Chapter 27
SOPHIE
Iwatched from bed as Daniel flipped the lid on his suitcase closed and zipped it up. His expression was beyond weary, and I moved toward the edge of the bed to give him a conciliatory pat against the top of his thigh.
“Two days is nothing,” I reminded him. “We spent eight years existing on stolen weekends. A quick trip to Boston to wine and dine a cranky client isn’t going to be the thing that breaks us.”
The trip had been more than last minute, an unhappy client on the verge of a contract renewal that could suddenly go either way. Daniel had mentioned it to me a couple of weeks before, but neither of us had thought anything of it…until we had to.
“I know it won’t break us. I just don’t want to go.”
“You can video chat me anytime you want. I’m supposed to meet with Marshall to go over this new project, but other than that, my day is surprisingly clear.
” I rolled onto my back and stretched my legs, kicking one to the side so I could get my toes out from beneath the sheets.
The day wasn’t completely clear. I had a three p.m. appointment at a bridal boutique in Beverly Hills to try on wedding dresses, but I didn’t want Daniel to know a single thing about that part of the planning.
“I know,” he grumbled.
“And you can call Finn too. You should call him.”
“I know.” Daniel said again, nodding. “And I will.” He paused, worrying the corner of his lip. “Do you have plans to see him when I’m gone?”
“I didn’t, no. But we just found out you were leaving yesterday. I might see if he wants to come over, but it depends on how the day goes.”
Finn had come over Friday night after dinner with his brothers.
He’d been tired and a little buzzed, but in a better mood than I’d ever seen.
He shared that he’d told his brothers about us, not by name, and the announcement had gone as well as it could have.
He wasn’t hiding my identity from his brother, but we were both mindful of the potential minefield that could exist because of it.
“Why?” I pressed Daniel. “Are you jealous?”
He made a quiet noise in the back of his throat, frowning. “Not in a bad way, I don’t think.”
“Did you want me to invite him over?”
A dozen emotions raced across his face, an endless cycle before he settled on something that looked a little like curiosity and a lot like horny. Daniel sat down on the edge of his bed and checked the time on his phone, shoulders slumping.
“He didn’t want to be a toy,” Daniel said gently. “If he comes over when I’m gone…I want it to be because you want to see him. Not because I want to know you’re seeing him. But I think I do want to know you’re seeing him—”
I cut him off, “You’re overthinking this.”
“Am I?”
“I don’t know the details of what he’s been through so I don’t have the full context, but I think it’s one thing to use someone to irritate or get back at your partner…
that feels manipulative, like using someone as a toy.
It’s another to…” I paused, swallowed hard and gently pressed my fingertips against the small of Daniel’s back.
“Cuckold,” he said. “Consensually.”
I dragged my teeth across my bottom lip, waiting to see if Daniel had more to say. He didn’t, and in the end he stood and pulled up the handle on his bag.
“Let’s just see how the days go, okay?”
He nodded and leaned down, brushing a kiss against the corner of my mouth. He lingered, and I parted my lips for him to kiss me harder. He did, also taking my hand and pressing it against the hot and hard bulge between his legs.
“Please don’t think I hate the idea,” he murmured. “I might like it too much.”
I squeezed him, letting the tips of my nails search out the softness of his sac hidden behind his growing erection.
“Go to work and come back to me when you’ve saved this deal, okay? The rest of it will be whatever it is.”
The rest would be a test, and we both knew it.
One that, if passed, would irrevocably change the course of our relationship with Finn into something much more than either of us had planned.
Not that either of us had ever considered things with him casual, but it was a new facet of the relationship that would only make the foundation of things between us stronger.
“I love you.”
I smiled and nipped Daniel’s lower lip. “I love you. Be sure to let Finn know you’re leaving.”
Daniel gave me one last kiss and was out the door to get his rideshare.
He couldn’t have been gone for more than ten minutes before my phone buzzed with an incoming text message.
Resigned to the fact I was not going to get back to bed, I checked it to find an unread message from none other than Finn himself.
Finn
I hear you’re on your own for a couple of days
Hardly on my own.
I have you, don’t I?
I’m yours.
A tight heat knotted together behind my sternum, and I rubbed my hand across the center of my chest until the pressure turned into a dull ache I could live with.
I wouldn’t lie and say Finn’s entrance to my life hadn’t come with complications.
He was a complicated man, but being with him was easy.
Being with him and Daniel was easy. That wasn’t something I knew how to explain to outsiders, but it also wasn’t their problem.
Our relationship was for nobody other than us, after all.
It had maybe been my own fault, for thinking the kind of open we had when we were long distance would be the kind of open we had under the same roof.
Maybe in another life it would have been, but in another life we wouldn’t have Finn Covington.
Most of my problems arose from the guilt of planning a wedding to one partner while actively getting to know and falling in love with the other.
