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Lovely Wicked

ISBN 978-1-60592-161-7

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Lovely Wicked Copyright 2010 Kari Gregg

Cover Art by Fiona Jayde

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any existing means without written permission from the publisher. Contact Noble Romance Publishing, LLC at PO Box 467423, Atlanta, GA 31146.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The characters are products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.

Book Blurb

Mitch McAllister and Liv Winslow grew up in the same squalid trailer park, turning to each other for comfort as scared kids. When they meet there again while visiting their dysfunctional families as adults, Mitch and Liv escape the ghosts of their past in sexual excess. They ultimately include Mitch's neighbor Sam Lawson in their giddy, extravagant play. It was only supposed to be sex: hot, dirty, spine-melting sex. None of them wanted to fall in love. If life has taught Liv, Mitch and Sam anything, though, it's that we don't always get what we want. But if we're very lucky, sometimes we get exactly what we need.

Chapter One

Mitch nosed his truck into the stingy parking place the mobile home park allotted his father's rust-streaked trailer. He killed the headlights. Gave his stomach a second to unclench.

Hovel sweet hovel.

His mouth curled into a bitter smile.

Checking on Gary every Friday for the past two years hadn't changed his instinctive flinch each time he saw the place. He didn't hate the weakness, though, not anymore. The sharp twist of dread in his gut meant he still felt something. It hadn't defeated him.

But he didn't look forward to what he'd find inside the trailer. His lips compressed into a hard line.

He climbed out of the truck.

When he spotted a familiar Amazonian silhouette out of the corner of his eye, near the trailer park's last surviving floodlight, he waved. "Hey, Liv." He turned back for the tall, brown paper bag that had lain, accusingly, on the passenger seat since he'd left the liquor store on Elm.

"Hi, Mitch."

He pivoted to face her—and froze, arm outstretched for Gary's whiskey. In the arc of flickering light, her face shone sickly pale, features drawn and tight. Stress lines bracketed her mouth. Her dark eyes glittered with the same shame and despair that knotted his stomach. She ripped her glance away and fidgeted with the hem of her gray tank top. The tank had shrunk after too many washings and rode above her belly button.

Pink pajama pants five inches too short.

And no shoes.

In November.

Shit.

As soon as he jerked his keys from the ignition and his truck engine died, shouted curses as blue as the frigid air reverberated four trailers down. Jaw clenched, Mitch crossed the muddy excuse of a road, thankful the ground was still too warm to freeze. He shrugged out of his leather jacket, draped it over her shoulders.

She burrowed into it for warmth. "Thanks."

"You okay?"

Dark eyes huge, haunted, she nodded. "The cops are on their way." He blew out a tired breath.

Weren't they always?

Since Olivia Winslow stood only a couple inches under his six foot two and he had zero desire to spend the rest of his weekend with a heating pad on his lower spine, he turned his back to her, bent at the knees. "Hop on." When she didn't, he tapped the top of one shoulder. "Don't be shy, honey. You're barefoot and there's a shitload of broken glass."

Her arms slid around his neck.

He braced himself.

She jumped. Her thighs clamped around his hips. He grunted, but didn't stagger under the weight. Liv was no skinny twig of a woman, but she wasn't fat, either. Just . . . tall. "Hold tight."

He stopped at the truck for Gary's whiskey, slammed the door, and triggered the locks on his way to the trailer. She slithered off his back when he climbed the rickety steps. Mitch crouched so she wouldn't fall. "Careful." As soon as her bare toes kissed the gray weathered wood, he lifted his arm to beat on the front door. "Open up, Gary," he said, his breath pluming in the frosty air. She pasted behind him like glue, shivering despite his coat. How long had she been hiding outside, freezing?

The TV inside blared.

Mitch pounded on the door. "Dad!"

"It ain't locked, goddamnit!"

Mitch shoved the door open and dragged Liv over the threshold behind him. The wasted shell of his father glared at him from the hospital bed in the dank, narrow living room. Most of his hair was gone and what little remained had pasted to his scalp in stringy, unwashed clumps. Lines grooved his face, some from the pain that required the morphine pump, but mostly from hard living. Gary McAllister had been a hulking, brute of a man once, until cancer had eaten him away. All that was left was this skeletal, dried-out husk and the hatred that beaded his eyes. "If you didn't bring it, you can just turn your ass around, boy."

"I brought it." Mitch stepped farther inside, the smell of sickness and stale sweat churning his stomach. Once the door was shut, he tossed the bottle of Jack Daniels onto Gary's bed.

He scrambled for it.

His father could still move pretty fast when liquor was involved.

"C'mon." Mitch groped behind him for Liv's hand. "We'll see the squad car lights from my window."

Already unscrewing the lid, Gary cackled. "Finally gonna get yourself a piece of that, son?"

Mitch's jacket gaped when Liv skirted by the hospital bed and the bastard's eyes focused on her breasts, nipples beaded from the cold to point prominently through the thin material of her tank. "Great tits."

Mitch gritted his teeth, but he didn't stop. Stopping would make it worse, so he pulled Liv down the hallway, dodging dirty clothes and trash piled against the walls like snowdrifts.

A voice slurred from the back bedroom. "That you, Mitch?" He stiffened.

Two feet.

Two more feet and they would've been home free.

"Yeah," he said.

"We got notice." His stepmother stumbled from the darkened doorway ahead, bleached hair frazzled around her head like a malevolent halo. The frayed strap of her sheer black nightie slid down her shoulder. She didn't bother to right it. "'lectric company's going to cut us off Monday."

Mitch reached for the doorknob to the room he'd slept in as a child. Not that he'd ever really been one. "I'll take care of it."

"You bring his JD?" she asked, a hopeful glint hardening her glazed eyes. God, he was sick of this crap.

Why couldn't the son of a bitch die? Just die.

"Did you?"

He stared at the phony wood finish of his old bedroom door. "Yeah." When she lurched forward, Mitch twisted the knob. He stalked inside before Rita reached them and yanked Liv in with him.

He slammed the door shut.

Leaned back against it.

Liv's hand lifted to hit the light switch.

He snagged her wrist. "Don't."

He couldn't stand it.

He couldn't stand to look at the bowed paneling. He didn't want to see the lumpy twin mattress that had once comprised his bed. Or the stained sheets. But mostly, he didn't want to know if his stepmother had left any half-smoked cigarettes mashed into the carpet again. He didn't want to know that she snuck in here, slept in his old bed when he was gone.

Christ, why did he keep doing this to himself?

Liv tucked her head under his chin. Her free hand drifted to his shoulder and when he released the other, she curled it around his waist. "Are you okay?" He grimaced.

Hell no.

He was not okay.

He snaked his arms around her, though. She'd tied her dark hair in a ponytail at the nape, which he didn't like. He wanted it loose, hanging free past her shoulders and almost to the base of her spine. Brushing against his arms and chest, like when they'd been kids. But it smelled of some fruity-flavored shampoo now. That, he liked.

"Why do we do it?" he asked her. "Why do we keep coming back?"

"I don't know." She hugged him. "I think . . . I keep hoping that if I save my sister, I just might save myself." Her hair caught in his stubble, like silk against his skin, when she looked up at him. "You came back to bury your father. Bury what he did to you." Mitch grunted. "We're both fucking neurotic."

"Thanks for the newsflash, Captain Obvious." Blue lights flared through the missing teeth of his window blinds. The smile Liv tipped up at him quivered only a little. "They're here."

She started to pull away, but he drew her back. "Let the police get him in cuffs first."

"Cheryl, too."

He held her.

Because it felt good.

"You want to tell me how you ended up wearing her clothes?"

"Not particularly."

Mitch wished to God, he could make it all go away. The weary hurt inside her, the fury building in him.

They'd made it out.

They'd crawled, clawed, and fought their way out of this stinking cesspool—

made lives for themselves. She was a paralegal for some scum-sucking lawyer. It didn't pay dick—he'd seen her car—but it wasn't the impoverished rot of this hellhole, either. Mitch had worked his way up from day laborer to full partnership in a small but thriving construction company on the other side of town. Even getting his clock cleaned in three divorces hadn't dented his professional success.

They'd earned their freedom.

Both of them.

They'd fought for the right to turn their backs on poverty, suffering, and abuse. Instead, they'd circled right back to where they'd started—in this godforsaken trailer, arms looped around each other as crude animal noises filtered through the paper-thin walls.

She wrinkled her nose. "Are they doing what I think they're doing?"

"He's so tanked on meds he hasn't been able to get it up in a year. He just likes humiliating Rita."

And Mitch.

The world would stop turning if Gary McAllister passed up an opportunity to humiliate his son.

Snorting ripe disgust, he marched her to the window, lifted the blinds. "We're getting the fuck out of here." He opened the window, punched the sagging screen out, and hopped down.

His boots sank an inch into thick mud.

He lifted his arms. "C'mon, baby. Just like old times." She peered at him from the darkened room, bit her lip. "I can't run away, Mitch. Not this time. I need to make a statement to the police."

"You need to get your ass out that window." He shook his head when she didn't move. "We've got ten, maybe fifteen minutes before Rita comes back to my room and tries to crawl into my pants. I mean it, Liv. Time to go." She shimmied out.

He caught her.

Not the piggyback ride he gave her to the front steps.

He carried her in his arms like Rhett frigging Butler.

Except, instead of dumping her in a nice big bed, he slipped her onto the front seat of his Chevy 4x4.

"Seatbelt," he said when he rounded the hood and climbed in, but she'd already buckled up.

That was the thing about him and Liv. They put on their seatbelts. Every time. Nobody had to remind them.

The Gary McAllisters and Bert Winslows of the world were only interested in belts they could swing from clenched fists, the kind that had left welts Liv had hidden so she wouldn't have to explain them at school.

Mitch's scars ran deeper.

And hadn't this turned into another lovely trip down Memory Lane?

Mitch couldn't take any more.

He pushed his key into the ignition and rammed the truck into reverse to back out.

"My car—"

"Leave it." He shoved the gearshift into first, eased by the police cruiser pulled next to her family's trailer. "To hell with it. All of it. Just for a while." He turned right on the main road and they left the nightmare in the trailers behind them.

Mitch wished it were that easy.

"I live on Euclid. On the corner of Grand Avenue," she said when they reached streetlights and downtown traffic.

There were worse neighborhoods.

They'd just bolted from the worst part of town.

But he wasn't taking her home. He made a left at the next intersection instead of taking the right toward Euclid.

"I said—"

"I know what you said." He drove east, to the highway and newer housing developments there. "If you really want to go to your place, I'll turn around." His fingers tightened on the wheel until his knuckles shone white. "I . . . I don't want to be alone."

She didn't reply right away, just stared out the windshield what felt like epochs.

"Okay."

Chapter Two

His last wife had forced the sale of his house to get a piece of the profit in the divorce settlement. Mitch was still pissed about it. When he unlocked his front door, boxes and furniture that would never in a million years fit inside a one-bedroom apartment towered shoulder-high in both his living and dining rooms. He'd even stacked cartons of crap in his kitchen. Why unpack? He'd just have to pack it all up again when he bought another house to remodel.

He just wasn't done being pissed yet.

Mitch led the way to his kitchen and tossed his keys on the only clear surface on the counter: space for his coffee pot. He ripped the refrigerator door wide, leaned in.

"Drink?" he asked over his shoulder as he grabbed a Coors.

"Sure." She frowned at the maze of boxes and jam-packed furniture. "You just move in?"

"Six months ago." He snapped the lid off the bottle and handed it to her. Her brow furrowed.

"A beer won't make you beat your wife and kids, Liv." Her mouth tightened. "I know that." She accepted the Coors, sipped daintily. She shrugged. "I'm surprised is all."

"Gary's an asshole, drunk or sober. Liquor didn't make him that way. He comes by it natural." He snagged a Coors for himself, cracked it open. He leaned against the sink and took a pull off the bottle. The beer slid down his dry throat, frosty and smooth. He watched her watch him drink.

"Check the fridge, if you want," he said, tossing his lid—and hers—into the sink behind him. "I bought a six-pack, not a case. I'm careful, Liv." She quirked an eyebrow at him, brought the beer to her lips and swallowed.

"You don't have to prove anything to me."

"Yeah, I do." She was the child of an alcoholic. A mean one. He ran his finger along the rim of the bottle. "I never drink to excess and I don't use booze as a crutch. I've had that six-pack for weeks. I'd offer something else, but I meant to hit the store after Gary's."

"This isn't a test, Mitch. If you say you're okay with it, fine. I wouldn't have accepted the drink if I was going to get bent out of shape over it." But he knew she would've taken the beer from him, even if the idea of drinking terrified her. Lie to smooth things over. Keep the peace. That mantra had been so ingrained into her as a kid, she'd fallen back into it with ridiculous ease as an adult. But her eyes hadn't sparked with fear when she'd been watching him. Just nerves.

His lips curved.

She was uncomfortable.

Not so much with his beer, but he'd still rattled her. Liv fidgeted with her bottle, shifted foot to foot, darted glances everywhere except at him. Her teeth worried her bottom lip, no different from the countless other times he'd watched her bite it growing up. Unsettling to discover that the nervous gesture turned him on this late in the game, but it did.

Disconcerting to realize he was as edgy as she was.

Had to be the tank top.

She'd wrapped his leather jacket around her, but he could still picture her tits outlined by the thin fabric of her tank, the tight nubs of her nipples begging for attention.

Little Livvy Winslow had grown up.

He'd seen her around the trailer park over the past couple years, waved to her from time to time. They'd shared casual greetings. Exchanged a few sad, knowing looks. She'd been ten and scrawny when Mitch had run away for good. He'd remembered her like that, flash-frozen in his mind, hiding from her dad in his bedroom, all skinny and scared.

Fifteen years later, he'd been stunned by the woman's body that the girl he'd known had grown into. He'd recognized her right off. Didn't matter how much time had passed or how much either one of them had changed. Mitch would know Liv anywhere. It was the way she moved. The loose sway of her walk. How she angled her chin. The quick flutter of her hands when she talked. He'd recognize her, whether they'd spent ten years apart or two hundred. Mitch would stake his life on it. But he'd still been shocked to the marrow to see her full grown. He shouldn't have been.

Rosemary Winslow had been a stripper-sometimes-prostitute before Bert had married her, and both of her daughters had inherited their mother's lush body. Generously rounded breasts, nipped-in waist, the delectable ass. Add Liv's long mane of witchy black hair and the sexy pout of her full, kiss-me-all-night lips and Mitch's entire body had clenched into a fist the first time he'd spotted her when he'd returned to the trailer park to see Gary two years ago.

After greasing the wheels with a fifth of Vodka, Rita had told him that Liv hadn't followed her mother's footsteps into hooking. Or stripping. She had a "cushy" office job and an apartment in town. A string of occasional boyfriends, all of whom Rita described as deadbeats and losers, but hey, with three divorces under his belt, who was Mitch to throw stones?

Liv had a normal sort of life, no different from his. Far removed from the trailer park.

Thank God.

The both of them going respectable didn't change the fact the woman was built like a brick shithouse, though. Even his father's crude remarks hadn't killed his semiarousal at having those curves pressed against his spine. But enough was enough.

This was Liv, not a piece of tail he could buy with crisp twenties. Time to yank his whoremones under control, and Mitch had to believe she'd be a whole lot more comfortable if she had more clothes on.

He placed his unfinished Coors in the sink behind him. "I'll find you something to wear."

Moments later, he pitched a flannel shirt to her from his bedroom. "Try that." She folded his leather jacket over a recliner piled high with garbage bags stuffed with blankets and sheets from his old house, his old life, when he'd had three beds—

three bedrooms—to supply instead of one. She pulled the shirt on and fumbled with the buttons.

He shook his head to clear it.

She looked . . . .

Stunning.

She shouldn't have.

He'd grabbed the shirt out of a box of clothes jammed in his closet. The blue checked pattern of the flannel had faded to dull gray, a pocket had torn free at one corner, and although Liv was almost as tall as he, she wasn't nearly as wide through the shoulders. The sleeves dwarfed her. The cuffs dangled past her fingertips and she, ridiculously, set to folding the frayed fabric to her wrists.

Not nice to give her one of his oldest and rattiest shirts, but his gut had told him he didn't want to know what she might look like in one of his everyday shirts. Nope. Given the tight fit at the crotch of his jeans, that didn't strike him as wise. So he'd reached inside the box that should've gone to the dumpster when he'd moved into the apartment half a year ago.

He rolled his tongue back into his mouth before she noticed him gaping and walked to his dresser to root a pair of socks out of the top drawer. She frowned at the shirt when he handed his socks to her. "A couple buttons are missing, but I guess this'll do."

The collar gaped wide, showcasing a knee-watering amount of cleavage revealed by her tank. Instead of covering her up, the damn shirt spotlighted the parts of her anatomy he'd become too aware of and was trying too hard to ignore. Mitch swore under his breath.

Marched back to his dresser.

He ripped his basketball sweatshirt from inside. He'd had it longer than he'd had two of his wives, had broken it in until the sweatshirt fit him like a second skin, but it would drape her like a gunnysack. No way would she make the spit dry up in his mouth wearing that. He'd burn it afterward if he had to.

Liv caught the sweatshirt he tossed to her, but only because she had good reflexes.

Eyes wide, she stood in the doorway, his favorite sweatshirt—sacrificial lamb to his greedy burst of testosterone—dangling from limp, negligent fingers.

"Is that suede?"

His bed.

Her dark gaze shifted to him, then back to stare in frank admiration at his bed. Mitch went from semi-aroused to cat-couldn't-scratch-it hard in the span of a heartbeat.

After spending his formative years sleeping on a dirty mattress on the floor, no one was more obsessed—or decadent—than Mitch was when it came to where he slept as an adult. He'd found the king-sized sleigh bed in a house his company had flipped half a year ago. Just in time for his divorce. Andrea had taken the house and most of the furniture inside it in the settlement, small price to pay to keep her claws off his share of the business. But without the four-poster that had carried him through his three marriages, he'd needed something new, something different. The sleigh bed had seemed like fate.

He'd stripped the paint some fool had blasphemed the oak with and restored the finish himself, though that had meant sleeping on the floor until the tedious job was done. Then he'd covered the mattress in creamy satin and a faux suede comforter as black as sin.

Sin was what that bed had been built for.

Sin was exactly what he had in mind.

To hell with it.

He'd probably fuck up his friendship with Liv, but why should this part of his life be any different?

Mitch let his mouth unfurl to a slow, wicked bow that had loosened many a woman's thighs. "Go ahead," he said, tipping his head to the bed. "Touch it." Her forehead furrowed.

The sweatshirt fisted in her hands.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

They'd both lived long enough to have been around the block a time or ten. They'd gone to the circus, seen the show. Liv was a survivor, same as him. She wasn't stupid. Maybe she hadn't noticed while he'd hidden his body's responses to her, but he wasn't hiding anything, not now.

She knew he wanted her.

"It's faux suede, not the real thing. A micro fiber blend that's softer, more pliable and durable than genuine suede. I had a place over on Winchester Road tailor the comforter to fit the size and design. So I'd get exactly what I wanted." He quirked a challenging eyebrow. "You should try it."

She bit her lip.

Her damned lip.

Her lush, pink, bottom lip.

His belly knotted.

Damn, this was gonna be fun.

But she shook her head.

He inched a smooth step toward her, heart thrumming in his chest because she didn't move away. "Why?"

"I told you." She studied him with wary eyes. "Not a good idea." The apartment was small; he smelled her shampoo with his next step. He could almost feel the heat coming off her. "I think it is. An excellent idea." He reached for her hand. She didn't pull back. He edged closer and then he could feel the warmth of her body, inches from his. "The best idea I've had since 1990." Her fingers twisted nervously in his grasp. "What happened in 1990?" He raised their clasped hands to his chest, bringing her flush against him. When her eyes darkened, he knew she felt him trembling.

This was going to be good.

So good.

"I pulled you through my bedroom window."

She gulped. "I don't want to talk about your bed anymore."

"No." His head dipped. "Let's talk about what I'm going to do to you in it." She angled her jaw, dodged his mouth; his lips brushed her smooth, silky cheek.

"We can't. The both of us are too screwed up to—" She gasped when his tongue licked at her ear lobe.

"That's what makes it so perfect, Liv. I know what makes you wake up in a cold sweat. You know me, too." He nuzzled her ear, loved, absolutely loved, the dizzying smell of her—fruity shampoo, wispy perfume, and undertones of fresh soap. "No need for telling our sad stories. No surprises. No reason not to please—or take pleasure in—

each other."

She sighed. "No tomorrows?" she said, her voice tremulous. With his lips, he skated along the line of her jaw. "Tomorrow, we'll both be back in those fucking trailers, trying to sort out the mess they made of us. Don't bring that here," he said, but his pulse thrummed a triumphant beat because she'd tipped her mouth toward his. "Stay with me."

Her lips were open and ready for his kiss.

He'd been right.

It was good. Hellaciously good and yet so much worse than he'd expected. Her mouth was supple, pliant, giving under his. She yielded. The tentative hand she lifted to his shoulder shook, but she yielded to him. And gasped when his tongue slid inside.

God, she was hot. Burning him up and they'd barely started. She tasted of the beer she hadn't wanted and underneath it, a spine-melting sweet, sweet flavor that had to be Liv. His mouth slanted over hers. He wanted it, the taste of her, wanted it all for himself. He licked at it. His tongue danced with hers.

His hand released hers to settle at her nape. His fingers threaded into her hair; he encountered her ponytail and worked the elastic band free.

Her lips moved more aggressively against his. Seeking him. Not just yielding but also demanding.

Oh yeah.

He tossed the ponytail holder away. Her hair swung free, brushed his fingers—

finger that he dug into her hips, used to pull her against him. With their height roughly equivalent, the hard ridge of his cock, outlined by soft denim, seated squarely against her heat. Startled, she jerked in his hands.

He walked her backward.

To his bed.

When the back of her knees kissed the side rails, she moaned into his mouth. Hot damn, was there anything better than a woman moaning into his mouth?

Giving herself up to him, giving him everything?

Mitch hadn't thought so.

Once.

He knew better.

Now.

That heart-stuttering moment when he knew a woman was going to take him inside her, when he felt her melt and understood she was his for the taking . . . . That adrenaline surge of heat was nothing compared to the feelings that rocked him when that woman was Liv.

She'd seen what he'd come from. Had lived it, smelled it, tasted it. Shared it.

She knew the dark and primitive corners inside him.

He tugged at the buttons of the flannel shirt he'd given her.

Well, maybe she didn't know the feral parts of him, not yet, but they weren't kids anymore. Liv hadn't come through it unscathed any better than he had. Nobody had to tell her there were pieces of himself that he'd never get back, that he'd never reclaim. It'd changed him. Forever. As it had changed her.

She wanted him, anyway.

She'd open her body and take him inside her, anyway.

Mitch, suddenly impatient, ripped the shirt down her arms, shoved it away. His pulse resounded like canon fire in his ears. He yanked his mouth from hers, studied her dark eyes, glazed and glittering with arousal. His balls tightened. Wild satisfaction warmed his belly. Made him so hard his teeth hurt.

She was with him.

Right there, with him.

"Touch me," he said, his voice a guttural growl.

She tugged his turtleneck from his jeans and slid her hands underneath. Her fingers slid up his stomach. He jerked the shirt over his head to give her better access, stripped one arm out of a sleeve, then left it hanging so he could close his eyes, focus on the unbearably sweet glide of her hands over his chest. They slowed to skip a fingernail over the flat disk of his nipple and he wondered why the back of his skull didn't explode.

Maybe it had.

He couldn't think anymore. Didn't want to.

The need that fisted his gut felt too magnificently primal. Too right. His mouth came down on hers, his tongue diving deep.

He hooked his thumbs in her pajama bottoms and panties, eased both down her hips and down her thighs until he framed her neat thatch of tight black curls with pink cotton. He swallowed her whimper when his unerring fingers shifted to her exposed cunt. "Shh, Livvy. It's okay. I've got you."

Already, she was wet; and oh my God, wasn't that the most awesome sensation he'd ever experienced in his life? Liv panting into his mouth and slick with desire, for him?

Her nails dug into his shoulder.

Her chest heaved on a low groan.

His fingers explored her clit, learned her until he couldn't stand it anymore. He had to have her beneath him.

Now.

He pushed her back onto the mattress, followed her down.

He could kiss her for hours. Days. Decades. She ground her sopping pussy into his palm, letting him have her. Letting him take her. His world focused on her mouth and on her wet heat. Nothing else mattered.

He pushed a finger inside her.

She cried out.

He squeezed another finger into her, moved his mouth so he could feast on her neck. The soft, sloping curve where it met her shoulder. There was no place on Mitch's body like that. It fascinated him, every time, but with Liv? His entire body throbbed. He had to taste that curve, trace it with his lips, his teeth, his tongue. She called out his name.

"Look at me, babe." He reared up over her, braced himself so the only thing holding her to the bed were his fingers buried in her cunt. "Look at me," he said through clenched teeth, smiling when her glazed eyes focused on his. "Let go."

"Mitch," she moaned.

God, he loved how she said his name, her voice low and husky and so very, very needy. But he shook his head. "Let go, Liv. Let me watch it take you." He didn't leave her a choice.

Her eyes went blank.

Her mouth rounded to a shocked O.

Her body tightened, spine arching—

Wicked triumph streaked through him as she shuddered and quaked in the grip of an orgasm so sharp it seemed violent.

Before she'd collapsed back into the mattress, her eyes vacant and stunned, he wanted to see that shocked pleasure wash over her again.

Needed it.

She groaned when he eased his fingers out of her, slid them up her quivering stomach in a damp trail.

He pushed the tank top up and smiled when he saw the front clasp of her bra.

Chapter Three

Mitch deftly unfastened the bra and pushed one lacy cup aside, then the other so he could stare at her. His hot gaze traveled her trembling thighs, the glistening curls at their apex, the stretch of her belly, the rounded globes of her breasts tipped with nipples beaded cherry red. Higher still to her full lips, rosy now and bruised from his kisses. He'd have her mouth on him before the night was through. All over him. He swore it, then and there. He couldn't live without feeling that mouth going down on him. Finally, he focused on her eyes.

His lips curved to a predatory bow. "Keep saying my name. I like it. Especially when you come."

His fingers found her nipple, rubbed it.

Liv sucked in a sharp breath.

He laughed, dipped his head to skate his jaw along the curve of her tit. He was tempted to linger, but his body couldn't take much more of this; he moved down. He kissed her stomach as he pinched her nipples. He stabbed his tongue into the concave of her belly button.

When she speared her fingers into his hair, tried to tug him back up, he bit her. Not hard. Just hard enough. She stopped pulling and he slid lower, glided his tongue along her thigh.

She shook.

He was shaking, himself.

He paused to breathe in the scent of her sex. His mouth watered at the heady musk of her arousal, need sprinting through him in giddy abandon. She was ready for him. Wet. Primed by her first orgasm.

But he wanted to taste her.

His mouth descended.

He feasted.

The curve of her neck wasn't the only thing that captivated Mitch about a woman's body. This totally mesmerized him: her taste. The way she gave it up for him, every fricking time, and all he had to do was run his tongue right . . . there. Liv groaned.

He felt her sensuous shiver from the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair. He couldn't understand guys who wouldn't go down on a woman. Who wouldn't want this? Liv's thighs spread wide, leaving her pussy open and vulnerable to him. The way she gasped, panted, and sweated as he licked and sucked at her. The taste of her on his tongue when he shifted lower and stabbed it inside her. His outstretched hand stroked her tits, rubbed at her nipples to build the scorching heat he'd set to blaze inside her. She chanted his name, and oh God, how he loved that. He really, really loved it. He could listen to it all night. He could spend the whole night fucking her with his tongue and listening to her sob his name as she came. But her fingers in his hair jabbed into his scalp like talons.

He wouldn't put her off again, not this time.

Mitch skimmed up her body, took her mouth in a slow, drugging kiss. Let her taste her own musky flavor on his lips, and when he lifted his head, she smiled at him. She smiled and reached for his zipper.

Mitch had never been so happy to be so fucking doomed in his life. He cursed through gritted teeth when her hand slipped into his jeans and wrapped around his cock.

His eyes slammed shut.

This time, she laughed. He cut the sly sound off with a hard, urgent kiss, but she was drawing him out of his jeans. It was horrible. And yet so mind-shatteringly right to be cradled in her hand. She ran the tip of her finger up and down, gliding across the bulbous head. He could've howled. Instead, he ripped at her panties and pajama pants, stripped them down her legs.

Except her damned legs went on forever.

She wrapped her fingers around his dick and pumped.

His heart seized.

To hell with it.

He shucked her pants and panties off one ankle and groaned when she wrapped that long leg around him. Trailing pajamas and damp panties, the other hooked around his hip.

Oh God.

She sucked his lip into her mouth, lightly bit it, and at the same time, used her legs to pull his cock forward. To her. Where she most wanted him to be. Mitch froze when the head of his dick rubbed against her drenched pussy lips. He jerked his mouth from hers as sanity-shredding horror crashed over him. "Oh, shit." Jaw clenched, he shook his head to try to clear it, but the desire rampaging inside was eating him alive. "Stop, Liv. Please. We have to stop."

"Fuck me, Mitch." She arched her hips, angled them to draw him inside. "Please, please fuck me."

He nearly wept.

He wished to God that it wasn't true. Maybe if he didn't say the words, it wouldn't be true. But there was no escaping it.

Reality.

His shoulders slumped.

His head fell to the crook of her neck.

"I don't have any rubbers, honey. We have to stop."

She stiffened beneath him.

He didn't blame her.

If he had a gun, he'd shoot his own self in the head, just to be done with it. Not driving inside her, when they were both so hot and ready, was that unthinkable. But fucking without a condom was equally unthinkable.

Mitch had screwed up a lot in his life, but he never played around with birth control or protection from STDs. Which was actually a good thing, considering how much all three of his wives had run around on him. But being careful didn't feel so frigging fantastic right now.

Liv's body relaxed under his. Her arms crept around his neck. Her understanding made it that much worse. He wanted her to scratch and claw and bite at him. So he could vent the frustration that burned his nerve endings like sulfuric acid.

"It's okay, Mitch. I'm on the pill."

His eyes flashed open.

He stared at her.

His jaw dropped.

"What?"

She bit her damned lip again.

Semen beaded on the head of his dick.

Damn it.

"I said, it's okay." Her voice sounded husky and warm. Still. He gaped at her. His heart leapt in his chest while wickedly feral impulses burst inside him. The sinful draw of forbidden fruit—doubly forbidden considering it was Liv underneath him. "I've never fucked a woman bare before." Not since he'd been sixteen, anyway. He'd had an army's worth of clean bills of health from doctors since. Just the idea of sliding into her without even the thin skin of latex between them, spilling into her, hot and wet, stretching her, filling her . . . . He shuddered. "God."

"I haven't done it without a rubber before, either, but . . . ." She glanced away. Shy?

Christ, when his fingers still smelled of her and she'd already come for him twice?

But her cheeks pinked.

Her blush rocked his world.

"I'm on the pill. I won't get pregnant, and I'm clean, Mitch," she whispered, nibbling on that damned bottom lip 'til his pulse roared in his ears. "I don't mind. As long as it's you."

His lashes lowered. Urgent, demanding need gripped him hard. Coiled in his gut.

He was crazy. Certifiable to even think about screwing a woman on the flimsy promise that she was on the pill. How many babies were born every year because those promises, offered in the heat of the moment, turned out to be empty? A gazillion?

Liv and he both were born and bred trailer trash; he figured that quadrupled the odds against them exponentially. In Mitch's estimation, nothing spiked fertility like poverty and the brutal ugliness that went with it. They were lucky he hadn't knocked her up by breathing air in the same room.

And STDs . . . .

How many lovers had she had?

Mitch didn't want to think about that, but damn it, he had to. If even half of Rita's gossip had been true, neither one of them had been angels sprouting wings. Pretending otherwise was stupid. People didn't get infected with Herpes or HIV

because they forgot to cover a cough. They got sick and died because they didn't cover their dicks.

But . . . .

All the arguing in the world, no matter how much he wrestled with himself, none of it would change the one irrefutable fact that rendered those objections null and void.

This was Liv.

His Livvy.

He'd never had before, no, and he never would again.

But it was as beautiful and as terrible as she'd said.

He didn't mind.

As long as it was her.

He shifted his hips, probed her.

Her eyes snapped shut.

Her voice caught when she sighed his name.

His head lowered. He brushed his mouth over hers. "It's all right, Liv. It'll be okay," he breathed against her lips.

When he pushed into her, every neural synapse fired.

Her eyes flashed wide, a keening sound emerging from her throat. Hot.

Stupendously hot.

Unbearably tight.

She surrounded him.

Sweat slid down his spine. "It'll be amazing."

He thrust home. His cock filled her.

He threw his head back and his groan of bone-melting pleasure mixed with hers. It was . . . . Unbelievable.

"Wrap your legs around me, Liv. Hold on tight."

He eased out. She relaxed, responded to him beautifully, met him the next time he thrust. Like magic. They were attuned, their bodies synchronized as though they'd been fucking each other for years. The hard drive into her, the pumping of his hips . . . she knew exactly how to angle hers to make him sink mind-bendingly deeper. Every time he moved, her cunt fisted around him, dragging at his dick and sizzling his nerve endings like raw electric current.

The feeling was so crushingly new and vibrant, so frenetic, Mitch didn't want to come. He just wanted to keep on fucking, pump in and out of Liv forever, but it couldn't last. He couldn't. Mitch had already pushed his control too hard and for too long.

Thank God, Liv was with him.

She writhed under him, trying to brand herself into his skin. He hissed when her nails scratched stripes into his shoulder, but damn, it was good, that good. She was coming apart underneath him, taking him with her.

She moaned his name.

Her body clamped down on him.

Milked his cock.

He spilled into her and lost what little remained of his mind.

* * * * *

"You okay?" he asked when he was capable of forming words again. She hummed low in her throat.

One of her hands skimmed the damp skin of his back, the other anchored around his waist to hold him there.

Yeah, right.

Like he had any plans to leave the cradle of her thighs any time soon. Hell, he didn't think moving was physically possible. His stomach trembled. His legs wouldn't work. His arms seemed disconnected from him, separate from whatever instructions his brain might try to send them.

Maybe he'd be able to shift off her in a minute.

Just as soon as he re-gathered his fried brain cells.

Until then, he was content to breathe in the sweet, feminine scent at the crook of her neck. He'd tucked his head there, the spot that so fascinated him when his body had collapsed. Helpless. Used up and spent.

Liv sighed. "We didn't get our clothes off."

He grunted.

Nope.

His turtleneck trailed down one arm. Her pajamas and panties ringed her left ankle. He'd shoved her tank up and loosened her bra, but the underwire of one cup gouged his ribs. His jeans had slid down his hips to trap his thighs in sturdy denim. Hell, he hadn't even taken off his boots.

They were both a boneless, tangled mess.

He smiled. "You're welcome."

When she chuckled, her slick walls clamped around his dick and blew a few more hundred neural synapses. But hey, who needed brains? Not him. He ignored her nudge.

"I need to clean up, Mitch."

He could feel thick wet cum gluing their joined bodies, felt what he'd pumped into her seeping around his softening dick, but he ignored that, too.

"We're going to ruin your fancy suede blanket," she said, but the reluctant tone of her voice told him she wasn't ready to end the glorious, sated lethargy that had wrapped around them, either.

Eyes closed, still shaking, he kissed her velvety skin. "We already ruined it." He'd never get the stains out, not that he cared. "Am I too heavy?"

"No."

Mitch hadn't thought so or he would've somehow found the energy to roll off her. "Then I'm not going anywhere. I like it here."

She moved her hand up to finger his hair. Oh, didn't her after-sex petting curl something warm and wonderful in his belly, sap everything out of him? She'd tapped him out. Drained him dry. "Close your eyes, Livvy."

He drifted to sleep.

* * * * *

His hips were already rocking into her when he woke up. He didn't know how long he'd dozed, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes. Her fingers fisted in his hair, her body straining toward his.

Opening his eyes, he lifted over her.

Her lush mouth parted on a breathy gasp.

His dick hardened to stone.

Mitch ripped the turtleneck off his arm, and holding her to him, he rolled on the bed so that she lighted atop him. He tore her tank and her bra away, kicked at his boots. They'd have to get rid of his jeans later. Much later.

His hands settled at her hips. "Ride me," he said.

She did.

* * * * *

He threw his head back, gritted his teeth. Her black hair trailed over his thighs, whispered against his stomach. He pushed his spine into the headboard, desperately sucked in air, but her mouth didn't stop working him over. Her tongue slid over his cock, her lips providing the sweetest suction. His eyes slammed shut when he felt the sexy hum in her throat vibrate down the length of his dick. "Oh, Christ." She laughed.

He wanted to laugh with her. Really, he did, but he felt the tightening in his balls. His body had hit an unmistakable rhythm; a gentleman had to speak up. "Liv." One by one, he unclamped his fingers from the headboard, tunneled them into her hair to pull her head up. And panted out urgent need, barely controlling himself when she resisted. "Babe—"

Her fingernails raked his splayed thighs in mute warning.

He groaned, let his grip in her hair go lax.

Far be it from Mitch to disagree.

Instead, he palmed her skull, kept pace with the cadence she set. She ate him alive.

She set every cell of his body on fire, but she slowed. Toyed with him. Lit him up like a frigging Christmas tree.

"Oh my God," he groaned, hips arching to thrust deeper into her hot, wet mouth.

"Please, honey. Please."

She reached beneath, gently kneading his balls.

Her lips hit the base of his cock.

His world exploded.

Chapter Four

Mitch awoke on a low moan, every nerve in his body aching from overstimulation and abuse. He threw his arm over his eyes, but it didn't help. The bedroom smelled of sex—good, hard sex and lots of it. How many times had he turned to her last night? He didn't know. Those hours had become a vague blur of fucking, resting, and fucking some more.

He groaned again, grateful he'd exhausted himself.

Almost.

The shower cut off in the room next door.

Livvy.

God, she had to be sore. Way too sore for the final round of morning-after sex his fertile and feverish mind immediately suggested. Liv was no dainty slip of a woman. She wouldn't break under a rough tumble, which was a relief because he hadn't exactly been gentle. Wincing at the bite she'd left on his forearm, Mitch figured that was fair. She hadn't shown him any mercy, either. Still, if his muscles were this stiff, hers had to be screaming. No way. Even if he could get hard again, no way.

He lifted his arm and propped himself on one elbow to watch her fidget with the towel she'd wrapped around herself as she crept on stealthy feet back into his bedroom.

"Morning, Liv."

She jerked, startled. Nearly lost the towel.

Forget what they'd done last night, the panicky sheen in her dark eyes when they focused on him sprawled on the bed was worth the price of admission.

"Good morning," she mumbled, ripping her glance away. "I used your shower. I hope you don't mind."

He grinned.

Mind?

She'd worked her mouth over his cock so thoroughly that Mitch was one hundred and ten percent sure he'd never get his brains back.

And she thought he'd be offended that she'd used his soap?

Women were the most contrary creatures in the universe.

"I don't mind."

She'd started picking at the clothes scattered over his bedroom floor, though, and that piqued his curiosity.

"What're you doing, baby?"

She flashed a nervous glance his way. "Getting dressed." She'd found the flannel shirt.

He shook his head. "I should've thrown that away years ago." He pointed. "Wear that."

Mitch swallowed a chuckle when she pulled his sweatshirt over her head and, only when it draped to her thighs, did she ease the towel from underneath. He wondered what she planned on doing about the panties crumpled under his right knee.

When her eyes widened and he knew she'd spotted her underwear, he snickered.

"Come here, Liv." He laughed harder at the suspicious glare she shot. "Honey, we're both hurting too much for either one of us to even think about fucking this morning. C'mon."

Her lips thinned. "Don't be crude."

He arched an eyebrow, opened his arms wide.

She slowly, reluctantly, crossed to the bed, but she did come to him. Sighing, she snuggled into his chest when he tucked her against him. He tipped her chin up and whispered a languid kiss over her mouth. Her lips parted so he let his tongue slide inside to stroke hers, sluggishly.

When he eased his mouth away, her eyes had closed, lashes a thick sooty blanket beneath, and her cheeks had flushed a charming pink.

That was more like it.

His forehead touched hers, the scent of his soap on her skin warming him from the inside out. "Good morning, Livvy."

The lips he'd kissed rosy curved. "Good morning, Mitch." His finger traced the line of her jaw. "I'm next in the shower." Her eyes opened.

"Coffee and filters are in the cupboard above the pot in the kitchen."

"Okay."

She kissed him, so warm and sexy, he reconsidered sex, just one last time, but he'd seen her wince. Hell, his dick felt so raw, it'd probably kill them both. "There's a pair of sweats with a drawstring waist in the third drawer," he said, sitting up when she moved to his dresser. He retrieved her panties from under his knee. Pink silk. Virginal white lace edged the waist and the high cuts for her legs. He waited until she found his sweatpants, then dangled the panties from a finger. "I'm keeping these." She pushed her foot into the first leg of his sweats and grinned. "You're welcome."

He laughed.

By the time he finished in the bathroom, the smell of freshly brewed coffee permeated the air. Not in his bedroom. That still reeked of sex. Liv was right. His suede comforter was thrashed. The nap of the fabric had stiffened with several noticeable smears, but Mitch would never take it to the dry cleaner.

He might have the damned thing bronzed.

He pulled fresh jeans over his hips and tucked his much-abused cock inside, eager to haul his ass into the kitchen. Not because he wanted to escape the stale sex smell—his stomach hadn't churned once—or even to grab his first cup of morning coffee.

No.

He wanted, desperately, to taste his coffee on her lips.

They'd have their coffee. He didn't have jack in the house for food so they'd have to go out for breakfast. He glanced at the glowing red numbers on his alarm clock. Okay, lunch.

The steakhouse down the road then.

Afterward, he'd take her back to her car at the trailer park, kiss Liv goodbye, and come back home to sleep off the best sex he'd had in years.

* * * * *

"There. The blue one."

His eyebrow arched as he pulled the truck alongside her crappy Mazda two blocks from the Winslow trailer. He'd seen her sister's sedan rusting in her dad's parking space yesterday so Liv had parked on a nearby street. "I know what your car looks like." He blocked the road, shoved the truck into park, turned to her. She bit her lip.

Oh damn, why'd she have to go and do that?

He reached forward 'til his thumb brushed it. "You going to be at your dad's next weekend?"

She nodded, blew out a quick breath. "Yes." She twisted his sweatshirt in her fingers. "You?"

"Every Friday." He leaned forward, angled his mouth over hers. Her tongue teased his lips, asked to come inside, and he let it twine with his. He lifted his head. "I'll follow you out."

She climbed from the truck, shut the door.

He watched her bend over the rust-spotted rear bumper of the Mazda and pry free a magnetic case underneath. She'd fired the engine with the spare key before he'd finished backing the truck to give her room to pull out.

She rolled down her window and waved.

He tipped his head to acknowledge her farewell.

When they reached the intersection running into town, her Mazda moved into the right lane. He stayed to make the left.

Then, she was gone.

Mitch returned home, stripped off his clothes, and stretched out naked on the twisted sheets that still smelled like her.

He slept.

* * * * *

Mitch thought about the sex all week.

He remembered her tits had spilled from his hands, as he stood in line to pay Gary's overdue electric bill on Monday. His dad was the Emperor of Assholes, but on that, the old man had been dead on the money: Liv's were magnificent. More than a mouthful, but not so big they reminded him of a frigging cow's udder. The rosy tips were so sensitive they seemed to have been hard-wired to her cunt, because when he'd finally gotten around to licking and sucking her nipples, she'd gone wild. And incredibly, mind-shatteringly wet.

