Page 54 of Neighbors With Benefits

I added the winky face on the end to make sure he knew I was joking, but his comment did sting more than I expected. It was like there was an aching ball in my stomach rolling around. I tried to ignore it as he responded.

Aiden: I can assure you I’m not sleeping with anyone out here, not while working 18 hour days. I just wanted to make sure you knew I don’t get jealous. You’re free to do whatever you want… as long as you still want to hook up when I get back.

Me: I want that very much :-)

Bash walked into the living room with a ladder under one arm. “You’re in charge, so I’ll do whatever you want here. But I have an important piece of information to give you: I’m a master at applying painter’s tape. Everyone talks about it. I’m kind of a big deal around Philadelphia.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really?Everyonetalks about it?”

He replied while setting up the ladder. “Yep. Literally every member of Philadelphia’s one-point-five million population. You’re actually incredibly lucky that I’m helping you.”

I let out a relieved sigh. “I feel like I’ve won the lottery, to have the famous Sebastian Harley in my house!” I tossed him a roll of green painter’s tape. “Will you autograph your work for me? It might increase the value of my home whenever I sell.”

He gave me a mock salute. “It would be my honor, my dear.”

We both grinned together while we got to work.

19

Bash

I’d been thinking about Jazz for the past day. Specifically the comment she’d made last night.

That’s the dream! My own harem of men!

She was almost certainly joking. She didn’tactuallywant the exact same thing the three of us were looking for. The odds were too low. Downright minuscule.

But I couldn’t get the thought about of my head.

I liked Jazz. What wasn’t there to like? She was gorgeous,obviously, but she was so much more than a good-looking woman. She was sharp-witted, and sarcastic, and easy to be around. She had this way of smiling with half her mouth when she was about to make a joke, like she was already trying not to laugh.

And there was a spark between us. The same spark I felt when we first met at her housewarming party. I was certain of it.

Yet there was something holding her back. More than just the fact that she was already sleeping with Aiden. Obviously, being neighbors complicated things. Sleeping with one was already a big risk. Aiden’s ex who burned a bunch of our plants wasevidence of that. Getting romantically involved with someone who lived thirty feet away was an objectively bad idea. I should have let Aiden have her and put any other fantasies out of my head.

But knowing that fact didn’t make it easy to ignore how good she looked. I stole a glance at her while pausing to dip my paintbrush into the can. She was wearing a pair of ratty jeans I had never seen before. There were holes in the knees, but they hugged her ass in the mostirresistibleway. And the loose T-shirt she paired with it was cropped, showing several inches of delicious midriff. Especially when she stretched to reach the upper edges of the wall with her paint roller.

I returned to my task of carefully painting the edges along the ceiling. It was impossible not to feel jealous about what Aiden had. I didn’t even have any details, other than that they’d been sleeping together for a few weeks, and had been exchanging sexy texts while he was out of town. But that was enough to create a fire in my chest. What if I had hit it off with her that first day instead of Aiden?

That’s the dream! My own harem of men!

I pushed the thought out of my head again. There was no way she was serious.

Polyamory wasn’t new. It had been around for thousands of years in one form or another. Swinging was big in the seventies. But modern polyamory was still in its infancy. The internet had helped it grow, but it was still one of those things most people considered “weird.” Hell, itwasweird. Anything outside of the standard monogamous relationship was looked down on by the vast majority of society.

It also wasn’t easy. Two-person relationships were already incredibly difficult. Throuples were even tougher. But fourpeople? That wasreallyhard to maintain. You had six relationships that required maintaining:

A and B.

A and C.

A and D.

B and C.

B and D.

C and D.

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