by Demi Donovan
Only to find out that there was.
Nine
Austin
“Lily,” I practically growl, chasing after her through the corridors of the large law firm.
She doesn’t turn around, just keeps heading forward, her high heels clicking on the marble tiles. This time, I can keep myself from becoming distracted by that body of hers that so desperately needs to be worshipped, but only just barely. The fact that I’ve been staring at her for the past hour and a half, trying to put the pieces together in my head of how we ended up here, probably helps.
She slips through a glass door and as I head past who I assume is her secretary, I’ve already made up my mind. I’m not going to let her get away from me that easily this time.
I step into what I assume is her office. It’s a small, modest, no corner office with a spectacular view. Not like mine, is what I guess I’m saying.
Turning around to face me, she’s still clutching her folder like it’s a lifeline, sort of like she was holding onto that damn coffee at the library. Like she’s constantly looking for an anchor and she just can’t find it in herself.
“Would you stop and talk to me for god’s sake, Lily?” I say, flustered.
I’m pretty sure my twin stepbrothers aren’t far behind.
Her hazel eyes twitch from me to someone outside – the assistant – and then back to me. She drops the folder, squares her shoulders and then puts on a smile that I would buy as genuine if I hadn’t seen the real thing before. If I didn’t know what she looks like when she’s actually having fun, I might believe this charade.
“What can I do for you, Mister…”
She trails off, biting her lower lip slightly.
It takes everything I have to not walk over to her and kiss the breath from her lungs, if for no other reason than to clear both our heads.
“Stephenson,” I grind out. “You know very well who I am, Lily. Can you calm down and talk to me about this? If you think I walked in here expecting to find you, you’re wrong.”
Her lips purse for a moment and I can see a shadow crossing her expression. She’s even sexier when she’s angry, which is frankly unfair to me and the rest of the male gender.
“Well, life works in weird ways, I guess,” she says vaguely, shrugging her shoulders as I take a step closer to her.
Her perfume has hints of vanilla and lemon. It’s perfect on her.
“I’m sure we’ll have no trouble working together in this professional setting without incident. I mean, we have only met once and you’re not my client, so it’s not like we have any conflicting interests here,” Lily reasons.
I suppress the urge to roll my eyes. That’s not what I came here to talk about and she knows it.
“I think we can both agree on that,” I start, but I’m interrupted by the door swinging open and the already cramped office becoming even smaller due to the addition of the Stephenson twins.
“Lily,” Callum says pleasantly.
As I look at him over my shoulder, I recognize the fire burning in his eyes immediately. It’s the same flame I’m damn sure is alit in mine when I look at her.
She has mine written all over her, but I think that’s what all three of us think. How the hell did we get here?
“How do you know each other?” I ask, prompting a little groan out of Lily’s mouth.
It hushes the room completely, the three of us focusing on her. I want to make her moan way fucking harder than that.
“We met at the Padres game,” Troy fills in, crossing his arms over his chest. “How do you two know each other?”
“We met at the library,” I add.
The three of us share a look and we grin pretty much at the same time. This is exactly our luck.
It’s not the first time this has happened. During high school, and even a short stint in college when we were in schools close enough to compete, we kept ending up finding the same women attractive. It usually just… happened.
What would follow would be a brutal challenge between the three of us to try and win her over to our side, with the twins usually teaming up. Despite that, we have a pretty solid 50/50 standing and it hasn’t happened in years. Not after I met Selina…
“Is that all?” Lily asks, her voice a little shaky.
Her office is absolutely dwarfed by the three of us and she can’t see outside anymore because we basically block the glass surfaces with our collective bulk. She’s stuck here with us, no means of escape.
“Yes, I’ve met all three of you. Troy and Callum last Friday, at the baseball game, and Austin at the library the next day. And I thoroughly didn’t expect to see any of you again. However, I guess we’re not that blessed, are we?” she asks.
She’s managed to jab at all three of us at the same time. I don’t think any of the Stephenson brothers is very well-versed with rejection. I certainly am not, and with Selina in my very recent past, I’ve had far more practice than Callum or Troy.
Callum presses his lips together, giving his twin an expectant look.
“Did you get the flowers?” he asks.
“The flowers?” I butt in, quirking a brow. “Since when the fuck do you two send flowers to anyone who isn’t dead?”
And so it begins.
Troy hushes me with a raised hand. We both know it won’t end there.
“I did, thank you,” Lily says, tucking a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear. “They were very pretty.”
“So where are they, then?” Callum continues, turning around and looking around himself as if he’s looking for the bouquet. “I don’t see ‘em anywhere.”
“They’re in the kitchen,” Lily says, that blush of hers creeping up again to her cheeks.
“That’s no way to thank us for our consideration,” Troy says with a mock pout.
“Wait, so you two knew she was going to be here?” I ask.
