by Sara Spark
"Yes, to that one." Blakely was firm in her agreement.
"You both like dirty talk?" Hudson sounded slightly surprised.
"Mmmhmm."
"Oh, yeah!"
"Huh, go figs. I don't talk much normally."
"Now that does not surprise me," Keo added drily.
"Ok, Hudson, what do you like?" There was a pause. "Hudson?" Blakely must be an executive. She was definitely used to being in charge. "Hudson, quit glaring at Keo. What do you find sexy?"
"What?" Hudson seemed distracted by the staring contest. "Mine's easy." Trixie could just see his arm reach back and rub his neck. "Pussy."
Only the sound of the bubbling water could be heard.
"Excuse me?" One of the women, but Trixie couldn't tell who.
"Pussy. I find pussy sexy. Bare, hair, don't care. Pussy is sexy."
Chapter 2
After a pause, an explosion of laughter sounded from Keo and it sounded like several other people. Wait, were there more arrivals?
"Well said, Hudson."
"A man after my own heart."
And before she could signal to her best friend. Her very loud best friend. Rimie came around the corner. "There you are! We've been looking for you all over the party. I shoulda known you would sneak down--" Looking bemusedly at Trixie who was frantically waving, shaking her head 'no' and putting a finger to her lips, Rimie's voice died out.
Not even a full breath in and out happened before there was a tall, dark man standing next to Rimie. And he wasn't one of Rimie's husbands. Yep, husbands. Two husbands. It was an unusual relationship. When Rimie told Trixie, Trixie's eyebrows became glued to her hairline for a while. After seeing the three of them together, however, Trixie felt reassured that her friend was happy. Both of Rimie's husbands were devoted to her and Rimie walked around with a silly smile on her face most of the time.
But the man standing, staring at her did not have a silly smile on his face. His eyes seemed to be trying to peel back all her layers at once and peer into the core of her. His eyes were striking. Even from where she was sitting in the tub she could see the crystal hazel brown eyes piercing her. He was tall and well-built with smooth coppery skin. He was lithe and proportioned like the type of person that was good at any sport. He wasn’t a pretty boy. His face was interesting, edgy, but not pretty. He was not the classic Hollywood handsome. His face was arresting, striking like his eyes. His black, black hair was pulled up in a man-bun completing the edgy look. Cameras probably loved him. If he was a model, people would just stare at his picture with the word “fascinating” whispering in their brain.
They all sat there frozen for a moment. No one saying anything. Then the man opened his mouth and said. “Hudson.”
“Yep?”
“You need to come here.” That was said in a very calm, unhurried manner.
With that there was some more splashing and suddenly a huge guy came around the wall to stand by the first guy. Next to each other their differences were highlighted. Hudson, who had just arrived, was big. Like ginormous, muscles big. He seemed to dwarf the others. But now, trying to look at it objectively, Trixie thought that was maybe from the broad expanse of his chest. Comparing their height between the two men, actually Hudson was only a handful of inches taller than the first man. He had a great mop of shaggy messy brown hair.
When Hudson stopped abruptly, and sucked in his breath, Trixie frowned. Had he not seen a plump Latina before? Well, then he had been missing a lot in life.
Trixie cut her eyes to Rimie to see if she knew what was going on. Both men had frozen as if they had been hit with a phaser weapon from one of her favorite Sci-Fi shows.
Smiling softly, Rimie was just standing there calmly while rubbing a little on the green vine tattoo that she had on the back of one of her hands.
“Uhhh, Rimie?” Trixie prompted her friend to help her out. Rimie’s husbands walked around the wall at about that moment and the other two women, not to be left out, joined the group. Which left Trixie sitting in the tub facing a group of six strangers…and her best friend. Rimie looked like she was in full zone-out mode. Trixie glared a little harder at her.
“Right, right. Introductions. Trixie this is Keokuk, he is with the cl-company. Keo, this is Trixie Montenez, my bestie. I haven’t met your friends…” Rimie looked inquiringly at the others.
“Hudson Trent.” Hudson’s voice was as deep as his chest and that was pretty dang deep.
“I’m Blakely.”
