by R. M. Walker
Jake stirred beside her, stretching out, but not moving away from her. His fingers slid from hers and regret slipped through her. Until his finger slid over the back of her wrist. He was perfectly still, his breathing still chuffing gently against her neck. She didn’t think he was awake yet.
His fingers skimmed over her skin again, then started up a slow caress that made her eyes close and her bones melt. He was awake, and he knew what he was doing.
“Are you awake?” he asked in a whisper.
She bit her lip to stop a groan at the sensations his fingers were creating. She was torn between letting him know she was, knowing he’d stop, or pretending to stay asleep in the hopes he’d continue to stroke her skin. But in her heart, she knew that she couldn’t let it happen, even if she did feign sleep.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I am.”
She expected him to stop; she didn’t expect his fingers to grow bolder, firmer, as he stroked from her wrist to her elbow and back again. She should’ve stopped him, but she didn’t want the delicious sensations that made her want to stretch and squirm under his fingers to end.
“You feel good,” he whispered, burying his nose in her hair.
Lily didn’t know what to say. Nate had kissed her in the mill; Matt had kissed her before going to bed; and now, here she was, letting Jake create feelings in her she had no business feeling.
He rubbed his face back and forth through her hair until his lips were on her skin.
“You smell good too,” he whispered. His lips ghosting over her skin made her shudder.
He pressed a kiss under her ear. His fingers slid down her arm and caught her hand.
She had to move away before she did something stupid, like kiss him back. He lifted his head and looked down at her. His sleep-tousled hair was hanging into his eyes. A small smile played around his lips.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” Jake whispered. “Did you sleep well?”
She nodded. He was so close all she had to do was close the tiny distance between them and kiss him. She wanted to. She wanted to kiss him.
“I like waking with you next to me,” Jake whispered. “You’re a lot softer than Joshua, and you smell infinitely better.” He grinned wickedly.
“I heard that, Jacob.” Josh grunted and turned to sit up, gazing down at her. “Good morning, beautiful. He’s right, we do like waking with you between us.”
Her heart stuttered in her chest as she looked at them. She had no idea what to say, what to do. Well, she knew what she wanted to do, but that was unfair to everyone, including herself. If the unimaginable happened and they all liked her, all wanted to date her, how could she choose? Her mother was right. It would be a painful mess.
“Do you feel okay this morning?” Josh asked, and she nodded, unable to find her voice yet.
He settled closer to her and placed his hand on the bare skin of her waist, where her top had ridden up. She sucked her breath in and held it, but he didn’t move his hand.
“You feel warmer. You were cold as ice last night.” His fingers moved to her hip, trailing fire across her skin. She released her breath on a shudder that made his fingers tightened on her hip.
“Lily.” Jake caught her attention, and she turned her head to look up at him. He lowered his head, stopping when his lips were millimetres from hers. He watched her closely. He was going to kiss her, and she wasn’t going to stop him, she couldn’t stop him.
Jake closed the distance and pressed his mouth to hers. Tingles shot through her, and she tightened her fingers on his. He rubbed his lips across hers then backed away slowly, a wide grin growing on his face.
She’d no time to register anything before Josh leant over her. His mouth met hers, brushing back and forth so gently it was a thousand pinpricks of pleasure. Josh buried his face in her neck, pressing kisses against her skin, his hand still on her hip. He was shaking, or was it her?
Jake nuzzled her cheek, until his lips were pressed under her ear. They settled beside her, nuzzling her skin. Tiny moans escaped her as a rush of fire spiralled downwards into the pit of her stomach.
“Bloody hell, not sure I want to wake up to that every morning.”
Matt’s words crashed over her. In horror, she pulled away from them, scrambled to her feet, and fled from the room.
Well Done!
“We have a runner,” mumbled Nate. “Too fast, morons, well done!”
“You try lying next to her and not touching her!” Jake snapped.
“We will. And we’ll have more control! If you haven’t frightened her off, that is,” Matt said in disgust.
“Us? You were the one who scared her, all ‘Not sure I want to wake up to that every morning’,” Josh sneered, shaking his head at Matt.
“Well, I didn’t think I’d have to see you drooling all over her when I sat up!” Matt snapped back.
“You’ve got a problem with that?” Josh demanded.
“What, you drooling?” Matt sneered. “Yes! We haven’t even asked her who she likes, and you were taking advantage!”
“Taking advantage? How the fuck do you work that out?”
“She was half asleep!”
“She wasn’t. She was wide awake!” Jake snapped. “You don’t like that we kissed her and she liked it!”
“I kissed her last night, and she liked that too!” Matt snarled, a frown between his eyes.
“I kissed her in the mill,” Nate added, and they all turned to look at him.
“So, we’ve all kissed her, and she didn’t fight any of us off,” Matt said and slumped back, his hands in his hair. “Bugger it all!”
The twins came over to perch on the bottom of the bed, side by side.