If they knew where to send the flowers, they had to know she worked here. Which of course means nothing because they didn’t know that I’d met her…
“Jealous we’re one step ahead of you?” Callum asks, like he’s reading my mind.
“No one’s a step ahead of anyone,” Lily gasps, pupils dilating. “We need to play nice with each other for the sake of your little sister, that’s it. We’ll get through this trip with our collective dignities intact and then we can forget that… this,” she motions at the three of us as if we’re some indefinable entity that she’s afraid of stepping too close to, lest we swallow her up.
We just might, to be honest.
“We can forget that this ever happened, okay?”
“Tell me, Lily, what do you think this is?” Troy asks, a predatory grin stretching across his lips.
He takes a step closer to her. And then another. The urge to rush between the two of them and grab her for myself is only held back by the fact that her assistant and probably half the rest of her office is watching at us right now – Troy and Callum can make a crowd gather anywhere – and that our stepmother and sister are in the building.
I vow that the next time I’m alone with Lily, it won’t be the same, though.
She opens her mouth and closes it again just as quickly, at a loss for words. I know what she’d like to say, what she thinks this is… And she’s completely right.
This is three men who any woman would die to have just one of, all wanting her. Needing her. And to make matters worse, we’re stepbrothers.
Her well-bred, well-behaved little brain can’t take it, and she certainly can’t put it into words.
Which is exactly why she needs us.
“I’ll tell you what this is,” I say, my voice dark and low.
Callum and Troy both glance at me, but I only have eyes for Lily as I move closer to her.
She’s standing in front of her desk so in a couple of steps, I have her pinned between myself and the hard wood, with my cock throbbing in my slacks. I’m so close to her that I can inhale her scent freely and if I were to only put my a
rms around her, she’d be plush against me. I stand close enough that she can feel my cock against her hip.
“This is you being given a choice. I don’t know how you did it, baby, but you’ve got us all on the hook now and none of us will give up until we have you. And you get to live with that, think about it every second of every day… And then you’re going to be stuck with us with nowhere to run.”
I pause for a moment, cocking my head to the side slightly and letting my eyes track the line of her chin, the curve of her neck. I don’t touch her, but I can see her visibly shaking as if I was running my fingertips over her right now.
“And then you won’t have anywhere to run but right into our arms.”
The last part is more of a growl than anything else. It’s a promise. A promise that we’ll have her, one way or another. She doesn’t need to know yet that it’s going to be a competition between the three of us, but it is without doubt that we all want her and we won’t stop before we have her.
Completely.
At that very moment, the door swings open and her assistant peeks in.
“Hey, Christine,” Troy greets her jovially, though he doesn’t quite turn to face her.
I’m pretty sure Troy and Callum have the same problem I’m currently having. With that table right there and Lily pressed up against it, the mental image of bending her over it and fucking her senseless is far too fucking delicious to ignore. And that comes with certain physical… difficulties when in the company of others.
“Um, hi,” she says, looking a little shell-shocked.
She hones in on why she came in the first place, though, in her defense.
“Lily, they need you in… um, at… the meeting! You have a meeting!” she quips, visibly relieved that she figured out what to say instead of gawking at the situation.
I lick across my lips, grinning as I look at Lily. I’m not sure if she’s taken a breath since I started talking, but her heart has been pounding through her chest, making me want to put my palm over that silky blouse of hers and feel it thudding.
“Right, the meeting,” Lily says, wiggling past me.
I don’t make it easier for her.
“Gentlemen, we’ll…I… I’ll see you in Hawaii,” Lily says finally, rushing out of the room.
She does that a lot. The whole running thing.
Christine disappears after her and as I watch the two of them leave, immediately starting to talk to one another in hushed voices as they walk down the hall like they’re running from a tsunami, I notice the rest of our onlookers. At least ten clerks and lawyers are staring at us, though mostly at Callum and Troy, truth be told.
I give the onlookers one harsh look and they scatter like mice. The door falls shut behind Lily and Christine and I turn to face my brothers.
“So,” I say. “I think we have some things to discuss.”
Do we ever…
Ten
Lily
The weather is absolutely beautiful and I feel like I’m going to my funeral.
I’ve been jumpy for the past few days, constantly expecting something to happen that would throw my world for another loop. Like I haven’t had enough of those already.
Ever since Austin, Callum and Troy showed up at Meeke & Associates and the full extent of my predicament became clear to me, I’ve been headless, stuck between what I want and what I know I can’t have.
I want them. All of them, or at least one of them.
And I can’t have them. Any of them.
I shake my head, clutching the beach bag I have with me. We’re on a private resort on a private island in Hawaii, with the only guests in this tropical paradise being the people who work for Sandy Jewels – the resort – and the guests attending the soon-to-be nuptials of Robert Stephenson and Andrea Blake, a woman who looks like a supermodel and can’t be older than I am.
I wonder if any of them know that this wedding might not even happen, I wonder to myself as I pick a beach chair under a palm tree and drop my bag next to it.
