Breath on Embers (9 page)

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

He opened his palm to display the blindfold. “Too much?”

“No,” she said. “Of course not.”

One dark eyebrow lifted just enough to tell her bravado wouldn’t fly. “You’ll let me know when it is.”

When. Not if. As if he knew how she’d react. “I’ll be fine.”

The sound of Velcro ripping sounded loud in the quiet room. Tim settled behind her, following Ronan’s lead, steadying Thea when the mattress dipped. She stiffened ever so slightly when his palm made contact with her bare skin, her mind automatically comparing his touch to Ronan’s. Same warm, dry palms, though slightly less rough. A man’s hands told the truth of who he was, how he lived. When Tim’s fingers trailed up her sensitive inner arm to her shoulder, then to her cheeks to tuck her hair behind her ears, the patient, deft manner spoke of someone comfortable slipping a needle into a vein to start an IV, or calm a terrified child at a fire scene.

And when he laid those long, strong fingers on either side of her jaw to hold her head still so Ronan could lay the blindfold over her eyes and fasten the Velcro, she knew he’d use that big body to guide a woman down a darker, hotter path.

The last thing she saw before the blindfold blocked all light was Ronan’s face, his eyes heavy-lidded with lust, his dark hair gilded with pale moonlight. Losing her sight heightened her other senses, intensifying the room’s hot, vibrating silence and giving her ample time to contemplate what was coming. The obvious scenario fell something along the lines of
innocent angel raunchily debauched by two hard, hot devils
. She expected zippers down, heavy breathing, hands in her hair as she moved back and forth between their cocks, to be quickly hurled into the realm of hot, panting, sweaty sex. The bed shifted again; they were moving around and removing clothes, based on the sound of denim and cotton dragged over skin. The subtle sounds and sense of solitariness were enough to disorient her. Even better. Without knowing who was where, she could take pleasure from whoever offered it, the night a distraction from the looming holiday, nothing more.

She expected distraction. Wanted it to fill the terrifying silence.

Instead she got one mouth on her cheek, another on her shoulder, breath warming her skin for a sharp nip, then the hot swipe of a tongue over the sore spot. Her nipples hardened against the corset, and she moaned. One mouth moved along her collarbone while the other brushed her hair to the side then urged her head forward, exposing her nape and spine to a series of licking, nipping kisses. A low chuckle vibrated at her back when his mouth found a particularly sensitive spot and a shudder rolled through her. A hand tipped her head to the side, then he mounted a relentless assault on the sensitive patch of skin. Heat arrowed along her nerves to her nipples, her clit, the sensation shockingly intense in the silence.

The silence.

They weren’t talking. No commands, no dirty talk, they weren’t even talking over her, around her, about her, as if she were their plaything. They were scarily, unusually silent. Was that what Ronan said to Tim in the hallway?
Keep quiet.
They could see each other, communicate via hand gestures, and all the while leave her without anything to cling to.

No distractions. Pleasure bloomed bright and hot under hands and mouths in the hushed room, shining light in places long hidden.

The man in front of her tugged at the corset, all the pressure necessary to free her breasts. This time the satisfied growl came from her front, just as two warm, rough hands cupped her breasts, then pinched the hard tips. Heat once again cracked through her, and she undulated in their grip, widening her stance, lifting her hips in unspoken invitation.

Teeth closed on her nape at the same time one set of hands settled high on her inner thighs and urged her legs further apart. She went still, the preylike response somehow both signaling surrender and inviting more. The man in front of her put his hot, open mouth to her collarbone and moved up her neck, tipping her head back against the broad bare shoulder behind her. Rough stubble, hot, soft lips, the slick pressure of a tongue against her vulnerable throat, then teeth closing on her jaw.

Sound, high-pitched, startled and very, very female echoed into the silence. At some level of her brain Thea knew it was her, but the hands on her inner thighs moved without hesitation to the elastic sides of her panties to clasp her hips. He urged her up, slid the panties to mid-thigh, then gently parted the folds of her sex.

