Page 15 of Better When Shared (Kristin Lance Anthologies #2)

Nisha

I woke up far too early the next Saturday.

Needing a distraction from my spiraling thoughts, I tiptoed downstairs, flounced onto the sofa, and flipped aimlessly through our streaming services, looking for something to watch. It had been over a week since I’d kissed Caleb at yoga class, and worries about what it all meant played on repeat in my mind.

The more distance I got from that steamy night, the more I started to question my decisions. I questioned Julian’s reaction to it. He hadn’t acted on his own hall pass—hadn’t suggested a fantasy of his own. Could that be because what I’d done had upset him?

Caleb had disappeared from yoga class, so nothing more had happened, but it was impossible not to wonder what I would have done if he’d come to class again. And what Julian would have thought of it.

Why didn’t Julian want to use his hall pass? The imbalance gnawed at me, made me question every look my husband gave me. What if he resented me later? What if this whole arrangement was just him testing me, and I’d failed the test by kissing someone else?

The floor creaked above me—Julian moving around, as if my overwhelming guilt had found its way upstairs and roused him. I heard the shower turn on. The familiar sounds anchored me to our shared life, to all we’d built together. Three years of marriage, a home that reflected both our tastes, careers we loved. Why was I willing to risk it all for green eyes and a British accent?

I turned on a show, but paid more attention to what Julian was doing than to the screen. The shower turned off, followed by the buzz of his electric toothbrush, then more footsteps, and I imagined him getting dressed.

Julian appeared at the bottom of the stairs, hair still damp from the shower, wearing nothing but boxer briefs that hugged his ass in all the right ways. My husband was gorgeous—lean and strong from regular outdoor activities, with olive skin that never seemed to lose its summer glow. He caught me staring and waggled his eyebrows, aware of the effect he had on me.

“Morning,”

he said, crossing to the coffeemaker.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

My mind flashed to how we’d fallen asleep—sweaty, tangled, spent after another night of hot sex. Sex that felt like it had happened back when we’d first gotten together: wild and full of a desperate passion. The story about Caleb had taken on a life of its own, somehow shifting the dynamic between us. Each night since that encounter, I’d whispered filthy details about my yoga partner’s hands in my husband’s ear until Julian came so hard he nearly blacked out.

And then I’d start overthinking it.

“Like a baby,”

I lied, watching him move through our kitchen with practiced ease. He added a splash of oat milk to his mug, then grabbed the bread to make toast. So normal. This was how he had behaved ever since that night. No suspicion, no jealousy, no awkward morning-after conversation about boundaries or regrets.

Just a hell of a lot more sex.

“You want eggs?”

he asked, already pulling the carton from the fridge. This was our routine—him cooking breakfast while I nursed my first coffee, me handling dinner most nights. A division of labor based on who functioned better at which end of the day.

“Just toast for me,”

I said.

“I’m meeting Lila for coffee at ten. She’s going to dish on whatever happened during her beach vacation.”

“The one with the hubby and some friend? Did you ever get the details on what they were up to after she called you?”

My best friend had called from her vacation, asking me what to do about her wild threesome situation, but I hadn’t heard from her since.

“I’ll get the details,”

I said, smiling.

“But I’m pretty sure it involved a spit roasting… and not the barbecue kind.”

Julian’s eyes lit up perhaps a little too much, and I wondered if he was imagining me in the same position.

“I hope they all enjoyed it.”

He moved to the kitchen, dropping bread in the toaster before cracking eggs into a bowl. I watched his hands—the same hands that had mapped every inch of my body last night while I told him about another man’s touch. The hands that had gripped my hips hard enough to bruise as I described how I’d kissed someone else.

And now I was wondering if Caleb would be up for a threesome, and if Julian would be into that, too. Why hadn’t I gotten Caleb’s number? Was I the reason he’d disappeared from class?

“You’re quiet this morning,”

Julian observed, glancing at me over his shoulder.

“Yeah.”

I wrapped my hands around my mug, drawing courage from its warmth.

“About that... are you okay with what happened? With me kissing the guy at yoga class?”

He blinked, an eyebrow quirking up.

“That’s what you’re sitting there spinning out about?”

Julian knew me too well.

