One Wicked Night

Chapter Eight

In the space of seconds, about a million thoughts ran through Kaelin’s head.

They were gay. They were a gay couple. Once in high school there’d been a crazy rumor about them, but she’d completely disregarded it because of Tyler’s reputation with girls. They’d both dated lots of girls. Girls had been after both of them, all the time, but especially Tyler. She’d seen them together naked, but that didn’t mean anything. But what other explanation could there be for sharing a bed? She was pretty sure two straight guys wouldn’t share a bed. A hotel room maybe, but not a bed. Or would they? But after the things they’d just done with her, how could they…?

Confusion muddled her thinking as she watched them, waiting for them to say something.

“It’s complicated,” Tyler finally said, and took a swig of water from a bottle.

She stared at him. “Complicated?”

“As in, hard to explain.”

She shook her head. If they were gay, how would she feel about that? Her chest tightened. “I guess it’s none of my business,” she finally managed to say.

“Fuck,” Tyler muttered, swiping a hand over his face.

“I’d say after what just happened here, it kind of is your business,” Nick said quietly.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. Because really, it didn’t. This was one crazy night of being bad. Their relationship with each other made no difference to her. But another thought intruded. Had she made them do something they hadn’t wanted to? Oh, that was just a bit humiliating.

Tyler sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Nick and I started fooling around in high school,” he said, and she kept her jaw from dropping at the admission. Holy crap. “I don’t even know if we can explain it. We both like girls too.”

“I think we just wanted sex all the time,” Nick added dryly.

“Actually, I think it might have had something to do with knowing how freakin’ pissed off my parents would be if they found out.” Tyler grimaced. “At least at first.”

Oh lord. That was so Tyler, the bad-boy rebel. Wow. She kept listening.

“Neither of us has ever been with any other guy,” Tyler told her. “It’s just a…thing we have. With each other.”

Kaelin caught a flicker of something on Nick’s face. What was that? It almost looked like pain. She studied him as he shaped his expression back into neutral and met her eyes. He gave her a small smile and a shrug. “See? It’s complicated.”

“Uh-huh.”

Her heartbeat kicked up a notch and her breath quickened.

“Does that disgust you?” Tyler asked, looking fully prepared for her to say yes.

She considered his question. No, she wasn’t disgusted. Whatever she was feeling was nowhere even close to disgust. A bit confused maybe, a bit shocked. She looked back and forth between them. And realized she also felt intrigued. Even…aroused.

“So,” she said. “What happened tonight wasn’t just you taking pity on me in my crazy desire to be bad. I mean, you were actually…” She lost her search for the right words.

Tyler’s expression turned fierce. “Jesus, Kaelin. We were fucking hot for you. Couldn’t you tell that?”

“Um, well, I thought you were, but…”

“Don’t even doubt that, Kaelin.” Nick leaned toward her. “I told you…I want you too.”

She went soft and liquid inside at his words, and at the intense expression on Tyler’s face when he’d said they’d been hot for her. “Um. Okay.”

Tyler tossed aside an empty chip bag and screwed the cap back onto the bottle of water. He dropped it to the carpet beside the bed and moved purposefully toward her, and her heart sped up. Kneeling in front of her, he tipped up her chin and kissed her mouth. Hard.

After a few seconds of stunned inertia, the kiss changed as Kaelin opened for him and his mouth gentled on hers, his tongue licking inside her mouth. When he drew back they were both breathing hard. Nick moved off the bed briefly and then back in for another kiss. Kaelin lifted one hand and laid it on Tyler’s chest, let the other rest on Nick’s shoulder as the kiss deepened and grew hotter. Her pussy ached again and her skin started to tingle everywhere.

Nick reached for her and pulled her toward him, onto his lap, now naked, one hand on her hip, one in her hair and they kissed over and over in long, drugging kisses. Then her pulse skyrocketed when she felt Tyler’s lips on her back. Heat rushed through her body and her head went light and fell back. Nick kissed her throat, small suckling kisses, moving down, resting on the pulse fluttering wildly at the base of her throat, then lower still. Her breasts ached to be touched, her nipples tingling points of sensation, while Tyler’s lips on her back trailed streamers of pleasure over every nerve ending. Tyler’s mouth moved lower too, until it came to rest at the base of her spine, his tongue licking her sensitive skin there. Her butt clenched, her entire body awash in a shimmer of erotic heat edged with a dark thrill and forbidden ecstasy.

