The Set Up
Triplets: Three Aren’t One
Book One
by
Dani Haviland
USA Today Bestselling Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Dani Haviland and Chill Out!
The Set Up and Triplets: Three Aren’t One are works of fiction. Names, place, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used for the readers’ enjoyment. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or fictional, events or business establishments is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Book Description
Just before high school graduation, life seemed perfect. Grace is suddenly knocked into a harsh reality by her manipulative mother who demands absolute obedience. Everything changes when the three Armstrong brothers come into her life. Will she ever get back to her one true love? And will he want her again if he finds out what she’s done?
Praise and Awards
USA Today Bestselling Author
Kindle Top 100 Bestselling Author
Amazon Top 100 Historical fiction Author
Amazon Top 100 Biographies and Memoirs Author
Amazon Top 100 Short Story Anthologies and Collections
Amazon Top 100 History of Women in the American Civil War
Amazon Top 100 United States Drama and Plays
Amazon Top 100 LGBT Mysteries Author
Amazon Top 100 Weddings
Amazon Top 100 Satire
“There wasn’t a heartstring this one didn’t pull at! And, no spoilers, but that’s one of the nicest endings I could have imagined – all round, proving redemption’s possible, some things will last forever, and …. Karma. This isn’t just a story of Jose and Loren; it’s so much more. Amazon reader on Too Fast for You (http://bit.ly/2fast4YOU)
“From the picturesque descriptions of the Alaskan wilderness, to weaving a beautiful love story, the author's writing style is both serious and quirky. A perfect, relaxing read!”
Amazon review of One Arctic Summer (http://bit.ly/2OneArcticSummer)
Chapter 1
Mother Knows Best
May 15, 1991
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Dusty asked breathlessly.
With hormone-induced strength and determination, Grace wrapped her fingers around his and pried his protective hand away from his half-unbuttoned fly. “Yes, I’m sure,” she cooed seductively.
“But…but…what if you get pregnant?” he whispered. “Can’t you just do the grab and tug thing again?”
“You may like that, but it doesn’t do a thing for me except give me sticky fingers. And not the good kind like after eating a giant cinnamon roll with extra glaze. Now, come on! We’re both old enough now. At eighteen, no one can say anything.” Grace tucked her fallen hair behind her ear and straightened her shoulders. “We’re consenting adults.”
“But…but… Oh, man…” Dusty slumped back into the couch cushions, defeated in his battle to keep her virginity intact. His virginity, too. He was about to be both a winner and a loser in the battle of fear of and desire for the greatest treasure the human body had to offer.
Grace pulled her tank top off over her head, then shimmied out of her jeans, standing before him: the goddess of female perfection in lace and lust. “You still have that condom, don’t you? I think you’ve been carrying that around since you were thirteen!”
“Oh, yeah…” Dusty reached into his hip pocket and pulled out his wallet. He fumbled through his single dollar bills until he found it. Hastily, he tore open the pale blue packet, then moaned as it fell apart in his fingers.
Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked up to her.
“What?” she asked. She took it from him and held it under the lamp on the end table. “Oh, shit!” She huffed and grunted in frustration, then looked up to see his reaction.
Eyes red with stifled tears, Dusty wiped under his nose, trying to compose himself. His emotions had fallen apart, but the message hadn’t been relayed to his male member, still hard and ready to procreate.
Grace gently touched the firmness in his red knit boxer shorts, so different now that she knew it was about to be hers. She leaned over and whispered, “Don’t worry. I’m a virgin, so since it’s the first time, I can’t get pregnant.” She took in the size of his erection — longer than the length of her hand — and winced, a slight groan escaping. “At least, that’s what Shawna said. Plus, just to make sure, you can pull out at the last minute or second or whatever. Shawna said it’s messy, but she’s had sex lots of times and she’s not pregnant.”
“Well, if you’re sure…” Dusty rolled sideways and sat up, fumbling with his jeans. “I’ll do this part. I know zippers are easier for you, but I didn’t think we were going to be doing anything like this tonight.” He stopped at the last button. “Are you sure your parents are gone for the whole weekend?”
Grace leaned against the wall, watching the awkward striptease by the young man who had fascinated her since he had started working with his father as a groundskeeper. Dusty was still gawky and lean but had the broadest shoulders of any man she’d ever seen without wearing full football regalia. He didn’t play for her school, but she didn’t care. That just meant he wasn’t stuck on himself like the guys at her private academy.
“Um…” Dusty paused and looked around the guest house living room that doubled as the game room. “Aren’t we supposed to have a bed or something? I really don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“We’ll figure it out. At least we’re not in the back of a car. You’re not only my best guy friend,” Grace said, shaking from both the chilly air and nerves, “you’re my first lover.”
Dusty stepped on the hem of the pant leg still tangled around his ankle. “And your last lover, too,” he added hastily and lifted his leg up, nearly toppling over. “Because I don’t ever want to lose you.”
Grace moved to his side quickly, shoring him up. “Kind of hard to lose someone who never wants to leave your side.” She glanced down and saw he was still ready for her. “Or your front,” she added with a giggle.