Tuesday night, he brought her pink panties to his nose and inhaled, sure she couldn't have smelled as good as his memory insisted.

He was wrong.

The scent of her pussy was better, way better than he'd recalled. Wednesday, he held those panties in his left hand, his dick in his right, and cursed himself for not getting her phone number.

A delayed drywall delivery on Thursday left him too much time to nurse other, sweatier regrets. He should've tied her up after her man-eating mouth had sucked him off. Taken her back to his place after lunch at the steakhouse. Fucked her in the shower. Hammered his cock into her sweet ass. Fucked her until they were both jelly-legged and wasted.

By Friday, he had a plan.

Friday, blessed Friday, he was burning so hot he didn't remember Gary's bottle of Jack Daniels until he parked in front of his father's decrepit trailer. He would've said to hell with the mean son of a bitch, but Gary wouldn't let him in the trailer without it. He shoved the truck into gear and doubled back to Elm.

And cursed when he passed her Mazda on the way out.

He didn't catch Liv before she got to her family's trailer, but there was no way in hell he'd risk missing her leave.

Even with the front door of the trailer wide open —and hadn't Rita bitched about that?— he couldn't see the Winslow trailer, though. He'd spotted Liv's car parked on one of the side streets when he'd returned with Gary's whisky. He stayed long enough to make sure his father wasn't selling his meds again and then he left. He pulled his truck into an empty place up the street from her Mazda and waited.

By the time he spotted her picking her way down the crumbling sidewalk, it was full dark. He gunned the engine to life, rolled down his window. She stiffened when she recognized his truck, seemed to halt for a heart-stuttering second, but slowly walked to meet him.

Liv must've come straight from work because she wore a long black dress coat to ward off the chill, the front unbuttoned and gaping to reveal a pencil-slim skirt and matching slate gray sweater. She'd gathered her hair into a neat knot at her nape. Sterling studs and a silver chain glittered from her ears and her neck. Her shoes were basic gray pumps.

She might as well have been wearing black lace and fuck-me stiletto heels. His blood roared. His pulse pounded in his head, and all he could think about was peeling her out of her neat, respectable gray.

"Get in."

She blinked at him. "Uh . . . listen. It's not that last week wasn't nice—"

"Nice?" His eyes narrowed.

Her mouth curved. "Okay. I think we both know it was better than nice." A kid walked by leading a black and white Border Collie on a leash; she leaned into his truck window. Close enough for Mitch to smell her, something musky and vanilla this time.

"But when you brought me back to my car . . . ." Her voice hushed. She fidgeted.

"I thought we understood each other."

She bit her lip again and Mitch damn near exploded. She wouldn't have a frigging mouth left, the way she kept gnawing at it. "We do understand each other. Perfectly. Get in the truck, Liv."

Her brow furrowed. "I don't want to get involved. For God's sake, you're even more screwed up than I am." She winced. "No offense."

"None taken."

Principally because she was right.

That didn't stop him from jerking his chin at the passenger side door. She shook her head.

Snarling temper streaked through him. He clenched the steering wheel. "I don't want a relationship, honey. I want to fuck."

She gasped.

"We had a good time. No reason we can't keep having a good time as long as we agree that we're just untangling the knots they tie us into." He glared at the trailers before refocusing his attention on her. "Don't tell me it doesn't eat at you. I know that it does."

She fidgeted. "That doesn't excuse—"

"Being with you helped me put it away." He stared through the windshield, his body stiff. Tense. "You don't want me messing up your life? Fine. I won't. I don't want you fucking up mine. But it was good, Liv." He darted a glance at her. "Too good to not want it again."

Her dark eyes glittered with uncertainty and nervous fear. She shifted from foot to foot.

"Run away with me again, Livvy. Even if it's only for a few hours." His heart raced as he stared at her. "Don't think about it. Just get in the truck." She exhaled a long, jittery breath.

Anchoring her purse on her shoulder, Liv rounded the hood, opened the passenger door, and climbed in.

Chapter Five

After they made the left at the intersection, he glanced at her in the flicker of passing streetlights. Liv's cheeks had flushed pink. Her fingers clutched at her purse strap like the fricking thing was a life preserver. She was a bundle of nerves. So was he.

"Are you really on the pill?"

Her stare whipped to greet his, dark eyes shining with indignation. "Are you calling me a liar?"

Mitch's shoulders sagged in relief. "No, baby, I'm not calling you a liar." Not now he wasn't. "Just wanted to know if I should stop somewhere to pick up condoms." Her mouth thinned. "I didn't grab my purse when I high-tailed it out of Dad's last week." She indicated her bag with a stiff yank. "I always carry rubbers with me." He nodded, kept his eyes on the road. "I won't wear one." Minutes stretched.

His stomach tightened.

He risked another glance her way, but her eyes were focused on the road, her jaw straight and stubborn.

He couldn't read her.

But she hadn't screamed at him or demanded that he take her home so he tried again. "If you're on the pill . . . and neither one of us has had sex with anyone else this past week—"

"What kind of slut do you think I am, exactly?" she said through gritted teeth. He shoved his fingers through his hair.

This was not working out like he'd hoped. "All I'm saying is if either one of us has an STD, we swapped it last week. Damage done."

"So now I'm a skank who spreads disease?"

He groaned in frustration, glared at her. "No, god damnit, I'm telling you that I don't want to wear a fucking rubber!"

"Oh." She settled back in her seat, the tension in her body slowly draining. "Don't be vulgar."

He turned into his apartment complex. "Don't give me that crap, either." He nosed the truck into an empty parking place near the dumpsters, pitched his voice high to mimic hers. " Fuck me, Mitch. Please, please fuck me. " He ripped the keys from the ignition and faced her. "You like it hot and dirty, the dirtier the better. You're probably already wet."

Liv gaped at him in the dull glow of the lot's floodlights. "What?" He rubbed a hand over his face, tired, horny as hell, and edgy with it. He blew out a long, slow breath. "Why are we biting and tearing at each other?"

"I don't know." She sighed. "I'm sorry. I-I'm nervous, I guess."

"Yeah. Me, too. C'mon." He climbed out of the cab, slammed the door, and circled the truck so he could pull her into his arms. Not to kiss her. That'd come later. For now, he needed to ease the tension that was twisting them both into knots. Liv stiffened, probably expecting him to leap on her like a lecherous prick, but once she figured out he only wanted to hold her, she curled into his chest. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend they were kids hiding from their parents again. "If this isn't what you want, if you changed your mind, I'll drive you back." It might kill him, but he'd do it. "No harm. No foul."

When he stroked a lazy hand up and down her spine, she stretched under it like a sleek cat. "I haven't changed my mind." Her head lifted from his shoulder, her eyes dark, direct, and glittering with anxiety. "Have you?" He bent. His mouth slanted over hers. No gentle sampling, no soft brush of lips. Mitch had little use for gentleness. Besides, that wasn't what she needed, not from him. When her lips parted on a breathy gasp, he speared his tongue inside to plunder. Liv's fingers dug into his shoulders as he pivoted and pushed her into the passenger door of his truck with his hips. She'd feel how hard he was. Know how fiercely he wanted. Her mouth was pliant under his, but her body trembled with just the right amount of nervy reluctance.

Mitch liked it. A lot.

She wanted, too.

Liv was scared, maybe as scared as he was, but she needed as badly as he did. He nudged her sweater up at her waist and fumbled for the zipper along the side of her skirt.

"Wait." She tore her mouth from his, grabbed his fingers. "Stop." His hand stilled, but he didn't pull back. Instead, he opened his mouth over her neck and tasted. "Stop?" He breathed against her soft, scented skin. "Why? When we both know we'll feel a whole lot better once I'm inside you." She shivered.

He chuckled.

"I'm not backing out. I want . . . this." She pushed at his hand on her zipper. "Just not here."

Feral delight blossomed inside him. Part of the fun was the chase, convincing the lady to let him fuck her. He and Liv had sort of skipped that part, but that didn't mean he couldn't challenge her. Set the wilder pieces of him free.

This was Liv.

He'd be safe with Livvy.

He shifted his lips to trace the skin peeking from the neckline of her sweater. "It's late. Dark. My apartment is on the corner of the unit, practically behind the building. The truck will hide us," he whispered, then licked. "No one'll see." She shook her head.

But she'd angled her jaw up to give him better access. "We're right by the dumpster. Anyone could come, t-take out the trash. Inside—"

"No." He brushed her hand aside. "Here." The rasp of her zipper lowering set him on fire. "Right here." He stared into her wide eyes, heart thudding against his ribcage as his fingers snagged the waist of her skirt, her panties, and pantyhose. "I'll leave your coat on. If somebody comes before we do, they'll only see your coat." Her pupils dilated with arousal so dark they seemed black. "They'll hear us." He smiled, walking her skirt inch by delectable inch down her hips. "Only if you want them to." He paused to brush his fingers over her exposed clit. Her breath caught.

He smothered a groan at how slick her pussy already was. "You're as hot for this as I am. Don't say no," he said, then kissed her to make sure she couldn't tell him to stop. Not before he'd inched her clothes down her thighs, anyway, and by then, it was a done deal.

His mouth released hers only so he could kneel on the gritty pavement, pull the narrow skirt to her ankles. His pulse thrummed at her short, shallow breaths as she kicked off her respectable shoes. He lifted one calf, then the other, so she could step free of hose and the puddle of fabric.

Since he was already down there, he skated his mouth up one of her newly bared legs, dipped a tongue into the back of her knee. Her whispery moan, as his mouth skimmed higher, rocketed through him. With his chin, he nudged her thighs wider.

"We'll get caught," she said in a hushed whisper when his lips reached her pussy.

"Let them watch," he said and dove in.

He planted his mouth over her engorged clit, sucked, and laved her with his tongue.

She groaned.

Loud.

Too loud.

And so sexy Mitch almost embarrassed himself, but it was worth it, so worth it when she smacked a hand over her mouth—too late to muffle the passionate sounds she made—and stabbed the other hand's fingers into his hair so hard her fingernails scraped his scalp.

Oh yeah.

This was what he wanted. Exactly what he wanted.

He ate at her with a ferocity that set her legs to trembling, made it impossible for her to keep quiet.

She panted. And cried. And pleaded.

But he didn't make her come.

That was a treasure she awarded him, a gift to be savored, and all the more special by her generosity in giving it.

He certainly shouldn't share it with the asshole whose shoes he'd heard scrape the pavement by the dumpster.

So when he felt her orgasm drawing close, the violent quake of her body nearing the edge of release, he pulled back. Pushed to his feet. Drunk on sex, she staggered against him, which made it easier to drag her into his arms. She twined hers around his neck. Offered her mouth to him and hooked one calf around his knee. Spreading herself wide for him.

"Mitch," she moaned against his lips.

Christ, he loved how she said his name.

He kissed her.

What in the fuck else was he supposed to do? Tell her no—that some prick was watching them? Nuh uh. Nope. She'd screech and shriek. He'd never get between those thighs again. So when she pushed her tongue into his mouth, tangled it with his, he took. His body trembled. His cock was so hard, he hurt. Physically hurt. He had to have her, needed to feel her body tight around him. "Inside," he groaned, tearing his mouth away. "Time to go, Livvy."

She shoved a hand down, between their bodies.

Reached for his zipper.

His eyes slammed shut.

Oh Jesus.

Oh shit.

When she outlined the shape of his dick through his jeans, Mitch's honorable intentions evaporated like a puff of smoke. Let the bastard watch. As long as Liv got his cock out of his pants before he drilled a hole in the denim.

"Easy, babe," he panted, "or the party's going to be over before we get started." She laughed into his mouth.

The witch.

He grabbed her shoulders, flipped her around so she faced the truck, and running his hands down her arms, he planted her splayed fingers on the passenger door to brace her. He leaned in, nipped at her earlobe. "I want to fuck you like this." And he wanted the guy near the dumpster to see him take her from behind, ride her hard, fuck her until she practically sobbed with the sheer animal pleasure of it. Like this.

He stepped back, pushed her long dress coat aside so he could stroke the curve of her ass. Her skin shone luminescent in the shadows. Ripe. Begging to be touched. He stroked her, cupped one pale cheek, squeezed.

She whispered his name again, squirmed.

So he smacked it.

She jerked at the sharp slap of his palm on her butt, yelped in surprise. "Ow!

Damn it, Mitch—"

He swatted her again, harder this time. "Shut up."

She cried out.

She didn't break free from him, though.

Instead, she stood there, mutely trembling, while he rubbed at the reddening mark he'd made on her butt cheek.

Interesting.

Mitch smiled.

Very interesting.

But this was a possibility to be explored later. For now, he needed too badly. He trailed his hand from her ass to his zipper.

And grinned when her breath caught at the rasp of it lowering.

He freed himself from his jeans, his dick springing hard and heavy from the stiff, confining denim. His balls were so tight, he wouldn't last long once he drove into her. At least, he wouldn't last with the hard ride he planned to give her. She'd come. He'd wound her body to the brink of orgasm with his mouth. Of course, she'd come. But he wanted the orgasm to explode through her, the climax so violent and consuming it obliterated everything else.

Mitch stroked his cock with one hand and brushed the other down her arm, her back, skimmed down the crack of her luscious rear. She gasped when he eased the tip of one finger into her wet, waiting pussy. He pressed down and tugged. Slipping his thumb into her puckered ass, he stopped both finger and thumb at the first knuckle.

"Mitch?"

"Shh." He set a slow, steady pace, pumping just the tips of his finger and thumb in and out of her in time with the stroke of his hand on his dick. Liv whimpered. "I want—"

He pushed the tip of a second finger into her, easing his fingers and thumb in to his second knuckles.

Fucked all three digits into her.

She groaned.

Mitch gritted his teeth. "I know what you want."

When she arched her spine, tilting her lovely pussy and asshole in debauched invitation, he shoved his hand forward until she encased him to the hilt, her cunt slapping hot and wet into his palm. She quivered and moaned as he played with both of her holes. When she heedlessly, breathlessly ground her hips into the double prick he'd made of his fingers and thumb, he shuddered.

Mitch's mind spun.

When she panted, he panted along with her. When she groaned, he felt it coiling in his balls. The only thing that mattered was the frantic rock of her body against his hand and her low, feral cries.

He slowed, forcing Liv to pick up the pace. She worked her hips, desperately humped his hand so his fingers and thumb pumped her dripping pussy and tight asshole with increasing, bone-melting rapidity. Mitch had never seen anything as beautiful as Liv double fucking herself, mewling and crying and grunting while she bucked her hips up and down on his fingers, his thumb. Her muscles bunched as she fucked his hand faster and faster and faster still. Her ass cheeks flexed and tensed. Mitch's cock grew impossibly harder and thicker.

When she stiffened, he ripped his hand free of her sucking, grasping holes. She cried out in stunned, shuddering protest, but Mitch stepped forward, slammed his dick into her. Tight as a drum, her cunt clamped down on him in the grips of brutal orgasm. He fucked his way through it, thrust hard, so hard her body pitched forward, flattening her against the passenger door of his truck.

A primitive, keening wail tore from her lips.

Mitch ignored it.

He grunted, hammering his dick in and out of her. An inferno. He was fucking an inferno. The heat scorched him, singed his nerve endings. He couldn't think any more. Just feel. The taut clench of her around him. The scent of her pussy on his fingers as he rode her. The cool brush of her ass cheeks against his belly with each stroke.

"Please. Please." She chanted between shaky, gasping pants. "Oh God." She came again, but he didn't care. His own orgasm nipped at him with serrated teeth as he pounded his cock in and out of her. He wanted to come. God, how he needed to come, but the orgasm toyed with him, danced just out of reach. He couldn't stand another second.

He never wanted it to end.

He—

His vision grayed.

The world slipped out of focus.

Pleasure exploded inside him like a supernova. His jaw clenched. His back bowed when he hammered his dick home, and crushing release flooded over him. A long, harsh groan tore from his throat as his dick jerked and spurted inside her. He wanted to weep. He wanted to curse, but he was helpless to do either, caught up in the maelstrom of a climax so keen he felt shredded by it. His only anchor was Liv, the tight grip of her body promising never to let him go.

Panting, he fell on her back.

Oh fuck.

Sweet baby Jesus.

He shook his head, sucked in air, but his heart thrashed against his ribcage. His ears still rang.

He didn't even mind that one of his neighbors had just watched him fuck his girlfriend, lose control, then shatter into a thousand pieces.

That's how good it was.

Scrambling hard to re-gather his brains, Mitch groaned.

Wait a minute.

Girlfriend?

Chapter Six

Still shaking, Mitch brushed aside the tangled hair that had escaped the knot at her nape. He skated a kiss over her neck.

Girlfriend?

Liv wasn't his girlfriend. She was his sometime-lover. And that was something he had to earn. Liv would be his regular Friday night lay only as long as he convinced her that screwing him was so good, so shattering she needed more. Of him. Of what he could do to her.

So she wasn't his girlfriend. Thinking like that was the one thing guaranteed to drive her away.

Besides . . . .

Guys didn't do to their girlfriends all the lovely wicked things Mitch wanted to do to Liv.

When she moaned, he grinned.

"You smacked me."

"I swatted your ass." He corrected her. "Then, I fucked it." She sniffed in disdain. "Did not."

"With my thumb." The scrape of the dumpster guy's shoe tickled his ears again. Mitch wondered if it'd been half as good for him as it'd been for Mitch, if the guy was mopping himself up, folding his dick back into his pants, breathing hard, and trying to get a grip on his whirling senses. "Hell, the way you were grinding into my hand, you did more of the fucking than I did."

She shivered.

"I smacked your bare ass." He bent to her ear. "I shoved my thumb up inside it," he said, "and you loved every minute. You'll like being draped over my knee more. With my dick pumping your ass, spanked cherry red, you'll go off like a rocket." When she glared over her shoulder, he stepped back, eased his softening cock out of her. He stuffed it back into his jeans and zipped up. "You hungry? I bought groceries so there's food in the apartment this time."

She pivoted, crossed her arms over her chest, and scowled at him. He could have told her that the stance would've made a more effective impression if she wasn't naked from the waist down and the cum he'd shot into her hadn't seeped into the neat thatch of hair between her thighs.

His dick twitched.

Damned thing had a mind of its own.

"What are you doing, Mitch?"

He bent, snagged her skirt and shoes from the parking lot, but he knew she'd yank her clothes back on, maybe demand to leave if he gave the skirt back, so he shoved the shoes at her and stuffed the rest into the front of his jacket. "Just wrap your coat around yourself. My front door's only a few feet away."

She lifted a foot to slide one of her gray pumps on. "No, Mitch. I want to know what you think you're doing."

Temper unfurled inside him. His lips compressed to a scowl. "Trying to get your bare ass into my place before anyone else sees it. That's what I'm doing." She stepped into her other shoe. "You're treating me like a whore."

"I'm treating you like a lay. A damned good one. A woman I want to get a lot hotter and sweatier with. Isn't that what you wanted?" He jerked his chin toward the apartment building.

She hugged herself with rigid arms she'd crossed over her chest. "You hit me—"

"Swatted." He lifted a defensive hand. "I swatted your butt. I did not hit you."

"—finger-fucked my ass, in a public space, where anyone could see . . . ." Anxiety curled his gut, because she was right.

Mitch was a sexual freak. He saw no point in lying to himself. Whether his appetites had been born in him or were the product of his less-than-stellar formative years, didn't matter. When it came to sex, Mitch pushed the boundaries. Regularly. Wasn't much he hadn't tried and less he hadn't enjoyed.

Still, he kept that part of him wrapped down tight, introduced it to the women he dated bit by bit, if he revealed that side of himself at all. Always tended to scare lovers away.

But this was Liv.

He'd thought . . . .

His shoulders slumped.

He didn't know what damned fool nonsense had raced like rats through his fevered head, but obviously, he'd been wrong.

He reached forward, slid his fingers into the dark hair at her ears so he could cup her cheek in his palm and stare into her eyes. "I'm sorry. I got carried away." She frowned at him. Her fingers lifted to clasp his. "Slow down, okay? You're going too fast for me."

Desire spiked through his skull, made his body clench.

Slow down wasn't no.

Wasn't even close.

Need stirred his dick, but he mustered a smile. "So I shouldn't tell you that one of my neighbors watched us."

He grinned when her eyes widened.

He jerked his gaze over his shoulder. "Sounds like he's next to the dumpster." She gulped. "You're joking."

He moved in closer, drawing her body to his. "And I shouldn't tell you that the idea of a stranger watching me fuck you, listening to you come, turns me on so bad my bones ache?"

Her dark eyes focused on his. "Somebody's over there? Seriously?" He weighed the benefits of a white lie, but opted for the truth. "Yeah." Her jaw dropped. "Oh my God."

"Look on the bright side. He was only taking out the garbage so he probably didn't have a phone on him."

Her eyes rounded. She gaped at him. "Oh. My. God."

He laughed. He could tell her that there were already pictures of him floating around the Internet, not to mention one very interesting video—and that was just the crap he knew about—but she'd be appalled. "C'mon, baby. Time to go in." When he turned to guide her away, her fingers dug into his arm. "Mitch! I'm half naked."

"He watched me lick you. He's seen me spank your bare ass." His eyebrow arched. "It's a little late for modesty, don't you think?" She snatched at the lapels of her coat to cover herself as he grabbed her hand and dragged her to the sidewalk. "I will never forgive you for this." Mitch shrugged. In for a penny, in for a pound. "Good evening," he called out toward the dumpster, snickering when Liv squealed in outrage. "Nice night for a walk, aye?"

A figure emerged from the shadows, the wiry blond who lived in 308-D, two doors down. Mitch's apartment was a corner unit, only one bedroom, but the interior apartments of the building had two and three bedrooms. The blond shared his with two equally young and upwardly mobile roommates. Mitch couldn't remember seeing this one with a girlfriend, but that didn't mean squat since he hadn't cared enough to pay attention.

"Nice night for a show," the blond said in reply, slowing to a halt a few feet away. "I'm Sam. Sam Lawson. I'm in 308."

"I know."

Sam wore baggy sweats with a hole in one knee, a t-shirt from whatever Podunk college he'd emerged from, battered high-tops and no socks. Stubble shadowed his jaw and his honey-streaked hair stood up in spikes at one temple, as though the kid had been running his fingers through it. No erection tented his crotch so Mitch assumed the guy had beaten off in time with his and Liv's furtive fucking. Which pleased him considerably. "I'm Mitch." He nodded. "She's Olivia." Liv buried her mortified face in her hands.

He grinned at his neighbor. "She's shy."

When Sam laughed, Mitch decided he and his new friend understood each other completely. "She's amazing. Next time you want an audience, let me know. Anytime, anywhere." He eased by them, whistling as he strutted down the sidewalk. Liv turned on him when Sam disappeared, her back ramrod stiff. "You're despicable."

Mitch smothered a chuckle.

Yeah.

Pretty much.

He tugged on her hand. "C'mon."

She yanked her hand back. "I'm not going anywhere with you." She planted her feet, dug in her heels. "Take me back to my car. Now." Mitch was as contrary as the next man. He liked putting that incensed—and interested—spark in a woman's eyes. But enough was enough.

He released her.

Without his hand to pull against, Liv stumbled.

"You wanted it as much as I did." He frowned at her. "I tried to get you inside when I realized Sam was there."

Her eyes iced over. "You knew he was there— and you didn't tell me," she said through clenched teeth.

Mitch's stomach somersaulted.

Okay.

Even by his standards, that had been a shitty thing to do. "All right, I'll give you that. I should have said something. I like people to watch me, but I shouldn't have made that decision for you." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I won't do it again." She froze, blinked her stunned eyes at him. "You like to be watched?" Mitch was not a stupid man.

Normally.

"Yeah, I like it. I like a lot of things." He jerked his shoulder, darted a glance that he hoped she interpreted as awkward and embarrassed. "Why don't we go inside? Talk. We got mixed up in this so fast . . . ." He rocked back on his heels. "Things got out of hand."

Her body relaxed. "We just need to set some ground rules." He sighed.

Mitch had never met a rule he hadn't been tempted to break.

Chapter Seven

"No multiples partners," she said, tipping her head up from the crook of his shoulder to meet his gaze.

As soon as he'd gotten her into his apartment, he'd suggested a shower. She was a sticky mess and so was he.

He hadn't taken her in the shower.

He'd warmed them both up, though.

Then Mitch had tumbled her into his bed and they'd screwed until she was messy again.

Normal screwing.

Face to face, their bodies moving and straining against each other. It'd been good. As good as the sex that first night with her, and that had been pretty freaking hot. They were not in a public space.

No one watched them.

He hadn't turned her over his knee and swatted her ass cherry red. Or fucked it. He hadn't suggested that Sam join them in bed, either.

He stifled his grin.

No, Liv had introduced that subject all on her lonesome.

"It wouldn't have to be Sam," Mitch said, since she seemed so interested in it. Hell, if she was game—and it definitely looked like she was game—he was interested himself. "If he doesn't turn you on, we can find someone else." He skimmed her shoulder with a tired, lazy finger.

She propped herself up on his chest with one elbow, staring at him between narrowed eyes.

Narrowed, reproving, but very interested eyes.

"How could you want me to—?"

"Fuck two guys?" he asked when she paused, fumbling around the words.

"How could . . . sharing me," she said, shooting a glare at him, "with somebody else appeal to you? I could understand another woman. Most men entertain fantasies about being with two women, but another guy?"

Mitch could have told her that balling two women was a lot of work. That he only had one dick, and the basic mechanics of that dick dictated it function only a limited number of times each night. Sure, God gave him a mouth, a tongue, and the skill to use both, but his experience with female-heavy threesomes had led to a lot of chick-on-chick action that hadn't involved him because he'd been fighting to staple his brains back into his skull.

Instead, he caught a stray lock of her hair, twined it around his finger. "You'd be satisfied, completely satisfied. More than you've ever been in your life, with anyone. Including me." His lips curved. "We'd sexually exhaust you. You have no idea how sexy that is."

She bit her lip.

"Another man takes the pressure off, too." He gave her hair a tug. "Sharing you means sharing the responsibility for pleasing you. If I can't make you come, my partner will. That gives me the freedom to enjoy the sex more."

"You like it better?" She batted his hand from her hair. "With another guy?"

"With another guy to pick up the slack, I can be selfish." He shrugged. "With two of us pleasing you and each other—"

"Each other?" Her eyebrow arched.

Mitch shoved down sudden, screaming anxiety and stared at her, his eyes direct.

"Yes, each other."

She gaped.

He wanted to crack a joke, say something to distract her, to let it slide. But that was the cowardly part of him: the little boy inside that still flinched every time Gary called him a fag. He blew out a long breath. "How much would depend on the man. If he doesn't swing that way, if neither one of us is attracted, I don't need it to have a good time."

She stared at him like he'd transformed into a ten-tentacled alien. He rubbed at his throbbing temple.

Disappointment settled over him like a shroud. "If it bothers you that much, I won't touch him. Sam looked straight as a fucking arrow, anyway." He nudged her off his chest so he could swing his legs over the side of the bed. "I'm thirsty. Want anything from the kitchen?"

She wrapped her fingers around his arm. "Mitch."

He shook her off, stood. "We never did eat. You must be hungry." He crossed to his dresser, snagged a pair of gym shorts from a drawer.

"Stop. Will you hold on a second?"

The sheets rustled behind him as he pulled on the shorts, but he didn't meet her eyes. "I have a couple pieces of fried chicken left from dinner, cold cuts for sandwiches—"

Threading her arms around his waist, she hugged him from behind. He stiffened, his arms outstretched.

Her smooth cheek rested against his shoulder blade. "You can't drop a bomb like that then run."

Sure he could.

But Mitch lowered his arms. Accepted the embrace. "I'm not gay, Liv." She laughed, her breath fanning the skin of his back. "I figured that out all by myself."

He chuckled, felt the tension drain from his muscles. "Yeah. I guess so."

"I'll think about it. With Sam."

Yeah, he'd figured. He could practically hear the idea gnawing at her brain like hungry rats. Mitch decided to buddy up to Mr. Sam Lawson of apartment 308-D, take him out to play ball one night, see what kind of man he'd soon be sharing his woman with.

She squeezed his stomach. "What else?"

"Hmm?" He lifted a shoulder so he could slide her underneath his arm, pull her to his chest, where he could see her eyes. Hold her.

"What else are you hiding that might freak me out?" Her smile shook, but he gave her points for trying. "You like sex in public, spanking, anal sex, and group sex that includes gay lovers," she said, ticking each off on her fingers.

"I don't like group sex." Acid churned his belly. "Too impersonal." Her brow furrowed. "Mitch, I just said I'd think about Sam. You want me to think about Sam."

God save him from naïve children. Mitch rolled his eyes. "A threesome is not group sex." Not compared to the group sex he'd been involved in, anyway. She bit her bottom lip.

Which was guaranteed to kick his pulse up a notch.

"It really doesn't bother you?" Her fingers trailed over his chest. "Me, you, and another man?"

He hummed low in his throat. "No." She was so soft, her skin silky and warm against his. "I want it as much as you do."

"What if I'm not as . . . I don't know . . . liberated as you?" She traced a pattern of spirals above his heart. "What if it bothers me to watch a man touch you?" He nudged her chin up with one finger. "You don't have to be anyone except who you are, Liv. If you don't like screwing in public, we won't. If you don't want me to spank you or tie you up—"

Her eyes rounded. "You want to tie me up?"

"Hell, yeah." He grinned. "I want you tied and blindfolded while Sam and I do whatever the hell we want to you. Makes me hard just thinking about it." He kissed the tip of her nose. "Do you want to tie me up? We can play it both ways. I don't mind." Mitch's body trembled. Being under her power, at her mercy, would be interesting. What would she do with him?

"I don't know. Maybe." She shivered. "At least, it's not as weird as Sam."

"Think about it." But he knew she was already thinking about it, thinking hard. He wrapped his arms around her. "If something's too bizarre and you honestly don't want to try it, I'll accept that. But give it fair consideration first." She gnawed on her bottom lip. "I genuinely don't like anal sex." Mitch grunted.

He'd been expecting that. "If you'll let me try, I bet I can change your mind." She regarded him dubiously. "I doubt it."

"Think about it." He grinned. "And think about Sam." She frowned.

He laughed. "Don't worry about it tonight." He grabbed her hand, led her to the door. "Let's go loot the kitchen. I'm hungry."

She pulled back, a playful smile on her lips. "I'm naked." He stripped his shorts down his hips, kicked them off. "Me, too."

"You don't have any curtains up."

"Most of the windows are blocked by boxes." He wriggled his eyebrows. "Maybe we'll get lucky and Sam'll be outside, watching again."

She snickered. "You're a degenerate."

"Yeah, but that's what you like about me."

* * * * *

Liv became his regular Friday night date.

Not that they were dating.

He checked on Gary.

She spent the evening with her dad and her sister, Cheryl. Sometimes, she was leaning against her car when Mitch left his father's, but Mitch usually waited for her. And they fucked like bunnies.

She'd let him tie her up the first Friday after the parking lot and Mitch had taught her to love his cock up her ass. "It's all in the timing," he'd told her as he'd fondled her clit. "You have to be ready. Primed. Not just your ass. Your whole body. So every part of you is lit up and aching for me to fill you." He'd grinned at her increasingly harsh pants. "That's what it should be about—filling you up until you feel like you're going to burst. Not hammering into you like a rutting bull. Taking my time. When I finally push into you, you'll be eager—if not begging—for a slow, easy screw." And she had been.

Liv had zero problems with him touching her ass now.

None.

She was still wary of Sam, though.

Mitch had noticed him more and more frequently around the apartment complex. They'd exchanged waves, the occasional "good morning" and "hey, how ya doin'?" if Sam's Camri was parked near his truck, but Mitch hadn't cornered him for a game of ball yet.

Mitch had written him off as a skinny little bastard that night in the parking lot, but Sam's shoulders filled out the suit jackets he wore to work surprisingly well. His hair, the color of warm honey, looked a hell of a lot better once he'd run a comb through it. Without the layer of stubble, his jaw wasn't as soft, either. The boy was reasonably attractive, in a polished sort of way.

Not his type usually.

But Liv would love him.

She'd eat him right up.

A smile stretched Mitch's lips.

"Oh, shit. There he goes again."

Mitch shot a glance at his partner. "There I go again what?"

"Daydreaming," Artie said and snorted. The fifty-year-old construction worker had found Mitch crashing at a house Artie'd contracted to rehab when Mitch was sixteen. He'd put Mitch's ass to work because nobody, according to Artie, squatted free on his job site. Artie had taken him in, given him a reason to hold his head up, and when Mitch was old enough, had earned it, Artie had offered a full partnership in his business.

Artie was Mitch's father in all the ways that counted.

"When you're distracted like this," he said, "you're thinking about a woman." Mitch sipped his coffee.

He may not be thinking about a woman at all, and Artie knew that, but they both kept up the pretense at work. The rest of the country may have moved forward, but the craftsmen and day laborers their business relied on might balk at a foreman they suspected was queer. Even only part-queer.

"I'm too busy with Gary to date."

Which was true.

Mitch and Liv had never been on a legitimate date, unless you counted lunch at Sizzler after their first night together.

He didn't.

And he was damned sure Liv wouldn't.

No matter their physical perfection in bed, Liv would run like hell if he ever suggested doing anything with her outside it.

"You're one more divorce away from living in your truck, son." Artie shoved receipts and work orders into a thick, brown expandable file. "Do yourself a favor and get a pre-nup before you marry this one."

Mitch's lips thinned. "It's not like that."

Artie arched an eyebrow.

"No, it really is a woman this time," Mitch said, chuckling, "but our relationship isn't a marrying kind of thing."

His partner snapped elastic around the file to close it. "Does she know about—?" Artie nodded at the door, where their employees outside waited to be divided up to work that day's contracts. Artie knew Mitch liked to keep his personal life private so he wouldn't go into detail where the men might hear. Instead, Artie scuffed his work boots into the carpet. "You know. Does she know about it?"

Mitch frowned.

Did she know about what?

That he'd run away from home when he was fourteen?

Yeah. Liv knew that.

That he'd whored himself to put food in his stomach and an occasional roof over his head until Artie had yanked him off the streets two years later?

Uh . . . no.

About Rita and Gary?

Hell no.

His sexual kinks?

He settled on the last. The easiest. "Liv hasn't run from my bed screaming yet." Granted, he'd reigned in his whoremones so far, started her out slow. The free show he'd given his neighbor in the parking lot, a little light bondage, the gentle initiation of his cock in her ass. He'd even hung curtains in his apartment when she'd asked, but she hadn't protested that he never drew them shut. Maybe she was as hopeful as he that Sam would spy them fucking again. He needed to step up the pace with Sam, get that ball rolling. Liv was ready. There was no doubt in Mitch's mind that she'd take two men between her legs with little to no hesitation.

Livvy, he'd come to surmise, regarded him as her sexual liberation. Mitch was more than happy to comply.

He pushed his chair back, snagged his hardhat from the desk, and climbed to his feet. "She knows."

Artie stilled, his hand frozen on the doorknob. He turned his head. He focused wide eyes on Mitch. "You told her?"

Mitch snatched his own expandable file, stuffed with the jobs he'd assign and the ones he'd work personally, from the desk. "Yeah. So?" His partner pivoted on one heel, now blocking the door and Mitch's escape.

"What about the rest?"

He didn't want to talk about Liv anymore. He slung his hardhat onto his head.

"Our employees are waiting."

"Your record, your stepmother—"

Mitch's temper flashed. "Liv doesn't need to know that crap."

"She didn't need to know you think a guy's butt is cute, either," Artie pointed out. Mitch clenched his teeth. "She has a right to know my sexual history." Especially, since he was still fucking her bareback.

"That's a first. I think Andrea's the only one of your women who knew you were the least bit bent in bed and the only reason you told her that much is because, deep down, you knew she didn't give a shit." Artie snickered, clapped a hand to Mitch's shoulder. "Bring this Liv around to supper. Barb will want to meet her."

"It's just sex." Mitch yanked away from him. "Nothing serious."

"Anybody who puts that gleam in your eye isn't just sex. And telling a woman that you pitch for both teams?" His partner's eyes shone with pity. "Son, it don't get more serious than that."

Chapter Eight

Artie's ungentle pushing ate at him all day and when he got to Gary's, the son of a bitch had hocked his Ativan. Rita was long gone, boozing it up on her share of the cash, so Mitch found his father drunk, crying, and laying in his own piss. It hadn't improved Mitch's mood.

He'd cleaned Gary up, called his oncologist, and bartered for replacement pills with the promise of round-the-clock care to make sure the drugs went into Gary instead of a street punk's pocket. Mitch already stretched every dollar to absorb the cost of his father's day nurses. Next up: his 401K.

What the hell?

Why not?

He'd be able to retire someday.

He played the lottery, didn't he?

Mitch laughed, a hard bitter sound that jerked Liv's gaze to him. "What?"

"Nothing."

Her eyes narrowed.

His mouth twisted to a smile. "I've had a crap day and Gary didn't help." He kissed her frowning lips. "Don't worry about it."

They'd made it to his apartment late, not only because he'd been on the phone with a list of private nurses to arrange babysitters for his father. Liv had also spent most of the night helping her little sister haul heavy garbage bags and pieces of broken furniture to the end of her driveway. Mitch hadn't heard screaming. An old fight then, one Liv had missed. Thank God. Clearing the debris had grooved worry lines around her soft mouth and her eyes had dulled with soul-deep weariness when she'd turned to him.

Liv was hurting. Bad.

She didn't need Mitch's shit, too.

"Maybe I want to worry about it." She shifted in his arms. "Maybe I—" She rested her cheek on his chest. "Never mind."

They were both tired. Once they'd reached his apartment . . . the sex had been outstanding. It always was. Mitch's scalp still tingled with the intensity of his orgasm and his shoulder stung where she'd dug her fingernails into him when she'd come. But neither one of them'd had the energy to be creative. Not then. Instead, he'd kissed her, tumbling her back on his bed. Rose up over her. Covered her.

They usually talked after sex. About Liv's dad, her sister. Gary's cancer. Who else were they going to talk to? The people they worked with? Friends? They didn't know what it was like, how it felt. Not really. They hadn't lived it—lived with it—not like he and Liv had, every day.

"Gary gave Rita some of his medicine to sell on the street because—and I'm quoting here—he ran out of cigarettes."

She grimaced. "You thought that was funny?"

"No." Mitch snickered. "Cashing in my retirement to hire nurses to baby sit that asshole seems pretty fricking hilarious, though. All things considered." Her gaze darted to meet his. "You have a sick sense of humor."

"Tragic irony." He closed his eyes. "It's laugh or cry, babe. I'd rather laugh." She lifted off his chest. Her hair trailed over his skin as she scooted off the bed. He listened to her feet pad to the bathroom, the rush of water from the faucet. Liv showered in the morning, but she cleaned herself up before settling down for bed. Scrubbed the makeup off her face, brushed her teeth.

Exhaustion sapped him, weighing down his limbs and pulling him toward sleep. He didn't fight it. The sounds of Liv moving around his place, the familiarity of it, soothed his ragged edges. "Did you get the raise?" he called to her. Liz had been up for her annual review on Monday. Mitch had helped her work off her nervous energy last weekend, and boy, wasn't the memory of that enough to make his dick twitch.

"Only ten cents an hour. Mr. Swanson said the economy hit the practice hard." Mitch grunted.

Economy, his ass.

People divorced and fought over their kids whether they had the money for it or not. As far as Mitch was concerned, getting ugly and mean when things fell apart was an essential facet of human nature. A shitty economy would only make people meaner.

"You could look for a job with another lawyer. Experienced paralegals make more than what Swanson's paying you." Mitch knew. He'd asked around. "He should be contributing to your IRA, at least."

"Mr. Swanson hired me when nobody in their right mind would pay a Winslow to do more than suck cock," she said from the door. "He took a chance on me when no one else would. I owe him."

He sighed.

Yeah, Mitch knew all about those kinds of debts. He opened his arms and Liv crawled beside him in bed. She turned off the lights.

"My partner wants to meet you."

He knew it was a mistake by the immediate stiffening of her body. "He thinks you're after my money. I reminded him that, thanks to my last divorce, I don't have any money. I told him that you want me for sex, but he doesn't believe me. Says I'm that not good." He smiled, though his gut clenched and his mind scrambled at how to smooth it over. "I thought about giving him an interesting website to visit to prove him wrong. The pictures are free. Watching the video would cost him twenty bucks, though." He squeezed her in his arms, praying to God the glib charm would disarm her. "He's so cheap; no way he'd fork over the twenty so there's no hope for it. You'll have to meet Artie and convince him that I'm your slut."

She reared up over him, jaw gaping. "You have a porn flick on the 'net?" Thank God his kink so easily distracted her. "I didn't know I was launching my film career at the time." He chuckled. "The pictures are fantastic. Want to see?" She blinked her wide eyes at him. "Maybe. Is it weird? What you're doing in the pictures?"

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Liv knew him that well. Already.

Mitch grinned. "What do you think?"

Her eyes snapped shut. "You have no filters, do you? No shame." Mitch climbed from the bed, fetched his laptop from the dresser. "I'm not ashamed of having a good time or giving a good time to whoever I'm with." Sprawling across the bed, he booted up the laptop. "These were taken at a private party ten—no, thirteen—years ago." Mitch clicked through to the file, opened it. With the tap of a few keys, the slideshow started.

He smiled as Liv stared at the first photo. The camera had caught Mitch's lean, summer-tanned body as he'd bent over a man, fish-belly pale and fifty pounds overweight. The man's light brown hair had thinned on top, his face hidden in the chaotic red curls of the twig-thin woman beneath him. Bob and Elaine. A married couple in the next town over, they'd often picked Mitch up for extra play in bed. Before Artie had saved him.

When Mitch had still sold himself as a whore.

Mitch remembered his fierce gratitude for the repeat business, but Bob and Elaine hadn't just kept his stomach fed. They'd taught him to enjoy what they did to him and to each other. To embrace it. Hell, as an adult, Mitch understood now that teaching a fresh-faced fourteen year-old boy to love whoring for them had been part of Bob and Elaine's kink, but he was grateful, anyway. None of his other johns had cared if he liked what they did to him, if he got off on it. Bob and Elaine had insisted. No cash until Mitch came. That was the rule. Their only one.

When Mitch ran into them again at seventeen, his whoring days had been over. He'd still slept in a shed in Artie and Barb's back yard and he hadn't trusted them with his last name yet. But his belly was always full. He'd stopped expecting Artie to beat or bang him. He'd begun to want the life Barb and Artie were offering him, had started to trust it.

He'd still followed Bob and Elaine home when they'd asked him, though. He'd stayed the weekend and Artie had told him in later years that disappearing like that had scared him and Barb to death. Until Mitch had finally wandered home, sore, hurting and stinking of sex, they'd thought he'd returned to his old ways, that they'd lost him for good. But Mitch hadn't gone back to whoring.

That time, he'd fucked for free.

In the picture, Elaine crouched on all fours in the center of the couple's rec room, the furniture pushed aside. Bob had mounted her. Liv wouldn't be able to see the guy's cock lodged hard and thick in Elaine's ass, but Mitch remembered. He remembered all of it.

Especially the belt.

The camera had picked up the first pink stripe glowing on Bob's pale, dimpled ass. The furtive photographer had snapped the shot when Mitch had raised his arm, muscle already building. He'd doubled the thick leather strap of the belt around his fist and it trailed in a wide arc as his arm had swung. His lips had curled back over his teeth, his eyes glittering with the feral arousal Bob and Elaine had taught him.

