“There’s no Aiden sandwich.” I interrupt her before she can say anything else. “The text message thing – Noah was getting me back for saying he had an STD.”
“No cheerleaders?” She crosses her arms and makes a serious face, except I can tell by the way that her lips pull up at the corners that she’s about to smile.
“Cross my heart. No cheerleaders, no sandwich. I came by to tell you that. That’s it. And to mention that you never made dinner.”
“You came by to point out that I never made dinner for you? How gentlemanly.”
“You can make me dinner anytime, you know. I’m just saying.”
“Are you finished?”
I grin. “Not really. Where are your two grumpy guardians?”
“They’re keeping a lower profile. They’ve cleared the house, so it’s not like they need to be posted in front of my room.”
“Ditch them.”
“Excuse me?”
“Have you ever lost them before?”
Her eyes go wide. “No.”
“Not once?”
“No. I’ve never done anything I’d need to ditch them for.”
“You’ve never done anything bad?” I tease. “I thought you just had bed-shaking, toe-curling sex last week.”
Grace rolls her eyes. “Obviously that wasn’t true.”
“Obviously.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I’m just saying that if you’d had bed-shaking, toe-curling sex with me last week, you wouldn’t be running around here camping.”
“Where would I be?”
“In my bed, clearly. Because when I fuck you, you’re not going to make it out of my bed for a week.”
“When you fuck me?” she asks, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, when. Just so we’re clear.”
Grace lets out a loud exhale. “I can’t go any… further with either of you.”
“Because you want both of us.”
She bites her lower lip.
“And both of us want in your pants.”
“I think so,” she whispers.
“You think so?” I ask. “No, that’s a fact. We definitely both want in your pants. So I think it’s pretty clear what has to happen.”
“What’s that?”
“I show you that I can rock your world harder than Noah can.”
She laughs. “Is that why you want me to ditch my security? So you can rock my world?”
“Nah. You’re not sure yet. I want you to want me so much that you beg me to fuck you.”
She shakes her head and sighs. “No one talks to me the way you and Noah do.”
“Sugar, if I said half the dirty things that came into my head when I look at you…”
Grace puts up her hand. “I’m not going anywhere with you unless you promise no hanky-panky.”
“I’ll be a perfect gentleman. Cross my heart.” When she narrows her eyes, I roll mine. “Come on, already.”
She grins. “Okay. Let’s ditch the Secret Service.”
“You’re being a very bad girl, Grace Sullivan.”
We make our daring escape out of a side door near the gym, and Grace giggles as we run not-so-silently behind the stable and out into the meadow. “Where are we going?”
“Shh, loudmouth, someone’s going to hear you.”
Grace repeats the question in a whisper.
“There’s a pond down here. You can’t see it from the house, but I noticed it yesterday when I took some of the kids up on their horses. Let’s go skip rocks.”
“I’ve never skipped rocks.”
“What kind of horrible, tragic upbringing did you have?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I’ve never really gone camping, either.”
“Uh, aren’t you running this camping thing with the kids every summer?”
“Well, I go with them and I do the day activities – it's usually ropes courses, trust-building things and stuff… but there’s always some of us who stay in a building and hang behind if they’re doing an overnight trek.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“What?” Grace squeals. “I don’t have to camp in a tent in order to help the kids. The ground is… hard.”
I have to tell myself that if I don’t focus on what she’s saying and not on the fact that her ass looks so damn good, then I’m going to be the one who’s hard.
“I knew it,” I tell her.
“What?”
“You’re spoiled.”
“I’m not spoiled!”
“Sleeping on the ground is hard?”
“It is. Are you going to argue otherwise?”
“Next you’re going to tell me that you’ve never been fishing or mudding or drank moonshine.”
“Okay, now you’re just being a jackass. You already know my answer is going to be no to all of those things.”
I shake my head at her in mock disappointment.
“I didn’t grow up in the country!” she protests. “I grew up in Denver.”
“You live in Colorado.”
“Wait,” she says. “I ski a lot. I definitely skied a lot during boarding school in Switzerland, too. That’s outdoorsy, right?”
“Now you’re just making it worse,” I tell her.
When we reach the pond, I try not to be distracted by the way her ass looks in those jeans when she bends over to pick a rock up off the ground.
“How’s this?” she asks.
“Wrong kind of rock. You need the skipping kind – thin and flat. Like this.” I hold up a perfect skipping rock and demonstrate, watching it ping across the surface of the water. “Five skips. I’m a master at this.”
She laughs. “You’re a rock-skipping master?”
“We all have our gifts.”
“Is this what you did growing up in West Bend?”
“I told you there was nothing to do in that town.” I hand her a rock. “Try it.”
She tosses it into the water and it lands with a ker-plunk. “That’s embarrassing.”
“Maybe rock-skipping isn’t your thing.”
“Oh, shut up.” She’s silent for a few minutes as she looks for rocks. “You and Noah have been friends for a long time.”
“We have.”
