Daring in the Dark

“Sorry. But let’s leave it till tonight.” It wasn’t her imagination. He definitely sounded strained.

“Okay…” Sex. It must be about sex. Of course at this point her brain was one-tracking.

“Thai sound okay?”

“Sure. You know what I like.” Elliott couldn’t possibly miss her flirtatious innuendo. Maybe he’d initiate a little phone sex without her asking.

Elliott cleared his throat, as if her teasing left him uncomfortable. “Um, yeah, I’ll pick up chicken curry.”

Nix the phone sex. “Chicken curry sounds good.”

He cleared his throat again. He was either nervous or coming down with something. “I thought I’d bring Simon along.”

Her hand tightened on the phone even as her internal temperature slid up the sizzle scale. “Simon?” She licked her suddenly dry lips and rolled over onto her belly. “Why would he want to come to my apartment? He’s avoided me like the plague ever since the photo shoot. He obviously dislikes me.”

“He’s a busy guy. I don’t think he dislikes you. Simon’s just…”

“Dark. Brooding. Cynical. Intense. I think that about covers it.” And sexy in a shiver-down-her-spine, her-head-needed-to-be-examined kind of way. But that didn’t seem the most prudent observation to make about her fiancé’s best friend.

Elliott laughed and Tawny was thankful it didn’t bother him that she obviously rubbed Simon the wrong way. Sometimes she wondered if Elliott didn’t prefer it that way, but she’d dismissed the notion as unworthy of Elliott.

“Simon’s just Simon,” he said. “Can he come, too?”

Could he come? She grew wetter still, her whole body flushing and her nipples pebbling harder. Intense, brooding Simon, with his faint British accent, had been the one in her dream.

“Tawny?” Elliott prompted on the other end of the line.

She squirmed on the hard mattress. “No. I don’t mind if he comes.” Simply saying it aroused her even more. Guilt and shame fed the dark lust Simon inspired in her on a nearly nightly basis. Now it was getting even worse—she’d only taken an afternoon nap. He was her fiancé’s best friend, he despised her and every night he was the source of soul-shattering sex in her dreams.

“We’ll see you a little after nine then.”

She hung up and closed her eyes. Why was Simon coming with Elliott? Why the three of them? What would they do?

With her body strung tight and humming with arousal, a dark fantasy bloomed in her. The three of them, here in her bedroom. Elliott, golden haired and fair, Simon, dark. Two sexy men intent on touching and tasting every inch of her, all with the singular purpose of pleasuring her.

She blinked her eyes open and reached into the drawer of her bedside table, pulling out her vibrator. She couldn’t go through the afternoon this way.

Elliott was her fiancé. He was funny and generous and warm, most of the time. She might not have control of her dreams, but she was wide-awake now.

Despite her best efforts to focus on Elliott, it was Simon she came for as she shuddered her way to an orgasm.

“YOU LOOK LIKE HELL,” SIMON Thackeray said as he carefully placed his camera case in an orange vinyl chair in Elliott’s inner sanctum and sat in the matching chair.

Blond, good-looking, outgoing and possessing a sense of style that always left him looking as if he’d just stepped off the pages of GQ, Elliott turned heads in a crowd. A girl in college had once likened the two best friends to Apollo and Hades. They were foils in both looks and personality. Elliott, sunny and outgoing, Simon, dark, quiet, withdrawn. But Elliott had sounded weary and worried on the phone when he’d asked Simon to stop by. He didn’t look any better than he’d sounded. “What’s going on?”

Elliott perched on the edge of the stainless-steel desk and swung one leg. “We’ve been friends a long time.”

Simon nodded at the obvious. Since they’d met in a photography class in junior high, where they’d discovered a shared love of art and a friendship that had weathered the years. Elliott had thrown out a lifeline that saved Simon from drowning in his own loneliness. Conversely Simon had anchored Elliott, provided him with some much-needed stability. Elliott’s parents were warm and outgoing, but volatile.

He wasn’t so sure he would’ve pursued a career in photography if Elliott hadn’t believed in him and pushed him. And Simon had provided invaluable contacts when Elliott had decided to open a small gallery.

“You know you’re the brother I never had,” Elliott continued. “I’ve always thought I could tell you anything. Share anything.” Once upon a time Simon had felt the same way. Until he’d discovered that there were some things you couldn’t share with your best friend. Like being in love with his fiancée. “I hope you’ll always be my friend.”

