He trailed his fingers over her palm, letting them hover there so only their fingertips touched. Then with his other hand, he stroked his thumb over her cheek, his touch so gentle that she gasped. I watched in awe as Rusty gazed at Carina with wonder in his eyes.
She tentatively reached up and touched his chest, the brush of her fingertips as featherlight as his.
This was really happening.
Rusty was feeling something more than friendship. He was attracted to Carina.
My breath caught and my belly swooped. It was every dream come true.
I thought I hadn’t wanted anything to change between us. I was wrong. This was revelatory. This changed everything, and it was perfection.
“Can I kiss you?” he rumbled, a deep rasp in his voice.
“God, yes,” she breathed and trailed her hands lower, down to his hips.
twenty-five
Rusty
IknewCarinawasdifferentthe moment I’d met her. I’d heard the gossip on the radio, and it had almost wrecked me. I’d struggled to keep my head above water in those few hours until they’d arrived home. Talking to Jacques had relieved my worries, but there was still this woman who was now going to be living with us. I was nervous as hell about what would happen, but I needn’t have worried.
The woman standing in front of me had swept in like a breath of fresh air for all of us.
She was objectively beautiful. Long, dark, wavy hair, deep umber eyes, pouty pink lips, and curves for miles—thick hips and thighs, a beautifully rounded belly, and big breasts. She was stunning. But the more I’d gotten to know her sweetness and vulnerability, the more beautiful I discovered she was.
She’d been worried about me getting tested because they hadn’t used protection with one another. She was uncertain about how things would work between us, but she’d never lashed out. That gentleness with an underlying will of steel held both my respect and attention. She never let anything overcome her. The day we’d hiked to Peñasquitos Falls, she was feeling genuinely ill, yet she’d refused to turn back. There was no way she was going to give up and let an easy hike—or a very adverse reaction to dog shit—overcome her.
There wasn’t a mean bone in Carina’s body either. She’d been cheated on and lied to, and yet she never spoke badly about her ex. Her daughter was her world, and she recognized how much Hux needed her acceptance. She never left him in any doubt that she was the mom he could rely on to be there for him.
She respected me too. At first, I’d wondered whether her reaction to my existence was genuine. But her concern was real. She didn’t want to make me uncomfortable. I loved watching her with Travis and Jacques. She made them happy, and I loved seeing it.
The other women they’d been with hadn’t inspired even a second glance from me. It had never even occurred to me that Jacques and Travis might want more with one of them. If it had, I think it would have inspired a simmering rage in me that would have festered in an unhealthy way. It would have turned into an ugly green-eyed monster. But it had never once happened with Carina. We’d agreed to open communication from the first moment she was here, and she’d honored her end of the bargain, opening up to me and genuinely trying to become friends.
The first time I slept with Jacques and Travis after they’d hooked up with a woman, it was always intense. It was just like how we’d been with Travis when Billy flirted with him when we’d gone dancing. Jacques and I had needed to remind Travis he was ours as much as we knew he wanted the reminder. I would mark them and fill them until they were jelly-legged and my cum was leaking from them. I hadn’t felt the need to do that with Carina.
She was different. After my discussions with Jacques, then that first conversation with Carina, I wanted them to be together. She made Travis and Jacques happy, and that made me happy too. Maybe it was as simple as her knowing about us, but deep down, I knew that even if Jacques hadn’t confided to her that we were together, she would have respected my relationship with them. She purposefully made herself scarce some nights so that it was just the three of us guys, and that usually happened when I needed it most. She read my emotions like we’d known each other all our lives.
Our friendship may have started off rocky given the emotionally charged circumstances it began in, but Carina’s patience and protectiveness over me—a complete stranger who was in a relationship with both the man she’d married and the man she’d also slept with—had solidified my respect for her. After speaking with Jacques, I never believed for a second that Carina was there to steal them or Jacques’s money. I knew she didn’t have a lot—at least not compared to Jacques or me—but she never asked for a thing except time and kindness. There were no passive-aggressive hints that she needed expensive gifts or jewelry, no pining after a trip to Paris. Material things didn’t seem important to her. She shopped from the sale racks and turned down the thousands, then the millions that Jacques’s agent offered her. Yet her face lit up when a jar of the ghastly black shit she ate on her toast in the mornings was delivered care of Travis and his online shopping obsession during quiet nights at the station.
She genuinely cared about all of us too. She’d told Jacques over and over that he needed to speak with his parents—not so he could persuade them to accept her, but so that his relationship with them wouldn’t suffer. She stressed when Travis went to work and made sure I could stick to the routines that kept me healthy. She wasn’t religious, but she sat next to me on that pew every week, lending me her silent support, regardless of whether Jacques and Travis were there with us, at work, or still in bed.
Her trust in me meant the world. She confided her insecurities to me. She told me her worries about the future and what it would look like in a few years. She was still working out who she was now that her ex was out of the picture, and her ability to be vulnerable and admit it showed a strength that was impressive. I knew her identity was becoming clearer. Her quiet grace and fierce loyalty was starting to shine again. She’d rediscovered her love of music—I wanted her to have more of it. I often found her and Jacques dancing in the kitchen while singing along to tunes. That was a start, but I wanted more for her. I wanted to give her the world. She was determined to make something of her new life. I just hoped that whatever she decided it would look like would be a celebration of her, not something she settled for.
With every little thing she revealed about herself and every interaction we had, my feelings for her grew. At first, I was curious to learn about who she was, then I started wanting to spend time with her. I looked for her in the room, and I wanted to be close to her. She made me smile, and I did the same for her. In exactly the same way that I’d fallen for Jacques and Travis, Carina had crept in and lodged herself in my heart. I was still scratching my head at the how, but it didn’t really matter. Apparently, I wasn’t just demisexual, I was polyamorous too—which I already knew—but also biromantic and bisexual. No fucking wonder I’d been confused as a teenager.
But the confusion was gone. Standing in front of me, wearing a sexy pair of fitted jeans and a pale pink bra was the only woman I’d ever been attracted to.
I ran my thumb over her soft cheek and let my fingertips trail along her jaw to tilt her face up to me. Her eyes were bright, and her pouty lips begged me to lean in and steal a taste. But she deserved to be savored, to be sipped like a fine wine aged to perfection. I let my eyes slip closed and my body speak. I pressed a soft kiss to her jaw, mirroring the path my fingers had taken. When I reached the corner of her mouth, I pressed a lingering kiss there, cherishing the gift she was giving me. I nuzzled her cheek with my own, my stubble rubbing against her smooth skin. I breathed her in, capturing the floral scent that lingered on her in my lungs.
When I finally brushed my lips against hers, I bit back my moan and kept it gentle. I let out my aggression with Travis and Jacques—when I controlled things, it turned them on—but Carina brought out a different side of me. Softer and slower. I wanted to map every inch of her body with my fingertips, my lips, and my tongue. I wanted to taste her moans and breathe in her body’s reactions.
I pressed another lingering kiss to her lips, then touched my tongue to them. She opened immediately, never hesitating to meet me in the middle. My first taste was more of a tease—a touch, then a retreat. I splayed my hand on her lower back, the dip in her spine a temptation I couldn’t resist. I trailed my fingertips up to her bra strap and back down to the waistline of her jeans. She stepped closer, pressing her body to mine, and I moaned. She was all soft curves and rolls, and I wanted to lose myself in her.
The brush of her shoulder strap sliding against my arm had me breaking the kiss and trailing my lips down her throat to her collarbone.
Travis was behind her, shirtless and gorgeous. “Can I take this off, darlin’?” he asked, touching Carina’s other bra strap.
“Please,” she begged.
