The Face of Scandal (11 page)

“Forgot to invite me to the party, I see,” Dylan drawled, closer now.

Hazel tried to focus her gaze. Heat raced up her flanks, peaking her nipples and pinking her cheeks.

“You’re a heavy sleeper,” Ward chided. Breaking away to speak gave Hazel the illusion of a reprieve. He returned to his task a beat later, greedily lapping at her cunt as he clenched his hands around her hips.
Behave yourself
.

Hazel had no desire to get away, but she couldn’t have kept still if she’d tried. She whined when Ward pressed two fingers into her, curling them toward her belly button as if to tickle. Experience had taught him that she was easily aroused and quick to climax. If he drew out his caresses it was only because he was evil. In her dazed, gasping state, Hazel loved him all the more for it.

Dylan knelt down by the couch and slid a hand into her hair, splitting her attention between his warm gaze and the sweet burst of sensation in her cunt. “Feels good?”

She nodded, or thought she did. Muscle coordination was becoming difficult as her body squeezed around Ward’s fingers.

“So tight around me,” he snickered. “Like she can’t bear it when I pull out…” Like a boy showing off on the playground, Ward removed his fingers and watched her writhe against the couch cushion. His grin would’ve been infuriating if it wasn’t for the heat in his eyes.

This was turning him on, too.
Small mercies
. Hazel hooked her hands and ankles around his waist.

“Mm, I think she’s ready,” Dylan observed almost detachedly. “Gonna give her what she wants?”

Ward chuckled. “Not yet.” He flicked his palm against her cunt, a stinging slap echoing off the tall walls of the living room. “I’m not done with her.”

Hazel whined. She couldn’t muster surprise when Dylan took her wrists and pinned them above her head. They liked her immobilized and struggling. She liked it, too, if only because it forced them to put their whole focus on her and only her.

There was something selfish about being the center of their world for the duration of a scene and Hazel wanted nothing more than to prolong the illusion—even if it meant holding off on the orgasm that threatened to engulf her.

With his free hand, Ward palmed her small breasts, pinching and squeezing at her sensitive nipples until Hazel let her legs fall open in silent invitation. His eyes lit up. “Good girl…” He entered her with two fingers, then squeezed in a third when Hazel began to relax around the intrusion.

She blew out a breath, pleasure humming through her bones.

“Too much?” Dylan wondered.

He didn’t sound concerned, but Hazel knew he’d call Ward off if need be. She shook her head. Three fingers were maybe a little thicker than Ward’s cock, but only toward the third knuckle. She didn’t need this much foreplay to get her ready for him and they all knew it.

Evil
.

“Give her one more,” Dylan said, as if reading her mind.

Ward glanced up—not at her—and swallowed hard. His silence might as well have been acquiescence.

Tucking his pinkie against his ring finger and gently working them in proved more ambitious than anything Hazel had tried since college. This time, the pull of loosened muscles had her sucking in a breath.

“Relax,” Dylan whispered, unconcerned. He gave her left hand a fortifying squeeze. “Ward’s hands aren’t that big.”

“You’re not the one I’m fucking with them,” Ward shot back.

It took Hazel a moment to realize he was coming to her defense. But all the clever comebacks in the world did not a mutiny make. When it came down to the wire, Ward fucked her with four fingers, mingling pleasure and pain with a deft touch. He used his other hand to strum her clitoris, but the sensation was dulled, distant.

Hazel breathed through the odd sense of fullness as best she could. She knew she was trapped between him and Dylan, but she also trusted Ward to be careful as he stretched her with nearly the full width of his palm. His gaze was intent on hers, measuring every twitch of discomfort and every sigh of relief. He adjusted accordingly, massaging her muscles with the tips of his fingers. He must’ve understood that this was hurting Hazel, but on whatever plane their desires fit into perfect alignment, he seemed to intuit that it was the
right
kind of pain.

Perhaps that was why Hazel found herself gasping, “One—one more.”

Ward and Dylan traded glances, their strange telepathy kicking in.

“I’ll get the lubricant,” Dylan said softly. He tipped forward and brushed a kiss to Hazel’s lips before withdrawing. He didn’t ask if she was certain—and thank God.

Hazel was afraid she’d chicken out if given the opportunity.