“Kaitlyn.”
The women didn’t seem too happy to meet Trixie, nor with the change in plans for the cockblocking interruption.
“Blakely, hi. I’m Rimie. Magnus was telling me about you. Aren’t you from the marketing firm handling the Stone, Industries brand? Ummm, Slinn & Riest Marketing, right?”
“Yes, Mrs. Rohr, we handle the marketing for most of the company’s business.” Blakely kicked into full marketing mode despite her standing in just a towel and underwear, having been caught in a hot tub. “Security set apart.” She intoned in a dramatic voice.
Rimie just stared at Blakely a little blankly.
“That’s our latest slogan.” Blakely continued. “Actually, Mr. Rohr,” she paused thinking that might be confusing. Mistakenly thinking that both of Rimie’s husbands’ last names were Rohr, and that Rimie had changed her last name to Rohr which she hadn’t. “Er, Magnus. We wanted to talk to you about expanding our marketing services to your digital security products.”
Trixie realized at that point that Trac, one of Rimie’s husbands, had his arm around Rimie’s waist and was looking down at her. Magnus was facing Rimie and they were sharing a look that seemed to be speaking volumes. Even if Trixie didn’t know what the volumes said.
“Yes, Ms…er—“
“Daimer. But you can call me Blakely. My team and I wanted to talk about what we can do for your digital products, especially Paladin.” Paladin was the antiviral/malware program that Stone Industries had created. It was by far a major force in the digital security community. It would be quite a feather in the cap for any marketing company to win.
“I would be interested in hearing about it. Why don’t you get changed and we can go back to the party? We managed to halt the, um, disturbance from the danceoff.” Magnus raised an arm to herd her away from the tubs.
Blakely grabbed her stuff in a hurry. “I won’t be a second. I will meet you at the elevators.”
“And you are?” Rimie looked inquiringly at the blonde.
“Kaitlyn Williams. I, uh, was invited.”
“Do you work for Stone, Industries?” Trixie cut her eyes to Rimie slightly. There was nothing overt, but Trixie could feel Rimie’s dubious inflection. Rimie must know that Kaitlyn didn’t work here.
“Yes, well… I was brought in today as a temp to handle some of the help desk backlog. And they came in this afternoon and invited everyone to the party--”
“I’m so glad that you were able to make it.” Rimie interrupted smoothly. “Normally, this area is for employees only. Why don’t you get changed and we can get back to the party? I am sure that you don’t want to miss the karaoke battle that’s happening in twenty minutes.” Trac gave Rimie a sharp look as he, Magnus, Rimie and Kaitlyn disappeared around the wall.
Which left, Trixie and…
“Trixie.” Keo said it like he was tasting it.
Crap, had her friend just abandoned her? She was gonna have words with that love-sick, starry-eyed friend of hers. Doesn’t matter that she was still in the ‘honeymoon’ phase with her husbands and thus wasn’t very alert on what was happening around her. Ditching Trixie in the hot tub with two strong unknown males. That just wasn’t right! Especially, since they were both hot. In totally different ways, but the bottom line was sexy. Pure, undiluted sex.
Before Trixie could blink, Keo was sitting down across from her, his feet dangling in the water.
Trixie glanced up at Hudson who was rubbing his hand on his chin like he was trying to
figure something out.
“Yes. Trixie. And no, I don’t want to hear any jokes about my name. I have to deal with it on a daily basis.”
“Is it short for something?” Hudson rumbled.
“Yes.” She wasn’t volunteering her full name, Beatrix. Who would? Even though Trixie drew a lot of ‘porn name’ jokes, Beatrix was a mouthful. She’d rather deal with the Trixie.
“You’re a friend of Rimie’s?”
Trixie just nodded mutely. Time to exit stage left. But the problem was she didn’t really feel like trying to clamber over the edge of the tub on her own with all her…assets…hanging out and the steps were across from her, next to them. She was in her swimsuit as opposed to Blakely, but still….
“Would you mind if we joined--,” Keo continued, but was interrupted by Hudson who jumped into the tub with a loud sploosh. “Hell, Hudson, you coulda waited for me to finish!”
