“I’m fine.” She rolls off my lap, bouncing to her feet. “I’m ten minutes away from a wine coma anyway.” She wanders toward the light, and pauses, turning in the doorway. “But you’re setting up something for this weekend, right? Someone for me to play with?”

“Yeah.” I watch as she arches her back, skimming the dress over her shoulders and dropping it to the floor, the woman unable to resist putting on a show. This weekend would be her prime opportunity, me and two other men fucking her nine-ways-to-Sunday. I wait for the familiar pull of excitement, the high that precedes a meeting, but there is nothing, my funk still in full effect, my mind unable to pull itself off the image of Stephen leaning over, his face beaming at Kate as if she is his.

I can’t keep this up. Something has to give, something has to crack. Otherwise, I am going to go mad. I’d think of a lingerie analogy, but my head hurts too much.

Chapter 13

Her

“What do you think?” Trey flips the keys over in his hand and looks up at the chandelier, his eyes drifting over the living room’s exposed beams before returning to me. Marks Lingerie just finished a record-breaking year and Trey seems intent on spending all of the profit. Yesterday, he cut me a bonus check with enough zeros to make Mom faint. Today, we are house-hunting. Not for me, but for him.

“I like it.” I fall back on the leather couch, the giant cushion wide enough that I could do a mini snow angel of sorts. “Does the couch come with it?”

“Furniture is negotiable,” the agent pipes in, her heels clicking rapidly across the wood floors, following Trey in the direction of the kitchen. I roll to the left, coming off the couch and standing.

“It’s a little big,” I remark. “Five bedrooms? Are you starting an orphanage?” I’ve dropped a few Chelsea questions, ones he has dodged with professional skill. A house seems like a significant step toward settling down. They’ve been dating six months now. Maybe they are getting serious, talking babies—this home the first step to their own octuplets reality show. Inside, the familiar burn of envy flares.

“What’s that face for?” Trey stops before me. “What don’t you like?”

I wipe the scowl from my face and try to come up with something, anything, to dislike. “The ceilings are really high,” I manage.

He glances upward. “Yes they are. Excellent point. What would be ideal? Eight-foot?” He turns to the agent. “Can you put that on my requirement list?”

“Shut up,” I snap, and the agent looks from him to me, confused. “It’s fine.” I turn around, looking through the giant windows and at the view. “It’s perfect for you.”

“It’s got plenty of guest rooms,” he points out. “I could use a roommate.”

“Ha.” I smile. “I don’t think Chelsea would like that.”

“Or Stephen,” he points out, and I shift away, the conversation moving into the sort of direction we normally avoid. “Plus…” He turns to me. “You seem like you’d have trouble following the house rules.”

“House rules?” I laugh. “Let me guess.” He opens the sliding glass door and I step before him, into the backyard. Before us, a long pool glitters darkly, set off perfectly by the bright green grass. “Something about being naked.”

He scowls in response, proof positive of my guessing ability. “And…” I muse. “Mandatory meal prep.”

“It’s not my fault I like your cooking,” he says, offering a hand and helping me down the stairs and onto the pool deck.

We stop before the pool. “Want to test it out?” I grin at him and the edge of his mouth curves up.

“Ladies first,” he beckons.

I anticipate his next move and twist left in the moment before his hand reaches out to push me in. Kicking off my sandals, I dodge another swipe of his hand, sprinting around the edge of the pool and awkwardly jumping over a lounge chair. He stops, his chest barely moving, and eyes me, his eyes alit with mischief.

“Don’t even,” I warn.

“What?” he shrugs. “It’s hot out. And I’m dying to know how well my Creative Director swims.”

I scoff. “Regional freestyle champion, 2001.”

“Oh, I bet you blew those scrawny high-schoolers away,” he drawls, and I laugh, easing further around the pool.

“Ummm…” the realtor stops in the back doorway, her worried eyes darting between us. “I don’t think swimming is allowed.”

“Kate,” he lifts his chin to me. “Beat me across the length of this pool and I’ll buy this house.”

I laugh. “I don’t care if you buy it.” I’m perfectly happy with his current condo—and the gym it grants me access to. Plus, there’s no way I’m stripping down to my underwear and getting wet, even if I am wearing our Crepe sports collection—the perfect accompaniment to any physical activity, should a woman feel inclined to spend three hundred dollars on a sports bra and panty set.

“Hmm…” he glances toward the house. “You’re making my attempt to get you undressed really difficult, Kate.”

I step off the pool deck and onto the grass before I make a mistake I will regret. Him stripping out of his clothes, me out of mine … he can call it a race, but we both know what it’d be—an excuse to see more of each other.

He tilts his head at me and I give mine a small shake.

He chuckles, and I can’t help but laugh. I turn back to the house and look up at it. The pale stucco, the orange tile roof, the ivy climbing up its side. It’s beautiful, worth every bit of its price tag. My favorite of the ones we’ve seen today.

He comes up beside me and hangs an arm around my shoulder, bringing me against him. “I like it.” He looks up at the house.

“Me too. Can you afford it?”

He shrugs. “Keep the designs coming, and I’ll buy you a matching one in five years.”

“Ha.” I rest my head against his shoulder. “And leave my apartment? Never.”

I look up at the master bedroom, and imagine him at the window, fresh from a shower, a towel around his waist. I think of that giant kitchen, the tall fireplace, the view. I don’t want a matching one. I want this one, with him in it. I want to swim naked in this pool and roll around in front of that fireplace, and make love in that kitchen.

The wind picks up, sweeping my hair across my face, and I feel, in the strong brush of its breeze, my daydreams scatter.

Him

I don’t understand my cock. When I was younger, I wanted more kink. Something wilder than vanilla, something that led to orgies and threesomes, an audience often present during my fucking. Now, at the ripe old age of thirty-eight, I can only think of one woman. And she’s not the one currently elbow deep in naked men.

I sigh, pushing open the glass sliding door and stepping out onto the Hollywood Hills balcony, resting my hands on the rail and looking down at the circular drive, one littered with expensive vehicles, a suited valet stepping from a Lambo and holding the door open to a couple, one who I saw earlier. From behind me, I hear the familiar shriek of Chelsea’s orgasm, her sixth or seventh of the evening. It’s a sound that should stir my cock, one that should, at the very least, pull my eyes toward the scene. But I don’t care. Or maybe I do care, and that’s the problem. Dating Chelsea has been my first experience with this world from the perspective of a couple and not as a single male. Being single, the situation was simple. I arrived, I pleased, I came, I left. Being emotionally involved with the woman in the threesome, or foursome, was a different scenario entirely. As it turns out, I don’t like to share. There is something about another man putting his hand on my girlfriend that rubs me the wrong way. Chelsea said that makes me a hypocrite, seeing as that was how we met—me fucking her while her then-boyfriend watched. I don’t think it makes me a hypocrite. I think different things turn on different people and, right now? Monogamy is looking pretty damn sexy. I don’t want to deal with internet chatrooms and strangers and illicit meetings in hotel rooms. I want to memorize one woman’s body and every sound and pleasure point she has. I want to please her in every room of my new house, and on every continent. I want to get married. And in all of those visions, Chelsea isn’t present. In all of those thoughts, there is only Kate.