“Not! Not!” Dylan barked. “I knew loads of guys in college who named their dicks.”
“And they tended to be ass**les,” Mike drawled.
“Sure, that’s true, but—hey, wait a minute!” Dylan muttered, still not getting up from his position in bed with Laura, furry legs rubbing against hers, her fingertips massaging the soft skin at the nape of his neck. She could stay like this all day, but a quick glance at the clock told her they had exactly one hour and six minutes before they needed to be in the Jeep and driving back to the main house to take over with Jillian.
“Assholes. All of them. Frat boy weirdos,” Mike continued, clearly enjoying working Dylan into a tizzy.
“You’re just goading me,” Dylan said with an eye roll.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Who does that? I hate that saying. It’s so strange, because would you seriously dump a bunch of fish in a barrel of water and start shooting at them? Wouldn’t that be the epitome of stupid?” Dylan groused. Mike waved a dismissive hand his way as he left. Laura saw him in front of the grill on the deck, turning steaks over.
“You two sound like a couple of teen boys having an argument,” Laura said with a grin.
“You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to being a teen boy,” Dylan said. “Even with a better refractory period.” He looked under the sheet again with a concerned expression. “Up, boy, up!”
“Your appetite isn’t very big right now, is it?”
He groaned. “Foiled by my own joke.”
“You make it so easy, honey. Like shooting fish in a—”
“Don’t say it!” He grabbed a pillow from under her head, making her thump onto the mattress, and began beating her chest with it, the pounding fun at first, until he started tickling her.
“Stop!” she screamed, the sound coiling out of the bedroom and up over the mountains. At least, that was how loud it seemed. To her.
“Quit tickling her,” Mike called out. “You know she hates it.”
Dylan pelted her with the pillow a few times, making Laura roll over onto her stomach and bury her head under an unused white puff. Mike came to her rescue by laughing and throwing pillows from the couch at Dylan, until the distinct scent of charred steak wafted into the room.
Laura sat up and said, “Something’s burning!”
Mike bolted outside, and she and Dylan froze, waiting with bated breath to see whether their meal had been ruined by playful fun. Wouldn’t be the first time, but marinated steaks lost to overcooking were a tragedy.
“They’re fine! Just in time!” Mike called out, and Laura took the distraction to jump up and throw on her clothes.
“Why are you getting dressed?” Dylan asked with a pout.
“Because the last time I wandered around the deck naked, I had about two hundred mosquito bites the next day. One of them managed to get on my labia! You ever try to scratch that?”
He leered. “I have a very scratchy tongue. Next time you get one there—”
She threw a pillow at him and left him to laugh. The scent of spices and charbroil made her mouth water. Mike’s na**d body was covered in a red chef’s apron, his hand filled with a plate of half-bloody steaks.
“Salad’s over there,” he said, pointing with the grill tongs, “and the steaks are coming up.”
“Dylan should be coming soon.”
“Again? He is so damn competitive sometimes. Three in four hours should—”
“I meant coming here. Not, you know....”
Mike’s ire faded quickly. He looked quite adorable standing tall, the apron covering his happy bits, the strange mixture of culinary convention and nudist subversion making her nose twitch with laughter. She couldn’t stop eating him up with her eyes.
“What?” he finally asked. “Why are you staring?”
“The Nudist Chef. You could star in your own reality cooking show.”
“No way. Can you imagine if someone found a hair in the food? Try explaining that when you cook naked.”
She looked at the steak with a stink eye. “Do we need to get you a little hairnet for down there? I’d be happy to design one and help tweak it.”
“Tweak it? Lots of fittings?” He reached over with his empty arm, steaks now in her hands on the plate, and kissed the top of her head. “Sounds interesting, but I’ll pass. The idea of fitting a hairnet over my balls is one of many reasons not to have a nude cooking show.”
Dylan sauntered out in his jeans, barefoot and inhaling deeply from the fresh air. “Nude cooking show? Where? What channel? I’m in. Let’s binge watch!”
“I’m the nude cooking show,” Mike explained as he made sure the food was set and began pouring red wine for everyone. Laura held her hand over her glass.
“No thanks. I’ll be nursing soon.”
Mike nodded. “Got it.” He poured glasses for him and Dylan, then winked at her. “I’m a wee bit underdressed for this gathering, so if you’ll excuse me…”
She spanked his tight ass as he turned around. “You’re wearing an apron. That’s enough. And it shows off your finest assets.”
Dylan snorted, apparently inhaling a noseful of red wine. “Ow ow ow ow ow,” he hollered as Mike howled with laughter. By the time Mike returned, wearing jeans and some old Coldplay t-shirt Laura hated, Dylan had cleared his nose and was eyeing the wine with suspicion.
They dug into their steaks, and within minutes had wolfed down the lovely dinner, which was fine with Laura. The sooner she told them, the better, and it was so much nicer to face a full, sated set of guys when she had a minor bomb to drop.
“So…” she began.
Both came to an abrupt halt in their movements.
“Yes?” Mike asked slowly. She saw his eyes flick toward Dylan and then return, the micro-movement so rehearsed she might never have noticed it if she weren’t so intimately familiar with the two of them.
“What the hell do you think I’m about to say?” she demanded, the air charged suddenly, leaving her imbalanced and agitated. Like a switch had been flipped, she went from lightness to dark. Why would they look at each other that way?
Neither of them answered her, instead looking at her with such intensity her heart turned into a cyclone.
“Guys?” she pleaded. This felt so far out of the range of normal.
“Are you…” Mike began. He stopped and looked at Dylan.