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"Shit, man, that sounds pretty fuckin' amazing," Canaan said.

  "It is, bro, it is." He laughed. "You know, I gotta admit, even as your brother, I can't tell you guys apart on the phone. I can tell a difference in your voices, but not which is which."

  Canaan and I both laughed. "Well, we are identical twins," I said, "so that's understandable."

  The girls emerged, then, both having changed into jeans and T-shirts, with hoodies draped over their arms, wearing sturdy, sensible shoes--bright red Pumas for Tate, bright yellow, blue, pink, and green Asics running shoes for Aerie.

  "We gotta go now, Bax," Canaan said. "Have fun and be careful out there, yeah?"

  "Sure thing. Say hi to the girls for me."

  The girls arrived at the tailgate at that moment, and Tate heard Bax's last statement. "Hey, Bax, it's Tate."

  "Tate, how are you, sweetheart?"

  "Glad to be back in Alaska," she responded.

  "Bet you thought you'd never say that, huh?"

  Tate laughed. "Honestly, I loved growing up here. I was pissed when Mom told us we were moving to Manhattan."

  "Weird, I couldn't wait to get out of there," Bax said. "Although now that I'm back living there, I love it. I just needed some time away to appreciate it more, you know?"

  "Bax, this is Aerie. Did you manage to stop Evangeline from marrying that asshole Thomas Haverton?"

  Evangeline answered that question. "Aerie Kingsley? This is Eva du Maurier. I understand I have you to thank for sending Bax my way and stopping that disaster."

  "Actually, babe, it was Corin," Bax said. "Aerie told him about the wedding announcement, and apparently I was kinda difficult to be around without you, so Cor took it upon himself to light a fire under my ass to get you."

  "Well, both of you, thank you," Eva said. "You honestly saved my life. If I'd gone through with the wedding..." she trailed off uncertainly. "I don't know what my life would look like."

  "I've only met the man once, but everyone I know who knows him at all says Thomas Haverton is a horrible human being," Aerie said.

  "Ugh, you have no idea," Eva said. "He's vile."

  "Well, I'm glad Bax showed up to stop you from marrying him, then," Aerie said.

  "Bax is...he's everything," Eva said, her voice tender.

  "Yeah, I'm all right," Bax joked.

  "Except when you're hungry, so eat your damn cheeseburger," Eva teased. "It was nice to sort of meet you, Aerie, and I assume Tate is there too? Corin, Canaan, hi guys."

  "We're all here," I said. "You guys have fun on your cross-country tour. We'll see you when you get here."

  After a bit more back-and-forth, the call ended.

  "It feels good to be wearing more casual clothes," Tate said. "I hope you don't mind."

  "Well, I mean, that romper was pretty fuckin' sexy," I said, "but jeans and a tee are probably a bit more practical."

  Aerie clapped her hands together. "So. What's the plan? Where are we going?"

  Canaan hopped off the tailgate and opened the driver's door. "It's a surprise."

  Aerie took the front passenger seat, which left Tate and me in the back. I opened the door for Tate and, for reasons I'm not quite sure of, I pinched Tate's ass, getting a nice thick fold of denim and flesh and squeezing hard enough that she'd feel it, but not hard enough to really make it sting.

  She shrieked in surprise, hopping into the truck, jabbing a finger into my face as I laughed. "Whoa, buddy, we are not there yet!" she snapped, but her eyes were twinkling and she seemed to be fighting a grin.

  "What'd he do?" Aerie asked.

  "Pinched my butt."

  Canaan cackled as he started the truck and headed for the North Tongass Highway. "Nice one, bro. Why didn't I think of that?"

  "Because I'm smarter than you, that's why," I said.

  Aerie shot Canaan a warning glare. "Don't you dare get any ideas, Cane. I'll punch you straight in that pretty mouth of yours."

  Tate laughed. "You sound like me, now, A," she said. "I must be a bad influence on you, inciting you to violence."

  "Especially over an innocent thing like a little butt pinch," I said.

  Tate snorted. "There was nothing innocent or little about that pinch, Cor." She shifted her weight so she could rub her butt where I pinched it. "It still stings a little."