When Nick took a nipple in her mouth, she couldn’t stop the needy noise that escaped her throat, his lips tugging a streak of pleasure from nipple to pussy. Tyler’s mouth at the base of her spine had her lifting up from Nick’s lap in a wanton invitation which he accepted, kissing her butt cheeks. The thrill went beyond words, the wickedness of it tearing through her.

She whimpered.

Nick shifted them on the bed, which meant Tyler’s mouth left her skin and she whimpered again, but Nick stretched out on the bed on his back with her lying on top of him. He took her hair in big fistfuls of it and held her head as he kissed her mouth again, her breasts cushioned against his hard chest, while Tyler resumed his naughty exploration of her backside. His nips with his teeth jolted her, his tongue soothed, and his fingers joined in the tour, tickling her where butt cheeks joined her thighs, where she was so sensitive she twitched and moaned at his touch.

“Babe, you are so hot,” Tyler whispered from behind her.

Nick’s cock throbbed hot and hard between them and the ache in her pussy made her move against him longingly, seeking what he had that could ease it. And then Tyler’s fingers were there, slipping between her thighs, finding the liquid center of her.

“Hot,” he murmured, stroking and dipping. “So hot, sweet baby.”

“Mmm.” She hummed her agreement as Nick’s hands moved to her hips to lift her. When Tyler took hold of Nick’s cock, she thought she might explode with heat and lust. At first she thought Tyler was jacking Nick, and that was hot, so hot, but then she realized he was rolling a condom onto Nick. They were both thoughtful and responsible that way, which caused a rush of emotion inside her. Then Tyler held Nick’s cock while Nick lowered her onto it, and when his thickness filled her she moaned and buried her face into the side of Nick’s neck.

“Oh, Kaelin.” Nick’s whisper held awe and heat. “You feel incredible. God…”

Tyler’s wicked fingers lingered on her pussy as Nick filled her deeper and deeper, the sweetest friction inside her. And then Tyler trailed his wet fingers back and up, over the pucker of her rear entrance. She gasped against Nick’s neck. His hands stroked up her back and tunneled into her hair again.

“S’okay, sweetheart.” He turned his face and found her mouth with his.

Oh, this was so bad, so wanton, so incredibly hot and erotic. But she’d gone this far, she might as well turn herself over to it, let the pleasure consume her, let Tyler and Nick show her how bad she could be.

Nick rolled her to her back, still inside her, moved over her, in her, the friction of his flesh inside her a sweet swelling pleasure. And now Tyler was caressing Nick, kneeling behind him, his hands on his hips, his back, his ass. Tyler’s face looking down at both of them was dark and tight, his eyes hot and heavy as his gaze moved from her face to Nick’s body and back.

Nick made a noise deep in his throat and she knew Tyler had touched him, but she couldn’t see what exactly he was doing. But Nick’s body was going tight, his head went back, teeth gritted. “Oh Jesus,” he gasped. “Tyler.”

She thought she might pass out from the excitement of it, drowning, swept away, imagining Tyler’s hands on Nick’s balls, his thighs, his ass. Was he…oh she couldn’t even think it, it was so erotic and wicked, and she longed to see what he was doing to Nick that was giving him so much pleasure.

Nick rubbed his rough face over her cheek, kissed her temple and moved over her, hands in her hair again, groaning his pleasure, thrusting, pushing up into her, finding that place, rubbing against her sensitive clit. It was there, right there, so close and she gasped and strained toward it until it burst over her in a shower of sparks and light. She cried out, pushed against him, pulsing around him and then he came too. She wrapped her arms around his big, sweat-dampened body and held him tight as shudders racked him, aware that Tyler was there, smiling, stroking and when she opened her eyes and met his, so searingly erotic, her whole body tightened in more hard pulses.

They lay there, the three of them, in the bed side by side, Kaelin in the middle. Tyler’s heart still thudded and that was just from watching.

