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  He bent over her without slowing, and sank his teeth into her hard nipple. She writhed beneath him, jerking and moaning, but not pulling away from his mouth. He bit down again, and her hands flew to his shoulders, nails scoring his skin. Each time she pressed her nails against his muscles, it only spurred him to thrust harder. He was vaguely aware of pens clattering to the floor and papers drifting from the corners of the desk—Sasha didn’t seem to be aware of anything except him.

  The friction of damp skin to damp skin did as much to set his flesh alight as her passionate attention to anywhere she could reach. For as much as he felt like climbing into her, Sasha seemed as desperate to keep him close, tightening her strong legs when her thighs began to quiver. Adam slid his hands beneath her ass, angling her slightly higher, and the new position brought a choked cry to her lips, his name or something like it tumbling from them.

  Adam didn’t know anybody like Sasha, and he didn’t know anybody who fucked like she did, either. She invested herself entirely. There was no sign that her mind was somewhere else, that anything could be distracting her. She responded to every touch and each shift immediately—it was like holding a livewire against his body. And it humbled him that she wanted him in her life, that she thought he would fit in her world, in her home, with her family.

  He skimmed his mouth over her collarbone, tasting the sweat and desire rising to the surface of her skin. “Adam,” he heard her whisper, then the pull of her hands drew him upward, until his lips hovered above hers.

  “I’m glad you’re staying,” Sasha said. The words came on staggered breaths, the heat of them washing over him more thoroughly than the slam of their bodies. “We need you.”

  Adam flushed, and he seemed to tingle everywhere, even the back of his eyes. He believed her, but she was also telling him that it was okay to need them. And maybe one day, he’d tell them how much. Or maybe they already knew. They were both very good at anticipating his other needs, after all.

  He freed one hand from her hips and pushed it between them to find her clit. At first, he just let his nail scrape across it with each thrust of his hips, his eyes squeezing shut as she flexed her muscles and clenched around him.

  “More.”

  He didn’t need Sasha’s murmured request against his mouth to do it, but once she uttered the word, Adam didn’t wait. He kept his thumb scratching across the tip and bent his finger to push back the hood, pressing down on the sensitive flesh as forcefully as he was ploughing into her passage.

  Her scream rattled the air. The undulations of her body rattled through him.

  He seemed to absorb her screams and her pleasure. Adam sealed his mouth to hers once again, shuddering as her teeth scraped against his lips and shouting against her tongue. He kept pistoning into her body, even as he filled the condom, not slowing until his cock was soft and his legs were shaking and weak. She ran her fingers over his face and through his hair, a satisfied smile lighting her eyes.

  Telling her she was amazing would be redundant, so he kissed away the small beads of sweat gathering on her skin and smoothed her hair away from her cheeks. Sasha tolerated his nuzzling for a few moments as her pulse slowed, but he didn’t take it personally when she put her hands against his chest and gently pushed him back.

  They dressed quickly and made sure their clothes were straight, but Adam knew that one look at either one of them would broadcast exactly what they had been up to. That would have made him uncomfortable before, but now he just stole a quick kiss and led Sasha out to the car. If Scott felt left out, Adam knew they would definitely make it up to him later.

  Chapter 7

  “Can I go to Gram’s house tonight?”

  Adam didn’t look up from his book, but he stopped reading.

  “Can I? Hello? Are you listening to me?”

  “Are you talking to me?” Adam asked.

  “Yes.”

  He glanced at her. “Why on earth are you asking me?”

  “Dad said I shouldn’t bother him tonight because he has some freelance work to do, and I want to go to Gram’s.”

  Adam set the book aside. “School starts on Monday, doesn’t it?”

  Colette blinked. “Yes.”

  “Don’t you have to do things to get ready for the fifth grade?”

  “No. Really, I’m all ready. And I already called Gram, and she said I should come over.”

  “I really think you should talk to your father about that.”

  “He said not to interrupt him,” Colette pointed out, as though she was talking to somebody very slow.

