Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
I don’t get a sense of competitiveness, though, or feel like he’s trying to claim me. He’s just giving me a warm—very warm—greeting, and when he’s done, he releases me and steps back, leaving me next to Thorn.
“Have a good night?” Kai asks us both.
“Yes,” I say.
“Good. Got any plans for tonight?”
I feel awkward again. Is he actually asking me out right in front of his brother? Something inside me curls up, but when I become aware of my automatic reaction, I stop and try to shift my mindset.
I have nothing to apologize for. This is my fantasy come to life, and the men all know they’re sharing time with me. Since they all seem to be okay with it, I’m going to keep enjoying this alternate reality for as long as it lasts.
“No, I don’t have any plans.”
He nods, his dark eyes flashing. “Then I’ll see you later.”
LEXY
Three weeks later
I look out the window of my room at Belle Epoque at a sheet of gray. Las Vegas has decided that its one day of rain this month is going to be today, on Thanksgiving. At least it’s supposed to let up by this afternoon, when the Sanchezes are hosting all of us—including my mom, who’s flown out for the holiday.
I don’t know what I was thinking, inviting her to come here. It was an impulse; I wanted to do something completely different than the last several years, and Mom hasn’t been back to Vegas since we left.
She arrived two days ago, staying in another room at the resort, and so far it’s been fun. We took in a revue on the Strip, did some shopping, and enjoyed some delicious meals. But there have been some nerve-wracking moments, too.
Thorn came out while we were having dinner last night, and of course he remembered my mom. She remembered him too—and the moment he left our table, she pinned me with an eagle-eyed parental stare. “Are you seeing him?”
I sputtered. “What? Why do you ask?”
“I’m not a fool, Lexy. I saw the way he looked at you, and you got as nervous as the proverbial cat the second he appeared.”
“I did not,” I protested, somehow regressing to my teen years despite knowing better. With a sigh, I tried to formulate a more adult response. “We’ve been getting reacquainted, but it’s nothing serious.”
That’s what I keep telling myself. I’ve been seeing Thorn, and Kai, and Gage for the last several weeks, my fantasyland visit stretching out for longer than I’d thought possible. I’ve grown dangerously accustomed to having one of them with me most nights, and I’m steadfastly refusing to think about how I’m going to feel when I have to go back to my normal life.
Because I know it’s inevitable. Every time I visit Beasts Ink, I get dagger stares from the groupies. They’re a painful reminder that the boys I knew have become men whom I know only in part, who have whole sections of their lives where I’m not welcome.
I don’t begrudge them their success, or their celebrity, but being in the spotlight is not something I’ve ever wanted. I’m more comfortable working my magic behind the scenes, and these past weeks have only reinforced that understanding.
Tonight, though, is my most immediate problem. How on earth am I going to get through Thanksgiving dinner without my mother—not to mention the Sanchezes—figuring out the truth about me and the men?
Letting the curtain fall, I flop onto my bed, arms outstretched. A little part of my brain says that we should just tell our parents the truth, but I’m afraid that would bring my alternate reality to a screeching halt and send me crashing back into the mundane universe. And I’m not ready to give up my men. Not yet.
Every moment with them makes me feel alive like nothing else. Thorn and his smile, his easy ways melded with earthy sensuality; Gage and his tenderness, tempered with dominance; and Kai and his inferno, igniting me on every level.
When I’m alone, I sometimes entertain the most ridiculous fantasy of all: that it could go on forever, the four of us bound together in some magical way that lets us defy the world’s demands and expectations. But in my more sober moments, I know it can’t last.
Eventually, we’ll want the ordinary things people do with their lives: marriage, children, domestic stability. Respectability. Things that our arrangement makes impossible, no matter how wonderful it is to be with each of them.
“I still can’t get over Gage lending you a car, and one as nice as this,” Mom says. We already had this discussion when I picked her up from the airport, but me taking an extra couple of seconds to find the knob to turn on the windshield wipers, which I haven’t needed until today, has kicked it off again. “He must be doing really well for himself.”