Three-Way Split Page 4

  The prospects, the ocean of possibility—this was the kind of business planning that got Ben’s heart pumping. “We’ve already got the whole fall beer lineup. Maybe we should showcase the beers with their own booth. Or I was thinking maybe some kind of gimmick. A game or a contest, something like that.” As he spoke, more ideas kept coming. “We could offer a design challenge, maybe, or get people to name a flavor and win a case…or some kind of matching? Match the beer to the food?”

  “Any of that would be good.” Mitchell nodded, quickening his pace as he got into it. “I like the matching idea. Beer and food would work, but then we have to bring all the food to a second booth. Maybe some other kind of game. People love that shit.”

  “Hell, I love that shit.” Ben watched their shadows shift on the sidewalk as they passed into and out of the direct light of a streetlamp. “We can keep brainstorming.”

  Mitchell’s expression stayed thoughtful in all these moments, the measured balance to Ben’s enthusiasm and excitement. People who didn’t understand Mitchell thought he was overly serious, but his deadpan sense of humor yielded to far more excitement and exuberance once someone had earned his trust. Being included in that small group of close friends filled Ben with quiet pride. Once he’d thought there might be more between them, but when the moment came, Ben had decided to pull away. He and Mitchell had a good thing going, with a solid friendship and a seamless business partnership. The thought of losing their restaurant to a potentially tumultuous relationship was never worth the risk, not to mention the risk of losing their friendship. He cared about Mitchell too much to do something that would ruin what they had. After all, his ex-wife had told him in no uncertain terms that he was shit at commitment.

  That line of thought was enough to turn him sour, so he purposefully put it aside.

  “The festival’s fun,” Ben added. “It’s a good community builder.”

  “Best part of the year,” Mitchell agreed. He smiled at Ben, an expression so warm and open that it made Ben self-conscious.

  “What?” he asked. Mitchell’s shift from business mode to friend mode unsettled him with its suddenness.

  “It’s just nice to be planning with you.”

  The emotion twisted something in Ben, some kind of sweetness that felt distinctly uncomfortable. He’d pushed those feelings away for so long that he wouldn’t know how to let them out, even if he could. “Yeah, well, don’t get all sappy on me.”

  Mitchell put his hands in his pockets, his smile fading back to a comfortably neutral expression. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Chapter Three

  When Hannah opened her front door that night, the warm air washed inside with her, but the calmness of her home did nothing to alleviate her own unsettled emotions. She felt shaken, like all her nerves were firing at once and she could barely hold herself within her skin. A normal Chamber of Commerce meeting shouldn’t leave her feeling like this. A normal Chamber of Commerce meeting, though, wouldn’t involve Mr. Tall, Dark, and Mischievous making flirty eyes at her all evening and talking to her in that smoky voice. She’d never really talked to Ben before. They had exchanged a few casual greetings in passing, not one-on-one conversations with too much eye contact.

  She had no reason to be so shaken up. This conversation was, by all rights, as casual as any conversations she had had with acquaintances at these meetings, albeit more flirtatious. Rather than the content, it was Ben who made the conversation intense. Ben and his smart, effortless sexuality, casually asking her out to dinner and undressing her with his eyes. In the time since the meeting ended, she should have recovered. Even so, she felt just as unsettled as when Ben had first asked her out. This was ridiculous. If she was into the guy, she should have taken him up on his offer, and if she wasn’t, then she shouldn’t still be thinking about him.

  She left the lights off and turned on the sound system, filling the house with instrumental music to drown out the emptiness. Then she slid open the doors to the back deck and let the balmy night air wash inside. With the front windows open, the cross breeze brushed past her like fingertips over her skin. Her house would cool throughout the night; hopefully her blood would as well. If she could help it, she hated turning on the air-conditioning, and turning it on during the last half of September in Massachusetts just felt wrong, even if she was a bit overheated. Still hungry from skipping dinner, she picked through leftovers in the fridge, making herself a sandwich. She ate it standing in the kitchen, the linoleum cool against her bare feet, and washed it down with some ice water. Damn, the night was still way too hot. She walked upstairs into her bedroom and pushed open both windows to cool that room as well.