  “I’ll go talk to him.” Adam set the book aside and stood up. He appreciated that Colette felt comfortable asking him, but Adam did not feel comfortable sending Colette to and fro without first consulting with Scott.

  He found him at the desk in the living room, staring at the monitor. His long fingers drummed almost silently on the arm of his chair, his handsome features pulled into a frown. It was his “I’m concentrating” look. After nearly a month living in the Emerson home, Adam was becoming quite adept at picking out both Scott’s and Sasha’s moods, based on the look on their face.

  When Adam cleared his throat, Scott glanced back, his gaze softening slightly when he saw him standing in the doorway. “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to send your daughter away for the night. Are you cool with that?”

  “Sure, but you didn’t have to ask.”

  “I’m not really used to her coming to me to ask permission for anything. I feel like she’s trying to cheat the system or something when she comes to me instead of you.”

  Scott’s mouth twitched. “So I’m the mean parent now? That’s a new one.”

  Adam grinned. “Apparently being the mean parent has some perks. She refused to come in here and talk to you herself.”

  “I told her I was working.” He turned back to his computer. “I don’t think she knows what to do with that yet.”

  Adam thought that was interesting, because he didn’t know what to do about the fact he wasn’t working. Of course, Scott would beg to differ on that, since Adam had taken over many of the household chores.

  “You should finish up whatever you’re working on tonight.”

  “Especially if Colette isn’t around to bug me.” As Adam turned to leave, Scott shot one last smile over his shoulder. “I might even be done by the time you get back. We can have some quiet time with Sasha then.”

  “And by quiet time, you mean the opposite of quiet, right?”

  His smile widened. “It’s quiet if we gag Sasha.”

  “You do owe her one for the other night. I’ll be back soon. I’m not going to let Ida trap me into watching TV, or reading to her, or helping with cookies, or any other craziness.” Adam stepped out of living room and shut the door behind him. Pausing at the foot of the stairs, he shouted up to Colette’s room, “Hey, you! Are you ready to go to your Gram’s?”

  Running footsteps pounded overhead, followed by Colette rushing down and past him in a blur. “Bye, Dad! See you tomorrow!” She didn’t wait for a response as the back door slammed shut behind her.

  Adam followed her out back, to find her already waiting in the passenger seat. He couldn’t help but smile a little bit. He knew she wasn’t his daughter, but he also knew that he already loved her. It was easier to admit that to himself than it was to deal with the emotions he had for her parents.

  Colette prattled on happily about school—she didn’t like her new teacher but her best friend would be in her class and also the boy she thought she liked but he was a big jerk so maybe she didn’t really like him anymore—and Adam made the appropriate sounds at the appropriate intervals. When he stopped outside of Ida’s, he refused to get out of the car, instead opting to watch Colette from the car until she disappeared through the front door.

  By the time he returned to the house, Sasha’s pick-up was already parked in its usual spot in the driveway. A thrill rushed down Adam’s spine. There were very few things in the wo
rld that made him as happy as having both Scott and Sasha to himself.

  Scott wasn’t at the computer when he opened the door to the living room. He sat on the couch, Sasha stretched lengthwise on it as he rubbed her feet. Adam had been with them long enough now to recognize this nightly ritual. Sasha never asked for the foot rub. It was one of those things Scott did because he recognized how little she actually did for herself. There had even been a few nights already where Adam had been the one on the couch when Sasha got home, and he’d taken the task without complaint.

  She twisted her neck to look back at him when he entered, a smile curving her mouth. “You didn’t get sucked into Ida’s. Good for you.”

  “Good for us, you mean,” Scott said.

  “I’m getting smart. I didn’t get out of the car this time, so Ida didn’t have a chance to trap me.” He perched on the arm of the couch by Scott’s elbow. “Though I’m sure she’ll run out to intercept me tomorrow when I pick up Colette.”

  “When she does, see if she made any of that banana bread.”