She didn’t have the chance to feel bereft in his absence, not with Ward leaning over her body and claiming her mouth in a bruising, ravenous kiss. His cock was an insistent press against her sopping pussy. She arched into the curve of it, eager to feel him against her even though he couldn’t possibly fit.

“You’re driving me mad, woman,” Ward growled in her ear, tearing his mouth free. Hot breath fanned across her cheek.

Hazel laughed shakily. “Good.”

She didn’t mean to mock him, but Ward pulled back, holding her down with a hand around her neck when she made to follow. He didn’t squeeze, he wouldn’t, but the pressure was enough to remind her of her place. A shiver of want raced up Hazel’s spine.

Yes. Yes, use me, do with me what you like.

Dylan’s footsteps echoed not too far off.

Ward eased his hand free to press slick fingers to her mouth. “Get them nice and wet for me.” It wasn’t a request.

Nearly orgasmic from the pitiless yearning in his voice, Hazel couldn’t comply fast enough. She barely tasted herself on his digits, too greedy for the bizarrely reassuring sentiment of bringing him—
them
—satisfaction. A few seconds was all the window of opportunity she was permitted before Ward retrieved his hand at Dylan’s behest.

Short for breath and feeling slightly untethered from her physical form, Hazel watched Dylan squirt a healthy dollop of translucent lubricant and seize Ward’s wrist. The slow glide of their sheened fingers in the pale blue moonlight made for a hypnotic spectacle—so much so that Hazel almost forgot their purpose until Ward traced her slit with his fingertips.

“Sure you want this?” Dylan asked, all but nonchalantly drying his hands on a towel.

Hazel nodded frantically. She was glad they didn’t ask if she was ready. No amount of self-directed pep-talks could prevent her from feeling at once aroused and terrified as Ward slipped two fingers inside her. A third joined them in short order, barely felt. The fourth hurt less with lubricant to ease the way, but Hazel still tensed up, apprehensive.

To his credit, Ward waited her out. “This is the toughest part,” he murmured, lightly raking his teeth over the jut of her knee.

“How would you know?” Hazel huffed.

“He’s done it before,” Dylan’s answer reached her as though from miles away on a faulty phone line.

She turned her head against the couch cushion, bewildered.
To whom?

Dylan cocked an eyebrow.
Who do you think
?

Her face hot, Hazel gasped as the stretch intensified, a sharp burn kindling where before there had been only a dormant ache. But just as soon as she thought she could take no more, the ache was promptly alleviated.

The sense of fullness lingered, overwhelming. Hazel had only ever felt anything remotely like it with the anal plug Dylan had used on her. The same rigid pressure, the same urge to fidget and twist against the ruthless awareness of flesh and sinew being pushed to the limit of what it could handle. But this was different, too, more intense. She was afraid to look down her own body, yet at the same time couldn’t resist.

“Breathe,” Dylan whispered, sliding his forearm under her nape to help her up. “I know it’s a lot to take…”

To put it mildly.
Perspiration slicking down her brow, Hazel reached for him, for Ward, fumbling for purchase or the nearest anchor. Ward’s wrist was a glistening, rosy shaft, thicker than any cock, tapered abruptly where it disappeared inside her. The visual was too much.

Hazel clenched around his fist with a pitiful whimper, muscles spasming as the tight ball of pleasure at the base of her spine violently unfurled. She was dimly aware of Dylan and Ward speaking to her in soft, urgent voices, but it was already too late. If they were warning her off coming,
that
ship had already sailed. Hazel dug her heels into the couch cushion and climaxed with a ragged sob, rutting into the unbearable, exquisite heft of Ward’s fist inside her.

Pleasure rode her in violent, crashing waves, one tremor fading just as another snagged hold. She cried out with each one, the slightest twitch of movement in her body enough to trigger an avalanche of sensations too turbulent to resist.

It might have gone on for a minute or ten. Hazel lost track of time as her whole body began to quake with exhaustion, thighs shaking on either side of Ward’s shoulders.

“That’s it,” Dylan murmured soothingly in her ear. “That’s right, let it go… Hazel, look at me.”

She tried, but he had to palm her cheek to help her out a little. It surprised her to discover his features slightly blurry. She hadn’t realized she was crying.

“How’re you feeling?”

Tired. Achy. Amazing.
Hazel shot him a dizzy smile. “Can we stop now?”

