Oh my God. Being asked for permission in such explicit terms makes me want to wrap my other leg around Tobias’s waist, but I’m too weakened by the kiss to do anything but nod my consent. I’m boneless between three hard bodies. They’re holding me up. Tobias by the throat, Gabe supporting most of my weight from behind, Banks keeping me in utter thrall with his mouth—a mouth I gasp into when Gabe flattens my breasts with his hands, his middle fingers stroking roughly around my hard nipples—and I’m shaking almost violently now.
“What about you?” Gabe rumbles into my hair, pinching my nipples between his knuckles, increasing the pressure until I’m panting, breaking the kiss with Banks. Staring back into his glittering eyes in wonder. From both of us. “What are you going to do to her?” Gabe asks again, his lap making contact with my bottom, lifting me onto my toes.
“Me?” Tobias winds the sides of my skirt in his hands, dragging the material up my thighs, landing my now-bare bottom in Gabe’s lap. “I’ll tend to the pussy, of course.”
He starts to kneel—
The lights turn on in the tram car—and it jolts into movement.
A voice crackles over the loudspeaker, the words as impossible to discern as before, but the jarring feedback is enough to send me screeching back into reality. I’m sandwiched in between three men I just met. I’m kissing one of them, another is fondling my breasts and I have no idea what the third man is about to do, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him do it before on the screen of my phone while turning up the speed setting on my vibrator.
We are going to be on the other side of this ride in like, under a minute and I’m flushed, shaken, breathing like I just surfaced after a dive to the bottom of the ocean. In a way, I have. I’m so aroused, I’m almost disoriented while stumbling free of the three-way tug-of-war they’re playing with my senses, gulping down air while attempting to straighten my clothing.
“What was that?” I ask to no one specific. Or maybe I’m asking myself. “I don’t know what that was,” I clarify haltingly. “But I don’t just…I don’t do things like this.”
I cringe over the clichéd statement. It feels like something women are supposed to say to hide the fact that they enjoy sex, when we should be allowed to own it. I do own it on occasion. But this—three men I know so little about—commandeering my entire being like this has unnerved me. I’m an impulsive person when it comes to changing professions and trying new things. However, I am the opposite when it comes to personal relationships. My constant job hopping is the perfect guarantee that I don’t have time or energy for friendships or romantic entanglements. And this four-person affair, which I’m not entirely sure isn’t a shared psychosis, is nothing if not a giant tangle. As such, I’m desperate to break free of this shared bubble and get some fresh air. Get some space to think and breathe.
I make the mistake of glancing back at Banks, Tobias and Gabe. It’s a mistake because they all very obviously want me back between them, even if they seem a little thrown by what just happened, too. What prompted the whole thing?
Right. I asked out Gabe.
He’s looking at me now from beneath hooded eyebrows, as if he wants to revisit that invitation very badly. Now. But…I find I can’t do it. My mouth won’t form the words that will establish a second meeting with him. I won’t use this guy for my story. It feels wrong.
The door of the tram opens and I propel myself off, ignoring the baritone chorus of voices calling my name behind me, their footsteps hitting the sidewalk several yards behind. I hail the first yellow cab I see, resisting the urge to turn around in my seat as it flies down Second Avenue, secure in the fact that I’ll never see these men again.
And surprised when that realization makes me sad. Restless.
But I bite down on my lip to stop myself from asking the cab driver to go back. I’m not going to get distracted from the story. I’m not going to forget my purpose for the sake of something that has no viability. No chance of lasting. I’ve done that way too much throughout my life—and the cycle stops now. It has to.
I open my purse to get my credit card out, so I can pay for the cab when it arrives outside my building. After some increasingly frantic rooting around, my pulse skitters like dimes across a hardwood floor.
My Times badge is gone.
Chapter Four
Banks
* * *
We all stand beneath the tramway watching Elise go, oblivious to the sudden pandemonium at the tram station. While we’ve been stuck above the river, news stations have arrived, concerned loved ones have gathered and…apparently I’ve been dropped into an alternate universe where I become starved for a woman at first fucking glance.
I’m not sure about Tobias and Gabe, but I’ve certainly never had the impulse to run after a member of the opposite sex before. I’ve got more discipline than to follow through on the urge. So apparently do the other two men, though it’s obvious we’re all considering it.
I’ve made my living in rugby. It’s in my nature to adapt fast, to strategize and make the most advantageous choices, but at this very moment, I’m at a loss.
What happened on that tram?
Tobias is the first one to speak. Obviously.
“What in the bloody hell was that?” says the Brit in wonder, ten fingers buried in his hair. An adult film star. I’ve just shared a woman with an adult film star—granted, we didn’t get any further than making out. Still, this was definitely not on my bingo card. I should be on the phone with Vankman’s replacement, scheduling extra training sessions to get him ready for the match on Tuesday. I should be on the phone with my mother’s landlord, trying to convince them to take a payment from me, despite my mother expressly forbidding it.
Instead, I am obsessing over the way Elise’s tongue moved with mine. Like we’ve kissed before. Or like we’d been dreaming about it and finally got the chance.
Her mountain air scent is on my palms and I can’t stop myself from pressing both hands to my face and inhaling, the fly of my slacks still snug even though she’s long gone. Growing tighter at the renewed tease of her smell in my nose.
Again, what happened up there?
I feel almost drunk, but my senses are somehow sharper than ever.
Awake.
“I can’t believe she asked me out,” Gabe says, staring after the cab. A forlorn giant. “That beautiful girl asked me out.”
“That’s not a girl, that’s a woman,” Tobias says, wiping the back of his wrist across his mouth. Trying to hoard the taste of her, like me? The possibility irritates me, even as I understand it. Elise was—is—nothing short of extraordinary. Long limbs, that wild tumble of dark hair, eyes that could snap between vulnerable and skeptical in a matter of seconds. Sharp wit that was on display the moment she stepped onto the tram.
Of course all three of us were attracted to her.
But I can’t pretend that’s all it was.
“Dammit,” Gabe says, shoving his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt. “I should have just said yes.”
Tobias claps a hand down on the construction foreman’s shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up over it, erection boy. She still would have chosen me eventually.”