She’s silent for a minute as she picks up another rock and throws it, watching it plop into the water. “I don’t want to come between that.”
“Try this one.” I hand her a flat rock, moving around behind her and taking her wrist in my hand. Fuck, she smells good, and she feels so damn good against me. “You have to flick your wrist.”
I let go and she tosses it. This time it skips twice. “How about that,” she breathes.
“You’re not going to come between us.”
Unless she wants to come between us.
Where the hell did that thought come from?
Grace turns around, still close to me. “How do you know?”
“I’ve known Noah my whole life. We grew up next door to each other. Our moms were best friends. We’ve always been…”
“Jackasses?” she teases.
“I was going to say tight, but jackasses works too.”
“Are your families still close?” She steps away now, bending over to pick up another rock.
“My sister Annie and I are close with his parents, yeah. My dad was only in the picture until my mom got pregnant with Annie. Two kids were one too many for him, so he ran off. He tried to contact me three years ago when I signed my contract because suddenly I was his son, but you know the saying – too little, too late.”
“So your mom raised you.”
“Yep, single mom. She worked at a factory thirty miles out of town to put food on the table for us. That’s one thing that still gets me now – not having her here to see how her work paid off.”
“She passed away?”
“Car accident in high school. A tractor-trailer truck ran a stop sign and slammed into the side of her car. It was instant.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Life kicks you in the nuts sometimes.” I shake off the pang of sadness I always get when I think about it. “Anyway, Noah’s mom and my mom were best friends and our jerk-off father didn’t turn up, Annie and I went to live with Noah’s family after that.”
“That’s why you guys are close.”
I shrug. “We were tight before that. But that’s why you shouldn’t worry about getting between us. Both of us know the score.”
21
Noah
Things have been getting more heated between Aiden and I over the past week, which is why the charity’s idea to have us head up a bunch of kids for a touch football game before the end of the camp was a disaster waiting to happen.
“Total accident,” I call loudly after I trip Aiden on the field. Yeah, it’s a low blow, but since that fucker put a laxative in my food the other day right before we were about to head out for a trail ride, I’m not playing clean anymore.
Aiden stands up, glancing around at the kids and smiling as he gestures at them to back away. “I’m totally fine, kids. It was just an accident. Noah gets clumsy sometimes and can’t seem to control his limbs.”
Standing on the sidelines with her arms crossed, Grace looks less than pleased.
Aiden gets in my face. “In front of the kids, Noah? Real mature,” he says, his voice low.
“Says the guy who put laxatives in my food.”
The kids are goofing off, quickly losing interest in the game. But Aiden smiles broadly and fakes a laugh for anyone watching us, like we’re standing here joking around. He yells, “We’re just… talking about plays. Take a timeout, kids!”
Then he drops his voice low again, his smile turning into a snarl. “You put itching powder in my boxers.”
I shrug. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Maybe that threesome with the cheerleaders just got you more than you bargained for.”
“The fake threesome you made up,” Aiden says, stepping forward and pushing my shoulder.
“You’re going to really lay your hands on me?” I warn. “I’m bigger than you.”
“Huh. That’s not what Grace seems to think.”
I push him back, ignoring the yell of several of the camp counselors on the sidelines. “Did you screw her?” I growl.
Aiden stumbles back a few feet, giving me a smug look. “Jealous?”
I don’t wait for him to say anything else about Grace. I just rush him, knocking him to the ground hard.
Grace is suddenly beside us, yelling loudly. “Noah and Aiden were just demonstrating a football play. Kids, take five. Or twenty. Counselors, can you find another activity to do? The players are going to practice and they’ll show you some plays later.” Before either of us can hit the other one, she squats down and glares at us, fire in her eyes. “Stand. The. Fuck. Up.”
She punctuates each word with a sharp inhale of breath.
Shit.
I get up, adrenaline still coursing through my veins, but I don’t lay a hand on Aiden as he rises and wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist, looking more smug than before.
“You should get your anger under control, Noah,” he taunts.
“Wait until later,” I warn.
“No,” Grace snaps. “The two of you jackasses are going to turn around and wave at the kids and pat each other on the back. Then you’re going to laugh and pretend like you didn’t just try to start a fucking fistfight in front of a bunch of children who see you as role models.”
Chastised, we do exactly as she directs, grinning like a couple of idiots and clapping each other on the back for show. When I lean in to slap Aiden on the back – extra-hard – he grins broadly and fake-laughs, all the while glaring at me. “Sorry you didn’t make your move on Grace before I did.”
I lean in to bro-hug him, a fake smile plastered onto my face. “Later, I’m going to kill you,” I reply, my voice equally pleasant. "Maybe in your sleep."
“Enough,” Grace says harshly. “Turn around and walk back to the ranch house like you’re not five-year-olds who have to be told to keep their hands to themselves.”
Both of us walk silently toward the house with Grace behind us. Yeah, of course, the mature part of me feels like an asshole for getting into a fight with Aiden in the middle of a touch football game. The rest of me thinks I should have slugged him when I had the chance.
