Just For Halloween (Just Us Series Book 3)

by Roxanne Riley

  Then the events of last night truly sink in. I can’t believe I really went through with it, but the moment I’d laid eyes on Summer, (after first being treated to her incredibly sexy voice and her lips on my ear) I’d been unable to take my eyes off of her.

  And then Ben had strolled up, and I’d been just as smitten with him.

  I’d been with both men and women in the past, but never at the same time. Not that I hadn’t thought about it, but I guess it didn’t seem like something that would ever come up.

  I’d broken up with my ex about a month and a half ago, when I caught her cheating on me, and since, I’d been spending my nights alone. I’ve never been much good at being alone.

  So I had gone to Ecstasia in search of a hookup, I just hadn’t realized it would be like this. And I hadn’t even considered the possibility that I might actually meet someone-let alone two someones-I want to spend more time with.

  I’d been feeling lonely and wanted someone for a night of fun, but now I think I want more than a single night with Ben and Summer. There’s something magnetic about the two of them, a warmth to their personalities that draws me in, something inviting and addictive.

  And the way the two of them seem to just move in sync, to understand each other without words, it’s incredible. It seems surreal to me that they could open up a partnership so close to a third person, but something about their dynamic left room for me to slip in effortlessly.

  It’s strange to feel such a sense of belonging with complete strangers. Although I suppose after last night we aren’t complete strangers.

  “Morning,” I hear a soft murmur and look over.

  While Ben is still snoring away, Summer has finally stirred. “Morning,” I whisper back, drinking in the sight of her.

  The three of us had all slept naked, and the sheet has slipped so that it only covers one of her breasts. She looks like a goddess in a painting come to life, all lush curves and bedroom eyes, even half-awake.

  “He sleeps like the dead if you need to move his arm,” she says softly.

  I chuckle, and I do in fact decide to carefully slip the other man’s arm off of me. While I don’t mind cuddling, his arm was just a dead weight draped over me, and the heat of his skin is making me sweat. “It’s nice that he’s so snuggly in the cold weather, but I wanted to staple him to his side of the bed in August,” Summer says with a little laugh.

  “I’ll bet, he’s like a furnace,” I chuckle.

  “You weren’t complaining last night,” Ben mutters sleepily, cracking one eye open.

  I laugh. “Who’s complaining? I’m just saying you’re hot.”

  Summer and Ben both laugh, and as the sound settles over me like a favorite blanket, I think: I could get used to this.

  The thought startles me. I’d never been much of one for sharing, to be honest. I mean, one night is one thing, but to actually try to maintain a relationship with more than one person at once?

  Definitely not my normal game.

  But as I watch Ben roll slightly so Summer can give him a kiss, a weird mix of emotions overtakes me. Not only am I enjoying the sight of them enjoying each other, but I feel compelled to join in. I want to feel Ben’s stubble scrape my chin and to taste the strawberry balm on Summer’s lips.

  I hold back for now, but I know I won’t be able to resist for long, the blood’s already pumping towards my cock. I’m used to taking what I want, but this time, it’s two against one, so maybe this time the game has changed.

  Maybe this time, it’s not a game anymore.

  I slip out of the bed to go to the bathroom and splash some cold water on my face, and Summer sits up.

  “You’re not leaving already, are you?” she asks, and I don’t miss the hint of disappointment in her voice.

  She’s clutching the sheets to her chest as if we haven’t already seen everything underneath, and I find something sweet about it.

  A smile creeps across my face. “No, just need to go wash up a little.”

  “Oh, good,” she smiles.

  “Do…you guys have any plans today?” I hedge.

  “Actually, no,” Ben says, “We were kind of going to spend this whole weekend being lazy and watching scary movies.”

  “Watching Halloween movies,” Summer corrects, making a face.

  “At least a few of them have to be horror!” Ben insists.

  Summer wrinkles her nose and I laugh. “He’s right, you know. You can’t have a Halloween movie marathon without some spooky shit.”

