Joyful Engagement Read online

  “Am I going to get a chance to play?”

  Scarlet shot him a glance, grinning wickedly. “You’re the one who picked ‘truth’.”

  Tate narrowed his eyes. “Ask me again.”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s my turn to be asked.”

  Roman chuckled. “Fine. Truth or dare, Scarlet.”

  Scarlet grinned as she winked at Tate. He started to move closer, ready to accept whatever dare Roman might issue. If only he knew her well enough to know she always got even. “Truth,” she said.

  Tate leaned back against the toilet tank, not bothering to restrain the growl that escaped. The first thing she’d noticed about Tate when they’d been introduced was the size of his arms. The man was seriously built. The second thing she’d noticed had been his sexy, deep, smooth as silk voice. She was fairly certain Tate could actually “talk” her to an orgasm without having to lay a single finger on her. Normally the sexiness of that voice was offset, somewhat, by his playful personality. She wanted to hear that voice when he was so turned on that he was near the edge of his own control.

  The idea of Tate losing control, his hands rough, big arms flexing as he pushed her down over the bed, where Roman would be waiting to grab her, hold her down…

  Roman crossed his arms, giving her a sinfully wicked smile that told her she would have been smarter to choose a dare.

  “When you fantasize about the two of us fucking you, who’s where?”

  Scarlet didn’t even bother to demur. “Tate is fucking me while I give you a blow job. But that’s only after both of you have gone down on me and given me a few dozen orgasms.”

  Roman arched a brow and grinned, but Tate didn’t even crack a smile. “Someone dare me to go down on Scarlet. Right now.”

  “We should start with undressing,” Roman said primly, but he was reaching for her.

  “Do it,” Scarlet said, her hand already in Roman’s as he pulled her up to help her out of the bathtub. None of them hesitated to return to the bedroom despite the torturous song. They’d trashed the room, the box spring still on its side, the mattress stripped of all blankets and sheets. Not that they needed any of that.

  The bare mattress was more than enough to accomplish this dare.

  Who was she fooling? The game was over.

  Her response to Roman’s question had been the truth. And while they’d only known each other a few weeks, her initial physical attraction to them had given way to full-blown desire as she got to know them better.

  Tate reached for the hem of her shirt, yanking it off her in one quick, smooth pull. Roman shifted behind her, unhooking her bra, which landed on the floor with her shirt. Tate and Roman each pulled off their own shirts, the pile of clothing growing as they each added their jeans, then her panties, and their boxer briefs.

  “Get on the bed, Scarlet,” Tate said.

  She dropped to her knees on the mattress, her eyes locked with Tate’s.

  “Beautiful,” Roman murmured as he reached out to run his hand over her hair. “Lay down. On your back.”

  She was already halfway there, too impatient to play coy, to pretend she wasn’t exactly where she wanted to be.

  She lay down in the middle of the mattress, gazing up at the two sexiest men she’d ever seen. Roman and Tate knelt on either side of her, looking but not touching. It was as maddening as it was arousing.

  When neither man made a move to advance the game, she parted her legs. “Dare you,” she whispered.

  Tate responded as if she’d fired a shot from a starter pistol. He shifted until he knelt between her outstretched thighs, reaching beneath her knees to lift her legs, opening her even more.

  Roman remained next to them, his gaze following Tate’s movements.

  She gasped at the first stroke of Tate’s tongue against her clit. Then he swept it along her opening, prompting her to moan. Tate was a man of action, and he didn’t seem compelled to ease her into anything. His thumbs held her open as he licked and nipped and stroked. Scarlet writhed beneath him, unable to hold still under the tantalizing assault.

  Roman continued to watch but didn’t seek to join in. It appeared their mild-mannered accountant was a voyeur at heart. She started to reach out, anxious to take his thick cock in her hand, but Roman moved backwards, shaking his head.

  “The dare involved a few dozen orgasms this way first.” His comment captured Tate’s attention, and he lifted his head for a second to see what had prompted it. Satisfied with what he saw, he bent down once more, but this time he pressed his tongue inside her.

