Opal: A Contemporary Reverse Harem Romance (Jewels Cafe Book 4) Read online

  Hideous jacket? Okay, buddy. The shit was about to go down.

  “First off,” I said, sounding quite obstinate considering he was in the superior position, “this is a hoodie, not a jacket. There’s a big difference, buddy. Second, I wouldn’t let you touch me even if you begged me to let you. Third, how dare you come barging into my house, telling me to lay off you guys, when it’s you who are the problem. Not me. I’m quiet. I’m—” I was also yelling right now, I realized. Right in his face.

  He had me so riled up I could hardly see straight.

  “You don’t seem quiet now,” Kent whispered, his face only a few inches away from my own. “I bet you won’t be quiet when I’m inside of you, either.”

  My jaw dropped to the floor at that one. I could barely stutter out, “Get out of my house now, sir, or I’ll—” Why the hell did I call him sir? Stupid, stupid. I stopped as I watched him get to his feet.

  Holy hell. Even that man’s ass was sculpted by God himself.

  “You’ll what, exactly?” Kent shrugged on his suit jacket, not bothering to button it up since he only had to walk twenty feet to his own side of the duplex. When I said nothing, he added pointedly, “That’s what I thought. Just…leave it alone, will you?”

  Ugh. This talk, whatever it was, was confusing the hell out of me. How could he go from suggestive and sexy to just brushing me off like that? And could somebody please phone a friend and tell me why I still hung on every word that came out of his mouth like he was spewing the secrets to the universe itself?

  Kent left my place, slamming the door behind him, and for the longest time, I stared at the front door as if he was about to walk right back in and say And another thing… But he didn’t. His sexy, suit-wearing self was next door, and I was left alone, speechless.

  The jerk. The prick. How dare he walk into my house and say those things to me—even if I kind of liked it—he had no right. No right at all. Nope.

  I was well aware that my mind was rambling, mostly because I didn’t want to return to my dinner and my lonely existence. Alas, that’s what I had to do. Writing was a solitary job, but it was fine. I was never really a social butterfly growing up anyway. I was the introverted one, the one who was quiet in class, the one the other students always teased for being so quiet. Sofia was my friend, who was also the utter opposite of me—

  Wait. Shit. I was supposed to text her earlier, wasn’t I? Whoops. I guess with all that dick on my mind, both imaginary and real, thanks to my weird, rude neighbors, I sort of forgot to. Oh, well. She’ll forgive me. I’ll text her in the morning. Right now, it was back to my dinner.

  Grabbing my plate, I resumed what I was doing before that awful interruption.

  Aaaaand of course.

  The pasta was cold, wet, slimy noodles in my mouth.

  Damn it.

  Chapter 5

  The same song woke me up again that night. The same freaking song. I had it up to here with that song—just take my word for it, my hand’s pretty high—even though it was catchy beyond all belief. If Ace was going through a breakup and needed to vent a little, fine, I could understand that. We’ve all had bad breakups, but this was just aggravating.

  I’d tried earplugs, listening to my own music, even setting up a small TV in my bedroom and leaving it on while trying to sleep. Zzzquil, too. The whole shebang, and yet I was unable to get more than a few hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. It was miserable.

  I rolled out of bed. Booty shorts clung to my body, along with a tank top. My bra lay somewhere on the floor, and the strange part was, I didn’t even stop to put it on. I didn’t stop for a jacket, either. My feet drew me straight to the front door, and I marched over the shared driveway.

  You know what was even weirder? It wasn’t cold out. It was November in New York, at night, and it wasn’t cold out at all—or maybe I was too riled up from being woken up again to pay attention to the damned temperature.

  The pavement wasn’t even cold, but for whatever reason, I didn’t notice. I was too busy knocking on the door. Doorbell or knocking, I always went for the latter because it was more dramatic.

  Ace opened the door, his blonde hair hanging off the side of his head, messy, like he hadn't run a comb through it ever. His blue eyes were slightly narrowed as he studied me, and I couldn’t tell if his expression was hungry and full of desire or one that was simply curious as to why I was here in the middle of the night.

