Men of Fortune 1: Derek Read online

  And she knew what she was talking about. She was never one to stop from going after something—or someone—she wanted.

  For all of her sexual proclivities, Lily was right up there among the people he trusted. After all, he’d known her for the greater part of his life and they’d shared secrets and confidences, not to mention that she was his first, as he was hers. Being of the same age, they’d gravitated to each other when the first sexual stirrings had hit and they’d practiced together for most of the first year, developing and fine-tuning their techniques.

  “I know that, you know that, but she doesn’t know that.” Derek couldn’t help himself; he glared at Matthias. The man shouldn’t have said something that didn’t help.

  “Such things take time,” Adam, who was a fellow photographer at De Vitners, remarked, his fingers busy with the buttons on Lily’s blouse. Having dispensed with those, he reached beneath the fabric toward the back, where he unclasped her bra. He pulled down the right cup and released a little moan of appreciation as Lily’s bare breast popped out, then he lowered his head and suckled.

  Derek could understand Adam’s reaction, because Lily’s breast was ripe and round and plump, a tender morsel for a hungry man. Yet, he couldn’t help but thought wistfully of Carly’s smaller mounds and wished he were now in bed with her.

  After dinner, they’d repaired to The Sex Haunt, a bar that catered to the wild and raunchy, where public sex was often the norm. The place had become their regular hangout ever since they’d discovered it five years ago. Sometimes they’d bring their dates for a round of exhibitionist sex, but most of the time, they just drank and watched.

  Derek had never brought Carly over, not once, and as he stared at Lily’s half-naked state, he realized it was because he’d wanted his wife all to himself. He hadn’t wanted his cousins or other men ogling Carly’s nakedness.

  Yet, watching Lily made him realized he missed this, missed seeing his woman being pleasured by his cousins. He remembered how he used to get off on the sight. He’d been so aroused that when it was his turn, he’d fucked his girlfriends like a lion on a rampage, and they’d loved it. As the image of Lily sitting on Adam’s lap was replaced by that of Carly, he found himself growing hard, his heart pounding.

  Even as he was becoming aroused, he could feel a nagging unease at the picture—

  “Derek?” Matthias’s voice, questioning.

  He scrambled to remember the last comment. Ah, Adam, saying that building up Carly’s confidence took time. “It’s been four months since we officially started dating, and I’ve been doing all I can to bolster her confidence. I would’ve thought—”

  “But,” Matthias butted in, “you did say her mother had eighteen years to do damage before Carly moved out of their home.”

  “So I have to wait eighteen years? Oh, right, it’s eighteen years less four months.”

  “Derek,” Adam chided, lifting his head. “Sarcasm doesn’t help.” He gasped then, and by the secret smile on Lily’s lips and the movement of her hands, Derek guessed she was giving Adam a handjob.

  Remorse flooded him at Adam’s mild scold. Matthias was only trying to help by applying his logical brain to the problem. “Sorry, man.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Matthias waved away the apology. “I get worse from my students, especially when they’re trying to wriggle out of detention.”

  Matthias was a teacher at the local high school. Not only did he love kids, but his stern visage was perfect when it came to discipline. Derek had no doubt he’d make principal one day, if Matthias wanted. The problem was, Matthias loved teaching more than dealing with the paperwork.

  “Why do they get sent to detention?” Lily asked, all innocence that was belied by the increasing fast rhythm of her hand. “Was it because they were trying to seduce you?”

  Matthias released a bark of laughter. “Your head’s always in the gutter,” he said, amused.

  “It’s a nice place to be.” She shrugged, and when Adam groaned and buried his face against her neck, she continued, “Just ask Adam.” She lifted her hand and, with a smoldering look in her eyes, licked the spunk on her hand.

  Derek felt his cock jerk at the sensuous picture she made. The other men also shifted in their seats, but while they could indulge with her, should she be willing, he couldn’t. He was a married man, no matter how tight and sweet Lily was, no matter that the sex would be nothing but merely a mutual release for pleasure. He couldn’t be unfaithful to his wife.

