“It’s your death wish,” I say with a shrug.
The dealer is looking at me expectantly. In a small panic, I point at a number at random.
“69 red,” Eli says, raising an eyebrow. “Something on your mind, Sofie?”
I smile and nestle beneath his arm as the roulette wheel rolls.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
So look. Don’t tell me the odds. I’m a bio girl. Math can be a little foreign to me, and frankly, knowing would ruin it.
But whatever those odds are, my mouth falls open in disbelief as the little black ball rolls into my chamber. Red 69.
“Holy shit,” I say, staring.
Begrudgingly, the dealer shoves more chips over to us than we can reasonably carry.
“Sofie,” Eli whispers in my ear. “Celebrate!”
Frankly, I’m just shocked. But Eli told me to have fun tonight, and I absolutely intend to.
“We won!” I squeal, jumping up and down.
Eli spins me around in his arms as my heart pounds in my chest. I have an idea how people can get addicted to this feeling.
Luckily, Eli’s kiss is even better. He still tastes like margarita and cunt.
“You’re my good luck charm,” I tell him, grinning like an idiot.
“Or you’re mine.” He grins back.
“Grrrrrrrrrr,” says my stomach, loud enough that the whole table can hear us.
Taking the hint, we cash out, having effectively doubled Eli’s gambling budget in one go.
“I hope you like steak,” Eli says, pulling back the straps of my dress and tucking the thick stacks of bills against my breasts. “You’re buying.”
“Mmm. And caviar too.”
“Lobster thermidor.”
“And their finest bottle of Armand de Brignac,” I add cruelly.
Eli pulls a face. “Oliver would literally murder me.”
“Over overpriced champagne?”
Eli nods. “That man takes his dining experiences very seriously.”
We end up sitting across a candlelit table from each other in an otherwise empty restaurant. The waiter looks tired and annoyed until Eli plucks a few hundred dollar bills from my bra and hands them over. That perked him right up.
“If you keep tipping at this rate, we’re going to be broke,” I tease.
“Then don’t ask me how much I had to tip the manager to open this place back up for us.”
“We could have settled for fast food,” I point out.
“You wanted steak,” Eli reminds me. “Not meat paste.”
“True,” I agree.
We order the prime rib.
“Tell me, Sofie,” Eli says as I devour my medium-rare like a semi-refined animal, “a girl like you—beauty, smarts, et cetera et cetera. What is it that you’re chasing? What do you want?”
“Hmm. The strawberry cheesecake sounds nice.”
What? I don’t fuck around when it comes to food.
“I’m serious, Sofie. What does a gorgeous little heart like yours desire?”
I pat my lips with a napkin and sit back, considering it.
“I guess...” I begin, a little embarrassed. “I want to make the world a better place. The way that you and Oliver and Lucas do.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“I’m serious,” I assure him. “When I got the internship at BioKin, I was through the moon. Honestly. You guys are kind of my heroes.”
“We’re not heroes, Sofie.” Eli chuckles. But if I’m not mistaken, even in the soft glow of the candlelight, there’s a faint blush to his handsome cheeks. “We’ve been afforded a lot of privileges in our lives. My last name. Lucas’s money.” He leans back in his chair, looking at me like I just made his year. “You should tell this to Oliver, though. He grew up pretty poor. Gave me that same make the world a better place speech himself once upon a time.”
“I grew up…not in the best way either, truth be told,” I say, picking up my fork and pushing the parsley garnish around my plate with it. “My parents died in a car accident when I was pretty young. I spent a lot of my childhood being shuffled from foster home to foster home.”
“Ah,” Eli says solemnly. “Thus, the Fostering Angels auction.”
“Yeah,” I say with a small smile, “but I would have gone out with you and Lucas and Oliver even if you hadn’t given an insane amount of money to my charity of choice.”
“That’s reassuring.” Eli laughs. “You never struck me as the kind of woman who could be easily bought. It was part of why bidding on you was such a fucking thrill.”
