“Look at you, saying all the right things this time around. Unlike in high school. You never knew I existed, neither of you.”
“We knew you existed, Emma,” Abe cut in, leaning forward. “You were just so shy, back then.”
She ran when pretty much anyone, but especially a guy, tried to talk to her. Abe and I had tried separately after she ran the first few times we tried approaching her together. But the result was pretty much the same and we didn’t try too hard.
But here she was, and here we were, virtually alone in a public bar. We were both going to make damn sure she didn’t try to run this time.
Chapter Three
Emma
I didn’t know what to make of it.
Surely, I must have been wrong. Whatever they were implying must have somehow gotten lost in translation. Because there was no way they meant what I was thinking.
But how they both sat, eyes trained on me, was kind of hard to mistake. I didn’t have a lot of gazes like that aimed at me, but I certainly recognized it when it was.
The hot twins from high school wanted to get with me.
Carl and Abe Thomas, the tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed twins, had been pretty much every girl’s dream. The few lucky ones even got a little close, but neither boy dated anyone long-term, that I knew of. Not even Abe dubbed the ‘serious’ one of the two.
Like most of the girls, I’d grown a bit of a crush. Unlike some of the girls, they were out of my league, and I knew it. And it was true I had been shy in high school. Save for a handful of friends, I kept to myself. I grew out of it—I kind of had to, in medical school—but I still wasn’t anything to write home about.
Most people couldn’t tell the Thomas boys apart, they were identical twins, but I always could. I watched them enough to learn their different little quirks until I realized I liked them both when most of everyone else picked a random favorite.
But this was unexpected.
“You guys are just messing with me, right,” I said slowly, voice suspicious. “You never looked twice at me.”
Why would they? I looked at both of them, frowning a little at the thought of them making fun of me.
I was the shy kid that pretty much everyone ignored, because yeah when people approached me I got anxious because I didn’t know what to say and ended up hiding or walking away. Or running, in a few memorable encounters. I’d gotten into some bully situations because of that behavior of mine.
I wasn’t quite that shy little girl anymore, though. Standing up to my mother not an hour ago, was proof enough of that.
Abe stayed still, serious, but Carl, ever the ladies’ man, leaned closer and smiled. I could have sworn his eyes smoldered, something that happened only in writing.
“Why would we mess with you, Emma? In any way other than the fun way, of course.” He grinned the same cocky grin I’d seen him use to get whatever girl he wanted to fall into his lap.
I’d seen it enough times that it really shouldn’t affect me, nearly a decade later. But I could feel my breath hitch in my throat, my skin flush, and my mouth going dry.
“Emma.”
Even though they were similar down to their voices, if I’d been sloshed enough not to realize who was who, just that voice saying my name would have clued me in. Where Carl could make girls fall for him with a smile, his brother could do it by the power of his voice alone. It was pitched lower, practically curling around my name. He said it normally, I didn’t think he even realized he did it, it was never deliberate for Abe, but how he said my name made my body wake up and take notice.
“We would never do something like that to you. If you’d given us a chance back then, whichever one of us, we definitely would have come running.” He paused deliberately. “We still would.”
I wanted to give an immediate denial, but my throat seemed to close up. My body tightened at his words, at his voice; I couldn’t help the reaction.
But could I really do something like this? I wasn’t a virgin, not at twenty-six. Even shy little me wasn’t quite so pathetic. But two guys coming onto me—if they weren’t messing with me—and twins at that. People that I knew from my days in boring suburbia, before I graduated and ran like hell was at my heels. I knew they weren’t living at home, but still.
Although…
I thought my life was a joke. I’d spent the last few years studying like crazy to become a doctor. I’d gotten and was coming to the end of my Internship at Central General Hospital. I was making a name, and a life, for myself. But sometimes, I didn’t know who for. I was running myself ragged, but I rarely thought of taking it easy.
And I couldn’t exactly say I wasn’t interested. I was a woman with needs, no longer a little girl, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been with someone. With everything else going on, I didn’t have time for a relationship, let alone thinking about sex. I was definitely thinking about it now, though, and I could feel my body grow hot at just the idea. I had to cross my legs under the table because of the throbbing growing between my legs.
Well, why not?
It wasn’t like I had anything better to do with my time. If I went back home now, Mom and I would only get into another argument, because I turned my back on her. I should have thought it through, but this had me in the clear, so I wouldn’t have to sneak back in the middle of the night like some recalcitrant teenager.
I decided—a little impulsively, but surely—for once in my life, I’d let myself have a good time if they offered. I was too hard on myself. I’d had to be for a long time, right along with my mother, trying to prove myself to her when it only seemed to make it worse. It had been all work and no play since I started interning at Central General Hospital. Hell, long before that, even.
I decided that, if anything was going to get me through this weekend, it would be letting my hair down, even just a little.
I’d never been with two men at the same time, but I loved the idea that I would be doing it with the two guys that I—and pretty much everyone else—craved in high school.
Two guys that, incredibly, wanted me just as much.
