Stealing the Show (PolyAm Fam #3)

Chapter 2

two

leo

My wife looked absolutely mouthwatering in a stretchy black dress that accentuated every delicious curve of her body. She surprised me by going all out with her hair and makeup—her eyes were so sultry and smoky, I just knew she’d turn heads.

I held the door to the club for her after the bouncer nodded us in. She pouted momentarily at not getting carded, but I brought her hand to my lips and pressed a soft kiss to her silky skin. “It’s my fault—me with all this gray hair. You’re absolutely gorgeous, baby.”

“You don’t think I look forty, right?” Her eyes briefly landed on me before bouncing around the club.

“You won’t be forty until Christmastime, and no one would ever guess you have a big birthday coming up,” I assured her.

Her approaching birthday was one of the reasons she was so upset about the news we got at the doctor’s office this afternoon. We learned that she has two different issues keeping her from becoming a mother. One involved a genetic issue with her eggs, and the other involved her uterus. That combination of problems meant she was unlikely to conceive or carry a baby, and her eggs probably couldn’t be used for a surrogate either. We were looking at the options of adoption or a surrogate using her own egg fertilized with my sperm.

But I wanted to get her mind off that tonight. Maggie had worked so hard, trying to do everything right. She had wanted to be a doctor originally, but after getting her undergraduate degrees in biology and chemistry, she decided to go to law school instead and focus on medical malpractice law. We’d waited to start a family because she wanted to be established in her career, and by the time we started trying a couple of years ago, we didn’t have a lot of time for unexpected obstacles.

Her job was how she met Noah, an ear-nose-throat specialist who had some legal problems earlier this year. He was the one who invited her out tonight.

“Do you want a drink?” I asked as she surveyed a group of ladies dancing near the DJ’s booth. The drag show wouldn’t start for another hour.

“Yeah, a glass of white wine please. You know what I like.” She brought her lovely grayish-green eyes to me and flashed a sexy smile. “I saw some ladies I recognize from Danielle’s party. I thought I might go say hi.”

“You do that,” I encouraged her before leaning down to press a kiss to her cheek. She flitted off to join the dancers, and I ambled up to the bar.

“Hey, you’re not working tonight!” Noah’s deep voice came from one of the barstools. His boyfriend, Aris, sat next to him, his brown hair bunched up in a bun on top of his head.

“Nope, not tonight. Where’s your better third?” I grinned at my little joke about their throuple.

“Danielle stayed home,” Aris pouted. He glanced at Noah and said, “We’re telling people now, right?”

Noah nodded.

“Telling people what?” I wondered as I picked up the little laminated card with The Barn’s drink specials on it.

“Well, our happy family is growing.” Aris beamed. He held his beer bottle up in the air and clinked it with Noah’s wine glass.

“Adding to the throuple? Does that make it a quadrouple?” I joked.

Aris’s brows wrinkled in confusion as Noah shook his head. “No, no, not that kind of addition.” He mimed rocking a baby. “This kind.”

My eyes widened. “Oh! Wow, congratulations! That’s incredible news.” As soon as it sank in, a stabbing pain pierced my heart. I didn’t want to rain on their parade, but… protecting my wife’s mental state was at the top of my priority list at the moment. “Hey, can you hold off on mentioning it to Maggie?”

Noah’s brows drew together this time. “Everything okay?”

I let out a sigh as I tried to figure out how to explain. “We got some disappointing news in that department today.”

Aris patted me on the back. “Say no more. But I hope Raine and Bonnie don’t let the cat out of the bag.” His man-bun pointed in their direction as he cocked his head. “Looks like they’re all dancing.”

After dipping my chin in acknowledgment, I grabbed the wine and the beer bottle the bartender set in front of me and headed over to the dancing ladies. The song was changing over to a new one, and the fast dance beat mellowed into a slow, swaying ballad.

Maggie gratefully took the wine from me. “Leo, you remember Raine and Bonnie?”

