A Smile as Sweet as Poison Read online

  “What are you doing?”

  “I want to see you,” Dylan confessed.

  “You’ve seen me before.” Naked and not, trussed up and bruised from his and Ward’s deliciously rough handling, or shower pink and towel-drying her hair. Even now, Hazel still fought the knee-jerk desire to cover herself up.

  Dylan took no notice of her unease as he bridged the gap between them with a few short steps. He cupped her cheeks, silently demanding that she meet his gaze. “You’re mine to look at, aren’t you?”

  Her pulse kicked—a Pavlovian response to the dark promise in his voice. The collar was still inside its drawer. Hazel had thought to put it on before Dylan got back to the loft, but after bringing up her idea for their next scene, it seemed wrong, somehow, as though she was forcing Dylan’s hand.

  She didn’t need it, though. Wasn’t that why she asked him to take her without warning, without foreplay?

  “I’m yours,” she repeated. Never mind the rest.

  In the faint glow of the reading lamp, Dylan’s expression was warm and greedy, the touch of his hands so gentle for a man who could be so violent. Hazel trembled and melted against the hard planes of his body as he kissed her. If they did this enough, maybe she could find the right ways to slot herself into his arms. Maybe she could figure out what it meant to be a good submissive.

  “All right.” Dylan sighed, resting his forehead against hers. “Thought you were sleepy?”

  “I was.”

  He grinned boyishly. “Don’t tempt me. I have an early meeting.”

  “Mm, and I gotta get to my shift,” Hazel agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t be nice to you first…”

  She spared a brief thought for his hands tightening in her hair as she sank down to her knees, but Dylan’s control was unshaken. He let out a long, creative, compound slur as she lowered his zipper and hooked her fingers in the waistband of his boxers. Dylan’s cock sprang out, already half-hard.

  “Wait, let me get a condom—”

  “Do you have to?” Hazel groaned. “I’m sick of sucking latex.”

  Dylan hesitated. “Ward won’t like it.”

  It was the late hour. It was the acute sense that this was all too temporary—that once Dylan found out what she’d asked Ward to do for her and why, he would end things for good. It was a hundred bad reasons—most of them just convenient excuses—that prompted Hazel to wheedle and cajole. “Well… Ward doesn’t need to know, does he?”

  She accompanied the question with the slide of her fist down his shaft.

  Dylan let out a shaky sigh. “Go on. Before I change my mind.”

  Hazel gladly complied, working her hand down Dylan’s length as she sucked the tip into her mouth. She couldn’t hold back a moan at the taste of him—skin and salt and the faintest trace of his body wash. The vibration wasn’t intended as a call for Dylan to clench his fingers in her hair, but he did it anyway. He guided her down to mid-shaft before easing out again, a slow rhythm meant entirely for his satisfaction.

  He knew what she needed to lose herself in the act—it wasn’t soft words of praise or timid petting.

  When his cock nudged the back of her throat, Hazel gagged a little, free hand flying to his thigh. Dylan palmed her cheek, a silent reminder not to resist him. You’re mine, he’d said and fuck if he didn’t set to prove it as he coaxed her mouth open.

  Hazel didn’t think to deny him for an instant. Her heart thundered fiercely as seconds ticked by and Dylan’s moans became more and more urgent. She hollowed her cheeks around him, lending vulgar, wet echoes to the bass line of his pleased grunts, until Dylan released her hair and grabbed for her wrists.

  “Fuck, that’s it. That’s it, here it comes, ah—”

  Heat flooded Hazel’s mouth, bitter-salt and thicker than pre-cum. She swallowed instinctively. If she was honest with herself, she had to admit to enjoying this, too—the base humiliation of it all, the thrill of being used like someone’s toy.

  Dylan’s, specifically.

  She didn’t resist when he pulled her up against him and plundered her mouth with a wet, greedy kiss.

  “You like that, don’t you?” Dylan panted. “Christ, I wanted to warn you, but—”

  “Yes.” Hazel stretched her naked body against his. Her nipples were hard peaks, thighs slick with her gushing arousal. A sharp zing of excitement shot through her as Dylan shifted his weight and, by error or design, nudged his spent cock against her pelvis.

