Tate

---

Canaan and Corin were on fire. They’d managed to wedge a ridiculous number of instruments into the cargo hold of Brock’s plane. I didn’t remember them playing so many different instruments, but I guess they’d not only gotten hotter with age, but they had honed their talent a lot, too.

They played acoustic songs, just Canaan on guitar and Corin on the box drum thing, and then they played a couple songs where they both used loop pedals to create the effect of a full band. Honestly, I knew they were crazy talented, as I’d watched them go from messing around in garages to playing paying gigs, and I’d kept up with their music in Bishop’s Pawn, but since they quit that band to move to Ketchikan, they’d really updated their sound and had expanded a lot creatively. They could sound like a full rock band, or they could sound like a duo that would fit in at any coffee shop or open mic night, and they made both styles work and blend seamlessly.

They played half a dozen songs for the gathered crowd of military personnel, and then let their instruments go quiet.

Canaan pivoted on the makeshift stage—which had been set up in a giant hangar with fighter jets in the background, cockpits levered open. He glanced over at Aerie; she and I were sitting in the front row, all the way to one side near the exit stairs.

“Yo, Aerie—you still play the ukulele?” he asked, into the mic.

“Nope!” she said, shaking her head, but I knew she was lying—I’d watched her play and sing just the previous morning, sitting on Grandma and Grandpa’s front porch; a few guests of the B and B had even stopped and listened.

I pushed her toward the stage, fighting her as she resisted. “Yes, she does!” I shouted.

“Do not!” Aerie argued.

“You do too! You played yesterday! Get your butt up there and play, girl!” I smacked her butt hard enough that she whirled on me, laughing hysterically and blushing.

She pointed a finger at me. “Traitor. I haven’t played for a real audience since high school!”

“No time like the present, right?” I said, giving her a cutesy oops grin.

Canaan plugged a cord into a ukulele and held it out to her. “Come on, A! Play with us! Just one song, I promise.”

She hung her head, heaved a deep sigh, and then trotted up onto the stage, where Corin adjusted his mic for her and moved aside to sit on his box drum, which I think is called a cajon, or something like that. “Okay, fine. One song—one.” She turned a shy smile on the audience. “But if I suck, you’ll be nice to me, right?”

The military audience cheered in encouragement, and Aerie and Canaan spent a moment quietly discussing something—which song to do, I assumed. After conferring, she turned to the mic and adjusted the tuning of the ukulele.

“Fine, we’ll do that damn song,” she huffed as if irritated, but she was grinning, too. “But I hate you for choosing that song.”

“Do not,” Canaan argued. “You think it’s sweet.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Fine. Maybe a little sweet. And you’re lucky I remember how to play this damn song.”

Corin tapped his drum and counted out the beat, and then Canaan strummed a closed-chord intro, and Aerie joined in with the uke, picking a lilting, looping melody. When Canaan started singing and Aerie came in on the harmony, I instantly recognized the song: “Lucky” by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat.

Of which the chorus goes “lucky I’m in love with my best friend”…

Apropos? I think so.

As talented as Canaan and Aerie both were independently, they were breathtaking together. Aerie brought her ukulele with her everywhere we went, since it was so small and easy to pack, and she was always sitting on the balcony of our hotel room in a bathrobe, sipping coffee and tinkering around with songs, some of her own writing as well as her favorite covers. Them doing this song together…it literally brought tears to my eyes, and I wasn’t even sure why, other than that it was just so beautiful. Their harmony was eerily perfect, and they just naturally complemented each other in the way they each played.

As the song came to an end, the crowd went wild, and started chanting One more, one more.

Canaan grinned widely at Aerie as he spoke into the mic. “Come on, babe. You can hear ’em—one more song.” He pointed at her. “You know you loved that. You’re buzzed on adrenaline right now, I can tell!”

Aerie rolled her eyes, shook her head, hesitated, and then burst into laughter, stomping her foot. “I hate you!” she shrieked, teasing. “Yes, I loved it, okay? One more.”

“What should we do?” Canaan asked.

“Probably pushing my luck here, but do you know ‘Just Another Love Song’ by Haley and Michaels?” Aerie asked.

“I actually do, but what’s pushing our luck is playing Haley and Michael when these guys are here to hear Nitro Punch, who are…um, not country,” Canaan said, laughing.

At that moment, a massive, tattooed, pierced, dreadlocked, long-bearded monster of a man trotted up onto the stage with an electric guitar already plugged in—I assumed this was Mike, the lead for Nitro Punch.

“Wanna know something surprising?” he said, leaning into Aerie’s mic. “I know that song too, and I can play the electric guitar part. It wouldn’t sound right without it, if you ask me.”

Canaan just stared at his friend. “You’re serious?”

Mike just laughed. “I told you on the phone, man, I’m exploring my sensitive artiste side…e.g., learning country songs.”

Canaan shook his head in disbelief. “Better hope nobody is recording this, Mike,” he teased. “If the metal community gets wind of this, you’ll lose any and all cool points.”

