That One Summer: A Collection of Steamy Contemporary Romance

Chapter 11

Hailey

“You know what? Giveme your hand.” I snatched her wrist as soon as she held it out, followed the scarves to their farthest point, and yanked her by it hard as I tied her to the bed’s metal frame under the mattresses.

“Oof!” she gasped. I was not playing around. Her eyes got big, and no lie, her alarm was exactly what I wanted. “What are you doing?”

“You know the safe word. Use it anytime. But when you do, I’m walking out on you.”

I hustled around to the other side of the bed and grabbed the sarong fabric. My heart was beating too hard, you know? I was on the edge between being afraid I was becoming a bad person in this moment and being so mad I didn’t care. I had issues that needed to be resolved. I’d been scrimping and saving for five years, dating no one, too burned to look for another partner. A fling even. The only person I could let in was Jack, and he was just as broken as I was. Meanwhile, Ella had resumed her life like we were just a bump in her road to upper-class mediocrity. She had a bill with us, and she needed to pay.

I scowled at her, unnerved that I was so turned on. Her hair was all splayed on the pristine sheets, her breasts half globes barely contained by her bra. Her belly button pulled taut with the flex of her abs as she shifted nervously, testing the limits of her restrained arm.

“Gimme your hand.” I put my own out. This was it. Either she was up for payback or this was over.

I expected her to be the Ella Stewart I knew: eyes throwing sparks, regal, and too good for any of my bullshit. I was afraid she would look scared, confirming that in my years of bitter solitude, I’d warped into a hateful thing. I’d certainly developed that reputation in all my classes when I’d turned down every date anyone asked me on, flatly refusing everyone until the bros in my community college classes whispered in not-so-quiet tones I was a dyke. Eventually, the rumor of what happened at Rolling Green must’ve followed me because people started talking about how I was that girl. Then the douche bros at community college gave me goofy grins, and once, a guy slapped me on the ass in front of everyone, and people laughed.

I could feel myself becoming that thing I’d been afraid of all my life: the other woman. The woman you don’t marry but you fuck and laugh about it to all your friends. The girl you take to Mexico on a whirlwind vacation but won’t invite to your birthday party in town. I hadn’t even dated any of them, but I could see them labeling me that way, the secretive nods between them.

“OK.” Ella put her wrist in my hand, her voice small, apologetic.

A cold sweat broke over me, but I pushed the feeling away with anger. That’s right. She knows she was an asshole. I bent and tied her to the bed on the other side.

I’d only had those three things in my closet when Jack had told me his plan. I stepped back, looking for the bedsheet. I grabbed it and then her ankle.

“Don’t!” she said, then bit her lip. I scowled, trying not to lose my nerve just because she was losing hers. “I won’t fight you. I just...it feels too exposed to be...”

“What?” I demanded.

“Spread eagle!” There it was—that anger, the fierceness I was used to. She shook her wrists, tugging the fabric tight.

With her elbows, she maneuvered until her back rested against the headboard so she could glare at us.

“Promise not to fight me?”

There was even more glare, and the thing was? I liked it. I liked pissing her off. But then, in a small voice, she said, “Yes. Just don’t...don’t hurt me.”

Goose bumps broke out across her flesh—the tops of her breasts and then over her belly and, like a slow shiver, even across her thighs.

This was not what I’d expected; it was as though she was apologizing every step of the way. Over the years, I’d hardened against her, imagining she hadn’t even thought of me in the time between. Meanwhile, I had become a shell of myself after her. Anger washed over me again. Don’t hurt her? What a joke.

Just before I pulled off my shirt, I glanced at Jack, hoping for some kind of encouragement. His eyes burned, but he didn’t move, didn’t give me any indication of whether he thought I was a total freak. But he wasn’t defending her. At last, it finally felt as though Jack was mine as much as hers.

LOL, it had only taken her leaving us and then five years of booty calls between me and him, plus Jack nearly ruining his life. I wondered again at how easily he’d signed for the hotel. He’d told me he could pay me back for the scholarship money, but there was something about him these days that suggested he didn’t worry about money anymore. I hoped that meant he was OK, not surrendering to living in debt forever...or, worse, giving up entirely.

I turned to face her. Ella Stewart, squirming on a bed, waiting for me to do anything I wanted to her. “Be still,” I ordered.

Immediately, she did, except for the deep rise and fall of her chest.

