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ChapterThirteen
Jess walked down the hall to Rhys’s bedroom, both men flanking her. For weeks, her brain had been working on overdrive, whirling twenty-four seven over this inevitability.
She’d come up with a very long list of reasons why sleeping with Tony and Rhys was wrong—top of that list including she didn’t want to fuck up her current living situation, as well as the fact Tony and Rhys were confirmed bachelors who restricted their relationships with the fairer sex to booty calls.
Sex wasn’t just a physical thing for Jess. She wished she could separate sex and emotions, but she wasn’t wired that way. God, Rhys and Tony had only kissed her so far, and already she felt her tenuous grip on her heart slipping.
Then she’d created an equally long list of ways to avoid this situation that included staying away from them as much as possible and cold showers. Lots of cold showers.
She’d also come up with a strict budget she thought would help her achieve her goal of getting her own place sooner so she wouldn’t be around them constantly, tempted.
Jesus, the temptation had nearly driven her mad. She counted her savings at least a dozen times a day, as if counting would increase it.
Every single second of every single day had been exhausting, yet not enough to keep her from tossing and turning all night until the next morning, when she stepped on the treadmill that never stopped moving again.
All that thinking, fighting, resisting.
And now?
It was gone. All of it.
There wasn’t a single thought in her mind as she walked into Rhys’s room and watched Tony close and lock the door.
Nothing except the bone-deep feeling that for the first time in her life, she was exactly where she wanted to be.
The impact of that realization was so overwhelming, she couldn’t breathe.
Something Rhys clearly noticed.
He cupped her cheeks, his astute gaze missing nothing. “There’s no point of no return. You say no or stop, and it all ends. You understand that?”
“I want you,” she whispered. “I want both of you. So much it hurts.”
Those words were the ones she’d shoved to the deepest recesses of her mind, refusing to allow them out in the light of day. She’d buried them in the back of the filing cabinet behind all her very logical lists and budgets.
Once they were spoken aloud, the corner turned, Rhys and Tony moved in unison. It was as if she’d unshackled invisible bonds, setting them both free.
Rhys lowered his head to kiss her, his lips softer but no less hungry than Tony’s earlier. She’d obsessed over the kisses they’d shared a few weeks ago, the memory of them fueling the fantasies she couldn’t stop playing over and over in her mind.
The other waitresses at work had remarked on her new habit of daydreaming, constantly asking her what on earth she could be thinking about. She hadn’t told them about her new living situation, though she wasn’t sure why.
In her mind, she kept thinking this couldn’t be real. That tomorrow she’d wake up to discover she and Jasper were still in the shelters, still hungry, still fighting for a way out. No matter how many mornings she woke up in that soft, warm bed, she couldn’t find a way to believe that it would last. Life had a way of pulling the rug out from under her whenever she least expected it. She’d crashed to the floor too many times to trust this.
The problem was…while she couldn’t trust this reality to last, she did trust Rhys and Tony.
That contradiction was wreaking havoc on her, which was why her brain never—NEVER—turned off.
“Put it all away, Jess,” Rhys murmured, his lips brushing the side of her mouth.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I want to. I’m trying.”
Tony stepped behind her, his hands on her waist as he kissed the top of her head. She was surrounded by their warmth, bolstered by their strength, their affection.
Tony tugged out the band gathering her hair in a ponytail so that her brunette waves fell over her shoulders. He shifted all of it to one side, granting himself unhindered access to the side of her neck. He kissed it, his tongue darting out to stroke her skin, to tease the spot behind her ear.
When he spoke, his words were hot against her skin. “This was inescapable, Jess. From the moment we found you shivering outside this apartment, the three of us have been hurtling toward this night. Right here. Right now.”
Her head tilted to the side, silently inviting him to continue his ministrations. Rhys watched the two of them for a few seconds before drawing one hand down the front of her body. He started at her throat, dragging his fingers over her shirt, cupping one of her breasts. She’d gotten ready for bed, intent on going to sleep with Jasper. Yet another weak-willed attempt at avoiding Tony and Rhys. It was easier to resist them when she wasn’t near them.
