STORY EXCERPT

So, they were all three of them standing shoulder to shoulder—Murphy in the middle because he’d darted through while the other two jostled each other at the front door—when Lachie raised a fist and pounded on Nan’s door.

A man answered it—tall and muscled, curly headed, a ginger.

“You’d damn well better be the gay roommate,” Lachie growled.

Murphy had to agree, though he didn’t say so out loud.

The guy looked from one of them to the other. Like he wasn’t surprised, he put his hand out. “Jordan McNulty,” he said as Murphy took it. “The gay roommate.”

He nodded when Murphy said his name.

“You’re one of my favorite authors.”

Murphy knew he had a major following in the LGBT community. His sex scandal stories did not discriminate based on gender identity or sexual preferences. “Thank you.”

Jordan reached a hand out to Treyvon, perhaps judging that Lachie was the most volatile of them. He probably wasn’t wrong. In fact, Treyvon barely got his name out before Lachie growled again.

“Where’s Nan?”

“And you must be Lachie,” Jordan said. “Nan’s at the shelter where she volunteers. Every Tuesday.”

Murphy knew a moment of relief, possibly one the other two shared. He’d been wondering whether he had to suspect Nan of lying, whether some of her excuses for not seeing him more were untruthful. He was relieved that this one—volunteer work at a women’s shelter—was not.

“We’ll wait,” Lachie said.

Which was how Murphy found himself with another beer in hand, watching the Wizards find a hot streak and come from behind to kick Sixer ass. How he came to be cheering at the final buzzer, jumping to his feet, and high-fiving the ginger and Nanette Healy’s other two boyfriends.

How he stopped himself from back-slapping Treyvon Washington just in the nick of time.

Because he’d caught sight of the woman herself looking with surprise from the door.

* * * *

“Hey, Nan.”

Oddly, Jordan was the only one to speak.

Nanette wasn’t surprised to find her friend cheering at the end of the game. When she’d left the shelter—even women there were watching it, along with some of their kids—the Wizards had been fighting for a come from behind victory. They must have pulled it off, given the celebration that was taking place as she opened the door to the apartment.

She wasn’t surprised, even, to hear multiple voices adding to the commotion—Jordan played in a basketball league, and he’d watched the earlier games with some of his buddies.

But she was extremely surprised when she walked into the living room to find that the visitors weren’t Jordan’s buddies, but…hers.

Oops.

A thought flashed through her head—turn around, head right back out that door—but she saw the moment when Murphy spotted her. He stopped abruptly a move that looked like it was going to be a man hug shared with Trey. Geez Louise.

He quieted suddenly, and then the others did, too, when they noticed Murphy’s abrupt silence and the reason for it. Her.

Someone muted the post-game chatter on TV, and the room hushed, as though there was a remote control for its occupants, as well.

Then, the three men were staring at her—Murphy looking angry and disappointed, Trey looking hurt, and Lachie possibly showing a bit of sympathy.

Jordan saved her.

“Come here, babe.”

He opened his arms, and she walked into them. Maybe it wasn’t dignified or fair for her to hide her face in his chest, for her to shelter herself in his arms, but that was what she did.

“It’s kind of my fault,” Jordan said. Nan had to assume he was speaking to her three men, because she wasn’t lifting her head to look. “She met all of you in the same week, within days of each other. She liked all of you, you know? She hadn’t met a man she liked like she liked you guys in years. I told her to go for it. I said one of you would likely be married. I figured at least one of you would turn out to be an asshole.”

Nan would have bet he was looking at Lachie when he said that last. Her arms had gone around Jordan’s waist, and she gave him a chastising squeeze. “Okay, I told her at least one of you would have commitment issues, but what I meant was asshole.”

He pressed his lips to her hair encouragingly before he went on. “It’s not really her fault that you all turned out to be okay guys. That she likes you all.”

“Nan.” That was Murphy, and he spoke her name with a little edge. “Maybe you could turn around and look at us.”

She shook her head against Jordan’s chest.

“You know you’re going to have to choose.” That was with a little chastise. Trey.

“I can’t.” She should have already, of course, but she really couldn’t. She lifted her head just enough to take in the red and blue stripes of Jordan’s jersey. “I’m going to bed,” she said, equal parts misery and cowardice.

She did her best to slink off without making any eye contact, but someone took a couple long strides and grasped her wrist.

Lachie.

He cupped her jaw and turned her face up to his. His gaze waited for hers. “You don’t have to choose if you don’t want to,” he said then. “Not for me. Own your feelings. You have a right to them.”

