I think I did.

  Evidently, I’m learning all sorts of things about myself tonight. Namely, that I like thighs and forearms, as well as grumps and cocky charmers.

  Speaking of, Chase moves behind me. He’s not touching me. Yet. But his broad chest is mere inches from my back. His breath is dangerously close to my ear. His scent swirls past my nose.

  He smells like the ocean, like I noticed before the game. It’s a little stronger now though, probably from his post-game shower.

  Ohh.

  Hello, shower images.

  My breath catches as I picture him under the stream of water.

  Or is my breath catching from him moving a little closer? “First you need to line up the stick,” he says in his smooth, deep voice that sends sparks down my spine.

  I swallow, maybe to cover up the tingles. “Okay.” I lift the pool cue in my right hand and slide it back, the end of it brushing over my left hand, splayed on the felt.

  He inches closer, then wraps an arm around me. I’m caged in by this big man. I look down at our hands, Chase’s coming around to adjust the cue. His hands are so much bigger than mine, and I’m flying ten steps ahead, picturing his hands on my arms, my waist, my legs.

  I need to concentrate. Chase and Ryker aren’t here to seduce me. They’re here to help me get even.

  A cause I hardly care about anymore.

  I should try to care, so I lift my face, only to find Ryker’s watching us from across the table, his eyes gleaming darkly. His camera’s still pointed at Chase and me, but he doesn’t look at the screen—it’s like he can’t stop staring at the action in front of him. Perhaps he’s jealous. Or restrained. Maybe he’s holding back.

  But what? What’s he holding back?

  I don’t know. I can barely focus even as Chase whispers more instructions in my ear. How to hold the stick, how to slide it back, how to hit the ball.

  I can’t think because he’s so close to me, and Ryker is so intent on watching us, and my thoughts are racing wildly out of control. Maybe Ryker will come help too. Maybe he’ll give me a tip. God, did all my feminism just fly out the door? Since suddenly I want two big men to teach me how to play a bar game, when dammit, I can learn on my own. I mean, there are books. In my store. And YouTube tutorials. And…

  And…

  And I still want them both to show me how to play.

  Get it together, girl.

  I yank back the cue, then slam it against the cue ball.

  And it whacks the purple one with a loud and satisfying thwack, sending the ball speeding down the felt.

  Right into the corner pocket.

  Holy shit! I did it! “Hole in one!” I shout.

  Both guys cheer, and I spin around and Chase is hugging me, and Ryker is right there too, offering a high five when I let go. I take it, then roll my eyes. “Gimme more than a high five,” I say.

  His jaw ticks, like he’s debating it.

  “C’mon, give Miss Inquisitive a hug. It won’t hurt you,” Chase goads.

  Ryker stares at him like he wants to rip his head off, but then comes in for a hug and wraps his big, strong arms around me.

  I draw a furtive inhale of Ryker. That forest scent makes me a little buzzy. A lot hot.

  So does his beard. It whisks against my cheek. How would that beard feel in other places?

  Like…between my thighs.

  The answer comes astonishingly fast and in the form of an ache. Good. It would feel so good.

  When he lets go, I slap on my best smile. “Should we keep playing?” I ask, and I hope my voice doesn’t sound as husky as it does to my ears.

  As revealing.

  I bet these studs have women throwing themselves at them all the time. I don’t want to be a groupie or a cliché.

  I’ve got to stop fantasizing about the VIP experience I suddenly crave from the two of them devoted to me.

  We finish out the game. News flash—I lose.

  We play another game, and as we go, I try valiantly to return to the purpose of this night—making Jasper jealous.

  I lift my beer, take a swallow, then set it down. “Jasper the dickless would lose his mind to be playing pool with the two of you.”

  Chase laughs. “Tell us more of the awful things your terrible ex did,” he says. “This is your night.”

  “Yeah, let it all out,” Ryker adds.

  Well, there is one really terrible thing Jasper did. Besides that. Maybe it’s the beer, maybe it’s the company, and maybe it’s my residual anger. Or maybe I just want to move the hell on for one night. “He was awful at sex.”

