Chapter 1
Mila
THREE MONTHS LATER
My stomach knots as the lift doors open and I step inside. Nerves, anticipation, and excitement all churn inside my belly, causing my leg to bounce and my palm to sweat as it grips the handle of my carry-on case. Drawing in a deep breath, I pause for a few seconds and hold it in while the doors glide closed, and I start my ascent into the unknown.
“Bring what you need for a weekend at home,” Frankie had said.
So, I had a case full of leggings, trackies, tees, hoodies, pyjamas, undies, and toiletries—all things I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the house in if I was back in Yira, but here in the city of Melbourne, no one knows who I am, and the only time I plan on being seen in public is when I visit my mother at her care facility. No one there will care, either, or even remember what I’m wearing.
To be honest, I’ve no idea what Frankie has planned for this weekend. When we spoke at the party, I’d said what I needed to say to sow the seeds, hoping they’d germinate over the course of the night. I’d played the role of the sad, lonely, bored housewife I’d been practising in my head for months. I didn’t flirt with him, didn’t want him to think I was desperate. Simply more… vulnerable? So, when he’d made his way back to me later that evening and asked what it was I needed to relieve that boredom, to feel less sad and lonely, I’d giggled and raised a brow before looking down and shaking my head, as if I was too embarrassed to say.
Then while I waited for those seeds to bloom, I played with him for a while, letting him think I was shy; that he had to coax my response from me. Eventually blaming my confession on the alcohol, I told him my truth. That moment, me admitting to my darkest desires, was the only honest thing about our conversation… on my part, anyway.
I’d watched his jaw tense, his tongue flick out to lick at his full, plump lips, and his green eyes narrow as he swallowed before he leant in and said, “What if I could solve that problem for you? What if I could make it happen? Fulfil that need? Make you less sad, less lonely? Would you be up for it, Mila, or are you full of shit?”
I didn’t need to fake the shudder that rolled through me, the goosebumps that raced across my skin, or the hardening of my nipples. They happened of their own volition as his hot breath caressed the side of my neck when he spoke.
Slipping a business card into my hand, he added, “If you mean it, if you’re brave enough to live a little—or a lot—call me.”
That was when, for the first time all evening, my husband appeared at my side and jokingly asked what we were plotting. In unison, Frankie and I fake laughed, and as if it had already been rehearsed, we told him a lie.
Lost in my thoughts,I jump when the doors open. I step out into the foyer of Frankie’s penthouse apartment, pulling my case behind me. The floor is covered in a black and white chequered print, porcelain tile, the walls white wooden panels. The lighting is soft, coming from three overhead glass domes hanging in a row, as well as a lamp on a long black console table right before the front door, which is open and filled with the tall frame of Frankie Walsh.
His dark hair is pushed back, and as I move towards him, I notice it’s damp and curling at the ends. His olive-skinned jaw is covered in stubble, and his green eyes sparkle as they travel from my head to my toes, then back to meet mine. When they do, I return the favour and rake my eyes from his to the tight black T-shirt that clings perfectly to his muscled form, down his dark denim-clad legs, all the way to his bare feet.
Bare feet and jeans… Fuck me! What is it about that combination I find so appealing? Maybe it’s because it makes him appear vulnerable, or that very few get to see him this way? I don’t know, but it has my pulse racing.
“You came,” he says with a lopsided smile.
I shake my head and shrug. “I’m… There are so many responses to that, I’m just going to say yes, and leave it there.”
That earns me a bigger grin. When I reach the door, he steps aside and gestures with his arm for me to go in.
“Leave your bags here. We’ll deal with them after we talk,” he instructs.
“Talk?” I question as I wait to follow him into what looks like a living area at the end of a short hallway, with four other doors and a spiral staircase leading off it.
“Yeah, talk. I didn’t want to do it over text. Too risky. But we need to discuss what will happen while you’re here, what we expect from you, and what you can expect from us. And of course, I need to introduce you to Sam.”
“Sam?” I question.
“Yeah… Sam, meet Mila. Mila, Samuel Olsson, my business and other things partner.”
Samuel is standing at the end of the stone bench top. Like Frankie, he’s wearing jeans and a tee. His is white and fits just as perfectly to his fine physic. Unlike Frankie, his hair is blond, on the longer side, his skin sun-kissed and golden, his eyes a piercing blue, which, right now, are dancing all over my face. My reaction to Sam’s stare is the polar opposite to that of Frankie’s. I feel my heart rate slow; my muscles relax. Where Frankie has me nervous, maybe even a little afraid, Sam’s gentle gaze feels like a reassuring caress. A place of safety.