“Look, to us it’s a no-brainer,” Josh said with a shrug. “Jacob is me, and I’m him. You are our brothers, and we’d die for you, y’know that. But we aren’t letting her go now. If she’s willing to share us all, then we don’t need to worry about who she picks.”
“So, we ease her into it,” Jake carried on quietly. “Let her know that we’re all willing to date her at the same time. But for this to work, you both need to be on-board. Are you?”
“Think about how serious you are about her before you answer,” Josh continued. “We know. We knew the moment she got a hundred percent on OC’s test. She’s the girl for us. We want to see where this will take us for the future, not just for a couple months of fun. We want to date her seriously. No one has clicked with us like she has.”
“You’ve never dated anyone else,” Nate pointed out. “How do you know she’s the one?”
“We just know,” Josh said. “But if you don’t think you can handle it, step back. Don’t confuse her. Be her friend, but stop kissing on her and holding her hand. And don’t lose your shit when you see us kissing her.”
Nate frowned darkly at them. “No. I’m onboard with this. I want to see where it takes me as well. I like her a lot, even when she’s driving me up the wall with her denial. I won’t stop kissing her if she lets me. I’m not giving her up.”
“Neither am I.” Matt sighed. “She gets on with all of us. She obviously likes us just as much as we like her as she hasn’t beaten any of us off. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to be willing to date us all.”
“That’s something we’ll have to deal with if she freaks on us,” Josh said. “Are we all on the same page then?”
“I am.” Nate nodded. “Matt, seriously, what about Connie?”
“She’s a bitch,” Josh muttered. “And those cronies she hangs around with.”
“I didn’t love Connie.” Matt shook his head. “I was led by my dick.”
“You were gutted when you found out about Brian,” Jake pointed out.
“Yeah, I was.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I was really annoyed that she was two-timing me. I felt like a moron for not seeing it. Lily is different from Connie though. She’s different from any girl I’ve met. I like her much more than I
ever liked Connie. I want to be with her, even if you two are slobbering over her as well.”
“We weren’t slobbering, you prat, just kissing her! Is that going to be a problem for you?” Josh asked.
“Probably,” Matt admitted and shrugged.
“I didn’t see you,” Nate said. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to see you two tonguing anyone. It would scar me for life. We should agree not to get it on with her in front of each other. Anything more than a quick peck or hug should be private.”
“Agreed,” Matt said. “All in favour of keeping our tongues and lips to ourselves when around each other with her?”
“Aye!” All four of them spoke.
“Then let’s see if she’s willing,” Nate said. “She might run for the hills when we suggest we all date her. It could be the final nail in the coffin of her freaking out over us.”
“She should have run when she saw the candles, but she didn’t,” Matt said to him. “I think we need to let her know we’ll follow her lead, her pace for this. Shit’s going to hit the fan when she can’t deny who she is anymore. She’ll need us then; we can’t let her down, no matter what she says about dating us all.”
Nate blew out a breath. “I’ve been nudging her, but she’s so fucking stubborn.”
“I think the more you nudge, the more she’s going to dig her heels in,” Matt told him with a smirk. “She won’t let you push her around, Nate. It’s fun to watch.”
“It’s exasperating and time wasting,” he corrected. “Why can’t she admit that she’s special?” He sighed heavily.
“Because we think it would give her heart failure,” Josh said. “Her face last night when we ran back here... We thought she was going to throw up.”
“It’s a huge thing to get over, Nate. We’ve grown up with this. She’s had nearly eighteen years of thinking she was one way, to find out that everything she knew was wrong. Did you honestly expect her to say ‘Oh, well, thanks for showing me I’m magical. What else can I do’?” Matt shrugged at him.
“Well, maybe not exactly, but how can she deny something as plain as the nose on her face?”
“Nate, you’re clever—a genius in fact—but sometimes? You’re as thick as two short planks,” Matt said dryly.
“Fuck you!”
“First things first. She left here like a bat out of hell. We need to find her and make sure she’s okay, and especially after last night,” Josh said as Matt glared at Nate.
“Shit, forgot about that,” Nate said. He climbed from the bed and headed towards the bedroom door with the twins behind him.
Matt realised their intentions, jumped out, and followed them. He wasn’t going to be left behind when it came to Lily.
Destruction
Lily studied her reflection in the mirror. She could still feel their lips on hers, feel their breath on her face, the sensation of Jake stroking her arm and Josh’s fingers on her hip.
Four boys. She’d kissed four boys in less than twenty-four hours, and she knew without a doubt that if they tried to kiss her again, she would be more than willing. She lifted her hands to cover her heated cheeks. How was she going to face them again? Matt’s disgust had been apparent when he’d seen them with her. He’d kissed her last night and obviously didn’t expect to wake up this morning to see her kissing his cousins.
