Unconventional

  I liked that answer, and so I pressed down on him and backed off, simulating what I would do to him naked, shortly. I reached down to cup the top of his cock through his pants. He sucked in a long breath. I let go and he exhaled.

  “Do you want me to go down on you?” I couldn’t believe how I was talking but with Banyan it felt natural. I opened my mouth and that was what came out of it. He seemed to like it. Banyan wasn’t shy. He’d tell me if he wasn’t okay.

  He smirked. “So much. But not now, okay? Later. I want this to end in a very specific way and your mouth on me will put me over the edge.”

  I pouted, sticking out my lower lip. “You promised another time.”

  “I’ll never say no to it again.”

  I took off all of my clothes, letting him watch my every movement. Most of the time I didn’t feel sexy, ever. But I did right then. His gaze on me made me this person—this loving-being-naked-with-him-watching person.

  He visibly swallowed before he took off his own attire. His penis, long and hardened, caught my attention and I walked over to stroke him, one strong movement of my hand from his balls to his tip. He visibly trembled.

  “Do you have a condom?” I whispered my question. If he didn’t, we were going to revisit the whole giving him a blow job scenario. No way was this just ending now.

  Banyan nodded, a piece of his dark hair falling on his face. “In my pocket. I mean, I hope that’s not presumptuous. I was actually not thinking that I was going to have sex on this floor. I thought maybe later? And, okay, I’m rambling.” He held out his hand. “Come here, sweetheart.”

  I walked toward him, kneeling down to crawl up his body, hitting his cock with my breasts. He sighed. “They are soft.”

  I kissed his chin, his mouth, his shoulders. He smelled amazing, like cinnamon. He grabbed the condom from his pants and put himself in it. Scooting down, I stroked him one more time before I pushed myself down on him, fitting himself inside of me before I pushed down. We both groaned. Hell, this felt so good. It should be illegal.

  We moved like that, neither of us speaking, not needing to. Sometimes words were in the way. I threw my head back and he grabbed onto my hands, holding onto me, and whether he meant it to be an additional connection between us or not, that was what he gave me. I stared down at him.

  His gaze heated me further. Sometimes Banyan could look so serious. This was one of those moments. I felt like his canvas, as though he painted me with his eyes. I sped up my movements and squeezed my hips. I wanted him as deep as I could have him and to rub me right where I needed it. He took silent direction well. Banyan thrust hard, again and then again.

  I grabbed onto my own breasts, squeezing them, and he moaned, loudly.

  He liked that? I’d do it anytime. I’d never wanted anything as much as I wanted Banyan to get off. He reached between us, touching my clit, rubbing it. I ground against him, my knees pressing into the floor. Fuck, yes. I needed that. I always did.

  I shouted my release, my orgasm taking me by surprise. One second I wasn’t near coming and then the next I suddenly was. My own must have called his. He spent himself inside of me, a long moan. I closed my eyes.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, a thought intruded on my bliss.

  How on earth was I ever going to live without this?

  Back at Chance’s house, I stared at myself in a full-length mirror. Maven had joined the other two in purchasing me clothes. They had been on my bed when I returned. Now, showered and rested, I stared at myself in the outfit I was going to wear to the club I needed the fake ID for. I’d never have picked a gold dress for myself.

  Still, it worked. It was strapless, and I glittered when I moved. Maven had left me a note on the dress that just said, “I want people to look at you.”

  I touched my neck. For some reason, in this dress, my neck looked long. The short gold number stopped right above my knees and made them look longer, too. I’d officially think of this as the looking longer dress from now on.

  A knock sounded on the door. When I said come in, Chance opened it then leaned against the side of the entranceway.

  He didn’t smile. “That dress. I’m not sure if I want you to be in it all night or if I want you out of it immediately.”

  I touched the strap. “No bra in this one.” I looked at his reflection in the mirror. “Can you tell?”

