Page 121 of Pucking Around

“I’m an equipment manager, Hurricane. I set up and tear down locker rooms for a living. We’ve all seen the monster between Kinnunen’s legs.”

Now is absolutely not the moment to ask for details. Instead, I move around the island towards Jake. He goes still at my approach. He dropped his shields and shared his truth. He’s not as okay with sharing me as he’s been letting on. Not because he doesn’t like it, but because he doesn’t want to get left out.

I reach for him, brushing my hands down his bare arms. “Jake…look at me, angel,” I murmur, stroking his jaw. “Don’t you ever doubt what you mean to me again,” I say, voice low with emotion. “Jake, I’ve been telling you almost since the moment we met that you’re my soulmate. Can you really forget what we shared in Seattle? The universe tied us together that night. I live with a rope around my heart now, woven through my ribs, and it connects me to you.”

Slowly, he raises his hands, wrapping them around my wrists.

“I love you, Jake Compton. I love that you text me incessantly. I love your pictures of pelicans and sushi and tacos. I love that you give me a weather report every morning, even though I literally have a weather app saved on my lock screen,” I add with a soft smile. “You make me laugh. You make me happy. You make me hopeful for the future. You make life fun, Jake. And you make the living of it less lonely. And you might find someone else too—”

“Not possible,” he says with an ardent shake of his head. “You’re it for me, baby. I don’t need anyone else.”

“Don’t say that,” I say, too afraid to look over his shoulder and see the hurt on Caleb’s face. “You have no idea what the universe has in store for you,” I say instead. “We never dreamed we’d find each other, but we did. Whoever else comes through your life, I’ll be here, Jake. Iwantto be here. I won’t restrain you or deny you any of the love or joy you deserve. Stop doubting yourself and your place in my heart.”

I lean in, still holding his face gently in my hands. “I’m not good at labels and cages,” I admit. “The idea of being someone’s girlfriend or their wife terrifies me. Sometimes I think I was just wired wrong. Everyone wants to get married, right? People want the normalcy of monogamy and the 2.5 kids. The dog and the white picket fence. But I’ve never wanted that life,” I say with a shake of my head.

“Whatdoyou want, Rachel?” he asks.

“I want the world,” I reply. “I want to sail around Phuket Island, topless on a yacht. I want to fuck in the gardens at Versailles and get chased out by French police. I want to eat pizza by the hour and drink wine straight from the bottle, stumbling around the streets of Rome at two in the morning. I want to dance in a fountain, Jake. I want to be a doctor and travel the country watching men at the top of their game play hazardous sports. I want to feel their sweat and smell their blood on the ice. I want tolive. And I never want to turn an opportunity down out of fear that I’m not conforming to that dream of normal. Because I’mnotnormal, Jake.We’renot normal. We’re extraordinary. Be extraordinary with me.”

Slowly, he lets out a breath, his body curling around mine, until our foreheads are touching. He drops his hands from my wrists, wrapping them around my waist, as he breathes me in. His perfect, woodsy scent fills my senses, and I sink into his embrace.

“I love you so much, Seattle.” He lifts his head away so he can gaze down at me. “I don’t want to cage you. I’m a mess sometimes, and I can get in my own head—Cay can tell you. I overthink shit…or underthink it, with no real in between. But I don’t want to overthink this, Rachel. You love me—”

“I do. I love you, Jake. I’m so damn crazy about you.”

“Good,” he says with a sigh.

Biting my lip, I ask the question eating me alive. “But I have to know…does sharing me with Caleb hurt you?”

He leans away, eyes wide. “What?No,” he growls. “Fuck no. He’s my best fucking friend. I need him in my life. And sharing you with him is literally the best sex I’ve ever had. There is not a single bone in my body that regrets turning this twosome into a threesome, Seattle. I mean, you feel the same, right Cay?” He glances over his shoulder, and I finally let myself look at Caleb.

My dark-eyed, fae prince stands there in all black, watching us confess our love to each other, and I see the pieces of himself he still hides in the shadows breaking. It’s his turn for sudden death. How much truth he reveals is up to him.

“The sex is good,” he mutters.

“It’s good for you, but it could be great,” I say. “If you’d stop holding back on us.”

Jake looks down at me. “What do you mean, Seattle?”

“I mean that Caleb has been playing it safe. He’s afraid to show us what he really wants, afraid to ask for it, afraid we’ll run. But really, it just makeshimthe coward.”

His jaw clenches tighter as he glares at me.

“Is that true, Cay?” asks Jake. “Look man, I’m new at this group thing. If there’s something I’m doing or not doing, you just gotta tell me.”

I see the flicker of shadows in Caleb’s eyes and an idea blooms in my mind. Sudden death, remember? Caleb is better at doing than saying. With a firm hand, I push back on Jake’s chest. “Step back, angel.”

He lets me push him back against the counter. “What are you doing?”

Caleb is wondering the same, his dark eyes narrowing on me.

“Sudden death,” I reply. “It’s Caleb’s turn.”

Caleb crosses his arms over his chest. “Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t have any deep dark secrets. I like the sex. I like living here. You can fuck whoever you want, Hurricane. It’s not my business. You want someone rubbing lotion on your tits on that boat in Thailand, I’m your man. When you’re done fucking me, you just let me know.”

His words sting. Of course, they do. He wants them to. “You know, for a Sagittarius, you make a really great Scorpio,” I deadpan. “Too bad for you, I’m a double Cancer. It would take a deep-sea oil drill to pierce through my shell. So, how about we cut the shit, and get back to sudden death?”

His eyes flash. “I just said I’ve got nothing to offer.”