Hot and heavy, p.17
Hot and Heavy, page 17
Her mom had called three more times, but Hazel had sent it to voicemail every time. She refused to let her old life creep into this one, though she had sent her mom most of her tips from her first weekend working at Divine. Two hundred bucks. It was all she’d felt comfortable parting with because she needed to save every penny for a security deposit and building what she was calling her Maloney nest egg, the funds she would use if she managed to track down some of the stolen items.
She held no illusions that Boston Hazel wasn’t going to have to pay the piper eventually, that this dream world she’d drifted into would vanish once Kayden and Aldo learned who she really was.
A stronger woman would move on before that happened, before it all came crashing down, but she couldn’t. She’d spent a lifetime hungry, lonely, cold, scared, and tired.
Why shouldn’t she grab as much of this—friends, good food, a soft bed, and the attention of two of the sexiest men she’d ever met—for as long as she could?
Shit. She’d never sounded more like a Walsh in her life.
Take the money and run.
But in her case, it was happiness she was trying to abscond with.
“I’m, um, just a private person.” She couldn’t quite manage to look either man in the eye.
Kayden sighed. “We get that. But there are some things we need to know before this thing between the three of us can continue.”
“What things?” She was perfectly aware that question could very well spell the end of all of this.
“You told us you haven’t had sex in three years,” Aldo said.
She nodded.
“There’s been no one since then?” Hazel didn’t miss the tone of surprise in Kayden’s voice, though she couldn’t understand it.
“No one.”
Aldo applied more pressure on the heel of one foot. It felt like bliss. “The last guy was a boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
Kayden growled. “This is going to take a long time if we have to play twenty questions all night, Hazel. In case you couldn’t tell, this is the sharing-past-relationships part of our dating routine. I know you’re relatively inexperienced, but we’d like to know more.”
The pressure on Hazel’s chest lifted. Because that was something she could share. She had admitted to her inexperience one night when they were texting about turn-ons. It had been their most risqué text thread, and she’d devoured every word of it.
Kayden had serious kinks when it came to bondage and spankings, while Aldo admitted to enjoying voyeurism and, God help her, anal.
“Oh,” she said, lifting her arm from her lap and wrapping it around Kayden’s neck. “Trust me. My sex stories won’t take long at all. I lost my virginity my junior year of high school to a guy in my English class. He had long hair, played the guitar, and got high. A lot.”
Aldo chuckled. “Sounds like a great guy.”
She rolled her eyes. “He was a bit of a goofball, but he was nice to me, always trying to make me laugh. He started giving me a ride home after school. He owned a van.”
“Of course he did.” Kayden’s grumpy sarcasm gave Hazel a pretty good idea of what Keeley had dealt with when she was in high school.
“Anyway, after a couple months of rides, he asked if I was his girlfriend. That hadn’t even occurred to me, but I figured why not. So I said yes. That day, he kissed me goodbye when he dropped me off. Things sort of progressed from there, getting a little hotter and heavier until…” She waved her hands around. “You know.”
Kayden scowled, and Hazel let herself pretend the look was driven by jealousy because…wouldn’t that be awesome. “We know,” he grumbled.
“Summer break started a few weeks after that, so we didn’t see each other for a couple of months—I was working and he was stoned, both were full-time jobs. By the time we came back for senior year, he had a new girlfriend.”
Aldo scowled. “What an asshole.”
Hazel frowned. “What do you mean?”
Aldo tilted his head. “Wasn’t he your first love? Didn’t it hurt when he broke things off?”
Hazel snorted. “Jesus. Not at all. I didn’t love him.”
“What about the next guy?” Kayden asked.
Hazel realized maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss this as an easy conversation. She wasn’t coming out of it sounding too good. “I worked at a fast-food place my senior year. Hooked up with a guy who worked with me. I thought we were exclusive until I caught him doing it with another girl in the manager’s office one night after closing.”
“Broken heart?” Aldo asked, and she realized he seemed hung up on the feelings part of her stories.
“I didn’t love him either. I thought you were asking about my sexual history,” she pointed out.
Aldo drove his thumbs into the base of her foot, and she moaned. Kayden hadn’t lied about Aldo’s magic fingers.
“We are asking about that,” Kayden said. “But usually…”
There had been several times since she’d landed herself a place in the “Moretti and Friends” gang when Hazel felt like she’d dropped down on an alien planet. She’d felt uneasy at Divine and Aspen Rose because she’d never eaten at such fancy places. She’d never had a girlfriend loan her clothes—mainly because the girls she’d grown up with had been as poor as her and none of them had clothes to spare. Or maybe it was that they didn’t have any clothes worth sharing.
Love had never been a part of sex for her. Ever. But it was clear the guys thought maybe it should have been.
“I wasn’t in love with any of my past boyfriends,” she forced herself to say. “The last guy I dated, Shawn, was in nursing classes with me at the community college. I really liked him. But…nothing more than that.”
What she didn’t admit was Shawn felt more for her than she had for him. He’d envisioned them as a couple, saw a future for them. Something that had shocked the hell out of Hazel, when he’d dropped those three little words on her at Outback after graduation. She’d felt horrible breaking things off, but she couldn’t say them back, couldn’t even hide the horror she felt when he’d said them to her.
