by Nikky Kaye
“What next?” Stella asked.
She was so damn cute, it made my teeth hurt. I sent her into the bathroom to get my toothbrush.
“And why don’t you see what else you think I might need?” I suggested, a little curious what a three year-old would come up with as essential items.
Beaming at being assigned such an important task, she disappeared into the closet-sized bathroom.
Jake examined my bras—thankfully in the drawer, not the one on my body at that moment. Yep, damp panties. Blushing despite myself, I went in the other room to pack my laptop bag.
When I returned, Stella was still on her toiletry treasure hunt, and her father’s eyes had darkened into pools of lust. What exactly was in my top drawer, again?
Silently, he dangled a lace thong from his fingers.
“Definitely pack that,” I told him. “In fact, pack all of them.” I had the feeling I would need extra—not that I even knew how long I’d be held hostage at his place.
He tossed a handful over to the bag on the bed. Looked back and hummed.
“These are sexy.” Jake held up my oldest pair of granny panties for when Aunt Flo came to town.
I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or serious. “Sentimental value,” I said.
Holding my gaze, he twisted his fingers around the worn cotton, and tore a giant hole in the ass with his thumb.
“Oops,” he drawled.
My mouth fell open. Seriously? “You need to take me shopping,” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Done!” Stella traipsed back into the room, dumping an armful of stuff on the bed. We all sat down to examine her loot like it was a bag of Halloween candy.
Toothbrush, check. Toothpaste, check. Shampoo and conditioner, check and check. I smiled at Stella. “Good job.”
I frowned when I saw my razor. Shit, she shouldn’t have touched that. I snatched it up and moved it out of her reach.
“Daddy uses those on his face. Do you?”
Jake snickered.
“No, sweetie. I use them on my legs, mostly.”
“And a few other places,” Jake said under his breath, before holding up a maxi pad in bemusement.
“I didn’t know if you needed your diapers,” Stella explained. “I still pee my pants sometimes, too.” Her disappointment in herself was obvious.
Her father’s chuckles turned into a laugh, while I just turned bright pink. Oh god. “It’s okay,” I said lamely. “Thanks.”
If I thought that would be the most embarrassing part of my day, I was sorely mistaken. Jake somehow managed to interrogate every man of my acquaintance that we came in contact with—from the gruff building superintendent to the staff at the restaurant when he dropped me off at work. And he refused to lay off when I asked him to.
“Jake, don’t you think that I’d know if this…” ‘Secret admirer’ sounded too trite, and ‘stalker’ too scary. “This guy is someone I already know?”
“Why would you rule it out? He probably is. You’re pretty irresistible for a short chick with zero martial arts skills.”
“You’re such a charmer. No wonder Evie likes you,” I said, a lump rising in my stomach at the reminder of his past with Evie.
I wanted to bring it up with her, so badly. I wanted to ask her what he was like, when she was with him.
Jake had told me it was a casual thing, and to drop the subject, but… now, on Evie and Dom’s penthouse couch, the thought lay between us like the bottle of cabernet we’d almost finished.
“Jake’s such a bachelor,” Evie mused. “How’s he adjusting?”
“Fine.” I wanted to lay claim to him somehow, wanted her to know that I meant more to him than she did—even if I wasn’t sure whether it was true, or even if I wanted it to be so. “He said I could redo the bedroom in French Country,” I joked.
“So you are sleeping with him.”
Shit. Well, it wasn’t exactly a secret. My friend stared off into the distance while she sipped her wine. A mysterious smile transformed her mouth, like she was the Mona Lisa of ménage.
Yeah, I knew she’d been with Jake and Dom, separately and together. In fact, I’d pushed her to try it, to experiment, to take a chance. Now I wondered if I’d pushed her too far.
“Did he—” I broke off, not sure I wanted to know.
“Did he what?”
“Nothing.” I pulled out the collar of my black button-up shirt, fanning myself against a sudden flash of heat.
