My Crush Dared Me to Kiss His Roommate... So I Slept With Them Both

The cards were soft at the edges, the way everything in Liam’s flat had gone soft after three hours of drinking: the sofa cushions, the lamplight, the precise border between what she was saying and what she meant. Elara sat cross-legged on the rug, spine curved toward the low table, knees almost touching the boys’ knees. Between them the bottle listed, amber sloshing against glass each time someone reached for it. She felt the whiskey in her throat like a slow fuse.

Liam laughed at something—maybe his own joke—and the sound filled the room the way his body filled doorways, easily, without checking. He tossed a card down and let his leg rest against hers, weight deliberate, as if to say this is allowed. She didn’t move away. Across the table Finn’s eyes tracked the shuffle she had started without thinking, thumb splitting the deck, fingers flicking cards into each other with a dry snap. He watched her hands the way people watch fire: silent, lids low, pupils wide. When the last card slid home she felt his gaze travel up her wrists to the inside of her elbows, stopping just short of her breasts, a route so precise it might have been drawn with a pencil.

“Your deal,” Liam said, nudging her bare ankle with his socked foot. The touch lingered; the rug’s weave left red indentations on her thighs. She scooped the cards and began dealing three-handed gin, the motion steady from nights spent in student bars pretending she wasn’t broke. Finn collected his cards without looking at them, still studying her, and the delay made the air feel over-charged, like the moment before a bulb blows. She wondered if he was counting the small freckle above her lip, memorizing it for later use.

Outside, the city carried on its mechanical hum, but inside the flat the refrigerator clicked on and off, providing the only clock. Midnight had come and gone without ceremony. Liam poured more whiskey, the glug of liquid loud in the hush. When he handed her the glass their fingers overlapped; he let the contact stretch a second longer than necessary. She took a sip, eyes on Finn, who finally looked at his cards, mouth tightening at whatever he saw there. She couldn’t tell if it was the hand or the knee Liam now had pressed alongside hers, a claiming so casual it felt practiced.

Her turn. She discarded a queen, the red face bright against the scarred wood. Finn picked it up, slotting it into his fan of cards without comment. The silence he carried was different from the companionable quiet she’d known with other men; it felt curated, intentional, a space he allowed her to enter if she chose. She found herself straightening her spine under it, aware of her shirt pulling across her breasts, of the way her hair tickled the nape of her neck. Liam talked, whiskey loosening his stories, but she heard the timbre of Finn’s breathing underneath, steady, attentive, as if he were listening to two conversations at once.

The next hand began. Liam dealt, his thumb brushing her knuckles on the final card, a graze so small she might have invented it. Except Finn saw; she caught the flick of his eyes, the way his jaw set. The room narrowed to the charged triangle of their bodies, the worn rug suddenly tiny, a raft at sea. She reached for her glass, swallowed the last of the whiskey, and felt the fuse reach her stomach, burning bright, ready to split the night open.

Liam swept the coins into a messy pile, copper and silver glinting like small weapons. “Let’s make this interesting,” he said, voice already thickened. “Losers answer a question. Truth, no mumbling.”

Elara shrugged, pretending nonchalance, but her pulse flickered. Finn nodded once, economical. The next hand played faster, cards slapped down hard. She lost first. Liam’s grin widened; he poured her another finger she didn’t need.

“Tell us something you’ve never told anyone,” he said, leaning forward so his shirt gaped at the collar.

She thought of the thesis she had abandoned for weeks, the chapter on Renaissance patronage that refused to cohere. “I’m terrified my supervisor will realise I’m faking the theory,” she said. The words sounded smaller aloud than they did at 3 a.m. in the library. “I don’t actually understand Panofsky. I just quote him and hope no one checks.”

Liam laughed, warm and dismissive. “Everyone does that. You’ll be fine.” He flicked a peanut into his mouth, already bored.

Finn didn’t laugh. He tilted his head, the way he had watched her shuffle, as if her confession were a card he was deciding whether to pick up. “Which part trips you?” he asked. His voice was low, almost apologetic for existing.

She found herself answering the question to him alone. “Iconography. I can’t tell if I’m seeing symbols or projecting them.”

