“I can’t believe you keep reminding me what a dick you are,” she responded to Hatch. “You’re insulted that I don’t trust your motives? Too bad. If you don’t like it, feel free to exit the way you came in.”
“You should know better.” Hatch jutted his chin out and Charlie let it go, stepped back to let Hatch take his lumps.
“And how should I know better? You walked away. I didn’t push you away. I didn’t make you leave. You left. You said yourself you’ve changed since you were on the road. It’s presumptuous of you to assume I’d know you any more than you know me. I knew a different Hatch. You knew a different Summer. I can’t assume anything.”
Hatch sucked in a breath as the truth of what she said pelted him with each sentence.
“Points taken. This isn’t a gimmick. We don’t need them. We both want you. I want to know the new Summer because I loved the old Summer very much. I want to know you. I want to be with you. I want you to trust me and know me again. I want you to trust me enough to give me more than just your body.”
Panic began to eat away at her resolve. It was easier when he was being an ass. Easier to hold him back and away from any part of her that could open up to caring for him again. But his genuine desire to make up for what he’d done to her was something she found it difficult to keep back.
She’d always clicked with Hatch. From an early age it had been Hatch and Summer and then it wasn’t and that was hard to bear.
But that connection was still there, if battered and worse for wear. The power of it, of what it used to mean to her, of what it still did in many ways was hard to resist.
And it was more than just Hatch at that point. There was Charlie who watched them both with knowing eyes.
Her head spun at how fast this was moving. At how much she wanted Hatch again. How much she wanted to learn Charlie. She was so very afraid of how much she wanted them both. Everything was so twisty and complicated.
“Why I thought it was a good idea to agree to this I don’t know.”
Charlie took her hand. “He’s being a dick, but under all the bluster he’s genuine. He’s being a dick because he’s scared that he’s going to lose you a second time and it’ll be his fault. Again. This isn’t a gimmick. We want you. Not just for tonight or a few weeks.”
“You don’t even know me.”
Even as she said the words she knew that some things just were. Her New Earth roots ran deep. Truth was truth, even if you didn’t want to admit it. Especially if you weren’t ready to face it.
Charlie’s grin made her spine ease a little. “The first time I met Hatch I knew I wanted him. I knew I wanted to be with him. When I looked up and saw you at the café it was like someone had punched me in the gut. I came back and told Hatch about you and then when you kissed me…each time you’ve kissed me I’ve become surer and surer. I don’t know you. Not what your favorite color is, though I’m going to say blue given how much of it you wear and have around here. Or what your favorite food is. We can learn about each other over time. We’re not asking for forever right this second. We just want you to know our intentions and for you to give us a chance.”
“This is going to end badly.”
Hatch snorted. “Bullshit. You’re scared. I’m sitting here and I’m telling you I want you. I want you so much my hands are shaking and I’m trying to be cool and pretend they aren’t. I’m scared too. Unlike Charlie, I’ve been inside you. I’ve had my cock buried in your sweet, hot cunt and I’ve never forgotten. I’ve had your lips on me in every imaginable place. I want it again. I want to walk into a room and have you shift your attention from whatever you’re doing straight to me because we’re that connected. I had that once. I was important to you. I knew your heart. I want to be yours again.”
He’d never been hers. She’d realized that as she’d watched him drive away in a caravan those years before. She’d been young then and it had broken her. She was different now. Older. Stronger. More self-confident. But love could break you in ways nothing else could.
Instead of throwing that in his face, she held it back, needing to deal with it on her own first. “What about Charlie, then?”
Hatch’s gaze flicked to Charlie and there was no mistaking the affection and love there. For whatever reason, it made her feel better, not worse. “People create triads every day. It’s tricky because there’s one more person but I want him too. I’ve got him and have no plans at all to give him up. He comes with me, and I come with him. We’re a package. It works that he wants you too. I see you watch him and I know you want him and I won’t pretend you don’t want me too. I can taste it when you kiss me, I can feel our connection each time we touch. That’s a whole lot of want. We’re all adults, what say we give in?”
Charlie moved to kneel in front of her. “We can take it slowly. We don’t need to rush.” He lowered his head and kissed her knee where the hem of her dress had slid up to expose her bare skin.
He wore a short-sleeved shirt and she gazed down at the deep black of his hair, over to the colorful ink that started on his knuckles and spread out over his hands, around his wrists, wrapped around his forearms and disappeared beneath the material of his shirt.
His tongue caught the seam where her leg was bent and she gasped. His eyes snapped open and stared straight into hers. Slowly, waiting for her to refuse, he grasped her ankles and slid her shoes off.
She tried not to gulp as he slid his hands, big, strong, work-rough, up her ankles and calves, pushing her legs wider, dropping hot, open-mouthed kisses up her thigh.
She slid her fingers through his hair, holding him as he paused about an inch away from her pussy.
He sucked in a breath and hummed. “You smell like sex. Like sun and need. And woman. I want to lick you until you scream. You on board?”
Her breath caught, stealing her words. He looked up and she nodded. His smile in response sent a shiver through her. Then the flash of his teeth as he gave her inner thigh a sharp nip.