  You could hear a pin drop.

  6

  LICK SHOOT SUCK

  Trina

  Chase’s jaw drops.

  Ryker hisses.

  “How the fuck does that happen?” Chase asks.

  Um. I don’t know. I honestly have no idea. “Not sure.”

  Ryker breathes fire. “How does he live with himself?”

  “He should be ashamed,” Chase adds, then gestures to a nearby booth. “We need something strong for this kind of horror story.”

  “Tequila time,” Ryker remarks, then waves down a server and orders a round of shots.

  When the server leaves, Ryker slides in the booth after me. It’s circular, so he’s on one side of me, Chase the other.

  Shortly, the server brings three shots on a wooden board, complete with the accessories—salt and lime.

  In tandem we lick, shoot, and suck.

  My lungs burn and my mouth is on fire, but I’m filled with righteous energy. I’m ready to spill my own tea.

  Chase breathes out hard, nodding resolutely. “All right. All the Stephen King I’ve listened to has prepared me for this moment.” He stabs his finger against the wood of the table. “Right now. Bring on the horror story.”

  I don’t usually kiss and tell. No one has ever asked, and I don’t have a lot of ex-boyfriends. Just a couple others besides Jasper. I went out with a musician in college. Colin was cool and laid-back, and worked out as a sort of starter boyfriend. But after college, he moved to New York. Then, I met a sculptor on the apps and he was a lot of fun, and a lot of drama, so we burned out quickly.

  Jasper came next and my family loved the outgoing guy with the dependable office job as a marketing manager. Jasper was great with my parents and wonderful with my older sister, practically wooing all of them with his life plan to settle down, have me move in, then get a house. I swear the night he met my parents they could see more diaper changing in their near future and were high on the imagined scent of baby powder in their dreams. After all, I’d been the flighty one, the wild teenager turned aimless adult who did impulsive things like adopt a three-legged dog when I happened to walk past a Little Friends adoption event in the park one random afternoon. “Can you even take care of a dog with four legs, let alone three?” Cassie had asked me when I brought Nacho home a year ago.

  To prove her wrong, I enrolled him in dog agility classes, and we’re entering our first competition in a month.

  But Jasper was the real proof I was getting my shit together. There I was, with a stable guy, doing what my parents had done. What Cassie was doing. Hot mess no more, they’d figured.

  “He’s a good one. Be sure to keep him,” Cassie told me the night she met him.

  So, I moved in with Jasper when he asked me to. He was funny enough, and reliable enough, and he liked to cook with me. So what if he lost his mind when hockey came on TV, and so what if the sex was mediocre?

  Jasper said I never relaxed in bed. That I just needed to let go and I’d finally enjoy myself.

  Was he right? Maybe Ryker and Chase can answer that question for me. Tonight is for no bullshit. I draw a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “I mean, sex itself was fine,” I begin, because it was good enough, I guess. It just wasn’t exciting.

  Ryker snorts. “Fine is for a plain bagel when there’s no everything bagel available. Fine is a trip to the bank with no traffic. Fine is not for sex.”

  “Sex should be outstanding,” Chase says, like he’s making a speech before the whole damn land. “It should blow your brains out. It should make you forget your fucking name.” Blow-your-brains-out sex sounds great in theory. But in reality? I just don’t know. Maybe it’s only for books. “So, what was the problem?”

  He seems enrapt, deeply concerned by my sex woes. It’s kind of sweet.

  But I’m still a little embarrassed. Maybe the average sex was my fault. “I never had an orgasm through oral. Foreplay was kind of mid,” I mutter.