A waiter is there immediately to take my order – a Mai Tai – and I let my cover drop as I lay down on the chair. I’m wearing a coral bikini and I’ve made it my mission to avoid everyone I can today and take the day for myself.
The main body of guests are supposed to start arriving tomorrow and I have a meeting set with Robert this evening, but Milan insisted on flying me in early and I couldn’t say no to that. In part because I really couldn’t, and in part because she was offering me a chance to relax on perfect beaches under the guise of ‘work’.
I’d be insane to say no!
As my drink arrives and I take the first sip, I fish out my phone and FaceTime Christine. I make sure that she can see the Mai Tai and the palm tree the moment the call starts.
“Hey, you,” I greet with a grin and the expression she’s wearing tells me she’s having none of it.
“Yeah, fuck you too,” she says with a scoff and a grin. “You know I hate you, right?”
“I do,” I agree lightheartedly.
“So how’s the resort?”
“It’s perfect! Five star all the way and right now, it’s basically deserted. I don’t have anything I need to be doing before tonight so I figured I’d take the morning for myself.”
“Lucky. Can you show me what it looks like?” Christine asks and I purse my lips. “What is it?”
She can always tell when I’m hiding something.
“Well, I’m not exactly close to it…”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m practically at the other end of the island on a private beach,” I tell her.
I had to take two separate boats to get here.
“Uh-huh,” Christine says with a roll of her eyes. “If you think you’re going to be able to hide from them your whole trip…”
“I’m not hiding from anyone!” I protest.
Thank god I’m wearing my sunglasses because I’m sure I’m looking guilty as sin right now.
“Riiiight,” Christine says. “You’re totally not running and hiding from the three macho beefcakes who all probably want to fuck you silly and make you cum for days.”
If I wasn’t blushing before, I definitely am now.
“Aren’t you at the office?” I ask, flabbergasted.
“Yeah, whatever, they’re used to it,” she says, and then pans the camera around to show me she’s alone. “Relax, it’s lunch. No one’s here but me and my sad plastic container salad. Now admit it, you’re running from every woman’s wet dream and you should be ashamed of yourself. You’re setting the feminist movement back like a hundred years!”
That gets a laugh out of me.
“What you’re saying is that me wanting to avoid three men whose family I work for, who are probably just making fun of me, is setting the feminist movement back? I think you need to check your facts, Chrissie.”
Christine groans.
“Okay, first of all, they’re not making fun of you. I saw the way that tall rich one, what’s his face…”
“Austin,” I fill in for her.
Just saying his name makes my heart throb a little painfully.
“Right, Austin. I saw the way he was looking at you when you were in your office. And the twins? Oh, my fucking god, I told you they were at one another the whole game after you left, blaming each other for scaring you off. These were not men looking to get their rocks off. They were smitten!”
“Who uses the word ‘smitten’ anymore?” I say lightly.
“Me, when describing the dumbass, backwards shit that you’re doing! Now would you get it through your thick skull that you’ve been given an opportunity of a lifetime here? Three guys want you, want you, and every one of them is the hottest man alive.
“Women and men alike would kill for just one of them to be interested in them and you’ve roped all three by letting them spill beer on you and catch you when you fall? You need to fuck them all, repeatedly, until the name Jacob’s completely out of your mind, and t
hen fuck them again until you have your priorities set straight!”
Christine cuts her rant and stares at something behind me mutely.
“Who’s Jacob?” a familiar voice asks and I whip around quickly, finding Callum and Troy hovering over my chair.
They’re both shirtless and I suck in a breath through my teeth because I haven’t seen so many individual abs in one place since the last Olympics swimming relays. Holy hell, these guys are built.
“I’ll call you back,” I mumble, shutting off the call with Christine.
For once, she doesn’t protest.
“Should we be worried? Is there competition outside the Stephenson family that we need to eliminate?” Callum asks cheerfully as he picks the chair right next to mine, dragging it even a little closer, while Troy gets the server to go fetch them some drinks.
He takes the chair to the other side of me and suddenly, my private ocean-side paradise feels a whole lot more cramped. Like it’s running out of breathable air because all I can inhale are Troy and Callum and their stupid perfect bodies and charming grins.
I think the only one who should be worried here is me.
Eleven
Callum
“Worried about what?” Lily asks as Troy hands some fruity drink to me and motions for the server to make himself scarce.
“Don’t play coy,” Troy snorts, then pauses to take a sip of the sugary concoction that may or may not have something other than syrup in it.
“I’m not being coy,” she protests, and I chuckle.
Lily is the legal definition of coy. She just doesn’t know it. Or acknowledge it, whichever fits the bill more at the moment.
“I told you guys already, there’s nothing going on and nothing can be going on.”
“You really need to be clearer with us,” I chip in.
“Yeah, you know, we’re dumb jocks and all, you really have to spell it out for us,” Troy adds.