If I never hear about his relationship with Cole again, it’ll be too soon. Except that whole exchange doesn’t sit right with me.
I squint at him. “You just manipulated that conversation, didn’t you? So we’d stop talking about him?”
Something flashes across his expression, an almost smile, before he drags me across his chest and holds my face inches from his. “So goddamned smart and beautiful. I’m fucking doomed.”
“Doomed?” I shake my head, grinning. “Now you’re just being dramatic.”
“Am I?” He brushes my hair from my cheek, watching the movement of his fingers as they slide around my ear.
“I need to ask you an important question.”
His eyes flit back to mine.
“If you and I go our separate ways—” I reposition myself on his suddenly rigid chest and hold his unwavering gaze. “Can you just try to imagine that scenario for a second? See yourself far into the future? You could find love again, right?”
“I’m not doing this.” He pushes me off his body and perches on the edge of the bed with his back to me.
“Why not?” I crawl toward him. “I’m just trying to get a feel for—”
“You’re trying to determine who will be less heartbroken.” He sneers at me over his shoulder. “Do you really want to base a decision on that?”
My breath catches at the scorn in his tone, and I lean back, putting several feet between us. “I’m trying to reduce the amount of devastation.”
“Alright, let’s play out that scenario.” He twists at the waist, glaring blue flames in my direction. “You decide who’s more likely to find happiness without you, and you let him go. That leaves you with a sensitive, temperamental douchebag who can’t find his dick without your hands leading the way. We both know who that is.”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
“It’s a fucking cop out.”
“You’re being an asshole.” I shove off the bed and pace through the room as helplessness quakes through my limbs.
“I am an asshole, Danni. I’m not going to alter my personality to sway your vote for first place.”
“This isn’t a competition.” I ball my hands at my sides and take a wide stance before him.
“You’re turning it into one.”
“That’s not fair,” I whisper and stumble back, my heart banging against my ribcage. How am I turning this into a competition? “I didn’t ask for this. I just want to do the right thing.”
My throat closes, and tears sneak up. I turn away and pace to the wall of windows, resting my palms against the cool glass.
“Cole and I agreed on one thing tonight.” His reflection in the window rises from the bed, approaching my back. “Neither of us will pressure you into making a decision.”
“What do you mean?” I watch his mirrored silhouette prowl closer.
“We’re not putting you on a timetable. You don’t need to do anything.” He pauses inches behind me. “Just let it happen on its own.”
“Let the decision happen?” I roll the words around in my mouth, tasting the idea. “Like fate?”
“Yes.” He touches his brow to the back of my head. “It’s the way you approach everything else in your life. All heart and no plan.”
“I don’t think either one of you wants to wait around for fate. I won’t string you along.”
“I can assure you that you’re not stringing me along.” He slides his hands over my shoulder, caressing one down my arm while the other curls around my throat and tightens. “I’m in control. Always.”
“But I’m making the rules.” I clutch the fingers around my neck as an avalanche of desire crashes through me.
His growing hardness against my backside hitches my breath and trembles my legs. He’s power and temptation concentrated in one strong hand, securing me in place and demanding my attention.
Oh, how I want him. I want his dominance, his hunger, and his stamina. I press back against him, sagging against his hard chest while warring with the need to pull away.
He shifts closer against my back, adding upward pressure against my neck—a silent command to lift on my tiptoes. When I do, he slides the swollen head of his erection down my buttcrack and nudges it against my pussy. He’s so damn hard I’m surprised he hasn’t torn a hole through his boxer briefs.
“I want inside your tight little body.” Squeezing my throat, he splays his other hand over my stomach and dips lower, lower, sinking between my legs to rub the crotch of my panties. “If I feel like forcing the issue, I can have you begging for it within seconds. Do I make myself clear?”
I nod in the shackle of his hand. He’s in charge, and I have no complaints. It’s the way we both like it. He takes the weight of worry and decision off my shoulders, and I trust him to honor my limits.
Except my stupid rules mean I have a lot of limits at the moment.
He releases my throat and straightens the collar of the borrowed shirt around my neck. Then he braces a hand on the window above my head and points behind him. “Get on the bed and tuck yourself in.”
The harshness in his tone makes me jump to follow his command. Not because I’m afraid of him, but because I hear his restraint unraveling in the strain of his words. He’s painfully aroused, and toying with him would be unnecessary and cruel.
I slip under the covers and watch as he reaches toward his groin, head down, breathing heavily. His back is to me, but I can guess what he’s doing. I’ve seen him hold off his release by squeezing the base of his cock. He’s doing that now, not that he’s on the brink of coming, but maybe it helps him stifle his impulses.
He remains in that position for several minutes before his breaths taper off and his shoulders relax. When he turns toward the bed, his cock is still engorged, but soft enough to bend downward in his briefs.
He crosses the room, flicks off the light, and slides in beside me. I roll into him as his arms come around me and his leg rests over mine, effectively caging me in. I love being swaddled in his embrace and burrow closer, taking shelter in his strength.
Dark silence crawls in around us, grasping at my breaths and pillaging the air for answers. His quiet stillness suggests he said everything he wanted to say. But the discussion feels incomplete.
He wants me to let the decision happen on its own and claims there’s no hurry. That sounds ideal—all things considered—but I don’t know how to sit back and rest on this. I need a resolution.
This thing between the three of us is a delicate balancing act. Even now, I’m sleeping with one man after I refused the other from my bed last night. I have my reasons, but it still niggles, begging to be examined.
“Trace?”
“Hmm?” His deep voice penetrates my chest.
“I want to tell you something, but I don’t want you to use it against Cole.”
He stiffens against me. “I hate that you’re thinking about him while lying in my arms.”
“I’m thinking about the situation and everything that comes with dating both of you.”
“I told you to let it go.”
“You told me to let the choice happen on its own.” I flatten a palm on his chest, chasing the tempo of his heart with my fingertips. “But there are other decisions I have to make every time I’m with one of you.”