Chapter 12 - Maren #2
The memory of him walking in on us was still fresh. The look on his face. The feeling that instantly spiked inside me… Not shock or humiliation, but excitement. I liked that he was there. Even if my brain tried to protest, my body responded with the truth.
My pussy clamped down around Ethan to keep him from pulling out, and I dug my fingers into his shoulders with a terse, “Don’t stop.” He obliged, and when my second orgasm tore through me, it was Adrian’s eyes I’d been gazing into.
I swallowed, brushing my hair back. “I— I’m not lost. Not exactly. So did you see him or not?”
“Sorry, I’ve been going nowhere slowly since I got lost in here a few minutes ago.”
My shoulders sagged, and I let out a defeated sigh. This was just perfect. Three kids unattended in a crowded market. After fucking my boss (and his business partner), I was making real headway to that Nanny of the Year award.
“Listen, about last night…”
In the movies, this was the part where the other person would interrupt and say no explanation was needed. They’d offer reassurances and resolve the tension so the story could flow into the next scene.
I blinked at Adrian, pausing conspicuously for just such an interruption to occur. One corner of his mouth curled with a smirk.
“I’m listening.”
Ugh, he was the worst.
“I owe you an apology,” I started with a steadying breath. Best to just get it over and done with. “My behavior was unprofessional, and— I just… I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t know wh—”
“Never?” The rest of my sentence got stuck in my throat. Instead of the confusion and maybe judgment I’d expected to see on his face, Adrian seemed intrigued. Curious. “You’ve seriously never—?”
“Never.” And now that I actually looked at him, I saw the amusement in his eyes. “Wait. You mean… Have you?”
His light laughter was neither an admission or denial, which annoyed me even more. There was no mistaking the distinct air of mischief he had about him, though. Like he was in on a secret and took pride in guarding it well.
“The photo,” I said quietly, realization dawning slowly. “The one with you, Ethan, Miles… and that woman.”
Adrian’s eyes softened, a flicker of something—nostalgia, maybe regret—crossing his face. “Sylvie,” he said, like tasting a word he hadn’t spoken in years. “Yeah… she was something. But that was then.” He stepped a fraction closer, the tension coiling between us.
Heat flared through me, cheeks warming, pulse jumping. “So all three of you dated her? At the— At the same time?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.” He brushed some sweat-damp hair from my face. “You got a little taste of it. Was it that bad?”
Fuck me. It wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it was easily the most transcendent experience I’d ever had in my life.
But that was in the moment.
Outside of it, I was getting all tangled up in stuff like logistics and technicalities and pretty much just how the hell something like that even worked out? If this Sylvie was no longer around, then that kinda answered my main question. In that things like this didn’t work out.
I ignored his obvious teasing, and said, “What happened with her?”
“Do you care? Or are you just interested in what’s going to happen to you if you pursue this any further?”
He got me.
“Adrian—”
His hand brushed my waist, the contact light but deliberate. I felt the spark shoot straight through me. “Curiosity got you here, and I can tell you still have several questions that need answering.”
“And you?” I let my hand hover, brushing against his just enough to return the challenge. “What’s your reason?”
His grin deepened, and he dipped his head along with his voice. So low it was barely more than a delicious vibration waking me up from the inside out. “You need to ask?”
“You’re infuriating.” I let out a breath of a laugh, not quite able to hold his gaze.
“Flattered,” he whispered, brushing his lips over mine. “But you like that. I can tell.”
I could feel the heat radiating from him, the ease with which he turned me on before even touching me. It was maddening.
I let my eyes flutter closed, surrendering to the featherlight touch of his mouth, the barely-there pressure that promised so much more. My hands rose instinctively, pressing into his chest, feeling the lean strength beneath the fabric of his hoodie.
I was really about to do this. With the kind of gay abandon that the ‘old’ me would never entertain. Was this even me? Could the same woman who had her whole life planned out from the age of twelve be the one wholeheartedly diving into an uncertain tryst with three men at the same time?
The answers to those questions were the least of my concerns, because a more important one made my heartbeat speed up.
When the hell was he going to kiss me?