  "Awwww, I'm sorry," I said, reaching over, my eyes on hers, sliding my hand between her butt and the bench to caress the spot I'd pinched. "I'll rub it all better."

  She quirked an eyebrow up, allowing me to rub her butt for a moment before lowering her weight to pin my hand. And then, without warning, she reached out and pinched my nipple, hard. "I can pinch too, you know."

  With one hand still pinned, I used the other to try to get a grip on her breast, but only managed to pinch her padded bra, before Tate knocked my hand away.

  "Damn!" I said, "Foiled by the bra."

  Tate leaned hard to one side, pinning my hand even more tightly between her butt and the bench--I could probably have yanked it out easily enough, but hey, my hand was touching her butt, so I didn't bother. It did leave me with only one useable hand though, and, as I discovered, Tate was strong. She grabbed my free wrist and wrestled my hand toward the roof of the truck, laughing breathlessly as I fought her grip, and then, with her other hand, she gave me a full-on titty-twister, hard enough that I shouted in pain.

  "Ha! Gotcha!" she yelled, excited. "Pinch me, will you? I don't think so, buster!"

  I cackled, enjoying this game immensely. "Oh-ho, is that the game we're playing? All I did was pinch your butt, T. You just escalated this into a titty-twister war, missy."

  I swiveled my wrist to break her grip, reversing positions so I had her wrist in my grip, now, yanking my hand out from underneath her ass. She fought me with everything she had, thrashing and trying to knee me, cackling and grunting in exertion as I tried to get her other wrist locked together in one hand. We ended up horizontal on the bench, both of us laughing, breathless, as I wrestled Tate into a helpless position, her wrists pinned over her head, her lush body beneath mine. I was fighting a hard-on, unsuccessfully, because now that she was pinned beneath me and laughing, writhing, her eyes on mine...I realized how insanely sexy she was, how crazy attracted to her I was. How badly I wanted...just her, everything she was.

  She was still fighting me, but not as hard as she could. Canaan and Aerie were watching and laughing, Canaan taking glances as he drove.

  "Come on, T!" Aerie encouraged. "You're not going to take that laying down, are you?"

  Tate and I both broke out into laughter, and Tate shot her sister a glance. "Poor choice of words, A!"

  Aerie covered her mouth to muffle her squeal of laughter, realizing the innuendo in her words.

  I reached with my now-free hand, slid it under Tate's shirt, cupped one of her breasts and then found her nipple and gave it a nice hard pinch, clamping down until Tate started writhing wildly and gasping, laughing, trying to squirm away.

  "Okay, okay, okay!" She gasped. "Let go! Let go!"

  I let go immediately, but not before rubbing my palm over her breast again. "Gotta rub it all better," I murmured, pitching my voice low.

  She sat up, pulling out of my reach, but slowly, not taking her eyes off of mine. "You suck," she mumbled.

  "Hey, you're the one who turned it into a titty-twister war," I said. "My little butt pinch was playful. You pinching my nipple actually hurt. You didn't think I'd let you get away with that, did you?"

  She shrugged. "No, but I didn't think you'd take it that far." She leaned close, putting her lips to my ear. "I have very, very sensitive nipples," she whispered. "Like, crazy sensitive."

  "Oh really?" I whispered back. "How sensitive?"

  "I almost had an orgasm from playing with them, once," she said, her voice so low I could barely hear her, meaning, only I could hear her.

  "Only almost?"

  "Yeah, I couldn't quite get all the way there," she said, staring into my eyes.

  "Chall
enge accepted," I said, hooking my pinky finger around hers in a ploy to see if she wanted to hold my hand.

  It felt weird, being so nervous and excited just to hold her hand, especially considering I'd just brazenly groped and pinched her breast, but that was wrestling and playful--hot and erotic, yes, but still more playful than anything. This, going for holding her hand, was an attempt to take things between us out of being playful and fun and into more...serious territory, you might say. Some people may call handholding a juvenile move, but there's something intensely personal and deeply thrilling about it, threading your fingers together. Her palm was cool and small against mine, and it felt great.

  "That wasn't meant to be a challenge," Tate murmured to me. "But...I wouldn't mind finding out what it's like."

  I'd forgotten where we were, that we weren't alone, until Aerie spoke up. "Damn, kids, you're not wasting any time, are you?"

