The Engagement Gift Read online

  Trust. Love. Faith.

  I yanked down her panties, tugging them to just above her knees. Fuck. Was there anything sexier than her ass exposed, a scrap of lace stretched across her thighs?

  No, there was not.

  Nothing compared to Lily.

  Unzipping my pants, I took out my hard-as-steel cock and rubbed the head against her heat. Lust ripped through my body at the feel of her arousal.

  Tonight. I needed her to tell me tonight. I had it all planned out.

  The Tell Me Your Fantasy game.

  I needed to know hers. It had been driving me crazy, this consuming desire to give her all the pleasure in the world.

  I rubbed my dick against her wet folds, and she cried out, panting, begging.

  “Finn, please.” She was desperate, so damn desperate to be fucked. It went to my head. It drove me wild—her need and the way I could sate it.

  But when we played, there were rules.

  “Officer,” I barked, pulling the crown of my cock away from where she wanted me. “Call me ‘Officer’ or you won’t have my cock the way you want.”

  “Officer. I’m sorry.”

  My teeth grazed her neck, nipping, biting. “You’ll be sorrier if you don’t tell me all your dirty dreams as I fuck this sweet, tempting pussy,” I said as I slid inside her.

  I groaned.

  It was heaven.

  Every single time.

  Hot. Tight. Wet. She fit me like a glove. Her pussy hugged my dick, and I pictured all the ways I could make her come. I thrived on her pleasure because I loved her like crazy.

  Before Lily, I was a surly, unhappy bastard who didn’t relax, didn’t enjoy life. When I met Lily, she unlocked me. It was like living a brand-new life.

  And now, making her happy was my singular goal.

  She’d turned me into a new man.

  And this man needed this woman. I needed her for my heart, my head, and, well, at that moment, my aching cock.

  I drove into her again, stilling myself when I filled her all the way because my Lily liked to be full. She liked to be fucked deep and hard.

  But then, she liked so many things in the bedroom, and it was my mission to give them to her. “What do you get off to, you naughty vixen? What makes you scream in pleasure when you’re being a bad girl, home alone, trying to tempt officers?”

  “I get off to . . . student-teacher fantasies,” she said.

  Fuck, that was hot. My dick shuddered inside her. We’d done the student-teacher one a few weeks ago, and it had been electric. She’d earned a D on a test and had gotten on her hands and knees, begging me to change it.

  Like a good and filthy professor, I’d told her to suck my cock so hard I saw stars and then I might—might—raise her grade. I saw fucking planets when she deep-throated me, and I gave her an A-plus. Then I’d given her extra credit by eating her sweet pussy on the desk—aka our kitchen table.

  “I want more. Tell me more. What do you picture when you’re all alone?” My hips moved at a relentless pace, my fingers sliding between her legs, playing with her hard clit.

  “Officer, I’m turned on by . . .” She paused like she’d been on the cusp of saying something, but then she course-corrected. “. . . doctor-patient games,” she blurted.

  “How hard do you come like that, miss?”

  “You know how hard.”

  “I know nothing of the sort,” I said, then pulled her hair, yanking her head back till she cried out.

  Like a good girl, she answered the proper way with, “Officer, I come so hard that I want more doctor-patient games.”

  I wanted more. Needed more. “Then you’ll fucking get them. But I need to know—what else makes you hot and wet and horny? Do you want to be spanked? Paddled? Your hair pulled?” I grabbed the sweet flesh of her ass, gripping her. “Fucked so goddamn hard and rough I leave marks?”

  The sound she made was animalistic. A groan seemed to rip from deep inside her. “Put me on my knees, Officer. Put me on my knees. Push me down. Play with me.”

  Yes.

  Fucking yes.

  I knew what she wanted when she used that word.

  I pulled out, banding an arm around her waist as I brought her to the carpeted floor, her wrists still cuffed.

  She sank down on her elbows, beautifully bound, and lifted her ass for me. I pushed back inside her pussy, then played with her clit till my fingers were coated in her wetness. As I thrust in her, keeping the pace she needed, I traveled to her ass. Her lush, ripe ass that I loved to fill. That she loved to have filled.

