No Simple Sacrifice Read online

  “I’m going insane!”

  “Me too, baby. Me too.”

  “But—”

  I halted her frantic bucking by sinking my fingers into the flesh of her ass, gripping hard. Didn’t let go until she’d stilled, though I felt the undulations of her muscles, so deep inside, fighting their need to be stretched, pushed, filled.

  I released her. She sighed and settled again, waiting for me to continue. For all her pouting and protests, the woman loved being mastered by both of us.

  Fletch scooted his face under hers, taking her in a soft but thorough kiss. He covered her lips, nipping and licking and teasing, before stabbing his tongue up into her open mouth.

  “Sweet Jesus.” I muttered the curse. Watching them devour each other…I was nearly over the edge. I took my cock in hand. Once more, lined it up at her entrance.

  As I began to enter her, Fletcher’s eyes popped wide. He pushed out a hand, stopping me. “Dude. Condom.” It was a stage whisper, comical if he hadn’t just interrupted my progress toward nirvana. But then I joined him in the panic. I was so turned on remembering my own name had become a chore, let alone suiting up.

  “No. Don’t.” Talia’s breathy plea jerked my stunned stare to her. Back to Fletcher. Down to her again. “Please…I want to feel you. I need to feel you, Drake. Just us. Our bodies. Our skin.”

  “Baby—”

  “It’s okay. I promise. I get a shot. I’m totally clean. I’ve barely been with anyone else in my whole life, and nobody since we started working on the cosmetics line.”

  Fletcher cleared his throat, jumping in as capable arbitrator. “Are you sure? Both of us are clean, too. I can pull up the paperwork on my phone. I scanned it and stored it.”

  “Fucking Boy Scout,” I muttered.

  “That’s not necessary.” Talia laughed. “You guys have to know…I trust you completely now. With everything.”

  Before she was even done, she put her body where her mouth was—turning and positioning…and thrusting that delectable ass right back toward me again.

  “Drake…please.”

  That was all the invitation I needed. I sank balls-deep into her in one thrust, making her cry out from beneath me.

  “Oh, my God!”

  “Fuck, yes,” Fletcher hissed.

  “That’s it, baby,” I added, issuing the words from my gut…my very soul. “Let us hear you. Give us everything.”

  I pulled all the way out, letting a perfect beat pass before slamming all the way back in. I repeated the motion over and over, leaving her empty before completely filling her again. She’d never be empty again…in any fucking sense of the word. I chanted it to her with my spirit. Pounded it into her with my body.

  My dick pulsed in time with that refrain. And with the blood in my ears. And with the beats of my heart. She consumed me…took my breath away…had stolen my soul and redefined my world. Our sexy, intelligent, inquisitive and courageous Talia… Life would never be the same now that she was in it. Now that Fletcher and I had feasted on the nectar of her love, we were done with the fast food that had sustained our silly existence.

  I would never let her go again.

  I needed this—needed them—to be complete.

  Forces pulled at my body, tightening deep in my stomach, deeper still in my cock. I gritted against the storm, trying to delay it again, concentrating on grinding my hips hard so my balls caressed her clit. But when she gasped again, my cause was doomed.

  “Drake…please! Harder. Fuck me harder. I’m-I’m-please. It’s right there. I need to come. I…need to…”

  Her shriek turned everything else into babble, as Fletcher began pinching and pulling at her nipples. The tweaks made her tense up, squeezing me everywhere inside while I let loose. I slammed my hips into her ass, fucking her like a machine, driving so hard that we traveled, inch by inch, up the platform bed. That was just fine. I followed her, never letting her get too far. By the time she grabbed onto the headboard, knuckles turning white to brace herself, my balls twisted tight against my body and surges of heat roared up my raging cock.

  “Baby.”

  Her walls fluttered around me.

  “Fuck.”

  Her body milked me, sucked me…demanded everything from me. I only had one answer to give.

  “Yes.”

