Chapter 7: The Morning After Confession
The silence after Nate’s words was thicker than the humidity clinging to their skin. The truth hung in the air, another layer of scent over the stale beer and sex.
Marcus’s laugh broke it, a low, rasping sound in Nate’s ear. She finally released him from the hug, leaning back to look at his face. Her hands stayed on his shoulders, thumbs brushing the dense muscle there. “Not fair? You just had your tongue and your dick in two different people at the same time, and you’re complaining about fair?”
Nate shook his head, a dazed smile tugging at his mouth. “No. I mean… fuck.” He looked past Marcus to Ally, who still pressed against his back. Her warmth was a brand. “I knew it was you guys. In my head, I knew. But looking at you…” His voice trailed off, thick with a kind of bewildered reverence.
Ally shifted, unwinding her arms from his waist. She moved to sit beside him on the carpet, drawing her knees up. The physical separation felt sudden, a return to some individual form. The cool air of the room pebbled her damp skin. “Yeah,” was all she could manage. Her own voice sounded foreign, too soft, too pretty. It was the voice that had just begged and cursed.
Nate’s gaze traveled over her, a slow, deliberate scan that felt more intimate than anything that had come before. He wasn’t lost in frenzy now. He was studying. His eyes traced the line of her throat, the heavy curve of her breast where it rested against her knee, the hypnotic swell of her hip. “Jake,” he said, testing the name against the vision.
“Don’t,” Ally said, sharper than she intended. “Not right now. It’s… just Ally right now.”
He nodded, accepting it. His hand, which had been lying limp on his own thigh, lifted. He reached across the small space between them. His fingertips, surprisingly gentle, brushed a strand of sweat-damp blonde hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. The calluses on his skin scraped softly. “Ally,” he repeated, the word a concession.
Marcus watched the exchange, her expression unreadable. She stretched, a long, cat-like movement that made the muscles in her back and arms roll. The single lamp caught the sheen on her skin. “So. The prank’s over, I guess.”
“Was that the prank?” Nate asked, his hand falling away from Ally’s face. He looked at Marcus. “You turning into… this? Letting me…” He couldn’t finish.
“The prank was supposed to be you getting hard for your buddy,” Marcus said with a shrug. She wasn’t smiling. “Mission fucking accomplished. With interest.” She picked up a forgotten beer bottle from the floor, peered inside, and took a swig of the flat, warm dregs. She made a face but swallowed. “Thing about pranks, though. Sometimes they bite you in the ass.”
“Yeah,” Nate breathed out. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. The powerful architecture of his back tightened. “What happens when the pill wears off?”
The question landed in the center of the room like a physical object. Ally felt a jolt of cold anxiety pierce the warm, sated fog in her mind. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. The transformation was a temporary costume, but the actions they’d taken were permanent marks on their history.
“We deal with it,” Marcus said, but her usual bravado was thinner now, stretched taut. “Same as we deal with a loss on Saturday. We move the fuck on.”
“You think this is like losing a game?” Nate’s head snapped up, a flash of anger in his eyes. “You think we’re just gonna shower this off?”
“What’s the alternative, Nate?” Marcus shot back, her own temper flaring. “You wanna sit here and have a fucking feelings circle? You wanna talk about how good my pussy tasted? How tight his ass was? We did it. It happened. It was insane. And it was…” She searched for the word, her defiance flickering. “…fucking incredible. So we either let it freak us out, or we own it.”
Ally listened, her mind churning. Own it. The phrase resonated with a part of her that was still Jake—competitive, stubborn, unwilling to back down from a challenge, even one of his own making. But the other part, the Ally part that ached in deep, new ways, felt a terrifying vulnerability.
Nate was staring at Marcus, the anger melting into something more complex. A raw hunger reignited in his gaze, tempered now by a flicker of recognition. “You’re still in there,” he murmured.
“Of course I am, you dumb meathead,” Marcus said, but her voice had dropped, softened by something that wasn’t quite an act.
