The offer is out on the table. I don’t know how wise it is, but I know I can’t leave here tonight without pinning down another gathering. I definitely don’t want to miss a chance at something incredible when it appears to be ripe for the taking.
“We definitely should. Dinner maybe. Your place or ours?”
“Either.” I shrug. “But if you choose mine, fair warning: it’s not nearly as nice…or as big as yours.” I crane my head back to look up at the vaulted ceiling and crystal chandelier that I’m certain none of them picked out. It probably came with the house, because it doesn’t match anything else.
“Doesn’t matter. We’re not picky,” he assures me.
At the door, Niles reaches for my jacket, plucking it off the peg it hangs on, and he holds it out as I turn my back to him and slip my hands inside the sleeves. He snugs it tight around my shoulders and turns me so I’m once again facing him.
“I do wish you could stay longer.”
“Me too,” I say softly, staring up into those amazing green eyes that hold all the warmth of the summer sun and more emotion than I can begin to fathom.
He rubs his hands up and down my arms, stalling. “Can I kiss you good night?”
“I’d be mad if you didn’t.”
My words spark a smile that makes my stomach flutter, and then Niles dips down to capture my mouth with his. The kiss is soft and sweet and oh, so gentle, just like the first time, just like his personality, and it warms me as much as it thrills. In his arms, I feel like a delicate China doll, vulnerable and easily broken, but also incredibly cared for, as if he’d do anything to avoid marring my surface.
I find myself hoping that he’s as gentle with my heart as he is with my body.
“You should go before I lock you in my ivory tower,” he jokes, but I’m floating on air, still coming down from the high of the kiss, so I can’t drum up enough levity to laugh.
Opening the door, he pauses, and once I see what he’s seeing, I do too.
“Wow, that’s—”
“Bad,” he states flatly. “It wasn’t supposed to get this bad until later tonight.”
It appears that, in the time that I’ve been enjoying myself inside, the storm that was predicted for the early morning hours swept in early and raged outside. Snowflakes, fat and wet and heavy, continue floating down from the sky, their population as thick and dense as to create a perfect whiteout. I can’t even see my car that I parked a mere dozen or so feet from the front steps.
Fear creeps into my spine alongside dread. I’ve never been too fond of driving in inclement weather. This is a nightmare brought to life.
“I don’t know that it’s safe to drive right now,” Niles informs. “I highly doubt the plows have made a dent in this mess yet. The roads are probably dangerous.”
I don’t speak. I agree with him, but as much as I’d like to, I’m not about to invite myself into his home to stay. That seems wildly inappropriate, even though that’s exactly what I just did moments ago when I invited them into my home.
Niles turns to me, and I know the offer he’s about to make.
“I don’t want you driving in this tonight. And I know that the heat is out here, so it’s not much better, but I’d like you to stay. At least I’ll know you’re not out there risking your life.”
“Just freezing to death here instead,” I say with a teasing smile.
One he returns. “I’ll take my chances. Will you? We have plenty of room. There’s even a guest room upstairs with its own en suite, so you don’t even have to see any of us if you don’t want to.”
I highly doubt that would ever be an issue, since I already love everything about Niles’ handsome face, and my opinion of Dean and Shane isn’t far behind. Biting down on my bottom lip, I cast my gaze outside one last time, feeling an anxious drop in my gut again, and I’m decided.
“I think I’ll take you up on it. Your friends won’t mind, will they?”
Niles looks at me as if I’ve grown another head on my shoulders. “Not hardly. They love sleepovers. Come, I’ll show you to your room.”
As Niles guides me back inside, closing the door and locking the winter storm outside, I can’t help thinking that sleepovers at his place probably aren’t anything like the innocent, childlike ones portrayed on television.
At least, I hope they aren’t.
