Shameless (2 page)

Wasn’t it his roving father who had explained to him that there wasn’t one out there woman enough to keep a Gauge happy?

He absently strummed a few notes. He came from a long line of musicians who had traveled more than they’d stayed in one place. Recently, he’d been pondering how it was that three years had passed since he’d arrived in Ann Arbor and then Fantasy, with a plan to play a few gigs at college bars and then move on farther down the line.

But he didn’t have to look too far for the answer. He took in his two best friends, the closest he’d come to any kind of real family, and he knew why he’d stayed. And why he continued to stay, trading a music career for selling CDs and working on a few CDs of his own that barely made it farther than the local college scene.

“I’d better go take care of the last customer,” Kevin said in lieu of answering Nina’s question.

Gauge shook his head again, having noticed that two of the browsers had left without buying anything, but the elderly woman who had kept her shopping close so she could listen in on their conversation had apparently been interested enough to add to her purchases.

He continued strumming an old blues tune that his father had taught him when he was seven until Kevin had followed the customer to the doors and locked them after her.

Kevin finally rejoined them, probably hoping that the conversation had moved on.

Gauge had purposely made sure it hadn’t.

As soon as Kevin sat down, Gauge placed the bottom of the guitar on the area rug and gave it a twirl. “Hey, Nina, why don’t you let Kev and I arrange that night of hot, anonymous sex you said you were looking for?”

It seemed she wasn’t the only one looking to shock tonight.

“Christ, Gauge, what is going on in that oversexed mind of yours now?” Kevin asked, picking up the book he’d been reading and putting it in his lap.

“No, let him talk,” Nina said, intrigued. “What
are
you suggesting, Gauge?”

The last thing on earth Nina wanted was to be predictable. Was it possible that her friends and partners were right and that she had been running in boring cycles for the past few years? Could her bad decisions begin as little more than basic, human need? Having gone without physical intimacy for months at a time, did desire cloud her judgment? Was she choosing men who were the most convenient based on their sexual attraction rather than on an equal balance of psychological and physical appeal?

While she wasn’t one-hundred-percent ready to commit to the idea, she was willing to admit it might be a possibility.

Gauge gave her one of his easy shrugs, pulling his T-shirt a little tighter against his biceps. “Nina, honey, you need to get laid. It’s as simple as that. And I think Kevin and I can help you there.”

She looked back and forth between the two of them. “Do you mean…? Are you saying you think the three of us…?”

They stared at each other for long, heart-pounding moments.

“No….” Nina said.

“I don’t think so,” Kevin said.

“Actually that wasn’t what I was proposing, but…” Gauge said.

Nina suddenly felt dizzy as she sank slowly back into the couch again.

Wow.

Okay, so her partners were hot. Gauge was John-Mayer attractive in a fundamental way that entranced women, who probably got home before they discovered they’d spent double or triple the money on CDs they’d never listen to while under his spell. He had a musician’s easy style, his jeans looked as though they’d been made to fit him, his T-shirt held the right mixture of alpha-male dominance and devil-may-care appeal.

And she could look at his tattoos all day long and never tire of it.

Kevin, on the other hand, was Hugh-Jackman hot. Tall and slightly bookish, he had an easy grin and a set of washboard abs that she imagined he got through coaching hockey in the winter and soccer in the summer, because she never saw him doing anything more physical than what it took to unpack boxes and shelve books here. His big, dark eyes were the type a girl could lose her footing and fall into and never want to come out of again.

Yes, while she’d done her own share of bun-staring when they weren’t looking, as she knew they both did with her, she’d never really considered what it might be like to sleep with either one of them.

As for both of them at the same time…

“No….” she said again, shaking her head.

Kevin looked at her curiously, as if surprised to think she’d even consider the idea of a three-some, and then looked at her again. “That’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard, Gauge. While pop culture may have become more pornified in the past decade, that’s
way
crossing the line for most people.”

“You’re right. You think the three of us argue during tax time now, just think what would happen if we slept together,” Gauge said.

They continued staring at him. He put his guitar down and raised his hands. “It was a joke, all right?”

Nina didn’t buy it.

“Okay, maybe it wasn’t. And I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never considered guy-on-guy action.” He appeared to shudder. “But I think I may be on to something here. Give me a minute.”

Kevin rose and picked up his coffee cup and novel. “I’m not giving you another second. Look at the tension the mere suggestion of sex between any combination of the three of us is causing.”

Nina waved for him to sit back down. “Hold on, Kev. Let’s see where he’s going with this.”

