SWNOVELS STRIPTEASED: Chapter 9
“Gentlemen, do we have a problem?”
The guys all looked at me with blank faces. It was late and they were tired, but I’d asked them to stick around the club after our shifts ended.
“About Emma,” I elaborated, and understanding replaced the looks of confusion.
“No,” Denver said.
“I think it might be more accurate to say, not yet,” Tonio corrected.
“Do you think we’re headed that way?” My brother looked up at me.
I leaned against the bar and spread my hands out to the side. “Maybe. I’ve seen how you all look at her.”
“Yourself included.” Tonio’s voice had a little heat in it. Maybe it wasn’t smart to do this after a long evening at the club, but it wasn’t like we could discuss it where Emma might overhear.
“Myself included,” I acknowledged.
Tonio let out a barely audible sigh. “We’ve shared women before.” That was true. Tonio, Denver, and I had done that starting just after high school. Since moving in together, Knox had joined in a few times as well.
“But that was with women who were into that sort of thing,” Denver replied. “Women who sought us out because of it. Somehow, I don’t think Emma fits into that category.”
They all looked over at me. It was assumed among us that if you wanted to understand what a woman was thinking, you consulted Denver. If you wanted to know the woman’s comfort and familiarity with sex, well, now, that was something I usually had a good sense of. “I think we can all agree that she’s pretty inexperienced. In fact, I’d bet money that that asshole of an ex-fiancé of hers is the only man she’s been with. Anyone disagree?”
No one did.
“Therefore, I doubt that dating more than one man at a time is an option she’s ever considered.”
“Or even knows about, perhaps,” Tonio said.
I knew without looking at him that Denver was concerned. “Whatever we do, we can’t pressure her,” he said. “She’s just getting over a breakup.”
“She doesn’t seem that broken up over it,” Tonio said.
Knox stiffened, shooting Tonio a nasty look.
I did too.
“I don’t mean that as a reflection of her but of him,” Tonio said hastily. “We all know he was an ass, but you know how girls are. They usually don’t see it even when someone treats them as badly as that jerk did Emma. But I get the feeling that since he dumped her, she’s come to the realization that she shouldn’t have been with him in the first place.”
The others nodded, and my anger faded. “I can’t believe no other guys paid her attention. They can’t be that backwards in that town she lived in.”
“So why was she with him?” Denver mused out loud.
Uncharacteristically, Knox spoke up. “She doesn’t have a family.”
“But I thought her grandmother raised her. She’s still alive, right?”
“As far as I know,” Denver said.
“That’s not the same as having a family,” Knox replied.
Vaguely, I remembered him saying once that he’d been a foster kid, so I supposed he ought to know about it.
“So you’re saying that she was planning to marry him so she’d have a family of her own?” Denver asked.
“What, like with kids?” Tonio asked.
“Maybe,” Denver shrugged. “Or it could be that she was just looking for a sense of belonging. If the grandmother wasn’t very loving, maybe she never had that.”
“She didn’t,” Knox said gruffly.
Denver, Tonio, and I exchanged looks. Knox hadn’t, either.
“Okay, so, it’s agreed, we won’t do anything to pressure her.”
“And if she chooses just one of us, we all have to be good with that.” Denver looked each of us in the eye as he said that. We all nodded. “I’m serious. If that’s what she wants, that’s what she gets.”
We were quiet for a moment before Tonio spoke up. “But what if it’s like Austin said and she’s so inexperienced that she doesn’t even realize that being with more than one of us is an option?
“Shit. It’s like a catch-22,” I said. “If we all keep flirting with her, she might get some clue.”
“Not necessarily. She may still think she has to choose one of us, so she’ll end up choosing none of us to avoid hurting our feelings.” To my mind, Denver was right on the money, as usual.
“Unless Knox here wins her over with his stealth hugging campaign,” I said, and Denver and Tonio laughed.
“It’s always the quiet ones,” Tonio quipped, and Knox shot us a smug smile.
“Seriously, though…” The others looked toward me, hoping I had an answer. “Let’s keep an eye out for any opportunities that come our way.”
Denver looked suspicious. “What do you mean? I thought we agreed not to pressure her.” So much for trust among brothers.
“I’m just saying that if the opportunity arises to let her know that it’s okay to like more than one man at a time, let’s take it.”
Tonio shook his head ruefully. “Isn’t your entire twin striptease a testament to that fact? You’d think that alone would’ve clued her in.”
I shrugged. “She had a lot of things on her mind that night.”
A comfortable silence fell for a few moments before Denver spoke again. “We could be projecting. Maybe she doesn’t like any of us as more than friends.”
My head tilted to the side and then I couldn’t help but laugh, the others joining in. “I think she likes us, all right. I think we have plenty of evidence of that.”
The others nodded, knowing exactly what I meant. Lately, whenever one of us would flirt with her, Emma’s face would flush and her nipples would visibly harden under her shirt. Inevitably, she’d excuse herself and rush up to her room, saying that she had to work on filling out job applications. I was pretty sure no one among us believed that was the real reason she dashed up there when she was so hot and bothered. And the thought of what she might be doing up there all alone made me hot and bothered.
Tonio chuckled again. “Funny how she hasn’t gotten a job after all that time filling out applications.”
“It does seem like she should’ve gotten at least half a dozen jobs by now. Well, not that the job market is that great in Riverside, but she sure as hell claims to have applied for a ton.” I stood up, and the others did the same. “So we’re agreed, then? We don’t pressure her. If she chooses just one of us, it’s okay.”
“But we can still let her know that other options exist,” Denver added.
“And who knows,” Tonio said with a grin. “That knowledge might cause her to hightail it up to her room again.”