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 Elliott, sunny and outgoing, Simon, dark, quiet, withdrawn.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. 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 had called him in and gave him the big friendship spiel, and 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