  “Thank you,” Ben grins.

  Summer lets out a long-suffering sigh and flops back against the pillows. “You boys and your horror movies. Yuck!”

  “There are plenty of women who like horror movies, you just have no taste,” Ben teases her.

  She swings a pillow at him. Ben laughs and shields his face. “When we met, my ringtone was the Michael Myers theme from the old Halloween movies, and she made me change it because it kept scaring her,” he tells me.

  I snicker and end up having to dodge a pillow myself. “Well, hey, I know it interferes with the whole “lazy” plan, but there’s this great little Halloween carnival going on over south of Main Street,” I tell them.

  “Would you guys be interested in going with me?”

  The two of them exchange a look, and it’s like I can see the whole conversation pass between them without either of them speaking a word.

  “Sounds like fun to me,” Summer says brightly.

  Ben nods in agreement and my heart soars. “It’s a date, then. I should probably go back to my place for a change of clothes, then,” I say, looking at the various pieces of my costume scattered around the room from the night before.

  “You could just borrow some from Ben, you guys look to be about the same size,” Summer offers.

  I pick up Ben’s pants from the night before and examine the tag. “Not quite,” I shake my head.

  Ben’s built a little more slender than I am, just enough so that even if I could get into his clothes, it would be a tight fit.

  “While he’s more than welcome to get into my pants,” Ben jokes, winking at me, “Sometimes a man just needs his own underwear, love.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “He’s not wrong. Besides, we should probably pick up our cars from the club at some point.”

  “True,” Summer agrees.

  So Ben says we’ll take the limo back to the club, then I can go home and change, then I’ll come back to pick them up later in the afternoon and head over to the Halloween carnival.

  It feels like friends planning a casual lunch together or something, and I wonder if maybe they’re withdrawing from me, but when we arrive at the club and get ready to part ways, Summer strides over to me and plants a kiss on my lips that’s anything but friendly.

  “See you in a bit,” she says, flashing that smile I can’t get enough of.

  “See you soon,” I flash a grin back at her that makes her cheeks turn pink.

  I slide into my car, but the second I close the door, I hear a tap at the window. I roll it down and Ben leans his head in. “Drive safe,” he says simply and presses a kiss to my cheek.

  Both of their farewells put my mind into a tornado of feelings, and with a mixture of excitement and dread, I realize that I’m falling for them both, hard and fast.

  And a hard fall usually means something, or in this case, someone, ends up broken.

  Chapter Seven

  Summer

  I don’t think happy is the right word. Giddy, maybe? I feel like I’m floating. Last night could not have gone more perfectly. And with every move I make, the sweet, sore ache in my body reminds me of everything we did.

  Which just turns me on and makes me want to do it all over again.

  Ben has been quiet since we dropped Nick off at his car, though, and it’s making me nervous. What if he doesn’t feel the same way about last night? What if he hated it and resents me for dragging him into it? My brain goes wild with pessimistic question
s I can’t bring myself to ask.

  But then again, he did agree to go out with Nick again later today. And he kissed him goodbye. So it couldn’t have been all bad…right?

  “So,” I say finally as we pull into the driveway and Ben turns off the car, “Should we talk about last night?”

  “We probably should,” Ben says, leaning back in his seat a little.

  His expression is serious, but unreadable and my panic ratchets higher. I open my mouth to speak, but to my surprise, Ben blurts out “I want to do it again.”

  My mind and my mouth have a miscommunication and the sound that comes out of me is apparently my gibberish attempt to say about four different words at once. I clear my throat to try again with a simple sentiment my stupid, short-circuiting brain can handle:

  “You do?”

  Ben nods. “I do. I think last night was fucking incredible,” he says, though quickly adding: “Not that it isn’t always, with you, but-“

  A smile spreads across my face and I cut him off. “You don’t have to kiss my ass, I had an amazing time last night, too,” I tell him.

