by Jayne Rylon
One woman. Three dudes. No regrets.
College was supposed to be Andi Miller’s training ground for the real world. Instead, it’s her final Saturday night in her college-grade apartment, and she’s still sheltered as hell. Why? Because of her three adorable roommates—Reed, Cooper and Simon.
Determined to have one date where the overprotective trio doesn’t scare the guy off, Andi sneaks out for the night. And almost lives to regret it.
When Reed, Cooper and Simon rescue Andi from a bad situation in the basement of a sex club, they decide it’s time for the kid gloves to come off. Since their early college days, they’ve been not-so-secretly fighting amongst themselves to spark her next smile, her next laugh.
They’ve already done a lot of surviving together, and now it’s time to thrive. At the risk of ruining a beautiful friendship, the men set out to turn their hands-off live-in arrangement into a weeklong learning experience where they become Andi’s sex education teachers.
Except none of them realize their newfound intimacy will make it impossible to say goodbye on graduation day.
Warning: When a woman and three very different men all come together, there’s a chain reaction of epic proportions. Please keep a cold shower on standby. Contains a very brief scene of attempted assault.
4-Ever Theirs
Jayne Rylon
Dedication
For everyone who supports my work by buying my books. I appreciate that you have kept me in the business of doing what I love this long, and I hope that never changes. Thank you!
Chapter One
“Stop. Stop. I’m going to pee my pants.” Andi Miller gasped between bouts of hysterical laughter. She swiped tears from her cheeks as her three obnoxiously adorable roommates demonstrated their best attempts at twerking from various places around their kitchen. Sadly, Simon could definitely shake his ass better than she could. He put on quite a show from his perch atop their rickety table, threatening to turn it into kindling with sharp swings of his hips. The guy could easily have paid his portion of the rent and then some if he’d gotten a job as a go-go dancer.
“We’re only trying to help.” Cooper punched Simon in the leg then grappled him to the floor. If she didn’t act fast, this could deteriorate into another of their infamous wrestling matches. The last one of those had resulted in the annihilation of a beanbag chair. She was still discovering tiny foam beads scattered throughout their apartment months later.
“I mean, it’s not like you’ve come out of your room long enough to pick up any of our moves in the past four years, with all that studying you insisted on doing. You don’t want to get embarrassed on the floor tonight, do you?” Reed asked as he simulated humping a cabinet.
Well, that wouldn’t be a problem, seeing as she hadn’t quite told them the truth about her destination for the evening. Dance club, hook-up spot—same difference, right?
Their over-protectiveness made her white lie necessary.
Besides, she owed them the same courtesy they showed her when it came to keeping their sex lives separate from their home lives.
The guys never brought women to the apartment. Or at least they hadn’t in ages. Not since early in the first semester of their freshman year when one of their one-night stands—to this day, they wouldn’t tell her which of them had slept with the poor girl—had tried to make herself some morning-after breakfast and ended up with a black eye courtesy of Andi’s fist.
Hey, how was she supposed to have known it wasn’t an intruder out there whipping up a frittata before absconding into the night with their meager college-grade possessions? Milk crate furniture might be hot on the black market for all Andi knew. If some of the oomph propelling her swing had actually been fueled by jealousy instead of fear, she’d hidden that pathetic fact as best she could from both herself and her roommates.
Ruining their friendships wasn’t on her agenda. She wasn’t the sort of girl who knew how to screw around then act like sex had been no big deal. Though she had chemistry with each of her roommates, how awkward would it have been to have followed through on it and slept with one of them?
Takeout and movie nights with the others would never have been the same.
Andi admitted it. She was sheltered as fuck. Though her vocabulary had gotten a hell of a lot more colorful as a result of her co-habbing with this trio of idiots for the past four years, she hadn’t done a lot of exploring relationship-wise. After all, she spent most of her free time with Cooper, Reed and Simon. Who would approach her with those three hovering over her, snarling and baring their teeth at any guy who got too close?
God, she was going to miss them.
The thought of giving up their second-to-last Saturday night together had her rethinking her plans. Except this might be her last chance to eliminate her regrets about not having a single fling during her college experience. It would help round out her academic studies and the rewarding social experiment living with three dudes had turned out to be.
This was supposed to be her training ground for the real world.
Now that she’d accomplished the majority of her goals—by graduating at the top of her class and scoring a prime position in her field—maybe she could make some time to fill the emptiness growing inside her as she accepted that she’d be forging out on her own soon. The lack of a relationship hadn’t bothered her so much when she’d had school and her roommates’ friendship to occupy her.
All of that was changing.
So was she.
Andi wanted to be ready for what came next.
“Was it that good for you?” Simon flashed a wicked smile as he teased her.
“Huh?” She snapped herself out of her daze.
“Our dancing.”
“Oh, yeah. Definitely. It was so hot I need to go take a shower.” She rolled her eyes and giggled some more as she abandoned the kitchen for their shared bathroom. If she was sweating a little, it was surely from nerves over what she was about to do, not because they’d affected her.