“Mila,” Sam says with a chin lift. That’s it. There’s no more to his greeting.
“Hey, Sam,” I respond with my own chin lift and smile.
“Would you like a drink?” he asks. “We have every kind of spirit, beer, wine, Prosecco?—”
“Prosecco, please,” I cut him off.
The room is open plan. A white, high-gloss kitchen, with a light stone benchtop and black appliances, leads into a dining area, then onto the living/family room I’m now standing in. Two four-seater, tan-coloured leather sofas face each other. Between them is a timber coffee table that matches the dining table. At one end is a wingback leather armchair in a darker shade of brown than the sofas. Behind us, and to the left of where I’m standing, is an entire wall of floor to ceiling windows looking out towards the Yarra River and the city of Melbourne.
“Take a seat,” Frankie says as he passes me my drink.
Feeling the need to have something at my back, I choose the armchair. I’m wearing a black leather skirt, a white Chanel blouse, and my killer heel, Balmain, knee-high boots. Remembering everything I learned from the YouTube tutorials on deportment and etiquette I watched when I first started dating Logan, I sit with my knees together, tilted slightly to one side as I sip my drink, watching as the two men take a seat on the sofas opposite each other.
“We just want to lay down a few guidelines so we’re all clear about how this is going to work,” Frankie says.
I nod because I’m not exactly sure what my response should be.
“We want you to be comfortable with everything, Mila,” Sam adds. “You call the shots on everything at every stage of this. It starts when you want it to, ends when you decide.” He nods. “And what happens in between is entirely up to you. We can push you beyond what you think your boundaries are, or you can set them right now, and we’ll never ask for more.”
I draw in a breath, take a sip of my drink, lick my lips, and with my stomach in knots, I say, “I want you to push my boundaries.” My eyes dart between them as I pause to take in another breath. “When I tell you to stop, I want you to convince me I can take more. I want to try every single thing, even things that, right now, I don’t even know about. Things I’ve never heard of. I want to experience it all.”
“DP?” Frankie asks.
“What’s that?” I reply, watching as they share a look. I think I know, but I don’t want to get it wrong and embarrass myself.
“Double penetration,” Sam says quietly. “Both of us inside you at once.”
And there it is: the first real mention of what this is all about. The reason I’m here. Why I’m about to spend the weekend with these two men—one of them a total stranger.
I told Frankie my fantasies three months ago at my father-in-law’s party. It’s taken that long for everything to align for the three of us to be here right now, and despite Frankie’s messages discussing the time and the place, not once did we mention what we were actually going to do.
“Have you ever had anal?” Frankie asks, and I feel heat spread across my chest, neck, and cheeks, which is ridiculous considering what I’m about to do.
Grow the fuck up, Mila.
“No,” I admit. “Logan doesn’t… There’s no… He rarely touches me, and when he does, he literally rolls on, I get three pumps, then he’s done, and he rolls off.”
I watch the deep frown that appears on Frankie’s face with interest. Was he under the impression his cousin was a better lover? He opens his mouth, and I think he’s about to say something, but instead, he rubs his hand over his jaw. His dark brows remain drawn down tight enough to create a crease between them on his forehead.
“No foreplay? No oral?” Sam asks.
“Nothing,” I say with a headshake before knocking back the last of my drink.
Sam stands immediately, goes to the fridge, retrieves the bottle, then tops up my glass before sitting back down.
“So, how do you get off?” Sam continues his questions while placing the bottle on the coffee table.
I hold up my right hand and offer up a smile. “I have a couple of vibrators stashed away.”
“Stashed away?” Frankie asks. “You and Logan don’t use them together?”
I shake my head. “I broached the subject with him once, and he lost it. Told me I was never to bring anything like that into the house. The only orgasms I’m allowed to have are the ones he gives me, which never happens. He puts zero effort into making sure I get off before him. He doesn’t even check to see if I’m wet.”
“Why the fuck d’you stay?” Frankie questions, his voice high with indignation. On my behalf, though? In disbelief? Outrage? I’m not quite sure.
“Where would I go? You know my background. I come from nothing. He and Scott would make sure I’d leave with exactly that.”
“You sign a prenup?” Sam asks.
