Chapter 3 Verity
THREE
Verity
A few hours later, I wake in bed with Petra and Monk, a flower pressed between two pages.
With my back to Petra’s front, her hand cupping my breast as she sleeps, I’m facing Monk, my leg hooked over his hip and our heads sharing a pillow. Mere breaths separate us. I carefully lean back to consider this man in my bed.
Or rather in Petra’s bed.
The light from the lamp on the nightstand is much weaker than the stage’s spotlight, so that should make him less compelling, but no.
He’s still bright and gleaming like a burnished penny, the deep umber of his skin lightly sheened with sweat from the sex we had and maybe how warm the room has become while we slept.
If I get out of bed to turn down the thermostat, I’ll wake one or both of them, and then he might leave.
The night would end, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
So I stare at the long lashes, strangely vulnerable against the hard slope of his cheekbones.
He is handsome, there’s no denying, but he is more than that.
The way he talked about music is how I feel about writing.
Like it’s less a choice I made than what I was made for.
I recognized that passion. Petra set this up for fun because she likes to play games; to knock over a domino and see where people fall, but this encounter disturbed the delicate arrangement of my molecules.
Something that was even and placid is now a wave that rolls through me every time I look at him.
Yes, Petra and I have been with other people in the time we’ve dated, but it’s never meant much.
This, what happened with Monk tonight—as brief as it was—meant something to me.
I don’t often enjoy sex with men because so many of them just don’t get it.
But this man… God, there’s something about him.
He ate me out like he’d never tasted anything as good as me before.
And the way he watched the whole time, as if my eyes were guiding him how to lick, how deep to go, when to stroke and suck.
A filthy tableau of tastes and sounds and sensations, and it was perfect.
True to Petra’s wishes, he didn’t fuck me, but his stare went deep. It was penetrative. I felt it thrusting into some part of my soul that no one has ever touched. Maybe that no one else even knew existed.
Shit.
It all sounds far-fetched. This only happens in the movies, this instant connection.
I’m not naive enough to call it love at first sight.
Not love and not sight, but shake. Maybe it’s an earthquake.
A shaking of my surface that started the moment I saw him, and there is a fissure clearly dividing the hours before I knew him from the hours since.
My fingers tingle with the desire to reach out and touch his face as he sleeps, to test the textures of him with my fingertips.
“Do you creep on all the guys you do threesomes with?” he whispers, eyes still closed.
I gasp and scoot back a little, freezing when Petra stirs, but she just mumbles something about metatarsals, squeezes my breast, and resettles behind me. Monk’s chuckle rolls out low and soft, a quick breath before he opens his eyes to meet mine.
“Remember, this was my first one,” I whisper back, fighting off a smile. “And I wasn’t creeping. I was…”
He raises both brows over sleepy eyes, a small smile twitching one corner of his mouth. “You were…?”
“Never mind.” I drop my gaze, only to be distracted by the topography of his torso.
He’s leanly muscled, not bulky, but his abs are corrugated, and the muscles at his hips are well-defined.
When Petra was studying for an anatomy exam, she told me technically that the V guys have is called the inguinal ligament, but I prefer Adonis belt. Especially on him.
He’s not Adonis, though. He’s not a man so handsome you’d think he was a model or a famous actor, but there’s something there beneath his skin that makes him irresistible.
To me.
“Are you sure this isn’t creeping?” he whispers, his grin widening. “Because the staring is pretty consistent with creeping behavior.”
“Sorry.” I drag my eyes from his hips where the sheets pool. “I’m making this awkward, huh?”
“I don’t feel awkward.” His smile stays fixed, but his eyes search my face, seeming to catalog each feature, one by one. “But I should get going.”
I bite my lip so I won’t ask him to stay.
He carefully rolls to his side and sits up, the sheets drooping to show the top half of his ass.
The muscles of his back contract when he stretches and stands, graceful and naked and toned, unselfconscious as he slides on his boxers.
He bundles his jeans, sweater, and boots in his arms and heads for the bedroom door.
He pauses and asks over one naked shoulder, “Lock up after me?”
“Oh,” I say, pushing the tangled hair out of my face. “Yeah, sure.”
I slip out of bed and wish I could be as casual as he seems to be about all of this.
I grab Petra’s satin robe from the bench at the foot of the bed and pull it on over my nakedness.
He doesn’t leave the room, but watches me, his gaze roving over my body in the faint light like he’s never seen me before.
