Menage on 34th Street (4 page)

“God!” Liam’s voice shook, his ass clenching down on Hunter’s throbbing cock.

Hunter let his head fall back and began a fast, steady pace. Jesus, the way Liam felt around him short-circuited his brain. He’d never been so grateful for the thin barrier of a condom.

Lost in the building pleasure, Hunter was only vaguely aware of how Liam moved under him. Liam’s arm and shoulder twitched, moving in time with Hunter’s heavy thrusts. Hunter dragged air into his lungs, suddenly realizing that Liam was jacking himself off as Hunter fucked him.

That did it. The idea of Liam’s long-fingered, elegant hands wrapped around hard flesh while Hunter slammed his own cock home pushed him over the edge of his control.

He gave up and let his cock set the pace. It was hard, almost brutal, but evidently worked for Liam. Liam vised down on Hunter, making the thrusts rougher as he gave a hoarse shout. It was all Hunter needed. Pleasure so intense it was painful expanded from the base of his spine. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood as his orgasm pumped out of him in such hot, massive streams he hazily worried that the condom wouldn’t hold. Then there was nothing but static in his head as his brain simply shut down.

Long moments later, reality began to sift into his consciousness. Somehow he’d ended up on the carpet on his side with Liam curled into him. Shit.

He reached down between them to grasp the base of his cock and keep the condom in place. He slid out of Liam easily, the constricting ring of muscle releasing him with a wet, erotic sound. Even after three wrecking orgasms tonight, his cock twitched.

Liam stretched out, flopping over on his back.

Suddenly needing space, Hunter rolled to his feet. His jeans were still at his knees, so he yanked them up one-handed. He stepped over Liam and strode through the master bedroom to the bathroom. After disposing of the condom, he fastened his jeans and stared at himself in the mirror.

What the hell was he going to do? He didn’t even know what he
wanted
to do.

Chapter Four

“Beating yourself up, Hunter?”

The slightly mocking tone reignited the anger that’d gone dormant during his sexual frenzy. Hunter turned slowly, leaning a hip against the vanity. He crossed his arms and stared at Liam in silence.

Liam’s hair stood in damp spikes on his head and streaks of sweat marked his face and torso. The slow burn of attraction smoldered in Hunter’s gut, but he ignored it. He’d let his libido take control too often tonight. He needed to engage his brain, stay on target and not get distracted.

His personal identity crisis could wait, but he needed to deal with Liam now.

Liam sneered. “No answer?”

He knew Liam’s manipulative tendencies, his need to make things fit his expectations. Wasn’t that how he ended up here? Not this time, though. This was too important.

“You didn’t give her my note.”

Liam shook his head. “Are you still on that?”

Hunter continued to stare at him.

“Fine! Yeah, I threw it out. If you’d forced her to make a choice, it would have hurt more than you just walking away.”

“You don’t know what she would have done. Neither of us do. You’re not God, dammit. You can’t just dick around with our lives because you think you know best.”

“You would have done the exact same thing and you know it.”

“Bullshit,” Hunter replied. “I wouldn’t have robbed her of the right to choose.”

Liam narrowed his eyes. “I chose to protect the people I love from getting hurt.”

Hunter nearly choked on a bitter laugh. “Do you think Kat left because she was happy that you’d made the decision for her? Do you think
I’m
happy? You fucking asshole.”

Liam’s nostrils flared and flushed color flagged his cheekbones. “Where do you get off telling me what I should or shouldn’t do?”

Hunter straightened and stabbed a finger into the center of Liam’s chest. The other man flinched but didn’t back up. “There! How can you say that when you did the exact same thing to Kat and me? You might not have told us what to do, but you cut off our options. You made it so the only option remaining was what you wanted. How is that any different?”

Liam froze. He looked like he’d been hit with a brick. “Fuck.”

Satisfied he’d made his point, Hunter dropped his hand. “Flip it around, man. Think how this looks to her. To
me
.”

“Fuck,” Liam repeated, rubbing a hand over his face.

Hunter pushed past him and into the bedroom. Kat’s stamp was all over the room, from a basket overflowing with hair ribbons to a tube of lip gloss on the nightstand at her side of the rumpled bed.

Christ, that bed. He glanced sidelong at Liam, who still stood in the bathroom door, and couldn’t stop his head from going there. On their bed, him and Kat and Liam. No room for the surplus of pillows.

“You need to get her back here,” Hunter said. “Shouldn’t have let her leave.”

