Party of Three: A H.O.T. Cops Novel Page 2

  And as for this mysterious gift of his—well, it would have to wait because she’d just decided there was no time like the present to have her way with her man. She boldly sat up, turned, and moved to straddle his thighs in the hammock. The netting beneath them wobbled and tilted, and for a second she feared it would flip them, but then it steadied, bringing her confidence back at the same time.

  “Uh, what’s going on?” he asked, clearly jarred—but still a small, sexy smile reshaped his face as his hands came to rest on her denim-clad hips. She liked the feel of his eyes on her.

  All of me. I want you to have all of me. The words echoed through her as she spontaneously stripped her tank top off over her head, revealing a pale yellow bra with peach polka dots underneath. “I think I’m ready for some of that hot and nasty I was promised,” she replied, taking on a sexy pout.

  In response, Ethan’s fingers splayed across her hips, then glided smoothly downward to stop high on her blue-jean-covered thighs. She felt every fingertip like a pinprick of electric heat. “Mmm, I like when you get aggressive,” he said. “And I hope you still feel just as ready after I tell you about your present.”

  Oh, so he was back to the mystifying present again, huh? But she refused to let that get in the way of what she wanted right now, so she ran her palms up under his T-shirt, onto his muscled stomach, even as she asked, “Ever gonna end the suspense on that?”

  When he squeezed both her thighs, she felt it between her legs. And his eyes twinkled warmly as he said, “Why don’t you lie back down with me for a minute and I’ll fill you in.”

  She lowered her chin, slanting a questioning look in his direction. This required lying back down? Stopping her mid-seduction?

  A sigh left her, and yet—even as stopping killed a little of her arousal, the strange secrecy going on here kept the spot between her thighs humming with anticipation. Anticipation of sex mingling with anticipation of the unknown.

  Ethan eased her back down beside him, cradling her in his arms to say, “Do you remember that night last summer—that night when we had too much to drink and started talking about fantasies?”

  She nodded. It had been an evening a lot like this one: warm weather, good wine, and a quiet dinner for two that had led them on a walk to a park, where they’d ended up cuddling on a bench. Intoxication had gotten them laughing at first, and then touching and kissing—and then Ethan had asked her what her most secret sexual fantasy was. “It’s okay, whatever it is,” he’d told her.

  And she’d slowly, quietly admitted that in the darkest, most private parts of her mind … she sometimes wondered what it would be like to be with two men at the same time.

  He’d asked her questions. “Do you want to have two cocks inside you at once?” “Do you want to be the one in control or do you want to have that taken away?” “How much have you thought about this?”

  And she’d answered—with vague replies mostly, because her fantasies had been just that: vague. Not entirely formed. Undetailed. The truth, she’d told him, was that it had started with a dream—she’d woken up remembering she’d dreamed about a threesome with two guys. “And sometimes I think about it because it turned me on, but at the same time, I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable thinking about it—you know?”

  He’d grinned, clearly pleased, aroused, by her sharing that. “Think you’d ever really want to do it?” he’d whispered.

  “Only … under some perfect circumstances that I can’t even really imagine,” she’d told him honestly. And that had pretty much ended the conversation. Though they’d had really good sex afterward, back at home.

  So now, after a long hesitation, she finally answered his question. “Um, yeah, I remember. Why?”

  “Well, what if I told you,” he answered slowly, reaching to skim his knuckles ever so lightly down her chest, between her breasts, “that for your birthday, I’m giving you your fantasy?”

  Mira’s mouth dropped open as the blood drained from her face. “You’re what?” she whispered.

  He spoke low, direct, but kindly. “You heard me.”

  Lying on her back on the thick netting with Ethan peering down on her, she simply blinked, still not quite able to believe her ears. She felt like someone else, in some other place, time—her whole world transformed into something surreal she didn’t quite recognize. “But … but …”

  Yet her lover only smiled—and it was perhaps the surest, most confident and in-control smile she’d ever seen on his face. “Don’t freak out, hon,” he said softly. “Just trust me.”

