Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
IT ALL SEEMED SO SIMPLE.
Juniper
Stupidly, my plan was to never tell anyone about the other side of me. I thought if I made enough jam, I’d be blissfully content not ever having a lover or children of my own. I want all that but by a certain age and when it doesn’t happen, well, I told myself that jam could replace a man, because my jam is incredible, and takes a crapload of time to make.
It all seemed so simple.
But then white truck man had to be a dog beater. And blinding rage found me, and it was the very same rage that made me pull over, made me grab the jam, and made me beat him to death with it until I couldn’t tell what was brain matter or preserves.
I don’t like that I have to make bad men learn lessons.
It is, however, the card the universe dealt me.
While I’ve learned over the years that there’s no cleanup required when I avoid acting on my impulses, I’ve also come to realize avoiding them only adds pressure to the cooker in my soul. And rather than pretend my needs don’t exist, I usually make a little plan to channel my energy, to save hours’ worth of headaches. When seething anger and the overwhelming urge for retribution hits, I make myself take a day or two and plan. Normally.
Damn it, the dog beater guy messed everything up.
I’m worried if I don’t come clean, I’ll be discovered. Dash is so smart. And he’s a police officer. He knows when people are lying, and more than that, he knows me. In the last couple years, the three of us have been inseparable.
We take mini getaways together to breweries, we have board game night and bowling night, we tried to start a book club (but Sterling fell asleep), we watch Survivor and make each other playlists, we swim in the summer and snowboard in the winter.
We’re friends .
He’s aware that something more sinister has happened. But he’s not pressing it yet, giving me grace I don’t deserve.
And Sterling.
My gosh.
Ever since I met him, I knew there was something about him that screamed “forever.” It only took a few months of hanging out for me to realize that I wanted him the same way my little sister Dolly wanted her husband Hudson before they got together.
Passionately. Aggressively. Insanely.
But a woman with secrets like mine doesn’t easily take a lover. She doesn’t simply have a boyfriend or a husband, she doesn’t pose for Christmas cards and make baked goodies for the town during the holidays. She doesn’t have daughters who borrow her clothes and wear her lipstick, and she doesn’t host girls' nights and plan cross-continent vacations.
She doesn’t do those things because when and if her choices catch up with her, it makes the fall that much more agonizing, more public, more painful for the ones who love her.
Years have passed and Sterling has never asked me out, anyway. When Dash came along, I fell for him, too. And while neither of them ever made a move, I’ve believed it's best that way, because the barrier of privacy, avoiding true intimacy—it kept my secret side safe.
Recently it’s been harder to stick to that ideology. The desire to have my dream life with them has been more challenging to suppress.
I don’t know if the adrenaline wearing off is taking away some of my good sense. I don’t know if it’s the two most virile, hunky, sweet men I’ve ever met in my entire life tenderly taking care of me, as if I’m their porcelain doll to keep safe. I don’t know exactly what it is.
But for the first time in my life, I want to spill my guts about everything.
The fear that they won’t accept me is the only thing keeping me from doing it, though. I love these guys. I want them and have wanted them in all the erotic, sensual ways that a sexually starved, deprived woman craves a man.
A quick perusal of packages—something I usually do when my sunnies are on—tells me that we may be on the same page. Despite my reservations and hesitations, now is my time to make a move.
And as nervous as I am to cross that bridge for the first time, it’s a much easier leap than coming clean. For now, at least. And the longer I can distract them from reality, the better. Because I don’t think I’m ready for the consequences.
They’ll leave me.
“Please,” I whisper again, this time moving through the apartment on weak feet, cradling my hurt hand to my chest as I circle the counter. From the fridge, I retrieve a jar of Juni’s Peach Party . With the jam tucked under my arm, I use my good hand to twist off the top. The metal lid pings onto the kitchen floor as I make my way back to them. Neither Sterling nor Dash have moved from their spots on the couch, knees still spread wide, elbows resting atop as they steeple fists below chins, both deeply contemplative.
I take them in for a second. Sterling, a strapping man with his strawberry hair, the slight softness around his waist reminding me of the power and dominance he yields. Dash’s body is defined by lean muscle, promising stamina and strength. The most erotic dichotomy.