She hadn’t known how wet she was until his finger dipped low and trailed wet heat up to her clit. When he began to stroke the swollen nub she knew it was Tim behind her, Tim touching her so intimately. Ronan, more experienced at playing with her body’s responses, used a circular motion with intermittent pressure that prolonged the tension almost unbearably. So it was Ronan’s mouth feeding under her ear, trailing a line of hot, tempting kisses along her cheek to the corner of her mouth. Now she knew. Now she could settle into hot sexual oblivion.

But when she turned for the soul kiss she anticipated, he ducked out of reach, bending to kiss her nipples, then slide one big palm around to cup her ass.

A frisson of anxiety skated over her nerves. Maybe it wasn’t Ronan. Maybe he’d established boundaries. Tim could fuck her, but not kiss her. How odd.

Their hands held her still, one on her ass, the other against her mound as that single finger stroked her into desperate need. The ache in her pussy snarled, grew claws, warred with the lone question in her overheated mind.

Was this Ronan or not?

When the man behind her added a second finger to the mix, stroking on either side of her swollen clit, her cry was frustrated, pleading, wanting more, a touch, a hint, something to anchor her in this molten abyss. Two fingers slid inside her, unerringly finding the electrified bundle of nerves hidden in the swollen inner walls. The first stroke, perfectly timed to the fingers moving against her clit, made her go rigid. The second ripped a hoarse cry from her throat, into the dark, close air. When she arched, the man in front of her slid his free hand into her hair and held her. The mere pressure of a breath separated their mouths, but despite her writhing and gasps that grew ever more desperate as pleasure tightened in her cunt, he wouldn’t close the distance. Her blindness heightened her sense of hearing. Harsh breathing near her ear, her own stuttering gasps as she neared the peak, the silence enveloping them in a hot, beating space.

She came like that, bound, helpless, begging without words for the very thing she’d taken for granted—Ronan’s kiss. Pleasure closed tight around her body, held for a beat, another, then flung open. She bowed up, her pussy clenching around the fingers steady inside her, as the waves pulsed through the void to the edges of her skin, and beyond.

Hands steadied her as she came back into the room, eyes shut behind the blindfold. One urge overwhelmed all the others and she turned to the hot cheek scraping hers. “Please,” she whispered. Her mouth ached for Ronan’s kiss, the sure glide of his tongue over hers, that shocking connection she’d taken for granted.

The connection that came when they were lip-to-lip.

But the man in front of her didn’t kiss her.

Instead they tugged off her panties while rearranging themselves on the bed, so she straddled one man’s naked hips as he rested upright against the headboard while the other snugged in behind her again.

Now she was truly lost in the void.

The man she faced but couldn’t see tipped her forward so her forehead rested on his shoulder, then clasped both ass cheeks and spread her for the man behind her. Responsible sex noises came from behind her, a condom wrapper tearing, the top of a bottle of lube flicked open, then she felt a single finger pressing against her pucker. Her hair shrouded her face as the finger eased into her body, stretching her, stimulating nerves until she moaned. The heel of a hand pressed against her still-sensitive clit, and when a second finger slid into her ass she ground against the hand, seeking more stimulation. When the broad tip of a cock pressed against her pucker, insistent and arousing, the man in front replaced the base of his thumb with a single, slick fingertip, brushing over her clit again and again.

The line between pleasure and pain shifted, blurred, but she breathed through it as best as the corset allowed, straining against her ribbon-ties. She’d done this before, hung over the abyss with Ronan teasing her clit as he eased into her ass. Once past the initial sting, it would get very hot, very quickly. A moment of nearly unbearable stretching, then the head of the cock eased inside her.

Everything stopped for a strained, vibrating moment as Thea adjusted. The finger on her clit stroked again, deviously, perfectly placed to send sparks along electrified nerves in her pussy and ass. She gave a shuddering sigh. A hand collected the hair hiding her face, and tucked it behind her ear.

The cock pressed all the way in, and hips snugged up against her ass. One long arm reached across her collarbone to grip her shoulder and lift her, exposing her to the man she faced as he stroked her clit. It was the ultimate vulnerability, blindfolded, bound, penetrated, and now offered to a second man so he, too, could take possession of her body. And while pleasure vibrated through her body, in the silent darkness of the blindfold she faced a desire not for deadening distance, but for connection.

