Kiss Me Twice Part 1 Read online

  I was pretty sure that his mom at least was a loving parent. But I was also sure... well, let’s just say, I didn’t expect me and my tattoos and my issues to be welcomed with open arms.

  Beside me my phone buzzed, indicating an incoming text. The sound startled Humper, who looked around, stretched, then took a flying leap... right into the wall.

  I snorted with laughter, which I immediately tried to cover with soothing sounds as my indignant cat batted at the other cat who was clearly trapped on the other side of the mirror, then stalked off to lick his wounds while my phone buzzed again. It was Dorian.

 

  I rolled my eyes, though just the suggestion from him made me start to think of naughty things.

 

  I meant it to be silly, but then I remembered last night, and how it felt to... to submit. That was the word, right? All of the BDSM reading I’d oh-so-sneakily done had talked about dominance and submission. And a good chunk of them also mentioned nipple clamps.

  And thinking about standing in front of my guys, in said thong and clamps, had my heart racing so hard that I was sure it must have counted as cardio.

  There was a long pause before my phone buzzed again, and I knew that Dorian was thinking the same thing. I laughed when I saw his one word response.

 

  Then,

 

  A pretty dress? What was he getting at?

 

 

  I couldn’t help but smile. Dorian thought he hid it well, but I knew it bugged him not to be able to buy me things. Personally, I couldn’t have cared less. But I knew it was important to him.

 

  Another pause.

 

  I dropped the phone, blood suffusing my skin as I remembered last night’s punishment.

  I wasn’t entirely sure that it was incentive for me to behave.

  Dorian had gotten me so hot and bothered that I contemplated drawing myself a nice hot bath and sliding my fingers between my legs to ease some of the pressure. But from the main floor I heard the door open, and uncertainty turned the arousal to ice.

  It was Mal. Part of me was super relieved that he’d worked through things enough to come back, but the rest of me? It filled with anxiety. What was I supposed to say, after all? Hey, I really liked watching you and Dorian make out. We should all do it again sometime?

  I listened to Mal pound up the stairs, and then he was filling the doorway, all big and hard and male, with those glasses perched on his nose—and man, he really made those glasses work.

  We stared at each other for a moment. That kiss between him and Dorian hanging in the air between us.

  “Hey, baby.” He moved first, closing the space between us and pulling me into a tight hug. In fact, I squeaked with surprise at the intensity of the embrace.

  “What’s wrong?” Pulling back, I brushed a lock of his hair from his face. There were a lot of emotions swirling in those eyes, and though I knew I was better than this, though I knew I owed my guys more trust, I felt my stomach tighten.

  “Don’t do that.” Pulling back, Mal frowned down at me, his fingers finding the tattoos on my arms and tracing over them.

  “Then tell me what’s wrong.” He looked like he was going to argue, and I arched my eyebrow at him.

  “I just... this is a weird thing to have to explain.” He proceeded to tell me about how his ex Emma had shown up in his law class, and worse, how they were assigned as partners.

  “It’s super awkward.” He looked miserable. “Are you upset?”

  I considered the question carefully. I didn’t for a moment think that it was an accident that Emma was in his class—somebody wanted her ex back.

  But was I threatened?

  I had a lot of issues and I knew it, but Mal getting back together with Emma?

  Well, I couldn’t say that I loved the idea. So yes, it worried me a bit, but mostly just because Mal seemed a little off.

  But I put these guys through enough on a daily basis. I was going to choose to trust.

  MAL

  Dorian and Adele were asleep when I finally got home. It had been cowardly, hiding out and pretending to study instead of heading out on a celebratory dinner with them.

  But...

  Man, there were so many buts. I swallowed them down for a moment as I watched the two of them, curled up together in the bed that we all usually shared. Adele was in Dorian’s arms, a ribbon of light from the streetlamp outside highlighting the ethereal beauty of her face. Even without me there, they kept to their respective places in the bed—Dorian on the left, Adele in the middle.

  She was always in the middle. She was the centre of our triad, and I loved her. I hadn’t told her yet, not in so many words, but the feelings I’d had when we’d first met had grown exponentially.

  And the love in our relationship wasn’t just about us.

  I watched as Dorian shifted a bit in his sleep, and that sliver of light highlighted his sharp cheekbones. He looked younger when he was sleeping, almost boyish, nothing at all like the dominant young man who’d kissed me last night.

  I kissed a boy and I liked it.

  I could freak out all I wanted, but I couldn’t make this any less true. I wasn’t prepared to delve too far into love or any of that ooey-gooey lovey-dovey stuff, but this... this I could admit. To myself. Alone. In the dark.

  Knowing both Adele and Dorian would yell at me if they woke up to find me oh-so-creepily watching them sleep, and at the same time not really comfortable crawling on in with them at that exact moment, I shut the door quietly, then headed down the hall to the spare room. Kicking off my shoes, I flopped down on the bed that Adele inherited along with the condo, and tried to figure shit out, because I wouldn’t be able to hide from them forever.