I sat on the side of the bed at her waist. “Spread your legs.”

She did this too. For a flash, I remembered the first night we were together, how Jack had seduced me. I’d had a crush on him for literal years, and I had been so fucked up in the head, wanting to be with him, knowing he had a girlfriend. I’d caught Jack and Ella having sex after the party, and when they’d seen me watching, I’d run away, mortified. When Jack chased me into the water, I’d broken, unable to resist when he lifted me up on the edge of the pool and kissed me between my legs.

“That first night we were together—remember that?” I asked.

“After the party, by the pool.”

“I saw you two in the pool house, together. Jack came after me. And then, when he... I felt so... I’d wanted him for years. I was so scared I’d become the other woman, some skank who’d let a guy go down on her mere minutes after seeing him with another girl.”

Her eyes flickered, but she said nothing.

“You waited until I was past the point of stopping.” Ella must’ve been watching the whole time, because she’d chosen the moment I was helplessly cresting into my first ever orgasm with another person to announce herself. Her choice had been cruel and embarrassing, and it had branded me, bonding me to both of them forever.

My voice went hoarse. “Ever since that night, I had to either be with or imagine both of you there. The idea of just being with one other person does nothing for me. Of being with anyone else besides the two of you, if I’m honest. How am I supposed to ever be happy if that’s my baseline?”

She said nothing, her rib cage rising and falling in quick little heaves. Maybe it wasn’t her problem or she didn’t care if I was never happy again. I curled my lip. “You really fucked me up.”

Without waiting for an answer, I leaned over and slid two fingers along the hem of her panties, nudging under them. She gasped, flinching, and I shot her a stern warning glance. Her thighs went still, pliant, letting me touch her between her legs. She was soft down there, bare and warm.

“Do you still want us?” Delicately, I drew a finger along her folds to her opening, pressing along the rim there, just enough to check. Ella might look nervous, actually be nervous, but she was swollen and wet. My core throbbed in response.

She tilted her hips up, trying to take me inside her. I pulled my hand out of her underpants, shocked at how quickly the balance of power between us shifted in her favor.

“I see you do.” I tried to regain a sense of control.

“I never lied about how I felt,” Ella said.

“Liar.” I ran my damp fingers up her belly, circling her navel, enjoying that it twitched under my touch. “You cut us out without a second glance.”

“I almost lost everything because of our relationship. My family.”

I stroked the front of her bra, a guessing game of where her nipple lay underneath until it sharpened under the fabric. Deep satisfaction flooded me that I could make her lose her train of thought, her chest arching until her breast pressed against my hand.

“You chose money over us.” I gave her nipple a twist in punishment, delighted by her quick inhale. “Admit it.”

She shook her head, denying it. I trailed fingers over to her other nipple and tugged the fabric covering it down, not caring as the seams popped on the expensive bra. I rolled my thumb over her nipple, pinching it and then soothing it after. “Admit it,” I suggested again, withdrawing and sitting up straighter, not touching her.

“I chose money over you,” she said in a dead voice.

The confirmation flooded over me, soothing some of my hurt by making those parts feel dead and numb. From those ashes, anger rose again. I hadn’t had the option of choosing money over Ella and Jack. The urge to give her a purple nurple in punishment was a little overwhelming, but that wasn’t part of my plan. My plan was to encourage her to tell me the truth, no matter how ugly, and then make her feel what I had felt when she’d left.

“I like honesty,” I murmured, cupping her breast and giving it a squeeze.

She exhaled, clearly enjoying the touch despite the situation. For a moment, I almost gave in and untied her, surrendering to whatever she would give me as long as it ended with her tongue slurping my clit.

And then what—go back to your broken life tomorrow morning? Instead, I rocked my hips a little. Even the slight rhythmic pressure against my pussy threatened to shoot me into madness.

“And now you’re marrying money? I assume, since he looks like a thumb, your husband must have money. Or is it brains? Is he really smart? Or what—is he a demon in the sheets?”

“Ch—”

“Careful. That’s the safe word,” I warned. “You say that name, and we’re done.”

She squirmed, irritated, but I wanted her to have to say who he was to her. “He—”

“Who?”

“My fiancé.” She said it like it was a curse word.

I trailed my fingers along the indentation where her ribs separated to leisurely tickle over her belly again. Her stomach muscles jumped at the touch.

“What about your fiancé?” I asked, trying to be as cruel as possible.