The two women smiled at me as I shook each of their hands. “How could I forget?” They were both Danielle’s friends. Raine was a petite curvy lady with jet-black hair, and Bonnie was tall and willowy with strawberry blonde hair and fair skin.

My wife rose up on her tiptoes, gesturing for me to bend down. “I was going to ask Raine to dance with me,” she said in my ear.

A thrill raced through me at the thought. “Oh, yeah, of course. Have fun!” I gave her a wink and stepped aside.

I watched her ask Raine for the slow dance as I sipped my beer, and the two headed for a dark, empty corner of the dance floor several yards away. Bonnie flashed me a hopeful smile, which prompted me to query, “Well, shall we?”

“Thought you’d never ask.” She batted her eyelashes at me as I set my bottle down on a nearby table next to my wife’s wine glass. I’d keep an eye on both of them while I danced to make sure no one got any nefarious ideas. Fuckery like that was always the first thing to pop into my mind. I’d been a cop for so long now, I couldn’t help but prepare for the worst after nearly two decades of dealing with shitty humans.

“It’s nice to dance with a tall man for a change,” Bonnie said as she swayed to the slow rhythm of the song.

“Yeah? I’m glad you approve.” She smelled like a mixture of vanilla and cinnamon, almost like a snickerdoodle. Or maybe I was just hungry.

“So you and your wife are poly?” she inquired as I spun her in a circle.

“Word gets around, huh?” I grinned as she gave an embarrassed giggle.

“Danielle mentioned it. I think it’s really cool. I don’t have much experience with it personally, but I can see how it would have its advantages. So, do you and your wife have lots of rules?”

I glanced over to check on Maggie, who had her arms wrapped around Raine’s body. She was actually a couple of inches taller than the younger woman. I was sure she was enjoying that dynamic for a change.

“We don’t have a lot of rules,” I answered Bonnie’s question. “We’ve been doing this a long time. We work off vibes. If we get bad vibes about a metamour, we simply discuss it. No veto power, just frank discussions about concerns.”

“Veto power?” Bonnie’s fair eyebrows arched.

“Yeah, some poly couples have veto power. It’s a really hierarchical thing, and we don’t believe in it. It gives the couple too much power and the paramours practically none. So, in a veto scenario, if Maggie was dating Raine, and I didn’t like her, or I was jealous, I could simply veto her, and Maggie would have to break up with her.”

“Ouch,” Bonnie sighed. “That sounds rough.” Then her face brightened. “So Maggie is bi, then?”

I laughed. “Well, yeah.”

“And you?”

“Not really. I’ve done some stuff… Guess you might call me heteroflexible.”

“Nice, haven’t heard that one before.” She looked duly impressed. “So, you can date other women too? Can Maggie date other men?”

“Why all the questions?” I was starting to feel like I was the subject of an interrogation. I liked it better when I was the one asking the questions.

“I’m just curious,” she admitted. “You know, about how it works. Raine and I were talking about it after Danielle moved in with Aris and Noah. She didn’t know much about how it worked either, to be honest.”

“We don’t have a one penis policy, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“A what now?” Her features had morphed past curiosity into pure shock.

“Some couples have a policy where the man or the woman can date another woman, but the woman can’t date another man. There’s only one penis allowed in those relationships,” I explained.

Her expression screamed “outrage.” “Well, that doesn’t seem fair!”

“No, it doesn’t.” I grinned. “Maggie’s free to date whoever she’d like. But so far, she’s mostly dated women.”

“Oh really?” Bonnie’s eyes trailed over to where her roommate was swaying in rhythm with my wife, their bodies so close together, there was no visible space between them. “Do you think she likes Raine?”

I shrugged. “I mean, just looking at them, I’d say all signs point to yes.”

Bonnie giggled, and the song we were dancing to slowly faded like a music box that ran out of turns. “Thanks for the dance.” She didn’t have to lift up very high on her tiptoes to press a kiss to my cheek. Her lips were warm and moist against my stubbly skin.

