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They smelled…bad. Yes, they did. They looked bad, too. Their tuxedos didn’t fit them properly. Honestly, their suits just hung off theirpetiteshoulders and fell loosely over their soft chests. Their legs drowned in their pants because their thighs were so devoid of muscles. Their stupid faces were just as stupid as ever. Stupid!
She was never going to admit that the exact opposite of what she said was, in fact, entirely true.Not today, busters.
She tried to hug the three of them together like an idiot.
“Get in here, you three big stepbrothers.” She stretched her arms out—with a shoe still in each hand—as wide as they could go, but of course, she couldn’t reach all of Nolan and Fletcher on the sides, which meant all she did was plaster herself up against Kingston, like with her whole body and her arms outstretched on either side of him to his brothers. At least her knuckles were able to reach Nolan’s and Fletcher’s abs. Hard as rock, even beneath their clothes.
Her mother’s words came echoing back to her.
Holly, you don’t shake your stepbrothers’ hands like that. We’re family, and family gives tight hugs and kisses.
Chapter Six
Possibly the worst words her mother had ever said to her.
Holly released herself from her disastrous hug and stood on the tips of her toes. She started with Nolan, gave him a soft kiss on his cheek before she went down the line, and did the same to Kingston and Fletcher.
Well, she’d donethatand was still standing. Fyre’s thing was working better than ever, and she didn’t even need to have the stones in her hands for them to work.
“Where’s Greg? He said he was taking me to the…” She found herself unable to say the wordsexy. But baby steps. “Masquerade ball?”
“Greg had to leave. Something about his house.”
“Oh, I hope it’s nothing too serious,” she said, genuinely concerned.
Also, he was supposed to be her escort in more ways than one. Okay, he was supposed to be her bed pal, her virginity taker, her “lay person”, her fuck buddy, dammit. And who knew? Maybe even her boyfriend. They had dated before. She knew him well enough, and he really was a good guy—no skeletons in his closet, no bad habits. Truth be told, she broke up with him the next day after her first unfortunate, klutzy meeting withthem.
Oh my god.
Had she really been that deluded? Greg Rice was a great guy. Marriage material. She could do worse than marry him. So that sucked because they were supposed to go to the masquerade ball together. It wasn’t a date, as such, since they were both guests at the same wedding, but they were going to walk into it together. So that counted for something.
“Oh, well. I’m sure I’ll see him later on at Caroline’s ball. We were supposed to go together. I’ll just get these on,” she said, lifting the pair of shoes in her hand. Gosh, she was proud of herself. She was talking in full sentences and making sense, and she was just being so utterly normal. It was amazing. She was glad she came. Maybe the sole reason she was meant to be here was to meet up again with Greg and then realize there was a whole other world outside of her strange, frowned-upon infatuation with her stepbrothers.
“We’ll be taking you to the ball,” Kingston said, and it sounded like he was laying down some sort of law, and if she didn’t obey, it would be off with her head.
“Oh. Oooh. That would be great. We can catch up on old times before Greg gets back.” Okay, old times? What exactly did she want to reminisce about? All her encounters with them had been disastrous. Falling into the pool, getting covered in sauce, and sneezing in a family photo were just some of the things that went wrong when she was in their company.
She destroyed a priceless piece of art when she thought it was a fancy piece of glassware and used it to make a salad when she was helping her mom prepare a Sunday lunch for them all. The vinegar had ruined the paintwork, and Mickie, goodnaturedly decided it would be fun to watch the paint stream from the porcelain so he brought the bowl to the lunch table and was quite fascinated at the final result. He thought it looked better overall and thanked her. She knew he was being overly kind to her.
Or what about the time when she’d been invited to an intimate dinner for just the six of them because it was their birthdays, which happened to be all on the same day? She had spent the whole week looking for gifts for them.
She got them cologne, socks, ties, chocolate, tickets to the ballet, tickets to ride a helicopter, and tickets to pet a kangaroo—a whole-ass kangaroo. Yes, she did. They didn’t know it, but somewhere in some Australian zoo, they owned a kangaroo called Cooco, and Holly made payments every month to the zoo for the upkeep of said kangaroo.
She had been so paralyzed with indecision that when the day arrived, she decided to go empty-handed because there was nothing that felt right. But then, as she got out of her car, the fact that she was going empty-handed sucker punched her in the gut. She ended up taking them three little plastic toys that she got with a kids’ meal because their nuggets tasted better. And so that was what she handed them. Kingston got a small plastic lion. Nolan got a small plastic wolf. Fletcher got a small plastic leopard. She had stunned everyone with hergiftsbut no one else more than her mother, who had never been more embarrassed in all her life. Well, could she spare a moment for how embarrassed Holly felt to be the giver of gifts herself? Since then, for the last five birthdays, she had given them vouchers to a local bookstore and was done with it.
Yes, they could totally reminisce about lots of things.Not.
“Your dress, Holly, it’s not zipped,” Nolan said.
“What?” She asked and made a funny sound as realization hit. Her dress was unzipped.
Fuck me now.
How obtuse could she really be?
It wasn’t as if she didn’t try to zip herself up. She just couldn’t do it.
Her breath fluttered as Fletcher came toward her, spun her around, took a tight grip of her hair, lifted it up, and used his other hand to pull the zipper up. The hold on her hair and the way he seemed to pull at her roots for no reason whatsoever sent shudders down her spine and thighs. The touch of his hands on her naked skin as he maneuvered the zipper up made her pussy pulse.
