Crossing the Lines (6 page)

Her lips twitched. He wasn’t kidding. His baggy sweatpants showed signs of movement underneath. Maybe arousal would distract him until he could take more painkillers.

Henry extricated himself from the couch in careful silence, laying Jay back against the pillows. “Wait here, my boy, while Alice and I prepare your bath.” He gestured her toward the hallway. “If you please, Alice.”

He didn’t sound angry, but leaving the room meant losing her partner in crime. If Henry planned to take one of them to task for pushing things, it’d be her. Flipping on the bathroom light, she stepped inside. Henry crowded her, close but not touching. Christ. Lust raced through her at warp speed even as she feared his words.

“I gave you the option to leave, and you chose not to take it. Why?” Incredulity colored his voice. A demanding accusation, as if he couldn’t believe she hadn’t dashed out the door.

No problem. Vulnerability prompted defensiveness. Classic.

“The long or short answer?”

“Short first.”

“Jay wants me to stay.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” The dry amusement in his voice sent relief crashing over her in a wave. “Jay is always happy to spend time with the people he cares for deeply. But as the short answer tells me nothing I do not already know, I’m afraid I must ask you for the long one.”

He stepped past her and started running the bath. “I’ve orchestrated enough scenes to know when I’m being manipulated, my dear, and you and Jay are not the most subtle coconspirators. Why, after all of the discomfort you’ve felt tonight, would you wish to remain in our company?”

A tendril of doubt crawled beneath her skin, invisible in the Alice reflected in the mirror over the sink. With previous guys, she’d have said fuck it and walked out. With Henry and Jay, the possibility never reached the menu. “You were right about submission being hard for me tonight. I didn’t like being told what to do and feeling I wasn’t getting anything out of it.”

Despite her nudity, Henry hadn’t ogled her. He hadn’t looked anywhere other than her face. That he respected her as more than a sex object calmed her even as it relit her fear he’d lost interest. “I felt unwanted. But that’s not how you make me feel on every other night, Henry.”

He watched her, gaze fixed on her face. “Oh?”

“I wanted to stay because—” She wasn’t trying to claim something that wasn’t hers. “I don’t like distance between us. I don’t want to leave tonight like I failed some test I didn’t expect to be taking.” She could settle for less than what Jay had. “I value the time we spend together and the way you make me feel. I don’t want to stop playing the game even if the board has places I can’t go. Socks I can’t wear.”

Henry straightened. Gaze skipping to the floor, he delivered a slow nod. “You’re certain there are places not meant for you? Socks that don’t fit?”

“I am,” she said. “Jay and I have some overlapping squares, but we aren’t the same players. I’m not trying on his socks.”

Henry turned away and tested the water. He took a long time to be happy with the temperature before shutting off the taps. “All right, Alice.” He flicked water off his fingers, tiny drops breaking the calm surface of the water. “No socks. We will carry on as we have these last six months.”

The water he found so fascinating refused to yield its secrets to her. The shallow depth suggested Jay’s bath prioritized a comforting touch over soaking. She wouldn’t mind one herself.

Standing to face her, Henry snorted softly. “You realize your presence—nude, no less—will give Jay ideas beyond the relaxing bath I had planned for him.”

“I know.” Should she apologize? She wasn’t a tease. She wasn’t unwilling to give Jay what he needed.

“Intercourse is out of the question. He cannot support his own weight. He needs to let his injuries heal. His bruising is too extensive to allow you on top either.”

“He likes blowjobs,” she offered. Henry’s laugh warmed her cheeks.

“I doubt there’s a man alive who doesn’t, my dear.” His chuckle trailed off. “In the bath would be awkward. We’ll need to keep his right arm and leg dry because of the splint and the sutures. After his bath, then, once we’ve gotten his bandages replaced and settled him in bed. If you would?”

Finally, an easy question. “That’s a direction I know how to follow.”

Henry studied her face. The seductive tang of leather and citrus surrounded her as he cupped the back of her head and squeezed her to his chest. The first time he’d truly touched her all night. She embraced him in return, comforted more than she could explain by his touch.

“You do very well, my dear girl.” Her hair muffled his voice. “You give all that you’re able, and I’m so pleased that you do.”

She basked in the feeling she’d been missing all night, their hollow distance erased. Even if she couldn’t play all of the games and be the perfect submissive, her effort pleased him. He’d still give her what she needed. His attention. His comfort. His praise.

He pressed his lips to her head before he let her go. “Come along, my dear. Let’s fetch our wayward boy before he goes stumbling about and finds trouble.”

They stripped Jay when they got him up from the couch. She’d been right about the lack of underwear. Steadying him between them, they shuffled to the bathroom. Jay cracked no jokes, his bruising worse since Wednesday, a deep blend of colors across his rib cage.

She waited outside while Henry helped him use the bathroom.

The two of them lowered Jay into the tub. The water was lukewarm rather than hot, in deference to his road rash. His bandages had been removed, aside from the stabilizing wrap on his right wrist and one covering the stitched-up slash on his right shin. His leg hung over the tub’s side, safe from the water.

Passing her a washcloth, Henry poured bodywash with a familiar woodsy scent. His hand grazed her back. “Go ahead, Alice.”

She knelt on a towel by the side of the tub and worked the cloth into a foamy lather. Leaning over, she touched Jay’s lips in a light kiss. He stroked her side and breast with his good arm.

Jay’s mass of bruises provoked an all-consuming protective, almost maternal, instinct. Arousal skated away. But she allowed his explorations. His reach didn’t extend far, and any distraction from his pain merited indulgence.

