He was wearing a work shirt, and she freed a button, then another, each and every one. She slid her hand inside to feel the heat of him through his tee, the thump of his heart. Her kisses wavered as his hand closed around hers and moved it down – over his hard belly, then pressing it to his even harder erection. She squeezed him through his jeans, earning a low moan and stealing control, if only for a breath.

“I want you,” he said. “So bad.”

“Do you?” Hungry for proof to underline those words, she undid his fly and exposed him.

“You see how bad?” he whispered.

Sam nodded, swallowed, spoke too quietly for the computer’s microphone to possibly hear. “I never thought I’d ever be with another man, after I married him. And not like this.” She stroked his bare cock, wondering if he even knew what she meant. It was undeniably different now, without the condoms. Not the sensations, just… She wasn’t even sure. The way it blurred the few lines left among the three of them. If Mike wasn’t to be the only man who got to have her, she’d have assumed he’d at least be the only one who got to come in her, like that. And if Bern got that, too, and this sex felt so intimate and personal… What was still Mike’s?

Our love.Our home, our day-to-day life, my family. Those were a lot. Those were huge, but she couldn’t help but feel that this was wrong somehow, even with the camera running.

In her gut, and in her heart, it was just the two of them.

It’ll be his, too, when he watches the video. But did she really believe that, or merely want to, for the sake of permission?

“What do you need tonight?” Bern asked, his hips shifting, pushing his cock into her strokes.

“Just to feel good.” Emotions rose and tightened her throat. Just to not feel bad, for a little while. Take me there. Too much to say aloud without risking tears. Mike didn’t need a video of Bern rocking his sobbing, hysterical wife on their couch. That was an intimacy too far, even set against all the carnal things they’d done together.

“Here,” Bern said. The next moment he was on the floor, kneeling before her, coaxing her legs over. She let him slide her pants and underwear off in one slow, gentle motion. His attention was on her skin as he stroked her calves and thighs. There was reverence in his eyes, and his gaze was as soft as she’d ever seen it. She wondered for a brief, dangerous second, what kind of a boyfriend this man would make. He’d so embodied the brash role they’d written for him, it hadn’t occurred to her he could be this tender.

That same scratchy stubble she’d caressed was on her thigh now, a sharp tease to contrast the soft lips trailing kisses up her leg. When he tugged at her hips, she scooted closer, opening up for him. Her fingers tangled in his overgrown hair, and she led his mouth right where she needed it.

A soft lap, another. Deeper, deeper, until he was giving her those hungry strokes she’d been fantasizing about since their very first night in bed together. He gave head like it was a feast. Like it was for him. Mike gave head like he was treating Sam, and he knew exactly what she liked. But there was an undeniable thrill to being consumed, to feeling like this act was something she was giving a man, and not the other way around.

She fisted his hair gently. “Feels good, baby. I like how deep you get.”

He met her gaze. “I’ll show you deep.”

“I bet you will.”

“Not till I make you come.” Bern went back to work.

She loved how he looked from this angle. His eyes were shut, lashes dark and long, brow drawn in concentration or excitement. She studied the streaks at his temples, more silver than gray, she decided. Studied his fingers, and the soft dents they made in her thighs, and his nails… Tidy nails, clean for a man who spent his workdays on building sites.

Words dropped from her subconscious, brightening the space between them. “You’re so sexy.” He gave her more, his nose glancing her clit as he tasted her with long, filthy sweeps of his tongue. Her words had spurred him, but they scared her. Not the words themselves – she was supposed to be objectifying him. No, it was the way she’d spoken them. With more awe than lust. She needed to make this dirty, and fast.

“I need your cock, baby.”

“Do you, then?” He showed no signs of stopping.

“Please. It’s all I can think about.”

He slipped a hand between her legs, two thick fingers sliding deep as his mouth moved to her clit. She gasped from the penetration, and all at once her fretful fib was true – she needed his cock, now. Needed his excitement driving into hers in the rawest, darkest ways, erasing everything outside of the sex.

“You’re wet,” he murmured, fingers pumping. “Wet enough?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

“Want you as wet as I can get you, first. Wanna earn this.”

“You have. Just… please. You. Now.”

He quit teasing. Had he heard in her voice how badly she needed him? Needed his body inside hers, but simpler things as well. His face. His words. The weight and heat of him above her, and the blissful, relentless motion of his hips as he rocked them both into oblivion.

When he stood, Sam lay back. He shed his work shirt, peeled away his tee, pushed his open jeans down his thighs. He stripped naked for her, then joined her on the couch, lowering that thrilling, beautiful body to hers. He held himself up on one arm and angled his cock between her legs, easing in halfway, backing off, edging deeper. He made a wondrous sound, a sigh mixed with a moan, and framed her chest with his forearms, settling in.

“This what you need?” he asked, and began to thrust.

She shut her eyes and dunked herself in the sensations for a long moment. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I need.”

His pace was quick, but not rushed. “You miss this when we’re apart?”

“Every minute.”

“Me, too. I love it inside you, this way,” he whispered, slowing, making her feel how right – how wrong – this was. Just their skin and nothing more, just her excitement and his.

In the back of her mind, she knew he shouldn’t be whispering, but she loved his voice this way, so soft and personal. Hers. She loved these words that made a sacred place of her body, and not for the sake of defiling it.

“You feel so fucking good.” Again, so quiet. Spoken louder, brasher, those words could have fulfilled Mike’s script for the two of them, but whispered this way, they hummed like a secret. His voice grew quieter still when he pressed his mouth to her throat, exhaling in a hot rush. “Soft, and warm —”

“Don’t whisper. He should be able to hear.”

But for once, Bern didn’t do as instructed. There was no way the recording caught it when he told her, “There’s things I want just between you and me.”

“It can’t work that way.”

“Only words, Sam. What he wants brought me here,” he murmured, and nipped at her neck. “I say the sorts of things he wants to hear, fuck you how he wants to see us. I’m his porn star, taking his requests, but I’m a man, too. I don’t ask for much. Just a few harmless words.”

Were they harmless, though? If the things he was saying weren’t hurtful to Mike…

It’s not letting him hear that’s hurtful.

Or would not allowing Bern to voice them be just as hurtful? He wasn’t their whore, after all. He was their lover, and his needs mattered.

She whispered back, “What else?”

Bern moaned, and loud enough to be heard. He took her hard and quick with long, deep thrusts, before settling back into the steadier motions.

“I think about you,” he breathed. “About what we’ve done. And about you watching us doing those things. Watching the movies.”

She clawed his back, making him buck.

“Tell me you’ve watched.”

“I have.”

“Tell me…” He panted, sounding all at once overcome, his powerful body growing graceless and heavy. “Tell me it was real, the times I’ve made you come.”