“Got it,” Gauge said, snapping the fingers of his left hand together. The knuckles bore the fading letters
L-O-V-E
he’d had tattooed on them when he was thirteen. “You don’t sleep with us—”

Kevin interjected, “Smartest thing you’ve said all night.”

“But we do arrange for you to sleep with someone….” He drifted off.

Kevin sat back down as if incapable of doing anything that required any sort of mental concentration at the moment.

Nina couldn’t seem to drag her gaze from Gauge’s striking face.

“Someone completely anonymous. No names allowed.”

Nina twisted her lips. “But how do I know I’ll be attracted to him?”

“What does it matter? You won’t see him.”

Kevin clasped his hands together between his knees as if trying to keep from slugging his friend. “What do you mean, she won’t see him? If we arrange for her to go out with someone—”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re not getting me. I didn’t say anything about her going out with someone, like on a date.” He moved from the ottoman to sit in the chair next to Kevin’s, putting him closer to them both. “This is about sex, can we all agree on that?”

Silence.

Nina didn’t know how to respond.

“About fundamental human urges. Look, we all agree that Nina’s made some bad choices because she has a tendency to go without for too long and then jump in too quickly as a result.”

“Go without?” Kevin repeated.

Nina smiled. “No, no. He’s got a point.” She gestured with her hand. “Go on.”

“So we set up something where you won’t be able to see the guy, but he’ll be able to see you.”

“What, are you suggesting she be blindfolded?” Kevin asked, looking more and more dangerous. Nina found it interesting that Gauge appeared not to notice his friend’s agitated state. Then again, maybe he did notice. He just didn’t care.

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.” Gauge grinned and spread his hands wide as if his idea were the solution to all the world’s problems. “Nina gets the hot, anonymous sex she’s looking for…and we don’t have to put up with some moron boyfriend hanging around for the next six months until she boots him out.”

No one said anything.

“And then, maybe, with the whole sex element out of the way, she’ll finally find some guy deserving of her,” Gauge added.

Kevin got out of his chair and for a second Nina thought he might sucker punch Gauge. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

He instead turned to reshelf the book he’d been reading.

“Nina?”

She realized she’d been watching the fit of Kevin’s jeans as he moved and blinked to look back at Gauge. He grinned at her.

“Would the guy be either of you?”

She’d intended the question to be as forthright as his suggestion. Instead it came out as a husky whisper.

She shivered all over, her nipples growing hard, her panties growing damp.

She’d never felt so wanton in her life. An idea like this was something more up her grandmother’s alley—at least if you believed what she said when she talked about the old Motown days, and Nina did.

But now that the proposal was floating out there as a possibility, she found that she’d also never felt more turned on.

She looked at both of them leisurely. Took in Kevin’s intense, soul-searching gaze. Pondered Gauge’s sexy, suggestive grin.

“Well?” she asked, a fire igniting deep in her belly. “Would it?”

Gauge shrugged. “If it did include either one of us, you’d never know, would you?”

Naughty images trailed through her mind one after another. First, there was Gauge holding himself above her, his hair framing his handsome face as he stared into her eyes. Then she blinked and his features were replaced by Kevin’s full mouth as he leaned in to kiss her.

She caught her breath and groaned, tossing the comforter off and covering Ernie with it. While the downstairs area of the old workspace had been completely updated when the three of them had joined forces three years ago, the two upstairs apartments had been left as is, the radiator heat hard to get exactly right. It was either too cold in her sprawling, two-bedroom place, or way too hot.

Of course, she recognized that her thoughts might be just as much to blame for her over-heated condition.

She licked her lips and threw her arm over her head, watching as Ernie freed himself from the blankets and twitched his tail at her before turning his back and jumping from the bed. She idly listened as his nails clicked against the areas of the polished wood floor not covered by rugs and then heard him crunching his dry food in the kitchen.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent a sleepless night thinking about a man. Correction, two men. Her best friends and business partners.

And if she had a brain in her head, she’d turn on the television in the corner and let Conan laugh her to sleep, putting a smile on her face that had nothing to do with either Gauge or Kevin or, Lord forbid, both of them at the same time.

What made secret fantasies special was that they were secret.

Okay, so, yes, she could admit to herself in the safety of her own bed, she’d had a dream once that had featured the two men in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with friendship or business. It had been last summer and on the heels of a memory that now stood out in stark clarity. The three of them had been at a garden party one of Kevin’s late mother’s friends had thrown. While everyone else gathered around the ice sculptures and buffet tables, they had changed into their suits and taken advantage of the Olympic-size pool nestled in a landscape designed to look like a mountain oasis. They’d been fooling around, splashing each other to break the boring monotony established by the stuffy gathering, then they’d graduated to dunking each other.

And then what had happened next had likely set the stage for what she was considering now….

