter when Dom had come away with scorched butt cheeks.

  That was actually the problem. The doubts had come later. When Alec was getting ready for the party and he’d realized just how much he was looking forward to seeing Thea and Dom again. Alec would’ve expected to feel some anticipation where Thea was concerned. He was hoping for another chance to demonstrate why she should choose him. But there wasn’t any reason Alec should’ve been thinking about Dom. They were friends, sure, but this bordered on something else.

  Or maybe I’m just paranoid.

  There was a massive holiday wreath adorning McKinloch’s front door. The bells gave a jingle when Alec walked in. He wasn’t feeling particularly merry at the moment but smiled at the hostess anyway.