It Stings So Sweet (17 page)

He angles his strokes to drive me over the edge and I hear myself shrieking. It feels so good
that I revel in pure bliss.

Red-faced and perspiring, Leo speaks with utter glee. “That makes
three . . .”

He doesn’t need to count anymore. It’ll happen again if he wants it to. My body
knows no limits now. I must be sore and swollen, but I don’t feel anything except pure exhilaration.

“Sorry, old boy,” Robert says, snapping the watch shut. “Didn’t beat the record.”

Leo doesn’t
seem disappointed or in a hurry. He rolls onto his back, carrying me with him. I spread over
his body, melting like butter, too weak to lift my head from the pillow of his chest. He can do whatever
he likes to me. He can make me come until it kills me. I don’t care. I’ll let him do anything.

“I could use a bit of assistance,” Leo says.

Robert rises from his chair. “I thought you’d
never ask.”

Where Leo threw his clothes on the floor, Robert folds his and tucks his shoes
neatly under the table where dinner has no doubt gone cold. But it’s the only thing that has. Watching
Leo’s friend undress is like a spark to kindling. I thought I was spent, but now desire roars awake
again. The sound that comes out of me is a low, throaty moan of eagerness. All I’ve wanted of Leo
is more, more, more. Now his friend seems to be a deliciously sexy extension of him. It’s not in me
to even
pretend
that I don’t want Robert Aster.

The other man hops onto the table with us and
takes it upon himself to undress me completely—removing my shoes, rolling down my stockings and removing
my garters. When he’s done, I find myself between both men, a pampered pet, being kissed and
stroked.

I do my own bit of exploring.

Where Leo’s skin is tan and weathered, Robert’s
is freckled and fair. Where Leo’s hands are calloused, Robert’s are soft and well manicured. Where
Leo’s body is sinew and steel, Robert is fleshier but strong. He has the hands of a patrician but the
body of a farm boy, and when I scratch over his nipples, he hisses with pleasure. He seems almost
giddy to be touched by me, easier prey than Leo has ever been.

Watching me toy with Robert
seems to amuse Leo, who rolls me onto his body again, palming me, flesh to flesh. Leo is still hard
and needy—he hasn’t found his own satisfaction yet and I want to give it to him. It doesn’t take much
urging for me to mount him. There’s something incredibly arousing about the way Robert Aster helps
me into position. Enticing both men with every roll of my hips, I ride Leo’s cock with shameless abandon.

Well, that’s not quite true. There’s plenty of shame; it’s just that my sense of shame never
stands a chance against my fevered lust. I keep waiting for Leo to rein me in. But it’s Robert whose
hand goes into my hair, gently pulling me up so that I need to rest my palms on Leo’s chest for balance.
“If you don’t mind terribly, Miss Cartwright, I’d like to see your breasts while you fuck.”

Oh, hearing that from him shocks me. And that hard look in his eyes under the civility makes me start
to wonder if I’ve misjudged the rich boy completely. He caresses my breasts, catching the nipples
between his fingers and giving them a squeeze. Being touched by both men sends a jolt of electric heat
through my body. Leo likes it, too. I know because his cock swells even bigger inside me. Right
now, pleasure is the only thing I know. Maybe my mother was right and I was a born whore, because I
begin to make frantic motions with my hips, trying to prove to them both that I can take anything. Leo
lets me thrash against his body, until I’m filled with frustration, and pleading with him to fuck
me even harder.

“I
really
like when you beg . . .” Leo says, using his legs and back for leverage
as he gives me just what I want. He strokes up into me like a jackhammer until my teeth rattle.
Meanwhile, Robert squeezes my nipples, twisting them between his fingers to the point of pain, and
I wail with pleasure.

Pink and breathless, I’m vaguely aware of Robert sheathing himself just
as Leo pulls out of me, his shaft resting like a broom handle between my belly and his. Even so,
my whole body stiffens in shock when Leo asks, “Are you going to let him fuck you, Clara?”

I’m shamed by how eagerly I say yes. Then Robert Aster, a man whose acquaintance I’ve known less than
the length of a feature film, slowly sinks his cock into the emptiness that Leo has left behind.

