Chapter 23

Mark

The whole day at work, my brain buzzed with what was to come. All through the various surgeries, procedures, and consultations, I wondered. What was Brooke going to say? Or Jake? Hell, what was I was going to say? Were we actually considering this throuple thing—or would this talk confirm that both of us being with Brooke couldn’t work—not now, not ever.

By the time it was 3:45 p.m., I cornered them in the office.

“So, how about we do it at my house?”

They agreed with nervous nods, while I faked an easy laugh.

“Hey, how bad can it be, right?”

An awkward silence gave me the unfortunate answer.

“Anyway,” I continued, “Seriously, how about we have the big discussion at my place?”

Brooke glanced to Jake, who nodded.

“Yeah, he does have a pool. Hey, why don’t we pick up a pizza on the way home while we’re at it?”

“Good idea,” I agreed, latching my arms in theirs, “For old time’s sake.”

They chuckled, and I continued “When we were so young and innocent.”

Brooke gave me a playful hit.

“Hey, we haven’t done anything yet. I’m not sure I even want to, okay? As far as I’m concerned, I am still innocent.”

I put my hand on her head and patted it.

“Oh, my dear Brooke. You’ve never been innocent.”

Over her head, I saw Jake’s face go immobile.

“And don’t give me that look, Dr. Teller. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that time you punched me in the shoulder.”

Jake shrugged, smiling in spite of himself.

“What can I say? You deserved it.”

I smiled back.

“We’ll see about that.”

Then I left to go to the bathroom. What had just happened made me think. If we were going to make this work, we couldn’t do things the way we’d done them before. We couldn’t concentrate all our energy on Brooke and then get pissed when the other one did something with her. But if we did what I just had, joked and included everyone—if we kept the atmosphere fun and light, maybe we could find a way to make this work.

Back at my place, Brooke actually had to stop to get a good look at my mansion. I stopped beside her, trying to absorb her wonder as my own. Truth be told, seeing the building’s massive white brick exterior, the thick white stone columns, day in and day out had made it seem mundane, not nearly as impressive as it had been those first few weeks.

“This,” she said, her voice dripping with awe, “This is no house.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, casually, “It’s just my summer cottage. Like for getaways mostly.”

“What?!” Brooke cried.

Passing by, Jake punched me in the arm.

“He’s full of shit. This is his main house—and his nicest.”

I chucked my keys at Jake—who caught them.

“Why do you always gotta go and ruin things?” I asked.

For a second, Jake paused and I was afraid he’d taken my joke the wrong way. But then he turned and flashed a pearly white smile.

“That’s what best friends are for, dude.”

He was the one who opened the door. Brooke glided in, her head on a swivel as she let out a series of impressed exclamations.

“The ceiling,” her head went up to take in the vaulted trellised ceiling, “and the floors,” her head went down to gaze at the opal-like finish on the marble floors.

“Mark,” she said, finally turning her gaze to me, “This is, this is like a fairy-tale!”

“Yes,” Jake said, tossing back my keys, “Mark has quite the taste—although he did have a certain best friend help him decide what to put where, which curtains to choose, that sort of thing.”

“Ah, you’re right!” I exclaimed, slapping my palm against my forehead, “How could I have been so stupid? I almost forgot all about how much Dake had helped.”

Brooke giggled. I blew a kiss to Jake’s glaring face, while he gave me the finger.

“Maybe I should just eat this pizza myself,” he said, indicating the pizza box tucked under his arm.

Brooke pouted.

“At least share with me.”

Jake smiled, draping his arm around her.

“That could be arranged.”

“Hey, did I mention what a great friend you’ve been to me?” I told Jake, going over to Brooke’s other side and draping my arm around her.

He paused, eyeing me just as I was eyeing him. It felt weird, the way Brooke was sandwiched between us. Right now, I wanted to take to her smiling face and kiss it. I wanted to strip off that silky emerald green blouse and pin her there, right on the floor, pin her there and show her just what she meant to me. Or even just kiss her. But Jake was there eyeing me, maybe thinking the same thing.

My gaze flicked to Brooke’s face. It looked rosy, and happy, like I’d seen it only a few times. That was the inconvenient truth of it—both of us, together, made Brooke happy. I glanced at Jake, whose gaze was still on Brooke, but whose expression was now thoughtful. Maybe he was thinking the same thing. That together, we made her happy in a way that neither of us could manage by ourselves.

“Pizza time?” Brooke said, looking from me to Jake with a grin.

I snatched the pizza box out of Jake’s arm and dashed into the kitchen.

“Last one in the kitchen doesn’t get any pizza!”

As it turned out, Brooke was the last one in, so I had to forgo the whole claim. Instead of sitting on the stainless steel artistic table and chairs Jake had helped me pick out, I got some luxurious pillows from the salon and heaved them on the floor. Then I plopped the pizza box in the middle of them.

“This seems like it’ll be a kinda floor sort of conversation.”

Grinning, Brooke flopped down onto a purple satin pillow.

“That sounds good to me.”

Jake flopped on a pillow beside her, and I flopped onto the one on the other side. After I flipped open the pizza box, we methodically began devouring the pizza.

I was halfway through my second piece, when I couldn’t take it anymore.

“So, are we going to talk about this?”

Brooke paused, her eyes lowering in worry.

“Guess so.”

Jake stopped eating with a sigh.

“We can’t keep avoiding it forever.”

He turned to Brooke, “So—”

“So,” she said, looking at her pepperoni and olive slice as she spoke, “Yeah, like I said, I have no idea if this could actually work. But I do want to at least try. But first—I want to try a threesome.”

“Oh hell yeah, I’m down,” I said, excitedly, “So which one of your friends were you thinking?”

Brooke directed her glare my way.

“Mark. You know what I mean.”

I froze. Suddenly, I found I couldn’t swallow. I’d kinda known what she’d meant, to be honest, I just hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself. Sure, I’d dreamed of threesomes—what guy hasn’t? But it had always involved me and two girls—not me as one of the men.

“Do you think we could try that?” Brooke said.

“I don’t know,” Jake said, “I mean, we can try—like you said. I’m willing to do that. But I can only imagine that it will be a boner-killer seeing you with Mark between your legs.”

Brooke took his hand.

“You two leave the turning on part to me,” she said.

I grabbed her hand, lifted it to my lips.

“No, you leave the turning on part to us,” I said.

Her gaze shot to my lips.

“Oh yeah?”

And with just a look, I was getting hard already.

“Yeah,” I said, pressing my lips to hers.

We’d only kissed for a minute, when Jake had ripped her away, and pressed his lips to hers. It was fucked, but watching them like that both angered me and fueled me, and now my cock was swelling even more.

I ripped her away and lifted a slice of pizza to her lips.

“But first—eat,” I said, “Eat and let us enjoy you.”

As she bit at the thin piece I held, I snaked my other hand down, over to her breasts. I glanced over to Jake, who was watching with an uncertain expression. I nodded, and with one hand he grasped her other breast. Mouth full of pizza, Brooke groaned. As she ate and moaned, Jake and I caressed her in time.

I nudged Jake and, together, we slipped our hands under her shirt, onto her bra. Her chest was heaving already. I looked up to see that the pizza was finished.

I grinned at Jake. There was an excited fire in his dark eyes. The same excited fire that was probably in mine.

“Looks like it’s time,” I said.