Misadventures of a Curvy Girl (Misadventures #18)(44)

It’s still hard to take that first bite, but Ben’s look of masculine pride as I moan around his meal is worth it. They love to take care of me—I’m in danger of being downright spoiled. They wash my hair in the shower, they launder my clothes, and they pack my bags. They plug my phone and laptop into chargers if I forget to at night, and they put jars and vases full of fresh sunflowers in every room simply because they know sunflowers make me smile. They give me the second-best spot on the couch—Greta-dog gets the first-best—and then, of course, there are the hours and hours of mind-blowing sex.

So it’s not unusual for them to pamper me with a delicious meal, but it is unusual for them not to be working right now. For them to be here watching me eat instead of out in the fields or in town, or even working on restoring the tavern now that some of the insurance money has trickled in.

I glance between them, wondering if I should stop eating.

“Move in with us,” Caleb blurts out, and Ben groans.

“We were going to wait until after she ate,” he says irritably. “Remember?”

I swallow and look at them both. They are deadly earnest, sitting on the literal edges of their seats with green and brown eyes trained on me.

“You aren’t serious,” I say weakly.

“We’ve never been more serious about anything,” Ben says after giving Caleb a let-me-handle-this look. “We’re in love with you.”

My mouth drops open.

Caleb laughs. “Peach, it can’t be that much of a surprise. We can’t keep our hands off you, we call you constantly when you’re away, and we never let you out of our sight when you’re here. Of course we’re in love with you.”

“I just—I—” I’m stammering and also trying to keep my chin from quivering. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

Both boys blink at me with such sweet surprise that I have to rub at my nose to fight off the sudden about-to-cry sting there. And then before I can do or say anything else, I’m being yanked into a fierce embrace between the two of them, and even on their knees around me they’re still tall enough that I feel completely surrounded.

I bury my face into Caleb’s neck, rubbing against his soft beard.

“We’ve been in love since the moment we met you,” he says softly.

Ben is moving my hair aside to kiss the nape of my neck with firm, warm lips.

“We’ve known you were ours since day one,” Caleb continues. “Please say yes, Ireland. Please say you love us back. Move in with us.”

My heart’s so full it feels like it will burst.

How can this be real? How can this be true?

And how is it that I’ve never wanted anything as much as to be with these two men for the rest of forever?

“I love you back,” I mumble against Caleb’s skin. “I think I’ve been in love with the both of you since the first day too.”

I’m rewarded for this admission, squeezed and kissed and loved on. Petted and stroked until I feel all spoiled again.

“You haven’t answered us about moving in,” Ben says. “Why? Is it work? Family?”

I can work remotely, and I would probably pay money to not see my sister, so it’s not either of those things. But I’m not really sure what it is either. Some kind of lingering insecurity, maybe? This stubborn doubt that I don’t really belong with them because of my body?

I hate these gross thoughts. I banish them to the back of my mind and try to focus on what I know instead—Caleb and Ben love me and I love them, and there’s no practical reason keeping me from moving in other than that it’s fast and this relationship is still so new. Well, that and one person in our bed can’t seem to stay there for the whole night.

Maybe this is my chance to be brave…and to nudge Ben into bravery along with me.

“I’ll say yes,” I decide, “if Ben can sleep the whole night with us.”

Behind me, Ben’s body goes still and stonelike. “Pardon?” he asks, as if he didn’t hear correctly.

“I think you heard me,” I reply gently. “If we can find a way for you to sleep through the night with us, I’ll move in.”





Chapter Sixteen





Ben





Ireland is looking at me over her shoulder, her blue eyes clear and serious, and Caleb’s looking at me the same way. All concern and desire. It makes my chest tighten, and I stand up to get some space while I think.

“I didn’t think anyone cared much one way or the other,” I say, going over to the counter and bracing my hands against it. I take a few deep breaths, trying to organize my thoughts, which are currently in a defensive swirl. “It’s not like we fuck any less because I sleep alone.”

“It’s not about fucking,” Ireland says, and I hear her stand up and walk over to me. She slides her hands around my waist and leans her head against my back, molding her curves to me.

It feels so good. Good enough that I realize how tense my body is, as if I’m fortifying myself against some kind of danger.

I inhale, forcing myself to remember that I’m here, not in Marjah listening to the sporadic crackle of bullets and the distant thuds of mortar shells. I’m here at the farm with the two people I love. Two people I’m trying to love better than I have been.