“It just keeps popping back into my head. What if I fucked everything up? What if you’re lying to me and you’re upset with me?”

Julian stepped in close.

“Does it feel fucked up? Because I think it’s made us closer than ever. And I’m more than okay,”

Julian said without hesitation.

“It was hot as hell hearing about it. And you came home to me after, just like we agreed. Hell, you did less than we agreed to.”

“And you don’t feel—I don’t know—weird that you haven’t used your hall pass yet?”

Julian shrugged, plating his eggs.

“It’ll happen when it happens. I’m not in a rush.”

My throat went tight as I tried to picture him kissing another woman. It did not compute. That was not what I wanted at all. But I couldn’t very well tell him that now that I’d done what I’d done, could I?

He joined me at the table, sliding a plate of toast my way. His knee brushed mine under the table, casual and intimate at once. I realized I’d been holding tension in my shoulders and forced them to relax.

“I made dinner plans for us on Friday.”

He was cheerful and seemed oblivious to my internal panic.

“An old friend from college is in town. I figured we could meet him at that new place on 2rd. The one inside the Bindery Hotel.”

I blinked, relief washing through me.

“Oh? You never talk about college friends.”

Julian’s cheeks colored. He looked down at his hands, fiddling with his napkin.

“I lost touch with a lot of friends after graduation.”

He took a sip of coffee, not quite meeting my eyes.

“He’s in town for work, reached out yesterday.”

“Too bad you lost touch,”

I said, studying his face. There was something he wasn’t saying.

“Ended up in different cities. You know how it goes after college. But he was my roommate for three out of four years,”

Julian said.

“We, uh, had some wild times together.”

I raised an eyebrow, intrigued by his evasiveness.

“Wild how?”

Julian’s flush deepened.

“Let’s just say we shared more than an apartment.”

I tilted my head, frowning.

“What, like your car?”

Julian burst out laughing.

“No. Like… sexual partners.”

Understanding dawned, and I felt like an idiot.

“Women? You had threesomes with him?”

“Quite a few times,”

Julian admitted.

“Then… he was... we were... complicated.”

My mouth went dry. In three years of marriage, Julian had never mentioned having threesomes in college, let alone with a male roommate he’d been close to. The implications swirled in my mind.

“Were you and he ever intimate?”

Now that kind of hall pass I might be able to get behind. Even thinking of it sent a rush of heat to my core.

Julian shook his head.

“No. We just—sometimes we’d tag-team. Take turns.”

His voice had dropped lower, rougher.

“It was intense, and fun. And the women never expected more, so it worked. We were their wild adventure, not their happily ever after.”

“You weren’t looking for love?”

“Nah. He had a lot of family stuff back home, and I was planning on looking for jobs on the West Coast, closer to my family. So neither of us wanted any attachments. Just, you know…”

“Hot sex?”

He chuckled, tugging on his hair the way he did when he was embarrassed.

“Yeah. That.”

I leaned forward, hungry for details.

“And now he’s coming to dinner? Your threesome buddy?”

Julian laughed, the tension breaking.

“When you put it that way, it sounds like I’m plotting something.”

“Plotting something fucking interesting,”

I countered, sliding my foot up his calf under the table.

“Is he sexy? Maybe we should invite him back here after dinner.”

“He used to be,”

Julian murmured.

“Haven’t seen him in years.”

My words hung in the air between us, heavy with possibility. The kitchen felt too warm, too small to contain the images flashing through my mind—Julian and his college roommate. Two sets of hands on a woman’s body, taking turns, watching each other. I pushed my chair back, the scrape against our kitchen floor breaking the moment of suspended tension. Before I could overthink it, I was across the table, straddling Julian’s lap, my sleep shorts riding up my thighs.

“Tell me more,”

I whispered, grinding down against the hardness already straining beneath his boxer briefs.

“About you and your roommate. The women you shared.”

Julian groaned, his hands finding my ass, kneading the flesh as he pulled me tighter against him.

“It started with this girl from my Econ class,”

he murmured, lips brushing the sensitive spot below my ear.

“She came over to study, made it clear she wanted more than homework help.”

“And your roommate was there?”

I rolled my hips, delighting in the sharp intake of breath from Julian.

