by Cari Quinn
Except this time, the visitor was Juliet, and she was naked below mid-thigh.
Correction—she was practically naked, period, minus the long, white, clearly male undershirt that barely covered the tops of her legs.
She was dressed scantily, but no worse than some of the others he’d seen wandering through the place in tiny negligees. For that matter, she was positively overdressed compared to the woman he’d seen covering her bare breasts with her arm as she ran inside from the pool. At least she’d kept her bikini bottoms on.
As far as Juliet’s bottoms? He wasn’t certain she wore any.
Her long dark hair was tumbled and wild and she carried an empty ice bucket. Brick red lipstick was smeared slightly around her mouth, giving it a used look.
He could just guess by who.
Move, dumbass. Don’t just stand there staring at her like you’ve never seen a girl before.
Or a really fucking stupendous pair of tits, pressing against the cotton as if they were begging to be let free. She definitely wasn’t wearing a bra.
Fuck, he had to get out of there. Fast.
Randy forced himself to walk forward. He would’ve just sidestepped her and headed out of the kitchen without saying anything, but she snagged her fingers in the belt loops of his jeans and halted him in his tracks.
“Hey.” Her husky voice slayed him, just as it always did. She sounded like her bass guitar, all throaty and deep. So goddamn sexy he couldn’t breathe for fear he’d bust his damn zipper. “Looks like you forgot to button your shirt.”
She bent to place her ice bucket on the floor, causing the front of her shirt to dip precipitously enough that if he hadn’t closed his eyes at the last second, he would’ve seen more than he could’ve tolerated. As it was, he caught the briefest glimpse of soft pale flesh.
His eyes popped open as she started doing up the buttons of his shirt, from the bottom to the top. A hint of pink tongue peeked out between her teeth, and her nipples were—
He wasn’t going to look. He’d been raised to be a gentleman, so surely he could focus on her face while she touched him for the first and probably last time.
“What are you doing to me?” His voice sounded foreign to his ears. Rough, jagged, low. Her gaze flickered up to his and he figured she’d wised up to the changes in him too, because her patented confidence seemed to waver for an instant before she shored it up again.
“Why, Sparks, it looks like I’m buttoning up your shirt. Can’t have you parading around here, showing off these abs.” The backs of her fingers brushed his stomach, the slightest contact, and he hardened even further.
If she ever actually laid her hands on him, he’d go crazy.
“I didn’t even know you had any,” she continued, as if their conversation was perfectly normal. As if they ever spoke so familiarly to each other.
They didn’t. Theirs was a mostly professional relationship, except for those few times she freaked out about something with the set. But even those moments were few and far between. For the most part, they both did their jobs and kept their distance.
Now she was buttoning his shirt, and talking about his abs, and taking little peeks up at him from beneath the thick fringe of her dark lashes. Questioning him without words.
Testing him.
“Have you been drinking?” he asked.
It was probably a stupid question. She was a young woman who knew how to have fun, and hello, wedding reception—most likely a few drinks had been involved. Though he couldn’t recall her ever drinking to excess at any of the parties or events they’d both attended.
“A little. Enough to not be put off by your surly ways, Sparks Pruitt.” She gave him another look under her lashes, except this time, she lingered until he shifted. Had to, because she’d pinned him in place with her stare. Her eyes were far too knowing, and they peered too deep. He didn’t want to be examined that closely, especially by her.
Not when he knew his best friend was waiting for her upstairs, probably naked. After they’d been naked together.
Obviously.
Hell, he could smell Tristan on her. Her scent was a rich fruity one he could never quite place. Something exotic and juicy and ridiculously hot. Tristan’s spicy citrus cologne layered over that, clinging to her hair and her skin as she leaned in close to finish the last few buttons. She’d risen up on her tiptoes, and her head was on the verge of bumping his chin. For some reason, she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her task took all her focus.