7
I’m lying in bed, a king-size one that feels brand new. If it’s a guest bed, it probably is, too. The blankets are heavy and luxurious, as are the sheets, all of which belong on a gray scale, with the pleated duvet a deep-charcoal color and the sheets several shades lighter. They’re enough to keep me warm all on their own. No need for fleece or flannel like I have at home. The extra-tall cherry-red posters on each end of the bed nearly reach the ceiling, and I stare at the matching paddles of the ceiling fan that’s perfectly framed by them.
It’s cold in the room, and despite my perfectly warm toes snuggled deep into the blankets, I can’t stop thinking about how nice it would be to have Niles or Shane or Dean—or hell, all three of them—here to burrow myself into.
Or maybe have them burrow into me.
Niles’ kiss left a lasting tingle on my lips, and I can’t stop thinking about that either. It would be a dream come true at this point if he came in here and took things between us to the next level. Hell, I’m wishing on a star and sending up prayer after prayer for that outcome because Niles drives me crazy with need. I feel like a wanton floozy with the sheer volume of dirty thoughts that flip endlessly through my mind, staving off sleep in a way that can’t and won’t be healthy come daybreak. But if the snow persists and the city can’t keep up enough to clear the roads, it won’t matter anyway—none of us will be making it to work or keeping any plans we might have had.
Another fantasy creeps its way into my thoughts, one of slipping from this bed and down the hall, locating Niles’ room, and crawling into bed beside him, grabbing his cock, and feasting on it. I scissor my legs, that tingle on my lips finding its way down to my core, creating an ache that I’m reluctant to satisfy in a place that’s not my own. Despite no one knowing what I’m doing in here all alone, it still feels wrong and shameful to pleasure myself under someone else’s roof, in their bed, on their linens. So I refrain from touching myself, interlocking my fingers with each other and flattening my palms on my abdomen, refusing to give into the urge.
There’s a clock somewhere in the room that ticks monotonously, the sound so perfectly timed that it’s slowly driving me insane. I can’t sleep; I can’t bring myself to relieve this persistent ache in my loins, and there’s no television or anything to entertain and distract myself with. It’s just a dark, lonely room, and I have too much time on my hands.
With a put-upon sigh, I throw back the blankets and ignore the chill that grabs onto me and I kick my feet over the side of the bed and stand. Niles, being the perfect gentleman that he is, lent me a pair of his sweatpants, since he was the leanest of the men, while Shane lent me one of his thermal long-sleeve shirts that falls all the way down to the middle of my thighs, and Dean gave me his giant slippers that are lined with fleece.
Everything is far too big and I have to hold up the pants, despite tying the string as tight as possible, but they smell like their owners, and I pull the collar of the shirt to my nose and inhale deeply for another dizzying hit. I swear, nothing smells better than a man. Whether it’s their cologne, body wash, or their natural musk, I have no way of knowing, but they’re like a drug that I can’t get enough of.
The house is so new that the floors don’t even creak as I make my way to the door and silently pull it open and step out into the dark hallway. Have these guys ever heard of a nightlight, I wonder as I pad lightly toward the stairs that I know are at the end of the last door and next to the communal bathroom.
Lucky for Niles, he gets the room with the master bath, which, as he explained during the brief tour earlier, is fair because it’s his name on the deed and he pays
the lion’s share of the mortgage. As it turns out, Dean and Shane, while equal in sharing the bills, are just renters rather than investors, and once they organize their lives and get all of their ducks in a row, they’ll be moving on with their lives, each man heading their separate ways. As I take the steps carefully, I find myself wondering how Niles will feel about that, when he’s one day left here all alone. Will he miss his friends, or will he be happy to have the place to himself?
I look around, peering through the heavy shadows into rooms I only possess a cursory knowledge of, and consider what it might be like with a woman’s touch. One day, maybe Niles will have a family, a wife and kids to warm this place up, to add their personal touches and breathe life into a structure that is, as it stands, merely a house and not yet a home.
