Stitches

“I want to take Moira out tonight after work.”

That’s not really a question, but it is a request. It rankles a bit, feeling like I need to ask his permission to take her out, but I can tell by the way his blue eyes dance with pleasure that Seb enjoys it. Bastard. Of course he does. I can’t be too mad, given he is sharing his wife, but leave it to him to be a real pain in the ass about it.

“Okay,” Seb says, nodding once. “We don’t have any plans. I’ll be at work anyway. That’s fine.”

“So, do I bring her back here, or take her to my house?”

“This is our home. Bring her back here.”

“What if I want to stay the night with her?”

He quirks an eyebrow at me. “You just did, didn’t you? So stay the night.”

“It’s not going to bother you to come home to us in your bed?”

“Only if you’re in my spot,” he quips.

I give him a dead look, but Moira interrupts, bringing over a plate full of toast and putting it on the table between us. There’s green stuff smeared on top.

“Do you like avocado toast?” she asks, placing a hand on my s

houlder and squeezing.

“Sure.”

She returns to the stove and comes back a minute later with two plates. She gives me mine first, then goes over and puts Seb’s down in front of him. Before she can move away, he catches her around the waist and pulls her onto his knee. She goes easily into his arms and he leans in to give her a kiss.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he murmurs.

She sighs against his mouth, wrapping an arm around his neck to hold onto his kisses, like she needs more of them. I want that. I probably shouldn’t compare, though. It’s not like they developed that level of intimacy overnight. They’ve built their relationship together over years. Of course we’re not on their level on day one.

It’s not important that we mimic their relationship; we can build our own.

I’m not Seb and I don’t want to be. I’ve always had my own relationship with Moira and I still do. It’s just different now. It won’t have the limitations we had before. I’m no longer an observer—I just had my arms around her a few minutes ago. I get to take her out tonight and spend some time with her. Then, after we come back alone, I can peel those clothes off her and make love to her.

Right now his hand is the one on her breast, his lips tugging up in a helpless grin as she greedily steals more kisses, but later it will be me.

God, she’s beautiful. Her blue eyes dance with amusement and pleasure as she peppers his face with kisses and I can’t help smiling. This is kinda nice. This used to feel like torture, but now the jealousy is gone. It’s nice to see Seb so happy. It’s always been nice to see him happy; it was just tempered with the shitty covetous feeling of not having it for myself.

I don’t feel like I’m on the outside now. Even if it’s not my lap she’s in, not my face she’s peppering with kisses, I don’t feel excluded.

She finally stands so she can go get herself a plate, but she winks at me and lets her hand skate across my shoulders as she passes.

“What are you doing in here?”

I look up from the desktop monitor at Seb. We had been talking to the club manager out on the floor, but my lawyer called and I came to the office so I could take the call in private. Of course Ashley isn’t letting the divorce go through easily—why would she? As I listened to the lawyer yammer on and run up my bill, I decided to start looking at restaurants to take Moira out to tonight.

It crosses my mind it might be weird for her that I’m not divorced yet, but then she’s married—this is far from a typical courtship.

Since I didn’t answer, Seb walks around the desk and takes a look for himself.

“I’m trying to decide where to take Moira tonight.”

After briefly surveying the restaurants on the screen, he squeezes my shoulder and tells me, “You want to know a secret?”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“She’s gonna fuck you at the end of the date. You don’t have to try this hard.”