Evie fell into bed dead on her feet, and slept snuggled between Ross and Kit’s hot, lean bodies, a position she found it damned hard to rouse herself from when the alarm started shrieking on Monday morning.
Ross rolled out of bed on the third beep and staggered towards the bathroom, making zombie noises. Evie hit snooze and pulled the duvet over her head to guard against the daylight. Everything ached, but she couldn’t stop smiling thinking about what they’d done together. The alarm went off again. This time Kit silenced it. Then he gently blew across her ear.
“Stop it.” Evie hunched her shoulders trying to block the irritation. Instead of backing off, Kit’s lips closed upon her earlobe.
“It’s time to wake up.”
“It so isn’t.” Why the hell couldn’t the working week start on a Wednesday? “You get up,” she grumbled when he continued the tease.
“Babe, I’m already up.”
“Really?” Despite the lethargy gripping her limbs, arousal sparked at the thought of him standing eager. Kit shuffled closer so that he spooned her back, and his cock rubbed into the crevice between the cheeks of her bottom. A low, tired groan escaped from her throat, transforming in the process into a sigh of longing. She grew wet with arousal, wet and eager, even though the fuzzy warmth of sleep still held her in a tenacious grip.
“How about I help rouse you a little?” Without pausing for a response, Kit slung an arm over her hip and brushed his fingers through the V of curls that covered her mons.
“Kit, I’m knackered.” She gave another low moan, aware that she ought to get up. Maureen would give her hell if she strolled in late and could only offer a weekend of total debauchery as an excuse. Her boss, the sister-in-law of Melton Manor’s owners, considered near or total death the only valid reason for not being in work and on time. “I can’t be late.”
“Best get up then.” He hauled the covers off her and smacked her naked rump, before rolling on to his back. “Guess I’ll just have to play with this little triumph of nature all alone.”
She immediately rolled over. Kit lay with one hand clasped behind his mussed up bed hair, the other was stretched surreptitiously towards her half-open sock drawer, where a bottle of lube poked out from between the jumble of mismatched socks.
“I have to work.”
“Yup,” he agreed. “Best get dressed.”
“Definitely. I can’t be late.”
“That is a shame.”
Evie glanced down at the shiny red helm of his cock, and arousal fluttered like a wild bird through her innards, dulling the aches in her limbs and sharpening her addled mind. Maybe she had time for a quick cuddle. It’d take twenty minutes tops to shower and dress, assuming Ross ever vacated the bathroom, and another ten to drive to Melton Manor. That left fifteen minutes for coffee and toast, or savouring Kit. Despite the grumble in her stomach, there was no contest. She reached out and lightly traced the tip of his glans.
“You’ll be late.”
“I won’t. Not if we’re quick.” She grabbed a condom off the bedside table and bypassing any other preamble, rolled it smoothly down his shaft. “Come and get me, tiger.”
Kit gave a mock growl as Evie piled the pillows into rather haphazard mound and draped herself over them on all fours. “Don’t I even get a kiss?” His chest vibrated against her back as he slid into position, sparking a triumphant hiss.
“Yes… oh, yes.”
“Quick, right?” He planted his hands over hers and gripped tight.
Trembling as he repetitively filled her, driving in and out of her at breakneck speed, Evie met him thrust for thrust and revelled in their frantic, driving need. She didn’t realize Ross was back from the shower until the wardrobe door creaked. Seemingly flummoxed by what he’d returned to, Ross put on his shirt and tie with his back facing the bed. When he turned, his cheeks were an unhealthy shade of red.
“Ross,” Evie gasped, registering his embarrassment. “Ross, I’m sorry.” She tried to push Kit away, and stretched a hand towards Ross, but Kit bucked into her twice as fast and refused to let her inch out of his arms. For the first time since their three-way dalliance had begun, she felt a stab of fear. Clearly, there were boundaries in this relationship that needed establishing. Everything they’d done over the weekend had been mutual. If it involved Kit, it involved all three of them. Neither she nor Ross had got too exclusive with him. Leastways, not like this.
“No, it’s okay. We can’t always all be involved. Enjoy yourselves.”
She’d known him too long and knew him too well not to realize that his response was alien to what he wanted.