“Bullshit. Did he what?” Evie had gained a lot of confidence since meeting the Stone brothers. I wished I felt that kind of assurance.
“Did he kiss you a lot?” I asked her quietly, staring at the dregs of wine in my oversized glass.
Jake kissed me more than I… what? Thought he would? Thought he should? Maybe he thought I needed practice. The memory of his taste and his tongue in my mouth made me reach to empty the bottle.
“Annie, are you asking me to kiss and tell?” Evie giggled, her fair skin flushed from the wine. “He’s a good kisser, but Dom’s better.”
Big sip. Eye roll. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Dom does this thing at the top of my upper lip—I can’t describe it. He kind of does the same thing when he’s going down on me, and it just blows my mind.” She expanded her fist out, stretching her fingers out in the air.
I sighed.
Silently, Evie put her wine glass down on the coffee table. Then she reached over and stroked my cheek. “I’ve never seen you blush so much!” she said.
“It’s the wine.”
“No, it’s not. Are you shy? Annie, what happened to the woman who chanted ‘do it, do it, do it’ over the phone when I was thinking about a threesome?”
“I was—oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Everyone loves Evie; I get it.”
Suddenly it was so clear. I was jealous.
Of course, it had occurred to me before, but I was really jealous. And insecure. Evie was all blonde and bust and bubbles, and Jake had clearly been attracted to her at one time. I was so different from her—why would he like me?
“Seriously, Annie? What a dumb thing to say.” Evie scooted closer on the couch, until our thighs were touching. “You’re gorgeous.”
“I’m ‘exotic.’” I made air quotes and rolled my eyes.
“You’re smart.”
“Not as smart as you.”
“You’ve got street smarts, which counts for more in my book.”
Clearly nobody had told her about my short-lived career as a ninja.
“But, Evie, you have boobs.” I jerked my chin down. “These are barely more than freaking mosquito bites.”
Her laugh was so sharp and sudden that she snorted. “See. You’re also funny.”
Okay, I would concede that.
“Annie, you’re sexy. You have to know that.”
“Sexy?”
Her eyes were hooded as she met my gaze. “As. Fuck.”
A swell of heat went through me, like an invisible ripple in the desert. The combination of Evie’s husky voice and the conviction in it made me believe it. Sure, I felt sexy with Jake.
It was hard not to feel sexy when you were sucking a beautiful man’s brain out through his cock.
But the way Evie was staring at me, with clear admiration, made me really think it was true. It was funny how sometimes another woman’s opinion meant more.
“You know what I think?” she whispered. I cocked my head. Drank the last sip of wine. “I think that this secret admirer of yours has fucked up your self-esteem.”
I choked a little. Wine was not supposed to go down that way. I shook my head, droplets of cabernet snaking a trail down my neck. “Evie, just because I have a stalker doesn’t make me worth the stalking.”
“You’re trying to convince me that you’re not sexy because you think it will make this whole situation go away, somehow. But it won’t, and you are.”
Was she right?
“I also think tha
t these are perfectly proportional.” She brushed her thumb across my left nipple, sending an arc of electricity from my breast to my core.
Oh.
“You just need to believe it, Annie. You think I discovered some great secret of sexual confidence? I didn’t. I just started trusting in myself. And not giving a fuck what anyone else thinks.”
It wasn’t until her other hand stroked my right breast that I realized I was arching my back. A shiver escaped me. Evie lowered her hands, slowly. When I looked down, I was short of breath and my nipples stood out against my blouse, aroused and hard as two more buttons on the front.
The wine was going to my head—and other parts of me.
There was only one other time when I worried that maybe we’d drank too much, and that was when we auctioned off Evie’s virginity. That night, I’d fought some strange feelings when I helped her into one of my bras and matching thongs to take some sexy pictures of her. The confusion in my brain and body then fit better than my lingerie fit her—which wasn’t saying much.
I leaned back further when Evie put her hand on my shoulder. What would—oh!
