by Cassie James
“Patrick.” I tug on his hands until he steps closer, taking up residence between my open legs. “Being with you is perfect. Even without a bed or fancy candles. We can leave if you want, but I need you to know that I am very, very turned on right now.”
His eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “Uh, why?”
“Male vulnerability is my weakness,” I joke. He rolls his eyes at me, but that stops the second I slip our joined hands under my skirt, flipping my hand over so that the back of his is brushing against the front of my panties. I’m actually almost embarrassed about how very obviously wet I am at the moment, but he needs to know that more than I need to hide it at the moment.
The sneaking around combined with this vulnerable moment that speaks volumes about what a good guy he really is? It’s the ultimate turn-on. I don’t know how anyone could ever think otherwise.
“Hell, Jules,” he breathes out in a pinched voice. He’s sure as hell past worrying about family photos now. He shakes his hands until I let go, but the contact is only missed for a second. He steps closer, his arms going around me so tightly that my arms get trapped between our bodies as he leans in to kiss me.
I can’t say I mind one of the perks of this reformed playboy—he’s one hell of a kisser from all that practice. In this, like everything else, he gives two-hundred percent.
His teeth nip my bottom lip as he nudges my head back further, mouth falling completely open to him as pure instinct takes over. There’s no more questioning where things are headed now. Desperate to move things along, I shift my arms to an angle that allows me to reach up between us and stroke his chest, fingers teasing the buttons of his button-down shirt. I can already feel his hard body underneath, and as my hand trails down—it’s true in more ways than one.
He kisses me with even more fervor as my fingers caress him through the outside of his pants. I don’t have a lot of range of motion as I touch him, but it’s still more than enough to have him straining toward me.
I turn my head to force our kiss to break. “I want you right now. Please.” I’ve wanted him since the second Jax’s indecent proposal gave me this idea. Every other moment between us since might as well have been foreplay leading up to this moment here.
I don’t have to tell Patrick twice that I’m more than ready for this. He’s pant-less and wrapped up in no time flat, leaving only his shirt in the way. I reach out for the buttons and undo them with trembling fingers. Trembling not because I’m scared, but because my whole body is vibrating with excitement that this is finally happening. I’m not one for rushing things, but I’d say at this point Patrick and I are past due on sharing something good like this.
Neither one of us is feeling particularly patient anymore, either. “Up,” Patrick instructs me as he grabs the sides of my lacy white panties. The ones I know he’d gotten a glimpse of outside when I was skipping. I raise my hips so he can slip them off. It’s the only part of my clothes he really bothers with. He only flips my skirt up out of the way so he can watch our bodies joining as he uses his hand to guide himself into me without anymore of the fanfare.
I’m normally not one for getting loud, but as Patrick sinks into me for the first time I’m surprised to hear a hell of a loud moan escaping me as I toss my head back, barely managing to catch myself with my hands on the desk as my body tries to go happily limp under his attention. A spark of concern lights up his eyes until he must remember that we’re the only ones here.
We don’t have to be quiet.
Which turns out to be a hell of a good thing because he tests things out, his hands gripping tightly around my thighs as he moves his hips, and I let out another moan that’s so unlike me.
“God, that’s hot,” he mutters as a whole other variety of sounds escape me while he’s taking a particular kind of joy in wringing each of them out of me. I shift on the desk, trying and failing to urge Patrick to settle into some kind of pace or something. As good as it feels for him to be running through a whole test-run of what I like, the one thing I desperately want at the moment is to be thoroughly fucked.
I tell him as much.
He gives me a long kiss before saying, “You don’t have to tell me twice.” He grabs my thighs and pulls me slightly closer to the edge as he waits inside of me, the result being that he slips deeper in me and positions me just right so that he’s able to fuck me as deeply as he can. A point he more than happily starts to prove over and over as soon as I’m positioned right where he wants me. It’s like magical sex math or something, the distance and the angle. Like everything is perfectly aligned so he can fuck me with all the care he kisses me with.
I give up trying to be of any real use, clinging to him for dear life as he wrings feelings out of me I didn’t even know I could have.
“Touch yourself for me,” he grunts out in between keeping a pace that’s far too frantic for him to do the job himself.
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I keep one arm hooked around his arm for balance as I reach between us with the other. I don’t know how much longer he can go but I’m desperate for release. The office is filled with the sounds of our bodies meeting, and I close my eyes and let those sounds drive me on as I circle my clit while he starts to fuck me like a man possessed.
All too soon, I’m jolting forward against him as my body tenses with an explosive orgasm that makes me seriously wonder whether I’ll be able to walk straight after this. He groans as I say his name several times as I squirm against him while my body deals with the aftershocks.
“I can’t go much longer,” he admits.
I tell him, “You don’t need to.”
Hearing me give him permission must be enough to set him off because almost immediately, he lets out another low groan as he comes, leaning over me more so that I’m forced to finally let go and just fall flat back against the desk. The cool wood is actually soothing as I lay there panting as we both seem to struggle to gather the energy to move.