“You know, there’s no reason to rush into this…”
“Dusty, I’ve been waiting for two years, at least!” Grace reached around and unhooked her bra, freeing her perky breasts that didn’t really need a brassiere. “Tonight’s the first time we’ve been alone together, and I want you bad! I mean, I want you good. Or want you great. Oh, hell!”
Grace tossed her bra onto the couch and wrapped both arms around her sinewy wannabe lover, rubbing her belly against his, feeling with her abdomen what she had only touched with her hands. “Couch?” she panted.
“Oh, yeah…”
The teenage couple stumbled to the green damask-covered sofa, arms and legs bumping into each other as throw pillows were tossed aside, fingers fumbling to grab body parts and place them where their overstimulated hormones directed.
“Oh, man,” Dusty groaned, submitting to her climbing on top of his naked body. She scooted forward, trying to find a place to set her knee in the couch. Making the most out of the awkward situation, she bent forward and kissed him as she reached back to find his cock. She rubbed it against the fuzziness of her pubic hair and tried to straddle him.
“I don’t think I can stop…” he moaned as his back arched, trying to penetrate her.
“Then don’t,” she whispered.
“Huh?” he asked, paralyzed in fear that she had changed her mind.
“Don’t stop, I mean. Please.” She found her moist opening and gently sat back on his dick, wiggling to get it in all the way. “I want you so bad
I ache!”
Dusty pushed up further, eliciting a squeak from his partner. “Does it hurt?” he asked, pausing.
“No. I…I…” She lifted her hips and came back down on him, slowly, then lifted up again, her lady muscles automatically squeezing as she moved up, relaxing as she sat back down. “Oh, man…”
The two quickly found their rhythm. “Oh, oh, oh!” Grace squealed as an orgasm approached.
“Should I stop?” he asked.
She squirmed on top of him, enjoying her last shudder, then sighed in completion. “Not yet, but let’s change places.”
The two disengaged and Dusty climbed on top. They started again slowly, the music on the CD player setting them up with a new pace. Gradually, their movements increased to a drum roll speed, the rock tune unheard. Suddenly, he paused, eyes wide in shock.
“Ah, shit!” he shrieked and quickly pulled out, squirting his load on the couch.
“Huh?” she asked, confused at the abrupt loss of physical contact.
“Babies,” he panted. “Not today, I hope.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
“I’m glad I didn’t. Just a sec.” Dusty stood up and retrieved his boxers from the pile of abandoned clothing. “I’ll clean this up.” He wiped the spilled seed from between her legs. Let’s hope the coach was wrong. He said whenever you have sex could be the time you make a baby. I guess I shouldn’t tell her that word is that Shawna’s already had two abortions.
“Um, can we do it again? I mean, I thought it was going to hurt the first time.”
“For me or for you?” Dusty asked. “Because it sure didn’t hurt me!”
“For me. I guess that time I fell on my cousin’s bike rail did make a difference. I remember my mom saying something about how it popped my cherry.”
“Huh?”
“That virgin piece that gets in the way and is pierced the first time a woman has sex. I think it’s called the hymen or hybrid or something like that. Anyhow, I broke it when I was six. I remember when it happened, it hurt like I’d been slammed down there with a hammer. I bled, too. It stopped hurting a few hours later, though. I guess it was a small sacrifice. Oh, and hey! I think I had my first orgasm.”
“Really? What was it like?” Dusty asked, grateful for the pause in activities so he could recover.
“Um, you know how when you ride on the Ferris wheel you get all tingly down there?”
“Oh, yeah. I thought only guys got that. I mean, it can give a guy a boner if he’s not careful.”
Grace giggled at the word boner, then composed herself. “So, did you have an orgasm, too?”
“Well, with a guy it’s different. There’s a visible spurt when he has one. Kind of hard to fake.” He held up the shorts he’d used as a washcloth. “Proof positive.”
“Keep that close at hand,” she said. “I think we’ll need to use it at least once more. Sex is fun. Now I know why everyone likes it so much.”
“Anything for you, Gracie. Anything.”
***
“Oh, shoot! Look at the time! I gotta get home or my dad will clobber me. We have to start work at six tomorrow. I hope I can sneak in without him seeing me.”
Grace rolled off his outstretched arm. “It’s three o’clock? Yeah, I guess I’d better get busy and clean up this place. I don’t think my folks will be back until tonight, but I was supposed to be staying with Shawna. We kinda-sorta made a mess in here.”
The two cuddled close to each other on the couch, their eyes following the trail of clothes and scattered magazines from the coffee table, the pool cues and chalk now on the floor, the pool table cover wadded into a pillow on top of their impromptu bed.
“I’ll never forget this night,” Dusty said and stood up. “But I really have to leave. You’re okay with cleaning this up by yourself?”
“Pbbt! Of course I am.” She got up and turned her face into his chest, giving him a quick kiss on his sparse chest hairs, inhaling deeply to memorize his musky scent. “Give me a call later if you can.”
“I’ll do better than that. If we finish early, I’ll drop by and see you. But I can’t get done early if I don’t make a good showing for the old man.” Dusty stepped into his jeans and quickly jumped up twice to get them all the way on.
