Seeking Two Lovers, page 15
A gorgeous couple. Dazzling, I realized, glancing between the two of them. Sexy as hell.
Fuck, my heart hurt.
Grey got up from the table when Lily claimed she had to jet out of there for her shorter late morning shift, but she insisted she’d just take an Uber back to the lounge where we’d left her car.
Lily leaned down to press a lingering kiss to my lips, keeping me in my chair. “Thank you for a wonderful night, Blaine. Next weekend can’t come soon enough.” Her dark eyes sparkled like fireflies in the darkness inside me, bringing a bit of hope that I wouldn’t bend beneath depression’s press.
A minute later, Grey and I sat across from one another again.
Alone.
The sweetness of vanilla had dissolved from the air we breathed, the quietness of the house almost stifling.
“What’s wrong?” Grey asked, breaking the stillness between us. He settled back in his chair, legs spread, one hand cradling the coffee mug on the table in front of him.
Recognizing the determined glint in his eye, I knew I wouldn’t be able to just walk away or toss some bullshit excuses his way.
“I didn’t want her to leave,” I offered one of the truths bouncing around in my head.
“Same.” He blew out a breath.
“I hoped to spend the whole day in bed with the two of you.” I offered him another thought from the recesses of my brain.
One of Grey’s eyebrows popped upward, and those blue eyes of his delved deep inside me like they’d done earlier that morning in bed. “Not just her?” His voice hinted at teasing, but his intense gaze didn’t.
I glanced around the table covered with our dirty dishes and empty orange juice glasses. “No,” I finally answered, unable to give him my eyes.
“Why not?” Of course the fucker would push. He’d seen my unease, had probably sensed it before I named it in my own damn mind.
Grey was aware of a lot of the shit in my head—but I had kept some from him.
I felt confident in our friendship in that he wouldn’t be disgusted and kick me to the curb, but laying myself completely bare would bring pity I had no wish to see on his face.
For the first time, a deep-seated yearning pushed against my reluctance to open up fully and reveal every last horrid piece of me.
I wanted Grey to know me inside and out. Craved it desperately.
Regardless of Lily and the situation among the three of us, there could be no barriers between us, and that started with the truth I’d kept from him.
“Those boxes he locked us in.” I swallowed hard, forcing myself to lift my head.
Grey nodded, already aware of how Abraham Quell dished out punishment on those who failed to follow his teachings.
“After our discipline…” I rubbed sweaty palms over my boxers that had ridden up to cup my shriveled cock, my brow furrowing.
Grey leaned forward, elbows onto the table, palm outstretched. “Hand. Now.”
I laced my fingers through his and was able to fill my lungs again.
“They took us into the temple and showered us with love to show their forgiveness.” My throat tightened against the breakfast gurgling in my stomach.
“Love.”
I nodded at Grey’s quiet statement.
“Was it sexual?”
Unable to find my voice, I jerked my head in a nod. Tremors rippled over me, and I shuddered hard enough he got up, yanked me to my feet, and wrapped his solid arms around me. One along my lower back, the other hand grasping my nape, keeping my cheek tucked against his shoulder.
Grey clutched me to his hard, bare chest, and I burrowed into him like I’d done dozens of times before.
Eyes wide, I refused the darkness to suck me down, my focus on the coffee pot atop the counter beside us.
“Both of them?” he asked quietly, no trace of pity in his voice.
Only anger.
“Yes,” I whispered, wetness hazing my vision.
“Fuck.” Grey squeezed me tighter. “Tell me everything,” he demanded. “I want it all, B. Let me help you carry this fucking burden. Please.”
The pleading in his tone was my undoing.
I started at the beginning, the first time I’d been tossed into the black prison of metal that sat atop bare ground and reeked of sweat, piss, and shame.
I’d been eight years old.
22
Greyson
Fondled at age eight.
Sucked at nine.
Sodomized at ten—a mere fucking week before I’d met him for the first time.
