LuckoftheDraw (3 page)

Feeling significantly better, he made his way over to Ben
and Cooper’s assigned station at the bar. Ben saw him heading their way and got
a beer out of the tub of ice. He gave it to Alex with one hand and held out the
other for a low-five. Alex obliged.

“That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” Ben chided.

It had just about killed him. His heart was still racing and
his hands were shaking, although he would never admit it.

“What did I miss?” Cooper asked.

“Alex sacking up,” Ben answered.

“I should apologize,” Alex said to Cooper. “I angered your
girlfriend just now.”

Cooper’s eyebrows went up. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I tried to ruin her plans and she didn’t take it
well.”

Cooper grinned. “I’ll probably be thanking you tomorrow. She
gets feisty when she’s angry, and as long as she’s not angry with me, it works
out in my favor.”

Alex raised his beer and they all drank to that.

“So what’s next?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know, man.” His eyes locked with Petra’s across the
room. Yeah, he’d definitely gotten to her. “I made my point,” he said. “The
next move has to be hers.”

What on earth had just happened?

How many times had she had her arms around Alex that way
over the past couple of months? Over their entire friendship, for that matter.
How many times had he held her while she’d cried, or just plain needed to be
held since Jude left? How many times had they fallen asleep in her bed on
nights when she hadn’t wanted to be alone, him spooning her with his big body,
his arms wrapped around her? Had he been looking at her that way the whole time
and she hadn’t been paying attention?

Petra glanced over her shoulder at Alex as Bree continued to
lead her away from him. Nope. She hadn’t been imagining that look on his face.
And she wasn’t imagining the way that look made her pussy hot and achy and
unbelievably wet.

Alex
, she thought.
How strange.

“You’re not paying attention,” Bree said, giving Petra a
little shake.

Petra dragged her eyes away from Alex. “Sorry. What were you
saying?”

Bree narrowed her eyes. “What the hell is going on between
you two?”

“That’s what I want to know,” she stage-whispered, as though
he could hear them from across the room, above the loud music and boisterous
conversation.

“Seriously, Pete, is there something happening between you
and Alex that you’re not telling me about?”

Petra rolled her eyes. “When have I ever kept anything from
you and Rachel?”

Bree gave her a droll look. “Would you like a list?”

Okay, she was admittedly the least forthcoming of the three
of them. By a lot.

“If something was going on between Alex and me you would
have heard about it.”

Bree crossed her arms and continued to look skeptical. “You
sure about that?”

Petra mimicked her pose and gave her the same look in
return.

“I don’t know what’s going on over here, but the two of you
need to knock it off,” Rachel said, looking between them as she joined them in
the dining room. “What do you say we get this show on the road? People are
getting antsy.”

That was fine with Petra. She was getting pretty antsy
herself. Maybe a night with Michel was what she needed. She could blow off some
steam and get her longstanding curiosity about him out of her system in the
process. Only…

Alex had just messed that up for her, hadn’t he?

She’d convinced herself she was willing to do whatever it
took if it turned out she and Michel didn’t have the kind of chemistry she’d
hoped for. She’d done it before.

Back when she and Jude had been participating in the early
key parties they’d thrown, she’d been paired up a few times with lovers who
hadn’t made her toes curl. She knew how to take her own pleasure if her partner
wasn’t exactly the kind of lover she was hoping for, and she knew how to make
it fun for everyone in the process.

But in that moment she’d spent in Alex’s arms she’d seen the
things he wanted to do to her in his bright-blue eyes, and damn if it didn’t
look as if he wanted to ravish her.

“Pete?” Rachel snapped her fingers in front of Petra’s face.
“You still with us?”

Petra couldn’t help the impatient look she gave Rachel, then
Bree.

Immune to even the most stern of Petra’s expressions, Rachel
pressed a small, folded piece of paper into Petra’s palm. Petra opened it and
found the number three written in elaborate script. Three was her lucky number
and Rachel knew it.

“Every player will get matched in the order of the numbers
they draw. To prevent possible cheating, the lovely Miss Bree will draw a set
of keys for each participant as they turn in said number to me,” Rachel said as
if she were a rule announcer on a game show, only speaking so candidly because
no one else was standing close enough to hear. “Good luck,” she added, giving
Petra a knowing wink. She offered the small bowl containing the rest of the
numbers to Bree. “Feel like playing?”