“Like I give a fuck?” Mike demanded, in a growling snarl. “I can still scream better than anyone in the business, and I can still kick ass and take names. I just like trying new shit. Now shut the fuck up and play the fucking song, you fucking twink.”

He lessened the effect of his harsh words by grinning at Canaan. The crowd was on their feet by this point and they were all cheering.

“All right, all right,” Canaan said, and nodded at Corin, who started them off with the rhythm.

And again, as they played the song, I found myself emotional yet again at how amazing Canaan and Aerie sounded together. They sang like they’d been harmonizing for years, and their natural chemistry together blazed on that stage. They sang the song like they were singing each word to the other, which, I supposed, was true enough.

Finally, Canaan and Corin were out of time, and they had to clear the stage so the techs could turn it over for the main event. Canaan and Corin unplugged their instruments, packed them up, and stacked them off to one side of the stage, and then the twins and Aerie joined me in the front row.

I stood up as Aerie trotted toward me, both us doing the jump-and-squeal-and-clap thing. “Aerie, you were amazing!” I shrieked, hugging her. “Now say thank you for making you do it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You were right…thank you, Tate,” she said, affecting a fake-bored drone, and then ditched the fake attitude, clapping her hands. “Seriously, though, that was so much fun!”

Corin, standing behind them, clapped Canaan and Aerie on the shoulders. “You guys sounded incredible together,” he said. “You should do a whole set together at the bar next weekend.”

Aerie and Canaan locked gazes, and Aerie looked away first, shrugging. “I don’t know. A couple songs is different than a whole set.”

Canaan raspberried. “Don’t be a pussy,” he said. “You’ll love it, and you know it.”

She whacked him on the arm. “Don’t call me a pussy, pussy.”

“Then do a set with me.”

“Just you? Or with you and Cor?”

Canaan tilted his head to one side. “Good question. Cor?”

Corin waved a hand. “Just you two. It’ll be more…intimate.”

“You wouldn’t mind me taking your place with your brother?” Aerie asked.

“Nah, of course not.”

Canaan and Aerie began discussing song choices for the following weekend, which left Corin and me to our own conversation.

Corin nudged me with his elbow. “You keep up with music at all?” he asked.

“Yes, I play the kazoo in a polka band, actually,” I joked.

“Hey, the kazoo is a tricky instrument to play well,” Corin shot back. “For real, though. You used to be pretty good with the cello.”

“I used to be pretty good with the guitar, accordion, and piano,” I said. “I was amazing with the cello.”

“And? Do you still play? Just asking for a friend.”

I tilted my head side to side. “I plinked at Grandma’s piano the other day. I haven’t touched a cello in years, and forget about the accordion. I could probably pick up the guitar again pretty easily, though.”

“You should start practicing again,” Corin suggested.

I shrugged. “I’ve thought about it. It might be fun. I don’t know what I’d do with it, though.”

“Do with it? You just play for the enjoyment of doing music. If you wanted to do something with it, we could form an all-twin band with Canaan and Aerie.” He paused, making a face. “Well…I meant that as a joke, but now that I think about, we’d actually probably be really great as a band.”

The thing was, I had been thinking about trying to find a cello again. I’d sold mine years ago, when our modeling career took off and started replacing our other creative endeavors. Aerie and I used to play together a lot, actually, me on the cello, her on the uke. Which sounds weird, but it worked. Watching Aerie play up on the stage, I was realizing, had made me emotional because I truly did miss being creative. I missed playing, I missed the rush of feeling the notes pour out of me. I missed sitting down with a sketchpad and charcoals and sketching a still life. I missed the smell of oil paints. I missed collaging, and photography, and even knitting.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, finally. “I’ll look into getting a cello when we get back home.”

Corin just grinned. “You’re in luck, babe—I actually just recently picked one up, because I was thinking about trying to learn it. But now that you’re back, you can have it.”

I frowned at him. “For real?”

“For real. If I want to learn, you can teach me.” He winked at me. “You can sit behind me and show me where to put my hands.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Me teaching you where to put your hands.”

He leaned close to whisper in my ear. “Tate, baby, that’s not something you’ll have to teach me.”

I whispered back. “Oh, I think there might be a few things I could teach you.”

“I like the sound of that,” he answered.

I was about to respond with something witty and clever when the four members of Nitro Punch went up on the stage, Mike with his guitar, a bassist, another lead guitar, and the drummer, and the noise of the howling, cheering audience silenced me.

The show was…

Um.

I hate heavy metal. So…it kind of sounded to me like a lot of grinding and angry screaming, which set my teeth on edge and made me want to stab something. When it was finally over—thank you, sweet baby Jesus—we ended up in the back of a truly gobsmackingly enormous super-stretch Lincoln Navigator limo. Aside from the four of us and the guys from the metal band—I can only think the name Nitro Punch so many times before I go crazy—there were at least half a dozen scantily clad women, as well as four other men who I assumed were friends or guitar techs, making it at least sixteen people in the limo. It was hard to count the girls, though, because they were constantly moving seat to seat, giggling breathily and shrieking and fawning and being super slutty and annoying, and I hated them.