A sound, low in her throat, broke through her lips. She hadn’t meant to make it but was glad she did when she noted Charlie’s response. A shiver and then this fingers tightening on her thighs before one hand slid to her cunt.
His fingertips brushed over the line of her labia through her panties and she sighed, falling into the feeling. Ignoring the voice in the back of her mind telling her she couldn’t afford to let Hatch back in even a bit. Telling herself this was about Charlie and not Hatch, about sex and nothing more, even though she knew it was a lie.
Charlie pulled her underpants down her legs, tossing them over his shoulder. He spread her wide and looked his fill. “Beautiful. You’re as beautiful here as everywhere else.”
She looked down her body, watching as he danced the tip of his finger over her clit until she arched. Over the furls of her pussy and then around her gate until he slid one up into her and she had to close her eyes a moment.
Hatch moved next to her, getting to his knees. Summer opened her eyes as the heat of him washed over her but he kept his hands to himself. For the moment.
She turned her head to look into his eyes and knew that self-control would only last so long. When he let go she’d drown in him.
And she wanted it more than she should.
Charlie flicked his tongue over her clit several times until her muscles burned and then relaxed.
Straightening, he reached out to Hatch and traced his fingers over Hatch’s mouth. With a groan, Hatch sucked those fingers inside his mouth and the inner walls of her cunt clenched.
They turned their gazes on her. Hatch’s voice was desire-rough. “You still taste like the sea.”
She sucked in air like she was suffocating. That’s when Hatch kissed her and she was lost.
His hands burrowed through her hair, sending the pins holding it up showering to the floor. He held her to his mouth as he devastated. Took. So hard and ruthless it left her faint.
She’d never been kissed with such ferocity in all her life. Not
even by the man who held her, who’d been her very first kiss. He sucked her tongue and lips, nipped, licked at her like she was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
Between her thighs, Charlie pushed in, his lips against the heated wet of her pussy as he took a long lick. And another. She cried out when he sucked her clit between his lips, back and forth, over and over until she hovered at climax and he backed off.
She broke the kiss, urging Charlie’s head closer, yanking on his hair.
Hatch slid her hair to expose her neck, kissing up to her ear. “Impatient. What do you want?”
She would not beg. Not Hatch.
Summer shook her head and he nipped her bottom lip, his nimble fingers unbuttoning the front of her dress, exposing her breasts.
Charlie rested his chin on her thigh, waiting to see what was going to happen next and it just pissed her off. Enough to push Hatch back and scramble to her feet. “This isn’t happening.”
Charlie stood slowly, as not to spook her or threaten in any way. “What isn’t? What happened here? I’m missing something. You were about to come all over my face.”
“I’m not going to beg Hatch for an orgasm. I can walk out that door and ten men will be happy to give me one before I get three steps. For that matter, I have a hand.”
“Whoa.” Hatch put his hands up. “I wasn’t…it was sex play, not real.”
“You both make me…I don’t know. Crazy. I don’t like that.”
Hatch had the gall to smile at her. “You make me crazy too. How about if we beg to make you come? Would that be better?”
“I need to know.” She licked her lips, not able to say it.
Charlie stepped a little closer. Close enough to brush the hair from her face. “What do you need to know?”
“Will it always be Hatch pulling your strings? If we do this—and I’m not saying a relationship for god’s sake, just fucking—but if we do this, I—” She broke off again.
“I’m no one’s puppet.” Charlie’s words weren’t angry, but they were defensive and she was sorry for that.
She sighed. “This is why I think we should just stop now. You two need to find another woman you have no history with. Because I have all these buttons and issues and I never thought I did until right now. I don’t want to offend you and it’s clear I have.”
“I’m not offended. I just think you misread what was happening.” Charlie leaned in to brush a kiss against her jaw, beneath her ear. “This thing isn’t just me and you, or me and Hatch, or you and Hatch, it’s all three of us. You and Hatch have some stuff to get over. I was leaving room for that to happen.”
“So you were mad at Charlie because he was pausing when I was asking you to say what you wanted? I’m a dominant man, Summer.”
She turned to face Hatch. “You need to earn that right with me.”
Hatch paused for a moment and then nodded.
“Okay, let’s ease back a little. You want to feel like you and I are on our own terms? Am I getting that right at least in part?” Charlie blocked Hatch and, god help her, she found it sort of cute.
“I need to know this isn’t Hatch by proxy.” She groaned. “I’m not saying it right.”
“I thought this was going to be easier.” Hatch combed fingers through his hair. “Let’s finish our dinner and talk a while. Clearly we need to cool off and maybe lay some ground rules.”
Hatch approached, sliding an arm around Charlie’s waist and then Summer’s. “I’m impatient. It’s a flaw you know only too well. Both of you. But I want this to work. However it’s going to. I’ve missed you so much.” He kissed her cheek. “Say whatever you need to say and don’t worry about the perfect words.”
She allowed them to lead her back to the table. She sat when Charlie pulled her chair out and she tried to gather her thoughts.
Charlie nudged her wine closer and she sent him an amused smile. They ate some more until she finally just blurted it out.
“I’ve never done a threesome before.”