Finn nodded. “Maybe you’re meant to project.” His eyes stayed on her face, not her breasts, and the attention felt strangely naked. She became aware of sweat at the base of her spine.

Liam dealt again, the snap of paper breaking the moment. He lost the next round. Without hesitation he admitted he still wanked to a photo of his ex, taken before she cut her hair. He laughed through the confession, daring them to find it pathetic. Elara smiled because it was expected; Finn’s mouth stayed straight.

The bottle emptied; forfeits escalated. Shirts remained on, but shoes came off, then socks. Skin appeared in small increments: Finn’s pale ankles, the fine dark hair on the top of Liam’s feet. Elara felt the rug fibres imprinting her knees, grounding her as the room tilted.

She lost again. Liam opened his mouth, but Finn spoke first. “Your turn to ask,” he told her, sliding the power across the table like a new card.

She heard herself say, “What do you each want that you shouldn’t?”

Liam’s eyes gleamed. “Right now? A repeat of that kiss you gave Finn earlier.” He said it boldly, but his hand tremed as he reached for his glass.

Finn held her gaze. “Something I haven’t earned yet,” he said, so quietly the refrigerator almost swallowed it.

The air compressed, whiskey-thick. She felt the triangle tighten, herself at the apex, the boys radiating heat along the base. Liam’s want was loud, brassy, already half claimed. Finn’s was quieter, more precise, and therefore heavier. Between them her own pulse hammered, a second, secret drink.

She reached for the cards, fingers clumsy. “New hand,” she said, voice steady only because she forced it. The snap of the shuffle sounded like a small bone resetting. She dealt, watching both pairs of eyes follow her hands, and felt the night tip unmistakably toward whatever came next.

Liam’s thumb brushed the webbing between her fingers as he passed her the last card, a deliberate drag of skin that lasted no longer than a heartbeat but left a damp print. She felt the sweat on his pulse, the tiny tremor that betrayed how drunk he was on the dare they hadn’t yet spoken. Finn watched the point of contact, the muscle in his cheek flicking once, a tic so small she almost missed it. The room’s temperature seemed to jump a degree, whiskey evaporating off their skin.

Her own breathing came through her nose, noisy, equine. She stared at the back of the queen of spades, the ink glossy where Liam’s fingertip had rested. The refrigerator hummed a single low note, a drone that steadied the wobble of the floorboards under her knees. She could smell the metal tang of the coins, the sour warmth of the rug, the sharper note of whatever cologne Finn had put on that morning now gone stale. All of it crowded the space between them like a fourth player.

Liam picked up his cards, fanned them, then laid them face down again. “One more round,” he said, voice thick enough to clog the air. “Winner names the forfeit.” He didn’t look at Finn when he said it; he looked at her mouth, as if the sentence were something he could slide between her teeth.

Finn’s shoulders lifted in a slow inhale. He still hadn’t touched his cards. Instead he rubbed the edge of the low table with his index finger, back and forth, a whisper of skin on varnish that felt louder than the refrigerator. Each pass marked time, measured the inches between her knee and his. She became conscious of the exact shape of her own tongue, its weight, the way it lay against her teeth waiting.

She drew a card from the deck, the paper cool and slightly warped from the moisture in the room. Her nail scraped the pip. Nine of hearts. Useless. She discarded it anyway, watching it land crooked between them like a doorstop. Liam smiled, the left side of his mouth higher, and she knew he was already writing the next minute in his head, already feeling her consent in the way she hadn’t moved her leg away from his.

Finn reached forward, not for the nine but for her wrist. His fingers circled the narrow bones, pressure light enough she could have broken free without trying. He didn’t lift her hand, didn’t pull; he simply held the pulse that hammered beneath the thin skin and looked at Liam. A silent sentence passed between them, subject and verb unnecessary. The refrigerator clicked off, and the sudden quiet felt like a room after a gunshot.

She felt the sweat gather under Finn’s thumb, the small tremor that said he was measuring her willingness by the millimetre. Liam’s knee pressed harder against hers, a counterweight. Cards, coins, whiskey, cotton, skin—every object seemed to lean inward, waiting for her to decide which of them would speak next.

