Desiring an Angel, page 13
part #1 of Missing Link 3 Series
My pussy contracted at the gentle nip of Ashton’s teeth over my lower lip, and I realized my wine glass tipped.
“Oh shit!” I pulled back, righting the glass even though a healthy swallow or two had added to the pool water. “Sorry. You kind of made me forget I was holding this.”
Ashton chuckled like he didn’t care I’d spilled wine in their pool I’d lazed around in the day before. “I’m not sorry.”
I smiled from the radiant joy washing through me, knowing too many feelings shone in my eyes. “Then I’m not either.”
We laughed again, and the silence from the other side of the patio drew my focus.
Rhett held my gaze while finishing off his wine, and I swallowed hard, my upturned lips losing their ability to stay that way.
He hadn’t been nearly as mean or cutting at dinner as I’d expected for someone with his personality type—especially considering all the stupid shit I’d said when we first met. I appreciated he seemed to be giving me the opportunity to prove myself to him, but that only intensified my itchy feet and jittery insides.
“I’m heading in to bed,” he announced, standing to his feet. Ashton shifted away as though to follow him, but Rhett held up his hand. “I don’t mind if you stay up later,” he told Ashton, “and even though the sight of the two of you kissing is hot as fuck, I just can’t keep my eyes open any longer.”
He turned and strode into the house.
Ashton sat on the seat’s edge, poised to move, yet he stayed put as Rhett had suggested.
“You can go,” I said even though I wanted to beg him to remain with me.
He hesitated another moment but shook his head and slid back into place, his thigh against mine. Ashton retrieved his glass from where he’d set it on the pool’s ledge. “It is still early, I’ve got a gorgeous woman beside me, and the weather couldn’t be better.”
“It’s California—the weather is always perfect,” I stated, shivering over the thoughts of winter winds across the plains.
No way in hell I would ever go back there.
“Were you serious about helping me make a resume tomorrow? I’m not sure there’s much to brag about with my work history, but I guess I should have one anyway.”
“We’ll find you something, Sky. But in the meantime, I hope you’ll treat our home as your own. You definitely acquainted yourself with the kitchen.”
“And the rest of both floors,” I declared before thinking I ought to keep my explorations to myself even though he had suggested I do so.
“Did you open every drawer and cupboard you found?” he asked, his eyes telling me he joked.
“Spent too much time rifling through your underwear drawers and bedside tables,” I shot back, giggling.
“So, you found our stash of sex toys.”
I choked on the wine I’d sipped, coughing while Ash laughed. “N-No,” I sputtered since I hadn’t gone that crazy in my nosiness.
“Sometime soon you’ll get to play with us.” Ash held my gaze while swallowing some wine.
“Tease,” I whispered.
He took my wine and set both our glasses aside. “Come here.” Warm hands clasped my waist and easily pulled me through the water so I sat atop his lap, straddling his strong, thick thighs. He slid his hands around my waist, drawing me closer.
“Oh!” I touched his chest with both my palms as his hard length brushed against my aching clit. A few gyrations would easily get me off—
“I have a good feeling about this, Sky,” he murmured, the nickname he’d gifted me causing tears to spring to my eyes.
“So do I,” I whispered, sliding my hands over his shoulders and settling my breasts against his chest.
He brushed his nose over mine, teasing as he’d done before the first time our lips had become acquainted. “We’ve only just met, but it’s like we were destined to come into each other’s lives at the perfect time. I know that’s weird—”
“It’s not weird. I feel the same way.”
Ashton pulled his head back enough he could see my face. “Falling would be so easy, and even though I should guard my heart…I don’t want to.”
“Neither do I.”
He banded one arm around my waist, his other hand sliding up my back to tangle in my messy bun. “The timing isn’t perfect for Rhett with his mom and all—he doesn’t know how to handle grief, but your being here will help.”
“Distraction,” I added what he didn’t say.
“No—you’re an emotional creature who can’t help but draw others out of their shells. Rhett needs you in his life just as much as I do.”
