Page 34 of Seeking Her Studs
I settle at the edge of the cliff overlooking the wild water and start to wonder if maybe I should just jump in because at least it would be a guaranteed change of subject.
Then I feel something warm on my palm. And pressure glides along my fingers as Reese weaves his large fingers into mine.
He’s holding my hand.
And now it feels as if the overwhelming sounds surrounding us are all coming from my chest. I can’t bear to look at him and instead stare forward.
We stand there in silence, admiring the raw force of the water crashing down before us.
Reese moves his thumb along the ridge of my palm. It’s too loud to have a decent conversation, but I understand that he’s trying to calm me down.
And to my genuine surprise, it does.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Reese
Well, slap my ass and call me Sally.
Or call me shithead for brains.
I keep glancing sideways at Blaire as we scale down the mountain. I keep waiting for a sign to see if she’s caught on to what I’ve just caught on to. Because if she has, then I should just get down on one knee right here and propose. She’d understand why.
“You’re acting weird,” she looks at me through squinted eyes. “Are you regretting the hand-holding?”
I smile broadly, meeting her eyes. She’s squirming a bit now. I can tell this kind of intimacy makes her uncomfortable. And I find it absolutely adorable.
“No, I don’t regret the handholding, Hollywood.” I lace my fingers through hers again, where they should have been the whole damn time. “In fact, I’m going to hold your hand all the way down the mountain.”
“A little impractical, don’t you think?” She says, while stifling a smile.
“Practicality is overrated.”
We continue like this, hand in hand. I enjoy the scenery in a way I couldn’t on the way up because I was too busy staring at the insanely hot dimples she has on her lower back, dreaming of grabbing her from behind and using those dimples as guides for where to put my grip to...
And now I’m not enjoying the scenery yet again.
This whole hike has messed with my head.
Because I’m pretty sure I just realized that we’ve been spending the last year falling in love with Blaire Evans. Which is ironic, because I think we were all in love with her for a long time before that.
Blaire would come into our lives every summer like the damn Perseids meteor shower, lighting everything up and then leaving. It’s the one thing that had us fighting with each other. When she gave one of us more attention and left the other two in the dust, we turned on each other. The three of us have been through a lot of shit. Too much to let anything break us apart. So we swore Blaire Evans off. It didn’t matter though, because she didn’t show her face around here for five damn years.
Then one day, we started talking to someone. All three of us. It had become a thing we danced around. It was just a joke at first. ‘Wouldn’t it be crazy if we were all three with the same woman?, one of us would say when we were having a whiskey after a hard day.
Then we would start to wonder how it would work. Would I get jealous seeing Colt or Briggs with the same woman as me? Could she even handle all three of us?
And I knew when we were having these conversations, we were all imagining the same woman. And we thought, maybe this could be something the next time she comes through. Until she never came back, so fantasizing about her started feeling like we were the same level of pervert as some horny dude jacking off to every bathing suit scene she’s done in her movies.
So we put it out of our minds.
That is until recently, when we started talking to a woman we met in a chatroom. We were just skimming the forum, satisfying our curiosity at first. But then she said something that made us laugh and we started talking. Then we started talking regularly, in our own chat. We got to test out our little fantasy from a safe distance.
Until it started feeling like more. A lot more. We were hooked on her. And we were gearing up to ask her to meet us. Then she dropped the bomb that she was claiming to be Blaire Evans. It’s no secret in this town that the three of us have history with her. We figured someone knew it was us on the other side of the internet and was fucking with us, so we all immediately blocked her.
It’s not definitely her, of course. She said she was only talking to one guy, but that could just be because she’s embarrassed. Because everything else is spot on. I wrack my brain for a way to test my theory.
Before I can, she stops. Our hands tug apart at our disjointed momentum.