Instantly, I feel a surge of jealously for this mystery woman who doesn’t yet exist. It’s irrational, I know, but I wonder if she’ll appreciate any of this the way I would. Niles is clearly a hard worker with a good head on his shoulders, stable and responsible. I’m not nearly as put together at this stage in my life as he is in his, and it shows. It’d be a dream come true to one day own something as grand and rich, to be surrounded by friends that are more like family, and to have a kind of security I’ve only ever known briefly in childhood.
I shrug off the melancholy thoughts as I locate the kitchen and pull open the fridge, fully intent on raiding it for leftovers. Even though I find it disrespectful and awkward to finger myself in another person’s home, I don’t feel the same type of shame when it comes to food. Before retiring for the night, all three men told me to make myself at home, and I’m doing just that.
Besides, I can’t sleep, and it’s their fault. They owe me some satisfaction, and food seems like a good enough substitute right now. It’s a small price to pay, if you ask me. I could be waking them up instead and demanding pleasure. I bet that would be weird for everyone—a strange woman in their home, invading their private space and demanding sexual favors for something they didn’t even know they’d done.
As much as I’d like to do just that, I do have my limits.
So Chinese leftovers it is.
There are containers upon containers of food, expanding far beyond the Chinese takeout cartons that brought our dinner tonight. It looks as if they eat out every night and are intimately familiar with every restaurant in town. At a glance, I see partial salads and pasta bakes housed in plastic, pizza boxes, cylinder-shaped foil that I assume are burritos, and paper wraps in the same shapes that I guess are sandwiches. The list goes on, and I shudder to think what all of that food would do to me, a woman who isn’t blessed with a fast metabolism or man-luck to be able to eat like a horse without weighing in like one.
I reach for the Chinese because at least I know it’s not intended for someone’s lunch, and smile when I see it’s the sweet ‘n sour chicken and rice, glad I didn’t have to go hunting for it. It’s my favorite Asian cuisine, and whatever restaurant they ordered it from did a fantastic job. It’s as good as the one I make at home, which is all I can afford, because ordering in costs twice as much, at least, as making it from scratch, and I’m watching every dime.
Peeling back the container flaps like flower petals, I pluck out a chunk of sweet glazed chicken and drop it into my mouth, chewing slowly while I locate the dishes and dump a good portion of the meal onto a plate that I then nuke in the microwave.
It’s surprisingly easy to settle into the space, as if it were my own. I can see myself living here, which is a dangerous thought, considering I’m probably years away from owning my own place and it probably won’t be nearly as nice as this one.
When the food is hot, I pop my butt up onto the counter and rip open one of the plastic baggies that were extra with tonight’s dinner and take out the plastic fork, and then I start eating as if I haven’t had a meal in ages.
And that’s when Dean walks in.
The smirk he flashes me when he catches me sitting here, fork lifted to my mouth and eyes wide, is sexy as hell. That’s not even considering the low-slung green sweatpants that highlight a pronounced bulge or the complete lack of shirt, revealing a completely average torso made up of perfect peach skin, a slightly rounded tummy, and a dusting of hair on his chest that runs down past his belly button and into his pants like an arrow that sets off my internal homing beacon. It’s a struggle not to stare, but damn…
There is nothing average about Dean. Nothing at all. He’s a total snack, as I heard the kiddies calling it these days, and as a snack, I’d love to nibble on a few choice parts, see if it tastes as delicious as he looks.
I clear my throat and say, “Isn’t it a little chilly to be running around without clothes on?” Then I resume eating, enjoying the medley of exotic flavors.
Dean heads for the fridge. “I’m wearing clothes. And it’s not that cold in here.”
“Well, I can’t see my breath—yet—so I’ll concede for now.” However, the air is cold enough that my nose is starting to numb, and that’s enough for me. I huff on my food as I bring another forkful to my mouth, enjoying the brief moment of warmth that rises up to kiss my face.
“Next, are you going to tell me that I’ll catch a cold if I don’t put a shirt on?”
“I could,” I say with a flirtatious lilt, “but then I wouldn’t get to enjoy the view.”
