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  Should they?

  They were out on the breezeway. Anyone could walk by. Judd could be coming home from a trip to Tulsa for all they knew. And here she was grinding her ass into Will, begging him to finger her, like they were behind closed doors in his apartment.

  “Stand a little wider.” Will punctuated his command with a bite to her earlobe. She obeyed without much thought, seeing as how she wanted nothing more than to have Will quit teasing her and start getting serious about her pleasure.

  But he kept the barrier of her shorts between them, that bright orange nylon blunting, yet heightening, the pressure of his fingers on her.

  “Will, please…”

  The rich baritone of his laugh vibrated through her. “So greedy, Melanie.”

  She was. So greedy. She wanted more than the edge of his fingernail running over the seam of her shorts, pressing it into the seam of her body. She wanted it all.

  She wanted Judd to walk by. She wanted him to stop and watch as Will parted her folds and slicked his fingers with her arousal.

  That thought had her clenching her thighs around Will’s hand. It was hot, so hot, and not just the hundred-degree desert summer kind of hot. The kind of dirty hot she and Will had fantasized about before. But this was the first time they’d actually been close to any kind of actual public exhibition.

  “Will, please, anyone could walk by—”

  It was a weak protest, and they both knew it.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, honey? For someone to walk by, to hear those sweet sounds you make when I play with you…” His hand made a short, jerky movement between her clenched thighs, the kind of move she’d perfected under the covers when she was alone and needed a quick release. Sharp bursts of pressure, hard and high.

  But she wanted more. Needed more than just a hard and fast orgasm.

  Melanie wanted to revel in the feel of Will’s fingers slipping through her wetness, plunging deep then circling high around her clit. Wanted him to make her work for her release, to feel it build and build before she grasped at the thunderbolts.

  A single finger edged under her shorts and traced the seam of her lips, and Melanie had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.

  “Mm-hmm, just like that. Dirty, sweet Melanie, you want someone to hear, to come investigate, don’t you?”

  “No, Will. We shouldn’t…” But she softened her knees a little, encouraging him to continue his sweeping explorations.

  “So I shouldn’t walk you over to the gate, tug down those tiny shorts you like to tease me with, and get down on my knees for you?”

  She fumbled for a response to that image and almost fell to her knees when he took his finger away. “Noooo.”

  His laughter bounced off the stucco, reverberating around and through her. “Okay. We should probably take this inside.”

  “Oh, I want you inside, right this minute, Will Harris.”

  “You want my fingers back?”

  She did. Or his face, as promised. She wanted her bare ass pressed against the warm iron gate while he licked at her, while she threaded her fingers through his hair and held him to her. Would it be hot enough to leave a mark, she wondered?

  “Hands on the wall.”

  “Hands wha—?” Melanie was almost beyond comprehension, lost in the fantasy world that Will had painted for her. A naughty place that took her right up to the edge of her desires.

  “You want my fingers back, you put your hands on the wall. Spread your legs and shut your mouth.”

  She almost came right there at the tone in his voice. It was dark and it was wonderful.

  When Will had a plan, he devoted all his energies to executing it flawlessly. And it looked like she was his plan for the evening.

  A few shaky steps later, she started to turn her head—to seek reassurance or to just get a peek of his face, she wasn’t sure—but he stopped her with another sharp command.

  “Eyes forward.”

  He was killing her with this masterful energy. She wanted to look at him. Wanted to see his eyes get as hard as his body.

  But she wanted whatever he had planned even more, so she placed her hands on the wall next to her front door.

  It was rough against her palms, yet it didn’t hurt. The soft brown stucco held the warmth of the day and transferred it to her skin, but it had nothing on the heat of the man standing behind her.

  How long had she been there, hands braced on the wall, back arched, tipping her ass out, while he just stood behind her? The air between them simmering with heat?

  When Will ran a hand up the inside of her thigh, she almost yelped at the initial contact. The movement of his hand stopped, and she held her breath, desperately willing him to continue the path. After a moment, his hand moved closer and closer to where she needed him, but he stopped short.

  The inarticulate cry escaped before the sting of pain registered.

  “I said legs wide, mouth shut, Melanie.” He soothed the aching skin he’d pinched with soothing strokes of fingers, and she savored both the pleasure and the pain he gave her. “We don’t want any of the neighbors hearing you, do we?”

  She moved her head from side to side, not wanting anything—not even the barest hint of a whimper—to escape her lips and prevent him from continuing. When he plunged his fingers inside her, she lost all power of speech anyway.

  Chapter 4

  There, in the shadowy space between their two apartments, he had Melanie up against a wall.

  Up against a wall with his index finger buried inside her.

  She gasped a little when he eased back, only to return with another finger. He loved the way her body fought to keep his fingers inside. The tight squeeze and the sucking heat of her opening.

  He hadn’t planned to be knuckles deep in her pussy out here in the breezeway with Judd somewhere behind the partially closed door. But Judd could go fuck himself, for all Will cared. And maybe he had when he’d heard the muffled voices, the sexy gasps and moans Melanie made when he was finger-fucking her. And that suited Will just fine. It was no different to hearing sex noises between thin apartment walls.

