Page 58 of Beautiful Desire
“Oh, well, so glad my embarrassment can be of amusement to you, Gemma,” I deadpan, grabbing my wine and chugging theentire thing in one go. As I swipe the bottle off the table to refill the glass, Grace snorts, which only makes Gemma laugh harder. “Really, guys?” I gawk at them. “What is so funny about this?” But I can’t help it. Their laughter is contagious, and before I know it, I’ve got tears streaming down my face as the three of us laugh our asses off.
“Okay, okay…” Grace wipes the moisture from under her eyes. “Georgia, what the heck?” she asks, out of breath. “How did that happen, first of all? Second of all, was it at least good?”
“Grace!” I hiss.
“What? I’m just asking the questions we all wanna know.”
“No, but really,” Gemma chimes in. “We need to know how it happened, so spill.”
“And can I just say, wow…” Grace blows out a breath, fanning herself. “Y’all wereall overeach other.”
“What happened to you not watching the whole thing?” I scoff, my cheeks heating.
“We didn’t!” Grace exclaims. “But my goodness, you guys were on fire. What could have possibly happened between the bar and the bakery—which isn’t even a block away, might I add—to have you two all over each other like that?”
I groan, unable to believe I’m having this conversation right now. “Uh, what if I say it wasn’t the first time?”
“I knew it!” Grace blurts out before turning her head toward Gemma. “You owe me twenty bucks, ma’am.”
“Excuse me?” Looking between my sisters, I ask, “Did y’all place abeton me?”
Grace nods, giggling. “Well, once the initial shock wore off after we watched you two practically eat each other’s faces, I said it definitely looked like y’all had done that before, but Gemma was convinced otherwise.”
“Because last I heard, you couldn’t stand him,” Gemma cuts in.
“Uh, hello…” Snapping her fingers, Grace says, “Hate sex is the best. Let’s not forget the time Conway jealousy-railed me up against the side of my house.Goddamn,that was hot.”
Gemma scrunches her nose. “You both have some weird up-against-a-building sex kink.”
I snort. “Oh, you’re one to talk,Miss Fuck Me In A Lighthouse, Mr. Windward.”
Flipping me off, the corner of her mouth twitches before she says, “Okay, but really. We need the details of how this happened.”
Taking another drink of my wine, I blow out a breath before word vomiting all over them. Starting at the very beginning, I tell them about Fletcher’s initial flirting, and how the threesome with Charley happened, all the way to me pegging him, and how we’ve had sex nearly every day since. By the time I’m finished with the recap, their jaws are on the floor.
“Oh, my. I have so many questions,” Grace murmurs, holding up her index finger. “You and Charley… Is that a thing? And why is this the first time we’re hearing about it? About all of this? How many secrets are you hiding, woman?”
Shaking my head, I breathe out a laugh. “No, it’s not a thing,” I assure her. “She and I had a threesome together one other time, but it was over a year ago when we were in Vegas for that convention.”
“Did you think we’d judge you guys?” she asks. “Is that why you didn’t tell us?”
“Of course, we didn’t think that, Grace.” A pang of guilt strikes me. “It was one drunken night, and it wasn’t like we had feelings for each other all of the sudden or kept hooking up. It was genuinely just one hot, fun night between friends and some random bartender we met. We didn’t want things to be weird between all of us, so we just, I don’t know…didn’t see the point in bringing it up.”
“I had no idea friend threesomes were even on the table,” Grace murmurs before taking a sip from her glass. “Apparently, I’ve been doing friendships wrong my whole life because, clearly, I’m missing out.”
“Shut up,” I say, chuckling.
“Okay, but if you didn’t think we’d judge you, then why did you keepthisfrom us, too?”
I don’t miss the hurt in her voice, and it makes me feel like shit. “Because, Grace, he’s ourstepbrother. People don’t just fuck their stepbrothers.”
“I mean, I’m sure some people do,” Gemma drawls, wagging her brows suggestively as a smirk tugs on her lips. It reminds me of when Charley essentially said the same thing.
Running my fingers through my hair, I release a heavy breath. “Even so, it just… It was only ever supposed to be temporary. I thought if we hooked up, it’d get out of my system, and I’d be fine. But then it kept happening again.”
Gemma chuckles. “Thatneverworks. Nobody has ever slept with somebody once or twice to‘get it out of their system,’and then actually got it out of their system. That’s a slippery slope, and we all know it.”
“Ugh, I know. I don’t know how I let this happen. I’ve never been more confused in my life. I know we need to stop, since it’s clearly not gonna go anywhere, but at the same time, I don’t want to stop yet.God,you guys,” I groan. “The sex issofucking good. Like, I wascertainhe would be terrible in bed, but he’snot, at all.”