When we reach the front door, Grace turns to her security detail. “There’s probably going to be yelling. A lot of yelling.”
One of the agents looks like she’s almost about to crack a smile. “Roger that, ma’am,” she says. “If we hear screaming, we won’t assume you’re in distress.”
Grace opens the door and walks inside without saying a word, her stride brisk, and we follow her through the living room. Okay, apparently she doesn’t want to have a conversation in the living room where there are seats.
Nope, she’s going for the kitchen. Where there are knives.
Aiden must be thinking the same thing because he raises his eyebrows as he looks at me. “Why don’t we get a drink, maybe a little chocolate, and talk about this like adults in the living room?”
“A drink?” Grace asks. I think her nostrils are flaring. “Chocolate?”
“What?” Aiden asks, putting his hands up. “I thought maybe, you know, you might want some chocolate since you’re kind of upset right now…”
“Oh, shit.” I hear myself say the words aloud. Even I’m not dumb enough to say what I think he’s about to say.
“Chocolate,” Grace says flatly. “Because why, exactly?”
Oh God. I stare at Aiden with my eyes wide, trying to telegraph to him not to say what I think he’s about to say. Don’t say it, man. Say anything else. Say you think she might like chocolate because she’s looking a little thin. Or because you heard chocolate was good for you. Do not remotely suggest that she might have PMS.
“Uh…”
When Grace turns to look at him, I mouth the words “she’s too thin” and point at Grace. Aiden squints as he looks at me, obviously confused.
“Did I say chocolate?” he asks. “I meant chocolate… syrup?”
Nice save. I give him a thumbs-up.
Grace glares at us with her hands on her hips for what seems like an eternity. “You got into it in front of my campers. Kids who look up to you.”
“That was unfortunate,” Aiden admits.
Shit, man. He’s worse than I am at apologizing. I didn’t think that was even possible.
“We’re sorry about the football game,” I say.
“If it helps, I’m positive that the kids really believed we were just practicing plays,” Aiden chimes in.
“No. That does not help.” Grace looks like she’s fuming. The problem is that when she’s fuming, she looks really hot. A couple of pieces of hair fall out of her ponytail and she pushes them furiously back in place, but they tumble down again, irritating her more. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s breathless as she looks back and forth between us.
I think she might be really angry until she pauses for a second, pulling her lower lip between her teeth as she catches her breath. It’s the same thing she did before, when she and I collided in the hall and she looked at me like she wanted me.
“You’ve been acting like complete… idiots these past few days! Stupid adolescent pranks? Getting into a fight at a charity camp?!”
“To be fair, the stupid adolescent pranks have been going on for a while,” I say, my eyes on hers as I step closer to her. I don’t give a shit about how mad she is anymore. All I can think about is how much I want her clothes on the floor.
She puts her hands on her hips again. “So the pranks have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the two of you have apparently decided that you need to act crazier and crazier because… I don’t know… you have some misguided notion that can impress me this way? Or you’re trying to actually drive me insane…?”
“Maybe it’s the fact that you
want us that’s driving you insane,” Aiden points out. He’s suddenly standing on the other side of her, just as close as I am to her but neither of us makes any kind of move on her. My eyes meet Aiden’s and something unspoken passes between us, a silent understanding that she’s either about to choose one of us, or… it's possible that she’s going to choose both.
“Want you? Right now, I’m not even sure I like either of you!” Grace bursts, then pauses, inhaling deeply. “You are two of the most arrogant, juvenile, completely inappropriate men I’ve ever met. And you think that I’m going crazy because I’m lusting after you?!”
“That’s right.” The words come out low in my throat, my own desire for this girl apparent even in my voice.
“We think you’re lusting after both of us,” Aiden agrees, equally intense.
Grace sucks in a deep breath, her hands going to each of our chests. She grips a fistful of our shirts, and I glance at Aiden, half-certain she’s about to push us way the hell away from her. Instead, she exhales heavily, closing her eyes. “Both of you,” she whispers. “And I can’t just… choose.”
“Then don’t,” I say at the same time that Aiden says, “Okay.”
22
Grace
“Okay.” I echo Aiden’s words, my voice a whisper because I’m not sure I actually heard either of them correctly. My hands are still there, paused as I grip Aiden and Noah’s shirts, unmoving because I’m terrified to do what I think I want to do next.
I’m afraid of what it might mean.
The President’s daughter does not have a threesome. She certainly does not have a threesome with two professional athletes. And she definitely does not have a threesome with two arrogant, frustrating, holy-crap-hot men in the middle of a kitchen during a charity camp while her two Secret Service agents are outside the house.
“You don’t have to choose between us, because we both want you,” Noah growls.
I inhale sharply, my palms unfurling before I even realize what I’m doing. Flattening my hands, I brush along their chests, my fingers exploring their muscular bodies over the thin fabric of their t-shirts.
When I hear myself moan, it takes me by surprise.
Double Team: A Menage Romance Page 15