Ella shut her mouth with a snap, staring at the ceiling. Slowly, her lips parted as I skimmed a finger across the top band of her panties.

“Jack told me you couldn’t even admit you loved your fiancé.”

That got her attention. She struggled to get up enough to send an angry glare to the corner of the room where Jack sat. A gush of attraction soaked my panties. Revenge was pretty satisfying, and managing to make Ella jealous turned me on.

“He told me all about it. Jack drove all night to see me, crawled into my bed, and told me about you while we fucked.”

Ella sucked air like I’d slapped her. My smile widened, heart going so fast I trembled.

“Oh, did you think we’d stopped doing that once you left?” I feigned surprise and got up to grab a pillow that had fallen on the floor when Ella had stripped the sheets.

As I moved across the room, I got the whole scene. Jack sat directly across from the bed, so although I had been faced away, he could see everything. Now, with her legs still apart, he could probably see the panel of her panties from his angle. He rested his head against a fist, watching with this intensity that sent a thrill through me. He had always protected Ella, but he wasn’t trying to stop me, wasn’t choosing her over me.

I picked up the biggest pillow and returned, placing it behind Ella’s back so her head rested against the bed frame. Now she could see Jack just as well as Jack saw her.

I stood back, letting them eyeball each other. This might be my revenge swan song, but Ella had rejected Jack too. As they eye fucked each other, I unbuttoned my pants and let them fall to the floor.

The mood shifted. I had hated Ella for so long, but the pull to invite Jack onto the bed and for the three of us to be together was so strong my body got the shakes. We could have one last night together before Ella got married. Maybe we could stay here all weekend.

Hey, Ella might be her side piece! You could get a Christmas card from her growing family every year, sneak over when her husband’s out of town, spend half your life wondering if she’s ever really gonna leave him.

“Jack said you rejected him up in your room. Said you considered it cheating.” I hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my panties and shimmied them down an inch, pleasure washing over me as I regained Ella’s full attention. “Do girls count in your shitty ethics code?”

“You always counted,” Ella said quietly, and I swallowed a sudden unbearable lump in my throat, tears stinging. I sniffed harshly, pretending to scoff.

“You know how to end this.” I threw it in her face, letting her know what I intended as I got my panties down far enough that they dropped to the floor.

I unhooked my bra, reveling in how both Jack and Ella watched me like hungry wolves. It made me mad, too, though. Ella knew this was cheating, had bitched about it to Jack. But I guess that just reaffirmed what Ella’s promises were worth. Or what I was worth if I went through with it—nothing but a slut from the wrong side of town who was willing to take scraps.

“So what does your fiancé have that makes him the guy who gets Ella’s golden cooch for the rest of his life?” I asked as I strutted naked to resume my place next to her.

It gave me confidence to hear the shift as Jack readjusted himself. I bent slightly, inspecting Ella, knowing I was close enough that my exhales would feather across her bare skin.

“None of your business,” Ella snapped, catching me off guard.

I leaned over and flicked her nipple, none too gently. “Jack and I want answers, and if you want to stay in this room, you’ll provide them.” I bent and took her swollen nipple into my mouth, soothing it with my tongue, then sat back up. “Got it?”

Her breathing went shaky, and after a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. Can’t lie. It totally turned me on. “Answer.”

“I don’t expect you to understand, but I lost everything when I... that day at the Pops. They wouldn’t let me see my brother or come home. I thought my father was dying.”

“You don’t look like you’ve lost anything. Your life looks just like it did the day you left.”

“Then you’re blind,” she snapped. “I have had to grovel every day since I left you to get back what I used to have. Ch—my fiancé—he and I, we’re like business partners. His family is in resorts. He’ll know how to run Rolling Green when my parents get old—”

“I could’ve figured out how to run a resort. I’m not an idiot.” My face burned with the lie. Three Birds was barely on its feet. I left that job most days exhausted and broke out in a job-security cold sweat when Heather did the books. And I’d spent enough time that summer at Rolling Green to know it was a huge and complex organization. There had to be a hundred employees to handle.

Fuck that. Ella could’ve run it. Jack and I could’ve helped. I would’ve taken business classes instead of culinary.

“You don’t understand. My parents disinherited me. They paid for my college because I promised never to come back. They didn’t want me anymore.” At the last bit she broke, sobbing. “They didn’t love me when I was bi.”