Sure.
She scrubbed herself then spent a while drying and curling her hair before applying what dashes of makeup she owned—a bit of mascara and some nude lip gloss. The whole time, she kept wondering what tonight might be like if she could spend it with someone she knew and trusted instead of gambling on a blind date set up by her well-meaning chemistry lab partner.
Andi bit her lip then harrumphed and fixed the damage, at least mentally reminding herself not to rub her eyes before she could wreck them too. She sighed then rested her forehead on the door, praying for some direction. Was she making a mistake? Or would it be an even bigger one to pursue the foolish ideas tempting her to feel out her roommates about her proposition?
Before she could make up her mind, a rap on the door rattled her brains.
“Ouch. Fuck.” She stumbled back.
“Yo, Andi. Quit hogging. I drank three beers with dinner, and I gotta piss,” Reed groaned. “I forgot what it’s like to wait on someone trying to be girly.”
Aaaaaaaaand… That sealed the deal.
They were too much like brothers to ever see her as a woman. Which was exactly how she’d wanted things while they lived together. She grinned as she opened the door.
Reed squashed past her in the doorway, wedging them together when he froze. “Damn. Uh, you look…great.”
“The magic of wearing something other than sweats and one of your roommates’ old shirts sans a bra.” She shrugged.
“I kind of prefer the no-bra part.” Simon waggled his brows from where he scarfed another helping of now-cold pizza for second dinner.
When she turned to him with a smile, he paused mid-bite.
“Wha
t?” Andi finger-combed her hair as she stepped from the bathroom so Reed could relieve himself in peace. Not that the guys didn’t invade her privacy often when she was in the shower, or vice versa. The trials of a single bathroom for four people had absolutely played a part in her collegiate years.
“I told you,” Reed shouted through the door.
“They’re right. You’re hot.” Cooper took her hand and spun her around. “I’m not sure we should let you go out like this, young lady.”
“Whatever, Dad.” She chuckled until he finished twirling her, though it hadn’t entirely been a joke. With her parents both gone, these guys had stepped up and filled a huge, painful void as best they could. They were, and always would be, her family.
In the heels Andi had borrowed, she was closer to Cooper’s height. Meeting his warm stare, she caught the spark of something serious there.
Could he actually be attracted to her?
She knew each of them appealed to her in various ways—Cooper’s gentlemanliness and tact, Simon’s playfulness and daring, Reed’s sense of responsibility and control.
As if a sliver of possibility was the only prompt her subconscious required, she blurted the thoughts that had been haunting her for the past hour. Okay, longer than that. At least since she’d agreed to this outing. Probably since the day she co-signed their lease.
“Maybe you guys should come out too?” She prided herself on the fact that she only stammered a little when she said, “Or I could stay home and we could have a private party instead.”
Simon blinked at her, the pizza still lodged half-inside his mouth.
Cooper’s fingers tightened around hers. His other hand landed at her waist to steady her. But he didn’t say anything.
The door opening behind her broke the moment, forcing them apart.
Reed emerged as the toilet finished flushing in the background. It was as if her silly dreams circled the bowl then vanished down their clanky pipes when he grimaced. “What’s that? Don’t back out now. You’ve been looking forward to tonight all week. It’s about time you cut loose. On your own. You’ve earned this.”
“Oh. Okay.” If they noticed the tremble in her faux smile, they didn’t call her on it.
Andi decided to quit fucking around. Playing a game where she didn’t know the rules was a sure way to lose. Reed was right. She had to learn to stand on her own, without leaning on them. Because in a matter of days, they wouldn’t be part of her everyday existence anymore.
Graduation was a week away.
Her new life, the one where she’d be a lab tech in a prestigious pharmaceutical research firm—one that didn’t include her roommates—was calling.
“Go ahead. Have fun,” Simon said around a mouthful of pepperoni. “Besides, we’ve already—”
Cooper cleared his throat, but it was too late. She realized they must have dates. Of course they did.
“Hey, you’ll be fine,” he promised. He looked away before adding, “You don’t need us.”
Andi swallowed around the lump in her throat. She took a step forward and then another before grabbing her wristlet and keys out of the bowl at the end of the countertop. If she was going to do this, she couldn’t linger. Otherwise, she’d never convince herself to leave.
“Be safe!” Reed shouted as she closed the door softly behind her, determined not to let the stinging of her eyes turn into real tears and screw up her mascara.
Chapter Two
Andi tugged the fitted skirt of her stretchy lace dress past mid-thigh, watching her bare skin peek through the intricate patterns. Her outfit was modest enough to seem like a nun’s habit compared to the latex corsets or fishnets and boy shorts she saw others wearing. Still, discomfort for the women whose breasts spilled from their necklines rubbed off on her.
It wasn’t that she was a prude. At least she didn’t think so, but she’d never had the freedom to put herself out there like that. Or someone to admire her and support her inner sex kitten like the men escorting their dates to the discrete doors of Flesh, a local sex club, seemed to be doing.
