Brit Party (14 page)

Alec darted back and forth. “Only if I get my best chum status back."

Calculating how best to catch the tosser, she gave him the evil eye. “No promises. Now hand over the food if you want to live."

Alec's gaze ping ponged between her and the ice cream he cradled in his arms. Finally, with a big pout, he turned it over. “I love you more. Here."

"Ahh.” Her heart melted almost as much as her poor liquefied Ben & Jerry's. “That's so sweet."

Kevin rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. With a raised brow, he looked at her feet. “Flip flops, darling. Chop chop."

Her brow arched and then happy enlightenment dawned. So that's why he was dressed down in Dockers and a Polo shirt. “Midnight pedicures? My absolute fav!"

Her feet danced all the way through the pedicure, the real dancing, and then a fancy meal. She was surprised when they took her to a romantic candlelit restaurant where a mariachi band serenaded her. She wished they'd warned her to bring more appropriate shoes.

Heat rising to her cheeks, she rested her elbows on the table and her face on her hands. “You're the best chums in the world. I love you two."

Kevin and Alec exchanged a knowing, suspicious glance.

A knot formed in the pit of her stomach and the formerly luscious manicotti lost its flavour. She had to force herself to swallow the now cardboard-tasting swill. “Spill. What are you two up to? What's this big set up all about?"

Kevin's expression became inscrutable but Alec broke into a big grin. He shook with excitement until Kevin elbowed him in the ribs. “What ‘set up'?"

"Moi, your best mate, set you up? Perish the thought,” Alec said very innocently.

Not believing either liar for a second, she let her fork clatter to the plate and she nudged Alec's leg with her knee and said, “Well?"

Alec sent a questioning glance to Kevin who nodded. Then he snuck his hand into Kevin's and the other one into hers. As Alec's fingers curled around hers, Kevin claimed her other hand.

She quaked with fear and she was glad she was sitting for she sensed their news would be monumental. Several scenarios ran through her mind, each so much more ghastly than the next that she was scared to voice them so she waited with trepidation.

She closed her eyes and whispered so that only she could hear, “Please don't tell me one of you is going to die. Please don't say that.” She'd die without either of them.

Alec leaned closer. “What?"

Her eyes flew open. “Uh, nothing. The suspense is killing me. What's going on?"

Again, the two men exchanged meaningful looks. Kevin finally opened his mouth. “We want you to be the mother of our child."

The words reverberated in her ears. As if from a distance and through a thick fog, she watched the men regard her with concern. Relief freed her and then laughter, riotous and loud, bubbled off her lips. Soon tears streamed from her eyes, and she doubled over, unable to stop laughing.

Alec released her hand and jutted out his chin. With an offended glint in his eyes, he said, “We're dead serious. We want to father your baby."

Kevin just watched, remaining mum and crossed his arms over his chest as if he was deciding how to edit her words and reactions.

Sobering, she dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. To her chagrin, her mascara and makeup covered the thing when she pulled it back. “This is for real? Like how? Why?"

She felt like an idiot and couldn't quite spit out what she meant. “I mean, who gets the baby? Am I helping you or are you helping me?” The thought of being a surrogate and giving up a child she'd so longed for, ripped her apart.

Kevin said, his voice very businesslike, “We rather hoped and thought we'd help each other, that this would be ‘our’ baby, as in all three of ours."

"We'll raise the little tyke together,” Alec said softly.

New pictures painted themselves in her mind, the four of them playing at the park, the three of them sitting at the firing squad of teacher conferences, the four of them curled up in front of the telly on cold, rainy nights. “You mean, we'd all live together like a family?"

It sounded both wonderful and scary, boggling her mind. So many implications, so many what ifs, plagued her. Her mouth felt as if it was stuffed with cotton so she took a sip of water.

"That's the plan,” Kevin said as if it was so very simple.

She blinked. It wasn't simple at all! As much as she yearned for a child, as much as she craved a family, and as deeply as she loved Alec and Kevin, could she live without romantic love? Moreover, would they be upset if they found out about her secret life?

Jennica shot them a troubled look which Kevin feared didn't bode well. He prayed it wouldn't break Alec's tender heart if she turned them down. He wouldn't be surprised if Alec wanted a child even more than Jennica.