  Lily slithered down from Adam’s lap to the floor, where she was probably licking him clean under the table. A moment later, Derek saw her move on to Oliver, who was seated beside him. She unbuckled his belt and was soon licking and sucking his cock. His cousin groaned and closed his eyes, and Derek knew he wouldn’t be able to contribute to the discussion in the next few minutes.

  “Carly is a mess.” Nathan’s comment drew him back into the conversation. The second oldest of them all, logical-minded Nathan was a ruthless businessman.

  All their fathers were siblings. While Derek and Matthias were their parents’ only child, Nathan had a younger brother—Oliver—while Adam had an older sibling named Rafe. In terms of age, Rafe was the oldest at thirty-five, while at twenty-nine, Oliver was the youngest.

  Nathan raised a hand when Derek started to protest. “I’m only calling it like it is—”

  “The thing is though, if you put yourself in her shoes, you’d understand why Carly is the way she is.” Adam came to his rescue, all the while securing his trousers.

  Derek was the closest to him, as they were roommates together in college then colleagues after graduation. What they knew of photography, they shared with the other. This sharing extended to women, cars, cameras, and, in the initial stages of Derek’s courtship of Carly, some facts on Carly’s background. He’d been incensed when he’d heard Carly’s childhood stories, and he’d wanted to vent. Who better than Adam? What Derek never shared though were the private moments he and Carly had, especially once they started going exclusive.

  “You’re missing some facts, so let me put it this way to you macho guys,” Adam was saying. “All her life, her mother has been putting her down, telling her she isn’t pretty, she’s good for nothing, that she can never measure up to her beautiful elder sister, that no man would ever want her. To a young girl, those kinds of statements can be pretty damaging, leaving scars she’d carry to adulthood.”

  Nathan made a disgusted noise. “That woman isn’t fit to be a mother.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir.” Adam nodded.

  “Why would a woman do that to her own daughter?”

  “We’re not sure.” Derek faced this topic with weary resignation, knowing nothing he did could change Carly’s past. The most he could do was to help her get over and passed it. “By Carly’s choice, she’s now estranged from her mother, but we’ve pieced together a picture—sort of—from what her mother had dropped over the years. We think Carly’s father may have promised to give Carly’s mom a good life, but then, the guy disappeared, saddling Carly’s mom with another daughter—Carly, who was still an infant at that time—and making their already dire circumstances even worse. Her mom’s hatred for the guy could’ve transferred to the daughter.” Derek shrugged. “This is all supposition, as we don’t have the facts to support this, and we aren’t willing to seek out Carly’s mom for the truth.”

  “Even if you did, there’s no guarantee she’d tell you the truth,” Nathan put in with a wry twist to his mouth. “After all, if she’s lived her life for the purpose of hurting her daughter, what’s one more lie?”

  “True. Added to which—” Adam was interrupted by Oliver’s shout of release.

  Derek’s head swiveled to his cousin, in time to see Oliver draw Lily up for a long, passionate kiss.

  “You’re still the best cocksucker I’ve ever had.” Oliver’s eyebrow cocked. “Want me to return the favor?”

  Lily gave a rueful glanc
e down at his flaccid cock. “I want a hard cock inside, which you obviously can’t do right now.” She turned to the group, before settling on him. “Derek?”

  Lily was temptation herself, with her generous curves and tight ass, but he held up both hands. “Sorry, Lil, can’t oblige.”

  She grinned. “Congratulations, you passed the test.”

  Man, he was sunk when he couldn’t even tell when one of his oldest friends was teasing him.

  She saw the expression on his face and frowned. “I didn’t really intend to fuck you, you know, not unless your wife agrees. I may be a slut but I do have my principles, one of which is that I’m not a marriage wrecker.”

  Derek nodded weakly. “Glad to know you have standards.”

  “I can tell your wife you refused me, if you think it’ll help.”

  “I’ll think about it.” He couldn’t think that far, not when Carly’s insecurities ate at him and he missed her so damn much. All the sex in the room, especially the ones in front of him, reminded him that he could be at home right now in their bed, engaging in his favorite activity with his wife. Or, having Carly here…where he could watch her be pleasured and fucked by his cousins, before he took her himself and see what she thought of his imitation of a rampaging lion.