  But when he and Melanie—no, if he and Melanie—decided to act on their exhibitionist fantasy with Judd, it would be together. With Mel’s full and enthusiastic participation.

  Right now, this toe-in-the-water exhibitionism was going a little too far. It was all he could do to not jerk down her silky little shorts and sheathe himself in her. And that really would be testing the limits.

  Will pressed down, finding and massaging that textured spot on her front wall. She gasped at the pressure, as he knew she would, and he slowly withdrew his fingers. She moaned his name and the sound went straight to his aching dick. And when she went up on her tiptoes to set her ass higher in the air, begging him to return, he almost gave in.

  “Don’t stop.”

  He reached around and traced her pouty lips with his finger, and she opened up to lick his fingers clean. “Honey, believe me, we’re just getting started.”

  Damn, his plan to move things inside was going to backfire if she kept sucking on his fingers like that. Each lazy lick sent a bolt of electricity straight to his dick. When she fluttered her tongue over the webbing between his fingers, he knew she was exacting revenge for leaving her high and dry.

  Well, not exactly dry.

  She released his fingers with a noisy pop. He felt her smile as she kissed the tips of his fingers and then moved to turn around.

  Her blue eyes were electric, drawing him in. Captivating.

  Capturing him.

  “Just getting started, huh?” Her smile turned wicked, and Will should have anticipated one small hand darting between them and grabbing his cock. But when she squeezed him through the cotton of his cargo shorts, it was his turn to moan. “Uh, uh, uh. Wouldn’t want someone to come investigating, would we?”

  Oh, she thought she was so cute, didn’t she, parroting his words from earlier? She was pretty cute. Or he assumed she was
cute, because his eyes were crossing from the pleasure of her hand palming him through his shorts and he couldn’t see a damned thing.

  “Melanie—”

  She stole his words with a cruel twist of her hand. Just like that, she had his balls in her grasp. “Don’t make a sound, Will. Just think of the shock Mrs. Keller might experience if she doddered out of her front door and saw you with your shorts around your ankles and me on my knees, your balls in my mouth.”

  “Shit. Melanie, let’s take this inside.” His voice was a bark he didn’t recognize as it echoed through the breezeway. He wanted his shorts off and her mouth all over him. He wanted it so badly he almost started unzipping right then and there, Mrs. Keller be damned. Never mind it was after six and she never ventured out past five o’clock. “I want…”

  “Oh, you want?” She walked him back against the far wall, smiling all the while, with her hands gently cupping him. The cool air hitting the backs of his legs reminded him his front door was standing partially open.

  With Judd inside.

  “Look, Melanie—”

  She cut off his words with a hungry kiss. It was all desire and no finesse. And it was the single greatest kiss they’d ever shared.

  He lost himself in the feeling of her soft hips beneath his palms. The tug and pinch of her hands tunneling through his hair, tightening and releasing. Directing him as an object of her pleasure while she took and took from him.

  She rubbed herself on his cock through the layers of their shorts, and, when she moved to wrap a thigh high around his, he took advantage and slipped his hands to the bare globes of her ass. Directing her rhythm, ratcheting up the friction.

  “Hell yes, that’s the hit we’ve been waiting for! Yeah!”

  They broke apart at the thundering shout and the slow clapping emanating from behind them. Mel’s eyes went wide, and he struggled to wrap his head around the sounds as he reached out to steady her.

  “Oh my God, is that Judd?” She spoke barely above a whisper, her words nothing more than shapes on her lips. Lips that had just a few moments ago been feeding on his. And he had to concentrate to make sense of the universe.

  He, who designed algorithms, could not force his brain to define the problem much less… do anything halfway intelligent about it. “Uh, yeah. We were watching the game. Thought I told you.”

  Oh sure, that was an elegant expression.

  She was taking small steps away from him, and he forced himself to stand still. Back against the wall.

  Oh shit, that was where they were, weren’t they? With his back against the wall.

  Do or die time.

  And hopefully do. A lot. To their mutual pleasure. Until they were insensate beings.

  But before they could fuck themselves into oblivion, he had to fix this. This, with a capital T, This.

  “Can we talk?”

  Chapter 5

  Can we talk? he’d asked.

  “Can we talk?” she repeated, positive she sounded like a moron. But the blood was only just returning to her brain parts. Cruel, cruel! To be denied not one but two glorious orgasms and then to have to talk.

  Melanie didn’t want to talk. She was sick to death of talking.

  She was sick to death worrying that the next time they talked would be the time Will said something like you know, this just isn’t working out for me anymore. We should probably end things before they get messy.

  Because they weren’t messy now?

  She pointed to his partially opened front door. “He’s been in there?” She couldn’t finish her sentence. Couldn’t finish the actual thought in her actual brain much less say the words out loud.

  “Mel, I told you we were watching the game, and to come over if you wanted.”

  “No, you said we were going to”—she took her voice down to a whisper—“cheese pizza tonight.”

  At least Will had the good grace to look chagrinned. And maybe even flush a little where his ears disappeared into that glorious mane of shaggy hair she loved to run her fingers—

  No. They weren’t going back there. They were talking.

