“I’m Trevor, yeah,” he said, leaning forward and shaking her hand. That same hand then went and raked the top of his hair. “Man, Darla didn’t tell you we were staying over?”
We? Josie thought. “No, uh, but it’s fine, you know, hey.” She held her palm up and leaned back, unconsciously shifting her shoulders back and pushing out whatever she had that passed for breasts. The guy was hypnotic; he had an instant effect on her that she found a bit dizzying. She wanted to reach out and just stroke one index finger down the ski slope of his perfect ab muscles, but held back, knowing that it would be rude.
It would be rude, right? she thought, the temptation so great that she cursed herself on the inside. Down girl, down, she almost muttered aloud.
“Oh, it’s fine…uh, hey, help yourself to some coffee,” she said, gesturing to the Keurig, holding herself back from jumping up.
Trevor stood, opened the cupboard above the coffee machine, and emitted a low whistle. “Have enough coffee mugs?” The cabinet looked like a Gay Pride Parade banner, every color of the rainbow represented in Darla’s coffee mugs. In fact, she’d organized them in ROY G BIV color order. Darla had teased Josie about her OCD nature, but it had been more of a challenge to see whether Cathy’s “winnings” really were enough to make a rainbow.
Turned out they were.
“I think we could use a few more,” Josie mused.
Trevor plucked an orange mug emblazoned with a logo for some information archive service, made himself a cup of coffee, and then, when he came back to sit down, said, “You okay?” The words were clipped, no empathy in them, just a politeness that she had found ingrained in a lot of the students she had met at work.
“I’m fine,” she said, giving back the qualified, neatly controlled, upper-middle-class answer. Giggling poured down the hall from the other room, and then the very sharp, unmistakable sound of a hand smacking against flesh. Trevor had the decency to blush slightly and stop making eye contact with Josie. “You don’t have to be embarrassed,” she said, “it’s not you in there.”
He frowned. “You’re right, it’s not me in there. It should be.” He stood and wandered back down the hallway to Darla’s bedroom, coffee mug in hand.
A long whoosh of held breath poured out of her, her body tingling, her core on fire. You have got to be fucking kidding me, she thought. Pinned between Alex on the outside, and Trevor Connor of all people, and probably Joe Ross, on the other side, she found herself in a vice of arousal, completely unable to touch anyone right now, except herself. Thank god for battery-operated boyfriends. She had a drawer full of them, and would probably use them later to try to exorcise this raging case of frustration. Better living through plastics. Another slap, and then Darla screamed, “Put it on a different setting, that one’s too fast!”
Note to self, Josie thought, add earplugs to shopping list. Click. Someone, probably Trevor, had the decency to close the bedroom door. All Josie heard now was muffled sounds of pleasure. A level of pleasure, she assumed, that she herself would only be able to mimic with a rabbit and a few Sylvia Day novels. Even at that, it would be a poor, pathetic second to what Darla was having right now.
With a shaking hand, she made another cup of coffee, and sat down to listen to it gurgle. It sounded like the death rattle of her own sex life. A door opened, feet padded down the hall, and then a door closed. She heard the unmistakable sound of a shower starting. Her next shower would be a cold shower, dammit.
And then…chest. Blonde hair, perfect, smooth tan skin, and in strolled Trevor to open the refrigerator door, bend down, and give her a glorious view of a muscled ass hard as a marble countertop. She could think of plenty of other tasty things that could be done with that…
“Hey, Josie, whatcha doin’?” Darla walked up behind her and placed a friendly hand on her shoulder.
“Nothin’,” Josie said, reaching up to wipe an imaginary bit of drool off the corner of her mouth. It turned out it wasn’t so imaginary. What the hell was she doing? These were Darla’s guys, it wasn’t like they were in competition—she wasn’t interested in them, not beyond the surface level of ogling them. The guy she really wanted was outside, running past her house. Or maybe he’d gone home by now. She wasn’t sure.
Darla wore an overstretched Spongebob Squarepants shirt, and that was it. It barely came to the top of her thighs. Josie turned away when Darla did exactly what Trevor did, bending into the fridge to pick up a plate of fruit. Not quickly enough, though, to miss the bright red slap mark on Darla’s thigh, and Josie just closed her eyes and shook her head.
They’re adults, they’re adults, they’re adults, she said over and over in her head, trying to will away the pictures popping through her mind. Maybe this was what Laura meant when she kept saying “TMI,” but maybe it was just Josie.
The three of them sat together, plowing through the cheese and fruit that Darla and Trevor had pulled out. No one seemed to need to make small talk, which Josie didn’t mind. When the coffeemaker gasped its last steamy, full-throated sound, she grabbed her cup, and walked over to the side window, staring out into the alley, simply to have something to do with herself that didn’t involved eating Trevor with her eyes.
Footsteps in the hallway again, and then she turned, as if in slow motion, to find herself staring at the equivalent of a Men’s Vogue cover model. This must be Joe Ross, and my my, was he everything that Darla had described—and more—damp and 3D right in front of her. He held a towel around his hips.
A rather small towel, Josie noted, for you could see the indent of his muscle bending into his hip, that kind of carved look, tapering down to a bulge that made her marvel at his body as a form of art.
If it had just been the muscled dimpling of his skin against flesh, she would have been impressed. But what took the breath out of her lungs and made the air dance a little in front of her eyes, was the teasing taunting sensual combination of body, and face, and skin, and damp scent, and everything. Her eyes met his and he was startled, stepping back and clinging to the towel in his left hand, holding his only semblance of privacy.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone else was here,” he said, again with that cultivated politeness that no man from her hometown was capable of.
“That’s okay, I’m…uh, Josie,” she said, holding one hand up in a wave.
“I’m Joe,” he said. He started to reach out to shake her hand with his right, open hand, and as he walked forward the towel slipped just enough for her to know that Joe dressed to the right.
“Oh…uh…sorry,” he said, pulling back. “I think it would be better to introduce myself when I’m a little more presentable.”
Drop the towel and you’ll be more than presentable, she thought, and then froze, hoping that this was not one of those times where the words had actually come out of her mouth. No one was looking at her with an expression of horror, so it seemed safe to assume that the lascivious thought had stayed firmly in place in her mind.
Goddammit, she had expected to have her house invaded by Darla, and had known, in theory, that the two guys would at least sometimes come with the package. Darla had warned her that they didn’t have their own place lined up yet for starting law school in late August, and Josie had figured that the occasional overnight would be no big deal.