She gave me a small smile when I handed it to her. I settled back into place as she scrolled through her phone. Evidently she found what she was looking for, because she showed the screen to Brock. “Have I ever shown you a picture of my friend, Emma?”
What? Now seemed like a strange time to talk to us about her friend.
Brock frowned as he took the phone from her. I studied his face, anxious to figure out what was going on. After a long moment, he broke out into a crooked smile and he chuckled. Then he tossed Maddie’s phone to Kincade.
Maddie squawked. “Don’t throw my phone when we’re in a hot tub!” she exclaimed, but I was far more worried about what was on the screen than about my old friend missing an easy catch like that.
Kincade studied the screen and gave a low whistle. Perhaps this Emma was a real looker? But it seemed crude—even for Kincade—to emphasize that out in front of Maddie.
Finally, he handed the phone to me. The screen showed a pretty blonde woman standing in the middle of four men. One had his arm around her. Another had his hand on her shoulder. I squinted, looking closer. Though it was a perfectly G-rated picture, they all were touching her in some way.
“That’s your friend Emma?” I asked Maddie.
“Um-hmm.”
“And I take it those aren’t her brothers?”
“They definitely aren’t her brothers.”
I was floored as I handed the phone back to her. Not only did Maddie know about situations where several men shared a woman, but she had a friend who evidently lived that way.
Unbelievable. And here we’d worried that we might completely scare her off! Though that was still a possibility. There was no guarantee that she’d want to be with us the way we wanted to be with her, but at least it didn’t seem like she was morally opposed to an arrangement like that.
“That guy in the back is huge,” Kincade was saying to Maddie, but I tuned out her response, my mind still reeling. Maddie was such a nice young woman. She’d seemed so innocent. And yeah, both those things could still be true, but still, I was forced to reassess my opinion of her.
Brock seemed to be getting over the shock, too. “So you’ve known all along what we’re into?”
“I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected it.” She blushed. “I think that’s perhaps what you wanted to tell me after you kissed me today, right? That it wasn’t just about you and me.”
“You kissed her?” Kincade asked.
The smug look on Brock’s face was a clear answer. He squeezed Maddie around the shoulder, pulling her tighter against him.
Son of a bitch. He’d waltzed up on his jet ski, taken her far away from our apparently clueless tutorage, and he’d kissed her.
I’d fantasized about her soft pink lips the last two nights while she slept next to me. Brock hadn’t even been in the same bedroom with her, yet he’d kissed her.
Lucky bastard.
“And you’re okay with what we’re into?” Kincade asked.
Maddie bit her lip and looked a little confused. “Okay with it? You guys are grown men. You can do whatever you want. It’s not my business.”
“It is your business,” Brock told her. “Because what we want is you.”
She met my eyes before her gaze switched to Kincade. “All of you? Really?”
“Yes,” Kincade said.
“Most definitely yes,” I told her.
Her face colored again, but she didn’t look displeased.
“That doesn’t mean you have to be into it,” I told her. “Or that you should feel obligated to like us all equally.”
“I don’t,” she said, and my heart sank. Then she clarified. “I don’t feel obligated, I mean.”
Brock stared down at her. His mouth was inches from hers, and I wondered if he was planning to take her mouth again. But all he said was, “Do you want us? All of us?”
She blinked, looking away from his intense gaze. “I—I like all of you.”
Kincade gave her what was for him, an encouraging and supportive smile. “That’s a start.”
“And?” Brock demanded. Sometimes he could be intense.
“And… I’m very glad we’re spending the week together.”
“Tell us what you want,” Brock said. Sometimes he could be too intense.
Maddie’s mouth opened, but no words came out.
“It’s all right,” I assured her. “We understand you’re not giving us blanket consent for the rest of the week. We’d just like to know if you like us the way that we like you.”
She took a big gulp of air. “I do.”
That made me happy, but I couldn’t help giving a wry grin. Those two words seemed particularly loaded during a wedding week.
“Good,” was all Brock said.
Maddie looked at each of us. “So what happens now?”
“Nothing,” Brock said. “We drink more wine. We go to sleep. In the morning we swim. But—now that we know we’re on the same page—we might consider increasing our range of leisure time activities a little.”