  Tonight, though, was for teasing. I’d lose my mind if I fucked her ass. And I needed all my focus on the objective, so I ran my finger against her back entrance, and she moaned even louder. “Officer, yes. Please. Play with me.”

  I pushed my finger inside, knuckle deep, and her back bowed. “You like that, don’t you?”

  “I do,” she panted. “It gets me so wet.”

  “You like it when I fuck this sweet, perfect pussy and finger your tight little ass,” I said, pushing deeper with my finger.

  “Yes, God, yes.”

  Her pussy tightened, and I felt a fluttering around my cock. She was close. I had to get her there. Get her to admit her deepest fantasy.

  Even while fighting off my own release.

  Because holy hell.

  Pleasure stoked inside me, restless, relentless pleasure. But I held back, growling in her ear. “Tell me what gets you the hottest. Tell me what you want the most.”

  She cried out the words “I want . . .” and I tensed, hoping she’d say it.

  But her next word was “you” as she keened, breaking, coming all over me.

  The thing was, I knew her answer was true. But it also wasn’t all true.

  I’d seen her browser history. I knew what she liked.

  But I wanted her to tell me so I could give it to her.

  She had to confess she wanted two men inside her at the same time before I’d bring someone in.

  3

  Lily

  In retrospect, perhaps I should have said something in the heat of the moment. I was certainly tempted. The words were on the tip of my tongue.

  I want a threesome.

  The thing was, I’d lost someone I loved before. Not because I’d confessed fantasies of double penetration. Please.

  But even so, the pain of loss was not new to me, and I didn’t want to scare away the man I loved madly by confessing something that didn’t need to be confessed.

  “Sometimes you can say too much. Sometimes a fantasy is just a fantasy,” I explained to Kate as I sank down in a leather chair in the coffee shop near the office. I gripped my latte, having given her the SparkNotes version of last night. “And in the end, I said nothing. I don’t want to overstep.”

  “Right, but are you comparing apples to orangutans?” Kate asked before taking a drink of her tea.

  I laughed. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

  She leaned forward and tapped my knee emphatically. “Nor is it a thing that just because you lost someone you loved in a car accident—which admittedly is a horrible thing to go through—you’ll lose your fiancé because you tell him you want to . . .” She stopped, perhaps casting about for just the right words. “Expand your sexual horizons.”

  Heaving a sigh, I answered, “I get it. And yet, when it comes down to it, it’s not a chance I want to take. Because I don’t want to lose him.”

  Losing my childhood best friend the night before our college graduation eight years ago was hard enough. I could still recall with cruel crystal clarity the phone call. The police had found my roommate’s car wrapped around a tree. The girl I’d been best friends with since I was ten had been struck in a hit-and-run. Dead on impact.

  Here one minute, gone the next.

  Losing her was devastating, but in time, I’d healed. I’d learned, too, that the key was talking about it with people who’d been through something similar.

  That was
why I’d connected with Finn right away.

  He was completely different from the other guys I’d met in my twenties—guys who believed being in touch with your emotions meant punching a wall when the Dodgers lost the World Series or cheering when you scored a coveted free-parking spot here in Vegas.

  I loved a great parking spot at the Wynn, too, but when it came to a relationship, I needed a little more.

  I found that in Finn Nichols.

  I met him at a bar, of all places, but I knew. Knew he was different.

  I saw it in his eyes, midnight blue and full of passion, and I felt it in his honesty.

  Those were the traits he’d led with, and he was still that way with me. I hoped he’d always be that way—open and vulnerable, not to mention sexy as sin.

  I took a drink of my latte then set down the mug. “He’s the first guy who’s actually . . . in touch with his emotions. It comes from having gone through the same thing.” Kate knew the details. Finn had struggled with loss, too, then spiraled into work, more work, and only work after his younger brother took his own life after returning from Afghanistan. Finn was finally able to grieve, accept, and move on, thanks to the help of his best man. Jake had “dragged his ass to group therapy,” as Finn put it. Finally talking through the pain and letting go of it had turned Finn into a new man.

