Double Team

  Smarmy bastard. I could slap the shit out of him right now. "Charity is important to us," I say before I can stop myself, sounding almost as transparent as Aiden.

  "I see," she says. Her cheeks flush pink again. "Well. I don't want to doubt your generosity, but…" Her voice trails off and she takes a deep breath. "I don't want you coming to the camp because you have some kind of ulterior motive."

  "Ulterior motive?" Aiden's face is choirboy innocent.

  Grace's face reddens again. "Since, I mean…" She exhales heavily. "Both of you have said – or done - some things that aren't exactly… professional, and this camp would be a purely professional setting."

  The thought of what Aiden might have said to Grace that's less than professional makes me want to explode. "So we'd need to behave appropriately," I say for Aiden's benefit more than anyone else's.

  A look of relief washes over Grace's face. "Yes. Exactly. And I think we're all professionals here."

  "I think some of us are professionals," I agree.

  Part of me is wondering what the hell I'm doing here. A week ago, I was donating my ranch for the summer so a bunch of kids and camp counselors could run around and ride horses and make s'mores. That was as personal as it was going to get. Hell, giving up my summer getaway was charitable enough. Now, I'm standing here agreeing to two weeks of businesslike behavior with the hottest woman I've ever seen and the best friend who's determined to cock-block me.

  "Oh, I can definitely behave professionally," Aiden assents – though his words sound anything but.

  Grace looks doubtful. "It's a children's summer camp, so no, um –"

  "Nakedness?" Aiden asks.

  "Oh God," Grace breathes. I have the sudden image of her, underneath me and breathing the phrase in the exact same way. Fuck, I just agreed to two weeks of professional behavior when this woman can utter a single phrase and have me rock hard. "I'm sure we can all agree that the blow-up dolls and the um… nakedness… are not appropriate?"

  "I'm not sure Aiden is capable of keeping his clothes on for two weeks," I note.

  Grace blinks. "Yes. Um, you can't really take your clothes off –"

  "I'll agree to keep my shirt on, as long as Noah stops ripping your dress off."

  Grace's hand flies to her mouth. Is it my imagination that the breath she lets out might betray her sexual frustration? I can barely suppress the growl that rises in my throat. I'm definitely not making any promises when it comes to not tearing this girl's clothes right off her body.

  "There's no reason for anything unprofessional to happen," Grace says, her voice trembling. "We're adults. Professional adults. There's no need for anyone's clothing to come off, right?"

  She laughs nervously.

  That laugh. It's warm and awkward and makes her more likeable than she was before. Oh, hell. Getting her clothes off is absolutely the only thing I want.

  When I look up, Aiden grins at me. Screw professional behavior. May the best man win - and there's no fucking way that's going to be Aiden Jackson.

  14

  Grace

  "Um, yes. I just need a few minutes before the meeting, please?" My words are coming out rushed, like I've just downed four shots of espresso, and I can't seem to make them slow down so I sound like a halfway normal person. Is Janice looking at me weird? She's totally looking at me weird.

  "Are you okay, ma'am?" Janice asks, her brow furrowing. "You look a little flushed. I heard there's something going around. I can get you some Vitamin C if you'd like. Or maybe a cup of tea?"

  "Okay. I'm okay. I'm totally fine. I think it's allergies. It must be allergies. I just need a minute. Sixty seconds. A few minutes, maybe." I turn around and dart back into my office before she can say anything else, closing and locking the door behind me before collapsing back against it.

  “Oh my God.” I hear myself breathe the words aloud. They sound like they're coming out of someone else's mouth, throaty and hoarse.

  I stand there, my back against the door, my chest heaving. Every cell in my body seems like it's on high alert, every inch of me so turned on that I don't think it's possible for me to catch my breath. My arms are dotted with goose pimples, my nipples hard inside my bra.

  I don't even think about what I do next before I do it. I yank the sides of my skirt up over my hips, completely disregarding the nagging little voice inside my head that asks me what the hell I'm about to do right now in my office, when Janice and Secret Service agents are right outside and I'm already late for a meeting.

  I practically stumble as I walk to my desk, drunk with lust, my palm landing flat on a pile of papers that slips forward, sending pages scattering to the floor on the other side. Normally, I would care about the fact that I just sent what are probably important documents hurtling to the ground. Of course, normally I would have better control of myself. Normally, I wouldn't be so consumed with lust for two men – two men! – that I yank my panties down over my hips in the middle of my office.

  It's just that Aiden – lighthearted Aiden with his inappropriate humor and playful charm - showed up at my office offering to attend the summer camp, looking like he was daring me to object as his eyes drank in every inch of me. And Noah – brooding, gruff, intense Noah – stood so close to me that if he wanted, he could have pulled me against him and finished what he started that one night.