  Tate gripped her upper thighs, holding her tight to the bed, helpless to do anything except give herself over to him. She was right on the precipice of coming when she realized Tate’s tongue was fucking her in time with the beat of the song. The pace was intense, manic, amazing.

  Lick my clit, do do, do do do do. Lick my clit...

  Chapter Five

  Roman watched as Tate drove Scarlet out of her mind, certain he’d never seen anything so incredibly sexy in his life. Reaching down, he firmly gripped his own dick at the base and slowly stroked the length of it.

  Up and down. Up and down.

  The pace never increased even as Scarlet got closer and closer to her climax.

  Her expressive, beautiful face was flushed red, as was her upper chest. The name Scarlet was suddenly quite fitting. Her body had begun to gyrate in time with Tate’s tongue, with the beat of his fingers inside her. She thrashed her head from side to side, drawing his attention to her long auburn hair. He longed to reach over for a handful of it, desperate to see if it was as soft, as silky as it appeared.

  The power of this moment was not lost on Roman. Scarlet had asked Tate during the game if he’d been “practicing his ménages.” Tate answered affirmatively. If she’d asked the same of Roman, his response would have been different. And perhaps that would have surprised both of them.

  After all, he was a legacy of the Trinity Masters. He’d known what his future would hold in terms of how many people would be in his bed since his initiation when he was just twenty years old.

  And if they’d questioned his reasons for not engaging in threesome sex before today, his answer would have been simple.

  Time and opportunity.

  He’d had neither.

  Roman was what charitable-minded friends would call driven. Those who didn’t feel the need to be as kind about it—like his mother who worried about him constantly—would have said he was a workaholic. He’d spent the last fifteen years of his life focused solely on his career because he could.

  Being a member of the Trinity Masters freed him up from the pressure of actively seeking a life partner, of having to date, of having to divide his focus between his personal and his professional lives. He’d climbed the ladder at work quickly because, unlike his colleagues, every bit of his attention was on the job.

  However, as he knelt on the edge of this mattress, watching Tate and Scarlet, he wondered if perhaps his reasons for not “practicing” were actually the result of fate intervening, distracting him until this moment in time when so many pieces finally started to feel like they were falling into place.

  It was a romantical, fantastical explanation, and Roman internally shook his head at himself for even thinking it. He was a numbers man, the type of person who went through life with both feet planted firmly on the ground. He believed in things he could prove through mathematics, through logic, and he had never—never—used destiny or fate to explain anything.

  But as he looked at Scarlet and Tate, it seemed very much as if he was staring his destiny right in the face. And some of the annoyance he’d been feeling toward his cousin for trapping him in this room, torturing him with this horrific song, started to melt away.

  Was this what she’d felt the first time she’d seen Luca and Oscar?

  Scarlet’s back arched as a low, keening cry escaped her lips. Her eyes were closed tightly, and for a moment, it looked as if every bit of the air in h
er body had been drawn inward, unable to escape, much like a black hole pulling in light. And then, it exploded in one loud expulsion as she came.

  Roman had lived a privileged life. He’d seen the Northern Lights, witnessed the sun setting over the brilliant blue-green water of the Caribbean Sea. He’d been surrounded by a million vividly costumed performers, his world awash in color, as he danced on the streets of Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval.

  None of that held a candle to Scarlet in the throes of an orgasm.

  Then Tate lifted his head, his mouth and chin shiny from Scarlet’s arousal, and Roman realized there was no end to the beauty in this bed.

  Roman shifted without thought, his actions driven as if by rote, though this was something he’d never done before. He grasped the back of Tate’s neck, propelling the other man forward, desperate to kiss, to taste.

  Tate admitted to taking part in threesomes before, and given his lack of reticence and the way he moved closer to Roman, gripping his hips to pull their lower bodies closer, it was obvious this wasn’t the first kiss the former Marine had shared with a man.

  Yet it was another first for Roman.