My tear ducts welled in sympathy. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Unfortunately, I knew exactly what it was like to get abandoned by a parent, to not be loved. It was the only wound older and deeper than my fear of being the other woman. The thought of Ella feeling that killed me.

“He has a girlfriend.” Ella rolled over my thoughts, laughing a little wildly. “I invited her to the wedding and told Ch—”

Her eyes went wide, and this thrilled me, how scared she was of saying his name and ending whatever we would do next.

“—told him I wanted an open marriage. That’s why I’m still here. When Jack came through my window, I knew I had to change things. I had to see you two again.”

I grabbed her by the cheeks, pushing her lips together into a ridiculous duck face, speaking fiercely so she wouldn’t see I was on the edge of bawling too. “Shut up. You think I want to be your side piece?”

I didn’t check in with Jack. I was pretty sure he had zero hang-ups with being Ella’s deuce hookup, so I wasn’t about to let them split off without me.

“I think you want me.” Ella glared at me.

“You ruined me.”

Impulsively, I pinched the fabric of her panties and dragged them down her legs, yanking them off. Ella’s toned arms flexed as she pulled herself back against the headboard. She was perfectly waxed just as she had been the last time we were together, a small strip of hair left, bare everywhere else. The warm smell of her body filled my head.

I could not look away. I told myself to stay angry; that bush was manicured for the likes of a guy who checked Ella’s bloodless, clinical boxes. She wasn’t keeping it pretty for me and Jack.

I knew I’d stared too long when she shifted, spreading her legs slightly, teasing me even though she was pretending to be the powerless one. It was all I could do not to kneel and pray at the altar of her sex, beg forgiveness, ask to be let in. And she knew it. She had always known that, when it came to attraction, she held the upper hand.

I got on the bed and knelt between her legs. When I nudged them apart, Ella didn’t resist. I wasn’t trying to be sexy for her; I was living in a world I’d dreamed of the last five years, to nestle between her thighs, to have her any way I wanted one last time. I combed my fingers through the small strip of pubes, tugging at the hair the way I might tug at my head when I was stressed. I pressed my thumb against the soft pinkish flesh at the top of her split and pushed one lip aside, revealing her glistening interior. Her partially exposed clit stood out, hard. The urge to see if she still tasted the same overwhelmed me. I clenched my thighs, nerve endings across my entire body tingling to the point of pain, needing to be touched.

“You ruined me,” Ella said. “After the two of you, I could never be happy with anyone else.”

I wanted to call her a liar. No way was her pain anything like what Jack and I had endured. Instead, I flicked my tongue out, reveling in the taste of her.

Ella’s sharp gasp, the salty-sweet oil of her lubrication, the pebble of her clit straining against my tongue, the jerk of her hips.

I sat up, panting, wiping my mouth. If she came, it would ruin my plans. I hadn’t realized how close she was and how I had barely dragged myself away. My taste buds cramped.

Angrily, I grabbed her thighs, pushed them flat on the bed, and spread them wide. Ella whimpered but let me. Maybe she hoped I’d put her out of her misery.

I knelt between her legs, ass up in Jack’s direction.

“Tell me you love me.” I let my breath ruffle her pubes.

She didn’t say anything. Her thighs trembled.

I pulled her lips apart, fully exposing the little bud of nerves between them. I blew on it. “Say it.”

Behind me, Jack’s zipper purred open. It made me clench so hard in anticipation I wondered if he could see it. Ella and I both went still, listening to the rustle of cloth as he got out of his pants.

I flicked my tongue across her, a fast and surprise attack. Ella gasped again, bucking up like she was trying to keep the contact. Too late—I was already gone. I reached up her body and pinched her nipple like a punishment.

“Then say the safe word,” I demanded. “Say his name. The man you’re going to spend the rest of your...”

Tears froze in my chest, and now it was me who was caught by surprise. It was just the high emotion. It was the fact I’d been imagining revenge for so long and there would be nothing for me to fantasize about after this. What would fill my imaginary sex life tomorrow when she was gone?

I couldn’t help myself. She wouldn’t say she loved me, and I was crying into her fucking snatch, so my big power trip was over, I supposed. Sniffling, I lay my whole tongue flat across her and only pleased myself, reveling in being in this moment. When her hips moved against me, I rushed to meet her.

Jack. Maybe he felt like I had left him too, and the facts were, I had. I’d moved away from college without him. I’d known he was in trouble. We had seen each other falling apart up close, and I think we had both known it was every person for themself as we drowned in grief.