She closed her eyes against her own reflection as scalding nausea rose in her throat. How many other girls let four boys kiss them? She’d told herself that it was just friendship, but Matt’s tone told her that, for him at least, it wasn’t. But he’d seen them all hold her hand or put their arms around her shoulders and said nothing about it. The twins had told her right at the start that hand holding wasn’t that big of a deal. She’d joked with them about holding Nate’s hand when they went to the toilet. But whatever the twins or Nate thought, she knew that at the very least she’d hurt Matt. That was something she had never wanted to do. In one fell swoop, she’d destroyed the only friendships she’d ever had worth keeping.
What would they think of her now? Would they be in there discussing how she’d kissed them all? Would they be disgusted with her?
Feeling sick, she gripped the sink. She’d ruined things.
But if Matt wanted her to be his girlfriend, wouldn’t he stop the others from putting their arms around her? And the same went for Nate. He’d kissed her in the mill, but if it was more than friendship, wouldn’t he have said something as well about all the hand holding? And if either of them wanted her to be their girlfriend, wouldn’t they have asked her to sleep between them? They’d made no murmur at all when the twins had tucked her between them.
Unless, of course, she was reading far too much into all of this, and none of them wanted a girlfriend, but they weren’t averse to a friend with benefits.
She sucked in her breath sharply. That had never occurred to her before. Maybe that’s all it was for them. Friends with benefits.
It was more than that for her, far more than that.
A tapping on the bathroom door had her jumping back from the sink, hastily wiping at the tears that had slipped down her cheeks. If it was one of the boys, she wasn’t sure how she was going to face them, but she didn’t want them to see she was crying.
She crossed to the door and opened it, surprised to see June standing there, worried.
“Is everything okay?” June asked.
Lily nodded, wondering how long she’d taken to warrant June knocking on the door.
“I saw your door open. Lily, dear, what happened?”
“What?”
June looked back at Lily’s room, her hands clenched together. “I don’t understand. Was it a spider? Did you have a seizure?”
Lily went across to her bedroom door. She slapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a strangled gasp. The curtains were pulled from the rails, the bed sheets were ripped from the bed, and the mattress was overturned under the window. The chair was on its side, and all her clothes were strewn around. The baseboard had been ripped off the bed.
She staggered back to the doorway, looking at June.
“Who did this?”
“I thought perhaps you would know,” June said in confusion.
“Lily May, about this morning, we need to—Oh, hello, Aunt June, what’s up?”
Lily turned her head to see Nate and the others coming towards her.
Nate took one look into the room and tugged Lily behind him. He reached forwards and flicked the lights but nothing happened.
“Nate, what’s going on here?” June’s tone was sharp.
“Someone was in here,” Nate said.
“What do you mean?” June demanded.
Matt ushered his mother from the room. “Mum, Lily was in with us last night. She woke up scared in the night, thinking someone was in the room with her. She came down to us, and we checked it. The window was opened so we closed it, but there was nothing in the room, and it wasn’t like that. Lily was too scared to go back, so she stayed with us.”
“You think someone broke in?” June demanded even as her hand fluttered around her throat.
“It looks that way. Has anything been taken?” Nate asked.
“No, I don’t think so. Not in there. I’ll need to check the rest of the house. Oh dear, what a mess. I need to call the police and Harold.” She turned to Lily. “You must be terrified; thank goodness you went down to the boys. I shudder to think what could have happened.”
So did Lily. She wrapped her arms around her waist, her focus on the closed door. There had been someone in there with her. Why had they done that to the room? Had they been after her? Were they looking for something? Everything was thrown around as if they were. Or were they angry that she’d got away? Fear crept into her heart and crouched there.
“It’s okay.” Matt slid his arm around her shoulders. “Mum, Lily needs to get dressed. Can she borrow something of yours?”
“Of course. We mustn’t touch
the room until the police have been here.” June turned to hurry away. “Wait here a moment,” she called back over her shoulder.
“We’ll need to wait here for the police. They’ll want a statement from us and probably fingerprints,” Matt said, his eyes on the closed door.
“I doubt whoever did that has left prints,” Josh said. He was chewing on the side of his thumbnail, his eyes flicking between Nate and Matt.
“Do you think they were looking for something?” Lily asked.
“Looking for something?” Matt repeated in surprise.
“Well, they’ve taken the room apart like they were searching for something.”
Matt looked at Nate, but June came back before they could say any more.
“These should do. They are the smallest cut I have,” she said, holding them out to her. “The police are on their way. They’ve asked you to stay until they get here. I’m sorry. It’s going to ruin your day. I’ll ring the college and let them know you won’t be in. What a horrible thing to happen to you here. I’m so sorry, Lily.”
“I’m fine. And it’s not your fault, I’m just sorry it was your lovely house that was chosen.”
“It can be replaced.” June waved her hand anxiously watching Lily. “Things can be replaced; people can’t. I’m so relieved that you’re unhurt.” She reached out and pulled Lily into a hug that surprised her.
June let go of her, shaking her head in sorrow. “I’ll see you all downstairs when you’re dressed,” she said and turned to walk away.
“Lily, change in my room,” Matt said. “We’ll dress in the bathroom.”
“It makes more sense for me to change in the bathroom. You four squashed in there could result in an accident.”