Their breathing sounded loud in Thea’s ears, rapid, shallow, erotic, and awareness sliced through her like a blade. It was hot. It was carnal. But mindless sex was no longer enough.

It mattered who was who.

Being unable to name who touched her, who held her, who was inside her body right now distanced her, all of them, from what was happening. She wanted to kiss Ronan as Tim fucked her ass, to look into his eyes as pleasure swamped her, for him to watch and feel as she went under.

She wanted Ronan.

The longing inside her, the one that had been dark and formless for so long, now had a name: Ronan. She longed for
their
joining,
their
connection, for him inside her, part of her.

For them. She longed for
them
. After over a year of feeling deadened, something mattered to her.

Suddenly the ribbons bound her like grief. She had to get free, had to get the blindfold off and see him. Had to be sure.

“Stop,” she said.

Everything stopped. Movement, breathing, hands and hips. Everything. Based on how still they went, her words doused both men in ice. Nine stories below a taxi honked, and a bus lumbered up Madison.

“Untie me.”

The man behind her was good with knots, because in a matter of seconds he had both wrists unbound. Thea left the blindfold in place. Yards of ribbon trailing from her wrists, she reached forward and flattened her palms against rough stubble and angular cheekbones, then ran her thumbs, one after the other, over the full, sensitive mouth.

Then she knew.

Still unable to see, she bent forward and kissed that glorious mouth. Without hesitation, without reservation she kissed him and knew it was Ronan from the way he cupped the back of her head and slanted his mouth across hers. All the passionate intensity kept restrained by the ribbons and blindfold poured through her, into him.

A shudder rolled through the big body under hers. A groan rose into the air. Panting, her mouth wet, she sat back and ran her hands down the heavily muscled chest as a hand rose to the blindfold and pushed it up and off.

Ronan stared back at her, his eyes brilliant with arousal, and triumph.

“I wanted it to be you,” she said, nearly soundless.

“Only me,” he replied.

He reached between their bodies and held his straining shaft away from his belly. Thea put her hands on his shoulders and lifted up, centering herself over his erection. His gaze held hers as she slid down until she clasped every hot, hard, bare inch of him. The skin-to-skin contact drew a trembling little moan from her, but she forced her eyes open to stare into Ronan’s.

“You okay, darlin’?”

The nickname held more affection than teasing edge now, and bore considering. She was so full, a sensation the corset’s tight pressure against her abdomen only heightened. With every breath heat raced along her nerves, demanding movement. She undulated against the pressure; her head dropped back as the shimmy rocked her clit against Ronan’s pelvis, sending sparks along every sexual nerve in her body. Tim’s arm tightened around her corseted waist. In response her pussy and ass clamped around granite-hard erections, and both men groaned.

“Gotta say it, darlin’,” Tim growled.

She flicked a glance over her shoulder at him; his eyes went heavy-lidded as he took in her eyes, her mouth. Then she looked at Ronan. Passion etched the hard lines of his cheekbones and jaw, and his blue eyes gleamed with victory, luxuriating in what they created together.

In this moment, right now, the answer was simple. “Yes.”

Ronan wound the trailing ends of the ribbon around his big fists, then set his hands on her hips. “Nice and slow,” he said. “Make her hot.”

Behind her, Tim withdrew, paused, then slid back in. Thea’s eyelids drooped as she focused on his relentlessly slow strokes, her attention divided between exquisite sensation and Ronan’s face. He held himself still under her. Compelled by something she didn’t dare name, she leaned forward and kissed him again. Their tongues met in a slow, hot dance that made her gasp. In response Ronan tightened his grip on the ribbons binding one wrist and looped her arm behind his neck, drawing her full body against his, opening her even more to Tim’s deep thrusts.

“So fucking hot,” he murmured in her ear. “You’re so tight around me. I feel every ripple. Gonna be so hot when you come.”

His bare, steel-hard erection stretched her swollen channel, nothing between them, and the thought made her cunt flicker and clench around him. In a purely female response, she licked his damp neck, nipped the skin, tasted salt, then lifted her hips as Tim withdrew. Tim stroked in as she sank down on Ronan’s cock, and the rhythmic movement made Tim groan, Ronan’s hands tighten at her hip and forearm, and a desperate, needy sound escape Thea’s vibrating throat.