He dragged his warm tongue over my lower lip and, like me, couldn’t hold back any longer.
With one arm snaked steadily around my waist, he pulled me into a long, sensual kiss that made me shiver beneath my many layers.
But there was nothing cold about this. No.
Simmering heat spread down low, creeping out to every one of my nerve endings and setting me on fire.
The kiss deepened, and I leaned into him even more, my hands on his chest turning to fists as I clung to him. Held him in place. Kept him from leaving just yet. My entire body thrummed from the steady pull of him, the way he let the moment stretch without forcing anything.
The one disappointment I had from the night before was that I didn’t get to taste him like this.
Now, standing in the middle of a dumb hay maze, I decided the wait made it even sweeter.
The youngest of the three, always cracking jokes and messing around, there was nothing light or playful about the way Adrian held onto me now.
How his tongue massaged mine with determined relish, as if his very life force could be found within my depths and he was hellbent on consuming every last drop.
A soft groan fell from his lips and into my mouth. I swallowed it in with a moan of my own, pressing my hips harder against him and the distinct bulge in his pants. His hands dropped to my ass and squeezed down, adding more pressure to the electrifying friction there.
Where he started off tentatively, as if carefully sketching the lines of an artwork he didn’t want to ruin, heat bloomed fast and feverish now.
A beat of impatience laced through his movements, like he was afraid the moment would vanish into thin air before he’d had his fill.
As if it would come to nothing too soon if he didn’t hold onto it with both hands, his mouth, his whole being.
He was reckless, almost. All heart. And distinctly different to Ethan or Miles, in that every part of him pouring into me felt like it was driven by pure instinct and nothing else. I was his blank canvas, and he wanted nothing more than to fill me up with everything he was feeling in this moment.
He drew back, breath unsteady, gaze flicking between my eyes and my mouth.
His own were dark, intense. And whatever he saw in me made something shift in him.
The air between us crackled with it. So much so, that when his mouth found mine again, it wasn’t all that careful anymore. It was need, plain and simple.
We stumbled back, his hands tangled in the hair at the base of my neck, and didn’t stop until we met a wall of hay bales. I gasped as he pressed his body against mine, his erection rubbing against my thigh like a promise he couldn’t wait to make good on.
And now that I knew the truth about their past, and how my attraction to all three of them wasn’t an obstacle but a desirable quality, I gave in to every part of myself that wanted this. Wanted all of them as much as they wanted me.
The parts of myself I didn’t know existed.
Every second stretched, every motion measured but intentional, a dance of heat and control. I hooked one leg around his waist, relishing the grind of his erection at my throbbing core. Even through all the annoying layers of clothing, his hardness made me ache with want.
“I swear to God, Maren…” His hot breath played on my swollen lips. “...if you don’t stop me, I’m gonna fuck you right here. Right now.”
A breathless laugh bubbled out of me. “You’re telling me you don’t have the willpower to stop yourself?”
“All the will I have is currently in my pants, dying to get into yours,” he said, a mischievous glint in his eye.
I locked my arms around his neck and pulled him close. “Well, I’m hardly the person to stand between a man and his goals.”
I leaned into him fully, lips pressing, body reacting before my mind could catch up. The world outside the maze no longer existed; only the warmth, the tension, the press of our lips and the slow, teasing push-and-pull of hands and breaths.
“Sadie!” Ethan’s voice carried, sharp and panicked, bouncing off the bales like a bell.
Adrian and I broke apart and hurriedly fixed our clothes. It sounded like Ethan was right there, and just as suddenly as the world had faded away, it all closed in on me again. The girls alone at the craft station, Will gone somewhere I couldn’t follow.”
“Shit. Fuck.” I snapped my hair into a messy bun and whirled on the spot, looking for the most viable exit.
Our private moment evaporated, the tension snapping into instant alertness. The urgency in Ethan’s call wasn’t annoyance. It was urgency. Panic, even.
“Something’s wrong,” Adrian muttered under his breath. He adjusted his hard-on with a slight grimace, and then grabbed my hand. “Come on.”
We ducked around a corner, racing past the tall hay walls.
