Going All In (3 page)

Kim grinned right back. “Yeah, so maybe I did. But not at the same time.”

Julia sniffed. “I haven’t slept with Jay and Hunter at the same time.”

“Yet.”

“You’re not helping,” Julia grumbled.

Kim sat up straight and wiped the smile off her face. “Okay, let’s talk this out logically. You were nuts about them before this all happened. How do you feel about them now?”

Julia blinked. How could she tell her sister that she’d spent the week in a sexual frenzy, desperate for the touch of both men? She’d been so aroused by Jay and Hunter’s advances that she’d spent every night since with her faithful vibrator. And damn it, more than once she’d found herself wondering what it would be like using two vibrators at the same time.

Although the toy had helped to soothe the ache in her pussy, its benefits had been temporary. A jellied penis didn’t kiss her or hold her afterwards. Nor did it ease the bewildering ache in her heart. She wanted Jay and Hunter for that. Jay or Hunter.

“I’m still nuts about them,” was her candid response.

“Both of them?” Kim asked. “Or now are you more attracted to one than the other?”

Julia shook her head in despair. “Both of them. I still can’t choose.” If anything, the interlude had just reinforced her feelings. “And yes, before you say anything else, I am considering sleeping with both of them.”

Kim’s eyes widened, but to her credit she didn’t make any further sarcastic remarks. “Here’s what worries me.” She hesitated as though wondering how to word her concerns. “I think that if you take this any further, the three of you will never be able to go back to being what you were before, or to having what you had. If you sleep with both of them the dynamics of your friendships change. They have to. There’s now sex involved.”

Julia’s stomach sank. That was not what she wanted to hear.

Her thoughts must have been reflected on her face because Kim hurried on. “Look, I know you’ve got this vision of yourself being involved with one of them. But do you think that either Jay or Hunter would want a relationship with someone who slept with him and his friend?”

Julia blanched. “I hadn’t thought so far in advance.” Since last Friday she hadn’t thought further than lusting after both of them and knowing she shouldn’t. Served her right for asking Kim’s advice. She wanted a serving of reality, and her sister was giving her just that.

Kim squeezed her arm. “I’m sorry, Jules. I know I’m not saying what you want to hear. And remember, I haven’t met either guy, so I may be wrong.” She shrugged. “But I don’t know any man who would be okay with that scenario.”

Julia thought about it. Would either Jay or Hunter consider having a one-on-one relationship with her if she did sleep with both of them?

She didn’t have a clue.

“Okay, let me turn the scenario around,” Kim said. “Let’s say you sleep with both of them, and then you introduce them to Mom and Dad as your…boyfriends. How would you feel?”

“Are you out of your freaking mind?” Julia exploded. Almost immediately she lowered her voice to a whisper as people at the tables around them turned to look at her. “I could never introduce them to Mom and Dad under those circumstances!” God, the mere thought was excruciating. Her parents would be appalled.

“Why not?”

“I’d be embarrassed. Downright mortified.” As open-minded as her folks were about issues like sex before marriage and spending the night at a boyfriend’s place, they were also open about their expectations of their daughters. Neither Kim nor Julia had been under any doubt growing up that they were expected to get married and have children. Kim had already lived up to her responsibility. She had a husband and a gorgeous daughter. Now all eyes were turned to Julia as the family waited for her to announce her nuptials to some lucky bloke.

Julia had made it clear she wasn’t ready for marriage. One day, but not now. Still, that didn’t mean her parents would welcome two men into Julia’s life, and certainly not at the same time. On the contrary, they would be horrified.

Kim nodded and cringed, and Julia knew she understood exactly how she’d feel. “Does that tell you anything?” her sister asked.

Julia closed her eyes. “Mom and Dad wouldn’t approve.”

“Afraid not.”

Julia took it a step further. “And if I’d be all embarrassed about introducing them, it probably means I don’t approve either.”

“Probably.”

She opened her eyes, feeling miserable. “So if I don’t approve, why can’t I stop thinking about them?”

“I’m sorry, Jules. I can’t answer that.” Kim frowned. Again she hesitated before speaking. “Okay, you want to know what I really think?”