“Thanks,” Kit muttered, and she watched Ross wince. His obvious hurt made her chest ache.
Ross turned away and hurried downstairs carrying the remainder of his outfit.
“Stop it, Kit! I have to go after him. He’s hurt.”
“No.” Kit held her tight. “He’ll be fine. It’s got to be equal or it won’t last out the day, and he knows that, Evie. If I’d walked in on you and Ross, I wouldn’t have got all pouty, and you didn’t when you walked in on me and Ross. It’s got to be the same rules in all directions.”
“It will be. But we’ve given him a shock.”
“It has to be equal.”
Evie snarled, suddenly infuriated by his tight grip, and his unwillingness to compromise. Ross needed her. What she had with him was far stronger and more important than the newborn bonds forming between herself and Kit in their tentative ménage a trois.
“What you were saying last night, wasn’t quite so hung up on equality. Now, let go.” She smacked at his hands.
“What we were—?” Kit’s hold eased a little. He stopped moving, allowing her room to wriggle free, although he caught her wrist before she scampered off the bed. “So you heard that. I wondered if you were really asleep.”
“I love you,” she’d heard Kit whisper to Ross as they lay still joined together, basking in the afterglow of having come from rubbing their cocks together. They’d thought her sleeping. In truth, she was dozing, but those words had seared themselves through the cotton wool in her head and tore open a hole in her heart. That Kit loved Ross was a truth that she should have known, since it was there in every look they exchanged, but hearing him say it, without a qualifier that included her, had sown a seed of doubt in her mind that continued to grow.
Kit was right. If this was to work out long term, instead of just being a passing fling, the love had to flow in all directions equally.
Kit jerked her onto the bed and rolled her onto her back. He lay on top of her so that their stomachs met, and his erection nestled comfortably between the lips of her sex. Evie squirmed, loving the weight and feel of him, and his closeness, but still angry at his confession during the night, and the way he was keeping her from Ross.
“Evie.” Kit gently brushed the hair away from her face and kissed her lips. “I didn’t mean it to sound exclusive. You know we haven’t known each other nearly as long. You wouldn’t believe me even if I made such an admission to you. It doesn’t mean I won’t ever say that and mean it. I want this to work, after all.” His fingers curled tightly into her plump rear, lifting her, so that he slid up and down between her sex lips, tormenting her with his closeness.
She craved penetration again. But she wanted Ross to be with them. Body on autopilot, she raised her hips in greeting.
“He’ll be absolutely fine, Evie. Guilt’ll kill this faster than anything else. Don’t let it take root.”
The bedroom door swung open again, revealing Ross dressed for work, but with his zip undone and his cock poking upwards over the top of his underwear. He gave them both a rather sheepish grin. “Erm, am I welcome?”
The vibration of Kit’s laughter rippled through her torso and into her limbs. “’Course you’re bloody welcome, you idiot.”
“Ross! How could you think you wouldn’t be?” She stretched a hand out towards him as best she could while Kit continued to crowd her.
“You don’t mind if I join in?”
“Only if you don’t mind being late.”
A shadow of doubt clouded Ross’s face, vanquished a second later as Kit hooked his fingers inside the elastic of Ross’s shorts and tugged him closer.
“I’ll say the traffic was bad.” Ross squeaked as Kit’s thumb traced the curve of his glans. Kit tugged the briefs and trousers down, exposing Ross’s lower half. His cock immediately swung a little higher, so that it seemed to kiss the bush of springy curls that cradled its base and extended upwards in a thin line towards Ross’s navel.
“You should let your hair grow back in,” Evie said to Kit, who was perfectly hairless save for his head and the morning stubble peppering his chin.
The remark prompted a frown. “No way, it’d itch like hell.”
“Only for a day or two.”
“Besides, if I did you’d never be able to tell us apart in the dark.”
She was pretty certain she’d always be able to tell them apart, irrespective of her sight. They were built differently, smelled different, and just felt and moved in completely different ways. Bypassing the issue for another occasion, Evie stretched and shuffled up the bed a little, so that her head extended over the mattress edge into the space between Ross’s parted thighs. Despite his recent shower, the perfume of him wafted over her like a fabled aphrodisiac. She licked his inner thigh, where the skin was a smooth contrast to the more hirsute outer and lower leg. Grasping him for support she stroked her hand up to his bottom and round over his hips to caress the base of his cock.