  The man for me.

  The man I was sure was my present and my future. We were each other’s safe landing on the other side of grief, and I didn’t want to risk my forever with him. I didn’t want to take a chance simply because I harbored particular naughty daydreams.

  What would be the point?

  Kate squeezed my shoulder. “I know he’s the most important person to you. But he also values openness and honesty because of it. Don’t you think one of the reasons you have such a hot sex life is because the two of you are so open and honest? You were up-front from the start about your wounds and your baggage. He was the same about his. That honesty about your emotions had to have carried over to the bedroom.”

  I considered her point. She wasn’t wrong. Finn and I had connected deeply on an emotional level, opening up in a real and vulnerable way about our pasts. Our hurts and our hurdles. Our losses and our new chances.

  Maybe that did lead to crazy-hot sex.

  Perhaps one of the benefits of pain was a path to more pleasure?

  “You may be right,” I conceded, but even if she was correct on that count, I couldn’t be sure that brutal honesty was necessary when it came to bedroom experiments. “But I don’t know if a full confession of my fantasies is the same.” I adopted a singsong voice. “Oh hey, sweetie, did you know I watch a ton of MFM porn? Yeah, well, I do. I happen to love when two guys service a woman at the same time. Also, could you and another guy maybe both take me at the same time? Yes, at the same time. ’Kay, thanks, love ya, babe.”

  Laughing, Kate answered, “Why don’t we apply logic to the ask for a threesome scenario?”

  “Oh, believe you me, I’ve already worked out all the scenarios,” I said, tapping my temple. “I have the whole night mapped out from the moment they both strip naked for me.”

  Kate cooed approvingly. “Excellent. Then let’s analyze this rationally.”

  “Wait. Are you going to make a spreadsheet of my sex fantasies?” Kate was obsessed with spreadsheets. She used them to track her workout progress, her audiobook consumption, and her professional goals.

  “I have one for mine,” she said coyly. Her hazel eyes darkened with frustration. “Trouble is, nothing is getting checked off these days. So, let’s check off yours.”

  “Ah, so you are going to spreadsheet my sex life,” I teased.

  “Hell, yeah. The sum of column A with your threesome fantasy plus column B with asking for it equals column C: extreme pleasure.”

  “Right . . . because there are no variables to account for, like, ahem, emotions such as jealousy and so on.”

  She held up a finger to make a point. “Ah, but let me remind you—when you told him a year ago that you had role-playing fantasies, what exactly did your fabulous man do?”

  My skin tingled from the memory. “He gave them to me,” I said, a grin tugging at my lips as I remembered the night I’d divulged all those naughty fantasies to him. We’d gone dancing at Edge, our favorite club. We loved going to clubs. Loved the sultry vibe, the techno beat, the low lights, the way the bodies grinding together unlocked secret desires.

  On the dance floor, I’d unleashed my after-hours imagination. I want to pretend. I want to go home, or go out, or go to the car, and I want to enact all sorts of sexy scenarios, I’d said, the mojito lubricating my lips, freeing my dirty thoughts.

  I’d detailed them all.

  His answer?

  I’ll be your cop. I’ll lock you up till you beg for release.

  I’ll be your teacher and spank your luscious ass on my desk.

  We’ll play doctor, and I’ll eat your beautiful pussy till you come all over my exam table.

  Kate lifted the mug to her lips and took a drink, her eyes twinkling. “And did you enjoy the benefits of him giving you all your dreams come true?”

  I laughed at the way it sounded like a fairy tale.

  In some ways, my life had become one. After the dark beginning of my twenties and the rocky path I’d traveled, I’d reached the other side and found mad love, along with filthy, fabulous sex.

  I didn’t need to rock the boat.

  “I have nothing to complain about,” I mused.