“Of course I want to know. That’s the whole purpose of this conversation.”

“I think that you should stop this right now. Whatever is going on between the three of you, don’t take it any further. You’ll ruin the relationships you already have with the two of them. Plus you won’t be proud of yourself—not if you’re embarrassed by your actions.”

Kim was right, of course. Her sister had an uncanny knack of seeing things from a different angle to her. A clearer angle.

Julia dropped her head in her hands. As appealing as the idea might be, sleeping with both men was unacceptable. If Julia had approved, she’d have gone the distance last week. She’d have torn off her clothes, and Hunter’s and Jay’s, and demanded they all make love right there on Jay’s dining room floor.

She hadn’t, because that kind of behavior would demand she cross a line she wasn’t prepared to cross. Not if she ever wanted to look her parents, or herself, in the eye again.

Julia sat up straight. She knew what she had to do. The next time she saw Jay and Hunter, her focus would have to be on getting their relationship off the track it had jumped onto last week and back onto neutral ground. If she had any hope of forming a lasting relationship with one man, she had to give up the unexpected invitation to sample both of them.

“Come in, Jules,” Hunter invited, looking altogether too good in a pair of jeans that sat low on his hips and framed his powerful thighs beautifully. Not that she was looking there. His T-shirt hugged his shoulders and chest, defining the muscle that bunched in his arms. Not that she was looking there either. For the moment she was through looking at either Hunter or Jay in any meaningful way. Look at the trouble it had gotten her into last week.

“Am I the first one here?” she asked. Silence emanated from the house. Usually a barrage of voices and laughter greeted her arrival. This was the last game of the year. The following Friday’s poker was cancelled because of Christmas, and the week after that because it would be New Year’s Day.

“Second,” Hunter said, not bothering to hide his appraisal of her. He gave her a very slow once-over, his gaze halting at chest height.

Her nipples pebbled.

“Christ,” he muttered as he stepped aside to let her in. “I’m getting turned on just looking at you.”

Blood warmed her cheeks. Crap, she had to keep this platonic. Had to return their friendship to the point it had been before last Friday night. “Even though I’m wearing glasses?” she tried to tease him.

His brown eyes turned molten. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Julia shot him an annoyed frown. Damn it, how could she play it cool when he turned her blood to fire with just a glance? “That’s because you haven’t looked above my neck since I arrived.”

He shrugged. “When I’m staring at perfection there’s no need to look anywhere else.”

Julia shook her head. Oh dear, tonight was going to be even harder than she’d imagined. She wanted to be exasperated by his response, wanted to not blossom beneath his gaze, but his overt reaction delighted her. She walked inside and headed for the lounge room. Her heart drummed wildly and then cart-wheeled. Jay sat on the couch.

“Hey,” she murmured as heat gathered between her legs.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. This situation wasn’t good for her resolve. Not good at all.

“Jules.” His hair was ruffled and he had a sleepy look in his eyes. A sleepy, do-you-want-to-do-naughty-things kind of a look.

Her unvoiced reply was a resounding yes. But then she gave it a second thought, mentally kicked her own butt and changed her answer to no. Under no circumstances. No, no and no again. Can’t and won’t cross that line.

She glanced around the room. “Where are the cards?” The table was bare, with no hint of poker chips either.

“You didn’t get the message?” Hunter asked as he followed her into the room.

“What message?”

“The one saying poker was cancelled tonight.”

She turned to face him. “Noooo.”

Jay chuckled. “That’s because we never sent it to you.”

Hunter nodded. “Des and the other boys had a late business meeting. They couldn’t make it.” He paused for a heartbeat. “Lucky for us.”

The temperature in the room shot up by at least fifty degrees. This was not good news. Not good news at all. Especially not to a woman who wanted these two men in a way no woman should want two men. “And you decided I didn’t need to know this little bit of information?”

“Pretty much.” Jay stood and walked over to her.

Every one of her senses clicked to hyper alert. “We can’t play if there are only three of us.”

“Oh, we can play,” Hunter assured her, “just not poker.”

Julia’s stomach lurched.

“You’ve been avoiding me this week,” Jay said, stepping up close. So close, his breath stirred through her hair.

