Random Acts of Love (Random Series #5) Read online

  I counted it in orgasms.

  “My hand is on you as I lower myself to my knees before you, taking you in with my mouth,” I said, interrupting him as I felt the familiar rise of a wave that spun heat out of pure desire, the warmth flooding through my entire body, making me recline against my headboard, the pillows no substitute for Joe’s hot, muscled chest.

  But they would have to do.

  “Then you’re under me and I’m going down on you and you reach up to deep throat me,” he said in a voice like whisky and chocolate, sharp and sweet and oh, so luxurious, the mere sound of his breath in the phone enough to tip me over. This was no heated rush of fire and tongue under a pine tree at a rest stop in Ohio, but it would have to do.

  Closing my eyes, I could see him above me, thighs flexing as my hand reached up to grasp one chiseled half of his ass, the other sucking on his left testicle, the one he favored. His mouth was on me and the pathetic understudy of my finger had to pretend to be the star—Joe’s tongue was a tough act to follow, and because I hadn’t seen him for three weeks, this was “enough.”

  It had to be enough. And, it turned out, it was for both of us, as Joe’s words descended into garbled gasps and groans, my own fingers speeding up with remarkable precision to extract exactly what I needed, the expertise of masturbation a skill I could never add to a curriculum vitae but one that really ought to hold some social cache, like knowing Latin or being able to start a fire with a string and a stick.

  Tying a cherry stem with my tongue was the closest socially-appropriate skill I could talk about. Being able to meet my body’s sexual needs by my own hand—with a little verbal help from Joe—was an accomplishment, but one there was no CLEP test for. It’s not like you march into the Harvard admissions office and use that as the talent portion of you interview to get in, right?

  Then again, I’ve met a few of those Harvard day students. Common sense is about as rare as a non-smoker in a trucking school. Maybe some of them got in that way after all...

  “Aural sex is the best,” Joe chuckled into the phone. “How you doing?” The real conversation came now, as I sat with a hand that smelled like hope and relief, trying to hold my phone in a way that didn’t make me think about my friend Amy and her moment of vibrator app passion. I have seen grown men do remarkably stupid things back home in Ohio, including but not limited to an attempt by a neighbor to kill off a giant wasp’s nest via roman candle—and I still could not grasp how Amy could be so caught up in her own pleasure that she somehow forgot she was holding a communications device against her vulva and then—oops!—it substituted as a cock.

  A woman should notice these things.

  Some high degree of rapture had to be responsible. And not the Jesus kind, because if the real rapture involves smartphones getting stuck in hoohaws, then I might have to avoid church altogether. The Church of the Holy Dripping App Store was a little too creepy.

  “I’m here, you know?” I replied, finally, wondering if this was just too weird.

  “How is your class?” Joe’s tone changed from post-phone-sex-coital to schoolmasterish (and not in a sex fantasy kind of way). I was taking a basic research methods class at Harvard.

  Har-fucking-vard. (Yes, I know I’m talking about it a lot. Too bad. It’s a big deal, like Mama winning a dream home or a year’s supply of ice cream. You tell everyone so they understand that your life doesn’t suck any more).

  Josie had turned out to be right, after all, and the most prestigious school on earth (in my mind) had a night school like a community college—only better.

  Because all I had to do to prove myself was take three classes and earn a B or better and I was in. Full-time, with all my financial aid applied. Joe was my unofficial nanny-tutor, harping on me non-stop to make sure I got whatever help I needed, support, and general nudging.

  “I’m getting an A. My final paper is due soon.”

  His voice tightened. “You haven’t sent me a draft to review yet. My finals are this week and I—” The words came out in a concerned rush, his voice angst-filled and struggling. I loved being cared about like this—I really did—but his ferocity could be too much sometimes. Stifling, even. But it seemed like one of the main ways we could connect outside of bed. Trevor and I had musical tastes and proximity in common.

  Joe? Joe was three hundred miles and a world away in every sense except this. When it came to my class, he was there, like a hockey parent who cheered and jeered in the stands until they became larger than life, bigger than the team, and a force unto themselves.

