Page 61 of Enticement
“Should we be watching this?” Embarrassed, Evie dipped her chin so that her hair fell down across one eye and partially masked the view of Jason slipping off his trousers. Molly, she noticed, paid the window no regard.
“Shell pink, okay?”
“Fine, just nothing garish.”
Lillianna stopped fanning the nail art leaflet and hunched against the curtain cord, her nose almost poking between the slats of the blinds as she sought the ideal viewing spot. She perched one cheek of her curvy bottom on the windowsill.
“Lilli, I’m not actually interested in watching them bumming one another.” Evie’s brow further creased as more gym-toned muscle was displayed along with two pairs of tight white boxer shorts. It wasn’t that she wasn’t curious, it was just she knew how mortified she’d be if she found out someone had been spying on her, especially given what she’d been up to recently with Kit and Ross.
“They don’t,” said Lillianna.
“They’re not gay,” added Molly. “Or if they are, they’re hiding it well, considering the collection of groupies they have.”
“Yeah, yuck, Evie. I don’t get off on that stuff, unlike you. What’s the attraction in knowing they can have fun without you?”
There were numerous attractions, none of which Evie felt like listing, including symmetry for one and satisfying some plain old curiosity for another. And that was before she considered the more taboo aspects, or exactly how big a turn on it was watching Kit and Ross make love and knowing they weren’t going to push her away if she wanted to join in.
“I always thought you liked staring at men’s butts.” Evie set to chewing the inside of her cheek in place of her nails. Having stripped off, neither of the men seemed in any hurry to pull anything else on.
“Huh! I like digging my nails into their butts, Evie.” Lillianna flexed her fingers in a clawing motion and gave a yowl. “Preferably while they’re astride and think they’re in control. I’m all about eyes, not arses.”
Which explained her interest in Kit, who was a little too slender to have the world’s finest arse, but had eyes like the souls of the world.
“Do we need to psychoanalyze your biggest fear while you’re sat in that chair?” Lillianna slinked across the floor, somehow moving in steel-tipped stiletto heels, a heavily beaded dress, and with six dozen bangles up her arms, without making more than a whisper of sound. She stretched over the lower half of Evie’s chair, so she could meet her face to face at close quarters. “Terrified they’re going to leave you out, are you? You wouldn’t be the first.”
Molly’s head jerked up from its hunched position over Evie’s nails. “It’s true that you’re having a threesome, then? It’s not just some gossipy rumour.”
“No—no!” Evie pushed Lillianna away and tried to get up, only to have Molly’s grip tightened upon her arm.
Flummoxed, she gazed into the hazel of Molly’s eyes trying to figure out the question. “Oh,” she said, realizing Molly had taken hernoto Lillianna’s teasing as a denial of the relationship. “In truth…Well, sort of…ish.” She sat back down with her arms folded, blushing furiously, her lips clamped together for fear of any details escaping.
“It’s a full-on, stinking ménage a trois.” Lillianna clacked her heels. “It’s only the fact that one of them is Ross that’s stopped me pulling you limb from limb yet. Never did get what Kit saw in him, and I’m not the only one.” With an irate waggle, she returned to her position by the blinds. The two men from next door were now sitting side by side on the sofa in their boxers, evidently waiting for something.
Meanwhile, Molly’s gaze remained fastened upon Evie, her hazel eyes bronze flecked with worry. “Oh!” she pursed her lips, as if she wanted to say more, but wasn’t sure if she should, or how to go about it either. A surreptitious glance at Lillianna didn’t seem to help with the decision. “I hoped it was just a rumour…for your sake. He’s not just bad, Evie. He’s downright evil.”
So folks kept suggesting, not that any of them came out and said specifically why he’d earned such a reputation. “Really?” She tried to catch Lillianna’s eye, intending to press her for the answers she promised, but her friend studiously ignored her.
“Drink?”
Molly’s pleasant face set into a grimace as she spooned granules into two mugs and dumped a teabag into a third. “I can’t believe Ross has got you involved with him. I know they’re old friends and Ross has never acknowledged what happened but…”
“What happened? What are you talking about?”
Horror shot through Molly’s already drawn expression, causing a flight of anxious butterflies to tear about inside Evie’s stomach.
“You mean Ross hasn’t…or Lilli? Shit! They’ve not told you?”
In her alarm, Molly missed the cups and tipped milk over the work surface. Evie lurched to the rescue with a strip of kitchen towel. “You’re telling me you don’t know what he did?” Molly snatched up a packet of biscuits and munched her way through two without seeming to notice. “Goddamned Lillianna, that’s why she brought you here, isn’t it? Wouldn’t dare say anything bad about him herself, in case it got back to him. Coward,” she snapped loud enough for her voice to carry through to the conservatory. “And as for Ross… Jeezus, that’s so irresponsible. I thought he was better than that.”
She led Evie through to her miniscule lounge, which was rather overcrowded by a large aspidistra, and thrust a framed photograph at her. “This is Sammie, my sister.”
Evie took a good look at the old photo, sensing a sort of reverence on Molly’s part. The image was of two women in their late teens or early twenties, dressed for a night on the town in microscopic skirts and vest-type tops. Molly was instantly recognizable, despite her hair being a good five shades darker than her current bleached-blonde. Her sister had an easygoing smile, tainted by a hint of slyness around the eyes, although she was undeniably pretty.
Molly took the back the picture and replaced it on the book case. “You’ve never heard of her, have you?”
“I didn’t realize your family was from round here.”
“They moved.”
