Rana opened her mouth and closed it again. To Devi’s surprise, her eyes shimmered. “Oh, Devi. I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and pressed her fingers to her lips.
Her soft heart folded right into itself. She sighed and walked over to draw her sister into her arms. Since Rana reached almost six feet in her heels, and Devi wore her usual discreet wedges, the one-foot difference pushed her face right into Rana’s boobs. Accustomed to the odd position, she turned her face to speak. “Hey, you have your period, or something? You’re so emotional,”
she attempted to tease. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I promise, I don’t hate you for being beautiful.”
Rana gave a choked laugh and disentangled their arms. “I’m only going to say this once. I’ve been flirting with that man since he started coming here. I figured he was gay until I saw the way he tracked you. I can’t believe you think I set them up to hit on you. You’ve seen them. I doubt there’s anyone in the world who could make those two do anything they don’t want to.”
Devi pondered that. Truly, she didn’t see either of them faking anything. Especially Marcus, he seemed so raw and real. “So let me get this straight. You wanted me to go out there and see what would happen with two men? Who are you and what have you done with my sister? You know, the one who went out and bought a fake handgun to terrify my prom date?”
Rana drew herself up to her full height. “I’ve decided that Leena and I haven’t done you too many favors by keeping you so sheltered. You’re missing out on life and it’s partly our fault.”
“I like my life.”
“But, Devi, all you do is work, work, work and go home. It’s like you don’t care anymore, and you’re not even twenty-seven. You should be living it up and enjoying yourself, and you’re stuck in a rut. You haven’t so much as looked at a man since Tarek—”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” she said, her voice hard. A year mended battered pride, but she didn’t want to discuss a relationship that ended in such mortification.
Sadness and regret flashed through Rana’s dark eyes. “Okay. All I’m saying is, you need to go have some fun, shake yourself up. And you need to remind yourself what a beautiful, gorgeous woman you are, especially if you really believe that nonsense you just spouted. There is nothing wrong with having a fling, a one-night stand, as long as you know the score. If these guys float your boat—and why wouldn’t they?—go float theirs. Just remember everything I’ve told you.
And go into it prepared so you don’t get hurt.” She dropped her hand and stepped back. “And 16
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with that, I am officially out of the equation, grasshopper. Do me proud.” Rana walked to the door and opened it.
“Hey.” Devi didn’t continue speaking until Rana looked over her shoulder. “Can you get Asha to cover the kitchen for the rest of the night?”
Her eyes widened in surprise before a slow smile spread over Rana’s face. “Abso-fucking-lutely, darling.”
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The silent office pulsed with hidden possibilities in the wake of Rana’s absence.
A ménage, huh? She had told Rana the truth—more than a few ménage stories were stored on her hard drive. Though her real-life sexual experience may have been limited to a couple of discreet affairs, she found the idea of two men intriguing. To say the least.
She imagined herself sandwiched between the two identical men, multiple hot hands running over her nude flesh. Would their bodies look the exact same? Would she be able to feel a difference in their hands?
In their cocks?
A shudder ran through her and she paced to the small mirror hanging on the wall. The woman staring back at her did not entertain thoughts like these. That woman loved puppies and children and whiled her days away fulfilling familial obligation and living up to expectations.
That woman waited patiently for a man to come along and make the first move. That woman would be happy with a sex life that was limited to a once-a-week missionary-style fuck.
Rana certainly had her number. Had her sister so much as whispered a breath of gossip regarding the Callahans before Devi met them, she would have either been too nervous or too self-conscious to so much as stammer out a hello.
Nobody could call Rana an idiot, either. She knew masculine interest the way Devi could differentiate between kinds of rice. Deep in her heart, after speaking with the twins face-to-face, Devi knew Rana was right. Unless Jace acted like this with every woman, and she had observed him enough to be fairly certain he didn’t, he was indeed attracted to her.
As for the brother, whew. His chocolate eyes had practically singed a hole through her.