“It’s not your job to dress me,” he rasped, as her fingers fumbled on the last button, the one closest to his collarbone—and his heartbeat. His currently rocketing heartbeat, to go with his unsteady breathing and the throb in his dick.
His whole body was pulsing for her. Tuned to her every movement.
She slipped the last button through the hole and stepped back, viewing him as dispassionately as she might a new setlist. Analyzing him without emotion, because she had none for him.
So when her gaze flicked upward, and something stirred in her eyes, he figured he had to be imagining it. Either that or the “little” bit of alcohol she’d had was enough to make her see him in a way she’d never quite managed before.
Ever.
Fucking ever.
He’d waited for any possible sign there was room for him to make a move. Eventually, he’d decided wanting her from afar was way better than getting his cock crushed. Never mind any other vital organs.
“I didn’t dress you.” He was so lost in his thoughts that her voice was a shock. “I just set you back to rights. You’re not the type to parade through here showing off your body.”
He didn’t say a word. Was he dreaming?
“Trust me on that one.” She nodded at the beer he still gripped. It had started to sweat, probably due to his now stratospheric body temperature. “You’ll regret it in the morning once the hangover wears off.”
He grated out a laugh. “You think I’ve been drinking?”
“Newsflash.” She tapped the side of his beer with her thumb. “Drink.”
“Newsflash.” He grabbed her wrist when she lifted her hand to pat him on the shoulder like she would a confused toddler. “I’m perfectly sober, and it’s not your job to worry about my bare chest.”
“Who said I was worried? I was just being a…friend.” Her hesitation said it all.
They weren’t friends. Sure, they were friendly sometimes, in a cool, casual way.
Buddies they were not.
“Why? Why now, Juliet?” He stepped closer, still gripping her wrist. It wasn’t like him to be so forward, especially not with a woman his pal had moved in on. But hell, she was right there, and she’d touched him, and how was he supposed to pretend it didn’t matter when his blood had been on fire for her for months? “Let me guess. You think playing with two is more fun than one. I don’t know what you overheard earlier, but I can assure you, it isn’t what you think.”
Her throat bobbled as she swallowed. “Not a whole lot of thinking going on right now, Sparks.” Her voice was barely a breath, it was so low. “And I didn’t overhear much of anything. Just two males circling each other as if they were marking territory.”
Randy gentled his hold on her wrist. God, her skin was so pale that he could bruise her if he wasn’t mindful. He needed to be careful with her. With himself.
With this whole fucking ticking time bomb of a situation.
Yet he also wasn’t going to lie. He’d lied for so long now, mostly to himself. He’d figured if he denied his wants to himself, one day they would simply vanish. That’s what happened to a flame without enough oxygen. In time, the light extinguished itself.
If his rock-hard dick was any indication, that wasn’t happening here.
Not by a long shot.
“We weren’t circling each other for no reason. There was something we wanted,” he said softly. “Make that someone.”
Her dark eyes rounded and her lips pursed. “Oh, really? Like who? Nice of
Tristan to inform me he was macking on some other chick while he was trying to stick it to me.”
Randy had to laugh. Simply had to, because his ribs were on the verge of cracking from the pressure. Turned out a human body couldn’t exist as a blocked valve for long without some vital part giving way.
In his case, his sanity.
“Oh, honey, you are so wrong. So wrong you’re standing on another continent.” Deliberately, he let go of her wrist.
Her hand dropped and hung limply at her side. The other reached up for her throat, squeezing reflexively while her gaze roamed his face. “No.”
The small denial wasn’t what he’d expected. A husky laugh, maybe. He’d always feared getting exactly that from her if he declared how he felt. She wasn’t like him in any shape or fashion. Hell, she was practically a trust fund baby who wouldn’t have to work if she didn’t want to. He’d come from modest roots, and he spent his days with his jeans scuffed from crawling around dusty stages. He’d been raised to get right in there, to get his hands dirty, no matter what position he rose to within the crew. If something went wrong, he carried that weight because he got involved. He didn’t just throw out orders and wait for them to be obeyed.