Sometimes the imbalance was startling, and I had to fight the urge to overcompensate.
I’d been honest when I promised Finn we wouldn’t do whatever had been done to him before.
I never wanted him to feel unimportant to me…
to us. But I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—fast-track something new so it could run alongside something nearly a decade old.
What does your schedule look like this afternoon?
Finn
Boring
Want to play hooky with me?
Always.
I’ll send you an address, meet me at 3?
With bells on.
I texted him the address of the bridal boutique, then set my phone back down on the nightstand and climbed out of bed.
My body was tense, muscles coiled like a live wire.
It was nerves, I told myself. I meditated my way through a short cycle of yoga poses until my arms weren’t twitchy, then I shuffled into the shower and started my day.
I was the first one in the office, and I used the time to narrow down some ideas on my wedding mood board before diving into the presentation I wanted to go over with Marshall. He arrived five minutes early, dressed in a sharp-looking charcoal gray suit and his dark hair slicked back.
“Ms. Berry,” he greeted me formally with a handshake.
“Just Sophie, please.”
He smiled, and the crinkles around his eyes reminded me of Finn when he smiled after an orgasm.
I realized, with a small amount of sadness, just how much work it took for Finn to relax, and I made a mental note to find ways to make our time together easier for him.
Marshall had no stress walking into a seven-figure project, a level of ease only attainable to his brother after nearly blacking out from pleasure.
Marshall and I spent two hours going through the things I’d compiled to show him, drilling down to the details of some elements and tossing others entirely. The man was a bulldog, that was certain, and by the time we worked through everything, I was more than ready to be done with work for the day.
I walked Marshall to the elevator and returned to my office, finding a message from Daniel to let me know he’d arrived in Boston without incident.
He was meant to check in early at his hotel, freshen up, and then swing by his client’s office for a c-suite meeting before taking their leadership team out to dinner.
He had a few other things to take care of the following day, and then he’d be home again on Tuesday night.
It was a quick trip but a necessary one.
I am seeing Finn later today. Wanted to let you know.
Daniel
Good.
How do you feel about that?
I feel like it’s a good thing I’m on my way to the hotel and not the office
I laughed, tapping my fingernails against the edge of my desk while I thought of what to say.
Why’s that?
I have to come or I won’t be able to concentrate on anything.
Call me first?
Daniel didn’t reply, but twenty minutes later, my phone lit up with an incoming video chat.
I checked quickly to make sure my office door was locked, then popped in my headphones and answered the call.
Before I could say hello, Daniel’s naked torso filled the screen.
He adjusted the angle of the phone lower so I could watch him stroke his cock.
He’d barely managed three pulls before he exploded, coming like a fountain across his knuckles and into his happy trail.
Daniel’s moans echoed through my headphones, and I let out a trembling breath as he stroked himself through the aftershocks of his orgasm.
Finally, with a rumbling laugh, he said, “Hi.”
“Hi to you. Feeling better?”
“I’ve been hard since before I left the house this morning.” Daniel adjusted the angle of the phone again, this time bringing his flushed face into view. “That was the longest flight ever.”
“Better now?”
“I’m still hard,” he murmured, and I could see the muscles in his arm flex as he kept touching himself out of frame.
“What were you thinking about that made you so hard?”
“You know.”
I smiled, wishing I could take him into my mouth. “Tell me anyway.”
“You and Finn being together while I’m gone.”
“And you like the idea?”
Daniel’s entire body shuddered. “Clearly.”
“What would you enjoy more, do you think? Knowing it was happening without you and being told after the fact or hearing it happen on the phone when you’re too far away to do anything about it? Or propped up on the nightstand so you can watch?”
The heat I’d earlier felt in my chest sank low into my belly and lower still between my legs. I pressed my thighs together.
“If the roles were reversed, which would you want?”
The question was a loaded one because even when the two of them had been together down the hall while I sat in the living room, listening to them be intimate was the most exquisite kind of torture.
Hearing the moans and the sounds coming from down the hallway had turned me on beyond measure, but listening to them felt almost like an intrusion.
I tried to imagine a different circumstance that involved the two of them together and what I would want it to be.
“It feels situational,” I answered honestly.
“I know.” Daniel’s head hit the hotel pillow, and he groaned, closing his eyes. “I think all three have a place and I’m fine with all three. It depends on what feels right for the two of you. If you want to have time with just him, I want that for you."
“And I want that for you.”
“I’m perfectly okay with whatever feels right,” he said. “I don’t want it to be something it’s not.”
“I don’t think it could be anything other than what it is.”
The corner of Daniel’s mouth lifted into a smile, and he flopped his arm across the top of his forehead.
“You’re right, and I love you.”
“I love you too,” I told him, realizing in the way both of our voices had tipped up at the end of our statements we might very well both be in love with Finn too.