A lot.

The boys and Aerie and I were wedged into the far front of the limo, right behind the driver, Canaan on the far left, Aerie next, then Corin, and then me. Meaning, Corin had both Aerie and me on either side of him.

And there were at least four bottles of whiskey going around, three joints, two glass bowls, and a flask of something I wasn’t sure I wanted to try. Judging by the smells, nobody was smoking anything besides pot, which put me more at ease—I had no interest in being part of anything harder than that, and I’d be letting even that stuff pass me by. I’ll drink myself into a blackout, fine, thanks, and can I have a hair of the dog. But hard drugs? No thanks. I watched too many other models and friends in New York get hooked on that nasty shit. Nope. Don’t want to try it even once.

It was a fun night, though. The limo took us to a club, and by the time we got there, we were all well on our way to being wasted. Most of the girls and the four guys I didn’t know all got out at the club, but everyone else stayed in and the limo continued to cruise around Anchorage, the windows down, moonroof open, music blaring, drinks flowing plenty.

I have no idea how long we cruised, joking and laughing with the guys from the band—who, despite their angry demon monster music and scary appearances, were actually all very sweet men. Eventually, though, we ended up at our hotel, and I was tasked with trying to check us in…while hammered.

Ohhh boy.

The poor bemused night clerk got us checked in, gave us our keys, and pointed out the elevators. None of us could even stay upright on our own, which meant the elevator ride up to our floor was spent with all four of us leaning together into a giggling jumble of mutual vertical support. When the elevator disgorged us, we stumbled clumsily down the hallway, each of us pinballing in different directions, bouncing off the walls, highly amused at our own drunken antics.

We finally made it to one of our rooms.

Which…was wrong.

It was a double king room, and I realized I only had one little envelope with two keys in it, rather than two envelopes for two rooms; it took a lot of difficult mental calculation to figure that out, but I eventually managed it.

“Bad news, ya’ll,” I said. “They fucked up our reservation.”

Corin was already collapsed onto the nearest bed, half on it, half off, his feet trailing limp underneath him as he tried valiantly to haul himself up the rest of the way. “Ohhh no. Bad hotel people.” He peered at me. “What’d they do bad?”

“God, you’re wasted,” I said, laughing.

He cackled. “Yep!” He pointed at me. “Like you’re any better?”

I pointed at myself. “Me, on my feet. You, on the floor. I win.”

He gave up trying to get up onto the bed and let himself slide to the floor. “You may have a merit. A thing. Whass the word? An element.”

I stared down at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“A point!” he shouted, flat on his back, stabbing a finger at the ceiling. “You may have a point!”

Canaan had vanished into the bathroom, and reappeared with his pants unzipped and unbuttoned, collapsing heavily onto the floor between the beds next to Corin. Aerie was halfway lying on the far bed, but she was slowly sliding off, clearly seeing at least double and losing the battle to stay awake.

And, in the interest of honesty, the only reason I was still upright was because I had my knees locked and was focusing for all I was worth on staying on my feet. The room was spinning like a merry-go-round, only with a twisting, wobbling factor added in. I wanted desperately to make it to the bed.

Corin’s face appeared, sticking out from between the beds. “You can’t walk, can you?”

I peered at him, blinking. “Sure I can.” I took a step forward, but ended up going sort of sideways. “No. Shut up.”

He laughed. “Silly. Drunky-fish Tater Tot is drunky-fish.”

I slammed onto the bed, rolled onto it, shouting triumphantly. “HA! I am on the bed.” I wiggled to peer over the side at the jumble of people on the floor, staring at Corin. “Wha-the-fuck is a drunky-fish?”

He pointed at himself, poking himself in the eye accidentally, and then sloppily at the rest of us. “We—us are drunky-fishes. I forgot how English, methinks.”

“But you can pop out words like ‘methinks’?” I teased.

“Methinks is a great word. Useful. One word ‘steada two.” He gazed up at me. “Why’re you still up on the stupid bed, honeypot?”

“Because I like beds. Beds are nice. Floors are hard and not nice.” I snickered. “Also, I am pretty sure honeypot is an old word for vagina. At least, that’s how Jamie referred to Claire’s vagina on Outlander.”

“Honeypot,” Corin mused. “Nice. I shall appropriate this word.”

I was beginning to feel the spins, then. I closed my eyes, but the spinning only felt worse. So I wiggled to the edge of the bed and put my foot on the floor.

“Ow,” Corin deadpanned. “That’s my quadricep, Tate.”

“You called me Tater Tot. You deserved that.” I did move my foot, though; maybe not in the direction of the floor, but…elsewhere.

“It’s a cute nickname,” Corin said.

“Is not. It’s embarrassing and horrible. And how do you even know about that nickname, anyway?”

“Heard your mom call you it, once.” He poked my calf. “Also, if you’re trying to play footsie with my dick, it might help to take your shoes off.”

“Can’t. Too much work.”