  What if Jasper was right? What if I was uptight between the sheets? I do think about sex a lot. “But I’m sure I just had unreasonable expectations,” I say quickly, backpedaling. “I was expecting a parade. A marching band. Fireworks. The Fourth of July. Sheet-grabbing, toe-curling, scream-my-head-off sex. The whole nine yards,” I say, and Chase’s eyes are wide. A vein in Ryker’s neck is pulsing. They both look…angry, but also aroused? I’m not sure. Maybe they’re just shocked I’ve confessed it to two strangers. I backpedal, waving a hand, wishing I could unsay those words, wishing I could take back that tequila shot too. “I’m sure it was me. I shouldn’t have expected so much. I probably read too many novels,” I say, dismissing everything. I should never have said a word. This was a mistake. “I need to…check on my dog. We’re staying with Aubrey and…” I say, needing a moment alone. “I’ll be right back.”

  Chase stands, letting me scoot out, before either guy can say a word.

  I race to the ladies’ room, wishing I hadn’t said I want to be fucked good and hard and scream my head off to two guys I don’t even know at all.

  Two guys I want.

  7

  ORGASM MATCHMAKERS

  Chase

  We have a problem.

  We actually have two problems—the pact and the orgasm drought our new friend is suffering from.

  But first things first.

  The pact to never let a woman come between us again. The second Trina is out of earshot, I jerk my gaze to Ryker. “This is awful,” I say, frowning.

  “No shit.”

  “Like, the worst.” I drag a hand through my hair. I’m having PTSD about our ex Abby all over again. I’ve had flashbacks ever since I realized Ryker was hot for Trina, which happened oh, say, the second we met her. Admittedly, it’s been hard to keep the pact front and center every single second when she is so damn interesting, fun, and sexy.

  But I’ve tried to rein in my inner flirt. Keep the charmer in me locked up in a cage. Still, it’s time to deal with the problem head-on. “This is like those logic problems from when we were kids,” I say. “A train races through the forest and no one is around. How fast is it going when there are no survivors and they come across a doctor in the emergency room?”

  Ryker blows out a long breath. “That is not how that logic problem goes. That’s like ten logic problems mangled into one.”

  Now he gets it. “Yes. My point exactly. That’s the situation we’re facing. And we need to roll up our sleeves and solve it,” I say. We’ve got to just lay it all on the table. My attraction to her, his attraction to her, then how the hell we can help a woman in need when neither one of us can clearly be the one to volunteer as her tribute.

  This is a riddle of the highest order.

  “Are you suggesting we flip a coin?”

  I scoff. “She’s not the passenger seat in a car. You don’t call shotgun on a woman.”

  “Good. Because I thought you were saying that,” he says, relaxing his shoulders a bit.

  Then it hits me. “Wait. I thought we were both talking about the same thing. I was talking about the pact, and how awful it is that we can’t help.”

  Ryker hesitates, then says, “I was talking about how awful it is that she’s never had a good orgasm. I take the pact as a given.”

  “Me too.”

  A year ago, Ryker met a gal named Selena at a coffee shop during the off-season. He was doing a crossword puzzle, he told me later, and she came right over to him and asked if he needed help. He tossed out a hard clue as a challenge. Lo and behold, she got it. He asked her out immediately—a rarity for him—and she said yes. He didn’t tell a soul at first, including me. But I was with my mom and little brothers on a vacation in Europe, so no big deal. While we were tromping through Prague and Paris, my soft-hearted friend fell fast and hard and soon I heard about it over text. When I returned a few weeks before training camp, I met a fabulous gal named Abby in the park where I was hosting a 5K race for charity. She chatted me up and asked me to go for a run the next day.

  Hell yeah.

  We had a blast working out together in the mornings, and then we had a blast working out in the bedroom.

  One night, I took her out to dinner at a sidewalk café in Hayes Valley. I snapped a pic of us, posted it on social, then took her home with me for the night. Like I’d been doing while I was in town.

  The next morning Ryker didn’t show up for our gym sesh.

  When I texted him asking what was up, he said you fucking know.

  No, I did not.

  But he would not even talk to me for days, till he finally exploded with “You’re fucking Selena.”

  “What? No, her name is Abby,” I said.

  “Bullshit, that’s Selena. I saw the pic on your feed, and you knew I was in love with her. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  What was wrong with her was the question.

  Turned out, she’d given us both fake names, along with a couple other guys, and was dating four dudes all at once.