  This time, his excuses had nothing to do with time and opportunity but rather attraction. He’d never met a man he had wanted to kiss. And that fact had caused Roman more than a few sleepless nights as he considered what might happen if the Grand Master had placed him with a man and a woman.

  He tried to console himself with the fact his own parents consisted of two hetero men who shared a wife. He’d never seen his fathers kiss and suspected they’d never had sex with one another. Rather they were best friends—practically brothers after so many years of marriage—who shared, who loved, the same woman. Roman would have been perfectly fine in that type of marriage, but he’d been cognizant of the fact there was always a chance he would be paired up with a bisexual man, one who would want more from their marriage.

  He’d feared that because he’d never experienced any desire for another man.

  Until now.

  Until Tate.

  Tate’s mouth opened and Roman accepted the invitation, the taste of Scarlet on the other man’s lips. It was heady, delicious, and it awakened something almost wild, feral, primal inside Roman.

  In the past, sex had been about meeting certain goals and outcomes, and all his actions were precise, calculated to achieve that end goal.

  There was none of that now.

  Now, there was just a need to take and be taken.

  He sank his teeth into Tate’s lower lip, swallowing down his lover’s hiss of pain before caressing it away with his tongue. Tate responded to the roughness in kind, digging his fingers into Roman’s ass hard enough to bruise.

  Several minutes passed as he and Tate fought for dominance during the kiss. Though perhaps fighting was the wrong word. They weren’t opposing factions, squaring off against each other, rather they were on the same side of the battle, marching together, a band of brothers, working toward the same goal.

  Roman pulled away first when he felt a slight shift on the mattress, his attention drawn to Scarlet.

  She remained on her back, but she had lifted her upper body up, her weight supported by her elbows. Her gaze was locked on him, on them, watching intently, her eyes missing nothing. It was one of the things that had attracted Roman to her in their very first meeting. She, like him, had an eye for detail.

  He’d been touched by how much thought, how much care, she’d put into planning his cousin’s wedding, a wedding for three people who were strangers to Scarlet.

  “So hot,” she whispered as she looked at them.

  Tate’s charming grin reminded him of the friendly, laid-back guy Roman had met in Boston. One night over dinner, Tate had explained the purpose of the Warrior Scholars and his role within the group. And while Tate had also shared some stories of his experiences as a Marine sniper, Roman hadn’t been able to see the soldier beneath the good-natured, gentle man kicked back in the booth at the Hawthorne, drinking a glass of Scotch.

  That impression had changed when they’d arrived in Charleston and Oscar had emerged with the stun gun. Since then, Tate, the warrior, had shown up and taken control of the mission—attempting to break them out of the room, deadening the sound of the music as much as possible, talking them through SERE.

  And now...as the three of them crossed the line from friendly acquaintances to lovers, he was seeing yet another side to the man—sensual, confident.

  “Lay back down,” Tate said to Scarlet. There was no mistaking the commanding—demanding—tone of his voice. It was dark, sexy, almost sinister, and Scarlet wasn’t the only one affected by it. Her nipples budded and if Tate weren’t still kneeling between her legs, Roman suspected she would have squirmed, would have pressed them together in an attempt to calm the fire he’d stoked.

  Scarlet dropped to her back once more, her quick, obedient response going against what Roman suspected was her true nature, to await further instructions. Scarlet was no submissive. Roman would bet his life savings on that.

  Tate gestured to her breasts. “Pinch your nipples. Get them nice and hard, ready for Roman to suck on. Don’t hold back, either. I’ll know if you do.”

  Scarlet lifted her hands, cupping her breasts, before pinching and pulling on the nipples roughly, her lips tipped upwards in a come-hither smile. While she was content to obey for now, Roman was certain she would make a few of her own demands before all was said and done here.

  His attention was pulled away from Scarlet when Tate cupped his cheek, turning his face back to him. “Open up,” Tate said, pressing two of his fingers into Roman’s mouth. “Get them nice and wet.”