I nod and exhale a long breath. “Scott wouldn’t allow the wedding to go ahead until I signed one. Even if anything were to happen to Logan, everything would go to Scott. Logan assured me that once his dad’s gone, he’ll scrap the prenup, but until then…” I trail off with a shrug. “You know what Scott’s like.” I aim my eyes and lift my chin towards Frankie.
“Oh, I fucking know what Scott’s like. He never forgave my dad for marrying a non-Aussie, and absolutely cracked it when he found out he’d left his wealth to my mum, and his shares in the family empire to me. Everything going back to him was something he also stipulated to Dad when he married Mum, but Dad told him to get fucked. Thank fuck he did, otherwise Scott would’ve made sure we were out on our arses when my dad died.”
“Is that why you left Yira without finishing school? To get away from him after your dad died?” I ask.
Frankie excelled at school, not only academically, but at just about every kind of sport, too. Everyone was shocked when he left without sitting his VCEs.
“We left for a lot of reasons—the main one being that Scott let himself into our house one night and drunkenly tried to fuck my mum.”
My mouth opens, closes, then opens again.
“Yeah, that’s the reason my parents refused to live at the big house with the rest of the family. The holier than thou, shit doesn’t stink, Patron Saint of Yira is a fucking sex pest.” Frankie spits the words, the contempt he feels for Scott apparent in the sneer of his lips.
“I’m well aware,” I admit.
“He’s tried shit with you?” Sam sits forward on the edge of sofa.
Slowly inhaling through my nose, I nod, my stomach churning as I recall all of the times my father-in-law has made an inappropriate comment or touched me in a way that’s made me step out of his reach. I always assumed it was a test. Him just seeing if I’d go there with him so he could go running to my husband with our divorce papers in hand.
Scott Walsh also hated his son’s choice of wife due to my ethnicity. My dad’s Aussie, my mum Ukrainian—although she’s lived in Australia since she was three, but to Scott, it didn’t count. My blood wasn’t and isn’t true blue Aussie enough for him. Add to that how my mum did a runner, my dad turned to the bottle, my brothers both ended up in prison, and I grew up in abject poverty, and Scott almost had a coronary when Logan took me home and introduced me as his fiancée. It was only after I agreed to the prenup that Scott agreed not to cut Logan off if he married me. He’d already lost a brother, so the last thing he wanted was to lose his only son to a ‘bloody mongrel’, too.
“I just learned very early on not to be alone in Scott’s company,” I tell them.
Sam’s brows are raised as he shakes his head and asks, “You haven’t told your husband?”
“Logan’s… Scott’s…”
“Logan’s a pussy. Scott’s a cunt and a bully. Logan would never stand up to his old man. Never has, never will. Shocked the shit out of me and Mum when he defied him by marrying you. Now I know about the prenup and the will, I understand why he allowed it to happen,” Frankie states.
I shrug, unsure of how to respond.
“Your family’s fucked. No wonder you need an escape,” Sam says with a wink, making everything inside me pull tight.
He’s absolutely gorgeous in that casual, sun-kissed, surfer kind of way: golden skin, slightly too long, blondish hair, piercing blue eyes, square jaw, and a tall, lean frame.
“We’ll definitely make you forget all that bullshit,” Frankie says. “In fact, while you’re here, we’re not even gonna mention that pair of pricks. When you’re here, it’s all about us, starting right the fuck now.”
I swallow, unsure what that means.
“Don’t look so scared, Mila. I just mean we’re no longer going to talk about Scott and Logan Walsh.”
“Oh,” I say quietly.
He stares at me for a long moment, and I’m wondering what he sees. Or is he looking for something with the way he’s studying me? During our few interactions, and even since I arrived here today, he’s come across as intense—serious. The dark to Sam’s light. But just then, the way he told me not to be scared, and the way he’s looking at me now, I feel like a shift has happened in his attitude towards me.
However, it could just be that I’m so highly strung, I’m overthinking this whole arrangement, and should really see it for what it is: a hook up. A weekend long, three-way hook up, but a hook up nonetheless.
“So…”
I’m so lost inside my own head that I jump when Frankie speaks again.
“Just to clarify,” he says softly. “You want to do all the things, try all the things. Even when you say no, you want us to encourage you to give it a go?”
My mouth goes dry at the thought of all that might mean, and all the different ways these two men will find to fuck me. It actually makes my head spin in anticipation.