All ending with Quell’s “gift” coating his skin, done in the name of forgiveness and godly love.
I fought to keep from vomiting, my head tipped back against the couch we’d made our way to, Blaine tucked up against my side like the child his voice suggested he was.
Timid and terrified, he trembled against me, and I couldn’t begin to imagine the racket in his head. The words continued to pour from him, a torrent of sick filth that had poisoned him for most of his life.
Once the fuck face Quell had his fill, Blaine been gifted to his wife Clara for “aftercare.”
The stately, raven-haired, blue-eyed cunt probed and prodded, licked, and sucked to clean Blaine of her husband’s seed.
Sick. Fucks.
They deserved an eternity suffering in fire and brimstone, damnation along with the worst of souls burning in hell.
My stomach clenched like granite at the thought of Blaine’s sister, the abuse she probably experienced as well.
And her belly swelled from those same gifts.
If Blaine learned what the Higgins had found out for me, he would lose his shit. I didn’t doubt he would hop on a flight, steal a gun, and break into the compound, bullets flying.
But how could I keep the truth from him? He would hate me if he somehow learned on his own and that I’d known all along—
“I dream about the other kids who didn’t escape like I did.” Blaine sat quieter, slumped against me as though emotionally drained, the well of nightmares in his soul running dry. I doubted it would stay empty consider the vividness of his memories. “I hadn’t ever been close with anyone other than Sarah, my sister.”
His voice cut off, his audible swallow harsh in my ears, and I fucking knew I had to spill my guts too.
“I left her there, regardless of what awaited her as she grew older.” Blaine gulped air into his lungs as though desperate to keep from sobbing. “She was twelve when I took off, and Quell hadn’t yet touched her. Anytime I caught him eyeing her, I would misbehave to take his focus off her.”
More time in the box, more agony on his knees, I expected.
My eyelids slammed shut, teeth clenched tight to hold back from screaming the curses boiling inside my head.
“She was so beautiful. Gorgeous hazel-green orbs that hadn’t hazed over from pain or a conflicted soul.” Blaine let out a shuddered sigh and lifted away from me. Palms scrubbed over his face, and I finally caught sight of his red-rimmed eyes.
My hand found his scruffy cheek on its own, and I went with my desire, pulling him closer until our foreheads rested together.
I inhaled an easier breath with the closeness, allowing my love for him to coat the fucked-up mess he’d unleashed.
“What can I do, B?” I whispered, unable to add to his misery in that moment. “Tell me how to make this shit fade inside your head so you can move forward in your life.”
His exhale ghosted over my lips, and fuck, how I wanted a taste, but I willed away the blood swelling my dick.
“Anything,” I pushed. “Whatever you need.”
“It’ll never fade,” he stated quietly, seeming more settled inside. “But you just being you—listening and acting as my rock makes living easier.”
I wished that rock he spoke of allowed for even deeper hardness, one he would accept…
Fucking Quell had ruined Blaine and my hopes of loving him in the way I craved. He would never allow a sexual touch from another man.
Heart heavy and eyes stinging, I sat back, needing a bit of space before I succumbed to the urge to lean in and take his lips regardless of the truth that he would push me away in disgust.
Devastation punched through my chest over his defeated gaze.
Protectiveness rose inside me.
I wanted to insist he see a therapist, someone with the knowledge to help him find some sort of healing. Fuck knew I didn’t have the words to guide him.
But if it had taken him over a decade to release that shit to me, he’d never share it with anyone. Not even a professional bound by patient privacy laws.
“You aren’t disgusted by me?” Blaine whispered, glancing down at his palms.
“Never,” I rushed to reply. “There’s nothing you could say or ever do to change my love for you.”
He nodded an acceptance of my declaration and filled his lungs, a shudder ripping through him as though he’d placed a lid back on what he’d let out. “Grey…I-I didn’t tell you all this out of…well, manipulation to keep you all to myself.”
I frowned at his bowed head. “What?”