Bree held up a hand. “Thanks, but I already know how lucky
I’m going to get tonight,” she told them with a dreamy smile.

I had a hand in that
, Petra thought with no small
amount of pride.

She’d set her friends up with the men who made them smile
that way, who made their cheeks get rosy whenever they were near each other.
She loved them both dearly for throwing her a key party to return the favor,
but she hoped they weren’t thinking hers was going to have the same end result.
She was still raw from Jude leaving and she wasn’t ready to try being in love
again.

For all she knew she was destined to be like Momma and
Busha, who were both strong, happy women who’d loved once and never had the
want or desire to try again after losing their loves. When Petra imagined the
three of them living out the rest of their lives together, three generations of
strong Russian women under the same roof, taking care of each other into their
old age, she didn’t hate the idea.

The atmosphere in the party became more sexually charged as
each woman drew a number from Rachel’s bowl. Petra stood on the periphery,
watching as some players began to steal furtive glances at the people they
hoped to get matched up with during the drawing. Those who didn’t care popped
breath mints and helped themselves to the condoms that were always available at
her parties.

A lot of the women, she noticed, were stealing glances at
Alex, as usual. He could have been a huge manwhore if he’d wanted based solely
on the reputation he’d gotten for being “the most fun in bed
ever
”
through the handful of key parties he’d attended. While it was a hard, fast
rule that players were not supposed to show favor toward one player over
another, she knew Alex’s keys were coveted within the small circle of women she
trusted enough to invite to her exclusive playdates.

She’d seen firsthand what a night with Alex did to someone.
He didn’t date men, but he was an up-for-anything kind of guy when it came to
sex. Years ago, he’d come to one of the bisexual parties she’d thrown and had
been matched up with Jude.

Jude’s behavior afterward had caused an atypical bout of
jealousy Petra had long put out of her mind. For one, neither of them had ever
spent the entire night with whomever’s keys they’d drawn. She’d always woken up
with Jude next to her, even if she’d fallen asleep alone.

The morning after that party she’d woken up by herself. And
when she’d pressed her ear to the door of the room they’d spent the night in
she’d heard the sounds of them still going at it, murmuring like lovers as they
made the bed frame creak in a slow, steady rhythm.

Jude hadn’t wanted to sleep with her for a long time after,
and he wouldn’t talk to her about what had happened that night. Every time
she’d caught him lost in his thoughts, a dreamy little smile on his face, she’d
wanted to scream at him to tell her what happened. And the more tight-lipped
he’d been, the stronger her curiosity had become.

Now that old, forgotten curiosity about Alex was back, and
it wanted answers.

When she braved another look his way, he was still watching
her.

He jerked his head toward the door as if to say, “Let’s go.”

But Bree was already standing on the coffee table with the
fishbowl of keys. Rachel was sitting at her feet with the bigger bowl of
condoms in her lap, ready to dispense them to anyone who needed them.

Bree turned to address the entire room as she started to
explain how the drawing was going to go down and nearly clocked Rachel in the
head with the heavy glass fishbowl. Rachel ducked out of the way in time, but
Petra saw shock register briefly on Rachel’s face as she got a good look at the
bottom of the clear glass bowl.

She laid a hand on Bree’s arm to get her attention. From
Petra’s vantage point across the room she could see what Rachel was showing
Bree. Stuck to the inside of the glass was what appeared to be a small sticker.
Specifically, the small sticker Bree had likely attached to Michel’s keys to
identify them from everyone else’s.

She knew that trick because they’d stolen it from her. It
was how she’d made sure Rachel had ended up with Ben’s keys when she’d rigged
that game in their favor. Rachel still had the puffy yellow star sticker on the
corner of the mirror over her dresser as a souvenir. Petra would have used the
same trick to match Bree with Cooper if things hadn’t gone a different way the
night of their party.

Before either Bree or Rachel could recover, Christie Morton,
a nurse who worked with Bree in the ER on the night shift, came forward
shouting, “I have number one!”

An uneasy chuckle rippled through the crowd as she slapped
the little slip of paper with her number into Rachel’s palm, stuck her hand
into the key bowl before Bree could stop her and made a big show out of
stirring the keys for good measure.

The crowd went quiet just in time to hear Christie whisper,
“Come on, Alex.”

Which sucked for Marshall, whose keys she
had
drawn.

