Tyler is planning something.
I have no idea what it is, but whatever it is…I’m going to make sure he’s okay.
At the top of the stairs, the door to Sandy’s room is closed, and so is the door to Andrew’s. If I knew this girl better, I’d knock to check she’s okay, but apart from the stories that Tyler had told us all when he was drunk, I don’t really know her at all. I’m just about to close my own door when a latch clicks behind me. Andrew emerges from Sandy’s room, our eyes meeting across the hallway in the darkness. “Everything okay?”
Andrew shrugs then nods and purses his lips as though neither of those gestures really communicates what he thinks.
He closes the door then makes his way closer, his hand coming to rest on the handle to his own room. “She seems okay. Better than I thought.”
“So does Tyler,” I say, cocking my head. None of this really makes sense. “But he said something funny.”
“Funny ha-ha?”
I lean against the door, thinking back to the odd moment in the kitchen. “I think he said that maybe you were going to fuck Sandy.”
Andrew’s eyebrows shoot up. “Fuck her?”
“Yeah, and he…he seemed okay about it.”
“He was okay with the idea of me fucking his ex-girlfriend?” Andrew says, his voice higher than usual.
“If my ears weren’t deceiving me…he looked strangely calm about the idea.”
Andrew snorts. “The man’s going soft. Earlier, he was telling me about the wedding he went to today. The bride married four grooms. Apparently, it’s a thing.”
“Polyamory,” I nod. It’s something that happened in my old circles, although it was usually one man and two women.
“I guess.” We both shrug at the same time as though neither of us really knows how to deal with any of this.
When I’m within the confines of my own room, I slump back into bed. The memory of Sandy’s messy hair and kiss-swollen lips slips into my mind, too overpowering to push away. My hand slides to my cock, thinking about how she looked in the darkness, pinned underneath Tyler, spread wide open.
A frantic fuck in the dark…just the kind of fuck that I like best.
Across the hall, Sandy lies with the feeling of Tyler between her legs. Would she enjoy the feeling of Andrew and me there too?
Who the fuck knows?
But imagining her moaning my name into my ear while I pound hard into her pussy is what makes me come harder than I have in a long time.
8
SANDY
I should feel secure and content tucked under the covers of Tyler’s bed, but I don’t. When Andrew was here, I pretended that everything is fine. I told him I was okay. I told him that what happened in the kitchen wasn’t a big deal.
I lied through my teeth in a way that makes me feel dark and icky inside.
As I curl my legs up, more of Tyler’s cum leaks out of my pussy into the already soaked gusset of my satin shorts, and I whimper into the pillow. In this room, I’m surrounded by the man who pushed inside me, who tried to reclaim me. I don’t hate him for what happened. I wanted it as much as he obviously did.
Or needed it?
Want and need are brothers but not twins.
I whimper because I miss the feel of his body over mine, the smell of him, the press of his fingers and lips on my skin. I whimper because there was no time for us to come to terms with what happened before we were parted. I whimper because even though I wanted it, I know deep in my heart it was a mistake.
Pressing my fingers to my lips, I flush as I think of the frantic kisses. Heat slides over my body as I recall how big Tyler was looming over me; how powerful too.
I whimper again as I remember the dampness on my neck that could only have come from his tears.
Tyler doesn’t cry. At least, it’s not something I ever witnessed. He had his fair share of troubles in his life, but he was strong. He had backbone and fists that could crush a skull. My Tyler was my rock, and without him, I was pulled under life’s choppy waters.
But he’s not a rock anymore.
What am I going to do? Before we fucked, things were okay. I could have stayed here for as long as it took to fix my car and driven off into the sunset without looking back.
Now everything is more complicated. We’re entangled, and chopping away the roots and tendrils that have fixed around each other again is going to hurt.
But I have to do it. I have to push aside all the simmering feelings that are making my insides ache and be strong for us both.
I have to, otherwise who knows what will happen and how long it will take for me to recover all over again. And Tyler? I truly don’t know how he feels, and that’s enough not to risk this for either of us. A plan to leave tomorrow begins to form, just as the handle to the door begins to move.
I tense, waiting to see who it is. There are six men in this house. Six men I barely know.
But it’s Tyler who appears in the opened doorway. He doesn’t ask my permission to enter. He doesn’t say a thing as he closes the door behind him, plunging the room back into total darkness. Words remain trapped in my mouth that I should be brave enough to say as I watch him round the bed to the empty side. His eyes meet mine in the darkness, tortured and pained. They make my heart skitter. As he slides between the sheets, my breath freezes in my lungs.
Face to face on the pillows, he reaches out to touch my cheek, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. His gentleness stings more than his frantic, clawing touch did. His gaze drifts over my features, lazy but uncertain. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
Sorry for what? I want to ask him so badly, but he closes his eyes, ending the conversation before it begins. Maybe it’s better this way.
It should be hard to fall asleep by the side of the man who hurt me so badly I thought I would never recover, but it isn’t. He drifts off first, but I stay awake, etching his relaxed features into my memory, and it feels good. Like a broken part of me that needed answers finally settles just a little.
I don’t know everything, but maybe I don’t need to.
Maybe just having a few days with Tyler will be enough for me to let the past go.
9
TYLER
I wake with a start as my leg drops off the edge of the wrong side of the bed. My mind scrambles over where I am. I never sleep this side. Except that last night, Sandy was in my bed.
I roll slowly, finding her facing me, a sleeping angel with her wavy hair spread over the pillow. Her sweet, pouty lips are parted, revealing just a hint of her straight white teeth.
I kissed those lips last night. I slid my tongue over those teeth, deep and then deeper.
My breath leaves my chest in a rush.
Last night feels like a dream. In fact, the past twenty-four hours is a long blur of disrupted emotion and overwhelming feeling. A fucking mess of desperation and pain and grabbing, grasping need.
We fucked.
My dick kicks at the memory, already hard as a rock between my legs.
How the hell did it happen?
One minute I’m flailing in the recuring dream that never seems to leave me alone. The next, Sandy is there with soothing words and fingers that feel like a warm balm on my skin. I shouldn’t have reached for her. I should have told her to leave me alone, but I couldn’t. In that moment, with my heart beating like I’d been sprinting and everything in me terrified, I needed her.