No.
Them.
I see Jake when I’m a few yards away and instantly feel a little guilty that my breath catches for him too. Christ, I’m a slut for wanting them both.
A virgin slut.
Both of them stand when I get over to the booth.
“Hey y’all,” I say.
“Evening,” Hunter and Jake say in unison, tipping their cowboy hats.
“You look really pretty tonight,” Hunter adds, and heat rises up my neck to my cheeks at the compliment.
“Thanks,” I say, checking them out.
The grease-slicked coveralls from earlier are gone. They clean up real nice. Hunter is in a black muscle shirt and blue jeans, showing off all those tattoos I saw at the gas station. Jake has on a blue and white plaid button-down shirt and black slacks. Both of them look amazing to me.
“Have a seat,” Hunter says, stepping aside so I can sit.
I notice it’s a semi-circular booth. It means get the distinct pleasure of sitting beside both of them.
I’m wedged between two hot cowboys.
7
Katelynn
With a shy smile, I slide in to make room for Hunter, and he sits back down. His shoulder brushes against mine, and electricity sparks up and down my arm. Heaven help me.
“What’s your poison?” Hunter asks.
“Beer’s fine,” I tell him, noticing their half-empty beer mugs. “Whatever you’re having.”
While he signals to a passing waitress and orders a round of beers, Jake leans over to me.
“Are you happy with how the car turned out?” he croons, his hot breath drifting across my cheek.
“Definitely. My dashboard hasn’t shined like that in ages. And it smells great.”
“Good to know.”
“How long has the shop been open?” I ask to make conversation.
Jake’s eyes slowly drift from my eyes, then rakes all the way down my body to where my legs get hidden by the table. “Just over a month, but It’s been great. Business picked up right away. Can’t ask for much more.”
“Congratulation on a successful opening, then.”
Hunter finishes up with the waitress and turns to face me. “How ‘bout you? What do you do?”
“I’m an admin assistant over at the aircraft plant a few blocks away.”
“Nice,” Jake says with a smile, and glances over at Hunter with what I can only interpret as approval.
Thank God, the drinks arrive. I’m getting whiplash looking back and forth at these hunks. The waitress notices me and puts me through the usual drill. She asks for my ID to prove that I’m twenty-one, so I pull out my wallet and show her the goods. She’s satisfied with what she sees and leaves, thank goodness. Taking a hearty gulp or my beer soothes the butterflies in my stomach, but I’m still confused. Both men are paying me a lot of attention, and they keep sharing a silent communication between them. It consists of subtle eye movements, head nods of varying degrees, and the odd raising of eyebrows. I’m familiar with it because Savannah and I do something very similar when we’re in a group. The only thing I’m missing is what their gestures actually mean.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say they ‘re both into me.
Or maybe that’s wishful thinking.
“I’m gonna get another round for us,” Jake says out of nowhere.
I stare at how well his slacks fit over his ass and legs after he gets up and saunters over to the bar beside a couple of women. Then I realize I’m probably ogling, and Hunter’s still beside me.
Oops.
The silence at the table should be awkward, but I’m strangely comfortable. I curl my fingers around my sweating beer and peek at Hunter from the corner of my eye. He turns sideways to face me, removing his hat.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
I shake my head and take my hat off too, resting it beside his on the table. “Naw. I had supper after work. Did y’all eat?”
He slides his arm up on the backrest behind me, letting his hand hang with his fingers on my opposite shoulder.
“Yes. We’re good.”
“Nice.” My tongue is too heavy to say much else. Hunter’s presence is like a drug. I find myself tilting my head backward, soaking in the heat radiating from his arm onto the back of my neck.
His hand lowers to my shoulder, and warm fingers cover my upper arms. “It’s crazy, you running into me at the shop today, and that we both remembered that day at the gas station.”
“True,” I agree, turning slightly to look at him squarely. The question of whether I should tell him that I’ve thought about him a lot since I saw him the first time—and that I know where he lives—crosses my mind.
Yeah, not a good idea. Way too creepy. Probably also little too desperate sounding.
“I don’t mind coincidences like this.”
“Me neither,” I say, and accept that my brain only works well enough to offer up one or two-word answers when I’m around him. I’m in a trance. All I can focus on are his piercing blue eyes and those full, Cupid’s bow lips. Trying not to stare, I return my focus to my beer and have a good, long few gulps, finishing the mug.
“It’s a small world, ain’t it?” he whispers as I relax into the seatback again.
His lips are almost touching my earlobe. Then my nod closes the tiny distance. More electricity flies down from my ear, past my neck, and I shiver a little. Jeez, I need to control myself, but a whiff of his woodsy cologne drifts up into my nose, and I hear myself let out a sigh.
“Katelynn.”
The way he whispers my name against my ear does me in, and then he goes one step further. My eyes half-close as his hand cups my chin and slowly turns my face toward him. My lips part slightly. His other hand slides down from my shoulder, fingers spreading across the middle of my back as he pulls me in. Before I know it, his lips brush against mine. My eyes flutter, closing the rest of the way. I rest my hands on his thigh and lean into his kiss, parting my lips to accept his tongue, which slips between my teeth and begins to explore every contour of my mouth.