  The relief flooding me is too big for words as he laughs and leans over to kiss me. “I love you so much, Summer.”

  My heart melts. “Love you, too.”

  The two of us head inside and Ben flops down on the couch.

  Something keeps nagging at the back of my mind, though. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything.”

  “When you say we should do it again,” I say, sitting on the edge of the couch next to him and gnawing on my lower lip, “Do you mean in general, like sleeping with other guys? Or do you mean we should um, do it again…with Nick?”

  Ben’s face reddens. “To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about trying to find another guy,” he admits, “This might sound weird, but it kind of feels like Nick is a good fit for us. I mean, I never really thought I’d be into the poly thing, but maybe I was wrong.

  “I mean, it works for my brother,” I remark, thinking of my older brother Darren and his partners.

  He’d been through a long string of one-night stands with girls over the years, but I’d always kind of suspected something going on between him and his two best friends-slash-business partners, Ivan and Myles. It wasn’t until he came to Ecstasia and met his-or I guess I should say their-girlfriend, Jessie, that he finally admitted to it. The four of them shouldn’t work together, three alpha male type personalities battling it out with Jess in the middle, but somehow they do.

  I’d never seen my brother happier than when he’d finally told me about his relationship. It was like he was finally complete.

  Although it wasn’t that I felt like my relationship was incomplete. There was no piece missing. It sounds silly when I say it this way, but to me, it was like I already had a perfectly delicious cup of cocoa in front of me, but now I’m being offered mini marshmallows. It’s not like I’d be unhappy without, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still like them and want them.

  I share the description with Ben and he laughs. “I never would have described it that way, but maybe you’re right.”

  “You’re not going to tell Nick I called him a marshmallow, are you?”

  He presses his lips together, clearly trying not to smile. “Ben, don’t you dare!” I glare at him and he breaks, laughing.

  “Oh, come on, that nickname would be perfect,” he says.

  “You’re the worst,” I laugh.

  “Our Marshmallow,” he teases.

  “Ours, huh?” I lift an eyebrow.

  Ben freezes in place, his cheeks turning red. “I mean-“

  I poke him in the stomach. “Ha! Maybe you’re the marshmallow, you big softie.”

  “Oh, baby, you know there’s nothing soft about me,” he says, sitting up and dragging me down on top of him, tickling my sides.

  I shriek and squirm, laughing.

  This is one of the many things I love about him. I don’t know why I ever get worked up about serious conversations with him, even our most solemn discussions have ended up dissolving into laughter and affection. He’s so full of love, it’s easy for me to believe that he can share that love with someone else, too.

  So, with flutters and excitement about the possibilities for later, I talk him into a not-scary Halloween movie and we snuggle on the couch while we impatiently wait for our date.

  Chapter Eight

  Ben

  There’s something kind of exciting about going through the excitement of a first date with someone else. When Nick’s car pulls into the driveway later that afternoon, the excitement that lights up Summer’s face mirrors my own.

  So not only to I get to enjoy all the excitement myself, I get to watch Summer go through it, too. And while I expect that to flood me with jealousy, I don’t feel so much as a drop. Yesterday, I’d been worried that this whole thing would blow up, but now I was hooked.

  I wanted more.

  I wanted to let myself fall for Nick, to watch Summer fall for him, too. I wanted us to keep him around.

  I’d never had a “boyfriend,” before, though, and it definitely feels strange to have another man picking me up for a date.

  But despite the weird feelings, any awkwardness quickly dissipates once we’re all in the car together, Summer in the front seat and me behind them both. Immediately, Nick and Summer fall into a heated debate about some character from Tolkien’s books named “Tom Bombadil” and why they each think he wasn’t included in the films.

  The whole thing sounds like pure gibberish to me, but they seem to be enjoying themselves and I’m getting a kick out of watching them.

