Cross My Heart. AM Hartnett

a one-on-one session.’

      ‘That’s not going to happen,’ he said quickly and sharply, then took a deep breath. ‘You’ve got to be there. I won’t do this without you. It’s for both of us.’

      Beneath the covers, Ryan pushed his thigh between hers and cupped her ass. ‘You know this is as much about you as it is me. If I just wanted a fuck, I could get one in about five minutes. I want something more. I want you.’

      There, another spark of words on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to say those three words so badly she felt them swelling in her chest until she burned.

      Yet she didn’t. She wouldn’t say it unless she was sure he’d say it back. The thought of letting those words free to wreak havoc without knowing for sure that Ryan would be there to rescue her was terrifying. Instead she put the force of those words into a kiss, twining her leg around him and struggling to rise up over him.

      ‘I want you, too,’ she whispered, and paused to be sure that she’d said those words and not the other words. He pushed his fingers into her hair, the sting as possessive as the hard mouth against hers.

      His grip remained unrelenting after she’d mounted him, and it spurred her to ride him as hard as he had ridden her. His eyes shone fierce in the candlelight, and she tried to imagine that gaze flicking over her shoulder to the man whose fingers linked with Ryan’s in the tangle of her hair.

       Chapter Two

      Ryan always was a morning person. He loved the hush that could only be found as the daylight began to stain the night sky and before the crows began their noisy morning conversation. He loved taking his coffee on to the fire escape and just decompressing with a book or morning radio before the day intruded.

      And lately he loved coming back to Evie in his bed. Between his coffee and his shower, he closed his eyes and synced his breathing to hers. She stirred as he made his reluctant retreat but didn’t wake, and the small happy sound she made almost called him back. He didn’t stay, but those five minutes when he snuggled up next to her and wrapped his arms around her stayed with him longer than the coffee. He’d conjure it midway through his shift, when he knew he still had four hours to go before he could head home and do nothing but wait for her workday to end. He’d linger at the bedside a moment longer and smile as she wiggled to the centre until she was just a small bump in the bed, and with a low groan he’d go to his shower.

      That morning he managed to keep his frustration at bay through his shower and dressing, but once he was at the bus stop with his earphones on it crept over him.

      The nerves had returned. Back when he and Evie had first started up and he was flirting with the idea of telling her his secret, his guts had twisted constantly. Sitting on the sofa with her in the crook of his arm, staring at the television but not really seeing it, nor really feeling the hard pebble of her nipple as he toyed with it beneath her sweater, he’d gone breathless with fear. By that point they’d started to divulge their tastes to each other. She trusted him enough to tell him about her penchant for being pushed down and treated like a plaything. She’d confessed that she’d never tried anal but had always wanted to, and had trusted him completely as he worked her up from a small vibrator to his cock. She’d bought the restraints that were now tucked away in the bottom drawer of her dresser. Her eyes went wide and she tried to keep her smile from getting too big every time she made a confession, and he could have burst with wanting to make her fantasies come true.

      And yet his own had been so hard to confess. He held back again and again, until one afternoon when he was at work and she was at home they texted back and forth, and after he asked her to send him a short video of her using her vibrator she asked if that was one of his fantasies to watch. Somehow his attempt at a little saucy fun turned into a discussion about how he had never told her any of his fantasies. When she seemed to be upset, he agreed to tell her when he got home.

      In bed, with Evie resting her chin on his chest and looking up at him, he had told her. He’d expected the worst when he revealed that he was bisexual. He couldn’t even make eye contact with her, instead talking to her chin and her neck. He didn’t want to see the excited glint in her eye fade as he told her he wanted to bring another man into bed with them.

      But Evie was limitless when it came to her curiosities, it seemed. She’d crawled along the length of his body and leaned forward, sheltering them both in the veil of her hair.

      ‘What would he do?’ she whispered against his mouth, and as he let loose one fantasy after another she rocked against him. He didn’t hold back. He spilled his guts and held her hips as she bobbed over his cock, and her climax squeezing around him was the most glorious feeling in the world riding on the weightlessness of his confession. He’d turned her over and kept talking as he fucked her, telling her not only what he wanted this other man to do to him but what he wanted them both to do to her.

      They’d carried on all night and then slept the day away, and Ryan had gone weak in the knees when she shuffled in his wake as he made a late breakfast. Hair mussed and eyes bright, the halves of her ass peeking from the hem of her nightshirt and still bearing the shape of his hand. She looked fearless to him. When she suggested they make his fantasy a reality he agreed.

      They should have just done it, he realised now as he flashed his transit pass to the driver and took the first empty seat on the bus. Gone out together, had a few drinks and found someone to bring home. That had been her suggestion, but he didn’t want some sloppy hook-up. He and Evie had fitted so well together that he didn’t want to risk ruining that with just anyone.

      So he’d made the profile online. 28M and 23F seeking another playmate. He’d used a selfie in front of the mirror as his profile picture. He’d been clear in his profile that he was looking for a bisexual man to join them. He was upfront about the games he and Evie played. The response had been immediate and disappointing: explicitly gay men who were only interested in Ryan, old men and young men, some just looking for a show via webcam and others bringing invitations to group events.

      How hard is it to find a bisexual guy in his late twenties to mid-thirties who doesn’t immediately come off as deranged? Agonisingly hard, apparently.

      He and Evie had thought they’d finally found someone last week, a barrel-chested man in his early forties. Both of them answered his messages and were optimistic. He communicated well and when Evie had sent him a below-neck picture in her bra and panties he had been respectfully complimentary. His interest was in both of them but, just as they entertained the idea of asking for a meeting, the man lost interest following a discussion about kink. He said that he didn’t think they were compatible, that his tastes were more intense than what they were used to, and that it was best that they didn’t waste one another’s time.

      That’s the version that Evie got. She hadn’t known about the one Ryan had deleted where REDWOLF77 had grilled him about his relationship with Evie, then questioned whether Ryan really could keep it together while watching another man treating Evie to the same savage loving as Ryan’s.

       Can you honestly say that you’d have no problem watching me tie her hands over her head, stuff her own panties in her mouth and fuck her until she can’t stop shaking? I think you would. You come off as very protective of her. I think we’d have a problem in a hurry.

      Up until that point he had been wrapped up in Evie and living out those filthy fairy tales they spun together. He’d close his eyes to think about her shivering as he and another man closed in on her and in minutes he’d be seeing stars while a sticky mess ran down his hand. He was dying to know if she’d make the same sounds while another man used his tongue on her, if she’d bite her lip or if she’d buck and scream as she took a cock that wasn’t his. Would she touch herself when another man puckered his mouth around Ryan’s dick? Would she come, or would she wait for one of them – or both of them – to take her there?

      He needed time to process the doubt REDWOLF77 had poisoned him with. He’d wanted to give