Isabel
“Where are we?” I ask groggily as I wake up from a nap, stretched across the back seat, using Hunter’s sweatshirt as a makeshift pillow.
“Somewhere in Kentucky,” Drake replies. Hunter is behind the wheel, which is funny because he was definitely in the passenger seat when I fell asleep. I must have really been out of it. Sleeping with two men really takes it out of you, I guess.
Who am I?
If my parents could see me now, I think with a laugh, blushing for the tenth time today as I relive the memory of last night. I didn’t even know I was the two-guys-in-one-night kind of girl. Or is that just how people perceive me? Was I just conditioned to think of myself as modest and quiet because that’s how I was raised?
My parents were modest upper-middle-class accountants, and I was their only child. But I think even I was a regretful incident because my childhood was spent feeling mostly ignored and brushed off. Never overly affectionate or attentive, I found my role models of love and affection in novels. What started as Little Women and Emma, quickly became Flowers in the Attic and The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. Every wicked curiosity and dirty thought I had stayed buried deep inside me and the space between my bed and my mattress hid more smutty romance novels than I can count.
Everyone thought I was so knowledgeable and astute because of my countless trips to the library and second-hand bookstores, but only the librarian knew the truth. Oh, I was knowledgeable all right. Knowledgeable in the many eclectic terms used to describe an erect penis.
On the day I passed Hunter and Drake for the first time, I was returning books three through seven of a popular romance series in hopes they would have any of books eight through sixteen. I was like an addict in desperate need of a hit.
Then, I met my own alpha. A man who could show me everything I had ever wanted to explore while never making me feel like a deviant for what I wanted. Even if he did act annoyingly like a gentleman in the early days. I was only seventeen when we met and although he started talking to me at that time, he made me wait the four months between then and my eighteenth birthday before he would touch me.
And then another six months before he would have sex with me. I was a fiend for him. And I think he liked making me wait as a form of torture. Hunter doesn’t always like to inflict pain, but he does like to be in control.
A lot of that came from his childhood. I know his home life was not nearly as comfortable as mine. He’s told me about his abusive father. Hunter and I were desperate for a stable, loving home and not for entirely different reasons. We were lucky to find each other, so we could share the love and attention we both craved growing up.
But I notice things. I’d be blind not to. The way he glances at Drake sometimes. The way his jaw clenches when Drake mentions being with another man. For so long, I brushed it off as being a little uncomfortable with his friend’s open sexuality, but I’m seeing things differently now. This whole arrangement has me itching to point out to my husband that perhaps that irritation doesn’t come from judgment, but from jealousy.
Jealous of Drake for being able to live so freely. Or even jealous of the men who get a piece of his best friend he can never have.
What if Hunter has been putting on a facade this entire time? Stifling these feelings to protect me. He can’t exactly explore his sexuality if he’s married.
But I want him to. I mean…I had sex with his best friend, for goodness’ sake.
If there was ever a time to open this door, even to just peek through, now’s the time.
Drake says something that makes Hunter laugh, and they share a quick glance, but Hunter’s eyes linger on Drake’s face—as they often do.
“Oh look, two beds,” Drake jokes as he disappears into the second bedroom of our rental in Nashville. We opted out of the hotels for the rest of the trip, since renting an apartment seems to be the better choice. Although if you ask me…sleeping sandwiched between those two wasn’t so bad at all.
“I’m exhausted,” Hunter replies as he drops onto the plush sofa and reclines his head against the arm.
“I’m not,” I reply eagerly.
“Of course you’re not. You slept the whole way here.”
Only because you two gave me quite the workout last night…is what I want to say. But I don’t. We’re not really talking about what happened so casually just yet. Besides, saying stuff like that makes it feel normal, like we do it all the time, which we don’t. This isn’t a relationship. It’s a fantasy.
But as I stare out the window of this second-floor apartment in the city, I fantasize for a moment about what that would look like. Drake in our marriage. No more waking up next to just Hunter, but waking up next to both of them. Every night and every day, it could be the three of us.
“Let’s go do something fun. I’m bored,” I whine as I approach a half-awake Hunter on the couch.
He drapes an arm over his face and lets out a low groan, but I know exactly how to perk him up, so I straddle his hips and grind down just a little.
“What are you doing?” he mutters from under his arm.
“Trying to wake you up.”
A low hum rumbles up from his chest as I grind a little harder this time.
“Are you ever not in the mood?” he asks.
I lean down and bury my face in his neck. “Nope.” He finally pulls his arm away from his face and runs his hands along my backside.
Then we hear a door slam in the bedroom where Drake disappeared to. “What the fuck?” he barks.
I sit up in a rush, staring in fear at the bedroom. My worst fears involve cockroaches or hidden cameras, but to my surprise, Hunter only laughs.
My head snaps back in his direction. “What’s so funny?”
Drake finally appears in the doorway with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. “What the fuck did you do?” he asks, staring at Hunter.