“I help.” He grabbed my ankle, stared at my foot as he tried to figure out how a wedge-heel sandal worked, and then yanked the shoe off, tossing it backward over his head; I heard it clatter across the bathroom floor. “Other foot.”

I twisted to offer him my other foot, and he yanked that one off and tossed it in another direction. “You make zero sense when you’re this drunk, Cor.”

He peered up at me. “I am currently so drunk I’m not even Corin anymore.” He patted the floor beside himself. “Hi, this is Floor. Corin can’t come to the phone right now, because he’s utterly obliterated. Please leave a message and he’ll return it as soon as he stops being dead. Okaybye.”

I laughed because, for some reason, that struck me as absolutely hysterical.

“You’re too far away,” Corin complained. “I can only reach your legs, and I’m not really a leg man.”

“No, you’re a man-man. It would be weird if you were a leg man,” I said.

“No, no, no. I meant—”

I wiggled my toes against his legs. “I know what you meant, ya goofy fuckball.” I toed the outline of his dick over his zipper. “You’re an ass man.”

“This is true. Very, very true. There’s nothing better than a thick, juicy, jiggly butt.” He blinked up at me. “Speaking of which…get yours down here.”

He grabbed me by the calf and dragged me bodily off the bed, and I landed directly on top of him with a thud and an oooof!

“Hey,” I protested. “I wanted to stay up there.”

“Nah, you just think you did.” He wiggled around so my head was on his stomach, my legs curled up. “You really wanted to snuggle me.”

“I did?”

“Yep, you did.”

“Oh. I must have forgotten.”

“Easy to do when you’re clobberated.”

“That’s not a word.”

“It’s a new word. I just invented it.”

“Corin?”

“Tate?”

“Shut up so I can pass out.” I drifted toward sleep, but then a thought occurred to me, and I pinched Corin’s belly. “Is my butt really thick and jiggly?”

“Um, no?”

“Corin.”

“It’s actually not very jiggly. You’re in too good of shape for that. It’s more…taut and firm and round. Which is also really, really, really hot and sexy.”

“But you’d rather my butt be jiggly and thick?”

He sighed. “Tate.”

“Corin?”

“You’re being dumb. I want your ass to be whatever your ass is. Thick and jiggly, taut and round…somewhere in between…I shall desire to do a great many things to it, regardless of the descriptors used to describe said object of my desire.”

“You are ridiculous.”

“Yep.” He patted my butt. “Now shush. I’m trying to sleep.”

The pat turned into a casual resting of his hand, with an occasional rub and caress now and then. Which…I liked. A lot.

I resolved to not get drunk tomorrow, because I planned to get us the second room we were supposed to have gotten, so I could spend the night with Corin.

Sober.

Alone.

Preferably sans culottes, and also sans any clothes at all.

---

I woke up at some point, my mouth pasted together, murderously thirsty, disoriented, hot, and uncomfortable. I worked myself off the floor, stumbled and tripped to the bathroom, turned on the faucet and slurped water directly from the spout until my belly was sloshing and I felt something like human again.

I stripped out of my dress and sweater, and collapsed back into bed, asleep again before my head hit the pillow.

I was woken again, some time later, by the flush of the toilet and the faucet running, and a male belch, and then the mattress dipping behind me. I wiggled against him, feeling his hand clutching my belly, low. He murmured sleepily, nuzzling against me, shifting his hips.

Much, much later, I woke a third time. I blinked my eyes open sleepily—I was facing the other bed, and the window; daylight was streaming in bright slices from the edges of the heavy blinds and curtains, but the room was still drowned in darkness. Aerie was facing me, sleeping. A hand was tossed over her waist, low. Something about that hand struck a chord, a sense of…something. But my head was aching and my mouth was dry, and I was still so sleepy.

So I ignored it, trying to drift off.

Then I felt him shift behind me, murmuring. His hand tightened on my belly, and slid to my hipbone. His hips flexed.

And, just like that, my libido woke up, cranking from cold into raging inferno within a matter of seconds. A touch to my hip, his hips flexing…that’s all it took.

I pushed my butt back and felt him hard and erect against me. He’d taken his clothes off at some point too, so we were both wearing nothing but underwear—I’d left my bra on, because it had been too much trouble to take off half-drunk and -asleep. His hand smoothed over my hip, down my thigh, and back up. I wiggled my butt against him again, and he kissed between my shoulder blades, and his hand carved over my belly and delved lower. His fingertips slid under the waist of my underwear, and I relaxed my thighs so he could find what he was looking for. I reached backward, between us, and mirrored his movement, dipping my fingers under the elastic of his underwear to clutch his hard, waiting cock. My breath hitched in my lungs as he fingered my clit, and I heard him huff out a soft, sharp breath as I slid my fist down his length, thumb and forefinger facing downward.

I blinked, glimpsing Aerie across from me. She was awake, her eyes meeting mine. I glanced down, saw the sheet covering her begin to move. Saw the awkward angle of her arm tilted behind her. Saw the hooded, half-closed eyelids and parted lips…yeah, similar things were happening in that bed, too.