“Definitely, but you have to help us out. Can you relax a little? Breathe out for me?”

“Oh…” It took conscious thought to lessen the hold of her inner muscles enough so that Ward could pry out his fist. The expression on his face was more bewildered than wary, but Hazel couldn’t figure out why.

She toed his shoulder with a lax foot. “Hey… You okay?”
Don’t go angsty on me now.

Ward nodded. Blond hair stuck out over his ears and a faint sheen of sweat gleamed on his upper lip. “I haven’t come in my pants since I was in high school.”

The tension that had threatened to build up between them dissipated at once.

Hazel blew out a worn-out guffaw. She ached and she was drenched in slick lube and her own liquid arousal, but there was nothing in what they’d done that made her feel anything but pleased. Euphoria lingered as she came down from her high, moored to the certainty that Ward and Dylan would never hold it against her.

Grappling with how much she had enjoyed it could happen later, once she cleaned up and got some shut-eye. This was worth keeping secrets for.

Chapter Eight

“That,” Hazel murmured into the phone, “was amazing.”

Dylan’s laughter rippled like a caress. “I’m very glad to hear that’s how you feel about it.”

“How else should I feel?”

“Used, exhausted—”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely exhausted,” she replied, mindful of keeping her voice low, “but you two sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
And take care of her, after.
It was rare for Hazel to enjoy coddling in the aftermath of a scene, but since last night’s events didn’t technically qualify as her usual brand of kink, she didn’t think it was a matter of turning corners.

“In that case,” said Dylan, “maybe we can do it again. Say, tonight?”

Hazel’s stomach flipped at the sheer proposition, images of Dylan holding her down while Ward toyed with her cunt eliciting a small, eager smile. Then she remembered, she couldn’t. “I’m spoken for tonight,” she confessed.

“Work?”

Hazel winced. “Yeah, I offered to keep Sadie company.” A better friend would’ve done as much.

“Oh. How…how is she?” It wasn’t the first time he’d asked since Sadie had moved back out of the loft. He seemed hesitant to broach the subject.

“She’s fine,” Hazel replied, trying to clamp down on the sudden geyser of aggravation slowly disgorging poison into her belly. This was paranoia. This was
foolish.

A minute ago, she’d been squeezing her thighs and reminiscing about the wonderful sex life that she and Dylan—and Ward—enjoyed.

Dylan hummed under his breath. Hazel pictured him in a sleek, modern office, surrounded by pantsuit-wearing powerhouses and elegant furniture, keyboards click-clacking in the background of their conversation. “You should spend time with her,” he agreed, “we’ll find another time.”

“Do I need to ask your assistant to pencil me into your agenda?” Hazel quipped.

“Sadly, I don’t have one.”

“Oh, no… Well, why didn’t you say so sooner? You know how I enjoy
assisting
you… Sir.”

She fervently hoped she didn’t make up the swift intake of breath that echoed down the line.

“Hazel—”

“Yes, Sir?”

“You’re giving me a hard-on at work.”

She giggled.

“Think that’s funny, do you?” Dylan huffed out a breath. “We’ll see.”

There was such dark promise in his voice that Hazel had to grip the door frame to hold herself upright. “Yes, we will.” Her imagination already churned out scenarios of how he might exact punishment for her naughty behavior. She favored those that involved the flat of his palm swatting her square across her buttocks, or Ward’s hands in her hair, around her throat.

The door that separated diner and staffroom opened with a creak.

“Hazel, you in here?”

“Shit, gotta go.”

“All right,” Dylan replied, “love you.”

The line went dead before Hazel could be sure she’d really heard that parting volley.

“What’s wrong with you?” Travis asked.

“Nothing,” she lied, cheeks numb.
Love you?
Her mind stuck on those two little words like a record needle pulled violently over a beloved LP.

Travis scoffed, “Then do you think you could maybe get your ass out here? It’s just me and Marco, and we’re kind of drowning while you phone sex with your—”

“What happened to Sadie? I thought she was working this morning.”

“She didn’t show,” Travis answered with a shrug. “I ain’t her keeper.”

“You seemed to be getting along pretty well the other day.” Hazel slotted her phone into the pocket of her uniform skirt. She hated admitting that she’d noticed. She hated that she had allowed herself to feel left out, replaced.