Her Heart's Divide (5 page)

I relaxed with my husband, our bodies fitting together in repose as if we’d been made for each other. Allison had gone home. She’d told Jack to stay the night on our futon and drive the Coller Road home in the morning. If he took it slow, she said, he should see the window open in time to stop the car. At that point, he could get out and trade places. And it would all be over.

I snuggled in closer and heaved a sigh.

“What are you thinking, Mrs. Crosse?” His voice rumbled in my ear.

“Mainly thinking what a crazy few weeks this has been. And I’m also kind of wondering what Allison meant by something she said when she was taking off.”

“Which was?”

“She said ‘Vows apply one world at a time,’ and then she winked at me.”

“Oh, she did, now.”

Something in his tone made me sit up. “Did she say anything to you?”

“Nope.”

I was suspicious, but he gazed back at me with a look of perfect innocence.

The door to the deck slid open, and Jack stepped through. “Hey, you guys. It’s gorgeous outside tonight. You should come out here.”

“I don’t think I can get my foot propped up right, sitting on a deck chair. Think we can wrestle the futon outside?” said Ryan, getting to his feet.

Jack snickered. “This accident’s made you the laziest guy in the valley. You know that, right?” He hauled the mattress off the frame and dragged it onto the deck.

“I’m not that lazy, man. I’m going to carry out the wineglasses,” Ryan called after our friend.

“Wine?”

He smiled. “Why not, honey? It’s a celebration. Jack’s going home, and Jack’s coming home too.”

I couldn’t argue with the logic. Outside on the futon, we propped ourselves up with cushions from the deck chairs and drank toasts to friendship, starry nights and going home. The bottle vanished pretty fast, but none of us felt inclined to go back inside for more. Feeling relaxed, we ended up lying flat on the futon, staring at the sky. I was in the middle, with my head resting on Ryan’s arm, and I was trying not to notice the way I could feel the heat from Jack’s body along my bare leg.

“Thanks for everything, you guys,” said Jack after a while. “I don’t know who else would have believed me.”

“I can’t wait to hear what the other Jack has to say about his adventures,” I said.

Both men started laughing, and Ryan said, in between chuckles, “At one point he was in a room where both Allison and Lila were claiming him as a husband.”

“I like to think I’d have taken advantage of the situation,” Jack declared.

“I like to think I’d have had some dignity,” I muttered.

“Sorry, buddy. It’s just not fair, is it?” teased Ryan. “Feast or famine.”

Jack sighed, but when I looked over at him, he wore a smile. “Story of my life.”

We were quiet again. Ryan traced my jaw with his right hand, and I closed my eyes. When I opened them, the two men were having a wordless conversation with looks and nods. It ended when Jack got up. “Gonna hit the head, kids. Be right back.”

As soon as he was gone, Ryan cuddled me closer. His soft lips found my neck and then my ear. In between nibbles, he whispered. “Mrs. Crosse?”

“Mmm?”

“Want to do something a little crazy?”

“I don’t think we can do it that fast, darling.”

His laugh rumbled in his chest, and the low, sexy sound affected me the way it always did. I squirmed against him, and he laughed again. He resumed his tender assault. “This Jack is leaving in the morning.”

“Yeah?”

“We’ll never see him again.”

“Probably not.”

“But somewhere out there, he’s your husband.”

“Sort of, I guess.” I wasn’t paying attention. Ryan’s deep voice in my ear and his lips on my throat were hot enough, but he was sliding his hand in circles over my belly. The circles got wider with each pass, and he was brushing close to the undersides of my breasts and the top of my mound. Even through my T-shirt and shorts, the hard strength of his hand was turning me on.

“What would you say to having both of your husbands tonight?”

I froze. At the same time, my nipples went rock hard at the thought. Ryan saw the little nubs poking through my shirt and laughed gently. “Not a bad idea, eh?”

“You’re crazy,” I managed to croak.

“Not at all. There isn’t anyone else I trust more in this world besides you. He’s my best friend, only this version of my best friend knows you and your body. And he’s leaving in the morning. We don’t have to worry about consequences or changing the dynamic at work or anything at all.”

He was trying too hard not to sound eager. My nipples had betrayed me, but my brain still wanted to argue. “
You
and I are married here. Even after Jack goes home, we’ll still be here,” I said.