  Roman gripped Tate’s wrist as he sucked on his fingers. He may not be experienced in this realm, but he knew exactly where they were headed next. When Tate started to pull his fingers out of his mouth, Roman tightened his grip, holding him in place as he ran his tongue suggestively over the length of them.

  “Fuck,” Tate breathed. It took him a second to gather his wits before he placed his hand on Roman’s shoulder, relinquishing his spot between Scarlet’s outstretched legs.

  No instructions were necessary. Roman knew what Tate wanted because he wanted the same damn thing. He bent lower, lightly pushing Scarlet’s hands away so that he could take one of her nipples into his mouth. Roman sucked softly, slowly building the pressure until he hit that line where pleasure crossed over to pain, then back again.

  Scarlet’s breathing increased, and she whimpered every time he pushed her over that limit.

  He only had a few moments to enjoy her body before Tate distracted him, his large palm covering Roman’s bare ass. Then Tate ran his finger along the crack of his ass, an unspoken request for Roman to part his legs.

  Roman shifted, opening up to Tate. He continued to suck on Scarlet’s breasts, shifting from one to the other, but it was getting harder and harder to concentrate on that task as Tate ramped up the play below his waist.

  Roman jerked slightly when he felt the tip of Tate’s finger rim his anus. While the finger was wet, Roman knew there wasn’t enough moisture to keep up this sort of play for long.

  They’d been fools to start this without lubrication.

  Apparently Tate had come to the same conclusion. “Just my finger,” he said gruffly. “This time.”

  Roman lifted his head as Tate pressed in to the first knuckle. Scarlet’s eyes met his. Though she couldn’t see what Tate was doing, the intelligent woman was a professional when it came to reading his body language and his soft grunts as Tate burrowed that one finger even deeper.

  “So hot,” she whispered again.

  “Move up on the bed,” Roman said, ready to issue a few demands of his own. Scarlet shimmied beneath him, sliding upwards until her pussy was level with his mouth.

  “Looking for this?” she teased, her grin the perfect blend of sassy and sexy.

  Roman went down on her like a starving man diving into a steak dinner. He nipped, l
icked, and sucked, driving Scarlet to one orgasm, then another. Through it all, he pushed his hips back and forth as Tate drove one, then two fingers into his ass. Roman was in serious danger of coming and no one was even touching his dick.

  He fought hard to resist, unwilling to come this early in the game. There were still too many things he wanted to do with them...to them.

  Tate must have reached the same conclusion, pulling his fingers out just as Roman was about to lose the battle.

  “Ready for the fantasy?” Roman asked, crawling over Scarlet’s body until his dick was level with her mouth.

  “So ready,” she whispered.

  Roman glanced over his shoulder and saw Tate kneeling between her outstretched legs. Their eyes met briefly and they shared a smile, their expressions those of two men about to share an incredible experience.

  “Shit,” Tate said, glancing around the room. “Condom.” He started to move, intent on grabbing his jeans, but Scarlet stopped him.

  “I’m on the pill. And clean.”

  “Are you sure?” Tate asked, though there was no denying the hopefulness, the delight in his voice. “Because I’m clean too.”

  “Me too,” Roman added.

  “So sure,” Scarlet said. “Come inside me.”

  Tate reclaimed his position, guiding his cock to her opening. That was all Roman saw before he turned back to look at her. Scarlet grasped his dick, stroking it a few times before parting her lips and taking him inside.

  Roman bent forward, his hands on the floor above the mattress, giving him purchase, as he shifted his hips, taking Scarlet’s mouth as Tate took her pussy.

  When he felt himself getting close, he looked back and realized Tate had adopted his pace, the two of them moving in tandem, their rhythm matching that of the goddamn kid’s song. Although his climax approached, he wasn’t so sure he minded the beat that much after all.

  Scarlet was the first to go over, though Roman suspected that was because she’d already come three times and her body was over sensitized, on system overload. Her cries were muffled by his cock in her mouth, the vibrations of them, shoving him into the abyss with her. Tate was mere seconds behind them, his quiet, almost pained curses filling the air.