  Back when I’d first met Adele, I’d been prelaw, an athlete, and had my life planned out. Meeting her had blown all that out of the water, and even when I’d tried to step back into that life, it had never again fit quite right. Witness—I was in law school, yes. But I was also part of a committed relationship with three people, in a world that ran two by two. And even running into my ex-girlfriend, a sweet, pretty girl who was perfect for the me I’d once been wasn’t enough to entice me back to my old ways, and I was steeling myself for the fact that she would try.

  But were we just dreaming here? I mean, Dorian was a musician. People expected him to be weird. And Adele had her own reasons for being with us both.

  But in a couple of years I would finish up law school and start the rest of my life. And what then? Did I bring them both to company parties, one on each arm? Did I marry them both? Did Dorian and I just marry Adele but not each other? I sure didn’t want her arrested for practicing polyandry.

  How was this going to work?

  And if we couldn’t make it work, how could any of us ever recover?

  “Hey.” Dorian’s voice comes out of the darkness, and I jolt up onto my elbows.

  “Hey.” Don’t make this weird, Hunter. He’s one of your best friends. But yet I was painfully aware of the fact that I’d taken off my pants and was lying here in nothing but a thing T-shirt, boxer briefs, and a big smile.

  We stared at each other, the shadows making it hard to judge his expression.

  “Look, I don’t know what’s up with you, mate.” He stepped forward into the room, and I saw that he had pulled on sweatpants. They were sitting low on his hips, and suddenly my pulse was thundering through my veins.

  “What—what do you mean?” I wanted to stop looking. I couldn’t stop looking.

  He looked too, his stare sweeping over me. The air between us thickened, the sh
adows mocking us by setting off sparks where I didn’t want there to be any.

  Dorian closed the space between us, stopping right at the side of the bed. His face was set in hard lines, and for a moment I wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss me again or punch me in the teeth.

  He did neither.

  “Look. It’s not my job to help you sort through your shit.” His snort of exasperation told me exactly what he thought about it, though. “But while I’m on this tour... you’ve got to promise me you’ll be there for Adele. No running away because you’re scared of this.” At the latter he gestured between his chest and my own, making me needy and angry at the same time.

  “I’d never do that.” And yet...wasn’t that the logical conclusion to my train of thought?

  If I couldn’t see a way for this relationship to survive in the real world, then wouldn’t it be best to cut ties before any of us got in any deeper?

  Before I fell into something I wasn’t sure I was ready for?

  “Good.” And then he was gone, back to the bed that I was too chicken-shit to share. I almost followed him, but the darkness of my own thoughts kept me in place.

  The thought of losing Adele... okay, okay, of losing Dorian too... ripped me to shreds. And I would never leave Adele alone while Dorian was away. But...

  But.

  At the end of the day, I just didn’t see a realistic way to make our relationship work.

  Chapter Five

  DORIAN

  Adele was behind the counter when I entered Java the Hut the next morning. The glass door of the cafe was propped open with a brick to let the kiss of spring inside, and for a moment I just braced myself in the doorway, watching her.

  She was such a pretty thing, but not in any traditional way. Her long silky hair was not quite blonde, and not quite red, and combined with her fair skin it gave her an otherworldly appearance. Big blue eyes, arms covered in flowers—I could easily have been convinced that she was a fae, sent here to bewitch us all.

  But instead she was a normal girl, a normalcy that had been elevated to amazing by all that she’d lived through.

  It was a goal of mine to make sure she never got hurt again. And even though I hadn’t yet gone, I was already counting the minutes until we could be together again.

  As if sensing my eyes on her, Adele looked up from the basket of cookies that she was arranging. She beamed when she caught sight of me, giving me a little finger wave, and that was all it took to make me feel like I was on top of the fucking world.

  “Hurry the fuck up, Marshall!” A quick glance over my shoulder showed me Levi hanging out the driver’s side door. “Or Mercedes will spank you.”

  At that, I grinned internally. Ha. If only he knew.

  But he had a point. The shitty van that belonged to the band was already parked in front of the shop, loaded with our gear, waiting to carry us to the first stop on the tour that our brand new manager had arranged for us. There was no reason in prolonging the goodbye, I guessed...

  Though looking at Adele, I found all the reason in the world.

  “I’ll be back when I’m back!” I shouted this just to annoy the guys, who were packed in the van like sardines and raring go. Grumbles greeted me.

  “Bring me back a white mocha!” Wyatt yelled. I shot him the finger, then pushed off the doorframe I was lounging against, crossing the small shop to Adele.

  “Oh my God. Is that that guy from that band?”

  “Damian. I think his name is Damian.”

  “Who cares what his name is? He’s hot. Go get his autograph.”

  “Do you think he’d sign my boobs?”

  Java the Hut was located on the edge of campus, and since most of Three Little Words’ following was that exact demographic, hearing this whispers was nothing new. Most of the time I dug it... I wouldn’t have gotten into music if I hadn’t.

  But right now I made sure that I didn’t make eye contact, didn’t encourage any kind of connection.

  I wasn’t going to see my girl for two weeks, and I wanted to make the most of it.

  And Mal?

  By this point I was just fucking pissed at the piker.

  He needed to figure his shit out, and soon, because if the band took off, we were all going to have to make some hard decisions.

