“Someone else like…?”
It wasn’t the nicest thing to do, tease her like that, and she clearly didn’t think so either. No, she smacked his arm and rolled her eyes.
“Me, you big meanie. You know I was talking about me.”
Fuck. He’d thought about it, of course. Had considered hinting or asking but backing off because he thought he’d tackle the little issue first and then bring up Lo. But perhaps he’d been going about this all wrong. Maybe he should have come at this problem from the other direction. And with Lo pressuring him to get the ball rolling…
“Yes,” he said cautiously. She didn’t seem to find the idea repulsive but there was a large gap between inquisitiveness andyes, please, Jesus Christ, I want it. He couldn’t tell yet where on that spectrum she might fall. “We’ve been with a woman before. Not often and not recently, but yes.”
“And did you like it?” she demanded, sitting up from her lounging position. All her earlier shyness had seemingly been overcome by curiosity, and possibly desire.
“Very much,” he told her. “It’s actually one of my favorite things to do. Lowell’s too.”
“If you’re teasing me, I’m going to kill you.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Shannon narrowed her eyes and tilted her head as if to sayYou dare all the time, asshat.Well, true. But he wouldn’t tease about this. Not her and not himself. It was a hope he held far too dear to make a punchline out of it.
“Not about this, I wouldn’t,” he swore to her, imbuing his voice with as much earnestness as he could gather. Which was quite a bit.
“So you’ve done this before, you enjoyed it, and you would not be entirely averse to trying it with, um, me?”
Hux practically choked on his tongue. “It would quite literally be a dream come true. Lo and I have discussed the possibility and he’s very much onboard. To the extent that he’s been asking me when I’m going to bring you home already.”
She blinked at him and then breathed out, “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Wow.”
She was so adorable when rendered speechless. And so goddamn sexy when she’d been rendered senseless by a climax that she was unintelligible. He could only imagine what a goddamn delight she’d be once both he and Lo had gotten their hands on her.
“Indeed.”
It was possible he should wait, give her more time to think this through, to give all of them more time to prepare, to consider the consequences of this going so quickly from fantasy to reality, but he could wait a decade and still not feel entirely ready. Why wait if there was no ideal time and this seemed better than almost anything else?
So like Tamsyn had done a few moments earlier when she gathered her courage and asked him her burning question, so too did he steel himself and asked his. “Perhaps instead of meeting at Hive next time, would you like to come to my home and meet my brother?”
The way she bit her lip and nodded like no wasn’t even a possibility said oh my would she ever.
* * *
Tamsyn
She knew it wasn’t possible for days to actually be longer than twenty-four hours, but it felt like a week had passed between when Hux had propositioned her last night and when she could actually get on the phone to her bestie to discuss it. Not just any week. Like a small child waiting for Christmas week or a high school senior end-of-year exam week. It took for freaking ever.
So by the time she’d made it through a long day of staring at spreadsheets, writing up reports, dealing with Pete, and attending meetings; gone to the gym; met up with some work friends for dinner; gotten home to her apartment to shrug on pajamas and pop some popcorn and pour herself a glass of wine, she felt like this secret she’d been keeping to herself was about to burst out of her mouth like candy from a piñata.
She could only imagine Maddie would gather up the salacious details like a kid fighting for the good candy from the birthday party treat. Yeah, she should tell her BFF to get her own popcorn because this was pretty epic.
Her phone rang at precisely ten thirty and she almost hung up on her friend in her scramble to answer.
“Prepare yourself, because you are not going to believe this. We’re talking like movie theater popcorn with extra butter here, okay?”
“Oh, yes!” Maddie exclaimed and then Tamsyn could hear her talking to Reid. “Daddy, may I have some popcorn? Tamsyn has some really good gossip for me.”
There was a rumble of Maddie’s fiancé in the background and then her friend squealed and said, “Thank you, Daddy, you’re the best,” before turning her attention back to Tamsyn.