Pike laid a hand on her knee and squeezed, sending a tweak of jealousy through Foster. “No worries, doc. It’s all in good fun. Why don’t you go first?”
“Okay.” She fidgeted with the cocktail napkin in her lap, folding it into thirds, thinking. “Hmm, well, never have I ever . . . watched Star Wars porn.”
Her sly smile pulled a laugh from Foster despite his plummeting mood. “Low blow, doctor.”
Pike glanced at him, shrugged, and both of them tipped back their shot glasses and swallowed.
“Oh my God,” she said, laughing. “So you guys were only half-kidding when you mentioned it.”
“It was college,” Pike said in mock protest.
“I couldn’t look away,” Foster said at the same time.
“Pervs,” she declared, but her eyes were crinkled around the corners. “Okay, your turn.”
Foster refilled the shot glasses and sighed. He needed to come up with something neutral. Safe. “Alright, never have I ever . . . owned a pet.”
Cela’s jaw dropped as if he’d just admitted he liked to dress up in women’s clothes and sing Broadway tunes. “Like ever?”
“Nope.”
“Not even like a fish or something?” She drank her shot.
He watched her throat work as she swallowed, imagining things he shouldn’t. “My parents traveled a lot. They didn’t trust me to take care of a pet.”
She frowned. “Kids usually do a better job than most adults.”
“Yeah, well, my track record on taking care of things wasn’t so great,” he said, failing to keep the tinge of bitterness out of his voice—the old, always-present guilt surfacing.
“I’m sorry.” The stark sympathy that swept her features had something knotting in his chest. God, why had he admitted something so personal? He could’ve just said no and left it at that.
Pike drank his shot, and Foster sent him a curious look. When he’d met Pike, the kid had barely owned enough clothes to get him through a week. He and what passed for his family wouldn’t have been in a place to fund a pet.
Pike shrugged. “A stray cat used to live under our house when I was a kid. I named him Jagger and fed him, so I think that counts. I wanted him to be mine.”
Cela looked between the two of them. “I’m dragging both of y’all to the vet school shelter. Clearly, you need a pet.”
Pike laughed. “Doc, we can barely be trusted to care for ourselves. Let’s not inflict a poor animal with owners like us.”
Owners. Foster could think of one thing he’d like to own right now—at least for a little while. He dragged his focus away from Cela and nodded at Pike. “Your turn, drummer boy.”
Pike narrowed his eyes, that nickname always serving to annoy him, which is why Foster loved using it so much.
“Fine. Let’s see if I can come up with something less depressing than yours.” Pike sat back on the couch, his eyebrow arching in challenge. “Never have I ever . . .”
The pause was long. Too long. Pike smiled and leveled a gaze at Foster.
Oh shit. Foster knew that look. Don’t do it, Pike.
“Gotten off while eavesdropping on my neighbor,” Pike finished.
You fucker.
Cela’s expelled breath was audible even over the music. Well, shit. Now he was going to look like a creepy asshole. Foster ventured a glance her way, his gaze colliding with hers. Her panicked-rabbit expression made him wish time could be rewound and deleted.
“Dammit, Pike,” Foster said, gearing up for damage control. “Cela, look, Pike’s just messing around. He likes to—”
But before he could finish, Cela reached out, lifted her shot off the table, and downed it. When she finished, she wouldn’t look up. She stared down at her hands and the empty glass, her knee bumping up and down—as if she were contemplating running.
The silent admission and ensuing bashfulness were like strokes to Foster’s cock, oil on a fire he was trying to tame. This girl may be inexperienced, but she was brave—bold in a way that had him getting surprised at every turn. And it’d been a helluva long time since anyone had surprised him. He leaned forward in his seat. Like a predator scenting blood in the water, the dominance rose in him, locked her in its sights.
“Cela.”
She put her hand over her face, shaking her head. “Let’s just go to the next turn. Please.”
“Look at me, Cela,” he commanded, his tone harsh.
