The Face of Scandal Read online

  Hazel keened and threw her head back in ecstasy. It wasn’t fair to be the ball they constantly kicked between them, but to say she minded would’ve been a lie. She couldn’t resist meeting the stiff point of Ward’s tongue as she rolled her hips. Pleasure radiated through her with every sharp stroke.

  “That’s it,” Dylan urged, pinching her nipples. “You’ll come in his mouth, won’t you? Turn around’s fair play…” He freed one hand from her chest as he spoke, fiddling with something outside of Hazel’s sightline.

  She sucked in a startled breath when he slid a slick fingertip between the globes of her ass.

  Dylan kissed her shoulder. “You don’t—”

  “No, go—go ahead.” She braced herself for the burn of penetration, by now acquainted with how forceful Dylan could be. Anticipation thrummed in her veins like a ticking clock.

  Ward’s mouth on her served as a delicious distraction, chiseling the initial curl of discomfort into an afterthought. The urge to come had ebbed, too, courtesy of Dylan entering her with a curled digit. He teased her, alternating between one and two fingers, easing back when her breathing grew ragged, then resuming his sweet torture just as Hazel began to relax.

  Their sloppy, fervent strokes awakened her need in no time. Hazel moved with them, desperate to take more—of Ward, of Dylan, she didn’t care which—as desire pulsed deep at her core. But Dylan had other plans. He waited her out through every little tremor as orgasm threatened to engulf her before coquettishly eluding her grasp.

  By the time Ward pulled back to lick his lips, Dylan had three fingers inside her—a tight fit by any stretch of imagination—and Hazel ground out a plea to be allowed her climax. Somehow, it had come to the point that she needed them to say it before she could let herself tumble over the edge. She didn’t care to examine how that worked, or why, or what it meant to feel a wave of tenderness as Ward bit a bruise into the inside of her thigh in warning.

  “You’ll come with me inside you,” Ward growled, “and not before.”

  “With you?”

  Despite the dizzy blur of want and steam rising around them, Hazel still deciphered the smile in Dylan’s voice.

  Ward levered smoothly to his feet, the muscles in his thighs pulling taut beneath pale skin, and took Hazel’s elbow in a rough grip. His fingertips were pruning with the humidity. Hazel imagined her lungs looking much the same as Dylan released her and moved to give them space. A moment later, her thoughts dissipated on a startled cry as Ward guided her hands to the tile wall and seized hold of her hips.

  She knew what was coming before he thrust into her ass. She knew better than to tense up. It happened anyway, her body torn in five different directions by the chill of the tiles and the damp floor underfoot—and Dylan, always Dylan, watching and quantifying with those clever eyes.

  The snug fit triggered a sharp curse from Ward. It served as a precursor to the sting of his palm on her hip.

  Hazel could’ve wept in gratitude. One ache, sharper and more focused, instantly overtook the other. Her inner muscles fluttered to accommodate Ward’s girth.

  “You’re okay,” Dylan told her.

  She nodded. If he said it, then it was true. It had to be true. But when she spoke, it wasn’t his sweet name she wrested out through clenched teeth. “God, Ward…”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  I like the sound of you, Hazel wanted to fire back, giddy delight surging through her like the single best high she’d ever had. The steady friction of his cock inside her had her clawing at the tiles for purchase, no longer able to tell the difference between what was water dripping down her spine and what was the touch of familiar hands.

  She pressed her cheek to the wall as he hurried the pace, chasing his climax with single-minded focus. Yes, yes…

  “Touch yourself,” Dylan commanded.

  Hazel forced her eyes open, surprised to find him so close. It was as if he couldn’t stand to be apart from them. She noticed the movement of his right arm a beat before his order registered in the addled recesses of her reptilian brain. She obeyed.

  Ward wrapped a hand around her neck from behind, his fingers light around her windpipe. No sooner had Hazel tipped forward into the grip, inviting him to choke her, that he shattered inside her with a deep groan.

  The combined head-rush sensations of his cock throbbing inside her and her own fingers slipping along her slick folds were enough to drive Hazel over the edge.