Liam’s grin widened, the left corner of his mouth hitching higher, exposing a flash of teeth. He leaned back, palms flat on the worn rug, arms locked, chest thrust forward. The whiskey had settled in his blood, she could see it in the glaze of his eyes, the looseness of his limbs, the way his tongue kept touching his lower lip as if tasting the dare before speaking it. He looked from her to Finn, then back again, the movement slow, deliberate, a predator tracking heat.

“I bet,” he said, voice dropped to a register that scraped the underside of her ribs, “you won’t kiss us both. Right now.”

The words landed between them like a dropped glass, sharp, irreversible. Finn’s fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around her wrist, a reflex, then relaxed. She felt the pulse in her throat jump, a fish against glass. The refrigerator had stayed silent; the room held its breath. Outside, a car passed, tyres hissing on wet tarmac, the sound of someone else’s ordinary night.

Liam waited, grin fixed, but she caught the micro-twitch at his temple, the tiny uncertainty that said he’d already imagined her refusal and was bracing for it. His knees were spread wide, jeans stretched taut across his thighs, one foot nudging her ankle as if to anchor her in place. She became aware of the exact temperature of the air on her lips, the way her tongue felt too large, the metallic taste of adrenaline.

She didn’t look at Finn immediately. She stared at Liam instead, letting the silence stretch until his smile faltered a millimetre. Then she turned her head. Finn’s eyes were black in the low light, unreadable, but his thumb had started moving again, a slow stroke across the inside of her wrist, measuring her heartbeat the way a butcher measures a vein. She felt the sweat gather between his skin and hers, a thin film of consent.

“And if I win?” she asked, the words out before she could second-guess them. Her voice sounded strange, lower, as if it had been waiting in her chest for this exact moment.

Liam’s grin snapped back, wider now, triumphant. “You name it,” he said, too quickly, the answer already loaded. “Anything.”

The anything hung there, heavy, elastic. She felt the room tilt, the rug fibres imprinting her knees, the whiskey a warm tide in her blood. Finn’s thumb stopped moving. He didn’t speak, but his gaze dropped to her mouth, a silent echo of the dare. She could feel the heat radiating from both of them, Liam loud and electric, Finn coiled and precise, the two currents pulling her in opposite directions until she felt the delicious stretch in the centre of her chest.

She pulled her wrist free from Finn’s grip—not roughly, just enough to reclaim her hand—and flexed her fingers, feeling the indent of his thumb fade. Then she looked at Liam again, letting her eyes travel from his mouth to his throat to the place where his shirt gaped open, taking her time, making him wait. The power shifted, settled on her shoulders like a coat she hadn’t known she owned.

“Deal,” she said, and the word tasted of copper and smoke.

The silence that followed was thick, viscous, a substance that could be tasted. It coated the back of her throat, metallic and sharp. Her heart hammered, a frantic bird trapped within the cage of her ribs, each beat a frantic wing against bone. She felt the rug beneath her knees, the individual fibres pressing into her skin, a thousand tiny anchors. Liam’s gaze was a physical weight, expectant, a challenge laid bare, his lips slightly parted, the tip of his tongue a wet, pink promise. Finn’s stare was a different kind of pressure, dark, unreadable, a depth she couldn’t fathom, yet felt herself being pulled into. The air in the room seemed to condense, pressing in on her from all sides, making her skin feel too tight, her lungs too small.

The sound of the passing car outside was a distant, irrelevant whisper, a reminder of a world that continued to spin obliviously beyond this charged triangle. She could feel the heat radiating from both of them, a palpable current that hummed against her bare arms. Liam’s knee, still pressed against her ankle, felt like a brand, a constant, insistent pressure. Finn, motionless, was a coiled spring, his stillness more potent than any movement. The whiskey on her tongue had turned sour, a dry, acrid taste that did nothing to quell the sudden, dizzying surge of something primal that rose within her. It wasn’t fear, not exactly, but a profound awareness of the precipice she stood upon, the sheer, exhilarating drop into the unknown. The dare, once spoken, had transformed from a playful gambit into a declaration, a line drawn in the sand, and she felt the undeniable pull to cross it, to claim the power that hummed in the space between their bodies.