I bit my lower lip, hiding a smirk, and she just widened her eyes at me in a silent warning not to make any sounds.

The sheet covering Aerie was only draped over her waist, covering her lower half, leaving her torso exposed; she still had her T-shirt on but I saw her bra on the floor beside the bed, as if she’d ripped it off in the middle of the night and dropped it. The hand under the sheet drifted up, sliding her T-shirt up to expose the undersides of her breasts, and then, just for a moment, before his hand disappeared under her T-shirt, I saw the back of his hand and the lower portion of his wrist clearly: I saw a bright red Chinese-style dragon curling around the forearm, with the mouth open to devour the base of the wrist and hand.

Corin’s hand.

Which means…

Shit.

Shitshitshit.

Aerie frowned at me, having seen something on my face that betrayed my realization.

What was I supposed to do? We’d obviously accidentally gotten in bed with the wrong person last night—understandably. But now, we were switched. And I had my hand on Canaan’s cock, and his fingers were between my thighs, circling, bringing me closer and closer to orgasm, and across from me, Corin was in bed with Aerie, his hand cupping her breast as I watched, then sliding back down her body to her thighs.

This felt good.

But also…not.

I knew I couldn’t let this go any farther. My curiosity about how it might feel with Canaan was a dull candle flame in comparison to the fire of my need for Corin. And the thought of lying here, with Canaan’s hand on me, my hand on him, while Corin and Aerie messed around…watching Corin touch my sister…

I didn’t feel ill, necessarily, but I didn’t like it.

I coughed, cleared my throat. “Um. Corin?”

“Hmmm?” He sounded irritated, understandably.

“Are you still drunky-fish?” I asked, hoping the reference to our conversation last night would jog his comprehension.

“Not really.”

Aerie had withdrawn her hand, realizing what I was getting at, what was going on. “Shit,” she muttered. “Not again.”

I saw Corin’s hand freeze, move to the safer territory of her stomach, and then his head popped up over her shoulder. “Fuck,” he breathed. “Yo, Cane. You’re late to the party, bro. We switched again.”

Behind me, Canaan froze. “What?” He tugged at my shoulder, and I rolled onto my back, eying him sideways.

“Hi, Canaan.”

He flopped to his back, arm over his eyes. “This is becoming a problem.”

“We did say we should be careful about getting drunk together,” I said.

“But we were supposed to have separate rooms,” Aerie said. “This was even more accidental than last time.”

“Hey girls, how about you two switch, on three,” Corin said. “Ready? One—two—three.”

On three, Aerie slipped out of the bed, and so did I, and we quickly rolled into the opposite bed.

“I’m ix-naying any further discussions on this subject,” Canaan said. “This wasn’t a matter of curiosity, this was a simple case of we all got in bed with the wrong twin by accident. We were hammered. It happens. But we stopped before anything happened.”

“Yeah, but…” Corin groaned, reaching under the covers to adjust himself. “Now I have an awkward boner.”

I laughed, rolling toward him to bury my face in his chest. “I think I speak for Aerie as well as myself when I say we both have awkward lady-boners, too.”

“Um, yeah.” Aerie huffed. “It’s an especially awkward lady-boner, because I’m super worked up right now, but the moment is obviously totally dead.”

“It’s not like we’re gonna finish each other off, now,” Corin said. “With all of us awake and with everything that just happened. That would be dumb and crazy.”

“Super dumb, and super crazy,” Canaan agreed.

A long pause.

“The girls don’t seem to be chiming in on this,” Corin said.

“I’m trying to be absolutely certain the moment is actually fully dead,” I said. “Because it sorta feels still partially alive.”

Corin tugged my hand to cover his cock, which was still hard. “Only partially?” he murmured.

I squeezed. “Yeah, now that I get a good feel, it does seem pretty well alive.”

Aerie slipped out of bed, snatched her bra off the floor, and stood facing away from the beds as she withdrew her arms from her shirtsleeves, hooked the bra on, and then fitted the shirt back on again. She was also not wearing any pants, which she found on the floor by the bathroom and stepped into.

“I need breakfast,” she said. “I still have a crazy intense lady-boner, but I’m too mixed up to do anything about it right now. I’m gonna go pretend to be you so I can get that second room.”

“You’ll need my card,” I said.

“I’ll come with you,” Canaan said, sliding out of the bed on the opposite side, facing away from us. “Now, where the hell are my pants?”

Aerie’s eyes were flicking down his body and back up and she was chewing on her lower lip, giving me a pretty good idea why he’d gotten out of bed on that side. Corin, sitting up now, leaned over and lay fully on top of me to snag a pair of jeans off the floor by the bed, and tossed them onto Canaan’s head.

“Wow, thanks,” Canaan droned. “You could have just said, hey, there they are.”

Corin didn’t move from being on top of me. “Eh, where’s the fun in that?”

Aerie had my card out of my purse, took a room key, and stuffed her feet into a pair of shoes—my wedges, actually, but it’s not like I cared, since we traded clothes and shoes all the time.