While Jace might quietly maneuver to get his own way, she had the feeling Marcus plowed through life, taking what he wanted with little regret.
She hadn’t slept with a man in almost a year now, not since her doomed relationship with Tarek had disintegrated. Not because she had been traumatized, but out of disillusionment. She couldn’t call any of her past sexual experiences particularly spectacular. When she considered all
Glutton for Pleasure
of the boyfriends she’d ever been with, none of them had made her heart race or her palms sweat.
She’d given herself better orgasms reading erotica than from having sex. After those orgasms, she lay awake in her bed, her super-sensitive flesh rubbing against the high-thread-count cotton, and wondered if she could experience even a tenth of that fictional passion. How many nights had she wished for a man who could rouse her to the height of lust and quench the desire inside her? A man who could respond to some of the darker desires she kept hidden?
Now she had two men—if she hadn’t scared them off completely—who could fill that need.
A mind-blowing sexual experience, a fantasy fulfilled. By their own pattern of behavior, she would never even need to see them again. So the question became, what was she going to do about it?
Devi stared at her reflection, and out of habit, catalogued all of her flaws in a single sweep.
She and her sisters had inherited their father’s eyes, but physically, the three of them shared nothing else. Rana was the undisputed beauty of the family, and athletic Leena wasn’t too far behind. Devi considered it a sign of progress that she could look at Rana’s curvy body and perfectly formed face today and feel only a slight twinge of envy. There had been a time during the worst of her chubby, pimply and frizzy adolescence when the sight of Ravishing Rana would send her into a deep depression.
The chubbiness had never left, unfortunately, and the frizziness returned when it rained.
Hey, at least her skin had cleared.
Yay.
No frizz tonight though. She slipped the cloth-covered elastic from her ponytail. Men had found her hair sexy in the past. She could make the most of it. The black riotous mane of ringlets fell to her shoulders. She ran her hand through the hair, purposely tousling the strands before studying her clothes with a critical eye.
She removed the apron and hung it on the hook next to the mirror before she grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head. Underneath she wore a tight black tank top. The built-in shelf bra waged a mighty battle to keep her heavy chest contained and lifted. She only wore the tank under shirts when all of her bras were in the laundry—the deep cleavage it created made her too self-conscious to wear on its own.
She straightened in front of the mirror and sucked her belly in. She even managed to keep up the flat plane for about thirty seconds, but then she had to exhale. Devi frowned at the pooch.
Ahh, well. Too late to start doing crunches. Tomorrow,
she promised herself. Tomorrow she www.samhainpublishing.com 19
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would do fifty right after getting up. Or maybe she would start the day after that. No one should ever exercise on a Sunday.
The small walnut desk yielded Leena’s small bag of cosmetics and a compact. Though she rarely used the stuff herself, she knew a few tricks. She applied black kohl and smoky eye shadow with quick strokes, until her eyes looked deep and mysterious. The lipstick was a bit redder than she preferred, but the dramatic look worked well for tonight.
Recapping the tube, she peered back into the mirror. Oh yes. This woman she could be tonight. Two men? Please. This woman could take three or more with little worry.
This woman wouldn’t let silly things like expectations and social constraints get in the way of one amazing night of pleasure.
And it would just be for one night, as Rana had said. She wouldn’t kid herself. Ménages were about the sex—relationships couldn’t come out of them. She grimaced to think of the awkwardness of that. She couldn’t imagine dating one brother while both of them knew she had slept with the other. No, one night of pleasure.
But what a night.
Devi tousled her hair a bit more and nodded definitively before leaving the office. Her confidence and resolution diminished a bit with every step, until she hovered at the mouth of the hallway. The sounds of light laughter and the tinkling of silverware came from the main dining room.
What would she say? Could she really just sit there in her family restaurant and vamp them?
Being a nonconformist was all well and good, but at the end of the day, the staff worked for her family. What would they think of her?
What if the brothers had already left? What if—?
“Excuse me.”