They’d had threesomes, shared girls, but never like this. They’d never let go with a girl like that. Maybe because it was Kaelin and they trusted her and were both probably still at least half in love with her. Shit. He rubbed his face and kept his hand over his eyes.

“Tyler.”

“Yeah.” His voice was scratchy.

“Why do you go to such lengths to annoy your parents?”

Jesus. He kept his eyes covered while he processed that. “I don’t go to great lengths,” he finally said. “It seems to happen no matter what I do.”

She shifted toward him, half on top of him, and looked at him. She pushed his arm away and he let her, because keeping it there would have looked stupid. “That’s not true,” she said quietly. “You just told me that one of the reasons you and Nick…er, did what you did was to piss them off. That’s pretty extreme, I’d say.”

Tyler stared into her soft brown eyes. Hell. He felt as if she was looking right inside him and it made him want to cover his eyes again. “I only half meant that. They don’t even know about us.”

“Well, explain that half then. Why?”

“Oh hell, Kaelin. You can figure it out.”

Her eyebrows slanted down and her pretty lips pursed. “No, I really can’t.”

He so did not want to talk about this.

“It’s not that big a deal,” he finally said. “My parents worshiped Avery, thought she could do no wrong. I was always a disappointment to them, because I wasn’t like her. I didn’t do that great in school. I was good at sports, but not good enough to satisfy them. They wanted both their kids to be getting awards, to be perfect. When I wasn’t perfect, they didn’t want anything to do with me. But when I got in trouble they were right there, all over that. After a while, I gave up trying to be as good as Avery. And I just tried to be….bad.”

“Oh.” Kaelin breathed out a soft sigh. “I see.”

He closed his eyes against the sympathy on her face and leaned back against the headboard, the covers pulled over his hips. Kaelin propped herself up on her elbows to look at him. “It’s not that complicated,” he added. “Typical sibling rivalry.”

“But you and Avery get along fine.”

“We do now. When I was younger, I blamed her. Then one time she stuck up for me with Mom and Dad, and I knew it wasn’t her fault. She was my big sister and she tried to look out for me, even though I was pretty much bent on self-destruction.”

Kaelin nodded thoughtfully. She glanced at Nick, who’d turned onto his side and rested his head on one hand while he listened. “I guess I get it,” she said.

“I was the loser younger brother,” Tyler added, hating the bitterness that edged his voice. He’d thought he was long over this, but this trip home had resurfaced a whole lot of crap. “The one who was never good enough. The one who embarrassed my parents constantly.”

“Not that that would take much,” Kaelin said dryly, and he looked at her with surprise. Their gazes connected and she smiled. “Your parents are pretty obsessed with their image in the community.”

“No shit,” Tyler said. His smile went crooked.

“For what it’s worth, I never thought you were a loser,” she told him softly. “Even when you were Avery’s little brother, I was totally intimidated by you.”

He snorted. “Intimidated?”

“You were super cool,” she said. “I envied you because you did whatever you wanted and didn’t seem to care what people thought.”

Tyler studied her pretty face, lifted a hand to push a long strand of hair back. “That kind of thoughtless disregard isn’t something to admire.”

“It was for me. You know how I am. I envied you for that. But when you made fun of me, I felt like a mouse, timid and afraid to do anything.”

“I made fun of you a lot, didn’t I.” He said it as a statement, a heavy feeling settling in his gut.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Kaelin.”

“I know why you did it,” she said. “I guess I always sort of did.”

“You hit the nail on the head last night when you told me I was covering up my own insecurities by mocking other people. That was exactly what I did. But…” He glanced at Nick, took in his attentive expression. “I don’t do that as much anymore. Right?”

Nick smiled slowly. “Not quite as much, yeah.”

“This trip home has been tough,” Tyler added.

“You know, you could have a better relationship with your parents,” Kaelin said, rubbing over his pecs. God that felt good. “If you tried. Maybe if you talked to them.”

He shook his head. There was more to that than she knew, more than he had any intention of telling her. “Not gonna happen. They don’t want that either.”