  In the darkness of her room, it took her a few minutes to identify the feeling running through her body. Arousal. She sighed. Just fucking great. She had spent an evening flirting casually with Ben and came home practically panting for sex. He wouldn’t know how close she had been to taking him up on his offer for dinner. If she had, she’d probably be bringing him back here right now. He could be pressing her down into that bed with his giant frame, those large hands cupping her breasts, his beard tickling her neck and making her moan.

  Instead, before she could say yes, she’d spotted Mitchell out of the corner of her eye. Mitchell, with his perpetually thoughtful expression and almost religious obsession with food, with whom she flirted on a near weekly basis, had been watching her with Ben. There had been no mistaking the longing in his eyes, naked and raw, an expression she had never seen on his face. As soon as he’d caught her looking, his guard was back up, his expression neutral, and that was it. She knee-jerk turned Ben down without another thought.

  She was thinking now, though. If Mitchell wanted her, he could damn well say something about it. She’d given him enough opportunities. She was in there every week, for fuck’s sake, even though she couldn’t afford more than one beer most of the time. She flirted with him each time. He flirted back, but he’d never made a move. He certainly had no claim over her.

  Ben’s casual charm was intoxicating. And…it was nice to have a man look at her and make her feel wanted, after so many failed dates. The way he murmured to her, leaning in so it felt like they were the only two in the room, he’d exuded a magnetism that felt far too intimate for a Chamber of Commerce meeting. If he was like that in a professional setting, what would he be like on a date? Or here, alone with her in her house?

  She turned away from the windows and stripped off her clothes. She owned a sex shop, for fuck’s sake. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it properly.

  Having long outgrown the nightstand next to her bed, Hannah kept her toys in a large wooden armoire in the bedroom. Although it took up more room than her bureau, she couldn’t imagine giving up any of these toys to save space. She’d cultivated her collection based on her interests and wants, and each item in there served a specific purpose. Now, she stood in front of it the way other people might stand in front of a fully stocked refrigerator trying to decide what they were in the mood to eat. In a way, it was pretty similar…she just wasn’t choosing something for her mouth.

  She wanted to be overwhelmed. She wanted to lose herself in this, to imagine, to pretend that her fantasies could be real. Her thickest dildo would be almost too much, but the good kind of almost too much.

  Rubbing the head of the dildo between her slick folds, she pressed it just inside. God, Ben would be like this. Broad, tall, solid, he would feel so thick against her. Yes, she wanted that burn and stretch, she wanted the pressure that was nearly pain, that delicious mixture of sensations that made her moan out loud. She wouldn’t touch her clit, not yet, and focused instead on how her body yielded as the dildo split her open. It went on forever. Fuck, she felt so full, each inch sending ripples of pleasure outward through her body.

  Finally, stuffed full, pussy clenching around the hard length, she let her fingers drift up to brush her nipples. They were hard, stiff peaks, tight with arousal, and running her fingers over t
hem made her clit tingle like she was touching it. If only it was Ben. He could be here, his cock filling her so much better than this dildo, his hot body pressing her into the mattress. Instead of her fingers grazing her nipples, he could have his mouth on her, his beard scratching her sensitive skin, hot breath lighting every nerve on fire.

  She had to touch her clit. She couldn’t wait any longer, her body crying out for more. That first press of fingers on her tight, swollen bud made her arch up off the bed and moan out loud, fuck, electricity racing through her thighs and up her spine. God, she needed this, now, all of it, fingers speeding up over her clit. She fumbled for the base of the dildo with her other hand, and her slow buildup dissolved in frantic need. Short, hard strokes, like Ben couldn’t hold back anymore, both of them driven on by instinct.

