A muffled slapping sounded somewhere beyond the room, and someonegroaned beside me. It definitely wasn’t my dog.
My eyelids fluttered open and I found myself staring at Layla’s face. Her head rested on the pillow beside mine, her eyes squinched tightly closed as if she too were struggling against waking.
The previous night came flooding back. We were in our new house, Magnum’s mansion. Griffin in the bed with me. Oh God… our hands and mouths all over each other, his body against mine, yearning for his… Then, our friends.
Although I’d been nearly asleep when Griffin entered, after Brady and Hunt stretched out on the mattresses on the floor we got to talking. At first, it had been about the serious stuff, the fears and admissions that were easier to eke out in the relative anonymity of darkness. We’d all been secretly freaked out about pretty much everything that had gone down since the Fischer House party. But then we’d fallen into old, comforting patterns, and we’d stayed up reminiscing and laughing until the middle of the night, when our frayed nerves and exhaustion had finally claimed us all.
“Shit, someone’s in the house,” Brady mumbled from beside the bed.
“Fuck,” Hunt responded, suddenly sharp, and Griffin—not Bobo—who’d fallen asleep on the other side of me, tugged my body closer, pushing up onto his elbow and partially leaning over me, as if preparing to shield my body with his.
“Hello! It’s me, Fanny,” Magnum’s assistant called out.
Either Brady or Hunt groaned. Layla’s eyes squinted open as she groggily wiped at a bit of drool in the corner of her mouth. And Griffin relaxed some, settling back down onto his side. I inched my hips back into the perfect spoon of his body—
To feel the stiff length of his dick now pressed against my ass. I had to swallow a moan as my body instantly wanted to respond to him. With Layla staring at me now, I couldn’t let on. For one, she’d never let Griff or me live it down—the morning she’d woken up in bed with Griff’s stiffy. I could practically hear her theatrics already.
Soft footfalls grew nearer, and then, with no more warning than Layla had given us the night before, Fanny rapped twice on the door before swinging it open.
“Whoa, lady,” Brady scolded while Hunt shot to his feet atop the mattress. He wobbled for a second before crouching into a fighting stance, hands up.
Griffin only ran his strong hand along the length of my bare thigh, as if wanting to extend this closeness as much as possible before it came to its jarring end.
With Layla propped up onto an elbow to glare at Fanny, I wiggled my ass against his hardness.
His breath hitched. The change was quiet, but I delighted in the effect I had on him. God, I hadn’t planned on letting myself be all over him quite so fast. I hadn’t had much chance to imagine what our relationship would look like moving forward, but surely I would have guessed it would be gradual. Not friends to lovers in like three-point-six seconds.
His roving hand splayed across my bare stomach, the camisole’s hem twisted up by my boobs. His fingertips trailed a line of fire up my torso until a single one brushed against the bottom swell of my breast, light as a feather but hot enough to brand me.
“What are you doing in here?” Layla accused Fanny when it probably should have been me since it was my room.
“I told you I’d be here at 2:00 p.m.,” she replied without a hint of apology as she openly studied us.
“It’s not two already,” Layla mumbled. “Is it?” She glanced around us, but without our phones or a clock in here, we had no idea.
“It is, young lady.” Fanny pressed her lips together. “You’ve already slept half the day away.”
Groaning at Fanny’s judgmental tone, I craned my neck to glare at her. “Well, excuse the hell out of us for needing the extra rest to recover after all we’ve been through. Maybe if you or your precious Magnum were the ones who kept having to die and come back to life again you’d care to be more understanding.”
I registered what I said. My life was officially bonkers.
I expected her to react like either of my faux parents would when confronted by my “smart mouth,” and instantly get on my case all the more. But Fanny’s scowl softened into what almost passed as a smile, though not quite. “Yes, I suppose that much is true. You certainly have been through a lot over the last several months.”
Hunt lowered his hands and looked around the room, finally settling on the lounge chair in the corner. He moved Griffin’s discarded shirt onto the armrest before sinking into the seat.
“Had we known you’d all sleep in the same room,” Fanny said, “Magnum might’ve saved himself some trouble in building you such a spacious home.”
Brady kept his blanket over his legs but sat up, his back resting against the side of my bed. “We don’t usually sleep together.”
From where I lay I couldn’t make out his face, but I could easily picture his expression all the same. Brows low, eyes slightly narrowed, lips pursed in a silentfuck you.
“Like we said,” I added in a cold tone, “we’ve been through someshit.”
“Yes, well, now it’s time to get yourshittogether, isn’t it?”
She sidestepped a mattress to access the panel embedded in the bedside table. With a tap of her fingers, the blinds began to rise.
Griffin, Layla, Brady, and I all groaned at the sudden brightness. Hunt merely stared at Fanny with a too-placid expression that reminded me of a cat biding its time for the eventualfuck youthat would come.
