Men of Fortune 1: Derek (4 page)

“But,” Matthias butted in, “you did say her
mother had eighteen years to do damage before Carly moved out of
their home.”

“So I have to wait eighteen years? Oh,
right, it’s eighteen years
less
four months.”

“Derek,” Adam chided, lifting his head.
“Sarcasm doesn’t help.” He gasped then, and by the secret smile on
Lily’s lips and the movement of her hands, Derek guessed she was
giving Adam a handjob.

Remorse flooded him at Adam’s mild scold.
Matthias was only trying to help by applying his logical brain to
the problem. “Sorry, man.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his
nose.

Matthias waved away the apology. “I get
worse from my students, especially when they’re trying to wriggle
out of detention.”

Matthias was a teacher at the local high
school. Not only did he love kids, but his stern visage was perfect
when it came to discipline. Derek had no doubt he’d make principal
one day, if Matthias wanted. The problem was, Matthias loved
teaching more than dealing with the paperwork.

“Why do they get sent to detention?” Lily
asked, all innocence that was belied by the increasing fast rhythm
of her hand. “Was it because they were trying to seduce you?”

Matthias released a bark of laughter. “Your
head’s always in the gutter,” he said, amused.

“It’s a nice place to be.” She shrugged, and
when Adam groaned and buried his face against her neck, she
continued, “Just ask Adam.” She lifted her hand and, with a
smoldering look in her eyes, licked the spunk on her hand.

Derek felt his cock jerk at the sensuous
picture she made. The other men also shifted in their seats, but
while they could indulge with her, should she be willing, he
couldn’t. He was a married man, no matter how tight and sweet Lily
was, no matter that the sex would be nothing but merely a mutual
release for pleasure. He couldn’t be unfaithful to his wife.

Lily slithered down from Adam’s lap to the
floor, where she was probably licking him clean under the table. A
moment later, Derek saw her move on to Oliver, who was seated
beside him. She unbuckled his belt and was soon licking and sucking
his cock. His cousin groaned and closed his eyes, and Derek knew he
wouldn’t be able to contribute to the discussion in the next few
minutes.

“Carly is a mess.” Nathan’s comment drew him
back into the conversation. The second oldest of them all,
logical-minded Nathan was a ruthless businessman.

All their fathers were siblings. While Derek
and Matthias were their parents’ only child, Nathan had a younger
brother—Oliver—while Adam had an older sibling named Rafe. In terms
of age, Rafe was the oldest at thirty-five, while at twenty-nine,
Oliver was the youngest.

Nathan raised a hand when Derek started to
protest. “I’m only calling it like it is—”

“The thing is though, if you put yourself in
her shoes, you’d understand why Carly is the way she is.” Adam came
to his rescue, all the while securing his trousers.

Derek was the closest to him, as they were
roommates together in college then colleagues after graduation.
What they knew of photography, they shared with the other. This
sharing extended to women, cars, cameras, and, in the initial
stages of Derek’s courtship of Carly, some facts on Carly’s
background. He’d been incensed when he’d heard Carly’s childhood
stories, and he’d wanted to vent. Who better than Adam? What Derek
never shared though were the private moments he and Carly had,
especially once they started going exclusive.

“You’re missing some facts, so let me put it
this way to you macho guys,” Adam was saying. “All her life, her
mother has been putting her down, telling her she isn’t pretty,
she’s good for nothing, that she can never measure up to her
beautiful elder sister, that no man would ever want her. To a young
girl, those kinds of statements can be pretty damaging, leaving
scars she’d carry to adulthood.”

Nathan made a disgusted noise. “That woman
isn’t fit to be a mother.”

“You’re preaching to the choir.” Adam
nodded.

“Why would a woman do that to her own
daughter?”

“We’re not sure.” Derek faced this topic
with weary resignation, knowing nothing he did could change Carly’s
past. The most he could do was to help her get over and passed it.
“By Carly’s choice, she’s now estranged from her mother, but we’ve
pieced together a picture—sort of—from what her mother had dropped
over the years. We think Carly’s father may have promised to give
Carly’s mom a good life, but then, the guy disappeared, saddling
Carly’s mom with another daughter—Carly, who was still an infant at
that time—and making their already dire circumstances even worse.
Her mom’s hatred for the guy could’ve transferred to the daughter.”
Derek shrugged. “This is all supposition, as we don’t have the
facts to support this, and we aren’t willing to seek out Carly’s
mom for the truth.”

