Chapter 19
SOPHIE
Itapped my finger against my earbud, listening for the tenth time to the voice text Finn had sent me on his lunch break.
Listening to him jerk off in the bathroom while whispering about the way he wanted to bury himself inside of me was absolutely not an appropriate workplace activity, but my four p.m. meeting was running late, and I had a little bit of time to kill.
And that was precisely how Marshall Covington found me.
At five after four, the sound of his brother’s orgasm ringing in my ear and a blush as horrendous as the color Finn’s office had been until the day I met him at the paint store.
“Mr. Covington,” I greeted, slapping the earbud out of my ear. I scraped it and my cell phone into the top drawer of my desk and held out my hand. “Sophie Berry, so nice to meet you.”
“Marshall, please.” He shook my hand, and I gestured for him to take a seat.
“That’ll be all, Sarah, thank you,” I told the receptionist, dismissing her back to her desk and making a mental note to have her call me to check availability when clients showed up for meetings.
But that was all deflection; it had been careless of me.
Marshall had a reputation in the industry, and I knew he wouldn’t not show up.
But it also wasn’t my fault I had an embarrassingly juvenile crush on his younger brother.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” Marshall said, folding one long leg over the other and threading his fingers together, resting them on top of his knee.
“The pleasure is mine. I was honestly shocked when you reached out.”
The meeting with Marshall had been a very last-minute thing, arranged by his assistant and my receptionist two days before. Ironically, while I was at lunch with Finn.
“I know our lines of business don’t often cross, but I’ve found an interesting proposal on my desk for a mixed-use space and my fiancé suggested engaging an interior designer on the front end of the proposal process could only work in my favor.”
Finn had told me Marshall and Silas Ayres were dating each other, but he hadn’t said anything about an engagement.
I bit my lips between my teeth to stop from commenting on the thing I very much wanted to comment about, then took a breath and said the right thing instead.
” “You’re absolutely correct about that. ”
I spent the next hour with Marshall, reviewing his ideas for the space and spitballing my own thoughts around space utilization and color theory.
By five-fifteen, we both had a good starting place, and I promised to have some mood boards over his way before the middle of next week.
He excused himself, apologizing about having a standing obligation, which I knew to be a weekly Friday night dinner with his brothers.
We shook hands again, and I waited until I heard the ding of the elevator doors before collapsing into my chair and holding my face in my hands.
Life was a curious beast sometimes.
I pulled out my phone and texted Daniel.
You were right about LA being good for my job
He responded almost immediately.
Daniel
Meeting w Marshall went well?
Better than.
I should have told Finn about it before it happened
You can tell him tonight.
I hummed, nodding even though Daniel wasn’t there to see my agreement.
I’m going to head home shortly. Just need to make some notes about this project with Marshall first.
I’ll be here.
How do you feel about Sept 24?
For what?
Marrying me.
My heart skipped a couple of beats, and I glanced at my calendar, clicking through the months until September filled my screen.
What’s special about the 24th?
Nothing in particular.
Just the closest weekend day to when we actually met
You remember when we met?
I remember everything.
I love you. Home soon.
I turned my phone upside down to ignore it and tried to finish taking notes about the new project with as little distraction as possible.
When I got home, the kitchen smelled like roasted chicken, and Daniel stood in front of the stove wearing nothing more than a pair of khakis and a floral apron.
I dropped my bag on the couch and kicked off my slingbacks, padding barefoot into the kitchen so I could wrap my arms around his waist and kiss the dip of his spine.
He hummed and turned his head to the side, brushing a kiss across the top of my head.
“All set for next week?” he asked.
“As much as I can be.”
I untangled my arms from his midsection to pour myself a glass of wine, leaning against the counter while Daniel returned to chopping some onions and tossing them into a glass baking dish.
“What time is Finn coming over?”
“When he’s done with his brothers. I think around ten.”
Daniel hummed, nodding and sliding the vegetables into the oven alongside the chicken.
“You have thirty-five minutes,” he said, undoing the bow at the small of his back and pulling the apron over his head. “Go shower if you want. Change into something comfortable, at the very least.”
I raised my glass to him in thanks and left him to his own devices in the kitchen.
After taking a sip of wine, I stripped out of my work clothes and tossed my blouse into the dry clean hamper and my slacks into the laundry, then headed for the bathroom.
I brought the wine with me because the best pinot grigio was shower pinot grigio, but I stopped in my tracks when I realized Daniel had already been in here.
He’d laid out a matching set on the sink, navy lace, and I wondered if he knew it was Finn’s favorite color or if he’d just guessed.
He’d always been fond of the bra in question whenever I wore it, but Daniel had always favored darker jewel tones in most cases.
Next to the lingerie, I found a handwritten note, the simple cardstock propped up right in front of a brand new, hot pink vibrator.
I have no doubt you’ll be well taken care of tonight, but in case you want to get started early…it’s fully charged and waterproof. Love you the most, D
The note made me feel like the two of them had been scheming behind my back, but it was impossible to be mad about.