“You guys coming down to breakfast?” she asked, pausing halfway out the door, Canaan already out and gone.

“In a minute,” I said. “Make me a waffle.”

“I might get you a cup of coffee, if you’re lucky,” she said with an eye roll. “Waffles you gotta do for yourself.”

“Whatever,” I drawled at her, as she let the door close. To Corin, who was still draped over my body, I said, “You’re not exactly light, you know. Are you going back to sleep like this?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “You’re pretty comfy. I might.”

I laughed. “I’m glad I make a nice pillow for you, Corin.”

He slid his head over to rest on my breast. “You do have very nice pillows.”

“Except that makes it hard to breathe,” I complained.

Which was a lie, and part of a plan.

He slid down to rest his head on my stomach. “How’s that?”

I sucked in a deep breath, and let it go. “Better. But now you’re hurting my stomach, which is empty and requires food, soon.”

He wiggled even farther down, so his head was on my lap, his arms cradling my hips. “Surely this doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”

“No, but…” I flexed my hips. “Since you’re down there?”

He twisted his head to gaze up my body to meet my eyes, his twinkling mischievously. “Since I’m down here, huh?”

“I’m all horny, now. I’m not like a guy, where my boner eventually goes away on its own. I just…stay horny.”

“Even awkward situation lady-boners?”

“Especially those. I was nearly there when I realized it wasn’t you, so I’m doubly frustrated, now. From being so close, and from being interrupted the way I was.” I rolled a shoulder. “So, yeah. Since you’re down there…”

He slid my underwear down around my knees, nudging my thighs apart after I kicked the thong off the rest of the way. “Tate, honey, you don’t have to ask me twice.”

And then he flickered his tongue against my clit, and any lingering sense of awkwardness to my arousal vanished instantly. All I felt was Corin, the grip of his palm on my thigh, one thumb gently tugging my pussy open for his mouth, his other hand wedged under his chin, two fingers curling inside me.

God, he could get me there so fast. He could bring me to orgasm within minutes from minor arousal; with me already on edge and having been close? Seconds…I was gasping and writhing in seconds.

I tumbled over the edge with a shriek I muffled by biting down on my finger, and then grabbed a pillow and buried my face in it to unleash a scream as he licked and fingered me to a second orgasm, making me thrash so hard he had to hold me in place to devour me through one last quivering, quaking, screaming, shuddering climax, leaving me panting, shaking through aftershocks.

I threw the pillow aside and looked down at Corin. “Holy shit, Cor. That was…god. It was—” I stopped talking, shaking my head and laughing.

“Good?” he asked, a cocky grin telling me he knew exactly how good it had been; he wiped his mouth with his palm and licked his lips ostentatiously.

I laughed in disbelief. “Good? Good?” I slid off the bed and onto my knees. “That was so good you get a reward.”

“A reward?” he gasped in exaggerated excitement. “Oh boy, I hope it’s a pony!”

He rolled to a sitting position, and I worked his boxer-briefs down around his ankles, and I began stroking him. “No, Corin, your reward is not a pony.”

“Oh.” He was committed to the silliness, faking disappointment, including a pouty lip, which made me laugh. “Cake? I like cake.”

“Nope.” I went with it, playing it straight. “It’s not cake either.” I used both hands for a moment, caressing his length in slow, twists of my fists.

He tapped the corner of his mouth. “Gee. I wonder what my reward could be?”

I laughed, unable to keep the straight face anymore. “You’re such a dork, Corin.”

He grinned at me, palming my cheek and burying his hand into my hair, which was loose. “Is my reward you performing the act of fellatio upon me, Tate Kingsley?”

I brightened my expression and pointed a finger at the ceiling. “Ding-ding-ding!”

He laughed, and then the grin on his face bled away as he guided my face toward his cock, which was thick, and pink, and straining upward, and dripping beads of pre-cum. He gathered my hair in his hands and piled it on top of my head as I neared his erection, keeping my eyes on his as I parted my lips to accept the plump head of his dick into my mouth. I moaned at the taste of him, flicking my tongue against the slit to lap away the tangy, musky pre-cum.

“Fucking hell, Tate. Your mouth feels like heaven, baby.”

“Mmm-hmmm?”

“Oh shit, you hum like again and that you won’t be sucking long.”

“Mmmm-mmm?”

He laughed, and then hissed. “Seriously. I’m not emotionally prepared for the intensity of a hummer right now, Tate.”

I snorted a laugh as I sucked around the head, tongue swirling, and then slid my mouth down his long, hard shaft. “Mmmm-mmm? Mmmmm…” I was just humming for effect, then, because it really did seem to drive him crazy.

“Shit, woman. Now you’re just trying to make me lose it before I’m ready.”

“Mmmm-hmmm!”

Silence, then, except for the occasional wet slurp as I worked Corin into a grunting frenzy.

“God, Tate. Watching you do this is so fucking hot,” he groaned. “Hey, I have an idea. Can I record you doing this? So I can watch it later?”