  But Mira suddenly couldn’t breathe. And the sun that had lulled and relaxed her all afternoon now began to make her sweat, even as it dipped quietly toward the horizon through the trees to her left. Finally, she managed three words. “I don’t understand.”

  At this, Ethan bent to lower a kiss to her forehead. And despite everything, even just that one chaste little kiss made the crux of her thighs tingle hotly. “Listen, relax,” he told her. “Relax and let me explain.”

  He sounded so calm, so rational, that it did relax her. A little anyway. Maybe she’d misunderstood what he was saying. Maybe he meant something else entirely.

  “I know I haven’t been a great boyfriend lately,” he began. “And I know it’s driven a wedge between us. I want to fix things, Mira. I want to make things right. I want to prove that making you happy is my top priority, starting now.”

  She still just blinked up at him, taking in his features, everything handsome and sexy about him. She’d always loved his olive skin and his dark hair, black as night, traits left over from an Italian ancestry that had faded in name a generation or two ago but showed up in his family’s coloring. Now that dark hair stood out in bold contrast to the soft greens and browns above him, the trees that nestled their weekend hideaway and made it feel so deliciously remote. But the moment continued feeling utterly unreal—especially as he went on.

  “I thought a lot about how to prove that, what I could give you to make up for how wrapped up in my practice I’ve been.”

  She felt the need to interrupt. “You don’t have to give me anything more than this, just spending time with—” But he pressed gentle fingers over her mouth, quieting her.

  “I know that, but … I guess I wanted to make a grand gesture, something big. And so … I thought about your fantasy.”

  Yes, it had been vague, but she’d told him as much about it as she could that night—it was about having two cocks inside her at once. It was about being caressed by two pairs of male hands, having her body kissed by two men’s mouths. It wasn’t about control—keeping it or giving it away. But it was about … maybe being a little overwhelmed. In a good way. With masculine power. With sex itself.

  “And I want to make it come true,” he continued. “I want to give you that. I want you overcome with pleasure. I want you to have orgasm after orgasm in a way I could never make happen on my own.”

  Mira blew out her breath, poleaxed by the very idea. Strange how fear and stark desire could mix. And they both swirled inside her now as she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that he was offering this to her. Not as a fantasy, but as reality. Even though they weren’t those kind of people. They were mainstream, middle-of-the-road; they were dependable and responsible. Yes, a little dirty talk in the bedroom—but that was about as kinky as it got and she’d always been perfectly pleased by what they shared. “We have great sex,” she felt the need to remind him. “Mostly, I mean.” Maybe not so much lately, but back when things had been good between them, the sex had, too.

  “I know we do,” he told her, now cupping her cheek in his palm. “But I want this weekend to be … something beyond normal for us, beyond great. I want it to be something new, something extreme, something that’ll bring you more pleasure than you can even imagine.”

  Okay. It was beginning to sink in that this was really happening, that he was really planning on this. But he didn’t know her as well as he thought if he didn’t realize …
“Ethan, I can’t have sex with just anybody. I mean, you know I haven’t been with many guys.” She’d always been in serious relationships. She’d never had a one-night stand in her life. And she’d never been intimate with anyone she hadn’t gotten to know first. For her, good sex was about trust, about knowing the person you were with. “So I can’t imagine who on earth I’d really want us to …”

  “Rogan,” he said simply—and that was when another tremor shook her world.

  Oh Lord. Rogan Wolfe was … well, God, what wasn’t he? Ex-boyfriend, tough cop, bad boy to the bone—and the man who had taught her to love sex. She’d never told Ethan that part about her relationship with Rogan, but while before him she’d liked sex just fine, with him she’d found her true sexual being, and she’d loved how much he’d drawn that out of her. In fact, she credited her good sex life with Ethan—well, before its recent decline—in part to her time with Rogan.