  I shot hot streams deep into her body, one slow thrust after the next, until my head practically detached from my torso and my lungs refused to work anymore.

  I leaned over her, forehead resting on the small of her back, dick completely locked in the perfect warmth of her body. She was my heaven, my glory…my everything.

  After a few minutes, we fell forward onto the mattress. Fletcher was still pressed close, murmuring words of love and praise to her. I finally rolled free, afraid of crushing her any further. Fletch reached over, pulling her up against him. He gathered her thick brown curls into his hand then twisted the pile atop her head, washing fresh air over her overheated neck and back. The Mexican night was hot and sticky after all the activity.

  “Let’s get in the pool,” he suggested.

  “I don’t think I can move.” Talia uttered it with a wide grin.

  “I’ll carry you. The cool water will feel good on your skin.”

  “Okay.”

  My best friend cradled our woman in his arms. I followed them into the shallow end of the small infinity pool. The warm water lapped over the sides, seeming to disappear into the evening sky. The stars glowed brightly, matching the light shining from my soul. I watched Fletcher’s profile and automatically knew he was thinking the same thing.

  He pulled Talia back into his arms. I swam over to join them. The water was no more than five feet deep and being submerged was the perfect follow-up to the sweaty frenzy of our lovemaking.

  I locked gazes with my best friend over our beautiful girl’s head, then opened my arms, needing to share in their embrace. Talia opened her eyes and smiled, hooking one arm around me and one around Fletch. I wrapped my other arm around him, and he mirrored the action.

  We were a complete circle.

  Made of connection, communication…

  Love.

  “I love you both so much.” It was difficult to speak it but I did, letting them hear the rough honesty of my voice…the vulnerability of my soul. They were the only ones on Earth who’d ever see this huge a chink in my armor. “You make me the happiest man alive. I don’t want to ever experience another day without you.”

  “I love you so much, too,” Talia whispered. “I never would’ve thought it possible, but it is. You two have shown me the way with your patience, your honesty and your strength. You’ve shown me the things that are possible when I trust you both completely…when I give myself to you wholly. I will do my very best to never hurt you…to never disappoint you.” She kissed each one of our mouths chastely then smiled. “I’m in, you guys. I’m all in.”

  I meshed my laugh with hers, but our mirth faded to puzzlement when Fletch didn’t join in. He was eerily still, only moving his eyes, taking us in one at a time, then together. It stunned me a little, seeing that expression on his face, here and now. He usually reserved this kind of sobriety for the boardroom—then only on rare occasions.

  “Brother?” I prompted. “What is it?”

  “Fletcher?” Talia had noticed, too. Her lips pursed in concern.

  He let out a long breath. Then blurted, “I think we should get married.”

  “Huh?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Here. While we’re in Mexico.”

  Shock yanked the air from my throat. That pretty much ruled out any hope of forming words too. Talia didn’t fare much better, though she finally sputtered, “Fletcher…”

  “What?” he volleyed. “That’s what I want. Since we’re having this great little gut spill…well, I’m spilling. I want forever. With both of you. I want to know that we belong to each other. That nothing will ever tear us apart again.” He pushed out another pair of
labored huffs. “That shit three months ago? Nearly killed me. You both…nearly killed me.” No psychic connection needed now. He wasn’t exaggerating. “I’m not doing that again.” His voice plummeted, strained and tight. “Ever.”

  My voice finally came back. “Yeah, but, dude…” We all knew the reality of getting married. We just…couldn’t. One of us could marry her, but where would that leave the other one? “How would we ever decide something like that?” I didn’t have to elaborate. Something like that meant deciding on who’d get to publicly call her his own.

  As swiftly as it had descended, Fletch’s moroseness lifted. Just like that, the piercing blue twinkle returned to his eyes. His teeth gleamed in the moonlight as he flashed his familiar troublemaker’s grin. “Oh…that’s the easy part, dude.”

  “Oh?” I prompted.

  “As a wise little lady once taught us…let’s just rock-paper-scissors for it.”

