He eased his mouth away. “Then let me.”

  Rowan barely knew what he was saying until he started to tug off his partially undone shirt up over his head. The result was even more tousled hair and an incredibly sculpted chest, striated with muscle. The shirt fell from his fingers to the floor as she closed the distance between them once again, their mouths meeting hotly while her fingers stroked his taut skin.

  He groaned when she pinched his nipples experimentally, the blunt nubs sharpening into points.

  “Now you,” Micah muttered, reaching again for her buttons. “Just your top, if you want.”

  Oh, she wanted. She hardly knew what had held her back the first time, but she was thankful for his gentle persistence once he cupped the breasts he exposed, holding them in the rough hollows of his hands.

  Rowan kissed him harder, arching up for long swallows of his tongue.

  Micah tore his mouth away. “I need…”

  She knew what he needed.

  With his help, she pulled off her blouse and her bra until they were both naked from the waist up. All the covering she needed was his hands, touching her everywhere in silent possession. She was doing the same to him, dragging her fingers along his skin, tracing the defined muscles. His skin felt so good—so strong and male. She wanted to taste him. She needed to.

  But he beat her to it.

  Before she could move, Micah bent his head and took one puckered nipple into his mouth.

  Oh God, the heat of his mouth! His short draws made electricity burn through her veins, striking right at the center of her pussy and making it clench in anticipation. Her crotch was soaking wet by the time he moved to the other nipple, giving it the same careful attention.

  It was a shock to discover that she was ready so soon. With men in the past, she’d need a good long while of foreplay before she wanted to be penetrated. Micah turned her on as easily as if he was turning up the volume on a stereo.

  Rowan pushed at his shoulders, separating them, her wet-tipped breasts swaying in between. Micah was squeezing them from underneath, making them look full and ripe and ready for another devouring.

  His eyes looked a question.

  “I want you,” she explained with gentle emphasis. She moved to grip his slim waist then lowered herself in front of him, her tongue flickering out to taste his skin, his chest, his small nipples. His body jerked as her mouth closed on them, but he didn’t move away. Instead, he twined his fingers through her hair and guided her as she moved lower and lower down his incredible body.

  She was on her knees, feeling his cock through the material of his pants. His dick pushed insistently against her palm, demanding to be free.

  Micah groaned when she let his cock out and again when she took its swollen length into her hands. She kneaded it lightly with her fingers. It was good and long and thick, but it was also young and impatient, leaking pre-cum onto the back of her hand. She knew she would have to move quickly.

  She formed a round, wet hole with her lips and sucked the head of his dick through it. She tickled the tip of it with her tongue with short playful licks before drawing on it with a bit more power. The trickle of pre-cum became a tiny stream, warm and faintly salty against her tongue.

  “I can’t hold on,” Micah said, stating the obvious.

  Poor boy. When was the last time he’d gotten a blow job? For that matter, when was the last time she’d given one with such attention…such enthusiasm?

  Stewart took a long while to get hard then even longer to come. She often feared she would fall asleep with her head in his lap.

  No, she wasn’t going to think about Stewart. She wasn’t going to compare.

  She liked that Micah was ready so quickly. She liked that she could turn him on in this way. She wanted his cum to drink. She wanted all of him.

  Rowan tilted her head back and took his cock deeper into her mouth, resting her tongue now against the ridge along his head where the nerve endings met. She sucked him but also gripped the base of his penis with one hand, keeping his dick as hard as possible.

  He writhed his hips against her face, wanting release, needing it, but fighting it all the same.

  “It’s too soon,” he groaned.

  In response, she sucked him harder. He shuddered then came in one heavy gush, filling her mouth with his jism, making her swallow hard, again and again. But he wasn’t done. His cum continued to trickle out as his body was jerking free from his orgasm, even as the muscles in those taut thighs she was facing started to relax.

  She kept her lips wrapped around his dick and milked him with her hand. She worked him like she had a straw and was determined to get the last few foamy drops out of a milkshake. She sucked him dry.

  “Jesus,” he said when she finally released him, glistening wet and only partially limp. He dropped heavily to his knees, his eyes closed. “Je-fucking-sus.”

  Rowan smiled. “You sound like your friend Ethan.”

  He opened his eyes again, moving them across her flushed face and down over her bare breasts with their tightly puckered nipples. “Ethan would kill to be in my position right now, although I don’t know how far he’d get since it would be me he’d have to kill to get to you.”

  Chapter Three

  The alarm was going. Why didn’t someone answer it?

  “Rowan.”

  She turned and put her arm over her face, cutting off the light that flared from the bedside table.

  “Shit! Rowan, wake up. How do you turn this thing off?”

  Slitting open one eyelid, she saw a toned back topped by a thatch of blond hair. Nice. Her focus traveled lower to a tight rounded ass. Very nice.

  She admired the view for a second or two, already dreading the moment he would turn and reveal himself to be her assistant…her much younger assistant, who she definitely should not have slept with last night…even if it had been incredible.

  Rowan wanted to close her eyes and think about how incredible it had been—maybe even relive it with another go round. If only someone would turn off the alarm clock…and give them both the day off work. Maybe two days.