Liam’s pupils dilated, black swallowing the hazel. “Name it,” he repeated, softer, as though the volume had been turned down on everything but her.

She let the pause lengthen, long enough for the radiator to give one metallic tick. “I want,” she said, “both of you—” She flicked her gaze to Finn, saw his throat move, “—to do exactly what I say for the next hour. No questions and begins to her, his hands, his
</chapter_2_continued>lips, mouths—” She tasted the word on her tongue, felt the room contract around it. “No arguments.”

Finn’s shoulders rose, a slow inhale that seemed to pull the oxygen straight out of her lungs. He didn’t nod, didn’t speak, but his eyes flicked to Liam, a silent contract passing between them, and she felt the shift like a key turning.

Liam’s grin faltered, then re-formed, hungrier. “Done,” he said, the word scraped raw. He lifted both hands, palms up, a mock prisoner. “Yours.”

The rug felt suddenly irrelevant; she could have been standing on glass, on air. She pushed to her feet, the motion unsteady only for a second, and looked down at them—two grown men on their knees in the lamplight, waiting for her next sentence. The whiskey bottle glinted, a dull green witness. She stepped over it, bare feet silent on the boards, and felt the drag of her jeans against skin already too sensitive, as if the fabric itself had learned the new rules.

“Then start by getting rid of this,” she said, toeing the scattered cards, watching them flutter like startled birds. Her voice sounded like someone else’s—lower, steadied by the throb between her legs that had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with the way Finn’s gaze tracked the hem of her shirt as it rode up an inch.

Liam moved first, scooping the deck together with hurried, clumsy sweeps, coins clinking, the sound of his own breathing loud in his ears. Finn rose more slowly, never breaking eye contact, and when he straightened the difference in their heights felt like a new variable in the equation: her, five-foot-four; him, six-one; the space between them charged, negotiable.

She lifted her hand, palm flat, and they both stilled. “Not yet,” she said, and felt the words land on their skin like a brand. “First, I want to watch you watch me.” She reached for the bottom button of her shirt, fingers steady now, and began to undo it, one slow circle of fabric at a time, the cotton parting to reveal the narrow channel of skin beneath. The room’s air kissed each newly exposed inch, cool, electric. Liam’s jaw tightened; Finn’s nostrils flared, a tiny, involuntary tell.

The second button. The third. The soft pop of thread. She could feel their hunger as a physical thing, a heat brushing her collarbones, her sternum, the upper slope of her breasts. Her own pulse beat in her ears, a drum counting down to an hour that had already begun, and she held their gaze, owning the silence, owning the space, owning them.

She let the shirt hang open, the last button defeated, and turned her head. Liam first—because he had asked loudest, because his need was already spilling over, because it felt like answering the simpler equation before tackling the harder one. Two steps brought her close enough that her shins touched his knees where he still knelt. She could smell the whiskey on his breath, the salt of his skin, the cotton of his shirt heated by his chest.

He looked up at her, pupils blown wide, waiting for permission he pretended he didn’t need. She gave it by bending, one hand threading into the short hair at his nape, the other bracing against his shoulder. The first contact was teeth and heat, mouths already open before they met, a wet click that sent a spark straight to her clit. He groaned into her, the sound vibrating through her tongue, and his hand snapped up to cup the back of her neck, fingers splayed hard, claiming anchor.

Taste. Whiskey and the metallic trace of the earlier dare. Pressure. His lower lip caught between hers, released, caught again. He angled her head the way he wanted, tilting her so the kiss could deepen, sloppy, urgent, the kind that says I’ve been thinking about this since you walked in. She felt the drag of his stubble burn across her chin, welcomed it, pressed closer until her breasts brushed his shirt and the friction of cotton against her bare skin made her nipples tighten to aching points.