Ignoring the sounds and people around us, I forget where we are, and soon we fall into the perfect rhythm, letting the kiss stretch on until Hunter slowly pulls from the kiss.
“Jake’s not at the bar anymore,” he rasps out. “He’s taking an awfully long time.”
I don’t know what to say. The notion that Hunter gives a damn about Jakes whereabouts is at a time like this is downright crazy.
He slips his hand over mine on his leg and slides out of the booth, pulling me with him. “Let’s go find him.”
“Um,” I mutter, staring up at Hunter, confused and praying there’s a damn good reason he wants to look for his friend now.
He nods towards a corridor near the back of the saloon—probably where the restrooms are. With no reason to object, I grab my purse and shuffle out of the booth with him, leaving our hats at the booth. Hunter leads me down the dim hallway to two doors indicating the ladies’ and men’s rooms. Jake is here, with his back against the wall beside the men’s room.
And I see it again.
That nonverbal dialogue between them.
This time, Jake glances at the men’s room and raises one eyebrow. He pushes opens the door, stepping out of the way as Hunter pulls me inside. My curiosity overthrows any concern or alarm that I’m quite possibly about to make out with Hunter…and Jake is with us. Hunter spins me around and walks me over to the middle of the room, pulling me into his soldering heat. His hands fall to my hips, and his lips smash into mine again. There’s a new hunger in his kiss, matched only by the need and wicked heat spreading out from between my legs. I’m burning like a wildfire, unchecked and uncontrollable.
The sound of Jake turning the lock on the door behind him reminds me that he’s here. With us. Watching. My eyes open part way and meet his. He doesn’t look away. Those eyes pierce my skull and hold me in one spot. He’s liking this? I guess he’s into watching.
And
I must be into being watched.
The idea makes me drenched between my thighs, dripping wet and wondering how in the world I’m so calm about all of this. Good Lord. I’m kissing one man and lusting over another at the same time. How did I ever get myself into this situation? And what does it mean? Do I like Hunter? Or Jake? And hell, what on earth do they think about me? About us?
There’s no time to explore these questions right now. Jake closes the distance between us with two ground-eating steps. He drags off his hat and rests it on the counter beside the sinks as Hunter breaks our kiss and steps aside for Jake to replace him. Jesus Jones, they’re taking turns on me? Hunter’s okay with letting Jake…have me? I’m so turned on from their proximity and as a result of this out of the box sensual experience that I don’t want to stop.
Kissing one man is hot.
Kissing two men back-to-back? Well it’s sexy as hell.
I tilt my face up towards Jake’s. My lips part. My breathing is quickened as Jake lowers his face to mine and takes my lips in a possessive, hungry, open-mouthed kiss—right in front of Hunter. His hands wander up to my shoulders, slowly making its way down my arms, until they loop around my waist and drag me in tight. Then I feel a flood of warmth behind me. It’s Hunter. His chest is touching my back, and the heat of his groin is at my lower back, and oh God, his hands are covering my shoulders from behind. My fingers grip the sides of Jake’s t-shirt for balance. I’m dizzy from not breathing, but I don’t want stop for something as minor as air.
After some time, Jake pulls from the kiss, his hazel eyes shining down at me like the sun as I gasp for air.
Hunter nudges his lips at my ear again. “We want you, Katelynn.”
My stomach does a full flip. “Both of you?” I ask, still looking up at Jake.
“Yes,” Jake rumbles. “At the same time. We like to share.”
“You want to share…me?”
He nods, and I have to suck in a breath and hold it in tight. Jake and Hunter want me. At the same time. And the kicker is, now that he’s said it, I can’t get the image of two men taking me out of my head.
Two men.
For my first time.
I can barely breathe.
My knees are weak.
I’m falling apart... at the hands of two men.
Suddenly, their desire to share me isn’t half as surprising as my wanting them both. I want them both. But there are reasons I should just say no. Well, one reason, really. I don’t know how to say what needs to be said. Biting down on my bottom lip for a second, I scramble for an answer and an explanation.
“I’m not sure how to tell y’all this…” I start, looking over my shoulder to glance at Hunter too. “I’m…well I…” I stammer.
Hunter presses a kiss on my lips. “Only if you want to,” he whispers.
“I think I do. It’s just that I…I’m uh…” I slide out from between them and back away to the door. “Sorry, I should be leaving now,” I say nervously, because the truth is, I can’t find the words to tell two practical strangers that I’m intrigued about having them both and I’m a virgin. “Thanks for the drink, Hunter, and Jake. Sorry, I’ll just…”
Without another awkward word, I pick up my purse from the floor, open the door, and hurry to the exit. When I sit inside my car, my breathing normalizes and I can think again.
I’m not the girl they want.
I’m more and more certain that they’re looking for someone with experience in the bedroom, not some innocent rookie. And I can’t go from never having had sex to doing it with two men at once. As I drive home, I’m almost sure Hunter’s probably deleting my name and number from his phone right now. Before he gets a chance to, I feel this impossible urgent need to explain myself because I know I’ll regret turning them down when I wake up in the morning.