  Talia snickered. “Well, that is how all really important decisions are made.”

  “Right?”

  After a quick look and shared winks, Talia and I surged at him together, dunking his head under. When he rose, soaked and grinning, he twisted, grabbed her around the waist and dug in with tickling fingers. Her screaming peals of laughter danced on the night wind, bright and beautiful even in the middle of the night.

  I smiled at them both…these gifts from the universe, delivered by fate just for me. Who the hell cared what the rest of the world said, or how they labeled it? We were destined for our happy ever after, because we were simply destined to be. Nobody could take that away from us now, because it was woven into the fabric of our hearts…tattooed onto our souls.

  Threads that would never be broken.

  Ink that would never be erased.

  A love I’d never sacrifice again.

  Ever.

  Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:

  Secrets of Stone: No Lucky Number

  Angel Payne and Victoria Blue

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  My rolling luggage beat a steady click-click-click on the pavement breaks as I walked up to the VIP security checkpoint at the terminal of San Diego’s Lindbergh Field. I knew this trip would be a turning point in my career, but a funny feeling nagged at the back of my mind, predicting it would be more than just that.

  I’d been feeling stagnant for a while, wanting so desperately to move forward, though continuing to be anchored in the same place. This trip, while only a few days, was the change I needed. Our cosmetics line at Stone Global Corp. was finally ready to take flight. Consequently, so were we—to launch the new line and all its products at Cosmetics Con, the internationally attended trade show that took place each year in the City of Sin. What better place to get out of a funk than nonstop Las Vegas?

  The team, consisting of Drake Newland, Fletcher Ford, and me, was taking SGC’s corporate jet from San Diego to Las Vegas. A thirty-five-minute flight would put us right in the middle of the bright lights of the neon Strip in the Mohave Desert. I’d been to Vegas a few times before with my family—Auntie Maisie’s fondness for dollar slots was the stuff of in-jokes for us all—but I had a feeling this trip would be very different from hanging out with my parents, siblings, three uncles, three aunts, five cousins and a baker’s dozen of nieces and nephews.

  That premonition didn’t have a thing to do with my travel mates.

  Okay, maybe a little something.

  Drake Newland.

  Fletcher Ford.

  Oh, God.

  It was all Claire’s and Margaux’s fault. They were the ones responsible for the anxiety practically eating me alive. We’d had a girls’ night last week at my place and, once they learned I was taking this trip with Drake and Fletcher, the taunting advice and playful jabs had begun in full. They’d teased me with all the love in their hearts, but I still couldn’t erase their words from my frontal lobe.

  ‘Those two can smell a girl like you coming a mile away.’ That was the only G-rated dig I could recall. By the end of the night and after a good amount of Patrón, I had been getting advice on what lingerie to pack—and not to pack. I was certain my usually olive-colored skin had gone three shades of rose after that one, but Claire and Margaux were good at doing that to me on a regular basis. I hadn’t been sure if they had been truly serious or just trying to see how crimson they’d been able to make me.

  “Good morning, Miss Perizkova. You look lovely today.”

  I glanced up at the uniformed steward who appeared just as I cleared security, not quite sure how to react.

  “Stop flirting with my girl, Martinez.”

  As the man chuckled, heat crept across my cheeks. Fletcher Ford appeared by my side, swiping my rolling bag before it left the TSA belt. The SGC board member, innovator and creative taskmaster—not to mention dead-on Justin Timberlake lookalike—who’d helped start up this new wing of the company fell into step with me while we headed toward our flight.

  “Mr. Ford.” I tried to give his physique, perfectly fitted in Armani today, as discreet a onceover as I could. “Good day.”

  “Well, it’s a good day now,” he murmured in return.

  Time for a new subject. Pronto.

  “I can handle my own bag, thank you.”

  I snatched at my roller.

  He moved the luggage just out of my reach. “Darling, I’m sure you can handle a lot of things for yourself, but would it kill you to allow me to be a gentleman now and then? Come on. Let all of my mama’s hard work do some good.” He laid on the killer smile that had earned him the devil’s own reputation.

