Grady had just gone on a date with a girl and he was saying there was no spark. I said there didn’t need to be a spark to hook up. Mallory flat-out, in total seriousness, asked why you would want to hook up with someone you didn’t have feelings for. I said, “Because it feels good. Sex is fun without feelings and I don’t have time for feelings. I’ve got a career to start.”
She looked away from me. Diana announced that Mallory wanted, “Sparks and butterflies and true love.”
And that's when I realized Mallory was off-limits.
I never let myself entertain the thought of being with her again. When she would join the gang at the lake in a tiny bikini, I would remind myself of that conversation. When she would smile at me and the light from a summer bonfire would make her hazel eyes glow amber, I would remind myself of that night. When she would say something so witty or downright funny that it made me grin so hard I could feel it in my chest, like my heart was smiling too, I would repeat that night in my brain.
She is not on the same page as I am. We want different things. She's hot, smart, and sexy and I would love to fuck her, but she wants more and I don't have more to give right now. Maybe never. I am yet to see myself as the settling-down type. Mallory is long-term or no-term, as her dating history has proven.
So why did I just kiss her neck and why are my hands all over her? And why am I harder than a steel pipe right now? I could blame the alcohol but that would be a cop-out. I’m a big boy and I know how to handle my booze. I also have a rule, which I have yet to break, that I don’t hook up with drunk girls (at least not the first time). I want their brains at full capacity so they know what they’re agreeing to. Mallory is not sober. And I know she isn’t agreeing to this.
That thought sobers me instantly and I start to pull away. But then she grabs my hand and presses it to her stomach again, keeping me in place. I freeze. She seems frozen too, like she may even be holding her breath.
“I… we shouldn’t,” Mallory finally whispers. “It’s crazy.”
“Stop overthinking it, Mal,” Diana says, and Mallory and I pull apart instantly.
Mallory sits up, turning her head to look at Diana, who is on the other side of me on the bed, on her side with her head on her elbow. Diana looks ridiculously calm and unbothered. “He’s attracted to you, and lord knows you could use a great lay. Tate did you know in two years, Owen never made her come.”
“Di!” Mallory barks and immediately covers her flushed face with her hands.
“Oh come on, Tate is the closest thing you have to another bestie,” Diana replies, sitting up. “You confided in me, you can confide in him.”
This is definitely a powder keg of complications, but yet somehow I’m doing nothing to stop the situation or change the conversation. I feel like, deep down, something is shifting between us and if I play my cards right, I’ll get what I want. And what I want is Mallory. Right or wrong, I want her. Just once, of course.
"You never came with Jones?" I question, my eyes laser-focused on Mallory. Dear Lord, she looks hot as hell with her mussed hair and the spaghetti straps on her sundress hanging off her arms.
I always call her ex by his last name. I think she assumes it’s just a hockey player thing, she knows we all call each other by our last names a lot, but the fact is I never liked Owen Jones enough to call him by his first. Dude irked me from day one. And they didn’t date for two years. It was only twenty months. I know. I counted. Because he annoyed me.
"I did come," Mallory confesses in a strained whisper like it physically pains her to tell me this. "Just notbecauseof him.”
Now I find myself sitting up too. This is too interesting of a plot twist to take lying down. I turn my torso to face Mallory, blocking out Diana who is stretching her arms above her head.
“She had to play with herself or it was a no-go.”
"Jesus, sober you are going to have a lot of apologizing to do to me," Mallory hisses at Diana and covers her face with her hands, again.
Diana reaches across me and tugs Mallory’s hands away. “Enough with this bullshit. I’m telling you, Tate’s a remarkable lay and I’m down with sharing. I mean, he’s not even mine to share but if I’m what’s making you say no, don’t. Watching you and him could be fun.”
Mallory’s mouth drops open and she stares at her best friend like Diana’s lost her fucking mind. I don’t because Diana and I have had a threesome before. This past summer with a girl who worked at Last Call, my uncle’s bar in Silver Bay. Diana is bisexual and told me flat-out, but I realize now she may never have told Mallory.
“What are you on?” Mallory asks Diana. “Because at this point, you must have taken more than a margarita to be suggesting this.”
Diana laughs and I glance over my shoulder to see her hands sliding down her body provocatively until they settle between her thighs over the dress' fabric bunched there. "Life," Diana announces. “I am high on life. And I think it would be fucking hot to touch myself and watch you two mess around.”
My head flips back to Mallory. And that’s when I see it. The way her pupils dilate. The way her hands twist in the duvet. The way her skin gets pink and almost dewy. The way she won’t look me in the eye and digs her top teeth into her bottom lip. She’s turned on by what Diana said. She wants me. This. Now.
I smile and a chuckle rumbles up. The sound is low and comes out of me in a way that isn’t funny. It’s… feral. Finally, Mallory lifts her eyes to mine.
“Are you seriously considering this?” she whispers, a tremor shaking her tiny voice.
“Considering making my gorgeous, fun, incredible friend, come?” I ask, and a prideful smile flickers across her lips before she bites it back. “If Di is right and you didn’t come from someone else’s touch the whole damn time you were with Jones, I would be honored to fix that for you.”
Mallory’s eyes flicker to Diana and I glance over and see my bed buddy’s fingertips are dancing across her thighs, on an upward trajectory to the apex between her legs.
“Mallory, eyes on me,” I say in a soft but commanding voice. She obeys. “Do you want me to make you come?”
“I… but I … I mean… you’re with her,” Mallory whispers, her face flaming red now.