  She was soaked, and the pads of her fingers slipped across her swollen clit like a tongue. Oh, a tongue, Mitchell’s tongue, his talented mouth working her over, and her fantasy shifted to him between her legs. Determined, focused, he would draw his tongue across her sensitive bud and taste her like a fine dessert. She sucked in a breath, gasping for air. The fantasies blurred, as if somehow she could have Mitchell’s mouth and Ben’s cock, or maybe the other way around, Ben’s beard scratching her thighs, Mitchell holding her tight and splitting her open, the images and feelings rolling over her like so many waves. She didn’t even know she was coming until everything dissolved in a flash of color and light.

  Her orgasm overtook her like a current, body moving instinctively into the razor-sharp pleasure. Ben, Mitchell, bodies moving against her, over her, inside her, and then her mind went blank.

  When she relaxed, she sagged back down on her bed, eyelids opening again, hands falling away from her body. She stared up at the ceiling of her bedroom in the darkness, feeling drained in the aftermath. Fantasy was easy. She could get off, clean up, go about her life. Fantasy didn’t come with any risks.

  And it didn’t come with any rewards, either.

  So what was she doing lying here fucking herself instead of going after something better? Maybe it was ridiculous, or maybe it was too much time spent talking with Lori, but there was no reason she couldn’t try for at least some of what she wanted.

  These thoughts circled her mind as she cleaned up and got dressed. Ben wanted her. He’d asked her out, and she had said no, out of some strange impulse or loyalty to Mitchell. And yet she’d never asked Mitchell out. She’d made all kinds of excuses to Lori, sure, saying he was a commitment kind of guy, but she didn’t know his opinions on the matter at all. She had just chickened out.

  Fuck chickening out. She needed to do something, or she was going to fuck herself to death alone.

  When she returned to the living room, the paperwork from the Mapleton Fall Festival was still lying on the kitchen table where she’d left it, so she brought it over to the couch and started leafing through it. The page of booth prices stared up at her. Damn, that was another issue. Even discounted, Mapleton After Dark was expensive. She couldn’t swing this on her own, as much as she wanted to. Her bills were nearly insurmountable, and she didn’t need to call up her accounts to know it. With the increase in rent, the sales were barely covering expenses, and she was still in debt for the extra money she’d borrowed for a marketing push. Nothing like a heavy dose of reality to squash any leftover horniness.

  Hannah closed her eyes. Most small businesses failed. She’d known that going into this situation. She’d been determined to prove everyone wrong: her parents, with their well-meaning condescension, her boyfriend at the time, who thought she was overreaching her capabilities, and most of all, herself. She’d been mediocre for so much of her life, never achieving any greatness of note in school or in work. But then she was a business owner, something to be proud of. The thought of losing that paralyzed her.

  She’d almost made it the full five years, too, the window in which most businesses folded. Somehow she’d thought this would be easier now, five years in. She hadn’t counted on still barely scraping by.

  Maybe they had all been right about her.

  Although if she had a boost in income, that would pay off her marketing debt and send her into the holidays in the black. One big push might be all she needed. The best bet for this quick profit was definitely Fall Festival.

  Renting a booth alone, though, was going to be a problem. Maybe she could finagle some kind of discount? But no, that wasn’t fair to everyone else. She knew the Chamber of Commerce wasn’t turning a profit on this event. The logistical costs of the Mapleton Fall Festival were high. The “free to the public” acts weren’t really free; someone needed to pay for the entertainment, the infrastructure, setup and cleanup crew, etc. Those costs were covered by booth rental fees, supplemented heavily by official event sponsors like the supermarket, radio station, and usually city government. And it made sense, too. For most businesses, the festival was a huge boost in sales. It wasn’t her fault that those people tended not to be buying sex toys along with their gourd wreaths.

  Alternately, she could split a booth with someone. And that brought her back to Ben and Mitchell. The pub did a great business. By all accounts, they wouldn’t need any financial boost to afford to participate in the event. Would they even want to partner with her?

  But not needing help didn’t mean they wouldn’t welcome it. Maybe they’d want to do something different than just sell food and beer in Restaurant Row. She could save them half the cost of a Mapleton After Dark booth. They didn’t need to know she was in dire financial straits. She wasn’t about to disclose that to anyone, least of all these two successful, hot guys.

