"Now you're teasing me," I told her, pretty sure she could feel my dick beneath her.
"Why are you into me, Cy?" she asked. "You like men. Why me?"
My hands moved lower, until I found that dip in her back. "I like strong. I like vicious. I really like proud, and you are that." My eyes dropped to her chest. "And I like your curves. Not most curves, but I have this strange obsession with yours. I like how you make me feel so damned big and strong when I'm with you, but not like I have to hold you up. It's more holding you back."
She laughed, leaning in to wrap her arms around my neck. "I picked Cyan because I didn't want to ever forget you," she said. "Do you have any idea how many nights I reached into my panties and imagined what it would be like to have you lying over me? My best friend. My other best friend's boyfriend, and I would daydream about running my hands over this chest while you made me feel things."
"And now we're on hold," I reminded her. "I can't just walk into your office and kiss you. I can't wrap my arms around you when you're making coffee in the morning. I am trying my damnedest to figure out how to make sure you know what I'm thinking, but I don't have a fucking clue how, let alone balancing it with this mess we got going on."
"That's how," she said, leaning back to look at my face. "Cy, is this a dumb idea?"
And my heart stalled. "Which this?"
"Me and Luke. Me and Ash. Me and you. Trying to make all of us work. I mean, if it was just the three of us, I know it would be fine, but we all want him too."
"Yeah," I breathed, feeling my heart start beating again.
For a second there, I'd been sure she was going to say we should give up the whole idea. That she knew Luke wasn't ready or something. I knew none of that was true, but as fast as things had changed - because of Luke's case, and for damned good reason - my heart was convinced there was bad news coming. My brain knew better, but the disconnect was fucking with me.
"You know, you've always been the glue," I told her. "Ash and I got together because you kept accidentally sticking us together. I'm pretty sure he would've ignored it and convinced himself he was straight if you hadn't always been seeking me out. Now, Luke's balancing us. Vi, we're not easy people. You're a damned bitch. Ash is cutthroat. I'm sullen and broody. Together, we're a shrink's wet dream, carrying around enough baggage to sink a damned ship."
"And Luke's not?" I asked.
"Luke is different. His issues are tangible and present. He's so tender in some ways and so hard in others. I may be Ash's opposite, but he's yours, and that kinda makes this all work."
"How so?" she asked, her eyes narrowing when I said opposites.
"Ash is flamboyant. He's in your face and unashamed. I'm easy to overlook and don't make a scene. You're driven and the kind that's like a bulldozer. Nothing stands in your way. Luke's more subtle. He's driven, but the kind that works around the hazards."
"I can see that," she agreed.
"And I don't want to mess up any of this," I admitted, the words little more than a breath. "I get jealous when Luke walks up and kisses you. Just the little things, like when he wraps his arms around your waist and you lean back into him. Or when he takes your hand, tangling your fingers up. I feel like a damned bull in a china shop when I try."
"Then be a bull," she told me. "Cy, I'm not with you because I want three men like Luke. I feel comfortable with you, like I don't have to always be pretty to make you happy."
"And yet you always are," I assured her. "Violet, you make my heart do stupid things. That shirt? Oh, I know it's another man's, and there's a part of me that wants to tear it off of you because of that. There's this voice in the back of my head that says I should make it clear that you're mine, but that doesn't work in this situation."
"Could," she teased.
Fuck, but my dick just got harder. "Oh?"
"Well, there's nothing that says I can't be yours. I'm just theirs too, right?"
I could feel the blood rushing to do her bidding. It was like every ounce in my veins had changed course to make sure I was as hard as she could want. My fucking pulse hammered in my shaft, and it took everything I had to neither groan nor thrust into her.
"And you don't think your boyfriend will have a problem with that?" I asked, honestly curious how she saw this working.
She just smiled. "I think you're bigger than him, and he can't stop you. I also think it's whether or notI'dhave a problem with it that you should be worrying about."
I pulled her hips a little closer so she was sitting right up against my dick. "You're killing me here, woman."
So she pushed her hand against the back of the chair, right over my shoulder, and leaned in until our lips were only a hair apart. "I'm not a man, Cy. You're not going to bruise my ego if you take what you want. It doesn't make me your bitch. It doesn't make me feel weak. It makes me feel sexy."
"And that's what makes you so dangerous," I whispered. "You let us think we're winning, and the whole time, you're just winding us around your sexy little finger. We think we're impressing the girl, and little do we know that she's just sitting there looking so innocent as she collects us like little toys to play with when she's ready."
"Saying you're opposed?" she asked, her voice a little deeper, almost husky.
"Not at all. I'm saying I feel like a fumbling idiot half the time I'm around you, and for some reason I still like it too fucking much. I also know that I don't play games like you and Ash. I can't turn off how I feel like a switch. If I throw you in my bed again, everyone's going to see it when I look at you, and that's a problem that I don't know how to fix."
