A smile curls one side of my mouth as I think about how much fun it was taking Harley in hand after she spoke out of turn one too many times, resulting in her feeling the grip of one of my belts around her neck while another lashed her ass bright red.
That had been the fun side of our relationship.
But it had also been exhausting.
Relationshipsareexhausting. They’re work. They’re time away from working on myself and my business. They’re time away from Jessica.
I’m better on my own, doing my own thing. I always thought polyamory would give me the freedom I’ve come to crave in the last few years as I became more successful in this job, and it does go a long way to give me that, but truthfully, any kind of relationship feels suffocating and limiting. Any kind of relationship threatens to disrupt this good life I’ve worked so hard to create.
I look back at my sleeping sister and that’s all the motivation I need to get back to replying to DMs, which I finish quickly. Likewise, I wrap up all the emails I need to urgently send in less than fifteen minutes and I’m moving on to the next item on my list when another message notification pops up. It’s a forwarded video and message from Harley.
The video is frozen in a random screenshot and that is enough to tell me exactly what the clip is of. There’s nothing but blurred olive skin and the pinky-brown mushroom head of an erect cock.
“Jesus, Harley,” I mumble and flash another look at my sister who hasn’t moved.
My first thought is to swipe away and go back to my list. But my curiosity is piqued. Thinking about Harley and her bratty moods, Miko and his cool confidence, and now, Pablo and his curved dick, has me feeling a little horny. And I like feeling horny. I like it very much.
I dig in my pocket and find my earpods. I pop one of them in my ear and then hold my phone up so it’s right in front of my face. I lick my lips, slide down a little in the chair and clickplay.
“Fuck, baby, yes.” Pablo’s accented voice is soft and deep, like a gravelly purr. “You feel so good. You feel so fucking good.”
His accent catches the end of each word and it’s adorable, which is a strange thing to think when he’s pulling on his dick so hard and tight, it looks like it could come right off his naked body.
In my ears, Pablo whimpers. Then he moans. He actually moans.
Hot blood rushes to my cock.
Oh, he’s good. He’s really good,I think to myself with a knowing smirk.
I switch it off then and pull the plug out of my ear.
I text back to Harley.
And when she doesn’t reply immediately, I imagine her lying in her bed, hand busy between her legs, and my smile deepens.
Chuckling lightly to myself, I have another one of those moments I have occasionally. It’s what I call a How-Is-This-My-Life Moment, because that’s exactly the thought that’s charging through my mind.
I get paid to have sex, a lot of sex, with a lot of people, a lot of beautiful people.
I shake my head and open the browser on my phone to book a sexual health test for next week so I can be clean and safe when finding out what it’s like when Pablo is whimpering like that inmy ear. I may not quite believe that this is my life, but I will tell you something, I fucking love my life.
I. Fucking. Love. My. Life.
Chapter Two
Maeve
I. Fucking. Hate. My. Life.
At least I do right now. Or rather, more specifically, I hateloveand right now I’m fucking surrounded by it at this party held in what I imagine to be one of London’s most prestigious venues – the openair courtyard of a red-brick Regency-era mansion house not a stone’s throw from Clapham Common. When love is everywhere like this, lit up by the thousands of fairy lights strung up above us, it almost has a smell, a stench. I can’t describe it very well but it’s potent and it’s powerful, although I can’t honestly say it smellsbad. It’s just obnoxious and encompassing and overwhelming and I fucking hate it.
And when I say I hate it, what I really mean is,fuck, I want that.Ireallywant that.But I’ll probably never have it, so yeah, it’s easier to hate it, thank you very much.
The love I am looking at and feeling things about is in front of me in the form of two men kissing. Two men with their arms wrapped around each other. Two men with their eyes closed andtheir lips pressed together. Two men who I don’t even hate – not at all. One of the men is like a second brother to me – and yet I feel irrationally grumpy at how he’s getting his happy ending. Or rather his happy beginning.
While I am consumed with jealousy, I am still happy for Jake. Jake deserves the way Rami is looking at him as he pulls away and lifts a finger to stroke Jake’s bottom lip, as if he can’t quite believe his lips just touched something so precious and soft. Jake deserves to hear the cheering and whooping from the surrounding guests at his fortieth birthday party as Rami dives back in to take Jake’s mouth again. Jake truly deserves that euphoric smile after Rami has spun him around, leaning him back as their kiss deepens. Jake deserves it all, even if it gives me a lacerating kind of pain to watch it play out.