  And she guessed it really was about time.

  She keyed in the code to her door and held it open. “Might as well come on in.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then looked behind him to ostensibly say something to Judd. Or not. She didn’t know because she’d walked in and sat down at the kitchen island, not wanting to lead him over to her couch. Where things might take a different turn.

  When Will shut the door behind him, the air in her apartment went thick.

  As she sat fiddling with the edge of her aqua polka-dot placemats—she loved the rickrack edging even though the retro kitsch was totally out of sync with the streamlined and spare design of her apartment—she realized something. Something big. He’d never really been over here. She’d always gone over to his place for pizza and a movie. They’d never been alone together in her space. Ever.

  Sure, he’d been in her apartment when she was throwing a party, but there was always the buffer of other people to dispel the sexual tension that gathered and pooled low in her belly whenever he was near.

  Oh, and there had been that one time that his ex had sent him over for an emergency bottle of white. But that had been before pizza and a movie. Before she’d completely lost her mind and gone and fallen for her fuckbuddy.

  “Want something to drink?”

  It was weird. She’d seen him naked a hundred times—maybe more!—and he’d had his hands up her pants not ten minutes ago, but they couldn’t even look at each other here in her kitchen.

  Will hovered somewhere near the door, as if he couldn’t decide where to land, and declined the offer.

  He was so decisive, so demanding as a sexual partner, it was strange to see him this tentative. About something as simple as come in and have a seat, wanna drink?

  They started to speak at the same time, and Melanie wasn’t half sure what it was she’d meant to say. Only she was completely sure she couldn’t tolerate the strained silence a moment longer. They’d had sustained conversations before. It wasn’t like they were only about the score of a pure-grade orgasm high. But somewhere back in the breezeway a moment ago, they’d lost a little something.

  And that something felt like a real big hole in her heart right about now.

  “Go ahead.” She made a motion with her hand for him to continue, but she couldn’t look him in the eye. No. Fuck that. If he was going to break up with her, then she’d damn well—

  Whoa. Who said he was going to break up with her? They weren’t even together together. Get a grip, Robles. You are two years out of college; this is no time to freak out about relationships.

  “Judd wants to watch us have sex.”

  The cheerful embroidered cherry she was picking at was probably going to be mangled beyond belief. Damn. These were here favorite placemats.

  She couldn’t have heard Will correctly. Had he just— “Judd wants to what?”

  Melanie turned to look at Will then, to seek out answers in his eyes that were apparently not forthcoming from his lips. He just stood there, hands crammed in the pockets of his cargoes.

  Probably balled into fists. He did that when he got nervous. Thought people couldn’t tell if he shoved them in his pockets?

  Amateur.

  “So, uh, here’s the thing, Mel. We’ve been dancing around this for a while. And I want to give you everything you want…”

  Oh gosh. Ohgoshohgoshohgosh. Was he—

  “Will, I…”

  “I know. I didn’t expect it either. But when I was helping Judd with the bookcase this morning, there was all this kink stuff in his apartment, and it just kind of happened.”

  Wait. Hold up. What just happened. “What are you saying?”

  She watched as he bounced his head back against her front door. Once, twice.

  “I’m doing this all wrong.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that, since I don’t know what it
is you are doing. Why don’t you tell me, and then I’ll let you know how you’re doing?”

  Melanie thought she sounded very relaxed, very composed—dignified!—when inside she was coming apart at the seams. And not in the sexy way she was used to when Will Harris was involved.

  “So there was this bookcase, and…” she prompted. But he still didn’t move. Still didn’t start talking. So she got up from her stool and walked over to him. When she got close enough to touch, he reached out and grabbed her up in a hug.

  And then it all spilled out.

  There was something about a bookcase, yes, and about bondage tape? And at the end of it, Will was giving her a choice to take the biggest dare of her life: “Do you trust me, trust us, enough to do this?”

  And there it was. In big, bold letters: us.

  They could walk back into Will’s apartment, and watch the ballgame, and still come out on the other side an “us.” Or they could walk back in Will’s apartment, and not watch the ballgame, and still come out on the other side an “us.”

  Chapter 6

  Mel was playing it cool. She was one hundred percent in character as she sat next to him on the couch.

  Judd had moved over to the big chair when they’d walked in together. There had been lots of hey long time no sees exchanged, some friendly banter when they argued about the ref’s bum call. But when she shrugged off her big sweater at the top of the sixth? Game. On.

  He’d been sitting on his couch with a semi for at least half an hour—and that was weird enough—but when she bared her shoulders and reached to fiddle with her hair, there was no way Judd could miss his massive hard-on. If he were looking. Which he wasn’t. His eyes were glued to the screen.

  But if Melanie followed through on her decision, Judd would be watching Will fuck Melanie on that very same couch.

  Back in her apartment, they’d agreed to play it cool. That if and when she was ready, she’d initiate it. Subtly, so that Judd would never know what hit him. There would be no trumpeting fanfare of we are about to engage in sexual activity. Just some slow and easy foreplay.