  Still, she was stunned to hear this was who Ethan had in mind. “You don’t even like Rogan,” she pointed out.

  At this, though, her boyfriend just shrugged. “We get along all right.”

  The fact was, Ethan and Rogan went back a long way, all the way to police academy and the Hostage Ops Team on which they’d been placed and where they’d trained together, both having shown a particular aptitude for handling hostage situations and other similar crises. And she’d always been keenly aware that, in some aspects, the three of them were closely, weirdly intertwined.

  She’d met Rogan when he’d joined the Charlevoix Police Force when she’d been in her mid-twenties. She hadn’t even known Ethan yet, but he and Rogan had worked together on the force and even now they still played on the same summer softball team.

  And what had led Rogan to charming Charlevoix on Lake Michigan in the first place? He’d been looking for a new position and, after reaching out to the other H.O.T. members, who’d kept in touch over the years, Ethan had let him know there was an opening there.

  So she’d have never even met or dated Rogan if not for Ethan’s involvement in bringing him to town. And maybe she’d have never met Ethan, either—even though they’d both been born and raised in the Charlevoix area—if she hadn’t started coming to Rogan’s softball games when she’d been dating him. It was funny how much of her world had been shaped by the actions of these two men.

  “Getting along isn’t the same as liking,” she pointed out to Ethan. Because despite the things they had in common, Rogan and Ethan were very different. Almost like night and day in ways. And despite them both being part of a tight-knit group of old friends who got together once or twice a year, apart from the H.O.T. affiliation, they weren’t at all close. They might drink a beer together with the rest of the team after a game, but otherwise they didn’t socialize with each other.

  And so the fact that Ethan was suggesting bringing Rogan into their relationship in such a radical way felt at once ironic and … almost fitting. Almost—dare she think?—like a thing that made sense on some level, a thing that was supposed to happen.

  “I can like him fine for a weekend,” he told her. “And he was the only guy I know who I thought you’d be comfortable with. For this.”

  This. The mere word brought her back to the matter at hand, the threesome he’d suggested—and she swallowed sharply, the leftover taste of wine in her mouth now turning a bit stale. The fact was, if Ethan had gone so far as to select Rogan, her ex, to join them in his threesome plan, it meant that he’d really, seriously thought this through. It wasn’t some off-the-cuff idea he’d concocted a few days ago. And it meant … “Um, does Rogan … know about this? I mean …”

  “Of course he knows. He’s on his way here right now.”

  “Holy crap,” she whispered. Because this made it … real. Really real.

  And he was already on his way? When there was so much to consider, so many questions to ask?

  “Ethan,” she began, “what if … what if you would think of me differently afterward? I mean, how could you not think of me differently?” Because a woman who could do that, who could be with two men at once … well, Mira had never seen herself as that woman. Even after her dream and the hazy fantasies. Doing it wasn’t the same as dreaming it. If she did this, she would be changed, forever. She would be different, a different person, at least in ways, than she was now.

  “I won’t,” he told her. Again, as always with Ethan, all confidence. And it assured her once more that he really had thought this through, but …

  “What if you’re wrong? What if I do this and … and it kills something between us? What if somewhere deep down inside you, it … makes you think I’m slutty? In some ugly way. What if you can’t help it? I mean, once we do this, we can’t take it back.”

  He narrowed his blue gaze on hers and she realized that … Lord, the fear and desire from a few minutes ago both ran deeper now, fuller. She could almost feel the two conflicting emotions consuming her at once. Was she really considering doing this? Could she? And not just from a morality standpoint, but … could she overcome her trepidation enough to pull it off? To be that sexual? That self-assured? When deep inside she was scared to death?

  “Look, honey,” he said, his voice going tender, “I understand what you’re saying. But I’ve thought about this a lot. I thought about it for weeks. And the fact is … it’ll be a gift you’re giving me as much as one I’m giving you.”

  She blinked, and her voice came out light, high-pitched. “Huh?”

