Quadruple Duty

“So tell me about Erika,” I said boldly.

Kyle flipped his hair back with one hand and raised an eyebrow. “You really wanna know?”

“Sure,” I said. “She’s out of the picture, right?”

“Way out.”

“Then lay it out. It’ll give me a better idea of what to expect.”

For the next several minutes I heard the story of Kyle’s ex girlfriend. How he’d shared her for the first time, on a whim and a dare. How they’d all loved it so much they began doing it on the regular: she, Kyle, and Dakota.

It made me jealous, I’m not going to lie — like a tiny knife being twisted in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t mad though. If anything I was envious of Erika. She’d shared two of my new would-be boyfriends on the most intimate of levels, become lovers with them in ways I was still dreaming about.

“And it worked?”

“For a time,” he admitted. “The closeness was amazing. The idea that I could have the best of both worlds — the camaraderie of Dakota, the physical intimacy of a girlfriend… both at once, without sacrifice. Erika loved the double attention. We loved the concept of sharing the same woman. Of pleasing her socially and emotionally, as well as taking her sexually whenever we wanted to.”

I could see Kyle’s eyes unfocus as he looked away in remembrance. The memories were good ones, I could tell. That twisted the knife even further, but I still wanted to hear more.

“So what happened?”

He snapped back to attention. “You mean to break us up?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated. Shrugged. “I guess we just drifted apart.”

“Bullshit,” I said fiercely. “You’re holding back.”

Kyle shifted uncomfortably, and I could sense an inner conflict. He was wondering whether he should hide something from me. Wondering whether he should tell me honestly, and risk scaring me away.

“I want to hear it,” I said. “It won’t frighten me off, I promise. But I need to know.”

It went on for a few moments longer, then I saw the struggle end. Kyle relaxed. He told me.

“It just got weird for her,” he said. “I’d be deployed, and she’d essentially be dating Dakota. And when I came back? I expected things to be the same between us. But they weren’t.”

He stopped, but my silence — and my expression — urged him to continue.

“See, that’s the thing about being deployed,” said Kyle. “For you, ‘home’ is frozen in your mind. Everything remains the same. But for the people you leave behind? Life goes on. Things change. Feelings change.”

I tried to imagine it, sharing the two of them. Being their girlfriend. Their lover. The one they kissed goodbye before leaving, and the one they came home to after a long time away.

And the more I thought about it? The more I wanted it. Kyle was amazing, and Dakota seemed equally so. As men they were strong and deep and beautiful. Sweet and protective.

And they were hot. Oh, so very, very fucking hot.

“And there was never any jealousy?” I asked. “Between you and Dakota?”

“No,” Kyle smiled. “That was the one thing we got straight. The two of us are like brothers, and it’s the same with Ryan and Briggs. Sharing within our little group is exciting, because we all like seeing each other happy. Jealousy is a non-factor.”

He looked at me again, as if considering something. Then he shrugged.

“Also, when it came to Erika, Dakota and I had an agreement,” he said. “Either one of us could take part in what the others were doing whenever we wanted. At any time. Any day. We were a trio, always. Even when…”

“Even when you were in bed.”

I felt an excited heat rising in my belly. The knot in my stomach grew tighter.