He noticed the waitress hovering behind them and didn't feel like airing their private life for public consumption. “Bill please.” He handed over his credit card, wadded up his napkin and dropped it on his plate.

To his dinner companions he said, “We'll finish this back at our place."

He wondered if the look in Jennica's eyes was panic or mere caution? Her eyes weren't their normal tone of sky blue with specks of sunny yellow. Instead, they were the dark roiling hue of a turbulent ocean with dangerous murky green undercurrents. Her muscles were taut and the pulse at the base of her throat fluttered alarmingly.

She was a real beauty though a bit wild. Half of her hair was dyed an electric hot pink while the other was her own silvery-blonde. Several piercings lined both her ears, her right brow, and there was a stud in the right side of her nose. Tonight, she had combed the pink to the side so that it blended over the blonde and was quite stunning. He hadn't missed several appreciative male glances stealing her way.

Jennica yawned and patted her mouth. She kept her eyes averted. “I'm exhausted and I'd really like to sleep on this."

Alec frowned. “Tomorrow's Saturday. You can sleep in. Our place is just around the block and you sleep over all the time."

Kevin kept a close watch on her from his peripheral vision. Warring emotions obviously troubled her. It worried him. Delilah hadn't been the only would-be third who had run away from them. His gut clenched and he dug his hands deep into his pockets. Under his breath he muttered to Alec. “Pushing."

When Jennica rested her head on his shoulder as they left the restaurant, hope flared anew. “Have you guys really thought this through?"

He gave her shoulder a squeeze. His heart fluttered so fast it felt like a hummingbird's. Until now, he hadn't realised how much he too longed for a child. Moreover, he didn't want his child to have just any mother. He only wanted it to be Jennica and yet, he was afraid to examine his feelings too closely in case she shot them down.

"Yeah,” he finally admitted after taking a deep, cleansing breath. “We've thought about this a whole lot, actually. We want a child and so do you. We want you to be the mother of our child."

She started to chuckle then cut herself short. She shuffled her feet, dragging behind.

Alec touched her elbow. “We know how much you want a baby."

She stopped under the circle of a streetlamp, so petite and delicate she looked like an ethereal nymph. However, she ruined the effect when she anchored a hand on her hip and screwed up her lips. “Someone's gotta bring it up so I guess it'll be me. Do you plan to donate sperm and implant the egg in vitro? And which one of you will do so?"

He tried not to show how humorous he found her very clinically asked question, but it was difficult. Jen was usually anything but politically correct.

Alec shot him a loud, plodding look. He nodded, his brow raised.

He put out a calming hand to Alec and cleared his throat.

"That would be so cold...” Alec splayed his hands as a cool breeze whipped his loose, shoulder-length locks about his face. With a grimace, he tucked his hair behind his ears.

Jennica looked from Alec to him and back to Alec as realisation pooled in her eyes. She touched her stomach and looked down at it. “You mean...?"

Before he could reply, she asked, “Which one of you?"

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Alec grasped Jennica's elbow and propelled her forward before pigeons decided she'd make a good perch.

"We thought,” he said keeping his voice low even though foot traffic was minimal on the London streets at this late hour. “We'd like to make the baby the natural, old-fashioned way, except, it doesn't matter whose sperm actually fathers the child as we'll both be the fathers..."

Jennica laughed lightly and nonchalantly waved her hand. “Oh, so you want to have a ménage? With me?"

"Are you shocked?” Alec feared they were too-forward thinking, too erotic for an innocent, heterosexual woman. He prepared to catch her if she swooned.

To his amazement, she slapped her thigh and howled with laughter.

He watched in horrified fascination as she transformed into an alien. “Should we be offended that you find this so hilarious? I thought you were cool with us."

She calmed and clutched her throat. “I'm cool with you but the question is, will you be cool with me?"

Perplexed, he shook his head. “Huh?"

She rounded on them and walked backwards. “There's something I've never told you about me, something you might find quite odd."

"I can't imagine what,” Kevin said without skipping a beat.

"You used to be a horse?” Alec asked, wiggling his brows.

