Page 86 of Grin and Bear It

“You guys are really into making sure I eat well.” Nash and I sported identical sheepish grins. “Is there a nuclear winter on the horizon I’m not aware of, because all of this…?” She gestured to the plates. “Do I need to talk about world food insecurity? I feel like I do.”

“Not prepping for a dystopian future,” Nash said, grabbing one of the little toothpicks embedded in a spiced meatball. “Pleasure.” He held it out for her to take and she leaned in without question this time, taking it straight from his hand. Hers went to her mouth as she chewed, that small sound of surprise something that resonated through both of us. “That’s all we want you to feel. Right now we’re trying to do that with good food, with taking away all your problems.”

He pulled the toothpick away, setting it down, then both of us reached for something else for her to try.

“And what about your pleasure?” she asked, oh so innocently, once she’d swallowed her mouthful.

“Beautiful…” I leaned in then, spiking a small square of chorizo and potato frittata. “There’s lots of kinds of pleasure.” I bit the morsel off the end of my fork and chewed it. “That of experiencing something.” I grabbed another and held it out to her. “And the much more satisfying one of seeing you pleased.”

“That’s what you guys are like, huh?” My fork hovered in the air as she looked at each one of us. “You like to give pleasure more than take it?”

“We get pleasure from giving it,” I corrected, twisting my wrist to draw attention back to my fork, then smiling when she took a bite. “A very deep, very satisfying kind of pleasure.”

She chewed her mouthful slowly, then swallowed.

“That’s… going to be a challenge for me to deal with. You know most guys aren’t like that, right?”

“It’s the thing we have on human guys,” Nash told her with an intent look. “It's an advantage and disadvantage. My mum always said to my brother and me that a lot of women aren’t used to being put first, that it can be alienating for them.” He grabbed something else and offered it to her. “But we’re hoping we can get you used to that.”

“What if it was a mutual thing?”

She picked up her fork and then took mine from my fingers, looking over the different plates before picking up a scallop wrapped in bacon with one fork and a prawn dripping in garlic butter with the other, offering it to either one of us. Nash reached up and swapped her hands, because he hated prawns and I thought scallops tasted like snot, then we took the food our mate gave us, making sounds of pleasure because it tasted as good as it always had. No, better, because she was the one who gave it to us.

“Are we hungry… for whatever you want to give us?” I asked, my eyes sliding down the parts of her body I could see. “Damn straight.”

“We’re trying to be patient here,” Nash said, a slight note of pain in his voice, but he grinned as he stared at her. “Not trying to rush you.”

“You came to my workplace and announced that both of you were going to be my boyfriends,” she said with a little laugh, spiking a few morsels on the tines of the fork and putting them on her plate and ours. “Cole is forcing me to allow him to paint my house. And Ty…” She let out a shaky little sigh. “I get what you’re saying. It makes sense, taking this slow, getting to know each other, but…” I watched her spine slowly straighten, the movement effortlessly graceful. “Maybe there’s no point in doing this slowly?”

She wasn’t entirely sure, both of us could hear the uncertainty in her voice, but that was OK. We could help her decide either way. Both of us dropped an elbow onto the table as we moved closer, claiming some of Ellie’s space as ours. I smiled as I stared at the full curve of her lips.

“If that’s what you want, just say the word, because the kind of pleasure we want you to get used to doesn’t just come from eating good food.”

Chapter43

It was then that I questioned my life decisions. The gorgeous gin was humming in my blood, but only with the slightest of buzzes, so I couldn’t blame it on that. No, I was the one who was responsible for their hands as they slid up my thighs.

“Eat your food,” Nash commanded, right as I began to stiffen. “Grab your knife and fork and take a bite.”

“While you…?” I let out a little gasp as I felt the folds of my dress part. Not for the first time was I glad they’d chosen a table tucked away from the main dining room, the only witness to my embarrassment, my partial reflection in the dark glass of the window.

“While we eat.” Nash stabbed a small slice of rare beef with too much gusto. “And gorge ourselves on all kinds of pleasure.”

He bit into the meat, chewing while wearing a cheeky smirk. I couldn’t reply, couldn’t make any sounds other than an almost inaudible gasp as their hands inched higher.

I looked around surreptitiously, checking out the side of my eye to see if anyone was watching.

“No one’s looking,” Lin said with an amused smirk. Smug fucking bastard. “They won’t look, not unless you make it obvious what we’re doing.” I froze as I felt his finger slide along the elastic of my underwear, cutting into the crease of my thigh. “Keep eating, keep talking and no one will be the wiser.”

“Talk about…?” I sucked in a breath as that fingertip eased under, not touching anything that twitched and ached for him, just a tiny square of bared skin, but it felt so fucking intimate. “Talk about what?”

“Your day,” Nash prompted and he did the exact same thing, like the two of them shared some kind of mental link.

“God, not that…” I ground out.

“What you want us to do to that house of yours.” Nash’s grin widened. “I hear you went on a Bunnings date with Cole?”

“That’s…” My voice died in my throat as I felt them delve deeper, sliding more fingers under the elastic of my underwear. “That’s still to be decided.”

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