“He walked in halfway through.”

He nibbled on my neck.

“She wasn’t shy about inviting him to join us. If you had left it to us, nothing ever would have happened.”

My core throbbed at the image.

“And after that?”

“We figured out that it worked for what we both wanted, and we developed a system.”

His fingers slipped beneath my tank top, skimming up my ribcage.

“Sometimes we’d plan it, pick girls and charm them. Sometimes it just happened.”

I tugged his hair, forcing him to look at me.

“Show me how you’d fuck me with him.”

Something feral flashed in his eyes. In one smooth motion, he stood, lifting me with him. My legs wrapped around his waist as he carried me from the kitchen, up the stairs, his mouth never leaving mine. We crashed into our bedroom, a tangle of desperate limbs and hungry mouths.

Julian tossed me onto our bed, yanking my sleep shorts down my legs. I reached for him, but he backed away, pulling his boxer briefs down to free his cock—already hard, the head flushed and leaking. I licked my lips at the sight, and he groaned.

I shivered at the comparison, spreading my legs wider in invitation.

“Did you take turns and watch each other?”

“Yes.”

Julian crawled onto the bed, hovering over me.

“But first, we’d get you ready together, kiss every part of you until you were begging for it.”

The image sent liquid heat pooling between my thighs. Julian lowered his head, trailing kisses down my stomach, before dragging his tongue through my slick folds. I arched off the bed, fingers tangling in his hair.

“Fuck, you’re soaked,”

he murmured against my cunt, the vibration of his words sending sparks through my core.

“Just from talking about it?”

“Yes,”

I gasped as he slipped two fingers inside me, curling them against that spot that made me see stars.

“Baby, this fantasy is so sexy. Thinking about you watching another man fuck me.”

His rhythm faltered for just a moment before he doubled his efforts, sucking my clit between his lips as his fingers pumped faster. I rode the edge, so close to coming, when he pulled away. Before I could protest, he flipped me onto my stomach, hauling my hips up.

“Like this,”

he growled, positioning himself behind me.

“I’d fuck you like this while he watched.”

The head of his cock pressed against my entrance, teasing.

“Or maybe he’d be here, in front of you, his cock in your mouth while I take you from behind.”

“Yes,”

I whimpered, pushing back against him. “Please—”

Julian slammed into me with one hard thrust, filling me in the most delicious way. I cried out, fingers clutching the sheets as he set a punishing pace.

“Tell me,”

he demanded, his hand tangling in my hair, pulling just enough to arch my back further.

“Tell me how you’d want it.”

“I’d want—”

I gasped as he hit a sensitive spot.

“I’d want him fucking my mouth while you fuck my pussy. Making me come over and over until I can’t think straight.”

Julian’s hips stuttered at my words. He reached around, fingers finding my clit, circling it as he continued to pound into me.

“Look at me,”

he commanded, sliding back inside me.

“When you come thinking about us both fucking you, I want to see your face.”

I locked eyes with him, letting him see every ounce of desire as he thrust deep. My hands found his ass, digging in, urging him harder, faster.

“That’s it,”

I encouraged, feeling the familiar tightening at my core.

“Right there.”

Julian groaned, his control slipping. His thumb found my clit again, pressing down hard.

“Come for me,”

he growled.

“Come thinking about both of us inside you.”

The image sent me over the edge—Julian fucking me while his college roommate watched, stroked himself, waited his turn. I shattered around Julian’s cock, walls pulsing as wave after wave of pleasure washed through me. Julian followed me over the edge, his head thrown back, cords of his neck standing out as he pumped his cum deep inside me.

He collapsed beside me, both of us breathing hard. Sweat cooled on my skin as the aftershocks of my orgasm rippled through me. Julian’s arm draped across my waist, his face buried in my neck.

“Holy fuck,”

he muttered after a long moment.

“That was... intense.”

I laughed breathlessly.

“You could say that.”

I traced lazy patterns on his back, feeling the rapid rise and fall of his breathing.

“So, this friend of yours... the one we’re having dinner with on Friday?”

“Mmm?”

Julian sounded half-asleep already.

“Is he hot?”

I asked, only half-joking.

Julian chuckled against my skin.

“I guess you’ll find out on Friday.”