Unwrapped

Chapter 1

When plotting to finally lose your virginity, it was important to keep your eye on the prize.

In this case, the one between her legs.

A relationship? Not necessary. But someone she trusted was a must.

Caitlyn Sachs blew out a breath and gazed around the kitchen in her mom’s small place. Relationships were tricky business, as evidenced by her mother and her sisters’ issues with their significant others. It was hard to find a decent guy, one who wouldn’t feed you a line and then vanish when you turned your back. At least that was all she’d seen while growing up.

At almost twenty-five, Cait’s record was virtually spotless. Sure, she’d gotten her heart dented a few times, but she’d managed to avoid the trainwreck relationships her friends and family had been sucked into.

And that still-happened-to-be-a-virgin thing? Merely a technicality, because she’d certainly done her share of messing around. She’d done almost everything but the deed itself.

Multiple times.

But hell, she was tired of having the expectation of her first time looming ahead. She knew it would probably be shitty, so she needed to get on to having good sex. Finally. Her irrational fear of an unplanned pregnancy was getting old. She’d gone on birth control as soon as she’d made the decision to have sex, and she’d insist on condoms too.

See, she was thinking practically.

“Marnie, settle those kids down. I can’t think with all this racket,” Mrs. Sachs said, bracing the hand that held her spatula on her hip.

“Jeez, Mama, what do you want me to do? Stuff something in their mouths?”

“Maybe. If it’ll quiet this place down, then yes.”

Cait braced her head on her hand and tried not to breathe in the scent of burnt onions and too much perfume.

She could be out Christmas shopping instead of dealing with the insanity of home. Home meant her younger sisters and their babies and her frustrated mother.

Cait understood frustration. Just not the same kind. Hers was all situationally based.

She sighed. Eh, she didn’t feel like shopping right now. Too much on her mind. But she could be getting a manicure. Maybe even seeing a movie with one of her best friends, assuming she could drag Tristan away from his desk or Matthew away from the game on TV. But no, she’d come home to do her duty, though at the moment she would’ve preferred to be anywhere else.

They were her guys. Her center in all ways. And maybe after this weekend, one of them would be that much more.

Perhaps one of them would be her lover, at least temporarily.

It wasn’t like she could choose between Matt and Tristan. She loved them both equally. Plus they were hot as hell. That the three of them lived together in the loft above Tristan Design, their graphic design business, only made it that much easier to coordinate. Slide in, slide out, cross the hall, and shut the door.

This weekend, she’d make her proposal. Whether that proposal would be well received was anyone’s guess, but she suspected that was part of why she felt so antsy tonight.

She needed to speak up before she chickened out.

Another reason she’d chosen to sleep with Tristan or Matt. This would be on her terms. She could control the parameters, say when it began and when it ended. They’d never push her.

In the meantime, she had to push herself and get home. She had a deflowering to arrange. Though in her case it wasn’t deflowering so much as a…deadheading. She grinned. Yeah, that worked. She’d be snapping off a worn-out worry she’d carried around way too long.

She rose to her feet as her mother and her sister Marnie started arguing about how they’d fit a nursery into an already crowded three-bedroom apartment. Before she could leave, her baby sister, Valerie, rushed through the back door into the kitchen, her golden hair hidden by her hooded sweatshirt. Under her arm she carried the basketball that seemed to be her constant companion. Keeping her eyes straight ahead, she jogged through without stopping.

“Val?” Cait hurried forward to grip her elbow. Out of all of them, Val was her favorite. At fourteen, Val was a straight-A student and already on the varsity basketball team. “Where’s the fire?”

“Gotta study,” she said, not meeting Cait’s gaze.

“Midterms week, huh? One reason Christmas sucks.” Smiling, Cait rubbed her shoulder. “Grades still good?” she asked, raising her voice above her mother and Marnie’s argument. Thank God her other sister Ginny had finally herded Marnie’s two kids and her own two into the living room. “Should we expect another perfect report card?”

Val yanked back her sweatshirt, revealing the sunny twin ponytails she usually hid under hoods and ball caps. “Grades are fine.”

Cait frowned. Normally Val was a chatterbox, but tonight she seemed unwilling to say much at all. Strange. Maybe the fa

mily drama was getting to her. “You know, you could always come stay with me at the loft for a couple of days,” she said in an undertone. “You could get more studying done.”

“No, thanks.” Val gave her big sister a weak smile. “I just lock myself in my room.”

“But you share a room with Ginny. How can you get any privacy?”

Val gave her an odd look. “Why would I need privacy? All I ever do is schoolwork and play basketball.”

That was a good thing at least. Val was so smart and pretty and athletic. God, she didn’t have to settle. And she wouldn’t, if her older sister had anything to say about it.

“Basketball going okay? I’ll be at the game on Sunday. Can’t wait to watch you guys destroy the Thundercats.” She grinned and waited for Val to grin back.

She didn’t.

“I’m not going to be playing Sunday,” she whispered.