A sweet ache swelled inside my chest.
Was it possible to fall in love so quickly? To experience a connection so deep you feared living if the other disappeared from existence?
Overwhelmed and having no words to explain the feels Ash had woken up inside me, I leaned in and brushed his soft lips with mine.
“Sky,” he murmured, tightening his hold on me before deepening our kiss.
There was no rush of lust, no frantic clothes-ripping to sate our bodies, but he quickly took me to the edge of reason.
Had Ashton pulled out his dick, pushed my bathing suit off to the side to reveal my aching pussy, I’d have gladly let him thrust up into me. Spill in me. Make a baby inside me.
I hovered on the edge of ecstasy, whimpering over the fact two layers of clothing separated our skin where I needed his touch the most—but he eased me back, slowing the rising urgency in our kiss.
We both breathed heavy when our lips separated, the moonlight and the underwater lights of the pool illuminating the desire etched on his face. Black pupils dominated the hazel-green of his eyes, a flush on his cheeks.
“Rhett,” he whispered, and I knew that’s why he’d stopped us from taking things too far.
I nodded because I agreed, even though I’d have given anything to tip over the edge and come undone in Ashton’s arms. “It’s probably best if we both went to bed too,” I suggested, sliding from his lap.
He let out a sigh that sounded as frustrated as I felt and followed me out of the pool and back into the kitchen once we’d dried off.
“Leave them,” Ashton said when I reached to turn on the water to wash our wine glasses and the one Rhett had left in the sink. He entwined our fingers and pulled me against his warm body, nosing along my jawline to my ear. “Stay in our bed tonight?”
A shiver slid down my spine, raising the hairs on every inch of my body. “T-To sleep?”
“Yes.” He kissed my cheekbone, my nose, then my lips. “I’m tired, but I’m not ready to let go of you just yet.”
I hesitated from answering, thinking of Rhett and what he might want, but the desire to give Ashton what he asked for attempted to sway my mind.
Strong people, intelligent people knew what choices to make. They had knowledge of what to do and when, then did it—exactly like Nora had done since our childhood.
Thoughts of inadequacy slammed into me, and I tightened my hold on Ashton’s hand.
“Will Rhett be upset to wake up and find me sharing a bed with the two of you?” I decided to ask, not wanting to step on any toes.
“I already talked to him about it, and he gave his consent.”
My breath rushed from me as my heart fluttered. “Then yes.”
A rash decision, but I didn’t care.
His smile in response to my answer sent tingles throughout my body.
Ash led me from the kitchen, flicking off the lights behind us. My pulse thundered as we crept up the stairs, but the warmth of his grasp on my hand gave me courage to continue forward.
I left him in the hallway beside my bedroom door, promising him I would go to him and Rhett as soon as I changed out of my wet suit.
“Don’t make me wait too long,” he whispered and quickly kissed me.
Hands shaking, I stripped off the wet bathing suit and hung it in my bathroom to dry. I brushed the taste of wine off my teeth and tongue and pulled on a thin tank top and sleep shorts.
Just to sleep, I reminded myself, but I couldn’t keep arousal from flushing my chest and heating my core. All four limbs shaky, I hurried down the hallway for the other side of the house and their bedroom.
The door stood open, the large windows spilling in moonlight across their king-sized bed.
Rhett breathed deeply from one side—light still shone beneath their bathroom door.
I stood unmoving, inhales shallow while waiting for Ashton to finish readying for bed. No way in hell would I climb onto that mattress without him even though I felt sure Rhett slept.
Ash exited a minute or so later, wearing boxer briefs that hugged his half-hard length and ass. The rest of his muscular body wove in and out of moonlight and shadow as he approached the bed.
Ash held out his hand.
Swallowing a rush of drool, I moved toward him.
“Okay?” he whispered as our hands clasped.
