Page 84 of Maizy the Bear Charmer

“Spencer said you asked about that last night, too. We do things differently because we want different results than we’ve always gotten. We don’t want relationships that turn out to be temporary. We don’t want ‘friends with benefits’ arrangements. And we don’t want one-night stands anymore. We want more.”

“Do you have any idea how odd it sounds for three men to all feel that way, especially three really hot, totally gorgeous, really passionate and loving men?”

“I know. It didn’t happen overnight. But when the realization hit, it was a life-changer.”

“Will you tell me?”

“I’d rather not. It’s not a very complimentary story to tell.”

“What? Do you have a child running around somewhere in the world with your eyes or your smile.”

“No. At least I don’t think so. I hope not, but I’d want to know if I did. I take responsibility, baby.”

“I believe you. Please tell me.”

He gently turned her and stood to rub sunscreen on her chest. She smiled at him when he used his fingertips and stroked some into her cleavage, too, and let her have a bit in her palm to dab on her nose and forehead. “Can you swim?” She nodded and then squealed a second later when he scooped her up into his arms and tossed her into the pool.

She came up sputtering and laughing and sent her arm out in an arc, splashing him with a big spray of water. He dove in and surfaced beside her and she said, “For that, you owe me your story.”

He crowded in to her and nuzzled her cheekbone and slid his hands around her hips. “Even if it makes you uncomfortable to hear it? I don’t want that. I wanted us to have a romantic evening, just the two of us and rehashing my romantic past—our romantic past—wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“You don’t have to take long in the telling. But if you want something with me that lasts, then I should know at least a few details about how you came to be who you are, right?” She swam to the edge of the pool and held on to the edge until he floated up to her and slid an arm around her supple waist.

“Put your arms around me. I won’t let you go under.”

After she did as he asked, he treaded water while holding her. “We fell in love a few years ago.”

“All three of you? With the same woman?” The uncertainty in her eyes almost made him stop telling the story. But she was right in saying she should know.

He nodded. “She was different than anyone we’d ever met. Bubbly. Beautiful. Hardworking. Just an all-around great girl. When I say we fell in love, I mean we fell hard. But she wouldn’t date us—any of us—because we worked with her at the Dollhouse in Morehead.”

“The gentleman’s club? I remember someone telling me you’d worked there. Was she a dancer?” she asked cautiously.

“Yes.” He noticed her slight frown and he continued. “She took her clothes off for a living but she had other goals. She was a college student. She planned to quit dancing once she got her degree and had earned enough money for a trip to Europe.”

“So dancing was never more than a means to an end for her?”

“Yes. Anyway, she turned us down anytime we asked her out. She wouldn’t date someone she worked with, and she had a valid reason. We didn’t pester her about it and wound up dating other girls in the club and she wound up dating a dancer from another club. She got her business degree and moved on and we tried to forget her…tried being the operative word. A couple of years later we found out she’d moved to Divine and was making use of that college degree, working as the assistant manager at the Dancing Pony.”

“I’ve only been in there just that one time, on Halloween, and we didn’t stay very long. You’re talking about Camilla, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s her. We talked about it, after finding out where she was, and we admitted that we all thought of her as the one who got away. We still loved her, so we decided to pay her a visit.”

“Yeah?” she asked sympathetically.

“We remembered about her ‘never mix business with pleasure’ rule and when we noticed the possessive vibes her boss and supervisor threw off, we figured it was a good thing. Protective, you know? The Pony gets damn busy on the weekends and a lot of those guys were bound to know she’d been an exotic dancer and we liked that these two guys watched out for her.”

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