by Chloe Lane
“Okay.” The smile is beginning to spread across her face and reach her eyes.
“Second, neither of us wants to work behind the counter at the shop.” Grace’s eyes truly go wide.
“It’s true,” I say, standing tall next to the car. “I hate that shit. And we need a gorgeous face to put our customers at ease.”
Grace bites her lip. “This is too much. I can’t accept—”
“You can.” Hunter doesn’t have to say and you will. “This is what we want.” Then he cracks his signature grin again, dropping his hands to his sides. “And I think, if you’re honest, you want this too, Grace.”
Her expression turns deadly serious. “I don’t want to be a burden.” There’s a ferocity masking her eyes now that makes me feel like I’m tumbling in a freefall right toward something amazing. “I want to make this work.”
I can’t stop myself from speaking up. “You’re never a burden, gorgeous girl. We just want to give you a leg up.”
Grace’s entire face lights up then. “Good. Good.” She straightens up, standing tall. “You two should get back to work then. As a thank-you, I’ll—” Then a wicked look comes to her eyes, and I see it reflected on Hunter’s face. “I’ll make dinner.”
13
Grace
This is the perfect compromise. The thought rings happily in my mind as I bend over to investigate Hunter’s and Jett’s fridge, surveying what’s available to make for dinner. I always made dinner for Dale, and by the time I drove away, I was so damn sick of it that I swore I’d never make dinner for another man again. But Hunter and Jett—they’re different. I’ll make them dinner, and in exchange...
In exchange, I’m not sure what’s going to happen tonight, but I’ll bet every last dollar bill in my wallet—all five of them—that it’ll be incredible. I don’t know why I was so worked up about having to stay with them for a little longer. I shouldn’t have expected to have everything sorted out in one day.
My heart beats in a giddy rhythm. They’re going to fix my car, and I’ll have to repay them somehow. With more than just dinner. I laugh out loud. No matter what happens, what I get from them is just…out of this world.
That’s what I should have been dwelling on while I walked back from those stores, not on the judgement of some stupid high-schoolers.
The space between my legs goes hot and slick thinking about the two of them, and it takes me at least a minute before I realize that I’m still standing in front of the open fridge. Looking at...
Nothing.
There are the eggs I bought at the grocery store, several six-packs of beer, a half-filled bottle of ketchup, and some other odds and ends. Nothing that could be combined into an actual dinner. I used what little there was to make breakfast this morning, and they seemed to have no problem wolfing it down, but even I can’t turn this slim pickings into a meal.
“Damn,” Hunter says, the door slamming behind him as he enters the kitchen, and I straighten up, shooting him as stern of a glare as I can muster.
“What are you looking at?”
“You.”
Jett comes in behind him, running his hands through his hair, and his expression goes from tired to energized within a split second. His burning gaze travels down the length of me, in my shorts and tank top, and he nudges Hunter with one elbow. “Good choice.”
“What’s a good choice?”
“Asking you to stay,” Hunter says with a grin. “I think we were both hoping you wouldn’t cut and run while we were in the shop.”
I press my lips together, then smile. “I was hoping that I’d find a reason to stay, even if I got a job.” This feels like the one place I can be honest, and now that I know I don’t have to pack my bags tonight, everything is easier, brighter. Something unlocks inside my core, and a cascade of heat rushes down to my already-wet pussy, soaking it again. “Looks like I found two.”
Jett laughs out loud, his usual serious expression fleeing from his face. “You’re a different woman, gorgeous. I like this side of you.” He drops his voice, stepping closer to run the back of his hand over my cheek. “This naughty side.”
I suck in a breath, and the rest of the world falls away. “I’m not always a good girl.” I don’t know why I’m saying this kind of thing. I don’t know where it’s coming from. But it’s a part of me that I’ve kept locked away, and definitely hidden from Dale. I don’t have to hide it anymore. I don’t have to hide how much I want Jett…and Hunter.
“Well, you’re going to have to be for a while longer.” He drops his hand, and I can’t stop myself from pouting. “We’re taking you out.”
“Wait—what? Out?”
“Yeah,” Hunter says, shrugging off his shirt to reveal his unbelievably cut abs. “Showers—fast—and then we’re all going out to eat. Put on your nicest outfit.” His dark eyes dance in the late afternoon light. “It doesn’t have to be an evening gown.”
“Good, because I don’t have an evening gown.”
“What?” He lets out a faux gasp. “A treasure like you, with no gown?”
“And a prince like you, working as a mechanic?” The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them, and Jett bursts out laughing, hands on his knees. A warm pride swells in the center of my chest. I couldn’t say things like this to Dale. Even the mildest teasing would set him off and make the rest of my evening miserable.
I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face to save my life, and I didn’t want to. “Where are we going to go?”
“Someplace nice. Really, don’t worry about it. Dinner is on us,” Hunter says, and the next thing to drop are his jeans. If he goes any farther, I might not be able to contain myself…and I’m not that kind of girl. No matter what happened this morning.