  My resistance turned to dust. “Where’s Drake? Err, I mean Mr. Newland?”

  And I’d asked that…why? The two men made me almost speechless when I was with them one-on-one. When they were together, which was damn near all the time these days, I became a bumbling fool. I should’ve been grateful for the reprieve.

  Fletcher smiled again—though this time a bit of sadness seemed to flicker in his blue eyes. “What’s wrong? You don’t like just me?”

  “That’s not what I meant at all.” Now I felt like an idiot. “Really, I didn’t—”

  He put me out of my rambling misery with a steady hand on my forearm. “Easy, Tolly. I was just yanking your pretty chain.”

  “Why do you call me that?”

  “What? Tolly? It’s your name, isn’t it? Talia?” He said my full name more dramatically—before adding that damn grin again.

  Thankfully, we were nearing the plane and I could get away from the uneasiness of having to worry about witty chit-chat. While we were interacting professionally, I could hold my own, but this personal stuff was so far out of my league. I was never really good at it with normal guys, let alone a smooth, gorgeous god like him.

  He opened the door to the tarmac and the San Diego sunshine instantly warmed me. A grin spread across my lips. We were having one of the mildest winters I could remember, and it was wonderful. I really loved living in Southern California.

  “Of course,” I finally answered him. “I’ve just never been called anything but Talia.”

  “Maybe it’s time for things to change then, hmmm?” He nodded toward Stone Global’s private jet, sleek and white, waiting across the pavement. “And there’s the other subject of your wonderment—already getting on board the plane, I see.”

  I followed his line of vision to the top of the jet’s entry stairs, where Drake Newland was ducking his tall frame to fit into the doorway. His short hair was spiked in its usual perfect fashion, his tight, muscular body molded into his custom-fit, buttoned-down dress shirt.

  Not that I noticed the fit of his clothes.

  Okay, I noticed. But it was hard not to—with either of these men. They were tall, handsome and very well-defined. I’d been working with them on the development of the cosmetics line at SGC for many long months, over many long hours. I would have had to have been dead not to notice their jaw-dropping physical appeal.

 
And their flirtatiousness.

  Oh, yeah. That.

  As in, flirtatiousness. All the time.

  In the beginning, I’d told myself they simply behaved that way around all females, until Claire and Margaux insisted that wasn’t the case. It hadn’t been long before Taylor Matthews, my girlfriend from the sales department, had added her own agreement to that theory. After that, I’d begun to watch Drake and Fletcher a little more closely. For research purposes only, of course.

  And what had that research told me?

  At the moment, the only female I could pinpoint their pulling out all the blatant charm and urbane behavior around for—was me.

  So what did I want to do with that recognition?

  I had no idea.

  The truth of it thrilled me.

  But really, it terrified me.

  * * * *

  We were airborne and on our way in short order. The stress of the project’s culmination, as well as the importance of the task ahead of us this weekend, was catching up with me in the form of a tension headache. Luckily this smaller of the two Stone Global jets was as luxuriously appointed as the large one, allowing me to rest my head on a plush cushion of the sofa while we climbed to our cruising altitude.

  The men were bent together over some documents at the galley table across the aisle, engrossed in a debate regarding whatever they were reading. Both Drake and Fletcher were passionate about everything they did, a fact I’d quickly learned over the months we’d been working together, although each man expressed his drive so differently.

  Drake Newland was quiet and somewhat brooding, but if an issue came to a head, he turned into an erupting volcano. He’d simmer beneath the surface for a long period, not giving anyone an indication of his thoughts, until he finally blew—often with catastrophic results. But that also translated to his unadulterated enjoyment of life, which he grabbed with the same gusto. He loved his family with a fervor that matched my affection for my own. On a number of occasions, I’d been guilty of eavesdropping on his phone calls to his sister, brother and even his mom. It made me happy to hear people who still valued family the way I did.