“Me too. I called a couple of times, but you never answered.” Hunter moved to stand behind her. “It’s not nice to be ignored.”

A thrill of awareness shot through her. “I…I texted you.” Her protest came out weak. Once again she was sandwiched between them. She had to clear her throat to speak. “You guys, uh, surprised me at the last game,” she confessed, knowing her face was bright pink. “Avoiding you was easier than talking about…what we did.”

“What did we do?” Jay asked. His lips whispered over her cheek.

Hot chills ran up her spine. “Th…this.”

“Did you like it?” Hunter’s mouth was at her ear, his teeth grazing her lobe.

“I—” Lord, how could she tell them she’d loved it when she knew she shouldn’t have done it? When she had to avoid doing it again?

Hunter let out a soft breath. The warm air caressed her neck. “You…what?”

A hand crept up her thigh and under the hem of her miniskirt. She had no idea whose hand it was, but its touch generated a massive outbreak of gooseflesh over her butt and legs.

“It was interesting,” she conceded at last, doing her best to keep cool. Unfortunately her breath came out in soft pants, and her breasts had tightened against Jay’s chest, her nipples proof that the men’s actions affected her—yet again.

Jay chuckled. “As interesting as this?” Another hand touched her other leg. This one was bigger than the first one, the touch a little cooler, and its fingers skimmed over her thigh and up to her hip.

Do not cross the line!

God help her, she needed to step away. Needed to extricate herself from the deluge of testosterone that muddled her thoughts and jammed her senses. Needed to look her parents in the eye tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. She put her hands against Jay’s chest to push him away but grabbed his shirt and clung for dear life instead.

Heat zinged between her legs, and she would have moaned out loud had her mouth not been taken by Jay’s in a heart-pounding kiss.

Hunter pressed his lips to her neck, covering it with sweet, sensual kisses.

How could she resist? How could she push either of them away? For four months she’d been unable to choose one over the other, and here they were taking the choice away from her. Here they were offering her another solution altogether.

She loved two men, and both seemed determined to be with her. How could she not accept them?

Then again, how could she? What would happen to the three of them if she slept with both men at the same time?

But why did kissing them both feel so incredible? So right? Perhaps this was what fate had had in store for her all along. Perhaps she’d never been able to choose one because they were both her destiny.

Bullshit. No woman was graced with two men as her destiny. Not in this day and age, in which she and almost every woman she knew, whether career-oriented or not, was raised to want marriage and the customary two-point-six children.

Jay ran his tongue over hers, nipped her lower lip and pulled away.

Aw, fuck. Who cared what every other woman she knew wanted? She yanked at his shirt, pulling him right back to her, and kissed him again.

Hunter growled in her ear. “It’s time to up the stakes.”

As Jay continued to bamboozle her with exquisite kisses, Hunter moved with a shuffle behind her. The next thing she knew something warm and moist touched the back of her thigh, just below the edge of her skirt.

She trembled. Hunter was on his knees, teasing her legs with his mouth. So focused was she on his seduction and Jay’s kiss that she failed to notice the large hand had moved from her hip. It was now on her breast, stroking from the bottom, molding over the curve and caressing her taut nipple.

She groaned against Jay’s lips.

Shit. She should not be doing this.

Hunter pushed her skirt up, and his mouth moved over her thigh, heading towards her buttock. When he reached it, he gave a gentle nip.

She jumped. Never mind upping the stakes, Hunter was upping her heart rate to a good sixty million beats per minute.

She should leave now, before temptation shoved her right over that line she’d drawn. She should leave with her reputation intact and her heart still in one piece. She pulled away from Jay, preparing to stop all action, but Jay took the opportunity to begin unbuttoning her blouse.

Begin? He was finished before she could draw her next breath. Her shirt hit the floor, followed quickly by her bra, and still Julia hadn’t found the voice to protest.

“Christ, Jules,” Jay whispered, and trailed his fingertips over her heaving breasts. “You’re gorgeous.”

Her breath caught. Damn it, she had to get out of there. Before she demanded they strip off their clothes and press their naked flesh against hers. Both of them.