  “Hmm.” He stepped into the room. “I’m starting to think you like torturing me. You have a funny look on your face. I’m not sure you’re happy.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure this dress is me. I mean, I’ve kind of been on vacation from myself this week. But this might be more than I can manage.”

  He ran a finger down the side of my arm, and I shivered. “It’s one version of you. If you don’t like it for tonight, don’t do it. This is, and always will be, about what you want. We’re on vacation from us, too.”

  That was an interesting thought. He was more casual than I was. He was in a black pair of pants and a white collared t-shirt that he’d rolled up at the sleeves. I guessed he wasn’t concerned with being cold. For that matter, I had to figure out how I was going to not freeze as well.

  I sighed. Getting dressed up was complicated. It was just easier to stay casual. I’d never wanted to be a princess from a Disney movie. This had to be officially the last time they dressed me up like a doll.

  I touched his shirt. “Who are you when you’re not on vacation from yourself?”

  Chance shrugged. “Pre-med student at a really good liberal arts college. Rich kid whose father beat him a lot. Motherless child. Pledge master of my fraternity. Pretty bad boyfriend. Bored. Uninterested. Seen it all. Spoiled.”

  Those were not the words I would have used to describe him. “Not one adjective or descriptive phrase you just used fits you. Why is it that we can understand things so well except we can never really get ourselves correctly?”

  He bent over to press our foreheads together. “Maybe we do, Vonni. Maybe this really is just as you described it. Maybe this is some kind of pause from life, from ourselves. Then we all go back to who we were before Christmas Eve.”

  I breathed in a long, slow inhale. “Then I’ll always be glad we had a couple of weeks together. And I’ll miss you.”

  He shook his head pulling back a bit. “I didn’t mean that I was going anywhere. I’m not going to vanish just because we’re back at school.”

  “Maybe I will.” Returning to the girl without much to say.

  Maven poked his head in the room. “Hey, that gold dress really works on you. I knew it would.”

  Chance moved toward the door. “It’s dressy. You know everyone wears expensive clothes that look casual when they cost a fortune to buy.” He pulled at his shirt. “Example.”

  I grinned at Chance. Like Banyan and Maven, he could move through moods faster than anyone I knew. Was it something about guys from New York, SPiI brothers, or the very wealthy? I might never know the answer to that question.

  I stared at Maven. “Why get me more dressed up than everyone else? You don’t want me to fit in?”

  He put his arm around me. “I want everyone’s eyes on you tonight, Giovanna.”

  “Okay, this is the last time you guys buy me clothes, okay? If I need something, you tell me what it is and I’ll take care of it.”

  Maven held up his hands like I’d pointed a gun at him. “Okay, we surrender. No more spoiling Giovanna. We get it. You do look fantastic.”

  “Thank you. Where’s Banyan? Let’s take a picture.”

  He came through the door right at that moment. “I’m here.”

  All three of them were dressed very similarly. I was sure there was a difference in brands, but to my untrained eye, I couldn’t see it. I stood in the middle of them, all three of them slightly behind me, and waited while Banyan used my phone to take a picture of us. One didn’t do; he took four of them, and then texted it to himself and the other two at the same time.

  “There. Now we’re in a
group chat”—he handed me back my phone—“that started with a picture of the four of us together.”

  Chance smirked. “Be careful. Banyan likes to group text. You’ll get hundreds of messages now. About asinine things like ice cream.”

  Maven laughed, and Banyan groaned. It was the latter who spoke. “I was drunk. Very, very drunk. Or I’d never have texted you at two in the morning about strawberry ice cream on a night before an exam. I don’t even remember doing that.”

  Chance put his arm around me. “I was awake, still studying, or he’d be standing here dead right now.”

  “You can’t stand places dead, Chance.” Banyan rolled his eyes. “Unless you’re a zombie. Am I a zombie in this scenario?”

  Maven shrugged. “Could be a vampire.”

