With Strings Attached (12 page)

“You’re amazing, babe,” Dylan whispered. His hand rubbed up and down her arm.

She may have dozed off a little. She was always so sleep deprived lately and it felt so, so good. But two hot male bodies on either side of her woke her up and she shifted between them.

They’d done it. Holy crap, they’d done it. She’d slept with two guys. Her lips curved, her smile hidden against Matt’s chest. His deep even breathing told her he was asleep. Wow. It was crazy but…wow.

And how many freakin’ orgasms had she had? She’d never in her life had more than one at a time. Tonight she’d had four! Her entire body shimmered with the aftereffects of it. A definite bonus of having two guys. Excitement shivered up her spine. Would they do this again?

“Cor.”

Matt apparently wasn’t asleep. She lifted her head to look at him. “Mmm?”

“I don’t want to get out of bed to drive you home.”

“Oh.”

“Will you stay?”

She didn’t have much choice. She either made one of the guys get out of this nice warm bed to drive her home or she stayed. And truthfully, she didn’t feel much like dragging herself out of this nice warm bed either.

“Sure.”

Dylan spoke from behind her. “Good.”

She lifted her head and looked at him over her shoulder, smiling.

“Did that take your mind off your dad?” he asked.

That memory extinguished her glow real quick. She pouted. “Yeah. Until now.”

“Way to go, douchbag,” Matt said in a mild voice.

“Sorry, babe. You wanna talk about it, maybe?”

One corner of her mouth tipped up. “Yeah, not so much.”

“Just thought it might help.”

“Will you try to convince me to see him?”

“No.”

“Okay then.” She rolled to her back, squeezing herself between them and pushing them a little with her elbows to make room. They both grunted and made space for her. She smiled. “I actually can’t talk much about him because I don’t even know him. I have no idea where he went or what he does for a living. Whether he ever got married again. I don’t even remember him.”

“What happened? When he left?”

She glanced at Matt. He knew the sad story, but Dylan didn’t. And, all soft and warm and snuggled in next to him, she found she didn’t mind if he knew. She sighed. “I told you about my mom. That she’s bipolar.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, twenty years ago they didn’t know as much about it as they do now. The drugs they used back then were awful. My mom was a zombie when she was on them. Then she’d go off the drugs. She’d be all manic and crazy. People thought she was nuts. Then she’d be depressed. Like…suicidal depressed.” She paused and her fingers rubbed the sheet between them. “I guess my dad couldn’t handle it. They were really young. My mom got pregnant accidentally, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have gotten married, and he couldn’t deal. But…” Her voice sharpened. “He wasn’t enough of a man to take responsibility for me, and he just left. Never came back. Didn’t even bother to check if I was okay, leaving me with her when she was so unstable. Didn’t even bother to divorce my mom until about six years later. I don’t even know much about it, my mom didn’t really tell me a lot.”

“Nice guy,” Dylan said. His hand rested warm and heavy on her stomach. “That sucks.”

“Yeah. It kind of messed me up.”

“You don’t seem very messed up.”

She laughed at that. He had no idea what hell she’d been through, the depths she’d sank to and how hard she’d worked to get back up. “Thanks. I’ve managed to get my act together enough that I actually volunteer with a program for kids who have a family member with mental illness. I mentor a girl.”

“Amanda,” Matt put in. “The girl who helps her with her chocolates.”

“Oh yeah. You mentioned that. What do you do to mentor her?”

“Lots of things. Now we talk a lot while we’re making chocolates. Before we used to go to the mall, go for a walk. Hang out. The important thing is to spend time with her, talking about stuff. Sharing experiences.”

“Do you need some kind of qualifications to do that?”

“Not for the mentor role.” She stared up at the ceiling. “The kids are part of a group who work with a psychologist and a social worker. But each kid has a mentor they spend time with. The mentors are all someone who has also grown up in a family with mental illness.”

“Like you.”

“Like me,” she agreed. She turned to look at him. “It’s really hard on a family, but a lot of times that gets forgotten because everyone’s working so hard to help the person who’s ill. Which is important, of course. But I can relate to what Amanda’s going through. Sort of. Her situation’s different than mine was…at least she
has
a family. I only had myself.”

He nodded and his fingers moved a little against her skin. “That’s pretty cool that you do that, Corey.”

She smiled. “Thanks.” She preferred not to dwell on the mess her life had been, but she liked feeling Dylan’s approval.

“So if your dad couldn’t handle it, how did
you
handle it?” Dylan asked.

“Uh. Not very well.” This was the part she didn’t want to talk about. “But never mind that. So…uh…you guys up for another round of bouncing on the mattress?”

Chapter Eight

Yup, they sure had been. Corey smiled as she sat at her computer the next morning ready to work on her business accounting. Which she hated. With a fierce passion. But it had to be done. Today she was feeling pretty good so it seemed a good time to work with numbers.

She picked up her coffee mug and inhaled the steam and rich scent, then sipped the hot brew. Matt had dropped her off at home on his way to the brew pub where he, too, had paperwork to do. He understood what it was like owning a business, although his business was considerably larger than hers. He was actually a great source of advice. Whatever problems or questions she had were usually something he’d already gone through. He was smart.

And sexy. Her smile deepened as she clicked open her tax program.

She’d always known that, of course. And yet maybe not. Her forehead creased a little. On a certain level she knew he was good-looking and had a great body. But somehow, she hadn’t fully appreciated that. Dylan was a professional athlete and she’d expected him to have a hot body, but Matt’s was every bit as gorgeous as Dylan’s, both of them ripped and hard-bodied and tanned and…oh, wow. She was getting all melty again. Focus. Accounting.

She’d had a threesome. She grinned. With two hot guys.

