Sutton knows what the problem is immediately. I can sense it in the way he embraces me, the way it turns from seductive to comforting, the way he seems to almost let me go. “Harper,” he says gently. “You’re so strong. It’s okay to need a break.”
“I want more than a break,” I say, full of grim, self-recriminating guilt.
It takes me twenty minutes with my eyes squeezed tight, building myself to act normal, act natural, before I can even walk into a room with her. And another twenty minutes muffling my tears into a pillow after I leave. I need one night with these men, because I know they can distract me. Even if they break my heart afterward.
He turns my hand over and threads his fingers through mine. “You can lean on us.”
Christopher leans back across the table. “Lean on us?”
“Yes,” Sutton says, his voice lower now. “We can help her through this.”
“I’m planning on it.” Christopher gives me a dark stare. “She didn’t come here looking for a shoulder to cry on. For that she would have gone to her friends.”
Sutton gives a mocking laugh. “As if you know anything about friendship.”
“I don’t.” A shrug. “But she didn’t wear that dress to talk.”
A stroke down my side, over the smooth red silk of my dress. Sutton must feel that I’m not wearing a bra. Or panties. He must sense the truth in Christopher’s words. Even if I told myself I only wanted to talk to Sutton, my body knew the truth. I came here to forget.
“Is that true?” Sutton murmurs against my neck, soft enough so only I can hear. “Do you want this? Because if you don’t, I can make him leave. I can take you home. Whatever you need.”
“What if I don’t know what that is?” I whisper.
Christopher stands with an animal grace. “Pretend you don’t want this, if it helps. That goes for the both of you. I’ll be the villain in this story.”
Every muscle in my body pulls taut as Christopher rounds the table. Sutton holds me tighter, almost painfully. I know he’d protect me if I wanted him to. I could probably cause a fistfight right now, and there’s a kind of power in that. Except maybe Christopher is right.
Maybe I want the power taken away from me tonight.
“Her wrists,” Christopher says, all lazy command. “Hold them.”
Sutton shifts like he might protest, like he might object to holding me in bondage, or maybe he’d only mind Christopher being the one to call the shots. Last time there were three of us in a room like this, it had been Sutton who gave the orders. Sutton who taunted the other man. He’d held me much like this, standing instead of sitting, my body between them, but he had been the one to give orders.
Large hands close around my wrists, and my eyelids flutter closed. A small sound escapes me, maybe from nerves, maybe relief. I’m already on display on Sutton’s lap. Having my hands behind my back makes it worse. My breasts push against the silk, the folds of my red skirt spilling over Sutton’s black slacks, a startling contrast. I have to pull my arms, only a little, to see if I can get away.
“You like this?” Sutton murmurs. “I know you can feel me. You like making me so hard for you? You love having two men panting after you?”
They’re not really panting, though.
Christopher looks at me the same way he looked at the poker table. Like he’s counting all the cards, effortless, almost clinical. And Sutton makes me feel small and delicate the way he holds me so gently, using only one percent of the muscle mass in his body to keep me still.
“She loves it,” Christopher says, his voice hard as a diamond.
Sutton moves my wrists to his left hand, freeing his right to smooth across my hip. Down my thigh. Between my legs. There are miles of fabric between him and my sex, but it burns up into nothing. It’s as if those calloused hands are brushing right over my clit, the way it feels. His hand looks rough and dark against the expensive silk.
“Where do you want it?” he asks, cupping me through the dress. “Here?”
“Oh God,” I mumble, barely resisting the urge to push into his hand.
Two laughs, masculine and goddamn confident. They know exactly what they’re doing to me. Christopher takes a step closer, so he’s standing only a foot away. Close enough that I can see the rumple in his dress shirt, the invisible scar at the top of his lip. Close enough that I can smell him, the spice and maleness. And arousal. I’m not sure if arousal has a smell, but if it does, we’re awash in it. We’re an ocean of desire, the three of us.
The silk gathers around my breasts in complicated folds. Christopher runs the back of his hand down my front, making it simple. My nipples turn hard and aching. Then he slips one finger beneath the neckline. He’s only touching an extra inch of skin, one inch that isn’t showing, but it feels momentous. Like crossing the Rubicon.
He adds another finger, brushing the skin at my collarbone back and forth. He can’t quite reach my nipple like this, and my body tightens everywhere, as if I can make him touch me by will alone.
“Let me look at her,” Christopher says, and I’m not sure exactly what he means until I feel Sutton’s knuckles against my back, until I hear the rasp of the delicate zipper.
The bodice falls away from my body, leaving a shadow.
Christopher tugs the dress away from me, revealing my upthrust breasts, my pink nipples. His swift intake of breath is a small comfort. This is affecting him as much as me.
“Are you okay?” Sutton asks, and it’s more than a question. It’s an escape. That’s what he’s offering me. All I have to do is say the word and he’ll zip up my dress. He’ll probably drive me home.
Christopher lifts my chin, forcing me to meet his dark gaze. “What do you want?”
It’s the same question, wrapped in different packaging.
What do I want? I want to go back in time, before I ever met Sutton or Christopher. I want to be the kind of woman who doesn’t fall in love. I want the world to be a place where men don’t leave and mothers don’t die, but I can’t say those things. They aren’t the kind of sexy answers that make sense when two handsome men are surrounding you, their bodies taut with desire. They used to be partners, these men. Not anymore.
“Both of you,” I manage to say, my voice a wisp of smoke.
That earns me a smile, a cruel kind of smile. “Then spread your legs for Sutton. He’s going to finger fuck you while I play with your tits.”
The words come harsh enough that I expect Sutton to balk. Except his cock pulses beneath my ass. His hand tightens around my wrists. And I have the sudden awareness that he likes Christopher being in charge—not only of me, but of both of us. That maybe his taunting control in the hotel room six months ago had been an act designed to protect him, as much as my obedience is supposed to protect me.
I don’t quite spread my legs, but I don’t fight when Sutton pulls my thigh open. His large hand gathers up my skirt with steady deliberation, folds and folds of it, continents of fabric, the anticipation making me wet more than his hand could do. At least that’s how it seems. Until he touches me, the large clasp of his hand holding my sex a jolt to my system.
I gasp, fighting the hold at my wrists for a second before I subside. “You’re such an asshole,” I say, my voice breaking when Sutton slides his blunt fingertips through my wetness.