I can’t see my new lover, but his breath is warm on my back. The feel of his groin pressed tight
against my upturned bottom is warm and arousing. No two men fuck in the same way, and these two
are no exception. Robert is gentler, sliding smoothly against the flesh that Leo has left sore and
swollen. Meanwhile, Leo cushions my body for the other man. He holds my hair back so that he can see
my reddened face, my parted lips, the wanton desire in my eyes when he says, “Make him feel good, Clara
 . . .”

The expression on Leo’s face is one of complete mastery. He’s entitled to it. I’ve never
felt like I belonged to anyone before, but there isn’t a doubt in my mind that I belong to him.

How strange that I should realize it while another man is thrusting up inside me.

They
trade me back and forth between them. First Robert is stroking into me, then Leo, then Robert again,
until we’ve all melded into one humping, panting, undulating creature. It makes me shameless. It makes
me wild. It makes me want to scream. It makes me want to come.

Leo knows it and he increases
the tempo of his fucking. I bite down on his shoulder till I think it’ll draw blood. It doesn’t stop
him. And while Leo has me so distracted, Robert produces a tiny bottle of oil and dribbles it over
the puckered entrance I’d rather no one ever touched. He’s lubricating me, and I know just what for.
I try to evade his slippery fingers as they press into the tight hole, but I can’t escape them and
I squeal at the indignity.

It isn’t only that I don’t like being penetrated there; it’s also
that Leo hasn’t done it to me first. I don’t want Robert—whose winsome manner would have led me to
believe him incapable of this particular obscenity—to be the one to take me there first.

Ignoring
my objections, Leo spreads the cheeks of my bottom with both hands. “Let him do it, baby. I think
you’re going to like this an awful lot.”

I’ve never liked doing it; it always hurts. I’m already
so full that I can’t possibly take more. But I do. Robert prepares me with his fingers, until
the pain dissipates into raw pleasure. Then he works his prick into my ass. Leo hisses as if the tightness
hurts him, but he grinds his teeth against it. Then they’re both inside me.

My god, they’re
both
inside me, and I’m a glorious object of pleasure once again.

Robert strokes himself into
me slowly, alternating strokes with Leo until I think I’m going to shatter into a million pieces.
The sounds I make this time are low growls of pure primal instinct. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”

Nothing in my life has ever prepared me for sex with two men at the same time. It’s all new.
All of it. Everything I’ve ever done has been child’s play. I must have been a virgin because I’ve
never felt like this before. Not my body. Not my mind. Not my heart.

Suddenly, my eyes are
watering.

Leo takes hold of my face. “You don’t like it?”

“I love it, you bastard!”

Leo looks like he might burst with pride. “You wonderful little slut . . .”

The word doesn’t
sting, but I sob, “I
love
it . . .”

Robert curses, as if this statement of mine was designed
to make him spill his seed with embarrassing haste. I’m too greedy to give him even a moment to steady
himself. “Please don’t stop!”

With my encouragement Robert grips me by the hips and drives
into me. The searing, shocking pain of it makes me scream. But I’m not sorry. I find myself moaning,
crying out filthy words, thanking them, begging them. I’m sandwiched between them. My breasts glued
to Leo’s chest. My back sucked tight against Robert’s body. Bodies slick and tangled, hands on me everywhere,
and their mouths . . . oh, the feel of their mouths pressing kisses to my fevered skin.

Two
men are working inside me and I’ll do anything—
anything
—to please them.

I throw my head back,
and Leo’s mouth finds the scar on my neck. Kissing it, running his tongue over it like an animal
licks at a wound to heal it. Maybe that’s what he’s doing. Trying to heal me. Or maybe he’s broken me
completely. I’m raw and vulnerable in a way I’ve never been before. He’s taken me apart to see how
I work, but what if he can’t ever put me back together again?

Leo’s eyes flash, the look of
a man about to find his own pleasure. “Baby, do you want to make us come?”

That’s all the encouragement
I need. All I want is to make them come, to feel both men stiffening, to hear the erotic
symphony of their grunts and groans. Robert thrusts home, pushing into me with more urgency.