His other hand landed on her waist, thumb riding the ridge of her hip bone exactly where Finn’s had rested minutes ago, but Liam’s grip was possessive, fingers digging in, pulling her down so she had to widen her stance, knees bending, the seam of her jeans riding up to split her open in a slow, delicious grind. She could feel him breathing through his nose, fast, could feel the tremor in his wrist as he held her still for his mouth.

She let him take, let him show her the shape of his hunger, then bit his lip—just hard enough to taste iron. He jerked, groaned again, louder, the sound swallowed by her tongue. A flicker of power surged: she could bring him to his feet, could shove him back on the rug, could stop this with one word. Instead she gave one last slow lick into his mouth and pulled away, letting the wet sound of separation fill the room like a snapped elastic.

His hand slid from her neck to her collarbone, reluctant, fingers dragging as if memorising the route back. His eyes were glassy, mouth swollen, chest heaving. She held his gaze a beat, letting him see she had registered every ounce of his want, then turned—already missing the heat, already calculating the next variable—toward Finn.

She pivoted on her knees, shirt flapping open like a slack sail, and crawled. Three steps of bare palms against rug, the fibres scratching, her breasts swaying under cotton, the denim across her arse suddenly too thick, too present. Finn hadn’t moved; he sat back on his heels, hands resting on his thighs, palms up, almost meditative. The lamplight carved a stripe across his cheekbone, left the rest of him in shadow. Only his eyes lived, fixed on her, unreadable, waiting for the equation to balance.

She stopped when her knees touched his. Still he didn’t reach. A pulse beat visibly in his throat, but the rest of him could have been carved from the dark. She felt Liam’s stare drilling between her shoulder-blades, hot, restless, but she didn’t look back; the next variable required absolute concentration.

She rose onto her knees, bringing their faces level, and paused long enough for the room’s air to crawl across the wet still on her lips—Liam’s kiss cooling, evaporating, marking the transition. Then she leaned in, slow, giving him every chance to refuse. He didn’t tilt, didn’t chase; he simply let her come.

Contact. Soft. Dry. A static spark jumped lip to lip, small blue shock. She tasted it—ozone, whiskey, something metallic behind his teeth. She pressed again, mouth opening, and only then did he answer, a fractional parting that invited rather than took. His breath slipped into her, warm, measured, as if he’d been holding it since the bet began. She followed it, tongue sliding along his lower lip, not pushing inside, just mapping the shape, the give, the tiny ridge where teeth met skin.

His hand lifted, hovered a millimetre from her waist, heat radiating through that absence. She shifted forward, closing the gap herself, and the contact when it came was feather-light: four fingertips, then the heel of his palm, warm, steady, as if he were calibrating pressure. Thumb stroked once across the ridge of her hip, a question mark. She answered by sinking closer, breasts brushing his chest, the open shirt finally slipping off one shoulder.

She felt the exhale he’d been withholding leave his lungs, coast across her cheek. His other hand rose to cup her face—not grabbing, simply holding, thumb resting just below the hinge of her jaw. He turned her a degree, no more, and took the kiss deeper, tongue meeting hers in a slow glide that felt like solving for x. No noise, no hurry, just the wet slide, the shared breath, the small click when their teeth touched and adjusted.

Behind her Liam shifted, fabric rustling, a low involuntary sound in his throat. She registered it the way one registers distant traffic—present, irrelevant. Finn’s mouth moved to the corner of hers, brushed once, twice, then returned, sealing again, the repetition itself a caress. She felt the pulse in his thumb echo in her clit, steady, unhurried, a metronome setting tempo.

She could have stayed balanced there forever, suspended in the dark, but her body overruled: she tilted her head, opened wider, invited more. He accepted, pressure increasing by degrees, tongue sliding along hers in a slow, deliberate stroke that tasted of yes and wait and now. The room narrowed to the wet heat of mouths, the shared breath, the tiny suction when they parted and met again.

When she finally drew back, lips swollen, his eyes opened—black, depthless—and for the first time she saw the cost of his stillness: the tremor in his shoulders, the vein beating frantic at his temple. He had watched, calculated, held back; now the arithmetic was hers to finish.

She stayed there, breathing through her mouth so the taste of him would stay primary. The tremor in his shoulders had migrated into her; she felt it behind her knees, in the hinge of her jaw, in the small muscles that held her spine upright.