  His mouth briefly lifted at the thought, even as discomfort settled on him. Much as he would love to bring Carly into the group, something about it disturbed him.

  Lily nodded in acknowledgement, then winked at Matthias. “How about it, big guy? Your cock ready for me?”

  Matthias had on his usual stern demeanor. “Come here,” he said, his voice that of a man who wouldn’t be denied, one who expected his sexual partners to obey his word without question.

  She knew what to say. “Yes, sir.” She sauntered the short distance over to him, where he was seated on Derek’s left side. A glance at Matthias’s lap revealed that he was suited up and ready, and Derek didn’t know when that had happened. As a photographer, he was usually observant, but it seemed his problems with Carly were affecting his normal faculties.

  She moved to straddle him, but he stopped her with another command. “Take off your blouse and bra.”

  She shrugged and the flimsy fabric, which was clinging to her shoulders, dropped to the ground. The bra went next. Derek heard the sharp intake of breath from the group of men sitting next to their table. He couldn’t fault them.

  In the semi-dim light, Lily’s gorgeous body was outlined in every detail. Her nipples—a deep, beautiful brown—were beaded with arousal, hard, turgid nubs that invited a man’s mouth to envelope them. Lily standing so close to him, Derek could smell her arousal, knew that Matthias’s demands were exciting her, that this also served as foreplay to her.

  “Now your skirt and thong.”

  Lily wore nothing but thongs. All of them knew that. Still, watching her remove her clothing and bare her skin caused heat to rise in him and made him wish Carly was here so he could assuage the fever within. He couldn’t help it; he adjusted his pants.

  She trembled, but not from fear. Now all the men at the tables surrounding them were watching her, their avid gazes lingering on her breasts, her narrow waist, the black thatch between her thighs and the long, slim legs in high heels.

  She wanted this, craved the male attention.

  Matthias smiled, and the hint of cruelty in them only heightened her excitement. Derek heard it in her quickened breathing. He knew what was coming, and he knew she knew as well, and she was anticipating it.

  “Get a jug of beer from the bartender and refill our glasses.” Matthias’s teeth flashed, the smile one of a predatory animal. Going to the bar would entail walking naked between tables of men. “If you spill a single drop, I want you to give all of us, save for Derek, a blowjob and you’ll go home frustrated. If you don’t, you’ll get my cock. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  In silence, they all tracked Lily’s graceful progress toward the bar. Oliver shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it, Matthias.”

  Matthias had relaxed back in his chair, but his gaze was glued to Lily’s swaying ass. “She wants it. You have to know what your woman wants and give it to her.”

  “Same with Carly,” Derek said.

  “Exactly.” Matthias looked at him. “The question is, do you know what she wants?”

  “Sex?” he offered tentatively.

  His cousins burst out laughing.

  “Aside from that,” Adam countered. “We’ll let you think on that while I continue what I was saying before we were…um, intriguingly interrupted. I was talking about Carly’s elder sister Charlotte, who is a bitch, the type who couldn’t stand it if Carly has something she doesn’t have. If I remember right, she stole Carly’s prom date from under her nose in high school, and later, one of her boyfriends. It’s no wonder Carly would be anxious about Derek. Such a situation would shatter any woman’s confidence, much less Carly’s.”

  “Especially when we’ve all witnessed how eager Charlotte is to hook her claws into our friend here,” Oliver added, clapping Derek on the shoulder. A fiction writer, he had a sense for the dramatic. “I daresay that fact didn’t miss Carly’s eyes.”

  “I never encouraged Charlotte,” Derek protested. Within him, he was starting to realize that he may have done something wrong, something that had displeased his wife and may have contributed to her insecurities.

  “You didn’t reject her either.” This came from Adam, to which Derek replied, “She never came with an outright invitation, and I either ignored or pretended to misread her subtle cues. I never expected her to be so tenacious.” He sighed. Now he knew something Carly wanted from him, but which he hadn’t given her. “Mainly, I didn’t want to hurt Carly. They’re sisters, after all.”