She’d worried for months afterward that maybe something inside her was broken. After all, her parents hadn’t exactly been the model couple, and her mother had said on more than one occasion the worst thing she’d ever done was get knocked up and marry Danny Walsh. That comment usually came after a bottle or two of wine, and followed up with what Mom considered stellar advice, telling Hazel to do what she hadn’t if she ever got pregnant.
Abort.
So…yeah. No wonder Hazel was fucked up.
Her concerns had been alleviated by Mrs. Maloney, who—when still lucid—had asked her about her last boyfriend. She’d described the conversation at Outback and when Hazel suggested that perhaps she couldn’t fall in love, Mrs. Maloney had waved her concerns away and told her all it meant was she couldn’t fall in love with Shawn.
Since then, Hazel had hung on to the hope that someday she would meet the one. A man she could not only fall in love with, but also trust not to leave her, not to hurt her.
As the years passed, that began to feel like a pretty tall order, but now with Kayden and Aldo…
Hazel shut that line of thought down in an instant.
Hope was a killer.
Time to get herself off the hot seat. “Enough about me. How about you guys?”
“Ashley Baxter was my first love,” Aldo said. “Broke my heart, and I swore I’d never love another woman after her.”
“Oh my God,” Hazel said. “That sounds awful.”
Aldo gave her a crooked grin. “It was, but it only lasted until I got to third grade. Then I fell head over heels for Jenny Cross, who left me crushed, devastated beyond all repair. Until fourth grade when I met Lizzy Russell.”
Hazel glanced at Kayden. “I think I’m starting to sense a theme here.”
Kayden chuckled. “Aldo was an early bloomer.”
“Maybe so, but all those broken hearts just made me stronger,” Aldo interjected.
“Why don’t we skip ahead a few years, Aldo? Or do I dare to ask how many women you’ve fallen in love with since puberty?” Hazel asked.
Aldo placed a soft kiss on the sole of her foot that tickled, and she giggled. “I had a serious girlfriend my sophomore and junior years of high school. She was my first everything. It fell apart when she went off to college. I’ve seriously dated probably half a dozen women since hitting my twenties and thirties, but nothing that lasted more than a year, and most a lot less than that.”
“And you?” she said to Kayden.
“My story is about the same, except the first girl to break my heart was named CeCe, and she and I lost our virginity to each other our freshman year in high school.”
“And you call me the early bloomer.” Aldo punched Kayden on the arm playfully.
“And lately?” Hazel asked. “Because it sounds like I’m not the only one who’s been suffering a dry spell.”
Kayden and Aldo exchanged a glance, one she couldn’t quite decipher, though she had a suspicion. She waited for them to say something, but in the end, Aldo simply agreed with her. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
She studied his face, and while he was looking her straight in the eye, his words spoken without hesitance, he was holding something back. Which was interesting. Because she was a hundred percent certain he hadn’t held a damn thing back before now.
Looked like she wasn’t the only one with secrets to keep.
It also looked like she could take a lesson or two from Aldo, because he was much more accomplished when it came to playing his cards close to his chest.
“Is that all we needed to talk about?” She nuzzled closer to Kayden, drawing her lips along the side of his face. She’d spent every single night since that orgasm in the restaurant fantasizing about their next encounter.
“Not exactly.” Kayden’s fingers drifted beneath her shirt, stroking up and down her sides. “Do you understand what we mean when we say we’re in control?”
Ahhhh. And now they were getting down to it.
“I realize I’m probably lacking experience in the type of sex you’re talking about, but I’m not new on the planet,” she joked. “I read dirty books, watch porn. My fantasies have always run a little darker than the realities of my sex life.”
“You liked what we did in the restaurant.” Aldo hadn’t posed it as a question, but she answered anyway.
“So much. I’ve never come that hard before.”
“What part turned you on the most?” Aldo asked. “The public aspect, the way you had to be quiet, the way we were in charge and told you exactly what to do, the actual act?”
Hazel took a moment to consider his question because she hadn’t broken the feelings down that way. She had looked at the entire encounter as one thing, one mind-blowing thing that she wanted to do over and over again.
“I liked it all,” she admitted, “but if I had to pick the part that turned me on the most, it was the way I gave up all control. I didn’t have to think about anything. Just feel. I never have the chance to just…shut everything down. Ever.”
“I’m glad you like that.” Kayden placed a kiss on the side of her head, his fingers running through her curls, then fisting around them at the base of her neck. He wasn’t exactly pulling her hair, but there was a slight tension in her scalp. A tension that sent electrical pulses straight to her pussy. “Because we like being in charge.”
Hazel twisted slightly, facing away from Kayden so that she could push her ass back against his erection.
“But, Hazel, before this goes any further, we need to establish some things.”
“What kinds of things?” She wasn’t overly concerned with the answer. Not when Aldo abandoned her feet, running his hands along the underside of her legs, up to her knees, his touch firm enough that she could feel it through her jeans.
