Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
ADDISON
Jane and I grab our iced lattes from the barista at Brewpoint Coffee and make our way outside to the large wooden bench area in front of the cafe. We plop down in the open spots on the end with audible groans of relief.
“Since when did you become such a hard ass?” she complains, working the muscles of one calf with her hands.
It’s been a while since we’ve hung out. Janey suggested going to breakfast, but I got her to agree to a run instead.
Apparently, I pushed us a little harder than usual.
I couldn’t help it, though. I just had so much energy needing to get burned off.
Which is surprising, since you’d think any adrenaline would have burned off by now with all the orgasms Roman has given me in the last couple of weeks.
I mean, it works for a few hours; the man makes me come until I don’t have the strength to do more than drag air into my lungs.
But as soon as I recover, he does or says something that revs me right back up, and I feel like I can run a marathon in my heels.
“Maybe you’re just out of shape now that Chance never lets you leave his side,” I respond, sounding a little disgruntled on purpose.
I’ll admit I was jealous of the time he spent with her when they first got together, but when I saw how happy he makes my best friend, I can’t honestly begrudge either of them of their ooey-gooey love stuff.
Abandoning her leg, Jane draws her brows together and crosses her arms in that lecturing-mom pose she does so well. “Addie, I’ve been trying to get together with you for at least two weeks now, so don’t go blaming Chance like he’s an evil dragon keeping me chained in a tower.”
I chuckle and hold my hands up in supplication.
“Relax, Janey, I was kidding. No need to protect Thor from your Big Bad Best Friend.” She unfolds her arms and rolls her eyes at me, but at least her hackles aren’t still raised.
To further smooth things over, I say, “I’m aware our lack of girl-time lately is my fault. I’ve just been busy.”
“You’ve just been busy? Or you’ve been busy getting busy?” Jane laughs at her own lame joke, and I can’t help but join her. She’s got the dorkiest sense of humor sometimes, and I love it.
I haven’t told Jane about me and Roman yet, which has been hard in some aspects and easy in others.
Since I’ve always shared everything with her, it’s been weird not going to her right away and spilling every detail like I normally would.
But this whole thing is so different, for so many reasons, that I’ve been hesitant to say anything in case the whole experiment blew up in my face.
But, knock on wood, things are going really smooth. So it’s time to bite the bullet.
“Both,” I say before biting down on my straw and sipping my drink through my smile.
“You’re having sex? How long? With who?”
I raise an eyebrow at the volume with which she just spouted her rapid-fire questions.
Jane claps a hand over her mouth as a woman a few feet away peers over her newspaper with a look of disdain on her face.
I meet her gaze and say, “Oh, come on, don’t act like you don’t appreciate a healthy session of bedroom acrobatics. ”
When she’s properly blushing, with a secretive grin she tries to hide behind her paper, I nod and turn my attention back to Jane. “Yes, I’m having amazing sex.”
“How long?” A wicked grin starts edging onto my face, but she knows me too well and quickly adds, “I mean how long it’s been going on. I’m not asking for his attributes in inches.”
I chuckle but relent and answer. “Coincidentally, a little over two weeks.”
“Coincidentally, my ass. No wonder you haven’t had time to grab coffee. You’ve been grabbing something a lot more fun. It’s a worthy excuse.” She breaks into a huge smile and holds up a hand for me to high-five, which I do. “And who’s the lucky man? Anyone I know?”
She looks at me expectantly as she raises her drink and sips.
I have no idea how she’s going to react.
This should be interesting. “It’s Roman.
” Jane’s eyes fly wide, and she starts choking.
I pat her hard on the back and hand her my napkin, which she uses to cover her mouth as she coughs.
“Shit, Janey, don’t die on me. Chance will kill me. ”
Brushing off my concern, she finally takes a steadying breath before leaning in to stage-whisper so Miss Judgy, or anyone else, doesn’t get an earful. “Are you saying that you’ve been ‘getting busy’ with Roman Roman? As in Ruthless Roman? As in I-refuse-to-even-touch-my-friend’s-friends Roman?”
I flip the tail of my long braid behind my shoulder and lift my chin a touch. “You act like you doubt my lady prowess, Janey. I’m hurt.”