“Even if you did, there’s no guarantee she’d
tell you the truth,” Nathan put in with a wry twist to his mouth.
“After all, if she’s lived her life for the purpose of hurting her
daughter, what’s one more lie?”

“True. Added to which—” Adam was interrupted
by Oliver’s shout of release.

Derek’s head swiveled to his cousin, in time
to see Oliver draw Lily up for a long, passionate kiss.

“You’re still the best cocksucker I’ve ever
had.” Oliver’s eyebrow cocked. “Want me to return the favor?”

Lily gave a rueful glance down at his
flaccid cock. “I want a hard cock inside, which you obviously can’t
do right now.” She turned to the group, before settling on him.
“Derek?”

Lily was temptation herself, with her
generous curves and tight ass, but he held up both hands. “Sorry,
Lil, can’t oblige.”

She grinned. “Congratulations, you passed
the test.”

Man, he was sunk when he couldn’t even tell
when one of his oldest friends was teasing him.

She saw the expression on his face and
frowned. “I didn’t really intend to fuck you, you know, not unless
your wife agrees. I may be a slut but I do have my principles, one
of which is that I’m not a marriage wrecker.”

Derek nodded weakly. “Glad to know you have
standards.”

“I can tell your wife you refused me, if you
think it’ll help.”

“I’ll think about it.” He couldn’t think
that far, not when Carly’s insecurities ate at him and he missed
her so damn much. All the sex in the room, especially the ones in
front of him, reminded him that he could be at home right now in
their bed, engaging in his favorite activity with his wife. Or,
having Carly here…where he could watch her be pleasured and fucked
by his cousins, before he took her himself and see what she thought
of his imitation of a rampaging lion.

His mouth briefly lifted at the thought,
even as discomfort settled on him. Much as he would love to bring
Carly into the group, something about it disturbed him.

Lily nodded in acknowledgement, then winked
at Matthias. “How about it, big guy? Your cock ready for me?”

Matthias had on his usual stern demeanor.
“Come here,” he said, his voice that of a man who wouldn’t be
denied, one who expected his sexual partners to obey his word
without question.

She knew what to say. “Yes, sir.” She
sauntered the short distance over to him, where he was seated on
Derek’s left side. A glance at Matthias’s lap revealed that he was
suited up and ready, and Derek didn’t know when that had happened.
As a photographer, he was usually observant, but it seemed his
problems with Carly were affecting his normal faculties.

She moved to straddle him, but he stopped
her with another command. “Take off your blouse and bra.”

She shrugged and the flimsy fabric, which
was clinging to her shoulders, dropped to the ground. The bra went
next. Derek heard the sharp intake of breath from the group of men
sitting next to their table. He couldn’t fault them.

In the semi-dim light, Lily’s gorgeous body
was outlined in every detail. Her nipples—a deep, beautiful
brown—were beaded with arousal, hard, turgid nubs that invited a
man’s mouth to envelope them. Lily standing so close to him, Derek
could smell her arousal, knew that Matthias’s demands were exciting
her, that this also served as foreplay to her.

“Now your skirt and thong.”

Lily wore nothing but thongs. All of them
knew that. Still, watching her remove her clothing and bare her
skin caused heat to rise in him and made him wish Carly was here so
he could assuage the fever within. He couldn’t help it; he adjusted
his pants.

She trembled, but not from fear. Now all the
men at the tables surrounding them were watching her, their avid
gazes lingering on her breasts, her narrow waist, the black thatch
between her thighs and the long, slim legs in high heels.

She wanted this, craved the male
attention.

Matthias smiled, and the hint of cruelty in
them only heightened her excitement. Derek heard it in her
quickened breathing. He knew what was coming, and he knew she knew
as well, and she was anticipating it.

