I’d cried all over Blue, for fuck’s sake, but now he was flirting with me.Flirting. With me. Asher, the nobody. Asher, the kid brother of the dead guy. Asher, Lukas’s assistant.
“I can request anything?” I cleared my throat and tried again. “Anything at all?”
Blue had one of those smiles that made panties wet and ovaries explode, but since I had neither, my dick got hard because it didn’t care that my heart belonged to Lukas. My dick had no allegiance. No loyalty. It had abandoned team Lukas and was now firmly team Blue. Because of a smile. Well, and the promise of what came with it.
“It’s your first time. I want you to be comfortable. I want you to feel like you’re in control. You can even request different scene partners or to not do it at all.”
A phone on the wall rang and Blue got to his feet and answered, then hit a button and hung up. “Jax is here with the food.”
He sat down next to me again, and I glanced at him. “You’ve filmed with Jax before?” I asked, trying not to think of the way he’d so casually mentioned me not filming at all. My original motivation had been to do this so Lukas would be forced to see me as an adult, and that hadn’t changed. Maybe he still didn’t see me as someone desirable. There was still a chance that this scene could change things for me where Lukas was concerned. And even if the chance was small, I had to take it.
“Yes,” Blue said. “But that wasn’t really a question.”
“Only once, though. You two were so good. I always thought, well, I hoped, like most people I think, that we’d see more of you two together.”
He shrugged. “Our schedules never really lined up. But look at it this way, now that they have, you get both of us.”
I had a feeling that Blue was full of shit, but there was no way to call him on it. And I’d only asked because I still desperately needed a distraction. The moment my brain was idle, it thought about Lukas, making me relive the humiliation over and over again.
I’d always thought kissing Lukas would unlock something between us. That it would be the key to everything. That our lips would touch and he’d realize what he’d been missing out on.
Instead of magical, it had been mortifying. Completely underwhelming, if I was being honest. It was no more magical than practicing on your hand. I loved Lukas though. Thoughts about losing him suffocated me. They made me feel like death was imminent. At least I’d get to see Leo again. Fuck. I sniffled again and sucked in a deep breath. I could not fall apart again on Blue Davies. Even though he was gorgeous and kind and smelled like vanilla—well, it was mostly because of those reasons that I couldn’t fall apart on him again. Not if I wanted him to fuck me one day.
A knock on the door saved me from close scrutiny, giving me a chance to swipe the tears out of my eyes and suck in a deep breath as Blue got up to let Jax in.
They shared a quiet greeting, and I didn’t even care that they were whispering about me. I didn’t have the energy to give a shit about that. Or anything. I wanted to go home and sleep. I wanted my dark bedroom and my playlist of Leo’s favorite songs, and I wanted to sleep for a few days. I wanted to not exist for a little while.
Jax plopped down next to me and totally ignored the way I must have looked. The tear-stained face. The blotchy complexion. I wasn’t a pretty crier.
He pulled food out of the bags and lined it up on Blue’s coffee table.
“For Blue, our resident vegetarian, we have three bean chili and bread sticks. For Asher, who looks like he needs some comfort, I got three cheese mac with bacon. And for me, who needs to not die from his inability to digest cheese, I thought I’d see how the vegetarian half lives and I got the three bean chili and bread sticks too.”
“You can’t eat cheese?” I opened the container Jax set in front of me. It looked creamy, and they’d been generous with the bacon, which appeared to be real bacon and not those artificial bacon bit things.
“I can, technically. But I shouldn’t. Not if I want to live a comfortable life.” Jax opened his chili and stuck a spoon in, giving it a stir to let the steam out and cool it off a little. “Have you told Blue about all the dirty, nasty, wonderful things you want us to do to you yet?”
I almost choked on my macaroni. Coughing and sputtering, I tried to gain my composure while Blue rubbed my back. We were really doing this. My heart sped up, going a million miles an hour. We were really going to sit around and talk about how they wanted to rail me. I dried a suddenly sweaty palm on my jeans.
“You’re so graceless, Jax,” Blue chided. “But yes, I told him to make a wish list. We hadn’t gotten any farther than that.”
“Oooh, a wish list. Can I make one?” Jax looked at me and let his stare linger. “I can think of a few things I want to do to you.”
Jax’s heated gaze wasn’t helping my food go down any smoother.
“Jax, let him eat before you talk about rearranging his guts,” Blue admonished from the other side of me.
“Sorry. Forgot my manners.” Jax winked at me. Fucking winked and my stupid dick decided that it liked that too, even though it had been in a coma the whole time I was throwing myself at Lukas. It was probably too ashamed of my desperationto bother waking up. But crying on Blue and being winked at by Jax were clearly noteworthy events.
“If you wanted Asher all to yourself, I’d be willing to let that happen. I don’t need the money as much now that I’m out of school and working.”
“Are you insane? You’re absolutely not sitting this one out. I’ve waited for years for another scene with you.” Jax seemed to remember that I was in the room suddenly and he shot me an apologetic smile. “If it’s okay with Asher.”
“It’s fine,” I told him, shifting in my seat to try and get more comfortable without being obvious about the reason why I was uncomfortable. Heat crept up my face, and I tucked my head down, focusing on my food.
How was I supposed to film with these guys who were miles out of my league and my experience level? I wasn’t a virgin, but I didn’t get out much. In spite of being surrounded by sex for the past couple of years, I’d had precious little. At first because I was too sad, and then because I was too fixated on Lukas. Too hung up on a guy who didn’t even want me. The bitterness almost made me choke, and I put my food down, suddenly not hungry anymore.
Blue put his food aside too and changed position so he was sitting kind of sideways and could look at Jax and me. Then he pulled me over to him and embraced me.
