* * *
Amber
“So…”
“So….”
We both trailed off and just stared at each other for a painfully long moment before John finally broke out in a grin. The air was still awkward, but it lightened the mood enough to make me feel more comfortable.
John and I had chatted back and forth for at least an hour before we ran out of totally neutral topics to discuss. We didn’t really know each other, so it was hard to continue the conversation after a certain point without the risk of offending one another or diving into a conversation we really shouldn’t be having in the first place.
I thought about asking him about his taste in movies or music, but quickly shook the idea from my head. It was such a cliché thing to ask and judging by his appearance, I doubted we had similar tastes.
Really, the only thing that we had that bonded us together was—
“So how’s Allen been?” I asked with faux-casualness as I clutched my coffee cup between my hands. “And don’t bullshit me, please. I think I deserve the truth.”
John leaned back in his chair and studied me closely. I felt an uncontrollable blush rise to my cheeks and I cleared my throat, unsure of why his stare was so intense.
Then, another grin spread across his devilishly handsome features.
“How about a trade?”
“A trade?” I questioned as my eyebrows drew together with confusion. “What kind of trade?”
“A truth for a truth. I’ll promise to answer your question with total honesty, if you’ll offer me the same in return.”
“What’s the question?”
John pinned me down with a smug stare. “Does it matter? How badly do you want an answer to your question?”
The idea of offering him a totally honest answer to a question I didn’t know made something in my gut twist. I wasn’t entirely fond of his proposition, but I wondered if I could make it a little more enticing.
“Counter-offer.”
His eyebrows raised with surprise. “Go on.”
“I’ll agree to the trade—truth for a truth—if you agree to go back and forth with me.”
This time, it was John who drew his brows together and a cute, puzzled frown appeared on his chiseled features. “You mean multiple questions? Rapid fire style?”
I nodded solemnly. “Unless it’s a complicated answer, then yes. Rapid fire.”
John tilted his head to the side and considered it. “So we’re basically playing truth or truth.”
“Precisely!”
“Well, that sounds good to me,” he said with an absentminded nod as he crossed his arms over his chest. “But we’ll need to add some stakes. Can’t have you refusing to answer something without consequences.”
“Me?” I asked incredulously. “I would think that out of the two of us, you have far more to hide than I do.”
John lifted a single eyebrow as he said, “Perhaps, but who says I’m going to ask questions about your secrets?”
There was something about the way he said it that made a bolt of desire shoot through me and I knew, without a doubt, that the majority of his questions were going to be sexual in nature.
I wasn’t a prude—far from it actually. But I didn’t exactly go around sleeping with a ton of men nor did I openly share my sexual likes and dislikes. At least not without the aid of good vodka.
But the way his tongue curled behind his front teeth as he watched me with a smug sense of satisfaction along with the reminder that I had a chance to get honest answers from him as well was enough to embolden me.
“Fine. What are the stakes?”
He tapped his chin thoughtfully a few times, pursing his lips together like he was considering the possibilities even though I damn well knew he already had something in mind.
“How about we make it a strip game? For every question we don’t answer, we lose an article of clothing.”
I stared blankly at him for a moment before I dryly reminded, “In case you haven’t noticed, I only have one article of clothing on.”
“Exactly.”
My bottom lip stuck out in a pout—his stakes were hardly fair—and I saw his eyes track the movement before he slowly licked his own lips. I drew my plump lower lip between my teeth and gently bit down, watching with fascination as his eyes darkened.
“No. If my entire outfit counts as one article of clothing, so does yours. So if either of us refuse a question—the penalty is getting naked,” I offered, knowing that I was likely going to regret it but unable to stop myself.
I would either get answers to my burning questions or I’d get to see him nude. They both seemed like a win in my book.
Then again, the same was true in reverse. If I refused, I had to get naked for him. I swallowed hard when he nodded in agreement.
“Deal. Shake on it?”
I reached over and gave his hand a firm shake, wondering what in the hell I had gotten myself into when I saw his shark-like grin.
Chapter Ten
Allen
I tapped my fingers impatiently on my desk as I waited for Arnold to answer his cell phone. It was the third time I had tried to call him since I left the house this morning and the third time it went to voicemail after four rings.
“Fuck!” I shouted as I slammed the receiver back on the cradle.
I wondered if he realized how pissed off I was getting from him dodging my calls. I scrubbed a hand over my face as I wryly thought, Of course he does. It’s not like I’m a particularly difficult guy to rile up.
“You okay, boss?”
As much as I loathed to admit it—I jumped a little at Derek’s sudden intrusion. I growled at his concerned face, obviously having heard my outburst and came rushing in to make sure everything was fine.
“Don’t you have actual work to be doing?” I hissed.
“The Coleman job is all wrapped up,” he commented proudly as he invited himself further into my office.