  “Hey.” Adele handed me a banana chocolate chip muffin wrapped in a napkin when I got to the counter.

  “Mornin’, pet.” I sniffed the muffin, which smelled good, but not nearly as good as she did, all fresh and smelling like her floral shampoo. “You give freebies to all the guys?”

  “Just the ones who put out.” She grinned, then wiped her brow with her sleeve. I was inordinately pleased that she had to pull the cotton down over her forearm to do it—she wasn’t hiding.

  She notes where my gaze had strayed, and her smile faltered a bit. “I don’t want to say goodbye, okay? I’m not going to be that girlfriend who wails and weeps because she’d desolate with her man. So just... be yourself. Give me a hug, crack a joke, and just go.”

  There were no tears in those big ocean colored eyes of hers—no, my woman was made of tougher stuff than that. But while that made me proud, I also felt some primal part of me rearing its head, desperate to leave one final mark on her, to ensure she wouldn’t forget me while I was gone.

  “Well, you’ll still have one man here,” I reminded her as I set down the muffin, then reached into my pocket, pulling out a small black box. “And I have something to give you before I go.”

  Adele’s face lit up, a far more excited reaction than I’d been counting on considering she hadn’t even opened the box yet.

  “I hope you’re referring to me.”

  I turned to discover what had brightened Adele up—Mal was standing behind me, hands shoved deep in his pockets. His frame was stiff, showing his obvious discomfort.

  But he was here. He’d come to say goodbye. And it took my own muscles relaxing for me to realize how much I’d needed him to come see me off.

  Pushing his glasses up his nose, Mal nodded at the box in my hand. “What’s that?”

  I grinned. “A little something to make sure you two don’t forget me while I’m gone.” I’d meant to say just Adele’s name, and I looked sharply at Mal to note his reaction to being include.

  There was a little twitch in his jaw, but that was it—no protest. And it made me want to punch him until I rattled his senses back into his head.

  He was a part of this—each of us was. And it bloody well worked.

  I held back because again... he was here. And that said something.

  “Presents?” Elbowing me to get to the box, Adele bounced up on her toes, making me smile. She was so fucking cute. “Gimme!”

  I held the box above her head, chuckling when she growled. “This kind of present requires a demonstration, pet, or you won’t know what it is you’ve got.”

  “A demonstration?” She quirked an eyebrow, studying me. “Why does that make me suspicious?”

  “It should.” I turned to Mal, to make sure he was still with us, and caught the flash of curiosity on his face.

  “Can Mark cover for you for a few minutes?” I gestured to the skinny freshman whose black lipstick contrasted oddly with his bright cheerleader smile.

  “Yes” Adele drew the word into three syllables, then licked her lips. She looked from me to Mal and back to me, and I watched as the slightest of flushes appeared on her cheeks.

  I thought she was going to question me some more, but instead she just called out to her co-worker. “I’m going to take a quick break, Mark. Shout if you—”

  I pressed my hand over her lips, stifling her words. “Nope. He is not going to shout if he needs you. You are unavailable.”

  Scooping her up in my arms, I threw her over my shoulder, cast a backward look at Mal as she squawked with protest.

  “Dorian! I’m at work!” She pounded on my back with her fists, and that, finally, coaxed a smile out of Mal. “Put me down.”


  “I don’t think anyone’s going to save you, baby.” Thawing a bit, possibly by the prime view he had of Adele’s ass, Mal tugged on a lock of her hair, stepping back neatly when she swung at him.

  And true enough, while most of the blasé coffee crowd looked up at the initial noise, they quickly went back to what they were doing. The girls who had whispered when I’d come in were the most interested, gazing at us with faces that looked like they’d just sucked lemons, but I truly didn’t give a shit, not with Adele in my arms and Mal in a suddenly better mood.

  “Dorian. Seriously!” I led the way to the small staff room behind the counter. Mal slipped ahead of us, holding the heavy door open.

  The second it swung shut behind us, I pressed Adele back against the door and claimed her mouth with my own. She pushed at me, then moaned as she slowly melted.

  After a long moment I released her, turning to look at Mal. He was standing somewhat awkwardly to the side, as if he didn’t know what to do anymore.

  But his boner was impossible to miss, straining beautifully at the front of his jeans. And that was, at least, a start.

  “Time to open your present.” I handed her the small black box, then settled back against the opposite wall to watch, thinking that the term staff room had maybe been a bit generous. It was the size of bathroom, just big enough for a tiny table and one chair.

  So we were crowded, and Mal was forced to be close. Score one.

  “You really can’t just do that when I’m at work, Dorian.” She scowled at me, looking to Mal for help as she tugged at the lid to the box. It looked like he was trying hard to not smile, but in the end his amusement won.

  “I don’t think you’re going to win this one, baby.” Peering over my shoulder, he watched as Adele lifted the lid.

  Inside of the box, on a bed of soft white cotton, were two pieces of jewelry. Each was fashioned out of silver, shaped in a broken circle. Plain and simple, they hadn’t been expensive—I couldn’t afford anything more right now—but they would do what I needed them to.