“You’ve still got time to try those other things, online. I can understand how it felt cheap at the time, but if it does for you what our games do for Mike, you’d be crazy not to. Plus, I’m sure you’d earn yourself a heck of a following.”

“Especially if I’m comfortable telling myself all my viewers are women. And pretending to believe it.”

She laughed. “Oh, true. It might take some suspension of disbelief. And for now, I’m happy to continue making the massive sacrifice it requires to indulge you, and be the sole audience for your one-man shows.”

“What a saint you are,” Bern teased, his smile sharp and hot.

“What a saint you are, so selflessly stepping in to be the gasoline squirted all over Mike’s and my sex life.” She bit her lip, feeling just a touch off base as she gave voice to her next thought. “Is it almost as good as knowing you’re being watched, knowing there’s some couple across town, talking about you while they’re having sex?”

His cheeks pinkened, if she wasn’t mistaken, his gaze darting away for a second before pinning hers again. “I’d say it’s a tie.”

A laugh fizzled in Sam’s throat. There was something in his eyes… something loaded, and a little hazy. A look she knew well from any number of first kisses, first dates. That muted hunger of attraction. It should come as no surprise, given everything they’d done to each other, and everything he was here to do with her tonight, and yet…

He wants to kiss me. And she wanted to kiss him – she felt the tug as she might with a man she’d never even touched before. Curiosity and magnetism. She wondered if it shone in her eyes, too. Bern’s lids looked heavy, and his lips were parted.

Don’t you dare.

But she should’ve known he wasn’t the kind of man you dared.

Those lips came down to hers, and they were hot. Full. Their noses brushed, and this could have been a stranger, for all the uncertainty she felt. Her hands rose, fingertips met by his stubble, the heat of his skin and the firm shape of his jaw filling her palms.

When they kissed for Mike, it was a cocky, aggressive act. This was far softer, slower. Intimate. Wrong – and not in the good way.

Kill it now. But in her few seconds’ hesitation, he intensified the kiss, and instead of stopping him, Sam angled her head and invited him deeper. This tasted like so much more than Malbec.

He was making her all warm and foggy, winding her up.

She put her hand firmly on his chest. “We should stop.” Christ, her voice was all husky and low. She cleared her throat. Bern covered her hand with his, pressing it tight – but only for a breath. Then he seemed to catch himself, and let her go. She linked her fingers carefully atop her thigh and willed her heart to slow.

“Yeah.” He nodded, gaze on her hands. “We should.”

“If it’s not for his eyes or his ears, it’s… I don’t know exactly why, but it doesn’t feel right.”

Another nod, yet she didn’t sense much conviction when he said, “Of course.”

She stood and grabbed their empty glasses, and made her voice light. “It’s just about showtime, anyway. No reason we can’t misbehave for the camera.”

Bern got to his feet, slipping a hand down the front of his jeans to adjust himself. That alone got Sam’s pulse spiking. I’ve got way too much power over these men. A position she’d never imagined she’d find herself in, back when she’d just begun to picture how the realization of Mike’s kink might look. Before the games had begun, her fear had been that she might feel exploited. Not bullied but coerced by her own need to feel like she was enough for him. She’d worried back then that she might feel manipulated, even though, in reality, she was fast becoming the ringmaster.

And if she had any doubt of that, Bern held his arm out and said, “Lead the way.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

As they headed up the stairs, Sam said, “So, we’re pretending like he’s hidden a camera tonight.”

The whiny floorboard creaked under Bern’s weight. “But he’s joining us later?”

“Yeah.”

No reply, and at the threshold of the bedroom she turned to find him smiling. “What?”

“We’re all through with the condoms tonight, right?”

She nodded, biting her lip. “That’s right. Unless you’ve suddenly changed your mind?”

“If you knew how much I hate needles, the fact that I got the tests done would tell you how in I am.” He stepped close, thighs brushing hers, chin at her temple. She felt his fingers in her hair and the heat of his breath as he spoke. “You know what I can’t figure out, though?” he murmured.

“What?”

“So I get to fuck you bare tonight,” he said, and her pussy gave an eager squeeze.

“Yes, you do.”

“But I can’t decide what I want to do to get you wet for me.”

She shivered. “It won’t take much.”

“My mouth, maybe.” The mouth in question brushed a soft kiss against her forehead, and Sam could nearly feel his tongue between her thighs, taunting with its deep, savoring laps. Then she imagined his cock there, no condom, no lube. Only skin on skin, just her and him. She swallowed.

“Or maybe we should just go ahead and find out,” he said, so soft it was barely a whisper. A current of intimacy crackled between them, one that felt dangerously disconnected from Mike. He ought to hear every word, she thought – every nonlogistical one. Unspoken rules dictated that he read their e-mails, watch nearly every moment they were together, or at least be given a chance to do those things. To deny him access to her and Bern’s sexual relationship felt too much like actual infidelity for Sam’s comfort.

You’re thinking way too hard about it. Mike likes feeling jealous and left out. Now be a good little wife and fuck this hot man.

Well said.

“Wait here a sec,” she told Bern. “I’ll hit RECORD before I turn the lights on, so my dicking around in front of the camera doesn’t wreck the illusion.”

She padded through the dark room and opened her laptop, dimming the screen as far as it went. She double-checked it was Mike’s username she was contacting, then hit CHAT. From the top of the dresser, the camera’s light turned red, its lens aimed at the bed. She hurried back out to Bern.

“Showtime.”

She barely heard the growl of a “good” he uttered before his mouth was back on hers, a hundred times hungrier than before. Bossy hands held her head, and he walked her backward into the room, knocking the light switch up to illuminate it all for Mike.

He broke their mouths apart and ran gruff palms up her sides, cupped her breasts. “Been thinking about you all day. Every bit of you.”

She grabbed his belt in both hands, mirroring his aggression. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since last time.”

“What’ve you missed most?” he demanded, his pushy body crowding her to the edge of the bed, forcing her to sit.

“How good you make me feel.” She fisted his collar and drew him down on top of her, wrapping her legs around his waist. She could feel the stiff insistence of him and it curled her fingers into claws against his back. He locked his strong arms erect at either side of her ribs, staring down at her as his hips began to roll.

“Can’t wait to get inside you,” he said.

“Good. I want every inch of you.”

“Deep?”

“Deep. And bare.” Just saying it now gave her a thrill, and from something more than simple taboo. Something possessive. You’re mine, she thought, holding his stare. Nobody gets you except me. Not forever, but for now – and that was more than enough. Hypocritical though her excitement was, she couldn’t deny its potency. She’d thought her days of calling a new man hers alone were over, but as always, Mike’s desires rewrote her perceptions of what sex could be. Who she could be, as a sexual person. As a woman.