I’m exposed. My head is spinning. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t…attaching myself to these three men in this moment. It’s happening whether I like it or not. Or maybe it happened last night over the East River. Whatever the reason, I find myself confiding in them. Opening myself in ways I’ve rarely done with anyone. “I do everything halfway. I’m afraid to do the work and have it mean nothing, so I look for shortcuts. I’m…this…you are going to require too much of me.”

Tobias props a forearm on the door above my head, his mouth dropping to the space just above the curve of my neck. “Say yes, anyway,” he implores me hoarsely. “If any of us leave socks on your floor, you get a free dick punch.”

I laugh. It’s a breathless, tinkling sound I don’t recognize, almost a little hysterical. And why wouldn’t I be hysterical when Gabe is staring at my breasts while wetting his lips, Banks’s fingers leave my chin and slide into my hair, tugging the strands at the roots and releasing a delicious rush of endorphins that twist my nipples into hard spikes. Then there is Tobias mouthing the words chocolate cake at me.

God, I hate him.

Don’t I?

“I can’t do this here,” I whisper, voice trembling.

Three sets of eyes zip to my face. “But you can do it?” Gabe asks, low, urgently.

The universe seems to hold its breath. I’m poised on the edge of the unknown.

What am I thinking?

“One time,” I breathe. “One time, yes.”

The word “yes” is like a gun firing at the start of a race.

Banks uses his grip on my hair to turn my head to the right, just in time for Gabe’s mouth to swoop down and claim mine. It’s like unspoken choreography. Poetic. I don’t get a breath in before it’s happening, before Gabe is wrapping me in some kind of euphoric spell, hard, desperate lips working mine over like he hasn’t experienced anything pleasure-related in a long time. Maybe he hasn’t. Isn’t that what he implied earlier?

I’m caught up in the give and take, the stroke for stroke rhythm of his tongue in my mouth, the bristle of his beard on my chin and cheeks, when Banks begins unfastening my apron, tugging down the top half so he can palm my breasts. As soon as Gabe releases me to come up for air, Banks arrows toward my neck, razing me with his teeth from shoulder to the patch behind my ear. It’s so raw and sensitizing that I cry out, reaching out, desperate for purchase. One of them. All of them. I don’t know. All I know is I get my fists wrapped in Banks’s shirt and Tobias’s hair and they love it. They groan over being touched by me.

Tobias moves in to claim the other side of my neck, licking me in a bold claim, before his lips press in tight to my ear. “Been dreaming of getting my fingers up that skirt since last night. Are you going to set me loose on it, love?”