Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
Thanksgiving
Constantine and I catch the pillows Hendrix dumps over the second-floor balcony. “I thought living room campouts were a Christmas tradition.”
“They can become a Thanksgiving Day tradition too. You can always sleep upstairs in an empty bed if you want,” I reply sweetly.
I duck out of the way when he tosses a pillow at my head. “I thought tryptophan was supposed to mellow you out, not turn you mean.”
“Urban myth. But because you cooked the best Thanksgiving meal I’ve ever eaten, you get to sleep next to me.”
Because Aleksander is staying with us and still on bedrest, we kept Thanksgiving small. Alana and Cillian left an hour ago to head back to Boston.
“Under, not next to. Preferably with my dick snuggled inside your snatch.”
“That’s just nasty,” I reply through my laughter.
Constantine glares at him with disgust. “No one says snatch. It’s as bad as saying moist.”
“What’s wrong with moist?”
“So many things.” I take my bundle of pillows into the living room and deposit them on the armchair next to the couch where Aleksander is propped up on a mountain of cushions. His bruising looks so much better. His ribs will take time to heal, which means no sleeping on the floor.
He glances up from the e-reader he’s holding, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I start panting like a bitch in heat.
He’s wearing his reading glasses again. I didn’t know he wore glasses until he put them on the other day.
But holy hell, Aleksander in a pair of black-rimmed readers is panty-melting and hazardous to my libido.
“I can help,” he offers for the third time.
Every time he opens his mouth, I hear I love you. I hear it in my sleep and when I’m awake. And every time I look at him, I have to stop myself from saying it back.
I hyper focus on plumping the pillows before tossing them onto the blankets Tristan laid out on the floor. “You need to rest and not move around too much.”
“I have been resting for days. And I was able to walk down the stairs with no problem.”
“And almost gave me a heart attack. I’ll let you pick out what we’re watching. What was Aleksei’s favorite movie?”
I know holidays are hard for him just like they are for me. Two of the people we each love—Mama and Papa, and Aleksei and his mother—can’t be here to share those special days with us.
Dimples pop in his cheeks when he smiles, the same ones Tristan has. “You wouldn’t be able to guess in a million years what it is.”
Constantine adds more blankets to the ones already on the floor. “What are we guessing?”
“Aleksei’s favorite movie.” Tapping a finger to my chin, I try to think of what genre he would like. Probably something action-packed and bloody like me, and I’d probably be wrong based on Aleksander’s daring smirk. So, I go in the opposite direction. “Is it a rom-com?”
“No—” Aleksander’s mouth skews to the side. “Well, maybe. It does have some elements of romance in it, but it’s not that type of movie.”
“Spaceballs?”
“I’ve never seen that one. Is it good?”
Jaws dropping open in synchronicity, Constantine and I wear matching shocked expressions.
“How could you not have seen Spaceballs? It’s a cult classic.”
“Is that what we’re watching? I’m so in,” Tristan says when he saunters into the room. Picking me up, he gives me a loud smack on the lips before setting me down. “Fénix is finally asleep. Fingers crossed he stays that way.”
“We’re trying to figure out Aleksei’s favorite movie.”
“Apocalypse Now,” Hendrix says.
Spying the plate of snickerdoodles he’s holding in one hand and a bowl of popcorn in the other, I pounce on the cookies.
“Jesus, woman. Here.” He lets go of the plate, and I happily cradle it to my body, not planning to share.
“Apparently, it’s kind of a rom-com but not really,” I tell him with my mouth full.
Constantine sneaks in and snags a cookie. “That wasn’t exactly helpful, baby.”
As if the notion is preposterous, Hendrix asks, “Aleksei liked rom-coms?”
“Sleepless in Seattle,” Tristan deduces.
“That’s not a rom-com,” Hendrix interjects.
“It is.”
“Nothing happens between them. At all. The entire movie is just them talking to other people. They don’t even see each other until the very end when they meet up at the Empire State Building.”
“It’s the angst and anticipation that makes it romantic,” I argue.
Hendrix’s blue eyes cartwheel. “That’s not romantic. That’s an hour and a half of me bored out of my mind.”
“But I love that movie.” I chuck a snickerdoodle at him. He catches it one-handed and takes a bite.
“Hint?” Tristan asks.
Aleksander removes his reading glasses and sets them on the arm of the sectional. “It has twins in it.”
Instant light bulb moment. Excitedly bouncing on my toes, I exclaim, “Oh my god! Are you serious?”
“You know what the movie is from that?” Tristan says.
“Parent Trap!” Aleksander touches his nose to tell me I’m spot on. “I freaking love that movie!”
