“I love you,” Mac whispered then, his hips flexing, drawing his cock back slowly, then filling her as Jethro retreated slightly from her anus.

Coordinated. Wickedly practiced. The gentle, slow strokes were more destructive for the very fact that they were so well timed, one with the other.

Keiley could do nothing but take the rapturous pleasure exploding through her body now. Each stroke, each thrust, each muttered male groan tore through her with the force of a hard, electrical jolt. She was pinned between them, held, caressed.

Jethro’s lips smoothed over her neck, his teeth raked. Mac’s lips nipped and possessed hers, his tongue licking and penetrating as he forced her to keep her eyes open.

“Don’t close your eyes,” he demanded as they began to drift shut. “Watch me, Keiley. I want to see your eyes. They’re green now, baby. So green I could drown in them. Like the seas. Like emeralds that live and breathe.”

They were moving harder now, taking her, fucking her with driving thrusts and powerful strokes as they strained beneath and behind her.

“Let go!” Mac suddenly snarled. “By God, you will let go!”

Let go? What was she holding besides her sanity?

But a second later, even that was gone. One hand moved from her hips, cupped her breast, his fingers and thumb gripping her nipple as his lips covered hers and his tongue plunged home.

The heated grip on her nipple speared to her womb. His kiss electrified her as Jethro’s teeth bit into her shoulder, and she exploded. She died in their arms. She hurled through a vast, star-studded sky of racing colors and sensations that tore her free of her body as she felt the hard, fierce thrusts inside her body stroking her faster, flinging her higher into an orgasm she knew she would never recover from.

Her muscles tightened to breaking point, her pussy began to convulse as she tightened on the erection thrusting into her rear and felt the tension in her womb begin to melt with a shattering force.

“Fuck!” Mac’s cry was savage. A second later he tensed beneath her, thrusting harder, the strokes tighter before she exploded again amid the heavy, fierce spurts of liquid fire he began pumping inside her.

Behind her, Jethro growled her name, then he, too, fueled the secondary explosions with his own release. She could feel his cock throbbing fiercely inside the tight channel of her anus, but unlike Mac’s release, the fiery drenching was absent.

It didn’t hamper the final explosion of pleasure that raced through her, or the satiation that began to weave through her. She collapsed in her husband’s arms, boneless, drenched in their combined sweat, and quite happy to leave the effort of peeling her from where she rested in their hands.

Hands that were smoothing her body now, gentling the tremors that still ran through her. Hands that joined, gentle male lips that kissed her face, her shoulders, and her back. Hands that soothed and warmed and eased her into a dreamlike state that Keiley realized she never wanted to leave.

11

He was fucked. Jethro realized the curious melting sensation inside his chest for what it was as he lifted Keiley’s boneless body into his arms and stepped back from the chair-stool combination they had used.

The rules were always clear. They always had been. He could share in the tender emotions Mac’s women had for him, but he couldn’t possess them. He couldn’t claim a part of their hearts as his own.

Until Keiley, he hadn’t wanted to.

Now, as Mac forced himself from the chair and set the cushions right, Jethro cradled the tender, nude body of another man’s wife and felt the first stirrings of regret.

“I’ll take her to the bathtub.” Jethro didn’t wait for Mac to take her out of his arms. Hell, he didn’t know if he could bear for Mac to take her from him right now. Not until he immersed himself in this feeling, let it ease into his mind and implant itself forever in his memories. He didn’t want to forget it.

“I’ll be up in a few minutes,” Mac stated impassively. “I put the bath salts under her cabinet.”

There was a ritual to this. Caring for the women who allowed them to share their bodies in such a way. It was a ritual Mac had begun with the first woman he had ever taken with the assistance of another male. It was one Jethro had readily embraced himself once he and Jethro began sharing their lovers.

Or rather, after Mac began sharing his. Jethro had learned early in their friendship that Mac had a way of attracting the gentle, caring women, whereas Jethro always seemed to scare them off.

He moved through the house and headed up the stairs, feeling Keiley’s small hand caress his chest. She thought he was Mac. She was still lost in the dazed aftermath of the powerful orgasms that had torn through her. She didn’t know who held her. She couldn’t know or she wouldn’t be stroking him so gently.

As he stepped into the bedroom she shared with Mac, Jethro couldn’t help but stare at the peaceful, warm atmosphere as he walked through it.

Traditional dark wood was softened with touches of her feminine presence. The flowered comforter over the bed, the vase of dried flowers on the bureau. There was a print of an aerial view of the farmhouse and surrounding pastures on one wall. A print of a fairy in flight on another.

A violet silk robe lay over the end of the bed; a teddy bear that he knew Mac had bought her sat on one end of the dresser.

In this room, the fact that she and Mac suited each other to a tee couldn’t be more apparent. And the fact that he had no place in it had never struck as hard as it did now.

Tightening his jaw, he moved into the bathroom, shifting his precious burden in his arms as he sat on the rim of the large tub.

Son of a bitch. Mac had installed a tub big enough for five people. It was easily the size of the hot tub on the deck behind the house.

Adjusting the water, he kissed Keiley’s head as she began to move about.

“Easy,” he murmured. “You need a hot bath, then you can sleep.”

