My breath punched out of my lungs when I looked up at Hux. Lust poured off him like a waterfall. His cheeks were flushed, and he white-knuckled the couch with the hand that he’d had on my shoulder. I knew that when Cara sat up, he’d be hard, and I was... intrigued. I wanted to watch him with her. I wanted to see the way he moved inside her.
Purely for science.
Cara smoothed her dress down and clambered off the couch, almost tripping as she did. Hux reached for her, steadying her before she fell, and froze when he saw me staring at him. The hard ridge of his cock tented his loose shorts. His balls were high and tight, two perfect spheres snug under the base of his cock. That desire to reach out and touch him flared hard. I knew it was the remnant of desire that had been flooding my system only a moment earlier, like the fading high of adrenaline after having a rush.
I adjusted myself and smirked, gesturing to Cara as she opened the door for the room service trolley to be wheeled in. “She’s addictive.”
“She is,” he replied. His voice was smoky and gravelly at the same time, rough and deep, and I wondered what he’d sound like when he’d just woken up, all sleep rumpled and warm.
I stood up and cleared the coffee table from the books and Cara’s laptop so the server could unload the trolley. When it was empty, Hux saw him out and joined us back at the couch. We dove in and ate silently, watching as Donna fell for Sam, Harry, and Kurt.
“I wish she didn’t have to choose,” Cara murmured. “They could have been happy.”
I wasn’t sure whether Hux’s half grunt, half hum was in agreement or otherwise, but there was no doubt in my mind that if Cara was worried about having to choose between us, she should stop. I would never make her do that, and from what I’d seen so far, Hux was open-minded enough to let it happen too.
I put my fork down and shifted my nearly empty plate onto the table before I turned on my seat to face her. I fingered a lock of her hair, gently pushing it over her shoulder, and said, “Maybe she doesn’t have to.”
Cara swallowed and looked at me wide-eyed. I sucked in a breath and tried to be brave. I wouldn’t ask Cara to choose, not because I didn’t want her, but because I knew she wanted Hux, and the more time we spent together, the more I liked the bloke. It wasn’t a hardship being with him.
There was an end date to this affair anyway. We could only ever last for a few weeks. An unfamiliar pang hit me in the chest when I thought about how Hux would go home and Cara and I would return to the Coast. It was anyone’s guess whether she would want to keep seeing me when we were back in our routines. I didn’t want to go back to being alone. I didn’t wantto watch her from a distance and remember times like tonight with melancholy. I wanted this to be the beginning of something lasting. I didn’t know whether it was possible, whether she and I were even on the same page with that.
But I wanted to try.
“My daughter is always telling me that societal conventions are a way to control the masses. She says that anything ‘other’ is looked upon badly. People become scared to rock the boat. But while we’re here, together like this, we can say screw that. We can do what makes us happy.”
Cara stilled, her fork halfway to her lips. Her eyes widened and she snapped her mouth shut. Then she swallowed.
She lowered her fork, and it landed with a quiet tinkle on the china.
Her eyes didn’t leave mine, and she stared at me as if she wanted to know the full depth of my implication.
fourteen
Care
My food was forgotten the moment Monroe said that I didn’t have to choose. Sure, he’d started off referring toMamma Mia, but in the next breath he’d turned it to us. I knew what Zali believed—we’d spoken about it before. She was living the life I wanted to be brave enough to reach out and grab. Except she had a couple more men than I thought I could handle.
Especially with my current level of relationship experience—zero.
But hearing Monroe effectively say, “Why choose?” had almost made me cry. That choice, the perceived need to pick one over the other when I genuinely couldn’t, had kept me up all night. I’d lain awake, trying to persuade myself that I was brave enough to ask for both of them. I had the speeches prepared, every argument for and against fully thought out. The only thing lacking was the courage to do it. I’d rehearsed asking the question, looking at myself in the mirror while I did it. I even tried recording myself on my phone. It was fine until I pictured their faces and imagined actually speaking with them. Then I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get the words out. It was a vicious cyclethat had kept me up until the pitch-black of the night had given way to the dawn’s early rays.
I’d resigned myself to having to give one of them up. I knew I would have to—Alec was only here for two weeks, so come the end of his trip we’d be over—but the dream was to have both of them for just a snapshot in time.
Then I'd become comfortable enough with them that I’d gotten my hopes up. I’d shown both Alec and Monroe affection without the other one going all caveman on me. I was halfway to convincing myself that we could make it work.
But when we’d arrived back in the building after the arcade, the change in Alec was swift and dramatic. He’d slammed walls into place and his guard shot up. Tension radiated off him. But it was the profound sadness, a resignation that I hadn’t seen before, that broke my heart. Monroe had seen it too, and like me, was lost on how to help Alec.
I hated seeing him hurting. I wanted to take it away and see that wicked smile back again. I couldn’t do anything in the lift—it was filled with people. But the moment the doors had opened on my floor and we were in relative private in the deserted corridor, I’d pulled him into my arms. He’d been stiff at first, but the more I spoke, the more he melted into my touch.
Monroe had joined me in comforting Alec. It was completely unexpected, but it shouldn’t have been. Monroe was kind, always looking out for people, and he’d heard the conversation about Alec in the team’s retreat room. Whatever happened at the rink today had been hard on him.
But I think the hug was exactly what Alec needed. Once he was in our arms, he’d breathed a little easier and his muscles had gone lax. It was as if the ropes binding the weight to his shoulders had loosened enough for him to shake free of them. I was just happy we were there for him.
Alec had soaked up our affection as if he was starved of it, and when he’d pulled back, I saw the familiar spark in him. He’d needed our touch. I got it; I think a lot of people did. Mum and I hugged, and so did Zali and I, but that was largely it. They say you need four hugs a day for survival. I often went days without a single one.
Right now, though, I wanted the kissing. I wanted it all. But I wouldn’t risk hurting them to get it. If they didn’t want to share, it couldn’t happen.
“You said we should do what makes us happy. Are you happy with me not choosing between you, Monroe?” I asked. He’d been married once. He’d fallen in love with Rosa, and they’d had a family together. It had ended in disaster, and from what Zali had told me, he’d been a bachelor ever since. He didn’t jump into bed with just anyone, and it was my biggest fear that he’d regret things after having waited to take that step.
