Pickup Lessons (Awkward Arrangements Book 3)

by Tanya Gallagher

  My legs start to stiffen as the pressure inside me reaches its height. “Dash, you’re going to make me come.”

  He grips me tighter and continues urging me up and down. “How close?”

  A warning tingle starts, my inner muscles pulsing.

  “Soon,” I gasp.

  Dash plunges me down his length, and the tingles turn into fireworks in my core. “Now, now!” I cry, and then I’m wordless pleasure as my climax takes hold and bursts over me.

  “I’m coming with you, angel.” Dash bucks his hips up, driving so deep into me that I gasp. “Eden, fuck!” He buries his face in my neck, and I can feel his cock start to pulse as he finds his release, everything tightening inside me so pleasurably that my orgasm feels like it lasts forever.

  We embrace each other in the middle of my living room, sated and spent, and don’t let go for a long, long time.

  “That was so fucking hot,” Dash says at last, kissing my neck.

  I nod breathlessly, not sure I have any words left. But then Dash leans back and frowns.

  “Oh, baby.” Concern brews in his eyes, and he touches a finger to the skin of my cheek that his stubble’s rubbed raw. “I scraped you.”

  “It’s okay,” I whisper. A smile tugs over my lips. “Just don’t draw it in the next picture.”

  His eyes widen with understanding, and he answers my grin with his own. “The next one, huh?”

  “Yep,” I say and tap a hand to the center of his chest. “I was promised pictures, plural.” I blush. “And whatever comes next…” I shrug. “I can’t be held responsible.”

  “Okay,” he grins. “The artist must deliver what the lady wants.” He kisses me long and hot and hard before finally shifting underneath me and gesturing at his notebook. “Go put on your next outfit. I’m ready to start when you are.”

  With a last lingering kiss, I crawl off his lap and slip into my bedroom to change, already craving round two. If it wasn’t clear to me before, it is now—when it comes to Dash, I can’t ever have enough.

  With him, all bets are off.

  24

  Dash

  For all the times I’ve been to The Hole, I’ve never come during daylight hours. It feels strange to push through the doors at lunchtime on Monday and find an empty room. No patrons laughing in the booths, no liquor smell in the air. The only familiar fixture is Matt, standing in his classic position behind the bar.

  Matt glances up at the sound of the door closing behind me and nods in my direction. “Hey, man.”

  “Hey.” I thread through the tables to approach him, passing by a poster advertising the April Fool’s Day special event. Glad he’s at least getting his money’s worth out of our shared humiliation. “Eden here yet?” Matt shakes his head, and I groan. “For someone usually so punctual, how is it I made it here first?”

  As if she knows we’ve been talking about her, Eden sashays through the door wearing a button-down blouse that dips low between her breasts and a pair of high-waisted trousers that accentuate her gorgeous curves. She looks fucking incredible, and I’m instantly jealous of everyone who gets to work with her.

  I force myself to close my mouth and tear my gaze away so I don’t give up our whole charade. How did I look at her before she was mine? I try to remember, and even though it’s only been days, it’s a struggle. It feels like we were always supposed to come to this. I don’t know how to glance at her and not look like I’m falling for her. I don’t know how to go back to being just friends, to replicating the teasing rivalry that got us into this mess.

  I don’t want to ever have to go back to that, period.

  “You ready for bartending lessons?” Matt asks, snapping me back to the present.

  Eden rolls up her shirt sleeves. “I’ve got to get back to work, so let’s get started.” She flashes me a confident smile. “Not that I’m going to need these lessons. I don’t plan on losing the bet.”

  I see she’s got no problem throwing competitive shade.

  Matt sucks on his teeth as he considers. “Well, since neither one of you has won just yet”—he glances between us—“that I know of, you both get the pleasure of my company today. We’re serving a special drink for April Fool’s Day, and you both need to know how to make it.”