“Among other things.”
“Among other things,” Eli agrees. “So, after you graduate, you’re saving the world. Have you thought any about how?”
I consider it for a second.
“I could go sail around with Greenpeace for a while, I guess. Save the whales. Or join the Peace Corps, maybe. Although, I’m not sure how badly they need bio majors.”
“You could always come work for us,” Eli offers. I can see him watching my expression intently as he says it, like he’s trying to gauge my reaction before it happens. “You’re already familiar with BioKin’s work. And we need smart, creative, driven people like you, Sofie.”
“Is this a dinner date or a job interview?”
“Oh, no,” Eli says with a sly smile. “Definitely a date. If it was an interview, I couldn’t do what I’m planning on doing to you when I get you up to our room.”
Now I’m the one blushing. But before my face can go full fire-engine red, thankfully, the champagne arrives.
“Clos d’Ambonnay,” Eli names it as the waiter pours us two sparkling glasses. “Don’t worry.”
“With you? Never.” I wrap my fingers around the stem as Eli does the same.
“To your ambitions, Sofie Carson,” he says, raising his glass in a toast. “Wherever they might lead you.”
Our glasses make a beautiful noise as we clink them together. The champagne makes me feel all warm and giddy inside as I take a sip. Or maybe that’s just how Eli makes me feel. Who knows?
As Eli asks for the dessert menu, I can’t help but feel like this has to be more than just sex. It’s the same feeling I had in the plane, like I really matter to him. Like I’m more than just something he wants to put his dick in.
Although, as my cheesecake arrives, I have to admit it. If he wants to put his dick in me again anyway, I sure as hell won’t mind.
Oliver
Naturally, Elijah waits until he has me in a headlock to spill the big news.
“Ask me who I was with last night,” he says as I struggle to break his hold.
“Why don’t you just tell me,” I suggest, “before you get hurt, pretty boy.”
He hesitates, and I nearly throw him off then and there.
“Sofie,” he admits, and then I really do throw him.
Eli lands hard on his back, laughing hysterically.
“I thought that might have some effect on you,” he says, grinning as he picks himself back up.
He has every reason to be smiling right now. Sofie Carson is like a dream come to life, walking around New York City completely oblivious to the fact that she shouldn’t technically be real.
Eli and I spar like this every Sunday night from the quiet sanctity of my building’s private gym.
Usually, the other tenants are too hungover from their long weekends popping champagne bottles or too in Europe to frequent the gym at this time, so we generally have the place to ourselves.
Which is handy, because it means we can gently beat the crap out of each other without anyone getting any wild ideas and calling the cops. Which is the real reason we’ve switched Fight Club night from Thursdays to Sundays.
“Sofie Carson. Goddamn, man. Well, dare I ask?”
I throw a slow, easy right hook at Eli that he has plenty of time to duck. Fortunately for him, he needs his pretty-boy face for work on Monday. It’s his charming, effortless handsomeness that makes our male investors
trust him and our female investors swoon. It wouldn’t play quite as well if he showed up with a black eye or a split lip though, so I go easy on the guy.
Eli returns the favor by popping me one right in those.
“We fucked, if that’s what you’re asking,” Eli admits. “In the jet—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I say, holding a boxing glove up like I’m hitting a pause button. “You took Sofie—our Sofie—in your jet?”
“To Vegas,” he confirms. “Gambled a little. Honeymoon suite. The works.”
Briefly, I’m tempted to knock that smug grin off his perfect face, not because I grudge him the date or anything. Not really. Just, damn, Sofie in Vegas.
I wish I’d thought of it first.
“You’re setting the bar pretty high, buddy. That’s a tough act to follow.”
Eli shrugs, and I catch him in the gut with my glove. Unpause.
“You’re telling me.” He laughs. “But I guess that was kind of the point. You have it bad for her too, don’t you?”
I give him the look. The “stop asking me shit you already know the answer to” look.
He bops me in the nose again.