Finn and I had exchanged plenty of dirty messages about how we wanted the weekend to go, and I was sure he and Daniel had done the same.
Turning the shower on, I waved my fingers under the water to check the temperature before setting my wine down on the soap dish and grabbing the toy off the counter.
I put some music on my phone and dropped it on top of the bra and waited to make sure I liked the beat.
I twisted my hair up into a knot at the top of my head because I had no plans to wash it, then I leaned against the shower wall and drank my wine while warm water ran down my skin.
Thirty-five minutes was far more time than I’d need to sort myself out and ten o’clock felt like a lifetime away.
I returned the wine to the soap dish and set to inspecting the toy.
At first I thought it had been silly for him to buy me a new vibrator, but a quick press of the power button confirmed this wasn’t any normal vibrator.
This was one of those small flower-shaped suction ones, and I barely had a chance to position it over my clit before an orgasm tumbled right out of me.
I came hard and violently, unexpected with one hand between my legs and my other braced against the wall.
The toy vibrated and pulsed against my clit until I was too sensitive to touch, and I turned it off and let it fall down to the basin of the shower.
Catching my breath, I fumbled around for my wine, sliding down to my ass because my knees had somehow turned into Jello.
A soft knock on the door drew my attention, and I glanced up to find Daniel there, still half naked with his arms folded in front of his chest and an amused smile on his face.
“I love how predictable you are,” he told me.
I managed a laugh, letting my head drop against the wall. The ends of my hair were wet and dark, but I didn’t think either Finn or Daniel would mind if I wasn’t completely put together.
“That thing is a beast.”
“Finn picked it out.”
That snapped me to attention. “What?”
I’d read the note carefully. I’d read it twice. It was signed from Daniel…
“He had it delivered to my office today, asked if I would make sure it got to you.” Daniel rested his head against the door jamb, eyes soft and heavy. “I hope that’s okay. I know so much of this is new—”
“It’s okay,” I interrupted, taking a swallow of wine. “It’s new, but not unwelcome.”
“I don’t think there’s a way for this to be separate.” He scratched his ear and shrugged helplessly. “Like, separate relationships can exist, but there’s no denying we come as a pair, and I don’t think I hate the idea of him taking advantage of that.”
“I don’t think he would take advantage.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Daniel pushed away from the door and came toward the shower, reaching in to take the almost empty wine glass out of my hand. “Not in a bad way, rather.”
“How did it make you feel when he sent it to you?” I asked, crawling to my feet. My legs, thankfully, had managed to hold themselves together long enough for me to stand on my own without support.
“It made me hard,” he admitted.
I squirted soap onto my sponge and lathered it up, starting with my chest before working my way down to my stomach and then lower. “Are you sure?”
“Are you asking me if I’m jealous or if I’m having doubts? Because I’m not.”
I washed my legs, my ass, my feet. Daniel watched the whole time, gaze chasing after every inch of skin my fingers touched.
“Neither am I,” I told him. “I like the idea of you two being together, whether I’m there or not. I like the idea of the three of us…”
“The two of you?”
“Also that,” I agreed. “This is not what we’ve done before, though.”
“It’s not what he’s done either.”
I finished rinsing, then turned off the water. Daniel set my wine glass down on the counter and grabbed a towel, holding it open for me. I stepped into it, into his arms, and pressed my wet cheek against the front of his chest.
“Did the two of you lay it all out on the table at dinner last night? I don’t want to pry, but I want to be sure you’re okay.”
“We’re okay.” Daniel kissed the top of my head. “And so are we.”
“I love you.”
“I love you,” he said back, stepping away slowly to make sure I had a grip on the towel. “I’ll refill your wine while you get dressed, but I have to let you know Finn did have a request.”
Heat burned between my legs, my pulse still hard and insistent in my clit. “Hmn?”
Daniel jerked his chin toward the vibrator on the floor of the shower. “He wanted to know how it worked. If you liked it.”
I exhaled a shaky breath, Finn’s lunchtime orgasm still very present in my ears.
“I’ll be sure to let him know,” I promised.
“I’m going to go check the chicken.” Daniel gave me a parting smile and closed the bathroom door behind him on the way out.
I grabbed my phone and opened my text conversation with Finn.
That was some diabolical scheming between the two of you.
A few minutes passed before he replied.
Finn
Good or bad?
Groundbreaking
I hope I didn’t accidentally replace myself
You could never
I’m glad you think so. See you soon.
I put on the matching set and snapped a photo in the steamy mirror.
It wasn’t anything indecent, but it was provocative.
The curve of my breast encased in rich blue lace, the barest tease of my nipple, hard still from my orgasm.
I almost sent it to Finn, but then I thought better of it.
Daniel was the one who’d picked it out, after all.
He was just as deserving of a tease, so I started a group chat with the both of them, then fired it off and walked away from my phone.