  Sasha nudged at Scott’s stomach with her toe. “You don’t need banana bread.”

  “What? It’s healthy.”

  “It’s got a pound of butter in it.” She looked at Adam. “Don’t ask.”

  Though Adam nodded, he knew he’d still ask. Scott had a weakness for his mother’s sweets, one that Adam was quickly acquiring as well. He suspected Sasha knew Scott disobeyed her healthy eating directive behind her back, but the fact that she didn’t say anything spoke volumes.

  “I got my work done,” Scott volunteered. “The rest of the night is all mine.”

  “Good.” Adam grinned. “That means you can help me clean up the mess in the kitchen.”

  “You’re always cleaning.” Sasha pulled her foot free of Scott’s grip to give Adam his turn to be prodded in the stomach with her toe. “Relax with us tonight. No Colette, no work. We couldn’t have set this up better if we’d planned it.”

  “You’re right about that,” Adam acknowledged, absently rubbing his knuckles down her arch. She squirmed, but he caught her ankle before she could pull away—or kick him—and began massaging her heel. “What do you suggest for relaxation?”

  She closed her eyes, a satisfied smile curving her mouth. “I don’t know. This feels pretty good to me.”

  Scott snorted. “Of course, it does.”

  “You have a better suggestion?”

  “Feel like a movie?”

  Sasha wrinkled her nose. “Is that the best you can do?”

  Adam increased the pressure on her sore feet, his strong fingers working out the tender spots. He knew they would ask him next what he wanted to do, but he always had a hard time answering that question. It hardly seemed to matter what he wanted to do—he just wanted to be around them.

  “Perhaps we can watch a movie upstairs,” Adam said.

  “We don’t have a television upstairs.”

  “Then we can forget about the movie.”

  Sasha’s smile returned. “One track mind.”

  “You have to give him credit,” Scott said. “At least it’s a good track.”

  Her eyes opened again, steady and warm as they settled on Adam. “You know that’s not what we expect of you, right?” It was the first time either she or Scott had addressed the issue of why he was sticking around since that afternoon at her office. He had accepted the invitation to stay and clung to it, without another word being said. “I mean, if you’re dying to get into Scott’s pants, I can’t say that I blame you, but honestly, you’re part of the family, not our personal slave or anything.”

  “I know that. And for the record, I am dying to get into Scott’s pants.” Adam shrugged. “I know that I do a lot of the cleaning and cooking around here now, and half the time I’m driving Colette somewhere, but that’s what I like to do. I like that you get to come home to a clean house, and I like that you’re working full time on your writing. It makes you happy, and it makes me feel like I’m actually doing something important.”

  “But what do you want to do?” Scott asked softly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had a job in New York,” Sasha said. “Okay, it was a job you hated, but maybe that’s a lesson to be learned. Colette’s going to be back in school in a week, and honestly, we’re not that messy. You’re smart enough to be able to do anything you put your mind to, if that’s what you want. What’s your degree in?”

  “Mom got sick while I was still in high school. I never went to college. I got my crappy job when I was still a senior, and I just stuck around.”

  “Well, then, there you go,” Scott said. “You could always go back to school.”

  When Adam opened his mouth to argue, Sasha held up a hand to cut him off. “Don’t tell us there’s no place to go around here. You can always take online courses. Plenty of colleges are doing that these days.”

  Adam appreciated what they were saying, but he wasn’t sure it was easy as they made it sound. What did he know about school? About being a student? “I don’t know if I’m smart enough for that. It’s not like I wowed anybody in high school. I can barely even remember high school, actually. I always just figured that a degree wasn’t in the cards for me.”

  “You won’t know if you don’t try,” Sasha said.

  “And it’s not like you don’t have us to help if things get hard,” Scott added.

  “Well, what should I study?”

  Scott smiled patiently. “Whatever you want to study, Adam.”

  Adam blinked. “I have no idea what that is.”

