13. Peyton
PEYTON
The quarterly budget review consisted of a twelve-page document that required my full attention.
I’d read the same paragraph four times.
It was becoming a problem. Since when did I slack on my work simply because it existed in the same building as Viktor, Misha, and Leo?
Viktor had walked past my desk forty minutes ago, his fingers brushing the back of my chair without touching me, and my brain had taken that as an excuse to check out. That almost touch became more important than anything else.
I ground my teeth and leaned closer to the computer screen, letting it fill my vision.
Leo’s laugh trickled out from the meeting room, the low timbre vibrating in my core. It was a real laugh, not the one he deployed like a weapon during meetings.
I knew the difference now, and that was the problem. I’d wanted to know things about them, real, genuine things. And now that I did, it left me craving more and apparently unable to concentrate on my job.
I was going to lose my mind… in the best way possible and at an alarming rate.
I gave up on the budget review after reading the opening sentence twice and leaned back in my chair to stare at the ceiling.
There was nothing unique about it. Just another ceiling, but staring at it let me reminisce about Misha’s offer.
He’d tossed it out there last night with one of those casual tones that I used to think meant he didn’t really care.
I knew better now, and when he’d asked if I would consider moving in, I’d gaped at him.
I mean, yeah, we spent almost every night together anyway, and my apartment felt lonelier by the minute, but that didn’t mean I’d uproot all my shit after a couple of weeks.
Then again, my toiletries sat on a shelf in their shower, and my favorite coffee brand appeared in the kitchen cabinet overnight.
Misha had said, with a straight face and factual delivery, that it was more efficient.
Like efficiency was the only thing that mattered.
I was considering it only because I spent the last week falling asleep in the middle of a sentence and waking up warm and tangled in their arms and feeling more rested than I had any right to be after the things we’d done.
I always went home to my apartment and lay awake too long listening to traffic and remembering the feel of their arms across my stomach as they slept.
The rational part of me–a part growing smaller every day–had a list of objections.
And at the top?
My family.
I rocked back and forth in my luxury leather chair and groaned, lifting my hands to my eyes and grinding my heels into the sockets.
My family would not judge me. I knew that in my heart. My parents were the most open-minded people on the planet.
When my brother Tommy came out as gay, they’d offered to throw him a party.
And not in the condescending way or with any snark whatsoever. They’d been thrilled for him, even more so when he found his recent partner.
Mom remained warm and friendly and entirely unfazed. Dad asked a few questions to clarify things that were okay to ask or talk about, so that he could be sure he never hurt anyone’s feelings, and that was it.
It wasn’t the polyamorous part of my relationship that concerned me.
Well… not exactly.
They might be a little surprised at that part, but when I added in the other facts, it turned dicey.
Like the additional facts that they were significantly older than me and my bosses.
The perfect trifecta created a withering pool of doubt in my midsection.
Mom and Dad were cool about a lot of things, but I couldn’t guarantee they’d be willing to overcome all three obstacles.
I wasn’t ready to throw that out there and see if they had the spirit to play ball in my court. I needed life to be simple a little while longer.
Which left me right where I started with wanting things I was not ready to claim out loud and moving forward anyway.
The conference room door opened.
I shot forward and focused on the document still open on my screen.
Viktor walked past without looking at me, one hand running down the front of his shirt and straightening his tie.
My panties smoldered, and I came so close to standing and following him that my butt lifted from the chair.
What would he do if I walked in there and sat on his desk? Would he bend me over it? I wanted to find out, and yet, I’d been the one to make them promise we’d keep things professional in the office. I couldn’t go back on that.
My phone dinged. Lunch time.
Elena met me at the door leading into the open lunchroom, hooked her arm around mine, and pulled me to our new corner. She’d stopped using the table in the center of the room in favor of the corner spot where we wouldn’t be overheard.
“Tell me everything.” She nudged me into the seat and rounded the table to sit in front of her salad. “I have let you be evasive for two weeks. This is no longer acceptable.”
The main lunchroom filled up, the center tables loud with overlapping conversations and the rush of a hundred people trying to eat a full meal in twenty minutes.
Someone’s phone played music that interrupted the gurgling coffee maker.
We were far enough away that our voices wouldn’t carry to them, but I hesitated.
I’d been hoping she’d get pulled into a meeting, giving me a little more time to perfect my story. No such luck. I tucked my napkin into my lap and spooned up a bite of soup from my bowl. “There isn’t much to tell.” It was the closest I’d ever come to lying to her while making direct eye contact.
“Peyton.” A warning note entered her voice, and she leaned forward, her dark eyes cajoling. “You cannot expect me to believe that.”
“It’s true.” Not at all. “Okay, so maybe there’s not nothing to tell…”
She pounced on that with a gleeful cackle. “I knew it. Start talking. Tell me every sordid detail. I must know everything.” Stabbing her fork into her salad, she lifted a bite. “It is still the three men from the app, yes?”
I nodded and swirled my spoon around the edge of the bowl.
Lying to her gave me a clean exit. I could have said it didn’t work out and I’d gone back to scoping the possibilities, but Elena knew me better than that.
I was a horrible liar, always had been. And Elena was the only person in New York I’d call a real friend.
I couldn’t lie to her like that, but I could hedge around the full truth and hope for the best.
“And?” She popped her foot against mine beneath the table. “Talk to me. What is it like?”
“It’s…” I searched for a word that would be accurate without being incriminating. “It’s more than I expected.”
“Well, I should hope so.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Come on. Tell me more. What are they like in bed?”
“They’re attentive.” I considered the phrase and found I liked it. “Like, aggressively attentive. They pay attention to things I’ve never thought worth paying attention to. And the sex is mind-blowing. I’m still thinking about last night.”
Dark brows shot up to her hairline. “What happened?”
“So many things. I mean, we started out in the limo.” I sighed and tried to dial back my sudden rush of memories.
“I’ve never had sex in a car before, which can’t really call this a car since the back was the size of a small room.
But we all still had our clothes on, which made it somehow even more sexy. I…”
I glanced around and lowered my voice. “I gave one of them a blowjob, while one of them rubbed my clit and the third fucked me.” I barely whispered the last bit. “But that wasn’t even the end of it. Once we went back to their place, they took me to their room.”
I swallowed the word ‘playroom’ not willing to go into that much detail about my sexual life and fantasies. “They have this thing they do where one of them holds me down while the other one…” I aimed a look at my crotch. “You know.”
“Girl.” Elena sat back with a smirk. “Every time?”
“No. They like to do different things, but they always make sure I have multiple orgasms. Tuesday, I thought my head would explode. Like the orgasm was so good that I couldn’t even think or walk or move for minutes afterward.
I had this tingling sensation all over.” The hairs on my arms lifted even talking about it.
Leo walked around the corner of the coffee station, a white cup in one hand and a smirking grin on his gorgeous face.
He blinked and took a sip of the coffee, staring at me over the rim.
The heat that climbed into my face could have powered the entire block.
Elena leaned toward me, oblivious to Leo standing at her back. “When are you going back?”
“I don’t know.” It was true. I wanted to stay every night, to let them do all those incredible things to me every single night, but I also couldn’t get so lost in them that everything else fell apart. “But if they keep it up…”
Leo stood motionless behind Elena.
What was he doing down here?
They almost never came into the lunch room, especially not for the coffee when they had their own custom espresso machine in the conference room.