Kevin unlocked the door, and they stumbled inside. “So what's this big secret that's so grisly we won't like you anymore?"

Alec couldn't imagine and he held his breath, his gaze riveted on her lips.

Not just any lips, not perfect lips, but intriguing lips with a ton of personality. They could change expression so fast it made his head spin. Usually they smiled with a mischief he found charming. Recently, they'd been frowning, pouty, seductive, and flirty.

He wondered what it would be like to kiss those lips, to delve his tongue deep into her mouth. The eroticism of her lips made him feel so sexy.

"I'm afraid you boys are too tame for me."

Huh?

Alec looked to Kevin who shrugged. “How so?” He leaned against the wall and folded his arms over his chest.

"I'm a sub."

So?
“As in a teacher's replacement? What's so horrid about that?"

She playfully swatted him. “No, you daft cow. ‘Submissive'. As in I like to be spanked and punished and have pain with my pleasure. You know—BDSM."

His ears rang, and the din grew louder as he stared open-mouthed.

Gently, Kevin slid a finger under his chin and pushed it shut. “Who are we to judge another's lifestyle?"

Alec heard him, yet he couldn't stop staring, wondering about his chum wearing all those leather straps ... and nothing else. He wondered what it would be like to wear them, or to be spanked, or to do the spanking ... His cock grew warm and flexed. He wanted to plunge it deep into her pussy, to feel its silky warmth, to shoot his seed deep inside her. He wanted to feel her tremble beneath him, to hear her intake of breath as she came.

Jennica tugged his hair. “See? I told you I'm too wild and crazy for you two."

Almost in unison, they both asked, “Who says?"

It was Jennica's turn to be surprised, but she kept a tight rein on her expression so as not to reveal it. “Fantastic. Which one of you is the Dom?” She watched closely, eyeing their body language. Her guess on Kevin.

Alec's frame shook and his eyes glowed. She was surprised to see the bulge in his slacks.

An answering shiver ran down her spine.
Maybe this could work.

She couldn't help herself. “I don't know ... You mean the baby might look like one of you two?"

Kevin guffawed as he stretched out on the lounger and crossed his ankles. “Poor kid."

Alec glared at him. “You're the one with the gigantic ears."

Kevin hurled a pillow at Alec's big schnoz.

Alec ducked and the projectile smashed into a vase, knocking it to the floor.

Jennica rolled her eyes. “You two are still kids, and you want to have one?"

"All the better to play with them, my dear.” Alec hiked the pillow and threw it back to Kevin.

Kevin caught it then threw it down and jumped in the air, whooping. “Touch down! Yeah!"

Jennica helped herself to a bottle of water and took a swig. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and said, “Grow up."

Kevin tweaked her chin. “You're the one into the really hard core games, sweetie."

She made a moue of her lips. Although she didn't miss Thad, she missed the “games". Claiming the duvet, she stretched out her feet and stifled a yawn.

Alec perched on the arm by her head. “The mother of our child should not have to sleep on the couch."

Kevin wrinkled his nose. “I'm not giving up my nice, comfy bed. You take the couch and she can sleep with me."

She plumped a pillow and stuck it under her head. “Got any blankets?"

"The three of us can share the bed. It's plenty big."

"Ooh, kinky,” she said in the midst of another yawn.

"You're the kinky one. I'm just offering to share our Posturepedic mattress, not that we'd mind really ‘sleeping together'. If you'd actually prefer to sleep out here, however...” Alec unceremoniously dumped a comforter on her head.

Considering the couch felt like a bed of nails, the Posturepedic sounded a whole lot better. Not sure about the “sleeping with” her two best mates part, however, she didn't comment. She bundled up the blanket and carried it to the bed. God, it looked like an oasis of comfort and she dove onto it. Knackered, she murmured almost incoherently, “No one wake me up till Sunday."

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Warm lips caressed Jennica's neck and she moaned. Her pulse hammered and she turned into the warm body, seeking the heavenly heat.

Hands kneaded her bum then her bare breasts. Suddenly, she realised that four hands roamed her. By now she was such a live wire of need, she didn't care if eight hands explored her as long as they didn't stop.