“What exactly is an official three-way?”
“You’re making fun of me again,” she muttered.
“Only because I love seeing your face turn all pink like that.” He moved even closer, both his rough-skinned hands coming up to cup her chin. “You don’t have to be embarrassed that the idea turns you on. And you don’t have to give a definitive answer right this second. Just…think about it.”
She gazed into his earnest green eyes, feeling like she was in a daze. “Think about it,” she echoed.
“Yes. Just promise me you will, okay?”
“I…” She cleared her throat, tried to make sense of this craziness. “I don’t know if—”
A knock on the door interrupted her.
“Yoo-hoo!” Aidan’s voice, cheery and smug. “I just got back from my run. Decided to be nice and let you out early.”
“Wow, what a prince,” Dylan called out.
“Everything okay in there?”
“Everything is just fine. Now open the door, you ass**le.”
“Sure thing, let me just carry our glass angel to safety first.”
As Aidan’s footsteps receded, Dylan feathered his thumbs over Claire’s cheeks and searched her face. “You okay, honey?”
Swallowing, she nodded.
“Good.”
Just as the doorknob began to turn, Dylan gave her one last meaningful look and mouthed the words, “Think about it.”
Claire choked down a hysterical laugh.
Right.
Like it was even remotely possible for her to think about anything else.
For the tenth time in less than a minute, Aidan checked the alarm clock on the bedside table and confirmed that, yes, it was still 12:21 a.m. Annnnnd wait, the one in the minute column switched to a two, officially making it 12:22.
Son of a bitch.
Apparently he was not destined to fall asleep tonight.
He glanced over at Dylan’s sleeping body, unable to stop the grin that sprang to his lips. As usual, Dylan had monopolized the comforter and it was now tangled between his legs. He lay on his side, providing Aidan with a perfect view of his bare ass. The SEAL slept in the nude, a habit that Aidan wholly approved of. Because damn, the man looked pretty f**king spectacular naked.
Aidan’s groin stirred as he admired the sleek lines of Dylan’s body, the strong sinew of his back, the taut ass you could bounce quarters off.
“I can feel you watching me.” Dylan’s sleepy voice echoed in the darkness of the bedroom.
Aidan had to laugh. “Man, you SEALs really do have eyes in the back of your head, huh?”
“Yep. So let’s hear it.”
“Hear what?”
Dylan rolled over, twisting the blanket even further and stealing the remaining square inches that had been covering Aidan’s right leg.
“You barely blinked after I told you what happened between me and Claire today,” Dylan said quietly. “I’m still waiting for you to yell at me or call me an ass for taking what you wanted.”
“What we both wanted.”
“Yeah, but you wanted her first.”
Aidan couldn’t argue with that, but he also couldn’t fault Dylan for succumbing to the same temptation that had been plaguing him for days. When he’d come home earlier, he’d immediately known that the couple had slept together. Not only had the animosity between them disappeared, but the second he’d looked at Claire, her face had turned into a tomato, a telltale sign something naughty had gone down.
He wasn’t going to lie—he had experienced a pang of jealousy when he’d learned that Dylan had gotten the taste of her that Aidan had been denied, but he knew the blame was solely on his own shoulders. He’d locked them in a room with a bed and a box of condoms, for Pete’s sake. Of course they’d make good use of both once they hashed everything out.
And no matter how he felt about them hooking up, he was happy they’d finally cleared the air and worked through their crap.
Of course, he hadn’t been expecting an aching c**k as a reward for his efforts.
“She wants you too, you know.” Dylan’s gruff voice interrupted his thoughts.
“I know.” Aidan sat up and ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “But she won’t be on board for this, man.”
“I think she will,” Dylan disagreed.
“She hid in your room all day and night—I’m pretty sure that’s a clear sign she’s not into it. Besides, you heard the way she described her childhood. It was all about right and wrong, Dyl. In her mind, having sex with two men isn’t right.”
There was a long beat. “Are you sure you’re not pissed at me?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not pissed at you.”
“Good, because you know I’d never do anything to intentionally hurt you.”
The emotion thickening Dylan’s voice caught him off-guard, elicited a rush of discomfort. He wasn’t into deep, emotional discussions, never had been, never would be. They reminded him too much of the shrink he and his father had seen for a couple of years following his mother’s death, after one of Aidan’s teachers had notified the school counselor of how withdrawn he was in school.
Fuck, he’d hated talking to that shrink. She was always prying into his head, always asking him how he “felt” about this or how he “felt” about that.
“Aid? You do know that, right?”