  Joe was like that, only about MLA style and shit.

  “It’s fine.”

  “Don’t let that asshole teaching assistant talk down to you,” he insisted, his tone protective and outraged, somehow balancing both and making me feel relieved and righteous. A few weeks ago I’d accidentally used the word “irregardless” in class and the professor’s TA had been leading her discussion section. After a thoroughly piss-ass dressing down I’d called Joe, vulnerable and in tears, only to get the world’s greatest pep talk.

  With one exception.

  “I won’t.”

  “But please don’t ever use that word again.” I could hear him shudder. Could he hear my eyes roll?

  “I won’t. Irregardless—”

  “Darla!”

  “—Amy said she’d look at my paper.”

  “Amy?” he scoffed. Then the condescension appeared, just like I suspected it would. “She’s fine for checking out a first draft, but you really need me to do the final read.”

  “Right. Because a woman who is getting her graduate degree in how to do research in a library is the exact wrong person to turn to when I’m taking a research methods course. How stupid of me.”

  “You’re not stupid, it’s just that Amy doesn’t really—”

  “You wanna talk about Amy, or you wanna talk about what I’m gonna do to you when you get home?”

  “I’m already working on building up calluses on my cock to be ready,” he joked.

  “You’ll need them, because poor Trevor could use a break.”

  Normally, that kind of talk was fine, but I caught my voice at the end and winced. The blanket of silence felt so heavy and stifling as I tried to put my finger on what had changed these past few months between the three of us.

  My finger had just been on part of it, of course. Sex with Trevor was easy and fun and dynamic and athletic and did I mention, fun? The three of us together made for an even better experience, but with Joe’s move he hadn’t just physically gone away. The need to connect had emerged, and the twinned expectations of some emotional distance and the desire to bridge the gap meant that Trevor and I had tried to fill in the vacuum.

  With loads of sex. Too much, probably. Some days I thought I had rug burns on my labia from going at it too hard and so long and so much and just—so.

  So.

  So. About that silence...

  “Trevor will get a break,” Joe said in an even tone that I knew he was trying so hard to maintain. Learning the physical ins and outs of these two men had been a natural process, one of uncertainty and exploration, of delight and discovery and yum. The emotional landscape of each of us, then each with me in dyads, and then the triad itself?

  I suspected I could get a Ph.D. at Boston University in psychology and never fully understand what we were trying to do, how the dynamic among us worked, or what the fuck “we” were.

  Psychology, though, was shaping up to be my major because I figured that if I were going to study anything in depth, it should be deviance. My own and that demonstrated by others. It was a pretty safe topic that provided non-stop job security, because whether you worked at a threesome dating service or at an addiction counseling program or an Alzheimer’s unit, you dealt with open deviance.

  And then there was the covert deviance, which was a whole ’nother story.

  “Trevor’s already kinda broken,” I said in a conspirator’s voice, my yawn catching me off g
uard at the end, making Joe’s glorious voice barrel out with genuine laughter he so rarely exuded. It made me love him all the more.

  Bzzzz. Joe’s phone beeped in. “Damn! Darla, that’s one of my study mates. Got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Sure—” Click. No chance to say anything else, which was probably just fine, because what would I say? Thanks for talking me through rubbing one off? Can’t wait to see you so you can give me an orgasm? When you come home let’s fuck?

  Okay, I could say all of those.

  The unspoken I love you rattled around in my head for the rest of the day.

  I couldn’t wait to say it to his face. Soon.

  * * *

  “It’s your lucky day!” I exclaimed as I strode back into Trevor’s bedroom, buck naked, carrying a cup of Joe’s favorite coffee. I’d sprinkled the cinnamon on and pulled the shot of espresso exactly the way he liked it, using that new machine his mom had given him for Christmas. He was home, home, home for the summer and Trevor and I were reveling in having our threesome back together.

