: Chapter 9

Xander leans against the kitchen island with his signature cocksure grin on his face.

“Did you do anything?” Zeke asks.

Xander shakes his head. “Well, nothing more than a kiss. I was a good boy. As much as I wanted to take her up on her invite to come in for a beer.”

Leaning forward, I rest my hands on the countertop. “She invited you in?”

Of course she fucking did. He looks like Ryan Gosling’s better-looking younger brother.

“I told her I’d see her at dinner tomorrow.” He checks his watch. “Or more like tonight now, I guess.”

Zeke pours himself another Scotch and sits on a stool. “So we’re doing this again?”

Xander hops up and sits on the counter while I stare at Zeke, his face etched with worry and a deep-seated sadness that makes my heart feel heavy. “Do you want to try this again?” I ask.

“It’s not my decision to make,” he replies with a shrug, staring into his glass.

“No. It’s all of ours, Zeke.”

He lifts his head, his dark eyes piercing into mine. “But you and Fitch want to, yeah?”

I glance at Xander who nods. “I do. I mean I love you both, you know that. But …”

“We’re a lot to handle on your own,” I finish for him.

He closes his eyes like it pains him to admit that, but I get it. Zeke and I are pretty full-on.

“I’m a lot to handle,” Zeke adds before downing his drink.

Xander runs his hand through his hair. “I never fucking said that, Z.”

“It would be a whole lot easier if I could just fuck random strangers like you both can though, wouldn’t it? Or if I wasn’t so messed up that I made all the others go running for the fucking hills as soon as they find out the shit I’m into.”

“You are not messed up,” I tell him. “They didn’t all leave because of you. They left because the three of us together were too much, Zeke.”

Xander runs a hand through Zeke’s thick hair and gently tugs his head back. Zeke doesn’t pull away from his grasp, which is unusual for him. “It’s all three of us or none of us, Z. Like it’s always been.”

Zeke’s eyes land on mine again. “You want to do this, West?”

I didn’t think I’d want this again. When we agreed that Ebony would be the last one, we meant it. But that was before Lily. With her sweet laugh and sparkling green eyes. And legs I can’t stop imagining wrapped around my neck. I knew in my office today that Xander and I liked her, but now that Zeke does too … “I think it’s worth one more shot.”

He shakes his head. He’s fighting this, even though I know he wants Lily just as much as we do. But something changed on the ride home. Like once he knew she was a possibility, he closed himself off again. “What makes this one any different than the others?”

“We all met her separately and liked her, despite not knowing how the other two felt,” I say. “That’s never happened before.”

Zeke shakes his head. “That’s a nonissue. What matters more is how she’ll respond to us. The women we’ve done this with before have been …” He rubs a hand over his thick beard.

“Been what?” I ask.

He sucks on his top lip, as though he’s searching for the right word. “Experienced. They weren’t some kid fresh out of college who works as a fucking bike messenger.”

Xander snorts and drops his hand from Zeke’s hair. “Judgy much?”

“You know what I mean,” he says with a heavy sigh. “We’ve always found women through recommendations. Women who we knew would be into group stuff. She’s so fucking young and naive.”

“Young, yes,” I admit. “I don’t get a naive vibe from her at all. And if you’re going to hold her job title against her, may I remind you of Helena?”

Xander snorts a laugh, but Zeke frowns. “Helena?”

“Guinea pig number three,” Xander answers. “She did those singing telegrams.”

Realization dawns on Zeke’s face, and he rolls his eyes. If I recall, she barely lasted a month, so she probably wasn’t the best example. “Maybe something different is what we need,” I add, before he gets lost in the memories of all the women who haven’t worked out for us. My gut tells me that Lily’s worth taking a risk on.

“Maybe we do everything different?” Xander suggests.

I scowl. “What do you mean?”

“I mean …” He slips off the countertop and runs a hand thought his blond hair. “We’ve always approached this like a fucking business arrangement rather than a relationship. Maybe that’s why it always kinda felt like a contract instead of something that might last.”

Zeke’s eyes narrow as he stares at our best friend. “Are you suggesting we don’t have an NDA?”

Xander shoves his hands into his pockets. “Fuck yes, I’m suggesting that.”

