Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
For the first time, I wish I’d never made the Icing the Cake episodes about them. Revenge isn’t sweet. It’s sour and laced with bitter regret and a flutter of panic that whips over me like a snap of cold breeze.
I should tell them. They’ll realize I’m not right for them. They’ll want another girl who knows her way around men’s bodies enough to take three of them at once. They should find someone who has enough experience to navigate such a complicated situation.
“This sounds great,” I say. “And I’m sure there are lots of other women out there that would be hyped for your offer. I mean… seriously hyped. But don’t think I’m qualified. I’m lacking the necessary experience. It’s outside of my skill set.”
Jacob and Shawn exchange knowing glances, like I’ve confirmed something they’ve discussed.
“Are you a virgin, Riley?” Jacob’s question is asked softly, but his eyes are intense, blue fire.
“Technically.” Sweat trickles down my back as the heat of their gazes turns molten.
“So am I,” Hayes admits.
What? He can’t be. But his expression is earnest in a way that touches me deeply, and he cups my face tenderly. Rather than laughing, as I would have expected, Jacob and Shawn don’t make a sound. Hayes strokes my cheek with his thumb and brushes a stray lock of my hair away from my face like he wants an uninterrupted view of me.
Me.
Nervous me. Trembling me. A me who never believed this could happen and who hated the boys these men once were.
I touch the skin below his bruise, as the intensity of our eye contact makes everything heavy but fragile-feeling. When he leans forward to kiss me, I melt into the softness of his lips and the gentle tug of his hand around the back of my neck. I forget that we’re being watched, and we kiss like we’re trying to communicate all the things that our hearts want to speak, but our mouths are too unskilled to formulate. I lose myself in his tenderness until Shawn’s voice breaks through. “That’s it,” he murmurs. “Perfect.”
“Perfect,” Jacob echoes.
And if I didn’t know before, I know at this moment.
I want this: Hayes’ softness, Shawn’s humor, Jacob’s toughness: their hands, their mouths, their eyes on me and only me.
I want it all.
And in facing that fact and accepting it, I realize I don’t know myself at all.
20
SHAWN
She’s going to say yes.
I knew it the moment her hungry gaze swept over my chest and abs, like desperate fingers tracing every line. The way her lips parted, the soft hitch in her breath. She didn’t even realize she was giving herself away, but I could feel it radiating off her. The need. The craving. The barely contained starvation.
She’s a virgin.
Sweet, untouched, and unexplored. It’s a deeply primal response that rears up inside me; a deep-rooted urge to claim, mark, and make her ours. What would it be like to sink inside her, to be the first to spread her open and discover her heat? To be the one who discovers how her body responds and teaches her how good it can be?
If she hadn’t already been responsible for the hardest hard-ons I’ve had in years, she sure as hell is now.
Just watching Hayes take her mouth. Holy shit. His tongue sliding against hers in languid strokes has me adjusting myself, squeezing my dick hard as Riley moans.
Oh God. The sound of it, the husky desperation contained within such a simple sound.
“We’re waiting for an answer,” Jacob says, his voice soft but firm, causing Hayes to pull back.
Riley blinks rapidly like she’s coming awake from a winter’s hibernation, her mouth wet and swollen, and it’s all I can do to control my desire to fill the space Hayes left. “I don’t…”
Jacob holds up his hand, and she lowers her eyes. He’s not being a dick; it’s just his way of telling her to take her time. There’s no pressure.
“Yes,” she whispers. Hayes tips her chin with his finger, forcing her to look directly at him.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” She speaks more firmly a second time.
“Can we take you to bed, Riley?” I ask, letting my hand drift across the space between us to take hers. The softness of her skin is so tempting, and I give her fingers a light squeeze, hoping it reassures her. “To seal the deal.”
“All of you?” she asks, voice wavering and eyes widening, and the innocence in the question almost floors me.
“All of us. At your pace. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
As her gaze sweeps over the three of us, lingering on each face as though she’s trying to reassure herself of our intentions, I nod gently. There’s a lot in this for us, but for her, too. Three men dedicated to her pleasure, her comfort, and delivering her desires. We can give her what she needs. We can give her what she’s never even dreamed about having.