“Yeah.” I sure as hell didn’t sound it, and the jitters quaking me in my skin didn’t back up that answer, but nothing in that moment raised any sort of discomfort or thoughts that I ought to leave.
Ashton tugged me, leading me to their bed. He crawled in first, his back to Rhett. As though his slumbering lover knew he’d arrived, Rhett wrapped his arms around Ash, sighing heavily.
My chest squeezed tight, but Ash held out his hand again, and I couldn’t deny the offering. Like a ninja squirrel, I scampered carefully onto the bed, making him chuckle with how I couldn’t seem to join him quickly enough.
“Hi,” he whispered, pulling me fully against his front.
“Hi back,” I whispered my reply, arousal once more pulsing through me at the warmth of his skin, the hardness of muscle along my front.
Rhett’s arm lay trapped between our chests, and he shifted, letting out another soft exhaled sigh.
Ash smiled and kissed me gently. “Sleep, Sky.”
I doubted that would happen anytime soon, but I closed my eyes anyway, attempting to ignore the more than semi hardened dick pressed against my thigh and the heat of Rhett’s arm against my beaded nipples.
Torture of the sweetest kind…
21
Ashton
Roiling nausea pulled me from sleep, and I swallowed a few times, determined to will away the sudden need to vomit.
My body didn’t listen.
It was the middle of the night, and both Rhett and Skylar slept like the dead as I maneuvered from the heaven between them to hurry for the guest room’s bathroom so my retching wouldn’t wake them.
Violent heaves emptied my stomach, and still I hugged the toilet, my insides attempting to exit up my raw throat.
I ached a little, but I wasn’t feverish, didn’t feel sick beyond the stomach.
Not food poisoning, otherwise I wouldn’t be alone in my misery since we’d all eaten the same dinner.
Definitely a tummy bug…
Memories flooded my brain of my pale twin weak and vomiting with the same kind of force I did.
I retched again, coughing on nothing.
“Fuck.” I spit the acidic taste from my mouth, eyes clenched tight thinking about Archer and the signs no one in our family had considered to be serious until it was too late for a cure.
My heart sped up, and I went lightheaded. I lay on the cool marble floor, focusing on counting to keep a panic attack from taking over.
Or were my dizziness and shortness of breath two more symptoms…
I turned off my morbid thoughts, focusing on the picture in my head of Skylar in our bed. Her soft, satiny skin beneath my fingertips, the way she fit against me as perfectly as Rhett did.
He had been out of sorts since learning about our houseguest, but I hadn’t expected any different. He did, however, surprise me by conversing like a normal human being over dinner, same as he did whenever we’d met up with potential women.
That hope I’d had remained throughout the evening, overshadowing the slight nausea and indigestion that had returned after eating.
He’d watched us in the pool after giving me the okay to invite Sky into our bed, but his gaze remained closed off as usual. He wasn’t averse to her—I recognized the flashes of heat in his gaze a few times during dinner.
When he reached out of his own accord to touch and taste would be the day I knew his interest went beyond the physical. He’d never agreed to sex with a woman since we’d begun searching for our angel unless he approved of her character.
If something happened to me…
The air rushed from my lungs as though I’d been punched.
No, no, no…
I opened my eyes and blinked against the harsh light I’d flicked on overhead before falling to my knees.
Rhett would be torn apart if I got sick and cancer ate at my blood and bones like it had to Archer. He would need someone to hold, a rock to cling to, someone else to love him and help him deal with his emotions.
“You’re overthinking this shit,” I muttered to myself and pushed up to lean against the wall. “Stop focusing on it…”
The lightheaded feeling had faded, the nausea gone.
“It’s acid reflux or a virus that needs to work its course, nothing more.”
I used one of the packaged toothbrushes we kept beneath the sink for guests, scrubbing away the taste of bile and acid from my mouth.
When I returned to our bedroom, Rhett hadn’t moved, but Skylar had rolled over to face the wall. Her hand lay beneath her face, without doubt leaving finger lines indented in her cheek. Lips parted, she breathed quietly, as peaceful as a sweet little lamb.