  He swore under his breath. “That turned you on, didn’t it?” He palmed her ass with both hands, tugging her ever closer and playing the tips of his fingers between her sopping folds. “Look at you… You’re drenched.”

  The note of surprise in his voice triggered a laugh, Hazel’s sense of self-preservation too decrepit to kick into gear at the eleventh hour. Instead, she clung to him desperately, arching and twisting in a helpless quest for friction. Dylan knocked the air out of her when he turned her around and slammed her into the still-open bedroom door.

  Look at me, indeed. Hazel glimpsed their reflection in the standing mirror. Moonlight caught on her sandy hair, splashing onto her hip and shoulder. The curve of her flank disappeared beneath the span of Dylan’s bruising fingers. Look at her, he growled, and Hazel did, taking in the desperate fervor in her own expression with the suspicion that she wasn’t supposed to like this.

  Yet for a moment, she saw herself the way Dylan must have seen her—wild, eager. Powerful.

  Then Dylan smacked her thigh with an open hand and she lurched forward, staring match interrupted. It seemed a close thing, but Hazel believed heart and soul that he wouldn’t let her bang her head. Her palms were fair game, though. And so was the rest of her, when Dylan pressed up against her back, murmuring filth into her ear.

  “You gonna come for me, Hazel? You gonna fuck yourself on my hand and—”

  “Yes,” Hazel cried out, heedless of neighbors, or Ward, overhearing. If he wanted to join them, he was welcome to. In that moment, Hazel wouldn’t have denied him a thing.

  She was past the point of feeling any shame for the greedy, wanton frenzy with which she rode Dylan’s fingers. As long as he didn’t stop, nothing else mattered. The last coherent thought she mustered was that his lips on her shoulder were like a brand, fiery and painful in the best way possible. Then orgasm rushed in like breakers on a calm beach and everything gave way in its path.

  Dylan held her up as tremors raced through her, the heel of his palm pressed hard against her throbbing clit.

  “That’s right,” he murmured. “That’s my girl. Let go, I’ve got you…”

  Hazel did as she was told. She was his for as long as he would have her. Even pinned beneath his strong body and tethered to his touch, she knew there were a finite number of days left in their run.

  * * * *

  When Hazel rolled out of bed the next morning, sore and sluggish, Dylan barely stirred. He looked peaceful in sleep, his features lax and his breaths even. Hazel thought of waking him with a hand around his cock, but she didn’t have the heart to disturb his rest. The alarm clock would buzz soon. Better to let him have a few minutes more.

  Barefoot and staggering, she fished her shirt and his boxers off the floor and tugged both on. The leather couch in the living room was sleek and modern, the kind of showroom piece Hazel could’ve imagined herself coveting in another life, but it also leached heat from her body whenever she sat there. The boys didn’t seem to notice, though, so she kept her complaints to herself.

  Have to keep a lot more than that, a voice at the back of her mind crowed as Hazel rounded the book-lined corridor. She stopped on the living room threshold, breath catching.

  Ward looked up from his coffee mug at the sound of her footsteps. Dark circles lined his eyes.

  The heft of his stare had Hazel suppressing a shiver. “Hey… I thought you were upstairs.”

  “Not since Dylan came to check on me.”

  He did? “When?”

  Ward sh
rugged. He was still wearing last night’s clothes, but the sleek black shirt hung unevenly from his shoulders, as though his bones had been trimmed by a few precious inches.

  His silence hung, ponderous and chancy between them, until Hazel cleared her throat. “Any coffee left?”

  “You might want to make a fresh pot.”

  Hazel padded into the kitchen on bare feet and laid her palm against the pot. Condensation had long stopped dripping down the sides. Ward must’ve switched off the machine at some point, leaving the freshly brewed coffee to cool to watery, bitter poison.

  Hazel upended the dregs into the sink.

  “That explains why Dylan’s so tired,” she mused, fiddling with the filter and ground beans. “He’s sleeping like the dead in there…”

  Over the gurgling of the coffeemaker, Ward’s voice was barely audible. Hazel thought she misheard him say, “Guess that’s my fault, too.” When she turned around, he was staring into the depths of his mug as though trying to divine the future.

