Anything but Vanilla (21 page)

‘It’s true.’ She wasn’t sure if he’d said it specifically or not. ‘He’s just afraid that if you’re together like that it’s going to mess things up.’

‘He said that?’

Kara turned so that she sat side on to Zach, her legs curled over the top of one of his hairy ones. ‘I’m not interested in creating a rift between you. I’m just out for some fun. If my actions are going to cause heartbreak then we can stop doing this right now.’

Zach’s gaze strayed down to her ankle, where he placed a hand over the ridge of bone. Kara looked down at her legs, and for the first time noticed a graze on her knee. One long scratch traversed her patella. Around it, the skin looked raw but clean. The wound reminded her of the close call they’d had in the water, which immediately tightened all her muscles.

‘That won’t change anything. It doesn’t matter what I want, he won’t compromise. It just means I’ll lose any chance I have of being with either of you.’

‘Either?’ she quietly echoed. She pulled the towel more tightly around herself, covering her injured knee with the bright-blue cloth. ‘Are you saying you’re still interested in me?’

Heat rolled off his body, warming her, and the stubble around his jaw grazed the skin of her shoulder as he snuggled closer. ‘I don’t know what to wish for any more. If you’ve any brilliant ideas … I just know that it’s not going to work out how I want it for Ric and me.’ His chest hair tickled as he moved. His lips gently nuzzled her shoulder. ‘I know you prefer him to me.’

‘That’s not …’ she gulped. It wasn’t true. She had no preference for either man; they were different and she’d been enjoying living in the moment. Zach was earthy and genuine. If they’d been neighbours while growing up, they’d have been best friends and she’d have crushed massively on him, whereas Ric almost felt like an alien being, his interest in her kind of amazing and otherworldly. The other thing was: she liked the fact that Ric wasn’t looking for commitment, as she didn’t want to fall into another claustrophobic relationship, after spending so long marooned on Planet Gavin. Matter of fact, she rather liked being a butterfly, having both Ric and Zach to fly between. ‘It’s not fair or true. I’m not looking for anything more than fun from either of you. Zach, I only just escaped getting hitched. I’m not interested in making any sort of commitment yet.’

Zach scraped a hand through his wet hair so that it lay slicked back against his skull. ‘OK. But you can’t deny that there’s real chemistry between you and Ric. I should know. I’ve seen you fuck often enough.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Zach held her gaze, almost daring her to argue the point, but failing to discern the cause of her outburst.

‘You’ve seen us once … twice,’ she corrected, recalling what had prompted this meeting.

‘Three times,’ Zach countered. ‘I lied about being stuck on the mainland that night I was supposed to call.’

Christ! He’d seen her. What had she and Ric been doing at the time? She didn’t even bother wasting thoughts on hoping that he’d just seen them fooling about on the beach. The glitter in Zach’s dark eyes said he’d watched the lot, and that he’d seen her bent over that rock having her bottom thoroughly warmed. ‘Fuck!’ The exclamation escaped her lips as a string of colourful expletives echoed inside her head. It was her turn to hide her face in her palms.

‘Kara.’ Zach’s fingers gently curled around her shoulder. ‘I know you didn’t plan it, and I know how persuasive he can be. I know it, because I love him. I don’t blame you. We barely knew one another, and I was late.’

‘And I knew I was doing something wrong.’

He continued to shake his head. ‘No, you weren’t. It wasn’t a date. It was just coffee.’

‘Yeah?’ She wrinkled her nose into a grimace, and then buried her face in her coffee cup. The hit of caffeine made her heart thump. ‘Just like this is coffee, I suppose.’

Zach gently batted her arm. He glanced away and then back at her.

‘There is one way.’ Kara brushed away Zach’s continued caress, which knocked the towel from around her shoulder. ‘But I’m not sure you’ll like it. I don’t know that it’ll even work.’

‘Go on.’

This was madness; it wasn’t so much a plan as stating her desire, but the possibility of actually having a threesome with him and Ric was too delicious to be ignored. The mere prospect of it set her heart pumping nineteen to the dozen. All those fantasies she’d entertained since meeting the two men were suddenly at the forefront of her thoughts. In some ways it made sense. Why not, as they were all already intimate. Even if it was just the once, so they could see what it was like and if it would work.