“If I ever doubted it before, I never will again, that’s for damn sure.” She falls back against the bench, awe still on her face as she shakes her head. “I can’t believe you’re dating Roman Reeves. Does Chance know about this? Ooh, if he already knows and hasn’t told me, he’ll be sorry.”
“Easy, Killer. I have a feeling Thor is just as clueless as you were. And I’m not dating Roman. We’re just having fun outside of the office. Totally casual. It’s no big thing.”
“You say that, but considering the man you’re doing it with, it’s kind of a big thing. I don’t think you realize how adamant he was about not having anything to do with you. Though, I suppose once you started working together, it probably made things pretty hard.”
“Oh, you could definitely say that,” I say, snickering. When she doesn’t laugh, I notice her lost in thought, chewing her straw into a crumpled stick. “What is it?”
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.” Her gaze flits to me for half a second before she makes a show of studying the people passing on the cobblestone sidewalk.
“You’re full of shit. I know that look. What aren’t you saying, Janey?”
She stops gnawing on the straw as she debates whether to spill or not. I could press her, but it’s not necessary. I know she’ll cave. I just have to wait her out.
“Okay, but I’m only saying something because I think you should know so you can be prepared if it ever comes up in conversation or whatever.”
I nod, trying not to show how nervous I suddenly am at whatever she’s about to tell me. I want her to stop and hurry up all at once. “You’re doing it for my well-being. Understood.”
“You know how when you get serious with someone, your past—including sexual partners and/or experiences comes up in conversation? Well, in the interest of full disclosure, Chance has told me some things that also relate to Roman.”
“Yeahhhhh?” I drag it out with a questioning inflection to encourage her to continue.
Again she leans over as she whispers conspiratorially to me. “Roman has a thing for group sex. And not the kind with more chicks, either. I mean like he brings in other guys, and a lot of times it was with Austin or Chance. Sometimes both. Can you imagine?”
Oh, I can do better than just imagine. “Wow, that’s crazy,” I say and start mangling my own straw. But apparently I didn’t inject enough shock into my tone because Jane is instantly hip to me.
“You don’t sound surprised.” Her brows draw in as she sorts out the puzzle, and then shoot toward her hairline. “In fact, you actually look kind of guilty.”
I wave her off. “Don’t be ridiculous. You ready to head home?”
“Addison Laverne Paige.” I gasp, pressing a hand to my chest like she physically delivered a blow. I treat my hideous middle name like it’s Voldemort and deadly if uttered aloud. “Tell me what you’re hiding, or I start using it as your first name. Often and loudly.”
“That’s just cruel,” I say with a pout, but my friend is unmoved as she resumes her I mean business arms-crossing pose.
I could technically grit my teeth about the name thing and hold out on her—after all, that’s what the brat did to me when she and Chance started screwing like rabbits—but the truth is, I want to tell her just as much as I don’t.
I’m not typically a person who flounders, but right now I could use some of Janey’s input.
“Okay, but let’s walk. I’m too fidgety.”
We grab our drinks and give up our spots in favor of strolling down West Park Avenue.
It’s a beautiful Saturday, and at not quite eight in the morning, the activity is mostly people out for some form of exercise, whether it’s a bike ride, a run, or even walking their dogs.
In a couple of hours, the shoppers and lunch patrons will join the mid-day exercisers for a more diverse crowd.
I really like Jane’s neighborhood. Elmhurst has a very historic and settled feel to it.
“Addie, if you don’t want to tell me—”
“No, that’s not it. I do want to tell you, I’m just not sure what you’ll think.
” The last thing in the world I want is for her to think I’m some kind of sick deviant who doesn’t have respect for myself or my body.
Nothing is further from the truth. I’m a believer in the cliché adage “my body is my temple,” and that goes for everything else.
I have never and will never let a man disrespect me or my body.
But I’ll admit, there’s been a teeny-tiny part of me that, after the excitement was over and I had to look at myself in the mirror the next morning, wondered if I hadn’t allowed myself to be taken advantage of. And that’s what’s been eating at me ever since. That’s what I need help sorting out.
“Hey.” Jane stops me with a hand on my arm and pulls me down to sit on an available city bench. “In a million years I will never judge you. You know that, right?”