Pulling my car off to the side of the road, I reach into my purse and unlock my phone. Hunter has already sent me a new text that reads, ‘Sorry about what happened.’
I reply with, ‘No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left like that.’
‘Why did you?’ he replies.
Maybe having him in my thoughts for two months has done a number on me, because I don’t even believe it when I type in and hit the send button with a reply that reads, ‘I’m a virgin.’
Fear overwhelms me about what Hunter will think. And Jake will know too now. I can’t even bring myself to look at how he’ll reply, so I turn off my phone and drive like a bat out of hell the rest of the way home.
8
Jake
“What the fuck just happened?” I ask Hunter as we return to our booth.
The three beers I ordered are waiting for us, but there are just two of us now. Because Katelynn bolted just when things were getting interested. I place my hat on the table and notice she’s forgotten her cute little Stetson behind.
“Hell if I know,” he says. “Maybe we pegged her wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“True, but girls who aren’t into us sharing them usually wouldn’t go as far as letting us both kiss them. Next time, just ask her if she’s into it first.” I take my seat and have to rearrange my junk on account of the boner in my pants.
“I think she’s underage,” Hunter confesses.
“Are you shitting me?”
“Calm the fuck down, all right?” he says, picking up his beer. He takes his time and drinks half the mug before continuing. “I didn’t suspect anything until she flashed that fake ID at the waitress who carded her.”
“Yeah but the waitress accepted it. How are you so sure it wasn’t real?”
Hunter gives me a withering look and I nod. I should know better than asking him about how well he can tell fake shit from the real thing. The guy tended bar for almost eight years before I got him caught up in the shit that landed us in prison.
“Okay, so it’s fake. She looks young, but not jailbait young.”
“There’s no real way to know.”
I scratch my head. “I guess.”
“You ready to go?” he asks.
I gulp down my beer like it’s the last one I’ll have in a long time. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Finishing his beer, he slides out of the booth, gets to his feet and shoves his hat down on the top of his head. “She forgot her hat. We should leave it at the shop just in case she comes by again.”
I nod and follow him out the front door. Taking her stuff to the shop makes sense. The last thing we need is for an underage girl to be anywhere near our place when our parole officers make their unscheduled home visits. I’m sure as hell it’s a parole violation that would get us right back in orange jumpsuits.
As Hunter drove tonight, he unlocks his truck and jumps into the driver seat. His phone buzzes in his cup holder between us just as I jump in on the passenger side. The screen lights up. It’s a text.
“Are you gonna answer that?” I ask. “I bet it’s your jailbait girlfriend,” I joke.
“You get it,” he grunts, starting the engine. “I’m kinda buzzed. We need to get off the road before some cop car pulls me over for a breathalyzer.”
“Wane me to drive?”
He rolls out of the parking spot and merges into traffic. “Fuck no. You drank almost twice as much as I did.”
“Okay.” I unlock his phone screen and check the messages. There’s nothing from Katelynn. “False alarm,” I update him. “Want me to send her a quick message?”
“Yeah whatever.” He nods and turns off the main road, a smart move at this time of night, given our blood alcohol levels.
I type in a short note that reads, ‘Sorry about what happened’, and lock the screen again, putting the phone back in the cup holder.
Less than a minute later, she replies with, ‘No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left like that.’
“Looks like your girlfriend wants to apologize for leaving us high and dry,” I tell Hunter.
“Text her back and tell her it’s fine,” he says with a one-sided smile
.
I don’t feel like letting her off the hook that easy.
My reply is, ‘Why did you?’
I keep the phone in hand and wait for the reply. It takes a few minutes, but when it does come in, I have to read it a few times to believe it.
“Uh, Hunter?”
“What?”
“You gotta see this for yourself.”
“What did she say, dammit. Just tell me.”
I shake my head and pass the phone to him. His eyes go wide when he reads her answer.
It just says, ‘I’m a virgin.’
“That jailbait guess was dead on,” he grumbles.
“No doubt. We’re better off that she left when she did, man.”
“Fuck yeah.”
“Should I reply?”
“Are you crazy? What the fuck you suggest to put as a reply? Look, I ain’t violating my parole for some underage girl,” he shouts with finality. “No matter how cute she is.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right.”
“Not probably. I’m dead right.” He passes the phone back to me and puts both hands on the wheel.
That was a close call.
So why am I still hoping we hook up with her again?
9
Katelynn
“You did what!” Savannah shouts into my ear over the phone a week later.
“Will you please lower your voice?” I hiss out the plea in a whisper, ducking my head in embarrassment. Telling my best friend about my short-lived date and mini makeout session with two guys was a bad idea. Admitting it at my desk at work was even worse, because I’m about to give her an explanation when two of the factor staff approach my desk. Or this could be better than I thought. It’s my excuse to end the call. “Sorry Savannah. Gotta run. Some colleagues need me now.”
“But I want to hear the rest, Kitten,” she whines.
Ex-Con Times Two Page 4