“Next time you two want to shag before breakfast, let me know so I can set the alarm for earlier.” Ross ruffled Kit’s hair. “God, I love you, Evie.” Ross’s bright blue eyes shone down at her as he rubbed the side of her jaw with one callused thumb, while she continued to lavish attention on his inner thigh and the soft weight of his ball sack.
Kit grinned. “You’d better love me too after this.” He opened his mouth wide to take Ross’s cock.
“Fuck, that’s good.” Ross replied as he guided Kit’s sucking with his hand thrust into his hair. Eyes closed, a dreamy smile stretched across his lips. “Of course I love you too, you sexy bastard, much as I’ve been trying to deny it for years.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Is she really going out with him?
Well, there she is, let’s ask her.”
The upbeat lyrics to the sorrowful song ran through Evie’s head as she trekked over to Kirkley’s tiny post office on a quest for ice cream a few days later. Kit had painted them both with the remainder of the last tub, leaving them sticky and the kitchen table permanently stained with triple chocolate sauce. Personally, she wasn’t in any great hurry to taste ice cream again for a while, but the boys were both fond of it, and Kit had suggested they make alcoholic ice-cream floats, by mixing dollops of rich vanilla ice with spiced rum and cola.
Despite the teeny shop’s rather haphazard business hours, it remained a hive of activity for those possessed of more sobriety than to set foot in the pub before six ‘o clock. The collection of busybodies huddled beneath the green envelope of the glorious weeping willow to the right of the shop door.
“On your own today?” said one of them when Evie emerged with her tub of Neapolitan.
“Yes. Ross is at work.”
This response was met with an approving nod.
“What about your lodger, he still with you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Poor you,” remarked the woman.
“It must be terrible for you,” remarked a second, slight woman with stark white hair. “I shouldn’t like him in my house. One would never know what he might do. I wouldn’t be able to relax.”
In Evie’s mind, she remained draped across the kitchen table, naked, perfectly at ease, while Ross and Kit gave her a glorious massage.
The braying of muttered affirmatives to the petite woman’s assertion snapped Evie from the memory.
“Oh, he’s perfectly house trained. I wouldn’t let him stay if he wasn’t.” Her glib remark earned her an array of scowls.
“I dare say he’s absolutely charming at first glance.” The first woman took up the gauntlet again. “It’s what comes after that concerns me. Christopher Skye is a bad penny, always was. Done some terrible things, that boy.”
Evie tried hard not to smirk as another memory of Kit standing over her naked, stuffing a tea towel into her mouth so she couldn’t squeal while Ross smacked her bare arse reared in her head. Damned bastard, Kit, had then turned his back on her and started playing with his cock, deliberately provoking her with the fact that she couldn’t see what he was up too.
Yes, living with Kit, was deeply frustrating, but, also deeply wonderful, if somewhat exhausting. She could see why he was keen to have two lovers. He’d exhaust just one. She considered her libido fairly high, but Kit’s never seemed to wane, although mostly he enjoyed teasing.
“I expect you’ll be glad to see the back of him. It’s terrible the burden he’s putting on a canny couple like you and Ross.”
“Oh, I don’t know. We quite like having him around.”
The statement met with a line of raised eyebrows.
“Don’t be silly, dear. He’s no right to go intruding on your relationship.”
Evie glanced warily about, heat rushing to her cheeks. Did the whole village know that he’d become far more than her lodger? Had Lillianna’s words of a week ago actually made the circuit round the neighbourhood?
“Still playing his old tricks?” The question sprang from a male throat. It possessed none of the twittering, fake concern of the women in their quest for gossip; rather it roiled with savage dislike.
Evie spun to face the newcomer, whom she vaguely recognized as someone Ross exchanged curiously polite nods with whenever they crossed paths. Tony, she believed him to be. She watched him tap a ciggy from a new packet. He didn’t light it up, merely propped it behind his ear so that it lay parallel to the greying patch in his otherwise mousy-coloured hair.
