It was strange, to work with him after that. Different, in all kinds of ways. He didn’t enforce so many of the rules anymore—but it was more than just that. Sometimes he seemed almost awkward around her, as if the sexual component of their relationship had poked a thousand holes in him. Now he didn’t quite know how to be or what to do without jostling that delicate arrangement. Or rubbing up against it while they were in a meeting with clients or discussing some proposal or at lunch with someone important.
His knee would brush hers during a presentation or an interview, and something would happen when it did. A kind of frisson usually passed between them, in a way that always filled her with joy.
But she didn’t know if it did the same for him.
Sometimes it seemed like an inconvenience.
A line between business and pleasure that had become too blurred.
And though it should have been a comfort when he pushed her into his private bathroom and took her hard against the sinks, it wasn’t. It felt more like something he had to do, so he could carry on functioning. Not something he wanted, or desired. Not pleasure, for pleasure’s sake. She wasn’t even sure if he was the kind of man who could feel pleasure for pleasure’s sake, and she didn’t get surer as things progressed.
When he told Abel that he had fucked her from behind during work hours, there was no delight in his voice. He moaned over Abel’s reply—Did you leave your come inside that sweet pussy for me to lick away?—but that seemed more like something he simply couldn’t help. Abel said a dirty thing, and he reacted.
Tom stroked his cock as Abel tasted the come that still lingered between her legs. He even slid over to her as she bucked and gasped, and urged her to suck him as Abel licked and kissed her to climax.
Yet still, she couldn’t tell how he really felt about all of this.
Beyond hair-trigger lust, what drove him?
With Abel it was easy. He said he loved her like it took barely any effort at all. Once or twice she had even heard him say it to Tom. And true, it had happened as Tom fucked his ass and she sucked his cock, but it had held true in the light of day, too. Both of you, I do, he had said, as they lay tangled up in each other on Tom’s bed.
And that almost made things good enough.
But not quite. Not until she knew for sure how Tom felt.
What if it’s hurting him in some way? she found herself thinking. What if it’s too much of a rule break for him to stand? She even tried, on a number of occasions, when he seemed the most open to talking about it.
“Are you okay with this?” she asked, as he lay beside her in the early light of dawn. And in return he always nodded and kissed her.
He said yes.
It was just that she couldn’t quite trust his word.
He was an unreliable narrator in his own life, wanting her without whispering a word, unable to act until someone else pointed out that he could.
So she had to come at things another way.
And she had a good idea how to do just that.
* * *
It was on the way to the airport that she decided it was best to ask Abel. Partly because they were alone together in the quiet calm of his chauffeur-driven car with no time for any of the usual passion to get in the way. But mostly because he was going away for a week, and she simply couldn’t wait that long for answer.
She needed to know now. The question was important.
Yet she had to look away when she asked.
Out of the window, at nothing in particular.
“Do you think he’s happy?”
“Who is happy? Tom?”
“Yeah. Tom.”
The name felt less odd on her tongue, now.
But she still savored it. Reveled in it.
She hoped that it meant something, that she used it now.
“Well, I suppose that depends on what you mean by happy,” he said, lightly enough that she shouldn’t have felt suddenly tense. But she did. And not even the rest of his words could soothe her, not completely. “He spent all day yesterday furious that Robert Brisdon backed out of the Lederman deal. In fact, he was so busy pounding his desk and stalking around and looking at everyone with ice-dagger eyes that I had to remind him he hadn’t eaten dinner. And then he ate it, angrily.”
“Oh, I hate it when he eats angrily.”
“It sounds like he’s grinding nails between his teeth.”
“Exactly. It makes me cringe all over. I had to stop him when he did it at that lunch meeting with the guys from that trumped-up little IT company.”
Abel laughed, clearly remembering. “Oh, the ones who wear sandals and only like authentic things?”
“Yep, the very same. God he hates them.”
“He hates everyone. Except me and you.”
Now she looked at him, as directly as she could. Mostly so he couldn’t leverage his way out of things in that effortlessly charming way of his. The other day she had tried to talk him into getting out of bed so they could work on a proposal together, and they somehow wound up fucking until four in the afternoon instead.
She didn’t even know how.
He just had a gift—that she now had to circumvent.
“But does he though?” she asked.
“Does he what?”
“Hate everyone except me and you. Sometimes I think maybe he hates us, too.”
“He didn’t seem to hate you last night, when you put your finger—”
She covered her face with one hand, as an image of that very thing flashed behind her eyes. He had shuddered when she’d done it. And then Abel had said curl your finger, and the shudder had become something else—something desperate. Something that almost made her believe he loved this as much as they did.
“Oh Christ, don’t make me think about that right now,” she moaned.
Though she suspected it was already too late.
Abel was looking at her in that heated way now.
There were still twenty minutes before they would arrive at the airport.
I’ve played this all wrong, she thought.
But then to her surprise, he answered.
“Sounds more like you’re troubled by the things we do.”
“That wasn’t troubled and you know it, you absolute nightmare.”
“Hey—you’re the one who accosted me in the elevator the other day.”
“I was just thinking of our first meeting. The memory made me do it.”
“Wanted me to fuck your ass then, did you?”
She flushed from her collarbone to the roots of her hair—and this time it wasn’t just the remembering that did it. She could still feel him there, trying to work his way in. Still hear him saying: That’s it baby, open up for me just like he does.
But she did her best to shake it off.
She gave him an exasperated look and said, “We were talking about Tom.”
“Ah yes, Tom and how troubled he is.”
“I didn’t say he was troubled.”
He gave her a pointed look. “But that’s what you meant.”
“Yeah, okay. Maybe I did a little bit.”
“Even though he asked for two meetings a week, instead of one?”
“That would probably mean more if he didn’t call our dates meetings.”
“He calls all his dates meetings.”
“So he has other ones, with other people?”
Abel laughed at that. And it was obvious why.
She could hardly stop herself frowning, or leaning forward.
“You’re jealous,” he said.
He had a point.
“Of course I’m jealous. I like him.”
“You love him. You love him as much as you love me.”
“You think I’m going to deny that? Because I’m not. I do. I just don’t know if he loves us, too. Sometimes he seems so . . . disturbed by the whole thing. And I can’t exactly blame him. He could barely kiss a woman in public before three months ago, and now he’s in . . . he’s in a . . . polyamorous relationship.”
“Is that what you call what we do?”
“It’s what I call what we have.”
“Nice correction.”
“Thank you.”
His expression softened. More than that in fact. He crossed the distance between their seats, took her hand, and kissed her.
She could never have doubted what Abel wanted.
He wanted the three of them, together, in this crazy thing.
But that still left one question in her mind.
“So?” she asked when he pulled away.
“So what?
“Is he okay with that? Can a man like Hartford ever be okay with that?”
“Oh my darling, my darling, Amy,” he said. “The whole thing was his idea.”