“I need you both,” I admit, the hushed words heavily lined with an unbearable ache. Dash’s eyes linger, and when I look at Sterling, he’s laser-focused on the jar of jam in my hand, and my two fingers as I plunge them inside.
With preserves sticky on my fingertips, I slowly settle between them on the couch, facing Sterling first. Sliding my bandaged hand under his chin, our gazes collide, brimming with unspoken tension in the electric silence. He wants me. I can see it now. He never asked me out but there's no question, searching his hazel eyes, that he wants me.
Slowly, I tip my face toward him until I feel the hot press of his mouth and the soft swipe of his tongue along mine. His sizable hand cups the back of my head tenderly. His kiss is electrical, hot and sizzling, while somehow also being velvety soft and ultra tender. The perfect contrast of emotion and passion. His kiss is everything I knew it would be. When I have the courage to pull back, I replace my tongue with my fingers, and lower my voice to a husky whisper. “ Suck .”
Sterling’s lips wrap my fingers, the noise of him swallowing my jam tears across my skin in raised bumps, somehow intensifying the hot and uncomfortable ache between my legs. Pulling my fingers out clean, I kiss and tongue the traces of peach off his lips, relieved he isn’t too proud to let me hear him moan. I love his moans. I could live off of them as sustenance, they’re so hearty and dense.
“ Goddd .” His voice rattles and rumbles between my legs.
Facing Dash, I break into a smile when I find his eyes wide, and a hand guarding his crotch. I’ve long wondered about Dash’s feelings, and tried to never focus on the reasons why he didn’t or wouldn’t ask me out. I always wondered if Sterling wasn’t one of the reasons. Because he looks at Sterling the very same way I do.
Sliding over an inch, I bring my covered hand to his chin and smile, our eyes tangled in shared thought.
I want this , I swear I hear him saying it by the way his gray eyes flit between mine, the way his nostrils flare with each hitched breath, and his subtle nod as I bring the same two fingers up to his mouth.
“First, a kiss,” I whisper, fusing our mouths in a kiss so incomparably different from the one I shared with Sterling. Dash doesn’t cup the back of my head but rather, collects my face in his hands, sweeping his tongue through my mouth over and over until I’m so worked up I have to pull back.
“I’ve been dying for a taste,” he says finally, out of breath, “it feels like I’ve waited an eternity or longer.” I don’t know if he means my mouth, or Sterling’s, or both.
Both, I hope.
I plunge my fingers into his mouth, and my eyes roll closed as his tongue wraps around them, his lips creating a tight seal to suck. The back of his tongue is soft and hot as he searches for remnants of Sterling or peach jam on my fingers, and when he’s done, he takes my wrist and pulls my hand back.
“I can’t say it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted, because there are a few things I’ve yet to taste that will definitely take the cake,” he rasps, a smirk lifting the corner of his mouth. I cup my good hand there, sweeping my thumb over his lips where happiness lifts them.
Getting to my feet between them, I nudge their little coffee table back to make room. Sterling is always a gentleman, and when I reach for the hem of the too big t-shirt that has kept me so comfortable, he levels a wobbly palm between us.
“Juniper, you don’t?—”
“I do,” I say, dead to his refusal. He wants me. I see it in his eyes. In Dash’s eyes too. I know how to read men’s eyes. When they’re lying, when they’ve deceived, when they say they’re going to do better if I let them go, but I know they’re just saying what they think I want to hear.
My assumption that they haven’t asked me out because they don’t like me? I think I was wrong.
Maybe Sterling has a good reason for never asking me out. Dash, too. And maybe their reasons are as twisted as mine—maybe they’re hiding a darkness, a secret, a handful of histories so big they could destroy lives.
I don’t know.
But tonight, it doesn’t matter.
“I need you both, ” I repeat, and this time, they stay silent. After my admission, my pants join my shirt on the floor. The white bra and panty set that waxed lackluster and boring when I put it on this morning suddenly feels like the most seductive and alluring thing I’ve ever worn.
But this doesn’t end with simple stripping of clothes. Because I have plans, and jam and cotton don’t mix. The bra and panties have to go.
Taking a place in front of Sterling, I tell him what I want. “Take off my panties, Sterl,” I plead, clinging to the last syllable of his name for as long as possible. I never want to let him go, and after tonight, I hope he feels the same. I hope they both do.