Both men’s gazes landed on her.
“Really? In the four years we’ve been apart you haven’t?”
She licked her lips. “I’ve been with people obviously.” Sexual expression was important. You never knew if that day would be your last. “Just, not two at once. I’ve seen it.” She blushed and smiled. Exhibitionism was common, considered a gift by many. “It looks easier than it seems.”
Hatch’s chuckle was full of sex and promise. “We hadn’t even gotten to the good stuff when we stopped.”
“I was about to.” She raised a brow his way and Charlie laughed.
Hatch put a hand over his heart, a smile on his lips. “I promise to make you come twice for interrupting.”
“So you’re afraid of two men at once? That we would hurt you or make you do something you don’t want to?”
Summer turned back to Charlie. “No. Not that. I just…it’s complicated.” They’d done it, she knew that much, and she hadn’t and there was a skill gap and that was…weird.
She hated being vulnerable. And Hatch’s return made her just that. Fear that maybe she was just another in a long line of women they’d shared ate away at her confidence. Was it enough to make her turn her back on what it could be?
“I don’t tell Charlie what to do to you unless you want it. Is that enough to start?”
She sucked in a breath. “It’s not…” Truth was, the idea of Hatch and Charlie dominating her was one she liked. Just not how it had felt, like Charlie wasn’t in it for himself.
“Then what is it?” Charlie asked.
“If you both don’t want me I’m not interested. I don’t mind, you know, the two of you acting with each other to sex me up. I just don’t want to be with someone who isn’t equally into me. I don’t want this threesome thing to be about Hatch getting back into my bed through you.”
Charlie stood and she found herself pulled from her chair and against his body. He looked right through her for long moments as she went motionless and melted against him. Suddenly his fingers dug through her hair and he held her to his mouth for a searing hot kiss. He ground his cock against her. “Does that feel like a man who doesn’t want you?”
“Christ, the two of you are so hot.” Hatch’s words were a snarl. But he remained in his chair and she knew he made himself keep still until she indicated he could join.
“I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want Hatch to be involved. But you’d be one if you denied it too. That doesn’t mean I want you less. Or that he wants you more. You two have something different.”
She swallowed hard and looked back to Hatch, nodding. He was up in a flash, against her back, pressing her into Charlie. Her heart pounded as she laid her head back on Hatch’s shoulder.
Hatch hummed against her ear and she was wet all over again. He spread the front of her dress and Charlie’s fingers brushed the curve of her breasts and then over her nipples, which tightened nearly painfully.
“We both want you. You want us both. But do you want us together?” Hatch spoke, his lips again at her ear. “We’re a package deal, Charlie and I.”
And for whatever reason, that made her feel better. Hatch’s loyalty to Charlie, the way they both pursued her, the way he was trying so hard—it soothed her agitation and fear.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Sex, yes I mean.”
“And everything else?” Hatch asked.
“What I said about earning it stands.”
“We can work with that.” Charlie pushed her dress from her shoulders and it pooled around her feet. She’d already been stripped of her panties so she stood there naked while they both still wore all their clothes.
“There’s nothing hotter than a woman with freckles on her shoulders.” Hatch licked over the skin and she shivered. “You have ink. I want to see it but I want to rub all over you too.”
Charlie gave her the edge of his teeth up her neck and she arched into him. “Let us look at all your pretty skin,” he murmured into her
ear before easing back to stand side by side with Hatch.
She looked to her toes for a moment, blushing as they both took her in.
Hatch moved in close, tracing fingertips over the vines of deep green ink circling from her thighs up her belly, under her breasts, up her chest and around her back.
“Wow.”
Hatch stepped even closer, the scent of her skin hardening his cock to the point of pain. The Summer he’d loved before was soft and sweet. Laughed and smiled all the time. She was open and utterly without guile.
This Summer was harder even as she was vulnerable and it tore him up even as he vowed to prove himself to her. To earn the love and trust of this all-grown-up Summer.
“How long did this take?” Hatch circled her.
“A little over a year.”
There were thorns here and there, inked as if they’d pricked her flesh, drops of blood glistened on the tips. And yet it was beautiful. There was an intimacy to the work that stole his breath.
“He loved you.” Hatch faced her again.
She bit her bottom lip a moment. “He thought so.”
“What happened to him?”
It was clear she knew he meant the man who’d done her ink.
“He’s here in Paradise.”
Hatch didn’t like the way that felt in his belly. “Did you love him?”
She shook her head. “I enjoyed him. We had great sex. He’s creative and brilliant and he treated me well. He took something, an idea I had, and he made something beautiful on my skin.”
“He understood you.”
She nodded. “Partly anyway.”
Hatch ran his palms from her hips to cup her breasts, pinching her nipples until she had to close her eyes a moment. “Why didn’t you stay with him?”
“I liked him. A lot. Like I said we had great chemistry and the sex was good. He was in a triad and they wanted me to be part of a quad and it was all too much for me. Their female partner was okay at first, but it just wasn’t…balanced. They had too many problems and my being involved with him only made it worse because they expected me to just hop into bed with everyone immediately and I just didn’t feel it with the other male.”