“Okay, let me try again. You jealous?”
We circle each other, our fists raised defensively, waiting to see which one of us will strike first.
But this is just boxing. Not real life. And where it matters, Eli’s already struck first.
The sly bastard.
Now I just have to make sure I don’t strike out.
I swing, left hook, a little harder this time. My glove catches Eli in the ear. Now it’s my turn to put on my best shit-eating grin.
“Not jealous, no.” I laugh as I watch him reel. “But don’t get too comfortable. If there was ever a girl worth raising the bar for, it’s her.”
Eli shakes his head like he’s regaining his senses.
“Couldn’t agree more,” he says, a little dazed. I let him get his bearings before we go back at it. “If I was a betting man, I’d say Lucas is probably after her too.”
“One night in Vegas and you’re already a gambling addict.”
Eli throws a left hook of his own, and I dodge it handily.
“Can you blame me? Sofie won me fifty grand,” he says, recovering his stance before I can retaliate.
“Are we totally sure she’s real?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“Fuck if I know, man. But look, I can’t say I’d be surprised if we were all going after her. Historically speaking, we’ve all had pretty good taste.”
“In women, wine, and biotechnology,” I agree.
But nonetheless, it’s something that I have to take a moment to process. Sofie wasn’t the first girl we’ve ever shared, but she’s the first one who I’ve felt this strongly about. Could my friendship with Lucas and Elijah withstand a war over a woman?
If she was anyone else—literally any other girl in the world—I’d back off here and now. But even a shot at Sofie is worth the risk. I just need to square it away in my head right now.
She might not end up mine, but if so, it won’t be from a lack of trying.
“Seriously, though,” Eli says, snapping me out of my sidebar with my conscience. “Are you cool with this?”
I crack my neck and bounce on my heels. The circling recommences.
“I’ve gotta be. We all do,” I say with certainty.
“Right, but those are words, man. Feelings hold a hell of a lot more weight. We’ve never let a girl come between us before, but Sofie…”
I nod in understanding.
“She’s Sofie,” I agree. “But the way I figure it, we’ve shared her once…”
Eli extends his boxing glove for an obligatory fist bump, and I oblige.
“I’m not just looking to fool around with her though,” I tell him, catching him in the shoulder with my glove. “She’s more than just some fuck-and-forget.”
“You’re telling me,” Eli says with a raw kind of laugh. “I can’t get her out of my damn head. Thought I might be able to fuck it out, but…”
“One night in Vegas didn’t cure much,” I finish. “I know what you mean. I’ve been dreaming about this damn girl.”
It’s true. It’s been two nights since our first date with Sofie Carson, and it feels like I’ve barely slept for either of them. I’ve been dreaming of Sofie kisses and Sofie licks, Sofie sucks and Sofie fucks.
I woke up this morning from a dream where she reads to me from her biochem textbook on a beach in Mexico, wearing nothing but a sombrero and some coconut-scented sunscreen.
When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t believe it wasn’t real. Nor could I believe the massive tent I was pitching in my sheets.
It took a long, hot shower to take care of that one, let me tell you.
Just when I think I’m safe, Eli suckers me in the nose again. I scowl as he snickers.
“You really are hung up on her,” he says, and even he sounds a little surprised. “You normally only dream in gadgets and gizmos.”
“Untrue,” I correct him, hitting him right back. I shouldn’t be aiming for Eli’s nose. He looks deeply offended that I would even dare, but the man left his center open, and I couldn’t help myself. “There’s that dream where Stan Lee and I are sharing a bubble bath.”
“I don’t even want to know what that means about that whacky subconscious of yours,” Eli says, shaking his head. “You wanna call it a night before you permanently mess up my money maker?”
“Poor thing,” I deadpan. “Careful with the gentle breeze outside on your way home, man. It might blow you right over.”
“Eh, I’ll recover somehow,” Eli says with that sly grin that means he’s about to try starting some shit. “Sofie can blow me after and set everything right again.”