  A solemn sigh left him as his eyes sparkled darkly on her at the precise moment the sun shifted in the sky just enough to immerse them in shade. “The fact is, the more I thought about it, the more it excited me. The more I realized that I want it, too.” His voice went deeper then. “I want to see you that way. With another man. And with both of us at once.” Her skin flushed with warmth at his words. “And once we share that, it’ll bring us even closer.”

  Mira’s heartbeat pulsed all through her body. Her cheeks, fingers, breasts, tingled with odd heat. She hadn’t thought about it like that—that it could somehow pull the two of them closer together, that it could bond them in a whole new way.

  And somehow … somehow that began to make it feel … possible. Like a thing she could maybe, really do.

  Just then, he leaned over her, the heat of his body warming hers, his palm curving around her neck as he whispered deeply in her ear, “Tell me you want this as much as I do.”

  She bit her lip, her pussy pulsing against her blue jeans. Did she? Did she want this? “M-maybe,” she heard herself stutter. “I … I think,” she went on. Then, “Yes. Yes.”

  She’d heard herself say it. So it must be true.

  Chapter 2

  Ethan paused from where he stood cleaning the grill to peer down through the trees to the dock. Mira sat there, her back to him, knees drawn up in front of her, looking out on the water. The long brown hair he loved spilled down her slender back in natural waves, and damn, even from behind she was gorgeous. One glimpse reminded him that he was a lucky man.

  He wished he could read her thoughts. But hell—maybe it was his own fault if he couldn’t. Because it was true that he’d been too absorbed in his work lately and had started taking her for granted. He hadn’t been paying adequate attention to her or spending nearly enough time with her. So if he didn’t feel quite as in tune with her as he once had, he had no one to blame but himself.

  It embarrassed him to remember that it had taken his mother to point out the problem to him. It had been on Easter at a big family gathering at his parents’ house. Mira had been busy playing with his nieces and nephews, hiding Easter eggs, helping the younger ones find them—and he’d watched it all from inside the house, where he’d retreated to block out the noise while he spoke to another attorney on his BlackBerry about a trial starting the next morning.

  It had seemed important—it was important. But when he’d approached Mira later, after the eggs had all been found and she was helping his mom and sisters in the
kitchen, she’d seemed distant, leaving him irritated—something that had begun to feel like a pattern in their relationship lately.

  “It’s only because she misses you,” his mother had said, her voice low as she came up behind him after Mira walked away.

  He’d turned to look at her. “Huh?”

  “You used to treat her like a princess.”

  He’d been pretty dumbfounded and even a little annoyed that his mom was sticking her nose into this. “I’m still just as crazy about her,” he pointed out, feeling defensive. “But other things matter, too. I work my fingers to the bone, you know.”

  His mom had simply tilted her head, giving him a long, hard look. It had reminded him of times when he was a kid, times he’d been in know-it-all mode and she’d been getting ready to quietly, calmly set him straight. “She never asked you to.”

  He didn’t get her point, though. “She never asked me to what?”

  “To work your fingers to the bone. To change your career. And I’m proud of you for following your heart and working so hard—I really am. But I see it from her side, too. She used to have a man who made her feel special. And I’m not sure she has that anymore.”

  And when he hadn’t answered, just standing there trying to absorb her words, she added softly, “You should be careful, son. Remember, balance in all things. And right now, I’m not sure you have that. If you love her and don’t want to lose her, you might want to rethink your priorities.”

  Until that moment, he’d never really thought about the possibility of losing Mira. They were that solid. Or at least he’d thought they were until his mom had piped up and made him start wondering.

  He labored damn hard, doing work that mattered to people and affected their lives, and he wanted to be appreciated for that. And if he and Mira had been growing apart lately … well, maybe he’d turned a blind eye, just hoping she would adjust to the changes that had taken place since he’d traded in his badge for a briefcase. But the idea of losing her … he supposed that had woken him up in a way nothing else could.