Well…maybe I am. And if I am, so what? I laugh out loud when the realization sweeps over me again. I’m not in Springfield. I’m in Baker’s Ridge, I have at least one job prospect, and I’m living—for the time being at least, not forever—with the two sexiest men I’ve ever seen, bar none. What was I so upset about? That I didn’t get here in time to get a job I didn’t really want? That I got here just in time to land a job I’m not sure I’ll ever want to leave?
Jett gives me a crooked grin. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing’s funny,” I tell him. “It’s just…I was so upset about getting rejected from those places downtown. And now I’ve got a place to stay, and a place to work, and a dinner invitation…”
“Speaking of dinner—”
“I’m first in the shower,” Hunter calls out, making a beeline for the bathroom.
“Fine by me,” Jett shoots back. “I’ll stay here with Grace, if that’s how you really want it.”
“I never said—”
“Boys, boys,” I say, drawing myself up to my full height, as a lustful wave of need pulses through every one of my veins. “I have a better idea.”
14
Hunter
Our shower isn’t massive, but somehow that makes it even better when the three of us climb in, Grace lodged cozily between the two of us, directly under the stream of water. She tilts her head back, running her hands through her hair, working the water in with her eyes closed. When she opens them, her face goes a shade of pink that I’m beginning to associate with desire. She might have been brave and confident in the kitchen, but now, with both of us just inches away from her, some of her shyness creeps back in. It doesn’t seem to matter that she was spread out on Jett’s bed just this morning, taking his cock into her mouth. She glances down at the floor of the shower, then back up into my eyes.
“I am a little dirty,” she says. My cock is already harder than iron just from watching her get undressed, but when those words come out of her mouth, it twitches in response. “I haven’t had a shower since sometime yesterday.”
“You didn’t shower while we were gone?” I pick up the bottle of shampoo—a neutral scent, since we just buy whatever is on sale at the drugstore—and squeeze some into my hand.
Grace shakes her head. “I just washed my hair in the sink before I went for my interviews. I figured I’d have time—” Her blue eyes get another wicked glint. “A little time alone before you came back from the shop.”
“Thank God you didn’t.”
I work the shampoo into her hair with both hands, but touching her like that sends an urgent frenzy through my chest. I have to have more of her. I have to have more of her, and now.
I cut a look at Jett, who reaches out and threads his own hands through Grace’s hair. I drop to my knees in front of her. Jett gathers all of her hair into his fist and tugs it gently so that she has to turn, her pussy positioned directly in front of my mouth. She lets out a little mewl when he tugs again, making her tilt her head back under the water so he can rinse the shampoo from her hair.
“Spread for me, gorgeous.” She does, reaching down to brace herself against my shoulders with her petite hands. She’s perfect, her pussy shaved clean except for a neat landing strip. I open her farther with my hands, spreading her lips until her wetness is glistening right in front of me.
I give the slick line of her slit a hard lick, and Grace gasps, her fingers grasping tightly on my shoulders.
It’s like that one motion has unleashed something inside of her, because she spreads herself even wider, feet stopping only at the edge of the tub. “Please,” she begs, pressing her hips forward. “Please, more of that…”
I stop, my fingers still holding her open, and let her hips buck uselessly against my hands. “Are you going to be a good girl?”
“Yes,” she gasps. “I’ll do anything. Please, Hunter…please…”
Jett stops rinsing her hair, the shampoo swirling down the drain, and tugs it back into his fist. I can tell his grip is tighter, even from here, because Grace sucks in another breath, her head tilting back, her pale neck exposed. Jett leans down and kisses her hard enough to leave a mark, and her hips roll in my hands again.
“Anything?”
“Anything. Just please, don’t stop…”
I don’t make her ask me a third time. I just dive back in, devouring the flood of juices from her sweet pussy.
But it’s not enough. I just can’t get deep enough, not with her feet on the floor. One look at Jett, and he lifts her into his arms. She leans back into him with a soft “oh,” and I take her ass in my hands, bracing her with one hand so she can spread herself even wider for me. Yes.
I lick in long strokes, then drill my tongue into her core, relentless, unstoppable, until Grace lets out a low cry and comes hard into my mouth, her entire body dancing and writhing with the sensation.
Jett doesn’t give her any time to recover before he puts her back on her feet. “Bend over,” he growls, and Grace, breathing hard, follows his orders, putting her hands back on my shoulders and bending deep. Her eyes are pools of liquid heat, and she locks her gaze on mine.
“Is this what I’m supposed to do?” The tentative whisper just about drives me over the edge.
I lock my hands over her wrists, holding her in place. “You heard what he said.”
Then, as Jett kneels behind her, I cover her mouth with mine. With a low moan, she parts her lips for me, letting my tongue explore her mouth, even as Jett spreads her wide.
“Oh!” Grace’s cry is caught in my mouth, and I pull back.
“What’s he doing to you, gorgeous?”
“He’s got—” Her face floods a bright red, and she tries to look past me.
“Look into my eyes when you say it.”
“His fingers are inside me.”
I release one of her hands. “Keep that hand on my shoulder. Don’t move.”
Grace freezes in place, trying her best to stay still as Jett finger-fucks her. I reach down to her breasts and roll her hard nipples between my fingers, first one, then the other, and she moans, louder, lower, deeper.
