Читать книгу Shameless - Tori Carrington, Tori Carrington - Страница 8

3

LATER THAT NIGHT, Nina lay back against her iron bedstead in her apartment above the store, staring at the ceiling. Her twenty-pound cat Ernest Hemingway’s furry body curved against her thigh on top of the down comforter, his soft snores breaking the silence.

But it wasn’t her cat she was mindful of just now. No, the suggestive conversation she’d shared with Kevin and Gauge was what dominated her thoughts to such a degree that she found it impossible to close her eyes.

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 overheated 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….

TWO DAYS LATER, Kevin watched Nina pass in front of the checkout counter, her snug black pants clinging to her delicious bottom, her white apron cinched at her narrow waist. She waggled her fingers at him and gave him the same wicked smile she’d been throwing his way for the past two days.

He rang up the amount on the register and distractedly quoted the total to the customer.

“Um, I think you made a mistake,” Jeremiah Johnson said, staring at the display.

Nina moved out of view and Kevin ran the back of his hand across his forehead. “Pardon me?”

“You added a zero to the amount, I think.” Johnson waved a book. “This should be $23.95, not $239.50. Unless the price on hardcovers went up again.”

Kevin grimaced and mumbled an apology to the economics professor, canceling the transaction and starting again from scratch.

He didn’t know how long he could take Nina’s shameless flirting. While she’d always been friendly, often times bawdily so, she’d never downright tempted him the way she was doing now.

And his job performance was suffering for it. Over the past two days he’d gotten more orders wrong than right. Considering that he prided himself on customer service, his aberrant behavior only amplified his stress level.

He handed Johnson his purchase and apologized again even as Gauge walked behind the paneled counter and grabbed a few bags. “You know, one conversation will eliminate your sorry state.”

“Shut the hell up, Gauge,” he said under his breath.

But apparently not quietly enough because old Mrs. Christenberry stared at him in open-mouthed shock.

That was it. He and his friends were going to put this ridiculous topic to rest. Right now.

“Julie, man the register, please,” he said to a part-time sales associate who was stocking books nearby.

He grabbed Gauge by the arm and led him in the direction of the stockroom. “You and I need to talk.”

“It’s about damn time.”

He could say that again.

He opened the door, ushered his friend through it, and then stared at another associate who was stripping the covers off paperbacks to send back to distributors for credit.

“John, go see if the music center needs any attention for a few minutes, will you?”

The teen eyed him and a grinning Gauge and hastily left the room.

“Christ, Kevin, you’re worse off than I thought.”

Kevin stared at his friend. Gauge looked unaffected as he leaned against a table and crossed his feet at his booted ankles and then his arms over his chest. His T-shirt today was black and sported the logo from a Memphis House of Blues.

“This has got to stop. Right now,” he said, pacing one way and then back again. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I can’t ban these…images from my mind.”

“What images? Of Nina naked and moaning?” Gauge nodded. “Yeah, I’m going through pretty much the same thing.”

Kevin stopped and fisted his hands at his sides. The idea that his friend felt the same way about Nina bothered him even more than the thought of his own agitated state.

“What? You believed you’re the only one who’s been suffering since our little conversation the other night?”

“But you’ve slept with two women since then.”

Gauge grinned. “And your point is?”

“My point is that you’re an asshole.”

Gauge chuckled at that, nudging up Kevin’s already soaring stress level.

Kevin grasped Gauge by the front of his T-shirt, forcing him to uncross both his ankles and his arms.

“Whoa, watch it now.” Gauge’s smile disappeared briefly, the moment suddenly tense.

Kevin released him and took a long breath. “Sorry.”

Gauge smoothed down his wrinkled T-shirt. “No need getting violent on me. I can set you up with someone if you’re feeling that pent-up.”

“No, thank you.”

“You sure? Because I can guarantee you’ll feel one thousand percent better tomorrow morning.”

“No, you would feel better. I’d probably feel worse.”

“But what if that person was Nina…?”