But he had never left me.

Ella’s body moved against me, all warm skin and hard muscles, needy and demanding as she fucked against my tongue.

“I love you. I love you.” She groaned like I was twisting it out of her, those words she would not say until now. “It was always only ever the two of you.”

Her body went rigid against me, hovering on the edge. This is what I had come here to do.

I backpedaled off the bed, her cry of dismay music to my ears as my knees found the edge of the bed and I got up. Jack sat in the chair, cock massive, gliding between his fist.

“No, wait!” Ella begged, and I knew from the tightness in her voice how close she must be. Her hands were still tied to the bed. Good luck, honey.

I straddled Jack, shocked by how sopping wet I was as the head of his cock bumped between my open thighs. He groaned, feeling it too, and slid home, stretching me out until, for a moment, the entire universe was made entirely of where we connected.

“Come back!”

Panting, I rested my head against his shoulder and started moving, each slide home teetering me on the edge.

I tried to keep control, mostly because I knew this would be the last time all three of us were together, and so I had to draw it out. Each moment drove us closer and closer to the end. I kissed Jack, getting his face wet with tears as I rode him ruthlessly, our foreheads together. If I strained to listen above the roar of my pulse, I thought I could hear Ella panting, unsatisfied, as she watched. Maybe crying.

The idea shot tingles throughout my body, so highly electric I wasn’t sure if it was pain or satisfaction. I hoped it was agony for her. I hoped being left behind on the bed hurt her as badly as five years of being without her had hurt me and Jack.

Jack’s fingers dug into my hips as he slammed my body down, at the same time thrusting up into me, making everything on me jiggle with the impact. I twisted against him, rubbing the tips of my breasts against his chest, pushing closer and closer to the edge.

The next moment, he leaned forward and stood with a grunt of effort, holding me on him by my thighs.

“What?” Out of instinct, I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, still wriggling against him, still so close I was almost there. I could not stop.

He took the few steps to the bed and fell onto it, on top of me, driving deep in me. Both of us next to Ella.

“No!” I gasped.

This was not us getting together. This was revenge. I’d thought Jack and I were on the same page. But I wasn’t even on the same page as my pussy, because that part of me kept fucking Jack enthusiastically, taking him in as deep as I could even as he reached across the bed and slid his hand between her thighs, cupping Ella’s pussy, two fingers sliding into her, the same rhythm as us.

I cursed, punching his shoulder. Even so, I could not stop fucking him, my hips bucking up to meet his thrusts. All that mattered was this.

The bed rocked, springs squeaking.

“Kiss and make up,” Jack grunted. I opened my mouth to curse at him some more, but he only fucked me harder. Jack wasn’t like me. He wouldn’t withhold an orgasm to make me do what he wanted.

But he was absolutely the kind of guy who would fuck you senseless.

Holding on to anger felt powerful, and I didn’t want to let it go. It felt like all I had left. Fuck Ella Stewart and everything she had done. Let her feel what it was like to be hungry, to be left out and left behind. But Jack was never like that. Jack always wanted everyone to get what they wanted.

He pounded into me, hand working between her legs, Ella’s arms flexing like she was desperate to help him. Seeing that happen, knowing we were all going to come together, shot me closer and closer to the edge. Nothing would stop it. Police busting in through the door with guns wouldn’t stop it. I would shudder through that orgasm with K-9 dogs sniffing my ass for contraband while dudes in SWAT gear cleared the area, and I would be helpless to do anything but feel it wash over me.

I could feel it in Jack, too, how jagged his thrusts got, the sweat sticking our bodies together, the surge of girth in his cock as he filled me to the point of the stretch overwhelming me.

“Do it,” he panted.

I turned to her. Ella’s eyes were unfocused, mouth open, upper lip pulled flat and trembling in that way that meant if she wasn’t coming, it was inevitable. Jack jackhammered me, hitting that spot inside that shot everything beyond my control, the orgasm hitting like a tidal wave, my whole body clenching, toes curling, calves tightening around his waist, desperate to make him hit that spot again as I came.

I couldn’t help myself. I leaned close and kissed Ella, tongue flicking into her mouth. She took me in, twisting her tongue against mine. And then her mouth went slack, and I caught her cries with my mouth as she came, Jack shooting the moon as he came inside me, falling on top of me, pinning me to the earth.