  And Heaven help me, that's exactly what I wanted him to do.

  My panties around my thighs, I reach between my legs, stifling the moan that threatens to escape my lips as my fingertips press against my clit. I imagine Aiden giving me that cocky, sure-of-himself grin as he looks up from between my legs, before his mouth returns to its work. I rub circles around my clit, my movements frantic not just because I'm in a totally inappropriate place to be touching myself but because I'm already nearly driven to the edge by how badly I want Aiden.

  I want to feel his tongue inside me, to collapse as he brings me to orgasm, his mouth pressed between my thighs. I want to run my hands over his muscled chest, down his chiseled abs, to wrap my fingers around his hard cock and guide it into my mouth. I practically salivate thinking about the taste of his pre-cum as it touches my tongue and the way his hard cock feels between my lips.

  And then there's Noah…

  With one hand firmly on the desk, I bend forward, biting down hard on my lip as I thrust two fingers inside my slick pussy. I imagine Noah letting out a low growl under his breath as he grasps my ass cheek with his hand, his other hand guiding the tip of his cock to my wet entrance. I picture him thrusting inside me, his dick filling me up in one swift movement, the head of his cock pressing on the spot that sends arousal coursing through me in waves.

  Bent over with my skirt bunched up around my hips and my panties halfway down my thighs, I fuck myself with my fingers, gathering momentum as I picture myself being filled up by Noah at the same time that my lips are wrapped around Aiden's cock. When I imagine them coming inside me – Noah letting go as he thrusts his cock deeper and deeper into my wet pussy, Aiden's hands in my hair as he fucks my mouth – I crash over the edge. My orgasm overtakes me, leaving me standing there taking short erratic breaths.

  My office phone rings as I'm standing there with my fingers inside me, trying desperately to compose myself. With my free hand, I press the speaker button. "Yes?"

  I recognize the voice of one of the White House operators on the other line. "Please hold for the President of the United States."

  Fuck. I barely have time to slip my fingers from between my legs and compose myself before my father is on the line. "Yes, Dad?"

  My heart still races, pounding so hard it threatens to beat out of my chest. I can feel how flushed my face has become, and I struggle to sound normal when I've just been interrupted in the most disheveled, completely undone state I've ever been in.

  Once upon a time, I thought I could have a normal life in Denver, far removed from Washington, D.C. politics and my parents' careers. What a joke. Normal people don't get ph
one calls from the President when they're masturbating.

  "I don’t know what's gotten into you, but I love the new Grace. I wish I were there to see it in person."

  "There's no ‘New Grace’, Vi," I protest into the phone, flipping a page of the newspaper even though I've read nothing on it. The words are a blur, the large block print of the headlines melting together to become undecipherable. My evening routine involves reading several newspapers – it's old-fashioned, given that all of the news is online now, but I like it – except that tonight I've been staring at the same newspaper for an hour without seeing a single word on the pages.

  "Are you sure about that?" Vi asks.

  Am I sure? Hell, no.

  I agreed to spend two weeks on a ranch with two of the hottest, most available professional athletes in the world, one of whom I've seen nearly naked and the other of whom has had his hands on my breasts. I've now had too many fantasies about both of them fucking me – at the same time – to be in any way normal, and the other day I had to shut my office door behind me to masturbate thirty seconds after they left because I couldn't contain myself.

  I don't even know where the hell Old Grace – the girl who has been functioning just fine on a diet of all work and no sex – is right now. New Grace seems to have taken over my body.

  "Totally sure," I lie.

  "Because it seems to me that New Grace could be a bit of a ho," Vi jokes.

  "I am not!" I protest, trying to suppress the image that flashes into my head of me bent over my desk, finger-fucking myself to the thought of Aiden and Noah both taking me. "I only agreed to this because it's a good idea for the charity. Two professional athletes at the camp will be great for the kids. They're going to love it."

  "Right. This has nothing to do with having the hots for those professional athletes."

  "Okay," I admit, my voice faltering. "This thing on the ranch might be the worst idea ever. What's gotten into me?"

  Vi snorts. "Well, it's obvious what you'd like to get into you..."

  "I don't want either of them getting into me, thank you very much. They're – completely inappropriate. Aiden flew a blow-up doll over my house because he wanted to get my attention!"

  "It worked, didn't it? I mean, he already grabbed your attention pretty well when he answered the door naked, let's be honest."

  "Sure, Aiden is attractive. Obviously. He's all ripped and tattooed and he definitely has a bad boy thing going, but –"

  "So does Noah," Vi points out.

