16
COLBY
“Molly’s Motel. Why the fuck did you pick this place?” I ask Seb as we pull into the parking lot. It’s half-empty, which doesn’t say much about the quality or desirability of the establishment.
Seb shrugs. “What do you want? The Ritz?”
“I don’t know.” Glancing around, I wonder how Ellie will react when she turns up and finds this shabby building is her destination. Not exactly Paris, roses, and romance. My brothers reach for the door handles, and we all exit the vehicle in synch. I stare at Seb and Micky, still damp from their after-practice showers, dressed in comfortable sweats, soft cotton shirts, and sneakers, then I glance at my ruined Nikes.
Is this seriously what we’re doing? Daring a girl to meet us in a dingy motel room dressed like this?
I feel bad.
I know that life isn’t about the places you go but the company you have on the journey, but this feels fucking ridiculous.
“What are you thinking?” Micky asks.
“That Ellie deserves more.”
“This was Seb’s dare.” Micky nods at Seb, who slams the door shut and smiles like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
“What’s so different about this than Ellie coming to find us in the dead of night in our bedrooms?” he asks.
“A whole lot,” I say. “I don’t know why, but while it was happening at home, it was more relaxed…unexpected. This feels like a date.”
“Colby’s right,” Micky agrees. “We should have bought chocolates or flowers or something.”
“And freak Ellie the fuck out,” Seb says, strolling towards the main door to the motel reception, not waiting for us to catch up.
“What do you mean, ‘freak Ellie the fuck out?’ I ask.
“Ellie doesn’t want hearts and flowers from us,” Seb says, turning and shrugging. “She wants dares and orgasms. She wants guilt-free sex with three men she knows won’t hurt her because the consequences are too high.”
“All girls want hearts and flowers,” Micky says.
“Nah.” Seb rests his hand on the handle and pauses. “Some girls want the chance to be bad, to put all expectations aside, but they know there’s risk to that. We’re safe. Like a male best friend. Or the boy next door.”
“I don’t want to be safe,” I say.
“Safe doesn’t have to mean boring,” Micky pipes up. “Safe is good. It means she feels free to do what she wants…let her hair down.”
I frown as this entire conversation makes my head hurt. “That sounds okay, I guess.”
Seb shoots me an exasperated look. “How long have you wanted to fuck this girl? How many times have you told me we can’t, and here we are, doing the very thing you’ve been denying is possible? Don’t you want to enjoy the opportunity? Yes, I’d like it if Ellie wanted more from us. If she expected to be treated like a girlfriend rather than a hook-up. But I’ll take the hook-up if that’s all she’s comfortable with. Just appreciate the ride, bro. As long as she’s happy and we’re happy, what’s the problem?”
After Ellie and I were together in my bedroom, all I’ve been able to think about is her. After a second time at Molly’s Motel, how am I going to feel? How many times will I need to fuck Ellie to get her out of my system?
More than twice, that’s for sure.
You won’t ever get her out of your system , my inner voice whispers.She’ll get under your skin even more than she has already, and then what? You’ll scratch and scratch, but you’ll never be able to forget what it was like to move inside her, to watch her come and witness the indescribable bliss.
And what about when she moves on? I’ll have to witness her with other guys; douchebags who don’t deserve to touch a single hair on her head. Douchebags who are nothing compared to my brothers and me.
There isn’t a man out there that would be better for Ellie than we are.
“I’ll take the hook-up,” I say, nodding. “But mark my words, this won’t end well for any of us.”
Seb shrugs as though he agrees, but he still swings the doors open and disappears inside, holding the door for me and Micky to follow.
The bald man at reception eyes us suspiciously when we ask for a family room. “You in town for something in particular?”
To screw our stepsister , I think, but Seb goes into a long lie about a family reunion across town, and it’s so convincing the guy processes our booking and wishes us an enjoyable get-together.
The room we’ve rented is in a separate block on the other side of the parking lot. “You go check out the room,” Seb says. “I’ll message the details to Ellie and find out where she is?”
“She’d better be close,” Micky says, sounding unusually impatient.
“Why?” I ask
“Because my balls are fucking aching. Aren’t yours?”
“No.” I run my hands through my hair, feeling the usual frustration that builds any time I’m attempting to collaborate on something with my brothers. Shit. Has Micky not heard of jerking off, for fuck’s sake?
“I guess I should go first then,” Micky says with a wink, and straight away, I see the game he’s playing.
“Ellie goes first,” I remind him.
The door to room one-zero-three-three is green and covered with chipped paint. Someone has carved two sets of initials with a heart in the middle, which somehow makes this destination even less romantic. I turn the key in the stiff lock and throw the door open. There are three large beds inside and a carpet that matches the door. To say the faded bedcovers look like they have seen better days is a gross understatement, but at least it’s clean.
“Should we push these two beds together?” Micky asks from behind me.
“Yeah. And drape that top sheet across the two mattresses so that Ellie doesn’t fall in the middle.”