“I think they do,” she said slowly. “Your mom talks about you all the time, Tyler. She bragged about you to me, about your degree, the great job you got in Chicago, now you opening your own business.”

“Because I’ve finally done something they can brag about,” he said bitterly. “They still don’t feel any differently about me.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“You heard my mom last night,” Tyler said. “She immediately jumped to the conclusion that I’d done something to piss you off, when you slapped me. And guess what? She was right.”

Kaelin pressed her lips together and said nothing. What could she say? It was true.

“I only came back for Avery,” he said. “Because she’s getting married and she wanted me here. I just want to get this damn wedding over with and get the hell back to Chicago.”

She nodded but her eyelids lowered and he wished he hadn’t expressed that quite so forcefully. Although they all knew this was definitely a one-night thing. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know he was leaving on Sunday. She’d said that herself.

She looked at Nick, then back at Tyler. “So your parents don’t know about you and Nick?”

Tyler’s mouth twisted. “I don’t think so, but I think they know something, or suspect it anyway. I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but back in high school, all of a sudden they didn’t want me hanging around with Nick anymore. Even though they’d always thought he was a good influence on me.”

“I tried,” Nick drawled.

Kaelin smiled.

“I think they knew something was going on and they wanted to put a stop to it before it got out and ruined their precious reputation.”

She nibbled her bottom lip and nodded. “Hmm. Maybe.”

“We knew there were rumors going around about us,” Nick said.

“But we didn’t give a shit,” Tyler added. “In fact, at that point I kind of enjoyed the idea that my parents would freak out about it, like I said. I know it was immature. But Jesus, we were young and I was messed up.”

“Oh, Tyler. You couldn’t have been that messed up. Look at you now. You have a successful career and a relationship with a great guy.”

“It’s not a relationship.” Tyler didn’t look at Nick. “Just so you know. I mean, yeah, we live together and we fool around and stuff, but…”

“We still date women,” Nick added. “Well, Tyler does more than I do. Someday he’s going to meet the right woman and he’ll get married and…” His voice trailed off but he smiled. “Right, Tyler?”

Tyler knew Nick’s feelings for him were different than his feelings for Nick. He loved the guy, and yeah, there was sexual attraction, and Nick knew him better than anyone in the world and loved him despite that. But Tyler knew himself too, and knew if he was going to fall in love, the forever kind of love—and that was a big if—it was going to be with a woman. Nick accepted that, and though they’d never had any kind of deep discussion about it, Tyler kind of suspected Nick hoped that was never going to happen. It was one of those deeply awkward, uncomfortable topics they successfully avoided ever having to discuss, though it always lurked there below the surface.

“Right.” He met Kaelin’s eyes. “I know it sounds weird, but that’s the way it is for us.”

“I can’t say I totally understand,” she said, but she smiled. “But I don’t think any kind of love can ever be bad. If you care about each other, that’s all that matters. Thank you for telling me about that. I’m honored that you trust me enough. And thank you for sharing each other with me tonight.”

Tyler’s heart tightened at her words. She was thanking him. Jesus god, what had he done to deserve thanks? He reached for her and hauled her onto his lap, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, long and desperate and wild. Her hands slid into his hair and she kissed him back. When they finally moved apart, panting, they both looked at Nick.

“Come here,” Kaelin whispered. She extended a hand to Nick, and Tyler did the same, glad that she had said that, because he felt the same way. He had pretty strong feelings for Kaelin, always had, but he didn’t want Nick to feel excluded. Because even though Nick loved him, Tyler knew Nick cared about Kaelin too.

Nick moved on the bed, closer, until he was sitting right beside them, and he laid a hand on Kaelin’s back. Their three faces were so close together. Tyler wanted to kiss Nick, to reassure him, of what he wasn’t sure. This was a crazy one-night thing and didn’t change anything for them. But Tyler looked at Kaelin, unsure what she’d think about that.

Understanding and warmth filled her eyes when he met them, and she leaned to kiss Nick herself. And then she drew back and said, “Go ahead. Kiss him.”

Tyler held her gaze for a long moment then turned his face toward Nick, his strong-jawed face, his clear and steady silvery gaze. And Nick moved too, and their mouths met in a hot, clinging kiss.