My boots thudded against the compacted ground, and for a moment, I felt the ghost of adrenaline from our earlier tension prickling along my nerves.
Adrian was beside me, moving with effortless, silent speed, and my mind flickered for a second to the kiss—how close, how electric—but there was no time. Not now.
The maze spit us out near the craft station, and my pulse hitched at the sight. Emma sat cross-legged at a table, focused entirely on a glittered pumpkin in front of her, lips pursed in concentration. Her little tongue peeked out, and she didn’t even look up.
“Emma?” I tried. No reaction.
Adrian gave it a go. “Where’s Uncle Ethan?”
“And Sadie…” I added, scanning the crowd around us. It looked like hundreds of people had arrived in my absence, filling the space to the point where I couldn’t make out a single face with recognizable features.
No sign of Sadie anywhere. Panic burrowed under my ribs. “Where the hell—?”
The crunch of a caramel apple drew my attention, and I turned to see Will ambling toward us, sticky hands, eyes wide.
“I used my own money,” he announced, completely oblivious to the chaos brewing. “The lady laughed when I told her to keep the change.”
“Will—” I dropped to one knee in front of him. “How could you run off like that? Sadie’s wandered off and we can’t find her.”
He frowned over his apple. “I was just having fun. Why didn’t Emma watch her?”
We all looked at Emma, who still wasn’t looking up. I sighed and turned to Adrian, hoping he had a way to salvage this.
“Sadie!” Ethan’s voice again. Miraculously, it managed to float above the general noise of the market.
“This way,” Adrian said, and broke into a run.
“More running,” I muttered, and set off after him.
“She’s here!” Adrian shouted, and we sprinted the last few steps, pushing through the crowd of visitors at the petting zoo.
Sadie was crouched beside a pen, arms wrapped around two rabbits, her face glowing with absolute affection. She looked up at us with the widest grin, as though she’d been on some epic solo adventure.
“Sadie!” Ethan appeared from nowhere and pushed past Adrian and me, his voice tight with equal parts relief and exasperation. He moved fast, scooping her into a tight hug that made her giggle uncontrollably.
Adrian grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. Thank God, she was okay.
Ethan, still holding Sadie, finally exhaled. “Where were you two?”
His eyes flicked between us knowingly, and I felt it like a spark against my skin. I bit the inside of my lip, unable to speak around the sudden heat that clawed in my chest. Adrian’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t say anything.
“Will ran off,” I started, feeling like total shit. It was my fault. I should never have left them on their own. “I went after him, but—”
“You left a five-year-old all by herself in a place like this?”
He knew. Not only that, but he wasn’t happy about it.
All this was new to me. I didn’t know the rules, but judging by the look on Ethan’s face, I must’ve broken a few. I looked at Adrian for help; he just shrugged.
“They’re kinda cute,” Will said, popping out of nowhere and pointing at the rabbits. Sadie had dropped one and was hugging another, her face buried in the soft fur.
She looked up at us innocently. “I found the best one!”
Ethan’s face softened, but his jaw still cut a hard line as a sign he hadn’t totally moved past the other thing. Adrian and me being that thing, and what we’d gotten up to while the littlest Cross had gone missing.
Adrian rested his hand on the small of my back. It was his silent reassurance, probably after noticing the quiet distress I was in. I couldn’t tell whether it helped much, because my mouth was dry and every glance in Ethan’s direction made my heart sink.
“It’s okay,” Adrian whispered then, bending low so only I would hear. “Sadie’s fine, and he’ll be too.”
I exhaled slowly and nodded, keeping my fingers loosely curled at my sides. But the heat lingering there was undeniable. Adrian’s eyes met mine again, and it was like a secret spark passed between us. Impossible to ignore, untouchable in the moment, but undeniably alive.
The soft murmurs of the market around us, the distant laughter, the smell of hay and autumn air—it all felt intensified, like we were standing in some private bubble, even in public.
And then, finally, after what felt like forever, we began moving, regrouping the kids and guiding them back to the craft station.
But the energy between Ethan, Adrian, and me pulsed under the surface. Unspoken. Unresolved.