Page 32 of Double Dare

“Hey, Lake?” Jed asks as we all lean back. “Do we bring you down with our bullshit fighting?”

Laken goes soft. She runs her fingers over Jed’s cheek and then turns to do the same to me. “I think you fight because you care about each other. It’s to be expected in a thing like this.”

“But does it drag you down?” I ask.

“No.” She shakes her head. “To be honest, I feel guilty for driving a wedge between you.”

There’s no wedge. Just feelings we don’t know how to articulate and a situation that is both exciting and uncomfortable. If anything, it’s made our bond even tighter than it was before, we just suck at showing it.

“There’s no wedge between us,” Jed promises her. “I swear to fuck. We’re good. We just handle our shit weird.”

“Well, we expected some tension, right? Whatever we’re doing is against all the normal rules, so there’s bound to be rifts. As long as we promise to get through it together.” She smiles at nothing. Maybe at herself. I like that. “You know what? Let’s get out of our fucking heads and get in the hot tub.”

“Get naked!” Jed says again.

Laken takes another shot straight from the bottle. “You get naked! Hot tub. Let’s go!”

Chapter 13

I probably should have stopped with just the three shots of tequila. I don’t even like tequila, but Gen brought over a bottle one night, had one shot, decided she didn’t like it and left the bottle. No time like the present. The three of us may need a little liquid courage tonight.

At the start of winter, Jed and I bought a hot tub with my first big paycheck as a photographer. It felt so adult, and I was proud as hell of it. Plus, we use this thing every day if we’re here and not at the Dare house.

We strip in the cabin and do a mad dash to the hot tub. It isn’t far, but the night is cold and the ground is snowy.

“Fuck, this feels good,” I moan, sinking into the hot, bubbling water.

Jed’s mind is on something else. “Can you even believe our sweet little Genevieve fucked Four in a truck with us?” he laughs, baffled. “And sounded hot as fuck while doing it?”

Gen’s a queen, that’s for damn sure. “Four said she schooled him, scolded him, and went from bashful and shy to bashful and ballsy. He’s so in love.”

“You like kissing her, Bossy?” Kade asks.

I shrug. “It was hot because it was Gen. She was nervous and into it at the same time, and the vibe was right and all that, but not overly my thing. Glad it happened, but kissing girls isn’t my kink.”

“What about kissing Kade?” Jed asks, pulling me in and planting a kiss on my lips.

I spin, putting my back to him so I can sit between his legs and look at Kade. “What do you think?” Dumb question, really. Loved it. Had wanted to do it for a long time. Felt…fucking life-changing, to be honest.

“I think it got you fired up,” Jed taunts.

“Maybe it got you fired up,” I taunt back.

“Maybe,” Jed admits. “It was pretty hot to feel how into it you were. Kade loved it.”

Kade nods, but says nothing. He’s not one to blush, and his words are usually pretty sharp, but his silence is just as blunt as those words.

“Shy now?” I ask him, coaxing him out, trying to get to the bottom of what he’s feeling.

He licks his lips, putting his tattooed arms on the edge of the hot tub. Damn. “It’s weird now, no? Like, we’ve never done this shit, just the three of us, and now I don’t know where I stand.” Kade makes confusion look hot, but he brings up good points. This chat needs to happen, and maybe having it while plied with alcohol will drop some guards and make us honest.

“None of us know where we fit yet,” I tell him.

“Go,” Jed whispers in my ear, squeezing my hip and pushing me across the tub.

One hard-on to another, I straddle his lap just to see if he’ll let me. His hands latch onto my hips, preventing me from bare-pussy grinding against his bare cock. He smirks at me, but there’s still a little hesitation under all that cockiness.

“Maybe we need to set some ground rules,” Jed says. “Find out what we’re all cool with and shit like that.”

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