I bite on my lower lip and decide to just blurt it out. “Even if I messed around and had sex with Roman in his office afterhours while Austin was on speakerphone telling me what to do?”
Her jaw practically unhinges, but she quickly recovers, whispering, “Oh my God, that is so…” I close my eyes, ready for my judgement. “…fricking hot.”
My lids snap open. “What?”
“I said it’s fricking hot.”
I’m silent as a couple jogs by, the woman pushing a jogging stroller with their baby. We all smile and give friendly waves, and once they’re safely out of earshot, I shift sideways on the bench. “So you don’t think it’s, I don’t know, slutty or whatever?”
Jane laughs then sobers when she sees I’m not kidding. “Oh, sweetie, of course I don’t. I’d be throwing stones in my own glass house, and I’m rather fond of it the way it is, thank you very much.”
I know she’s telling me the truth. Her metaphorical glass house is built on a foundation of rough sex with healthy doses of humiliation kink thrown in for good measure.
Though I’d castrate a man if he ever called me a slut, Jane gets off on it within the safe boundaries of her “bedroom life” with Chance.
It’s not my thing, but I certainly don’t judge her for what turns her crank, so I don’t know why I thought she’d ever judge me for mine.
“It’s just that this isn’t a secret fantasy I’ve always had. It’s not like it was for you when Chance realized you were into the same thing as him and you guys fucked happily ever after.”
“So you didn’t like it.”
I release a strained laugh and tug on my braid from frustration.
“On the contrary, I liked it a whole hell of a lot. ‘Fricking hot’ is an understatement for what that was.” Sighing, I voice what’s been bothering me at the root of everything.
“But even though I was totally into it, I can’t get over this stupid notion that maybe I was merely a tool for their pleasure.
Like a plaything. And I don’t like that thought at all. ”
“Did they make it all about them? What they wanted, what made them—or in this case, Roman—feel good?”
Thinking back, I realize they’d really been focused on me the whole time.
At one point I was supposed to give Roman a blow job, but it never happened because he wanted so badly to fuck me, first with his mouth and then his cock.
Even the things Austin said to me were more about my pleasure, what they could do for me, than anything else.
A weight drops from my chest, and I can breathe easier for the first time in two weeks. “No, actually. They made it all about me.”
Jane gives me a sweet smile. “That’s what I figured.
For all their flagrant arrogance and cocky attitudes, I get the feeling that core group of friends are all pretty generous lovers.
Which means as long as you were okay with everything that happened, and they treated you with respect and care, there’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, Addie. ”
Elated, I throw my arms around my best friend. “Thank you. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.”
“You’re so welcome,” she says as we part, then she waggles her eyebrows at me. “Think you’ll do it again?”
“It depends on certain variables, but yeah,” I say, trying to keep my stupid grin on a dimmer switch instead of a megawatt bulb.
“The whole thing was so strange, but hot strange. I think it helped that it was someone I knew on the phone, and probably even better that it was Austin. He just has that way about him that makes you feel comfortable, you know?”
Jane nods. “He really does, which is ironic, considering what he’s into.”
She says this like I’m privy to this information, but I’m not, and now I really want to be. “Which is?” Jane realizes her mistake and gets a deer-in-the-headlights look, mid-sip of her tea. “Okay, relax, I won’t press. If I want to know that badly, I’ll go directly to the source.”
Releasing a huge breath, she brushes loose hairs back from her face and chuckles nervously. “Thanks. I guess just because you have a three-way call with a guy doesn’t mean you know all his secrets.”
“No, but I think he might know mine, which is a little weird to think about.”
Jane scoots in closer and whispers, “What was is like? How did it work? You have to tell me because my brain is working so hard to fill in the details that I might pull my frontal lobe.”
“Let’s go, then.” I stand up, throw our empty cups in the trash can next to the bench, and start jogging in place. “If you want the juicy details, you’ll have to keep up with me.”
She groans pitifully as she rises to her feet. “Come on, Addie, can’t we just walk? Let’s speed-walk; we can do that.”
I start moving backward. “If you want to speed-walk, hit up the mall-walkers. You want details of my three-way call? You jog.” Janey caves, as I knew she would, and she’s so riveted by everything I say, she doesn’t even notice when I add an extra mile to our route.