She reached back to tug on my ponytail, my head tilting back automatically as she licked up a trail of red wine on my neck.
My pulse thundered, and my body felt heavy and hot. Maybe I didn’t want to admit that I had a stalker at first, but even I could read the signals that Evie was sending me right now.
“See?” Her voice was husky near my ear. “You are sexy, Annie. You are everything I wish I was.”
I froze—not in apprehension or disgust, but in surprise. “That’s what I always thought about you.”
“Then it’s a good thing we have each other,” she said. “Right?”
My nod was slight, her breath lapping against my neck. Moving down to my collarbone. She slid the first button of my blouse open.
“You just need to trust yourself, Annie.” She pressed a kiss to the hollow at the base of my throat. Slipped the second and third buttons open.
I felt lightheaded, my breath coming in short pants. My chest was tight, but my belly clenched with liquid heat and my arms and legs felt languorous and leaden. She’d woven me into her sensual web, and I was caught, suspended in it and waiting.
Anticipating.
“Can I try kissing you, Annie?” she whispered. Her voice wavered a little, as though she wasn’t as confident as she appeared. “I’m so curious. What it feels like.”
“Me too.” I just needed to trust her—and myself.
Her lips landed on mine like butterfly wings, soft and petite. I tasted the wine we’d been drinking, and a little of her vanilla lip balm around the edges of her mouth.
Kissing my best friend felt… comforting. Soft and familiar, but odd at the same time—like a recurring dream you had as a child but forgot about, until one day it returned when you were an adult.
She got closer, and with a sigh I realized that her lush breasts were pressed against me.
That was a new sensation when making out, definitely.
My hands rose to cup her breasts, tentatively caressing the sides. Evie moaned, encouraging my curious touch. Investigating her soft, warm curves was like an out-of-body experience, so accustomed was I to my own skin.
“Let me try something,” she murmured against my mouth. I held my breath as the tip of her tongue pressed into the top of my upper lip.
My breath washed between us as I burst out laughing.
She drew back, her eyes twinkling and a silly grin on her face. “Okay, it’s different when Dom does it.”
“I sure hope so,” I managed through giggles. “Any higher and it would be like you were trying to pick my nose with your tongue.”
“Ewww.”
Even though the tension had been broken, the heat between us hadn’t. If anything, I felt more comfortable when she pulled me back into her arms.
Now our kisses were less tentative. Wetter, deeper, hotter—our mouths shifting and curving against each other as though we were trying to learn each other through taste alone.
She opened my blouse and slid her hands over my skin. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed the feminine curves of her ass, partly just because I needed something to ground me. It was all so dizzyingly different.
“Are you as turned on as I am?” Evie asked.
“Fuck, yeah.”
We froze. Neither of us expected her question to be answered by Jake, who was standing six feet behind the couch.
CHAPTER TEN
JAKE
This was every guy’s fantasy, right? Two beautiful women were making out in front me, oblivious to my arrival. It sure wasn’t what I expected to find when I came to pick up Annie, but I wasn’t going to complain.
They certainly weren’t the only ones turned on. I’d watched only for a moment, silently from the hallway.
My arrival had gone unnoticed, while they giggled over some joke. There was something irresistible about women laughing together. Men who didn’t reflexively smile at it were either misogynists or so insecure that they immediately thought they were the joke.
Either way, they were fucking stupid.
I was anything but stupid, even if my brain felt a little fried after a day on the phone with buyers and suppliers. I’d been up half the night before, on the phone to China to sort out some manufacturing shit there. Dom did all the power lifting in his retail empire, and let me just have a few passion projects.
But even passion took work.
So I was struck dumb when the women’s lips met.
When Evie unbuttoned Annie’s blouse.
When Annie’s silky hair fell out of her ponytail and over the side of the couch like a dark waterfall.
When Annie gasped, when Evie decided to take a nipple between her teeth.
It was that gasp that took my dick from a shocked semi to a full, rock-hard, urge-to-rut erection.
