“I don’t know. Maybe…” A realization hits me like a lightning bolt. “My God, I think my conscience is reminding me to follow the rules.”
Her head tilts, sending her glorious hair cascading to the left. That neck.
This is pain.
If I don’t get the chance to grip her hips and give her the sweetest kind of hell soon, I’m going to forget the meaning of life.
Indulgence.
Although lately, that meaning has shifted to the indulgence of her.
“That’s right.” Heaven help me, she’s staring at my mouth, the color deepening in her cheeks. “We have rules.”
“I think I actually give a shite what Gabe and Banks think about me. In the escape room, we mutually decided that everyone needed to be okay with…”
“Two of us having sex,” she finishes. “Without the others.”
Just hearing the word “sex” in her husky tone of voice has me on the edge.
“Yes,” I say raggedly, pulling her close despite what I’ve just told her, our mouths open, panting against one another, my right hand reaching up between us to brush my fingertips over her nipple—and she moans, turning me inside out. “Fuck.”
“C-can we like…” She shakes her head, as if trying to break free of a daze. “Ask them?”
“Banks is in the middle of a match.” I’m already extricating the phone from my pocket and pulling up the rugby coach’s contact into. With my free thumb, I punch out a one-word text to the man—PLEASE—hoping the desperation comes through. Meanwhile, the goddess herself starts to text Gabe.
“Tell Gabe it’s a code red,” I say, drawing her up onto her toes so she can feel my dick getting stiffer for her. All for her.
“Uh…” Her eyelashes flutter, remaining at half-mast. “What’s a code red?”
“It means you need some action. Badly. Hopefully he’ll read between the lines.” I trace her jaw with my lips, adoring the way she leans into the treatment, a shiver passing through her.
She swallows. “Can’t argue with that.”
“Mmmm. You like me now, love?” I breathe against her mouth. “Don’t you?”
“At this moment I do,” she whispers, looking into my eyes. “But no accounting for tomorrow.”
I slant my mouth over hers and send my tongue on a thorough tour of her delicious mouth, the way I’ve been dying to do since she arrived outside. “I’ll take it.”
Our phones ding simultaneously.
I only need a split-second to acknowledge the thumbs up on both of our screens before I have her wrist locked in mine and I’m leading her toward the stairwell.
Elise
* * *
There’s a scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where the children and their plus ones get a tour of the mysterious plant. Everyone is oohing and ahhing. I used to rewind the scene where they enter the indoor park where every single object is edible. Flowers, mushrooms, the river—all candy or chocolate. For a long time that edible park symbolized utopia to me. Nothing would ever get better.
I never expected a stairwell to prove me wrong.
This is Shangri-La.
And all we’ve done so far is kiss, but it’s the anticipation, knowing what comes next that has tingles sailing through my bloodstream like the Willy Wonka paddleboat, but instead of traumatizing children, they are spreading excitement wherever they go. Stirring up needs that I would normally attempt to suppress or temper, but not right now. I let them ripple and dance. I’m riding too high to do otherwise. I’m in this untouchable bubble high above the ground knowing something wonderful is happening for Banks. That I stuck to my guns long enough to feel truly, wildly drawn to Tobias, body and soul. The very thought of Gabe existing makes my chest lighter.
It's almost as though Tobias is a representative of the three men, rather than an individual. They are all here with me while Tobias’s mouth feasts on my neck, suctioning an incredibly sensitive area beneath my ear until I make a frantic noise and he tears away, gripping my wrist and dragging me up another set of stairs.
“Where are we going?” I say, sounding like I just woke up from a bender.
“The roof,” he says unsteadily. “I can make a case for it being romantic.”
We round the metal rail and jog up one final set of stairs, a door marked No Trespassing ahead. “Do you care about this being romantic?”
“With you I do, Elise.”
My heart stuffs itself in the vicinity of my windpipe. This softie has been hiding behind the legendary sex god fa?ade all this time, hasn’t he? “I’m on the same page,” I manage. “Watching your butt climb these stairs is very romantic. Like, I’m ready to buy it a steak dinner and serenade it with some Luther Vandross.”