He started to make a joke and changed his mind. “Mrs. Crosse, we’re going to be here together until the river stops running. Nothing and nobody is going to stop that, change that or make any difference at all.”

I raised myself up on one elbow and kissed him. I meant it as a gentle thank-you, but he pulled me close to show me how much he meant every word. His tongue met mine. I was breathless before he was through.

I rolled over onto my back, feeling relieved. “Well, when we put in the dock so we could have more fun with the river, I guess it didn’t make the river change course.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eye.

He grinned at me. “Exactly right. And last night you seemed to enjoy the fantasy.”

He caressed me as he spoke, and I relaxed into the cushion under his hand. “It was really the way you were describing it, Ry.”

“So let’s not describe it. Let’s try something they don’t cover in Cosmo. But it’s up to you, honey.”

“Am I interrupting?” Jack’s tall, muscular body was silhouetted in the doorframe.

The tree frogs sang into the silence. Ryan squeezed my hand, but otherwise he was still.

“Not at all, Jack. Come on back and join us.” I was amazed at how steady my voice sounded.

Our friend came over and stretched out beside me. He slid his right arm under my neck, so that my head was pillowed on both of their arms.

“Ryan?” said Jack in a whisper.

“It’s all good, man,” replied my husband.

Ryan had gone back to tracing circles on my stomach, outside my shirt, as soon as I’d invited Jack to lie back down. Now Jack’s free hand ran lightly up my arm and over my neck to my cheek. He traced my eyebrows, the line of my nose and the curve of my jaw. It felt good, but the contrast between his tentative motion and my husband’s calm assurance was disconcerting. I shifted and Ryan sat up in response.

“I’ve got an idea.” He took off his T-shirt and used it to blindfold me. My heart skipped a beat. “So, Mrs. Crosse, here’s the game. One of us will touch you. You’ve just got to guess who it is.”

A smooth hand touched my knee. “That’s Jack.”

Another hand, this one with work-hardened fingertips, touched my arm. “Ryan.”

They started mixing it up, taking several turns in a row, or getting up and making noise and then sneaking back to the futon in an attempt to fool me, though the scrape of Ryan’s cast against the deck made those attempts futile. I didn’t miss a guess for the first ten minutes.

But it stopped being entirely innocent in short order. Jack’s hand crept under my shirt to rest briefly on my stomach. Ryan’s calluses gave him away when he touched the soft inner skin of my thigh, and again when he traced the outer edge of my ear. Jack’s skin was smoother, but his hands were just as strong as Ryan’s when he massaged one of my feet for a minute.

Then I started guessing wrong. It wasn’t Jack kissing the palm of my hand, or the hollow of my throat. And the first person to run his tongue along the edge of my ear wasn’t Ryan, but Jack, who did it exactly the way I like it best—slow, barely breathing, with a little flick on my earlobe at the end. That was the moment when I finally, truly believed that Jack was my lover in another world. The only person I’d ever told how much I loathed hearing someone breathe loudly in my ear was my husband. Apparently I was consistent across space and time.

Someone pushed my shirt all the way up, and with a wet little finger traced spirals on the exposed curves of my breasts. I was about to guess that it was Ryan touching me when I felt another wet fingertip on my stomach, slipping under the waistband of my shorts. My pussy clenched in response.

“Not fair. I can’t guess if you’re both touching me at once,” I protested. They both chuckled, and I realized they’d gotten back into their original positions, with Ryan on my right and Jack on my left. They were quiet for a moment.

Then I felt a hand on each of my knees. The men were perfectly matching their movements, and they slid their hands up my legs. They moved their palms firmly over my shorts with their fingertips grazing my mound. When they reached the bare skin of my torso, they slowed their speed to a crawl.

When those warm, strong hands finally reached my breasts, I moaned. Both men flinched, and I heard Jack swallow hard. But they still kept their motions exactly matching one another, and each slid a hand inside my bra. My nipples were gently tweaked at the same time, and I arched my back in delight.

Ryan untied the makeshift blindfold. “It’s covering too much of your beautiful face, babe.”