  “What’s wrong?” Hazel asked. Biting the bullet sometimes worked to her advantage.

  “He told me about your idea.”

  “Ah.”

  Ward shot her a sharp glare. “You can’t be serious.”

  Whether they were watching TV or spending a not-so-quiet night in Dylan’s playroom, contempt often found its way into Ward’s voice. He had no trouble channeling his inner taskmaster at the drop of a hat. Hazel was fast learning to appreciate that part of him just as she enjoyed his no-holds-barred MO in the bedroom. It still stung to be summarily dismissed.

  Flexing her toes into the hardwood floors, she made an effort not to jump the gun. “Why not?”

  “You can’t have Dylan play your ex. He doesn’t even know—”

  “Wait, what?”

  Ward ignored her. “He thinks you’ve got some weird rape fantasy going. Wanted to know if I knew how to handle that. Talk about a left hook when you don’t see it coming, right? Let’s not even go into that little nugget of insight our boy’s been keeping to himself. He actually believes it’s worth trying, but—”

  “But I’m too stupid to know what I want?” Hazel interjected. She didn’t care that she was on the verge of raising her voice. “When are you gonna get it through your thick head? This isn’t my first rodeo.”

  “No shit,” Ward spat out. “I’m still dealing with the last one, aren’t I?”

  They fell silent—Hazel upright, Ward still sitting on the couch, looking rather like a Jack-in-the-box about to spring loose—as Dylan’s phone alarm shrilled to life in the next room. It was like a spell breaking. Ward dragged a hand over his face.

  Hazel dug her nails into her palms. “If I’d known you were going to throw that in my face, I wouldn’t have asked for your help.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Like hell it’s not. I’m capable of wanting something without falling apart just because someone I loved once turned out to be a dick,” Hazel growled, taking another step toward the couch. “If I’m too extreme for you, then you’re welcome to get off this train, Ward. I won’t stop you…and neither will Dylan.”

  It wasn’t so long ago that she’d believed Dylan would have to choose between them sooner or later, that he was the prize they were fighting over. She was starting to understand—the truth was much simpler.

  Before Ward could disguise the flash of bewilderment on his pale, drawn face, Hazel snatched the coffee mug out of his hands.

  “Hey, I wasn’t finished with that!”

  “I’m getting you a refill,” Hazel flung back over her shoulder.

  “Is this what they teach you in waitressing school?” The couch cushions sighed as he tilted against the backrest in silent surrender.

  By the time Hazel finished splashing coffee all over the counter—and getting some into his mug, as well—he’d scooted down so that his knees nearly touched the coffee table. He was an inverted comma, the pause between one venomous volley and the next.

  Hazel felt his eyes on her as she returned with two mugs filled to two-thirds with steaming coffee.

  “He said,” Ward began, haltingly, “he said that you don’t want us to warn you. Before it happens.”

  “I don’t.”

  The question hung between them, unuttered. Why?

  Hazel sighed. “I like the idea of you two using me. I don’t want to anticipate or prepare myself for it. I need it to be…unexpected.”

  “You want the adrenaline rush,” he surmised.

  Hazel couldn’t deny it. “I want to lose myself. I get that most of the women you guys have been with in the past were more middle-of-the-road kinky. I get that. I’m not judging.”

  “But that’s not you.”

  Their eyes met, his gaze wary. Hazel feared she’d gone too far. It was one thing to have Ward pry into her past and dig out the skeletons—she couldn’t stop him, she could only offer context, excuses—and another to confess point-blank to enjoying the powerlessness she’d experienced on film. But she had. Sex and violence, sex and humiliation—they had always been intimately connected in her head. That didn’t go away with one dreadful, haunting experience.

  She waited for Ward to ask her if this was what she’d asked of her ex. She waited to be forced to grapple with an answer that wasn’t as simple as she might have liked.

  Ward reached between them and took her hand in his. “I still want to talk limits.”

  “The usual.” No filming. No pictures.

  “You’re okay with…say, being choked?”