I felt sudden sympathy for ancient ancestors who didn’t know the science behind it all—only the overwhelming need to mate. That was how I felt right at that moment, like I could pull both women by their hair and compel them to their hands and knees.
I wanted to kneel behind them, spread them open, and fuck them until they were full of my seed. It was a primal instinct.
Evolutionary biology hadn’t evolved all that much, I guessed. You could take a guy out of the cave…
Annie lay back on the couch, propped up on her elbows, a flush spreading over her chest. All the best parts of her were rosy and swollen—her lips and nipples, which taunted me through the sheer lace of her crimson bra. I knew without a doubt that her pussy would be soaking wet.
Evie’s little cupid mouth fell open with a comical “Oh!” My memory flashed over the shape and feel of that mouth on my cock, which did nothing to help my painful arousal.
“Yeah, I’m turned on. Looks like you two are, as well. Must have lost my party invitation in the mail.”
Evie’s eyes narrowed as I dropped my leather jacket over the back of the couch. Annie’s gaze—which had yet to meet mine—went straight to my crotch as I adjusted myself in my dress pants. Then I unbuttoned the cuffs of my pale blue shirt, watching Annie carefully.
She’d admitted to me a few days before her weakness for “arm porn,” as my girlfriend called it. Her breath had yet to even out as I rolled my sleeves up, exposing my tattoos. I may have flexed my wrists a little, just to mess with her.
Wait, my what? Girlfriend? I frowned and shook my head. Shit, that’s not what I meant. My brain had gotten stuck on shuffle, in a playlist with only one song.
There were two girls here, and they were friends. That explained the brain fart.
Girl. Friend.
Evie winked at me, the little minx. “I was just telling Annie how sexy she is.”
“Looks like you were demonstrating.” I smirked at Evie’s nonchalant shrug. Little virginal Evie had come a long way. “Should I leave you two alone?”
I was only half-kidding. No red-blo
oded hetero man would willingly walk away from this scene.
Evie hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Annie, what do you think?”
Annie made a strangled noise as she tried to become one with the couch. I moved closer, standing over her, wanting her to look at me.
Needing her to look at me.
Despite all my primitive instincts to possess her, and all of Evie’s joking aside, Annie’s comfort meant… something to me. She was embarrassed; that much was obvious.
She was also—from the looks of it—into it. I had no problem with that, but I wasn’t sure if she understood that it was okay.
“Annie.” I moved around the side of the couch, where she was burrowed into the corner. Pushing back some of the silky hair falling around her face, I found her focused on my chin, color high in her cheeks.
Unable to resist, I dipped down and kissed her. Surprisingly, I didn’t taste Evie at all; I only tasted Annie.
When I pulled back and spoke again, my voice was rough. “Annie, look at me. Please.”
Her head turned to Evie first, like she was asking permission? Fuck that.
“Honey, look at me.” My voice was harder now.
She reluctantly met my gaze. Licked her lips. My pants tightened, but I kept my eyes on her. “It was the wine,” she said.
I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t.”
Evie moved off the couch and headed to the kitchen, giving us some privacy.
Annie straightened against the back of the couch, her fingers clumsily re-buttoning her blouse. “This isn’t like me.”
Her progress halted as I wrapped my hands around hers. “It can be. You can be anything you want, Annie. I won’t judge you.” I’d done too much crazy shit in my time to be looking down on anyone.
She tilted her head, looking confused.
“You want to hook up with Evie? I don’t mind.”
Her brown eyes widened, as round as the slightly almond shape of them would allow. “No! I mean, it just sort of hap—”
“Evie’s right, you know,” I interrupted, dropping into a squat. “You are sexy. You can blame the wine all you want, but maybe it’s just you. You and Evie are both incredible, sensual, responsive women.”
I looked up to see Evie eye me curiously as she put a couple of bottles of cold water on the coffee table. Annie cleared her throat, pulling my attention back to her.