"Don't come," he'd told Bob. "Don't you dare come." In the background, a handful of people in various stages of undress watched the twosome crouched on the floor. One had taken the snapshots. Later, most of them had joined in.

Liv gasped at the next shot, a close up of the belt striking Bob's fleshy butt cheek. Whoever had created the montage had inset a sharp focus of Bob's face, the pleasurepain that caused his eyes to squint, the gaping maw of his mouth as he'd groaned when the strap of leather had landed.

"You whipped him?" Liv said, flashing stunned dark eyes at him. "With a belt?" Mitch nodded. "Bob liked welts that made sitting comfortably impossible." He'd taken a great deal of pleasure in beating those same welts into Mitch's fourteen year-old ass, too. "He wanted a reminder that lasted a couple days." When the picture dissolved into the next, she jerked her attention back to the laptop screen.

This one focused on Mitch. The camera had captured him studying Bob's abused ass, cheeks now glowing a fiery red. His young face had sculpted to a mask of intense concentration as he'd leaned in to slide the punishing length of leather across the welts he'd inflicted. Mitch's hand had dipped to distractedly stroke his own cock, which had hung hard and heavy in the V of his legs.

Liv squirmed in the bed sheets.

Mitch arched an eyebrow.

The next shot showed Mitch crouched next to Bob and Elaine. Mitch could clearly see Bob's fingers buried in his wife's cunt, the pleasure etched on Elaine's face as her husband fingered her. Mitch's hand had reached out to rub the red marks he'd beaten into Bob's thighs. The older man had looked over his shoulder—

"He's crying," Liv said.

Mitch noted her beaded nipples, the rosy flush that had swept over her nude body, the shallow breaths she pushed past her parted lips.

"He begged me to fuck him."

The next picture showed Mitch lining his condom-covered prick to Bob's puckered hole, the belt still clenched in his tight fist.

Liv's eyes snapped shut.

Mitch tapped at the keyboard, freezing the scene.

She stiffened when he danced his hand over her thighs. "This is where I'd beat you," he said, rubbing her tender skin between his fingers. "I'd bring the belt down until your thighs burned like an inferno. Until you cried so hard, you didn't have the breath to beg me to stop. I'd spread you. And fuck you. Every thrust excruciating, each slap of my hips against your thighs sweet agony."

She shivered. "Why did he let you do that to him? Why would he want you to?" Mitch's lips curved. She wanted to shift the attention to Bob, didn't want to acknowledge the arousal that heated her body at the unabashed kink, but Mitch wouldn't allow her that subterfuge. No. Not when he was as open and eager for it as she was rapidly becoming.

"Beating you will reduce you to raw emotion. You won't be able to think. You'll disconnect from every thought, every inhibition, every rule you ever believed should limit you. You'll be a bundle of crude, primitive instinct." He pinched her thigh between his fingers, unsurprised at her gasp or the red mark his fingers left on her skin. "Pain makes your pleasure sharper. Your orgasm will be so powerful, so overwhelming. You'll be consumed by it."

When her lashes lifted, Mitch nodded to the laptop. "Click on play," he said, then spread her legs wide.

"I don't want you to use a belt on me." Her hands skipped across the keyboard. Mitch settled his head between her thighs. "You will." He licked her.

She moaned.

"Watch the slide show." He opened his mouth over her clit, sucked it inside. Her spine bowed.

The crack of his palm striking her thigh rent the air, followed by her startled scream.

Mitch knew the images on his computer had shifted. When he'd found the slide show, he'd watched it until each shot had etched into his memory. His grasp like a vise on Bob's shoulder to force his older, softer body down on his cock as he rammed into his ass, as deep as Mitch could go, until the head of his cock pounded Bob's prostate. Bob's tear-streaked face when he matched each brutal stroke, using the force of Mitch's thrusts to jam his own dick into his wife's asshole. The indescribable joy that washed over Elaine's face as she took the vicious fucking.

Liv buried her hands in Mitch's hair, pushing his mouth into her cunt. He slapped her again.

She yipped in pain.

Her fingers stiffened, splayed.

He ran his tongue over her clit, worked her pink folds with his lips. Crack!

Her ass jerked, yanking her drenched pussy from his mouth. He wrenched her back, buried his face in her cunt.

And smacked her stinging thighs again.

Liv yelped, her hips wriggling in earnest now, but Mitch held her immobile for his licking and sucking. "If you want me to stop, if you genuinely want me to stop, yell red. That's your safe word, babe. Red," he said, then dipped his chin so he could lap at her pussy lips. "Say it," he growled against her steaming hot hole. "Red." She shuddered. "Red."

He reared back, settled on his haunches, his cock proudly jutting between his bent knees.

Stared at her.

Hard as a brick, hurting with how badly he wanted her, he stared. And waited. Waited for her to understand the power of her safe word, to know that nothing would happen that she didn't want.

Liv gulped, but lifted her hand toward him.

Mitch shifted out of reach. "Tell me what you want me to do to you, Liv." She bit her lip. "Lick me."

His heart thumped hard in his chest. "And?"

She shook her head no, but her eyes screamed yes.

Hot arousal gripped him by the balls and made his hands shake when he crawled back between her thighs, several red marks already marring the creamy white skin. "Remember your safe word, honey," he said, bending his head to her pussy. "Red. Red means stop."

"Yes," she breathed, arching her hips to his mouth.

Mitch lapped at her engorged clit.

Raised his open hand.

And brought it down on her splayed thighs.

She jerked, whimpered.

He licked at her.

Lifted his hand.

She shrieked when the blow landed, reflexively closed her legs. Mitch shoved them wide, uncomfortably wide. "You keep them open, Livvy. Don't move a fucking muscle. No matter what. Got it?"

Panic sheened her eyes.

Her head jerked to a nod.

He stared into her eyes, watched them darken with fear—and heat—as she watched his hand rise.

He brought it down hard on the reddening skin of her tender left thigh, harder than he'd smacked before. His palm stung at the intensity of the blow. Her eyes glistened.

His cock hardened to steel.

He slapped her right thigh with the same harsh strength.

The resounding crack of his hand striking her vulnerable flesh echoed in the bedroom.

"Please," she whispered shakily. "Please lick me." He sneered at her.

Cracked his palm down.

Another red mark.

Another shuddering whimper.

"You shouldn't have moved."

Smack!

She cried out.

"You deserve to be punished."

Chapter Nine

Tears welled in her eyes, slipped free of them, as he swatted her spread thighs again and again and again. She gritted her teeth, gasped. Shuddered. A sob tore from her throat.

Mitch's mind blurred, his senses narrowing to only the shrill crack of his flattened hand striking her skin, her increasingly abandoned wails as he beat her. The steady slap of his palm reddening each of her smooth thighs set a heady cadence with his wildly pounding heart.

"Please," she finally begged and his heart stuttered. Close.

She was so close.

"Please, no more. Stop," she cried, fat tears spilling down her cheeks as he smacked her thighs, landing blow after blow, never pausing. "Please!" Her thighs blazed a fiery red, her tender skin so warm she burned his palm when he slapped her. "Fuck your finger into your pussy," he said, his hand picking up speed.

"Then maybe I'll stop."

She tossed her head back, jaw clenched.

"Do it, babe." He increased the strength of his blows. "Or you'll wish to God you had."

Sobbing, she snaked a hand down to her snatch and shoved her first finger inside.

Mitch didn't let up, raining blows down on her thighs so fiercely he knew the pain must be hideous. Overwhelming.

Which was exactly the point.

"Masturbate."

Slap! Slap! Slap!

Mitch growled deep in his throat. "Masturbate, goddamnit." Sniveling, her nose rosy and dripping, cheeks wet, Liv pumped her thin finger in and out of her hole.

Mitch finally slowed.

If he didn't, his dick would spurt before he pushed inside her. "Put another finger in." He smacked her thighs, his chest heaving as she obeyed. "Another." He landed another blow. "All of them. Shove all your fingers inside you."

"It hurts," she cried, jamming the fingers of one hand up her cunt.

"Good girl," Mitch panted, reigning in the force behind each stinging slap. "Good, good girl. Fuck yourself, Livvy."

Groaning, weeping, she slid her fingers back and forth, in and out of her dripping wet snatch.

Mitch lowered his hand to his hard, heavy dick.

"Use your thumb on your clit. That's it. Rub. Rub it harder." Instead of striking her thighs, Mitch's other hand stroked them. Liv's breath hissed. "I know. It hurts. Poor baby," he said, wrapping his fingers around his cock to give it a slow pump. "This is going to hurt you a lot worse. Work your pussy, honey. Fuck it 'til your fingers drip. Stretch it wide for me."

Sobbing at each brush of his hand on her tender thighs, Liv bucked her hips against the fingers she shoved frantically in and out of her pussy. Until her fingers dripped?

They were already wet and glistening, her juices making them slick and slippery. She rubbed the thumb over her clit so desperately Mitch shuddered. Pushed to the limit, he ripped her fingers away. She wailed, but he ignored it, grabbed her other hand, and lifted both over her head. "Hang onto the headboard," he told her and settled between her flaming thighs. She flinched. Cringed. Mitch grunted at the heat of her flesh against his hips.

He grabbed hers in a vise-like grip, lined up his cock.

He speared it into her.

She screamed.

"Lock your legs around me," he said.

"No," she wept, shaking her head. "It hurts. Stop." Mitch's touch gentled. "Have you forgotten your safe word, sweetheart?"

"No." She shuddered. "No, no."

He nudged the soft curve of her hip. "Then get your ass moving, babe. Wrap your legs around me. Or I'll beat them again."

Lines grooved the sides of her mouth, but she looped her ankles around his waist.

"Hang on tight," he said through gritted teeth.

Then, he fucked her.

The violence of his thrusts rocked her body. A moan of pain tore from her throat as his hips pistoned, scraping the raw and ravaged skin. She sobbed wildly, her cunt clamping around his cock like a fist at the sudden slap of pleasure. Though it had to hurt, she tightened her legs around his pumping hips and lifted hers to greet each thrust.

The primitive triumph of watching her pain unite with her pleasure jolted through Mitch like lightning. He gritted his teeth, pounded his dick into her. Each wet slap of his flesh meeting hers lashed his already shattered senses, sucking him deeper. It tightened his balls. Roared in his ears.

"Come, damn you." He snarled, pumping. "Come. Come!" With a mewling cry, she arched her back.

Feral, blubbering howls ripped from her throat.

Liv constricted around him so hard Mitch's vision grayed.

But he didn't stop.

Not when she bawled and screeched with the intensity of her release. Not when her body collapsed, useless and spent, underneath him. Not even when her flaming red thighs spread, her body open and achingly vulnerable to each brutal thrust.

He fucked her, reveling in each grunt as he rammed his cock in. And gritted his teeth at the sweet drag of her pussy when his dick retreated. "Dig your heels into my ass. Pull me deeper."

The muscles of her thighs shook, but she jabbed her feet into his butt cheeks, flexed her thighs to make his next thrust so crushing, Mitch's head spun. He threw his head back, pumped into her again, moaned out his pleasure from the depths of his soul. Again and again, her heels dug into his ass and spiked his cock into her. Mitch's heart beat wildly. He groaned, lost in everything except the tight grip of her cunt, the tingling bite of need that gnawed his spine. He wanted to come, so badly it ate him alive. "Play with my balls," he muttered, dragging one of her limp arms behind his pumping ass. "Squeeze them."

Liv cradled his sac in her small hand.

Her fingers tightened around him.

He roared, his body arching as though an electric current had charged through him. Voracious pleasure mauled his nerve endings, consumed every part of him from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toenails.

He jerked.

Spurted.

Shot thick and wet into her.

His senses redlined.

His world exploded.

* * * * *

"You were right," Liv said against the skin of his chest. She flinched as Mitch skated his fingers up and down her sensitive, stinging thighs. Flinched and sighed. "I should know by now. When it comes to sex, you're always right." He kissed the crown of her head. "I'm usually right outside of bed, too." She slapped at his chest. "You wish."

He tipped her chin up. "Which is why you'll have dinner with me, at my partner and his wife's house this week."

She snorted. "Like hell."

His grip on her chin tightened. "You'll do it, Liv."

"I will not." She glared at him. "I agreed to Fridays, Mitch. That's it. You have no other rights or claims on me otherwise."

"Then I'll tell Artie to make it Friday. A late dinner." Mitch's gut knotted. "We'll leave for their house right after your dad's and Gary's."

Her eyes narrowed to slits. "Meeting each other's friends isn't what we . . . this thing . . . is about."

Mitch blew out a frustrated breath. "For Christ's sake, Livvy, I lost everything I had in my last divorce. I keep telling Artie what we have is just sex, but he doesn't believe me. Would it kill you to eat some chicken and reassure my partner that I'm not running like hell into another marriage? He loves me and he's worried. Another divorce would bankrupt me."

Her brows furrowed. "You want me to convince them that there's nothing serious between us?"

"Oh, we're serious. Deadly serious. There's nothing more serious than the beating I just gave you or how hard I made you come," he said, lips twisting to a smirk. "But it'd be a huge favor to me if you'd meet them. Seeing us together will go a long way toward convincing them that marriage is the last thing on either of our minds." Her lips curved to a wicked bow. "You want me to crawl into your lap and blow you at their dining room table?"

He chuckled. "You don't need to act like a slut for Artie." He reached over, killed the bedroom light. The glow of his laptop, slideshow of dirty pictures still scrolling, cast the elegant features of her face in soft shadow. "If my partner has any brains in his head, he'll realize we're both sluts for each other and that's all it'll take." She stared at him. "I don't want to."

His lips thinned. "I'll use my belt on you."

"Good." She cuddled into his chest. "I changed my mind about your belt." His cock stirred. "I won't touch you again, not another swat, unless you do what I say, Liv. I mean it."

She pinched his nipple between her fingers until he sucked in a sharp breath, then she laughed. "Okay. But on your head, so be it. I won't be held accountable for my actions."

"I'll make it up to you." Mitch brushed a kiss over her lips. "I promise."

* * * * *

"She's . . . an interesting woman," Artie said over his beer in the den.

"Yeah. Liv's one of a kind." Mitch stared past the eat-in bar to the kitchen, where Liv helped Barb make the after-dinner coffee nobody wanted. As far as excuses went, that one was particularly piss-poor. You scooped grounds into a filter, dumped water in and bam! Coffee. Nobody over the age of six needed help brewing it. Barb had just been desperate to seize any excuse, no matter how flimsy, to herd Liv away from Mitch, to talk to her alone.

By the thinning of Barb's lips as she arranged mugs on a tray, didn't look like that was going well.

Not for Barb, anyway.

Liv's full, red lips stretched to a sinful bow in response to whatever Barb was saying. The TV Artie had turned on when they'd evacuated the dining room drowned out the words, but when Liv's lush mouth moved in reply, Mitch could imagine. How did we meet? I don't think we were ever formally introduced. Mitch yanked me into his bedroom and that was that.

He grinned.

Mitch still couldn't believe she'd said that.

It was true.

Mostly.

He had pulled her into his bedroom. The fact that they'd both been kids at the time and she'd been hiding from her drunk asshole of a father, Liv had apparently decided was irrelevant.

Mitch had to admire her audacity.

He'd wanted to ease Artie's mind. His partner had harassed him fairly regular about his distraction, his growing attachment to Liv. When there was no need for Artie's concern.

Not that Mitch didn't like Liv. He did. A lot. Hell, the way she fucked and sucked him, how she'd grown in her sexual confidence with him, and was willing to try any sweaty fantasy he dared throw at her . . . what wasn't to love?

He loved her talented mouth.

He loved her greedy cunt.

He loved her tight little ass.

And he loved the way she petted and soothed him between rounds of deliciously feral fucking. He could talk to her, too, really talk. Liv understood him. She accepted him, listened to him, and never, ever judged.

Being with her felt good.

Right.

Even when they weren't panting and groaning.

Didn't mean he wanted to marry her, though.

Of course, he was a guy. Only natural for him to want her fuck holes at his command and his command only, but seemed to Mitch, he already had that. No matter the horny fantasy he'd planned to reward her with after this ordeal of a dinner was finished, Mitch knew he and Liv were solid. Her trust in him knew no boundaries physically. And emotionally? She coddled and catered to him when he needed affection, challenged him to hold his attention enthralled.

They were a perfect match.

Already.

So there was no need to marry her.

But scared out of his mind by Mitch's increasing fascination, Artie had launched a freaking campaign to meet her. His business partner knew him well enough to grasp how deep Mitch's attraction ran. Nothing Mitch had said had thus far convinced Artie that Liv was his fucktoy.

His very lovely and much beloved fucktoy.

But his fucktoy, nonetheless.

As Mitch wallowed, shamelessly, in his fucktoy status with her. Artie's concerns would've been laid to rest if Liv had simply showed up for dinner. She snarled at any sign of commitment, the traditional signals of a serious relationship. Her frigid glare at Artie and Barb's diplomatic fishing would've dissuaded them about any marital ambitions on her part.

Problem solved.

Instead, Liv had raised her fucktoy banner and waved it proudly. Dinner had been an unmitigated disaster.

Our plans? Well, I can't speak for Mitch, but I plan to let him take me home so I can fuck his brains out. She'd smiled over Barb's honey mustard chicken. But I'm pretty sure his plans involve my ass and the rather large belt he's wearing. She answered every question Artie and Barb threw at her with perverted, fuckyou-if-you-don't-like-it sass. And when they'd stopped asking questions, she'd kept the wicked smartassery rolling.

Mitch hadn't laughed so much since . . . .

Well, probably never.

"I can't say that Barb likes her. She's a little . . . crude," Artie was saying. Mitch grinned.

Yeah.

Liv could carry off Queen of Crude without batting an eyelash—when the spirit moved her.

Tonight, the spirit had moved on a tectonic scale.

Gone were the conservative gray sweaters and sedate low-heeled pumps. When he'd picked Liv up after Gary's, she'd been trying—and failing—to wear a black miniskirt. The hem flirted with the top of her thighs and barely covered her ass cheeks. When she crossed her legs, he'd caught a flashing glimpse of cream satin panties and Mitch was dead sure, so had a gaping, wide-eyed Artie. The blouse she paired with it was so sheer if Mitch paid attention and she moved just right, he could make out the lace of a matching demi-bra beneath it. Three-inch spiky heels graced her slim feet. Mitch wouldn't say she'd painted herself like a whore—working girls didn't look this good—but the red lipstick she'd slicked onto her mouth had made Mitch hard and kept him hard throughout the evening.

He was willing to bet that the sight of those scarlet lips had hardened Artie's cock, too, which probably explained why Barb was less than pleased.

"She wants what's in your pants, but at least it ain't your wallet." Artie drank his beer. "I almost wish she was after the wallet. She's got your dick wrapped around her little finger, son."

"Any reason her fingers touch my dick is okay by me," Mitch said. But he couldn't yank Artie's chain any more than Liv already had. "She's putting you on, man. I told Liv that you thought we were getting serious so she decided to persuade you otherwise. In her own special way." Mitch laughed. "She works for a lawyer, Artie. Drives a used Mazda. We tear up the sheets together, but she's no cheap tramp." His partner exhaled a long breath. "You're good enough to sleep with, but she won't meet your friends and family proper?" He shook his head. "She's going to rip your heart out and eat it with a spoon."

That wiped the grin off his face. "She couldn't care less about my heart." Artie snorted into his beer. "That's the problem."

Chapter Ten

Mitch beat a hasty retreat from Artie's. Liv had laughed like a loon in his truck, asked him if his partner was still worried about her sinking her claws into his company in a fat divorce settlement. Mitch had forced a grin, thanked her for the entertaining performance.

He didn't tell her that his partner was still worried, that Artie's focus had simply shifted.

No point.

And Mitch didn't want to think about it, anyway.

So when he got her home, he dragged her into the apartment, shoved her against the wall, and kissed her.

Kissing her made it all go away.

He walked her backward, toward the dining room, his mouth eating at hers. When he lifted his head, he stared at her with hot, hungry intention, his balls tight and aching. "Take it off," he said.

Her chest already lifted and fell in shallow pants.

Her fingers rose to the high button at her neck, flicking it free, then raced on to the next.

Mitch leaned back against the doorjamb of the kitchen, tucked a foot behind his calf, and watched her strip. Liv made short work of the sheer blouse, ripped it down her arms and off her hands, revealing an eye-popping cream demi-bra. The lace was so delicate, Mitch wondered if it'd melt in his mouth, if he could just eat it right off her, but he didn't move to her. Not yet. He jerked his chin at the skirt instead. "Keep going." She unhooked a catch at the base of her spine. With a sly grin, she pulled the concealed zipper down and her little black mini-skirt became a little black puddle on his dining room floor.

More cream-colored lace.

But very little of it.

Wispy black curls peeped behind the fragile lace, peeked around the high cuts—

His dick throbbed.

"The bra?" he prodded.

Her lips parted, but she reached for the front clasp.

Her tits sprang free, spilling from each gossamer cup.

He lifted a finger, twirled it. "Turn around."

She pivoted, facing the heavy vertical blinds he'd installed over the sliding glass doors to the rear deck yesterday.

Mitch's mouth curved to a wide smile.

Liv had put on a show for Artie.

Now it was his turn to repay that favor in kind.

He maneuvered around the towers of boxes he still hadn't hauled to storage, slid behind her. Lifting her hair, he skated his mouth along her nape, enjoying her delicate quiver. He bit, then kissed the curve of her neck, reaching around her to palm one breast, his body shaking at her low moan. With the other hand, he reached for the control rod for the blinds.

She stiffened when the blinds slid aside, thrust out both hands. They slipped between the blinds, kissing the glass. "Mitch!"

"Shh," he murmured into her skin, let his tongue explore the line of her throat. He walked his fingers up her arms to grasp her wrists, draw them down to handcuff them with one hand at her belly.

He held her there, immobile, as he continued opening the blinds.

"People will see," she protested on a soft whisper, squirming backward. Her ass hit his crotch, ground into him, and lit him up. Like a firecracker. With her, his fuse was that damned short. "Only Sam," he said, skimming a kiss up her neck, to her cheek. "It's December, babe, and wicked cold. After dark. No one else will be out there."

She shivered when he rubbed her nipple between thumb and forefinger. The blinds inched along the track, revealing the inky midnight of the undeveloped woods that abutted the apartment complex. Mitch's eyes fought to adjust, blinded by the brightness of his apartment. He couldn't see Sam, but they'd be spotlighted to anyone outside.

She twisted, shooting a puzzled frown over her shoulder. "Sam's watching?" He tunneled his fingers over her lace-covered cunt and slipped a finger under her panties to toy with her. "Yeah. He wanted to." He nibbled at the corner of her mouth. "I want him to."

She blew out a long, surrendering sigh. "Okay."

He kissed her.

Mitch hadn't expected her to fight hard. Her eagerness had been transparent to him, her objections just a carryover of what she thought sex and morality should be, but he hadn't anticipated her to yield so quickly, either. He wouldn't argue, though. He was too grateful and desperately eager himself. So he angled his mouth over hers and pulled her panties down, sliding them along her thighs so they fell to her ankles. Perfect.

He reached for his zipper.

Sam stepped into the splash of light thrown into the woods from the un-shielded glass door. The other man's breath plumed in the night air, his cheeks red with cold. He'd pulled on a thick parka against the frigid temperatures, but hadn't buttoned it. He climbed the first step of Mitch's postage-stamp-sized deck, no more than five feet away. Mitch's heart thudded at the hungry glitter in Sam's eyes.

Out in the dark, Sam lowered his zipper the same time Mitch lowered his. Liv's breath caught.

"Watch him," Mitch said. Unnecessarily, because he was reasonably sure she wouldn't have been able to tear her gaze away when Sam tugged his dick out of his jeans.

Sam pumped his cock.

Mitch lined his up with her sodden pussy and thrust inside.

She moaned.

Mitch moaned himself, pumping in and out of her in time with Sam's slow, sure strokes. Mitch's senses reeled. The hot clench of Liv's cunt over him as he fucked her, Sam's tight grip as he worked what looked like at least eight fat inches, maybe nine. Longer than Mitch. Mitch knew his limitations, his imperfections. Principally because his second wife had gotten a ruler out to measure him once. Seven and a half inches. Hard, his dick stretched to exactly seven and a half inches. Sure, he knew what to do with those seven and a half inches. Liv had no complaints, anyway. She threw her hips back, whimpered and mewled like a well-fucked kitten every time he shoved into her. But the cock fairies hadn't blessed him with as much as Sam.

He loved watching him. Sam worked his dick, head already glistening with semen in the yellow wash of light. The other man's jaw clenched in the darkness, but he didn't come. Even when Liv stiffened, her mouth rounding to a shocked O and her pussy fisted so good, so tight around him. Sam still didn't come. He waited, hand pumping, until Mitch threw his head back and rode out his own orgasm, until Liv's rigid body deflated.

Until they both stood on the other side of the glass to watch his eyes go blind, see his dick jerk and spurt gobs of thick white semen onto his hand and Mitch's deck. Liv's pussy fisted around him while she watched Sam come.

Oh yeah.

She was ready for this.

Mitch leaned forward, whispered into her ear. "Go lay on the couch." Mitch had shifted boxes and garbage bags to one side of the living room to unearth his sectional sofa. Too big for his tiny apartment and he'd uncovered only part of it. There wasn't enough room. But he'd spent a day uncovering four sections and steam cleaning the scratchy nap of the cushions.

"What?" Liv asked, her voice weak and still shaky.

Mitch didn't bother repeating himself. She'd heard him. He eased his dick out of her and, his gaze still fastened to Sam, shoved her ass toward the living room. Her bare feet slapped the linoleum of the dining room floor.

Sam hadn't bothered to stuff his softening dick back into his blue jeans so neither did Mitch. He stepped to the latch of the sliding glass doors and flipped the lock so the man could enter. Bending, Mitch removed the security bar on the tracks that kept intruders from popping the door, and propped the bar against the wall. Sam stared at him, hand on the exterior door handle.

Mitch nodded.

Turned his back.

Threaded his way through the maze of boxes and junk to the living room. He reached Liv compliantly stretching out on his couch before Sam slid the door open.

Her eyes widened, her attention jerking to the sliding glass door they couldn't see from the living room because of the wall of boxes. "Mitch—"

"Shh, babe," he said, dropping to his knees on the carpet beside her. Oh God, he was getting hard again. His dick was already twitching. His skin tingled at what he knew was coming, how good it would be. Liv's body tensed, she started to rise, but he stopped her with a gentle but firm hand planted between her gorgeous breasts. He pushed until her lower back kissed the armrest, her body propped to a sitting position so she could see Sam move into the cramped room. "It's twenty degrees tonight, too cold to leave anyone with their dick hanging out," Mitch said.

"But—"

Mitch shook his head. "Relax," he said and skimmed his fingers to her left nipple. He tugged at it, his balls tightening at her gasp. Smiling, he glided his hand down. To her hips.

His gaze shifted to Sam when he sat at the other end of the sectional. Inches separated his blue-jeaned hip from Liv's bare toes. Sam's eyes drank in Liv's tits first, his hands fisted at his sides. Then, he focused on the dark triangle of hair below her navel. Sam jerked his chin.

This was Mitch's show, but Sam knew where he wanted to be.

Mitch wanted him there, too. Wanted to watch him there, his blond head nestled between her thighs, with Liv panting and moaning. And coming.

Her body had gone stiff as concrete under his touch, but Mitch slid his hands between her clenched thighs, pried them apart. He lifted one. She resisted, but only a second. She let him spread her open. "That's it. Let him see. Let him have a good look." He propped her calf on the spine of his couch, then stroked her soft skin on his way back to the V of her legs. "He's earned that, hasn't he?" He rubbed at her sensitive clit, forcing a whispery gasp from her throat. Her nipples beaded to hard nubs. Behind him, Sam blew out a shaky breath and cursed under his breath. But Mitch wasn't done.

He abandoned Liv's warm, wet pussy and instead, slid his hand down her other thigh, pushing it wider. He bent to kiss her knee, then slid his lips down the calf he settled against the side of the sectional, kissed the toes he planted to the carpeted floor. Until Liv's cunt was achingly bare and completely vulnerable to Sam's ravenous gaze.

The high piles of boxes blocked some of the overhead light he'd left on, but the shadows weren't so deep that Mitch—or Sam—couldn't study the pink folds of her sex, already sensitive and swollen from the fucking Mitch had given her in front of the sliding glass doors. They couldn't fail to notice the semen that seeped from her wellused slit. Her neatly trimmed curls glistened with her own juices. Sopping wet. And ready.

Mitch kept her ankle handcuffed in his grasp, holding her still as Sam shifted on the sectional to take a better look, but Mitch did bend to pluck a nipple into his mouth. He bit at it to make her shiver, laved it with his tongue.

Sam leaned forward and when Mitch spared a glance, the other man studied Liv's sodden pussy with hot, narrowed eyes. "You didn't use a rubber." He arched an eyebrow at Mitch.

Mitch let go of her nipple, blew on it so she squirmed. "Liv and I have known each other forever. She's on the pill and we both know we're as clean as a nun's crotch." He snickered when Liv sniffed at his crudeness. "I can shoot into her whenever I like." Mitch felt her shudder when Sam reached for both thighs, spreading her wider. Had to be uncomfortable. Mitch noted the telltale shaking of her muscles as Sam pushed her even wider still, but she didn't so much as murmur in protest. Instead, her chest rose in shallow pants, her gaze already blurring with the utter brazenness of offering her pussy for Sam's inspection—and any other damn thing he wanted to do with it.

She was loving every minute of this, winding herself tighter and tighter as he and Sam shared and studied her.

"I'm clean," Sam said, stroking her silky thighs.

Mitch had played a pick-up game of basketball with Sam earlier in the week, when they'd hatched the plot to get Liv hot and naked for them both. They'd discussed condom etiquette then. Sam had sworn he was free of STDs and had offered tests from his doctor to prove it. Mitch didn't know if Sam had retrieved copies of the lab results yet, but asking to see them now would definitely break the mood so he simply said,

"Maybe. Maybe not." His eyes told the other man, next time. "Lean in closer."

"Mitch—" Liv sputtered and wriggled as Sam bent down, between her legs. So close, she had to have felt his hot breath on her. "I'm not sure about this." Mitch planted his palm over her heart to hold her down again, enjoyed the wild beat of it against her chest. "I am."

Chapter Eleven

Sam sniffed her cunt. "Fucking without a condom leaves a god-awful mess. I don't know that I could fuck a pussy this sloppy."

Which was the biggest load of horseshit Mitch had heard in awhile. Sam's dick sprung from the open V of his jeans, already hard and thick with how eager it was to fuck Livvy even sloppier.

Her eyes narrowed. Her lips thinned. "I beg your pardon?" Pissing Liv off when they were getting her ready to take on two men did not strike Mitch as wise. "He's just mad that he can't fuck you bare, babe." He grunted at Sam, whose smooth-shaven cheek brushed her inner thigh. "If it bothers you so much, clean her up first."

"What?" She squawked in outrage.

"Don't mind if I do."

His mouth shifted, swallowing her clit in one greedy gulp.

Her body tightened like a drawn bow, spine arching, and a keening wail tore from her at Sam's first outrageous lick.

No, assault.

With his dick standing at eager attention, he'd apparently decided not to waste any more time because he ate at her like a starving man. His lips sucked. His tongue stabbed and ground down on her pink flesh so that she shuddered and moaned. Mitch spotted a sharp flash of teeth that scraped her engorged clit and she all but screamed with fierce, primal joy.

Mitch damn near came just watching her, but he wasn't so far gone that he forgot his part in this. No how, no way. He and Sam had discussed, in minute detail, how this first encounter would play out, what each of them would do, and how they would do it to her.

So Mitch lowered his mouth to Liv's fantastic tits. He feasted on them, every bit as greedily as Sam devoured her pussy.

They didn't let her up after the first orgasm slapped through her. They didn't even ease up after the second, when the sounds that came from her throat sounded more animal than human.

That only made them want to pick up the pace, increase the aggression, push her to the edge.

She screamed with the next orgasm, but Mitch had shifted his lips higher, pinching her nipples as he swallowed her shriek with his mouth. Sam didn't raise his head until her body collapsed, exhausted and sated. "Help me move her," he said through gritted teeth, his voice hoarse with need. Mitch rolled her boneless body off the sectional to the floor. She lay against him, panting and limp, too drained to so much as whimper as he turned her face down, into his waiting crotch.

Sam grabbed her ankles, straightened out her legs with a hard yank, then shucked his jeans down his thighs before sliding between them.

"Rubber," Mitch reminded him, lifting Liv until her elbows locked and her palms flattened to the floor.

Sam fished a condom from the front pocket of his jeans, tore the wrapper, and rolled it over his dick while Mitch pushed to his knees, his own jeans still gaping around his swollen cock. He inched forward until his dick brushed Liv's cheek. Sam crouched over her, nudging her thighs wide with his knees. He bent, his hand guiding his dick to her pussy.

Mitch threaded his fingers through her hair, cradling her neck by the nape and leading her kiss-bruised lips to him. "Suck me."

Sam and Mitch pushed into her simultaneously.

She groaned, the sound vibrating down Mitch's dick like a fricking tuning fork. He moaned, senses swirling at the hot wet of her mouth surrounding him. Oh God, he was doomed. He'd never want anything except this, only this, forever and ever and ever. The fiery wash of her breath over him as she panted, her grunt as Sam pumped into her. The slow, awkward lick of her tongue over the head of his cock as he withdrew then pushed forward again, deep, past her lips.

Mitch didn't mind that she was too drained and stunned from her orgasms to blow him.

That wasn't what he'd wanted.

He'd wanted to fuck her mouth.

Her involvement or expertise in the matter was purely irrelevant. So that's what he did.

He fucked her face.

Sam fucked her cunt.

And she stretched out between them, shish ka-bobbed by their cocks, quivering and moaning.

And, unbelievably, coming again.

Oh God.

Of the two of them, Mitch came first.

Violently.

There was just something about the increasingly frantic scramble of her tongue over his dick, her sweet attempts to suck him as he humped her face, that wound him up. That and her shuddering groans as Sam slammed in and out of her. He'd never heard anything as sexy as the slap-slap-slap of Sam's hips mashing into her ass or felt anything as profound as her answering moans shivering down his cock. Mitch didn't try to make it last, to stop the orgasm from happening. He threw his head back, pushed his dick down her throat. He grunted, spilling hot, thick, and wet into her.

The pleasure was so sharp, so intense, it seared him to the marrow of his bones. His toes curled. Every muscle in his body clenched. He shoved her head down on him. The orgasm was so good, so sweet, wrung from deep inside his body, he was helpless, completely helpless against it.

He fed her, fed his cum down her throat, and she lapped him right up. Every single drop.

She licked and laved, sucked at him, skating her swollen lips along his limpening dick to kiss his balls as his grip in her hair loosened. He let her. Fought to calm the thunder of his heart in his chest.

And he watched Sam finish.

The features of the man's face had drawn tight, the muscles of his neck cording. The arms bracing him over Liv's ass shook, sweat glistening on them. He had to be close. The cheeks of Liv's ass had pinked under the pounding of his hips and even with her single-minded attention to his dick, she whined and cried out so Mitch knew Liv was feeling every one of Sam's nine inches. He didn't think she'd come again before Sam blew. Didn't care if she did. The night was ripe with possibilities and she'd fulfill hers, with as many orgasms as they could wring from her. By morning, her body would be thoroughly used and spent.

But for now, the feral sounds she made set wild sparks glittering in Sam's blue eyes. He picked up the pace, his thrusts into her so aggressive he threw her forward, burying her face in Mitch's crotch.

"Fuck her harder, Sam."

Sam lost control.

He growled, lurched forward. Met Mitch's gaze, lips curled back against his teeth, and hammered his dick into her. Liv cried out against Mitch's sac, staggered under the force of Sam's pounding cock.

"Oh, oh, oh," she chanted into his lap.

Mitch petted her, rubbed at her scalp, soothed her. Whispered his dirty, heartfelt praise of her.

And watched her take every inch of the brutal fucking Sam gave her. Sam bucked forward, collapsed over Liv's ass. He roared with the intensity of his orgasm. His lean body jerked, hips instinctively pumping, pinning her to the carpeted floor with his dick hilted in her cunt. If Mitch's grasp in her hair hadn't tightened, she would've scrambled out from under Sam and his ravaging cock, but Mitch held on, held her still, made her ride out the tide of Sam's satisfaction.

Damn.

Mitch's pulse thundered in his ears.

He'd told Sam that he wanted rough. Liv liked a hard fucking and Mitch had dearly wanted to see Sam take her so violently that her pussy tingled for a week. That's what Mitch had told Sam. They only met up once each week, every Friday. Mitch had wanted Liv to feel it, the power of their wild fucking, every day they were apart. Sam had surpassed even Mitch's sweatiest expectations.

Still blowing out pants, his face tucked to her shoulder, Sam's grip on her eased, his hands smoothing the red marks his fingers had dug into her hips. "Holy shit. Holy fucking shit, that was intense."

Mitch stroked her hair. Fought the trembling of his body. "You okay, babe?" Liv's body relaxed.

Her chin shifted to take his limp cock into her mouth for a sweet, intimate suck.

"I've got rug burns on my knees," she said, then blew on his dick. Mitch's eyes crossed.

Sam laughed. Still planted deep inside her, he swiveled his hips so that she whimpered. "How's this?"

"Sore," she said and moaned against Mitch's cock.

He unscrambled his brains. Piss, damn it, and fuck. He'd wanted her aching, but not this fast. "We'll take it easier the rest of the night. Not so rough." She looked up from his dick, uncertainty glimmering in her eyes. "Sam's staying?"

As if that had been the cue he'd been waiting for, Sam reared off her, grimacing as his cock slid free. "The whole weekend, if you'll let me." He stripped off his condom.

"Mitch said you usually only stay Friday night, but we thought"—he shot a careful glance at Mitch—"if we promise to be good, nothing but good to you, that you might stay until Sunday."

She stared up at Mitch, bit her lip. The mouth that had swollen from his kisses, from sucking on his dick. "You want me to stay the whole weekend," she said. Mitch swallowed raw nerves. "I want you to stay until Sunday. We both do." Sam jerked his jeans back up over his hips, but he didn't zip them as he stalked into the kitchen. He tossed the used rubber into the trash and swung the refrigerator door wide. "Do you have any bottled water?"

She blew out a sigh, slid back on her haunches. She stretched. "Friday nights, Mitch. That was our deal," she said. Stretching her abused muscles, she winced. "I won't be able to walk by Sunday."

Mitch cupped her cheeks in his hands, whispered a kiss over her lips. "I'll make sure you can walk." He slanted his mouth over hers, sampled hers lightly. "Stay."

Chapter Twelve

Liv stayed.

They showered, together, with Liv taking turns sucking both their cocks hard again. Then, they'd bent her over the toilet and consecutively fucked her ass. Mitch was a gentleman, Sam his guest, so he let Sam have the first go. Mostly because Sam was right. Fucking without a condom did make a mess. Granted, the other man hadn't seemed averse to sucking Mitch's semen out of Liv's well-lubed pussy earlier, but Mitch didn't want to push Sam too far. So he gave Sam the first crack at her very fetching ass, the sound of Liv's grunts as she took Sam's longer dick an aria to Mitch's ears. Then, he'd lined up and fucked her himself.

The roots of his hair had tingled when Sam had snaked his hand underneath their straining bodies to play with Liv's clit. Partly because of the needy sounds Liv made when another orgasm slapped through her. Partly because Sam's softening dick brushed Mitch's pistoning hips, giving Mitch's feverish brain fantasies guaranteed to make his dick spit and spurt into Liv's thoroughly-used asshole seconds later. After, they hit the all-night pancake house on the highway. He and Liv were bone-deep exhausted, but the much younger Sam vibrated with kinetic energy that demanded food. Specifically, a small army of sausage links, a double Mexi-Cali omelet with extra cheddar, and funnel cakes piled high with pineapple and whipped cream. Mitch figured if he turned into a plague of freaking locusts after sex, Sam's metabolism must hover somewhere in the vicinity of Neptune. That or he never got laid. No way could a grown man eat that much on a regular basis and live, much less keep his body as wiry and lean as Sam's. Mitch's arteries cemented just sitting in the same zip code with the guy.

Liv took it in stride, though, pushing her unwanted waffles across the clear glass tabletop to Sam.

Mitch gaped at her, then at Sam when he dug in.

She laughed. "Better on his hips than mine."

"Your hips could use a little more meat on them. If I fuck you the way I want to, I'd split you in half." Sam chased the waffles with orange juice, then reached under their booth to slide her skirt higher.

Mitch's eyebrow arched, reluctantly impressed.

With Sam's bottomless pit of a stomach driving them on, they'd dressed haphazardly after fucking in the bathroom. Mitch had pulled on gym shorts and the sweatshirt he'd let Liv borrow that first Friday. Liv had yanked her little black skirt back on, but her bra, panties, and the sheer blouse were still Missing in Action somewhere in his pit of an apartment. He'd tugged one of his t-shirts over her head. Sam looked as polished and put-together as the frigging Ad Exec he'd told them he was. Or rather, the Ad Man he intended to be once he'd paid his dues. Not a hair out of place.

And as his fingers walked her black mini-skirt up her thighs—

The guy's fork didn't miss a beat.

Liv grabbed his wrist. "Sam," she growled in low warning. Her gaze darted to a guy in flannel at the front counter, whose gaze, Mitch noticed with a sharp zing of arousal, had narrowed on the three of them in the rear booth. "They'll kick us out." Sam shoveled a bite of waffle that dripped syrup into his mouth. "No they won't. The only one who cares is that guy," he said once he'd finished chewing and nodded to Mr. Flannel at the counter, "and we already know you like to put on a show. Stop bitching and spread your legs."

"Do it, babe," Mitch said. After three spine-melting orgasms, he wouldn't have believed he could get hard again, not tonight, but Liv shot him a resentful glare before indeed spreading her thighs wide for whatever Sam had in mind.

Mitch leaned back in the booth and dully shifted his dick to a more comfortable position inside his shorts. Sam smoothed Liv's skirt high, exposing her beautiful cunt to his talented fingers.

And to Mr. Flannel.

And thank God for clear glass tabletops, Mitch had a front row seat to Sam's fingers rubbing and pinching her pink flesh. Sam worked her clit with his left hand while, unbelievably, he continued to use his right to shovel food. Mitch had never been so grateful Sam had caught him fucking Liv in the parking lot. The gods of deviants and perverts had been smiling down on him, not a doubt in his mind.

Liv's head fell back, her chest rising and falling.

Mitch rubbed at his aching dick through the nylon of his shorts, wondering just how far Sam would push this.

He didn't have to wonder long.

Sam's hand rose, fingers glistening. He stretched and draped his arm around Liv's shoulders. Her eyes snapped open as he palmed her tit through the t-shirt Mitch had given her.

He forked a sausage link past his lips. "Hike your skirt to your waist." Her eyes rounded.

Glancing around, her gaze fastened on the guy at the counter.

"Never mind him. The waitress went out back to smoke. You have exactly fifteen minutes to make this happen." He speared egg, cheese, and peppers into his mouth next.

Her gaze jerked to meet his. "I do?"

He nodded, his mouth full. He chewed, swallowed. "Masturbate." She squirmed.

Seconds later—holy fucking shit—the black skirt ringed her waist and her bare ass cheeks kissed dirty red vinyl. Her thighs spread wide again, like they'd been springloaded.

