Page 24

Fiji-Bound

E ven though it’d been decided days ago, formality beckoned. More accurately, Avril beckoned. Even though he’d tried to text over his points, she wouldn’t allow it. “It’s the final day; now get your ass over here,” she’d commanded. So, having slept as best as one could while sitting on a couch all night, Liam groaned and informed Tess that he needed to leave.

“Why not wait?” she suggested. “See if Avril will get all of us to gather later today. If she wants to stand on ceremony, that seems like the best way to handle it.”

Seizing that idea with some glee, as it meant he could lounge about in Tess’s cozy home for a while longer, he checked with Avril. She went for it, and soon, every individual, even Anna, for some reason, was included in a group message calling them over at four.

“It’s only ten-thirty,” Tess noted, stretching her arms over her head. Like him, she still looked tired. Their reckless fucking last night had accrued them a cost of fatigue, which a single night of sleep couldn’t fully pay off.

Liam grinned. “So, we’ve got plenty of time for you to finish my lesson—and then we can play some chess.”

“Do you think I’ll be sloppy and mess up, thoroughly fucked into exhaustion as you’ve left me?”

“You might,” he said, though he had an ulterior motive. Now that he also needed to defeat Victoria, he realized he could also reverse his strategy. Tess would know Victoria’s preferred playstyle and openings, after all.

It’s like I’ve become a secret student of two competing dojos, he thought. However, instead of hoping that one sensei would eventually fight the other, wowing him in the process, he’d much rather see what they looked like when using their lips and hands to grapple for control over the other, not leg sweeps and palm thrusts.

While eating brunch, Liam spent a lot of time considering if such a dream was possible. Anything meant anything, sure, but she’d clearly been intimating another threesome with Avril when she’d set forth his prize.

At the same time, he kind of felt like Tess was in his corner, that she was willing to help him make progress in his relationship with her colleague. Having experienced what that felt like already, receiving Avril’s help in improving his chances with Tess, the familiarities were clearly there.

The question was: would Tess accept a threeway with Victoria, or did she actively hope it might happen?

Putting the cart ahead of the horse, he reminded himself, shifting his focus toward the woman who he wasn’t in an active sexual relationship with. Before he started marking the calendar date for when he’d get to have both professors at the same time, he ought to be sure that things between him and Victoria wouldn’t stall out or outright end.

He needed to have a little more patience, he ultimately decided. And he still had no chance of winning against either woman at chess, as Tess so happily showed him following brunch and the completion of his first proper massage lesson—in which they both resisted every urge in their bodies when he had his oiled-up hands on her thighs and hips.

Two days in a row, he’d experienced what it must feel like for a toddler to enter a bounce house full of overly competitive adults. Neither woman seemed interested in softening their punches, and he suffered a barrage of nearly as many losses today as he had yesterday.

“If one thing’s for certain,” Liam eventually remarked, “it’s that my scorecard is sure going to end up looking pretty uniform. And I’m going to be excellent at writing the letter L.”

“You’re not too bad, actually,” Tess said. “You’ve honestly already improved a fair bit.”

“From drowning straight away to floundering a bit, then drowning?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

Mirth filled Tess’s smile. “Kind of.”

Fortunately, he was able to convince her to offer him some guidance. Fortunately, having experienced so much defeat when learning cards from his uncle, he didn’t end up in a bad mental place when he got stomped. So, he was able to pick up some more knowledge from Tess before they decided that now was the right time to head over to Anna and Avril’s apartment.

With the possibility that he might drive back to campus from there, they took separate cars. When they arrived, they found that Victoria had beaten them over. And so, things could kick off right away.

“Cheers!” Avril called out a little while later, champagne glass rising above her shoulders.

Liam and the others did the same, then everyone downed their glasses. As confirmed by the dark-haired professor who’d been asked to bring it over, the champagne was non-alcoholic. So, he’d be safe to drive home afterward. So would Tess and Victoria, too, because Avril quickly began offering refills. After all, it wasn’t her bottle, so there wasn’t any reason to be stingy.

Not that Avril Knight knows what that word even means, Liam thought.

After his drink, his eyes shifted toward Victoria. To his surprise, he found her already glancing at him. He smiled, aware that she was probably also thinking about the last time he’d sampled one of her non-alcoholic beverages.