I breathe out a sigh. “But what if—”

“Fuck your what-ifs, West. How about we just fucking tell her what we want and don’t make her sign anything. How about we just do this like it’s something we all want and not like some business deal.”

I run my tongue over my bottom lip. We’ve never done this without some kind of contract in place. The NDAs were my idea to begin with, but Xander and Zeke were on board. Having things in writing offers us protection when these things inevitably go south.

Xander’s blue eyes lock on mine. “How do we start something that might last forever when we go into it preparing for it to end?”

I swallow hard. I guess he has a point. But still …

Zeke looks between Xander and me. “So what? We just tell her we want a relationship with her? All three of us? No contract, no boundaries?”

Xander throws his hands in the air. “There’s boundaries in every relationship, Z. Most people don’t feel the need to write them into a fucking twenty-page contract.”

That’s an obvious dig at me, but I let it go. I’m tightly wound enough at the moment without dwelling on my neurotic tendencies.

“So we just invite her to dinner tonight and tell her we all want to …” I stop short of saying fuck her, but that’s all I’ve been able to think about since I saw her in that sinful red dress that hugged her curves like it was painted on. Fuck, it’s practically all I’ve thought about since she came stomping into my office with those papers.

“Yep,” Xander replies with a firm nod. “I don’t know about you two, but I’ve been thinking about sinking my cock between those full pink lips from the first moment she opened them,” he adds with a chuckle, defusing the tension in the way he does so well.

“What do you think, West?” Zeke asks.

I stare up at the ceiling, running through the pros and cons.

“Stop overthinking and just fucking answer, West,” Xander admonishes me.

I suck in a breath. Maybe he’s right. Maybe we do need to try something different. I look at Xander, who’s now standing behind Zeke with his arms wrapped around his shoulders. “Fine. Let’s do this your way and see how it works out.”

“Great.” A slow, sexy smile spreads across his face and he kisses Zeke’s neck. “You okay with this too, big guy?”

Zeke merely grunts and wraps a thick arm around Xander’s neck, pulling him closer. Rolling my eyes, I go to leave.

“Hey,” Xander calls, stopping me in my tracks.

“Yeah?”

He cocks his head, motioning for me to come closer. With a sigh, I step toward him. He places a hand on my cheek and says in a soft voice, “Thanks.”

“I hope we don’t regret it, Fitch.” With that, I leave them to it and go to bed alone with a raging hard on and thoughts of Lily swimming in my head.

Staring out the kitchen window, I look down at Central Park and watch the morning joggers and the dog walkers with a pang of something that I can’t quite identify. The soft pad of footsteps comes from behind me, and a few seconds later, the heat from his hard chest warms the bare skin of my back. He plants his hands beside mine on the counter.

“You okay?” he asks in his gruff voice, still heavy with sleep.

“I’m good.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve been monopolizing Fitch’s time.”

“It’s fine,” I say with a sigh.

“Is it?”

“I just fucking said it was, Zeke.” I instantly regret snapping at him.

His warm breath dusts over my neck, and I close my eyes. A second later he puts his hot mouth on the side of my throat, trailing his teeth across my skin. When his hand slides across my abs, I stifle a groan. He pulls me back as he rocks his hips and presses the hard length of his cock against my ass.

I hiss out his name, my aching cock leaking precum. It’s been too fucking long since I had any sort of release.

“You always pull back from us when you’re stressed. It’s not good for you.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “This merger is fucking exhausting, Z.”

“I know,” he says softly, teeth and lips teasing my skin and pushing me closer to the edge. “But this is our merger. You don’t have to carry the weight of everything alone.”

“I know that.” The truth is I do have to carry it all though. I’m the one who’s responsible for every t being crossed and every i being dotted. If I fuck up one single thing, the whole deal could fall to pieces. Of course, the other truth is that I thrive on the pressure. I always have, and I don’t see that ever changing.

His hand skates lower, dipping into the waistband of my sweatpants. “Is there anything I can do?”

I groan. “You can stop doing that for a start.” I don’t have time for whatever he has in mind, no matter how tempting he may be.

His teeth clamp down my neck for a second before letting go. “Masochist,” he grumbles. But he does as I asked, and soon the warmth of him is gone and I’m standing alone in the kitchen.