"Finger-fuck yourself, honey." Mitch stroked his dick, teeth gritting as he watched Sam's fingers pinch her nipples to prominent points. "Lift the shirt," he told Sam.

Sam obediently skimmed her shirt up and bent to fasten his ravenous mouth over her tit.

Mitch slid his hand under the waist of his gym shorts, dragged his dick out. He wrapped his fingers around it and began a slow, laborious pump. Liv, finally getting with the program, thrust her hand under the table and with a shaky moan, stuffed two fingers into her pussy.

"Touch me," Sam muttered against her swollen nipple.

Mr. Flannel retrieved his cell phone from his pocket.

Liv didn't see it or if she did, she didn't care. Her attention had focused on releasing Sam's hard dick from his jeans and her rapidly thrusting fingers in her cunt. Oh well.

Mitch worked his dick with mounting speed, his pleasure building inside him. They each stroked and pumped each other.

Two vids on the net, then.

Three, if the pancake house's security cameras were angled right. Mitch could live with that.

Liv's hips arched into her busy fingers.

Sam grunted as her other hand stroked him. "He's filming us." Mitch's grip tightened, working his cock with frantic abandon.

Liv groaned, her body curling in on itself as her fingers shoved in and out of her cunt.

Sam dropped the fork, covered her hand with his. Sam helped her pump his cock.

Mitch's eyes focused on Sam's dick. He couldn't tear his gaze away. Liv's dainty fingers fisted around his hard, fat dick. Sam laced his fingers between hers, his skin darker than hers but not as dark as Mitch's. At first, only Sam's heavy breathing reverberated in the silence. His hard pants soon competed with the wet, sucking sound of Liv's fingers, still plundering her pussy. Then, the frantic slap-slap-slap of their joined hands working Sam's cock. The feral sounds of sweaty masturbation melted into one other, completing the horny symphony.

Liv came on a shuddering groan.

Mitch's jaw clenched.

Sharp pleasure gathered in balls.

Mitch shouted when the orgasm tore into him, his hips lifting as he spurted over his frantically jerking hand.

Seconds later, gluey ropes of semen sprayed from Sam's cock, too. Before Mitch could re-gather his senses, Sam pushed Liv's bare ass under the table. "Clean us up," was all the other man said.

And he reached for his fork.

Un-fucking-believable.

Mitch's chest rose and fell in harsh pants, but Liv licked his still-shaking fingers, then took his cock into her mouth to suck him clean in one ravenous gulp. Oh Jesus.

When she tucked him back into his shorts, he could've wept.

Sam chuckled and gave her hair an affectionate pat when she swiveled to lick thick semen from his dick next. "Good girl," he said. Sam polished off his eggs.

* * * * *

Sam left a twenty on the table and stopped to say something to Mr. Flannel on the way out.

By the time they got home, the guy had emailed the video to Sam and they fell asleep, streaming it in a loop on Mitch's laptop. Liv hadn't tripped out much, even after Sam had told them Mr. Flannel planned to file-share. Extensively. "Do you know how many guys are going to beat off to this over the next year? How many men are going to wish it was their fingers pumping your pussy? Imagine it's their dick you're sucking clean? You're going to star in the sweaty fantasies of hundreds, maybe thousands, all of them jerking their meat while they listen to you come. Try to think of it as a public service."

When that hadn't worked, both of them had taken turns licking her until she was an incoherent, shaky mass of raw nerves, until she didn't have the energy to even moan. Then, they'd sandwiched her between them and drifted off to sleep to the groans and frantic slapping that emitted from the tinny laptop speakers.

When Mitch awoke the next morning, Liv was still in front of him, sweet ass tucked into his crotch, but Sam was no longer on the other side of her. He sighed, briefly entertained the idea of fucking her awake, but a quick look at his alarm clock told him that he should let her sleep. They hadn't gotten home from the pancake house until after three in the morning and they'd stayed up, playing, an hour or two afterward.

So he quietly slipped away, left her to sleep. Covering her with his blanket, he briefly considered rooting around in his dresser for clean gym shorts, but the noise would wake her. Besides, he needed caffeine in the worst way. He followed the scent of coffee to the kitchen.

"Good afternoon," Sam said, handing a mug to him.

Mitch groggily accepted it. Through bleary and exhausted eyes, he watched Sam settle back at the spot he'd cleared for himself at the dining room table. The other man must've made a run to his apartment for fresh clothes because he wore a new pair of jeans and a long-sleeved oxford of dark hunter green. His hair was still damp at the ends, but neatly combed, his jaw clean-shaven. Wire-rimmed glasses that Mitch hadn't known the guy needed dangled from one finger as he turned the page of his newspaper. He scanned the paper before he shoved the glasses on his nose, settled to read whatever had caught his interest.

Mitch leaned against the kitchen counter and scrubbed at his face with his hand, the rasp of his morning stubble like sandpaper in the quiet. When he lifted his coffee cup to blow, then sip, he smelled Liv's cunt on his fingers. His dick hung hard and heavy between his legs.

Sam looked like he'd stepped off the cover of a magazine.

Mitch, meanwhile, knew that he looked like he'd spent the night rutting and wallowing in his sexual excesses.

Which he had.

But still.

Granted, he wasn't as young as Sam was. Mitch hadn't asked, but he'd pegged the younger man as in his early twenties. Mitch had bounced back from a night of feverish sex a lot quicker then, too.

At thirty, Mitch felt like he'd been rode hard and put away wet. Looked it, too. Sam shook his newspaper. "You're thinking too hard over there." Mitch grunted. Drank his coffee. "Just wondering why it is you look so pretty after last night and I look"—he rolled his eyes—"like I do." Sam snorted. "I make it my business to look pretty. Being pretty is what I do best." Mitch's dick jerked at the hot stare Sam shot over the newspaper. "Looking tough and mean is what you do best."

Mitch chuckled, sipped his coffee.

"I like you with the stubble and the stale scent of sex still clinging to you. I even like your hair sticking up, but you wouldn't have wanted me to stick around today if I hadn't cleaned up." The corner of Sam's lips curved. "Did you pick me for Liv or for yourself?"

It was too fucking early for conversations like this. So Mitch gulped down his coffee, cursing under his breath when it burned the roof of his mouth. "What is this shit?" He wiped a hand across his lips. He dumped the rest of his mug into the sink, poured a fresh cup. Sniffed.

He frowned.

This definitely wasn't his Maxwell House.

"It's Hazelnut, a special blend I have mixed at a shop downtown." Great.

Mitch sipped cautiously.

Yup.

Still tasted like shit, but what the hell, it had caffeine in it, right?

"You didn't answer my question, Mitch."

He frowned into his coffee cup. "What?"

Sam folded the newspaper, set it aside. "I thought I was for Liv. You told me I was for her, but after the waffle hut last night . . . ."

Mitch glared at him. "What about it?"

Sam arched an eyebrow. "You stared at me while you beat off. I didn't notice in the restaurant, but video doesn't lie. You never took your eyes off me." Mitch snorted.

Sam was being diplomatic.

He'd seen the video, too—Mitch hadn't unglued his stare from Sam's cock, hadn't even blinked. After, watching the video over and over once they'd gotten home, Mitch's mind had reeled at how beautiful Liv had been. His hands had shaken when she'd bared herself and finally shucked her skirt over her hips. His stomach had tightened as he'd watched her finger-fuck herself to quick, brutal orgasm, ass bare and naked for the whole world to see.

But last night, at the restaurant, his attention hadn't focused on Liv. His rapt interest had been on Sam and his wondrous cock.

Mitch jerked his shoulder. "So?"

Sam pushed to his feet and walked to him, stopping a couple feet away. "I'm as straight as they come, Mitch. I've never been with another guy. I never wanted to." Mitch gulped the absurd coffee, smothered the disappointment that gnawed at his belly. Granted, Sam had turned out a lot more adventurous than Mitch had originally pegged him, but even last night, he'd known the other man wouldn't welcome any advances from him. "It's okay, Sam. I chose you for her. I'm attracted to you, sure, but I won't act on it."

"See, that's the interesting thing. Maybe . . . Maybe I want you to act on it." Sam grabbed the coffee pot and refilled his own mug. He swiveled, leaned against the counter beside Mitch. "I never thought twice about another guy. I was never attracted. Never saw the lure of it. But after watching you with Liv yesterday, after watching you watch me . . . ."

Mitch's heart stuttered. He drank his coffee. "You're going to have to spell it out for me, Sammy."

The younger man sighed. "Is Liv okay with it?"

"With my being bisexual?" Mitch drank his coffee. "She flipped out at first, but she's coming to terms with my freakier side. She's unleashed her own inner freak or you wouldn't be here. If I really wanted it, I think she'd be okay."

"Good. It won't screw everything up then." The other man turned, placed his mug on the counter. Blew out a sharp breath. "I want to try something. An experiment." Abrupt arousal balled Mitch's stomach, drew his nerves tight like a strung bow. His hands shook. He put his coffee down before he ended up wearing it. "All right." When Sam dropped to his knees in front of him, staring at his dick like it was a puzzle he needed to solve, Mitch's pulse thundered in his ears. "No, Sam," he said. On his knees—and God Almighty, what was Mitch doing, messing with this?—

the younger man blinked his disconcerted blue eyes at him. "What?" Mitch bent, grabbed his arm, guided him back to his feet. The guy had been with countless women and Mitch didn't knock his expertise in that area, not at all. If anything, he appreciated it. For Liv. But when it came to other men, Sam was a virgin. Untouched.

Untutored.

As fresh and unspoiled as a thirteen year-old schoolgirl.

That burden stirred his gut and laid heavily on him, all at the same time. Mitch trembled.

He lifted his hand to cup Sam's clean-shaven cheek. "I want you. You were right about that. I want you pretty bad, but not enough to be a whore for you," he murmured, satisfied when Sam's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. "My cock isn't a toy. It's attached to a person: me. I can be your experiment. If you want to play, try me on for size, I'm yours." His grip on Sam's jaw tightened. He let his eyes go hard, cold. "But you'll kiss me first."

Chapter Thirteen

Sam's blue eyes glittered with equal parts hunger and fear. "I don't know if I can," he said.

Mitch dropped his hand, reached for his coffee. "Then the experiment's over."

"No!"

When Mitch glared at Sam's grip on his forearm, Sam released him. "I—I don't—

But you're a guy."

Mitch shrugged, chuckled at the sheen of panic in Sam's stare. "So are you." He slurped his coffee. "You don't like foreplay?"

Sam cursed under his breath.

Mitch took pity on him, grinned. "Is there no part of me—other than my dick—

that you want to touch?"

Mitch knew he'd never, ever in a million years look coolly polished and refined, not like Sam did. Sam who toned his comparatively lean body in a gym. Mitch worked construction. His body had been built by years of grueling work—thick muscle, hard bricks of muscle, muscle that Sam hadn't known existed. A pretty boy like Sam, a nervous virgin, had to be attracted to him for his muscle. Hadn't Sam described him as tough and mean?

"Touch me, Sam. Anywhere you want." When Sam's eyebrow quirked, Mitch snickered. "Except there. My dick's out of bounds until I say so," he said and reached out to slide his fingers down Sam's shoulder. "But you can touch me anywhere else. I'll take it from there."

Lord, he'd forgotten how good breaking a virgin to his hand felt, how the uneasy innocent edge of their desire warmed his belly. Sam's nervous stare flitted over his chest. The tense rigidity of his body—he vibrated with that now-familiar kinetic energy. Focused, this time, on Mitch.

Mitch's bones melted at just the idea of bending him over, pounding his cock deep inside him.

Instead, he waited.

Waited for Sam to take the first important step.

"I don't want you to fuck me, okay?" he muttered under his breath, his gaze dancing away. "I just want to see if I'm comfortable with . . . with . . . ." Mitch smothered a laugh. "Come here." When Sam shifted on his feet, Mitch dragged him against his body, folded his arms around him. Sam stiffened, but Mitch was a lot stronger. The younger man could have broken free if he'd genuinely wanted to, but Sam didn't want to break away any more than Mitch wanted him to leave. So he held him, enjoyed his panicky shiver, and instead grabbed his hand, spreading his fingers against his chest. They curled into talons, but only for a moment. He stretched them wide when Mitch guided his hand over his skin. Sam's fingers burrowed into his chest hair.

Pleasure rumbled in Mitch's throat.

Sam jerked, but with Mitch's arms around him, he had nowhere to go.

"I like that," Mitch said, releasing Sam's hand. "Keep doing it." Sam's eyes narrowed on Mitch's then focused on his chest. Studied it. Like Mitch's body was a complex formula he needed to solve. Sam slid his palm over the hard muscle, his brow furrowing as he tested his own body's response to the sensation, then repeated it. He squeezed his fingers together, plucked at the thick mat of short, springy curls.

Need streaked to Mitch's balls.

"You have more chest hair than I do," Sam said, concentrating to the point of enraptured fascination on Mitch's chest. "A lot more."

"I'm a hairy bastard," Mitch agreed, humming in low pleasure when Sam's caress widened, following the curve of his pecs. "Your dick is longer than mine." Sam choked out a laugh. " Mine isn't out of bounds. Feel free to touch it whenever you like."

Sam was joking, but Mitch took him at his word. He slipped his hand between their bodies and rubbed at the ridge of Sam's s stiff cock through his jeans. Sam moaned, his fingers digging into Mitch's chest. "That's for Liv." Mitch shook his head. "That's for whoever I say it's for." He stroked the hard length of him, learned Sam's shape with his fingers. Sam shifted closer, his hot breath fanning Mitch's throat as he panted.

"If you won't kiss my mouth, kiss my neck," Mitch told him, rubbing his dick up and down.

Sam angled his head in. "You haven't shaved. Your stubble—" Mitch squeezed his dick through the denim, squeezed hard enough to wring a whimper from Sam's throat. "Suck on my neck. Now."

Sam obediently opened his mouth over Mitch's neck and licked at him so Mitch released his cock. Sam shuddered in relief, relief coupled with fierce excitement unless Mitch's guess was wrong.

Sam, Mitch had begun to surmise, instinctively fought to assert his control when it came to sex. Being in charge was as natural to him as breathing or taking a piss. Mitch had watched him dominate Liv, beautifully, and he'd tried to exert that same control over Mitch just a few minutes ago.

Mitch didn't mind. He preferred to top, but he enjoyed bottoming for his lovers, too.

But deep down, this morning, Sam wanted and needed someone strong enough to control and dominate him.

Mitch was that man.

He reached for Sam's zipper.

Sam went wild. He sucked Mitch's stubbled skin into his mouth, laved it with his tongue, skimmed his mouth up the column of Mitch's throat to nibble at his earlobe. The younger man panted so hard, the hot wash of his breath dizzied Mitch. It resounded like thunder.

Mitch wrapped his hand around Sam's cock and tugged him out of his jeans. Sam groaned, his hand descending until his palm brushed Mitch's nipple. He paused, rubbed, then pinched it.

Mitch pumped his cock. Once. "You don't want me to fuck you, Sammy?" Sam shuddered, nipped at the tender patch of skin below Mitch's ear. "Oh God," Sam said.

"Because I think you do." Mitch stroked Sam's dick. "I think you want me to fuck your ass. Almost as badly as you want to hammer your dick into mine."

"Sweet Jesus. Oh dear God." Sam's body shook. His mouth traced the line of Mitch's unshaven jaw. "Please."

Mitch ignored the plea.

Just as he paid no mind to the begging that followed. He single-mindedly pumped Sam's cock, over and over and over again. "Does it feel good, Sammy?" he crooned, picking up the pace. "Tighter? Do you want it tighter—?" The feral moan that ground past Sam's lips when Mitch fisted his hand over the man's rigid cock set fires to light in Mitch's body. "Look at me, Sam. Look at me," he repeated when Sam's chin lifted, but his blue eyes struggled to focus. "Open your mouth for me."

The younger man gasped, his fingers digging into Mitch's chest. On the brink of orgasm.

Sam would come.

He'd come hard.

But not yet.

He hadn't learned yet.

Mitch slowed, toyed with him.

Sam thrust frantically into Mitch's palm, desperate to come, but Mitch wouldn't let him. "Give me what I want, Sammy," he murmured, bending his mouth to his, "and I'll give you what you want. Open your mouth for me."

"Oh my—"

Mitch slanted his mouth over Sam's.

Slid his tongue inside.

Tore his lips away so Sam only had a flirting taste of him.

Mitch's hand halted.

He squeezed.

Released.

Squeezed again.

"Jesus! Please," Sam whimpered against his mouth. "I'll do whatever you want, give you anything you want. Please."

"Kiss me, Sammy." He brushed his lips back and forth. "If you want to come, all you have to do is kiss me."

Sam's hands tore into Mitch's hair on either side of his head. His mouth fastened to Mitch's. His tongue speared inside.

And his hips bucked wildly into Mitch's palm.

Holy shit, the boy was as hot as a fucking volcano. Mitch twined his tongue with Sam's. His mated and danced, explored Mitch's mouth with wicked, feral abandon. Mitch's body shook.

But he was a man of his word.

He finished Sam off with three rapid strokes.

Sam shuddered violently, his body curling into Mitch's at the force of his orgasm. He groaned into Mitch's mouth. Sam spurted hot and wet over Mitch's thighs. Mitch ate at Sam's gasping, groaning mouth, and held onto him when the younger man staggered, then moaned himself when Sam helplessly thrust his cock into Mitch's pelvis, grinding into Mitch's already hard and throbbing dick. Mitch tore his mouth free to suck in air, chest heaving, fighting the urge to come along with Sam. Not yet.

Sam still had more to learn.

So Mitch held him, petted him, soothed him. Eased Sam back from the shattering release.

By the time Sam realized it was another guy whose mouth played over his, licked and sucked at his lips, Sam no longer cared. He angled his jaw, his mouth widening to take Mitch's darting tongue deeper. When Mitch only teased him with it, Sam stared up at him with eyes that glittered. "Kiss me?" Mitch smiled. "You only had to ask."

He settled his mouth over Sam's. Mitch felt the hard thump of Sam's heart against the wall of his chest, beating in chaotic time with his. He loved the tentative slide of Sam's fingers in his hair, the softening yield of the man's body molding to him. Sam's shivery sigh when Mitch cupped and stroked his ass through his sturdy blue jeans.

Sam's mouth slipped away. "I guess the question about whether or not I can respond to a man is settled."

Mitch shook his head. "The experiment isn't over yet." He brushed a lock of honeyed hair from Sam's temple. "You need to clean me up." Sam glanced down their intimately intertwined bodies. Hot embarrassment colored his cheeks.

His cum had smeared low on Mitch's belly, into his groin. His pubic hair. Across the length of his rock-hard dick.

Sam darted a glance to Mitch. "Can I . . . ?" He swallowed. "Can I touch you now?"

Mitch grinned.

Sammy learned fast.

"With your mouth," he said, then pushed Sam to his knees. "You can touch me with your mouth."

Chapter Fourteen

Mitch widened his legs to give Sam room to kneel between them and sucked in a sharp breath when Sam's blond head lowered. His tongue flitted out to taste Mitch's stomach first. He licked at the gluey semen that had smeared into the hair arrowing down to his dick. Mitch threw his head back and let the awesome sensations take him. Sammy.

Between his legs.

His mouth skimming Mitch's belly, skating along his hip to lick the sticky cum free.

The only thing that would've been better than Sam's tentative, exploring mouth was Sam on all fours on the kitchen floor, shaking in giddy, terrified anticipation of his first fucking.

But Sam wasn't ready for that and Mitch's control was a tenuous thing. In fact, if Sam didn't stop playing and start sucking, pronto, Mitch would squirt and spurt in his face, to hell with Sam's virginal sensibilities. So he threaded his fingers into Sam's hair and urged his head to Mitch's cock. Sam's hot breath fanning the head of his dick made Mitch's belly quiver. "Lick me," he said.

Sam bent his head and licked.

One long, sensuous lick from the base to the rounded tip, his tongue swirling along the head to sample and taste.

The muscle of Mitch's forearms corded.

Sam swallowed Mitch's dick whole.

Mitch threw his head back. He bit out a harsh groan, pleasure crashing through him when Sam's lips engulfed him—so awesome, so crushing, it wiped his mind blank. He thrust into Sam's mouth and forced his head down, trying to fuck his way deeper. Sam coughed around his dick.

Coughed and gagged.

Mitch shook his head, tried to shake some sense into it.

His throat.

Mitch must've worked his cock to the back of his throat.

That was bad.

As one whose throat had been fucked on occasion, Mitch knew exactly how it felt—uncomfortable, disorienting, unpleasant. Yeah, he'd submitted to it. Every once in awhile, Mitch had wanted the feel of a long, hard dick shooting in his gullet, spurting semen that he'd never taste into his belly. But he'd only allowed it under the strictest circumstances, when his partner had the tightest reign on control. Gagging to the point of vomiting wasn't fun.

But God, Sam's mouth felt good.

He closed his eyes and began slowly pumping his dick past Sam's gasping lips.

"Stop, Mitch. Wait."

His eyes snapped open.

Livvy.

Draped in a towel and dripping from the shower he hadn't heard running. Standing in the door of the kitchen.

And frowning at Sam's blond head bobbing between Mitch's legs, sucking him off.

Mitch's eyes narrowed.

Too damn bad.

Sam wanted him, and Mitch sure as shit wanted Sam. Mitch would come in Sam's mouth whether Liv liked it or not.

Sam stiffened at Liv's voice, but Mitch fisted his hands in Sam's honey-blond hair, holding him still for the steady, grinding pump of his cock past his lips.

"I want him," Mitch said.

"Yes, I can see that." Liv stepped into the kitchen, dropping to her knees beside Sammy. She settled a light hand at Sam's biceps, eyebrows arching when he flinched away from her, his lips stretching to slide back and forth over Mitch's dick. "Damn it, Mitch, stop. You'll make him throw up."

Goddamned woman.

Sam grunted around Mitch's invading cock.

Irritated, riding too close to the edge of orgasm, Mitch jerked Sam's head up. The younger man gasped, sucking in air and coughing around the head of his cock. Mitch felt bad about that. Honestly, he did, but the urge to come had coiled tight in his balls.

"Fine. Show him," he said through clenched teeth. "But I want him to finish me off." She glared at him. "Let him go."

As soon as Mitch released him, Sam jerked his head back. "Jesus," he said, his voice low and husky.

A perverse pride tickled Mitch's spine, made his already too-hard cock jerk. He'd fucked him hoarse. Fucked the pretty boy's throat raw.

"Can we have some privacy? Is that too much to ask?" Sam bitched, his cheeks flushed.

Mitch laughed.

Embarrassed.

Sammy was embarrassed that Liv had found him with his face in Mitch's crotch.

"Oh, shut up," Liv said, her eyes shooting daggers at Mitch, but when she looked at Sammy, she smiled, her hand on his shoulder soothing. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, Sam. It's a learned skill, not something you automatically know. You just need to wrap your hand around the base so he can't jam it all the way into your mouth. Mitch is a greedy asshole when it comes to blowjobs. He'll fuck your tonsils if you let him." Mitch's amusement vanished. He scowled. "I'm standing right here."

"Like this?"

Mitch's eyes crossed.

Sam's big hand wrapping around his dick was that good.

"Squeeze tighter."

Mitch's breath wheezed from his chest. "Oh, Christ."

Sam narrowed his eyes, gave Mitch's cock a quick, hard stroke.

Need bowed his spine, set Mitch's legs to shaking.

"Reach behind him to play with his balls. He loves that." Oh God.

He'd beg.

In a minute, he—rather than Sammy—would be the one begging. "Shit," he said through clenched teeth. "Hurry this up, babe."

Liv bent over Mitch, her dark hair whispering over Sam's broad shoulders, and the sight of them together, bent over his cock, Liv tutoring Sam on how best to suck him, nearly undid him. "I mean it, Liv. I'm going to come." His toes curled into the linoleum when Sam's hot mouth covered him, drew him in. He bucked his hips, but he couldn't force himself deeper, not anymore, but that was okay because Sam's tongue flicked over him, over and around him, setting him on fire.

"That's it, Sam. Control his thrusts. Give him a little extra on the tip—" Mitch's world splintered.

A raw groan tore from his throat as he stiffened, his dick growing impossibly harder, impossibly thicker. Sam's tongue licked . . . .

Mitch shot into that eager mouth.

He slid down the cabinet, his mind melting, his body boneless under the onslaught of Sammy's voracious mouth. Sam followed him down, ate at him. Sam swallowed his semen in merciless gulps, then nestled between Mitch's jellied legs to suck and kiss his dick some more.

Mitch blew out harsh, labored pants.

He slid his fingers through Sam's hair, petted him as the younger man finally let go of his softening cock to rest his clean-shaven cheek against Mitch's hairy thigh. Liv rubbed Sam's back, easy, comforting strokes. Her towel had fallen at some point—when, Mitch didn't know.

Sam reached to fondle the tit nearest him, pinching the nipple between his shaking fingers.

Liv chuckled, swatted his hand away. "Give yourself a few minutes to recover, hotshot," she said, then her nostrils flared. "Besides, I smell coffee." Sammy flashed an indulgent grin at Mitch. "It's Hazelnut. From Corner Cups on Frasier Avenue. Mitch hates it."

"Of course Mitch hates it. He hates anything that's civilized, but that's why we lo—like him so much." Stepping over them, she stretched for a mug, giving Mitch a mind-bending flash of her neatly trimmed snatch before she slid to the coffee pot to pour. She sniffed appreciatively and moaned at the first sip.

There was something seriously wrong in this kitchen, Mitch decided, if coffee was what made her moan.

There was also something seriously right in his kitchen because he was reasonably sure Liv had almost said she loved him.

Unfortunately, Mitch wasn't ready to shove Sam from the wide V of his legs just yet. His dick was a machine most mornings, yeah, but it'd take him at least ten, twenty minutes to get hard again. No backing her against the counter, ramming himself into her, then making her tell him whether she loved him or not.

Hell with it.

Let her moan over Sam's prissy coffee.

His cock felt too deliciously spent to work up a decent mad over anything as stupid as coffee. Especially since she hadn't screeched when she'd caught him shoving his dick in Sam's mouth and had been gracious enough to give Sammy pointers that had lit Mitch on fire.

And she'd almost said she loved him.

Mitch was so grateful that he sipped at the cruddy coffee she passed down to him before he handed the steaming mug to Sam.

"Thanks," the younger man said.

No. Thank you. Mitch grinned.

She joined them on the floor, draping her bare legs over Sam's blue-jeaned ass. She widened her thighs, reflexively, when Mitch groped for her pussy. He ran a finger over her clit.

"It didn't bother you?" he asked, but he was pretty sure it hadn't. She sipped her coffee, tilted her hips into Mitch's touch. "You wanted him and I could see that he made you feel so good . . . ." When she shrugged, her tit jiggled, catching Sam's interest again. He leaned over and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

"How could I object?" she said, threading her hands through Sam's honey-gold hair. Mitch dipped the tip of his finger into her cunt.

She must love him if she was willing to give Sammy to him.

"He's for both of us," Mitch said. "We'll share him." Sam murmured vague assent against her nipple.

Liv sighed. "Agreed."

* * * * *

Sam had to leave at five-thirty, just for a couple hours.

He had a date.

And Boy Scouts like Sammy did not stand up a date, even if he'd spent the past twenty-four hours banging his brains out. Nope. Civilized men like Sam drank specially blended coffee and raced to their apartments to scrub the sex smells off before taking the lady to dinner.

Mitch was willing to bet Sammy felt so guilty about the debauched sex he would spring for the over-priced French restaurant on Wabash. Or a place with an honest-toGod wine list. The poor sap. That made Mitch grin until he remembered that so far, his and Liv's dating experiences had revolved around a hasty lunch at a steakhouse last month, the debacle of a dinner at Artie's, the waffle hut last night, and an occasional delivered pizza. The fact that he and Liv hadn't been on a legitimate date was seriously starting to piss Mitch off.

So he brought up her almost-confessed feelings for him once Sam had shut the door behind him, swearing to be back as soon as he could.

Mitch held her in his arms, against his bare chest, the both of them naked—with Sam around, Mitch voted that they never wore clothes again—and cuddling on his sectional sofa. "So. You love me because I'm uncivilized."

"You have a wildness in you, Mitch. There's no sense denying how much that appeals to me." She chuckled, nuzzling her chin into his shoulder. "But I didn't say I loved you."

He stroked her hair. "That's what you meant."

Her lips thinned. "Is not."

"Is too." He kissed the crown of her head, settled her back against his shoulder so he could listen to her breathe. "Would it be so terrible?"

"Yes."

He laughed at her clipped tone. "Don't love me then. And I won't love you back." She exhaled a long, tired breath. "What we do together . . . ." She shivered. "It's powerful. Physically, we strike a match against each other and the explosion makes it too easy to pretend that it means more than it does. That it's real." Annoyance pricked. "What we have is real, babe. We just shared our bed with another man, but we're still lying on this couch, as comfortable together as an old married couple. It doesn't get more real than that."

She propped herself on her elbow, started into his eyes. "Don't you understand, Mitch? You've just proven my point."

He glared.

What was it with women transforming themselves into Yoda to win a fight? "It proves that we trust each other. Completely. In every way." She shook her head. "It proves that we aren't committed to each other." He tensed, his nostrils flaring with sudden anger. "If this is your intro to the talk about how we should see other people, honey, you're about to find out how committed to this relationship I am."

She huffed in frustration. "We don't have a relation—Oh for heaven's sake, stop growling. I don't want to see anyone else." She frowned at him. Mitch reigned in his temper. "If neither one of us is allowed to see other people outside these walls—and we sure as shit aren't," he said through clenched teeth, "we're in a relationship."

"A physical relationship, Mitch. That's what we have and that's all we have: sex." She sighed. "We don't even call each other between Fridays. It's too easy to build fantasies when we only see each other one night every week." He traced the line of her jaw with the tip of his finger, curved his mouth to a wicked bow. "Two nights, this time. You promised to stay until Sunday because of Sam."

Liv snarled his name in low warning.

Mitch's grin faded. "If you want more, if one night a week isn't enough, why didn't you tell me? I want more of you, too. You know I do." Her glance skittered away. "It was only supposed to be sex, Mitch. You swore you wouldn't complicate my life."

"I lied."

He startled a laugh out of her.

Grinning, he bent to brush his lips over hers. "Tell me you love me." She shook her head.

"What if I admit that I'm scared, too? What if I say that I feel inadequate and I'm unsure of myself with you, too?"

She rolled her eyes. "You do not. I've never met anyone more sure of himself."

"Sam's dick is two inches longer than mine, babe. Trust me; feelings of inadequacy are high on my list right now."

She smiled, kissed his lips. "Your dick is just as long as his." When Mitch snorted, she kissed him again. "Are you seriously worried that I'd choose Sam over you?" No.

Not really.

What they had together went miles deeper than what they did for each other in bed, went way beyond the size of his cock. He knew that, felt it in his bones. How they talked after the loving was done. The way she knew what he was feeling with only a look and how they understood each other, inside, where no one else could see. What they had with Sam was sex. Great sex, sure. But it didn't compare to what he and Liv shared between them.

He just needed to hear her say it; hear her admit that he meant something to her, too. "Give me Wednesday nights, Liv. Give me another night each week with you." He stared into her dark eyes, let his feelings shine naked and vulnerable in his. "Sometimes, I don't think I can make it past another Wednesday without seeing you, touching you again. Give me one more night. Don't love me if you don't want to, but give me more time. I need it."

When she bit her bottom lip, he beamed a wide smile.

She'd argue a little longer, but he knew he'd won.

He'd made her bite her lip.

Chapter Fifteen

When Sam returned from his date, he fucked Liv so aggressively, even Mitch worried that he'd been too rough. Sam climbed off her, and tight-lipped, he lurched into the bathroom. Liv tipped her head, pointedly, toward the closed door. The first time any of them had closed a door, shutting the others out.

"Something's wrong. Talk to him," she whispered, wincing as she shifted her hips. Sam had drilled them—and her—into the mattress.

Fuck.

Mitch removed his hand from her tits and rolled away, padding to the bathroom door. Knocked.

"Give me a minute."

Yeah. Right.

Mitch stepped inside.

Sam stared in the medicine cabinet mirror, glaring at Mitch's reflection. "Sucking your dick doesn't forfeit my right to privacy. Get out."

"When you left, you were happy. You came back early, after what must've been a record-setting thirty-five-minute-long date, snapped our heads off, and fucked Livvy numb. Or maybe wishing you'd fucked her numb. She'll be feeling that ride for days." Bare-ass naked, Mitch leaned against the doorjamb, crossed his arms over his chest.

"What happened?"

Sam's eyes glittered malignant fury at Mitch, then his shoulders sagged. He rubbed his hand over his face. Cursed under his breath. "I'm sorry." Mitch nodded.

He believed Sam was sorry. And would be even sorrier when he returned to bed and realized how tender Liv's pussy was after the pounding he'd given it. "Talk." Sam stripped off his condom, tossed it toward the trash. Braced his arms on the bathroom sink. "My date's name was Carol. She's a nursery school teacher." Mitch nodded again.

Not his type, but . . . . Whatever. "And?"

Sam's mouth curved to a self-deprecating smile. "I felt guilty about taking her out within minutes of doing"—he jerked his chin toward the bedroom—"after doing . . . ." His eyes flashed at Mitch. "After doing Liv." His lip curled in ripe self-disgust. "So I took Carol to the French restaurant on Wabash."

Yeah, he'd figured. "And?"

Sam's gaze darted away. "Look at my neck, Mitch." He angled his jaw so the light hit his skin and—

Mitch winced.

Whisker burns.

Sam's throat had been rubbed raw, the skin flaming a prickly red. From Mitch's stubble.

He didn't bother shaving on weekends and since the blowjob in his kitchen, he'd taken a concerted interest in acclimating Sam to his hands and his mouth. He hadn't touched Sam's dick again. He wouldn't until Sammy asked him to, but Mitch had spent most of the day kissing and fondling him.

Mitch had marked him.

Bad.

He peered at Sam. "The nursery school teacher noticed."

"Not right away." Sam shifted on his feet. "I ordered our dinner first. I liked her, Mitch. I really liked her. Carol is so shy and sweet."

Sam didn't have to say any more.

His date sounded like the kind of woman neither one of them deserved to look at. The fragile sort. The kind of woman every man wanted to wrap in cotton and protect.

She wasn't the girl for Sam, given the younger man's fondness for lusty sex, but Mitch had more than a few years on Sam. It'd taken Mitch his first divorce to figure out that fresh-faced girls-next-door didn't challenge him enough to maintain his interest and that he, quite frankly, terrified them. He'd wasted two years, unwilling to admit he was bored. And no matter how hard he'd tried to repress his appetites in bed, how gentle he'd worked to be with her, his timid wife had cowered at his intensity and the strength of the responses he could wring from her.

No, sweet and innocent girls weren't for Mitch.

They weren't for Sam, either.

Sam just hadn't lived long enough to figure that out yet.

"She knew exactly what this meant," he said, brushing the irritated abrasions on his neck with the edge of his fingers.

"I'm sorry," Mitch said. He wished he could tell the younger man not to waste his life chasing women he thought might scrub his more deviant inclinations clean. He wanted to tell Sam to look for a spitting tiger, not a scared kitten. But that was a discovery Sam would have to make for himself. "You don't have to do this, Sammy," Mitch said instead. "If what we do embarrasses you or makes you uncomfortable—" Sam whipped his body around. "Don't you understand? Don't you get it?" he shouted. "She was everything I wanted!"

"I know. I'm sorry. What more do you want me to say? That I wish I hadn't marked you?" Foul temper snapped and snarled at him, gnawed away his good intentions. Mitch glared at him. "Forget it. I'm glad my stubble scraped you raw. I want you to see where I've touched you when you look in the mirror and remind you exactly where on your body I've been."

"How could I forget?" Sam's blue eyes shimmered, his pain so evident in them that Mitch felt the ache slice through his anger, spear into his own gut. "How could I ever forget?"

Mitch uncrossed his arms and pulled Sam to him. "You're going to let me have you, Sammy," he said, pitching his voice low. His heart broke at Sam's quick shudder, but he wrapped Sam in his arms anyway. "I won't apologize for wanting you or doing whatever it takes to get you. You want me, too. It's going to happen. Just a matter of time." Mitch blew out a breath and stroked Sam's naked back. "But I regret marking you where others would notice. I should've taken more care."

"That's not it." Sam shook his head against Mitch's shoulder. "I kept checking my watch."

Mitch's brow furrowed.

What in the holy hell did the time have to do with anything?

Sam's arms crept around Mitch's stomach. "I met Carol through one of my roommates, his fiancé's best friend. I harassed both of those poor women for three months to land that date. She was gorgeous, perfect in every way." He held onto Mitch, pressed his face to Mitch's neck. "But I kept checking my watch. Wondering how much longer I had to wait before I could get back to you."

Ah.

Mitch exhaled, ran a lazy hand up and down Sam's shivering spine. For the first time, being with a man was more important to Sam than being with a woman. The realization had shaken Sam to the core.

"I've been planning that date for months and even before she spotted the burns you left on me, I pissed it away."

"You're in lust, baby. And maybe falling a little bit in love." Mitch's lips curved.

"It's natural to be excited and starry-eyed."

"With a guy?" His gaze darted to meet Mitch's. Sam's eyes rounded in horror. "I am not starry-eyed over a man. I'm not in love with you." Yes, he was. If he hadn't been falling a little bit in love, Sam wouldn't have let Mitch rub him raw before such an important date. And if he cared more for Liv than for Mitch, Sam wouldn't have settled for Mitch comforting him, either. Men needed a woman's touch when they were dazed and upset.

Except when they were falling . . . a little bit in love.

Mitch's heart swelled, full to bursting.

Liv loved him.

Sammy was starting to.

What more could he want?

"Is everything okay?" Liv asked, lingering on the other side of the doorway.

"Sam?"

Mitch ducked to whisper in Sam's ear. "Hurt her again and how much I want you won't matter. I'll kick you out. If you need to prove you're still a man, take it out on me. Understand?"

Sam swallowed.

Nodded.

"Now tell her that you're all right. She's worried about you." He nudged Sam toward her.

Sam went into Liv's arms, hugging her close. "I'm sorry, so sorry I was rough with you," he said into her hair. But he was looking at Mitch when he said, "It'll never happen again."

* * * * *

And it didn't.

Sam was a gentleman.

His hands on Liv's body were soft, reverent. Mitch wouldn't let Sam fuck her until Liv's pussy wasn't so tender and sore. Accepting his penance, Sam dedicated himself to bringing her pleasure with his mouth and his fingers instead. Sam left before Mitch took Liv back to her car. "Can I see you next weekend?" At Mitch's fierce scowl, Sam grinned. "Both of you?"

Liv's eyes had darted to Mitch's, held his gaze. "That's up to Mitch," she said.

"All right." Sam bent, kissed her. He twined her arms around his neck and kissed her like he'd miss her while she was gone.

Satisfaction strummed Mitch's pulse.

Especially when Sam turned in Liv's arms, stared nervously at Mitch. At his mouth. He lifted a hand from Liv's back, reached for Mitch. He palmed the back of Mitch's skull, and Mitch let him pull him forward. Sam brushed his mouth over Mitch's, traced the line of his lips to ask entry, and when Mitch opened them, he slid his tongue inside to play.

By the time Sam lifted his mouth, Mitch was sure Sammy would miss him, too.

"Let me know," Sam said.

After he left, Mitch drove Liv to her car. When he pulled beside her Mazda and threw the truck into park, Liv said, "About Sam."

And that was it.

Not another word.

Mitch frowned at her. "What about him?"

She bit her lip and if Mitch's cock hadn't been so utterly used by both Liv and Sammy, he might've tried to gnaw on those full, ripe lips himself.

"Are we going to see him again?" she asked.

Mitch's mouth curved. "Oh yeah."

"When?"

Mitch tapped the steering wheel, thinking. He wanted Sammy with them, always. At least until they got sick of each other, which could be today, could be next month, next year, who knew?

But he also wanted to build a life with Liv.

"Are you going to let me see you Wednesday night?" he asked, staring straight ahead because he honestly didn't know if he could stand the lash of her rejection if the answer was no.

"I'll meet you at your apartment."

"No, I'll pick you up." Because that sounded like a date to Mitch. They wouldn't go anywhere except to his bed and they wouldn't do anything other than fuck, but as far as Mitch was concerned, that just meant the date was perfect, his ideal, a fantasy date of titanic proportions. His heart stuttered in his chest, but rather than howl with wild laughter, he smiled at her. "Let's save Sammy for the weekends." She sighed his name. "Don't plan on me staying longer than Saturday next time." She glared when Mitch scowled at her. "Don't look at me like that. We were Friday nights only. I'm giving you Wednesdays. Don't be greedy."

With that, she huffed out of his truck.

Didn't kiss him goodbye or anything.

Mitch didn't mind.

He waited for her to unlock her Mazda and climb inside. He followed her downtown, until she made the right to Euclid.

Liv talked a good game, but she'd stay next weekend, the whole weekend. Deep down, Liv wanted him. Almost as much as he needed her.

Chapter Sixteen

Sam sat in the shadows of Mitch's doorstep, legs bent and spine pressed to the wall, when Mitch returned from dropping Liv off. "What's wrong, Sammy? Forget where you live?" Mitch jingled his keys, frowning when Sam didn't respond to the greeting or stand when he approached the door. "Sam?" Mitch asked when he jammed his key into the lock. Dread trickled in his veins when the younger man slowly pushed to his feet. "What's wrong?"

When Sam moved into the light, his left eye shone a vivid blue, already swelling shut.

Fierce anger knotted Mitch's stomach. He shoved his front door open. "Come in." Sam followed him and dropped to the sectional with a tired groan. Mitch marched to the kitchen and snagged the bag of frozen peas he kept in the freezer for the times he needed to ice his knee after basketball. He gave the bag a solid thwack against the counter to break up the chunks, then tossed it to Sam.

Sam caught it, and leaning his head back against the spine of the couch, he plunked the bag on his swelling eye. "Thanks."

Mitch dropped beside him on the sectional. "Is your eye the worst of it or do I need to look at your ribs?"

Sam chuckled. "If you want to molest me, just say so, Mitch. It's not like I've beaten you away with a stick."

When Mitch grabbed Sam's hand from his lap—just to reach out to him, connect—Sam hissed with pain. Mitch examined the hand. Sam's knuckles were red, bruised. One had split open. Surprise—and wariness—kicked his pulse to a sprint. "Do I want to know what the other guy looks like?"

"Guys." Sam snatched his hand away. "And no, you don't." O—kay.

Mitch reclaimed Sam's hand, careful of his injured knuckles. The shiner told him Sam had taken a hit, but his hand proved the punishment Sam had meted out had been worse. The damage he'd caused . . . maybe considerable. Mitch swallowed reluctant anxiety. "Anyone who'd file charges?"

Sam lifted the bag of peas with his free hand, glared at Mitch with his single, unswollen eye. "And admit a fag beat them up?" He snorted. "I doubt it." He resettled the bag to his injured face.

Mitch stared at him, sorrier and sadder and more furious than he could remember being in years. "Whoever it was, they don't matter, Sam."

"I need a place to stay," he said.

Mitch winced.

The roommates.

"They still don't matter."

"Thank God I'm in advertising." Sam's lips tipped to a derisive smile. "Nobody's surprised when one of us turns out to be queer."

Mitch's lips thinned. He squeezed Sam's mutilated fingers. "You aren't gay, Sam."

"I sucked your dick," he said, his low voice heavy with self-disgust. "And I don't think there's a square inch of my body that your stubble didn't scrape raw."

