The Heart Wants Ch. 14-17

I kissed her, my eyes closing as I felt my mind clear as I enjoyed the feel of her lips on mine.

As we broke, I raised my hands, holding her face between them, my thumbs rolling beneath her eyes, feeling the sensation of her skin beneath mine...

I shook my head at her, "My god... you are so beautiful."

That brought a smile to her lips as she tilted her head in my grasp, "Don't be silly. I'm not beautiful. Rachel is beautiful. I'm just cute!"

I pulled her in again, kissing those all too kissable lips, this time feeling the fire for her in my heart spread through to my body. She put her hand on my wrist, her face still pressed between my palms.

"I won't give up on you," I promised as our lips parted, "don't give up on me?"

She smiled at me, "I don't think I can..."

We parted, each of us moving back to our tasks.

"So how was your trip?"

I took a moment to think about whether or not that was a trap... was she asking about me being with Rachel, or just the trip in general?

"It was good. I... uh... I think I kind of have a job now..."

She looked at me a big smile on her face, "A job?"

I kept chopping, "Yeah. After this whole mess the company asked if I would do some computer consulting. Give a thumbs up or a thumbs down on the new security infrastructure. Their getting me remote access now so I can start closing the security loopholes that are a big dot deal right this second," my eyes flashed to hers, "which they say will take a 'couple of days', which is fucking stupid on their part. After that, I start helping them review companies and getting them set up. It's going to be a really big project."

She reached over, taking a piece of celery from my pile and sticking it in her mouth, "Do you have time for all of that, you know, with school and everything?"

I shook my head, "Not really. The remote access stuff is easy. I can close stuff up pretty quickly there and work it around my schedule. Yeah, I won't be getting a lot of sleep in the next few weeks, but it's doable. The backend stuff, the evaluating security proposals, checking infrastructure stuff, that's going to be a lot more work. Plus, I'm going to have to go out there at least a few times over the next month or so..."

I let that comment set a little, curious, given her comment about her being jealous about me sleeping with Rachel and the fact that Rachel was going to be there while I was taking those trips...

She looked at me, smiling, "Rachel will like that."

I set my knife down and pressed my palms flat to the counter, "Look... I heard what you said about being jealous about me being with Rachel earlier, and I want you to know I'm sorry." I put all the sincerity into my eyes that I could, "It won't happen again."

She sighed, setting her own knife down, "I didn't mean that..."

"About being jealous?"

She smiled rolling her eyes, "No. I was jealous... I just didn't mean that I was angry about you sleeping with her. I don't want to tell you what to do. I don't own you."

I mulled the idea around in my head, trying to figure out what I wanted to say, "I know that. I just figure... look... I like Rachel... I mean, I really care about her, but you're more important to me than anything else. I'm not going to do anything to risk that."

She shook her head, and I could tell that she was not happy about what I had said...

"I didn't mean it like that. I... it's just that it's..." she sighed, and I could tell she was having trouble putting her thoughts into words, "complicated. The way that I feel. I think it's just the newness of it all."

I tried to wrap my mind around what she was saying, tried to make myself understand not only what she was saying, but the meaning underneath it all. "Okay. That's fair. Let me ask you this? When Rachel is with someone else, does it make you feel the same way?"

She looked at the counter, her face screwing up while she mulled it over, "Yes and no. I mean, on some level I'm disappointed that I can't give her what she wants, but more importantly I'm happy that she's with me and I want her to be happy. I want her to have everything she wants."

I smiled at her, "Then I want you to understand, all I need is you to be happy. I messed that up, and I lost sight of that."

She looked at me and I could tell, once again she was not happy with what I had said, "Did you like it?"

Guilt smashed into me, forcing me to look down, "Yes. I... physically it was great."

"And emotionally? Mentally?"

I made my eyes come back up to meet hers, "Emotionally I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel something for Rachel." I felt some of the air go out of me. "Not what I feel for you, not as strong, but still..."

She smiled, which surprised me, "Like if I wasn't in your life and you just knew her?"

I nodded, "I'd be head over heels for her."

Nodding, her smile got broader, "I understand what you mean. For me, it's like that..." her eyes went down and I could see some guilt on her face.