  Hazel considered it for a moment, then nodded.

  Ward released her hand. “Christ…”

  “You don’t have to,” she hurried to add. “You asked—”

  “I think that’s his line,” Dylan said, watching them from the far end of the living room. “I smelled coffee.” He had tugged on his slacks but wore no shirt.

  Hazel fought not to stare at his naked chest. She’d been with a few men since college, not all of them star athletes, but there was something to be said about a lover who worked out.

  Ward smirked. “You might want to join us. Think this concerns you, too.”

  “She started it,” Dylan shot back.

  Their verbal sparring was a familiar constant by now, much like the fact that Ward always backed off from touching Hazel when Dylan surprised them together. Much like Dylan tilting up her chin and pressing a kiss to her mouth before he sat down in one of the two Eames chairs, equidistant from both Hazel and Ward.

  Hazel folded her legs under her. “We’re talking logistics.”

  “Are we?” Dylan smiled at her over the rim of his cup. “And how’s that going?”

  Something in his gaze told her that he’d overheard a lot more than the tail end of their conversation. She returned his smile, setting dread aside. Dylan wasn’t the type to play games. If he heard the part about her ex, he would say something. Surely.

  Wouldn’t he?

  “Choking,” Ward announced, a note of resignation in his voice. “Apparently strangulation is on the allowed list. Aren’t we lucky?”

  “Excellent.”

  Hazel flattened her lips to keep her grin from stretching too wide. At least she could count on Dylan to be on her side no matter what.

  “What else?” he asked, gaze darting from Hazel to Ward and back.

  “We’re gonna be late for work.”

  He met her demurral with a shrug. “Oh, I think we have time for this.” Wicked innuendo hovered in the dimples of his smile.

  Hazel suppressed a shiver of anticipation.

  Chapter Eight

  Nothing came of that tense conversation when Hazel got home. Ward nodded off before Dylan had their dinner plated and he tripped twice heading up the stairs, after. It was too pitiful for Hazel to muster any disappointment. She spent the night in Dylan’s bed again, cuddling before they fell asleep, then rousing for a rushed breakfast and work.

  Hazel worked a twelve hour shift and came back to the
loft dog-tired, eager to hit the sack. She apologized to Dylan when he came to tuck her in.

  “I’m being a bad girlf—I mean. Submissive. Partner.” She waved a weary hand. “Whatever.”

  “Yes, you’re a very bad whatever,” Dylan agreed. He kissed her temple, then her lips, lingering there for longer than was necessary for a goodnight kiss.

  Hazel didn’t mind. She had no memory of Dylan leaving the room, exhaustion snaring her as soon as the lights were out. She surfaced, briefly, to the muffled sound of TV credits echoing through the bedroom door. Dylan had left it just slightly ajar, a thin filament of light peeking through the gap. Hazel let her eyes droop shut without checking the time.

  She slept deeply, without dreams, paddling through the soup of darkness all by herself until the chill of the night began to seep in. Her skin rippling with goosebumps, Hazel hunted for the covers with eyes closed. They must’ve slipped during the night, but when she reached down she found only the bed sheet.

  A fluttering, icy caress traced the arch of her foot.

  Hazel woke with a start. The reading lamps by the bed were switched off, only a faint spill of moonlight slanting across the floor—and in it, two men, their shadows stretching over the bed where she lay.

  “What—?”

  Dylan moved swiftly, clamping a hand over her mouth and shoving her back into the pillows. Shadows deepened the arch of his brow, but Hazel recognized him. She knew his scent. She knew that was Ward seizing her wrist and pinning her arm to the bed. And yet panic kindled in her chest, at once familiar and cherished.

  She thrashed, feet paddling uselessly in the air until Ward had to sit on her thighs to fasten the collar around her neck. A clink of metal rings told her he’d fastened the leash to the O-ring long before Dylan seized the literal rein.

  “Well, well, well… What do we have here?” His hand was still on Hazel’s mouth, thumb digging into the dip beneath her chin to keep her from trying to bite down. “Someone forgot to lock her door.”

  “Maybe she was waiting for us,” Ward offered, his voice reaching Hazel as though from far away.