"You fucked my girlfriend all weekend, too." Mitch waited for the clench of Sam's jaw to ease and when it didn't, Mitch took another approach. "Do you think I'm a fag, Sammy? Do I act queer to you?"

Surprise jerked his head off the spine of the couch, dislodging the bag. Sam glared at him. "You're the least queerest acting guy I know. You work construction, for the love of God."

Mitch nodded. "I also jerked you off, marked you up and I'll fuck you as soon as I can talk you into it. I can't wait to be inside you." He paused, let that sink in. "You're bisexual, Sam. And even if you were totally gay, it'd still be okay. I lived for five years as a gay man before someone showed me that I'd buried my heterosexuality under a lot of crap I didn't want to deal with. I was in denial, but even then, I wasn't ashamed of who I was. Don't let that eat away at you. Whoever did that to you"—Mitch waved at the mouse coloring Sam's left eye—"isn't important because they don't know you. They don't love you. They're poison."

Sam's eyes shone dully. "There's a lot of poison in the world, Mitch." Mitch leaned over to kiss Sam's sad lips. Because he was right. Mitch'd been raised in a vat of the worst poison the world could offer, but venom wasn't limited to Gary's trailer. Hate was everywhere. But it only made love, wherever he found it, that much more precious. He stroked Sam's cheek. "Let's go to bed."

* * * * *

Mitch blew out hard pants, straightened his clenched fingers, and smoothed them through Sam's honey-blond hair as the younger man licked him clean. Mitch hadn't made a move on him last night, not sexually. He'd held him, spooned with Sam just like they'd slept all weekend. The only difference was Liv hadn't been sandwiched between them so when Mitch's cock stiffened, it'd poked at Sammy's butt cheek rather than hers.

But he hadn't done anything with it.

Sammy needed time to think, to consider. To choose.

He'd chosen to swallow Mitch's cock in one gluttonous gulp after breakfast, when Mitch had gathered his lunch cooler and thermos to leave for work.

"You're getting good at this," Mitch said, still scrambling to stuff his brains back into his skull.

Sam gave Mitch's softening cock a final, mind-shattering suck, then grinned up at him. Mitch loved Liv. He did. But Sam was so sexy, kneeling in front of him, his lips stretched and swollen from sliding up and down his dick. "If you want me to, I can call off work," Mitch offered.

Sam laughed, gave his balls a last squeeze, then pushed to his feet. "You're not getting your hands on my ass that easily."

Mitch tucked his dick back into his jeans. "To help pack your crap. Move you in." He cocked an eyebrow at him. "You still need a place to stay, right? You're not going back to your apartment?"

Sam grimaced. "Not to live."

Mitch cradled Sam's jaw in his hand. "You're welcome here. As long as you need." He pulled Sam close, slanted his mouth over Sam's. Mitch's pulse hummed when Sam's tongue eagerly tangled with his. When Mitch pulled away, he rested his forehead to Sam's to stare into the blue eye his prick roommates hadn't blackened. "I like waking up with you."

"You like your cock sucked," Sam said with a smile.

"You like sucking me," Mitch said and pressed a satisfied kiss to Sam's smiling lips. Sam closed his eyes, gave his mouth to him. Sam was getting really good at kissing him, too. "You can have me, whenever you want. If you stay." Sam's lashes shuttered his eyes. "Is fucking my ass that important to you, Mitch?"

"Yeah."

Oh hell yeah.

Sam chuckled. "All right. I'll stay." When he opened his eyes, they sparkled. "But just until I find another place to live. And only if you let me rent a storage locker for all the shit you've stuffed in your apartment. You live in a sty." Mitch considered the man's terms in less than a nanosecond. "Done." He stepped back, checked his watch. "I've got an important job this morning, but if I shuffle my contracts, I can make it back in two hour—"

"Go." Sam handed the cooler and thermos to Mitch, then shoved him toward the door. "I can handle it."

Mitch resisted his push. "Your roommates gave you that shiner."

"They got the worse end of the deal. Trust me, they'll think twice before taking a swing at me. Besides, I'm taking a personal day to move everything over while they're at work. I'll be fine." Sam yanked open the front door, pushed Mitch to it. "Go."

"The extra key's in the drawer below the coffee—"

Sam slammed the door in his face.

Mitch went to work.

* * * * *

Three of his laborers called in sick, the concrete inspector arrived four hours late, and the part he'd ordered for a client's Jacuzzi had been delivered—mysteriously—to Minneapolis. So Mitch's temper snapped and snarled at his heels when he pulled his truck into the apartment complex and didn't improve when he saw one of Sam's prick roommates hauling garbage to the dumpster.

He slammed the truck into park, locked it, and marched to the jerk who'd hit Sam. Mitch's hands fisted at his sides, then his fingers splayed wide in shock when he noted the butterfly bandage over the bridge of the guy's nose and the pair of blue bruises under the asshole's eyes. Whatever they'd done to Sam, he'd broken this one's nose. Split his lip, too. When he spotted Mitch stalking him, the little prick's body jerked to attention. The ass wipe actually flinched.

All right.

Bruised ribs then.

He wasn't moving gingerly enough for any to be broken, but this guy was in considerably worse shape than Sam had been in last night.

Mitch readjusted his perceptions.

Sammy could take care of himself.

That didn't mean Mitch didn't protect what was his, though. "You lay a finger on Sam again and I'll bury you."

"Stay away from me," Sam's roommate said, raising a restraining hand. "I'll press charges. I mean it."

"Mitch!"

Sam stood in the open doorway, freshly showered, and God have mercy, wearing Mitch's favorite basketball sweatshirt.

He went instantly hard.

God, Mitch's dick was an easy slut.

The rest of him?

Not so much.

He turned his head to glare malevolent intent at the prick roommate. "I can make you disappear," he said. "They'll never find your body. Remember that." Satisfied when the other guy paled, Mitch walked to his apartment. Sam closed the door.

"I wish you hadn't done that," Sam said behind him. "He'll file a restraining order against you, too."

Mitch froze, three steps into his apartment. Dropped his empty thermos and cooler from suddenly numb fingers. Surprise trapped his next breath in his lungs. The boxes were gone.

No more garbage bags stuffed with his linens. No more packing cartons filled with extra tools, Fiestaware from his first marriage that neither of his subsequent wives had wanted, or his collection of DVDs. Astonishment wiped every circuit in his brain clean, as he stared at the coffee table he hadn't laid eyes on for half a year. He could sit at his dining room table again.

He blew out the breath he'd been holding.

"You said I could clean the place up." Sam lifted Mitch's hand and dropped a key into his palm. "Your storage unit."

Mitch examined the blue plastic keychain: Safe-T Storage, with an address a few blocks away. A large number 27 was stenciled on the other side.

"I didn't know when you'd be home so I thawed steaks for dinner. They're cheap cuts of meat, but I salvaged them with bottled marinade. I'll set them under the broiler—I don't know how you like your steaks. Medium? Rare? Well done?" Mitch snagged his abandoned cooler from the carpet and followed Sam into the kitchen, studied the anxious glitter in his eyes. Mitch smothered a bark of laughter at the tension vibrating in the younger man's body. He shifted to deposit his lunchbox and thermos on his amazingly clean counter, then he leaned forward. He crowded Sam until the younger man's spine pressed into the stove.

He lowered his head.

As soon as Mitch's mouth settled over his, Sam's tongue shot out, full of nervous energy and as frenetic as Sam was. When Mitch slid his hand around Sam's neck, Sam's pulse throbbed like a war drum against his fingers.

With a day left to his own devices, Sammy must've come to the realization that he had a boyfriend. Not just a boyfriend. Sammy had moved in. He was living with a gay lover.

For the very first time.

Mitch had meant to ease him into the world of gay sex. Even living with him, sleeping in his bed, Mitch would've taken his time with Sam, but thanks to the fight with his roommates, Sam hadn't dipped his toe into the pool.

He'd dove in, headfirst.

Sammy, sweet Christ, was courting him.

Mitch pushed his hips and his very hard cock into Sam's pelvis and when he lifted his head, Mitch nudged his jaw aside so he could lick and suck at the skin of his neck. Wry amusement—and arousal—streaked through him when he found Sammy's skin as smooth as a baby's butt.

Sam had shaved for him.

Inside his jeans, Mitch's dick thickened.

So much for slow.

He opened his mouth over Sam's neck, used his teeth on him.

Sam shivered. "Dinner—"

"Can wait," Mitch said, lowering his free hand to tug the hem of his favorite sweatshirt up Sam's chest. "This can't."

Jesus, he'd never get over it.

Of all things for Sam to steal out of his drawers, he'd snagged Mitch's basketball sweatshirt, the one Liv had worn for him after their first night together. The parallels turned him on, wound him up tighter. Liv, giving her body to him for Mitch's personal play land. Sam, cleaning his house, cooking his dinner, kissing him so sweetly. And the both of them wearing his shirt, as good as branding themselves as his. Mitch had to have him.

He shoved the fabric aside, skated his fingers over Sam's chest. The boy was toned, but not built, not muscled like Mitch was. Or half as hairy. He paused to flick Sam's nipple, enjoying his gasp and quick shudder. Sam's fingers threaded through Mitch's hair, dislodging a white cloud of drywall dust.

Sam sneezed.

Mitch chuckled. "I'll shower after," he said, pulling his sweatshirt higher as he skimmed his mouth lower. Sam groaned when Mitch's lips teased his brown nipple. Dust or no dust, Sam's grip in Mitch's hair tightened when Mitch's tongue lapped at him. Mitch scraped his teeth over Sam's nipple and grinned when Sam's hips pushed forward.

Mitch traced his tongue down Sam's stomach, stabbed it into the man's belly button.

Sam yanked his hands from Mitch's hair and jerked at his zipper. Sam, not Mitch, dragged Sam's cock from his jeans.

Mitch dropped to his knees.

Opened his mouth.

Sam fed his dick to him.

Mitch opened wide, taking him deep into his throat.

Fair was fair.

And whether he'd fucked Sammy's throat over the weekend or not, Mitch wanted Sam's length drumming against his tonsils, spurting hot and thick into his belly. Mitch finished him quickly.

Sam was too nervous and horny and excited to take much of Mitch's tongue, the suction of his lips. The younger man came on a husky groan, his stomach clenching as his hips jerked and pumped. Out of control, Sam's cock sprayed thick and hot on Mitch's tongue instead of his throat, but Mitch licked him and sucked on his wildly bucking dick to take more.

When Sam's body uncoiled, spent and sated, Mitch rose from the floor. Licked salty semen from his lips. "I like my steaks rare." He brushed a kiss over Sam's panting mouth. His. Sam was his, as wholly and as completely as Livvy belonged to him. Wearing Mitch's clothes, sleeping in his bed, and his cum warming Mitch's stomach. Mitch gave Sam's dick one last stroke and Mitch's mouth curved as Sam moaned into it.

"I'll be in the shower," he said. And left Sam to re-gather his senses.

Chapter Seventeen

Mitch didn't see much point in getting dressed after the shower so he scrubbed himself dry with a towel, then walked naked to the kitchen. Sam had set the table in his absence, dressing it with the Fiestaware his first wife had abandoned with him. A trio of candles sputtered at the table's center.

"Nice," Mitch said, "but you don't have to go to all this trouble for me." He winked at Sam. "Getting into my pants is a sure thing."

"You aren't wearing pants." Sam raised an eyebrow at Mitch's nudity as he pulled a pair of steaks from the broiler. "And maybe I want to go to all the trouble." Mitch's heart thudded a triumphant beat.

Yeah. Sam was courting him; and whether Sam realized it or not, Sam would seduce himself, as well. Mitch didn't have to lift a finger. Sam would take care of tempting and luring them both.

"Sit down," Sam said from the kitchen. "It's almost ready." Mitch sat at one of the settings at the dining room table, the surface of his wooden chair cool and smooth on his bare ass. Mystified amusement made his mouth bow at the neatly folded linen napkins—where'd Sammy find them? Mitch couldn't remember owning any. Maybe cast offs from one of his wives?

Mitch picked up a lot of crap that way.

Sam slid a plate in front of him. Baked potato with butter drizzled over it, juicy steak that looked like it was still mooing, and a leafy green salad. Salad, for the love of God.

Sam joined him at the table, settling his own plate next to Mitch's. "Don't glare at the salad, Mitch. Eat it. Fresh vegetables are good for you." He handed Mitch a frosty cold bottle of beer before taking his seat. "I would've thought a man your age would be more careful about his diet."

Mitch swiveled his glare from the salad to Sam.

A man his age?

What the fuck was that crack supposed to mean?

Mitch wasn't collecting social security, for Christ's sake.

"I'm bigger than you are, Sammy. I'd take you in a fight." But Sam only chuckled. "Try your steak."

Frowning, he sawed off a piece of the meat, impressed when his knife revealed the bright pink center. At the first bite, flavor exploded over his tongue, rich with subtle undertones of spice. The tender meat practically melted in his mouth. Mitch was a carnivore. He liked red meat and ate it often, but a steak like this had never come from his oven. He groaned in carnal pleasure.

Sam smiled. "We need to talk about your butcher."

Whatever.

Mitch chewed. Swallowed. Sliced another bite off his steak. "Until you find your own place, you cook. I'll clean up after." Mitch stabbed the meat into his mouth. Seemed like a fair trade to him. "We'll split the rent and utilities." Sam picked at his salad and arched an eyebrow. "What? No ring?"

"I'm saving myself for Livvy."

The younger man frowned. Ate his green, leafy vegetables. "Is she going to be okay with this? My moving in."

Mitch chased the bite of steak with the Coors that Sam had already opened for him. "I think so."

Sam stared at Mitch long minutes. "I thought you two were seriously involved." Mitch didn't know what magic Sam had performed on his steak, but he was in heaven. "We are."

Sam's lips thinned. He put down his fork. "I should check into a hotel."

"No." When Sam's gaze flashed to his, Mitch took a pull off his beer. "Liv might be a little shaky at first. She's always unsteady when I throw something new at her, but she adapts fast. We agreed to share you. That hasn't changed."

"She didn't think you'd have me in your bed every night." Concern sparked Sam's blue eyes. "She might be jealous."

"Good." Mitch liked that idea. "Maybe she'll feel possessive enough to move in with me, too." He liked that idea even better.

"All three of us? Living together?" Sam's jaw dropped. Mitch ate his steak. "Why not?"

Sam threw his head back and roared with laughter. "Because it's not normal, Mitch, that's why not."

Mitch scowled at him. "Fuck normal. What did normal ever do for me?" Nothing.

"We had a good time last weekend. If the three of us move in together, we can have that every night and if that doesn't make your dick hard, you're not the man I thought you were."

Sam's laughter faded to low chuckles, but he picked up his fork. "All of us will never fit in this apartment. Moving your stuff into the storage unit cleared a lot of space, but three people sardined into this one-bedroom apartment won't work." Mitch's heart sank.

Sam was right about that.

But Mitch was a contractor, a builder. He worked long, brutal hours in warmer months, but in the winter, when the temperatures dropped to frigid and bitter cold, he occupied himself with side projects to give the bulk of the far scarcer work hours to his employees.

"I flip houses," Mitch said and picked at his baked potato. Sometimes, the house could take a couple years to complete because once spring hit Mitch was back on the job full-time, where he belonged, but Andrea hadn't totally drained his bank accounts. Derelict houses that needed work and a lot of love sold cheap. Hell, he had a list of addresses on his laptop waiting for his attention.

"I haven't picked my next project and once I do, making the house livable might take me a couple weeks. Even then, it'll be like camping for a while. But if I found a place with more room, would you stay?" he asked. "With me and Liv."

"She hasn't agreed to live with you yet." Sam snickered. "And I'm not so sure she'll forgive you for moving me in."

"Let me worry about Liv." Mitch speared another bite of his steak. "Would you?" Sam polished off his salad and sliced a precise square from his steak. "Live with the two of you?" He shrugged. "I don't know. We only started sleeping together a couple days ago."

Mitch waved his fork. "And yet, here you are."

"Here I am." Sam smiled. "Don't rush this, Mitch. What sounds like a great idea tonight may not seem so wonderful next week. You like having me around now because you want me, but I think we both know you just want the sex. I'm a novelty to you. Once you've had me, I'll bore you. Or annoy you. Or vice versa."

"I already annoy you and I'm never boring." Mitch shrugged. "And it's going to take me awhile to get tired of fucking you, Sammy." Mitch was sure of that. His cock stirred, stiffened. "Is that what you're afraid of? That I'll push you away as soon as I get what I want?"

"No." But he dipped his head and focused on cutting his steak with far more intensity than the meat warranted. "Not entirely."

Mitch set his fork by his plate, no longer interested in the dinner Sam had cooked for him. "Tell me what you're scared of then. Entirely." Sam wouldn't meet his eyes. "It'll hurt."

Mitch's cock hardened to a steel rod under his dining room table. He'd been expecting this, Sammy's very natural fear of what Mitch wanted to do to him, but he hadn't anticipated his new lover confessing his reservations to him so quickly. It boded well. Very well. "It will hurt, at first."

Mitch nodded when Sam's gaze, flickering with edgy uncertainty, focused on him. "I won't lie to you, Sam. You're a virgin. I'll make it as easy for you as I can, but it's like busting a woman's cherry. No matter what I do, it'll hurt." Sam dropped his own fork, nudged his plate away. "That doesn't sound pleasant."

"It can be." Mitch's mouth unfurled. "I'll be careful with you. Very careful. And I'm not saying you won't enjoy it. You will. You'll love me fucking you." Sam shivered.

Mitch smiled. He wouldn't need to seduce Sam to him, no, but soothing his virginal fears suddenly leapt to the top of Mitch's list of major turn-ons. "I won't push you into it, Sammy. Only when you're ready."

Sam licked his lips.

Mitch smothered an aroused moan.

"What if I'm never ready?" his new lover asked.

Mitch's balls tightened. "Then you're never ready." Mitch shrugged, pulse racing when Sam's hot gaze drank in the play of his muscle as his shoulder lifted and fell. "I can't make it good for you if you don't trust me, if you don't want it as badly as I do. If I can't have you that way, I won't fuck you at all. You can pound your cock into my ass three times a night for the next six months and it'll still be all right. I won't take you, Sammy, until you want me to."

Sam's blue eyes darted to meet Mitch's steady stare. "You'll let me . . . are you saying I can . . . ?"

"Fuck me?" Mitch suggested silkily. "I told you that you could have me any time you wanted if you moved in and I meant it." He dangled the juicy apple of temptation in front of him and Sam snatched at it with both greedy fists. "I can't wait for you to fuck me."

Sam's nostrils flared. His hands gripped the edge of the table so tightly his knuckles shone white. "Saturday afternoon, in the kitchen—I wanted to—"

"You were firing on whoremones and lust then. You hadn't learned how good a man can make you feel or the pleasure of making your lover—your gay lover—come. I'm not just a willing orifice you can fuck your dick into anymore. Am I, Sammy?" Sam's jaw clenched. He slowly shook his head.

"You like sucking on me because, at heart, you aren't a selfish lover. You enjoy making me feel good, want to make me come. I'm not a selfish lover, either." Mitch stood, pushing his chair back. His cock hung hard and heavy between his legs. Feral desire flashed in Sam's eyes.

"Let me show you how unbelievable it can be for us."

* * * * *

While Sam—ridiculously—cleared their dinner from the dining room and kitchen, Mitch retrieved a tube of lube from the bathroom, where he and Sam had left it when they'd plowed Liv's ass Friday night. He listened to the clatter of the dishes Sam loaded into his dishwasher as he moved to their bedroom, and forgoing the overhead light, he flicked on a lamp on his nightstand instead. The lamp bathed the room in a subtle, romantic glow Mitch knew would seduce Sammy to a quivering, needy puddle. Would seduce Mitch as well.

He set the tube on the nightstand and climbed into bed to wait for Sam. He gave his very erect and very hard cock an occasional, negligent stroke. He'd watched Sam fuck Livvy's ass only a few nights ago. In that respect, Sam was every bit the practiced courtesan Mitch himself was. Sam's tight hole had never been fucked, but Sam knew what to do when he was the one doing the fucking. That was for damn sure. Going first, Sam had taken his time to wind Liv up, sucking her beautiful tits and rubbing her cunt. He hadn't flinched when Mitch had retrieved the lube from his bedroom and handed it to him. Sam had simply bent Liv over the toilet and slicked her puckered ass as he diddled her pussy. Then, he'd smoothed the condom over his cock and pressed the tube into her palm. "Make it good, but not so good I come."

Liv had bent to the task of oiling Sam's dick with mind-bending skill. And grunted out her pleasure when Sam had eased—not crudely shoved—his hard cock into her.

His long, measured strokes had ridden Liv's delectable ass. Sam hadn't even needed to stimulate her cunt to make her come. The pace he set, the steady thrust of his dick in and out of her asshole had been all she'd needed to bring on her orgasm. She'd gasped and whimpered and Sam had stiffened, grinding his hips into her butt cheeks as he'd thrown back his head, gritted his teeth.

Sam, coming, was a work of art. A portrait of raw power and beauty. Mitch worked his thumb over the head of his dick, his body already shaking as, in his mind, he replaced Liv's gorgeous body bent over the toilet with his. Sam's cock slipping in and out of him.

His dick stretching and filling Mitch's ass.

When Sam walked into their bedroom, papers in hand, Mitch stared from the center of their bed. The achingly slow stroke of his hand on his dick didn't pause. "I was thinking of you."

Sam crossed to the bed, his body tense as he watched Mitch's sluggish masturbation. When the younger man tried to pass the papers to him, Mitch grinned.

"My hand's a little busy, babe."

Sam sat on the edge of the bed, his fingers covering Mitch's fist before gently brushing Mitch's hand away. "Let me," he said, his jaw jerking at the papers he'd dropped to the mattress while his hand jerked Mitch's cock.

It was like kismet.

Perfection.

"Read them," Sam said, pumping Mitch so tenderly that Mitch felt every stroke with the rapidly tightening coil in his balls.

Chest rising in short, shallow pants, Mitch picked up the sheets of paper. A medical report.

He scanned through the foreign mix of letters and numbers, the abbreviated crap nobody who hadn't dropped a hundred grand in medical school could decipher, and found what Sam had intended him to see on the second page.

Mitch checked the date.

"I had my annual physical last month and I haven't fucked anyone without a condom since," Sam murmured, bending under his medical records to blow on Mitch's dick. "No STDs."

Oh Jesus.

Oh shit.

Mitch's hips thrust upwards, seeking Sam's hot mouth, even though Mitch didn't want Sam's lips on him. He didn't want to come that way, not this time. But the need to come was that overpowering, tingling in his balls, knotting his stomach. The papers in his hand shook. "You want to fuck me bare."

Chapter Eighteen

"I don't want to wear a condom," Sam said and his hot breath bathed Mitch's crotch. "I want to come in your ass. I want to make you as messy as you made Liv last weekend."

A bead of sweat trickled down Mitch's spine. Heat flashed over him—crippling heat and brutal desire. Because he wanted that too, all of it. "Do you need to see my medical records first?"

When Sam shook his head, his smooth jaw brushed back and forth over Mitch's swollen head. "I trust you," he said, then licked at the pre-come that had worked up Mitch's dick no matter how desperately Mitch had tried to hold himself in check. Mitch's back bowed.

He let the papers fall, dove his fingers into Sam's silky blond hair to pull his head away from his cock before his mouth replaced his pumping fist.

Sam stared at him, his blue eyes shining with dark promise. "You're close." Mitch shook his head. "I'll come when you fuck me." He nodded to the tube he'd left on the nightstand. "It's your show, honey. Tell me where you want me." Sam sucked in a sharp breath.

Released Mitch's dick.

"Right here is fine," he said. "Right now's even better. Get on your knees." Mitch rose, chest heaving. He kneeled on the bed, facing Sam as he watched him undress. He really was a work of art. In the soft lamplight, the skin that stretched over Sam's chest shone a warm tan as Sam ripped Mitch's favorite sweatshirt over his head. The sparse hair thickened at his belly, the shade of his body hair darker than the pelt of honey at his temple. Sam shoved his fingers through that honey, before lowering the same hand to pop free the button of his jeans. When he unzipped, the glimpse of golden curls that carpeted Sam's groin made Mitch groan.

Sam smiled at him, gently easing his jeans over his hips.

Mitch's heart lurched as Sam teased him. Sam's taunting fingers paused to trace the rigid length of his cock.

Mitch's eyes snapped shut.

He shuddered.

Nine inches.

Definitely nine inches.

Sam's low, sexy laugh tickled his ears and when Mitch forced his eyes open, Sam pushed soft denim past his thighs, his knees. His jeans dropped to his ankles. "You genuinely want this," he said, kicking his feet free.

Mitch nodded.

Hell, yeah.

He wanted Sam so bad his skin itched, felt too tight for his body. His pulse resounded in his ears like thunder. "I want you."

Sam's lips curved. "Put your hands on the headboard." On his knees, Mitch's pivot was awkward, but arousal clawed into him so fiercely, his movements would've been clumsy, anyway. He grabbed the headboard, walked his knees backward to stretch out for Sam, leaving every part of his body exposed. His cock jutted toward the comforter Mitch hadn't bothered to strip off the bed.

When Sam reached for the lube on the nightstand and the mattress dipped as his knee settled on it, Mitch quivered in anticipation. When Sam stroked his butt, Mitch moaned.

"You have a great ass," Sam said, cupping one cheek, "but you know that." Mitch's muscles tensed as Sam kneaded his flesh. His fingers tightened on the headboard.

Sam's finger traced the crack of his ass in a slow arch, back and forth, teasing Mitch's asshole until Mitch wanted to howl with it. Shout at him to stop playing with it, to fuck him. Shove his dick inside him and fuck him. Fuck him hard. But he didn't.

Instead, he blew ragged pants past his lips and let Sam have him. Let Sam take him any way the man wanted.

His jaw clenched when Sam's lazy finger slowed, lingered at his eagerly waiting hole, and he groaned through gritted teeth when Sam's hot mouth opened over his ass cheek. At the moment Sam's mouth sucked, one fingertip pushed inside. Mitch shuddered violently, only his steely grip on the headboard holding him upright as Sam worked a slippery finger into him. Sam's lips ate at his ass; his unhurried finger fucked it. Mitch's hole burned at the delicate, languid exploration. He wanted more. The slick glide of Sam's single finger lethargically pumping his ass only made Mitch's body feel that much emptier. He was a cavernous shell. A shivering, hollow, aching shell.

"Oh God," he ground out when Sam pushed a second finger inside him. Sam hummed low in his throat, his tongue now tracing Mitch's quivering butt cheeks as his second finger joined the first in the sluggish fucking that was driving Mitch insane. "You're more than ready for me." When Mitch threw his ass back into Sam's hand to try to take more of his fingers in, Sam laughed, his voice husky and amazed. "You're vibrating with how much you want me. You're very close to coming."

"Yes," Mitch said on a breathless pant, fighting for air. His orgasm built, twisting deep in his belly. "I don't want to come until you're inside me." Mitch's cock stretched, thickened, protruded heavily between his legs. "Please." Sam kissed his ass cheek, then—thank God—lifted from him, easing his fingers out of Mitch's hungry asshole. The mattress dipped when Sam moved behind him and Sam's knees bracketed Mitch's. He stroked a damp hand down Mitch's bare back and Mitch's climax gnawed at his control with voracious teeth.

"Please," he said again. Mitch didn't mind begging. As long as it got him what he wanted. And it did.

Sam's dick brushed the flesh of his cheek, smearing the lube Sam must've slathered over it onto Mitch's trembling ass. His bulbous head pushed against Mitch's hole, already burning hot from the fucking Sam's fingers had given it. Sam pushed, but didn't enter, didn't shove his cock up inside him.

Mitch could've wailed with frustration.

His orgasm was cutting into him, sharp as a razor. He didn't know how much more he could take. Holding back, not giving in to the screaming pleasure that blazed through him, hurt. His cock throbbed, painfully. His ears rang. "Please. I need to come. Please, please."

"Not yet." Sam fondled Mitch's butt cheeks. "You can wait a little longer." Mitch hung his head low, sucking in great lungs full of air, but it didn't help. He shook so violently he wondered that his bones didn't jolt out of place.

"Don't come," Sam said. The bed rocked as he shifted his hips and the head of his cock popped into Mitch's eager ass. Sam froze, leaving only his stiff head lodged in Mitch's hole.

Mitch's body stiffened. His spine bowed. He groaned, fighting to halt the spasm clawing its way up his dick. He bit back a curse, his senses reeling at the stretch of his asshole around Sam's thick girth, felt the burn of it to the depths of his soul.

"Okay?" Sam lightly rubbed Mitch's hips. "You aren't going to come, are you?" Mindless, helpless, his chest heaving with the force of his sharp pants, Mitch could only shake his head and hope it was true.

"Good."

Mitch's eyes widened when Sam took his cock away, sliding it free. Then snapped shut when Sam shoved back inside.

Just the head.

Only the head.

Oh Christ.

Sam fucked the rounded tip of his penis in and out, setting a shatteringly languorous pace that lit Mitch on fire. Charred him to the bone. His heart galloped in his chest. His cock ached with sweet, sweet agony as he surrendered to each taunting, teasing thrust.

Empty?

Had he felt empty before?

The steady pump of Sam's cock head into his ass swept Mitch bare, wiped his mind clean, cleared every urge and instinct from him except one: his need to be fucked. Mitch didn't recognize the hoarse, feral sounds that came from his throat. He didn't care. His world had narrowed. Nothing else mattered except the fiery burn of Sam's cock stretching his hole and the wild orgasm perched to destroy him as soon as Sam gave him that first sharp thrust.

"Amazing," Sam said, voice low and breathless. "You're amazing, Mitch. Fucking you will be like riding the beast."

Sam picked up his pace. The round tip of Sam's cock penetrated his ass, racing faster and faster. Mitch grunted out gluttonous pleasure, took Sam's stingy fucking. The ring of his ass flamed to an inferno that sucked him into the maelstrom, burned everything away except the need.

He had to come.

He needed to come.

His existence pinpointed to just that and only that.

The orgasm ripped at him, snarling to break free.

Sam leaned over him, his body covering Mitch's, his chest pressed to Mitch's back. His hot breath fanned Mitch's ear as his hips arched and pumped. "Ready?" Sam didn't give him an opportunity to answer, not that Mitch was capable of forming words.

With a grunting thrust, Sam speared his cock into him. All of it—every hard, glorious inch—shoved into Mitch's ass and pushed deep. Sam's dick stretched him, split him, spread his grasping hole wide until Mitch's ass encased him and Sam's hard belly slapped against Mitch's sweaty butt cheeks.

Mitch's heart stopped.

A scream of exultant joy built in his throat, but he couldn't suck in the air to release it.

His senses splintered into a thousand jagged pieces.

Sam drew his hips back—

Mitch cried out at the loss.

—and slammed into him again, burying his cock into Mitch's ass until the hairy scratch of Sam's balls scraped Mitch's fleshy cheeks.

Finally, Sam fucked him.

Mitch grunted. He groaned. He held his body still for the delirious ride. Sam's cock scraped the walls of Mitch's hole and filled his ass so fully, so completely . . . . Sam's dick, stiff, huge, pressed down as he pumped into Mitch's ass. Mitch's pleasure swirled around him, spiraling tighter, as fast and as furious as Sam's pistoning hips. Crude, carnal, the sensations crashed over him again and again, with each wondrous stroke of Sam's cock.

Trapped.

Sinking.

Mitch reeled in the storm of Sam's blissfully brutal fucking.

Mitch didn't care if he came anymore, didn't care if his cock jerked and spurted and sprayed. As long as Sam didn't stop driving his dick hard and quick into his tingling ass.

Mitch's senses sharpened to a knife's point. Their heavy breathing. The crack of slapping skin as Sam humped him. The pound of Sam's heart against Mitch's spine. Sam's wild moans of pleasure echoed in Mitch's ears.

Liv dazzled him like this.

Bewildered him.

Swept him up in the beauty of their mating.

But Mitch had never expected to find it with Sam.

The awesome crush of pleasure mushroomed inside him until it exploded, destroyed him, left him weak and dizzy. His body collapsed, only his iron grip on the headboard held his head and shoulders above the mattress. Sam's cock rode him down, followed his steaming hot ass, kept pumping.

Mitch moaned, too dazed by his stunned, consuming pleasure to resist when Sam slid his hand under him to fasten it to his hard, aching dick. Sam finished him in two strokes. Mitch's groan tore loose from somewhere deep inside him. His chest expanded, his lungs sucking in oxygen. His fingers clamped into the headboard of the bed. And he—finally—came so hard that his ears rang. His cock sprayed, spurting thick semen on Sam's hand and their bed.

When it was over, Sam's fingers stayed, wrapped around him and gluey with Mitch's cum. Sam's cock still fucked into him, pummeling his asshole. Sam's breath still fanned his ears. "I'm going to come inside you now. Close your eyes, Mitch. Feel my dick shooting into you," Sam panted.

Dazed, exhausted, Mitch obeyed.

He closed his eyes and seconds later, when Sam's dick thickened and slammed into his ass with all the finesse of a 2x4, when Sam's body stiffened above his and he shouted out his release, Mitch felt Sam's dick jerk. He felt the scalding heat of Sam's semen jetting free, felt its wetness deep inside him, felt Sam's cum filling him. Sam's body crumpled on top of him, his lax weight covering Mitch. Sam's heavy arm lifted to Mitch's shivering shoulder.

Sam's lips brushed his ear.

Mitch slept.

Chapter Nineteen

Mitch drove his truck down Euclid two days later, hunting for a parking place, when he spotted Liv waiting for him on the sidewalk. He braked and she pulled the door open. She hopped in, fumbling with the seatbelt in her haste. Like she was racing to get away before any of her neighbors saw her in his truck.

As soon as the belt was in place, he drove down the street and turned around at a derelict gas station on the corner.

He wouldn't let it bother him.

Sammy, Mitch had decided, was the key.

Sam would lock Liv to him like cured cement.

If Mitch didn't fuck everything up. Now that Liv sat beside him, the scent of her fruity-flavored shampoo rolling over him as if a ten-ton bulldozer, Mitch's terror that adding Sam to their fantastically feral relationship would finally push Liv too far nipped at him with serrated teeth.

He couldn't lose Liv.

No matter what, he must not lose Livvy.

"You're very quiet," she said when he wordlessly drove toward his apartment complex, "for a man who can't stand to be without me between Fridays." Mitch scrambled for the words to explain, that would explain everything. But he wasn't sure he understood it himself. Not anymore. Being with Sammy was . . . addicting. Mitch slept with him, ate with him, was fucked and sucked by him. In the past days, Sam had offered him a Shangri-La of sex: in the morning, after work, whenever Mitch wanted him in the dark of night.

Sam still hadn't let Mitch fuck his ass.

But Sam's candy store of orgasms was Mitch's play land.

It wasn't just the sex, though.

They'd played a cutthroat game of one-on-one basketball after dinner yesterday. Sam had clocked him in the chin with his elbow to make the shot. Mitch'd returned the favor by charging him, knocking him flat on his very fine ass. And they'd stopped at a pub to share a beer after.

Sammy was easy to be with.

Fun, in bed and out of it.

Mitch'd had scores of gay lovers in the past fifteen years and he'd never lacked friends, but he'd never had both, not in the same testosterone-stuffed package. Not that Sam couldn't be a pain in the ass. The guy was a clean freak. Mitch wasn't a slob. Being raised in the filth and stink of Gary's trailer had taught him to appreciate fresh sheets, a sink empty of dishes, and a living space un-littered by trash and dirty clothes.

But Sammy bought coasters. And scented candles.

The dude just wasn't normal.

Then, there was the food. Nothing Mitch had was good enough. Mitch's needs were basic. Coffee was coffee. Beef was beef, and if he didn't have the time or inclination to cook, the deli down the street had a nice selection of subs, fried chicken, and the best meatloaf Mitch had ever tasted. Fresh fruit? No. Vegetables were toppings for sandwiches and occasional pizzas. Herbs came in mysterious bottles best left to people who knew what to do with them.

Not only did Sammy know what to do with them, he suggested that Mitch try buying those herbs from the produce section—like Mitch was a regular visitor of produce—or growing some in pots on his window sill. Sam had sworn that he'd never go back to dried herbs again.

Personally, Mitch didn't give a shit.

They'd settled that argument by agreeing Sam would do the shopping and they'd split the grocery bill fifty-fifty. And Sammy could have the kitchen windowsill to grow whatever he wanted as long as the crop wouldn't get Mitch arrested. Mitch liked him, though, liked having him around. He liked waking up next to him. Sam had been wrong about that—he didn't have to crawl out of bed early to make himself pretty for Mitch. Nope. The blond stubbled rasp of his morning beard embarrassed Sam, but opening his eyes to a sleepy, scruffy Sam unfurled something warm and wonderful in Mitch's belly. The way Sam's mind worked fascinated him, too. Why did the guy have so many shoes? Italian ones, no less. Wasn't it supposed to be chicks who went nuts over Italian shoes?

Sam was very much a guy.

Not effeminate.

At all.

So what was the deal with the frippy coffee, the bundle of leafy stems Sam insisted was basil, and the army of Italian shoes?

Guys who clocked him on the chin to score two lousy points in a pick-up game of basketball were not supposed to give a rat's hairy ass about freaking basil. Sammy was a puzzle, one Mitch hadn't figured out.

And Mitch was beginning to care about him more than he wanted to. He tapped the steering wheel with nervous fingers, darted a glance at Liv. "You can't know how much I need you right now. I couldn't wait—this can't wait—until Friday. It's just that there've been complications," he finally told her. Then, blew out a hard breath. Gave up. "We'll talk about it when we get home." She arched an eyebrow at him, but didn't pepper him with questions, which both annoyed and relieved Mitch. Was it so damn difficult for her to pretend to care that he'd run into problems since she'd last seen him? To show an iota of interest?

Apparently.

He frowned.

Okay.

He was being a prick. Ragged anxiety scraped his nerves and the edginess was making him snarl.

He was glad, fervently glad, that she hadn't grilled him.

Because no matter what he'd told Sammy, Mitch wasn't at all sure that Liv wouldn't flip out when she realized Sam had moved in with him. Sam, who cooked for him. And sucked him so sweetly and fucked Mitch into a mindless, gelatinous daze.

Who snored.

The Sam who had spread files and papers brought home from work across the newly cleared dining room table when Mitch led Liv into his apartment. Liv blinked and gaped at the cavernous space that used to house towers of moving boxes. "Where's your stuff? Did you get robbed?" she asked, then her dark eyes narrowed on Sammy sitting at his dining room table. "What's he doing here?" Sam turned, sexy wire-frame glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. The swelling over his eye had gone down, but a rainbow of yellow, blue, and black still colored the left side of his face. His bruises mushroomed beneath the lenses of his glasses, mottling his skin from cheekbone to temple. His lips stretched to a smile. "Hi, Liv."

Her jaw dropped.

The shiner, Mitch hoped, would save him.

Liv raced to Sam. "Oh my God, Sammy, what happened?" She tipped his head up, brushed his blond hair aside to examine his eye in the overhead light.

"His roommates," Mitch said, tossing his car keys on the end table in the living room. "The nursery school teacher called his roommate's fiancé, who called his roommate and long story short, they decided Sammy was a lying bastard for never telling any of them that he was gay and a shithead for leading the nursery school teacher on."

Her eyes rounded. "Where else are you hurt?" She tipped his jaw so she could see if more injuries were hiding from her. Seeing none, she dropped her hands to his shirt to unbutton it. "How are you ribs?"

"I'm fine." Sam brushed her hands away. "You'll make Mitch jealous." Mitch's brows beetled.

Like hell.

Liv's dark eyes narrowed. "Why would he be jealous?"

"This is your night with him," Sam said, re-buttoning the two she'd slipped free.

"I would've left before he got back with you, but he said I should stay for a few minutes. So we could explain."

She ping-ponged her stare from Mitch, to Sam, then back to Mitch. "What's going on," she said. The severe tone of her voice changed the question to a demand. Mitch braced himself. "Sammy moved in."

Sam caught one of her hands, held it in his. "It's not permanent. I'm looking for another apartment."

Mitch's heart skipped an optimistic beat when she paled, stared down at Sammy, her fingers grasping at his. "They kicked you out?" she gasped.

"I couldn't live there anymore, not after this," Sam said, winking his wounded left eye. "Besides, they filed a restraining order against me. Legally, I'm not allowed within fifty feet of them."

Her brows furrowed, her dark eyes sparking with indignation. "But they hit you!"

Mitch winced. She wasn't going to like this part. "Uh . . . . Babe. It didn't quite go down that way."

Liv tore her hand from Sam's grasp and crossed her arms over her chest. She glared at them both. "I'm waiting."

"When I went back to my place Sunday night, my roommates and I argued." The corner of Sam's mouth curved. "One thing led to another, Jeff called me a faerie. I lost my temper. I took the first swing."

Mitch crossed the room to pull Liv into his arms. Because he couldn't stand being away from her anymore. "And the second swing. And the third."

"One of my roommates, I'm not even sure which, clipped me in the eye, but I did a hell of a lot more damage to them. The cops tracked me down here and served me on Monday."

"He's lucky they didn't file charges. I've seen them." Mitch waved at Sam's rapidly healing eye. "This is nothing."

Liv stared at Mitch, then at Sam. Back to Mitch again.

Oh crap.

Dread churned Mitch's stomach.

Here it comes.

"So," she said, outraged sympathy leeching from her voice. Her eyes took on a glitter when she looked at Sam that made Mitch's hands shake. "You're living with Mitch."

"Just until I find another apartment." Sam swept files and paperwork into a neat stack and stuffed them into a black leather briefcase. "Now that you know everything, I'll get out of your hair."

She blinked at him. "What?"

"This is your night with him. I'm intruding."

Liv wasn't stupid so her breath caught on a gasp in the span of a heartbeat. "You only have one bedroom. One bed." She turned and stared into Mitch's eyes, hers sparkling with stunned betrayal. "You've been sleeping with him?" Mitch's stomach roiled. "Yes."

Sam pushed to his feet. "I'll get my bag from the bedroom."

"Having sex with him?" Her bottom lip quivered. "Without me?" Mitch hugged her closer, against his chest. Kissed the crown of her head as Sam slid by them. When he heard Sam moving in their bedroom, Mitch nudged her chin up.

"I love you, Livvy. You know that I do."

Tears glistened in her eyes. "Sure. That's why you're having sex with Sam. Because you love me so much." She wiped at her watery eyes. Pulled herself free of his embrace.

Panic tightened his throat. "We agreed to share him." Her mouth twisted to a bitter smile. "I didn't know sharing him meant you'd move him into your bed, screw him every night, and I'd join the two of you as your Friday night fuck buddy."

Fear streaked, icy cold, down his spine. "It's not like that." She sneered at him. "It's exactly like that."

Holy shit, he was losing her.

Sick terror rocked Mitch to the marrow of his bones.

He couldn't lose Liv.

Nothing— nothing—was worth that.

"He's just a lay, Livvy. A damn good one, but that's all he is." Mitch shoved a frantic hand through his hair. "I don't love him the way I love you. If you want me to get rid of him, I will. I won't lose you over a piece of ass!" Her eyes focused over his shoulder, widened.

When he pivoted, Sam stood in their bedroom door, his briefcase and duffel bag dangling from his fingers. His face drained of color and even Mitch, as obtuse as he could be, recognized the pain that sparked in his blue eyes.

"Excuse me," Sam said, his gaze lowering as he walked toward the door. Oh shit.

Mitch reached a helpless hand toward him, wishing to God he could take the words back. "Sammy."