"But Rachel is your number one?" I had to ask the question. It hurt to even give it words, it hurt to be put second, but I loved her so much... I just couldn't bring myself to care. I would accept whatever it was that she could give me...

She shook her head though, "No. For me, it flips around. One second, I'm obsessed with her. The next with you. It sucks to say it, because you're telling me that in your mind I'm always first, but for me... it's kind of a tie."

My mind may have simply been playing tricks on me, it may have been trying to get me to accept a shitty situation just because I was desperate to have her in my life, but somehow, somehow being in a tie for Laurel's love with Rachel made everything seem okay."

She continued, "And I get what you're saying. Before you, I had Rachel and that was awesome, but I also know, if Rachel wasn't in my life I would be head over heels for you."

I smiled, "Thank you."

She chewed on her lip, like she had something to say and she was convinced I was not going to be happy about it... my defenses started coming up...

"And that's why I think that you should keep... having fun with Rachel."

I felt shock push me back a bit, "What?"

She sighed, and I tried to remind myself to be patient, to hear her out. I tried to remind myself that I didn't really understand a lot about this situation and it made me make assumptions that were most likely not correct...

"You asked me if I was jealous about Rachel being with other men, right?"

I nodded, "Yes."

"I am. A little. I think until now I kind of lied to myself about it, or I minimized it thinking that I'm not a man, and what she wanted sexually was a man." Her eyes pierced into me, "I feel better about her being with you than with some strange man. I worry about her. About her being safe... and about what being with those strange men is doing to her mentally."

I tilted my head, trying to understand what she was saying. On one level, I got it completely. Rachel was engaging in some pretty risky behavior. She was hooking up with strange men, often while alone in a strange town. Sex was a huge part of the equation and all it would take is one fucking asshole for her life to take a pretty fucking dark turn. What I didn't understand was how that was affecting Rachel mentally. I had never seen that aspect to her, and knowing Rachel the way I knew I did, I had the feeling it wasn't something that she was ever going to talk about openly with me. It made me feel like a bit of a heel... like I was taking to Laurel about Rachel behind her back, but it still worried me...

"Mentally?"

Laurel picked her knife back up and kept cutting up the chicken, "Rachel is a bit on the..." she looked at me, raising an eyebrow, "submissive side? She wants to seem all tough but inside she's a really sensitive person. When she's with another man..." she shook her head, "there's like this brittleness inside. It's there for a few days afterwards. Yesterday morning, she called me when you got on the plane and she just had this glow in her voice. She didn't say anything about you two," her eyes met mine, a wry smile on her face, "I'm guessing because you asked her not to, but I could tell that you two had slept together."

I picked my knife back up and continued dicing... just keeping quiet while I let Laurel talk.

She kind of worked her jaw for a second, "I'm going to ask a really shitty question, and I want you to know... you don't have to answer it if you don't want to..."

My eyes met hers as my eyebrows went up...

She smiled nervously, "When you two had sex... what was it like?"

The question surprised me so much I felt my head go back a bit...

That was a tough question to answer. On one hand, I felt like it was an invasion of the privacy that Rachel and I had shared the night before, but on the other I kind of felt like Laurel was asking because she had some deeper underlying reason for wanting to know. It wasn't that she wanted the dirty details. It wasn't even like she was asking because she wanted to satisfy some morbid curiosity she held in her own heart. She seemed genuinely worried about something. Some piece of the puzzle I didn't know, or at least didn't understand.

I still didn't want to break Rachel's confidence...

I scratched my face, my nails raking beneath my right eye as I thought, "I, uh..."

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that Laurel had everyone's best interests at heart...

She spared me the need, "What I mean is was it fast and hard? Just you two fucking each other's brains out? Or was it more like what you and I shared? Lovemaking?"

Alarm bells went off in my head...

She smiled, "That look on your face pretty much tells me. More like what you and I shared? And now you're worried that's going to make me angry?"

A pained look on my face, I answered, "Yes to both?"

She nodded quickly like some internal tumbler had fallen in place in some lock in her own mind she was working on. "You remember I told you that sometimes I'll help Rachel pick out a guy?"

"Yes."

