Happenstance(7)

Banks presses a thumb into some magical pressure point at the very base of my spine and I make a breathy, whimpering sound before I know what’s happening.

All three men seem to expand in the darkness. Like they’re grown attuned to me and I’ve just turned some knob to raise the volume. This has to be a dream. I’m going to wake up any second now and be home in bed, my phone chiming on my bedside table. I’m definitely not hanging suspended over the East River with three men, two of whom my body seems powerless to ignore.

This is insane.

Try and view what’s happening as a necessity, rather than a choice.

I need body heat. They are giving it to me. We all do what we have to do to survive in the wild, right? There is no difference between me being pressed up against this gorgeous man’s gym-perfected body than stranded campers huddling together for warmth in the wilderness.

Right.

I clear my throat and try to ignore that thumb drawing circles on my lower back. “So, Banks.” I pretend I don’t notice that my voice has fallen approximately fifty-two octaves. “Are you going to tell us why you’re on Roosevelt Island?”





Chapter Three





I’m close enough to Banks that the slightest pop of muscle in his cheek is like an avalanche. But I only see it in my periphery, because he’s still holding eye contact. It boggles my mind that I haven’t looked away yet. There is something about a person looking at me too closely that is usually unnerving. Why is that not the case here? The longer this continues, the more my raving pulse seems to carry downward to the juncture of my thighs. To…everywhere. I’m an exposed nerve and he’s rubbing me more and more raw with that freaking thumb.

And his unwavering stare.

I asked Banks what brought him to Roosevelt Island. Is he going to answer?

No one inside the car seems to be breathing, our collective focus narrowed down to the two of us. The fact that we’re touching feels massive. Important.

“I’m here to see my mother,” Banks says finally—and that’s when his gaze finally flickers away from mine. It’s only a split-second loss, but it tells me there is more to the story.

“And it didn’t go well?” I only murmur the question, but we’re all so close, so in thrall with each other, that my question reaches everyone.

Banks doesn’t seem surprised by my astuteness. As if he’s already noticed, too, that there is some sort of intuition between us. “No. It never does.”

His jaw pops, as if to say, conversation closed.

I’m not great at taking orders, silent or not. “Why?”

A second ticks by. Then his thumb drags up my spine—firmly—almost as a reproof for pressing him on the issue of his mother. His trip to the island. For several breaths, I don’t think he is going to answer me. I think he is simply going to let my gasp hang in the air. But finally, he says quietly, “She won’t take my money.”

No one is expecting that. Even Tobias tilts his head curiously.

“Why not?” Tobias is speaking. “You did mention she’s a woman, correct?”

“Did I mention you’re a shithead?” I fire over Banks’s shoulder.

“Lots of people share your opinion, love.”

Banks pulls me closer, as if to soothe. I can’t believe it works. At least until Tobias’s lips pull into a grin. It doesn’t reach his eyes, though. No, those are locked on Banks’s hand moving beneath the material of the overcoat. Was Tobias purposely trying to get under my skin with that comment because he’s…?

No. No way he’s jealous.

Not one of the top-grossing adult film actors of all time. He can’t possibly have the ability to feel envy in his line of work, right? Especially over a woman he just met—one who he had an antagonistic relationship with from the word go.

I shrug off the notion and go back to Banks. “Does she need money?”

“Yes. She’s accustomed to having a lot more of it, but she…” Banks’s swallow is loud near my ear. “She fell on hard times after my father passed. I’m making enough to support us both, but she is letting her guilt get in the way of good sense.”

“Guilt over what?” Gabe asks.

We all jolt a little, maybe since none of us expected him to speak so soon after the boner incident. “I played rugby growing up,” Banks begins after a few beats. “Loved it. Chose it over following in my father’s footsteps in finance and they….specifically she…didn’t support me. Since I found success as a player and now a coach, she doesn’t feel right about accepting the benefits. She’d rather live paycheck to paycheck out of pure stubbornness.”

I study the rigid set of Banks’s chin. “I bet you’re a lot like her, aren’t you?”

For the first time since meeting him, the edge of his mouth tips up into an amused smile, and good God, he was handsome before, but now he’s dangerous. “You’d be right about that, Elise. Doesn’t make it any easier to come here every week and have my assistance rejected.” His thumb travels along the waistband of my skirt, slowly. So slowly. Then his fingers splay on my back, his palm riding my spine all the way up to my shoulders, back down with increased pressure, stopping just before my backside and I don’t know how he’s done it, but I want him to go lower. I want to feel that skilled hand on my bottom, pulling me close. Which, hello, would be entirely inappropriate. We don’t know each other and there are two other people in this car. Yet I can’t seem to stop myself from leaning in until my nose is almost buried in the notch of his throat and breathing the perfect scent of him into my bones. “And you, Elise? Why are you here?”