“Thank you, Alys.” Xander hung up.
Now that the crisis was over, exhaustion sank in again in an instant. I was barely aware of setting my computer and phone aside, and laying down in bed. But what a great way to end a week like I’d had—getting our qualifying entry handed in and then fixing a random and challenging problem with a new-to-me platform.
When I woke up, Maddox and Onyx were laying on either side of me. I had no memory of them climbing into bed with me. I tried to move, and Maddox draped an arm over me without opening his eyes.
Onyx was watching me though.
“Why are you in here?” I whispered.
“We missed you.”
I didn’t have a reply, and I was too comfortable to remove myself from the three-person pile. The heat and comfort that enveloped me made it easy to drift in and out of dreams filled with hard bodies pressing in on me, and a reality that was a lot the same.
When consciousness finally slipped in and lingered, I didn’t want to move. The week started on a stressful note and never really let up, and now that we had a day of nothing ahead of us, my brain didn’t know what to do.
Aside from focusing on how good this felt and that at some point in the last few hours, I tossed and turned enough that I was facing Maddox now, with Onyx behind me.
And Maddox was awake. The way he studied me made my breath catch.
Onyx held me tightly, reminded me of almost a week ago, and climbing into bed with him. The way he’d stayed buried inside me, penetrating me without fucking, while he fingered me...
My desire swelled, tugged to the surface from two directions, making it impossible to ignore.
“You know…” Maddox’s tone was playful and too casual given the way my pulse hammered in my ears. “If you two wanted to fuck, I wouldn’t mind helping.”
I should laugh at the same joke he always made.
Except this wasn’t the same.
“Helping, not watching?” Onyx’s reply mirrored my thoughts.
Maddox slipped into a sexy, I-don’t-give-a-fuck grin that could melt panties—specifically mine right now. “The more I think about it—and I have been thinking about it a lot—the more I realize I’m not much of a watching kind of guy. I’m more of a front-and-center person,” he said.
Should I question the direction this conversation was taking? I didn’t want to. Not to the point where I overthought anything or made the moment vanish. “I’m gonna need a few details. Thinking about what, exactly?”
Maddox dragged his finger down the middle of my chest, holding my gaze and stealing my thoughts. “How good it would feel to bury my cock inside you. To make you come over and over again. To hear you whimper and scream.”
Onyx groaned.
Maddox’s words flipped a switch in me. The one connected to every erogenous zone in my body.
He trailed a path up my torso again, to lift my chin. “You in?”
I was so in.
With one exception, and I hated myself that I needed this assurance. I pressed two fingers to his lips, but didn’t push him away. Onyx and I had already talked about this to death, but I needed to know Maddox understood the rules too.
“If we keep doing what we’re doing,” I said, “You have to promise me that sex doesn’t change our friendship. That it doesn’t magically change what we are to each other.” Because I couldn’t lose him.
Nope. That wasn’t a sexy thought, and I definitely wanted sexy.
Maddox kissed the tips of my fingers, then nipped along the same path. “Cross my heart, nothing will change the way I feel about you.”
His phrasing tried to stick in my mind. Tried to distract me. But the way his mouth pressed to mine erased my rambling thoughts. There was a playfulness in the way he grazed his teeth over my skin and danced his fingers along my arms.
Having Onyx behind me—strong, warm, and nuzzling my neck—amplified Maddox’s touches.
Maddox trailed his mouth across my jaw and down my neck. Past my collar and over my shoulder. I let out a light laugh when he kissed my bicep, and the tattoo I had of a patch of cherry blossoms.