  She opened her mouth to yawn.

  “It’s the first button. Press and hold it.”

  It wasn’t her who answered Micah.

  Showing surprising composure, Micah followed the instructions and shut off the alarm before turning to confront the man in the doorway. Only Rowan noticed that he tugged part of the bed sheet over his crotch as he did so.

  “Thanks, mate.”

  Rowan groaned. ‘Mate’. She hated men. What would come next? Would they shake hands over her naked body?

  “I’m not your mate,” Stewart shot back. “No mate of mine would be sleeping in my bed, with my girlfriend, while I spent the night out on the couch.”

  This was all said in a tone of righteous indignation, which Rowan immediately distrusted. How dare he? He was the one who had said those terrible words. “We should see other people.”

  Or maybe he had only meant himself.

  Rowan sat up abruptly. “Like hell you were on the couch,” she said. “You just got home, didn’t you?”

  Micah, who was looking warily from one to the other of them, stood up and started pulling on his trousers. He paused long enough to throw Rowan an angry look.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were in a relationship?”

  She flopped back onto the pillow, her hands at her temples. “We opened it.”

  Micah started on his shirt. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Stewart hovered by the door but made no attempt to enter the bedroom—or explain what Rowan had meant.

  “We can see other people,” Rowan explained.

  “Really?” Micah’s downward glance was freezing. “Did you take the time to mention that to buddy here?”

  Rowan gritted her teeth. “‘Buddy’ is Stewart, and it was his suggestion in the first place. Right, Stewart?”

  Micah’s hands stopped moving over his buttons.

  “What?” He looked at Stewart again, his green eyes narrowed. “You have got to be kidding me. It was his idea? That guy?” He shook his head and continued dressing. “I guess that explains why he hasn’t punched me out yet. He’s fucking crazy.”

  Stewart stirred in the doorway, and Rowan kept a wary eye on him. He wasn’t physically brave, but his anger was something wild when provoked.

  “Micah.”

  She infused a clear note of warning into her voice. One that he ignored.

  “Sorry, mate, but I don’t understand you at all.” Micah fixed the older man with a stare. “I don’t share. If Rowan were mine—”

  “She’s not,” Stewart said.

  “Right.” Micah continued to fix his cuffs with complete nonchalance, but Rowan could see the tension in his tall frame. “That’s why I said ‘if’. If she were mine, I would keep her close, not encourage her to roam.”

  “You’re not me,” Stewart told him, still more aggressively. His face was flushed red, but he refused to step away from the relative safety of the doorway, far out of Micah’s reach.

  Micah gave a short bark of laughter, except without the humor part.

  “Well, obviously,” he said. “I’m not you, and she’s not mine.” The look he flashed Rowan was so deeply charged that it made her squirm. “But you should ask yourself a question. Is she still yours?”

  That silenced Stewart. Rowan, too.

  For the first time, she wondered if Stewart’s idea of an open relationship might have changed her view of him.

  She’d been so consumed in wondering about his motives and whether he wanted her anymore that she’d failed to recognize that she didn’t want him. She wanted someone, just not necessarily Stewart. Only she hadn’t believed that she had a choice about it.

  Biting her lip, she stared up at Micah. He was fully dressed now, and he’d already uttered the perfect parting challenge. Yet he didn’t leave.

  Micah looked, not at her but down at the rumpled bed. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll wait for you.”

  They were both already late for work. Why did he want to perform the walk of shame à deux?

  Then she realized that he was offering her his protection, in case she didn’t want to be left alone with Stewart.

  “I’m fine,” Rowan told him.

  This time he met her eyes. “I’ll wait.”

  “I’m fine.” She used her work voice, the tough managerial one that usually made her staff hop. “Go to work.”

  She figured that should send him on his way, but he paused on his way out of the door to address Stewart.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Micah told him. “I know my way back here.”

  Rowan was wrong. That was the perfect parting line.

  * * * *

  Coffee smells filled the air by the time Rowan had showered and dressed. She was late for work but not distressingly so. She figured it made sense to give Micah a hearty head start on her this morning.

  Stewart was pacing the living room, his face still mottled pink but no longer that alarming red shade.

  Rowan dodged him and went to the kitchen. She poured a cup of black coffee and waited.

  Stewart was practically on her heels.

  “So how old is he, exactly?” The sneer was evident in his question.

  Rowan leaned against the counter and thought about it.

  “Twenty-five. I think.”

  She’d never gone through his personnel file.

  Stewart curled his thin lips. “You don’t know? Do you even know his name?”

  The contemptuous attitude was wearing thin. No matter how angry he got, it was still his stupid idea to open their relationship in the first place.

  “I know his name,” Rowan said, her voice quiet. “If you had really spent last night on the couch, you would have heard me screaming it.”

  Stewart took an aggressive step forward. “You little bitch!”

  Rowan sipped her coffee, but she kept an eye on him over the edge of her cup.

  “It was your idea to see other people, Stewart.”

  “I don’t bring mine back here!” He was almost shaking with rage. “You had no right. This is our home.”

  She lowered her eyes. “You’re right. That was rude. I didn’t think about it.”

