“Maybe, but you said yourself that we feel similar.”
“Of course, she’s only explored a few body parts,” Austin said with a smirk. “Maybe we’re different elsewhere.”
My breath caught in my throat. Did he mean… down there? But on the stage at my bachelorette party, when they’d both been wearing those tiny pouches, they’d looked equally… endowed.
“Not there,” Denver said with a chuckle, apparently having easily read my mind. “But there are some differences. For example, one of us is ticklish… and one of us isn’t.”
“Who’s ticklish?” I asked breathlessly.
“Why don’t you find out?” Austin offered, his grin challenging.
“You mean… you want me to…?”
Austin took over. “I tell you what. If you can figure out which one of us is ticklish in the next sixty seconds, we’ll do the dishes for the next three nights.”
“Hey,” Denver protested, and I suspected his complaint was more about the dishes part than about the thought of my hands all over his body. “Thirty seconds.”
“Forty-five,” I countered. Wait, what was I getting myself into?
“Deal,” Austin said. He reached for his phone and quickly started the timer. “Go!”
“Wait, I’m not ready,” I squealed, flipping over and getting to my knees.
“That’s four seconds gone.”
I surveyed them both in the dim light and then dove in, my hands scrambling along their flat stomachs. This time I wasn’t caressing the taut muscles, but digging my fingers in, trying to elicit a response. When that didn’t work, I reached out, teasing their waists at the side where I was always ticklish, but they stared, their mouths still and silent.
Desperately, I reached higher, wiggling my fingers in their armpits, which were shaved for their show. No response.
“Twenty seconds left,” Austin said with no hint of laughter in his voice.
Without hesitation, I plunged my hands under the covers, pressing along Denver’s boxer shorts and Austin’s bare skin. He was naked, as I suspected, but I didn’t have time to think about that right now. I glided my finger up and down the crease where their torsos met their legs, a very ticklish spot on me.
“You’re running out of time, Emma,” Denver said, his voice as smug as his brother’s sometimes was.
“Yeah, you are. Looks like we won’t be doing the dishes,” Austin added. “And did I tell you what happens if you can’t find out in time?”
“No,” I said absently as I lowered my head and let my hair dance along first Austin’s chest and then Denver’s. “Wait, what?”
“Five, four, three, two, one,” Austin said. “You lose, and that means… we get to tickle you back.”
I barely had time to process that before they pounced. A half second later, I was on my back and their hands were digging into my sides, making me squeal with laughter. My t-shirt rose up as I thrashed on the bed, four hands taunting and teasing me.
“Stop,” I shrieked through the laughter and after another moment, they did, their tantalizing touch turning into long, slow strokes up and down my sides. “Oh my God,” I moaned. Their touch didn’t tickle anymore. Instead, it felt incredible.
My sleep shirt had ridden up while I was thrashing around, and my stomach was bare—and definitely not as flat as theirs were. I started to pull my shirt down, but Denver laced his fingers through my own.
“Don’t you like the way we’re touching you?” His voice was a soft whisper in my ear, and then he kissed my temple.
“Yes,” I breathed back.
“Then why don’t you leave your shirt up so that we can touch you better?” He resumed stroking my side, up and down, mesmerizing me. His fingers reached under me on a downward stroke, squeezing my ass before trailing back up again. A moment later, Austin did the same.
This time, it was Austin who whispered in my ear. “There’s something we need to talk to you about.”
“What is it?” The way they were gilding their fingers along my skin was almost hypnotizing.
“Your reaction the other day before we knew about your writing. You were mortified that we all thought you’d been masturbating.”
I cringed at the thought, my muscles tensing.
“Just relax,” Denver said softly. “You’re safe here.”
Austin planted a kiss on my cheek. His skin smelled nice and clean like Denver’s, only with a faintly different scent. Different bodywash or aftershave? As I relaxed again, Austin spoke to me again. “It’s okay to touch yourself. It’s your body… you can do whatever you want with it. You don’t have to be embarrassed.”
“I can’t help it,” I said automatically.
“We know,” Denver said. “You’ve had a lot of people in your life who shamed you for very natural desires. But that’s not us. You’ve seen our stage act. Do you think we feel embarrassment and shame when we’re dancing nearly naked in front of a crowd?”
“Austin doesn’t,” I said, and they both laughed.
“I don’t, either,” Denver said. “It’s my body, I can do what I want with it. I can do what feels good.”