“I’ve heard he’s a good fuck.” He looked pointedly at her, holding her gaze while he emphasized each syllable. “He’s certainly good at fucking things up. Don’t expect anything good to come of what he’s up to. It never did in the past.” Having etched that statement deep into her psyche, he turned and strolled off towards the A road.
Bewildered, Evie stared after him, clutching her rapidly defrosting ice cream. “What the hell was that about?”
When she turned back to the women for an answer, she found they’d all fled.
The strange encounter wouldn’t leave her. Evie found herself thinking about it in odd moments, wondering what the hell Tony had meant with his words. It hadn’t so much sounded like a warning as a bitter observation. It set her wondering about the way he and Ross nodded to one another, like rival cowboys in some old Western showing grudging respect in order to maintain the status quo. Ross’s response to her text message didn’t entirely quell her anxiety.
He’s the ex of one of Kit’s exes.
She guessed Kit had stolen his girlfriend in the dim and distant past, but that didn’t really explain the reputation Kit had with the old biddies brigade. In the end, she called in to see Kit on her way to work.
Metal scaffolding enfolded the front and side of Rose Cottage, and a team of builders sat perched along the apex of the roof. They wolf whistled as she strolled up the drive, and pointed her around the back when her knock at the door went unanswered. Kit was in the garden, rinsing his hands under the outdoor standpipe.
Evie leaned against the wall of the old potting shed, watching silvery droplets sluice along his arms and into the cuffs of his three-quarter length sleeves. He still hadn’t learned how to dress down for work. Currently he wore leather trousers topped with a T-shirt that probably cost as much as a meal for four in London. Ross had tried to lend him a pair of old combats and a pullover, but Kit had left them on the bed mumbling something about the smell making him too horny to work.
“See something you like?” Kit glanced over his shoulder at her and gave her a wide grin that showed off his crooked canines. He tugged his T-shirt over his head, so that he could soap the rest of his arms and torso without getting the cloth wet. The cold water, coupled with the nip of the breeze made his delicate nipples crinkle into two coppery points. Evie moistened her lips, thinking of biting them.
“Why are you washing outside?”
“Water’s off inside, while I figure out the pipes for the utility room. That and I’m keeping the spies busy.”
“Spies?” Evie glanced up at the builders on the roof, who were now back at work stripping off the old tiles.
“Not them.”
Her gaze encompassed the garden, instead, but beside a couple of starlings pecking at the lawn, there was no other living thing in sight. “What are you on about—spies?”
“Spies…fan club… call ’em what you like. They’ve taken to sitting in the orchard to eat their lunch.”
“Who has?” Now that he mentioned it, she could see an unnatural flash of blue amongst the tree branches and a pink that wasn’t a blossom, but they had to have binoculars to be copping a gaze at Kit from that distance.
“It’s Doris’s granddaughter and her mates that work over at the riding school.”
Negligent of the spluttering water, Evie shoved Kit towards the house. “Jesus, Kit! What have you been doing? They’re barely legal.”
“They’re all perfectly legal. It’s Laura’s twenty-first in a fortnight. Doris told me. And when they’re not here checking me out, they spend most of their time propping up the bar in the pub.”
“Yeah, but still.”
“I haven’t done anything. Not unless washing’s suddenly a crime.” The gleam in his eyes told her explicitly otherwise. Not that she’d go so far as to accuse him of lying, he was merely playing loose with the details.
“Kit…”
“I get a bit lonely up here when you and Ross are at work, especially when I get thinking about all the fun things we’ve been getting up to…” His words tailed off. Evie stared at him, her mouth agape and her breath caught in her throat. He hadn’t…the bastard…He had. “You’ve been…for them! So, they’ve seen.” She had a burning urge to smack him across the face.
“Seen what, Evie?” he teased. Kit reached for a towel drying upon the Aga, but Evie snatched it from his hands and lashed him across the ribs leaving a broad red mark.
“Hey! Ow! What’s that for?” He wrestled her for the towel, and finally pinned her against the wall, so that she lay trapped between the unmovable stone and the wiry unyielding heat of his semi-naked body.