  With the last thread of rational thought she still possessed, she hoped the insulation of the bathroom, and Ward’s bedroom beyond it, would be enough to drown out her cries. Then her world narrowed to tremor and bliss, the sweet drag of Ward’s length as he slowly, slowly slid out, then pressed back in. The teasing stroke drew out her orgasm into delicious agony.

  She would’ve crumbled to the shower floor if not for Ward holding her up. Dylan himself was of little help. Hazel struggled to keep her eyes open long enough to see him find release with desperate, jerking strokes of his fist.

  Hot, sticky white ropes painted her thigh when he came, but with Ward pressed flush against her ass, there was little chance that he wasn’t smeared, too. Hazel was almost certain his cock twitched inside her as Dylan finished.

  The water had run cold by the time they washed away the evidence. Hazel’s knees threatened to give out at least half a dozen times before she made her way to Ward’s bed. Miraculously, she didn’t succumb to exhaustion until it was safe to do so. The soft sheets were a benediction on her sluggish limbs.

  Dylan squeezed in against her back, running greedy hands over the swell of her hip. “That was something else.”

  “Mm… Everything you hoped it would be?” Hazel slurred, her eyes already shut.

  Ward was last to bed. He shut off the lights before wordlessly shedding the towel he had wrapped around his waist and sliding under the covers. He seemed intent on keeping to one side of the king-sized mattress, more than enough room between him and Hazel for the Holy Spirit.

  Hazel cracked one eye open and groaned. “Too far…” She folded a hand around his shoulder, yanking until he rolled over. His skin was stippled with goosebumps. It was enough to have Hazel open her other eye and blink in the shadows of the room. “You’re cold.”

  “Is he?” Dylan reached across her body, the soft hairs on his arm brushing hers as he nudged his knuckles to Ward’s ribcage.

  His protesting yelp fell on deaf ears.

  “Why’re you so far away?” Hazel grumbled, shuffling closer to the center of the bed. She wondered, briefly, if Ward stiffened because he didn’t want her touching him. It was a short-lived interrogation, vanished as soon as he tugged her right leg between both of his.

  Dylan had already resettled against her back, completing the cocoon of body heat and erasing all vestigial worry from her mind. It wasn’t unusual for Ward to get a little quiet and gloomy after a good lay. He was odd like that.

  As Hazel drifted off, true to her own predictable, idiosyncratic post-coital routine, she had the vague sensation of Dylan’s hand gliding down her flank to meet Ward’s against her hip. She was too tired to give it much thought.

  * * * *

  The smell of cinnamon and vanilla would have roused Hazel from the deepest sleep. As it stood, she was already beginning to wake when Ward breezed into the bedroom and left the door open in his wake. Groaning, Hazel rolled onto her back and tried to muster a sufficiently accusing glare.

  Her grumbling stomach had other ideas.

  “Sadie’s cooking,” Ward announced.

  “Good morning to you, too.” Hazel propped herself up against the pillows. Her damp hair had dried in its tight bun last night, curling haphazardly. She blew out the strands that drooped rebelliously into her eyes. “Wait, what?”

  “Can’t talk, late for work.”

  Lending action to words, Ward flung open the doors to the walk-in closet and disappeared within the realm of bespoke suits and pristine shirts, patent leather shoes and
outrageously pricey belts.

  The sounds of his shuffling made for a particularly discordant lullaby. Hazel kicked off the covers and scrubbed a hand over her face. She wanted nothing more than to loiter in bed for the rest of the day, but Ward wasn’t the only one who needed to get to work. Disgruntled, Hazel dragged her sluggish body upright and started down the stairs with both hands gripping the rail.

  The smell of freshly made pancakes was stronger down there. Hazel grappled with that first, before she let herself take in the sight of Dylan and Sadie puttering around the stove. They didn’t even break away from each other when they saw her.

  “Oh, hey!” Dylan grinned. He was already dressed, a wide, smudgy pinstripe pattern on his trousers matched with a windowpane checked shirt. Jacket and tie dangled from the back of a barstool by the kitchen island. “Sadie made pancakes.”

  “I can tell,” Hazel replied, trying to mimic his good mood.