“Get a jug of beer from the bartender and
refill our glasses.” Matthias’s teeth flashed, the smile one of a
predatory animal. Going to the bar would entail walking naked
between tables of men. “If you spill a single drop, I want you to
give all of us, save for Derek, a blowjob and you’ll go home
frustrated. If you don’t, you’ll get my cock. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go.”

“Yes, sir.”

In silence, they all tracked Lily’s graceful
progress toward the bar. Oliver shook his head. “I don’t know how
you do it, Matthias.”

Matthias had relaxed back in his chair, but
his gaze was glued to Lily’s swaying ass. “She wants it. You have
to know what your woman wants and give it to her.”

“Same with Carly,” Derek said.

“Exactly.” Matthias looked at him. “The
question is, do you know what she wants?”

“Sex?” he offered tentatively.

His cousins burst out laughing.

“Aside from that,” Adam countered. “We’ll
let you think on that while I continue what I was saying before we
were…um, intriguingly interrupted. I was talking about Carly’s
elder sister Charlotte, who is a bitch, the type who couldn’t stand
it if Carly has something she doesn’t have. If I remember right,
she stole Carly’s prom date from under her nose in high school, and
later, one of her boyfriends. It’s no wonder Carly would be anxious
about Derek. Such a situation would shatter any woman’s confidence,
much less Carly’s.”

“Especially when we’ve all witnessed how
eager Charlotte is to hook her claws into our friend here,” Oliver
added, clapping Derek on the shoulder. A fiction writer, he had a
sense for the dramatic. “I daresay that fact didn’t miss Carly’s
eyes.”

“I never encouraged Charlotte,” Derek
protested. Within him, he was starting to realize that he may have
done something wrong, something that had displeased his wife and
may have contributed to her insecurities.

“You didn’t reject her either.” This came
from Adam, to which Derek replied, “She never came with an outright
invitation, and I either ignored or pretended to misread her subtle
cues. I never expected her to be so tenacious.” He sighed. Now he
knew something Carly wanted from him, but which he hadn’t given
her. “Mainly, I didn’t want to hurt Carly. They’re sisters, after
all.”

“You didn’t—!” Oliver gaped at him.
“Charlotte stole her dates before. You think Carly would be mad at
you if you rejected her sister’s advances?”

“I didn’t mean it that way.” Derek shot the
other man an annoyed look. “I meant, Carly would be hurt if she
knew Charlotte’s up to her old tricks.”

“Oh. But Carly didn’t see it that way.”

“Until I read her diary, I didn’t know
that.” Derek lifted the mug to his mouth and took a drink. “Women.
They’re so much trouble.” Despite all his grumblings, he knew he’d
take the trouble that was Carly any day.

Lily was back, in time to give him a refill.
She was careful about pouring the beer from the jug into each of
their mugs, no matter how his cousins teased her, and before long,
she was straddling Matthias. Both moaned when she sank down on his
cock, taking him deep within her. Soon, she had an easy rhythm
going, while his cousin busied himself with her breasts.

Nathan cleared his throat, which made
everyone’s gazes swing from the entwined couple to him—they all
loved watching as much as getting it on—and what he said made Derek
realized that such perception was what made Nathan such a good
businessman. “I think there’s a part of you that wished Carly would
fight for you.”

There it was. His deep, hidden desire. The
wound that was first cut by his mother, then reinforced by one
girlfriend after another, leaving a scar that had never quite
healed. He had never intended to fall in love with Carly, but love
had snuck in and caught him by surprise. The depth of his feelings
for her surpassed any he’d ever had for a woman before.

Nathan had exposed him, laid bare the reason
he’d kept Carly to himself all these months. Realization dawned. It
was the same reason for the unease underlying his desire to see her
have sex with his cousins.

He was afraid. Afraid she’d turn out to be
as shallow as some of his previous girlfriends. That she’d be
swayed and tempted by his cousins’ bigger cocks or more muscular
builds or something. That he’d discover she didn’t love him the
way—with the same intensity—he did her. That he would lose her.

He’d die if his fears turned out to be
true.

So he’d kept her to himself, away from
temptation and potential heartbreak.

Their relationship hadn’t been tested. Not
yet.

Yet how could he subject her to the test,
when she was already having a hard time battling her own
insecurities? How could he expect her to fight for him, for them,
for what they have?