26. MATTHEWS

MATTHEWS

I may have been terrible at hitting baseballs, but I could play a hand of poker if the stakes were good, and they had never been higher. We played six rounds. Every round came down to Dean and me, staring each other down, waiting for the card to drop. He had won two rounds, but I was up and, if I won this one, which I would, I would win the bargain. I could tell he wasn’t amused, but it didn’t matter.

Cael didn’t question my decision. He had walked himself into a corner, and he was willing to sit like a good boy and watch the situation unfold. But he was fidgeting. His fingers traced lazy circles up and down my thigh, and I knew his hand was a bust by the way they paused as Ella dealt the next card.

Dean was harder to read, and Van had nothing; I could tell by the way he kept nervously shifting in his seat. Zoey, though, was his biggest tell. Leaning over his shoulder, she continuously brushed her fingers through his hair with a disappointed look on her face.

When I turned to look at Ella, she just raised an eyebrow at me, as if to say this is why I don’t play anymore . It was like playing with a table of toddlers.

“Three of a kind,” Dean laid his cards out, three eights.

I looked down at my cards, feigning disappointment as Van laid down his garbage hand, and Cael followed with nothing but a subtle groan.

Ella had dropped a ten on the table and won the round for me with the flick of her wrist.

“Does four tens beat three eights?” I tilted my head to the side. “I’m just a bat bunny so I’m not really good at math.”

“There’s math in poker?” Van asked, confused, and Zoey tugged on his mullet gently. “That would explain why I’m so bad at it.”

“How drunk are you?” Zoey giggled and kissed the lines of his confused face as the rest of us sat waiting for someone to make a move.

Dean pushed his cards to the center of the table and stood. He then walked around to my side of the table, stopping beside Cael, who seemed to stop breathing.

“You won.” He held out his hand to me. “You don’t have a card up your sleeve, do you?”

“Do you wanna pat me down and check?” I asked, pulling open the front of my jersey to expose the swell of my breast in the bra.

Cael grunted, choking on his own spit.

All of a sudden the air shifted. Before it felt like I was in control, punishing Cael for being a shit head, but I could see that Dean had needed it more than I ever did. I licked my lip and winked. “No sleeves.”

“Fair point.” He linked his hand in mine. “You never specified what you wanted me for.”

“A dance.” I smiled and felt Cael deflate beside me with relief.

I just wanted to talk to Dean in a setting that made him more comfortable.

“Alright.” He nodded and turned without another word.

I followed him through the house and could feel Cael on our heels as Dean pushed out into the dark, crowded dance floor and wrapped me up in his strong arms. Fake fog rose from the floor in suffocating clouds and turned the whole room into nothing but thumping music and grinding bodies beneath the purple lights. His chest was warm, and the fabric of his toga tickled the bare expanse of my thighs as he swung around in circles.

“I know who you are,” he said to me, his lips pressed to my cheek. “I don’t know if he’s told anyone else but you, the lavender girl . You’re nothing but lore in the Nest. A ghost story.”

“Is that why you stare at me like I am one?” I asked him as his hand pressed against my lower back and ground our hips together.

“I don’t stare,” he huffed.

“You could burn a hole in a girl.” I shook my head. “Cael’s a big boy,” I added.

“Cael is my best friend,” he corrected, a vicious hush to his tone.

“I don’t need a conversation about respecting him and what you’ll do to me if I don’t, Dean.” I swallowed tightly as he started to laugh and swung me out wide.

“I’m not worried about him .” Dean laughed, the first time I’ve ever heard him truly do it. His features lightened and the blue in his eyes sparkled against the dark, hazy purple of the living room. It felt like we were dancing through fairy dust when he pulled me back close and whispered in my ear. “It’s you that’s in trouble.”

Dean was missing information. He knew only one side of the story.

Cael hadn’t asked again, either. If he did now I might have told how many there have been. All meaning nothing, all forgettable. I wasn’t the naive lavender girl they all thought I was.

I didn’t have time to respond before a second set of hands wrapped around my thigh and dug into the tender inside pulling me back against him. Dean moved closer, pressing himself against my front while Cael danced from behind. Hands-on skin and lips to my throat, I felt like they were everywhere all at once. I couldn’t get enough of the intense adrenaline rush that it gave me. The tingling sensation filled my veins and set my body on fire as Cael’s hands raked over my stomach beneath his jersey.

“You can have it, you know,” he whispered lightly. “You can have all of it. Dean will let you.”

Dean smiled down at me, but his eyes flickered dangerously to Cael’s, and it finally set in who they were to each other. Cael is my best friend. Cael was his lover.

The air shifted for a second time and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

“We’ve done it before.” Dean dipped his lips against my throat, and I hummed against his touch as Cael’s sultry laughter filled my ear. “We’re a really good team,” he said as he pulled back, hooking a finger into the top of my jersey and pulling me away from Cael, the warmth at my back dissipating for a split second as he spun me again to face the other direction.

“Ask him, Clem.” Cael mouthed the words, but I could hear the order in his voice, and it made my toes curl .

Dean extended his hand around Cael, pulling us tightly together as the music became muted, and there was nothing else in the room but the three of us. His lusty gaze trailed over my skin to Dean behind me, with a mischievous smile on his face that stirred my gut and disturbed all the sleeping butterflies.

“I want it all.” I tipped my chin to the sky, catching Dean’s attention. “Will you do that? For me?” I asked him, and his tongue darted out over his bottom lip in response as he nodded. “Is there somewhere we can go?”

“The Nest,” Dean said.

“That’s so far,” I pouted, and Cael flicked his thumb over my bottom lip.

“We aren’t doing anything in this cesspool.”

Cael turned, offering himself for a piggyback, and I obliged him. He wrapped his strong arms around his back and supported my ass as Dean led us from the frat house into the cold air. The walk back to the Nest seemed faster than the trip down the hill. Maybe it was because of their long legs or the mounting excitement. Cael’s fingers dug into my skin and heat pooled between my legs with each passing second and stolen glance. We were crashing through the door of the house before I knew it, and Cael let me slide from his back.

I dodged his lips as he pulled me close and stared at him with fire in my eyes.

“Oh, come on,” he growled low, and his eyes narrowed on my lips.

“Rules are rules, Loverboy.” I kissed his sharp jaw to keep myself from instantly breaking all of them. It would be torture to have him like this and not kiss him, but I had to stand my ground. It was the last defense against becoming that girl again.

Feeling the tension, Dean’s arms wrapped around my middle, and he scooped me into his arms, carrying me the rest of the way to Cael’s room and throwing me on the bed. Both of them stood tall above him, Cael leaning over to flick on the lamp beside the bed as I kicked off my shoes and curled into the mattress.

I watched silently and impatiently as Dean flicked the snaps of Cael’s ridiculous gladiator kilt and dropped it to the floor, exposing the tight boxers and the full length of Cael beneath. Heat licked at my core; it had been a long time since I felt that pressed against me, but my body trembled for it, begging him quietly with each clench. I pressed my thighs together, trying to hide the need as Cael kissed a line over Dean’s bicep and unknotted the white fabric of his costume.

My teeth scraped against my bottom lip at the sight of them, tanned, toned bodies and big blue eyes. It was a dream I never wanted to wake from. Dean cupped Cael’s neck with one hand and placed a line of slow, sloppy kisses to his throat as Cael raked his eyes down my body, his fingers reaching out for my ankle.