Page 48 of Fake Crown

“Your day?” I ask. Sleeping and then swim practice is what he told me earlier when I left his apartment. But he arrived at mine later than I expected. Not that I was watching the clock or anything.

“Eventful. I was offered a threesome.”

“Val offered you a threesome, did she? Where’d she find you?” I turn on my side to mirror his pose.

“How’d you know it was Val?”

“The threesome offer is the Hail Mary of sexual plays. It’s the last resort.” Any of my girlfriends who have offered to either participate in one or organize one didn’t do it because they wanted to. They did it to please someone else. Even if Brent doesn’t have a fantasy of two women at the same time, Val rolled the dice.

“Have you ever?”

I hold his gaze and consider lying. “Once.” Another encounter I’m not keen to repeat. Chris, who was two years older than me, got me really drunk and talked me into it when we were at a house party to ‘spice things up.’ We were sixteen, and I was way too eager to please. “My personal opinion is that it’s not an experience designed to bring two people closer together.” In fact, along with my conversation with Julia, it was the final piece in the breakup puzzle. Everything about my relationship with Chris stunted my growth, and I won’t make that mistake again either.

“Makes sense,” he says, and he traces a pattern on the duvet between us.

“But ruins your fantasy,” I tease.

He makes a slow perusal of my stretched-out figure. “No, my fantasy is still firmly intact.” When our gazes connect, a delicious electricity zips between us, and he slides his hand into my hair to draw me into a kiss. I scooch closer to him, and he rotates so he partially pins me under him.

“You taste like beer,” I murmur. “Were you drinking without me?”

He grins against my lips. “I went to a teammate’s place for a beer.”

I draw back, and I trace the line of his chiseled jaw with my finger. With our synced schedules, it’s easy to see how straightforward his life is, or how he tries to keep it. A lot of his time is devoted to training on land or in the water or going to class. When that’s not happening, he has his meal prep laid out in his calendar. That discovery sent me down a nutrition rabbit hole to figure out how many calories he was consuming a day.

“Look at you breaking from routine,” I say.

“All over the place. People will start talking.”

“Did you have a good time?”

“Wasn’t there long enough to be sure. Might have. Val saw Jess’s post somewhere about me being there, and she crashed the party.”

“Ugh. Val and her threesomes.” I bunch my hand into his T-shirt. “Trying to find some balance in your life, and she offers to tip the scales.”

A hint of a smile tugs at the edges of his lips. “The good news is that I might have realized the value of socializing with my teammates.” He collapses onto his back, and he drags me with him.

I curl into his side. “Oh yeah? Tell me about it.”

He relays a story about Ethan and Jessica, and I listen while I play with the hem of his shirt. When he seems baffled by their strange relationship, I give him the inner workings of a playboy like Ethan and a certified good girl like Jessica.

“Why can’t people just be straightforward about what they want?” he asks.

“Like you and Val? How’d that work out?”

“Touché, Jensen. Touché.” He shoves his palm under his head and tugs me tighter into his side again with his free arm. “You okay if I crash here tonight? I sent Val home in an Uber, but knowing her, she’s literally camped outside my apartment door.”

An exaggeration, I’m sure, but since he wasn’t a bed hog in Bermuda, I could probably share a bed with him again.

“Also, your place is closer to the pool, so I won’t have to get up at the asshole of dawn.”

“Just the butt crack?”

“Those few inches make a big difference.”

“Precious, precious inches,” I tease.

“Want to see what else can be measured in inches?”