“I didn’t tell you to stop talking.”
“He has his fingers inside me, and he’s—he’s fucking me, and rubbing my clit…”
“Are you ready to come again?”
She’s trembling now, shaking with the effort of staying still, and an image of her over my lap, being punished, flashes into my mind. But I can’t do that now. No, now is about making her come. And we still have to get clean.
“Yes.” Grace grits her teeth. “Yes…”
“I’ll tell you when.” Jett takes over command so easily, it’s like we’ve been doing this for years. “Stay in position…”
He teases her, drawing his fingers in and out, until every breath is a cry, and then he growls, “Come now.”
Grace explodes with a howl that’s almost a scream, hips bucking and shaking and riding the wave of her own orgasm, all of it so intense that it takes her a full minute to come down.
Then, even as she’s still catching her breath, she goes to her knees as we stand up.
“Are you ready, gorgeous?” I say, and she gives me the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen on a woman. “It’s our turn.”
15
Jett
Grace laughs in the dim light reflecting from the fake candles that adorn the center of the tables at Alfonso’s, without a doubt the classiest restaurant Baker’s Ridge has to offer. Technically, it’s not even in Baker’s Ridge—it’s between Baker’s Ridge and Mason, the next town over. We drove here in the truck, Grace settled between us like she’s been with us forever.
With us—I don’t know why I keep thinking that kind of thing. Yes, technically she is with the two of us, but she can’t be with us in that way, no matter how convenient it seems right now.
And it seems pretty damn convenient.
Grace was begging for more by the end of the shower, but I knew that if I let myself give in to her, that would be where it ended. She’s one day away from a bad situation, and rushing into anything—even if I want badly to rush into fucking her—would be a disaster. I just know it.
Hunter and I discussed the dinner before we even came up to the shop. “Unless she goes shopping, there’s nothing for her to make,” he’d said with a grimace. “And I don’t want her to think she has to be our maid in order to stay with us.”
“Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re such a great cook, too.”
“Shut the hell up. I’m better than you.”
“Point taken. You’re right on the maid thing, though. If she’s going to work in the shop, she doesn’t need to be working at the apartment, too.”
“Not tonight, at least.”
“No. Not tonight.”
I could see in his eyes that he was desperate to make up for the way she’d been rejected downtown, although if she’d told either of us she was going to apply at those places, we could have steered her...
...well, right back to the shop. Because everyone in Baker’s Ridge knows that the easy jobs—the summer jobs—are always taken by college kids in the spring before anyone else has a chance to apply.
It’s not Grace’s fault that her ex was an asshole and she had to choose her moment to flee.
Even thinking about that man—whoever he is—being such an unbelievable dick to her makes my stomach coil tight with rage. It’s strange, because I’m not normally the kind of guy who gets all misty-eyed over bad things happening to good people. But with Grace, it’s different. It’s just…different.
Hunter teases her again. “Are you seriously going to order a salad?”
“Are you kidding me?” Grace’s breasts rise underneath the black t-shirt she’s wearing with a pair of jeans that are fitted perfectly to her curves. The V-neck shirt probably didn’t come from a fashion runway, but when Grace is wearing it, it looks like a million bucks. Plus, the deep-V neckline is making me want to tear it off of her—if it’s that perfect on, it’s bound to look even better on the floor. “I’m not coming to an Italian restaurant and just ordering a salad. I’m starving. I was walking around for at least…” She laughs again, and the sound sends warmth spreading through my chest. “At least two hours, getti
ng rejected everywhere I went.”
Hunter sits back in his seat and pops another piece of breadstick in his mouth. “Where did you work before you came here?”
Grace sighs. “Oh, all over the place in Springfield. I only had a high school diploma, so I couldn’t get any of the good jobs. I’d really—” Her cheeks go pink. “I’d really love to be a writer, reporting on local stories for the newspaper. I was always good at it in school. I just never had the chance to actually enroll in college. There were always other bills to pay.”
A flash of anger jumps across Hunter’s face, but he hides it by taking a drink of his beer. “You know, Mason has a community college. It’s only about ten more minutes down the road.”
Grace’s eyes go wide. “Really?”
“Yeah. You could put aside some of your auto shop earnings and enroll there in the fall.”
She looks around the restaurant like she’s seeing the inside of a classroom at the college instead of a just-this-side-of-classy Italian joint. But when she looks back at me, her face falls. “So, twenty minutes away from Baker’s Ridge. Commuting could get old.”
“Or you could just rent a place over there,” Hunter says, his tone too casual. “You have a lot of options.”
“But my job is here,” Grace says, smiling again.
“It won’t be forever, though,” I say, finally giving voice to the thing that’s been nagging at me for this entire discussion. “Eventually you’ll be able to move on to a better job, and a better place to live.”
Grace levels her gaze at me, considering. “Is there any such thing?”
Hunter laughs. “Better than working at the front desk for a couple of auto mechanics? I’m sure there is.” He spreads his hands out in front of him. “Think of it: Grace Robins, Reporter.”
She smiles, eyes twinkling. “It does have a nice ring to it,” she admits. “But does Baker’s Ridge even have a local paper?”