Her attention snapped his way, as if she couldn’t stop herself from obeying.
He held her eye contact and slowly drained his own shot.
Poured another, drank again.
Then another, drank again. “I could keep going.”
In Foster’s peripheral vision, Pike gave a slow, satisfied grin. “Honesty. I like it.”
Cela’s throat worked as she swallowed hard, her lips parted, closed, opened again as if she had words to say but couldn’t pick which ones.
“Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours,” Foster said, keeping his voice even. “You don’t need to be afraid to say what you’re thinking.”
She licked her lips, the pulse at her throat visibly jumping. “First, I need to know what this is—tonight.”
Pike angled toward her on the couch. “We told you, doc. It’s your night to have a good time, whatever that may be.”
She looked to Pike, then back to Foster and lifted her hand to the neckline of her dress. Her fingers dipped underneath the material and moved along her sweat-dampened skin, riveting Foster’s gaze. She pulled a small square of paper out.
“What’s that?” Pike asked.
“In less than a month, I’ll be back in the small town I grew up in. Everything there is planned out for me in a nice, neat path. The job I’ve always known I’d have, the guy I’m supposed to date, the place I’m going to live.”
She hesitated and stared down at the paper, her thumb rubbing across the smooth white surface over and over again. Pike put a palm to her back, a gentle grounding touch that seemed to replenish Cela’s resolve. She gave them both a wavering half smile before continuing.
“I’ve lived my whole life working toward exactly that goal. It’s what I’ve wanted for so long. But I realized tonight that I’ve missed out on a lot of experiences that weren’t bullet points in the plan. I don’t want to go back home with a Never Have I Ever list a mile long.” She set the square of paper on the table, let her fingers linger on top of it for a moment, and then pushed it toward the center. “And I was hoping you two might help me scratch some things off the list.”
Foster’s attention zeroed in on the note, his heartbeat climbing up a notch.
“Whoa,” Pike said, her declaration apparently stunning the nothing-shocks-me musician.
Before Pike could take the liberty, Foster reached out and laid his palm over the small square, the paper slightly damp from being against Cela’s bare skin. He resisted the urge to bring it to his nose and inhale.
“That is,” she rushed on, her eyes darting toward Foster’s grip on her note. “If y’all are, you know, really interested in me or whatever but if not . . .”
“Shh . . .” Pike said, pressing his fingers against her lips. “Doc, if what’s on that sheet has anything to do with getting to touch you again, I have no doubt we’ll be all for it.”
Foster lifted the paper, unfolded it carefully, and stared down at the neat, bulleted list Cela had written on half a notebook page.
Never Have I Ever . . .
Broken the rules.
Had a one-night stand.
Lived out a fantasy.
Slept with the hot neighbors I’ve been crushing on for a year.
Lost control.
But I want to . . .
The paper crinkled beneath Foster’s finge
rtips as all sights and sounds around him seemed to fade, the words on the page nearly glowing at him. But I want to . . . He looked up at Cela, the vulnerable expression on her face reminding him of her youth, her innocence. But his stampeding libido trampled over those concerns, his cock hardening past the point of maybe. Yes, she was sweet. Inexperienced.
But the woman who wrote this list knew what she wanted, what she craved.
And he’d be damned if he was going to let someone else give it to her.
If Cela wanted to lose control with someone, he knew the guys for the task.
He stood, tucking the note in his pocket, and holding out a hand. “I think we’re done dancing.”
—
My heart was pounding hard enough to make my chest hurt, and a fine sheen of sweat had gathered on my neck, but I managed to get to my feet and take Foster’s offered hand. This is what I had wanted when I’d knocked on their door tonight. Wanton abandon. A departure from all that my predictable life normally was.
But now that I was standing with my toes peeking over the edge of the precipice, preparing to leap, the ingrained voice of my father was firing in my head like a machine gun. What are you doing? You don’t know these men. You’re not this kind of girl. What would people say?