She reached out to him, unbuttoning the top two buttons on Aldo’s shirt. She was dying to see their chests, to explore the ink she’d caught glimpses of during their tour of the city and on their first date. She’d spent too much time this past week imagining what they looked like naked.
Kayden reached for her hands, stopping her before she could make any more progress on getting Aldo out of his shirt. “We established control when it came to ordering food and finding you a safe place to stay, but this is different, more like what we did the other night at Aspen Rose. We need to spell out a few things because what we want to do with you, Hazel—”
“To you,” Aldo added, cutting Kayden off.
To her?
Kayden continued. “We don’t just want to have sex with you. We want to own you, your body, your moans, your orgasms. All of it. We want to tie you up, spank you, take you in ways you’ve never been taken before, in places you’ve never been taken before.”
She swallowed heavily. Because she knew he wasn’t talking about Paris or a swimming pool. She’d never given a blow job—never wanted to. Just like none of her past lovers had gone down on her. That seemed to bring a level of intimacy to relationships that were way too wham bam, thank you ma’am. Rushed encounters for the sole purpose of coming. Missionary, doggie, in and out, one and done. Nothing she’d ever done had been more than that. Which was why she knew Kayden was talking about her virgin places, her ass and her mouth.
“You understand what I’m saying?” Kayden asked.
She nodded.
“All of that…it requires trust.”
Both men stilled, their touches remaining—Kayden holding her wrists, Aldo’s hands loose beneath her knees—but they didn’t stroke, didn’t move. It was clear this was important to them.
So she took the time to consider what Kayden was asking for.
Apart from their one date, this was the first time the three of them had been alone together. Which was somewhat shocking to her. Probably because they only stopped talking when they were asleep, the texts between them constantly flying. She felt like she knew them—really knew them—despite that lack of time together.
But trust came hard for her. As she looked back, she couldn’t think of a single person in her life that she’d trusted completely.
God. Maybe she really was broken. No love. No trust.
Her parents and uncle were the last people she’d ever trust, and while the Maloneys had been kind, she’d never really felt comfortable with them, never not been reminded that at the end of the day, she was still just the hired help.
The closest she’d come to trust had been during that first year with Mrs. Maloney, when her mind was still good, but even that wavered, not because of anything the elderly woman did but because of her disease. She couldn’t trust from day to day that Mrs. Maloney would even know who she was.
“We like you, Hazel,” Aldo murmured. “A lot.”
Hazel blinked a few times, fighting to believe that was true. Good things didn’t happen to her. They just didn’t.
She was twenty-five years old, and she could count on one hand—with fingers left over—the good things she’d gotten in her life. Her first car, her first nursing job with the Maloneys, and her degree all came to mind—and even those were things she’d had to work for, struggle for, save for. They sure as hell hadn’t just been handed to her on a silver platter.
To make things worse, they’d all been yanked from her. Her mom totaling her first car, the Maloneys firing her. She hadn’t dared to dream she could ever work as a nurse again until tonight, resigned to waiting tables.
That little voice she hated reared its head, warning her to proceed with caution. She’d tossed it to the wind since the night of their date, but it was back now, reappearing with a vengeance, causing her to doubt, to lose faith. She swallowed heavily, finding it hard to draw a deep breath.
Kayden ran the back of his knuckles along her cheek, drawing her out of her dark thoughts.
“Tell us what you’re thinking.”
She wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
“I hate wherever it is you’ve just gone,” Kayden said softly.
“Stay here with us,” Aldo said. “Put the bad thoughts away and just be here. With us.”
“I want to do that. It’s just…I can’t…I don’t…” She stopped talking.
“You don’t trust us. And you shouldn’t. We’re at the beginning stages of this and trust takes time. All we’re asking you to do is give us a chance to prove we’re worthy of it,” Kayden said. “Maybe someday you’ll trust us enough to tell us your story.”
“So, no fucking. Not tonight,” Aldo said. “Tonight, we keep getting to know each other.”
She wanted to protest because her girl parts were hungry, but she knew they were making the right decision. Kayden and Aldo were assuming control for more than just the physical aspects of their time together. They also were taking control of the things she couldn’t—her ability to walk away from them, to hold herself apart as much as she could.
She was spiraling out of control. Longing for things she couldn’t have. And they were saving her from herself. Even if they didn’t realize it.
She’d only known them two weeks. And Kayden was a cop, for God’s sake. While the police hadn’t come for her yet, that didn’t mean she was in the clear. The Maloneys could decide to press charges at any time because she hadn’t sent back nearly enough of their things. All she’d done was put a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.
She should never have gotten inside that police cruiser outside the motel. She should have turned and walked away because now…
Now, she was playing with fire. Letting herself get swept up in their world.
She glanced toward the door, overwhelmed by that smothering exhaustion that never truly left her and the desire to run away. From them, from this house, from…everything.
She must have given herself away somehow because Kayden’s hold tightened as he kissed her forehead. “Hazel. Shhhh. Let it all go for now.”
Aldo moved his hands once more, using them to shift her legs apart. She still wore her jeans, so it was ridiculous to feel exposed, but she did.