  I tried to imagine what the night was going to be like. Maven dressed me in this gold dress that I was told was going to be too fancy. Should that bother me? I couldn’t bring myself to care one way or the other about it. Clothing mattered little to me when it came down to it. But New York City nightclubs featured in books all the time, particularly romance novels. Couples were always meeting there and having drunken sex they couldn’t remember the next morning.

  Then sometimes there were unplanned pregnancies that eventually led to happily ever afters. We’d taken precautions. I wasn’t going to get pregnant that evening.

  Banyan handed me a black men’s blazer. “It’ll do for a coat. We won’t be outside long.”

  “Don’t we have to get in some kind of line?”

  Maven kissed my cheek. “Not when you’re with us, honey.”

  Whatever I’d been thinking the club was going to be like, I’d been wrong. There were women dancing in cages above our heads. The music was loud, there was the faintest smell of something I couldn’t identify but came across as musky in the air, and a lot of people staring at each other and at us.

  I held onto my phone like it was a lifeline and handed my fake ID back to Banyan who had shown it to the bouncer for me on the way in. One of the ten bouncers.

  Maven had been right. Everyone stared at me.

  Most of the women wore white or black, the latter being more prevalent. It seemed like the ladies in white really wanted to be notice. What did they think of me in gold? I shook my hair. If they were fictional characters, I’d care because it would speak to their motivations and inner conflict. As it was, these strangers would vanish from my life and I’d never even be in a room with them again. Or if I was, I’d be clueless about it.

  Maven nudged me. “You okay?”

  We sat down at a table where Banyan ordered alcohol for all of us. Bottles of something or another. Whatever it was, the waiter grinned slightly when he walked away. The dance floor was crowded, and I watched people being bumped into each other in different degrees of happiness or annoyance.

  “Yes.” I smiled at him. “So this is what you guys do? Regularly?”

  “What do you think?” Chance answered me instead of Banyan.

  I stared at the place one more time. “I don’t think anything. Probably not my scene. Not even in this time out from myself I’m taking.”

  Banyan stood. “Then let’s go. I’m bored.”

  He was? “We just got here.”

  “This isn’t how I want to spend the remainder of the time I have on this vacation, and I don’t think they do either.” He looked at Maven and Chance. “I forgot. Sometimes I hate this shit. Tonight is one of those times.”

  He threw money down on the table.

  That was how I ended up in my gold dress, eating cupcakes from a vending machine that distributed them, drinking coffee at midnight with three SPiI brothers on a street in Manhattan. I couldn’t help but smile. I liked the cupcakes a lot more than the club.

  Chapter 14

  I woke up on the 31st at four in the afternoon. I was pressed between Banyan and Maven. Chance had been dragged out the night before by a high school friend, and he’d gone to hang out for a while, complaining his whole way out the door.

  He hadn’t been back when we’d fallen asleep.

  I’d always thought of myself as a morning person, but these late nights were starting to alter my body rhythms. I yawned, and Maven groaned.

  “I feel like we’ve been asleep a long time. Like if I move, my muscles are going to complain,” he whined and winced when he rolled over.

  Banyan sighed. “I was having the best dream. Had to do with popsicles. Do you remember Toasted Almonds? I really loved those.”

  I side-eyed him. “You dream about food? And do Toasted Almonds count as popsicles? Isn’t that more like ice cream?”

  “You are way too clear headed for this early in the morning.” Banyan yawned. “It was a dream. They can be popsicles.”

  Chance strolled into the room. “I was the one out last night, home at the butt crack of dawn, and you lazy asses are still in bed. Everyone up. Get dressed. We’re going to eat something delicious. I made us reservations, and then we’re going to have our surprise. Giovanna, you don’t even need special clothes.”

  Maven leaned back on his elbows. “If you really wanted to be helpful, you could make coffee.”

  “Done. Downstairs. Get up. Move your body. It helps to wake you up. Take a shower.” He walked out of the room.

  Banyan smirked. “It’s not his patients I worry about in the future, but his kids. Get up. Go to school,” he mock yelled. “Actually, it would have been nice to have someone do that for me. My mother has never given a shit about my education.”