  He gestures for us to join him behind the counter, and I slip in behind Eden, brushing my fingers against the curve of her hip while Matt’s back is turned. She shivers under my touch and leans in, but the second Matt glances over his shoulder at us, we spring apart, guilty and flushed.

  “So, this is what the view is like from the other side, huh?” I ask, splaying my hands on the bar so I’m not tempted to touch Eden again.

  Matt nods. “Prime viewing of all your tomfoolery.”

  “Tomfoolery?” Eden groans. “Really? Don’t tell me Dash’s verbal tics have rubbed off on you.”

  “Did it hurt?” Matt asks.

  Eden blinks at him. “What?”

  “When you fell from heaven?”

  Did her seriously just use one of my lines on her? No fucking way.

  Eden snorts out a laugh and shakes her head. “You’re both terrible.”

  “It’s not so bad when you’re the one getting complimented, is it?” He nudges her shoulder with his own, and the sight of him half flirting with her makes my shoulders stiffen. It must be so fucking easy for him—he’s not in business with her brother, he hasn’t known her and tried to look out for her since she was barely legal. All he sees is a pretty, single woman and no reason not to pursue her.

  It makes me want to break something.

  “The drink,” I grit out, desperate to separate them. “Eden has to get back.”

  She glances up quickly, and when she meets my eyes, her gaze shines with mischief. She knows exactly what she’s doing, practically begging to be spanked. The thought of her squirming under my touch makes my chest heat. Her ass, curving under my palms.

  She’s trying to throw me off my game, and it’s working.

  “What are we making?” I ask gruffly, not taking my eyes from hers. I start to calculate how many minutes are left in that lunch break. Do the math to see if there’ll be any time left over after mixology lessons to satisfy my aching cock.

  Matt pulls a bottle of tequila from under the bar and sets it on the counter, finally forcing me to look away. “It’s called The Fool.”

  “Aptly named,” Eden says with a smile.

  “It’s a color-changing margarita.”

  “Color-changing? How do you do that?”

  He nudges the bottle toward her. “That’s pea-flower-infused tequila. It starts as this nice blue liquid that reacts with acid to change colors.”

  “And a margarita has lemon and lime?”

  He grins. “Exactly. We’re also going to make lemon ice as a garnish for extra layers of effect.”

  “That’s incredible.” I can see from her smile how much this nerdy deep-dive into science excites her, and I sit back for a minute just to watch her shine. I fucking love her quest for knowledge and magic. After a lifetime of meeting people who are content to stay exactly as they are, I find Eden’s energy so damn attractive.

  Like she knows I’m thinking about her, Eden glances up at me. “What do you think, Easy D? Can you keep up?”

  I clear my throat and nod. “I sure hope so.”

  Matt shoots me a look that says probably not, then sets a tub of shaved ice and a bowl of sliced limes on the counter. “Why don’t you start by rubbing lime on the rim and dipping it in salt?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “That also sounds like a dirty pickup line.”

  “Terrible,” Eden restates. “Absolutely incorrigible.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  I have my back turned to pull down three margarita glasses off the shelf behind the bar when the front door bangs open.

  “We’re closed,” Matt calls.

  “I’m not looking for a drink.” The radiating anger in Titus’s voice mak
es the air go out of the room.

  I turn, careful not to drop the glasses, and find Titus glaring at me. He blows into the room like a storm, all crackling energy and intensity, and I swear the temperature drops.

  I cut a glance at Eden to find her cheeks pale. “What’s up, Ti?” I call because someone needs to say something. “Come to learn bartending along with us?” Technically he was on the text message invite from Matt, but I have a feeling he’s not here to play with liquor.

  “Don’t,” Titus warns. He drops his phone on the counter between us. “What the fuck is this?”

  I glance down to see Eden’s blog logo on the tiny screen.

  Eden crowds in next to me to stare at the phone. “My blog?” she guesses. Her voice is light but strained, and I admire that she’s trying to stave off the inevitable.