I think he’ll be the one to find release first, but I’m wrong.

I do.

The sensation of coming
on both men’s cocks is more than I can bear. My insides clench tight on the men inside me, and
I start sobbing.

“Jesus Christ!” Leo cries, tapping his head back against the table a few times
before he lets go completely. A moment later, Robert groans as he thrusts home, twitching with
orgasm.

We are, all three, doing it together, and my senses give out.

The world becomes
a blur of panting breaths and slippery skin and stuttering sighs.

And when I finally open my
eyes again, Leo kisses me.

He kisses me full on the mouth. Our first real kiss. I taste the
salty sweat of his upper lip. I feel the caress of his breath on my cheeks. His lips are soft and masculine.
Sweet enough to make my teeth hurt. The tenderness turns me inside out.

He kisses me like he
cherishes me.

He kisses me like I’m something precious.

He kisses me like he loves me.

And it breaks my heart.

CHAPTER

Ten

The regrets come later when I’m soaking in a hot bath,
listening to jazz phonographs playing in the bedroom n
earby. In Le
o’s claw-foot tub, I loll shyly
in the steaming water while he washes my back with lavender soap and a soft scrubbing brush. All my
life, I’ve chewed up men and spit them out and never cared a damn what anyone thought about it. But
all that’s changed now; I’m terrified that he’ll see it.

“How badly do you hurt?” Leo asks.

More than he’ll ever know, but not the way he means. “I’m just sore, is all.”

“So what
do you say? Did I keep my promise?”

“You’ll wish you didn’t,” I say, trying to put some distance
between us. “Now I’ll just want to do it again.”

He grins, sliding his hand under the water.
“Can’t I keep you sated for even a few hours? If you need more . . .”

I hiss like a cat. “Don’t
you dare. I’m
quite
sated.”

“Good.” Leo kisses my wet shoulder. “I wanted to wreck you just
a little bit.”

“You certainly did that.”

He’s holding me, caressing me, kissing me, practically
humming a little tune against my skin. I’m all broken inside and yet, he seems so . . .
happy
. “That
was even more fun than I thought it would be, Clara. I think you’d better tell me everything else
you’ve never done before.”

“I’ve done everything.”

Doesn’t he, even now, know what kind
of girl I am?

“Well, I don’t object to revisiting old favorites. But I’m sure there’s something
else you’ve never done before.”

“Nothing,” I snap.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well,
I’ve never been in love before.” It just slips out, and when it does, my eyes fill with tears. It’s
not like me to be so careless with words. Not like me at all to tell the truth when artifice would suffice.
And now that they’re out, the words just float there in the bath between us.

Leo clears his
throat. “Are you saying that you’re in love with me, Clara?”

I try and fail to swallow back
my tears. “Don’t be silly, Ace. If anything, I’ve fallen quite helplessly under Mr. Aster’s spell.”

His expression falls. “You’d better be joking . . .”

“Of course I am,” I say, wiping my
tear-streaked cheeks with the backs of my hands. “I don’t fall in love. It would ruin our arrangement
and I’m enjoying our sordid affair too much to spoil it.”

He isn’t fooled for one moment and
rushes forward in gallantry. “Well, I’m in love with
you
, Clara. I have been from the start.”

“Leo,
stop
,” I say, trying to get out of the tub before he feels the need to save me from further
humiliation.

He folds me into a towel. “I’d have said it before now if I thought you’d wanted
to hear it.”

“Well, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Too bad. You’re gonna hear it. I’m busting
to say it. I loved you the moment you said, ‘When I take a man to bed, it’s got everything to do
with the size of his bank account and what he’s got between his legs.’”

I’m appalled at myself
for having said it and at him for remembering it, but now he has me laughing through my tears. “You
really are the strangest man.”

“Clara, I loved you the first time I met you. Maybe even before
I met you.”

My heart swells inside my chest until the ache is unbearable. “You don’t know what
you’re saying, Leo. Every man in the country thinks he’s in love with me if you believe the papers,
but that doesn’t make it true.”

“Every man in the country probably
is
in love with you, Clara.
But they don’t know what to do with you. I know exactly what to do with you, or do you still have
any lingering doubts?”