“I see how good you and Lily are together. How you fit perfectly in each other’s lives. I won’t stand in the way if she is the one you’re able to let in to fill that hole your mom’s passing left inside you.”
Fucking Blaine.
Goddamn, did I love him. I grabbed onto him and hugged him tight, my throat attempting to close off. “I won’t ever leave you, B,” I rasped. “Ever.”
Fuck, how I wanted to pour out the rest of my thoughts and feelings, assure him he was it for me—that Lily could be the bridge between us—but enough turmoil had stirred inside his poor mind as it was.
I gave him my affection, stayed steady as that rock he needed me to be. Not that soaking in his tight grip on my back was any hardship.
My stomach growled, and I grimaced at the hunger pains knifing at me, more than ready to set aside the heaviness of serious discussions for awhile. The topics of my unrequited love and his sister could wait another day or so. “Not that you’re up for food after that, but I’m fucking starved again.”
He pulled back reluctantly and gave me a shy glance. “I could eat.”
I needed something sweet to take my mind of the goddamn shit lingering over me and the longing sharp as a blade still bright inside my heart.
“Donuts.”
Blaine chuckled. “How the hell you don’t have cavities every time you go in for a cleaning is a complete mystery to me.”
“Come on.” I hopped up and yanked him to his feet. “Shower. Clothes. Frosted donuts for lunch. Then we’re going to snuggle on the couch and watch some feel-good movies. Pizza and beer—chardonnay for you—then I’ll even let you be the little spoon in my bed if you need me to.”
Pink fused Blaine’s cheeks at the suggestion we share my bed.
But he didn’t say no.
Spewing the shit of his past had worn Blaine’s ass out. He dragged all day, napping on the couch with his head on my thigh for a couple hours while I ran my fingers through his hair. We’d gorged on donuts, pizza, chips, and then more donuts throughout the day.
Were it not for the other talk we needed to have and Lily’s presence in the back of my mind, I’d have been perfectly content.
The cushion on the opposite side of where Blaine lounged against me appeared too damn empty. I wished our girl was there, all those soft curves and the sweet scent of vanilla filling my nose with every inhale, her soft hand in mine soothing the part of me that Blaine couldn’t. Wanting didn’t begin to describe the stirrings inside me for him tucked in against my left and Lily snuggling on my right.
I clung to the image in my mind, closing my eyes to the fantasy she’d brought on by crashing into my life.
She lusted for us both with hunger I’d seen on countless women’s faces, and I couldn’t wait to give it to her.
Share Blaine with her.
I wouldn’t envy his dick sliding into her when I’d prefer it be my body he breached. I wanted her to enjoy his attention in the same way I lusted to watch his face as he found release inside her body.
It would be the closest I would ever come to having my desires fulfilled. No jealousy rose to choke me on either end. Lily would give me a way to live vicariously.
It would have to be enough.
But for how long?
At twenty-four, she had a lot of life to live. Not that Blaine and I didn’t, but we’d seen our fair share of wading in the waters around us. I’d partaken ten times as much as Blaine, but with him being an old soul, I expected he’d want to settle down sooner than I ever considered.
Fuck, I couldn’t think too long on that shit.
Made my insides twist up tight.
By eleven that night, I’d grown stiff and aching from slouching on the couch with Blaine drooling on my thigh. When I shifted to ease from beneath him, he woke and flopped over.
“Sorry,” I muttered over disturbing his slumber, standing and stretching out my back.
“S’okay. Time is it?”
“After eleven.”
“Fuck.” He rubbed his eyes and rolled to perch on the edge of the couch. Dropping his hands, he peered up at me, shoulders rounded, hunched over.
“Okay?” I asked, my concern overriding the thought of how close his mouth was to my cock.
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat and stood, forcing me to take a couple steps away. “Can I…uh…” His motion toward my bedroom door let me know what he couldn’t find the words for.