He’d spoken quietly, to her alone, so maybe the others hadn’t heard. But they could see, and surely they did, when Lach took her mouth with his. It was a deep, penetrating, prolonged kiss.

“Good night,” he said when he finally lifted up. “Remember we have a date tomorrow.”

And, just in case he hadn’t established his claim on her with the kiss, he patted her butt as she left the room.

ADULT EXCERPT

“Lach!”

Nanette knew that should have been an objection. He’d told her he was going to fuck her ass, though she hadn’t entirely consented to it.

Certainly, she would never volunteer for it.

But the damn man had magic in him, hot, wicked, sex magic.

He’d used her own hands against her, that erotic deal of combining their fingers to work her tits. He’d counted, she was sure, on the hot appeal of watching that, the way, together, they’d pinched and tugged at her nipples.

He knew how to touch her, like no man ever had before. His fingers on her clit were more skillful than her own, like he knew something about her that was more perceptive than she knew herself.

The worst of it, the wickedest of it, had been watching him come back to her from the bathroom. Yeah, he had her little bottle of argan oil in his hand, and she didn’t have to guess what it was for.

She knew.

But there was knowing, and there was seeing. Seeing the bottle in his big hand. Seeing that he’d already made use of the oil. That his cock, full and thick and leading his body like a divining rod, glistened with it.

Maybe there’d been doubt in her mind about whether this would happen, but there was clearly none in his.

He had every expectation that his will would prevail. That his skill would.

His eyes met hers in the mirror, and she could see the determination.

Watching her, he moved his finger. Reaming, right there at the…sphincter. And then penetrating.

Nan shuddered.

She put more of her weight on her hands. With no obvious signal from him, just knowing he wanted it, or she wanted it, she didn’t even know, she took a couple steps back. Spread her legs a bit. Offered herself. Gave him exactly what he wanted.

“Good girl,” he said, his voice a triumphant rumble.

She could see it all. His face above hers in the mirror, intense, pleased. Hers, a mix of apprehension and surrender and need. His broad, muscled shoulders, so emblematic of his power, so indicative of his will. Her torso, leaning forward, her breasts lifted nonetheless, her body sacrificed to his pleasure. 

With no more compulsion than that—the force of his will, his desire—she took it. Stood there, willingly, letting him inside her body. Letting him invade, take her, in that gritty, earthy way.

He used more than one finger now, and she moaned. He pressed deep, and she shivered. Scissored, with his fingers, and she rocked, giving him better access.

“Good, sweetheart, good,” he said. He moved, centering himself behind her, and used his hand for another purpose now. For holding himself, that cock already slicked with oil, stiff, hard, and huge. For pressing himself to her opening, directing that pressure, that stretch.

“Oh, God.”

Nan’s whole body quivered. She knew of the technique, of the expert advice. Stay relaxed, she knew. Even bear down.

She couldn’t. She couldn’t.

But he pressed there, an exquisite, impossible tension. He moved his hands—his fingers at her clit, rubbing urgently now. His other hand moving to her breast, his palm brushing, chafing her nipple.

His eyes in the mirror, blazing, commanding.

And his words. “Nan. Nan. Let me in. Give it to me. Give me…you. Your ass. Nan.”

So, she could. She could do that thing. With a wild, feral groan, she bore down and invited him in. “Ahh!”

He pushed through, slowly at first, so she felt that piercing, wild stretch as the widest part of him plundered through her anus. And then deeply, breaching her core, filling her so hard, making himself a part of her.

She was panting, and so was he as he held deep. As she let him have her, all of her.

One last time, their gazes held in the mirror, a long, weighty moment. Then his arms wrapped around her, muscles bulky, his hold unbreakable. Even so, he managed to keep his fingers at her clit and his palm on one tit.

Then he arched back, lifting her against him so nothing but her tiptoes reached the floor.

And he fucked her. Growling and swearing. Thrusting deep and hard. Rubbing at her, chafing her.

Fucking wildly.

Overwhelming her. Taking her body, her sanity, her consciousness.

She squealed, like he’d predicted. And screeched. And wailed.

She spasmed spastically, rocking and flexing crazily, shuddering.

By the time it ended, they were both bent over the dresser, scattering the lamp and the jewelry case and the mementos she kept there. He was roaring in her ear, muscling into her, racking just as she was.

She spread herself, widening her legs, flexing her pelvis so she could have every bit of him, every inch.

The orgasm he drove into her was impossible, beyond anything she’d ever experienced.

But even so, she felt it. She heard it. His crisis. The cursing, snarling peak of it. The hot blast of cum so deep inside her.

The utter collapse that took them both to the floor.

The boneless, breathless, mindless finish.