His words recall to mind the wicked way we spent the afternoon, and
I can’t look at him.

“I love you, Clara Flannagan.”

At the sound of my real name, I flinch.

“I
do
, Clara. I love the way you taste. I love the way you smell of gardenias. I love the way
you sound when you come. I love the way you respond to my touch, to my words, to my every perverse
desire . . .”

“That’s lust, not love, Leo.”

“I’m not finished. I love that you’re loyal
as a hound. I love that spunky kid inside who stole a giant pink ball of fairy floss. I love the hard-boiled
act you use to hide your big sappy heart. I never thought I’d meet a girl like you—never
thought a girl like you existed. You’re bright and talented. You’ve got something about you, Clara.
You
sparkle
. So I want you to know, right here, right now, that I love you.”

“Oh, Leo . . .”
I stroke his beloved cheek with my wet hand, terrified to believe a word. “You’ll feel differently
in the morning.”

“Why the devil would I feel differently in the morning?”

I’m silent.
My insides writhe like snakes. I think I’m on the verge of a breakdown.

“Clara, is there something
you need to tell me?”

I shake my head, unable to speak.

Bitterness seeps into his voice.
“Am I going to find out you never broke things off with Teddy Morgan?”

This finally loosens
my tongue. “Of course I did. I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.”

Leo grunts. “Good.”

“But I don’t see what difference it makes to you. Whether it’s Teddy Morgan . . . or Robert
Aster.”

“Ah,” he says, as if a lightbulb has blinked on. “At least twenty years difference
in age, for starters. But the important difference is that Teddy Morgan wants you for himself whereas
Bobby knows you’re just on loan.”

“Why, Leo, you sweet talker.”

He’s unapologetic. “We
Germans can be very territorial . . .”

“Well if you’re so territorial, I don’t see why you’re
not angry about the way I behaved today.”

“Now that you mention it . . . I
am
a little sore
at you. I was looking forward to the expensive meal at the Moroccan you caused to go to waste. I’m
willing to forgive you because you turned out to be far tastier than anything the chefs could have prepared.”

“You know what I meant, Leo.”

“Haven’t you figured me out yet, Clara? What thrills me is
getting in your head. I’ll exploit every fantasy you’ve got as long as I can make you look at me the
way you did this afternoon. Fuck Lucky Lindy. What I did with you today was better than flying a
solo flight across the Atlantic. Every single thing we did proved that you’re mine. Today, you let me
give you away. And a man can’t give away what doesn’t belong to him. So I’m glad to hear you say you
wanted to do it again. Because we
are
going to do it again.”

I slant him a glance. “Oh, are
we?”

“Yes. We are.” Leo’s tone brooks no argument. “We definitely are.”

The thought of
it makes me shiver before I can put on a false mask of modesty. “With Mr. Aster?”

“Why? Do
you have another man in mind? And before you answer, realize that if you say Big Teddy Morgan, I’m going
to turn you over my knee.”

“Now you’re just tempting me . . .”

Leo laughs. “And
that
is
why I’m in love with you. And why I’m still going to love you in the morning.”

“Don’t worry,
Ace,” I whisper to myself. “I won’t hold you to it.”

He takes me to bed. And by that, I mean he towels me dry, carries me into his bedroom, then tucks me
under the covers. I sigh at the feel of the cool, crisp linens against my skin and delight of the
scent of him on the scratchy wool coverlet. There’s nothing glamorous about his bedroom. It’s spare
and well-ordered, with framed drawings of engines and flying machines displayed like artwork on the
wood-paneled walls.

“So, what do you think?” Leo asks, climbing in bed with me and nuzzling
my damp hair. “I know it’s not a penthouse apartment or an oceanside mansion, but I’m rather proud
of this place. I bought it with the first prize money I ever won on the racing circuit. Six bedrooms.
A pool around back and a gated garden . . .”

A girl could get comfortable here if she let herself,
but I say, “It’s not bad.”

His medals of valor hang over the headboard. The oak-leaf cluster.
The Distinguished Service Cross. The French Legion of Honor. The Belgian Order of Leopold II. He
tells me their names when I press him, but he won’t tell me what he did to get them.