The soft click as Sam shut the door resounded like canon fire.

Liv rounded on him, eyes sharply accusing. "How could you do that to him?" Mitch's jaw dropped.

She threw her hands in the air. "Well, go after him," she demanded, pushing Mitch to the door. "You can't let him leave like that."

"I thought you didn't want him," he said, when she yanked the door open and shoved him through it.

She growled in frustration. "Go talk to him. Bring him back and don't you dare break his heart."

She slammed the door in his face.

Mitch exhaled a long breath, then turned to jog to Sam's Camri in the parking lot.

"Sam, wait."

"It's okay, Mitch." He shut his duffel bag in the trunk. "I went into this with my eyes wide open. I'll come back for the rest of my things while you're at work tomorrow."

Mitch met him at the driver's side door, grabbed his arm to stop him. "I told you Liv gets shaky when I throw something new at her, remember?" Sam's lips curled to a self-deprecating smile. "She didn't look shaky. She knew exactly what she wanted. Me. Out."

Mitch's hand dropped. "She told me to bring you back."

"Maybe I don't want to go back." Sam glared at him. "Maybe I don't want to be your piece of ass anymore."

Mitch winced, regret twisting his gut. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that to come out like it did."

"You meant it. Crudely put, but you meant every word." Sam fisted his keys in his hand.

"You want to take a punch at me?" Mitch eyed his fist. He'd seen the damage Sam had inflicted on the asshole roommates, but keeping Sam was worth a few cuts and bruises. "I won't stop you."

"I won't hit you." Sam blew out a long breath, uncurled his stiff fingers. "I want to, but I won't. Liv'll be upset if I bust up your pretty face."

"You're the one with the pretty face. I'm tough and dangerous, remember?" Desperate, greedy hope exploded through Mitch. He could still salvage this, still have Liv and Sam both. If he kept Sam talking, he wasn't leaving and if Sam wasn't leaving, Mitch had a chance to make everything right between them again. "You're more than a piece of ass to me."

Sam's shoulders lifted and fell as he blew out a long, tired breath. "You love her. She's your first priority. Your first, last, and only priority."

"I care about you, too." Mitch's shoulder jerked to a shrug. "More than I should." Sam's mouth curved. "But not enough."

"You're too straight to want the happily ever after with a guy. Don't act like you want it with me when we both know that's a lie." Mitch frowned at him. "I hurt you and I'm sorry for it. I stomped all over the rosy fantasies you've been building. But the only reason you're mad is because you see too much of yourself in me. We're too alike. Cocks are for fun, but cunts are forever."

Sam grimaced at the crudity. "What you said hurt because it isn't all fantasy, Mitch. You're right. I don't want you forever, but I need to be more than—"

"You are." Mitch stared at the gritty cement of the parking lot. "It isn't all fantasy for me, either."

Sam sighed. "I'll come back inside."

Wild joy streaked through Mitch's heart, forced his gaze up and a wide smile to his lips.

"But you have to tell her you have feelings for me, too," Sam said, his blue eyes steely. "I won't be a piece of ass to either one of you." Mitch's throat tightened. "All right."

Chapter Twenty

Not only did Sam come back inside.

He returned to their apartment, where Sam and Liv banished Mitch to the living room while they huddled in the kitchen, ostensibly to cook dinner, but mostly to talk in hushed murmurs Mitch couldn't make out. Sam's low voice and Liv's soft soprano competed with clanging pots and the crackling snap of something frying on his stove. Mitch sat, alone, in his recliner.

Unwelcome.

Though not unwanted.

His lovers talking about him when Mitch wasn't there to defend himself didn't bode well, but at least they'd stayed. They were together. All three of them. Exactly as Mitch wanted.

The smells coming from the kitchen were fucking fantastic, too. Mitch's stomach rumbled at the fragrant mix of tomato and melted cheese that wafted to him. Pizza. Or maybe some fancy kind of spaghetti.

Liv shot a glare at him when she carried the Fiestaware to the dining room table, and Mitch figured he was in for a rough night, but Sammy winked when he followed her, flatware in hand, linen napkins draped over his arm and a basket— where had the man found a basket?—of crusty garlic bread that smelled so good Mitch's mouth watered. Liv darted back into the kitchen, returning with a large wooden bowl. She slapped a thick pad of potholders at the table's center just in time for Sam to emerge with a bubbling glass, baking dish of—

Mitch nearly wept.

Lasagna.

They'd made fucking lasagna.

Oh my God, Liv and Sam could yell at him all night, shoot him in the head, rip his arm off, and beat him with it. Mitch didn't care. As long as he got a thick slice of lasagna first.

"Mitch?" Liv called.

He pushed from the recliner, walked to the table, and then froze when his gaze ripped from the food to sweep the place settings.

Liv and Sam stood to one side, watching—waiting—for him.

Okay.

They were pissed.

The table was a discard from his last marriage. Days before Andrea left, he'd taken delivery on a custom dining room suite she'd ordered and subsequently won in the divorce. But with expensive new furniture to preoccupy his ex, their old trestle table had been one of the few good pieces Mitch had managed to hang onto. Solid, with a knotty pine finish that warmed under Mitch's appreciative fingers, the table stretched to seat eight and spilled out of the tiny space of his apartment's dining room. Liv and Sam had set the table with a single setting at one end, twin settings clustered at the other, and the long stretch of table between.

Did they plan on banishing him to the Siberia of the lonely end of the table?

Make him choose who'd sit with him at the other?

Mitch's jaw clenched. "Fuck that." He stalked to the single setting, snatched the plate, placemat and silverware. He marched to the other end, shoving the extra setting in place so a pair of settings bracketed the third at the table's head. Where he sat and glared at them both.

Sam arched an eyebrow.

"Sit," Mitch said through gritted teeth.

Lips thinned to a line, Liv sat to his right while Sam settled at his left straightening the sloppy work Mitch had made relocating the plate and cutlery.

"Do you understand the difficulties of what Sam tells me you propose to solve our little problem?" Liv said, snapping out her napkin to lay it gently in her lap.

"I understand that you're making it more difficult than it needs to be," Mitch said, spine stiffening. He pointed to the now-empty end of the table. "You put the place setting there. Not me."

Sam snagged Mitch's plate and scooped a fat slab of lasagna onto it. "And when she wants a night alone with you? Or I do? What then?"

"We're reasonably intelligent adults. Most of the time." Mitch scowled at them.

"We'll figure it out."

Liv frowned at him and dumped a heaping pile of salad next to the lasagna on his plate. "We shouldn't have to—"

"Every relationship requires work, Liv. It doesn't happen because of wishful thinking. Everybody works together, compromises a little—"

"Or a lot." Liv's brows beetled.

Mitch shrugged. "Or a lot. But it's worth it in the end." Sam chuckled, transferring lasagna to Liv's plate, then his own. "How would you know? None of your marriages lasted longer than three years." Mitch shoved down his temper. "None of my wives knew me the way both of you do. Artie blames them for running around on me, but the truth is they turned to other men because I held back, kept them at a distance. So they wouldn't know what a freak I was." Mitch snatched a fat slice of garlic bread from the basket and tossed it to Liv, the next to Sam. "It took three failed marriages, but I finally learned my lesson. I'm holding nothing back from the two of you."

"They didn't know you're a depraved pervert?" Sam snickered. "It's so obvious, Mitch."

Liv deposited neat piles of salad on both she and Sam's plates. "Let's say we make these compromises. How do we know it'll be worth it? In the end?" Mitch grabbed two slices of bread for himself. "Last weekend was worth it." Liv's mouth thinned. "Last weekend was just sex."

"Dirty, awesome, magnificent sex," Sam said.

Mitch picked up his fork and pointed it at Liv. "See how it works? Compromise. You're out-voted."

Sam laughed.

"I don't want to live with you," she said.

Mitch sliced his fork through the lasagna, carving away a generous bite. Melted cheese pulled away in strings. "Too bad. We voted. You lost." She squared her shoulders, glowered at him. "We did not vote." Mitch twined the threads of melted cheese around his fork. "I vote you should move in. Sammy?"

He flashed a grin between the two of them. "Aye."

Mitch nodded. "Out-voted." He ate the lasagna.

Holy God.

Mitch didn't mind the scalding heat that burned his mouth. The explosion of flavor, the tomatoes and cheese—maybe some of Sam's precious basil, who the fuck knew—was that good. He closed his eyes and moaned in ecstasy.

"Where I live is not up for vote."

"If you make him choose between us, he'll choose you. He wants me, too. Cares about me, too. It'd hurt him, but he'd still choose you," Sam said. "And what about me?

Where does that leave me, Liv?"

Sam had taken Liv's hand in his when Mitch's eyes opened.

"I never said he had to choose. He can have us both," Liv said. Mitch chewed, his gaze shifting back and forth between them.

Sam's lips curled to a sneer. "As long as I'm not living with him. As long as I can only have him when you say, under your direct supervision." She glared at him. "I didn't throw a fit when you took it upon yourself to give him a blowjob while I was in the shower last weekend. Direct supervision, my ass." Sam snorted. "You supervised all right. I couldn't even suck his dick without you giving me pointers."

"You liked choking and gagging on his cock then?" Liv said, a mean glitter sparkling in her dark eyes. "I didn't realize you were such a fan of puking."

"Stop it," Mitch said once he'd swallowed the lasagna.

"You—"

"Cut it out," he shouted, glaring at Sammy, who shot a resentful glare at a gloating Liv. "That means you, too," he told her. Instead of working it out, they were tearing at each other and fighting over his dick. Frustration and disgust gnawed at his gut, burrowed into his spine. "Didn't you talk while you cooked?"

"I want him out. When he's in his own place, we can have weekends with him, like we agreed."

"I haven't found another apartment yet. I don't have anywhere to go." Sam rubbed at his temple, sighed. "You can have nights with him all to yourself. I'll get out of your way whenever you want." His blue eyes softened. "Why can't you give me that, too? I swear I won't ask for much. He's yours. He loves you and wants you most, anyway." Sam ripped his pleading gaze away, red creeping into his cheeks. "I just don't want you watching the first time he and I—that he—"

The first time Mitch fucked him.

And Mitch couldn't blame him.

There were times a man deserved and needed privacy. Losing his virginity was definitely one of those times. That should be a special moment, just for him and Sam. It should and would be.

"What can you live with?" Mitch asked Liv.

She shifted her glare from Sam to gape at Mitch. "What?"

"I want him, Livvy." Mitch had been prepared to give Sam up. If that's what she needed from him, Mitch would've kissed Sam goodbye. Without hesitation. But he was no longer sure Liv genuinely needed that. "I'd regret him. Always."

"I don't want to go yet," Sam said on a low murmur. "But you'll make him kick me out. He'll send me away."

She glanced down. "It wouldn't be like that."

But it would be.

And she knew it.

"What if you spent more nights here?" Mitch suggested, taking her hand in his.

"According to you, I'll be here on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. That's half the week already." Her lips quirked. "It's not just the time."

"I know." Mitch squeezed her fingers. "Keep your apartment on Euclid if you need it so much, but bring some of your things over. A few clothes. Your fruity shampoo."

The corners of her mouth tipped up. "My fruity shampoo?" Mitch smiled in return. "Stay whenever you want, go back to your apartment whenever you need to. Give us a chance, Liv. I know we can make this work. Try. Please."

* * * * *

She didn't move her things in that night, but after all three of them had cleaned up dinner, when Sam moved to the door to leave, she'd stopped him with a hand at his shoulder. "Stay," she'd said.

Mitch had never been more happy—and proud—when Liv had reached for his hand, for Sam's with her other and together, they'd walked to the bedroom. All three of them.

She loved him.

She truly loved him.

They kissed, undressed. Sometimes, the mouth under his was Liv's—soft, warm, giving. Sometimes, it was Sammy's. Hard. Eager. Desperately horny. And sometimes, Liv and Sam kissed each other.

Mitch's heart felt so full, it would surely burst. He had everything. He had it all. Liv hadn't moved in with him yet, but she would. He'd have them, both of them, all to himself.

His.

Mitch and Sam stripped Liv—Liv, and each other. Mitch's pulse raced when Liv's lips skimmed over his chest. She sighed as Sam pushed Mitch's blue jeans down his hips.

Naked, they touched. And kissed. Fondled and caressed. Where the weekend had been pure fire and heat, this was softer. A gentle building of their arousal, the slip of want into need, a slow, easy glide. Sam crouched to lick her pussy. Mitch bent to suck her excellent tits, and when someone's fingers wrapped over his cock to stroke it, Mitch didn't care whose hand pumped him. He knew only fierce pleasure, the giving and receiving of it. His focus narrowed to pleasing his lovers and reveling in the mindobliterating delight they stirred in him. After Liv gasped and shuddered and shook through her first orgasm, Sam boosted her to the top of the dresser and spread her legs wide. "Fuck her," he told Mitch and stepped aside.

Cock in hand, Mitch approached her and with her arms around him, he shoved into her cunt.

Behind him, Sam slid fingers slick and slippery with lube down the crack of Mitch's ass. Liv's eyes flashed open as Sammy made a sandwich of Mitch. Sam pressed Mitch's body into Liv's so Mitch was squeezed between the two of them. Sam speared two fingers inside Mitch's asshole in time with Mitch's next thrust. Mitch panted into her mouth. "Please," he whispered against her lips, begging her to accept Sammy at his back, to allow what Sam was about to do to him. "Please." She moaned, tilting her hips up to take him deeper. And reached around Mitch's ass to stroke encouraging fingers down Sam's hip.

Mitch's mind spun.

Glorious.

The hot clamp of Liv's pussy.

The burning stretch of his ass taking Sam's fingers deep.

He closed his eyes, grinding his cock into Livvy as those fingers withdrew and the rigid tip of Sam's dick pushed at his hole instead. He groaned, wanting it so much, Sam's cock in his ass as he plowed his own into Liv's needy cunt. Mitch's chest heaved, the increasing pump of his hips stilling—just a moment—

when Sam drove his dick into him. Mitch cried out, dazzled all over again by the awesome fullness of his over-stuffed ass. His world reduced to the scorching heat of Liv's wet pussy and the crippling pleasure of Sam's dick shoved deep. The sensations were so intense and intoxicating, Mitch's brain short-circuited, then snapped. All that remained of him was instinct—the jerk of his hips to bury himself into Liv, the echoing thrust of Sam's cock into his butt hole.

He groaned. He snarled. The orgasm nipped at him with razor-sharp teeth. He couldn't hold back, didn't even want to. When Liv's cunt bore down around him and her gasping mouth widened to a shocked O, Mitch's body stiffened and his dick pumped hot semen into her. The perfection, the rightness of his growling pleasure, of hers, rocked his senses. Destroyed him.

When he could breathe again, Sam's cock fucked in and out of him. His asshole was an inferno, the rim tingling with each thrust. Sam's ragged moans and the slap of his groin against Mitch's cheeks sang a primitive concerto to Mitch, told him how good it was for Sammy. Liv's arms tightened around Mitch from the front, holding him close, her mouth opening for his. Sam pounded into Mitch, his hands squeezing Mitch's hips to lock Mitch's butt in place for each grunting thrust.

Mitch's tongue tangled with Liv's, danced in and out of her mouth in erotic parody of the dick, hard as flint, pummeling his fiery asshole. Finally, Sam's entire body lurched forward, pitching Mitch into Liv. Sam moaned, his cock thickening, then spraying thick cum inside him. Mitch bit out a hoarse groan. Sam rode out the orgasm and Mitch with him, until Sam collapsed against Mitch's back, the hot breath of his pants fanning Mitch's neck. Mitch eased his mouth from Liv's and drew his head back to smile down at her.

Eyes closed, her lips curved in exhaustion.

Content.

He'd never felt so utterly, perfectly content, every part of him thoroughly fucked, used up and sated. Satisfaction seeped through Mitch. His love for Liv, his affection for Sam, they stole into him and saturated his body to the marrow of his bones. Sam's kiss brushed his nape. "I love you," he whispered into Mitch's hair, so soft, his voice hushed, for Mitch's ears only. "I love you and I'm yours." His lips skimmed his shoulder and Sam shifted away.

Mitch shivered at the loss of Sam's warmth at his back, but ferocious gratification spiked through him.

Sammy loved him.

If only Liv would confess her love as simply.

Mitch eased his flaccid dick out her and winced.

Liv's eyes flashed wide at his gasp, then glimmered with alarm. "Are you okay?

Did he hurt you?" she asked.

Mitch grinned. "I'm fine." With his dick sticky from the cum he'd shot into Liv and Sam's semen already dripping from his still-tingling asshole, Mitch felt absofucking-lutely magnificent. He swiveled to thread his fingers into Sammy's hair and pulled Sam's mouth to his. The sweet lick of Sam's tongue and the yielding give of his lips under Mitch's made his heart swell. When he lifted his head, he stared into Sammy's blue eyes. "Everything's wonderful."

Liv climbed down from the dresser. Her hand tracing the cheek of Mitch's wellused ass. "Sam didn't wear a rubber," she said, her voice clipped and tight. Mitch glanced over his shoulder. "He showed me copies of lab tests and they're current. No STDs."

"If you still want me to wear a condom with you, I understand. It's your choice," Sam said.

She ignored him and focused a glare at Mitch instead. "We should've discussed this."

"We just did." He arched an eyebrow. "Sammy's clean and I like him coming inside me. No condom." Grinning, he tugged her against his side. "C'mon. Work tomorrow. Time for bed."

Chapter Twenty-One

Liv stayed until late the following Saturday night. She went to her apartment to pick up clothes and her mail. She kept her makeup and girlie crap in a cosmetics bag in the bathroom instead of leaving it scattered over the vanity like he wanted, but his bathroom smelled of her now. Vanilla and Raspberry. Mitch could eat her right up and often did.

All three of them went to work. Mitch worked dawn to dusk in the warmer months; and after thirteen years in construction, he'd lost the ability to sleep past sunrise so he was the first in the shower. He emerged, wet and hard. He liked fucking Livvy awake, his cock her alarm clock, but Saturday morning, when she'd opened her eyes, Sammy had been sucking him instead. Mitch had nearly lost his mind when Liv had crawled between Sam's legs and swallowed him whole as well. Mitch was a happy man.

Their only awkward moment so far had been Friday evening. Sam didn't know—

couldn't know—that he and Liv had a regular Friday appointment in hell with their asshole fathers. Sammy had been hurt when they'd slipped away with vague explanations about business that needed taken care of.

That'd been awful.

To add insult to injury, Liv made Mitch drop her off outside the trailer park, on one of the side streets, so her dad and sister would believe she'd parked her own car and walked in, like usual. She didn't want her family to see her climbing from Mitch's truck.

Didn't want them to know she was with him.

Every foul, evil act Gary and Rita had ever done to Mitch crashed over him in the span of a heartbeat. The humiliation. The gut-wrenching shame.

He felt like nothing.

Less than nothing.

He listened to her nervous chatter about avoiding awkward questions and really, this wasn't any different from meeting at his truck every other Friday night. Or so she told him. She said she needed more time.

Mitch pulled over and Liv had hopped from the truck.

And he spent most of the evening reminding himself that Liv loved him, no matter that she still hadn't said the words. He wasn't just a piece of meat, not to her. They'd met on the same side street a couple hours later. Turned out Liv had worried—and skewered his heart—for nothing. Bert Winslow was in county lock-up for breaking some guy's jaw in a bar fight and Cheryl was too high to be much trouble, so Liv's visit was relatively peaceful.

"Gary slept most of the time. The night nurse said his oncologist upped the dosage of his morphine," Mitch said, driving back to Sam. "He can't last much longer." Of course, his father's doctors had been saying that for over a year. When they returned, the apartment was empty. Sam was gone. No note, but his stuff was still there and damn it, they didn't have a leash on him. If Sam wanted to go out, that was his business, wasn't it?

Mitch had taken advantage of the privacy to make love to Liv, but he hadn't truly breathed again until Sammy had stumbled home, drunk, at two in the morning. Mitch had slipped from their bedroom after he'd heard Sam come in and found the younger man sprawled on the couch, glaring at him with glassy eyes.

"You need help getting to bed?" Mitch had whispered, leaning down in case Sam needed steadying when he got up.

Sam had stared at him, his bleary eyes never once leaving Mitch's face. He'd slowly unzipped his pants and drawn out his partially erect cock. Amazing that he'd been able to get it up, at all, considering how much he stank of liquor. "Suck it," Sam said.

Mitch had gotten down on his knees and sucked.

Mitch sucked him, even though it'd taken painfully long minutes and all of Mitch's considerable skill to make Sam's dick hard. He'd licked and laved him, trilling his tongue along the bulbous head. He'd worked his lips up and down the length of him, no matter that Sam grabbed him by the hair and forced his head down farther, deeper, shoving Mitch down on him until Sam's cock drummed against his tonsils. It wasn't important.

Mitch hadn't puked.

And Sam had finally come.

Mitch left him snoring softly on the couch. Mitch had hurt him. Mitch and Liv both had hurt him. By not telling him where they'd gone, what they'd been doing or why it was important, they'd shut Sam out. They'd kept secrets from him, locked away the private things he and Liv only shared with each other. It'd hurt Sam badly. So he'd gotten drunk and when Sam had choked Mitch by fucking his dick down Mitch's throat, Mitch hadn't fought him. Mitch was sorry, hellaciously sorry, and if gagging on Sam's cum made it right, made Sam feel better, so be it.

But he wouldn't haul Sam back to their bed. No way. Not near Livvy, not when Sammy was drunk and mean with it. If Sam needed to punish somebody, Mitch would take it. But Liv'd had too much of drunk and mean in her life already. Sammy had spent most of the next morning with his head in the toilet and Liv coddling him. When she wasn't fucking and sucking Mitch's brains out, that is.

"I'll be back tomorrow morning," she said and kissed both of them goodbye. Apparently, she'd decided Mitch's dick was too worn out and Sam was too sick to be interested in extracurricular fucking.

She was wrong.

Liv could've fucked and sucked him one hundred times and it wouldn't change what Sammy had whispered to Mitch after coming in his ass Wednesday night. Sam loved him.

And Sam Lawson was his.

Sam darted glances at him from the couch when Mitch returned from the parking lot. With Sam feeling so horrible, they'd invested most of that day snuggled on the couch, watching movies from Mitch's DVD collection. The Force definitely hadn't been with Sam at the beginning of the intergalactic movie marathon, but by the time infant Luke had been handed over to his foster parents, Sam had looked considerably less green. Now that Leia was adding to every boy's spank bank in the gold and red harem costume, Sam looked healthy as an ox.

Mitch stretched out with Sam on the couch. Sam was naked—all three of them were nearly always naked—but Mitch had pulled sweatpants and a t-shirt on to walk Liv to her car. Mitch tucked his clothed ass into Sam's crotch. He laid his cheek on Sam's arm, stretched over the couch cushion, and exhaled a long, satisfied breath when Sam curled the other around his belly.

"How're you feeling?" Mitch asked.

"I'm all right."

Mitch laced his legs with Sam's. "No more headache? Your stomach's okay?"

"I said, I'm fine."

They'd spooned like this, already what felt like countless times to Mitch, with Liv and with just each other, too. Sam had always accepted him—his body warm and inviting.

But not now.

Sam was as rigid as hickory.

He couldn't still be upset about Liv and him abandoning him Friday. They'd cuddled on the couch for hours already today, all three of them.

"What about you?"

Mitch jerked his head to meet Sam's hesitant gaze. Mitch's forehead furrowed.

"What about me?"

Mitch wouldn't have thought it possible, but Sam's body stiffened further. He damn near vibrated with tension. "Your voice was hoarse this morning." Mitch relaxed.

Oh.

So that was it.

He angled his jaw back so he could kiss the tip of Sam's raspy chin. He'd felt too sick to shave earlier—a first—and Mitch loved it when Sam was stubbled and scruffy.

"No lasting damage."

Sam's mouth thinned. "I'm sorry."

Mitch shifted so he could kiss the frown from Sam's lips. "I'm sorry, too," he said and settled back in his arms to watch the movie.

Sam's chest lifted and fell on an unhappy sigh.

His dick wasn't unhappy.

It prodded at Mitch's nestled butt as though it meant to drill a hole through his sweatpants. Eyes glued to the TV screen, heart thrumming in his chest, Mitch lowered his hand to untie the drawstring at his waist. He arched his hips forward to push the cotton down in back, revealing his fleshy ass cheeks.

"Mitch—"

"Fuck me, Sammy." Mitch pushed his butt back so that Sam's cock nested in his crack. "Slide right in."

Sam's dick twitched. "The lube is in the bedroom, so I won't be sliding anywhere."

"I don't need it." He tilted his ass to an inviting angle. "I don't mind." Sam's hand snaked from Mitch's stomach to hold Mitch's bared ass still. "You do need it and I mind." His fingers stroked Mitch, though, rubbed at the rounded curve of his butt. "I don't want to hurt you anymore."

Mitch looked up at him, a smile bowing his lips. "Oh, honey, you won't hurt me." He leaned up to nip at Sam's jaw. "I want you, too."

Sam shifted his hand to Mitch's mouth and he obediently opened his lips wide, sucking on Sam's fingers and lathing his palm with his tongue. Sam used his spitslicked hand to oil his dick. His body shivered. "You'll tell me? If it hurts?" But Sam already lined his cock to Mitch's puckered hole. Mitch had fucked without lube to ease the way before, many times. Some of those times had been painful, others merely uncomfortable, and still others had been explosively hot. Considering the frequent use Sam had made of his ass the past week, Mitch was betting on explosive, but even uncomfortable would be okay. As long as he made Sam feel good. And spooned on the couch, with only the seat of his sweatpants pulled down over his ass to bare him for Sam's prodding dick was one of the most erotic moments Mitch'd experienced all week. And it'd turned out to be an extremely sweaty, erotic, dirty fucking week. "Please," Mitch mumbled, hiding his face in Sam's biceps, stretching his hips back.

"Promise you'll tell me if it hurts?"

Mitch nodded, but he would've agreed to anything. He was that desperate for Sam to fuck him.

He didn't wait long.

Sam shifted his weight, his body leaning heavily into Mitch, and the head of his cock popped into Mitch's proffered hole.

Mitch gasped.

Sam moaned.

It didn't hurt. The ring of his ass burned uncomfortably, but he wasn't in pain.

"Okay?" Sam whispered.

"Yes," Mitch moaned.

Sam bent his head over Mitch's exposed nape, opened his mouth over the skin. His hips began a slow, steady rock that pushed his dick deeper and deeper. It was unbearable, the excruciating stretch of his cock splitting Mitch's ass wide. Good. Very good. Intolerably good. Mitch wanted all of him. When he wriggled, trying to work Sam deeper, Sam's hand clamped down on his hip to hold him in place. Sam raised his mouth over the patch of skin he'd been licking and sucking on Mitch's neck, but the penetrating thrusts didn't pause. "All right?"

"Yes." Mitch insisted.

"Then be still." Sam chuckled and lowered his lips back to Mitch's neck. Sam held him immobile to the slow, lazy fucking. When Mitch tried to move, Sam sank his teeth into Mitch's nape, not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to stir Mitch's dick. Amazing, since Liv had worked it tirelessly all day. But Sam dominated him so smoothly, so effortlessly. Mitch's body was no longer under his control. Sam and his beautiful cock were calling the shots—and Sam loved it. Mitch did, too.

In every other aspect of their relationship, Mitch took the lead so assuming the submissive role, allowing Sam mastery over him when Sam fucked him, was so mindbendingly sexy. Liberating. All Mitch had to do was exactly what Sammy told him. He didn't have to think. He could immerse himself in the sensations, his emotions. Just feel. Feel Sam's fat cock cram his ass full.

Mitch panted.

Sam grunted and groaned into Mitch's nape.

Mitch cried out when Sam's teeth bit painfully deep. Sam lunged forward, grinding his hips into Mitch's ass, and his dick spit cum deep inside him. Moments later, Sam smoothed the stinging bite mark with his lips. "I love you," Sam whispered. "I do love you, Mitch." He patted Mitch's quivering butt, the partially erect length of him still lodged in Mitch's asshole. "You didn't come." Wondering displeasure laced his low voice. "I did hurt you." Mitch shook his head. "You were perfect."

Sam skated his hand under Mitch's t-shirt to play with the hair on Mitch's stomach. Did Sam know how much that turned Mitch on? Probably. "If I was so perfect, why didn't you come for me?"

Mitch sighed. "Liv's been exercising my dick all day." When Sam laughed, his cock vibrated in Mitch's ass and warm arousal streaked to Mitch's balls. "I might have one orgasm left in me—maybe. If you have enough patience. And you use your mouth."

Still chuckling, Sam abandoned Mitch's belly to nudge his chin, forcing Mitch's gaze to his. "You want more than my mouth." He teased nibbling, playful kisses at the corners of Mitch's lips. "You want me." He slowly withdrew his softening dick, then pushed it back inside Mitch's ass. "Like this."

"Yes." Mitch shuddered in his arms. "God, yes." Sam kissed him; let his tongue slide past Mitch's lips to explore his mouth. "I'm yours."

Chapter Twenty-Two

Mitch left his ass bare, enjoying the sluggish drip of Sam's cum seeping out of his splendidly fucked hole as he rose from the couch. Sexy. He felt sexy in his t-shirt and sweats and Sam must've thought so, too, because he swung his legs over the side of the couch and reached for Mitch's ass, kneading both cheeks in his hands. He nudged the base of Mitch's spine until Mitch leaned forward. Then, Sam spread Mitch's crack wide.

"I don't think I'll ever get enough of this," Sam said and the hot wash of his breath tickled Mitch's butt. Mitch's muscles clenched under Sam's massaging fingers, arousal kindling his blood. "I love to see my cum leaking out of your ass." Mitch's head spun.

Sam's mouth opened over the curve of his butt cheek, where his fleshy ass met his thighs, close to Mitch's suddenly aching balls. Mitch tried to widen his legs, but the stretchy cotton only allowed him a few stingy inches. Enough.

Sam slid his fingers to Mitch's sac and fondled him.

Mitch moaned.

Sam licked.

Sam's agile tongue trilled along the curve of his butt cheek to his crack, dancing upward to slurp at sticky semen dribbling from Mitch's hole.

Mitch's eyes snapped shut, the air locking in his chest as fierce need spiked through him.

Sammy wouldn't have to suck him hard, after all.

His cock was already lengthening.

But it didn't seem like Sam's busy mouth was all that interested in his dick at the moment. Sam's tongue wanted Mitch's ass. Mitch obediently leaned farther forward as Sam pried his crack wider to make room for seeking lips. When Sam licked cum from the rim of Mitch's well-used ass, Mitch shuddered.

Sam hummed in husky satisfaction, lapping at Mitch's asshole like a kitten in cream.

Mitch's legs shook.

His chest rose and fell with increasingly labored pants.

Sam's fingers played with his balls, his tongue laved Mitch's ass so sweetly his hole puckered. Abrupt, screaming need shot through Mitch so frantically he felt like he was losing his mind. Sam's tongue stabbing into him, licking him clean from the inside out, felt that good. His hole ached and quivered under the wet, agile exploration, Mitch's senses whirling in spirals with each voracious slurp of Sam's mouth. Mitch shoved his ass back at Sammy. "More."

Sam fucked his tongue in and out, skimming his fingers from Mitch's balls to his very erect cock. He wrapped them around Mitch, stretching the cotton of his sweatpants to pump his dick while Sam's tongue worked his butt hole. Oh Christ.

Mitch's hand covered Sam's, halting his steady stroke. "I won't let you jerk me off, Sammy, no matter how deep you bury your tongue in my ass." Sam laughed against Mitch's spit-slick hole. "It got you hard, didn't it?" He kissed Mitch's crack, released his dick.

By the time Sam had pushed to his feet, Mitch'd turned to slide his arms around him. Mitch pulled him against his t-shirt covered chest and slanted his mouth over Sam's. Mitch ate at him, as greedily as Sam had eaten his ass. When he lifted his head, Sam's blue eyes had softened, glazing with reawakened hunger.

"Come to bed."

Sam let Mitch lead him to their bedroom, his hot stare skittering nervously from the tussled comforter and sheets.

Mitch linked his fingers in Sam's. "If you've changed your mind—"

"I haven't."

Mitch smiled, anticipation kicking his heart to a gallop. He lifted his hand, traced the line of Sammy's raspy jaw, threaded his fingers into his hair above his ear to tug his face forward. Mitch brushed his mouth over Sam's, kissed him in teasing licks and nips until Sam shivered against him.

"Please," Sammy whispered.

Mitch slanted his mouth over Sam's and his tongue glided inside to dance with Sam's. The younger man moaned, opening wider, his arms creeping around Mitch's waist. Mitch kissed him, made love to his lips. Sam's hands fisted the material of Mitch's t-shirt.

"Undress me," Mitch said and dove into Sam's eager mouth again. Sam ripped the shirt up, interrupting the kiss only as long as necessary to rid Mitch of loathsome cotton. Sam panted into Mitch's mouth, his tongue darting to twine with his. Sam squeezed Mitch's ass cheeks, pulling him into the cradle of his naked crotch, and Mitch groaned at Sam's growing excitement. Mitch rubbed his hard dick against Sam's, pulse thrumming at Sam's greed when the younger man jerked the waist of Mitch's sweatpants down. Mitch's cock sprang free. Sam pumped his hips into Mitch and Mitch sucked in a sharp breath when Sam's hardening dick massaged his own. Sam broke off the kiss to strip Mitch's sweats down his legs, lifting each of Mitch's feet to slide the pants legs free. Kneeling, Sam stared up at him, eyes hot and needy. "I want to suck you."

Mitch's mouth curved. He buried his fingers in Sammy's mussed blond hair, petting him. "Not tonight." He yanked his gaze to the bed. "Get on the bed." Sam's eyes lit with nervous fear, but he crawled onto the mattress.

"No, I want to see your eyes when I fuck you." Mitch turned him onto his back. Mitch stretched Sam's arms over his head, anchoring his wrists into their pillows. Exposing every inch of him to Mitch.

Sam's body was his.

All his.

To do with as he pleased.

And Mitch knew the younger man realized it, accepted it, with each gasping breath that stirred Sam's chest and the lush tremble that vibrated through him. Mitch used the lube on their nightstand to slick his fingers. He crouched above Sam, kneeing his legs apart. He smiled at Sam's quick intake of breath. "Relax," Mitch said, skimming his lips over Sam's shoulder as he gave Sam time to adjust to the brush of another man's body against his. "I'm not going to fuck you yet." He traced his tongue along the curve of Sam's shoulder, bit. Sam shuddered. "I want to play with you first." And he did.

He moved his mouth lower, planting soft and teasing kisses over Sam's chest until he found Sam's nipple, already pebbled. The younger man groaned, his body shifting beneath Mitch's at the pleasure Mitch brought to him. Mitch tucked his head into the crook of Sam's neck, took the weight of his body to free both of his hands to play and explore. One skated up and down Sam's thigh, so close to where Sam and his jutting dick most wanted Mitch's touch to be, and gently pushed his thighs wider. He stroked Sam's hip with the other, letting Sam feel the oily lube on his fingers. He angled Sam's hips up while he licked the skin that stretched over the shoulder muscles that had bunched when Sam's body stiffened.

Mitch rubbed his dick against Sam's.

Sam breathed his name, voice edgy with nerves and need.

Mitch nipped again at Sammy's shoulders and finally let his hand brush Sam's very hard cock.

Sam groaned.

Mitch smiled, easing his hips back scant inches to make room for his slippery fingers, which skimmed the curve of Sam's ass cheek. One by one, he wrapped the fingers of his other hand around Sam's wonderfully erect penis. Mitch made a fist around him, then squeezed. Released. Squeezed again, teasing Sammy with pleasure within reach.

Mitch traced the crack of Sam's ass with one finger, slowly up and down. Sam's tight hole constricted, but with each gliding pass, Sammy opened more and more to him, his butt hole blossoming to Mitch's touch like a newly budding flower. Sam shivered so violently, Mitch wondered that the man's bones didn't jerk out of place.

When Mitch pushed the tip of his finger inside Sam's virgin ass, he gave Sammy's dick a slow pump.

Sammy's body jolted beneath his.

"Shh," Mitch whispered. He kissed the back of Sam's neck, but both of his hands pumped lazily. While one pleased Sammy's very lovely cock, the other eased farther, deeper into Sammy's equally lovely asshole until the whole length of Mitch's finger plunged in and out of him.

Oh holy God, Sam felt so good panting and blowing out his nervous pleasure beneath him. "Okay?"

When Sam's head jerked to a sharp nod, Mitch increased the cadence of the hand pumping Sam's dick and inserted the tip of another finger into Sam's butt hole. Sam cried out, but his voice held no pain. Just surprise, maybe a little fear. His ass muscles tensed as rigid as stone when Mitch gently worked both fingers in. Once Sam's body had hilted both fingers, Mitch froze, waiting for him to adjust to the intrusion. "It's all right. Calm down, honey. I'm not hurting you." He licked the beading sweat from Sam's neck. Dizzy pleasure streaked through Mitch at the instinctive yield of Sam's butt to his fingers. Pride and wicked triumph settled low in his balls. "Am I hurting you, Sammy?"

Sam shuddered beneath him. "N-no. It just feels so . . . ." Mitch's mouth curved against Sammy's shivering skin. He knew exactly what Sam meant, the words he couldn't find to describe the feelings Mitch stirred in him. It felt so new, so strange, so different. Wonderful. But he held his pose, fingers buried in Sammy's ass, steadily stroking Sam's stiff dick, until the man's muscles loosened and his body waited expectantly under him, as pliant as melted wax.

"Better?" Mitch turned his head on the pillow to stare into Sam's dazed blue eyes.

"Yes." Sam's eyes brimmed over with trust, love, and desire. "Don't stop." He briefly tensed again when Mitch withdrew his twin fingers and gently tunneled them back into Sam's ass. Sam's body didn't go rigid like before, though, and his muscles uncoiled as Mitch continued working his fingers in and out.

"Give me your mouth," Mitch said and Sam eased his lips forward, offering himself to Mitch's kiss.

Mitch nipped at his lips, laved the small injury with his tongue, and swept inside. Long minutes passed. Sam's breath quickened. His body relaxed and Sammy surrendered himself to the consistent pumping of both of Mitch's hands. Mitch's stomach clenched.

Sam's ass was so infernally hot and unspeakably tight. His hole clamped around his thrusting fingers like a vise. Mitch was deathly afraid that even warming him up, stretching his butt with gently fucking fingers, wouldn't prevent Mitch's cock from tearing Sammy's tender ass when Mitch eased into him. Mitch needed Sam. Mitch's hunger seared his nerve endings and sucked all the air from the room. Mitch knew that once this first, difficult fuck was over, Sammy would enjoy having his ass plowed every bit as much as Mitch did. But Mitch didn't want to hurt Sam any more than he had to. He poised a third finger at his grasping hole. "This might be uncomfortable," he said through gritted teeth, when he tore his mouth from Sam's. "If I don't loosen you up now, I'll hurt you more later. But if it's too much, if you need more time, I want you to tell me. Understand?"

Sam nodded.

Mitch stroked Sam's dick faster to give him more pleasure to combat the discomfort and forced the tip of his third finger into Sammy's tight asshole. Sam grunted, winced.

Mitch's chest heaved. "Sammy?"

"No, it's okay," he said, his voice a hoarse growl. "Keep going." Sam took the length of his fingers far easier than their combined girth. It was just too damn bad Mitch's dick was so fat. The tension of Sam's jaw smoothed, though, as Mitch fucked his fingers deeper. The helpless arch of Sam's hips into his palm told him that, for now, Sam's pleasure far outweighed any pain and gave Mitch an idea. He poised his fingers at the rim of Sammy's stretching butt hole and simultaneously stopped rubbing his cock.

Sam moaned low in protest.

"Fuck my hand," Mitch told him.

Panting, Sam pushed his hips back on the first stroke—

Impaling his sensitive ass on Mitch's waiting fingers.

Sam jerked, his face twisting to a surprised grimace.

Mitch bent over Sam's sweaty shoulder, kissed it. "Control your thrusts, sweetheart," he said and rubbed his chin over Sam's skin. "How much you take and how fast you take it is up to you."

Sam stared at Mitch. His lashes fell, his gaze on Mitch slumberous and so achingly sexy as he pushed his hips forward so Mitch's palm stroked his cock, then slowly pulled back to skewer his ass with Mitch's fingers. Forward, then back again, Sam set a steady, careful rhythm that set Mitch's pulse to roaring in his ears.

"You are so beautiful," Mitch whispered to him, his heart full. The uneasiness faded from Sam's blue eyes, replaced by wild heat. His hips pumped faster, the speed of Mitch's fingers in and out of his ass racing now. Sammy stared at Mitch, humping his hand, his hole flaming and clasping at Mitch's fingers. The double stimulation was too much for Sam. His body stiffened. His teeth clenched. His stunning blue eyes blanked.

When Sam's cock shot and spurted, his hips helplessly bucking, Mitch shoved his fingers in and out of the man's ass with brutal rapidity, taking Sam's orgasm higher. Sam writhed and groaned, his hands fisting and tearing at the twisted sheets of their bed.

When he finished, when the frantic whip of his body eased, Mitch released Sam's dick. Mitch removed his fingers from Sam's ass. Sam watched him with sated but exhausted blue eyes as Mitch squeezed lube into his shaking, semen-spattered hand. He rubbed his cock with it, desire gnawing at him like rabid rats.

"This is going to hurt, honey. I'm sorry," he said, shifting into position between Sam's widespread legs. He pushed the head of his dick to his butt hole. "I'm sorry," he repeated, wanting to thrust so bad he thought he'd die if he didn't.

"I love you," Sam said.

Mitch squeezed the head of his dick into him.

Oh my God, he was so fucking tight. Mitch's breath locked in his chest. The muscles of his arms corded. He shook, losing himself, just for a moment, in the absolute glory of Sam's searing hot ass.

Sammy's eyes snapped shut, his features etched with sharp pain. He cried out, his body stiffening.

Shoving down selfish desire, Mitch withdrew.

Sam's body deflated, as though all the air had been let out of him. He blew heavy pants through his parted lips.

Mitch pushed inside him again, just the tip, and his cock went in a little easier this time. Sam's butt was as tight as a drum, infernally hot. Mitch's hands fisted on Sam's hips, the pleasure so intense it rocked him to the core.

Sam's spine arched. He threw his head back, teeth clenched. "Christ." Mitch retreated. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He pushed back into Sam's ass, working his dick farther in. "It'll get better when I'm deeper," he said, and instead of retreating from his ass, he pulled out only to the rim before fucking deeper still, another inch in.

Sam grunted, lines of pain bracketing his mouth. His body went rigid under Mitch, but Mitch couldn't stop now. The greater kindness wasn't stopping, but spearing his dick into Sam as far as it would go, as quickly as he could get it there. So he arched his hips, pumped into Sammy's butt, groaning at how good it felt.

"Fuck," Sam cried out, ass cheeks clenched against the pain, his eyes damn near wild with it as Mitch shoved his dick into him. "Jesus, it hurts!"

"I know, baby." Mitch's groin kissed Sam's ass as his body hilted Mitch's cock. Mitch stilled, gasping for air. "You've got all of me now. It's done. Relax, Sammy, breathe through it."

Sam shuddered beneath him. His fingers clenched to spasmodic fists in the covers on their bed. "Oh God—"

"The pain will fade. I promise, but you've got to calm down so your body will accept me." Mitch moaned, the taut pressure of Sam's clenched ass shredding his control. "Loosen your muscles. Don't fight it."