The huge guy now in the tub with Trixie shrugged his shoulders. “You were taking too long.”
Trixie just blinked at them both. Keo’s cross face and then at the shaggy visage of Hudson who had twinkling brown eyes that winked at her.
Hudson just made her laugh. She busted out in a few chuckles.
“So, you musta heard our conversation.” Hudson twitched when Keo said that, as if that was a surprise.
She tilted her head at Keo. She shrugged, a kinda ‘yeah, what of it?’ move. Had Hudson gotten a little closer? She kept an eye on him.
Keo, sniffed lightly, muttering.
“Yeah, I can’t either,” answered Hudson. He glanced at her curiously. “The smell doesn’t bother you?”
“Smell? Right, the chemical factory. Nope.”
“You heard that, too?” Keo looked a little uncomfortable.
“Sí. Well, it’s been great meeting you. I’m gonna need to go now. I’m sure Rimie is looking for me.” Not! Rimie, that traitor, was probably upstairs necking with her husbands!
They just sat and watched her. Not moving.
“Ok,” she made a shooing motion with her hands. “You’re welcome to get back to the party…ahora.”
Hudson looked at her curiously, as if she was an interesting life form he’d never seen before. Keo just stared at her period. Piercing, intense.
“I’m really ready to get out of the water, now. I’ve been in here quite a while thanks to your little get-together.”
“Don’t let us stop you.” Keo’s tone was the epitome of nonchalant, but he was watching her like a hawk.
“I’d prefer it if y’all leave.”
“Why?” Hudson seemed at a loss.
Her eyes turned to him a little frustrated. “Why don’t y’all go ahead and I will see you later. Give me a chance to freshen up and go to the powder room.” That should do it. The women’s bathroom was a sure-fire way to get a male running in the other direction.
“That’s all right. We would rather wait for you.”
“Well, it will be a while, you know, I gotta take care of all that women’s stuff.” They just sat there. Blockheads! “Muy latoso.” She murmured under her breath. Really annoying.
Finally, she pointed out. “You are blocking the steps.” She directed it to both of them since they were both in her way.
“We will help you up.” They both held out their hands to her, making no move to get out of the way of the steps.
Hudson moved closer. “Hold up there, big guy.” She put a palm out to stop him. Frankly, they both made her nervous. Not in a fear for her life kinda way. In a sexual tension, on-edge kinda way. These were two strong males in their prime. Their sexual prime. Hudson stopped.
“We would never hurt you.” Keo said quietly. “You don’t need to be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid!” Trixie jutted out her chin just like she used to do to her cousins. ‘Beattie is afraid to touch la araña!’ She had not enjoyed touching the spider, but it hadn’t been bad, at least not horrible. “Abuela, Beattie es temerosa! She won’t cross the creek.’ Luckily, it was only a garden snake that she had stepped on that time, rather than the many poisonous snakes in Texas. What was it about these men that was pushing her ‘dare me’ button?
“We can help you, little kâhpîha.”
“Kâhpîha?”
“Yes, in Sauk, it means coffee. Well, kâhpîhi means coffee. I’ve amended it for you as a female. Your hair is exactly the shade of my best roasted coffee. Hot and brewed fresh. The steam all swirling from the surface of my favorite cup as I raise it up to my lips for the best way to wake up every morning. You look…delicious.” Keo tilted his head considering her.
Trixie blinked at the unexpected compliment. What were these two up to?
“Look, I’m sorry that I broke up your pool party with your, um,” she coughed, “get-to-know-you questions. Wasn’t my fault that you chose to seduce them here in the hot tubs. I was here first.” She crossed her arms over her chest. She was not feeling defensive. Not at all.
Hudson started a deep rumbling laugh, which broke her stance and disarmed her. There was something about his laugh that just made her smile. He shook his head. “Wasn’t much of a seduction.”
Her lips twitched, then she grinned. “Epic fail.”
A splash of water caught her off guard. “Is that so, kâhpîha?” She got a spray in the face. “So, you were listening in with your ears twitching, hmmm?” Keo’s lips tilted on one side. “And you heard us talking beforehand? So I guess you know about the mix-up?”