Giggling behind her hand at his male parts bouncing with the quick-dress movement, Grace suddenly remembered his skivvies. She looked over at the very well-used cleanup cloth. “Um, I think you forgot something…”
His face brightened red in embarrassment. “Just throw them away. The next time, I’ll make sure we have something more suitable.”
“Ah,” Gracie sighed, her hand brought up to caress her breast in recall. “The next time.”
Dusty pulled his tee-shirt on over his head, grabbed his socks from the floor and stuffed them in his pants pocket, then stepped into his tennis shoes. He gave her a quick kiss, groaned, then bent in to embrace her with a full-body hug and smooch. “I can’t wait to have you every morning, noon, and night for the rest of my life. But it’s going to have to wait. I really do love you, you know.”
“Yeah, me too,” Grace said. “On everything.” She patted him on the shoulder and urged him to the door. “Go. Now. If you don’t, I won’t let you out of my sight again. Ever.”
“All right. Tonight if I can. And if I can’t, I’ll find a way.”
“Find a way…” Grace said, and moved him out the door, shutting and deadbolting it behind him. “Because I’ll be waiting,” she said to herself softly. She looked at the daunting task of cleaning up the normally tidy room, then decided it could wait a few hours. She picked up one of the throw pillows from the floor and cuddled up with it on the couch. “I can’t imagine life without you now.”
***
“What in the hell happened in here?”
Grace awoke disoriented, her mother’s shrill voice like tiny knives in her head, trying to carve their way out of her brain through her ears. She shook her head, struggling to remember where and who she was.
“Well? Answer me!”
Still clutching the pillow close, Grace realized she was naked, in a room not her own, and her mother was back almost a day earlier than planned. The first two dilemmas weren’t as bad as the last one. If Mother was home early, that meant her parents had had another major blow-up. Would Dad finally get fed up and leave? And if he did, where would she go? She still had two weeks of school left until she graduated.
Grace felt her mother’s cold, bony hand grab her chin, bringing her out of her daze. “I asked you,” she said icily, her eyes piercing, looking for the telltale signs of lying. “What happened here?”
“I didn’t want to go to Shawna’s,” she said honestly, hoping her talent for storytelling was wide awake and creative. “I put on some loud music, shot pool until three in the morning, then got tired.” All true except I used the pool table for a different purpose.
“And your clothes…”
“Bra was too tight after binging on chips and soda. Plus, it was hot.” Grace quickly scanned the room, looking for more fodder for her fabrication. “You know, you really ought to have that handyman check out the heating and cooling system in here. One minute, everything’s fine; the next minute, I’m sweating like a boxer.”
And then she saw them, lying next to the trash can she had thrown them at and missed. Grace quickly looked away and focused on the pool table, hoping her mother hadn’t followed her gaze to see Dusty’s left-behind red underwear.
“Speaking of boxers,” her mother said. She walked over and kicked at the wadded shorts. She noticed the stiff and shiny spots where body fluids had dried and her blood pressure skyrocketed. “It looks like you had company,” she said through clenched teeth.
“What are those doing there?” Grace asked, trying to look shocked rather than embarrassed. Yeah, what are those doing there? They should have made it to the bottom of the trash, at least!
“I don’t know what I did to have such an ungrateful daughter. I put
up with your father’s pawing and whining just so you can have a nice home and the finer things in life. A home to be proud of, not to bring horny boys to for a good time. How many times? How long has this been going on?” Victoria asked, her nails digging in as she clenched her daughter’s upper arm. “It was that gardener’s kid, wasn’t it?”
“Let go! You’re hurting me,” Grace yelped, shoulder dipping as she tried to twist out of her mother’s angry grasp. She knew it was useless, though. Her mother always got to have her own way through intimidation and, lately, her physical prowess. All those hours she spent at the gym were good for more than sporting the tightest abs and best-toned legs of any woman in her forties. She could twist the freckles off a frog if she had a mind to.
Grace had made her mother angry many times in the past but this time, she was livid. Was it because sex was involved or had she had a spectacularly horrid time with Dad and come back early, ready to blame someone – anyone –for her miserable existence? This time, Mother hadn’t even tried to lecture her. She had gone straight to screaming and grabbing.
Slap!
“What was that for?” Grace asked, her hand up to cover her stinging cheek.
“Who was it? No, never mind. I’m pretty sure it was that lowlife without prospects for a decent future.” Victoria paced the room, walking and plotting, pausing to snort in indignation, then stopped suddenly. Her eyes brightened and a conniving smile spread across her face as she realized she could still make this work in her favor. Grace had just sped up the time frame. Her daughter would just have to skip college and go straight to a well-contrived marriage. She had saved the family a fortune in tuition, sorority fees, living expenses and probably a trip to Europe or two.
Grace watched her mother pace but didn’t engage her. Instead, she stooped to pick up her clothes and got dressed, stealing sidelong glances to keep track of the mercurial moods. She had just set the pool table straight when she saw Mother’s devilish smirk appear. Crap!
The Set Up (Triplets: Three Aren't One Book 1) Page 1