A perfectly-sized Ashton space lay empty between the two of them.
I couldn’t help my smile or the sense of contentment as I crawled into the spot I’d vacated. Rhett gravitated to my back, same as he always did in his sleep, his arm once more wrapping tight around my chest to hold me close.
I reached out for Skylar’s waist, tugging until she stirred and shifted toward me. Nosing over her mass of lush hair, I breathed in the scent of coconuts, my fingers splayed over her soft belly.
Blood trickled southward into my groin regardless of the previous half-hour of heaving and talking myself out of a panic attack.
My pinkie moved on its own, caressing back and forth along the bottom hem of Skylar’s tank top, easing beneath to rub over soft skin.
She sighed and snuggled closer, the round globes of her ass pressing right up against my dick.
Fucking hell.
I closed my eyes, my pinkie still caressing, my heartbeat picking up pace.
Skylar shifted against me, a blatant rub against my hard cock.
“Sky?” I whispered, and she pushed my hand down over her belly, cupping my palm over her pussy. Damp heat radiated from her core through her shorts, and I bit back a groan.
She moved against me as though seeking release. Asleep or not, she’d given me the green light at the question in my voice when I’d said her name.
Rhett had said I could pleasure her…
My dick bucked against her ass, wanting in on the fun too, but fucking would wait until Rhett was fully on board.
I shifted my hold back up to her belly—and slid my entire hand beneath her sleep shorts.
No. Fucking. Panties.
“Fuck,” I whispered, my eyes clenched tight as my fingers slid over slippery, smooth folds.
She’d shaved herself bare, and the nub of her clit swelled, thicker than I’d ever felt on a woman. While I’d never gone down on a woman before, my tongue salivated to suckle and lick, draw her hardened flesh as deep into my mouth as possible.
Skylar lifted her hips toward my fingertips trailing over her clit, and I slid them down, giving her what she wanted.
Wet heat clasped at my middle finger as it pressed deep into her pussy.
A whimper assured me she was awake.
I ground against her ass, moving in time with my finger as I fucked in and out of her soaked core.
Precum smeared inside my briefs, but I pushed against the desire to rut and focused on making her feel good. “Take these off,” I whispered, pulling from her slick heat to tug on her shorts.
She shimmied quietly, gently, as though having no wish to pop the bubble around us, and I snaked my free arm beneath her torso, up under her shirt. She lifted her thigh, offering free access. I gently squeezed her hardened nipple and slid two fingers into her tight sheath.
“Ash,” she whispered, arching as I ground the heel of my palm against her clit and fucked her with slow strokes.
“Come on my fingers,” I whispered over her ear, needing her release more than I wanted to find my own.
Either Skylar had gone too long without an orgasm or our kissing earlier had edged her to the point of combustion even though she’d slept.
She came quickly with a quiet gasp, her pussy clamping down on my fingers, her cum coating them. A shudder rippled over her, and the second she went lax, I lifted my fingers from between her thighs and sucked them clean.
Sweet yet musky, her taste throbbed lust through my groin. She rolled to face me, grasping my face and kissing me deeply as though wanting to suck her flavor from my tongue.
She reached down between us, but I grabbed hold of her wrist to keep her from my dick.
“Please,” she whispered, but I pulled our clasped hands back up between our chests.
“Go back to sleep, sunshine,” I murmured even though I knew I wouldn’t be doing so any time soon if at all the rest of the night.
She huffed but settled in, nestling me tightly between her soft body and Rhett’s much harder frame.
I should have felt trapped in a hell of frustration, but I’d found heaven. Balls aching, dick throbbing, I closed my eyes and smiled.
Someday, it would be my dick her pussy tried to suck in deeper, attempting to coax every last drop of cum from my balls to coat her womb.
22
Rhett
Reality leaked into my brain, pulling me from sleep, but I ignored my mind’s desire to fire on all cylinders and start planning for the day.