“Bastard,” she hissed into his mouth as his lips descended. Kit stopped short of making contact, so that his breath whispered across her lips, but there was no ravaging kiss in which to disperse her anger. “I can’t believe you’ve done it for them, but not for me.” Although a hint of playfulness rang in her voice, hurt stabbed at her chest. It seemed so unfair that he would perform for strangers but not for a lover.
Kit sandwiched their palms together either side of her head. “Done what, hmm?”
As if he needed her to explain. So, she had a fetish. There was nothing wrong with that.
Ross had suggested two days ago that she quit pestering Kit over that particular act and that they just get on with having fun, his theory being that fewer expectations would make for a less stressful relationship. In theory, it worked. Only, Kit knew what she wanted and that she was constantly biting her tongue. He teased her mercilessly, refusing to let her see so much as him touching himself, although he’d happily spend hours toying with Ross’s cock without the slightest hesitation. He’d even sat with her and watched Ross masturbate.
“Are we by any chance talking about the M word?”
Evie shook her head, still vexed by his teasing. “Actually, I came to ask you about Tony.”
Kit released his grip and dropped his hands to his sides. “What about him?” He rubbed at the scabby line still above his right brow.
“I bumped into him outside the post office. He wasn’t all that friendly.”
“Did he threaten you?”
She shook her head, eyes narrowing with suspicion and alarm at the tone of his voice. “Ross told me that you and Tony have an ex in common.”
Kit rested his bum against the lip of the Belfast Sink. “Not exactly. It was more a case of I got there first. It’s hardly my fault that he took so bloody long to ask her out.”
“Guess he was pretty hung up on her to still be pissed at you after all this time.”
“Guess so.” Kit turned away and pulled his T-shirt on again. “Come on. I’ll drop you at work before I head out to B&Q.”
The feeling of unease between them persisted while Kit gathered his things together. “You realize you still owe me a confession in exchange for the story I told you about Ross and I getting it on in the tent,” he said as he locked up.
Evie sniffed, recognizing the attempt to lighten the mood. “That was hardly about the pair of you getting it on. Hearing about your actual first time might be genuinely worth my attention.”
He laughed. “Come on, Evie. Spice the journey up for me. Tell me something really dirty and maybe I’ll give you a prize.”
Huffily, Evie climbed into the car. There’d be a catch. He’d try and fob her off with some other reward besides the one she wanted. “Nothing to say.”
“Nothing at all? Not even a nice PG-rated fantasy?”
“Nothing.”
“Clearly I need to up the incentive.” Kit’s eyes twinkled as he checked the mirrors before reversing into the lane. “How about if you make it good enough, I’ll really tell you about how Ross and I first got it on. But I’m warning you, it’s not entirely pretty.”
“I can ask Ross; he’ll tell me without the need to barter.”
“Okay, turn me on with your words and I’ll let you watch.”
“Watch what, Kit?” She wanted him to say it, so there could be no squirming out of the arrangement later.
“I’ll shake my
thang
for your pleasure.”
She kept her eyebrows raised and her lips pursed. “You’ve got to actually say it.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll wank for your pleasure.”
“Great!” She grinned as sudden warmth heated her around the ears. Finally… Now, she just needed a good enough story. Unfortunately, the most adventurous sex she’d had prior to Ross and the move to Kirkley was balanced against the sink in her parent’s bathroom, halfway through the most excruciating meet-the-family dinner the universe had ever witnessed. Was it any wonder that particular relationship had only lasted two weeks?
“He’s back, he’s back, he’s back…”
Evie tentatively opened the front door later that day to find Lillianna, her hair newly dyed black and ironed Morticia Adams straight, singing on her doorstep. It was a lovely evening, the sky orange all along the horizon, and the air filled with the crisp, clean scent of the coming spring. Purple-tipped crocuses had reared their heads all along the strip of green that bordered the street. Evie peered quizzically at her friend. “Who’s back…?”
Lillianna playfully slapped her cheek.
“I see you’re in la-la land again. It must the lack of fucking sleep your getting, or is it just the fucking? Your favourite lover boy just drove into the village. I saw him pull up at his place not more than ten minutes ago.”
“I don’t have a favourite… and he’s only been to B&Q.” Evie stared nonplussed into the twilight. “It’s not like he’s been away for a week. I saw him at lunchtime.”