He curls his fingers around the waist of my panties, heat raking across my flesh, awareness prickling through my veins, lighting my body up at its very core. My nipples are piercingly hard. Desire blooms at my core, flooding my panties. My wet desire threads between my bare puss and my cotton panties as he tugs them down. I stop him when they’re banded around my thighs, because I want them both to see just how wet I am. To show them I’m wet for them, but my panties aren’t what needs to come off.
Reaching down, I grab his wrist, his cloudy hazel eyes coming to mine. “Take it,” I tell him, watching as his gaze moves from me to the heavy thread of arousal he’s collecting from between my legs. A feral groan echoes from across the couch, Dash’s verbal needs rippling through the room. Sterling twists to look at his roommate, but I don’t follow his gaze. Instead, they share a moment as I bring Sterling’s hand to my cunt, and make him swipe through my arousal.
“Jesus,” he groans, holding out his palm to survey his glistening reward.
“Reach in and stroke yourself with it,” I whisper, before turning to face Dash. “And watch him do it.” Judging by his expression, I don’t think I could pay Dash to look anywhere else right now.
Sterling lifts the waistband of his sweats, briefly exposing the top of a nest of strawberry hair. My cunt tightens at the discovery that Sterling has pubic hair, igniting a caveman kink in me, I swear. He fights his eyes closing as he pumps himself with my arousal. While Sterl strokes, I fall to my knees in front of Dash.
“Unclasp me,” I tell him, but his fingers work my bra before the words are out of my mouth. Holding the cups to my chest with my forearm, I move on my knees to position myself between them, bringing the jam from the coffee table.
My bra hits the floor, and four eyes traverse the plane of my chest, taking in every pebbled detail of my small nipples, the full sweep of my heavy, natural breasts. Their focus on my body infuses my desires with urgency. I plunge my fingers into the jam again.
Slathering the cold preserves along my puckered areola, I look between my lovers. “Scoot,” I encourage, indicating to close the space between them on the couch. Dash moves without question, while Sterling is hesitant.
After a beat, he slides over. Though it makes no sound, when their knees connect, the movement echoes momentously through my chest, sinking into my center. His hesitancy indicates Sterling isn’t ready to take the second taste. Maybe he’s not ready to admit he wants to know what Dash’s mouth and lips taste like. Whatever holds him in uncertainty, I respect. After all, they respected me giving them no answers when showing up crying and bloody.
“Lick me,” I tell Sterl, capturing his eyes, imparting safety and softness as I tenderly stroke his jaw with my good hand. “I’ve always wondered, you know.”
With his lips an inch from my breast, he looks up, his broad chest heaving. “What?”
“What your lips and tongue would feel like on my naked breast.” I mean every word.
“Juni,” he starts, but I shake my head, causing his excuses to fall away. Wrapping my hand around his head, sifting my fingers through his silky soft hair, I draw him into me. The space floods with urgent moans as his mouth seals to my breast, a surge of fiery desire tearing through me.
“You like peach, don’t you?” I murmur as the soft tip of his tongue flicks over my hardened nipple, his callused, large hands landing securely on my rib cage. I sift my fingers through his strawberry hair, loving how he’s a touch sweaty, his cheeks flushed. “Hmm, your mouth feels so good, Sterl,” I praise, arousal slipping out of me, curving my lips, sliding down my thigh.
I enjoy his mouth a moment longer, then steal away. He’s so handsome like this, lips swollen and pink from the homage he paid to me and my jam. I already miss his hands and mouth, but I can wait for more. Facing Dash, I dip my fingers into the jam again, smearing it across my wet skin where Sterl’s mouth just worshiped.
“You don’t have to ask me,” Dash says, his seductive smirk bringing a smile to my lips. He winks, and then his sultry gray eyes disappear as he closes them, crushing his mouth to my breast. His hands come to my rib cage just like Sterl’s did, and they’re just as callous and rough, and it turns me on so much.
Knowing these men who make Bluebell a better place, who love Bluebell as much as I do, who pride themselves on honesty and hard work—feels like fate.
Fate with a side of my big, terrible secret.