Faux outrage at the splash and the ears twitching part broke into pieces. She did a big arc with her arm spraying them both while trying to hold it in. She did. But big guffaws busted out of her. “Kaitlyn…blonde…red…invited her.” She was gasping. After wiping the water off his face, Hudson leaned back, arms along the edge watching her with a big smile on his face. She even got some chuckles from serious Keo.
When she had calmed the gasping, her curiosity got the better of her, which fortunately (sometimes unfortunately) happened a lot. “What I want to know is why?” she cleared her throat from all the laughing. “One woman, two men. Is this a bet or something?”
“No, no bet. It’s…uh…” Hudson looked at Keo with his hand rubbing the back of his neck.
“It’s on our bucket list.” Keo said firmly, but Trixie felt deep in her gut that there was more to it.
“Yeah, we’ve never shared a female. We just got our wires crossed a little in the execution.”
“You mean you got your wires crossed,” Keo corrected.
Hudson threw him an irritated glance.
“Mi abuela used to say, ‘No hay que ahogarse en un vaso de agua.’ Basically, you don’t need to drown in a glass of water.”
They said nothing.
“Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.”
“Well, this was a pretty awkward molehill.”
“Didn’t sound like you were really attracted to either one.” She made a moue. “I don’t think that is such a big loss.” She gave up hiding in the hot tub and gave up on making a graceful exit. She used her non-existent upper body strength to muscle her way, kinda, out of the pool. More like awkwardly heaved and oozed out of the tub.
She heard some weird noises behind her, sounded like some groans, but the churning of the water distorted the sounds. She frowned as she turned around, wrapping a towel around her bright pink, orange and red swimsuit. No one would have any trouble finding her in a crowd. She loved bright colors. So sue her.
The men’s eyes were locked on her again. Frozen like statues. She found it a little unnerving. Was her swimsuit riding up too high? She surreptitiously reached down and gave a little yank. Think I flashed most of one cheek at them while trying to get out. Sigh. ¡Bueno! Grabbing her things, she left quickly. She didn’t waste a lot of time in the bathroom, quickly toweling off, getting dressed and scooting to the elevators. Unfortunately, two big males had beaten her to them.
“Hello again.” She murmured as she moved to the other side to call the el
evator.
“Trixie.”
“Are you staying in the Tower?” Hudson was referring to Stone Tower that housed Stone, Industries, some apartments and the crazy St Paddy’s Day party going on several floors above.
She flicked her eyes at Hudson. “Yes. Just for the weekend.”
“Could we meet you for breakfast?”
She was a little taken aback. “Both of you?”
“Ummmhmmm.”
“Why?”
“Why else? Because we are attracted to you.” Keo calmly stepped a little towards her as he said that.
“Both of you?” She squeaked. “I don’t want to get between friends.”
“Between us sounds like a good place for you.” Hudson muttured, at least that’s what it sounded like. He continued, “You won’t cause any problems.”
“We just want a chance to get to know you better.”
“Okayyyyy.” She took her time saying it. Was she interested in either of them? She had to admit she was mightily attracted. The problem was she was attracted to both of them.
They rode up the elevator together. She was on the 21st floor.
When she moved to leave the elevator, she unexpectedly bumped into Hudson, and almost bounced off of him onto the floor. When had he gotten closer?
The man was a very large immovable object. Both big males grabbed an arm, and for a brief moment she was between them, feeling their heat. Hudson while catching her had pulled her arm to his chest and she felt the hard muscles pressing against her. Keo was on the other side and his breaths lightly stirred her hair piled into a messy bun.
Surrounded, yet protected. Reassured yet aroused. The power of the attraction between them wove around her. She became ultra-aware of the rise and fall of her breasts as they brushed against both of them. Her nipples hard, tight and tingling. She shivered at the sensations. They smelled masculine, hot and addictive. With a touch of chemicals. It was the scent of the chemicals that snapped her out of her thrall. With a jerk, she jumped out of the elevator just before the doors closed. She thought she heard a growl as they closed, but she must have been mistaken.