  Maven reached over me to shove him. “I care about your education. Chance cares. I bet Giovanna here cares. Your mom will only be happy if your father is supporting you for the rest of your life.”

  Banyan’s phone dinged, and he rolled over to look at it. “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?” I touched his arm. “Bad news?”

  “My mother is downstairs.” He jumped out of bed, having paled considerably. “I’ve got to get down there before she rings the doorbell. If Chance answers, he’ll never get away.”

  These guys really didn’t like their mothers. Still shirtless and in his boxers, Banyan charged down the stairs at rapid speed. I could hear him pounding on the floors even when he was two staircases removed from us.

  Maven shook his head. “If Chance thinks we’re getting out of here anytime soon, he has another think coming. The thing about Banyan’s mom is that she is… how to say this delicately?”

  I didn’t need him to do that. “Just say it. She’s what?”

  “Dramatic.” He got out of bed. “He saved me from mine. I’ll help spare him some of his. Usually, when she’s not with someone, she’s in a rehab for some new ailment or in a detoxing place. Cleansing her soul or her body or her whatever. If they had punch cards for frequent visitors, she’d have one for every place in the world. It’s all drama. It’s all trying, still, to get Banyan’s father to pay attention. He pays for anything she wants just to get her to leave him alone. All of it is done practically silently. No one should know about her or ask questions about the son he had out of wedlock.”

  I got out of bed. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll come down.”

  “Okay. You’ll be a distraction to her but not necessarily a good one. She’s not a woman who likes other pretty women. My mother can’t stand her, and while I don’t hold much by my mom’s opinion, in this case, I think she’s pretty right on.”

  The question I wanted to know was what I was going to have to go down to deal with. “How did she know he was here?”

  Maven held up his phone. “My guess? We made the blogs last night. You in that dress. Banyan with you? She saw it this morning, and she knows if he’s not at home, he’s here. At least for now. Next year? That’ll be different.”

  I thought of his loft. The guys didn’t know about it yet, and that was his business to tell them. “Right. I’ll still be in school. Trying to pass classes I hate to get back to my literature seminars.”

  He smirked.
“Downstairs? She’s a character that should be in one of your books.”

  Maven wasn’t wrong. I suspected he almost never was. But I wouldn’t put Ruby in my books. Not ever. She wasn’t a character I wanted to spend any time with.

  The brown-haired, brown-eyed stunner could probably stop New York City traffic with a blink of her eyes if she wanted to. She was tall, curvaceous, and appeared twenty years younger than she had to be, unless she’d had Banyan at ten years old.

  She cried but not like I’d ever seen anyone cry before. When people wept, they did so with big, heart-wrenching sobs that took over their entire bodies. Or they were silent. Head in their hands, they shook without making a sound. Maybe they laughed through their tears. There were lots of ways that grief and sadness manifested themselves.

  But Banyan’s mother had her hand over her head on the couch while she leaned backward. Her face was passive except for tears that dropped down her face one little bit at a time. Her voice sounded distraught. She kept altering the volume of it.

  I came down the stairs quietly, catching Chance’s gaze when I did. He rolled his eyes at me then looked at Banyan’s mom. The only person anywhere near her was her son. He sat on the other side of the couch.

  Maven and Chance leaned on opposite walls. I stiffened my back. I’d gotten off easy with Maven’s mom because Banyan had come and taken the heat off the whole thing. I could do this with Banyan’s. We’d get this woman whatever it was she wanted and send her on her way. I wasn’t always good at reading people correctly, but in this case, I was sure I was right.

  Banyan’s mom was here to make a scene. She was faking this outburst. That woman wasn’t really upset.

  “Hello.” I kept my voice low. I wasn’t dressed particularly nicely. I didn’t have shoes or socks on, which made my feet cold, and I was in jeans and a plain, long sleeve, black t-shirt. My hair was pulled back. I didn’t think other women ever found me threatening, but I’d gone out of my way to look really innocuous after Maven’s statement about Banyan’s mom.