As of about five minutes ago, just before Avril had called for a toast, he’d spent the last of his points. The redheaded schemer had stared at him as if he’d utterly flubbed his stated goal of creating drama when he placed fifty-six points to Fiji. Thanks to that massive influx, it’d sailed by a hundred total points, most of them coming from him. So, it wasn’t even close when all was said and done.

And well, that was Victoria Moreno’s fault, as she well knew.

However, some small part of him wilted, now aware that the only guarantee he’d see another picture of her past vacations revolved around him defeating her in a chess match. A task that was going to be quite an uphill battle. Not to mention—

“What are you frowning about?” Avril asked, elbowing his ribs as she slid in next to him. “You’ve just decided where you’ll spend your upcoming spring break, at one of the most romantic places in the world, sun and beaches and beautiful women in skimpy bikinis as far as the eye can see. You ought to be grinning from ear to ear.”

Opening his mouth, a typical remark to one of Avril’s jibes forming on his lips, Liam noticed something. An absence of something, in fact. The other conversations in the room had all dried up. Upon noticing this, Liam shifted his attention from the slyly grinning redhead beside him to the other three stunning women in the room. Anna and Tess were clearly looking his way, and even Victoria seemed curious about his forthcoming answer. She just hid it a little better, bringing the rim of her refilled glass to her luscious mouth to cover her interest.

Circling his attention back to Avril, he made sure to answer loud enough for the whole room to hear. His heart was only slightly racing while he did so.

“Yeah, you’re right. For a whole week, I’m going to be the luckiest guy on the planet.”

“Eight, actually,” Avril said, “if we count the time in the air.”

“An eleven-hour flight isn’t exactly what I’d call vacation time,” Tess said. “Especially with the time zone change.”

“We’ll be flying in style, at least,” Avril said. “In-flight entertainment, good drinks, comfy seats.” She waved a flippant hand through the air. “And we can sleep on the flight; it’ll be fine. We can just leave at a time when we’ll arrive at Fiji early, having slept along the way.”

Curiously, Victoria and Anna shared a look, though nothing seemed to come of it. The rest of the celebration passed by relatively uneventfully. Compared to the last time they’d all gathered in this apartment to celebrate something, nothing like what had happened then found a way to recur. Based on a furtive look from Tess, then a wide grin when Avril caught him doing the same in her direction a little while later, Liam was certain he couldn’t be the only one reminiscing about that night.

By the time it was sensible for him to get headed back to Perrymont, he bid four fond goodbyes. One of those went to a redheaded mischief-maker, who cruelly whispered into his ear about what he would have been allowed to do with her if he could have found a way to stay over. Another went to a dark-haired woman with far too much politeness and grace to ever suggest something so uninhibited but who might be interested in trying one or two of the things that her roommate had whispered into his ear. Another went to a woman as abundant in style and elegance as anyone he’d ever met, even when she was naked but for an arm over her breasts. Damn, he hoped for more.

Surprisingly, but not in the way he’d been thinking, he got it. Avril had gotten her chance to whisper those words in his ear after grinning and pulling him into a hug. Naturally, that had rolled over into him also hugging Anna goodbye. By then, Liam had figured he was safe to hug Tess goodbye, even if it would mean noticing Avril’s sly smirk in his peripherals.

Three out of four wasn’t a bad score, not for this kind of exam. Not expecting Victoria to even rise from her chair when he’d offered her his goodbye, she’d left him startled when she not only got up but then gave him a brief opportunity to feel her voluptuous body against his.

“She’s happy to be going to Fiji, finally,” Avril teased.

“That’s true,” Victoria whispered as their embrace ended, and he was confident he was the only one who’d heard her.

And lastly, he said goodbye to a woman with eyes like endless depths, which seemed to glow as he grew nearer to her. Hopefully, Anna wasn’t paying too much attention, though she’d long ago noticed that there appeared to be a shared interest between him and Tess. If she did, her mood didn’t seem any different after his warm hug with the next-door neighbor he loved ended.

“Next time we’re all together, we’ll probably be boarding a plane,” he pointed out.

“One month away,” Avril said, grinning.

“And then we’re off to Fiji,” Tess said.

One month away. And then Fiji. Yet there was so, so much that could occur within a month: development, refinement, even a shocking reveal or two.