The Arrangement - A Reverse Harem Romance, page 18
KAYLEEN
The next few weeks were a tightrope. A precarious balance between working every waking hour, and researching where best to spend our already-limited resources.
I drained every cent of my savings. So did Burke. True to his word, Nathan’s father had cut him off completely. Luckily he’d been in the fold long enough that he still had places he could go, to pull some money here and there. At least for now.
Chase picked up with his old contracting crew, doing everything from framing and roofing to shimmying through crawlspaces to pull electrical lines and install ductwork. It was all grueling work. He came back exhausted and usually well after dark, smelling like sawdust and cedar and all good things. That part turned me on. Big time.
Not that there was much time for sex.
Our once-explosive sex life was reduced to intermittent quickies and midnight rendezvous, usually with me climbing on board a slumbering hard-on or one of them nudging my legs apart and buying themselves deep. All of it was okay with me. I understood, as they did, how important the book launch would be. How every minute spent promoting or marketing the first pre-release would pay dividends later, translating to the trilogy’s overall success.
Traditional publishing was no longer an option. We’d had a choice between spending all our money to market the books ourselves, or spending it on rent to extend our stay in the villa while waiting for an agent or publisher to pick the guys up. The second choice was risky. We could go broke and never receive a single response to our queries, or run out of money before a publisher even heard a single agent’s pitch. The first one…
Well, the first choice was a sure thing. We’d launch no matter what — for better or for worse. It could be a shining triumph or a cataclysmic failure… or anything in between. But it was dicey.
There wasn’t a time when one of us wasn’t in front of a computer, reaching out to new contacts or doing research or talking the book up. Dinners were simple. We ordered out often. The house was quiet, but someone was always awake.
And there was a lot of coffee…
There was some good news. A member of the marketing team at Jay Summer’s office — someone who’d been excited about promoting the books to begin with — had apparently taken mercy on us. He’d thankfully developed enough of a rapport with Nathan that he was helping him out, mostly through giving him tips and tricks, and even a few names and email addresses. If he’d gotten caught, he would’ve gotten fired immediately. Nathan protected him by meeting him in person, and by never revealing him, even to us.
Eventually we were a week out. Then five days. Then three days, two, and finally…
“Tomorrow.”
The word echoed in the hollow kitchen, reverberating emptily off the stainless appliances. Chase rubbed his tired eyes as he said it, while the rest of us sat in a circle.
“It all comes down to tomorrow.”
We all knew what it meant, what was at stake. All three books were slated to be self-published, to be released two months apart. The success of more than a whole year’s worth of work and planning, all decided by what happened next.
It would make or break us.
“There’s nothing left to do tonight,” said Nathan. “Everything’s set, everything’s scheduled.”
“All we can do now is sit and wait,” said Chase. “Start refreshing our screens around midnight, so—”
“Fuck that.”
I stood and stretched my legs. Maybe for the first time all day.
“Let’s go out,” I said. “In fact, I’m taking all of you out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, totally. I think I’ve got a few more bucks still left in my pocket,” I chuckled. “Might as well turn it inside out.”
The others glanced at each other, hopefully. I could actually feel the tension going out of their bodies.
“She’s right,” said Burke. “We deserve it. Actually, we need it.” He stood up and closed his laptop. “Mental health day.”
Chase glanced through the window. It was already dark outside. “More like mental health night,” he said.
“All the more reason to get the fuck out of here,” Burke agreed. “Once tomorrow happens…”
Nathan nodded and grinned. He took his phone out of his pocket and slapped it on the table. “No phones. No anything.”
Burke nodded firmly in agreement and pushed his forward as well. Chase followed suit.
“Tonight… it’s just us.”
Forty-Eight
KAYLEEN
It wasn’t the most exclusive restaurant, but it wasn’t exactly a dive, either. We ate a place on the beach called The Wharf. The perfect place to spend the very last of our cash; drinking beer, eating oysters, and just plain enjoying each other until it closed.
Afterward we took a walk on the water, arm in arm in arm. We were practically homeless. Fiscally fucked. For the first time in weeks we didn’t have a care in the world — our fates lay well beyond the scope of our own eager hands.
It made the four of us light, free, happy. Totally giddy with the utter lack of all responsibility.
It made us reckless, too.
I found myself at the base of an old pier, being held… being kissed… being touched. Burke held me from behind, burying his face into my neck while Nathan held my hair back for him. And Chase…
Well, Chase was on his knees in the sand. Kissing his way down my stomach, while pulling my dress all the way up my thighs.
Oh FUCK yes…
God, I’d missed it. Missed it so fucking much! Being shared by them, yes, but also just the simple act of spending time with them. Of being around them together, the four of us, because that’s exactly when we were best.
“Here?” I giggled, fighting to pull my skirt back down but not really fighting to pull my skirt back down.
“Why not?”