I backed away and let him pop out of my mouth long enough to mumble an actual response. “But you have to send it to me, you can’t show anyone, and I get to record something for myself next time.”

Because seriously, a video of Corin eating me out sounded like something I’d really like to have, for those lonely nights when I couldn’t be with him. Or…or maybe a video of him driving into me from behind. That would be fucking hot as hell.

He reached out and snagged his cell phone, brought up the camera, and held it to one side to record a side view of me going down on him. And I decided to play it up a bit, just for the camera, for him.

I rested my hands on his thighs and used just my mouth, then. He had his hands buried in my hair, tangled, knotted in the blonde mass, gripping, encouraging gently. I slid up until my lips were puckered around the very tip, and then I broke suction and licked at the slit, moaning—not at all faked—as I took him deep again, deeper than I had thus far, so deep my gag wasn’t faked either.

“Jesus, Tate,” he snarled.

I hummed, then, a noise of enjoyment in his shocked pleasure as I backed away, only to noisily drive back down his shaft as deep as I could take his thick length. More, more. I hummed, and I made sure each movement was noisy, slurping, gagging, eying the camera, moaning. Played up, accentuated, but not faked.

I clutched his thighs as he began to thrust, and then I pressed on his hips to encourage him to be still, to let me do the work. He growled, gasped, and his hands were tangled so tightly in my hair it was just this side of painful.

“Tate, shit…I’m there, baby. I’m gonna come.”

I hummed an affirmation, which only made him growl again, and then I felt him tense, felt his grip on my hair tighten and he tugged me downward, hips flexing.

The last few times he’d told me the moment he came, but this time, all he could do was growl wordlessly, leaning backward, hips tautened as he prepared to come.

I thought I was ready.

I wasn’t ready.

He came without warning, surprising even himself, I think. I tasted it, felt it fill my mouth in a hot salty rush, and then his cum was trickling down my chin and I was trying to swallow it but couldn’t keep up. I stopped trying, just kept blowing him as he came and came and came, and his cum dribbled out around his cock and down my chin; I glanced at the camera, and then returned to finishing him. I felt it dripping warm and wet down between my breasts, and still he was exploding in my mouth.

I grasped him in both hands and pumped his cock, murmuring in surprise as he shot one last load into my mouth, and he was groaning raggedly, one hand keeping my hair out of the way, the other recording this on his cell phone.

When he was finally done coming, I pulled away, swallowing what was in my mouth, and then laughed as I glanced at the camera again.

He stopped it and tossed the device aside. “Holy fucking mother of shit, Tate,” he gasped, flopping backward onto the bed. “I feel like I owe you another orgasm for how insane that was.”

“We’re not keeping score, Corin,” I said, wiping my mouth and chin with my palm, which was a dumb idea, since there was just too much to be wiped away with my hand. “I wouldn’t mind a towel, though.”

He groaned as he levered himself off the bed, stumbling heavily into the bathroom, where he dampened a hand towel, wrung it out, and shuffled with difficulty back to me.

“Having trouble walking, there, killer?” I teased.

“My legs are numb,” he said. “Legit, you sucked me so hard my legs don’t work.”

“You made a mess all over me, Corin,” I said, meeting his gaze. “You came so much I couldn’t keep up.”

He wiped at my face, my mouth, my chin, down my throat and to my breasts. “I thought you were playing that up since I was recording.”

I shook my head. “Nope. You genuinely surprised me. I couldn’t swallow fast enough for how much you were coming, so I stopped trying.”

“Well, it was hot as fuck, honeypot.” He finished cleaning me and I sat beside him on the bed. “Wanna watch it?”

“Absolutely.”

And so we watched the video of me sucking his cock. Which…was pretty hot. The sight of his cum spurting out around his cock and down my chin…it made me horny all over again.

“So, you’re gonna jerk off to that?” I asked.

“Funny thing is, I haven’t jerked off since before we went to the cabin,” he said.

“Wait, so the last time you came is when I went down on you in the truck?”

“Yep.”

I laughed. “No wonder you came so much, then.” I stood up, found my thong, dress, and sweater-duster, and started getting dressed. “I’m serious about recording something else, you know.”

“Really?” he asked, as he got dressed.

I nodded. “Yeah, absolutely. I haven’t decided what I want to record, though. You eating me out? Us fucking? I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Well…when you masturbate, what turns you on?” he asked. “Do you watch porn or something?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes, other times I can come just from what I’m thinking about.”

“Which is what?” he pressed.

I went into the bathroom with the travel toothbrush and toothpaste from my bag. “That’s, like, a super private fantasy, Cor.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said, leaning against the doorway and watching me brush my teeth. “I’m just curious.”

“Why?”

“Why am I curious?”

“Yeah.”

He ran his tongue over his teeth, and then fetched a brush from his bag and joined me at the sink; I handed him my toothpaste and he started brushing. “I want to know everything about you. I want to know what turns you on, what makes you crazy. I want to know what you fantasize about while you’re masturbating.”

“Tit for tat, then,” I said, after spitting.