He’d rather
talk about his next mission, the upcoming test flight for Morgan Industries. He talks about his
plan to circumnavigate the globe. He talks airships and flying machines and filmmaking.

It
isn’t until the wee hours of the morning that he’s willing to tell me about the war.

His voice
is flat when he describes the bombing raids. The dogfights. The artillery fire that killed so many
of his friends. Sometimes a young Lieutenant Robert Aster gets mentioned in these stories as an officer
who found creative ways to reequip their unit with the machine guns they so badly needed, but
most of the stories are about men I’ve never heard of. Men who were shot down and taken prisoner. Brave,
gallant, fierce warriors who never lost an aerial battle but died inglorious deaths by way of
dysentery.

When he speaks of them, his eyes are red-rimmed. “Sometimes it fell to me to write
a letter to their kin, or maybe a sweetheart back home, and . . .” I catch a glint of guilt in his
eyes and wonder just what it is that he feels so awfully sorry about. Until now, I didn’t know it
was possible for someone to feel guilty just for surviving, but I think he does. These men were his
family. Now they’re dead, just like the mother he never knew and the father who died in a cornfield.
And he thinks it should have been
him
. “There’s no justice in the world, Clara. I had nobody waiting
on me back home, but no matter what risks I took, whether I shot down another plane or crashed
my own in a fog, I just kept coming back.”

I listen to everything he says, touching his stubbly
cheek to soothe him during the hardest parts. When he finally closes his eyes, I think he’s fallen
into a deep sleep, but then I realize he’s just putting everything away again inside his head. He’s
told me stories that would make a riveting, gut-wrenching film, but that can wait. It’ll have to
wait.

“Why do you keep flying, Leo? In war, men risk their lives for a good cause. But the
war’s over. It’s been over for years.”

He leans back on his headboard. “When I go up now, it’s
not about killing anybody else. The only life at stake is mine. Aviation is opening the skies for
the future. Because of what we do, you can see more of the world. You can take an airship to Paris.
When pilots try to cross the ocean, it’s to prove that it can be done. That it
should
be done. Someone
has to go first and change everything we think we know and it might as well be me.”

“That all
sounds rather high-minded but you make me wonder if you have a death wish.”

He knows I’m serious
but shrugs it off. “Planes are better designed and safer than they used to be. When I started
flying, wings were practically made of paper and wire. And we didn’t use parachutes during the war.
The German pilots had them, but Allied aircrew flew without. I was glad we didn’t have parachutes because
when we were going down that left only three choices. Ride it out and risk a fiery crash. Jump
to your death. Or use a revolver to end it quickly.”

This chills me to the bone. My mouth falls
open in abject horror.

He chucks me under the chin. “Clara, I always rode it out. And the plane
I’m taking up next week for Morgan Industries has a metal frame. I’ve studied the design. The fuel
tank’s in front, which reduces the possibility it might crush me to death in a crash.”

How
am I stuck on a man who views falling from the sky and crashing his plane as less dangerous than being
crushed by a fuel tank? And how can he speak of it with such resignation? Maybe he’s just tired.
He
looks
tired, his eyes hooded, his strong shoulders slumped. If he’s as exhausted as I am, he’s
a man in desperate need of sleep, so I say, “I should go, Leo. It’s late.”

Leo narrows his
eyes. “Where the devil are you going?”

“You don’t expect me to stay the night, do you?”

“That’s exactly what I expect. I want you right here until the sun rises . . .”

“Haven’t
you ever kept a mistress before, Leo? That’s not how it works.”

Leo reaches into the drawer
by the side of the bed and takes out a pack of smokes. He doesn’t offer me one. He just lights up.
“Tell me, how is it supposed to work?”

“You keep a mistress tucked away in some apartment that
you can visit when it pleases you. On special occasions, you might have her come to your bed, but
you always send her away when you’re done.”

“Well, I’m not done,” Leo says, taking a deep drag
of his cigarette.

The way he looks at me makes me very afraid. “Leo, I’m in no condition—”

“I want to sleep next to you. Or do I have to marry you to get you to spend the night in my
bed?”