“Because we have a bed,” I protested half-heartedly. “Actually we have four beds, and even a—”
I jumped as the cool night air stiffened one exposed nipple. Nathan’s mouth closed over it quickly, all warm and wet. It felt so good I squirmed backward, grinding into the already-significant bulge Burke had pressed tightly into my ass.
“I—I meant to say…”
Chase’s mouth reached his goal, and my words trailed off in a long, contented sigh. He was under my dress now. Tasting my wetness with his mouth, his tongue…
Oh fuck it.
“On second thought…”
I sighed and looked up a the moon. It was a tiny silver coin, high in the sky. I could hear the sounds of laughter, somewhere off at a distant marina. The rhythmic white noise of the waves, crashing into the shore.
“You sure you don’t want us to stop?” Nathan teased. I clutched him even harder against my breast to shut him up. “Because we could just as easily—”
“Oh shush.”
It was late, but not that late. The little stretch of beach was mostly private, but not entirely. Then again, I was four cocktails in. Buried in a gorgeous sea of muscle. And I was horny as all hell. So hot from finally being around them all again. So wet from not being properly taken care of…
“Do it,” I whispered. “Please.”
Chase practically tore my panties off and spun me around. There was the jangle of a belt buckle, the quick sound of a zipper, and then suddenly he was buried inside me from behind. Balls-deep in my pussy… while the others held me fast from the front and the side.
“Oh fuck…”
I bucked backward, nailing my ass against my first lover as he screwed me deep and hard. Chase’s hands were on my shoulders. He controlled the depth, the angle — every aspect of penetration as he rammed into me, again and again, beneath the rotted, broken-toothed supports of the salty old pier.
You’re absolutely nuts.
Nathan had my face in his hands. He was kissing me fiercely, while Burke was running his hands up and down the sides of my body. I could smell peanuts. Popcorn. The sound and scents of the new pier — and all its bright, spinning games and rides — just a few hundred yards away and above.
But not here. Not in our dark, private little world down at the shoreline. Tucked away from the cold, dim light of the faraway moon.
Chase’s hands gripped my hips hard, and I could tell he was going to come. I screwed all the way backward, rolling my ass in a circle while moaning into Nathan’s mouth.
He popped like a champagne cork, draining himself inside me.
“FUCK…” he breathed when it was finally over. I felt his hands relax. “Who’s going next?”
One by one they took me, holding my body steady between them while they ravaged me from behind. The whole act was raw and primal. Indescribably hot. There was something about being outdoors… about feeling the wind on my skin, breathing the salt air into my lungs. The incredible freedom that came with being outdoors, and still being taken like I was, in the most animalistic of all ways.
Nathan finished loudly inside me, driving himself deep at the penultimate moment. Crashing into me like one of the bigger waves, crashing into shore. And then finally Burke was there, taking his place. Gripping me hard by the ass. Pounding me against his body. Using me to fuck him, rather than the other way around.
I screamed in pleasure, and Chase’s hand slipped over my mouth. Maybe he was trying to quiet me, even though we were far enough away. More likely though, he was doing it to turn me on.
He knows what you like…
And that was the thing, really. When it came to my body, there were no secrets. They’d been screwing me alone as well as together. Sharing their knowledge, as easily as they were sharing me.
They all know.
Burke’s hands slipped to my arms, then down to my wrists. He was fucking me savagely now, with my hands pinned behind my back. Driving into me with ruthless efficiency, until I screamed again into Chase’s palm and came all over him like it was the end of the world.
In a way, it was. The end of our current world, anyway. The work we’d been putting in for weeks and months was now tied up in this one tremendous endeavor. All the guys’ countless hours. All the money I’d managed to save. Whether or not we’d have to move out — it was all riding on the success or failure of a single, four-hundred page novel. One that could possibly get read by thousands upon thousands of people… or might not even get picked up at all.
Does it matter though?
The thought was entirely out of left field. Totally alien. Of course it mattered!
Yes, but hit or miss… you’ll love them either way.
I was about to further explore that line of thinking when Burke finally exploded. He slammed himself home, his balls clapping against me. I felt my pussy contract one last time, and then he was pulsing, shooting, grunting out loud as he held me against him.
Jesus…
Finally he withdrew, helping me smooth my dress back down. Immediately I could feel big, thick rivulets of warm come… dripping out of me from all sides. The guys still surrounded me, all smiles. Their chests were all puffed out, proudly enjoying the moment.
“There had better be a towel back in the car,” I breathed.
Chase chuckled as his hand slid into mine. “Ready to go home already?”
“Oh yes,” I said, pulling close against his arm. God, I really did love having them around me like this.
“We probably should,” said Nathan. “We’ve got a little bit of a ride.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “We’ll take some hot showers. I’ll fix us a snack. Then we can fall into the couch, watch a midnight movie…” I sighed happily. “Hey, do you think we can all sleep together tonight?”
Visions of stretching out on the floor in a sea of pillows filled my mind. Surrounded by skin, and warmth, and muscle…
“Yeah, why not?” said Burke. “Although with the launch going through our heads, I don’t think any of us are going to get much rest.”