  If Titus is here, he’s here for a reason.

  “Keep scrolling,” he demands.

  Reluctantly, I flick my finger across the phone. This morning’s blog post fills the screen, the distinct images I drew of Eden prominent on the page.

  With a sting of pride, I skim the comments at the bottom of the page—Love this new style from Joie de Vivre! Such pretty bras!—but the charade is up.

  The final nail in my coffin? The tiny, generous text Eden added right under a particularly pretty picture of her on her velvet couch—Art credit: Dash Walton.

  A groan threatens to leave my lips, but I tamp it down and lift my gaze. “I see a sponsored blog post Eden wrote to share with her audience.” I shake my head and force a bravado I don’t feel. “From the content, I’m guessing you’re not part of the target audience.”

  Titus isn’t playing. “Why did you draw pictures of my sister in her underwear?”

  My chest feels tight, and my lungs crush around my heart. I’ve spent years living as the underdog, too worried about how I sounded to speak my truth. But right now, I don’t want to deny what’s been happening between me and Eden. I don’t want to lock this away and pretend it never happened. She means too much to me.

  “Because she asked me to,” I say.

  Titus squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “You should have said no.”

  Once upon a time, I might have. But that was before the bet, before she fell into my arms and into my heart. I could dance around the facts and tell Titus how perfectly clinical the whole thing was, but it would be a lie. Leaving half-truths littered between us is only going to push us apart.

  We’re like brothers, and brothers don’t lie.

  I summon my courage and push back my shoulders. “I love her,” I say, right before he swings his fist.

  25

  Eden

  “Holy shit!” I yelp as Titus’s fist swings over the counter toward Dash’s jaw. My heart slams into my throat, and I almost drop the glass clutched in my hands.

  Titus has a long reach, but Dash’s reflexes kick in, and he jumps back out of harm’s way.

  “What are you doing?” Matt growls, scrambling around the counter to hold Titus back from throwing another punch.

  “You fucking prick,” Titus spits, never raising his burning glare from Dash. There’s so much pain and anger in those three little words that they overpower the three little words Dash said right before. I love her.

  He loves me.

  He loves me, and as I stand between my brother and Dash, I don’t know if it’s enough.

  Both their chests heave with snorted, animal breaths, and Titus’s eyes are rimmed with red. My brother’s mouth is a wounded slash across his face, and all the laughter fades from Dash’s warm, easy demeanor. Even Matt’s face draws tight as a trap, his biceps straining as he keeps my brother in line.

  “I’m in my underwear in those pictures!” I bite out, glaring at Titus. “Why didn’t you skip right on past?”

  “Eden,” Titus rasps, and I see the strain in his eyes. “I would have. But how would you feel if your sister and your business partner were sneaking around behind your back?”

  Betrayed.

  Guilt punches into my stomach and my heart breaks a little. I picture my brother in every stage of my life—the protective shadow in the corner of soccer games and birthday parties, the friend who pinned my terrible high school newspaper articles to the corkboard above his desk just because I’d written them. The one who told me I was great even when I didn’t hear it from our parents.

  Titus has always been my biggest fan, reminding me even when things feel hard, I’m never alone. But my actions have made him feel like an outsider instead of my inner circle. I’m the one who put the scowl on his face.

  This is all my fault.

  For years, Titus and Dash have both been fixtures in my life, and right now, with the astringent scent of limes souring the air, I realize how much I need both of them. And, more importantly, how much they need each other.

  Dash needs Titus’s focus, his energy, his momentum. And Titus needs Dash’s calm, his loose charisma, his hope. There’s another love story here that’s been happening for years, while I’ve been too busy focusing on my own. I can’t threaten that, even though I want to ignore it.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I cut a glance at Dash and meet his pleading eyes before I turn toward Titus. “Not for my blog or for being with Dash. But I’m sorry we hurt you.”

  “No, Eden,” my brother barks. “Words matter. Isn’t that what you always say?”