Now it’s my turn to put him in the headlock. If I don’t get Sofie’s sweet, soft mouth around my cock again soon, Eli’s bragging is going to kill me.
“Okay, okay! Uncle!” Eli surrenders.
“That’s what I thought.” I smirk. “You shouldn’t be talking about my girlfriend like that.”
“Oh, your girlfriend, is she? Because she sure didn’t look like your girlfriend while she was doing a sexy little striptease for me on the revolving bed in the honeymoon suite…”
Eli proceeds to pantomime what I’m sure he thinks is an adequate replay of Sofie’s strip show. I put an end to it by tossing him his towel. It hits him in the face with a wet slap.
“Alright.” He laughs. “I’m done. Wanna get Thai food for dinner? You can brief me on your big plans for Sofie this weekend.”
“You’re assuming that I’ll wait until this weekend.”
“You’d better not,” Eli warns me. “I’d hate for Lucas to get to her first.”
“He can have his shot,” I say graciously. “After all, Sofie deserves the best, right?”
“Right,” Eli says, clapping me on the back as we climb out of the boxing ring. “So may the best man win.”
Lucas
It’s not creepy. It’s sweet.
At least, that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself.
I’m pacing outside of the lecture hall where, if the schedule I charmed off the administrative assistant in the dean’s office is correct, Sofie Carson is currently sitting through an agonizing three-hour bio lab.
It wasn’t even that hard to get when I think about it. Show up with a dozen roses in a well-cut suit and people will bend over backwards to give you what you want.
After that, it was just a little lie. Posing as Sofie’s boyfriend from out of town and here to surprise her for an anniversary date was so easy. Even I almost believed it.
And now I’m clutching these roses in one fist and alternating between checking her schedule and my watch with the other.
Any minute now, she’s going to come walking out of this building with fifty or so other aspiring biologists. When she does, I’m going to pluck her from the crowd like a diamond out of a cart full of coal.
When I try to count the number of needy ex-girlfriends showing up at my place late at night, bugging my doorman and begging for a fuck, it makes my head spin. Which is saying something. Numbers are kind of my speciality.
After a while, I realized that the dating scene wasn’t meant for guys like me at all. Too much money, if there is such a thing. I’m better off ordering up a call girl or hooking up with some one-night stand my secretary sets up for me.
On occasion, I’ll share a girl with Elijah and Oliver—like a corporate bonding exercise or a sexual trust fall. And there’s no denying that we all have similar tastes.
Which is the real reason I’m braving the cold out on the Columbia campus on a Monday morning.
If Ollie and Eli feel anything even half as strong as I do for Sofie Carson, being prompt is a necessity.
Sofie Carson is a catch, a treat, a fucking enigma. When you’re as rich as I am, hot women are a buyer’s market. That’s what I went into the Fostering Angels’ auction expecting to find—some tasty little morsel I could buy up for the evening and send on her way when I was done with her.
But Sofie...fuck.
I don’t know that I’ll ever be done with her.
I quit the pacing because I know it makes me look like a nervous jackass. And Sofie needs to see me as I am: cool, confident, and smooth. Shiny as freshly oiled leather and calm as the eye of a hurricane.
But just as I’m taking a seat on the park bench outside of the lecture hall, the doors swing open, and a stampede of students comes rushing out of it.
Sofie Carson is the kind of girl who stands out, even in a crowd. I spot her right away. When I do, it makes me chuckle to myself.
I was imagining her in cute, classy college girl clothes: knee-high riding boots with her jeans tucked in, a tight little sweater, and one of those knitted hats with the puffball on top.
Instead, she’s wearing Uggs and tiny little yoga shorts that she must be freezing her gorgeous ass off in. She has a Columbia T-shirt on, messy hair, and—this is what really gets me—one of those big fuzzy Russian-looking hats with the ear flaps.
She looks tired, really properly worn out.
The King's Virgin Bride: A Royal Wedding Novella (Royal Weddings Book 1) Page 33