  And if she got to spend some time alone with them in the process, that might have some secondary benefits for all involved.

  Ben had given her his number, so she sent him a text.

  It’s Hannah. Guess you have my number now. Want to talk about the festival? You guys got time this week?

  His response came a few minutes later.

  Tomorrow? Drinks?

  If it weren’t for the fact that she’d mentioned both of them, this would have felt like a date. Getting together with two hot guys for drinks? The erotic story practically wrote itself.

  A few more exchanges and they set up the location and time. Hannah tossed her phone onto the couch next to her and kicked up her feet onto the coffee table, the paperwork off to one side. Already, she had apprehensions. She couldn’t deny her own layered motives. If they partnered for the festival, she couldn’t just walk out if things got uncomfortable. Plus, Mitchell and Ben were roommates, and that seemed like an extra layer of complication. Fall Festival might be good for her business, but damn, it wouldn’t be without risk.

  …

  The nice thing about the Night Owl was its lighting. Ben spent a lot of time thinking about ambience, mostly in the way that beers could evoke their own sense of ambience, and the Night Owl created a pleasant coziness that went with chocolate stouts and oatmeal porters. As a rule, he liked to try new beer whenever it was available, but he was in the mood for something harder. He ordered a whiskey on the rocks from a sexy bartender with a pink pixie cut and took to people watching. He liked getting to places early, especially places with good people-watching possibilities, so he had about fifteen minutes to eye the place before he estimated Hannah would show up.

  Hannah apparently had a similar idea to him, because less than five minutes after his drink arrived, she walked in. God, what a knockout. She was wearing a tank top with little ruffles around the neckline, a pair of knee-length shorts, and sandals. He got caught up looking at those calves as she walked to the bar and placed a drink order with the cute bartender. Then, before sitting, she turned to scan the room, her gaze finally landing on him.

  “You know, I almost didn’t even look around. I almost just sat at the bar.” She slid into the booth next to him. He’d taken the corner booth, the wraparound, plenty of room for four or five people even though Hannah slid right up alongside him. Although she
wasn’t pressed against him, her arm rested next to his on the table, an expanse of soft skin, and she smelled wonderful.

  He was never one to hold back his thoughts. “Can I say that you smell good, or is that weird?”

  She grinned. “It’s a little weird, but you can say it.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Is it my hair?”

  This was a perfect opportunity to lean in, and she definitely shivered as his nose brushed lightly against her ear.

  “That’s part of it, yeah.” He drew back before it got awkward, but the space between them had suddenly become about ten degrees hotter. “But if I keep smelling your hair, there’s no way we’re going to talk about business tonight.”

  She returned his grin with the same tenor, mischievous with a little uptick at the corner of her lips. “Pretty sure of yourself, hmm?” Resting her chin on her hand, she looked at him, her eyes that indefinable shifting color between gray and green, framed by those black librarian glasses.

  Whatever she might be thinking, his thoughts were completely impure. “I have my ways.”

  Her free hand rested on the dark wood of the table. Those long fingers would look amazing wrapped around his cock. Better change the subject before he popped a hard-on right here in the bar. Fortunately, a waitress brought Hannah’s drink over to them, which created a shift in the tone. “What are you drinking?”

  “Scotch and soda.” She sipped from it, then sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Heavy on the scotch.”

  “I’m a whiskey man myself.” He held his up. “In all its forms.”

  “Cheers to that.” She clinked her glass with his. “So what happened to Mitchell? I thought you both would be here.”

  Ahh, the Mitchell question. He wasn’t sure himself, what with Mitchell being kind of cagey last night about the whole thing. His reasons for missing the meeting seemed thin: work to do in the restaurant, mainly, along with some kind of bullshit about not wanting to be in the way. Ben had pressed, but Mitchell had refused to elaborate. “He’s got a bunch of stuff to do in the kitchen. Besides, I usually handle the marketing side of things for the business.”