  He, uh…he also wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  Kind of hard to ignore that. I pretty much stared right at his chest, at his well-defined pectoral muscles as I wondered why I was acting so…well, horny. That chest—there were a lot of things I could imagine doing to that chest. It was free of hair, smooth in every way. I could run my hands down it, drizzle it with chocolate and slowly lick it off, move my lips along every inch of it. And that tattoo that rested on his shoulder—I’d seen it before, but seeing it now just felt so…different.

  A tribal design, its lines thick and black, stars mixed with song notes. It might’ve been girly on another man, but on him? On him it worked.

  Suddenly I was aware that I was braless, and my nipples were far too hard and practically poking out of my shirt.

  “Opal,” he whispered my name, a morose look on his face. “What are you doing here?”

  “I…I’m here to…” Dear God, why was I here again? For the music? Fuck the music. I didn’t care about the loud noise in the middle of the night, not right now. Right now the only thing I cared about was touching that perfect chest.

  I reached a hand out, trailing a flat palm along his chest, down to his abdomen, where six tiny squares sat. For someone who was basically depressed, he still took good care of himself.

  Ace didn’t move away, didn’t tell me to stop. He didn’t say anything. He simply grabbed me by the shoulders and brought me into his house…except, strangely, we weren’t in his house. He brought me from outside his door and back into my living room.

  I…just…what?

  My mind was too hazy to wonder why everything was weird. Plus, the man chest under my hand felt so good I could just shed all of my clothes and have at him right here.

  Ace had me against my front door within a moment, leaning against me, crowding that lovely chest right in my face. I breathed in, smelling him. He smelled of sweat and skin, and there had never been a better scent. Moving my hands to his shoulders, I trailed them along his arm muscles, feeling a growing hardness start to poke me in my lower stomach.

  Oh, holy hell. Why was I trying to fight this? This felt way too good to deny, and as the seconds ticked by, I could feel my willpower evaporating, never to be found again. Which was fine; I didn’t need it. The only thing I needed right now was Ace. Every inch of him.

  Ace buried his lips against my neck, picking me up as he kissed my throat. Butterflies soared in my stomach, a heat building that only meant one thing: we had to do this now. There was no turning back, no ignoring the way my body reacted to his. Whatever he was going through didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered right now was us finally getting together after what felt like an eternity of constant bickering.

  Setting me down on the couch, he crawled over me, moving his lips along my jawline. I let out a soft moan, arching my back, causing him to dig his hips down into me, grind his hard-on against me. There was something erotic about feeling an erection through clothes, something that just made me want to be an animal and rip his clothes off and see him in his full glory.

  When he moved his lips to mine, giving me a slow, needy, desperate kiss, I realized it wasn’t Ace anymore.

  It was…Brock?

  Hold up. Huh?

  But yet again, time would not slow down for me to piece it together properly. Brock had his hands on my cheeks, tasting me, pushing his tongue into my mouth and stoking the fire that Ace had started. He was also shirtless, his lean body a few inches taller than Ace’s. His legs pinned mine down, even though I wasn’t struggling. To struggle here w
ould be pointless, I knew. This, whatever this was, was going to happen.

  I had no idea why Ace changed into Brock, but that was a question for a later time.

  Another question for a later time? Why the hell Kent stood near the hallway, his arms crossed… also: how did he get here, and why didn’t I notice him until now?

  “Hold on,” Kent said, a muscle in his jaw ticking as he moved closer to the couch. His voice was so low and rough, demanding in every way, that I couldn’t help but shiver against Brock. Brock was slow to pull his mouth from mine as Kent made his way to us. Kent wore a suit—this time with a tie.

  And it was that same tie that he loosened and used to tie my hands above my head and hold them there.

  Kent held onto the other end of the tie, pulling my hands and arms back. “There,” he whispered, his jade eyes green with envy. “Much better, don’t you think?”

