Page 69 of Snowed In with Benefits

My mouth goes dry and I swallow. I must be broadcasting my thoughts somehow because all three of them glance at me at once. Hunter mid-sentence, Beau mid-sip, Emmett mid-grunt. Six eyes on me, and I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff with my toes hanging over.

“You all right, Goldilocks?” Hunter asks.

I nod, then take a shuddering breath. “I’m trying to work up the nerve to tell you something.”

Beau pales. Hunter frowns. Emmett goes very, very still. The temperature in the room drops about ten degrees and I realize, too late, what that sentence sounds like coming from a woman who ran away from her wedding and has been hiding on a mountain. Shit. Bad segue. They think I’m leaving. They think I’m about to say goodbye. I clear my throat and push through, simultaneously trying to get it out as fast as possible and to reassure them quickly.

“I want more,” I say in a rush. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, but as long as I’m here, I… I want more. I want to keep doing this. Me and all of you. Not just once, not just a one-time thing.” I catch my breath and pause, forcing the fountain of words to stop before I start repeating myself. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my teeth.

The guys look at each other and my heart pounds. I don’t even know exactly what I’m asking for. A one-time threesome, a one-time exhibition, those things make sense. Once-in-a-lifetime kink exploration is understandable. But this? How are they going to interpret this? Would they share me?

I was with both twins at once, but never all three of them. It’s greedy to want this as much as I want it—greedy to want more than one man, let alone three.

I open my mouth to take it back, to say never mind, to apologize for being so stupid, but the words never leave my mouth. All three of them move at once, their chairs scraping on the floor, and surround me. Emmett pulls out my chair. Hunter picks me up, spinning me around, and puts me on the table, sending dishes and mugs scattering. I hear liquid hit the floor in a splatter, hear something else crash and break, but nobody seems to notice. Their eyes are all on me.

“Thank fuck,” Hunter says. “Once was never going to be enough.”

“Watching you with Emmett and having to keep my hands to myself was torture,” Beau agrees.

I decide not to point out that he didn’t exactly keep his hands to himself in the end. I’m in shock. My brain is trying to catch up with what just happened and it can’t, it’s stuck three seconds in the past, still bracing for rejection, still waiting for the look of disgust that never came. What I asked for should have been impossible, but here they are, ready and willing to make it possible. Relief courses through me, mixing with my shock. They didn’t call me disgusting. They didn’t tell me that I was too much, that I was asking for too much. They just unanimously said yes. Not with their words, but with their actions, which is how these guys work, which is what makes them so damned appealing. Nobody hesitated. Nobody looked at the others for permission. Nobody said “let me think about it” or “that’s a lot to ask” or “are you sure that’s appropriate.” They just moved. Together. Toward me.

I have never in my life had someone respond to my desire with more desire. I have never had one person do that, let alone three. The feeling is so foreign and so overwhelming that my eyes sting and I have to blink hard to keep from crying, which would be mortifying, crying on the kitchen table surrounded by spilled coffee and broken dishes because three men said yes to me.

My pulse is racing and I look from one to the other, taking them in. Hunter’s eyes are bright and warm, his grin wide and genuine, the kind of smile that makes you feel like the most important person in any room. Beau’s expression is intense and focused, his jaw set, his dark eyes burning with something that looks like relief and hunger in equal measure. Emmett is the quietest, but his hands are on the table on either side of my thighs, his knuckles white, his gray eyes locked on mine with an intensity that makes my breath catch. All different. All intense. All mine, for as long as I’m here.

“How is this going to work?” I ask. My voice comes out smaller than I intended, a little breathless, a little awed.

Hunter smirks. “Let us show you, sugarplum.” He kisses me. His kiss is warm and inviting, drawing me out of my shock, his hand coming up to cup my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheek. He tastes like coffee and maple syrup and something that’s just Hunter, and the familiarity of his mouth on mine makes my whole body relax into him.

At the same time, Beau’s mouth finds my neck. His lips are warm and deliberate, pressing into the spot just below my ear that he discovered during our night together, the spot that makes my toes curl. Emmett’s hands are gripping my thighs, his thumbs pressing into the soft skin on the inside, right where the bruises from last night are still tender. The pressure sends a jolt through me that’s half pain and half something much better.

Hunter pulls away and immediately Emmett fills the space, his beard rough against my face as he kisses me. He’s rough, full of need, taking my mouth the same way he took my body last night. Beau is still on my neck, his teeth grazing my skin now, and Hunter’s hands are on my back and thigh, his fingers tracing slow circles through the flannel. Then Emmett pulls away, lowering his head to nuzzle my neck, and Beau kisses my mouth, intense and focused, his hand sliding into my hair and tilting my head back. It’s a fluid rotation, seamless, like they’ve all already figured out how to move around me, around each other. Like they’ve been waiting for this. Like they planned it in some silent language I wasn’t there for, or maybe they didn’t plan it at all. Maybe this is just what happens when three men who want the same woman finally get permission to stop pretending they don’t.

It’s so much. Three mouths, six hands, so much sensation. My body ignites and I whimper into Beau’s mouth, arching to press back on all three of them at once. Hunter’s touch is gentle and exploratory, Beau’s is firm and possessive, and Emmett’s is heavy and grounding.

After a long moment, Hunter pulls away. I feel the absence of him sharply, as if the space he left couldn’t be filled by either of the other men, as though I’m fully his wherever he touches me. The other two slow, sensing the shift, and for a moment all three of them are just looking at me. I’m sitting on their kitchen table in their clothes with coffee dripping off the edge behind me and a broken mug on the floor and my lips swollen from three different mouths, and they’re looking at me like I’m the only thing in this house worth looking at.

“There’s one thing we’re going to need from you if we’re doing this more-than-once thing,” Hunter says, his voice low. The other two slow their attentions, listening to what he has to say. There’s a deliberateness to their touch now, as if they’re all on the same wavelength, all of them just waiting for Hunter to say the words.

I gasp, reacting to the shock of their pause. “What do you need me to do?” I’ll do anything at this point. I’ll do anything they ask. I’ll do things they haven’t thought to ask for yet.

Hunter grins. “You’ll have to beg.”

28

HUNTER

She’s flushed and breathless, staring at me. She’s absorbing my words. Everybody is waiting for her answer, looking at her, watching her face. I don’t know if she’s going to do it. I don’t know if she is ready to get that far out of herself yet, if she’s ready to honor her own desires to that degree. I can see the war happening behind her eyes, the old Josie fighting the new one, the good girl wrestling with the woman who just asked three men for more. Her lips part and close again. Her fingers are gripping the edge of the table hard.

She hesitates. She licks her lips. Then she breathes. “Please,” she says tentatively. “Please touch me.”

She’s so self-conscious, it’s kind of adorable. The blush is crawling down her neck and disappearing under the collar of Beau’s t-shirt, and she can’t quite look at all three of us at once, her eyes darting between us like she’s afraid that if she settles on one, the other two will vanish. I gently touch her chin, turning her toward me, making her eyes meet mine directly.

“Try again,” I tell her.

She’s breathing hard, like she’s working up her nerve. I watch her swallow. I watch her hands unclench from the table and ball into fists in her lap instead. She’s fighting herself to get the words out, and I could make it easier for her, I could kiss her and let her off the hook, but I don’t. She needs to say it. She needs to hear herself say it, because the woman who can say these words out loud is the woman who will never go back to being small.

“Fuck me,” she says, her voice shaking. “Please fuck me.”