“As pissed as she was? No stopping her.” Liam’s weary voice was closer than Hunter expected. “Are you forgetting she punched you? She’s probably at Adele’s, anyway. You remember Adele?”

Hunter rubbed his stomach and grinned at the memory of Kat hitting him. The circumstances were shit, but she was hot when she was mad. “Yeah. Blonde, cute, hooked up with the accountant?”

“That’s the one. She’s still with the accountant and she and Kat are still tight. The two of them holed up at Adele’s place for days after you left.”

Liam crossed to stand at the foot of the bed. “Kat and I have had a good life. I think we could have a better one. That’s why I called you.”

“To rub it in my face?”

“No. To ask you to help make it better. Look, I—shit.” Liam gripped the bed post, and swore again.

Hunter frowned. Liam wasn’t making any sense. “Yeah, I got that tonight was some kind of fantasy trip or whatever. Didn’t exactly work.”

“Dammit, that’s not what we’re doing.”

“Then what exactly are you doing? Besides jerking my chain.”

“I haven’t talked to Kat about it.”

“That much was obvious.”

Liam gave him a dirty look. “Will you shut up? Kat was really busted up when you left. I couldn’t fix it, and that sucked. And I was pissed at you, too.”

“You were probably turning fucking cartwheels with me out of the way.”

“Stubborn son of a bitch. Kat wasn’t the only one who wanted you to stay.”

“Sure. That’s why you pitched the note.”

“Get real. You didn’t want to have a relationship with me. The whole idea of being hot for a guy sent you running.”

“Fuck off. I don’t see you married to a dude. You have no place to talk.” Unable to look at that bed another minute, he headed for the hall. “I need a drink.”

“Beer on the bottom of the fridge door,” Liam said behind him.

Downstairs, Hunter grabbed a cold bottle and took it into the living room. Liam was still upstairs, Kat still hadn’t come home, and Hunter didn’t know why the hell he wasn’t on his way out the door.

Except he did know. Wasn’t that why he’d driven to Baltimore in the first place?

Liam came down the stairs. Hunter tipped the beer bottle to his mouth without acknowledging Liam, who walked past Hunter and went into the kitchen. Hunter heard the refrigerator door open and close, the metallic clink of a bottle cap hitting the counter, and then Liam reappeared with his own bottle. Liam downed half his beer before he spoke again.

“You don’t see me married to a dude because the man I wanted went to war.”

Hunter finally looked at Liam, who leaned one shoulder against the door frame and stared down at his bare feet. “Does Kat know that?”

“She knows I go both ways, but we never specifically talked about you.”

Well, shit. If that wasn’t a knife in his gut, he didn’t know what was. Hunter glared at a framed photo of Kat and Liam on their wedding day.

He took another drink of his beer and the silence stretched between them. He wanted to ask...what? What the hell did he even want to know? This was ridiculous.

Liam straightened from the door frame and took two steps toward him before stopping. He set his bottle on the end table and raked his hand through his hair.

“There was nothing to talk about as long as you were gone and in denial. What would it have accomplished?”

“And now? What is this supposed to accomplish now?”

“It’s supposed to get it through your thick head that we can all be together,” Liam snapped.

“Your definition of ‘together’ sucks. Kat ran out of here crying and we’re not exactly doing great.”

“That’s my point. This isn’t how it should be. It should be like it was earlier tonight with the three of us in the kitchen. That’s how it
could
be.”

“The sex was awesome.”

“Not just the sex, dammit. Okay, the sex is part of it, but I think we could have more than just that.”

More than the sex? How the hell was that supposed to work when Liam and Kat were married? Hunter drained his beer and leaned forward to set it next to Liam’s on the table. “I don’t see that working. Especially not when Kat’s not even in on the discussion.”

Liam nodded slowly. “Fair enough. I don’t want her busted up over you again, so I want to know if you’re even interested.”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit. Either you’re interested or you aren’t.”

“It’s not bullshit. I don’t know what you have in mind.”

Liam scraped his hand through his hair again. At this point it stood in crazy spikes all over his head. It reminded him of how Liam had looked immediately after sex. He shook his head to clear the image.

“I want us to be together,” Liam repeated. “You, me, Kat. I want us to make a life for the three of us.”