Simon sighed at Elliott’s penchant for melodrama. If Elliott hadn’t parlayed his art-history degree and eye for art into owning a gallery, he could’ve given Broadway a run. “Elliott, unless you’ve ax-murdered a little old lady, I’m going to always be your friend.” Simon shrugged. “I’d probably be your friend even then. Why don’t you just tell me what this is all about?”

“I’m gay.”

“Right.”

First Elliott called him in and gave him the big friendship spiel, now he was fooling around when Simon had a photo shoot scheduled in forty-five minutes. Elliott had a warped sense of humor and a piss-poor sense of timing.

Elliott knotted his hands together. “This isn’t a joke. I’m serious. I’m gay.”

Simon sat, stunned. Elliott was…gay? How was that possible? They’d been best friends for over a decade. Simon was the odd straight guy in a profession that attracted homosexuals like a homing device, yet he’d never once suspected Elliott of anything but blatant heterosexuality.

For God’s sake, Elliott was engaged to Tawny, slept with her on a regular basis and he’d just announced he was gay? “When…how…”

“Perhaps bisexual is a better estimation.” Elliott ran his manicured hand through his short blond hair. “I’ve found myself increasingly attracted to men over the last several years.” He shook his head and offered a harsh laugh lacking in humor. “Don’t worry. Not you.”

Quite frankly Simon could give a toss if Elliott was attracted to him or not. Well…maybe he was a bit relieved Elliott hadn’t professed undying love or lust for him, but he’d definitely missed something along the way.

Simon clearly recalled the first time he’d seen Tawny. It’d been here in the gallery, outside Elliott’s office. Simon had dropped by during a private event—a cocktail party and private viewing Tawny had arranged for her company. She’d been engrossed in an animated discussion with the caterer. One look at her and his world had shifted into sharper focus. Then she’d disappeared and he’d sought out Elliott, intent on discovering who she was, only to learn Elliott had beat him to the punch. Before Simon had opened his mouth, Elliott had announced he’d met his dream woman and arranged a date with her. Intuitively Simon had known it was the same woman. And he’d been right.

“What was this six months ago when you told me you’d just met the woman of your dreams?” he asked.

“She was hot and sexy and so different from the other women in New York, I thought she might cure me.”

She’d been a bloody cure?

Simon pushed to his feet and walked over to the window overlooking the street, needing to look at something other than the friend he wasn’t sure he knew any longer. Elliott had always been a bit self-absorbed, but this….

Outside, Manhattanites shared the sidewalk with tourists. Customers thronged from the electronics store across the street to the corner falafel stand and the shops in between. A cabbie flipped off a delivery van who cut him off.

Like a strip of negatives laid out before him, he saw in his head photos, moments in time committed to memory. He’d wagered the more he was around Tawny, the more he knew of her, the more his attraction would diminish. Instead with every encounter he’d found himself increasingly drawn to her, discovering that her spirit, her wit, her spunk, ran even deeper and surer than her physical beauty.

And he’d held himself increasingly aloof. Afraid he’d betray himself with a careless glance, a misplaced remark, he hid behind sardonic comments. He’d still held out hope for himself, for a recovery, even after Elliott proposed. He’d get over her.

It had been the photo shoot, the day he’d spent photographing Tawny, at Elliott’s request, that he knew he was deeply, irrevocably in love with her. He gripped the windowsill and rocked on the balls of his feet, looking inward instead of at the busy street outside. It was the only time he’d ever spent alone with her and he’d glimpsed something so sweet, so elusive, that to end that day had bordered on physical pain.

And she’d been a bloody cure for Elliott. He turned around to face Elliott, struggling for an even tone. “And was asking her to marry you part of the cure or did you consider yourself cured at that juncture? I’m a bit confused. Is this a twelve-step program?”

“Does it make you feel good to be such a sarcastic bastard?”

“Not particularly.” Simon felt a foreign urge to pound Elliott’s head against the cinnamon-colored wall. “You asked her to marry you when you knew you felt this way? When you knew you were attracted to men?”

Elliott colored at Simon’s censure. “But I’m also attracted to her. I thought if I threw myself into the relationship enough these feelings would go away.” He stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. He began to pace the room.

“But they didn’t and you cheated on Tawny?”