“You’re welcome. Anytime.” I watched her head for the bar, then I claimed our drinks, which I’d been keeping an eye on. My beer was still nice and cold.

The next song started up, and Maggie and Raine had moved apart, but they were still dancing. As I chugged my beer and contemplated a second round, I noticed Maggie’s head falling back, her mouth open wide. It was so refreshing to see her laugh.

She’d been so nervous the past week waiting for these test results. Then they confirmed our worst fears. I didn’t think she’d be laughing for some time…but I’d been proven wrong.

And I had Raine to thank for that.

raine

I didn’t expect to see Maggie and Leo at the club tonight. They were a couple I met at Aris and Noah’s polycule’s house when we were celebrating Danielle getting her cast off after she broke her leg. Maggie was Noah’s lawyer, and Leo was a cop. Danielle told me later that they’re polyamorous. Maggie and Leo were law and order, but make it hot and spicy.

I also wasn’t expecting Maggie to make a beeline over to me and Bonnie as soon as we made eye contact. She threw her arms around me for a hug—didn’t have that on my bingo card either.

Or how she smelled so damn good, like exotic flowers and a rainstorm all at once. When she stepped away, I noticed her eyes for the first time. I couldn’t quite tell their color in the vibrant flashing lights of the club, but they were round and sparkling. She wore her honey-colored hair pulled back in a tortoiseshell clip, and her black dress hugged her wide hips and accentuated her plump ass.

I hadn’t found myself noticing women since getting my heart stomped on by one of my classmates in my graduate program. Her name was Sarai, and she was a massive tease. But I didn’t want to talk about her, not when Maggie asked me to dance with her when the DJ played a slow song.

You guessed it—I wasn’t expecting that either!

She was a little taller than me (who wasn’t?) but was wearing sexy, strappy wedge heels that made it seem like she was towering over me. Her narrow shoulders contrasted with her wide hips, which rocked perfectly in time with the slow, sultry beat. She pressed her body to mine and swayed, her eyes closed as her breath fell on my cheek.

My hands gravitated lower until the voluptuous curves of her ass were right under my fingertips. It was too tempting not to give them a squeeze, and I was surprised by how firm they were. She pulled back a little to flash me a wicked smile, then her tongue darted out to lick her lips.

It was pierced!

I definitely was not expecting that!

And I didn’t notice her piercing when I met her at Danielle’s party, or tonight before she asked me to dance. Before I could stop it, a little fantasy played in my head about her tongue swirling around my clit. My nipples tightened, and my core clenched in response.

“You can squeeze my ass anytime you like,” she whispered in my ear, sending a chill dancing down my spine and straight into my nether regions.

“You like that?” I squeezed again, and she brushed her lips against the shell of my ear, letting out a moan that made me go weak in the knees.

I glanced over and caught her husband staring at us. I wondered if they were a package deal. I wasn’t sure how polyamory worked for them—if they only dated the same women. He was a tall drink of water with a bulky dad bod. It appeared as though he’d once been an athlete in his prime, but over the years, being a cop had toughened his mind and softened his body. I liked that look on a man—snuggling with him would be like cuddling a bear.

I’d always had a thing for older men, but I’d never dated an older woman. Most of the women I’d dated were younger than me and so immature. It would be refreshing to date a woman in her thirties who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to ask for it.

Was Maggie like that?

The way she moaned in my ear and commanded, “Do it again,” made me think she was.

The way she moved her hips and ground them into me made me think she was.

And when our dance was over, the way she boldly asked for my number definitely made me think she was.

A giddy rush of excitement raced through me when I handed her back her phone after entering my number, and she texted me right away.

Maggie: You’re fire emoji and smell good enough to eat.

My face flushed as I struggled for a response, but she just stared at me, that piercing gaze looking as though she was imagining feasting upon me—just like my earlier fantasy.

And I was pretty sure I would let her.