  “If you ask me, they didn’t have time to include anything else in those movies,” I say, finally chiming in, “As it was, they were long as hell.”

  We’re stopped at a light and both Nick and Summer turn to glare are me. “That is blasphemy. You’ve never even seen the extended editions!” Summer says accusingly.

  Nick looks from her to me in shock. “You’ve nev-he hasn-“

  He shakes his head with a disappointed sigh. “It’s ok, Summer,” he pats her leg reassuringly, “You and I will just have to sit him down and educate him properly.”

  Even though they’re ganging up against me, I feel this little burst of joy, watching them bond.

  “Only if she’ll actually watch the new Star Trek movies with me,” I counter.

  “Wait, you haven’t seen them?” Nick’s gaze of shame shifts over to Summer and she shrugs sheepishly.

  “All right, maybe we scrap the Halloween movies after the carnival, you both need an education,” Nick says, and Summer and I both laugh.

  “Sounds good to me,” Summer says, “But only because you nerds are so cute.”

  We pull into the parking lot for this carnival, which is surprisingly large. I wonder how Summer and I didn’t hear about it. But maybe we did and tuned it out, who knows?

  “Ooh, there’s a Ferris wheel! I’ve always wanted to go on one of those!” Summer says, gazing up at the attraction with longing, “You think they’ll let us all squish into a basket?”

  But then she glances at me and sees the expression on my face. “Oh, heights, right, sorry,” she reaches over and squeezes my hand.

  “Not a fan of heights?” Nick asks.

  I look at him, and there’s no hint of mockery in his face, just sympathy. And it hits me pretty fucking hard. He’ll play-shame me about silly things, but not the kind of real shit that other guys make fun of. “I fell off a third-story balcony when I was a kid,” I say, “Haven’t been able to handle them since.”

  “Holy shit,” Nick’s eyes go wide, “I don’t fucking blame you. I don’t exactly love heights, myself, and I don’t even have a reason. But don’t worry,” he claps me on the back and winks at Summer, “I’ll take this one for the team and take our girl up.”

  Our girl. I think I like the way that sounds.

  The three of us finally make our way into the carnival and start to walk
around. The sugary perfume of funnel cake is so strong I think I’m getting a sugar rush just from the scent. But it creates an infectious energy and excitement that makes me feel like a kid again.

  There’s orange, black and purple as far as the eye can see, every possible surface plastered with ghosts and witches and bats for the holiday.

  We wander around for a bit and play a handful of games. At one point, Nick and I have a mock competition going to see who can win Summer the biggest prize, until she starts making us carry them.

  It’s pretty difficult to look dignified while carrying around a pastel pink stuffed unicorn.

  When we come upon the haunted house, Summer hesitates. “Do we have to?” she asks, eyeing it uneasily.

  “Not if you really don’t want to,” Nick tells her, “But do you really want to miss the chance to see Ben scream like a little girl?”

  Summer laughs. “Well, when you put it that way…”

  “Classic projection,” I reply, shaking my head, “Clearly Nick will be the one screaming like a little girl.”

  “If I go in there, it’s gonna be me,” Summer says with a sigh, “But I’ll do it. For you two.”

  Nick bends and kisses her cheek. “It’s all just for fun, Summer, don’t worry. And besides, you’ve got two strong, gorgeous,”

  “-Modest,” I chime in, snickering.

  Nick ignores me and continues “…men to keep you safe from all the ghosts and goblins in there.”

  Summer giggles. “All right, all right. But I’m walking between you two.”

  I agree to go first, with Summer behind me and Nick bringing up the rear.

  I can’t help but think that maybe later, in the bedroom, maybe I’ll have to take up that place in the middle.

  But I shake off the dirty thoughts in an attempt to calm my rising boner and lead them through the haunted house.

  It’s pretty tame, as haunted houses go, with a few zombies popping out here and there, but nothing dramatic enough to make any of us scream, although one clown with a chainsaw gets a good little gasp out of Summer.