She continued to cut the meat, her knife making quick, efficient little strokes, "And then she'd come home and I'd kind of roleplay that back for her? She'd be the guy and I'd be her?"

I nodded.

Her eyes came back up to me and I could see real worry there. "Every time, Rachel would always be like a ragdoll while we played. The guy just completely using her. At first, I just kind of assumed that she liked the roleplay, but the more I saw it, the more it worried me."

I shrugged, picking up a pile of celery and dropping it into a bright yellow ceramic bowl that Laurel had laid out, "Maybe she wasn't being honest with you? I mean, maybe she just enjoyed playing with you in a way that was different than she played with them?"

I stopped, a bit of panic splashing through me as I realized that I had just intimated that Rachel had been dishonest with Laurel, something which, in the context of what we were talking about could be seen as something tantamount to cheating...

Laurel shook her head, "No. Rachel's not like that. She's... she's not aggressive in bed. In fact, she's really sweet. If she was going to make up the encounter, her personality would put her in the submissive role."

Her face twisted up in a wicked, naughty smile, "I'm kind of the aggressive one in bed... I... uh... I like to be a little bossy..."

I smiled, shaking my head, but also realized that that wasn't what I had seen from her the other night, "When you were with me though, you weren't aggressive. If anything, I would say you were a little shy."

She nibbled at her lip and I could tell her mind was going to some naughty places, "It was my first time with a boy. Cut me some slack." She ground her teeth a little, "In fact. I'm having some thoughts right now about some of the things I'd like to try with you..."

Picking up a piece of sausage she cut it lengthwise aggressively...

I gulped a little, "Can we not talk about anything sexual while you're castrating a sausage... it uh... kind of ruins the mood?"

She threw her head back, laughing hard. Her eyes came back down and met mine her tone something deeply sensual. Then she rammed the knife down hard, cutting the tip off of the sausage...

I gulped much harder this time, "For the record, we're not getting anywhere near that rough in the bedroom. You haul out a knife and this beautiful thing we have is over..."

"Maybe I should just push you down on the floor right now and take you..."

Looking into her eyes, I saw a whole new side of her. She wasn't playing, or, well, she was playing a little, the knife thing was just a joke, but her comment about taking me, that was one hundred percent her...

Okay... maybe she was a little on the aggressive side...

Which sounded really fucking delicious...

I tilted my head at her, "Stay on topic, horndog."

Her eyes flashed around the room, like she was trying to gather her thoughts again, "Oh! Yeah! Rachel. Rachel is not the take charge in the bedroom type. She can be really aggressive in her flirtations, but once she gets going she prefers to let her partner just kind of take over. She's pretty compliant."

I didn't get why any of this was important? It sounded like the thing she was concerned about was exactly the way that Rachel behaved with the men she was with, or at least, it was what Rachel was communicating to Laurel she was like...

"So why is that important?"

Laurel had finished disemboweling the sausage she was working on, "She likes to play at first, but once she's going she prefers to have things settle down into this really passionate, really powerful..." I could see her struggling to find the right word, "thing. I can play with her, and be aggressive and that's the thing that really gets me going and makes it easy for me to get off, but for her, until she hits that point where things turn really tender she's just kind of giving. Without that tenderness, she's never really satisfied."

Her eyes bored into me and I started to understand a small sliver of what she was talking about...

"She's not getting that with the men she's with. They're using her, and she knows that. Up until now she's been putting up a barrier because as much as she needs the outlet for herself she's been scared to cross a line with me and really allow herself to connect emotionally with a man, which I think is something she really needs."

What she was saying made sense... at least on one hand it did, but on the other, "Are you asking me to keep fucking your girlfriend?"

She threw a piece of sausage at me, which I caught, "No. I'm asking you to make love to her. I'm asking you to be there like I know she's going to be there for you."

She stopped herself, a strange sense of awkwardness suddenly coming over her, "I'm asking if we can't try figuring out a way for all of us to kind of work out..." she threw up her hand, "this whole weird thing. I'm asking for us to not put a lot of rules on it until we all really get on the same page."

I looked down at the counter, trying to fend off the evil devil in my mind that screamed in glee knowing that I was going to get to keep having sex with two wonderful, beautiful, amazing women...