  Her apologetic tone seemed to calm him down a little. He turned away, running his hand through his thinning hair.

  “You should have known better,” he told her. “A young stud like that. He might have gotten rough with you…or worse.”

  Oh, Micah probably could get rough. The thought thrilled her. But the way Stewart spoke of the younger man made her feel offended on his behalf.

  “He’s not a stud,” Rowan protested. An awful idea suddenly occurred to her. “You don’t think I hired him, do you?”

  Stewart looked as startled as she felt. “God, no! A young st—guy like that, he’s no doubt happy to stick his member in wherever he can, no matter how, uh…mature the woman.”

  Now she was offended. But Stewart was right. She was mature…almost forty. Good for a night of novelty with a man like Micah but no more than that.

  She sighed. “Micah’s not like that,” she said, still trying to defend him.

  “Micah…” Awareness dawned on Stewart’s face. “Not your assistant from work?”

  Rowan drained her coffee and set the empty cup none-too-gently on the counter. “No, some other Micah.”

  “God, Rowan, what were you thinking?” Stewart shook his head, his voice expressing shocked disapproval but his pursed mouth forming a triumphant little smile. “He could easily say you forced him into bed, even accuse you of sexual harassment. Last night could cost you your job.”

  “No, Micah wouldn’t do that. Micah wouldn’t lie.”

  “No?” Stewart arched an eyebrow at her. “Who’s to say it’s a lie? He’s your underling, Rowan. He might have actually felt coerced into sleeping with you.”

  “Don’t!” She wanted to put her hands over her ears and block him out, just like a child would.

  Frantically, she searched through her memories of the previous night. Too much drink and too much sharing, certainly, but coercion? She could find not even the tiniest sign of that.

  But Stewart was right. Who’s to say Micah didn’t feel coerced, simply because he hadn’t acted like he was or said anything to that effect.

  It would explain why he would sleep with her.

  Micah was a young man very much on the ascent, and she was stuck living on a plateau formed, in part, by her relationship with Stewart.

  Good old safe Stewart. Leaving out the events of recent weeks, following their decision to become ‘open’, they had established a solid routine. Yet they were both throwing it away with both hands.

  “I’m only thinking of you, Rowan,” Stewart said, coming up to her and laying an awkward hand on her shoulder.

  She jerked away. She wasn’t ready for his pity when his insults were still ringing in her ears.

  “You did this,” she told him, her composure starting to slip. “You started all this.”

  “Then maybe I should stop it.”

  Rowan shook her head. Whatever had driven him to deliver that ultimatum, she sensed that he hadn’t yet gotten it out of his system. His reaction to Micah had been pure jealousy. It didn’t resolve anything.

  Plus, right now, she didn’t think they could stop it—even if they wanted to.

  * * * *

  “Hey, man, nice of you to grace us with your presence,” Ethan called out as Micah made his way into the break room.

  Technically, since he’d been late, he didn’t merit an official morning break, but he couldn’t face the rest of the day without a steady stream of caffeine running through his veins. He was trying to cut down on caffeinated beverages at the suggestion of his personal trainer, but today was going to be a big fat fail on that count.

  Micah didn’t answer his friend as he bypassed the designer coffee dispenser and filled up a paper cup with straight black brew.

  Ethan raised an eyebrow as Micah sat down across from him.

  “That’s some high-test stuff. What’s the occasion?”

  Micah continued to stare into his cup. Six more hours. Then he could go home.

  The hand on his shoulder barely registered before Jay slid into the chair beside his.

  “So how was it last night with La Lacy? Did you get her drunk and pump her for company secrets? Or did that poker stay up her ass the entire time?”

  Ethan’s features underwent a few strange contortions. “Holy shit,” he finally said when his expression settled into one of shocked wonder. “You didn’t actually do it, did you?”

  Jay stared at them both. “Do what? Have a drink with La Lacy? What am I missing here?”

  Ethan shook his head, a grin plastering his face. “Fucking hell, Jay, can’t you see? He’s wearing the same clothes from yesterday. That means that poker wasn’t in Rowan Lacy’s ass last night, Micah’s cock was!”

  Micah let his head sink lower. He should have gone home. He should have changed or at least bought a new shirt.

  “Nothing happened,” he said, wondering why he was bothering to lie. For Rowan? After the scene that morning, she hardly deserved it.

  She’d used him to make her live-in boyfriend jealous.

  No, she didn’t deserve his protection. But he had his own reputation to think about.

  Jay and Ethan were his pals, but the truth was too juicy to keep between friends and he knew it.

  “It doesn’t look like nothing happened,” Jay said, speaking very slowly as if he was trying to add up a set of complicated numbers and kept coming up with the same wrong answer.

  He wanted to be convinced, Micah knew. It was the grinning, braying Ethan who would be the problem.

  “Jesus, Micah, how was it? Is she into kinky stuff? Did she want to whip you?”

  Micah closed his eyes and counted to ten but that didn’t do the trick. His friends were still there when he opened them again.

  “Nothing happened between us,” he said again, forcing added firmness into his voice. “We had some drinks. I ended up drinking way too much. She took pity on me and let me crash on her couch.”

 

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