His thumb moved again, a half-moon arc across the bone it had already memorised. Not seductive, not even sexual—more like he was reading braille, confirming the data. The pressure was so light she felt her skin lift toward it, the way water rises minutely toward the moon.

Behind them Liam made another sound, lower this time, almost a growl. She understood: the first equation had been solved quickly, demonstratively; this one was still balancing, and the delay was a new kind of torment. She didn’t turn. The back of her neck prickled with his stare, but Finn’s mouth returned, reclaiming her attention, and the prickle dissolved under the slow glide of tongue.

She brought her own hand up, fingers settling over his where it cupped her face. Skin temperature matching, pulse to pulse. She pressed once, a silent instruction: stay. Then she let her fingertips drift to his wrist, feeling the raised river of vein, counting the beats—eight in the space of one inhale. His blood was racing, same as hers, but nowhere else in him acknowledged hurry.

He shifted, barely, guiding her weight so her knees came off the rug and she knelt straddling his thigh. The denim of his jeans was rough against the soft inside of hers; the friction sent a bright spark straight up the seam of her jeans, a hot line that made her inhale through her nose, sharp. He swallowed the sound, mouth still gentle, still asking rather than taking.

She felt the heat of him through two layers of cloth, the hard length of muscle, and rolled her hips once, experimental. His breath caught, the first audible fracture in his control. The hand on her waist tightened—still not hard, just present, five points of pressure branding her skin. She rolled again, slower, grinding the seam of her jeans against the firm plane of his thigh until the pressure met her clit through soaked cotton and she had to break the kiss to gasp.

He let her go only far enough to rest their foreheads together. His eyes stayed open; she could see her own face reflected, distorted, in the wet black of his pupil. A strand of her hair had stuck to his lower lip; he didn’t move to remove it. They breathed each other’s air, shallow, synchronized.

She understood then that the wanting wasn’t only hers. It lived in the tremor under his skin, in the way his fingers now dug just deeply enough to leave faint white marks, in the restraint that kept him from flipping her onto the rug and finishing what the slow roll had started. The restraint itself was the want, sharpened to a blade.

She closed the inch between them again, kissed him softer, slower, a thank-you and a demand at once. He answered with the same quiet intensity, tongue sliding against hers in a rhythm that matched the pulse between her legs, promising without words that when the restraint broke, it would break completely.

The kiss ended like a held note finally released. Elara felt the air rush back into her lungs, cold against the heat of Finn’s mouth still ghosting hers. She stayed motionless, forehead to forehead, until the distance between them grew by fractions and the room re-formed around them—lampshade glow, the sour smell of spilled whiskey, the tick of Liam’s watch too loud.

Liam cleared his throat. One rough scrape that seemed to tear the silence in two. She turned. He was exactly where she’d left him, kneeling on the rug, palms on his thighs, but the easy swagger had drained away. His eyes moved from her mouth to Finn’s, then down to the open wings of her shirt, as if tallying visible evidence. No grin now. Just the swallow that traveled the length of his throat.

Finn’s hand slipped from her face to her shoulder, a steadying weight. She became aware of small things: the damp patch cooling at the crotch of her jeans, the ache in her knees from carpet pressure, the pulse fluttering under her tongue. None of them spoke. The deck lay scattered like a abandoned spell; the coin they’d anted earlier glinted uselessly beside an overturned glass.

She drew a breath, tasting iron where she’d bitten Liam, tasting Finn underneath, quieter, salt and tea. The room felt suddenly over-lit, every bulb exposing the shift that had happened. She wanted dimness, wanted walls, wanted not to negotiate what came next with eyes.

Finn stood first. His thighs flexed under her lingering weight; he steadied her until her soles found the floor. “My room is darker,” he said, voice low, almost conversational, as if remarking on weather. Not asking. Stating a fact she could accept or refuse.

She looked at Liam. A question formed, unspoken: still in? He answered by pushing to his feet, the movement jerky, and swiping the back of his hand across his mouth. No jokes. He simply waited, chest lifting fast.

