“Never.” And now that I actually looked at him, I saw the amusement in his eyes. “Wait. You mean… Have you?”
His light laughter was neither an admission or denial, which annoyed me even more. There was no mistaking the distinct air of mischief he had about him, though. Like he was in on a secret and took pride in guarding it well.
“The photo,” I said quietly, realization dawning slowly. “The one with you, Ethan, Miles… and that woman.”
Adrian’s eyes softened, a flicker of something—nostalgia, maybe regret—crossing his face. “Sylvie,” he said, like tasting a word he hadn’t spoken in years. “Yeah… she was something. But that was then.” He stepped a fraction closer, the tension coiling between us.
Heat flared through me, cheeks warming, pulse jumping. “So all three of you dated her? At the— At the same time?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.” He brushed some sweat-damp hair from my face. “You got a little taste of it. Was it that bad?”
Fuck me. It wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it was easily the most transcendent experience I’d ever had in my life.
But that was in the moment.
Outside of it, I was getting all tangled up in stuff like logistics and technicalities and pretty much just how the hell somethinglike that even worked out? If this Sylvie was no longer around, then that kinda answered my main question. In that things like this didn’t work out.
I ignored his obvious teasing, and said, “What happened with her?”
“Do you care? Or are you just interested in what’s going to happen to you if you pursue this any further?”
He got me.
“Adrian—”
His hand brushed my waist, the contact light but deliberate. I felt the spark shoot straight through me. “Curiosity got you here, and I can tell you still have several questions that need answering.”
“And you?” I let my hand hover, brushing against his just enough to return the challenge. “What’s your reason?”
His grin deepened, and he dipped his head along with his voice. So low it was barely more than a delicious vibration waking me up from the inside out. “You need to ask?”
“You’re infuriating.” I let out a breath of a laugh, not quite able to hold his gaze.
“Flattered,” he whispered, brushing his lips over mine. “But you like that. I can tell.”
I could feel the heat radiating from him, the ease with which he turned me on before even touching me. It was maddening.
I let my eyes flutter closed, surrendering to the featherlight touch of his mouth, the barely-there pressure that promised so much more. My hands rose instinctively, pressing into his chest, feeling the lean strength beneath the fabric of his hoodie.
I was really about to do this. With the kind of gay abandon that the ‘old’ me would never entertain. Was this even me? Could thesame woman who had her whole life planned out from the age of twelve be the one wholeheartedly diving into an uncertain tryst with three men at the same time?
The answers to those questions were the least of my concerns, because a more important one made my heartbeat speed up.
When the hell was he going to kiss me?
He dragged his warm tongue over my lower lip and, like me, couldn’t hold back any longer. With one arm snaked steadily around my waist, he pulled me into a long, sensual kiss that made me shiver beneath my many layers. But there was nothing cold about this. No. Simmering heat spread down low, creeping out to every one of my nerve endings and setting me on fire.
The kiss deepened, and I leaned into him even more, my hands on his chest turning to fists as I clung to him. Held him in place. Kept him from leaving just yet. My entire body thrummed from the steady pull of him, the way he let the moment stretch without forcing anything.
The one disappointment I had from the night before was that I didn’t get to taste him like this. Now, standing in the middle of a dumb hay maze, I decided the wait made it even sweeter. The youngest of the three, always cracking jokes and messing around, there was nothing light or playful about the way Adrian held onto me now. How his tongue massaged mine with determined relish, as if his very life force could be found within my depths and he was hellbent on consuming every last drop.
A soft groan fell from his lips and into my mouth. I swallowed it in with a moan of my own, pressing my hips harder against him and the distinct bulge in his pants. His hands dropped to my ass and squeezed down, adding more pressure to the electrifying friction there.
Where he started off tentatively, as if carefully sketching the lines of an artwork he didn’t want to ruin, heat bloomed fast and feverish now. A beat of impatience laced through his movements, like he was afraid the moment would vanish into thin air before he’d had his fill. As if it would come to nothing too soon if he didn’t hold onto it with both hands, his mouth, his whole being.
He was reckless, almost. All heart. And distinctly different to Ethan or Miles, in that every part of him pouring into me felt like it was driven by pure instinct and nothing else. I was his blank canvas, and he wanted nothing more than to fill me up with everything he was feeling in this moment.
He drew back, breath unsteady, gaze flicking between my eyes and my mouth. His own were dark, intense. And whatever he saw in me made something shift in him. The air between us crackled with it. So much so, that when his mouth found mine again, it wasn’t all that careful anymore. It was need, plain and simple.