Normally, I’d say it’s wrong for me to flirt with a man’s best friend, but considering the circumstances and the prior knowledge that Niles is on the hunt for a woman for all of them to share, I feel no shame. I hint of apprehension maybe, since I’ve only ever ventured down this road in fantasies, but I’m not the type to run from a challenge. Hell, I love anything that gets my adrenaline pumping, and Dean certainly accomplishes that.
“Are you enjoying the view?” he asks as he turns and places what looks to be another container of Asian cuisine on the island between us.
I state the obvious. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”
Even in the dark kitchen, where only the light of the open fridge and the soft luminescence of the moon and a streetlight outside provide a modicum of visibility, I can see Dean’s eyes darken. Hell yeah, he wants me. There’s no mistaking when a man is turned on, and Dean is. My words have sparked his fire, and his response has sparked mine.
I feel like the girl in the office storage closet with Niles. The thrill of the chase and the chance of getting caught add extra spice to an already flaming hot situation, and suddenly, I don’t feel the chill in the air anymore.
“What about Niles?”
He’s testing me. I can see it in the way his eyes narrow a fraction, and it becomes clear to me that Niles hasn’t said anything to him, and probably not Shane either, about engaging in any group activities. How does one broach the subject, especially when they’ve never engaged in such an act before?
“I don’t think Niles would mind.”
“That you’re hitting on his friend? Somehow, I think he’d mind.”
He scoffs, but my next words give him pause. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t ‘sharing is caring’ kind of a motto between the three of you?”
Dean, who was busy searching for a utensil, stops in the middle of his task to stare at me. “How much as Niles told you about us…exactly?”
“Exactly?” I look up at the ceiling and purse my lips. “Oh, only that you like to share, on occasion, and that you were currently in the market, and that Niles has taken it upon himself to do the footwork.” I run my hands through the air in front of me, indicating the vision he sees before him. “Do you like his offering?”
That darkness in his eyes deepens and he abandons his search, slamming the drawer of the island closed and turning to walk toward me. His steps are hard and purposeful, and I swallow, setting aside my food as he closes the distance.
Have I made a mistake?
8
Bracing both hands on the counter on either side of me, Dean stares deep into my eyes. I meet th
e unspoken challenge unwaveringly, although my insides quiver with excitement and a twinge of fear stemming from the unknown.
“Is that even a question?” he asks, as if he’s confused and appalled that I would ask such a thing.
“It would be arrogant of me to just assume.”
I guess he likes my answer, because the smile that spreads across his face is brilliant. “You are such an unexpected delight.”
At this, I smile too. “I get that a lot.”
“I bet you do.” A faint dimple appears in his left cheek, and my, oh my, I want to touch him. I want to kiss him. Hell, I want to do a lot more than that. Again, I question myself. Do I fully understand what I’m attempting to get myself into? Do I want to follow this to what will probably be a bitter end? I have no earthly clue. I have nothing to compare this to, but I’ve been through enough in life to know what I want when I come across it, and the butterflies in my stomach are enough to tell me that this is something I want to explore further.
“Elle,” Dean says, and his voice is lower now, huskier. I feel his thumbs brush against my outer thighs, testing me. “Has Niles told you what we’re all about? What we’re looking for?”
I lick my lips in preparation of my explanation, enjoying that his response is one of hunger as his eyes track the minute movement as if he wants exactly the same things that I do. It’s enough to bolster my courage, and I take a leap into the unknown, trusting that my instinct and life experience is enough to keep me afloat no matter how this plays out.
“He mentioned the other girls, the attempts at a relationship between all of you, and that each of you are looking for someone special. Someone to share,” I add, making sure that he understands that I know exactly what I’m facing.
His nod is minimal, his eyes still locked firmly on my mouth. “Good, because I’d hate for there to be any confusion, especially now.”
I swallow hard, and my voice comes out as a croak. “Why especially now?”
Under the Mistletoe: A Reverse Harem Christmas Novel Page 5