  “You can start by taking some general courses, and go from there.” Scott put a hand on his knee. “I’m sure you’ll find something that interests you.”

  “Or just try something fun at first, if it feels too overwhelming.” A twinkle appeared in Sasha’s eye. “Like winemaking, or The Simpsons as social science, or maybe even tantric sex.”

  Scott snorted. “Don’t do that tantric sex one. She already roped me into it, and it was ridiculous. My orgasms were just as good before, and I got more of them, thank you very much.”

  “Winemaking could be interesting.” Adam smiled a little self-consciously. “I bet you two always knew what you wanted to do with your lives.”

  “Me, yes.” Sasha pointed at Scott. “Him, not so much.”

  “I just wanted to get the fuck out of this town,” Scott said. “I didn’t fall into writing until I went away to college.”

  She winked. “Because he had the hots for a professor who wouldn’t give him the time of day.”

  Adam supposed there were less noble reasons to begin a writing career—especially if you were as good as Scott. And Scott was very good. Adam had found a copy of the first book he published and had devoured it in a single afternoon. The story itself had been amazing, but Adam had loved it because it was something of Scott’s, something that came from him, something he made.

  Adam wondered what it would be like to make something himself. It didn’t have to be a book. He wasn’t a writer. But maybe it could be wine. Or a car. Or a house. A piece of furniture, even.

  “I used to be pretty good with my hands. I was on a vocational track in high school. Maybe I could find a few classes along those lines.”

  Sasha nodded. “That’s something you’d be able to find local help for, too. Though then they’d probably suck you into leading some of the 4H groups, so maybe you don’t want to look too hard for someone closer to home.”

  “Whatever you pick, we’ll support it,” Scott said. “The important thing is you’re happy with your life here.”

  “I am happy with my life here. You two…you three…have given me what I was looking for. And you just gave it to me. Which still boggles me.”

  “Oh, please.” Pulling her feet away from both men, Sasha rolled off the couch, standing and stretching. It pulled her top up to reveal her taut stomach, and Adam knew he wasn’t the only one watching it hungrily. “The only thing that should bog
gle you is why neither of us are in Scott’s pants yet. Because that’s the thing bugging me right now.”

  “Yeah.” Scott slid his hand up Adam’s thigh, squeezing playfully. “Why aren’t you in my pants right now?”

  “You distracted me from the contents of your pants with all this talk of book-learnin’.” Adam stood and took Scott’s hand, pulling him up from the couch. “But I’ll be happy to help you out of them.”

  Sasha led the way to the stairs. “There’s plenty to be learned from books. Why do you think I keep all my anatomy textbooks around?”

  Scott leaned in and mock whispered in Adam’s ear, “Because they make good doorstops.”

  As soon as they were in the bedroom—their bedroom—Adam pulled Scott against him and reached for his belt. Adam had tried to move into one of the spare bedrooms shortly after Sasha told him he could stay, but neither Scott nor Sasha were interested in that. Sasha threatened to tie him to the bed to keep him there, and Scott distracted him with a rather spectacular blow job. After that, Adam hadn’t brought it up again.

  “Honestly, I’ve been thinking about this all day.” Adam unbuttoned Scott’s pants and caressed the skin just below his waistband. “I would have suggested Colette go to Ida’s if she hadn’t volunteered.”

  Sasha molded herself around Scott’s back, reaching around his waist to undo the zipper. “So basically what you’re saying is that if I hadn’t come home when I did, you would have had your mouth glued to Scott’s cock.” She fisted the length in question, and Adam watched it harden within her touch. “That sounds like incentive to start closing the office early.”

  “Hey, I’m not going to complain.” Scott cupped the back of Adam’s neck and held him still as he traced over Adam’s mouth. “You don’t have a problem being glued to my cock, do you?”

  Adam parted his lips and touched the tip of his tongue to Scott’s. A month had passed, but that sort of simple contact still had the power to make him ache. Scott pulled away, but then they connected again, and a fresh thrill went down his spine.