“I’m hungry,” she muttered.

Jethro grinned at the telling comment. She had burned off enough calories climaxing between him and Mac that she had every right to be hungry. Hell, he was damned hungry himself.

“We’ll feed you after you soak for a while.” He grimaced as he pressed his cheek to her hair, closing his eyes briefly before forcing back the regret.

He was the third. He couldn’t let himself forget that. Mac and Keiley were the whole; he was just there to add to the fun for a while.

Where the hell had his mind been when he came here thinking it would be like it had been all the times before? Fun and games. Laughter and pleasure. He hadn’t expected to be affected by Keiley’s warmth and generous spirit, but in the past two days, he had found himself more than affected.

“Are you okay, Jethro?” she asked quietly, still resting against him as he poured the salts into the water and tested the temperature.

“Just making sure the water’s not too hot.” He closed his eyes again, only to open them again at the sound of movement at the bathroom door.

Mac stood there, dressed in jeans, his chest and feet bare, his gray eyes thoughtful.

His best friend. And Jethro was doing more than lusting after his best friend’s wife.

“She said she’s hungry.” He copped a grin, flashing it quickly before turning away and lifting Keiley into the steaming water of the tub.

“I’m starving.” She settled into the water with a blissful sigh.

“What’s your pleasure, sweetheart?” Mac padded into the room, kneeling on the step of the tub to lean in and kiss her swollen lips.

His hand cupped her cheek as her slender fingers curled against the back of his neck. Jethro felt more like an interloper than he ever had in his life. And he had felt that way often.

“I want pizza,” he heard her murmur as Mac leaned back, bracing his arms on the rim of the large tub as his fingertips caressed her cheek.

“You rest, I’ll order your favorite,” Mac promised her softly, his voice low, intimate as he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Jethro can wash your back for you,” he finished teasingly.

“He should be offering a full back massage.” Her laughter was low, teasing, rueful. “I don’t think I can walk straight for a while.”

“We’ll carry you.” Mac came to his feet and glanced back at Jethro. “I’ll order the pizza. You okay to stay up here?”

Never leave a woman alone after shattering her previous impressions of pleasure. Cuddle her. Spoil her. Keep her comfortable. Mac knew how to do it, and over the years he had taught Jethro how to do it.

“I’ll take care of her.” His gaze flickered to her, watching as she relaxed back into the water and Mac stood.

“I’ll leave her in your hands.” Mac clapped him on the shoulder as he left the bathroom.

Jethro looked around the steamy intimacy of the bathroom. Here, Keiley’s influence was more felt. It was softer than the bedroom, with slate-gray marble cabinets and sink and several narrow shelves that held an array of feminine products: soaps, lotions, and scents. He knew that beneath the cabinet was a built-in drawer system that held makeup. Hanging on an inner wall was a blow dryer and assorted curling irons.

A French door led to a balcony that ran the length of the bathroom and bedroom, the pale gray sheers covered with darker pearl-gray curtains that were presently pulled back.

“You’re too interested in the bathroom walls,” she said with an edge of uncertainty. “I’ll be okay by myself.”

Jethro whipped his head around, staring at the water lapping at her breasts before he let his gaze meet her wide hazel eyes.

He shook his head slowly as he knelt on the lower step that led up to the rim. “Not a chance.” Snagging the bath sponge, he lifted a bottle of bath gel from the wide back rim and soaped it slowly. “Taking care of you will be my privilege.”

“I should be totally embarrassed,” she said as he caught her hand and drew her toward him so he could reach her back. “I’ve never made love with anyone but Mac until now.”

He watched, entranced, as the bubbles gathered on her back, and then her words slammed into his chest. Made love. Had he ever made love until now?

“Did you enjoy it, though?” he murmured as he smoothed the sponge over her shoulders.

She sighed heavily. “Very much. Too much. I’m sure I should be feeling embarrassed or something by now.”

“Don’t have the energy for it?” His lips quirked into a smile.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was reflective as she stared back at him, the short strands of her hair clinging to her cheek and neck as she stared up at him. “Maybe I should be more frightened that I’m not.”

Confusion filled her pretty eyes. They were hazel now, the blend of browns and light greens that he loved so well. But earlier, her eyes had sparkled with green fire. Like gems held suspended within a brown velvet background.

Jethro shook his head at his wary suggestion. “No reason to be frightened, sugar. Mac loves you. You know that. Nothing that happened tonight changed that. I’m just here to help him give you a little extra. That’s all.”

A frown flitted between her brows. “And what do you get out of it, Jethro?”

What did he get out of it? A chance to feel loved, at least the periphery of it. A chance to feel alive as he never had until he saw her.

“More pleasure than you can imagine, Keiley,” he assured he softly.

More pleasure than he had ever believed possible. The darkness of his past and a lifetime of loneliness receded when she was near.

“Enough pleasure to stick around a while?” Mac’s question had him jerking around, almost guiltily.

“You never know.” Jethro grinned, injecting a humor he didn’t feel. “Director’s in no hurry to have me fill my desk right now.”

“Jethro likes to pound on the criminals.” Mac glanced at his wife, his gaze assured, confident of his place in her soul. “I’m trying to convince him to take a vacation when his suspension is up at the end of the week.”