Scratching at my chin I asked the only question I really thought mattered, "And that's the only reason you're asking?"

She tilted her head, "What do you mean?"

I shrugged, "Well. I mean... what you're saying makes sense. I get it, but a part of me wonders if this isn't just a dodge to avoid some of your own guilt."

Her head snapped back, in obvious surprise, "Guilt?"

I shrugged again, "Yeah. I mean... I get the impression you kind of plan on continuing a relationship with me and with Rachel regardless of what the two of us choose to do with each other? Is it not possible that you're compromising a bit? Like you're trying to push the two of us together because you're worried that setting a boundary between us kind of makes you a hypocrite?"

I kind of expected the question to offend her, but it was also something that I felt really needed to be said.

She surprised me by not getting offended, but by instead thinking critically about what I had asked her. Her eyes finally came up, looking into my soul, "No. It's not that. Honestly, I do really think it's best for the two of you..." she tilted her head, "well... now that I think of it... it probably isn't what's best for the two," she emphasized the word, "of you. I do really think it's the best thing for Rachel. For you..." she shook her head, "it may not be the best thing."

I tilted my head at her, "Why don't you think it's good for me?"

She smiled at me, "Because you're pretty weirded out by this whole relationship. I think for you, it's going to be important to take things slowly." She made a face, "I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but you're still pretty hung up on the whole one guy, one girl thing..."

I felt my jaw drop open, "And what makes you think that?"

She smiled back at me, "If I asked you to have sex with me and Rachel at the same time?"

My mind threw about thirty different circuit breakers, all at the same time...

"I... uh..." my mind flashed through how that would look. Yes, on a carnal, visceral level the thought of the two of them in bed with me sounded amazingly appealing...

Just the thought of that however, filled me with something like embarrassment, shame maybe?

"I... would... um..." I stammered, trying to think of the correct response. "Well I only have the one... uh... you know... I mean... I can... uh... only... um... entertain one lady at a time?"

She burst out laughing, obviously getting a tremendous kick out of teasing me and making me uncomfortable, "See!"

I raised my hands as if I was trying to fend her off, "Now just a second here!"

Her jaw jutted out in a hungry expression, "And if I wanted you to watch us have sex?"

I actually gulped that sounded so fucking good. My mind filled with images of the two of them together, writhing, kissing, sharing their bodies with one another...

My head nodded involuntarily, "I really want that..."

She smiled, throwing another piece of sausage at me, which I promptly caught and ate, the sausage filling my mouth with beautiful, satisfying spiciness.

"Pervert." She muttered as she gathered the rest of the sausage up and threw it in the bowl with my carrots and celery. "Shrimp?"

I looked down, playing, "Well, I wouldn't call it shrimpy... I mean it's kind of on the average size..."

She rolled her eyes at me, "Men. All of you always worried about how big your dick is! I meant do you want shrimp in the jambalaya?"

I stuck my tongue out, "Blah! I hate seafood!"

She dropped her jaw in mock outrage, "Philistine! Jambalaya without shrimp?"

I dipped over and grabbed another piece of sausage, popping it into my mouth, "Hey, don't blame me, I didn't pick jambalaya!"

She walked around the kitchen island, holding the bowl between her hands and gave me a quick kiss, just a peck really. "Don't sweat it too much. Rachel doesn't like it with shrimp either."

"Now let's not get off topic. We were talking about my dick size here..."

She rolled her eyes at me, "Well, I'm happy with it, but it's the only one I've ever had, so I'm probably not the best judge of that!" she told me as she dropped a big, expensive looking wok on the stove.

Turning I found a stray piece of celery on the counter and popped it into my mouth. She slipped up behind me, standing on her tiptoes she whispered in my ear, "And Rachel is impressed too..."

I flipped around, "What the hell? You guys sharing notes now?"

She gave me an evil smile, "Just a quick phone call..."

My jaw dropped, "You two little minxes!"

She turned and flipped the burner on the stove on.

Stepping forward I grabbed her arm, spinning her around and planted a kiss on her to stop her heart. One of my hands round its way into her shirt, closing on her body just above her hip as the other went to the back of her neck. I found myself slipping my tongue into her mouth aggressively...