  Kate inched closer. “Maybe, just maybe, you could let him know that you might like to bring in some company.” She crossed her legs, took a sip, and issued the most knowing of knowing looks.

  I shuddered at the prospect of two guys taking care of me. I didn’t need them to touch each other. I didn’t want them to touch each other. But I longed to be touched by two gorgeous men at once. As I pictured company in bed, my skin tingled and my pulse spiked. I tried to shake off the endorphin rush, even though my libido was a dirty devil, whispering in my ear for more.

  Still, my love for my man was the angel telling me to be good, and the angel won out. “I hear you, but some things are better left unsaid.”

  * * *

  As I returned to the office, I reminded myself of all the reasons to keep my thoughts to myself.

  It’s just a fantasy. That’s all. I’ll live if I don’t have it. Besides, I need to focus on this story for work, and wedding prep, and a million other things. There was no time to entertain the idea of threesomes.

  I answered a text from my friend Nina asking for advice on which new pair of glasses to buy. The images she sent me made me smile—goofy selfies of her trying on horn-rimmed glasses then red cat-eye ones.

  Lily: You look HAWT in the cat-eye ones. Like the sexy nerd you are.

  Nina: Oh, good. I want to look nerdier.

  Lily: Sexier! You look sexier, goofball!

  Nina: Great. Then I’ll use these specs to seduce all the hot tech nerds at my office.

  Lily: What a perfect plan!

  I set my phone down and dove into my report for Sports Network on the looming major league trade deadline, then did some prep work for an upcoming conference I was leading in our hometown. I reached out to a few sports agents I knew, inviting them to a panel.

  There.

  That was who I was. Lily Whiting, a friend who gave fashion advice. Lily Whiting, a sports reporter who was professional and direct, outgoing and businesslike. That was what the world saw. And as I stared at the e-mail I’d just sent, it put my dirty thoughts into sharp relief.

  How could I be the woman who interviewed athletes and general managers, invited top agents to intensive conferences, discussed the dynamics of the business of sports, but behind closed doors I was this . . . wild thing?

  A wild thing who fantasized about sex on balconies as strangers watched.

  A voracious creature who loved to pretend she’d been bad, so bad, and needed to be punished with bites a
nd swats and hair pulls so hard she screamed.

  A woman who daydreamed about the sheer overwhelming intensity of two men taking her at the same time.

  I shivered as a rush of heat spread through me from my chest, down my belly, and straight between my legs. My mind quickly assembled one of my go-to images. Finn, in his charcoal slacks, dress shirt, and a tie. And another man. A nameless, faceless man. But someone who looked like Finn, dressed like Finn.

  They’d find me in bed, wearing only the sexiest lingerie, lazily touching myself, like I’d been waiting to be discovered. When they found me, they’d be instantly aroused, so ready to please me at the same time.

  God, I was a hedonist.

  A raging, shameless hedonist.

  And I had to stop it. Shut down the thoughts.

  I couldn’t go there. Even with my fiancé. Some things were better off as fantasies.

  Especially when Finn sent me a text, asking me to meet him at Eden after work.

  Our favorite sex-toy shop.

  Yes, that was our speed. We were the kind of couple who’d have a threesome with a battery-operated friend.

  Him, me, and the dolphin.

  And I’d be fine with that.

  4

  Finn

  After I finished reviewing files for a case, I hit the gym with Jake.

  “Ready to be destroyed in another round of one-on-one?” I asked after we tackled the weights.

  He rolled his eyes as we hit the courts. “You seem to have a different definition of ‘destroyed.’ You see, destroy is what I do to your sorry ass when it comes to basketball.”

  “Bud, that’s cute that you think you’ll win.”

  He arched a brow. “Allow me to remind you by taking no prisoners.”

  It was all in good fun because Jake did usually kill it at basketball. But I was required by the universal code of men to trash-talk.

  It was what we did. What we’d always do, I had no doubt. I’d known him for years, and he was the best kind of guy.

  I wasn’t going to say he was like a brother, because no one could fill that role. But hell, he was damn close.