And the ever popular, Don’t shame the family.
My father had used that one ad nauseam throughout my childhood. My older sister, Luz, had fallen into the wrong crowd in high school, had a boyfriend who’d stolen from people in town, and had gotten pregnant at sixteen. The taint of that had hung over us for years, even after my father had sent Luz away, disowning her after she terminated the pregnancy. So with my oldest brother away in the military and Luz gone, it had been left to me and Andre to prove that “those Medina kids” weren’t all bad.
Be a good girl or you won’t be part of this family anymore. My father had never stated it that way, but the sentiment had hung in the household like a stench you couldn’t air out. And now here I was putting myself into the hands of two men, giving them a laundry list of sins I’d like to commit.
Foster’s fingers laced with mine, and he pulled me closer to him, dragging me from my swirling thoughts. He brushed my hair away from my face and graced me with a smile that sent warmth bleeding through me. “You’re panicking already, angel. Don’t. There’s no need.”
The endearment and soft tone were like soothing strokes to my climbing anxiety. He probably called girls angel all the time. I wasn’t under the delusion that I was any different than the women I’d heard in their apartment over the last two years. But something about the way he said it, the reverence in it, made me want to curl into him, to block out the harsh voice in my head.
“Is it okay that I’m a little scared?” I asked, offering my own attempt at a smile.
He cradled my face, his blue eyes seeming to read me as if every emotion were printed in permanent marker on my forehead. “It’s all right to be scared of the unknown, to be nervous about exploring things you’ve only thought about in private moments. But you don’t have to be scared of us.”
Pike stepped up behind Foster. “He’s right, doc.”
“But I have no idea what I’m doing. I want this, but I know I’m in over my head,” I said, the men’s stark gazes pulling blatant honesty out of me.
Foster chuckled. “Lucky for you, there isn’t anything I like more than being in charge and giving directions.”
Pike smirked. “No truer words have ever been spoken.”
“Come on.” Foster’s grip tightened on my fingers, and Pike came around to flank my opposite side, grabbing my other hand. “Your only instruction for tonight is going to be an easy one to follow.”
One instruction? My mind flipped through possible scenarios like a day calendar in a wind gust as Foster and Pike led me down the stairs and through the crowd on the bottom floor. What would they expect from me? What if they asked me to do something I couldn’t handle or didn’t know how to do? What if they laughed at me like the frat guy had my sophomore year?
Pike retrieved my purse from the coat check stand, and by the time the three of us finally pushed through the doors and the night air hit us, my nerves were gnawing at me, chewing through my resolve. I glanced back and forth between the two guys, but neither was giving anything away.
The valet hailed a cab and Pike climbed in. I peeked over at Foster, gathering courage. “Can I ask what my one instruction is going to be?”
He grinned and pressed his lips against my ear as he guided me toward the cab. “To show us exactly how much pleasure you can take before you beg us to stop.”
“Oh,” I whispered, my insides liquefying.
He slid into the cab next to me, pressing me against Pike. Pike draped his arm around me, and Foster laid a hand along my exposed thigh.
“The Hotel St. Mark, please,” Foster said to the driver.
“Hotel?” I asked.
He traced a small, sensuous circle along my inner thigh, making me think of gentle tongues and nips of teeth moving higher. My sex clenched.
“Wouldn’t want to wake the neighbors.”
PART II
NOT UNTIL YOU RISK
SIX
I was in a cab on the way to a hotel with Foster and Pike. Foster and Pike. I kept blinking, staring out at the road in front of me, wondering if the whole scene was going to fade before my eyes. Maybe I’d passed out drunk in my apartment and was hallucinating. Could you hallucinate from alcohol? Because surely this couldn’t be me—Cela, the high school valedictorian, the no-I-can’t-go-out-tonight-because-I-have-to-study good girl. Nice girls like that didn’t get in a car with two sexy, older guys for a one-night stand—a one-night threesome. Shit. This was crazy.
