The Engagement Gift(6)
I laughed at the way it sounded like a fairy tale.
In some ways, my life had become one. After the dark beginning of my twenties and the rocky path I’d traveled, I’d reached the other side and found mad love, along with filthy, fabulous sex.
I didn’t need to rock the boat.
“I have nothing to complain about,” I mused.
Kate inched closer. “Maybe, just maybe, you could let him know that you might like to bring in some company.” She crossed her legs, took a sip, and issued the most knowing of knowing looks.
I shuddered at the prospect of two guys taking care of me. I didn’t need them to touch each other. I didn’t want them to touch each other. But I longed to be touched by two gorgeous men at once. As I pictured company in bed, my skin tingled and my pulse spiked. I tried to shake off the endorphin rush, even though my libido was a dirty devil, whispering in my ear for more.
Still, my love for my man was the angel telling me to be good, and the angel won out. “I hear you, but some things are better left unsaid.”
*
As I returned to the office, I reminded myself of all the reasons to keep my thoughts to myself.
It’s just a fantasy. That’s all. I’ll live if I don’t have it. Besides, I need to focus on this story for work, and wedding prep, and a million other things. There was no time to entertain the idea of threesomes.
I answered a text from my friend Nina asking for advice on which new pair of glasses to buy. The images she sent me made me smile—goofy selfies of her trying on horn-rimmed glasses then red cat-eye ones.
Lily: You look HAWT in the cat-eye ones. Like the sexy nerd you are.
Nina: Oh, good. I want to look nerdier.
Lily: Sexier! You look sexier, goofball!
Nina: Great. Then I’ll use these specs to seduce all the hot tech nerds at my office.
Lily: What a perfect plan!
I set my phone down and dove into my report for Sports Network on the looming major league trade deadline, then did some prep work for an upcoming conference I was leading in our hometown. I reached out to a few sports agents I knew, inviting them to a panel.
There.
That was who I was. Lily Whiting, a friend who gave fashion advice. Lily Whiting, a sports reporter who was professional and direct, outgoing and businesslike. That was what the world saw. And as I stared at the e-mail I’d just sent, it put my dirty thoughts into sharp relief.
How could I be the woman who interviewed athletes and general managers, invited top agents to intensive conferences, discussed the dynamics of the business of sports, but behind closed doors I was this . . . wild thing?
A wild thing who fantasized about sex on balconies as strangers watched.
A voracious creature who loved to pretend she’d been bad, so bad, and needed to be punished with bites and swats and hair pulls so hard she screamed.
A woman who daydreamed about the sheer overwhelming intensity of two men taking her at the same time.
I shivered as a rush of heat spread through me from my chest, down my belly, and straight between my legs. My mind quickly assembled one of my go-to images. Finn, in his charcoal slacks, dress shirt, and a tie. And another man. A nameless, faceless man. But someone who looked like Finn, dressed like Finn.
They’d find me in bed, wearing only the sexiest lingerie, lazily touching myself, like I’d been waiting to be discovered. When they found me, they’d be instantly aroused, so ready to please me at the same time.
God, I was a hedonist.
A raging, shameless hedonist.
And I had to stop it. Shut down the thoughts.
I couldn’t go there. Even with my fiancé. Some things were better off as fantasies.
Especially when Finn sent me a text, asking me to meet him at Eden after work.
Our favorite sex-toy shop.
Yes, that was our speed. We were the kind of couple who’d have a threesome with a battery-operated friend.
Him, me, and the dolphin.
And I’d be fine with that.
4
Finn
After I finished reviewing files for a case, I hit the gym with Jake.
“Ready to be destroyed in another round of one-on-one?” I asked after we tackled the weights.
He rolled his eyes as we hit the courts. “You seem to have a different definition of ‘destroyed.’ You see, destroy is what I do to your sorry ass when it comes to basketball.”
“Bud, that’s cute that you think you’ll win.”
He arched a brow. “Allow me to remind you by taking no prisoners.”
It was all in good fun because Jake did usually kill it at basketball. But I was required by the universal code of men to trash-talk.
It was what we did. What we’d always do, I had no doubt. I’d known him for years, and he was the best kind of guy.
I wasn’t going to say he was like a brother, because no one could fill that role. But hell, he was damn close.
He’d been there for me when I didn’t even realize I needed someone, the friend who’d insisted I get my shit together when he saw I was about to snap.
A few years ago, he’d found me in the office at two in the morning yet again, draining another pot of coffee, obsessing over another case.