  I nod, my throat dry as bone. “Yes,” I whisper.

  Titus squeezes his eyes shut, and when he opens them, pain and frustration roil in their depths. “Then you should know that’s not how apologies work. You don’t say you’re sorry that I feel how I feel. In a real apology, you say you’re sorry for doing the thing that hurt me.”

  He’s right and he’s wrong. Because I’m not sorry for loving Dash, but I sure as hell regret that we weren’t honest with Ti right away. If we’d told him sooner, this could have been a blip on the radar. Instead it’s a thunderstorm, lightning and electricity and a crackling madness making the air close and thick and damp, threatening to burn and drown us all.

  My brother blasts a scathing look at Dash, still inconsolable, still furious. “You violated the fucking Conflict of Interest clause.”

  Dash opens his mouth to protest, but nothing either of us can say will change how Titus feels right now. He’s too in the moment, too focused on his pain to really listen.

  “Come on.” I reach for Dash’s arm, and he stiffens when my fingers brush his elbow.

  That hurts almost more than anything.

  “You’re going to leave, just like that?” Titus asks, glaring at both of us.

  I drop my free hand to my side, resigned. “Right now, yeah.”

  I let Matt and Ti see us leaving a place together, but we’re not walking toward my work or Dash’s bed or any of the happier places we’ve spent time these last weeks.

  Somehow I feel like we’re walking past the beautiful storefronts toward our end.

  Instead of turning toward my apartment, I keep us moving straight down the street. Then we weave through the botanical gardens in front of the Ballard Locks until we emerge at the edge of the water.

  A boat hoping to pass through the locks sits in the closest holding area, waiting for water to rise under its hull and bring it to the right level to continue its journey. We could walk around it and keep going toward the fish ladder and the tiered gardens beyond, but instead we stop short. I rest my forearms against the metal railing that separates pedestrians from the cavernous holds, wincing at the cool metal on my bare arms. The briny scent of water and fish assaults my nose, but I breathe deep and let cool air fill my lungs. That breath is enough to steady me, to steel me against the words I don’t want to say.

  “We’ve got to figure this out,” I tell Dash eventually, not meeting his eye.

  “Figure what out?”

  I feel myself frown—a reflex rather than a conscious decision. “You and Titus.”

  I sneak a peek in his directi
on and catch his profile tipped in midday light, his jaw hard and unyielding. I want to kiss the softness back into him, want to bury my hands in his hair and force him to come back to me. But it wouldn’t be fair, because I can’t be there for him. Not yet. Not with everything so unfinished and raw.

  Dash eventually groans and rocks back on his heels. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, staring straight ahead.

  “I don’t believe you. You and Titus have been best friends for years. You’re in business together.” I wave my hands in the air. “It sure as hell matters that you’re both hurt right now.”

  We gambled and we lost. That’s the thing about risk—when you come out on the winning side, everything’s golden. But when you risk wrong and you fail, there’s no preparing for how hard you crash.

  Dash shakes his head, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “What good does it fucking do to tell me how deep it goes, E? I know all that. Those are all the reasons you told me about in the first place. But we’re in it now, and I don’t want to trade what you and I have just because he’s pissed.”

  I nod, desperate for him to understand. “I don’t want to trade it in either. But I don’t want you to have to choose this small, new thing for a relationship that’s so much deeper.”

  Pain flashes in his eyes. “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t undervalue what we have just because it’s new. I’ve wanted you for fucking years, E, so don’t tell me it doesn’t mean enough to count.”

  I open my mouth and then close it, not sure of what to say. Love always counts. It’s the most precious resource in the world. He’s the one who taught me that.

  “You know him as well as I do, E,” Dash continues. “When he’s like this, there’s no getting through. It’s too hard.”

  I know in an instant what I need to do. “Maybe I need to make it easy for you.” The jagged pinprick of tears threatens my eyes, and I blink against the wind.