33 - Melissa

33

Melissa

It all felt like a dream. A crazy, sexy dream.

But I woke up the next morning wrapped in Noah’s arms, spooning with the handsome doctor. And the memories from last night were far too vivid, too real, to have been a dream. The images bombarded me in quick succession.

Alternating blowjobs on the couch.

Ash taking me on the edge of the couch, spreading my legs wide while Noah fucked my mouth.

Noah bending me over the edge of the couch.

His tip entering my back door.

Both of them coming at the same time, one at each end.

Loving every second of it.

A sexy shiver ran through my body as I re-lived the night of scintillating passion. It was like it happened to a different woman. Someone so much more adventurous than me, Melissa Harden from Toledo, Ohio.

But it was me. I had done that.

That’s when I realized Noah and I were alone in bed. Ash was gone. The window was dark, so it was still early. He might have gotten up early to leave for work.

I had to pee, so I silently got out of bed and used the bathroom. On the way back, I paused to look out the window. Ash’s truck was still parked outside, and his tent stood alone in the field by the campfire. He hadn’t left us after sex to go sleep alone, had he?

That annoyed me. I wondered if he regretted things after the fact. I didn’t want that layer of shame added to an otherwise amazing threesome, so I borrowed a robe from Noah’s closet and went outside.

Even with the robe, I was freezing as I walked across the field to Ash’s tent. I hesitated, wondering if I was being too intrusive. Then again, we had explored each other’s bodies last night. This was a minor intrusion compared to that act.

I yanked the zipper up.

Ash immediately sat upright in his sleeping bag. A wood-handled ax was in his hand, gripped up high near the blade. His dark eyes fluttered open, focused on me, and then he let out an annoyed growl.

“The fuck are you doing?”

“Why do you have an ax!” I demanded.

“I own lots of axes.”

“No, I mean—why do you have one in your tent!”

He glanced at the ax in his hand. “If I keep them outside, they’ll rust.”

I stared at him like he was insane. “Noah has a tool shed.”

“For his tools, not mine,” he replied, like I was the crazy one. “What are you doing here?”

“Why didn’t you stick around last night?”

“Bed was crowded.”

“And the other beds in the house? You’re too good for them?”

“I don’t like relying on people.” His eyes moved down my body to the open flap of the robe, then settled on my mouth. “You’re shivering.”

“I’m fine.”

He made a frustrated noise, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me all the way inside the tent. After zipping it back up, he folded me into the sleeping bag with him until we were cuddling.

“Better?” he asked.

I sighed happily. “Much better. Wow, this sleeping pad is comfortable. It’s like a mattress.”

“It’s expensive. And light. Great for hiking.”

“How much did it cost?”

Ash barked a laugh. “You don’t want to know.”

“It’s still not as good as cuddling in bed.”

“We cuddled last night, but you fell asleep pretty quick.”

“Yeah, well, you guys wore me out.”

“Does that mean you had a good time?”

I twisted to look up at him. “Do you not remember the noises I made when I came?”

His chest rumbled with silent laughter. “I didn’t know if you remembered them. You were kind of drunk. I was worried about that.”

“You two were drunk,” I pointed out.

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Don’t worry. I was fully in charge of my faculties. Why were you drinking when we got there?”

“Don’t need a reason to drink,” he replied in that deep voice.

“You don’t,” I admitted. “But was there one last night?”

Ash was silent for a little while. I wondered if he was going to ignore the question and enjoy cuddling with me. I wouldn’t have minded that.

But then he said, “You kissed me. At the top of the via ferrata.”

“Oh.”

“It kind of threw me for a loop.”

“Sorry.”

I felt him shrug. “It helped me figure some stuff out.”

“Like what?”

He squeezed his arms around me tighter. “You talk too much. My alarm goes off in fifteen minutes. Let’s enjoy this.”

“Deal,” I said.

It was nice to cuddle with the huge man; my body fit perfectly inside his like it belonged there. I was actually dozing off when his alarm did go off, as promised.

“Do you have to go?” I murmured.

Ash climbed over me in the tent and kissed my temple. He was wearing only a tight pair of navy blue boxer briefs, which gave me quite the show as he unzipped the tent and climbed out. The tent flap stayed open enough for me to watch him walk across the field and jump in the river. He immediately got out and strode back to me, steam rising off his body as the water evaporated.

“How are you not freezing?” I asked when he returned.

He grabbed a towel from the clothes line and began drying off. “My blood’s hot.”

From my warm little cocoon, I enjoyed the sight of him getting dressed. Then he leaned inside, brushed away a lock of my hair, and kissed me softly on the lips.

He hesitated, as if there was some deep battle within his soul. Then he blurted out, “The sight of you laying there makes me want to skip work.”

“When are you free?” I asked.

Ash clenched his jaw. “Tomorrow morning. I’ve got two mountain biking lessons, then a double-shift at Marlene’s.”

“How about lunch tomorrow, then?” I asked.

“We’ll see,” he replied, but there was a hint of a smile in his dark eyes.

He lowered the tent flap, started the truck, then drove away.

Noah made me pancakes for breakfast. While we ate together, I stared at the man and marveled at how he was nothing like I expected. When I first met him, he seemed like a straight-laced doctor. Warm and friendly, but not too adventurous.

Then he goes and suggests a wild threesome with sex acts I never even dreamed about. It was a layer of delicious complexity that made him so much more attractive.

He dropped me off at my cabin on the way to work at the clinic. Jack wasn’t anywhere in sight, which I was relieved about. The last thing I wanted was his judgmental gaze watching Noah and I share a goodbye kiss.

I felt like a modern, sexually-liberated woman as I took a shower. And I wasn’t even talking about the threesome or other stuff we had tried last night. I’d never even dated two men at the same time. All of my relationships were linear: I would date one guy, eventually break up, and then have a couple of months of buffer time before I started dating again. There was never any overlap with men.

But now that was different. Waking up in bed with one man, then cuddling with another in a sleeping bag a few minutes later. Noah and I had gone out several times, while Ash and I had just the single sexy interaction last night. But the way he pulled me into his sleeping bag and held me like I belonged to him… it hinted at something more. If something more was even possible with a man like him.

Regardless, I hadn’t realized it could be this way. It was surprisingly liberating. The kind of independence and freedom I was looking for when I came out here to Colorado, although obviously in a different context than the hike I had planned.

I don’t want to go home to Ohio .

The thought drifted across my mind while I toweled off. I didn’t feel like going back to Ohio. It wasn’t something I’d thought about until now, but the idea began to take root.

It was tempting, but too crazy to legitimately consider. I was a completionist. Even as a little girl, if there was a jigsaw puzzle that my mom and I had started, I had to sit down and finish it even if it took until midnight.

I needed to finish my hike and go home, like I had planned.

I was having so much fun here in Crested Butte, though. Maybe it wasn’t that I didn’t want to go home to Ohio, but rather I wanted to stay here longer. That seemed much more doable. Why not stay in Crested Butte an extra week or two, just to make sure my ankle was healed?

The longer I considered that, the more I liked the idea. Maybe I could convince Noah to let me crash at his place, so I wouldn’t need to inconvenience Jack any more. And that would give me some more time to have fun with my two new lovers.

Yeah. That sounded great.

I had just gotten a pair of sweat pants on when a knock came at the door. When I opened it, Jack was standing on the porch in jeans, a flannel shirt, and sturdy boots.

“Get dressed,” he commanded. “We’re going on a hike.”