Cuh-razy.
I’d never been so simultaneously excited and nervous in my entire life. But despite all the implications about what kind of girl this made me, I found myself desperately hoping that this wasn’t some dream, that it truly was real.
“You okay?” Foster asked me after giving the driver instructions.
I nodded, though the move felt stiff and jerky. “You bet.”
He chuckled quietly and settled in, his hand resting casually on my knee. His mouth dipped close to my ear. “Breathe, Cela.”
“Trying,” I whispered, my heart stuttering at the warm feel of his skin on mine. Pike stretched his arm over the back of the seat and sent me a reassuring smile.
I closed my eyes and inhaled a long, deep breath before opening them again. Surprisingly, it seemed to help a bit. Well, that and the fact that the guys seemed to refuse to let me be anxious for long. I expected the cab ride to be tense, the question—Am I really going to do this?—on thunderous repeat in my head. But with Foster’s hand caressing my thigh and Pike’s fingers teasing the hair at my nape, I was losing myself in the rising tide of hormones. The nerves were siphoning off with each gentle touch, each caress. And the question of Am I going to do this? transformed into if not now, why not? It wasn’t like I could find guys I was more attracted to. And they weren’t going to pressure me. If I didn’t like something or changed my mind, they would stop. I knew that in my gut. This was my chance to have a fantasy night, and I’d be stupid not to take advantage of it.
Internal pep talk complete, I relaxed against the seat, Foster’s and Pike’s body heat bookending me, their combined scents like bottled sex and man. Mmm.
Foster smiled down at me. “Feeling better?”
“Getting there,” I said as I closed my eyes, my voice taking on a dreamlike quality even to my own ears. No longer was I thinking of the past, my lack of experience, or what kind of girl this supposedly made me. All I was thinking about was twisted hotel sheets, naked skin, and feeling these two guys against me, on top of me . . . inside me. Even thinking those last two words gave me a hard shiver, a heady cocktail of desire an
d fear filtering through my blood.
Foster’s hand drifted higher, the strokes against my thigh deceptively light. If the cabbie turned and peeked back, Foster’s touch would look like an afterthought, casual. But the soft, circular glides were a silent, relentless assault on my starved libido. I ached for more, for the intensity I sensed lurking in this man. Foster’s touch moved even higher, and as if acting on their own volition, my knees parted a bit further than was appropriate.
I opened my eyes, surprised by my own involuntary response, and caught the hint of Foster’s smile in my peripheral vision. He kept his eyes forward as he asked the cab driver a question, but his pinky snuck beneath my dress and grazed my satin panties.
Oh, Lord. A hot ripple of heat sizzled up and outward. I bit my lip to keep from gasping. This was not happening. Couldn’t be.
Pike joined in the conversation with the driver—something about the basketball finals maybe—but I couldn’t be sure. My brain was in reboot.
Foster’s hand disappeared beneath my dress again, this time more boldly. If the driver really looked back now, he’d know something was up. I set my purse on my knees, blocking the view. Foster’s fingertip dragged across the damp satin, finding my hot button through the thin fabric and circling around it.
My muscles tensed like I’d been Tasered, and my fingernails curled into the leather of my purse. Pike’s hand cupped my neck and squeezed, letting me know that even if he was carrying on a mundane conversation, he knew exactly what Foster was doing to me and how my body was responding.
Foster stroked me through the fabric once, twice—knowing exactly where to touch. I tried not to squirm in the seat. My body was near detonation already after what had happened on the dance floor. I hadn’t been touched like this by anyone other than myself in years. And, God, how many times had I fantasized about this very guy being the one to do it? I wasn’t going to be able to hold it together.
And apparently he didn’t want me to, because before I could even catch another breath, he was moving aside the fabric. The pad of his finger brushed embarrassingly slippery skin and dipped lower, finding my entrance. He slipped one long finger inside. I did gasp this time, unable to hold it back, but Pike conveniently coughed over the sound.