  "Noah is different." Noah isn't over-the-top the way Aiden is, the one who's clearly used to women throwing themselves at him. He's quieter than Aiden, more intense. When I think about the way he looked at me that night of the event, like he wanted to consume me, it makes me wet. I clear my throat. "Neither of them is a good choice. They're both about as far from appropriate as you can get."

  "Are you trying to convince me or yourself?" Vi asks. "Because I'm not the one who conveniently arranged to have a private two week getaway in the middle of nowhere with two of the most eligible bachelors in professional football."

  "I did not ‘arrange for a getaway’," I state firmly. "This is a charity camp, and I do it every year for the first set of campers, thank you very much. I didn't start doing the camp because Aiden Jackson and Noah Ashby showed up to volunteer their time." I'm suddenly very defensive, my words spilling out more and more rapidly.

  Vi laughs. "Whoa, girl. Slow down. I didn't say you started doing the camp because two hot-ass football players showed up."

  I swallow hard. "Obviously. Because that's clearly not what's going on here."

  "I just said that you arranged for two of the most eligible professional athletes to be alone with you while chopping wood shirtless and building fires and –"

  "Do you have any idea what we do at the camp?"

  "Well, right now I'm picturing Noah Ashby and Aiden Jackson shirtless and sweaty."

  Great. Now I can't help but picture Noah and Aiden shirtless. Apparently I pause for longer than I think, because Vi laughs. "Clearly you are, too," she observes.

  "The summer camp isn't going to be a problem," I declare, more for my benefit than for hers.

  "Keep telling yourself that, Grace."

  15

  Aiden

  "Oh my Lord," Mama Ashby says, her hand flying to her mouth.

  She stands in the middle of the living room in the same tiny split-level house she and her husband Paul have lived in for the past forty years. Noah periodically tries to buy them a new house, but they refuse every time. Bess Ashby jokingly accuses him of trying to get them to settle in a retirement village full of old people, “and we're not old!"

  "Do you like it?" Annie pauses just inside the living room.

  "Where did half of your hair go? And did you fall into a vat of fruit punch?" Bess wipes her flour-covered hands across the front of her apron, giving Annie a half-amused, half-appalled glare.

  Annie grins, pleased with herself for eliciting the reaction from Bess, practically running across the room and dodging four yippy Jack Russell terriers to throw her arms around the woman. "It's cute, right?" she asks, her hand going to her head.

  I roll my eyes. "Cute isn't exactly the word I'd use."

  "Shut up, Aiden. You're so old, how would you know what's hot right now? I like it and my friends like it.” Annie sticks her tongue out at me.

  “Super mature, Banannie.”

  "It's very…pink," Mama Ashby observes, looking at me from across the room, her eyebrows raised. I give her a what-can-you-do gesture, then return to surfing the internet on my phone. Noah sits on the other side of the room, half-sprawled across the sofa because that's about all of him that can fit on the furniture, pointedly ignoring me. Ever since the whole Grace Sullivan thing, he's been cranky as hell.

  "Thanks! I figured I'd try something different."

  "I need a change, too," Bess says, laughing. "Should I go pink?" She pats her greying hair, pulled back into a bun on the top of her head.

  "Definitely," Annie says. "Paul would love it. He's cool. He has tattoos and works at a garage. You could rock the pink hair, Bess."

  Bess laughs warmly. "Those tattoos are from his Navy days back when he was eighteen years old. Can you imagine? I'd be the only one at the Thursday night bridge game with pink hair."

  Annie wanders over to the kitchen counter and picks through baked goods. "Did you make raisin bread for me?"

  "Of course I did," Mama Ashby says, "Five loaves. Just in case your brother and Noah want a little light snack."

  "Light snack," Annie scoffs. "You need to watch your weight, big brother."

  "Whatever. I'm in my prime."

  Even if I were watching my weight, I'd throw that right out the window with Mama Ashby's cooking in play. She's always been of the belief that family dinners and a good dessert could solve most any problem, which is why come hell or high water, Noah, Annie and I are required to come back to West Bend for monthly dinners. I missed last month – the first time in a year – and got an earful from Bess.

  "You know I made apple pie for after dinner," Bess calls from the kitchen.

  "Did Aiden tell you what he did for my birthday?" Annie asks. She leans back against the counter, biting into a piece of raisin bread.

  "Are you going to just eat that right in front of me?" I yell. "Why don't you get me some while you're up?"

  "You're so lazy, Aiden," she calls back. "Get up and make a piece of toast yourself."

  "Just toss the rest of the loaf of bread at me. You know I'm going to eat it anyway."

  "Were you raised in a barn, Aiden Jackson?" Bess stands with her hands on her hips, her expression stern but her eyes twinkling,