After a minute, Patrick speaks “God, part of me was fucking worried after everything else seems to have gone wrong that this would somehow end up being bad.” I scoff at the very idea of that. “I know. I could never have predicted it would be this fucking good. Not even in my wildest dreams—and I’ll admit I’ve had more than a few of them.”
“Can’t wait to talk you into acting all of them out,” I reply in a soft voice, my energy too drained to offer much more than that. We fall back into silence for a long time before I interrupt the quiet with a giggle I can’t contain.
“What?” he asks, eyeing me suspiciously.
I slap a hand over my mouth for a minute before I can stop my laughter long enough to say, “We really ought to disinfect this desk.”
Chapter Seven
For the life of me, I never thought I’d have a morning with the guys that was so downright… domestic. But it’s the day before we leave for the beach house, and we’re all settled around the kitchen table, sharing a breakfast we’d managed to throw together between a few stolen moments in other rooms and going over the list of last-minute things we might need for the trip. I roll my eyes as I scratch a number of more sexual tools off the list that someone managed to add when I wasn’t looking.
“Jax,” I say with a long-suffering sigh, eyes bouncing up to regard him from over the table. He grins as I snatch the list up and shake it at him, stomach clenching at the playfulness in his eyes. “This list is meant to be serious. Edible underwear, really?”
“That is a very serious suggestion,” he says as his grin melts into a devilish sort of smirk. I twist in my seat and roll my eyes again before turning my attention back to the list. The playfulness is nice, but things are still a little weird between us. I mean, they’re better for sure, but it feels like there’s quite a large elephant in the room that no one is talking about still.
My eyes catch on the word machete scribbled near the bottom of the page, and my mouth’s falling open to ask who the hell thinks we’re going to reenact a horror movie wh
en the sound of the doorbell ringing cuts me off. My eyebrows furrow as I turn my head over my shoulder in the direction of the front door. I’m definitely not expecting anyone. I push my chair back as I glance back at the guys. The only one looking at me is Jax, and there’s something suspicious glinting in his dark eyes, an emotion that I don’t really understand. My stomach flutters, and I take a deep breath before turning away from him and trotting toward the front of the house.
My mouth drops when I pull the door open. “Jake?” I rub my eyes, completely perplexed to see him here. When I’d admitted things weren’t quite back to normal yet, he’d told me he wanted to wait before planning another visit. “What are you doing here?”
He fingers the strap of the duffle bag that’s thrown over his shoulder, and I can feel my eyebrows arching toward my hairline. What the hell? He lifts his head, nodding over my shoulder at something—or rather, someone—behind me. I turn to see Jax leaning near the stairs. I start to tense but he smiles like there’s no problem here and that only confuses me more.
“Can I come in?” Jake asks, and I pull the door a little further open despite how numb my limbs all feel at the moment.
He sidles past me into the house, careful to keep the distance between our bodies as he passes through the door. His eyes slide in Jax’s direction again, and my eyes follow along as the door swings closed with a heavy thud behind us.
Jax regards us with only semi-weary looking eyes. Quite the improvement on the last time we were all in one room together. I start to get a little nervous when Jax doesn’t say anything. “I didn’t know he was coming,” I blurt out, shooting Jake an apologetic look.
“I invited him, told him to come to the beach house with us.” I stare at Jax like he’s grown a second head.
Jax pushes away from the stairs and takes several strides toward me until he and Jake are almost side-by-side. He takes one of my hands in his and clasps it tightly.
“I don’t admit to being wrong, so enjoy it while it fucking lasts, but I’ll own this one. I pulled a Patrick-at-Prom on you, freaking out like Jake being here has anything to do with my relationship to you.” I think my heart is growing to ten times it normal size right now as I listen to him speak. “Every relationship you’ve got here is individual, despite the time we’ve spent as a group. And I’ll admit I had some momentary panic that someone else coming into things would take away the time I’ve got with you, but I know that’s not true. You’ve never been anything but fair to all of us—letting all our relationships develop however they naturally go.”
He continues, “It’s been weird ever since you chose between us. I never should have expected you to do that. Because the one thing that does affect our relationship and the time we spend together, is keeping you from being fully happy. And this guy—” he glances at Jake like he’s less than impressed, “for whatever reason helps do that for you. As far as I’m concerned, that makes him one of us.”
My heart melts. It might be the shittiest apology in the history of apologies, but it’s all Jax. I look between the two of them, trying not to laugh at the completely baffled expression on Jake’s face. It’s obvious he knew he’d been invited, but maybe not exactly the full extent of things. I wrap my arms around Jax and let myself melt into him. Though his half-ass apology might be shit coming from anyone else, it means the world coming from him right now. Especially because Jake is here, and hell if I hadn’t been hoping for that kind of miracle ever since that first big fight.
“What, was Jax’s order of edible panties too big for you guys to—” Patrick cuts himself off when he steps into the entryway and sees the confusing scene in front of him. His eyes cut from me and Jax to Jake as he quirks an eyebrow. “Hey man, we were just having breakfast. You hungry?”