That wasn’t his deal, in life or in the bedroom. But something about the tentative expression Juliet wore made him want to command her in a way he rarely had with a lover.
He wanted her on her knees.
Afterward, he’d reciprocate. Gratefully.
Except this wasn’t some torrid fantasy, and he lived by rules. Including the one that said Tristan had moved first, so unless they ended things, he had no right to show his cards. Even then, he probably couldn’t, depending how far things had gone between her and his best friend. There were lines that shouldn’t ever be crossed.
But he wasn’t a saint. And he damn well couldn’t ignore the vulnerability he’d somehow caused, now reflected on her gorgeous face.
He rubbed his calloused thumb over her dark red lower lip. Under his touch, it trembled, and her pupils flared wide until the brown of her irises receded.
“Yes,” he murmured.
“Hey, babe, you get lost on the way to the kitchen? Or you making those refreshments by hand?”
The familiar heavy footsteps should’ve made Randy pull back. As should have Tristan’s lazy question.
Yet he didn’t move. Neither did Juliet. They might as well have been frozen in place, their eyes locked and their breathing equally uneven. Or maybe Randy was just hoping.
Hope was a stupid, resilient motherfucker.
The footsteps stopped on the verge of the kitchen, and Randy didn’t look away from Juliet. He couldn’t. If this was the sum total of their interactions as anything other than the prima donna bassist of Warning Sign and the surly lighting director, he wasn’t going to do anything to speed the moment along.
A beat passed. Two. Randy could hear her heartbeat trapped inside his own. It was throbbing in her eyes, quivering in her lip under his thumb.
And then Tristan’s still lazy—and now curious—voice shattered the moment.
“Well, isn’t this cozy?”
Six
Tristan wasn’t a stranger to walking into crazy scenes. When one of your best friends was Hunter Jordan, a rockstar with the nickname Manaconda—and no, that wasn’t referring to the size of Hunter’s talent—and your other best friend was the brother-in-law of Deacon McCoy of Oblivion, a guy had access to enough insanity to fill a gallon jug.
And then some.
That wasn’t even counting all the people Tristan met on a day to day basis at The Hollow. He catered to the filthy rich, who often had exotic tastes and a fondness for debauchery. Often both during dinner.
Still, he couldn’t remember ever being as surprised at walking in on something as he was at that moment. Not even because Rand and Juliet were dancing around each other—or more accurately, practically pressed up against each other. He wanted to give his boy a damn fist bump.
About goddamn time, bro.
But he’d had to go and speak, mainly to see what happened next. And now they were pulling apart, looking guiltily at him and adjusting clothes that wouldn’t begin to cover Juliet’s hard nipples or Rand’s hard other things.
Including his sneering mouth.
“It’s refreshments you’re looking for, is it?” Randy took a slug from his beer and crossed his arms. The protective gesture made the seams of his shirt tighten around his shoulders. In a second, he’d be ripping through the fabric Hulk-style.
Better than sulking his way through life, as far as Tristan was concerned.
“Yeah. Like champagne. Good for licking off,” he waggled his brows at Juliet when she glanced at him, “whatever comes to mind.”
Juliet coughed into her fist and picked up the ice bucket from the floor, then skirted around Randy to rummage in the fridge. “Sorry. Got waylaid.”
“So I see.” Tristan moved up behind Juliet where she stood in front of the open refrigerator, waiting until she emerged with a chilled bottle of champagne and a spray bottle of whipped cream to drag her back against him.
Not lewdly. He wasn’t interested in making her uncomfortable. He was just trying to gauge whether she was open-minded.
Yeah, open-minded was a good word. From their partying that evening and what he knew of her from socializing with the band, she definitely seemed to have a wild streak. It never hurt to make sure though, especially since the idea beginning to form in his head was definitely unconventional. Even for him, and he’d had his share of crazy nights.
He’d even had a few like what he had in mind, but never with a close friend and never on his first night with a woman.
