Give Me More (Salacious Players Club #3) (32)

“I don’t think that needs to be a rule,” he adds, going back to the weights. It almost looks like he’s avoiding eye contact on purpose. Did that question make him uncomfortable? I just assumed that Hunter being his friend, and strictly wanting to do this because he wanted to watch, would make things easier if Drake said he couldn’t join in at all. We’re trying to avoid awkwardness, but Drake almost seems to…want Hunter involved.

I can’t stop thinking about it as I finish my tenth mile on the bike. I know Drake sleeps with men from time to time, and Hunter has always been supportive of that, but I’ve noticed that he doesn’t seem to love it. Whenever Drake would talk about a man he hooked up with, Hunter would clench his jaw and change the subject.

And I never noticed any signs of attraction between them. So why would he suddenly be encouraging Hunter to join in?

Drake is doing squats now with a long barbell draped over his shoulders. I notice the way he winces on each drop, shaking out his leg as he stands.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, my hamstrings are just tight as fuck.” He sets the barbell back on the rack and rubs at the back of his leg.

“Let me help you stretch it.” I hop off my bike and grab a mat from the corner, rolling it out on the floor between us.

“You don’t have to do that,” he replies, and I tilt my head toward him.

“It’s literally my job. Come on.”

With a sigh, he gets down on the mat, sitting with his legs extended.

“Lie down.”

“Don’t hurt me,” he replies playfully.

“No promises.”

Once he’s lying on his back, I lift his right leg and hold it against my chest as I press it toward his body. He lets out a long groan, and I can tell immediately just how tight his muscles are.

“You need to stretch more. You’re way too tight.”

“I hate stretching.”

I roll my eyes, pressing his leg a little farther to his body. “Don’t be such a baby. I do this for Hunter all the time.”

“Well, maybe if I was married to a beautiful yoga instructor, I wouldn’t hate it so much.”

I let out a giggle, pressing his leg even deeper into the stretch, but when neither of us say anything for a few minutes, it starts to grow tense again.

Our eyes meet, and it’s a loaded gaze. I’ve looked Drake in the eye a million times before, but suddenly, any eye contact between us now feels different, as if our connection has been magnified, blown up to one million percent its original size, and I’m not sure how I get it back to the way it was. I’m not sure I even want to.

“Why haven’t you ever settled down?” I ask carefully.

He swallows, gazing back up at the ceiling. When I push his leg a little closer to his body, he winces. “I don’t know. I never felt what Hunter did.”

“What do you mean?”

“I remember the day he saw you for the first time. When you were walking across the street in that emerald green dress and those black sandals, he couldn’t take his eyes off you. Then, he couldn’t stop talking about you, and we started going back to that corner every day just to see you. It was a really big deal, and I just kept waiting to feel what he felt that day, but it never really happened.”

“I remember that dress,” I reply, distracted by the fact that Drake remembered what I was wearing that day ten years ago.

“I never saw you wearing it again after that day.”

“You know…not everyone meets their spouse like that. It’s not actually that normal to be as sure as Hunter was. Some people know their soul mates for years before realizing it.”

“I know,” he says, as I release his leg and move toward the other. “But that’s what I want. I don’t want to settle for less.”

“You’ll find someone,” I say, feeling a hint of disappointment at the thought.

Heaving a sigh, he looks up at me. And just like that, the tension is back. He must feel it too, because he immediately says, “Let’s make a deal to always be open with each other. Whatever you’re feeling, you have to tell me. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you or Hunter.”

“Me neither,” I add.

“So we have to communicate everything. No matter how awkward or painful it is.” There is such sincerity in his eyes.

“I know.”

“Deal?” he asks.

“Deal,” I reply.





Rule #14: Some people need to be tied up.





Hunter



Drake, Isabel, and I are gathered around a table in the back of the Crescent City Kink Club in the middle of a rope bondage workshop. The instructor is a beautiful woman named Silla, tall and slender with a soft voice and a beaming bright smile. It’s hard to focus on what she’s teaching us and the dozen other couples and groups here to learn when she levels those dazzling hazel eyes on us.

Drake is having the same problem. I can tell by the way his eyes cascade down her body, licking his lips as his gaze settles on the shimmering dark flesh busting out of her thin white bra.

“Will you two pay attention, please?” Isabel whispers.

Drake and I both chuckle, hiding our shameless smiles, as Silla instructs us to pick up the long black rope. Each of us holds a strand as she walks us through some basic knots. Isabel picks it up easily while Drake and I fumble, causing more unintentional knots than what we’re supposed to be creating.