I grab the remote for the television, and Hendrix groans with disappointment. “It sounds boring.”
“It has Lindsay Lohan in it.”
Apparently, that changes his mind.
Turning off the main lights but keeping the tree lights on, we settle down on the floor in front of Aleksander.
I place the plate of cookies in front of me and lie down on my stomach.
Kicking my feet up in the air, I swing them back and forth as I eat and hum the intro music to the movie when it starts playing.
Hendrix lasts five minutes before his attention turns to something else. Me.
Rolling onto his side, he glides a finger down my calf to my knee. “Want to play a game, baby girl?”
My pussy clenches at his seductive timbre. “After the movie.”
Persevering, his fingers seduce their way along the back of my thigh, his thumb tracing the underside of my ass. “You never asked what kind of game I want to play?”
“Hendrix,” I softly warn, but it comes out breathy instead of chastising, my body wanting what he’s insinuating.
Every moral boundary I try to erect keeps crumbling because of my conflicted feelings of wanting a man I shouldn’t. And the guys aren’t making it easy for me to keep those fortifications up around my heart.
I glance behind me at Aleksander. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me, at us, with an intensity that has desire exploding like a firebomb.
Secluded in the privacy of our living room, the five of us are standing on that precipice. The one I’ve been too afraid to jump off from. The other night at work was a turning point. This moment right here will be life-altering.
Tristan’s mouth brushes the apple of my shoulder. “I’m up for a game of Mother, May I. Con?”
Constantine moves the plate of cookies and positions himself in front of me, his hand tangling in my hair and forcing my gaze up to his, his onyx eyes asking for my permission.
Giving me a choice. A chance to say no. That I don’t want to play this game.
And just like with Hendrix the other week in Keith’s office, I follow my broken compass and let my heart answer for me.
“I’d like to play.”
“Good girl,” Hendrix says, his seductive cadence sending shockwaves of excitement straight to my core. “Roll over, Firefly.”
I do.
“Hands above your head.”
I do that too.
Raising my arms, Constantine positions them to rest on his lap.
Surrounded by the three of them, I focus on Aleksander and wait on bated breath for what comes next. I want him to want me like this. To see me like this. That I’m his as much as I’m theirs.
The air suddenly shifts in the room, the pressure building and building, like an approaching stormfront where you can sense the power it’s about to release. The anticipation of what’s about to happen is excruciating.
“Aleks, may I touch Syn here?”
Oh my god.
Like a king sitting upon his throne, looking down at his subjects, Aleksander replies, “You may.”
Tristan nudges my sleep shirt up past my navel, and my stomach muscles quiver when cool air brushes along my skin. The sweep of his fingertip across my belly chain feels like being struck by lightning as every muscle locks tight.
Constantine leans over me, his gorgeous face scant inches from mine. “Aleks, may I kiss Syn?”
Aleksander runs his thumb seductively over his lower lip, and I feel it as if he were physically touching me. “You may.”
Constantine’s lips are pillow-soft when he takes my mouth with slow, deliberate swipes of his tongue. Every girl who has seen Spider-Man where Kirsten Dunst kisses Tobey Maguire as he hangs upside-down dreams about being kissed this way.
“Aleks, may I take Syn’s shirt off?”
“You may.”
Hendrix bunches my top up my torso one deliberate inch at a time. He uses the rolled fabric as a makeshift blindfold, covering my eyes so I can’t see anything. It’s a form of sensory deprivation where you take away one sense to enhance the others.
“May I kiss her here?” Hendrix says, his warm breath feathering across my breast. My nipples pucker into tight beads, begging for his mouth.
“You may.”
“Oh, fuck,” I moan when his tongue licks across a taut peak, causing a waterfall of tingles to cascade down my body and coalesce into a coiled ball of arousal between my legs.
“I want to see her. All of her.”
At Aleksander’s command, my heart rate skyrockets to dangerous levels.
I jolt when teeth scrape down my stomach and tug at the drawstrings of my pajama bottoms.
“Can you hear how much he wants you, Red?” Gripping under my ass, Tristan sheds the soft cotton fabric down my legs.
“Yes.”
Goose bumps explode everywhere as he gently lifts each foot, then discards the remainder of my clothes, leaving me naked and blindfolded.
“You like that he’s watching, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I moan when he sinks a finger inside me.
My body becomes their playground. Tristan, Constantine, and Hendrix worship me with their mouths and hands and praise. Every sensation is made more exhilarating because I can’t see anything. I can only feel.
A sensuous kiss. You’re so fucking beautiful.
The scrape of a tongue up my inner thigh. Good girl.