Our eyes hold, and the silence throbs with something so loud I’m surprised it doesn’t wake Petra.
He finally drops his eyes and turns away.
Out in the living room, Monk zips up his jeans and pulls the sweater over his head. Barefoot, he pads to the door, a boot dangling from each index finger.
“Is ‘thank you’ the appropriate response after a threesome?” he asks wryly, pulling on his socks and boots.
“I wouldn’t know.” I wrap my arms around my waist and force out a laugh. “I’m no expert.”
“Why tonight?” He leans against the wall of the tiny foyer, bending to put on his other boot. “Why me?”
Unprepared for the question, I gulp and tighten the robe’s sash. “Um… I don’t know. Gotta start somewhere?”
He blinks at me for a second, and I realize how inane that answer was. He sputters a choked chuckle, which makes me laugh, and before I know it, we’re both laughing uncontrollably. I rush over to him and grab his arm, barely able to get out the words.
“Shhhh!” I press my hand across his mouth. “You’ll wake up Petra.”
I let my hand drop until only my fingertips graze his lips.
The contact singes my nerve endings through the thin skin of my fingers.
Our amusement drains away and we face each other, a few inches separating our bodies, his back against one wall of the narrow entryway.
I step away, snapping the thread of awareness connecting us, to press my back against the opposite wall.
“Why me?” he asks again, as if the last few seconds never happened, as if the reply I gave told him nothing, all humor swiped from his expression.
“I don’t know.” I return the look that searches my face for answers I don’t have. “Petra’s asked before, but I never wanted to. She’s never offered with a guy because… well, she knows I’ve never come with a man before.”
I can’t believe I told him that, but his surprise makes my embarrassing candor worth it.
“Never?” he asks, eyes wide.
I shake my head, a small smile teasing my lips. “Not that I’ve been with that many.”
“Guess I should feel flattered?”
I lean forward and punch his shoulder playfully.
He grabs my fist, so small when his hand encloses it.
Those talented hands that cast a spell on me first dancing across the keys and then caressing my skin.
He gently links our fingers for a few seconds, his eyes clinging to mine before he lets me go.
I clear my throat. “Did you play sports?”
“Me?” He smirks and relaxes, pressing his shoulders against the wall. “Hell no. I played instruments.”
“Plural?” I tilt my head and study him. “Which ones?”
“Piano, obviously. Guitar, trumpet, drums.” He squeezes one eye shut, as if concentrating.
“There’s more?” I ask.
“Bass,” he continues. “And harmonica.”
“Wow.”
“My whole family’s preachers, singers, choir directors. They all sing and play. Most of them don’t even read music. I think I was maybe three when I started playing piano by ear, like just picking up songs I’d hear.”
“So you are a prodigy. Petra said as much.”
“When did she say that? When the two of you plotted to bring me home for a threesome?” He quirks a brow, and I can’t tell if, now that the sheets have cooled, he finds it funny or offensive.
“We didn’t plot anything,” I answer, the words coming out stilted. “Well, I didn’t. I had no idea what she had in mind until she whispered it in my ear tonight.”
“So you didn’t think I’d come?”
I hesitate before shaking my head. “Not really. We had a bet about you showing up, but… I didn’t know what she was thinking. No one ever does.”
“What was the bet?”
“Um, well.” I fiddle with the belt of Petra’s robe, sliding the strip of satin between my fingers. “Petra bet that you would show up and I bet that you wouldn’t.”
“You thought I wouldn’t come?”
“I mean… why would you? You and Petra don’t usually socialize in the same circles.” I shrug. “I didn’t see much reason for you to show.”
“Hmmm,” he grunts, not offering further comment.
“And I really wanted my laundry done for a month.” I pause to scowl at him. “Thanks a lot. Now I’m washing and folding Petra’s shit for the foreseeable future.”
“Laundry?” His brows lower, but his lips twitch. “You had laundry riding on me not showing?”
My smile breaks free as soon as I detect the humor returning to his eyes.
“What can I say? I love cleaning, but hate doing laundry.”
“That was really unfair of Petra to con you like that when she knew I would come.”
“How could she know?”
He doesn’t reply, just stares back at me like the answer should be obvious. His eyes make a slow journey down my body, barely covered by the thin robe. My nipples pebble beneath the silky material, beneath that heated perusal, and I shiver, despite the apartment still feeling too warm.