“Easy enough,” he answered, around a mouthful of toothpaste foam.

I finished brushing and rinsed my mouth, washed my face, and ran a brush through my hair, deciding if I was really going to tell him this. I decided I was, because at this point, what did I have to hide from Corin Badd?

“So, this is just a fantasy—” I started.

“Don’t qualify it, Tate,” he said, sitting on the bed to watch me as I paced and brushed. “Like I’m going to judge you?”

I sighed. “Easy for you to say.” I kept running the brush through my hair, just for something to focus on other than my forthcoming admission. “We kind of edged around it just now,” I said, feeling myself blushing. “I’m not saying I necessarily want to do this in real life, mind you. It’s just…something that turns me on, I guess, the idea of it.”

“What, Tate?”

I sighed again, and sat on the bed beside him. “A facial.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Not too surprising, given some of the things you’ve said and done so far.”

I shrugged. “Maybe not.”

“Describe the fantasy to me?”

“The guy doesn’t have a face—although now, it’s gonna end up being you. Just a guy with a hot body, big muscles and rippling abs and all that shit. Big cock. He’s jerking off, and I’m just watching. Just sitting there watching. He’s going to town, right? Like, he’s really really into it, jerking himself off super crazy hard. I don’t touch him. I want to, but the fun is to deny myself. And he wants me to touch him, it’s one of those things I just know, because…duh, right?” I bite my lip and glance at Corin, who is watching me impassively. “So he’s jerking off. When I can tell he’s getting close, I go to my knees in front of him—he stands up for this, and I’m on my knees in front of him. Like a porn, I guess. And he jerks off…onto me. All over my face, all over my tits. Everywhere.”

“Damn, honeypot. That’s a dirty fantasy.”

I nod, shrugging. “It’s stupid, too. I mean, it’s not like I’d get any actual sexual enjoyment out of being spooged on, you know? Why does it turn me on? I don’t know. But it does. I usually start coming right about the time I’m fantasizing him starting to come, when it’s all starting to drip all over my body.” I glanced at Corin. “What’s yours?”

“I already talked about one, the whole titty-fucking thing, which you already made come true.” He sighed happily, remembering. “The other one that’s sort of recurring is actually kind of vanilla and lame and stupid.”

“So? I want to hear it.”

He fell backward onto the bed, rubbing his face. “God, it’s so stupid. I’m not even sure where it came from or why it’s even a fantasy, but—”

“No justifying or excusing, Corin, remember?”

“I know, I know. God, admitting this out loud is actually kind of hard.”

“Right?” I asked, laughing. “Now you get where I was coming from.”

“Yeah, I do.” He laughed self-consciously. “Okay, so. I’m sleeping. In the fantasy, I mean, I’m asleep. I wake up, and I’m already hard, and she’s rubbing herself all over me, which is what woke me up. Not to steal what you said, but she’s no one specific, and of course now it’s gonna end up being you. Anyway. I’m sleepy and disoriented and not really with it. Like, holy shit, what’s going on? Oh my god, okay, she’s, like…rubbing her body all up and down mine, grinding on me, rubbing her tits on my face, over my cock, grinding her pussy on me. I go to reach for her, and she pins my hands to the bed, like no, let me. So I cross my arms under my head—”

“This is a really detailed fantasy,” I remark.

“Yeah, well…” he trails off, laughing, and then resumes. “Anyway, so…I’m still half-asleep, thinking it may even be a dream or something. Then she straddles me, and before I know what’s happening, she has me inside her and she’s riding me. And she just rides me, all hot and crazy, and…that’s it.”

“That’s actually kind of hot,” I admit. “Now, let’s go have breakfast.”

I know what we’re both thinking: making each other’s fantasies come true.

I lied to him—I absolutely do want to make mine come true. I always have, but I’ve never had the courage to admit it was something I wanted. And really, until Corin, it was just a fantasy—that part wasn’t a lie, it was the idea that turned me on, whereas the idea of the reality made me scared and nervous. It wasn’t something I’d ever actually do—like, god, no—there’s no way I’d ever let a man ejaculate onto me—that’s degrading porno bullshit.

But somehow, Corin makes it seem…erotic. It turns me on. Just now, when he came in my mouth and it was all down my chin and throat and on my breasts…it was crazy sexy. Watching the recording was even hotter. If Corin actually jerked off onto me?

Ohhhh shit.

I might spontaneously orgasm.

And his fantasy? It was vanilla and tame, maybe, but really hot, and even romantic. Like, I could see myself doing that for him. Not just to make his fantasy come true, but because when I wake up before him and he’s got a monster erection and he’s so fucking sexy with his tats and piercings and those crazy shredded abs of his…I don’t know if I’d be able to resist him.

Something told me there would be a lot of fantasies coming true.

Another thought occurred to me: If Corin made my secret fantasy come true, would I need a new one? Or would the memory of him doing that to me be enough to arouse me to orgasm.

Further to that line of thought…

If Corin and I were to…continue this thing we had, would I need to masturbate at all?