“Peaches and cream,” Dash breathes, peeling his lips from my breast long enough for his tongue to swipe over the remaining sweetness, collecting it, leaving my sticky skin bumpy in its wake. “You’re beautiful, Juniper,” he breathes, holding me at arm’s length as he studies my naked body, his silvering eyes finally making it back to mine. “And so sweet.”
“That’s the jam,” I purr, teasingly, flirtatiously. Even though I’m naked and having them lick jam off of my body, still, openly flirting feels good. Like sneaking under the bleachers with your crush, or stealing that first kiss on the porch. Finally getting to do what I’ve wanted to do for years.
I face Sterl as I place a palm on each of their knees. They’re not ready for all of the things I’ve imagined, but we’ll ease into it.
Pushing them apart, I settle between them on the couch. My hand aches so much that even my wrist hurts, but right now, I ignore it. I’ve dreamed of skiing with these two guys more than I’d like to admit. Tucked under my sunflower-covered bedspread, with the moonlight casting a glow over my dresser, I’d squeeze my eyes shut, slip my hand into my panties, and think of this. Me between them, each palm wrapped around a stony cock, pulsing, hot and potent in my hand. I’d infuse tender pumps with hard strokes, and with each riveted grunt and famished moan, the three of us would crawl closer to the edge before we’d all fall, them coming everywhere, soaking their chests, their hot cum rolling down my knuckles, while I clench and gasp from my spot, coming from the toy they put inside me. Together.
I shimmy my panties up with a plan.
But with one hand bandaged to high heaven, I can’t make that dream come alive. Instead, I take Dash’s hand with mine, and lace our fingers together, staring at them. “You have nice hands, I’ve always thought that.”
He smiles a little, his face still flushed, an impressive erection tenting his pants. He catches me eyeing it, and his smile broadens. “I never thought I’d see the day. Juniper Ellington, the sweetest thing in Bluebell, eyeing my cock.”
“He rents space in my head,” I tell him before facing a patient, calm and waiting Sterling.
He doesn’t say anything, but smiles softly as he tips his head back against the couch. “What do you want from me, Juniper Sky?” he asks, his voice lined with memories. I’ve known Sterling for years, and one of my many favorite things has always been his sultry and commanding voice. And the way my name sounds rumbling around in it.
Leaving Dash’s, I take his hand, but not before leaning in for another taste of his mouth. Beer, jam and dreams are all I can taste as his tongue lightly sweeps mine, his hand coming to the side of my jaw. We pull apart as I move his hand between my thighs. Taking Dash’s hand, I bring him to the same warm, welcoming place.
With my focus still on Sterling, my voice is hoarse when I say, “Put your hand under my panties, and put one of your fingers inside me.”
I could take my panties off. But I’ve always had this fantasy of looking down and seeing two men work me over beneath the tender confines of my virtuous cotton panties. Something feels so naughty and so hot, and I have to have it.
Sterling’s expression pinches, and I think he may reject the idea, fearful that we’re moving too fast or that I may suggest something he’s not ready to do. But then a chill hits my wet pussy, and I look down to find his large hand sweeping the cotton aside. Dash’s hand lays in wait, resting in the crook of my thigh. He must be watching Sterl’s hand too, but I can’t look away long enough to know for sure.
One blunt fingertip traces my seam, making my lower half sizzle, my spine vibrating against the couch. A groan bounces around Sterling’s cavernous chest, burning through me like a heatwave as he pulls the tip of his finger back, stringing my arousal. Another grunt and he’s breaching me, one little bit at a time, sinking his finger deep into my pulsing core.
My head falls back against the couch as I watch his finger delve deeper, bringing his curled knuckle flush with my swollen lips.
Dash leans over, sucking my nipple into his mouth, and I arch off the couch with a hiss. I do my best to cover Sterling’s hand with my panties, obsessed with the shape of him beneath the cotton fingering me. Taking Dash’s hand, I lift the hem of them just slightly and guide him, placing his thumb carefully over my aching clit.
My entire body always blooms for these men. But with Sterling’s middle finger slipping in and out of me, curling deliciously at all the right times, and Dash carefully playing my clit, my high is just beginning.
