Rubbing my temples, I redirect my attention to the view before me.
They stand together, heads bowed, examining the chamber of a pistol Cole’s holding.
Taller and leaner than Cole, Trace is polished masculinity in designer denim and a white collared shirt. He’s probably the only man in history who wears starched clothes to a shooting range. Blond hair flawlessly styled, aristocratic features carved with a divine hand, his sophistication only makes him look deadlier with a gun.
Cole is raw, rugged power in ripped jeans and a black leather jacket. He’s anarchy personified with his messy brown hair, sexy scruff, square jawline, and dark eyes that make me feel winded every time they shift in my direction.
“It’s not the gun.” Trace glares at him. “Your accuracy is shit. Retirement doesn’t agree with you.”
“Cool story, bro.” Cole releases the slide with a metallic clank. “How about we get to the good part when you shut the fuck up?”
“The village called.” Trace returns to his lane. “They want their idiot back.”
My pulse accelerates as I flash back to the last time they involved a gun in a disagreement.
“Okay.” I jump up and clap my hands. “Who wants to go for ice cream?”
“Is that what you want?” Cole softens his eyes, letting me know he’ll give me anything I ask.
Almost anything.
I want the three of us to love and laugh and live happily ever after. Together. But it’s a fool’s dream.
“Want…need…” I grin. “The fine line between is ice cream.”
Three weeks later, Cole leads me through a buzzing dark nightclub called The Angry Fly. A thick haze from smoke machines clots the air, punctured by shards of neon light. All around me, college kids hop to the thumping music, bodies pressed together, grinding with sexual frisson and revving my heartbeat.
Trace broke away at the door to order us drinks. This isn’t his scene. It’s not mine, either. Not anymore. But as Lose My Breath by Destiny’s Child vibrates the speakers, excitement builds inside me, twitching to let loose.
We drove forty minutes to get here. It’s the closest venue with a dance floor and decent music. Springfield, Missouri is a college town, and evidently, this is the happening place. From multi-colored hair and piercings to barely-there miniskirts, young girls drip from the walls and bar stools.
The atmosphere conjures images of dirty cloakroom sex, the huge space crammed with frat boys smelling out pussy and bearded Millennials punching the air to the electronic beats. I might be the third oldest person here. Cole and Trace have me beat by a couple years.
I turned twenty-nine today.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned in passing that I wanted to rock out with them on a crowded dance floor. A couple hours ago, they surprised me with a new dress and a night on the town. If they dance with me, this will go down as the best birthday ever.
I run a hand along the black sheath minidress, loving the way it molds to my body. With strategic cutouts, it looks like it was attacked by an angry pair of scissors. My skin peeks through the wide slashes from chest to thighs, making undergarments a no-go. Paired with strappy stilettos, the outfit is sexy with an edge.
The looks sliding my way from eager college boys causes Cole to yank me against his side, crushing my shoulders under the heavy weight of his arm. I hug his waist, delighting in the flex of lean muscle as he guides us toward the dance floor.
One thing’s for certain. He and Trace would never leave me by myself in this place. Not for a second. That means I don’t have to worry about getting hit on. There isn’t a guy here with balls big enough to approach me while my possessive sentinels are hovering.
The warm March weather made it possible to leave our jackets at home. Cole looks fashionably old-school and rebellious in his worn Sex Pistols t-shirt, faded jeans, and spiked hair. He’s so irresistible my hands shake to touch every inch of his hard, carved body.
We reach the dance crowd, the writhing bodies rippling like waves in a vast ocean under the strobing lights. He tugs me in, but I pull back, scanning the bar.
“We should wait for Trace.” I shout over the music.
Cole grips my chin and angles my face toward the far side of the dance floor.
Reclined on a bar stool, Trace lifts a glass of amber to his lickable lips. His elbow rests on a high-top table next to two unopened bottles of Bud Light. He wears dark fitted slacks with a tucked-in collared shirt that he left unbuttoned at the neck.
If there’s any emotion in that delicious scowl, I don’t see it. Expressionless, almost stern, he’s so hard to read I have second thoughts about dancing.
Then he winks, and everything inside me melts. Fuck, he’s sexy, and he damn well knows it. So does every woman in the bar.
Two brunettes start circling, creeping in from both sides, corralling him. When they reach him, their painted lips move. The glare he shoots at them widens their eyes. I almost feel bad for them as they turn heel and strut away.
“Come on.” Cole raises his voice above the din. “Go get your sexy on.”
I unglue my feet from the sticky floor and follow him into the sweaty chaos. When he slows at the center, I keep going, pulling on his hand and bouncing to the music. I came here with two men, and I want to see them both. So I head toward the far edge and stop a few feet from Trace.
My blond-haired Viking props a polished shoe on a knee and gives me a chin lift that commands me to dance.
I find the beat, mentally tapping out the count and clapping my hands on two. The movements start with my head and work their way down to my feet. A hair toss, shoulder pop, hip roll, and step together. I feel it, work it, and strip the last of my inhibitions beneath Trace’s heated gaze.
Cole dances around me, keeping it clean as he warms me up. When it comes to a man dancing in a club, less is more, and he has that figured out. He puts his personality into it, infusing every move with swagger, but it’s subtle. His hands go up, raising the roof. Then he buries it, snapping at his sides, snapping in front, and out again. Open, close, open, close… Every action is subdued, sensual, and undeniably confident. Damn, but he knows what he’s doing.
Whenever he circles me, he puts a hand on my waist, keeping the connection. Then he steps closer, and I give him a flirty hip-check, laughing as he pops me on the ass.
Booty by J.Lo shakes the room, charging the air with seductive energy. I throw my hands up in a double-arm lasso, getting my whole body involved and spinning toward Trace. I crook a finger at him, mouthing, Dance with me.
The corner of his frown twists upward, but he doesn’t move. Stubborn man. He can fight it if he likes, but I’m going to lure him in.
I turn around, find his blue eyes over my shoulder, and jam it out. That earns me a real smile, inspiring me to groove my way to the floor, low, lower. Then I slide back up.
And come face to face with Cole. Perspiration glistens his brow, his breaths labored and expression burning with hunger.
I shimmy up against him and do a little chest bump. He joins in, bumping me back in time with the music. Bump, bump, bump, we’re caught in it. Contagious, suggestive, the bumps roll into waves that ripple down our bodies.
My hand falls to his shoulder, and his arms hang loosely at his sides and slightly behind him, giving me full access to his ripped physique. I oblige, drifting my other hand down his torso, tracing the grooves of muscle through the shirt, and lingering on the button of his fly.
He leans in, leans out, putting a sexy roll into it. With each slant forward and back, he grows closer, smoother, sliding up against me. Then we’re grinding, feeling the same rhythm and motion, and dancing as one. This is where it’s at. The sizzling burn. The fire and the thunder.
Our hips undulate together. Our eyes connect, and I’m buzzing, lost in the molten brown of his gaze. He doesn’t just look at me. He eats me alive with his eyes. My pulse thrums. My blood pumps, hot and fast, beneath my skin. The rock of his pelvis controls the pace of my mine, and his hands wander, stroking my back, molding around my waist, and slipping down my bare thighs.
Then there are four hands. My gaze flies to Cole’s, but I don’t need to see his relaxed expression to know who’s behind me. I’m intimately familiar with the touch of those fingers, the dominating pressure.