“Prove it,” Nate said. The challenge was quiet, but it charged the air.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. “How?”
Nate stood up. He was a pillar of solid muscle in the dim light. He looked from one to the other, a commander assessing his troops. “You said own it. So own it. All of it. Him.” He pointed a thick finger at Ally. “And you.” The finger swung to Marcus. “Not as a fucked-up dream. As right now.”
He stepped toward Marcus, closing the distance. He cupped her face in his hands, his touch no longer tentative or awestruck. It was demanding. “You’re Marcus Johnson. Fastest feet on the fucking East Coast. My best friend since freshman year. And you have the most perfect goddamn tits I’ve ever seen.”
He crushed his mouth against hers. This kiss wasn’t like before. It was deep, possessive, and laced with a shocking familiarity. It was the kiss of someone claiming what was already theirs. Marcus melted into it instantly, her hands coming up to grip his biceps, a low moan vibrating in her throat.
Breaking the kiss, Nate turned his head, his eyes finding Ally. “And you.” He released Marcus, who swayed slightly, her lips swollen. He took the two steps to where Ally sat. He didn’t ask. He hooked his hands under her arms and lifted her to her feet as if she weighed nothing. He pulled her flush against him, her softness molding to his hard angles. “You’re Jake ‘The Hammer’ Hamilton. You knocked out the QB from State with that hit last season. You drink my cheap beer and laugh at my shitty jokes.” One of his big hands slid down the curve of her spine, over the dramatic flare of her hip, and gripped the full, round cheek of her ass. He squeezed, hard. “And you have an ass that should be illegal.”
He kissed her too, just as deep, just as claiming. Ally’s mind short-circuited. It was Nate—smelling of sweat and her and Marcus—but the kiss was for Jake. It was a paradox that tore down her last internal wall. She kissed him back ferociously, her fingers digging into the slabs of his shoulders.
When he pulled away, all three of them were breathing hard. The dynamic had shifted again. The confusion was burned away in the furnace of Nate’s brutal clarity.
“Now,” Nate said, his voice a rough command. He pushed Ally gently backwards until her legs hit the arm of the couch. “Bend over.”
A thrill, electric and undeniable, shot through her. She heard Jake in her head, a gleeful, victorious hell yeah. She obeyed, turning and leaning forward, bracing her hands on the lumpy cushions. The position presented her to him, an offering and a challenge.
Nate ran a palm over the generous curves of her ass, a master appreciating his domain. He looked at Marcus. “You. Come here.”
Marcus didn’t need to be told twice. She moved behind Ally, her body mirroring Nate’s earlier position. Her hands, softer than Nate’s but just as strong, landed on Ally’s hips. She leaned down, her breath hot against Ally’s ear. “You hearing this, Hammer? He’s giving the plays now.”
Then Marcus’s mouth was on the nape of Ally’s neck, sucking a bruise into the tender skin. At the same time, Nate’s fingers parted her from behind, a rough, intimate touch. He rubbed his thumb over her exposed opening, still slick and stretched from his last invasion. “Still loose from me,” he grunted, a note of primal satisfaction in his voice. “Good.”
He didn’t guide himself in. He positioned the broad, blunt head of his cock at her entrance and pushed. There was no slow glide this time. He sheathed himself in one steady, relentless thrust, burying himself to the hilt.
Ally cried out, the sound swallowed by the couch cushion. The fullness was breathtaking, a stark reminder of the physical reality. Nate held himself there, buried deep, letting her feel every inch.
Marcus’s hands wandered from Ally’s hips, one sliding around to cup and knead her breast, pinching the nipple. The other hand trailed down Ally’s stomach, through the coarse blonde curls, and found her clit.
“Watch this,” Marcus whispered to Nate, her fingers beginning a tight, circular massage on Ally’s sensitive nub.
Nate watched, his eyes dark. Then he began to move. He set a brutal, pounding rhythm, each drive of his hips slamming Ally forward into Marcus’s touch. The couch squeaked in protest, scraping against the floor.