  “There’s enough for four,” Sadie announced, waving a spatula. The paper towel-lined plate beside her was already overflowing with perfectly round, gold-brown pancakes studded with blueberries. Dylan’s favorite. Sadie’s bowl still held about a third of the batter. She wasn’t kidding about making more than enough for everyone. She flashed Hazel a smile. “And I made coffee.”

  She seemed perfectly at home in Dylan’s kitchen, half of the clothes she had on raided from his dresser.

  Hazel told herself it was way too early for envy. “Thanks.” The coffee would help her think more clearly.

  “You have a shift this morning, right?” Sadie wondered.

  “Mhm.”

  “Think you could tell Marco I’m still not feeling too hot?” She gestured to the bruise on her cheek. “I don’t want anyone else seeing me with this ugly thing, you know?”

  Hazel swallowed down a mouthful of coffee. “Sure, yeah.”

  “You can stay another day, if you want,” said Dylan.

  Both Sadie and Hazel looked up, but only Sadie recovered from her disbelief quick enough to smile. “Seriously? Oh my God, that’d be awesome.” Spatula aloft, she hopped up to peck him on a dimpled cheek.

  Dylan only grinned wider. Coffee roiled in Hazel’s belly.

  “Yeah,” she echoed. “Awesome.”

  Chapter Four

  With her apartment off-limits and her parents’ home in Dunby out-of-bounds on account of its occupants, the loft on four-seven-one Aulden Way had become the closest thing Hazel had to a safe port of call. It wasn’t the bare brick walls and stripped hardwood floors that gave her a sense of comfort when she got off work, but the people in it. She had spent more than a couple of bus rides wondering what Dylan would cook that night, or what she might whip up for the boys, whether there would be anything worth watching on TV. She had daydreamed shift after shift in the diner, hoping Ward would be in the mood to join them in the playroom when she made it home.

  More recently, her biggest unanswered question was whether Sadie would still be there when she opened the door.

  The answer, three days after recovering Sadie from that deserted overhang on Mulholland Drive, was yes. Inescapably, Sadie was there. Sadie had taken over the induction cooker and was intent on helping Dylan reconnect with his roots by means of homemade dumplings, noodle dishes and rice cakes flavored with exotic fruit.

  Tonight’s fare was gong bao chicken and fried rice made the right way.

  Exiled to the couch with Ward, Hazel pretended not to hear every giggle that erupted from the open kitchen. She ate the food when it was served and complimented the cooks while Dylan and Sadie elbowed each other, trying to shirk the credit for this or that part of the dish.

  It was good that they had moved past any awkwardness and straight into getting along like a house on fire. It was excellent.

  “Can I help with the dishes?” Hazel offered, when Sadie started piling their plates together.

  “Oh, no. I got it.”

  “I’ll help,” said Dylan.

  Sadie hesitated, then shrugged. “All right, fine. Men,” she added, as if to co-opt Hazel into a private joke.

  Hazel should have been relieved—one less chore, one less reason to leave the couch after a day of dashing back and forth at the diner. She had washed her fair share of dishes already, but something about being denied rankled.

  She jolted in her seat when Ward touched his socked foot to her ankle.

  “You want to get out of here?” He’d been quiet since he got home—nothing unusual in that. If he wasn’t complaining—rudely and without reserve—about incompetent board members too stuck in their ways to see the light, he avoided the topic of work like the plague.

  Hazel darted a glance to the kitchen, where Dylan and Sadie were trying to work out a rhythm between washing the bowls and cutlery and loading up the dishwasher. “Sure.”

  “Hey, we’re gonna grab some dessert. Be back in a few,” Ward called, already snagging his car keys from the side table.

  “Nothing with blueberries!” Dylan called from the kitchen as Sadie swatted his arm with a sudsy hand. He didn’t ask why grabbing dessert was a two-man job, too engrossed in whatever Sadie was saying in a language only the pair of them shared.

  Hazel was glad to close the door on that idyllic scene and trail Ward into the street outside.

  “Hey.”

  She glanced at him in time to see the keys to the BMW arc through the air.

  “You drive.”