“I meant what I’d said.” I laced my fingers through his, clicked off the TV with my free hand, and led him across the living room. “You’re welcome in my bed whenever the hell you want, B.”
He shuffled into my bathroom while I tossed the throw pillows onto the floor and pulled back the comforter Lily had righted earlier that morning. Usually, I slept in the pitch black, but knowing Blaine’s preference for a night-light, I dimmed the overheads as low as they would go—same as I’d done the night before after he and Lily had passed out in my bed.
Blaine stumbled from the bathroom minutes later, bleary-eyed and haggard as hell.
I hurried past him to do my business, wanting to crawl in beside him before sleep claimed him again.
He lay like a lump in the middle of my mattress when I came out of the bathroom, and I slid beneath the blankets, being the big spoon—but keeping my groin well away from his boxer-covered ass while settling my arm over his waist.
A heavy sigh left him lax against me, and I closed my eyes, breathing in the subtleness of his woodsy bodywash and the scent of his skin beneath I would know anywhere. Eyes closed. All Blaine.
Mine.
Fuck, how I wished.
My throat tightened, and I pressed my lips against his hair. “Sleep, baby,” I murmured, sure he already did.
23
Lily
Haley had been home when I dragged my ass in after the longest shift ever. My legs were rubber, my core still ached, but my heart bounced in my chest, same as it’d done earlier that morning when I’d rushed home to change for work.
My cousin hadn’t been home to grill me for deets, otherwise, I’d have been late for sure. She’d texted me begging for details about my date with the bossy asshole, but I simply replied with a Later.
There was too much to tell, and I didn’t even bother ringing her over my break since she worked that afternoon too.
Grey had called me beautiful perfection and Blaine had agreed while snuggling me between the two of them. Warmth tingled through me regardless of how often I reminded myself to not let my feelings get ahead of my thoughts.
Still, giddiness kept me awake all day, but the second I sat with a glass of wine in my hand, Haley peering at me impatiently and waiting for me to spill my guts, exhaustion slammed into me.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Haley poked me with her toe from where she lounged in the couch’s opposite end. I could feel the anticipation radiating off her. “Spill the goods. Details about the details. I want it all. Obviously, that bossy fucker had his way with you…”
“Mind-blowing.” I sighed the inadequate description, resting my head against the back of the couch.
“More,” she demanded.
“I don’t even have the words, Haley.”
“Fucking find them. I’m dying over here!”
I giggled at her feigned hysterics, finally rolling my head to look at her. “I’ve found them, Haley.”
She blinked. “What?”
“My two lovers. Blaine is Greyson—Scott’s roommate.”
“Wait. What?” Her voice raised to a squeak, eyes popping wide.
“Greyson Scott. Blaine is his roommate. I had no fucking clue—and neither did they when I showed up to find them together at the bar Grey told me to meet him at. Talk about a clusterfuck,” I said, grinning at the memory of Blaine’s explanation.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out! You’re serious right now?”
“Yeah.” My throat tightened at the truth my emotions had insisted upon hours earlier but I hadn’t given voice to until that moment.
Damnit, I wanted to believe in fairy-tale endings.
So. Damn. Badly.
I choked out a laugh through threatening tears, telling her about how I’d imagined Blaine and Grey together with me before I’d learned the connection between them.
Finding them there at the same table, sure they’d see me as a whore, being assured they didn’t, having their attention lavished over every inch of my body…
Not undivided, though.
I remembered the looks exchanged between the two men, the desire I’d seen clear as day, an unpleasant reminder of why I didn’t want to put my heart on the line.
“Lily…” Haley’s voice trailed off with concern in her tone as I shared that bit of information.
“I know.” I closed my eyes again, wanting them both so damn much, but the fear of what might happen snaked in to steal some of my fantasy come to life.
“You need to confront that shit head-on,” Haley stated, her tone firm. “Make them face it and figure it out so you aren’t left with a broken heart if this all evolves into more than a few bucket list nights.”