I grabbed his hand on my other side and smiled. “Maybe that’s what I’m counting on.”
Forty-Nine
CHASE
The launch went as well as to be expected. Maybe even better than expected, which was hard to say since we had no prior experience.
Instead we spent the next few days glued to our monitors, watching as the sales ticked upward and the book climbed its way through the ranks. It was a very tense first week. We knew we should be working hard on marketing the second book of the trilogy, but it was just too hard to focus.
It was even more amazing to me how fast people could review a book. How we could dedicate months and years writing and developing something, and someone could just inhale it all in one or two days. Still, the reviews were overwhelmingly fantastic. We sat together and read them aloud at the end of the each day, knowing that every one of them was an important step in the direction of our ultimate goal: the coveted, best-sellers lists.
Promo by promo, we climbed past other books in our genre. Of course the addition of Juliana had added a taboo element to everything; a sexy, forbidden twist that hadn’t been there when we first started out. It rounded out the story though. Made everything so much more important, when writing a thriller with life and love on the line.
Also important: the fact we’d told Kayleen we loved her.
It wasn’t something we’d talked about doing, it had just sort of happened. But that was love. You couldn’t plan for it, you couldn’t fight or force it. Either it was there or it wasn’t, and in her case it was love times three.
And even better, she loved us back. Wholly. Equally. There was a warmth and openness about Kayleen — a deep caring that went beyond any of the relationships I’d had before. Whereas we each had one incredible woman to love, she had three men to take care of. Three distinct relationships to cultivate and feed.
And yet she handled it. Handled each of us in her own special way, as well as her job, too. Kayleen’s passion for cooking had been obvious from even before she’d become our girlfriend. She was doing what she loved, just as we were, only she was sacrificing a chunk of her business to help us with ours.
For this reason alone, we had to succeed. We had to reach our goals of becoming financially independent. Of flourishing enough to remain where we were, and to push past that to a level where we were doing even better.
And where we could do better for her.
By week two it was obvious our book was a hit. It had been described mostly as unique, edgy, and raw. Between social media and paid promos we’d pushed ourselves into the upper echelon, and were soaring toward getting picked up by independent news sources and outlets. If we reached that mark, we could coast a little. Or we could go even beyond that.
Our goal was to be noticed by agents. Picked up by a publisher. Having our book on actual shelves aside from the thousands of digital copies we’d sold, and through print on demand. But all of this depended on what happened next.
In the meantime we shared Kayleen more than ever. I think we turned to her for physical and emotional support; a welcome distraction from the stress of so much going on all around us. In the past our book was a ship, and we controlled the rudder. But now that our story was out there, sailing alone among the masses, everything was pretty much left to the winds. It was unorthodox for us, to be giving up that much control.
Having her there in the house with us was amazing, though. Seeing her smile at the end of each day, knowing she wasn’t going home. Knowing she was home. That she belonged to us.
And that we belonged to her, too.
It was nearly a month after launch when it happened: the book reached one of the top ten slots in one of the more prestigious lists. New sales flooded in. All new life was breathed into the sails. Burke came home and threw the newspaper right on the table, without even a word, and Nathan and I dropped our forks simultaneously. We grabbed for it together, almost tearing it in two…
We were still hugging and clapping each other on the back when Kayleen walked in. She was wearing her chef’s whites, all smeared and stained with a full day’s work.
Smiling and laughing we opened our arms for her. Waiving our hands merrily, we invited her in.
It wasn’t until she reached us, chin sagging against her chest, that we realized something that made our blood run cold.
Kayleen was crying.
Fifty
KAYLEEN
I couldn’t speak. I could barely see, my eyes were so swollen from crying. There was no way I should’ve been driving, yet somehow I’d managed to make it home.
“Honey, what? What is it?”
I was being asked the same question by all three of them. Pulled into their little circle of caring. Normally, having their arms wrapped around me at the end of the day would feel incredible. Right now, it barely made a dent.
“Tell us!” They were getting worried now. All I could do was sob. “Kayleen, please say what’s—”
I thrust the stupid little tabloid into their hands rather than say another word. I was angry. Devastated. Even ashamed.
There were a few seconds of nothing as the paper rattled in their hands, followed by a moment of stunned silence. It was Burke who finally spoke first.
“I’m going to kill someone.”
It was Marcy who’d called me. Marcy who’d met up with me to break the news. For some reason that made it just a tiny bit better. But not much.
“This is unbelievable,” I heard Chase say. “Who the fuck would do something like this?”
“The people that know my father,” Nathan said miserably. “That’s who.”
It was a stupid little rag, barely even worth mentioning. Only it was one of those tabloids that sat at every checkout, in every supermarket across the country. Staring at you until you picked it up out of boredom, and maybe read some of the stories while waiting for the conveyor belt to move.
In the middle of the magazine, taking up half a page, was a big color photo of me. And not just me, but the guys too. All of them. Surrounding me. Holding and kissing me…