“You’re sure about that? Even if you say yes now, you can say no later on,” Frankie reassures me with a smile. It’s gentle, and it reaches his eyes. Something has definitely changed.
“I’m sure,” I state, my eyes meeting both of theirs.
“We’ll make it good for you,” Sam says. “Everything we do, even if it involves a little bit of pain, we’ll always make sure it feels good for you.”
“And just so we know now, are you up for a little… enhancement?” Frankie asks. “Doing what we do means we meet people from all walks of life, which in turn gives us access to a lot of… supplements. All natural, all plant-based. Things that’ll help you relax. Things that’ll help you let go of your inhibitions, things that’ll heighten every single touch. Nothing dangerous, nothing addictive, just a little something-something to make this whole experience the best it can be.”
My eyes meet Sam’s, and he gives a little nod, reassuring me I’ll be safe, and for some reason, that’s all I need.
“I think I’d like that. I think…” I look between them. “Actually, I’m really scared, really nervous. I’ve no fucking clue what I’m doing.”
Sam, with his legs spread, elbows resting on his knees, and a glass cradled between the fingers of both hands, leans towards me from where he sits on the sofa. “Mila, please believe you’re safe with us, I promise you. We want you to enjoy your time here. We want you to want to come back and do it again. We would never, ever encourage you to do or take something that would endanger you.”
I draw in a breath and nod, unsure why I believe him or why he makes me feel safe.
“The only thing we have to do this weekend is get to know each other. Nothing else has to?—”
“No,” I cut Sam off. “No, I don’t know how long it’ll be before I can get away again, and I need… My life is awful. I know we’re not talking about that… them…” I say with a flick of my wrist as if my husband and his father are over in the corner of the room. “But I need this. If I’m going back there on Sunday, I need this weekend for me. I need you two to make me forget…” I trail off because I don’t want to mention the unmentionable again.
The room’s silent as my eyes slice between the two men.
“Tell us what you need?” Frankie says quietly.
“I need you two to help me forget.”
“Now?”
“Right now.”
“You want something to help you relax? It’s perfectly safe, I promise.”
I nod.
Frankie nods too before saying, “Just one more thing. I understand you’re married, and you need to do what you need to do with your husband, but outside of him and us, there will be no one else. That rule goes for us, too. While we have this arrangement going on, for as long as it lasts, for us, there’ll only be you.”
I nod again, my head now swimming with confusion as well as Prosecco and anticipation. Does he think I do this kind of thing all the time?
“Of course,” I say, hoping to have hidden the hurt I feel because of the kind of person he must think I am. “That goes without saying on my part, and I’m glad to have that reassurance from you two.”
“Also…” Frankie clicks his fingers and points at me, making me jump. “Condoms for blow jobs, or are you good without them?”
“I, erm, I…” I stutter, unsure what I should say, but at the same time, my internal muscles clench, and my dry mouth now waters at the thought of giving these two beautiful men head… together!
At the same time.
Fuck me. My head and emotions are all over the place.
“Shit, I didn’t give you the test results. Did you bring yours?” Sam saves me from responding.
“Y-yes, yes,” I sputter. “All clean. It’s in my bag in the hall. But, yeah, all clean.”
“Ours, too,” Sam adds as he moves to the benchtop, collects two sheets of paper, and brings them to me.
My eyes skim the documents, which state the men are both clear of HIV and all of the STIs listed.
“I want you to treat this place like your own,” Frankie tells me. “You have the passcodes for the parking garage, building, and lift. I’ll send you the one for the front door. You can come here any time, for whatever reason. There are four bedrooms. I’ll give you a tour later, but you have your own room, I have mine, Sam uses the guest room when he stays, then there’s our room.”
I nod again because I’m not sure how else to respond. This whole situation is surreal. I thought I’d come here and get my brains banged out by two blokes. Instead, this is like a whole new way of life—one I can’t wait to experience.
“I know this is a lot, Mila, but please try and understand, we’re the joint owners of one of the world’s most, shall we say infamous sex clubs. The press speculate enough on our reputations, none of which is true. We have our brand to protect, and we need to make it very clear to you what we expect, and what you can expect in return.”
My head does its thing and nods as if on autopilot.
“Now, I can see that you’re almost hyperventilating over there, so why don’t we fix you up with that little something I mentioned earlier, so we can all get comfortable, and get to know each other better.”
“Sounds good,” I say with a smile while feeling like I’m about to vomit with nerves.