Kara opened her mouth and closed it a few times. ‘We could all be together,’ she muttered. ‘He might be more prepared to commit if there were three of us involved. It wouldn’t be so claustrophobic.’ She didn’t know Ric very well, but the few glimpses she’d had into his heart suggested that he did actually care for Zach. He was likely still out looking for him. God only knows what he’d think if he saw the van out to sea.

Zach gave a sharp cough, and then back-pedalled on to his knees. His brown hair whipped back and forth spraying droplets of seawater as he shook his head. ‘One of us would get burned.’ From his look she knew he thought it would be him.

Kara reached out and placed her palm against the diamond of hair upon his chest. His heart pounded beneath her fingertips.

‘Is that what you want?’ he asked warily.

‘Maybe.’ She felt her cheeks burn and turned away. ‘Look, forget it. It was a silly suggestion.’

Zach took her coffee cup off her and then tugged her down on top of him, so that she lay pressed against his torso, her hips straddling his loins, with nothing but a few bits of towelling between them. It was far too intimate a position for serious conversation.

‘It’s not something I’ve done before.’ She couldn’t entirely shake the idea. Something about the prospect of having the two men and seeing them together fired up her senses.

Zach rolled them over, so that he was on top and she lay beneath him on the mound of towels.

‘If we did it, we could gang up on him,’ she said.

‘Explain.’ Zach’s brows furrowed. ‘Are you suggesting we both pin him down and roger him until he’s too tired to resist and makes a confession?’

‘I’m suggesting we don’t force the issue. We just let things play out. Think about it. Individually, he won’t commit to either one of us – not that I’m looking for that – but if we’re both involved with him, he won’t even realise what he’s buying into until it’s too late. Then if he has any qualms, he’ll have to decide if he really wants to walk away from us both, leaving us to content one another.’

Zach nodded, implying he understood and agreed, which probably meant they were about to put their truly terrible plan into action. He shifted on to all fours over her.

‘Zach.’ She held out a hand to ward him off. His dark eyes screamed his intent, even before the knot in his towel unravelled so that she had a clear view of his loins. He wasn’t erect, but the sight of him brought back memories of previous times together and how at the photo shoot she’d so desperately wanted to straddle his lap and feel him inside her. ‘Why are you doing this now? What do you mean to prove?’

He peeled away her fingers from his chest one at a time. ‘I’m curious. I think you have some demented notion of controlling Ric and I’m wondering how you think that will work when he can’t even handle me.’

‘I can handle you.’

‘Yeah? Prove it. Stop me doing exactly as I please.’

He splayed his fingers wide across her hip. Kara’s breath caught in her throat. With a series of little jerks, he tugged the edges of her towel apart so that her breasts and the flat of her stomach were exposed. Zach dipped his head and pressed a kiss to her skin close to her navel.

Stop him! She didn’t need to stop him. Kara’s lips curved into a grin. Zach was a giver, not a taker. If she said no to him, even once, that would be it. He’d stop, take himself off somewhere to sulk and possibly never speak to her again, but he wouldn’t force her into anything. Zach wasn’t the type to blur the boundaries of consent. She reached down, curled her fingers around his chin in order to coax him into raising his head. His lips broke contact with her skin and he looked at her along the length of her body. ‘Come here.’

He wormed over her, snake-like, until their hips lay stacked and his mouth was millimetres from hers. The sheen of tears clung to the corners of his eyes. They’d both been tossed about in the water, and he’d lost everything, including the clothes upon his back. Hers at least lay drying. This was all about comfort, not Ric. She was offering him what Ric ought to be giving.

On which subject, she really ought to find a way of letting Ric know that Zach was safe. Presumably, the Bunker had a phone.

Her lips stung as Zach tickled their surface with his tongue. Kara hooked one leg up around his thighs, though she remained convinced that they were doing this for all the wrong reasons. At least Zach was. She wasn’t sure it was about mutual attraction any more. He just needed to prove that he could give her exactly what Ric gave, without realising they were like chalk and cheese. She wanted them because they were different, and because she knew there was a bond between them. Two Rics together wouldn’t be half as much fun.