  Joe was spread-eagled on the bed, hogging more than his fair share, with Trevor as physically far away as possible, precariously balanced on the edge of the queen-size bed. If I sneezed, Trevor would fall off.

  “Where’s mine?” Trevor asked quietly, the sound a groan more than a whine.

  “It’s coming next,” I assured him, setting the little cup of espresso on the end table next to Joe, whose nose twitched as—I hoped—the aroma would awaken him.

  Trevor turned over and caught a good look at me, his eyes roaming up and down my body like a scanner. “Sam and Amy home?”

  “Nope,” I crowed.

  “Good,” Trevor mumbled. “Because you’re showing more skin than an eighteen-piece segment in a Centipede movie.”

  “You sure do know how to sweet talk a woman,” I cracked, striking a model’s pose. “I’m so glad I remind you of a horror flick where people are forced to eat each other’s shit.”

  Joe snorted. Ah. He was alive. My eyes took him in, the tan flannel sheets wrapped around his thighs like something out of an oil panting in the Museum of Fine Arts. Sculpted muscles peppered with dark hair, the contours so fine I could drive a miniature Lamborghini on them.

  One made out of my tongue.

  His hair was mussed and his face looked so innocent until he grabbed my wrist and pulled me on top of him with a devilish grin, the incongruity of my soft curves with his hard, carved muscle making me enjoy him all the more.

  “I’ve missed you,” he mumbled into my neck, tongue flicking my earlobe.

  I reached for what I knew would be there—one long, hard pole of throbbing flesh.

  “I never would have guessed.” Whatever words came next vanished in seconds as my brain became irrelevant (not the first time that’d ever happened) and my body became a playground for two adorable, and increasingly ravenous, men in the bed with me. A twinge of something—guilt? confusion? questioning?—flitted through my head as I wondered how my life had changed so much in just under two years.

  I killed that doubting voice off like smashing a mouse with a shovel on the front porch.

  And then—

  Bzzzz.

  Joe’s hand froze, resting perfectly between my thighs, my clit a beacon beeping and beeping for him to come, come, come in to home port.

  “Don’t answer it,” I whispered, the lead ball in my stomach growing suddenly, as if lead could be inflated. I knew exactly who—not what—the helium was.

  “Dude, ignore it,” Trevor chimed in behind me, with his hand in a slick, hot place so full of want I couldn’t stand it.

  Ignoring us, Joe stuck his arm out and fumbled blindly for his phone, ever-present on the nightstand.

  “Let me guess,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm and everything that was dripping elsewhere dried up. “Mommy Dearest.” I knew I should keep my mouth shut. Trevor’s sigh was one of commiseration with just a hint of exasperation. Walking the line between the two was incredibly hard (as was Trev). Joe moved away, gently nudging me off him, the slide from heat to cold separation making my gut tighten, my throat thick with something dangerously close to shame.

  As if I’d said nothing, Joe turned away and read the text, then typed back, finger fucking his phone. Curling into Trevor’s heat, I pulled the covers over me, needing a defense. Being this vulnerable took courage, I knew, and leaning in to Trevor meant putting my feelings in place. While naked. And slick. And warming back up.

  “Fuck,” Joe muttered. And not the good kind of fuck. Not the Darla sandwich kind of fuck, where my hair fell into my eyes and sweat made my waves curl up and stick to my temples, my body so loved that I couldn’t—and didn’t want to—see straight, blood coursing through me faster than the speed of cock.

  Squared.

  No. Joe’s fuck was the sound of all wetness going to dry, the sound of Trevor’s erection deflating, the sound of a lead balloon never getting off the ground because Joanne Ross had decided that she needed her widdle pweshus Joey to help her decide between whether to bleach her asshole bashful or blush, and which organic, slave-free, fair-trade, reclaimed beet juice would be best.

  “Fuck,” I said into Trevor’s armpit, my word muffled but heard, Joe’s fingers tapping faster, with a staccato I could feel throughout my body, anywhere but on places I needed those fingers to touch.