  Brock said nothing, but his hands began to roam my body. I let out a moan when they found their way beneath my shirt, up to my breasts, tweaking my nipples, caressing the sensitive skin there. Kent pulled my arms further back, and I didn’t even care that it wasn’t a good position to be in. My eyelids fluttered shut, and I lost myself to the feeling of Brock touching me.

  His hands eventually left my breasts, moving down towards my shorts, toying with the waistband on them.

  “Do you want him to fuck you, Opal?” Kent’s voice entered my ears, scratchy and warm, kind of like how whiskey burned your throat on its way down. When I didn’t answer, he yanked my arms again. “Answer me.”

  “Yes,” I all but whimpered, weak in the face of these men. Had I always been so weak when it came to them? Did I always want to jump them, or have them jump me? I couldn’t remember. My mind refused to work. Right now I just wanted to be dominated, and it seemed that these two were more than content to do a little sharing.

  Be still my beating heart, because it was so frigging hot.

  Brock worked to pull down my shorts, but before I felt his length enter me, before anything else happened, I jerked awake in bed, my eyes flying open and staring at the dark ceiling above me.

  What. The. Hell?

  What the actual hell here, people. That was not an okay dream, and how much I liked it? Also not okay.

  What was even worse was that the dream had woken me up out of a deep sleep, and for once the jerky neighbors of mine were quiet. For once I couldn’t hear them through the walls, no music playing to keep me up. Just my luck.

  I let out a long sigh, trying to go back to bed. My mind kept replaying the dream though, what was about to happen in it. Ace, pushing me against the door and grinding against me, showering my neck with kisses that made me shiver. Brock, his tall frame holding me down on the couch, kissing me, touching my aching nipples and making me whimper. And who could forget Kent? Even in my dreams, he was a freaking dom.

  A sexy one, but still. I wasn’t the kind of girl who liked that kind of thing. I liked…well, I guess if the way my body felt right now was any indication, I did kind of like what happened in the dream.

  I couldn’t ignore the heat still flooding me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep unless I took care of it, gave my body the release it craved because of that blasted dream. Me with the neighbors? That was worth a laugh, but apparently in my imagination, anything was possible.

  One of my hands moved between my legs, snaking its way under my shorts. As I let my fingers curl around me, I found I was slick with need. I bit my lower lip to stop myself from crying out, but it was so very difficult to remain quiet when all I wanted to do was be as loud as nature would let me, to cry out in pleasure that had begun in that dream with all three of them.

  All three of my neighbors. That was a fantasy that would never happen, but still. Apparently it made me lustful and horny in all the right ways.

  Once my orgasm came, once I hit that spot and brought my body to its precipice, its peak of sensual pleasure, I may have moaned out loud. I might’ve cried out, a bit louder than I anticipated. My skin flushed and my whole body felt weak as it rode the high, and I was slow to withdraw my hand from myself, my eyelids fluttering closed.

  Sleep came to me quickly after that. If only every night was so easy.

  If it took me an orgasm to fall asleep, I’d be touching myself every damn night.

  Chapter 6

  The next morning I was actually able to sleep in. In fact, what woke me up was a call from my bestie, Sofia. I scrambled to answer it, reaching for my phone on the nightstand and sounding quite groggy when I said, “What? Why do you always have to call?”

  “Because you never answer my texts, woman, and you never texted me back yesterday. Again. What is with you?” Though her words sounded a bit miffed, I knew she wasn’t angry. Sofia didn’t get mad. Not really.

  “I’m still in bed.”

  “You…you are?” She waited a moment before asking, “Didn’t get sleep again last night?”

  I nibbled on my lower lip, attempting to push back the memories of that dream, vivid as they were. Almost as if the dream had been real. “Actually, I did…but I had a dream.”

  “Ooh, this sounds promising. Spill.”

  “No details, because I’m still a little freaked out over it, but let’s just say I had a dream involving my neighbors.” I paused, recalling each of their handsome faces in the dream. “All of them.”

  Sofia waited a moment before saying, “Tell me you don’t mean a wet dream, Opal. Did you dream of their dicks?” For someone who wanted me to march over to their house on a daily basis and give them a good what-for, she sounded pretty ecstatic about me possibly dreaming about their dicks.

