Page 5 of The Gift that Keeps On Giving

“Free?” I choke out.

Molly squeezes her husband’s shoulder. “You, too, Cameron. Ruby is yours to play with for the next seventy-two hours.”

Cameron

I don’t believe what I’m hearing.

Or seeing.

This girl, who still haunts my daydreams, is standing ten yards away.

Ruby is yours to play with for the next three days.

I’m sorry, what? I’ve only been married for six years, but I’ve been married long enough to know this feels like a trick. Except, Ruby wouldn’t participate in something like that. She’s not the type. She’s more principled than any of us. Toward the end of our association back at Yale, Dean and I were both so desperate to fuck her, we were having Tiffany jewelry and half the Chanel runway delivered to her dorm.

She returned all of it. Every last piece.

“She didn’t agree to this,” I say, shaking my head. “Not a chance.”

“Quit talking like you know her so well,” Dean growls.

“I do,” I respond, rounding on him. “I…did.”

“You wanted to know her even better,” he steps closer and says under his breath. For my ears alone. “Remember that afternoon when you took it too far? Don’t make me remind you.”

Fire climbs the back of my neck and I shove him hard in the chest. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I? I saw what you almost got away with.” He looks past me, to Ruby, and I can see the lust building in his eyes. The way it always did. “She deserved better than you.”

“Better than me? At least she and I have the arts in common. You were just a knuckle-dragging football player. Still are. You just wear a suit now, instead of a uniform.”

He scoffs. “Youwishyou could have worn a uniform—”

“Enough!” Polly steps between us, placing a palm on both of our chests. “Thank you for both proving our point. You have some unresolved issues with Ruby. She has kindly agreed to let you work them out over the next few days, so we can all move on and live in peace. Asfriends, like we used to be.”

“Why would she do this?” I ask, still drowning in a sea of shock.

My wife is putting me up in a house for three days with Ruby Lang?

“Why else would she do this, dear?” Molly responds, rubbing her thumb and index finger together. “Because she needs cash. Good thing we have that in abundance, right?”

“Think of her as a gift,” Polly says, shrugging. “Asharedgift.”

“I don’t know,” Dean says, dragging a hand down his face. “I don’t trust this whole thing. Seems like a trick.”

“We anticipated that,” Molly says, taking her phone out and hitting record. She moves to stand beside Polly and they bothsmile into the camera. “We, Polly Carmichael and Molly Jones, do hereby give our husbands permission to engage in consensual adult activities, including but not limited to sexual intercourse, with Ruby Lang for the duration of three days.”

Still filming, they wave to Ruby, gesturing for her to come closer.

Chewing her lip a moment, our former tutor does what they ask, stepping down off the deck and crossing the sand, her long hair blowing in the ocean breeze, her sugary-sweet scent that I remember so well filling my nostrils. The wind tosses the pleated hem of her dress around her tan thighs, plastering the garment to the same body that kept me permanently horny for the final semester of my senior year.

Now it’s my turn to untuck my shirt to cover my erection.

“Ruby, give each of our husbands a welcome kiss. We’re going to film you, just for our private records, so they won’t worry we’re going to extort them later.”

Kiss Ruby Lang?

I was never given the chance. It’s going to happen…now?In front of my wife?

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