  When I confronted her, she laughed and said, “Men have been doing this for centuries. How does it feel?”

  Like shit.

  She smiled, waved, and told the story on a podcast, calling her social experiment The Dating Experiment.

  That was real fun. Only saving grace is she didn’t name names so it never got out that we were part of the duped.

  But the worst part was how shitty I felt when it all went down—shitty in every way. I was so angry when Ryker was pissed at me for no reason. Then, when I learned what he thought I did, I was horrified.

  Even worse? I thought I’d lost my best bud for a few days there. That sucked.

  So we made a pact—don’t let a woman come between our friendship again. We don’t go to bars and call dibs on pretty girls. We do compare names and faces now. I don’t want to get screwed over, and I don’t want him to have the wool pulled over his eyes either.

  Mostly, neither one of us wants the drama that comes from falling for someone else’s woman.

  Pass.

  Besides, I’m dating, romancing, and married to hockey. That’s the only way for me to live, especially since I promised my dad I’d look after Mom, Jackson, Gavin, and Trevor. Romance can take a back seat till I retire. I won’t let my father down. The man was my biggest champion growing up, and I won’t break the promise I made him in his final days.

  But since Ryker and I are talking about the pact now, I might as well say it again, so my buddy knows it. I look him in the eyes. “Look, I still feel bad about Abby,” I say genuinely, since that mess was way harder for him than it was for me. Ryker was legit in love with the charlatan. I was just having fun.

  Ryker shakes his head, exonerating me again. “We’re good, man. I swear. And the best thing that happened to me was seeing that pic of the two of you.”

  I scrub a hand across my jaw and focus on this new complication. “And look, I knew you were hot for Trina. I’ve known since we met her earlier. If you want to go for her and see what happens, I get it. No shotgun calling, since it’s up to her if she even likes your grumpy, ugly ass. But it won’t ruin the pact, because, well we’re talking about it. I’m happy to step back,” I say.

  Ryker scoffs. “What do you mean you know?”

  I pull a face, like c’mon, it’s me. “You forgot her name because you couldn’t look away from her eyes.”

  Ryker huffs like a dragon. Busted. But quickly, he recovers, pointing at me. “Pot. Kettle.”

  “What?” I ask, cocking my head. “I’ve been playing it cool all night.”

  “Giving her the nickname Miss Book Babe? Patting her shoulder? Smiling like you’re trying to win a toothpaste contest?”

  I laugh. “I’m just entertaining her.”

  “Liar,” he mutters, but there’s a smirk on his stony face.

  “Fine,” I relent, smiling too. “She’s fantastic and gorgeous. But I feel terrible about her situation. We have to help her. There has to be something we can do. Hypothetical lessons? Vibrator shopping?” I suggest, but those are fails. I think on it for another several seconds till an idea flashes before me. “What if we try to help her find a good dude? Someone who’s not a selfish prick?”

  “So you want us to be her matchmakers?” He sounds intensely skeptical.

  “Maybe,” I offer, desperate to do something. “Is it the worst idea? I hate to see a woman suffer in bed. We could be like…orgasm matchmakers.”

  A throat clears. “Or…I have another idea.”

  Trina’s back.

  8

  AN EVERYTHING BAGEL

  Trina

  You can do this.

  You are a badass, book-devouring babe.

  Ask for what you want.

  But Chase goes first, snapping his gaze to me, a guilty look in his brown eyes. “Hey there,” he says tentatively, but I think what he really means is how much did you hear?

  The answer? Enough. I heard enough.

  I went to the bathroom to get a moment alone, and yes, to check on my dog. One quick text to Aubrey and I learned Nacho’s doing great, now go fuck them both and report back in the morning.

  Okaaay.

  That answered my next question—what should I do about this…ache? This out-of-nowhere desire to slide one hand through Chase’s hair, and run the other along Ryker’s bristly jaw? This wish to be sandwiched between them?

  Maybe I have read too many books. There’s no way a night like I’m fantasizing about could happen in real life.