“Deal with…” I tilted my head to indicate the room in general. “This amount of macho, testosterone, hot guy intensity all in one place.”
She snorted, choking on restrained laughter. “Honestly, you never really get used to it. They’re all so fucking gorgeous it’s just stupid. What’s worse is, no matter which order you look at them in, they’re each hotter than the last. It’s a problem. And when they’re all in one room like this, my ovaries tend to go a bit haywire.”
Sebastian—whom everyone else seemed to call Bast—heard this exchange, since he was right there with Dru on his lap. “Did you know we have our own secret fan page on Facebook?” His voice was so deep I felt it vibrating my stomach, yet it was smooth and rumbly, reminding me of nothing so much as the warning snarl of a grizzly bear.
Dru twisted on his lap and eyed him skeptically. “Bullshit.”
Sebastian glanced at Xavier, who had slid to a spot on the floor with his back against the wall, a bit separated from the rest of the group. “That Facebook fan page you stumbled across, Xavier—Dru doesn’t believe it exists.”
Xavier lifted up, snagged a tablet computer off the island counter, and sat back down, flipping the device open and tapping and swiping so fast his finger was a blur. In seconds, he had something pulled up, and passed the tablet to the nearest person, Lucian, who was sitting on a stool. Lucian scrolled, frowning slightly, and then snorted a soft breath out of his nostrils.
“Crazy. There really is a fan page. Who knew?” His voice was quiet, soft, and smooth. “How’d you find it, if it’s a secret, invite-only page?”
Xavier shrugged, a little too casually. “You know. Just…one of those things.”
Sebastian laughed. “Meaning you hacked in?”
“More or less,” Xavier answered, shrugging, but not quite able to suppress a mischievous grin.
Lucian handed the tablet to Canaan, who shared it with Corin, both of them taking turns swiping and tapping in eerily perfect synch.
Corin passed it off to Baxter, and I glanced over his shoulder.
“Dude, some of those chicks are seriously thirsty. Some of the shit they post would make even Claire blush.”
The name of the page wasBadd’s Bar and Grill in Ketchikan, Alaska: home of the eight most sinfully gorgeous brothers on the planet.A bit of a long and wordy title for a Facebook Page, but it conveyed the content clearly. And as Baxter scrolled through the page, tapping on a post or a photo here and there, it became obvious what Corin was talking about. Most of the posts were photos of the brothers taken by patrons of the bar. Some were candid, and others were selfies of the patron with one or two of the brothers. These guys were like small-scale local celebrities, it seemed, judging by the sheer number of photos posted to the page. And, as Corin had said, the posts were almost uniformly libidinous.Indeed, reading some of the posts, I did blush. They mentioned in explicit detail what they wanted to do, and to whom, and for how long, and in some cases, in which position. Others just featured suggestive use of emojis, and some were an open invitation addressed to the brother in the photo; one such was a photo of a buxom blonde cozied up to Baxter, grinning ear to ear, who had added a caption to the photo:bax, if you’re ever in D.C. hit me up and I’ll suck your cock until you can’t walk straight—and then she included in a comment beneath the photo her phone number and a photo of herself, naked in front of a mirror, with stars added by a filter to cover her nipples.
Bax left the photo and the comment up, and passed it to Sebastian, laughing. “Seriously, though, check out that shit. I meandamn… that’s forward. Just straight up find me in D.C. and I’ll blow you? Not even asking for a howdy-doo first or anything. And she leaves her phone number? I mean sure, it’s a private, invite-only, all-female group, but still. That shit isbold, man.”
“And would you?” I asked, unsure what answer I was hoping for. “Find her in Washington for a free blowjob? And, by the way, the phrase is actuallywithout so much as a how-do-you-do.”
Bax winked at me. “Eva, sweetheart, I’ll be straight with you. Yes, I would, in a New York second. But—and this is the shit you gotta hear—not if I’ve got someone else around I’m interested in. I don’t play mind games or bullshit like that. If I’m into someone, straight up, my interest is locked and loaded and I will not be distracted by anyone or anything, not even a free BJ from a bottle blonde with silicone tits. Naw’m’sayin’?” He slurred the final phrase so badly that I wasn’t sure, at first, what he’d said.
“They were rather obviously fake, weren’t they?” I said.
“Nobody is born with tits that firm and that perfectly round. That shit is silicone or I’m Freddy Mercury.” He eyed me, and his gaze deliberately slid down to my breasts, and then back up to my eyes. “And lemme just point out that while I’m not, like, against it, that look ain’t really my aesthetic. I prefer things…natural.”
I felt my nipples harden under his scrutiny. “I see. Good to know.”
“How did my story about meeting Brock get hijacked into a conversation about Evangeline’s luscious mounds?” Claire demanded.
I blushed yet again, and crossed my arms over my chest. I was naturally well-endowed, a fact which I was beginning to think, clearly, had not escaped the notice of, well, anyone in the room. I half-wished I’d left my bra on, but it had just felt far too good to take it off and let the girls breathe a little, and I hadn’t been expecting…well, any of this.
“Luscious means delicious, succulent, lush, and juicy, Baxter. Just so you don’t miss the context of the comment,” Brock said.
Baxter glared at Brock. “Shut your vapid shithole mouth, you waifish bitch of a man. Ididgo to fucking college, you know.” He glanced at me, addressing his next comment to me. “I graduated high school at seventeen, got a full athletic scholarship to Penn State, started varsity all four years, and carried a three-six GPA, graduating withcum laudewith a degree in Special Education. Just so you know.”
I blinked at him. “You have a degree in Special Ed?”
He shrugged. “I had some experience with it in high school. Never did anything with it, since I got drafted by the CFL after I graduated.”
“The Canadian Football League?” I specified.
He nodded. “It was that or try out at the combine, and it seemed like playing ball in a pro league would be a better experience than playing some shitty farm team somewhere in Butt-Fuck Illinois or wherever. The NFL drafting process is complicated, and I just wanted to play ball.” He shrugged. “I had the Bears, the Patriots, and Seattle all put down offers to sign me earlier this year, but then I got word that I was needed back here, so…here I am.”
Sebastian leaned forward to look at Bax. “You had actual offers?”
Bax shrugged. “Yeah. I was talking through the best options with my agent when that shitstick attorney called me—what was his name?”