Sam groaned, riding out the pain instead of resisting it. Mitch stroked his hips. He forged a path with his mouth over Sam's trembling shoulders and his bare neck. Mitch focused on soothing Sam—the hurting virgin he'd taken for his lover—because if he didn't, the orgasm that was screaming through his dick was going to rip him to pieces.

Sam's body relaxed by achingly slow degrees. He blew out ragged pants, stretched out beneath Mitch like a pagan offering, his butt hole puckered around Mitch's invading cock. "It's okay. Just do it," he said, his voice strained and gasping.

"Please."

Mitch knew he wasn't ready, that he wasn't there yet. Sam just wanted it to be over. He was so desperate to end the pain that he'd risk more of it to see this through, but losing his virginity didn't have to finish as an ordeal. Every man's started as one, just as every woman hurt the first time. Mitch wanted more for Sam. Mitch kept touching him, his fingers working the knotted muscles. He brushed his lips over Sam's sweat-slicked skin. "It'll pass, honey. I swear it'll pass. Just wait." Bit by bit, Sam responded to the comfort Mitch offered him. His shoulder shifted to meet Mitch's kisses. The violent rise and fall of his gasping chest slowed. The muscle under Mitch's fingers loosened rather than bunched.

"Kiss me, Sammy," Mitch said and Sam obediently twisted to give his mouth to him. Mitch swept the man's lips, skating his own lightly back and forth. He focused on the kiss, drew it out, traced Sam's lips with his tongue, and licked at him. Sam sighed, opening his mouth wider to let Mitch in.

Sam's mouth surrendered to him.

Just as Sam's body did.

Mitch eased his hips back and inch by careful inch, slid his cock back into Sam's butt hole.

Sammy shivered.

"Okay?" Mitch asked against his lips, bending to taste him again.

"Okay," Sam whispered, lifting his mouth for more.

Mitch's dick retreated, every nerve ending in his body shrieking with delighted lust, and he groaned out brutal pleasure when he slipped back inside. Sam's ass stretched around his dick, fitting him like a glove. And hot? Oh Lord, Mitch was on fire, the burn of Sam's body so sweet he felt the scorching heat blaze down to his balls.

"I love you," Sam said against his lips, kissing him over and over and over again. Mitch pumped his hips.

He filled Sam's ass, his senses scrambling.

His.

Sam was his.

"God, you feel good," Mitch muttered on a hoarse groan, crushing his mouth to Sam's. Mitch's hips shifted to begin the slow ride. "Tell me again." Sam's breath quickened. "I love you, Mitch." His spine arched into Mitch's belly, a surprised moan tearing from his lips.

Mitch nipped at Sam's sexy mouth. "Again," he said, fucking his dick into Sam's heat, wallowing in the spiraling sensations.

"I love you," Sam said, but his eyes had closed, the pain that had lined his face erased by the first slap of fierce pleasure.

When Sam angled his butt to take Mitch's cock deeper, Mitch could've howled with feral laughter. Sam's hole stretched, tight as a rubber band, massaging his cock at every thrust, base to tip. Mitch knew Sam felt the tingling burn of it by his increasingly labored pants. "Keep saying it," Mitch murmured, giving himself up to the joy of fucking Sam.

Sam chanted his love, taking Mitch's cock deep into his sweet, sweet ass. Mitch loved the tight clench of Sam's cheeks as they ground into him, loved Sam's frantic cries as Mitch stabbed deep. Sweat trickled down his back, collecting at the base of his spine. Mitch played with Sam's dick, his sac. It was too soon after his last orgasm and the pain too much to make Sam come again, but Mitch could bring him pleasure, tutor him on the horny delights that awaited them both.

But not this time.

Mitch's stomach had knotted. His heart pounded against his ribcage and the heavy weight of his balls slapping against Sam's crack made control impossible. His shattered.

He fucked his throbbing cock into Sam's butt hole once more, twice, then stiffened as he sprayed what felt like a gallon of hot cum into Sam's blistering hole. Mitch groaned, his body bucking and jerking at the intensity of his release, finally collapsing over Sammy.

When he could think again, breathe again, Sam smiled at him. "I love you, Mitch."

"I know, baby." His lips curved in gluttonous satisfaction. "I love you, too."

Chapter Twenty-Three

Their lives fell into a regular pattern.

Liv stayed at the apartment almost every night. Mitch had added scouting properties for a house for the three of them to his regular workload. Usually, he was the last home. He'd find them in the kitchen, cooking together, or if he was really late, Sam and Liv would be naked and fucking. If they were screwing, Mitch joined in. If cooking, he beat a hasty path to the shower before they brained him with a stainless steel wok for not knowing what a garlic press—or some other damned thing—was. The kitchen was Liv and Sam's territory.

Mitch acceded that ground if not gracefully, at least gratefully. He cleared the table after dinner and loaded the dishwasher, though. Sam worked at the dining room table after dinner—he was always working on a presentation for a client—while Liv read a book or relaxed in the tub, emerging from the bathroom soft and warm and smelling of raspberries. They did the household chores together, watched TV. He and Sam played basketball. In the day, for the most part, their lives were exceedingly ordinary.

Their nights were full of outrageous sin. Every sweaty fantasy any of them had ever entertained was brought to carnal, screaming life. They spent one night focused on stuffing Liv's cunt with as much cum as Mitch and Sammy could shoot into her—then had taken pictures of her sloppy pussy to use as wallpaper on Mitch's laptop. Sam had tied Mitch up, blindfolded him, then sucked his cock while Liv had beaten Sam's ass with a belt. Somehow, Liv managed to get her head between Sam's legs to gobble down his dick while Mitch fucked him—Nothing was too much, nothing taboo. And Friday, after work, he and Liv revisited Hell.

"Where are you two off to?" Sam asked from the desk he'd made of the dining room table when they got ready to leave.

His beautiful blue eyes sparked with questions Sam hadn't dared push too far before, but living together, the three of them lovers in every way, hadn't made Mitch more willing to answer those questions. Not when Sam had first asked them. Not now, either.

What could he say?

How could he explain it?

That he returned to his father's trailer every week to oversee the progressive rot of Gary's body to cancer, mirroring the rot in the son of a bitch's soul? Mitch was a grown man. Not a scared little boy. He shouldn't need to stare that bastard down any longer. But he did. Mitch couldn't hold his head up unless he proved to the mean son of a bitch who'd fathered him that he couldn't hurt Mitch any more. Proved it to himself. Week after week, after mother fucking week.

Sammy slipped his wire-frame glasses off, folded them neatly atop a manila folder. "I could use a break. If you want company—"

"No!" Bad enough that Livvy endured the weekly torture session with her own family's crap. When Mitch shot a panicked glance at her, Liv's fingers had tightened around her purse strap, stress lines grooving the sides of her mouth. Not all of the secrets were his to tell and she didn't look any more eager to share them than Mitch did. Take Sammy?

To Gary's trailer?

Mitch's skin crawled at even the idea of Sam anywhere near his father. He didn't want them in the same zip code.

"We don't want your fucking company," Mitch said, his voice a cruel lash in the strained silence that followed. "And stay put this time, goddamn it. I won't put up with another drunken hissy fit because you didn't get your way. Balling you doesn't mean I won't kick your candy ass to the curb, boy."

Sam's eyes widened. He sucked in a stunned breath.

Mitch froze, his heart halting in his chest.

His mind whirled.

Jesus!

He'd sounded like Gary.

He'd sounded exactly like his father.

Fury, shame—and God help him—evil satisfaction clogged his throat at Sam's wounded gasp.

Mitch couldn't deal with this shit.

Not this and Gary, too.

Hands shaking, he snatched his truck keys off the coffee table. "We'll be back in a couple hours." His balls shriveled to raisins at the icy condemnation in Liv's eyes when he turned to her. "Come on, if you're going."

She glared at him.

Fuck.

Mitch lurched to his truck. He shoved the keys in the ignition and fired the engine. But he didn't touch the gearshift. His heartbeat rabbited. There wasn't enough air in the truck—he couldn't breathe. His whole body vibrated, like he was flying to pieces. His eyes focused on his gaping apartment door. "Shit," he said and pounded a clenched fist on the steering wheel. "Shit, shit, shit!" He laid his forehead against the steering wheel, tried to slow the gallop of his heart. And trembled.

The passenger door opened.

He smelled her perfume when she climbed into the truck, closing the door behind her. He flinched when her fingers threaded into his hair.

"That wasn't me," he said, fighting the urge to cringe. His stomach rolled sickly.

"I don't know what just happened, but that wasn't me in there." His eyes shut.

"I told him your father's dying. That seemed the simplest explanation." His body stiffened to a painful knot. "Is he—?" Leaving me? Is he packing his things? Has he had enough of my shit yet? Have you? Mitch squeezed the steering wheel. "Is he okay?"

"Are you?"

He laughed.

Oh, hell no.

Still chuckling—he wondered if he wasn't just a little bit crazy—Mitch drove to the trailer park. No stopping for Gary's whisky. If his bastard father thought he could haul his ass from his hospital bed and throw Mitch out, let him try. He'd never bow down or scrape to Gary McAllister again.

He dropped Liv on a side street.

Gary was asleep when he pushed through the front door of the trailer. The nursing assistant Mitch's retirement was paying for glanced over a fat paperback novel from her position in the rocking chair. "He had a bad day," she said and returned to her reading.

He looked it.

Maybe it was wishful thinking on Mitch's part, but Gary's body seemed to have shriveled in the past weeks. The nurse had tucked a blanket around him, but the snug fit only emphasized how little of his father was left. Mitch imagined he could snap the skeletal outline of his femur or the twig-like arm that pushed against the cocooning wool, between his two fingers. Gary's collarbone jutted in sharp angles beneath skin that had leeched to an unhealthy gray. Nothing left of him but papery skin and jutting bones.

Mitch leaned down, staring at the devastated wreck of a human being that was his father.

And hated.

"Where's Rita?" he murmured to distract himself. So he wouldn't slide the pillow from beneath Gary's head and push it over his face. Or rip away the IV that kept him alive. Before he pulled his fist back and beat the bastard to death with his bare hands.

"At the store." The nurse didn't glance up.

Mitch's hands clenched.

Gone.

So he couldn't vent the rage building inside him by tearing into his stepmother, either.

"Do they need anything?"

The nurse shook her head, but Mitch knew that they lacked for nothing, at least materially. Now that his father had round-the-clock care, Mitch called the day nurse every morning. And how pathetic was that? Mitch checking daily on the father who despised him? He couldn't even convince himself that he did it because he was that eager for the old man to die, couldn't make himself believe the lie. No matter how much he wished to God it was true, Mitch didn't call—like a carrion vulture circling—in hopes that this was the day, finally the day, Gary would die. He called because his father's loathing and everything Gary had ever done to him hadn't dented Mitch's need to make sure the son of a bitch was taken care of. Mitch didn't want the dickhead to suffer.

But Mitch wanted to reach down his father's throat and rip his fucking lungs out, too.

Familiar pain clawed his guts with razor-sharp talons.

It hurt.

Jesus, it hurt.

Mitch jerked from the hospital bed, shoved shaking fingers through his hair. Christ, he had to get out. Now. Screw what it said about his sanity, his integrity, or his control. If Mitch didn't leave, right now, he'd kill Gary. Or worse. It was the worse that sent him racing to the door. He ran to the truck, yanked the driver's side door open with clumsy hands. He scrambled inside. Heart thundering in his ears, Mitch fumbled with his keys. Couldn't make his hands work right. Luck more than skill slid the right key to the ignition. Gasping, sucking for air, he wrenched the truck into reverse, tires screeching as he backed out. The transmission whined and groaned when he fought the gearshift, blindly searching for first. Four trailers down, Liv streaked out of her dad's trailer. Her mouth opened. Her lips formed his name, but Mitch couldn't hear her over the mad pounding of his pulse in his head.

Go.

He had to go.

He pushed the accelerator down.

The truck's engine screamed.

He shot out of the trailer park like a bullet.

Mitch steered downtown, stomach balled to a painful knot as he drove. Too fast. He was driving too fast, too crazy. Somebody needed to stop him. Where were the fucking cops? Goddamn it, he could kill somebody! But there weren't any cops. He didn't kill himself or anybody else. He didn't know he was going to Artie's until the truck jolted to a stop on the street in front of his partner's brick ranch. Mitch shoved the truck into park, chest heaving. Didn't turn it off. Didn't snatch the keys from the ignition. He couldn't. He needed to grab the steering wheel. Face forward, fighting for air, he grabbed it, felt it bite deep into his palms—the steering wheel stayed solid. Nothing else was. His body shivered and quaked. His vision blurred. He had to hang on to the steering wheel with all the strength he could muster, for all was he worth, please God, but it wasn't working. Because he was still coming apart.

The door at his side ripped open.

"Mitch!"

His eyes squeezed shut.

He clenched his teeth.

Oh Jesus.

Her arms crept around his neck. Her smooth cheek rested on his and the fruity shampoo she liked, her clean and unsullied scent washed over him. Crippled him.

"It's all right, Mitch. It's okay."

His heart sprinted. Damned thing was going to break through his ribs, gallop out of his chest. Any second now. It'd pound free of his chest and then, he'd be okay. He'd pass out. Or maybe he'd die. Didn't matter which as long as Mitch didn't hurt anymore.

"Liv," he said through gritted teeth, voice tight and winded.

"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." Her lips brushed the corner of his gasping mouth, her fingers slid through his hair, and with Liv anchoring him, Mitch thought he just might make it. If she hung onto him, maybe he wouldn't vibrate apart.

"Calm down, Mitch. Please. You're scaring me." Her sweet breath tickled his skin. "You need to breathe."

Pain balled inside him, clamped down, and twisted his guts.

"What set him off?"

Artie.

He'd come to find Artie. He could always count on Artie to glue him back together, but Liv's arms around him were so sweet. Her hair brushing his chin felt so good. He shuddered and wished to God he could unclamp his hands from the steering wheel because he really, really needed her.

"I don't know. It started with Sam, I think."

"Who in the hell's Sam?"

Oh Christ.

"Never mind. Get him inside first."

Liv pulled at him, trying to get him out of the truck, and the agony exploded inside him—

His eyes sprang open, wet with tears.

Wet?

Mitch didn't know he'd been crying.

Didn't matter.

The hellacious pain eating away at him finally spurred him to rip his hands from the steering wheel so he could reach for her. He pulled her against him. She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him so close. She staggered under his weight. He buried his face in her neck and sobbed. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

* * * * *

"Are you sure?"

Mitch glared at him. "I said I'm all right."

Liv had already left to take Cheryl's car back to the trailer park. Mitch guessed they all knew about him and Liv now. Her family. His father. They'd all seen Liv grab her sister's keys and take off after him and if they hadn't seen it personally, they'd hear the gossip soon enough. Trailer parks weren't conducive to privacy. When five feet of hard-pack and a couple thin sheets of tin were all that separated neighbors, there was no such thing as secrets.

Except for dirty ones.

The world was too willing to turn a blind eye to dirty little secrets. Mitch's stomach—already sore and hurting from the wild burst of crying that had followed his panic attack—clenched.

"You and Liv should stay the night," Artie said, leaning an arm against the gaping window of Mitch's truck. His breath plumed the arctic air. "Hell, call this Sam person. He can stay the night, too."

Mitch tried for a smile, but if felt stiff. "Barb would love that." Artie sniffed. "I don't like you leaving and neither does she. You should stay where we can look after you." He glanced away. "I don't want you to go back there, with them. Not if they're going to hurt you like—"

"Don't blame Sam for the panic attack. Or Liv. I did that to myself," Mitch said. His eyes felt gritty, still burned, but he could breathe again. His hands had stopped shaking. "I screwed up and I let it eat at me. That's all." Mitch's lips curved to a genuine grin. "Somebody once told me that a real man owns up to his mistakes and tries to make it right. I can't do that while I'm hiding out at your house." Artie grunted. "We just want you to be happy."

The really amazing part was—they did. Mitch could move Liv and Sammy with him into Artie's spare bedroom for the night and neither Artie nor Barb would blink an eye. "Thanks, Dad."

Artie shifted on his feet. "I love you, son."

Mitch's throat tightened. "I know."

Artie snorted, rubbed at his own glistening eyes. "Well, don't start sniveling again. Barb'll skin me alive."

Mitch chuckled. "I love you, too."

Artie squeezed Mitch's arm, released it. "After today, Barb likes your Liv better, but now she wants to meet this Sam. Bring him by. Both of them. Sunday supper." Mitch arched an eyebrow. That would be . . . interesting. "Okay." He picked Liv up in front of the Winslow trailer, drove to the apartment. He stared at their front door for a minute after he parked, shamed by the glow of lights behind the curtains Liv had asked him to hang. "Sam's home." Mitch didn't know why, when he'd acted like such a dick.

Liv held his hand, smiled at him. "He loves you, too." Mitch nodded, but his feet slowed at the apartment door. He knew how bad Sam was hurting. He knew the bite of Gary's cruelty, that lash of hate better than anyone else did. But Mitch had still picked up that hateful whip and turned it on someone else. Someone he loved.

Mitch squared his shoulders.

He was not his father.

He would not be a monster.

Sam hunched over the dining room table, still working on whatever accounts he'd brought home, the sexy glasses on the bridge of his nose. He didn't acknowledge Mitch or Liv when they came through the door. He didn't look at them. His shoulders didn't stiffen. It was as if they weren't even there.

Mitch didn't blame him.

He walked to Sam's chair, knelt on the floor beside him. "Sam?"

"Do you want my fucking company now, Mitch?" he said, glacial blue eyes focused on his paperwork. "Or is it time to toss my candy ass out?" He sniffed in cold disdain. "I'd like to see you try."

Regret churned Mitch's stomach. "Sammy, please."

He finally focused cold blue eyes on Mitch. Sam's lips thinned. He threaded his fingers into the hair above Mitch's ear. Sam's thumb stroked his cheek, just under his right eye. "You've been crying."

"I'm on my knees. Whatever you want, whatever you need, whatever it takes." His heart in his throat, Mitch stared up at him. "Forgive me." Sam exhaled a long breath. "Why do you make it is so completely impossible to stay mad at you?"

Chapter Twenty-Four

Days later, Liv still spooked like a scared rabbit every time Sam or Mitch said they loved her or each other. Which Sam did, constantly. When they woke in the morning. During dinner. Mitch's heart warmed at Sammy's open affection, the intimate smiles and caresses that invariably accompanied the words. Sam's guilelessness encouraged Mitch to be as unaffected about his feelings, too. Mitch learned to tell Liv and Sammy both that he loved them and he reveled in the satisfaction and joy of—

finally—saying it.

For Sammy, Mitch's love was like a brushfire, burning hot and out of control. Sam drew Mitch to him like a flame, consuming Mitch in his heat. Not just his body, though sex with Sammy never failed to awe Mitch, but his mind, too. Mitch loved making him laugh, Mitch's heart lighting whenever Sam's lips bowed to a sexy grin. Mitch's entire being focused on pleasing the man, in bed and out. And in making Sam happy, Mitch found happiness himself.

Mitch's love for Liv was different, but no less powerful. She was his whole world. She filled the empty places inside him and though Liv gave of herself freely, generously, Mitch knew he would never get enough. Not physically and not emotionally. Never. Liv owned him, body and soul.

Even if she still wouldn't give him the words.

Mitch wanted them, desperately wanted Liv to confess her love to him. More than he'd ever wanted anything in his life, but he told himself to be patient. Livvy didn't need to tell him that she loved him. She proved it to him every day. Mitch was flying high, his heart almost bursting, when he got home a couple of days before Christmas. Work had slacked off so Mitch had spent more and more of the past weeks inspecting fixer-upper's on his rehab list. He'd found a house suitable for flipping right away. Decent location. The kitchen had screamed for an update, but the granite counters were a dream. New appliances and re-facing the cabinets would spruce it up. Beautiful hardwood floors had hidden under hideous puke green carpeting, too. The bones of the house were good, the repairs relatively minor. Mitch could've flipped that house in a few months and earned a tidy profit for his trouble. But it wouldn't have been a home.

Not the home Mitch wanted to build with Liv and Sam.

So he'd kept looking. He'd worked down his list of addresses and finally stumbled on a promising house that day. A foreclosure outside of town, the place needed more work than the other houses he'd looked at, way more work than Mitch usually invested in a rehab. Punks had broken into the place to steal the copper wiring, which would have to be replaced, and had squatted there for a while, judging by the heaped garbage. That had attracted rats and other pests. The roof needed replacing—

not immediately but soon. Structurally, some of the rooms were absurdly small. Mitch would have to knock out a non-load-bearing wall between the living and dining rooms to open up that space and combine one of the smaller bedrooms with the larger master bedroom to enlarge it.

The house was a disaster.

But it'd sell cheap.

Dirt cheap.

Which, after his last divorce, was right in Mitch's price range. The location couldn't be beaten, either. Developers had concentrated near the mall and industrial complex on the other side of town so the land was relatively pristine, untouched. Mitch had double-checked the real estate listing—the wreck of a house sat on twelve acres of virgin woodland. Barring the Cape Cod across the road, neighbors were few and far between. Liv would like that almost as much as Mitch did. Nobody craved open spaces more than kids who'd been raised in the sardined aisles of a trailer park did.

Besides, Mitch was a pervert, not a moron. He, Sam, and Livvy shacking up together would outrage the puritanical sensibilities of most people. Here, they'd have privacy.

So Mitch whipped out his cell and made a few calls on the way home. Wouldn't hurt to arrange for the electrician and plumber he and Artie kept on retainer to draw up estimates.

When he got home, Liv lay on the couch, sleeping. Thank God.

"How's she feeling?" Mitch asked on a low murmur when Sam followed him into their bedroom.

"Her fever finally broke late this morning and she's been out like a light since." Sam sprawled on the bed to watch Mitch strip out of his jeans and work shirt. "She kept most of the Sprite down."

"She's still throwing up?" Mitch's cock jutted when he shoved his bikini briefs down his hips and off his legs. "Maybe we should we call a doctor." Sam shook his head. "It's just the flu. She's got it bad, but the doctor will just tell us to keep her hydrated, let her rest. How're you feeling?" Mitch grimaced.

Liv hadn't been the only one with the flu. Sam had come down with it first. Puking. Fever. Chills, head and body aches. Mitch knew because the bug had flattened him the next day, but they'd kicked it within twenty-four hours.

"I'm fine," Mitch said. A lot finer than Liv was. Liv, who'd coddled and nursed both of them, had been sick for three days straight. "It's Liv I'm worried about."

"She's still shaky and a little nauseated, but better than this morning." Sam trailed Mitch into the bathroom.

He leaned against the doorjamb while Mitch adjusted the water for his shower.

"I'll stay home with her tomorrow," Mitch said, stepping under the steaming spray. Ye Gods. Heaven. Searing water sluiced over his body, scalding the dirt of too many decrepit houses away. "I can scout houses any time."

"I'll nurse her."

Mitch had left the final twelve inches of the shower curtain gaping so he squinted through the water's spray to shoot a questioning glance at Sam. He shrugged an awkward shoulder. "I think she's starting to love me a little." He grinned. "I mean, for more than my dick."

Mitch reached for his bar of Zest. "Liv loves you. She just has trouble saying it." But Sam was right. Liv was fond of Sammy. Mitch had been a total asshole to Sam more than he cared to think about and every time, Liv had stood up for Sam, protected and defended him. But her heart wasn't invested. She didn't love Sam with the same fire and passion.

"She loved me like a friend." Sam rolled his eyes. "But now? I think . . . I think taking care of her showed her how much I love her. Walking the talk is finally getting through to her. When she looks at me, she sees me now. Not her buddy. Me."

"I've always seen you, Sammy." Liv's soft voice drifted behind the closed end of the shower curtain.

Mitch soaped his body, smiling when Sam's gaze whipped toward the doorway, where Livvy no doubt stood.

"The last few days, I've just seen you more clearly," she said. When she walked to Sam, he twined his arms around her, leaned his head close.

"There's room enough in your heart for us both."

Mitch leapt a happy beat as he ducked under the spray, giving them a small measure of privacy. Liv hadn't loved Sam before, no, but the warm sparkle in her eye when she'd gone into his arms, the soft yield of her body against Sam's . . . Mitch recognized that sparkle. Liv stared at him the same way, all the love she wouldn't—

couldn't—say shining like diamonds in her beautiful dark eyes.

When he glanced at them again, Sam kissed her cheek. "How are you feeling?" Liv's lips curved to a gentle smile. "Better."

She looked it. Well, okay, she hadn't showered in three days. Her hair had knotted into a nest of tangles around the tank filched from Sam's clothes and her wan face was paler than Mitch liked. But her skin didn't tinge green or glow rosy with fever. Though he knew Sam would stay home with her tomorrow, Liv wouldn't need the extra care and attention. Not physically.

She was finally on the mend.

Mitch shut off the water, ripped the curtain wide. Dripping, he climbed from the tub and loped his arms around them both. "I love you," he said and rejoiced that it didn't matter which one of them he meant.

Sam grinned.

"Mitch!" Liv cried out, laughing. "You're getting us all wet." Mitch pressed his cock to Sammy's hip, but his amused glance shot to Liv. "You like me getting you wet." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. Sam chuckled. "Don't be such an inconsiderate slut. She needs to rest," he told Mitch. "No fucking her until tomorrow." But the hand Sam lowered to stroke Mitch's ass cheek told Mitch that there'd still be fucking aplenty tonight. Liv's mouth thinned. "That's something we need to discuss." Sam's lips had lowered to lick droplets from Mitch's shoulder. "So greedy," he said on a low rumble, sipping water from Mitch's skin. "But no sex, Liv. You feel better, but your body isn't up to it yet."

Liv gave the both of them a playful shove. "Oh, will you stop fornicating for a minute. I'm not worried about getting laid tonight. I'm worried about getting laid tomorrow."

Mitch's attention focused on her. "What about it?"

Liv sighed. "I threw up one of my birth control pills." Sammy looked up. His blue eyes narrowed. "Are you sure?" She nodded, her nose wrinkling. "I saw it."

Mitch's stomach did a nervous flip, but not enough to distract him from the problem at hand. "Just the one?"

Liv bit her lip.

God, he loved it when she did that.

"I . . . don't know. I think so, but I was pretty sick. I could've thrown up more and didn't notice because I felt so horrible."

Sam frowned. "Honey, I was with you twenty-four-seven. You puked a lot, but you managed to keep some stuff down. I was worried so I paid attention. I didn't see anything."

Her teeth gnawed at her lush, bottom lip. "All the same, maybe we should . . . be careful. Just for a little while."

Liv could get pregnant.

Granted, one missed pill wasn't the end of the world. Mitch's second wife had always forgotten to take her pills. She'd once skipped four entire days. No baby. And they'd fucked like crazy. "I vote no. No condom."

She glared at him. "Jesus. Will you stop with the voting thing?" Mitch shook his head. "I've never worn a rubber with you and I don't want to start now. You're being paranoid."

Sam nodded in agreement. "You only threw up one pill."

"That we know of," she pointed out.

"I appreciate your concern. I do," Sam argued, "but you're blowing this way out of proportion."

She rolled her eyes. "Is screwing without a condom that freaking important?" Oh yeah.

Oh hell yeah.

There was nothing like filling her, shooting thick and wet inside her, no feeling in the world. Except maybe sucking the cum from her well-used snatch. That had become one of Mitch's favorite pastimes. Hell, Liv didn't even have to clean herself up before going to sleep anymore; he licked and slurped at her pussy so much, and if he didn't, Sam ate at her. The both of them had developed a voracious appetite for her sloppy cunt.

"It's a risk," Mitch said and brushed a kiss over her pale cheek. "But one I'm willing to take."

"Me, too." Sam's lips curved to a wicked, skeptical bow. "So you're outvoted."

"It'll be okay," Mitch said, taking her mouth in a slow, drugging kiss. If she ended up pregnant . . . . Would that really be the end of the world? Mitch didn't think so. She'd marry him if she were pregnant. Artie would shit bricks if he knew Mitch had considered marriage, no matter how briefly, but . . . marrying Liv wouldn't be so bad. Marrying a knocked-up Liv would be even better.

Marriages ended.

Kids were forever.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Liv moved in.

Oh, she still had her apartment on Euclid, but after she recovered from the flu, she never spent another night in it. Finding space for the extra clothes and crap she brought to their apartment became an increasingly difficult challenge, though. As the days stretched, he and Sam made room for her. Sharing a bed was easy. The three of them living in what amounted to a one-bedroom closet was hard.

And neither he nor Sam wore a rubber.

The first time, Mitch honestly hadn't expected Liv to give in to them so readily. He and Sammy had made a game of it. Which of them could turn her on that much?

Which lover could wind her body so tight that she didn't care if he fucked her bare as long as she got fucked and fucked hard?

Mitch was not at all disappointed that Sammy won that battle. Liv had begged the younger man. Begged, then demanded. Her eyes glittering stark arousal and fierce love, she'd taken Sam's naked cock between her legs and Mitch had rarely felt so humbled and awed.

She still wouldn't give either one of them the words.

But Liv loved them. She loved them from the depths of her soul and taking Sam's cum, pumping deep into her pussy, first? That rock bottom trust, her generosity proved her feelings for Sam ran stronger and truer than friendship.

The three of them, their relationship, steadied. Solidified. Until each of them was a vital part of the other.

Except for the bitching and sniping because their apartment was too fucking cramped for three people. Aggressive sex and lots of it helped relieve the tension, but by the end of the second month, even Mitch's nerves had worn ragged. When he walked through his front door at the end of January, Sam had pinned Liv to the coffee table, both of her wrists handcuffed in Sam's hand at the base of her spine. Sammy fucked himself into her, made liberal use of her cunt. Her tits mashed into the wood and glass of his coffee table, but Liv didn't seem to mind Sam's domination. Whatever argument had triggered Sam's ferocious, controlled fucking seemed to have slipped her mind. Liv gasped and moaned against the hard wood of the coffee table, like she never wanted her plowing to end.

Mitch closed the door and leaned back against it to watch. His dick jerked in his pants, eager to join the fun, but if Mitch lowered his zipper, they wouldn't finish until long after the sun had set and their natural light was gone.

And he wanted them to see what he'd found.

So he waited, need stirring his belly, until Sammy lunged into her, his head thrown back and teeth gritted as his dick pumped cum into her.

When Sam's shoulders sagged and he released her wrists to give her ass a fond, reconciling squeeze, Mitch stepped forward to brush a kiss over Sam's gasping mouth. He bent to slide his lips over Liv's. "Get dressed," Mitch told them. Sam arched an eyebrow.

Mitch grinned.

Yeah, he knew just how unusual that request was.

"C'mon. You can clean up later," Mitch said, shooting a critical glance at the fading sunlight behind the curtains of his living room windows. "There's something I want to show you."

They piled into his truck.

Sammy, his cock still sticky, had yanked on a pair of sweats, the one with the hole in the knee, and shoved Mitch's favorite sweatshirt over his head. Liv had scrambled back into the figure-hugging navy sweater dress she'd worn to work, no panties, her pussy a sodden mess.

But Mitch had herded them, grousing and complaining, into his truck for the drive out of town. Since broken glass littered the driveway and Mitch valued his tires, he parallel parked on the street when they reached the address and turned to them, jerking his jaw toward the house. "What do you think?" he asked. Turning the truck off, he pulled his keys from the ignition.

Sam's brow furrowed at the decaying monstrosity of a Victorian. Liv darted a glance at the place, then a questioning look at Mitch. "What do we think of what?"

"The house, Liv." Sam reached for his door handle, climbed from the truck.

"Mitch thinks he's found us a house."

Gaping in horror, she followed Sam out of the truck.

Mitch shoved open his own door, rounding the hood of the truck to stand with them, staring, at the side of the road. Sam had crossed his arms, fingers rubbing his jaw, his blue eyes assessing the Victorian with somber consideration. Liv grabbed Sam's arm. "He wants us to live there?"

"Not at first." Mitch looped an arm around her. "It needs a little work." He laughed when she shuddered.

Sam's mouth curved. "Do ya think?"

Eyes wide, Liv tipped her head at him. "The place should be condemned." Sam chuckled. "I think it already has been."

"Condemned means cheap, which is what we can afford." Mitch fished the keys from his coat pocket, urging Liv forward. "Before you make any snap judgments, take a look inside." He led them up the paint-chipped steps to the wide porch and jammed the key in the lock. "Go ahead." He swung the door wide.

Sammy walked in.

Liv followed, scowling at the piled debris in the entry.

"Picture its potential, babe, what the place could be like if someone gave it a little love."

"A lot of love maybe." She wrinkled her nose. "And a vat of Lysol." Mitch snatched her hand, eager happiness washing over him. "Let me show you around."

Mitch guided them from room to room, though the shadows cast by the fading sun lengthened. He showed them the wall he'd remove between the living and dining rooms. The satisfyingly big kitchen. "Bathrooms upstairs and down," Mitch said, leading them toward the stairs. He nodded to a gaping door near the steps. "Whoever lived here last used that as storage, but it's big enough for a home office." Sam, who strung his files over Mitch's dining room table every night, ducked his head inside. He nodded. "Just."

Glee streaked through him as he tugged a very reluctant Liv up the stairs. Because Sammy was sold on the place. The younger man could see the possibilities, was already imagining the three of them in the house.

Liv?

Not so much.

She frowned at the grimy wallpaper, holes in the drywall where the punks had ripped out the wiring. She daintily stepped around loose beer cans and filth in the upper hallway, her body stiff next to Mitch's.

"This is the master bedroom." He steered her through a doorway. "I'll drop this," he said, letting go of her hand to cross the room and pat the far wall, "so we'll lose one of the extra bedrooms, but with three of us, we need the space more than the house needs three bedrooms. The house sits on a large plot of land so we can add an extension for more bedrooms later, if we want."

Liv hugged her arms around herself. Her glance skipped around the room, her teeth chewing away at that lush bottom lip. "The view's pretty," she finally said, looking out a dirt-encrusted window to the undeveloped woodlands that comprised the back yard.

Sam walked a quick lap around the room, his eyes narrowed, as though he was mentally blocking the space out. "There's water damage on the ceiling of the corner bedroom."

Liv winced.

"I'll patch that for now and replace the roof come spring." Mitch stared with grim entreaty into Liv's dark, troubled eyes. "I'm damned good at what I do, honey. It's rough around the edges now, but I can turn this place into a showpiece." Liv gulped. "You've already made the owners an offer." Sam's attention jerked to Mitch.

"Not yet." The muscles of Mitch's shoulders bunched. "The two of you have a say in this. You'll live here, too. If you don't like it, if you think the house will take too much work, I'll keep looking." He gazed at her, trying to get a grip on her emotional temperature and couldn't. "I do business with the bank that foreclosed on it. They're desperate to sell so the price is rock bottom."

Sam snorted out a laugh. "It'd have to be to afford even the most basic repairs."

"I can make this place a home," Mitch said. "Our home. We should vote on it." Sam rolled his eyes. "I shouldn't get a vote. I'm not in this for the long-haul and you know it."

Mitch smiled at him. "But you'll be able to come home to us whenever you like. So what you think counts."

Sam shook his head. "Not this time. Liv?"

She untangled her arms, wrapping them around his stomach. "You really have your heart set on this?"

Yeah.

He did.

She sighed.

"I guess we're getting a new house for Valentine's Day."

Chapter Twenty-Six

Mitch's muscles shrieked when he climbed out of the truck, but it was a good, honest ache. He'd borrowed laborers from one of their crews and put them to work moving new appliances into the house. Stove. Refrigerator. Washer and dryer. He'd paid extra for the rush on the electrical to get the juice flowing in the kitchen. Rewiring an entire house? That could take weeks, months, but the contractor had replaced the circuit breaker box, isolated power to only a couple rooms.

Mitch grabbed his lunch cooler and thermos from the back of the truck and headed to the apartment. The furnace guy was scheduled to assess the damage on the heating system tomorrow. Another day to shovel out debris and close off unused rooms.

Mitch pushed through the door.

If he could talk his lovers into camping, they could be in their new home by the end of next week.

"Mitch!"

His eyes narrowed at Sam's frantic voice coming from the bedroom. He dropped his cooler on the couch. "Yeah?"

"Thank God." Sam emerged at the bedroom door still in his uniform suit from work. The jacket and tie were gone, the first several buttons of his pale blue shirt undone. Its tails hung free from his dress pants. "Why didn't you answer your phone?" His eyes sparkled with wild panic.

"The house is a dead zone. No bars, no service." He mentally moved changing cell providers higher on his to-do list. "What's wrong?"

"It's Liv." Mitch's blood iced in his veins. "Come on." Sam tugged him by the arm into the bedroom and to the bathroom door beyond it. "She's been in there since I got home. She was throwing up earlier." Sam knocked on the door. "Liv? Honey? Mitch is home," he called in a low, soothing voice and when the door remained stubbornly shut, Sam shot an imploring gaze at Mitch. "She's been crying for an hour." Mitch pressed his ear to the door. Yeah, he could hear her weeping, soft and helpless. Like her heart was shredding. He rapped his knuckles on the door. "Liv?

Baby?" He reached for the doorknob, but when he turned it, the knob jerked to a stop in his grip. His hand tightened, gave the knob another jiggle.

"It's locked." Sam's blue eyes glittered quiet desperation. Shrill alarm knotted Mitch's gut. "Open the door, Livvy." The faint, broken sobs that answered him stabbed him in his guts. He raised a fist and pounded on the door. "Unlock the goddamn door!"

"She wouldn't let me in, either."

"Jesus H. Christ, Sammy, do you have balls or not?" Mitch glared at Sam, then put his shoulder to the door. "Stay back, honey. I'm coming through." He lunged. Wood cracked, but the door held.

He edged back a few inches and apparently remembering his Y chromosome, Sam moved into position beside him, shoulder abutting the cheap but surprisingly solid wood.

"On three," Mitch told him and counted them down.

With both of them throwing their weight against it, the lock popped, and the door exploded inward. Sam stumbled, catching himself on the sink. Mitch stepped around him, his eyes only for Liv. In panties and a pink camisole, she curled into a fetal ball between the bathtub and the toilet, shaking with the force of her crying.

"Shh, baby. I'm here now. I've got you." Mitch knelt on the floor, pulling her into his arms. Her cheeks shone sickly pale, strands of her witchy black hair pasted to them with her tears. He palmed her head, pushed her wet face into his neck. "Please, don't cry. Whatever it is, I'll make it right. It'll be okay."

"No." She shook her head against his throat, smearing her tears, snot and God knows what else all over him. "It won't. It won't!"

Mitch's heart ripped. She was tearing him to pieces, but he held her close, hugging her shuddering body tightly to his as though his will alone would hold her together. "Sweetheart—"

"Oh, Jesus," Sam shrieked. Scrambling backward, he plowed his head into the lip of the shower. His eyes rounded in abject horror on the sink. "Holy shit!" Stroking Liv's hair, Mitch's eyes narrowed on the vanity—

Oh my God.

Oh my fucking God.

Mitch's heart stopped. Buzzing filled his ears. He wondered, vaguely, if he might pass out, but Liv sobbed into his neck, quaking so violently that fear arrowed through him, crowding the faintness away. "Liv, honey, it's all right. You have to calm down. It's fine, I promise. Everything's going to be just—"

"Are you fucking crazy?" Sam shouted, staring at Mitch with wild eyes, his young body tense with raw, unmitigated terror. "Are you freaking insane? This isn't fine." He waved an arm at the sink. "Nothing about that could ever be fine!" Mitch glared at him. "Shut up, Sam. If you can't help, then shut the fuck up." He snarled, but when he nudged Liv's tear-streaked face up with a trembling finger at her chin, he pitched his voice to a low, easy rumble. "We'll go for the blood tests tomorrow. We can be married by Thursday."

Her lip quivered, her mouth opened on another wailing sob and fat tears spilled from her dark, tormented eyes.

"Married!" Sam's voice could've shattered glass. "You can't be thinking of keeping it. For God's sake, you—we—she— Have you lost your damned mind? " Christ, what a mess. Mitch wanted to punch something. Preferably Sam, who was unraveling at the speed of light, which was only making the whole sorry crap-tastic situation worse. "Sammy, drive to the drug store down the street. Buy every brand of EPT they have, two of each. This could be a bad test." But Mitch knew. Pregnancy tests didn't lie. Hell, he could see both lines in the window of the test stick from his position on the floor with Liv. Didn't get much clearer than that. But the possibility of a false positive would settle the younger man down. If nothing else, it'd get Sam out of his hair.

"Sure. That makes sense. I can do that." He jabbered senselessly, lurching to the door.

"Sam!" Mitch called to his retreating backside. When Sammy jerked to a stop and pivoted, Mitch forced a strained smile. "Now is not the time to wrap your Camri around a telephone pole because you're too upset to concentrate on your driving. Take a deep breath. Focus. Then bring back the tests."

Sammy shoved a shaky hand through his honey-blond hair. "I'll be careful." When he left, Mitch leaned down to press his forehead to Liv's. Her eyes were swollen, bloodshot, and still leaking tears. He didn't blame her for bawling. If he wasn't one hundred and ten percent sure this was the only way he'd ever get her to marry him, he'd probably bawl, too. "It doesn't matter. Are you listening to me, honey? We would've wanted kids, anyway."

She closed her streaming eyes, whipped her head from side to side until Mitch palmed her damp cheeks, holding her immobile. "Look at me, babe." When her lashes lifted, he tried for a smile. "Yes. We would've. And soon. You're twenty-eight; I'm thirty. We wouldn't have had much time to play around before we started our family." His mouth curved to form a genuine smile. "Knowing you, I probably would've had to knock you up to get you to marry me, too. So this is okay, completely okay." She choked back tears, struggled to steady herself. "What if it isn't yours?" Her voice broke. "What if it's his?"

Mitch shook his head. "It's mine."

"I had s-sex with b-both of you." Violent tremors wracked her thin body. "Oh Jesus, I'm a slut. I'm a tramp—"

"Don't ever say that." Rage flashed over him, pure and overwhelming. His hand cradling her face, he shook her. Hard. "I don't ever want to hear you talk that way again. You are not a slut. Or a tramp. Or any other damned thing you might get into your head to punish yourself with."

Her breath caught on a despairing wail.

Mitch felt destroyed by it, her pain cutting him to the bone. He leaned back against the tub, pulled her to his chest so he could wrap his arms around her. Just to be that close to her. She curled into him, fingers knotting his work shirt as she wept, brokenly.

"We love each other, Livvy. It didn't start that way. None of us wanted it and it happened fast. Damned fast. But we do love each other, all three of us. What we have together isn't wrong." He blew out a soul-weary breath. "The baby we made together isn't wrong, either. In this fucked up world, the three of us—and our baby—may be the only damned thing that's right."

* * * * *

Liv must've finally cried herself out because by the time Sammy returned with the extra tests, the faucet of tears had slowed to a trickle. She obediently peed on sticks, into cups, and they dropped her piss by droppers into wells.

All positive.

Mitch was wholly unsurprised.

Devastated, Sam had retreated to the bedroom as soon as the first bunch of tests showed positive.

Liv had numbly continued each of the gazillion tests.

As if there were any genuine doubt.

In the door of the bathroom, once the marathon of tests had ended, Mitch wrapped his arms around Liv's waist from behind, pulling her back to hug her tightly against him. "I'm pregnant," she said, her voice drained and toneless.

"Holy shit." Sam rubbed a shaky hand over his face. He dropped to sit at the edge of their bed. "I don't believe this!"

"Cut it out." Mitch scowled at him. "Liv and I will be married by the end of the week. My name will go on the birth certificate. Problem solved."