  I remained quiet, and she squealed.

  Too loud of a sound, too early in the morning…except, wait a minute, it was ten o’clock! I had to get up, start this day, finish making those edits. Or at least make a little progress. Maybe I should head to that coffee shop—but then again, that coffee shop was what got me in the mood for sex, I think.

  Maybe going back there wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Sofia, I got to go,” I told her.

  “Will you at least text me if you decide to make a move on any of those guys?”

  I sat up, practically shouting into the phone, “What? I thought you wanted me to yell at them, not date them!”

  “Yes, but hate sex is hot. Also, you know I’m a fan of those books where the girl doesn’t have to choose—” Yes, I’d been aware of her obsession with the reverse harem genre for years now. Me? I was a loner. When I had a boyfriend, I could barely handle one dick. It wasn’t really a goal of mine to have more than one at a single time.

  Unless you counted dream me’s ambitions, and then all bets were off.

  I laughed, said “Goodbye” and hung up the phone. Sofia was…my best friend, my only friend, really, and I loved her, but sometimes she got these crazy ideas that I just didn’t know how to respond to.

  Me, sleeping with my neighbors. Right. Because absolutely nothing could go wrong there. No drama, no revenge. No, with my luck, if I tried to get with any of them, let alone all three of them like my hussy of a dream self had, only bad shit would happen.

  I had a book to finish. No bad shit allowed.

  I got up to start the day, hopping in the shower real fast to try to wash off whatever had gotten into me last night. Yes, I’d whipped out those sex scenes yesterday like nobody’s business, but the rest of yesterday was not something I wanted to repeat, including that dream. No more sex dreams of my neighbors, thanks.

  As I was in the kitchen, looking to make myself some late breakfast, my doorbell rang. My suspicion was at a peak level because of yesterday and that dream, so I turned to stare toward the door, wanting to just let whoever it was walk off. Couldn’t be important, right?

  But then they rang the doorbell again.

  Stifling a groan, I went to the door to answer it, about to tell them off because I wasn’t in the mood for their shit, whoever the hell they were, b
ut I froze almost instantly. The one standing outside, bundled up in an old, worn jean jacket, was Brock—and unlike yesterday, he didn’t have any traces of paint on him.

  What the hell was I even wearing?

  Uh…I glanced down at myself. Apparently still my pajamas. I must’ve just gotten back into them after my shower, and the wind from the outside world only made goosebumps rise on my arms and my nipples to harden. Whoops.

  I crossed my arms, seeking to cover my nipples—which Brock’s dark gaze caught, I knew—demanding, “What do you want?”

  “Umm…” Brock couldn’t speak properly, it seemed. He had his hands in his jean pockets, looking so very out of place before me. Awkward, almost. Couldn’t blame him; he did get a nice view of my hard nips.

  “Whatever it is, spit it out,” I said. “I don’t have all day.” Well, technically I did, because I worked on my own time, but I did have a deadline. All this neighbor shit was not helping.

  Brock’s gaze moved to my bare feet. “I know we haven’t always gotten off on the right foot, and I’m sorry.” This was an apology visit? Oh-kay. Seemed a bit weird, but I’d go with it. “Ace caught his girlfriend cheating a few months back and…he hasn’t had a good go at life lately. He’s been drowning himself in his music ever since then.”

  Huh. So Ace had a girlfriend who cheated on him. Okay, I could feel for him. That was a terrible thing for anyone to go through, but it did not excuse him from being such a terrible neighbor.

  “And before you moved in, the other half of the duplex had been empty for almost a year,” Brock said.

  “A year?” I repeated. That didn’t sound right, especially since this place was dirt cheap.

  “Yeah, not a lot of people move into Silver Springs. A lot of weird things happen in this town, and I think most people just don’t want to deal with weird,” Brock said, shrugging. He was nearly a foot taller than me, and I had to crane my head back to look at him. “But, anyway, I just…I want you to know that he’s not being a dick on purpose.”