Jake nods and drops his duffle bag near the staircase. My head spins as he passes me a tight-lipped grin, like he’s not really sure what’s going on but he’s sticking around, anyway. He follows Patrick into the kitchen, and the only thing that’s keeping me from following them is Jax’s fingers wrapping around my wrist and dragging me to a stop next to him. “I am sorry,” he admits quietly before leaning down long enough to drop a very sweet, very uncharacteristic kiss on my lips before dropping my hand and following the other guys.
What the fuck sort of parallel universe have I stepped into?
When I make my way into the kitchen, it’s to the sound clinking forks and painfully awkward silence. Jake’s sitting in the previously empty seat next to mine, and I pull my chair out slowly, eyeing the five guys around the table as I do so. Everyone’s staring studiously at their plates, and the packing list is now sitting abandoned in the middle of the table, no more talk of machetes or edible panties passing between the guys. I bite my lip as I drop into my seat, noting that while things are really fucking awkward, they’re not as tense as the last time, at least. So that’s some improvement.
I push my food around on my plate in silence, mixing eggs and syrup together as I try to piece together what the hell is going on. Jax Woods, the biggest asshole I’ve ever met in my life, managed to feel guilty over making me choose between him and Jake and then invited Jake to come on our trip, even though the last time they’d been face-to-face he’d accused him of hanging around to get a crack at Hollis’ treasure and to steal me away from everyone else. I barely resist the urge to drop my head into my hands as I puzzle through the bizarre turn the morning has taken. I can feel a headache developing between my eyes.
“God, this is fucking awkward,” Jake whispers, probably to himself, but I hear it, too, and I reach over to squeeze his hand under the table. He squeezes mine back before quickly pulling away from me. He scoots his chair back with a screech that’s painfully loud agains the silence. “I can just go. Clearly, Jax oversold how easy it would be for you all to have me here.”
“Oh, come on.” Patrick waves off his words. “Before it was awkward because everyone was mad at you. Now it’s just awkward because no one knows you. So sit down and get to talking—and I don’t mean shit like favorite colors or anything, either. Let’s hear all the twisted shit you’ve done.” Patrick’s eyes move over me. “That way if you hurt our girl, we’ll know the perfect way to fuck you up afterward.”
My breath catches, but then Patrick lets out a deep laugh to show he’s only joking, and I breathe a sigh of relief at the same time Jake does.
The awkwardness starts to break up after that. Jake gets grilled a little bit, but he takes it all in stride as best as can be expected. The other guys have the benefit of having grown up together, but Jake’s basically in the same boat I was when I first showed up here—only without the added help of the guys wanting to sleep with him the way they wanted me.
After breakfast, the guys busy themselves preparing for our trip as Jake and I sneak away to my spot under the gazebo. The same place he chose to walk away the last time, but I try not to think about that now.
Jake sits next to me on the swing, leg pressed tightly against mine as we swing back and forth in a contemplative silence. I offer him my hand, and my heart sings when he takes it, running his thumb along my knuckles in a gentle motion that matches the rhythm of our swinging.
“J?” he asks, and I hum in the back of my throat as I turn to face him. His eyebrows are knit tightly together as he stares at our laced fingers. He squeezes my hand again before turning his eyes up to face me. He’s conflicted, I can see it even before he says his piece. “Do you actually…” He trails off, pauses before trying again. “Those guys are pushing me on you pretty hard, but we’ve never really had that conversation. Do you actually want me the way they think you do?”
I put my free hand over my heart, surprised at this point that he even has to ask. This has been a long time coming, though. “Jake, I’m in love with you. I always have been and I always will be. I’ll be friends with you the rest of my life if that’s all you want, but if the option’s on the table—yeah, I want more than that.”
“Juliet,” he w
hispers the name he so rarely uses.
“Jake,” I whisper back.
“I’m so fucking glad to hear you say that.”
My lips start to twist up in a smile that never gets a chance to fully bloom because his mouth descends on mine, and I’m finally kissing Jake Murphy. Something it feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life for. I don’t know how the hell I ever got so damn lucky.
Chapter Eight
“I think you should definitely pack this.” I turn to see Jax holding up a string bikini on only his index finger. He swings it around as I roll my eyes and try unsuccessfully to grab it away from him. He raises his arm to hold it just out of reach. I smack his chest and shake my head at him.
“You’re making it take me twice as long as it should to pack.” He laughs, and I take that as a chance to hop up and grab the bikini away from him. “Besides,” I continue, “We’re not going to the beach house to go swimming.”
“All work and no play makes Juliet a dull, dull girl,” he says with an exaggerated pout. I laugh in his face as I toss the bikini towards the pile of other clothes I’ve already vetoed for this trip. It’s like a superpower of his or something—finding the most scandalous things in my closet. I’m actually starting to suspect he snuck some of these clothes in here himself, because some of these things look wholly unfamiliar.
I shake my head at him and point him towards the chair in the center of the room. I put it there for him when he refused to let me pack in peace, but he has yet to sit in it. He takes a few steps towards it but then turns to face me again. Packing is all but forgotten as he loops an arm around me and then drags me with him until he sits back into the chair, sliding me into his lap. “This is not packing.”