Chapter Four
Abe
We were heading out to the bar to drink because my twin was an idiot with the attention of a toddler. Because he didn’t like being bored, and he didn’t like going out on his own when he could have me around, he’d dragged me behind him.
It was pretty much how we’d been all our lives. Even when we left home so Carl could join the world of motorcycle racing. Because I just happened to be there—because he made sure I would be—he decided I could do it, too. I didn’t complain about it, because I loved riding, but mainly because I was good at it. I also knew, unlike my brother, that it wasn’t exactly a career of a lifetime, so I was always after him to invest.
He found investing boring; he found a lot of things I said boring, in fact. It was why I usually just ignored his opinions.
We’d come awfully far in the past seven years. We even had a title, and thanks to Dad, everyone in town knew it: Carl and I were International Motorcyclist Champions. Carl, surprisingly, wasn’t one to brag. Not unless he was thinking of picking up girls.
But when we got to the bar, and my brother was acting weird, I would have called him out on it, if I didn’t catch the focus of his attention.
I remembered Emma very well from high school. If there was a girl from Libreville I’d thought about plenty, it would be her. We’d never even talked, but the neighborhood wasn’t so big that I wouldn’t have run into her somewhere at some point, even outside of school.
Bragging about our accomplishment wasn’t a tactic that would work on someone like Emma Davis, though. Just as well Carl realized it and kept his mouth shut when she gave the right opportunity for him to tell her neither of us went to college.
She looked better than she had in high school. Also, kind of worse.
Even if I hadn’t been looking for it, it would have been obvious to see Emma was more than a little upset. Why
else would she be here to visit her mother for the weekend and end up at a bar, alone, the evening she arrived? Carl either didn’t notice or was being tactful about it for once and not bringing it up. When my brother said something that made her give a quiet laugh that lit her face momentarily, but not enough to clear out the shadows in her eyes, I decided.
I was going to lift her out of her bad spirits.
Emma looked down, and I wanted to reach across the table and hold her face, raise it so I could see her clearly. Though she was much better than she had been in high school, at least she hadn’t tried to run from us once, it was a habit she hadn’t broken.
“We have a room at the hotel.” She’d know which one. Libreville only had the one. “Spend the night with us, Emma.”
It was blunt, but I’d never been good at sweet-talking like Carl, and if I let him, it would take too long. Neither of us had approached a woman like Emma Davis before; a bombshell but shy and completely unaware of just how attractive she was, at least to us. Even back in high school, she was the one girl he had trouble approaching; the guy that had three dates to the prom, somehow juggled all three without someone getting hurt, and then spent the night, and several more, with all three girls.
Emma wasn’t the kind of girl he could sweet talk, but she would probably appreciate directness. There was a difference between appreciating it and being okay with it, though. She didn’t look up, and even though my chest burned with anticipation, I didn’t think she’d really agree to it.
Because I had said ‘us’ very clearly, she would know what I—we—were offering. I included Carl automatically since I was sure he’d try to run me over with his bike if I took the girl we’d both mooned over a little in high school out from under him. We didn’t fight over much, but I wasn’t in the mood to just roll over and let him have his way, either. It was something different for us, but if it was the only way either of us got to have her, I thought Carl would be game with the idea. Still, I was awfully sure he didn’t have any more hope than I did.
Emma shocked the both of us, though.
“Yes.”
I blinked, wondering if I was hearing things now. It was a surprise that she would be party to the idea. But the word was low, the voice feminine, and I heard it. Carl obviously had the same idea, because when I turned to him, he was turning my way, and our eyes met, the surprise in mine mirrored in his. We both looked back at Emma.
“Could you repeat that,” Carl said slowly, both of us leaning closer.
She never raised her head, not entirely. Just enough so she could look at us from under her eyelashes. Her face was pink, and she was biting her full lower lip. I wondered if she knew just how that look affected us, because Carl was feeling it, a low sound escaping him as he shifted in his seat.
She said it again, a little louder and harder to mistake. “Yes.”
She said yes. Shy, straight-laced Emma Davis. I curled my hands into fists, wanting to reach out to her, touch her. Now that she’d say yes, I didn’t want her to change her mind. My body went from cold to hot in sixty seconds, I felt like I needed to pause for my head to catch up.
“Are you sure?” I said slowly, wanting to hit myself as soon as the words were out. I didn’t want her to change her mind.
She took a deep breath that raised her chest up, and I was distracted for a second as my eyes dropped. The dress was thin, and either she wasn’t wearing a bra or it was thin, too, because I could see her nipples outlined perfectly by the fabric.
My jeans tightened as I thought about how I was going to get to play with them very soon. But I forced my mind back on track, looking up at her face, waiting for her final word.
“Yes, I want to spend the night with you,” she answered, voice still low, probably for the sake of privacy even though the place was practically empty. “Both of you,” she added, and it sounded like a question.
“Hell, yes.”
We spoke at the same time, but she didn’t even seem surprised. I thought she might have been amused.