“You’re quite lucky this evening, Jay.” Henry’s voice floated over her shoulder.

He’d seated himself on the lip at the far end of the bathtub, holding Jay’s right leg in a secure grip across his lap, out of her way. Back straight, not slouching against the tile. Thumb probing at the ball of Jay’s foot in slow circles.

“To have the devoted attention of such a special woman, hmm? She must think highly of you indeed.”

Henry kept up a soft stream of praise, soothing Jay with his voice as she bathed him from head to toes. Running her hands over his body reassured her more than words and images ever would. His skin soft and slick. His muscles hard beneath. Whole and healing under her fingers and Henry’s voice. Comfort for them all.

Afterward, they settled him onto the bed naked, his shoulders and head propped on three pillows to prevent trouble with his breathing. She climbed onto the bed, but Henry didn’t join them. She had her instructions. If he needed to take care of other things while he had the opportunity, she wouldn’t take his distance as rejection.

“You know, if you wanted me to blow you again, Jay, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble with the delivery truck and the hospital.” Mouth perched above his groin, she felt at home. “You could’ve just asked Henry.”

He chuckled, but the way he stared at her mouth made his preoccupation obvious.

She took her time. He’d been excited from the bath and the toweling off, but his interest had flagged when they coated the worst of the road rash with antibiotic cream and replaced the bandages. Planting her hands on either side of his hips, she kissed his stomach and thighs. Every patch of bruise-free flesh she found.

The attention worked to arouse him, but not her. This wasn’t for her own gratification. She did it because Jay needed to feel included, and Henry had asked her, and she wanted to please them both.

So even though she wasn’t aroused, she didn’t rush. That wouldn’t be fair to Jay. He deserved to feel good. She didn’t drag things out, either. That would’ve left his muscles strained and tense for far too long. Henry’s reasoning for the bath and blowjob both had likely been to relax Jay, to encourage him to fall asleep without pain.

Taking care in how she held his hips down, she allowed him the freedom to shift and thrust rather than pressing on his bruises. She didn’t tease. She brought him gradually along until he gasped her name and his climax spilled over and ran down her chin.

“Alice.” Henry called to her with little more volume than Jay had.

Releasing Jay, she eased back.

Beside her in an instant, Henry tilted her face up. He wiped her mouth and chin with tender strokes of a washcloth, kissing her forehead and offering her a bottle of water.

He bathed Jay with the cloth while she drank, offering the water to Jay next with two small white pills. Painkillers. He kissed Jay’s forehead as well.

Henry prized balance. Kindness. Part of his performance? He never made her feel unwanted or less important than Jay, except when he’d made his point tonight. If he limited his willingness to make the effort to a few hours every other week, she wouldn’t begrudge him the rest of the time.

“Wait here a moment, Alice.” He departed with the washcloth and the water.

Twice in a row now, he’d catered to them rather than the other way around. Jay’s injuries gave him cause, but she might be missing a deeper point. He hadn’t told her to dress. He’d let her stay, even after she’d failed at submission.

Jay beckoned her toward him. “Thank you, Alice.” He seemed more coherent, less like an overexcited child, as he waited for his pain medication to kick in.

She leaned in and kissed him near his ear, far from the bruising across his eyes. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“No—I mean, I did, but I mean thank you for worrying. And caring. And taking care of us. I know tonight was hard.” He bit his lip. His whisper came to her ear in a frantic rush. “Would you stay and let Henry make love to you here? He needs you, and I want to feel close to you both tonight, and I, I don’t want to be alone.”

Her heart broke for him. She stilled her tongue from spitting out the words crawling through her brain.
We don’t make love, Jay. We fuck. At agreed-upon times.
If she let herself forget the difference, she’d only get hurt.

But he’d pinpointed Henry’s needs. After two rough days, Henry deserved comfort, and sex was her only way to offer it. And she wanted to offer it.

She kissed Jay again and whispered, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Sitting back, she pulled the sheet over his hips and chest. The silk-soft cotton covered his bruises as she tucked it under his arms. Henry didn’t want to be vulnerable in front of her, not like Jay. He wanted to be in control. “But you have to promise to try to sleep, Jay.”

“An excellent idea.” Henry strode into the room. “It’s time for you to rest, my boy.”

Jay pleaded with her in silence, the brown depths of his eyes a well of strength and need. He depended on her.

“Henry?” God, this was hard.

“Yes, dearest?”

She’d never asked something of Henry when she couldn’t chalk it up to orgasm-deprived begging as he teased her body. This was asking when the answer wasn’t guaranteed, when he’d barely touched her and didn’t seem inclined to, despite Jay’s assertion.

“Can we…would you…take me now? While Jay’s awake to enjoy it?” Good. Make it about Jay, and Henry would let her comfort him and herself.

The tape on Jay’s arm had peeled up at the edge. She pressed a finger on the corner and smoothed it. Up. Down. Silence. The waiting blasted her ribs like an industrial freezer. Her nerves thrummed as she craned her neck.

Inscrutable. Henry, master of the expressionless face.

“I sense a conspiracy here.” He started unbuttoning his shirt from the top. “It’s a wonder I imagine myself in control of anything at all.”

She rolled onto her legs in Jay’s favored pose. Kneeling near the center of the bed, she bowed her head toward Henry. Imitation. Jay ought to be flattered.

She meant to show perfect submission, naive innocence and a soft voice to match, but her stare refused to leave Henry’s chest. Lust spilled over, filling her with the need to have his body bared to her. The flat nipples waiting beneath the edges of his shirt. The scratchy-soft patch of hair where she rested her cheek when he cradled her to his chest. “You’re in control of me now, Henry.”