“I don’t know why women insist on buying bathing suits like the one you have on,” Kevin had said of her red string bikini. “The way you keep having to rearrange the top or the bottom, it’s obvious they weren’t meant for swimming.”

Nina had been adjusting the top; her right nipple was in danger of peeking out from behind the wet fabric. She’d watched as her skin puckered in awareness of Kevin’s steady gaze, giving a little shiver as the material chafed against the sensitive tip.

Gauge’s voice had sounded from behind her. “They don’t buy them for swimming,” he’d said, hooking a casual finger into the back of her suit bottom.

It was something he’d done at least a thousand times before. A teasing move not unlike what a brother might do. But in the wake of Kevin’s comment on her suit and her reaction to his gaze, the air rushed from her lungs in a soft whoosh at the feel of his hot finger against her cool skin as he tugged her closer to him.

Kevin drew nearer her front. “So you’re saying they buy them to drive men like us nuts, then?”

Nina was fascinated by the way droplets of water clung to Kevin’s dark hair as he pushed it back from his face; she found it suddenly difficult to tread water. Abruptly she discovered that she wasn’t only in the deep end literally, but metaphorically, as well. And when she felt Gauge press against her from behind, and Kevin from the front, she had the sensation that she was soon going to be in way over her head.

She grasped Kevin’s shoulders to keep above the water at the same time as Gauge grasped her hips.

“Whoa there, sweetheart,” he’d murmured against her ear. “We wouldn’t want you to go under on us.”

She’d restlessly licked her lips, her heart going a million miles a minute, her body flushed with heat despite the cool water as she considered what they might have in mind.

She felt Gauge’s hands slide over her bottom and down the back of her legs even as Kevin reached for the arms she had around his neck for balance, her breasts pressed against the hard wall of his chest.

Then Gauge caught her foot and hoisted her up, catapulting her a few feet so that she hit the water face down.

The cad.

When she came back up for air, she sensed that she’d lost the battle with her top but didn’t make a move to right it. Instead she merely stared at the two of them wickedly, watching them watch her as she allowed her body to float to the surface, her breasts partially exposed, the material of her suit bottom clinging to her swollen womanhood.

“You know, you’re both right,” she’d said as she slowly did the backstroke, coaxing both breasts out. “Women don’t buy these kinds of suits for swimming. We buy them to drive the opposite sex wild.” She’d leisurely licked her lips. “Absolutely, positively, stark raving mad.”

And judging by both their heated expressions, she’d achieved her goal.

At least for one, sweet moment.

Then Kevin’s mother’s friend had come over to the pool to tell them the barbecue was ready….

Recovering from the memory to find herself not in the cool water of a swimming pool with two hot men, but in the middle of her empty bed while a winter storm raged outside, Nina groaned and rolled over, burying her face in her pillow. She hadn’t thought about that time since it had happened. Okay, maybe she was lying. She had thought about it. Usually right around the time she was about to drop off to sleep and found her hand sliding down between her legs as if of its own accord to relieve a pressure there, brought on by the obvious absence of a man in her life.

The sheets were soft and warm and smelled of lavender. The mattress was newish and cradled her aching body. She pressed her hips against it and squeezed her thighs tightly together, relishing the tiny shivers that skittered over her. Her nipples throbbed, her breasts felt heavy and she couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything other than the need screaming through her body.

Gauge and Kevin were right. She needed sex.

Merely thinking their names made her catch her breath, and she rocked her hips more solidly against the mattress. But the tight coiling deep in her womb refused to be satisfied by the vague action. So she slid her hand down and under her right hip, seeking the V of her thighs with her own fingers. She pressed against the swollen mound through her cotton underpants, but the impersonal touch only made her want more. So she worked her fingers under the top elastic, not stopping until the tips met with her shallow crevice. She was dripping wet. Stroking the damp folds, she found the engorged bit of flesh begging for her attention and pressed.

She climaxed instantly, caught off guard by her immediate and explosive response.

It usually took her a few minutes to reach orgasm.

Occasional masturbation almost always quieted her clamoring hormones.

But not tonight.

She extracted her hand from her underpants and rolled back over, more hot and bothered now than she’d been before.

Nina gulped a thick swallow and tightly closed her eyes, willing the unwanted emotions away. Wasn’t life complicated enough wanting one man? What would she possibly do with two?

Her mind responded by offering up all sorts of interesting options.

Nina groaned just as Ernie leaped back onto the bed. She blinked at him standing at the edge of the mattress, staring at her, as if aware of what she was thinking.

“What?” she asked quietly. “Go to sleep and mind your own business.”

If only she could do the same….