Her mouth parted as she took a deep breath, and my mind got distracted again.
“But we need to be discreet about the whole thing. This town isn’t that big, and it doesn’t seem to have changed much in the past eight years.”
I doubted it, which was the only reason I was still across from her and not reaching out no matter how much I wanted to. If anyone saw us all stumbling together into a hotel room, there would be talk, and it would spread.
My brother and I didn’t make the habit of sharing women. Even though we were twins, we both had very different tastes in women. Emma was pretty much the only girl we both found ourselves interested in. I didn’t particularly care what people said, as we’d both be gone very soon anyway, but it could cause problems for Emma if word made it to her strict mother.
One of us would have to go with her. She’d never be allowed past the lobby otherwise. Carl and I shared another look, on the same wavelength as we usually were. Then we turned back to her and Carl opened his mouth to talk.
“I can go to the hotel with Abe,” she rushed out before he could speak, and he snapped his mouth shut.
She was still giving us that coy, under-her-lashes look, and I had a feeling we’d both be okay with whatever she wanted so long as she kept looking at us like that.
“I’ll go to the hotel alone with Abe, and Carl can join us later.”
Emma bit her lip again, then made herself stop and raised her head so we could see her properly. She was trying to look like she wasn’t bothered, but her cheeks were still pink and her eyes were worried. Did she still think we were joking, and she was waiting for the punch line?
Carl reached across the table. I thought he was going to touch her, he must have been dying to just like I was, but instead he took her beer bottle. It was still maybe half full, and she had her eyes on his as he brought it carefully to his mouth, taking a mouthful and swallowing it down. He might have licked the rim of the bottle, I didn’t look away from her to check, but he did something that made her turn just a little pinker and the breath stutter in her throat.
“I’ll pay for your drink.”
I stood up and slid out of the booth, then waited. Emma’s eyes tracked my movement from her periphery, and she looked up at me for a moment before doing the same. Even without a word to my brother, I knew he was okay with the plan, or he would have tried to argue. He might be annoyed that I got to be alone with her first, and I wanted to gloat, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
She took her coat and purse from the seat beside her, pulling the coat on and throwing the strap of her purse over her shoulder. She met my eyes for a second, before ducking her head again and walking forward. I followed right beside her.
Out in the cold, I tucked both hands inside my jacket, though what I really wanted was to wrap one of my arms around her shoulders and hold her body close. Even with the coat, she had her arms wrapped around herself and I thought she was trembling slightly. Was it from the cold?
Or was she excited?
“Emma?”
She looked up at me, and for a second I forgot why I said her name. I wanted to find the nearest horizontal surface so I could push her into it and kiss her. More than almost anything, I wanted to kiss her; her mouth looked like it was made for it. A little wide for her face, pink and plump lips. She had a habit of biting her bottom lip that went way back, and when she stopped, her lower lip would be slightly puffed, a darker shade of pink, almost red.
I wondered whether her mouth would turn red if it was bruised from kisses. The breath shuddered in my chest, coming out of me in a gust.
She made an inquisitive sound that brought me back to myself. I frowned a little at how out of control I was. I hadn’t been like that since my high school days, and even then, it hadn’t been this bad. Unlike my brother, I had some control. Enough to wait for privacy before starting anything.
I realized as I fisted my hands in my pockets, that Emma just really got to me.
It was her last chance to back out. Libreville was small enough that you could pretty much walk everywhere unless you were lazy. The hotel was maybe five minutes from the bar, ten if you were taking a leisurely stroll, but we would get there quickly. I had a feeling I’d want to jump her as soon as we got there, and I wanted her to be positive this was what she wanted, or I was going to be truly disappointed.
She surprised me again, at the same time lighting me up with her response:
“I have never been surer of anything in my life.”
Chapter Five
Emma
What the hell am I doing?
After my bold declaration, merely a moment ago, I felt like I would shake right out of my four-inch heels. I’d never been to the hotel, there wasn’t really much reason why I would go there. Even though prom was held there, I skipped out on it that night, so not even then. I could see it up ahead from a distance, and my heart wanted to beat out of my chest.
I was scared and excited at the same time. The idea of having two men on the same night thrilled me like nothing ever had, even though I’d previously thought of myself as someone into plain vanilla sex. It wasn’t just vanilla when there were more than two, right? I didn’t even know, but I wanted it badly, now that I knew I could have it.
A touch on my hand made me start, and turn to the man to my left. He was touching my right hand from where it was hidden with my arms crossed over my chest. My breath caught in my throat, because if he shifted his fingers just a bit higher, he would be touching the side of my breast.
I looked up to see the hotel was nearby. It was less than a minute away, and I slowed. Abe didn’t say anything, just stopped with me. He wouldn’t push, wouldn’t try to talk me into anything if he thought I was having second thoughts, not like Carl might have. It only made my decision firmer, though there had been no option for me refusing before.
Forbidden Prescription 2: MFM Ménage Stepbrother Romance (Medical Romance) Page 2