It seemed that no matter how many times I flipped the fuck out on him in an attempt to maintain employee/employer boundaries, Derek just didn’t give a shit.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked as he plopped down in the chair across from me, the one typically reserved for John.
John. I didn’t even want to think of him right now and what he might be doing with Amber.
He promised and he isn’t the type of guy to break his word.
“I can’t get in touch with Arnold,” I admitted with a frustrated huff. “And I really need to speak to him.”
Derek frowned as he picked up on the serious tone of my voice and leaned forward in the chair, clasping his hands together between his knees.
“We got Sanchez trouble? Be real with me, man. That’s not something to hold out on.”
I sighed. “I don’t know. That’s why I need to talk to—”
The harsh ring of the landline cut off my sentence and we both froze in place for a long moment before I shook myself out of the trance and lifted the receiver.
“Allen.”
I let out a sigh of relief the second I heard his voice.
“Arnold. Fuck, man, I’ve been trying to get—”
“I know. I’ve been ignoring your calls.”
Anger began to pulse through me, but I pushed it aside to ask, “Why?”
“We’re through here, man. You need to lose this number.”
Even though I suspected this was coming since the moment John told me that Mario and Dante saw them get away, it still felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice cold water on me.
“What do you mean, Arnold?” I asked, my voice eerily calm even though I certainly didn’t feel it. Internally—I had already entered rage mode.
“You know what it means, Allen,” Arnold said sadly. “We’re through, dog. You guys are out.”
“What can I do to fix it?” I asked, clinging on to a desperate smidgen of hope that this could be undone with an unseemly amount of money.
If there
was something I had an abundance of—it was money. And if given the chance, I’d trade every last dime for Amber without hesitation.
“Nada. The Sanchez family is done with you, which means I need to be, too. I’m not high enough in rank to have to get involved in this war, but I can’t take the risk of feeding you info anymore. It’d be suicide.”
I knew he was right and I couldn’t fault him for wanting to protect his own ass. After all, that’s what we all did every day.
“I understand.”
“Good luck, my friend. I hope we speak again one day.”
He ended the call before I could respond, but as I laid the phone back in the cradle, I closed my eyes and silently wished for the same.
“Boss?” Derek’s nervous voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
“Yes?”
“What’s the word?”
I opened my eyes and could see the instant he understood what was happening. The crinkles in his forehead smoothed out and the confusion in his eyes hardened to something darker.
Money wouldn’t fix this.
Thankfully, the other thing I had an abundance of was bullets.
Not to mention the guns and hands required to use them.
“Call everyone. Get everyone who’s available here and armed, then to my house ASAP,” I said in a rush as I stood up from my desk.
“What should I tell them?”
I paused, wondering if I should wait to fill everyone in myself. Ultimately though, I knew it would be hell rounding up the others from their respective missions without a damn good reason.
“Tell them the Sanchez family has declared war.”
* * *
John
God, watching Amber’s face twist up and turn red with embarrassment was probably the cutest damn thing I had ever seen.
And I wasn’t a man who ever used the word ‘cute’.
“You remember our terms if you don’t answer, right?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow.
“Shut up, I remember!” she whined, looking around the kitchen aimlessly while trying to avoid my direct gaze. “It’s just— Really? That’s your question?”
“Oh, come on. I answered your question about John. Now answer mine. It’s a simple yes or no.”
Amber huffed and leaned back against the chair, once against pushing up her ample chest by crossing her arms. “Fine. No, I’ve never had a threesome.”
“Now was that so hard?” I asked, my eyes lingering on her cleavage.
I certainly knew something that was hard.
“Okay, your turn. Have you ever had a threesome?”
“Once,” I answered with an amused smile. Then I asked her, “So are you just going to parrot my own questions back at me? I thought there were things you wanted answered about what Allen and I do.”
She squirmed uncomfortably and I knew I caught her. The only reason she had so easily forgotten about the real questions she wanted to ask was because she obviously felt some sort of sexual attraction to me. Otherwise, I can’t imagine her wasting a question like that.
“It’s your turn,” she quietly reminded me.
The smile dropped a little bit and I asked her seriously, “Have you ever fantasized about having a threesome?”
She scoffed. “What’s with you and threesomes?”
“It’s not my go,” I bit back, waiting for the promised answer.
“Do you mean with men or women or what?”
“Anything.”
The suspense was killing me.
“Well… Yeah. I mean, who hasn’t?” she asked with a small, unsure smile. Like she wasn’t entirely convinced that everyone else had also imagined a threesome at some point in their life.
This girl was a total mystery to me. One second, she’d flash of a side of herself so confident that it made my cock strain in my jeans, but then the vixen would disappear behind an incredibly naïve and uncertain side of her.
“With two men?”
“It’s not my go,” she parroted, using my own point against me. Then she hesitantly asked, “The threesome you had… Was it with two women?”