  “I have to go,” he said. Surprise. His mother was like the other woman he couldn’t have sex with, which made you wonder what the fuck good it was following the woman’s commands, because if you’re going to let a woman run your life, shouldn’t you be getting some regular pussy out of it?

  At least, that’s how I assumed this whole male-female dynamic worked. Not that I had a whole lot of experience. Just a whole lot of men. The two weren’t really the same, oddly enough.

  “Why do you have to go? Every time she calls you jump up like she’s your boss. You can say no. You can delay. You can do lots of things that don’t involve saying ‘Yes ma’am how high?’ when she calls,” Trevor said in a tone of disgust.

  “Like you have room to talk.”

  “My mom is nothing like yours, Joe. Not any more. She’s loosened way up.”

  “Then you’re lucky.”

  “He’s got a point, though, Joe. Your mom is—”

  “And I really don’t want to hear any more about it,” he said to me.

  Ouch.

  “Trevor can give his opinion and I can’t?” I asked, incredulous and hurt.

  “Yes.” Yanking on his pants, he dressed fast and was almost out the door before I could recover.

  “Is that because I have a pussy or because you’re an asshole?”

  “Both,” was his final word as the door clicked shut. Ten seconds later, as I still stared at it, jaw open and Trevor massaging my shoulders in empathy, I started to say something a few times but never could find the right words.

  And now Joe was gone, off to meet his mom because...

  Damn.

  I hadn’t even bothered to ask why Joe’s mom needed him. Sitting up with the sheet around my waist, Trevor snuggled next to me in a decidedly non-sexual way, I let myself think deeply. Floating in that mental space where you just let your thoughts come as they are, without pretense, denial, or deflection, I let it all pour over me. If I couldn’t be safe in feeling whatever popped into my heart at any given time with Trevor right there, pressed against me so hard he might as well have been doing a t-shirt decal transfer on my thigh, then what good was being in a relationship?

  The only thing missing was Joe.

  Who I’d just alienated.

  Why hadn’t I asked him why his mom needed him? So caught up in my own anger about his mom’s never-ending intrusions, I’d lost sight of what was most important: Joe himself. How I related to him. This relationship shit was hard. Way hard. Better than...well, I’d never had a real relationship, so harder than...nothing. Everything. Whatever I’d imagined a long(ish) ter
m commitment to look like, it had never had six eyes.

  And two cocks.

  And infinite opportunities to fuck up.

  Trying to make sense of being in a relationship with two men at the same time, one of whom was hundreds of miles away most of the time, was like trying to stuff a wet noodle into a little cocktail straw. First of all, it’s very hard, and second of all (and most important): why do you want to? What’s the point?

  I knew why I enjoyed being with Joe and Trevor. I was certain that the direction this was going in was one I wanted to explore and remained committed to taking to its natural conclusion, whatever that may be. But that was the sticking point: what was the “natural” anything about this? Where was the Oprah show about Ohio girls who chase Boston musicians and snare two of them and end up riding a frozen Sybian in the dark, or in relationships where the words “Reddi Whip” have two meanings?

  Talk shows never featured authors about dating books where who picks up the check is the last fucking problem...more like who gets the back door.

  And about that—I wasn’t really into that. Neither guy was pushing, but sometimes I felt guilty for not being willing to do that...much. Two guys at once. DP. The big double you know what. We’d done it on the beach at Eden and watched some pornos about it and I’d come close—real close—but then backed off. I’d get skittish. Worried. None of those words really captured the all-out terror assault that infused me the second I reached flesh tolerance and needed to be unentered immediately. Like now.

  Like rightthefucknow.

  How hard could it be? The women in those YouPorn videos looked like they were having the time of their lives, but then again, they also did that snowball stuff and let guys blow their wads all over their faces and smear it in like it was some Lush cosmetic, as if jizz were equivalent to organic coconut sea cucumber splash made by slave-free factories in LEED-certified buildings. Nobody was paying $21 for a little tube of Crazy Eddy’s blown wad with a little dick cheese thrown in, you know?