Page 15 of Four on the Floor: A Menage Romance

“I’m fine, I promise,” I say, giving him what I hope is a reassuring smile. “I’ll just stand up slowly and get out of here.”

He takes my hand and stands with me, then escorts me out of the sauna. Once I’m back in the cool air of the hall and take a few deep breaths I’m fine again, but Cash still has one arm around my bare shoulders, facing me.

“Let me take you back to your room,” he says. “Please?”

I shake my head firmly, pretty sure I know what’ll happen if he does.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Pinky swear.”

He frowns, but he lets me go.

“If I don’t see you at dinner, I’m breaking the door down,” he teases, that smile coming back into his eyes.

I just laugh, still overwhelmed and overheated and processing what just happened.

“I’ll be at dinner,” I say. “Promise.”

Chapter Seven

Dalton

Something’sup with Cash and Larkin. I can tell. There’s something about the way he teases her at dinner, something in the way that I swear she blushes every time he looks at her.

Itshouldmake me jealous, but strangely, it doesn’t. Yeah, I wish that something was up with her and me too, but I think I’m just immune to jealousy.

“What do you paint besides rocks?” Gavin’s asking, popping a bite of steak into his mouth. The freezer here is gloriously loaded, and since it was Cash’s night to make dinner, meat and potatoes it is.

“Well, normally I consider myself something like an impressionistic surrealist,” Larkin says, like those are two words a bunch of guys in a rock band would know. “But since we’ve been here, I’ve been wanting to return to the basics, really work on my craft. You can’t paint something that doesn’t exist until you’re really really good at painting something thatdoesexist.”

“So you’re aiming to become Colorado’s foremost rock painter,” Gavin says. “But only of rocks that don’t actually exist. An imaginary rock painter.”

Larkin laughs. God, it’s a pretty sound, and for a split second I wish she was laughing at something I’d said instead of Gavin.

He’s clearlyalsointo her, chatting her up and deploying his British charm at maximum levels every chance he gets. Again, I don’t mind. As long as it’s us and her, it’s fine with me.

I’m just afraid that there’sno wayshe’d go for that arrangement.

Gavin and I have never dated together. That is, we’ve never shared a girlfriend.

Groupies in the back of the tour bus? Yes.

Girls backstage? Also, yes.

But we didn’tdateany of those women — it was always just sex. Still, I’m pretty sure he’d be willing.

“I think a rock that doesn’t exist might look a lot like a rock that does exist,” she says. “I’m not exactly an expert on rocks. I’m not even really an expert on painting.”

“Seem like an expert to me,” Gavin says.

“That’s only because you barely know a painting from a stained-glass window,” I say, and Gavin laughs.

“Oy, I’m not a complete Philistine,” he fires back, grinning. “I’ve seen loads of graffiti, you know.”

We all laugh at that and finish dinner.

* * *

That night,I can’t sleep.

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