Yup, focusing on accounting wasn’t going to be easy today. Damn.

Memories kept playing through her mind like a movie trailer, a pretty smutty movie trailer in fact. It was hard to stop them.

She was kind of surprised Matt had agreed to do it. Once again, she wondered if she’d misjudged him. He was a nice guy—he helped everyone he knew, including one sister who totally took advantage of it and one who wanted him to butt out of her life. He even helped people he barely knew. He helped
her
all the time, no matter how hard she protested. He had lots of friends, was super easy to talk to about anything. She’d told him things she’d never told
anyone
else. That’s why he’d been such a good bartender. People loved to talk to him. But she’d always thought him…well, straight. The sex was good, but it was…straight. Not that she wanted kinky sex.

Or maybe she did, since she’d jumped into bed with two guys.

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. This was hopeless. She was getting no work done. Maybe she should just take a few minutes to wallow in memories and sensation and
then
try to focus on work.

She hoped this wasn’t going to make things weird for her and Matt. Or for her and Dylan. Or for Dylan and Matt. Geez. This could get complicated. She made a face. And what was going to happen now? She was still attracted to Dylan. Wouldn’t mind getting together with him again. But she was also still friends with Matt, and when Dylan was gone, she still wanted to hang out with him. And maybe have hot sex once in a while.

She licked her lips and sat up straight. Oh hell. What if that had all been a huge mistake? She sucked on her bottom lip briefly then shook her head. She could not spend all day reliving every touch, every sensation, every orgasm…oh lord…or worrying about what was going to happen next. Whatever happened they’d deal with it. Right now she had to get some work done.

Then she remembered her father and sank back glumly into her chair. Why had he contacted her mother after all these years? Guilty conscience? Or maybe…maybe he was dying. She sat up straight. Maybe he wanted to see her once before he died. She frowned. If he was dying…did she want to miss the one chance she had to know him?

Bah. It didn’t matter. She’d gone basically her whole life without knowing him, and after him abandoning them both like that, she didn’t want to. He had no idea the things she’d gone through. Anyone who would do something like that, turn his back on a four-year-old and never even try to make sure she was okay, she didn’t want to know. But she did need to get to San Diego to see her mother and see how she was doing. Her mother had never been there for her either, and as a teenager that had hurt—a lot—but now Corey understood it wasn’t her fault, because she’d been sick. But her father—

She took a big breath and let it out. She had to put those thoughts aside for now too. She had work to do.

She managed to work on her books for a few hours, then made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before getting started in the chocolate kitchen. Today she was making chocolates from purchased cacao so it wasn’t quite so labor intensive. She’d sourced out a great place to buy her cacao. She was picky about it; it had to be almost as good as she could make but sometimes she couldn’t keep up the volume she needed for production.

She had several big orders to work on that were going to take a while. Her biggest challenge was being able to fill orders when she got multiple orders at the same time. Her chocolates didn’t have a ton of preservatives like commercial chocolates did. Actually it was the filling that was more perishable; chocolate itself had a long shelf life, but the butter cream centers didn’t. Some chocolatiers extended the shelf life of their product by lowering the dairy content, increasing the amount of sugar, substituting corn syrup in place of sugar or adding alcohol in the center, but she didn’t want to do that. She wanted her chocolates to be as fresh as possible. So she couldn’t make things too far ahead of time and stock up.

A national lingerie company was having a convention at the Hilton next week and had ordered chocolates as gifts for every attendee. She had another order from a local coffee shop to make some with crushed espresso beans and a semi-sweet dark chocolate. Coffee and chocolate were a great combination and she had high hopes that this contract would lead to more.

She was hard at work, the kitchen warm and redolent with the scent of coffee and melting chocolate and vanilla, the Red Hot Chili Peppers singing “Hey Oh”, when her doorbell rang. She set down the piping bag she was using, wiped her palms down the front of her apron and headed to the door. It was Matt.

“Hey,” she said, smiling as she opened the door.

He held up a belt. “New alternator belt.”

“Oh Lord! I’d forgotten all about that.” She set her hands to her cheeks. “Good thing I didn’t have to go anywhere today.”

He grinned. “I need your car keys.”

She bit her lip as she ran lightly up the stairs to find her keys. Here he was helping her again and she hated,
hated
, being dependent on someone else. She handed over the keys a moment later and went back to her chocolates, fighting the impotent frustration she felt at needing Matt to fix her car.

He came in a while later. “All fixed. Running fine.” He frowned. “But you know, your tires are nearly bald. It’s dangerous driving on those.”

She clenched her teeth briefly. “I know. But I can’t afford new tires right now.”

He nodded, his mouth a firm line. “I’m gonna run up and wash my hands. Back in a sec.”

She stared down at the big bowl of melted chocolate. Tires. Sure, right.

Truth be told, she had the money. She was putting aside every penny she had so she could afford to open her shop. She just hated to spend it on anything but that goal.

Matt returned moments later. “Looks like you’re busy,” he said, surveying trays and trays of chocolate lined up on trollies.

“Yeah. I’ve got a couple of big orders I’m working on.”

He leaned against the counter beside her and reached up with a fingertip. “Chocolate,” he murmured, brushing over her cheek. “Or maybe I should lick it off.”

Her body promptly went hot all over and she stared at him.

“Ever thought of making chocolate body paint?”

She blinked. “Body paint?”

He grinned and rubbed at her cheek again, then licked his finger. “Mmm. Yeah. You know, I bet that would be pretty popular.”

She choked, everything inside her tightening up. “Er, yeah, it likely would.”

“You could come up with a prototype,” he continued. “And then Dylan and I could help you test it. Because you’d need to try it out before you sold it…right?”