The deep rumble from behind her pulsed a shot of adrenaline through her veins. She whirled around so fast she overbalanced on her heels. Strong hands grasped her around the waist and saved her from landing straight on her butt.
She looked up. And up. And up. Into a pair of sinfully beautiful brown eyes, framed by a thick layer of lashes.
“Oh. Hi. Marcus, right?”
“Good memory.”
“What are you doing here?”
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Marcus cocked his head. “Men’s room.”
Of course. He wouldn’t just be lurking in the hall waiting for her.
“What are you doing here?”
She brought her attention back to his unwavering gaze. “Um, office.”
“Ah. And here I thought you might be waiting for me.”
Warmth wormed under her skin at the low huskiness in his voice. She licked her lips, some of her daring returning under his flirtation. “Maybe I am.”
A black eyebrow arched and he glanced down. “You changed. I like this shirt better.”
“I was getting hot. That’s all.” The longer he stared at the massive amount of chest she flaunted, the hotter she got.
His lips curled in a slow smile, a dimple playing peekaboo in his cheek. “Me too.”
“You—you don’t need to keep holding me up, you know. No danger of falling now,” she joked in nervousness.
They both looked down at his hands where they clasped her hips. Instead of withdrawing, he tightened his grasp and sent tingles racing over her flesh by sweeping his thumbs down until they rested on her pubic bone. On the upsweep, his thumb crept under her tank top and raised it so a small strip of flesh became visible. The heat of his thumb on her bare stomach burned where he rubbed back and forth in a gentle caress.
“I want to keep holding you.”
Well, clearly.
“You changed something else too. Your hair, your makeup.”
Gads, how embarrassing for him to know she had primped and polished for him and his brother.
“I like your hair down.” Marcus withdrew one hand to twine a ringlet around his finger. He stretched the curl down until it straightened, and then let go. He used the hand on her hip to draw her closer, before tracing her upper lip with his forefinger. “But you should be careful with that lipstick, sweetheart. Naked, your lips are gorgeous, but when you paint them that color, you’re just inviting a man to think all sorts of nasty things.”
His finger rested on her lower lip, not exerting any pressure, just tantalizing her with the promise. Their gazes locked, and without thinking, she opened her mouth. He inhaled sharply as she drew him inside, savoring the clean taste of his finger in her mouth.
Delicious.
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As if a switch had been tripped somewhere inside of her, wildfire raced through her veins.
She wanted to rip off his clothes and find out how every inch of his body tasted. She applied a slight suction, once, twice, drawing him in deeper before she backed off, his finger emerging from her mouth with a small wet sound.
A ruddy flush colored high on his cheekbones, and his breathing had sped up. “Holy Christ.
You’re amazing.” He grasped both hips again and pulled her tight against him, until she could feel the tantalizing promise of his erection throbbing against her belly.
“This isn’t fair. You started without me.”
Devi jerked in surprise, but Marcus controlled her by expediently wrapping an arm around her. He looked behind her. “Your loss.”
Devi didn’t dare turn around in case she completely lost her nerve, but she could feel the warmth of Jace’s body as his footsteps came to rest right behind her.
“So you decided we weren’t faking our interest, huh?”
She tensed and glanced at him over her shoulder. A gentle light shone in his eyes, his smile teasing, and she immediately felt a little more at ease. “I’m so sorry about that outburst. If you had any idea how meddling my family can be—and I didn’t think you could possibly both be attracted to me—but then my sister told me…”
“What?” Jace prompted when she trailed off.
“That you like to, you know. Share women,” she finished in a mumbled rush.
Jace gave a low chuckle. “Oh, baby. You have no idea at all what we like.” He lowered his head until his lips hovered just above hers. “Do you want to find out?”
She felt like a rabbit surrounded by two large predators. Except she didn’t mind being prey.
An imperceptible nod and Jace gave a large sigh. “Thank God.” As if her nod broke his restraint, he slipped a hand under her hair to cradle her neck and tipped her head.