  Tate sprang away from me, sliding across the bench to the opposite end of the truck. She didn't tear her eyes off of mine, though, and I saw speculation and desire and lust in those amber-green depths. She also, after a moment of silence, slid back to a more moderate distance from me, buckled her seatbelt, and left her hand on the bench between us, cutting her eyes to mine and then away.

  I took that as a signal, and buckled up too, and then casually slid my hand over hers.

  Tate twisted her head to watch the forest zipping past out the window, one hand over her mouth, which, I realized, was meant to hide her grin. A moment or two of my hand resting on top of hers, and then she twisted her palm upward and our fingers tangled, and my heart rate thundered through the roof.

  Don't think, though, that because I was so focused on Tate, I missed the fact that Canaan and Aerie were also holding hands, right there on the console between their seats, casually, as if it was nothing.

  It was a thing, though. A big thing.

  In the years we'd all known each other, growing up, the four of us rarely touched. Not even Canaan and I ever talked about it, but once we hit puberty, we just...never touched the girls, at all. We barely even hugged them, except on special occasions like birthdays. Our relationship was close, intensely close, sharing just about everything in our respective lives, talking about everything, doing everything together, but physical contact wasn't part of it.

  Maybe it was because, instinctively, we knew that touch would change everything.

  And, indeed, it had.

  A lot.

  5

  Tate

  * * *

  I wonder if Corin could tell how affected I was, right then? Could he tell how aroused I was? Did he know how close I'd come to an orgasm just from wrestling, from feeling him above me, from having his hand over my breast, from the sharp pinch to my nipple? When I told him I had crazy sensitive nipples, I wasn't kidding, and I was actually understating things a bit. That pinch he'd given me had actually hurt quite a lot, so much so that I was still stinging and aching; the pain of it was so darkly erotic that I was fighting the need to squirm, to press my thighs together. I was a live wire in a room full of dynamite just waiting for a single spark to make me explode. Even now, if Corin so much as brushed my breasts innocently, I'd probably start gasping. If he touched me between my thighs? I'd come. No doubt, no holding it back...I'd just come.

  What I hadn't told him was that while I'd never had an orgasm solely from nipple stimulation, it had played a major factor in several cases of having multiple orgasms. I think if he'd known that, he'd have tried to push me over the edge.

  The boys had been Aerie's and my best--and, really, only--true friends during middle school and high school, serving as our confidants. We'd told them everything, and they us. When Aerie and I had, separately but on the same night--at our sophomore prom--lost our virginity, the first people we'd told were the boys.

  And that same night, they'd lost theirs and they told us. It was truly odd, looking back, that all four of us had, without planning it, lost our virginity on the same day. I mean, I hadn't planned it. Obviously, Aerie and I had talked about the possibility, and talked about whether we were ready for that, and decided mutually that we were, but it wasn't planned, for either of us. When the dance ended and a big group of us had gone out for milkshakes and fries afterward, we'd all scattered in different directions with our dates, and things had happened. The next day we'd convened with Cor and Cane and unloaded our news, and they told us their news.

  After that, whenever anything new happened, dating someone new, sleeping with someone, we told each other. Often, I wouldn't even tell Aerie until we were together as a quartet. Of course, she always knew anyway because you can't really hide things like that from your twin--I just didn't tell her outright.

  My point is, the boys know Aerie and I are very sexual women, and we know the same to be true about them. I just...I never expected it to be this intense. When Corin turned those wild, hungry mocha eyes on me, I never expected his very presence to make my pulse race, never expected a simple touch, like holding hands, to make my skin burn and tingle. I never expected the rasp of his voice to make my thighs quake, and the erotic promise in his words to make my core throb.

  I've desired plenty of men in my life. Most of them, I've gotten. There was only one person I'd truly wanted and not gotten, and that was because although he'd been sexy--he had been a model--it turned out that he was a despicable person and that had put my desire for his body on ice. I've wanted and slept with models, actors, random guys at bars...all kinds of men, across the spectrum of sizes, ethnicities, and occupations.

  I'd never felt this kind of need before, the need I felt for Corin in this moment.