“You want us to make you come, hmm?” Dash rasps, his voice thinning more and more as the arousal between the three of us intensifies. He’s so hard, a wet spot forming where the head of his cock impales his pants. It’s so sexy.
I nod, taking a seductive bite of my bottom lip. “ Us ,” I reply, bartering. “I want you and Sterling to make me come, together ,” I breathe, searching his eyes for the answer to my unasked questions. Will you two come together for me? To please me? To be with me? I can’t ask any of that, not yet, so instead I swipe my tongue along my dry bottom lip and breathe, “It’s all I’ve wanted for a very long time.”
Casting my eyes downward, I pull at the hem of my stretched panties, and peer at the sight between my spread legs. Sterling adds another finger as I watch, expertly fingering me, his lips now dusting my ear as he makes his feelings known. “So soft, so wet,” he grunts, his smoky tone new to me, infusing me with desire. Twisted onto his side, against my hip, I feel how big and hard he is, and wonder what that thing would feel like in place of his fingers.
I wonder what Dash would feel like in my throat as Sterling stretched my cunt.
Turning to face Dash, I find him in the same position, on his side, his erection brushing my hip as he uses my arousal to swirl circles on my clit.
I don’t want to think about why we’ve never done this before. Or why Sterling has never asked me on a date, or Dash, either. I don’t want to think about how I’ll explain my hand and the dog once the adrenaline is gone and they realize something serious happened.
I just want to watch them fuck me with their talented, rough hands, and I want to unravel for them.
If both of my hands were working properly, I’d reach down and grab them, but because I can only curl my fingers on one hand, I’ll wait on my dirty skiing fantasy. My hips have a mind of their own, rolling gently against the butter-soft leather of Sterl’s couch. My eyes don’t leave their hands, watching intently as the need coiled in my core reaches boiling point, and my vision slowly fades as my orgasm crests.
“Oh my, oh my ,” I gasp, finally succumbing to the extreme pleasure, slamming my eyes closed as my head falls back. Grinding against their hands, my hungry pussy clenches in waves, riding Sterl’s fingers and grinding Dash’s hand. “I’m coming,” I manage, words finally untangling themselves as they spill from my lips.
“There you go, sweetheart.”
“Fuck, you’re hot.”
“You are so beautiful when you come, Juniper.”
The words seem to drift along my body, over my shoulders and into my ears. A painful pulse hammers beneath the tear in my hand, and I know I’ve probably overdone it tonight. But as the intensity of the orgasm falls away, I’m left with the warmth of the two men I adore all around me. Finally, for what feels like the first time in my life, there’s a sated humming between my thighs.
My tired eyes finally flicker open to catch Dash looping my pants around my ankles, his erection still aggressive. Sterling, who must’ve slipped away for a moment, swipes between my thighs with a warm towel. Of course he warmed the towel . Our eyes catch.
“You need sleep,” he comments, swiping away the sticky mess from my thighs and panties. I appreciate a man who knows about UTIs. But even in my twilight state, I hate that he likely knows that from other lovers. Sleepiness saunters through me, and I yawn, wondering if the soft strawberry curls at Sterling’s neck have ever been twisted around another woman’s fingers in the throes of passion.
A moment later, I’m over Sterl’s shoulder, an adorable Dash pacing behind us, my new yellow dog in tow.
“If you need anything, I’ll be on the couch. And Dash will be in his room,” Sterl says, gently lowering me into the center of his bed. His room is cool and dark, the arousal-inducing scent of his masculinity seeped into every surface, infiltrating my brain. If it weren’t for the adrenaline crash, being in his bedroom with both of them would prepare me for round two.
But I’m just so exhausted. So much thinking, so much worry.
It’s too much for me right now.
“Thank you for everything,” I tell him, then add the same thing I say to them both in text, and in person, knowing in my heart it holds a much different meaning this time. “I love you guys.”
Sterl adjusts himself, and I see he’s still painfully aroused. “Love you too,” he says, his voice growing hushed as he pulls the curtains, blocking out even the smallest trace of moonlight.
“Love you too, Juni,” Dash says, squeezing my foot over the comforter.
Then they’re gone, and as much as I know I have to explain, and definitely now need to talk about what just happened, the safety of being in their home after so much trauma… it puts me right to sleep.
The yellow dog, too.