"Solved?" Sam laughed, a hollow and hopeless sound that sent chills down Mitch's spine. "Life is just so simple for you, Mitch. Must be nice." Sam dropped his head into his hands. "Marrying Liv and putting your name on a birth certificate won't genetically engineer the kid to your liking. There's a fifty percent chance that it's mine." When he lifted his eyes, terror glittered in them like icy shards. "I vote for abortion." Fury stiffened Mitch's body to granite, roared in his veins like hungry lions. "We are not voting on whether or not Liv keeps this baby," he said through gritted teeth.

"Why not?" Sam chuckled humorlessly. "We voted on what knocked her up in the first place."

Liv's hands squeezed the arms Mitch had wrapped around her middle. "Don't." Rage shook through him. It felt good. It wiped everything clean. "There's a fifty percent chance the baby is mine and I want it. You don't get a vote on killing my kid, fucktard."

"Stop it." Liv's eyes flashed, black with pain.

Triumph streaked through Mitch, enervating him. "It's her body. Her choice. Liv will be the one to decide."

"She does whatever you want, always has." Sam snorted. Shuddered. "There's no way of knowing whose baby it is. An abortion is the only alternative that's fair to all three of us."

"The baby's mine." Violence, aggression spiked through him. Mitch had never wanted, so badly, to tear another man apart. "You don't want it so that makes it mine." Sam jerked to his feet, but he ignored Mitch, staring instead at Liv. "I'll make the appointment. I'll pay for it. Everything can go back the way it was." Mitch froze. "Get out," he said through gritted teeth. "Get the fuck out." Still sniffling, Liv clamped her fingers over his arm. "I said stop it." She flashed red-rimmed eyes at Sam. "I-I don't know what to do, what's fair or right." Her voice, hoarse form crying, shook. "But we don't have to decide tonight. All of us are just acting and reacting when what we really need to do is think."

Sam's lips curved to a sad smile. "I don't have to think about this, Liv. I don't want that baby. I'm not ready to be a father."

"Then don't be." Mitch sneered at him. "I told you I'll take responsibility for it. For the baby and Liv both."

Liv shifted in his arms. "Maybe I don't want you taking responsibility for me. Did you consider that?"

Yeah, he had. "Too damn bad. If you're pregnant, you'll marry one of us. No child of mine will be raised a bastard."

Sam flinched. "It may not be yours."

"I don't give a shit whose kid it is!"

"Well, I do!" Sam roared, shooting to his feet.

Mitch bristled. "We love each other and we made that baby together, all three of us. That's good enough for me." Mitch's resolute gaze focused on Liv. "And as for you, think about it as much as you want, but tomorrow morning, we're going for blood tests."

"I was never going to be one of those girls." Her mouth thinned. "The girl who got pregnant and had to get married? I finished school. I landed a good job." Mitch nodded. "And then we knocked you up. Hell, honey, Swanson doesn't even offer health insurance. How're you going to pay the doctor? How will you cover the hospital bills?"

She stiffened, hugging her arms around herself. "I'll work it out. Women have babies without marrying the fathers every day."

"Most of them don't have a choice. You do."

"She won't need to worry about any of that crap if she chooses to get an abortion." Sammy ripped a duffel from the closet and stalked to the dresser, yanked a drawer open. "Christ, what's the use?" He jerked jeans, shirts, into the bag. Mitch's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing?"

Sam scooped up handfuls of socks and underwear. "You told me to get the fuck out, didn't you?"

"Sammy, don't go." Liv lifted a shaking hand to reach out to him. He ignored it. "Mitch will talk you into doing what he wants. He always does. I let him push me into whatever he wants, too." Sam grimaced. "It's like a sickness. I love him so I give him everything, no matter what it costs me. You do, too. Why should this be different?" He pulled on his shoes. "I can't—I have to go." He was leaving.

Sammy was leaving him.

Mitch released Liv, stepped toward him. "Stay. We'll talk this through."

"You mean you'll talk me into accepting the baby, you marrying Liv . . . . You'll wear me down. You'll make me want it, too." Sam shook him off. "No. Not this time." Mitch's heart seized. Fear curled in his gut. "When are you coming home?" Sam stopped in the doorway, his rigid back turned to them. "Get rid of the baby," he said. "Or I won't be."

Liv's breath caught when they heard the door close.

Mitch's eyes burned. Pain consumed him.

He pulled her into his arms, buried his face in her neck. "It's all right. He's just mad. Upset. He'll come around," he said, but who was he trying to fool? Liv? Or himself?

Sam wasn't coming home to them. Never, ever again.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sammy was right.

Liv and Mitch had their blood tests taken the next day. After a few token protests, Liv married him in a simple ceremony at the courthouse Friday afternoon. They spent the weekend in their apartment, making love. Heady exhilaration flooded through him every time his eyes caught the flash of gold on her left hand. After buying the house and with a baby on the way, they couldn't afford even a simple band for him. He couldn't wear it during work hours, anyway, where it could catch on tools and cost a man his fingers. But he never tired of playing with his ring on her hand, when they were sweaty and sucking in oxygen, after the loving was done.

Both of them pretended their bed wasn't too empty.

Monday morning, Artie's face turned so red when Mitch told him that a bolt of fear stabbed Mitch in the gut. He hadn't dared talk to Artie before. His partner would have tried to stop Mitch.

"Are you sure the baby's yours?" Artie had finally gasped, pounding at his chest.

"Yes." No matter what, that baby was his.

His partner had shot a skeptical stare. "What about Sam?"

"He left." The clench of agony in his belly had become a familiar friend. "And even if . . . ." Mitch's eyes closed. He swallowed the knot in his throat. "Does the name on my birth certificate change the way you feel about me?" Artie blew out a long breath, clapped a hand to his shoulder. "No." Mitch lifted his gaze. "Then be happy for me. I'm finally going to be a daddy." His partner's mouth hardened to a tight line. "You don't have to get married to be a father, Mitch. Not these days."

Mitch's eyes pleaded. Was this it? Had he finally pushed Artie too far, pushed him away? "I love her." He grabbed the hand his partner had left on his shoulder. "And she loves me. The real me."

Artie squeezed his shoulder. "You told her?"

His breath locked in his chest. "I can make this marriage work, Dad." Artie's eyes crinkled, his mouth bending to a sad smile. "Ah, Mitch. Why do you make it so hard for people to love you?"

But Artie and Barb insisted on taking the newlyweds out for celebratory steaks that evening. "It's not every day my boy gets married." His partner winked.

"Yeah. Only four times now," Liv quipped and Mitch had laughed until his stomach hurt.

"It's not every day I find out I'm going to be a grandfather then," Artie said, wiping amused tears from his eyes. "How's that?"

Liv had paled, but her smile barely wobbled. "Better." After dinner, they drove to the new house. Mitch walked Artie and Barb through the place, pointed out the quick repairs he'd make now and outlined the renovations he planned for the next several months. Barb, in a gesture of tacit approval that rocked Mitch to his core, unearthed a bottle of sparkling cider and Dixie cups from the suitcase masquerading as her purse. "It's non-alcoholic, sweetie, so you can drink it, too," Barb told an equally stunned Liv.

Barb poured and Artie toasted their happiness in the gutted shell of their new kitchen.

Mitch had choked down the stupid juice, then hugged both of his parents and when their arms had widened to include Liv, Mitch thought maybe he was the luckiest bastard who had ever walked the earth.

But the night wasn't over. When Mitch left Liv inside, where it was warmer, to walk Artie and Barb out to the car, his partner slid a plain white envelope from his coat pocket. "A wedding present."

"I've been married four times." Mitch quirked an eyebrow. "I think you can safely stop giving gifts after three."

His partner shoved the envelope at him. "Don't say no." When Mitch looked inside, he found a check covering his closing costs—to the penny. His eyes burned. His throat clogged. "Dad—"

Artie pulled him in for a fierce hug. His broad, calloused hand thumped Mitch's back. "I know. We love you, too."

"I don't know what to say," Mitch said, voice tight, hugging him back.

"You don't have to say anything." Artie eased away. His stare jerked to the house, where Liv waited inside. "Talk to her, son. Tell her." Dread shivered up his spine. He crushed the envelope in a nervous fist. "I will. As soon as things settle down. The house, the baby, getting married—"

"You'll always find a reason." Artie smiled, shook his head. "Talk to her now. Tonight. Liv's tough. She can take it. Don't let it fester inside you anymore." But he didn't talk to Liv that night.

Or the long days after, when he began moving their stuff to the house. He cleared the storage locker Sammy rented for him first, his stomach roiling when he'd paid the final bill in the office. Liv spent her evenings packing boxes. Mitch spent his days hauling them to the house.

They spent their nights escaping the pain of Sammy's loss with sex. Mitch licked her pussy. He fucked her ass. He pumped her cunt full of cum, but no matter how many orgasms he wrung out of Liv or she from him or how exhausted they fell to their bed, sated and sweaty, a piece of them was missing.

Sam.

He'd come for his clothes. When Mitch had returned from a hard day of work at the new house, he'd found Liv, sobbing, at the empty space in their closet where Sammy's suits had hung that morning. He'd held her, kissed her, made love to her in the damn closet, but it hadn't helped. The ball of hurt that had lodged in his stomach didn't ease. He spotted the same flare of pain in her eyes every time her fingers touched the things Sam hadn't collected yet—his artsy-fartsy cooking gadgets, one of his books, the bottle of shampoo he'd left in their shower.

Sometimes, Mitch wanted to talk about it. Maybe if he and Liv shared the hurt churning inside them, admitted how much they missed him, maybe they'd finally work past it.

But they didn't talk anymore.

Not really.

She'd taken his name. His baby grew in her belly. Her body took his cock any time he wanted, any way he wanted, and physically, she made greedy demands of him as well. Together, they set the date to move into the house, planned their future. Her heart had never felt so far away.

Mitch was lost.

He didn't know what to do, how to make this right.

In the end, he simply packed up Sammy's things. He kept the boxes in the back of his truck for days, searching for the courage to take them to Sam at work, but he couldn't face it. Couldn't face him. He finally dumped them in a corner of the basement of the new house.

He and Livvy shut up their apartment, the only home they'd shared with Sammy, and hoped the new house would bring fewer reminders of all they'd lost. They moved in.

* * * * *

Mitch wiped sweat from his eyes with the back of his forearm, then yanked hard on the ratchet. Fucking furnace. Damned thing needed replaced, just like everything else in this monstrosity of a house, but he'd hoped to get one last winter out of it. The furnace guy thought the machine might —maybe— hold together with a little spit and glue.

Apparently not.

The thermostat had stuck somewhere in the mid-nineties and Mitch couldn't get the son of a bitch to shut off. Even with the back door and windows propped wide, Liv had melted into a pregnant puddle in the kitchen. Mitch was sweating his balls off. Considering how poorly insulated the house was, he already flinched at opening their first heating bill. They could make it through winter with space heaters. But first, he had to turn the beast of a machine off.

Hot, frustrated, Mitch gave up on the rust-encrusted bolt and used the ratchet to beat on the damn thing.

The machinery whined.

Mitch's eyes popped.

Okay then.

He lifted his arm—

"Beating on the outside casing won't help."

Mitch's head whipped around at that warm, familiar, faintly amused voice. Sam grinned at him from the foot of the basement stairs, sexy as ever in his standard work uniform of suit and tie. Mitch froze. Profound joy kicked his heart to a gallop, followed immediately by rage, an anger so acute that his breath locked in his chest. He would kick Sam's ass for showing up here.

He'd hug him. Kiss him. Beg him to stay.

But then, he'd kick his ass for leaving in the first place.

"What?"

Sam shrugged out of his suit jacket as he walked toward him, draping the jacket over a pile of junk before rolling the sleeves of his shirt up his sinewy forearms. "The furnace is tougher than you are, Mitch. Here, give that to me before you hurt yourself." He pried the ratchet from his fist and dropped it into Mitch's toolbox, selecting a wrench instead. Sam bent over the mechanical guts of the furnace, fitting the tool to a rusty bolt.

The bolt loosened. "Be easier to turn it off at the breaker box," Sam said. Mitch decided to rip Sam's head off after he fixed the heating system. "I couldn't find the right circuit. None of them are labeled yet."

"It'll probably be the first one after the Master switch." Sam made quick work of the other bolts and slid the panel free. "Look for a double-circuit." Mitch knew construction, how to build with his hands. Mechanical crap had never interested him, but Sam looked like he knew what he was doing so he marched to the breaker box, opened it. Just as Sam said, the first breaker after the Master was a double-circuit. "Got it."

Sam frowned at the furnace. He returned the wrench to the toolbox and selected a screwdriver. "Trip it and leave it off." He glanced up, lips curved at the corners. "I'd rather not electrocute myself."

Mitch tripped the breaker.

The furnace died.

When Mitch rejoined him, Sam crouched over the furnace. "You're lucky you didn't burn the place down." He pointed at a bundle of wires, some of the casing freshly gnawed. Wire gleamed. "Rats. Get your exterminator back in here and don't touch that circuit again. You'll live longer."

But now that the furnace was dead, Mitch lost interest in the albatross of a house.

"Why did you come back, Sam? What do you want?"

Sam blew out a long breath. "We need to talk."

* * * * *

In Mitch's experience, camping in a new rehab project was tolerable only with a bathroom that worked and a semi-functional kitchen. Probably the only thing not wrong with the house was the plumbing so Mitch had focused on the kitchen prior to moving in. The amenities were basic, but the room was enormous, clean. They'd sectioned off part of it for temporary living quarters. When Mitch climbed the stairs from the furnace room in the basement, Liv had curled onto the air mattress that served as their bed, her features pale and tight with tension.

Mitch dropped down beside her, shifted her head into his lap so he could run his fingers through her hair, rub her shoulders. Comfort her any way that he could and take comfort from her as well. "Sit. Talk," he told Sam. Mitch's stomach knotted when Sammy pulled over a chair instead of joining them on the bed.

Sam sat, his body stiff and uncomfortable. "I'm sorry I reacted the way I did. About the baby."

Liv trembled against Mitch.

Sam's jaw clenched. "I knew the risk, what could happen. Hell, Mitch and I pushed hard about refusing to wear a condom." His lips twisted to a bitter smile.

"Maybe I was too dazzled by the sex to think through the repercussions, but I knew what I was doing. I have no one except myself to blame."

Liv pressed her face into his belly, but not before Mitch saw tears glistening in her eyes. "Nobody's blaming you, Sammy. There's nothing to be blamed for. Liv and I would've gotten married at some point, anyway. Probably sooner rather than later because we both want kids and neither one of us is getting any younger. We're ready to raise this baby. We want to."

"I know that it doesn't bother you whose baby it is," Sam said, holding up his hand when Mitch's mouth opened to argue, "whether it's yours or mine."

"It's mine," Mitch said, his voice tight with the fury balling his stomach. "You don't want it. That makes it mine."

"I want a DNA test to establish paternity as soon as it's born." Sam's eyes glinted blue steel. "That's non-negotiable."

When Liv made a wild, hurt sound against his belly, Mitch held her close. "What in the hell for?" he snarled. "You told her to get an abortion, remember? You took off."

"If the baby is yours, Mitch, we need never see one another again." Mitch's stomach pitched. God, it hurt. What in the hell had happened to them?

Mitch didn't even recognize the hard young man who stared at him now. The determined, resolute angle of his jaw? That, he knew, but he'd never, ever, seen the cold glitter in Sam's eyes. "And if the baby's yours?"

"I'll pay child support, of course." Sam's beautiful mouth thinned to a grim line.

"I may want to"—his lip curled in disgust—"see it. I suppose I'll have to see it, but we'll let the lawyers work that out."

Mitch's eyes snapped shut.

Lawyers.

Shit.

Had it come to this?

"You didn't want the baby. You still don't."

"No, I don't. My vote's still for an abortion, but I know neither one of you will allow that so . . . ." He rolled his eyes, blew out a breath. "When Liv realized I'd moved in with you, when we first tried to work things out between the three of us, you asked her a question. Maybe the most important question. I never forgot it." Mitch's brow furrowed.

"You asked her what she could live with." Sam's mouth curved into a sad, bitter smile. "I've been doing a lot of thinking. This is what I can live with."

"You're never coming home," Liv whispered against Mitch's stomach. Mitch threaded his fingers through her hair.

Sam shook his head. "I can't stop you from having this baby, but I can't live without knowing if it's mine. And if it's mine . . . I hate that fucking thing, but I can't live with abandoning it, either."

Liv flinched, curling in on herself in his lap.

Mitch's hand shook. "I won't let your hatred poison the baby we made together." Sam's eyes glittered with pain. "Do you think I want that? Do you think it's not eating me alive?" He jerked to his feet, walked to the sink to stare out the back window.

"If I can't keep it under wraps, I'll stay away. I promise I won't make this more awkward or painful than necessary, but if it's mine, I'll want pictures, report cards—I can't just walk away." He turned, leaned against the counter. "I can't live with that."

"All right." Mitch swallowed the agony choking his throat. "We'll work something out."

When Liv tensed, groaned, Sam's blue eyes abruptly narrowed on her. "Jesus H. Christ."

Mitch stiffened, his stare returning to Liv. "What?"

Sam darted toward them, scooping her rigid body from Mitch's lap. "What the fuck are you doing?" Mitch snarled, yanking her back.

"Go start the truck." Sam's hands shoved her hair from her face. "How long have you been hurting?"

Fat tears slipped from Liv's eyes. "A little while, but I'm okay. I'm not spotting or anything. It's probably just the fish I had at lunch."

Mitch's heart stopped.

Just stopped.

Concern lit Sammy's blue eyes, the first glimpse of any genuine warmth since he'd arrived. "Honey, you're bleeding."

Pain sliced Mitch open, left him raw and reeling.

The baby.

She was losing his baby.

"Go get the truck, Mitch. She needs a hospital."

Mitch fought the numb fear that paralyzed him, tore Liv from Sam's arms and into his own. "Go. I'll carry her."

She moaned when he lifted her. "Mitch?"

He kissed the crown of her head, following Sam out the door. "It's all right, baby. Everything's going to be fine."

But he knew it wouldn't be.

* * * * *

Liv miscarried before they reached the emergency room. The doctor ordered an ultrasound, but his grim face didn't offer much hope. Two dozen lifetimes seemed to pass before the nurses rolled her out. Liv's bleeding had escalated by then, though. So they knew.

An ob-gyn on call performed the D & C that night.

Head hung low, body shaking, Mitch had sat in one of the cold, hard chairs in the waiting room.

Sam's hand clasped his shoulder. "It sounds hard to believe coming from me, but I'm sorry, Mitch. Truly sorry. I didn't want the baby, but I know how much you did. How much it meant to both of you."

Sammy had stayed with them. Even though he'd fought tooth and nail to persuade them to abort it, he'd stayed. Sam had filled out all the annoying paperwork. He'd traded whispers with passing doctors and nurses, handling all the details so Mitch could focus on comforting Liv, keeping her calm.

"Thank you." Mitch bit back tears.

Sam's hand squeezed his shoulder. "Once she's out of surgery, I'll move the rest of my things out of your house."

Pain swallowed him, consuming him whole. "Don't go," he said. "I know you have every reason to hate us, but please, don't go."

When he looked up at Sam, the younger man's jaw had tensed, his eyes glittering with equal parts relief and self-loathing. "I . . . can't." Sam shuddered. "I'm sorry."

Chapter Twenty-Eight

When the phone rang later that afternoon, Mitch lashed a hand out for the receiver before the noise disturbed Liv. She'd been so quiet, so still since they'd left the hospital. She had to be tired. Had to be. God knows he was exhausted, but neither one of them could sleep. For him, the pain was too fresh, too piercing. Too consuming. For Liv . . . .

He didn't know.

She wouldn't let him in.

She hadn't looked at him since he'd broken down at the hospital. She stared over his left shoulder when she spoke to him, answering in flat monotones when he asked her a question, her dark eyes vacant and dead.

He'd done that to her.

Losing the baby had been so monstrous, so huge . . . .

He made her lie down. The physical trauma alone—she needed rest. Her doctor had stressed that. But no matter what he'd done to make her comfortable, she lay in their bed, ignoring him to stare with unblinking eyes at the ceiling. Finally, she'd closed them a few minutes ago.

Not to sleep.

To shut him out.

Pretending she was asleep helped him get through the minutes that stretched one on top of the other, though, so he grabbed the damned phone. "Hello."

"It's time."

Lost in his world of misery, Mitch frowned at the telephone. He didn't recognize his stepmother's voice at first. Probably because it hadn't slurred. His eyes closed.

His heart clutched in his chest.

God, he didn't need this.

"What?"

"Heard about the baby. Sorry," Rita said, sounding anything but. She inhaled, held it, and exhaled so that he could almost smell the smoke from her cheap cigarettes.

"I wouldn'ta called, 'cept for the prissy-ass nurse you hired. It's Gary. She says he's finally dying. Won't last the night."

He rubbed a weary hand over his face, swallowed.

His eyes burned.

"Mitch?"

His head shot up, his gaze flashing to Liv. Her clothes had been soaked with blood so the hospital had given them a set of scrubs for her to wear home. The violent blue of the material emphasized the dark shadows under her eyes and made her face seem even more pale and drawn. As tall as Liv was, Mitch had never thought he'd see the day when he'd ever describe her as delicate, but today she was. Fragile. Like even the act of breathing might shatter her.

You're nothing. Worse than nothing. A Goddamned boil on the ass of humanity. You're the angel of fucking death. Know that, Mitchie? You destroy everything you touch. He swallowed convulsively, slapped a palm over the telephone receiver. "Need anything, baby?"

She stared at him, eyes haunted.

She shook her head.

He tried to smile, though he knew he'd done a piss-poor job of it by her instinctive flinch. He nodded to the phone. "It's Rita." He uncovered the receiver. "I'll be right there," he said, then hung up before his stepmother could get a shot in. Liv didn't speak.

Just stared.

His heart, already shredded, bled.

"I'm sorry," he said. God, would he ever say anything else to her except I'm sorry? He pushed out of his chair and pretended that he hadn't seen her cringe in retreat when he walked to her. He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear instead. "I wouldn't leave you unless it was important. I need to go." Her head dipped to a small nod.

She shifted, slid away from his touch.

Mitch slowly lowered his hand and reached for his jacket draped over the chair, his stomach a tight, painful knot. "You should rest while I'm gone. Doctor's orders."

"Okay."

"Go back to sleep, honey." He leaned forward, kissed the crown of her head. "I won't be gone long."

* * * * *

Gary died an hour later.

Never said a word.

Just stopped breathing and died.

Not that Mitch had expected a melodramatic scene at his deathbed, with Gary gasping through the pain to apologize for every shitty thing he'd ever done and begging his son's forgiveness.

Mitch didn't know what he had expected.

Not this.

Rita sniveled into a frayed dishtowel at the kitchen door. She'd yanked on a pair of jeans that fought mightily against its seams and a sweater so tight, the fabric dipped where her belly button should be. Her hair, newly bleached, had been styled, curled, and set. Neat fingernails painted slick red dug into her forearms when she hugged herself. Artfully applied makeup gave her cheeks an obscene, girlish glow. The coroner had rolled Gary into the body bag. He'd asked Mitch and Rita both to leave while they saw to him. Unbelievably, Cheryl, Liv's sister, had appeared at his elbow to guide him away.

But Mitch couldn't leave.

He had to see it through to the end.

Cheryl apparently got tired of being ignored so she'd clung to Rita's elbow, patting his stepmother's shoulder, while the coroner had adjusted the controls of the hospital bed to raise it.

Rita wailed when they slid Gary onto the collapsible gurney.

Mitch had hung his head, pasting his stare to the threadbare carpet between his knees, as dead and empty as the corpse the coroner had threaded through the trailer's front door.

People had come to talk to him in hushed voices.

The body would go to Langston's Funeral Home. No autopsy. And no memorial. Gary Lane McAllister would be cremated as soon as the law would allow. Someone asked him about the death notice. For the newspaper.

"Whatever. Ask Rita."

Mitch just stared at the carpet and willed his heart to start beating again. Eventually, everyone left.

The coroner.

The nurse he'd hired to tend to Gary.

The hospice chaplain.

Even Cheryl.

He vaguely heard his stepmother shoo her away, their voices carrying from the front steps outside. Cheryl's uncharacteristically concerned. Rita's adamant. She'd take care of Mitch, his stepmother promised.

The absurdity of that almost made Mitch smile.

"I'll call the medical supply company to clear out the bed and other equipment tomorrow." He raised his head, unsurprised when she glared at him, arms crossed over her chest. Her scarlet-tipped fingers tapped an annoyed staccato on her forearms. "His doctors have been instructed to send the final bills to me. I'll take care of this month's utilities and pay for the cremation—"

His stepmother sneered. "Cheap fuck."

"I don't give a shit what you do with his ashes." He pushed to his feet, his body as numb as his heart. "Goodbye, Rita."

"Where in the hell do you think you're going?"

He fished his keys out of his pocket, but his hands didn't seem to want to work right. Clumsy. "This is it. Gary's dead."

"That don't mean I am." When she slid next to him, the cloud of cheap perfume made his eyes water and choked his throat. "I'm still your mother."

"Stepmother." He grasped his keys so hard his knuckles shone white.

"He wanted to kick your ass out when you showed up. I'm the one who let you back in here. You owe me!"

"I paid the bills you decided to let slide the two years it took Gary to die." He stared at her. "I owe you nothing."

"You can't just leave."

He trudged to the door. "Watch me."

When she put a hand on his shoulder, he jerked away. "Don't touch me."

"Aw, don't be that way."

She cooed?

He froze.

Bile burned his gullet.

"How can you be so mean?" She slid her fingers up his biceps as she crowded in on him. The sickly sweet scent of her perfume seared his nostrils. "After all that we've been to each other."

Just that quickly, he was ten years old again.

Ten and scared.

And sick.

Ashamed.

"Cut it out," he said, hating the pleading note in his voice, the tremble in it. She smiled, cat-like. "You don't want me to stop." Her free hand curved around his hip to cup his ass through the denim of his blue jeans. "You never did."

"No!" But as soon as he pried her hand away, she twined both arms around his neck and pasted herself flush against him.

She laughed, a hard, brittle sound that sent shivers up his spine. Like fingernails on a chalkboard. "You enjoyed it. I made sure you did." He glared at her. "I hated what you did to me."

She smirked. "You came. Every time."

Humiliation churned his stomach. "Why do you keep doing this?" He grabbed her wrist, but her hand shoved down his zipper and dove into his pants. Rita grinned, sly and evil. "I think the real question is why do you keep letting me?"

His heart pounded against his ribs, just like it had when he was a kid. In his mind, he pushed her away, but pain, oceans of it, had buried the man he'd become. In Mitch's place, the boy she'd molested stood there instead. And the boy cowered. The boy didn't—couldn't—stop her when her hand wrapped around his flaccid cock. His eyes snapped shut.

His testicles shriveled to the size of mustard seeds.

The cold sweat of fear trickled between his shoulders.

"Because you like it, Mitch. That's why you let me touch you. You can move across town. Act as high and mighty as you want, get a pretty new wife who thinks the sun rises and sets by your puckered asshole, but you can't escape what you are." Her painted mouth twisted to an ugly sneer. "The only reason you got that pretty new wife is because you knocked her up. She'd have never married you if you hadn't got her pregnant first so get off your high horse, sonny. You're trash no better than me."

"No." But pain squeezed his heart, because she was right. Liv wouldn't have married him. Even pregnant, she'd objected. The only reason she'd given in, taken his name, was realizing how much it would hurt him for his son or daughter to be born a bastard. Like him.

Liv had married him out of pity.

Because she was trapped.

Not for love. Never for that.

"She'll leave you when she figures out what a twisted fuck you are. They always do. I know the truth about you, sweetie. Gary did and deep down, you know it, too." She gave his cock a painful squeeze. "I keep doing this," she said, "because you keep letting me." Her mouth curved to a malevolent grin. "And you keep letting me because you like it."

"Mitch."

Oh fuck.

Liv, face pale, eyes rounded, stood at the front door of the trailer. "Cheryl called." Livvy.

Here.

With Rita plastered to him and her hand down his pants, desperately working to stroke him hard.

Shit.

He reared back, away from Rita, and flinched when she didn't let go of his dick. Cursing, he grabbed and squeezed her wrist until her fingers sprang wide, then yanked her hand out of his pants. Too late, he pushed her away.

He pivoted to the door, raised his hands to reach for her. "I can explain." But he couldn't.

He knew he couldn't.

How could he explain it to her when he didn't even understand it himself?

Ghostly white, she turned her back on him and walked down the steps. Mitch raced after her to the backdrop of Rita's taunting laughter. He caught up with Liv when she opened the door to her rattletrap Mazda. "That wasn't what it looked like."

"It looked like she was pumping your dick for you, Mitch." She glared at him through eyes that glistened. "Tell me which part I got wrong."

"It wasn't for me. She had her hand down my pants, but it's never been for me." He slammed the car door shut before she could climb in. "Damn it, Liv, will you just listen to me?"

"Are you listening to yourself?" She stared at him, features drawn and tight. "Are you?"

"I was ten the first time she raped me."

She sucked in a sharp breath, but the stare she swung on him reflected equal parts pity and accusation.

"The whole time we were growing up, I told you everything, Mitch. Everything. No matter how mean and ugly it was." Her voice cracked. "No matter how ashamed and dirty it made me feel. I didn't keep any secrets from you."

"You were just a kid. You didn't even know what sex was. You were the only clean thing in my worthless, miserable life, Goddamn it!" When he reached out to cup her cheek, she knocked his hand away. "You used to look at me like I was Spiderman, Batman, and Superman all rolled into one. Nobody thought I was worth anything. I didn't even think I was worth anything. Until you. I couldn't destroy that. I wasn't more than a kid myself, honey. Please."

"That was then. You're right." She swiped at the wet tears pooling in her dark eyes. "But what about now, Mitch? We aren't kids any more. Why didn't you say something now? When I slept with you. When I moved in with you. When I got preg—" She shoved a clenched fist to her mouth. Fat tears leaked from her eyes. Mitch's heart tore open. "Liv—"

"I married you," she shouted, shoving him away. "I was too scared to breathe because of my parents, my family, but I let you wear me down. I married you, anyway. Because I trusted you. And you didn't tell me? "

Tears burned his eyes. "I was ashamed, all right? Guys aren't supposed to get raped, not even when they're scrawny ten year-olds."

When she jerked the car door back open and climbed inside, Mitch didn't have enough pride left to try to stop her. "You aren't ten any more. And that didn't look like rape."

"C'mon, babe, that's not fair. She's been after me since she called me about dad's cancer and I haven't . . . ." He shook his head. "That's part of why I had to come back. To prove to myself that she doesn't have that power over me, not any more. And she hasn't. I told her no, shoved her off. I needed to do that, Liv. As a man, I needed that." He braced himself on the door. "But Gary just died; she knew I'd be fucked in the head." He leaned in. "I would've stopped her. You have to believe me."

"Before or after she jerked you off?" Livvy turned the key in the ignition. "I have to go."

"Don't run out on me, Liv. Don't. Please." He'd beg her to stay. Whatever it took. He didn't care. "I know I fucked everything up. I'm neurotic and a freak. But I love you. You have to know how much I love you. Don't leave me. Not now. Not like this." And because he did love her, he moved out of the way when she slammed her car door shut.

What was left of his heart shattered when the car sped away.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Mitch stared down a bottle of Jack Daniels.

He'd driven around for awhile, thinking, and had finally stopped at the liquor store on Elm on the way home. He wasn't surprised when her car wasn't parked out front, but when he unlocked the front door and found her things in the bathroom, her clothes still jumbled with his, cruel hope taunted him.

Mocked him.

Made a sorry mess of him.

She'd leave him.

Of course, she'd leave him.

She'd never wanted to marry him in the first place and within hours of losing the baby they'd made together, she'd found another woman groping him. Worse, his stepmother. Practically over his father's corpse.

Who'd stick around after that?

He couldn't blame her.

He was sick.

Twisted.

Fucked in the head.

Always had been.

That's why he'd married three women who'd run around on him, used him up and treated him like shit. He'd just been sticking to his old, familiar pattern, the habit Rita had taught him. Rita and Gary both. He was nothing. Worse than nothing. He was just a piece of meat to be tormented and toyed with.

So he'd bought the whiskey and headed home.

But he didn't drink it.

When Mitch had finally worked up the nerve to tell his father what Rita had been doing to him, Gary had held him down. He'd fought like hell, but his father had been huge then, much bigger than a skinny ten year-old boy. It'd been ridiculously easy for Gary to hold him down and pour Jack Daniels down his throat. To celebrate his son losing his cherry.

He'd kept at it until Mitch had puked.

Then, dear old dad had called Rita in so he could watch her rape him all over again.

Mitch had never drank a drop of Jack since.

Even the smell made his hands shake.

He hadn't bought the whiskey to drink himself senseless.

That was his father's way.

Rita's way.

He'd bought the bottle to defeat it.

Mitch had spent two hellacious years back in that fucking trailer, waiting for that twisted son of a bitch to die. Maybe at first he'd wanted to know why. Why had Gary let Rita do that to him? Why?

Unlike the Winslows four trailers down, his father had never hit him. Mitch couldn't remember seeing his father's fist once. His dad hadn't smacked him around, beaten him, not like the trashy Winslows beat on their kids and each other. Gary McAllister had been proud of that.

No, his father's control was more insidious. Much more devastating. Gary McAllister hadn't ruled his family with an iron fist. He'd ruled them with his warped and malignant mind.

Mitch couldn't remember a time when his father hadn't told him he was a stupid shit, lazy, worthless, a faggot—any and everything that could beat a kid into the ground. He couldn't remember the first time Gary had forced him to stand in the corner until he pissed himself. He couldn't remember the first time his father had locked him in the closet, either. Starved him or worse, made him eat until he puked, then forced him to lick up his own vomit.

That was just life. He was nothing. Less than nothing.

His father told him so and proved it every fucking day.

But he could remember the very first time he hadn't believed it. He'd been ten. Rita had just moved in. Gary wouldn't marry her for several more years, but she hadn't sharpened her claws on Mitch yet. She hadn't even seemed to notice him then.

He'd been lying on his mattress in his room, listening to the night sounds. The shouted curses from the Winslow trailer down the road had almost drowned out his father's grunts, as he fucked Rita on the other side of the paper-thin walls, but not quite. Somewhere in the lull, some odd moment of quiet between Gary's thrusts and Bert Winslow's screams, he heard something outside his window. A sly rustle. Then, a stifled sob.

When he'd gotten up to peer over the window ledge, Olivia Winslow crouched beneath, her white nightgown as good as a homing beacon in the darkness. His head had whipped toward the road where he heard Bert and his sobbing wife's voices coming closer.

"Psst! Liv."

She'd looked up at him then, her dark eyes wide, streaming tears. He'd meant to warn her to hide. Run into the stand of trees behind the trailer park. If she didn't, she'd be done for as soon as Bert Winslow stalked beyond the corner of the next trailer, but the reddening finger-marks he spotted around her thin neck caught him by his own throat.

Instead of telling her to run, he'd reached his arms through the hole gaping at the bottom of his window screen, yanking it wider. "C'mon, Livvy. Hurry." She'd lifted her arms and he'd pulled her in.

A jagged corner of the window had cut her arm. He remembered that. Bled like a son of a bitch. When she'd whimpered, he'd whispered, "Quiet! Your daddy or mine catches us, we'll both wish we were dead."

The too-old glint in her young eyes had told him she was already there, but she'd shushed for him. He'd snagged a ratty t-shirt from the floor, used it to doctor her arm, as best as he could, had stopped the bleeding.

Outside, Bert Winslow shouted, his slurring threats retreating down the street. When she'd flashed scared, reluctant eyes at him, he'd told her, "You'd better stay. Sneak back in the morning when he's sleeping it off."

In the room next door, his father had chosen that exact moment to groan, low, loud, and hoarsely.

Her eyes had widened. "What's that?"

"Nothing."

His father was done, at least for a little while, and ten year-old Mitch'd had zero desire to explain the mechanics of fucking to an eight year-old, even one whose eyes were every bit as old and tired as his were.

"Come here."

And she had.

She'd curled up with him on the stained mattress, laid her head on his bony shoulder. She'd smiled up at him then like he'd hung the moon and all the stars in the sky. "Thank you, Mitch."

He'd laughed. "Go to sleep, baby."

In that one moment, that one brief moment, Mitch had known he wasn't worthless. He wasn't lazy or stupid or a fag.

For the first time in his life, his value had surpassed nothing. Looking back on it as an adult, Mitch recognized that what he'd done was a small thing. Bert was so drunk, he probably wouldn't have spotted Liv cowering at the back end of his trailer, and even if he had, she was quick. She would've outrun him. Liv had been a survivor. She'd never needed him, not really.

But just for that one moment, he'd felt like a hero. Her hero. He'd believed that he'd saved her. That he'd made a difference.

It'd changed his life.

And hers.

After that, Liv came to his bedroom window often, whenever her dad got liquored up and mean with it. Sometimes, he pulled her inside, but later on, when Rita had finally noticed him, he'd crawled outside with her. They sneaked the blanket he'd stashed under the trailer's dented underpinning to the willow in the stand of trees beyond the trailer park. They'd pretended to be on an adventure. They were pirates or mercenaries. Or outlaws forced to make camp for the night. They'd made a game of it, even though they both kept their voices down and they didn't light a fire no matter how cold it got. God help them if Bert Winslow ever found them and even God wouldn't have been able to help if Gary or Rita had.

He hadn't saved Liv.

She'd saved him.

And now, she was gone.

Oh, sure, her things were here. Her clothes, her books, all the pretty crap women collected. If he walked into the bathroom, he'd still smell her raspberry shampoo. He stared at the bottle of whisky, eyes burning, his throat tight. And wondered how in the hell it had all fallen apart so fast and so completely. He didn't look up when he heard her car out front or when she came through the back door behind him moments later. Why?

When her eyes, glistening with tears as she'd driven away from him, had etched into his memory like sulfuric acid?

When he'd hear the hurt, bewildered horror in her voice echoing in his ears for the rest of his life?

She glided around him without touching, faced him. The violent blue scrubs from the hospital filtered through the cheap glass of the bottle, tearing his guts out, but he didn't force his gaze up. Couldn't.

Jesus, hadn't he suffered enough?

"Did you come for your things?" he said, finally, his voice breaking. She sighed, crouched on the floor beside him. She took his limp hands in hers.

"What other secrets have you kept from me?"

Throbbing pain flooded his heart, his body. Obliterated everything else. "Does it matter?"

"Do you want me to stay?"

His eyes snapped shut. Christ, she was killing him, slicing off pieces, bit by bit. He couldn't trust his voice to speak so he nodded.

"Then it matters." She laid her cheek against his thigh. "You have to meet me halfway."

He lifted his hand to stroke her hair, not daring to hope. Not daring to breathe. "I was a whore. After I ran away."

She stiffened.

"I was a lousy thief and I didn't want to be shot so selling drugs was out. Whoring wasn't all that different from what Rita and Gary had been doing to me for free. At least, on the streets, I got paid for it."

She shivered. "I'm sorry."

"Artie found me squatting on his job site when I was sixteen. If I hadn't been so sick, I would've run, but . . . . He saved me. I was too feral at first, though. I kept running back to the streets." He looked at her. "Vice picked me up during a sweep when I was seventeen. Soliciting and prostitution. When Artie came to bail me out, the juvenile court judge made living with him a condition of my release. I haven't whored since."

"That's it?"

Emotion clogged his throat so he couldn't speak. He nodded instead.

"Okay." She lifted up from his thigh, offering her mouth to him. Something tore loose inside him.

He didn't know what it was.

It hurt.

It hurt worse than anything Mitch had ever felt in his life, surpassing all the sweaty scared hours in the trailer with Rita and Gary, outstripping the string of nameless, faceless johns who'd used him on the streets. The agony was so excruciating, the loss of their baby even paled against it.

Hope.

What he felt, when her lips rose to meet his, when she kissed him, was hope. Cruel hope.

He thread shaking fingers into her hair, holding her still under his mouth as he slanted his across hers, stabbed his tongue inside, just one last time. One last taste before she left him.

"I'm not leaving you, Mitch," she said, when she tore her lips away. "Stop being so melodramatic."

He frowned, his mouth eating at hers. He hadn't realized he'd spoken out loud. Maybe he'd finally gone crazy.

She grinned at him. "You aren't crazy, either. Or if you are, I am, too; in which case, we belong together."

He lifted his mouth from hers. "Why in the holy hell would you ever want to waste your time on a sick bum like me?" he asked, his mind reeling. Was she staying?

There was no way she could still be staying.

But she climbed into his lap, laid her head on his shoulder. "You're not sick, Mitch. A little bent in bed and a lot fucked up when you're out of bed. But being with you is never a waste of my time." She sighed against the skin of his neck. "I love you." Mitch's heart lurched in his chest.

He couldn't breathe.

He found his voice. Finally. "W-what?"

She smiled at him. "I said I love you."

The agonizing pain that had held him immobile ripped free, finally. Replaced with indescribable joy.

Because . . . .

He believed her.

Laughing, his lips descended to slant over hers, his arms tightening around her like steel bands. "I'll never keep anything from you again. I promise. No more secrets." He kissed her, hard, loved the greedy warmth of her, the soft weight of her body, the eager clutch of her fingers on his shoulders. "What did I do to deserve you?" She grinned. "Nothing."

He chuckled, hugging her tightly to him.

"I drove around for hours, wallowing in my self-righteous hurt. After all we'd been through as kids, I couldn't believe you'd kept what Rita did to you from me. It tore me apart, Mitch. It really did."

Mitch's body trembled at the pain that darkened her eyes. "I'm sorry." Her lips thinned. "I stopped at a light and when I glanced over, there it was. Lambini, Gilbert, and Platte. Sam's advertising agency."

Mitch nodded. He'd driven by Sam's work more times than he cared to remember since the man had left them. "The offices on Sycamore Drive."

"Sam's car was in the parking lot." She sighed. "And I realized . . . you held part of yourself back from me, but we both held back from Sam. We kept him at a distance, wouldn't share our past and what we came from with him. I've kept secrets, too, Mitch. I'm just as guilty as you are."

"I miss him. Even after everything the three of us did to each other, I miss him." Mitch kissed her. "It kills me that he didn't trust us." Liv smiled against his lips. "Why should he when we never truly trusted him?

We expected him to commit to us, but we hadn't committed to him."

"But we learned. I've learned." He touched his forehead to hers. "We'll win him back, babe. If that's what—" Mitch hesitated, wondered if he was doing the right thing.

"If that's what you still want."

Her smooth cheek slid against his. "I love you. We belong to each other, but he belongs with us, too."

Love lit his heart. "We'll give him time. And freedom. To heal the damage." He smiled into her eyes. "Deep down, Sam knows we love him and he still loves us. We just need faith. We'll build our home for him. And someday, Sammy will come back to us both."

She brushed her lips over his. "Until then, we'll have to love each other twice as much."

Mitch stroked her cheek with his finger. "Honey, I already do."

~The End~

About the Author

Kari Gregg lives in the mountains of Wild and Wonderful West Virginia with her Wonderful husband and three very Wild children. Once Kari discovered the fabulous play land of erotic romances at RWA's National Conference in 2009, the die was cast. Finally! A market for the smoking hot stories she loves!

When Kari's not writing, she enjoys reading, coffee, zombie flicks, coffee, naked mudwrestling (not really), and . . . coffee!

If you'd like to keep up with Kari, caffeinate yourself then head on over to her website at: http://www.KariGregg.com