Zach raised his hips and then slid his hand between them. Agile fingers guided his cock into place. He nudged against her labia, but didn’t immediately push inside. Instead he turned his attention to her neck, and then to her breasts. Her dark areolas crinkled into hard points. He suckled them until she ached, and her hips began to lift in order to seek out deeper satisfaction.

‘Tell me you want me.’

A long acquaintance with Ric apparently hadn’t done Zach’s self-esteem much good, if he needed to hear her say what was surely apparent from her body language.

‘I want you.’

‘I’ll have to pull out before I come.’

Ric would have just rolled with it and bypassed an explanation. Still, she loved the way Zach slid effortlessly into her. He filled her so perfectly that for the first few strokes she hardly dared to breathe. Kara clung to him as they moved, digging her nails into his buttocks and the muscles of his back. So gentle, and so smooth, yet the pace still turned her breathing into a pant. Zach licked a line up her throat that ended at her chin. Braced upon his hands, arms locked at the elbows, he lifted himself in and out of her in a steadily increasing rhythm.

This was the first time sex had been anything other than frantic since she’d said goodbye to Gavin. One-night stands and fucking on street corners didn’t exactly lend themselves to a slow build. Though Gavin would never have done this, any more than he’d ever have suggested they fuck by moonlight braced against a rock overlooking the sea. He never scrambled around on the floor. The closest he got to adventure was spreading her over a dining table dressed with overpriced china and crystal. Maybe that’s why this felt so much warmer and far more real. It wasn’t about their surroundings – an old military bunker. This was about what comfort they could give to each other.

‘Oh, boy!’ Zach’s previously smooth movements took an arrhythmic turn. ‘I’m not sure I want to share you, even with the man I love. I think I’d like to keep you all to myself. Will you give up fucking him, Kara? Give me sole use of your cunt?’

‘What about my arse?’

She felt rather than saw his grin.

‘Are you splitting hairs?’ He puffed the hair out of his eyes with a quick breath. ‘You know he likes to fuck me there too.’

‘Here?’ she asked, stretching out her fingers so that they dipped into the crevice between his buttocks. Her middle finger brushed against the whorl of muscle there, which made his cock flex with increased vigour inside her. Kara squeezed him tight with her internal muscles. ‘Do you like being touched here, Zach?’

‘What do you think?’

She wriggled her finger a millimetre or so into his arse, which made him crow in a high-pitched falsetto.

‘If you do that, I’m going to have to pull out.’

‘Soon,’ she murmured into his ear. She held him closer, dipped her shoulder so that she could stretch her arm out further. His body ate up her finger to the second knuckle. ‘Wow, you’re really smooth and tight back here.’

‘Kara!’ he warned.

‘Come on, you want me to push another finger in there, don’t you?’

‘Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare.’ Unlike him, she was prepared to push boundaries. She wriggled her index finger in alongside her other digit.

The heat of Zach’s breath hit her face. He reared up quite suddenly and pulled out. Sitting on his haunches, he embraced his shaft with his fist. Kara curled her hand over the top of his. ‘Let me.’ She dipped her head and took him in her mouth. Within seconds his seed spilled on to her tongue. She held him until he was completely spent. The moment her lips parted contact with his cock, Zach grabbed hold of her and claimed her mouth for a deep, ferocious kiss.

‘Lady,’ he said, ‘wrap yourself up. We’re going back to yours, and I’m going to make love to you all night.’

Kara shook her head. ‘Not before I’ve told Ric that you’re safe.’

‘If you do that, he’ll come straight over.’

‘Then we’d best make sure we’re ready for him.’

Kara emerged from the shower at Beachcomber Barn to find Zach on the bed, drying his hair, his nakedness covered by a towel fastened around his waist and a second draped around his shoulders. ‘I thought you’d be over that look now,’ she said. He’d hiked all the way from the Bunker to her cottage wearing two towels and a pair of flip-flops, not an ideal or the most elegant get-up for a long walk over rough terrain. Even now, the rain still lashed at the windowpanes. Hardly surprising that Zach was now contemplating stocking a line of T-shirts in his shop. Not that her outfit for the trek had been much better. She shivered, recalling how her sea-sodden clothes had clung to her skin as she’d wriggled back into them. Despite having washed the cold and grime away in a hot shower, she still felt chilled, although hopefully an evening of sport with Zach and Ric would change that.