I looked up at him, his dark brown eyes filled with love and desire. “You are so good to me,” I whispered. I put my arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

His tongue met mine, and for all his apparent calm, his kiss proved that he was anything but. As it was gaining speed, I felt another warm mouth on the inside of my thigh, and the shock made me gasp.

“Should I stop?” murmured Jack.

“No,” said Ryan and I at the same time. We smiled at each other and got back to business. Ryan had one hand under my head and the other on my left breast. Jack was leaving a trail of kisses from my knees to the hem of my shorts. I had always thought that two mouths on me would be distracting, that I would pay attention to first one and then the other, but in practice the sensations kept me from thinking at all.

At the same moment that Ryan unfastened the front clasp of my bra, Jack unbuttoned my waistband. I raised my hips slightly to help him get my shorts and panties down. I felt Jack’s strong hands push my knees apart, so gently, and he resumed his trail of kisses, this time going from my knees to my bikini line. He never quite kissed my pussy, but I could feel his warm breath and soft hair as he passed by the area.

My husband stopped what he was doing and helped me get my T-shirt off. I slipped my arms out of the bra straps, and lay back on the futon. Both men knelt beside me. At some point when I was blindfolded, their shirts had come off. The glow from the moon threw highlights on their muscled chests. Ryan’s curled chest hair reminded me of what a masculine, virile man he was, and I shivered. Jack’s chest had far less hair, as Ryan had once joked. Just a dusting, coming together in a faint line leading to his pelvis. I stared at him appraisingly, past all shyness.

“I like the way you’re looking at me, Lila,” said Jack.

I reached for his arm, tracing the definition of his muscles as I moved from triceps to biceps to shoulder. When I got to the top of his arm, I ran my fingernail down his pectoral muscle and flicked it over the soft, coin-sized nipple. He shuddered. I rubbed his chest, smoothing down the gooseflesh that followed my touch.

“Your muscles are different from Ryan’s,” I said.

“I have to work out to look like this, unlike my buddy here.”

“The results are pretty good.”

He put his lips next to my ear. “I do it for my wife. You…she always makes sure she looks good for me. You’re so hot, so desirable, so sexual and giving. It makes me want to be a better man.”

I blushed. Ryan leaned down to murmur in my other ear. “It’s true, babe. You’re the best. Every time we make love, that’s what I’m thinking. I want to give you everything you need. The real question is this—can you give yourself to both of us tonight?”

Their deep voices made me feel warm all over. I stretched out my arms and legs, holding on to both of my handsome men. Their eyes followed my motions, and I had a physical reaction as they looked over each part of my body. My nipples tingled, and I squirmed just a little in anticipation.

The sight of my nipples puckering was too much for Ryan, who bent over to lick each one. His tongue moved around the soft part of my areola and flicked over the hard tip in between spirals. He pressed my breasts together so he could lick both nipples at once. I moaned at the shock waves running from my breasts to my clit.

Jack was massaging my legs while Ryan was occupied, and my knees spread apart without any urging from anyone. When Ryan lifted his head, I felt Jack’s mouth come down firmly onto my pussy. It was as if all of my blood rushed to that one spot. Neither of the men had touched me directly there all night, and suddenly Jack’s lips and tongue were everywhere.

“Does that feel good?” Ryan whispered.

“Uhhh.”

“Not good enough, Li. Tell me more.” Both of Ryan’s thumbs were firmly on my nipples, working them back and forth.

“It feels so good. It feels like you’re the one licking me, exactly the way I like it. But you’re paying so much attention to my breasts—”

“Say ‘tits,’ babe. It sounds dirty coming from you.”

“The way your hands are squeezing my tits is so hot.”

“He’s licking your pussy just like I do it?”

Jack was. His tongue was pointed and hard, and he was tracing each inner lip in turn before attacking my clit in fast waves. When it seemed like I was about to come, he would stop and use his lips to nibble, but when my hips settled down he went back to licking.

“Yes. Oh god, Ryan. Ryan, Jack. Guys, I can’t…”

“You can. Go, Lila. Come hard, honey.”

I was moaning and my body felt cold. All my heat was centered on my hot, wet cunt. Jack’s hands were firmly bracing my thighs, but under his hands I was shaking. One of his hands let go, and I felt two fingers sliding into me.

Ryan’s husky voice was in my ear. “Come hard, Li, come for us. Tell us how good this feels.”