Elara placed her fingers in Finn’s outstretched palm. Warm, dry, certain. He curled them gently and stepped back, guiding her around the coffee table’s corner. Her shirttail brushed her hip, cool air slipping across bare skin. She felt Liam fall in behind, his tread heavy, the heat of his body radiating inches away, close enough to feel the turbulence he was holding in.

The hallway was narrow, painted institutional cream. Their shadows overlapped on the wall—three heads, six shoulders, one elongated body that belonged to nobody and everybody. Finn’s door stood ajar; he nudged it wider with his foot and let her enter first.

Inside: blinds closed, streetlight filtered in slats across the duvet. Smell of laundry detergent and something metallic, like old coins. She stopped at the foot of the bed, suddenly conscious of her half-nakedness, of the two sets of eyes now tracing vertebrae, shoulder blades, the curve where cotton gaped.

Finn moved first. He stepped close, lifted her shirt tail, and began on the lowest button. Slow, methodical, knuckles brushing skin with each release. Liam exhaled through his nose, closed the final foot of space, and dropped to a crouch, fingers hooking under the waist of her jeans. The twin sensations—Finn’s patient unwrapping above, Liam’s impatient tug below—sent a shiver that started in her spine and lodged, hot, between her legs.

Finn’s fingers worked the last button free. The shirt slipped from her shoulders and pooled behind her, leaving her in nothing but the soaked cotton of her bra and the jeans Liam was already peeling down her thighs. Cool air hit the wet panel of her underwear; she heard her own inhale, small and sharp.

Liam’s knuckles grazed the backs of her knees as he guided denim to her ankles. “Step,” he murmured. She lifted one foot, then the other, steadying herself with a palm on his shoulder. The muscle under her hand flexed—impatient, coiled. He stayed crouched, eyes level with the damp fabric clinging to her slit, breath hot against the crease where leg met hip. A single fingertip traced the elastic edge, not yet pushing in, just mapping territory.

Above, Finn eased the shirt from her wrists and let it fall. Then his hands returned to her ribs, palms sliding upward until thumbs hooked under bra straps. He paused, waiting for the minute nod she gave before sliding them down her arms. The clasp surrendered with a soft snap; the bra joined the shirt. Her breasts lifted, freed, nipples tightening instantly under two pairs of eyes.

Finn exhaled, slow. “Lie back,” he said, voice pitched low, almost a vibration against her ear. He shifted, knee brushing the mattress. Liam rose at the same moment, hands moving to her waist, guiding her onto the duvet. The bed gave under her shoulder blades; the streetlight stripes slid across her stomach like warm bars.

She expected them to converge immediately, but both hesitated, looking down at her spread before them—shirtless, jeans gone, underwear the last barrier. The pause felt ceremonial, a collective breath before the next wager. Her pulse thudded in her ears, in her cunt, everywhere blood could reach.

Finn moved first. He knelt between her ankles, hooked fingers under the sides of her panties, and drew them down in one unhurried motion. The cotton peeled away from swollen lips with a faint, wet sound; cool air licked exposed skin. He didn’t look away from her face as he dropped the scrap of fabric to the floor.

Liam made a noise—half laugh, half groan—and reached for the button of his own jeans. Metal clinked, zipper rasping. He shoved denim and boxers down together, cock springing free, flushed and curved upward. A bead of pre-come pearled at the slit; he swiped it with his thumb, then brought the thumb to her mouth. “Taste,” he said, rough.

She opened, let the salt slick across her tongue. Finn’s gaze tracked the movement, pupils blown wide. His hand settled on her inner thigh, thumb drawing a slow arc upward, stopping just short of where she ached. The message was clear: patience. Anticipation. The game had changed, but rules remained—Finn set the tempo now.

Liam climbed onto the bed beside her, knee indenting mattress, heat radiating. He leaned in, mouth finding her nipple, sucking hard enough to arch her spine. Simultaneously Finn’s thumb finally slid through wet folds, parting her, gathering evidence of how ready she already was. He didn’t enter, just circled, spreading moisture upward to her clit in deliberate passes.