  “You didn’t—!” Oliver gaped at him. “Charlotte stole her dates before. You think Carly would be mad at you if you rejected her sister’s advances?”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” Derek shot the other man an annoyed look. “I meant, Carly would be hurt if she knew Charlotte’s up to her old tricks.”

  “Oh. But Carly didn’t see it that way.”

  “Until I read her diary, I didn’t know that.” Derek lifted the mug to his mouth and took a drink. “Women. They’re so much trouble.” Despite all his grumblings, he knew he’d take the trouble that was Carly any day.

  Lily was back, in time to give him a refill. She was careful about pouring the beer from the jug into each of their mugs, no matter how his cousins teased her, and before long, she was straddling Matthias. Both moaned when she sank down on his cock, taking him deep within her. Soon, she had an easy rhythm going, while his cousin busied himself with her breasts.

  Nathan cleared his throat, which made everyone’s gazes swing from the entwined couple to him—they all loved watching as much as getting it on—and what he said made Derek realized that such perception was what made Nathan such a good businessman. “I think there’s a part of you that wished Carly would fight for you.”

  There it was. His deep, hidden desire. The wound that was first cut by his mother, then reinforced by one girlfriend after another, leaving a scar that had never quite healed. He had never intended to fall in love with Carly, but love had snuck in and caught him by surprise. The depth of his feelings for her surpassed any he’d ever had for a woman before.

  Nathan had exposed him, laid bare the reason he’d kept Carly to himself all these months. Realization dawned. It was the same reason for the unease underlying his desire to see her have sex with his cousins.

  He was afraid. Afraid she’d turn out to be as shallow as some of his previous girlfriends. That she’d be swayed and tempted by his cousins’ bigger cocks or more muscular builds or something. That he’d discover she didn’t love him the way—with the same intensity—he did her. That he would lose her.

  He’d die if his fears turned out to be true.

  So he’d kep
t her to himself, away from temptation and potential heartbreak.

  Their relationship hadn’t been tested. Not yet.

  Yet how could he subject her to the test, when she was already having a hard time battling her own insecurities? How could he expect her to fight for him, for them, for what they have?

  He was shaken out of his thoughts when Nathan said, “Derek, it doesn’t make you less of a man that you’d need such an affirmation. Even us macho men, we need to know that the women we love want us, love us just as much.”

  “Carly would get there one day,” Derek said in a firm voice, and he did believe that with all his heart. “Until then, I have to hold us together. I cannot lose her.”

  Adam held up a hand. “Wait. Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves? As long as you remain faithful to her, nothing will shake your relationship.”

  “Until the first gossip reached her, no matter how untrue, and the seed of suspicion would be sown into her. A mountain would then grow out of nothing.” Derek shook his head. “No, I’ve thought about this, and I mean to attack the root cause of the problem—Carly’s insecurity, not in our marriage or in me, but in herself.”

  Nathan nodded. “Well said. How do you mean to do that?”

  “Her problem is with her self-image,” Derek said, feeling his way slowly around the problem and hopefully into the solution. Talking things over with these men always helped. “She didn’t believe any man would find her pretty—”

  “But she is,” Adam cut in. “Elegant, too.”

  “Classy. I’ve got a crush on her the first time you introduced her to us,” Oliver said. “If you hadn’t staked your claim on her, I’d have moved in for the kill.”

  Derek sent a light punch to his friend’s shoulder. “Stop talking like that about my wife.”

  “It’s true,” Matthias said in a calm, even tone despite the vigorous effort of his ongoing activity. A man with a strong dominant streak, he had laid Lily down on the table and was now thrusting into her, his strokes deep and smooth. Fortunately, the table was a sturdy piece, else it’d have moved with Matthias’s strong thrusts. Lily mewled and moaned, and on her face was the expression of a woman being thoroughly fucked and loving every second of it. “I found her attractive as well. Enough to bed, certainly.”