Had it been her party, Petra would have disqualified her
immediately.

Bree’s eyes, so wide with indignant shock that Petra thought
they were going to fall out of her head, narrowed to angry slits. Her cheeks
flushed bright-red and she snatched the keys out of Christie’s hand.

“Good girl,” Petra whispered to no one in particular.

“I don’t think so,” Bree snarled, teeth bared. “You. Are.
Excused.”

The rest of the crowd went utterly still, but Petra could
see Ben, Alex and Cooper exchanging glances as though they were silently
plotting who was going to grab whom if a fight broke out.

Sure enough, Christie jammed her hands on her hips and took
a step closer to Bree.

“Excused? You’re fucking crazy if you think I’m going to
leave this party by myself after I’ve been waiting all goddamn night for this
drawing.”

Bree’s nostrils flared. “You need to leave, and you need to
do it right now.” She bit the words out evenly and with a deadly venom.

“No fucking way,” Christie said and made a grab for the
keys.

Bree snatched her hand back and wrapped her small but mighty
fist around the keys, her knuckles turning white as she did. The guys all moved
as though they’d choreographed it in advance. Cooper positioned himself behind
Bree, ready to grab her if the need arose. Ben inserted himself between
Christie and Bree without touching either of them and Alex moved to open the
front door.

Rachel stood and Petra knew exactly what she was doing. If
things got physical Ben wouldn’t actually touch Christie and they all knew it.
Cooper picking up his girlfriend and moving her out of harm’s way was one
thing, but not one of those three men would ever resort to physical aggression
toward a woman, no matter what the situation. By standing between the two
women, Ben was simply using his intimidating height to try to diffuse the
situation. If Christie didn’t take the hint, though, Rachel had his back.

It was an impressive moment to witness.

Marshall Nagle stepped forward. “You should know that even
if you do manage to wrestle my keys from her, and I seriously doubt you could,
there is no way we’re leaving this party together.”

“You can count me out too,” Alex said from the front door.

“You might as well go now,” Rachel added serenely.

Christie’s face turned an even deeper shade of red.
Realizing she was outnumbered, she snarled a vicious “Fuck you” to Bree and
then Alex as she stormed out of the house.

A hand appeared above the crowd a moment after the door
closed behind Christie.

“I have number two,” a quiet voice said, and Samika Parks
stepped forward.

Petra smiled. The night just kept getting more and more
interesting.

“I’ll take those if you don’t mind,” she said to Bree, her
demeanor deceptively shy.

Samika had been to lots of Petra’s parties. From what Petra
understood, she was as kinky as kinky got, and just as popular with the men as
Alex was with the women.

Samika looked Marshall over in a way that made him blush.
“You wouldn’t happen to be up for a threesome since we’re now oddly numbered,
would you?”

Petra’s smile grew. God she loved Samika.

Marshall shrug came across as indifferent, but there was a
gleam in his eye. “Sure.”

Samika turned back to Bree. “May I?”

Petra could see the look of resignation in Bree’s eyes. The
sticker was off Michel’s keys anyway, so Bree held the bowl toward Samika and
let her draw a second set of keys.

Michel’s keys.

Well, Petra’s curiosity about Michel was going to go
unanswered a little longer, but Samika couldn’t possibly have ended up with a
more perfect pair of men.

As the threesome moved out of the way to discuss what they
would be doing next, Petra saw Bree and Rachel exchange a defeated look.

Petra forced her feet to move her forward. “I’m number
three,” she announced. Her friends knew that but the rest of the party didn’t.
They’d gone through the trouble of throwing this party for her and she was
going to salvage what was left of it for them.

She gave her friends each a reassuring glance as she handed
Rachel her number. Then she covered her eyes with one hand and slowly lowered
the other into the bowl, one finger pointed downward.

She picked up the first thing her finger touched—a single
key fob with nothing else, no keychains or other keys, attached. She let it
rest in her palm as she turned in a slow circle to show it to the room.

She knew before she uncovered her eyes whose key she held.
It was no surprise when she found Alex making his way toward her—looking oddly
stone-faced and a little pale—but the room swayed as the reality of the
situation hit her hard.

He took her hand and led her out of the room without a word
and she let him. He put an arm around her waist as they made their way up the
stairs side by side as though he knew she needed the support, then let her lead
the way to her bedroom.