Cain kissed me until we were forced to break apart to breathe. The second his lips left mine, I felt empty and wanted to close the distance between us again.
“Tell me what I have to do, Rose. I’ll do it. I’d do anything for another shot with you,” he panted against my lips. His forehead pressed against mine, and I didn’t dare open my eyes. I was still processing the moment, my feelings conflicting in every way.
If it was even possible, the room grew more silent than it had been. Only the sounds of our breaths evening out could be heard in the room.
Cain released my hair and lightly massaged my scalp, whispering, “Please, Rose. Tell me what to do.”
This man had pushed his way in, chipping away at the frosty tundra barricading my heart. Again, though years later, he had me wanting to explore what could be.
Ilikedeasy. I liked no-strings-attached, easy companionship that I knew I could count on, yet still didn’t force me to be tied down. The life I led was perfect for me—everything I wanted, in fact. It wasn’t complicated. It wasn’t riddled with frustration or heartache. I never had to worry about if I was making someone else happy, or if I was making them miserable. Sly and I had a fantastic arrangement and delicious sex, and he didn’t expect me to be something that I wasn’t. He didn’t ask for more, or want more.
Cain would want more.
Could I give him that? Give him the piece of me that, other than his brother, no man had ever been given?
Commitment.
I could hardly even call what Brent and I hadcommitment, but it had been more than I’d given Sly.
Was I ready to let go of the simplicity of my arrangement, of mylife, just tofinallyexplore this connection between me and Cain? Clearly, after all these years, it hadn’t gone away. At least not completely. And that had to speak for something, right?
Still, there was so much that could go wrong. So much potential for the frustration and heartache I’d successfully avoided over the last several years.
And I knew…Iknew. Anything with Cain would be monumentally different than anyone who’d come before him.
I just wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
He continued to search my eyes as I battled my thoughts, so conflicted and ill-prepared to answer the question he’d asked me three times now.
Tell him what to do.
My heart seized, feeling as though he’d reached inside and was squeezing it tightly as he awaited my response.
I wasn’t ready to give up what I had with Sly just yet. The ease, the comfort. I couldn’t let it go for someone I knew could shatter my heart. So I responded with the only thing I could think would satiate him for the moment, the only thing I thought might buy me some time.
“Share me,” I whispered. “Share me with Sly. I’ll give you the chance to make things right, but on my terms. What I have with Sly is something you’ll never understand, Cain. He’s one of my best friends—a comfort. I’m not letting that go.”
“I’m not sharing you with another man, Rose,” he growled, his eyes narrowing with annoyance.
“You either share me, or you don’t get me at all, Cain. The choice is yours.” Pushing off him, I stood and practically ran over to my desk, grabbing the shopping list and my purse, before I bolted out of my office, leaving Cain sitting on my couch with a full view of me moving through the bar and out the doors, putting the much-needed distance between us so he could think about my offer.
CHAPTEREIGHT
“Wait a second—back up, Rosie. You told him towhat?” my best friend Elle whisper-shouted, her voice sounding a little strained with her question. A rustling of papers produced a deafening sound through the speaker, and I couldn’t help but wince slightly because of it.
Readjusting my cell to cradle between my shoulder and ear, I pressed up on my tiptoes and reached for the bottles of limoncello to place in my shopping cart. “I told him I wanted him to share me?” It wasn’t a question, but the uptalk in my voice made it sound like one. Hell, I was questioning my own sanity at this point.
“In terms of, what exactly?”
“You know,” I told her, reaching for a third and fourth bottle. Once I laid them next to the others on the metal grates, I grabbed the phone again, holding it in one hand while I pushed the cart with the other. “Share me with Sly. I want my cake and I want to eat it too, babe.”
That comment earned me a side-eye from the hunched over elderly woman in the aisle next to me. Holding a bottle of ten-dollar wine like her life depended on it, she scoffed before walking away as fast as her legs would carry her.
“So you want to have a threesome, then? With Sly and Cain?” Elle’s voice sounded distracted as she worked, her always manicured nails typing away at the keys in front of her. Elle was a journalist forThe Daily Reader, a passion she’d followed and stuck with since she was a teenager, evidently. I didn’t meet Elle until shortly after I’d moved to Ridgewood. Who knew I’d become besties with a chick I literally bumped into while I was buying condoms in preparation of a rebound?
Funny how life works.
“Shockingly, a threesome never even crossed my mind. I didn’t mean it so literally. Hey, how’s it feel having your mind in the gutter? It’s fun down there, isn’t it?”