I knew exactly where her mind was going. It made me smile as I casually said, “Nope.”
I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling as her jaw dropped open and she looked at me with a mixture of desire, wonder, and curiosity. She was just dying to hammer me with more questions, I was sure, but she knew it wasn’t her turn.
Before asking my question, I took in the state of her. Her pupils were slightly dilated—with desire, no doubt—and her fingers were twitching where they curled around her empty mug. Every now and then her legs would subtly shift against one another, but it was such a tiny movement that I didn’t notice until I actually looked for it.
She was just as turned on by this time of questioning as I was. I was damn sure of that.
So I figured enough was enough. Might as well get down to the nitty gritty of why I proposed this little game in the first place.
“If I asked you to have a threesome with me and Allen, would you do it?”
This time, her jaw didn’t just drop. She outright gaped at me.
* * *
Amber
“W-What?”
“You heard me, darling. A hot, nasty threeway starring you, me, and Allen. Yes or no?”
“I-I don’t— There’s no way—” I started, unable to figure out how the hell to respond to that without totally outing myself.
Since arriving here yesterday and shamelessly flirting with John for a little while, I had already developed a rather intense attraction to him. I knew it and I was pretty damn sure he knew it, too.
Hell, if I was being really honest with myself, I felt it the moment I first spotted him on the street. But that wasn’t what I was concerned about.
My real concern was how John would look at me if I admitted that I would gladly partake in hot, sweaty sex with my stepbrother any day of the week. I had spent years kicking myself for not giving him a chance after our first timid kiss. Even though I had let Allen go, the flame I carried for him never really died.
And in the last twenty-four hours, it had sparked from a weak candle into a full-blown torch.
Not that I ever wanted that to get back to him. I knew he still harbored feelings for me—it was blatantly obvious—but there was something holding me back from making a move. And I didn’t trust John enough yet to not spill the beans if I did admit to it.
So, I had very few options and none of them were desirable. I knew lying would get me nowhere, the truth would mortify me, so all that was left was—
I stood up abruptly and yanked down my strapless dress before I lost my nerve.
It was totally worth the embarrassment to see the sheer look of surprise and lust wash over John’s face like a tidal wave. My entire body was on fire as his eyes frantically roamed over every inch as if I was going to disappear at any moment. I’d never felt such a rush of feminine power before and it made goosebumps prickle my skin and my folds get slick with desire.
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he slowly stood up. He appeared to be in a trance as he made his way around the table, never once removing his eyes from me. He managed not to bump into anything and I swallowed hard when he stopped directly in front of me.
As his hand moved slowly into the air to reach out towards me, my nipples tightened and my breathing became erratic. I let my eyes drift closed as I waited for his touch on my overheated skin.
But it never came.
Instead, I heard a growl from the doorway of the kitchen.
My eyes flew open and I turned my head, shocked to see Allen standing there with his hands tightly balled into fists by his sides.
John took a step back and raised his hands in the air, clearing his throat before he croaked out, “It’s not what it looks like, Allen.”
But Allen either didn’t hear him or he didn’t care. Because before I could even process what was happening, he lunged at John with a feral snarl.
> Chapter Eleven
Allen
“You fucking promised!” I shouted as I wrapped my hands around John’s neck and lightly squeezed.
Regardless of how it might have appeared, I wasn’t totally fucking insane. I was in a right enough mind to know just how far I could go without actually hurting John, even though a part of me did want to tear him limb from limb.
“It’s not—I can explain!” he managed to hoarsely shout.
I wasn’t squeezing hard enough to choke him out, but it was enough to make the use of his windpipe quite challenging. The most confusing part of this was I couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t fought me back.
Hell, he hadn’t even attempted to defend himself when I tackled him to the floor, straddled his chest, and proceeded to strangle him.
Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe it really wasn’t what it looked like.
All I knew for sure was that Amber was naked—her dress around her ankles—and I saw John reaching for her. True, he wasn’t touching her yet, but it was still enough to send me into a fit of rage.
It was also enough to make my dick instantly hard, which was making straddling John far more awkward than it should have been.
“Let me up,” he croaked out and for whatever reason, I decided to listen.
I pulled myself off the floor and felt a moment of guilt, but resisted the urge to offer him a hand up. I was still pissed and the awkwardness we both felt from our mutual hard-ons was making it much worse.
Amber had pulled her dress back up and was clutching it to her chest, looking between the two of us with wide eyes.
“Allen, it was just a game.”
“A game?” I asked, looking at John for answers.
“Yeah. Truth or truth. If either of us refused to answer, we had to get naked,” he said, his voice slightly scratchy. “Obviously Amber didn’t want to answer my last question.”
John winked at Amber and I turned to watch a crimson blush spread across her cheeks.
“Shut up, John.”
“Sweetheart, you not answering was all the confirmation I needed. You should’ve just admitted it.”
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