Hunter’s laughter only escalates. “What did you find, Drake?”
My head is dancing between the two of them as I wait for clarification.
“Oh nothing…just happened to notice the strange hooks on the wall and a very interesting bench.”
Hunter’s practically howling now, and I jolt up from the couch, running to Drake’s room. Sure enough, there’s a large leather bench in the corner with a high part in the middle and a lower ledge on either side.
“Go ahead and open that cabinet,” Drake says, and I practically sprint across the room to the large cabinet against the wall. It looks like something from IKEA, white and modern with a pretty floral-patterned paper covering the frosted glass. Definitely not something you’d expect to be housing a plethora of whips, ropes, and cuffs.
“Hunter, did you rent a sex dungeon?” Drake asks, and my cheeks instantly flush bright red at the sight. And at the very same time, my thighs clench together at the realization that I’m spending the next two nights here…with those two men.
“Dungeon?” I ask, meeting them in the living room. “It doesn’t look like a dungeon. It’s so pretty.”
“Yeah, I thought you’d like that,” Hunter replies, once he’s stopped laughing. He rises from the couch and approaches me with a hand around my waist. “I couldn’t help myself. I saw the listing and figured this might be good for business…research.”
“Research,” I echo him with a quizzical smile.
“Aw, you guys have a swing!” Drake calls out from the master bedroom, and I quickly jolt down the hall to see. There is a large black sex swing dangling in the middle of the room. There’s also a St. Andrew’s cross mounted to the wall and a small seat in the corner with a hole in it.
Suddenly, I’m noticing things about this apartment I didn’t notice when we walked in. The chaise lounge in the living room clearly wasn’t made for reading in, and the fancy hooks on the walls aren’t decorative.
Salacious has only been open for a few months now and not much can make me blush anymore, but suddenly standing in a quiet room with these two…my blood might as well be boiling.
The three of us stand together in silence, gawking at the well-stocked and expertly-designed sex dungeon, and it all feels a little too much.
“What are the chances we can get some food…and maybe some alcohol, before we start…researching?” I ask, and Hunter replies with a smile. Pulling me against his chest, he kisses my temple.
“Let’s get some dinner, Red. You’ll need the energy later.”
We send Drake for takeout, and Hunter falls asleep on the couch, which it turns out is just a regular one, no sexual modifications. I busy myself with poking around the apartment. I didn’t even know kinky Airbnbs existed. I can already see a Salacious BnB in the company’s future. A whole kinky resort full of rooms like these, where couples can come for a week, instead of an hour.
I’m in the middle of browsing through the various ropes they have in the drawer when the front door opens. I smell the Indian food in Drake’s arms before he even sets it down on the table. There’s another bag in his hand that looks suspiciously like booze.
“I’m starving,” I say as I open the bag of warm, delicious smelling takeout.
“There’s three boxes. Just don’t take the one with the X on it,” he replies as he fishes out a bottle of tequila and a bottle of green margarita mix.
“Margarita mix?” I ask with a laugh.
“You don’t like it straight. Is this not okay?” he replies, reading the bottle. “It’s organic.”
I fight back a grin as I take the bottle. “You got this for me?”
“Yeah,” he says with a shrug. “Hunt and I will just have a couple shots.”
“Thank you,” I reply, trying to hide the sudden blush rising to my cheeks. Has Drake done stuff like this for me before? Am I just now noticing how considerate he is?
Whatever it is, it feels nice.
With a shameless smirk on my face, I make myself a margarita on ice, using the mix Drake picked up for me. Then, I grab a white Styrofoam container and a fork and start to dig in. I haven’t eaten since breakfast and this curry smells divine.
But I don’t even get the rice-covered forkful to my mouth before Drake is snatching it out of my hands. Rice flies all over the counter, and I gawk up at him in shock.
“What the hell was that for?” I shout.
“I said not the box with the X!” he replies angrily.
“Geez, I’m sorry,” I stammer, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. He’s never really yelled at me before and that happy grin I was wearing a moment ago has melted away. Behind me, I hear Hunter stirring from the couch.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Iz, it has coconut milk in it,” Drake says.
And instantly I pause, mid-reach to the non-X marked box. My eyes drift upward to Drake’s.
“How did you know I have a coconut allergy?”
His expression morphs into a look like I’ve offended him. “I’ve always known. You told me that like the first time we ate together. I had to stop ordering the coconut cream pie from the diner because you would always steal the crust. Did you really think I forgot about that?”
I’m frozen in place, staring at him, and something suddenly starts to sting in my throat—and it’s not an allergic reaction.
“I…I’m sorry,” I stammer, quickly looking down at the safe-to-eat curry in front of me. “I guess I forgot that you knew about that.”
It’s tense for a moment, and I feel Hunter’s hand on my back as he takes the other non-coconut dish. He sends me a quick, tight-lipped smile, but I can’t seem to shake this feeling that something has been here all along…and I’m only now starting to see it clearly.