  “Um, did I just hear you say that?” Ward wasn’t as protective of his car as he was of Dylan, but it was a close thing. He had certainly never let him drive the BMW in all the months Hazel had known them.

  By way of answer, Ward swung open the passenger side door and slid into the leather seat. Hazel didn’t ask again. She suppressed a flash of dread as she slotted the key into the ignition. A BMW was just another car. Bigger, certainly, and with far better horsepower than her dingy, decades-old Volvo, but the engine still rumbled, the steering wheel still revolved easily under her hands.

  Hazel pulled away from Aulden Way with growing confidence. The BMW purred when she gave it a little more gas, taking full advantage of the nearly barren streets. So far out of LA’s bustling center, traffic was sparse at this hour. Without nightlife or shops to keep the area buzzing after dark, she found herself thinking that it was a bit like driving through Dunby.

  All that’s missing are the gossiping neighbors…

  “So where do you want to go for dessert?” Hazel asked when Ward made no move to tell her.

  “No idea,” he confessed. “Take a right here.”

  Doing as told, Hazel veered into a side street and followed the road sedately for about half a mile. The scenery changed fast from industrial-but-refurbished to industrial-but-forgotten. Town houses in a bad state of disrepair emerged from behind sunken fences and unkempt greenery as they pulled farther and farther away from the coast. Then, just as abruptly, the run-down effigies of sixties’ booming industry gave away were replaced by palm trees and modern vacation homes that probably sold for millions.

  The Tustin Ranch golf course was just a few streets away when Ward told Hazel to jump onto the freeway.

  “We headed anywhere in particular?” Hazel wondered, even as she signaled the turn.

  “Why? Are you in a rush to get back to the loft?”

  The studied nonchalance in his voice put paid to the idea that Ward was simply beat after a long day at the office.

  Mere feet before the on-ramp, Hazel veered back onto the side street and pulled up into the nearest parking lot. The windows of a 99 Ranch Market reflected the headlights of the BMW, then fell dark as Hazel switched off the engine.

  “I thought I was the only one who’d noticed,” she confessed, wishing she could’ve kept that slightly peevish tone out of her voice.

  Ward tilted his head against the backrest and huffed out a mirthless laugh. “I have eyes.”

  And he did know Dylan better—or at least he had known him longer—than Hazel.

&n
bsp; “I doubt he knows he’s doing it,” she reasoned, “but fuck do I hate that he’s paying more attention to her than me. And she’s my friend, too…” Her recently assaulted, probably emotionally devastated best friend. “What kind of a selfish bitch does that make me?”

  Sadie had just suffered a monumentally bad break-up. Surely her mind wasn’t on jumping into another relationship—let alone with Dylan.

  If only Hazel could make herself believe it.

  “Do you love him?”

  Ward’s voice was edged with tenderness, uncommonly so, but when Hazel turned to him, he didn’t shift his gaze from the stretch of cement beyond the windshield. Splashes of yellow light dotted the outer rim of the parking lot, but where the streetlights didn’t reach, shadows lingered freely.

  The question hung between them, unanswered, as Ward’s wristwatch counted a minute, then another. Eventually, Hazel settled back in her seat, a far cry from comfortable in spite of the luxurious, butter-soft leather upholstery.

  “Do you?” Hazel asked.

  A pair of crows alighted on the tarmac, their black wings folded close to their bodies. They stood still for a moment, surveying their surroundings with glassy eyes. After a beat, satisfied that they were alone, the birds commenced a waddling saunter, pecking at scraps left behind by harried shoppers. A piece of pak choi here, a battered apple there. The more adventurous of the two ventured closer to the silent BMW and snagged up a strip of beef jerky.

  Its sibling raised its head from the plastic bag it had been assaulting and gave a screeching cry. When the other bird didn’t answer the call with the appropriate deference, the crow propelled itself up into the air with a beat of inky wings and descended on the scavenger. Claws and beaks were employed in the offensive, until the bird released its catch and flew off with a disgruntled squawk.

  “Yes,” Ward said, so quietly that Hazel nearly missed his reply.

  The crow at once forgotten, Hazel twisted in her seat. “I figured.” I knew all along.