“That’s assuming she’s underneath.” As Micky shoves the bed forward with his knees, he wriggles his eyebrows.
“True.” I smooth the sheet over the bed, pulling the edges as tight as they will go.
“How do you reckon Ellie is feeling right now?” Micky stuffs his hands into his pockets and gazes around the room. If he’s wondering what her impression will be when she sees it for the first time, I’d guess at disappointed.
“Nervous,” I say. “If I was in her shoes, I’d be nervous.”
“There are many jokes I could make out of that sentence, but I’m not going to.”
“Good.”
“If you went last, would you have given her this dare?” he asks.
“Seb has always been the most impetuous. I’m not sure I would have.”
Micky nods and worry lines form across his brow. “As much as I loved being with her, if I’d gone last, I would have waited to see what she did next.”
“Without a dare?”
“Yeah. I mean, dares are fun, but at some point, you have to be prepared to go with your own motivation.”
“I guess Seb didn’t want to leave it to fate or to Ellie’s dare-less decision-making.”
“He thinks if we can show her how good it is with all of us together, she’ll be convinced to make this official.”
“Seb is the most impetuous and also the most idealistic.”
“You don’t think it’ll work.”
“Do you? There’s a big chance this will scare her off for good.”
Micky slumps into an old wooden chair that’s resting alone in the room's corner. “If it does then it wasn’t meant to be.”
“You getting all philosophical?”
“Not philosophical. It’s more that I’m trying hard not to analyze everything in my life. Sometimes, just going with the flow feels better, like the universe has a direction that is just for me, and I can choose to wade against it, or I can just let it carry me.”
As I sit on the edge of the mattress, my eyes fix on the door, impatient for Ellie to arrive before Micky moves on to the meaning of life. “So how does Ellie’s dares fit with the direction of the universe.”
Micky purses his lips thoughtfully. “You could say the dares are the universe flow, and she’s allowing herself to go in that direction. Or maybe our dares are interrupting Ellie’s correct direction and forcing her to wade upstream.”
“You’re confusing the fuck out of me now!” I say, shaking my head.
“I’m confusing the fuck out of myself,” he laughs.
As if my body can sense Ellie’s arrival, my heart beats a little faster. It’s warm in the room, and I wish I wore shorts rather than my thick grey joggers. I inhale deeply and slowly, trying to calm myself and hating the nervous sensation in my belly. This isn’t like me. I’m the one who keeps his head in a crisis. The one who always has a plan.
Except this isn’t my plan. It’s Sebastian’s. Maybe that’s why the footsteps outside the door, and Ellie’s gentle laugh, set me on edge.
When she walks through the door, the atmosphere in the room changes. Our eyes meet, and the electricity that pulses between us is so powerful, I brace my arms behind me. She scans for Micky and smiles when she finds him waiting for her, too. Seb closes the door behind them, and then there is a long moment of silence.
Static-filled silence.
This is a mistake.
Even as the thought registers, I hate myself.
Ellie bounces on her toes like she’s readying herself for a race, and I guess she is, in a way. What happens next won’t be easy on her, physically or emotionally.
I get to my feet, rising to a foot over her.
“You sure about this, Ellie?” I want her to say yes with absolute certainty. I want her to tell me that this isn’t just about sex. I want her to confirm that the urge I have to possess this woman, mind, body, and soul is reciprocated.
Her dark eyes fix on me and gazing into them feels like being drawn into a vortex. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Not without a dare.”
Sebastian clears his throat and wraps his arm around Ellie’s waist. “Well, I am thrilled you are. In fact, you can feel just how happy I am right now.” He takes her hand and presses it to his cock, and as Ellie grips his length and moves her hand, her eyes find mine again, this time narrowed with defiance.
Despite the unanswered question hanging in the air, seeing Sebastian’s hand roaming under Ellie’s white tank while he mouths her neck makes my cock swell. I didn’t really believe that this was going to happen until now.
Micky rushes to take place in front of Ellie. When he kisses her, she hooks her free hand around his neck and stands on tiptoes so that he doesn’t have to bend too far.
Watching my brothers make a sandwich of the girl who’s dominated my dreams for years is fire-hot, but I’m also the only one standing around like a spare part. In the closet, I had Seb’s position, and I enjoyed being behind. I enjoyed being the one to whisper in Ellie’s ears and hold her wrists. I relished having that place of control.
When Micky drops to his knees and lifts Ellie’s skirt, revealing her bare pussy, I almost fall to my knees too.
“No panties,” Micky practically gasps.
“Good girl,” Seb says, pinching Ellie’s nipple.
And what does Ellie say?
“Colby, are you going to stand around watching, or are you going to get involved?” She bites her lip and cocks an eyebrow. Everything about her posture and expression is a challenge.
A challenge to possess her physically but not touch her heart. A dare to go further than we should go with our stepsister, but not as far as I want.
Can I do it? Can I follow the path that Seb has set us on? Can I let Ellie get away with taking what she wants and holding the rest at arm’s length?
Now those are some excellent questions.