Jake

JAKE

Fuck . I wipe a hand down my face, sinking back into the leather and groaning as Henry shuts the car door.

Having Paige pressed against me, the heat of her body, the lushness of her hips, the delicate slant of her waist and ribs…complete torture the entire time. The way she just let me pull her over to us—not limp but not resisting. How she teased me, knowingly, while in that position.

I had to keep my damn tablet in my lap to hide my hard-on. Any little shift on her part, and she would have found it.

Part of me wishes she would have. Found it. Gone searching for it. Let me yank her fully into my lap so that I could grind into her ass. The caveman in me surfaces when she's close, and the burn is scarcely dampened by guilt.

So many layers of guilt.

Her sweet scent lingers in the car, part the perfume she wore this morning, part her natural scent, and part her arousal. My hard-on flares back to life as the car pulls into traffic. The soft slush of the tires in the silence mimics my elevated heartbeat.

I have to stop this. It can't be born. For too many reasons. If only listing to them would make my body settle down. But I've already been trying that method for the last thirty-six hours, and it hasn't worked yet.

"That was…intense," I say to break the stifling silence.

Henry shifts, straightening and uncomfortable. "I didn't know she got carsick."

"That's not what I'm referring to, and you know it." I saw his hand on her knee, the way he watched her. How it held the same intensity I felt.

The amount of guilt there now though has me sitting upright. He avoids my gaze.

"You're not over there wondering what it would be like."

"None of us should be wondering?—"

"No." The righteous indignation doesn't work with the truth plain on his face. "You look like you're in agony because you know just how good it is, and you're drowning in guilt over it."

He rubs his brows with a finger and thumb, and that confirms it for me.

"What the fuck, Henry? When?"

He tugs at his collar, loosening the tie and top button. Stalling. So not since she started working with us—for us. Oh, how easy it would be to step past more boundaries if I thought of her as something other than my employee.

Henry clears his throat and looks at his hands. "The night before she left for college."

A gong goes off between my ears, and I can't think for a minute.

"When she was eighteen?"

He winces and looks out at the dark streets as we whiz home.

Jealousy flares in my chest, even though it really shouldn't. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Jaw clenching, he peers down again. "Because it was a mistake."

Sure, I get that, but beyond the guilt, he doesn't seem to believe it. There's more he's not telling me. Fine. I'll wait until we're home, and Eli can badger it out of him. I grow tired of interrogations too quickly.

Besides, I'm already fighting the same idea. Wanting her is a mistake. A giant mistake.

Right?

My guts and heart argue that it isn't one. This feeling doesn't come along often. Not for me. I don't generally like people. At all. But the way Paige isn't afraid to test me, push against my prickly exterior, she lures me in. I want to bait the hook.

Fists clenched in my lap, I squeeze them as we turn onto our property. Our driver, Liam, parks us in the garage, and I run my hands through my hair before getting out.

Henry follows, shaking Liam's hand on his way to the interior door. I give him a nod and meet Henry in the back kitchen. Tossing my jacket on the island, I narrow my eyes at Eli eating out of what looks like my container.

The white tile glistens bright under the ambient lighting. Frosted blue glass accents break up the endless expanse of clean white lines.

Eli swallows a mouthful of what I suspect is my leftover Thai and points his fork at us. "You fuckers took Paige home without me."

I roll my eyes. "You make it sound unseemly."

He stares at me for a moment. "Because it was. I can see it on both of you. And I got shit for saying something about her legs."

"She's Patrick's daughter." Henry stands in the transition of the kitchen and sitting room, hands locked in his hair.

"And…" I prod. He can't sound so high and mighty if he doesn't tell Eli why he's being such a hard ass about it.

Eli lifts a brow and takes another bite of my pad Thai. I rub my face again and pull up a new delivery order on my phone.

Henry sputters once, making Eli hmm at him. "Paige and I…"

Eli straightens, finally serious. "When?"

"The night before she left for college," I say for him. I can't stand how he draws it out. "Barely eighteen."

He points with his fork at Henry again. "That's the reason she keeps glaring at you."

Henry drops his arms and groans. "It was a mistake."

"And what was your weakness exactly? Alcohol? A little Mary J? She throw herself at you?" Eli stabs in the container with that little green monster riding his back.

But the look he shoots us makes me second guess my judgment, my limitations.

"She threw herself at you." I toss my phone on my coat and plant my hands on my hips.

"Not…not like that sounds. But we were drinking, and…"

"Why were you drinking with her? Alone?" Eli asks, finally abandoning the fork to face Henry fully.

The story comes in fits and false starts before he says it plainly. He went to see Patrick, found her home alone drinking, and didn't like the thought of leaving her there with that bottle.

"The more we talked, the closer we got, the more we clicked." Henry heaves a giant sigh and rubs his cheeks. "I tried to fight the allure of her, but when she slid into my lap and kissed me, I was a goner."

Pausing, he grabs a glass of water and downs it. "Fuck, need something stronger."

"You need to keep going," Eli says, face and neck red like he's about to have a stroke.

"She had me tear her leggings."

"Off?" I loosen my tie and the top button of my shirt. The usual routine doesn't settle me at all.

"In half. Down the crotch seam. She wasn't wearing any panties." His voice has gone hoarse. His eyes shut like he's remembering it.

I let myself simmer in that image for a few breaths too.

"She was so wet and hot. I only have so much self-control."

"I feel like I'm missing too many details, but first…" Eli holds up his hands and disappears, returning with a good bottle of scotch and three glasses.

I grab the one he fills for me and take a swallow, grateful for the burn blooming as it goes down. A good distraction from the other burning sensations I'm swimming in.

Eli continues to prod Henry for details, step-by-step of how she broke him down, told him she wanted him, her consent, being an adult, taking him in her hand. It was all too much. I would have never lasted either.

"We shouldn't be talking about this. Shouldn't even be thinking about Patrick's daughter this way. She isn't just any girl?—"

"Woman," Eli interjects.

"She's young enough to be our daughter. Besides, the term girl should help you keep it in your pants." And hopefully, me too.

"I don't think semantics is going to help in this situation." Henry knocks back his glass, emptying it.

Yeah, I suppose it won't.

"Fine. But my other point still stands. She's our best friend's daughter. You know, the quarterback of our high school football team. The one who went over each prospectus with us before we built our first business. The man we consoled when his wife died and left him with two preteen daughters to raise. One of which we're talking about like some piece of ass."

We all still at my last point. Do I think we're talking about her that way, really? No. If this was just sex, we wouldn't be discussing it at all.

But there's something about Paige that has me hooked, tethered to the idea that she could fit with me. And not just me, but the three of us.

I shake my head, all of this speculation has another logical issue. Does she even want us? All three of us?

Henry's the one to break our brooding silence. "This isn't going away. Believe me, it won't."

I fear that he's right. As much as I've resisted, that desperate attraction to her won't be suppressed. "So what are we going to do about it?"