Her breath fractured. She felt each stroke in her throat, her fingertips, the soles of her feet. The room narrowed to points of contact: Liam’s tongue flicking rigid flesh, Finn’s thumb drawing slow, slick circles, the ache building low in her belly. She rolled her hips, seeking more, but Finn’s free hand pressed her hipbone down—gentle, immovable.

“Not yet,” he murmured. The words vibrated through her skin, a promise and a warning. She swallowed, nodded, let the tension coil tighter, ready to snap when they decided the time had come.

Finn’s thumb kept its slow orbit, slick pressure skating around her clit without ever quite landing. Each pass sent a pulse through the muscle of her thighs; she felt them tremble open wider, an involuntary plea. Liam lifted his mouth from her breast with a wet sound, looked at Finn across her body. No words, just the shared inhale that said now.

Finn shifted lower, shoulders spreading her knees. Cool air replaced his thumb; then his tongue took over, broad and flat, licking upward in one steady stroke. The sound she made was embarrassingly raw. He did it again, slower, tip circling the hood until her hips tried to buck. Liam’s forearm slid beneath her waist, holding her down, anchoring. “We’ve got you,” he said into her neck, teeth grazing pulse.

She turned her head, found his cock brushing her ribs, and closed her hand around the shaft. Skin hot, vein pulsing under her thumb. She squeezed, pulled once, and a clear bead slipped free. Liam groaned, pushed into her fist, hips rocking in the same rhythm Finn set below. Two metronomes locked to her body.

Finn’s tongue narrowed, flicking directly over the bundle of nerves until her abdomen clenched hard enough to lift her shoulders off the bed. Liam’s arm tightened, keeping her flat, while his other hand rolled her free nipple, pinch and release, timed with each electric jolt. She felt the orgasm gathering—sharp, bright, inevitable—and tried to warn them, breath stuttering.

Finn pulled back. Just stopped. Cool air hit wet flesh; the absence throbbed harder than contact. She whimpered, hand tightening on Liam in protest. Finn wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, eyes never leaving her slit. “Turn her,” he said quietly.

Liam obeyed, hands already sliding to her hips. She found herself rolled onto her stomach, knees drawn under her, ass in the air. The duvet bunched beneath her cheek; she gripped it, anticipation coiling so tight her calves cramped. Liam moved in front, kneeling, feeding his cock between her lips without ceremony. Salt and musk flooded her tongue; she hollowed her cheeks, took him deeper, felt his exhale shudder through his thighs.

Behind her, the bed dipped. Foil tore. Then Finn’s hands spanned her waist, thumbs pressing the dimples above her tailbone. The head of his cock nudged through folds, once, twice, before pushing inside in a single, controlled thrust. Fullness split her, delicious burn that stole the air Liam had left her. Finn paused, buried to the hilt, letting her adjust around the thick stretch.

He started slow, long strokes that ended with his hips flush against her ass, each forward rock driving her mouth farther onto Liam. The two rhythms synced—Finn pulling out as Liam retreated, both surging back in tandem. She became the axis they spun on, nothing but the wet slide between her legs and the rigid heat sliding over her tongue.

Her second climax built differently this time, deeper, a heavy wave instead of sharp sparks. Finn felt it; his fingers found her clit from underneath, strumming in tight circles while he fucked her harder, flesh slapping flesh. Liam’s hand tangled in her hair, guiding but not forcing, murmuring filthy encouragement she barely processed.

The wave broke. She came moaning around Liam’s cock, inner muscles clamping down so hard Finn cursed, pace stuttering. He rode her through it, fingers relentless, prolonging the spasms until her arms gave out and only Liam’s grip kept her upright. Finn followed seconds later, hips pinned to hers, pulse after pulse filling the condom while he groaned her name like it hurt.

Liam pulled out of her mouth, fisted himself twice, and came across her breast in warm stripes, breath hissing. She collapsed forward, cheek to cool sheet, chest heaving. Two sets of hands eased her down, bodies curling around her, sweat sealing them together. The room smelled of sex and whiskey and cotton warmed by skin. She closed her eyes, felt twin heartbeats against her back and her palm, and knew the game had ended in a perfect draw.