Definitely never with a chick his buddy had been lusting after for who knows how long.
Tristan had wondered now and then, but he’d never thought about Rand and Juliet much because all three of them were so rarely in the same sphere. That probably made this the ideal set-up. They’d have fun together for a night, and then it’d be back to business as usual.
For all three of them.
True, Randy and Juliet saw each other fairly often, but Tris was sure they could put whatever happened in the compartment it needed to be in. At least Juliet could, assuming she was even down for that sort of thing in the first place. But he had a good feeling.
Hell, maybe this would help his buddy shake off his thing for Juliet once and for all. Tris had never had an itch for a woman that he hadn’t been able to slake in a couple of nights. He wasn’t a player. Not exactly. He just wasn’t ready to be tied down, unless there was an actual rope involved. Then maybe.
Randy was a more serious sort, but even so, he wasn’t the settling down type either. At least he’d never settled with anyone for long since Tris had known him, which admittedly wasn’t a huge amount of time.
One night, no strings. Just a good time after a wedding, which he definitely needed since weddings made him want to bolt in the other direction.
Unholy matrimony. Fuck that.
This way, Rand wouldn’t have to wonder what it was like to be with Juliet anymore. Once he’d had that experience—once they all had—that would be that.
Orgasms for everybody. Problem solved.
“I missed you,” he murmured to her, brushing his lips over her shoulder while he took a casual glance at Randy. Just to see.
Randy clenched his jaw and tightened his fingers around the neck of his beer. One thing he didn’t do? Look away.
He also didn’t leave, which was pretty damn telling.
“Sorry.” Juliet’s shoulders braced, but she definitely didn’t put distance between them. If anything, she tilted her neck to give Tris a bit more access. “I ran into Randy, and we stopped to chat.”
“She buttoned my shirt,” Randy said, as if he’d just revealed Juliet had sucked him off.
“No way. Babe, that almost seems like cheating. You touched his buttons?”
Jules elbowed him and shut the refrigerator doo
r. He laughed, shaking his head as he pulled her to stand in front of him. For all intents and purposes, she was between them, and Randy wasn’t enjoying it one bit.
His buddy definitely had the whole glowering deal down pat.
“I thought he’d been drinking. When does Sparks walk around bare-chested? It’s so not him.”
“Sparks?” So she had a cute little nickname for his friend. Interesting. “Sparks,” he repeated, as Randy heaved out a breath. “I like it. Certainly fits.”
“You remember the night we all met. There was the fire at the concert at the Blue Rhino.” If he hadn’t been right behind her, he might’ve missed her slight shudder as she said the word fire. But he was close enough to her body that he felt the tremor vibrate through her, so he brushed a hand over her hip. “He was in charge of lighting. Sparks was a nicer name than Pyro.”
Randy’s Adam’s apple bobbed, then he raked a hand through his hair and turned toward the door. “I’m just going to go.”
Right. Randy would leave, and he’d dwell on what she’d said for hours. He was a great guy, but he took his work seriously. So seriously that a careless comment like Juliet’s would eat at him relentlessly. Tris took his work just as seriously, but if someone insulted his cooking, he’d just write them off as having an unsophisticated palate and be done with it.
Not his friend.
And fuck it, Tris wasn’t about to go off with Juliet again once he’d seen the expression on his best friend’s face when he looked at her. Seeing it earlier had been bad enough. Now there were all kind of emotions and shit churning there and Tristan would be damned if he felt guilty about having a good time.
This way, they all would. No time for brooding, nothing but pleasure. This was the best solution for all three of them, assuming Jules agreed.
“You should join our party, Rand.” Tris said it as flippantly as he could manage, but somewhere along the way, his heart had started beating too fast.
As if this wasn’t just a lark. Wasn’t just another game in a night full of them.
Randy stopped and glanced back, raising his eyebrow. If it had shot any higher, he probably would’ve popped a vein. “Excuse me?”