She was out of her league. Totally intimidated.
Crazy to have considered this a reasonable first step on her foray into hook-up experimentation.
She hadn’t even made it across the parking lot from her ancient Civic to the dark building, which looked too innocuous to be the den of iniquity it was purported to be, before she was second-guessing herself. And that was precisely why she had to keep going.
Andi steeled her spine and lifted her chin, hoping the few assets she had were at least displayed to their best advantage when she perfected her posture. A simple kind of woman, she went with what she knew best. Directness.
“Good evening,” she said to the man monitoring the entryway before he could address her.
“It is.” He smiled sincerely at her greeting, making her wonder if she might not seem as out of place as she felt. Until he asked, “Can I see your membership card?”
“Oh. Um. I’m not…” She shrugged. “I’m meeting someone here.”
The guy’s lips dipped into a frown. “Let me check the guest roster…”
“Not necessary,” a newcomer said as he approached at a jog. Tall and fit, he filled out his jeans and lightweight sweater in a way that made her hum softly. Hopefully to herself. “You’re Andi, right?”
“Yes.” She beamed up at him, relieved she wouldn’t have to suffer the mortification of being turned away or the discomfort of waiting for her date in some holding room. Her propensity for arriving early had never landed her in trouble before. Note to self: Be fashionably late to dates from now on.
See, she was learning shit already.
As smoothly as one of her roommates might, her blind date leaned down and kissed her cheek before placing a possessive hand on her lower back. Immediately, she felt something inside her unravel. She might not have any clue about what she was doing here, but her lab partner—Veronica—seemed to have done her justice by fixing Andi up with her brother.
During a study session, Andi had confided that she was thinking of sneaking in a night at Flesh before her time in town ran out, hoping Veronica would be her wing-girl for the outing. Instead, her friend did one better. Turned out her brother was a member. Grossed out as Veronica was about believing he even had a sex life, she figured it was safer to play matchmaker than to let Andi take a spin in random-partner-roulette.
She had to agree.
Cross one thing off her list of possible disasters for the evening. This blind date was definitely not a hardship to look at. Or socially inept. He brushed his thumb over her spine casually, making her shiver. In response, he drew her tighter to his side. So far, definitely good. Soooo good.
“Nice to see you again—”
Her date talked over the bouncer’s greeting. “Let me take care of this real quick, grab us a couple drinks, and we can get to know each other.”
The guy working the door seemed kind of irritated at this point. She glanced over her shoulder, but there wasn’t anyone waiting. It wasn’t like they were holding up a line or anything.
Andi would be glad to move past him before he could change his mind about allowing her admission.
Her date refused to allow her to cover her portion of the entry fees, then asked if she wanted to store her things in one of the club’s secure lockers. Veronica had outlined Flesh’s basic policies. Cell phones weren’t allowed in the playrooms. Better to take care of that now than have to put the brakes on later and introduce any additional awkwardness into the situation.
“Sure.” She smiled and kept up their small talk as he walked her through the rest of what she needed to know. Maybe this hadn’t been such a bad idea after all. With a shy smile, she glanced up at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name before. It’s Peter, right?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Shit. I kind of forgot my manners when I saw you out there.” He cracked a smile that dazzled her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Seriously. I was kind of
worried about how well my sister knew my type.”
He lifted her hand and dusted a kiss over her knuckles.
Andi wasn’t the sort of woman who fished for compliments. It still made her grin when he added, “My sister will be getting a kickass graduation present after this, that’s for sure.”
“You don’t think it’s weird?” She cleared her throat and tried not to blush. “You know, that I wanted to…”
“Nah. No judgment here, honey.” His grin turned sort of wolfish at that. “I am a member here. And you saved me the trouble of hunting down someone half as interesting as you to play with tonight. I’m happy to give you what you’re looking for.”
To her horror, Andi felt her eyes prickling again. This guy was being a perfect gentleman. He was cute, and easy to talk to, and didn’t seem to judge her. So why did she still wish she was at home?
“What if I can’t—?” She swallowed hard.
“Hey, hey.” He tugged her into a light hug. “No pressure. First time jitters. Everyone gets ’em. Why don’t we go out there and dance? See what happens? I promise, you’ll be relaxed in no time.”
“Thank you.” She squeezed his waist, noticing that he smelled nice, if different than the guys she was used to. “I appreciate you being so cool about this.”
“Come on.” He interlaced their fingers then led her to the main area. “How’s a fruity cocktail sound?”
She was more of a beer girl, really, but she’d already been enough of a pain in his ass. “Great.”
He winked at her then showed her to the edge of the dance floor before shouting, “Wait here. The bar’s always mobbed on the weekends. I don’t want you to get crushed.”
Andi nodded, grateful for a moment to compose herself. Then she watched as her date waded through sensual bodies pulsing with the music. It did take a while for him to make his way to the front of the line. Eventually, he took something from his pocket along with his wallet as he paid for their booze. She angled her head for a closer look. An overzealous dancer bounced into her, jostling her.
