Sliding a hand up my body, he cups my breast and tweaks the nipple. The insides of my thighs become stubble-burned, and my inner muscles build in the spasmodic contractions.
His eyes lift to mine, and he presses his lips harder against me, pushing me closer, faster along the rising tide of pleasure.
“Cole!” I jerk against his mouth and tug at his hair, writhing on the couch as everything inside me surrenders. “I’m coming. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
He sucks and nuzzles until my moans wane and my body goes slack.
I’m still trying to catch my breath when he crawls between my legs. The sound of his zipper speeds up my pulse as his fingers trace my soaked, overstimulated lower lips. Then it’s not his fingers. It’s the fat, plump head of his hardness. He slides it through my wetness, circling my clit and making me squirm.
For a second, I think he’s going to slam it in. But instead, he pulls back and straddles my hips.
His jeans gather beneath his ass and stretch across his sculpted thighs. No underwear, of course. The length of him juts from the open fly—thick and veiny and jerking for release.
“I give you permission to choke me with that.” I peer at him from beneath my lashes.
He groans and wraps a hand around his cock. “You know that look you get when you’re being sweet and innocent? Me neither.”
Then he bows over me, braces his weight on an arm beside my head, and proceeds to stroke himself off.
His eyes connect with mine, his pupils blown and lips parted erotically. He’s so worked up he won’t last long. Too bad, because I could watch him like this for hours.
He’s a wall of muscle, not an ounce of fat on those chiseled bumps and valleys. His golden skin is smooth as silk with a dusting of hair on his chest and forearms. He’s a man’s man, a rough-and-tumble, sexual beast of a man, and if I told him right now that I’ll be his and only his, he’d fuck my lights out.
“Danni.” His strokes accelerate, and the rock of his hips stumble into an erratic tempo. “I’m going to fucking come all over your gorgeous tits.” His chin drops, but he doesn’t move his eyes from mine. “Fuck. Oh, fuck, baby. I’m there.”
I grip his denim-clad thighs, digging my nails in as he spurts milky white ropes of come across my chest.
Panting and spent, he collapses on top of me. Then he rolls us until he lies on his back. His possessive lips find mine, and he kisses me adoringly while grabbing my ass aggressively.
I sprawl across his chest and lick inside his mouth, relishing the taste of him. “I love the smell of my pussy on your lips.
“I love the feel of my come on your tits.”
“I love being sticky with you.”
“I love being with you. Period.” He clenches his hand on my butt and throws us into a kiss that erases the world around us.
It goes from rough to slow, from sexy to profound, and every notion in between. That’s what I get with Cole—the extremes, the middle ground, and all the perfect little moments in between.
He’s the song stuck in my head, the one that makes me dance until I’m knotted up in heartstrings.
If he’s my choice, if this is my decision, it doesn’t come in a bang of fireworks. It’s a whisper in the back of my mind—a faint, tiny voice reminding me what I knew the moment I met him.
He’s my first and last love. It’s him. He has to be the choice.
But what if I’m wrong?
At the very least, it’s something, a feeling to explore and try out.
I have to be sure.
I spend the next two months trying to determine if my future is my past, if my first love will be my last. Mentally, I’ve made a decision. But my heart hasn’t clued in yet.
Damn my flaky heart.
And damn Trace. He’s the reason I’m all twisted up and turned inside out.
When I’m alone with Cole, I find a certain peace at the center of my flustered thoughts. We fish on his boat several times a week. We go shopping, jog on the trails, and prepare meals together. And we dance.
I taught him the steps I choreographed for our wedding reception song, XO by Beyoncé. When he twirls me through the room—his posture strong, footwork confident, and eyes glittering—fuck me, but I’m a fool for him. I love him with all the love that exists in the world.
Until I’m alone with Trace. He hasn’t danced with me, but whenever I ask him what he wants to do, his answer is always the same.
I want to watch you dance.
And boy, does he watch. His impossible eyes hold me in bondage as I freestyle dance, pole dance, belly dance just for him. When we’re not spending our one-on-one time in the studio, we’re on the couch or in the bed, watching movies. The man is a cuddler. Not in a warm, fuzzy, isn’t-he-adorable way. More like a get-your-ass-over-here, I’m-restraining-you-with-my-arms way.
Today, the three of us are at an indoor shooting range a couple towns over. I shot a few of the guns Cole brought from his armory. Some bullets hit the paper target. Most curved around the paper and spit at the sloped berm on the back wall. I might’ve accidentally hit the target in the next lane over, which sent Trace and Cole into an uproarious fit of laughter. Whatever. I tried and had fun doing it.
But not as much fun as watching them shoot lethal weapons.
Sitting on the bench behind them with plugs in my ears to muffle the gunfire, I have a glorious view of their backsides. They stand in their own lanes next to each other, sharing bullets, swapping guns, smiling, and seemingly having a good time.
I love to watch them interact. Cole grabs Trace’s attention when he wants the other man to see a target he shot or when he has a technical question about a gun. Sometimes, Trace stops what he’s doing just observe Cole firing down the range.
But there’s an undercurrent beneath the camaraderie. The competitive tension between them is thick. It’s little things—the rigidness in their postures, the cutting looks between them, the glances back at me. Since I’m not planning for a zombie apocalypse, I don’t care who’s the better shot. But it matters to them.
This is a war, Danni.
I didn’t have a good understanding of Cole’s comment those first few days at the lake house. But after living with them for two months, I get it.
We’re still sharing a bed at night, and they haven’t crossed the sexual boundaries they set in the beginning. It’s as if they’re using the temptation of sex to undermine each other’s steadfastness and determination to be the better man.
Blow jobs? They won’t allow it. They seem to accept the fact that I’m engaging in cunnilingus with them both. But evidently, neither of them can stomach the idea of me putting my mouth on a cock that’s not his own.
Or maybe something else is going on. Maybe they’re playing a game to see which one can hold out the longest, as if it’s some kind of determining factor in who I choose.
Is it? Would I have more respect for the one who didn’t base a relationship on sex?
I think I would.
This isn’t a war of fists or blood. It’s a war of character and willpower, of psychology and heart. They’re fighting each other on an emotional level, without words or physical force. While I sense the nuances of an ongoing battle, I wonder how much rivalry goes on that I’m not savvy enough to pick up on.
It’s up to me to end this.
Trace told me at the start if I knew my decision, we would all know. And that will be that.
If I really want to over-analyze his words—which I have a propensity to do—does know my decision mean know in my mind or know in my heart? Because I think my mind knows, but I haven’t discussed it with them. They’re still carrying on like we’ll be here, floating in limbo, for another four months.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to prepare myself for a quicker resolution, starting with subtle attempts to shut out Trace. Sometimes, I force myself to not respond to his affection Sometimes, he notices and steals my breath with a brutal look. But he never says a word.
Can he read my thoughts? Or is he looking for deeper clues? Clues that tell him my heart belongs to another? If it’s the latter, he’ll be looking for a while. Maybe forever.
I think I’ve been spending too much time in my head. So much so I’m starting to annoy myself.