  I need him to touch me again. I need to feel his hands on my skin. I need to feel his mouth on mine. His tongue. I need to hear his words, hear him encouraging me to come, making promises, thrilling me with dark and dirty words. I need to feel him above me, beneath me, inside me.

  Fuck, fuck...fuck, I need him.

  It was so sudden, so intense, and I didn't know what to do with it. Where did this come from, and how could I stifle these feelings? I wanted him so bad my vagina was actively aching, the dampness of need making me slippery and hot. I crossed my legs, one thigh over the other, and tried to surreptitiously press my thighs together to alleviate the ache. It didn't really help. If anything, it only made it worse. So I tried rubbing my thighs together while pressing, and that sort of helped, but the friction and pressure only served to intensify the throb of arousal.

  My nipples were sharp, hard points inside my bra, painfully hard. My stomach was doing flips, and my pulse was rabbit-fast.

  I glanced at Corin; he was fighting a similar battle, I realized. He was studiously not looking at me, and he was rubbing one thigh against the other as if trying to shift his package inside his jeans, trying to get a painfully hard cock to unbend against his zipper, all without actually touching himself. He was breathing deeply, sucking in huge lungfuls and holding the breath, and then letting it out slowly, and his empty hand, the one not holding mine, was flexing, opening and closing compulsively.

  He glanced at me, caught me staring at the huge bulge of his tented zipper, and then his eyes went my breasts, and he saw my nipples poking out through the bra and T-shirt, and he saw my thighs rubbing together.

  His eyelids lowered, hooding his gaze, and a knowing smirk curved his lips. His hand squeezed mine, and he intentionally flexed his hips. I returned the gesture, not taking my eyes off of him, flexing my hips in a teasing, sexual gesture.

  He let out a sharp breath, wincing as he shifted yet again, trying to alleviate the pressure in his jeans.

  In front of us, Aerie and Canaan were exchanging similarly heated glances, their hands still tangled, thumbs rubbing. Aerie was flushed, I could see, and--like me, she has super sensitive nips--she would be rocking serious double headlights right now, I'd bet any money.

  Making sure their attention as on each other and not on us, I leaned over to Corin and brushed my lips against his
ear. "Just reach in and fix it, Cor," I breathed. "I promise I won't mind."

  He leaned back against the bench, lifting his hips slightly, and shoved his hand into his pants, his eyes on mine as he adjusted himself. When he withdrew his hand, there was still a noticeable bulge behind his zipper, but now it was a long, thick, prominent ridge.

  "If we were alone, I might have fixed that for you," I whispered to him.

  "If we were alone, that's not all that would happen," he answered, his gaze going to my chest. "Looks like you might need some help fixing things, too."

  "You have no idea, Cor," I breathed.

  "Are you aroused, Tate?" he asked, pressing his mouth to my ear so he could murmur it so quietly I had to strain to hear him.

  "So much," I answered.

  "How much?"

  I rubbed my thighs together. "So bad it hurts."

  "I don't want you to hurt, Tate."

  "You could make it feel all better, I bet."

  His eyes flashed. "I could make you feel so good, you don't even know."

  "I can imagine."

  He shook his head, grinning. "No, Tate. I don't think you really can," he murmured.

  "Challenge accepted," I said, grinning mischievously." I cut my eyes to his obvious and enormous erection, barely contained by his jeans. "That looks pretty painful," I whispered.

  "You have no idea."

  "I could make you feel so good," I said, echoing his words from moments ago, "you don't even know."

  He laughed. "God, Tate, you're killing me, here."

  "Same."

  He leaned his head against the seat and twisted to gaze at me. "Shit, Tate. What I wouldn't give for twenty minutes alone with you."

  "We'll get it, Cor," I said, touching my forehead to his.

  "Promise?"

  I smiled. "That's about the only thing I can promise, is that we'll get time alone, and soon."

  "Thank fuck, because I'm going crazy over here."

  I huffed a laugh. "God, me too." I winked at him. "But Corin, why only twenty minutes?"

  He licked his lower lip, flicking his tongue ring against his lip ring, a move that was somehow so erotic to me that I barely suppressed an audible moan, settling instead for a short, sharp sigh. "Because, Tate, twenty minutes is the very minimum amount of time I'd need to make you feel everything I want to make you feel."