Something ripped open in his chest, a wound he hadn’t known he had. He’d given up the idea of a family years ago when he’d found himself alone on his back in a military hospital, the only visitors his Marine buddies and the staff. Instead of wanting some faceless wife and kids, he’d dreamed of Liam and Kat. He’d revisited that one night, that one moment, so many times that the fantasy blotted out any possibility of a real relationship. Staring up at the hospital ceiling, he’d finally admitted that there was no family in his future.

“Do you understand what you’re asking? I’m a Marine.”

Liam balled his fists at his sides. “I know that. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“The fact that you’d say that is my fucking point. The Corps isn’t like other services. We deploy more often into worse situations. We move every couple of years. I’m more likely to die than if I were in some other service. That’s the reality. You have no idea what you’re asking.”

“Yeah, actually, I do. You think I don’t know what you do is dangerous? I do. Is it somehow worse if you die and we’re together than if you die and we’re apart? What kind of sense does that make?”

Hunter shook his head. “You don’t know how hard it would be. I couldn’t be public about an arrangement like you’re talking about. The Corps would flip its shit over that. I’d be royally screwed.”

“Amazingly, I figured that out.”

Why did Liam’s sarcasm make his dick twitch? Hunter ignored it and plowed ahead. “I’d have to keep it totally separate from the Marine stuff, and that’s a huge chunk of my life. How would that work when I get transferred to North Carolina or California or wherever?”

“We’d move, obviously.”

Hunter stared at him. “Just like that?”

“Of course just like that. It’s a house. It’s a place. What does it matter which house or which place?”

Was it that easy for him? Maybe it was. But it might not be that easy for Kat. Not to mention Kat was pissed as hell.

“Fine. Let’s say you
are
okay with everything. What about Kat? You have to fix shit with her before you can even talk about adding me to the mix. And I’m not convinced she’d be into it.”

“You’re wrong about that. It’s what she’s always wanted, she just didn’t think she could have it. That’s why I pushed. I damn well want her to have it.
I
want to have it.”

“You still need to deal with the other crap.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“There’s no ‘we’ on that. You fucked up, you get to fix it.”

“Don’t think so. She needs to know you and I have made peace. Nothing will fix this with her if she thinks you’re still pissed at me.”

“I am still pissed at you. Fucking isn’t the same thing as making peace.”

He didn’t tell Liam that a solid half of his anger was with himself. He should have done better than a sticky note. And he damned sure shouldn’t have left it where Liam could get it.

The other half... Hunter looked Liam square in the eyes. “I thought you were an honorable man. I trusted you to hold your word. If you didn’t want me interfering with you and Kat, you should have told me to my face.”

For the first time that night, genuine regret flashed across Liam’s features. “It wasn’t about you, Hunter. I had to protect her. You decided to enlist and there was no talking you out of it. I’m sorry I ended up standing between you. That wasn’t my intention.”

Hunter studied the other man for a moment. He’d known Liam for a long time, but this was the first time, the only time, he could remember hearing Liam apologize to him for anything.

“I believe you,” Hunter said.

“You do?” Undisguised surprise rang in Liam’s question.

“Yeah.” At Liam’s relieved huff of breath, Hunter shook his head. “But believing and forgiving aren’t the same thing. This is a temporary peace at best, and I’m not the only one who deserves an apology.”

“I guess that’s good enough. At least we can tell Kat you’re not going to kick my ass. I’ll text her, see if I can get her to come home.” Liam gave Hunter a rueful smile.

“Good luck with that.” Hunter definitely remembered Kat in a temper. It took a lot to get her riled, but when she blew, you weren’t likely to budge her.

Liam waved dismissively, brushing around him to grab his phone from the coffee table. “Hell, for all I know, she’s on her way up the walk right now and she’s the one who’s going to kick my ass.”

“Your ass deserves to be kicked.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, walking to the window. He thumbed the phone on, glancing out the window.

Hunter shook his head. If any of his Marines had copped the kind of attitude he got from Liam, he
would
have kicked their ass. But Liam wasn’t one of his Marines, and Hunter had some better ideas for that tight ass.

He was studying the ass in question when Liam stiffened. He stopped messing with his phone and put one hand against the window. He leaned into it, turning his head one way then the other, as if looking for something.

Liam cursed and turned from the window.

“What?”

“Her car’s still here.”

Hunter frowned. “So?”

“Christ, have you been gone that long? She didn’t drive over to Adele’s place. She didn’t take the car at all, which means she’s walking. Alone. In Baltimore. At night.”

Hunter thought about his drive in. Yeah, he’d gone through some sketchy areas not too far from here. Alarm raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “Son of a bitch. We need to find her.”