The Arrangement

“The only thing we did was choose one female instead of several. One love interest, rather than three. It’s unorthodox. It’s taboo. And yeah it’s probably going to turn more than a few heads…”

Our thighs were touching now. Our crotches too.

“But it works for us, right?”

I nodded slowly. The warmth between our bodies was distracting, but wonderful.

“Yes.”

“Well it’s going to work in the books, too.”

He squeezed hard, and I swooned into him. Chase’s first kiss melted away my guilt and anger. His second and third were even more sensual, more passionate. They completely wiped away any last trace of rational thought.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” he murmured.

I was light as feather. Reveling in the feel of his hard, coiled muscles, flexing around me.

“That the others are gonna kill us if we don’t get to work?” I said, hating myself for the words.

Chase laughed into my mouth and slapped me hard on the ass. “Yes!”

The slap stung! But it made my ass feel warm and naughty, hot and delicious. Especially as he squeezed it in his palm again.

“I’ll take a raincheck on this any day,” he said.

I turned, grinding my ass hard into his crotch as I twisted away.

“As long as I get a raincheck on the rest of that spanking,” I winked over my shoulder.

Forty-Seven

KAYLEEN

The next few weeks were a tightrope. A precarious balance between working every waking hour, and researching where best to spend our already-limited resources.

I drained every cent of my savings. So did Burke. True to his word, Nathan’s father had cut him off completely. Luckily he’d been in the fold long enough that he still had places he could go, to pull some money here and there. At least for now.

Chase picked up with his old contracting crew, doing everything from framing and roofing to shimmying through crawlspaces to pull electrical lines and install ductwork. It was all grueling work. He came back exhausted and usually well after dark, smelling like sawdust and cedar and all good things. That part turned me on. Big time.

Not that there was much time for sex.

Our once-explosive sex life was reduced to intermittent quickies and midnight rendezvous, usually with me climbing on board a slumbering hard-on or one of them nudging my legs apart and buying themselves deep. All of it was okay with me. I understood, as they did, how important the book launch would be. How every minute spent promoting or marketing the first pre-release would pay dividends later, translating to the trilogy’s overall success.

Traditional publishing was no longer an option. We’d had a choice between spending all our money to market the books ourselves, or spending it on rent to extend our stay in the villa while waiting for an agent or publisher to pick the guys up. The second choice was risky. We could go broke and never receive a single response to our queries, or run out of money before a publisher even heard a single agent’s pitch. The first one…

Well, the first choice was a sure thing. We’d launch no matter what — for better or for worse. It could be a shining triumph or a cataclysmic failure… or anything in between. But it was dicey.

There wasn’t a time when one of us wasn’t in front of a computer, reaching out to new contacts or doing research or talking the book up. Dinners were simple. We ordered out often. The house was quiet, but someone was always awake.

And there was a lot of coffee…

There was some good news. A member of the marketing team at Jay Summer’s office — someone who’d been excited about promoting the books to begin with — had apparently taken mercy on us. He’d thankfully developed enough of a rapport with Nathan that he was helping him out, mostly through giving him tips and tricks, and even a few names and email addresses. If he’d gotten caught, he would’ve gotten fired immediately. Nathan protected him by meeting him in person, and by never revealing him, even to us.

Eventually we were a week out. Then five days. Then three days, two, and finally…

“Tomorrow.”

The word echoed in the hollow kitchen, reverberating emptily off the stainless appliances. Chase rubbed his tired eyes as he said it, while the rest of us sat in a circle.