"Well, as the great philosopher—my mother—often reminds me," Devon replied with a devilish grin, "'A closed mouth don't get fed.' All you had to do was ask, Lexie."

Vic and I hadn't even made it two steps into the stateroom before my old flame had blurted out to my crush the most interesting details of our one-on-one bonding session. Taking in Devon's intrigued look, I wasn't upset at the confession. In fact, the heated stare that sparked between Dev and Vic made it obvious the three of us were on the same page. Fortune teller be damned. The lurid fantasies chasing my indecision around in my head had finally won this marathon.

Dusk muted the colors of the room. In a fit of daring, I threw open the curtains to allow the evening stars to witness what was about to happen. A wash of pale white moonlight illuminated our faces (and fears) as we undressed in the budding silence. Nudity couldn't come fast enough. At the same time, I calculated the risks being taken.

We had nine days. In little more than a week and a half, the three of us planned to return to our regimented lives. However, tonight would draw a line in the sand, and there would be a distinct Before and After, which only the three of us knew.

"Are you both sure, you're sure?" Vic asked for the umpteenth time.

I blew out a breath and crossed my arms, mildly self-conscious in the buff. "I'm certain an opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime. Look, I may be terrible at making decisions, but I want to live, damn it. You both know that when I get home, my parents have the rest of my life planned out for me."

"Yeah, well, mine don't," Vic pointed out. They paced to the other side of the room. "After this, I can't be a slave to what other people want for me. I'm taking control of my own destiny."

"So, what I'm hearing is that you both have mommy and daddy issues," Devon joked.

"Tuh! Like you don't?" I smiled to soften the words.

Devon quirked a brow and nodded good-naturedly. "Touché, but I think the three of us are in agreement that we can't fake a relationship properly as long as this chemistry keeps getting in the way. I say we give it a shot. If we like it . . . we enjoy this forbidden fruit while it lasts. Long as nobody gets caught up in emotions, we'll be fine. I mean, once we're onshore, life will work itself out, especially if we win the money."

"Exactly," I replied. "No one has to know, and we never bring it up again. Are we doing this?"

Vic and Devon shared another loaded stare.

As much as I wanted to play innocent, desire prickled my skin, a fine web of yearning. My heart raced. Oh gawd. I didn't know which one to reach for first. To my right, Devon was a masterpiece of muscular landscape and chiseled athleticism. Backlit by the moon, his smooth brown skin took on the blue shadows of a secret. Like a passage written in code in my diary. Or like masturbating to his pictures. Meanwhile, Vic unspooled the mystery of their biological sex, but there wasn't a doubt that the flawless being standing to my left was more than the sum of their parts.

It had been years. For three years, Vic had tormented my wettest dreams, unbidden. I had never forgotten our one-night stand, no matter how many times I chanted I'm straight at my reflection in the mirror. What was unfolding in the here and now felt like it had been a long time coming . . . and it was quite a bit overwhelming.

This time it was Vic who broke the tension and dragged me to the lavish bed. A sound—half-sigh/half-guttural-groan—swelled in my throat as their kiss sucked the nostalgia from my bones. A twist of arousal strong enough to leave me weak shuddered through every inch of me. With eyes squeezed tightly, I clutched the nape of Vic's neck and wrapped my legs around their thrusting hips to squeeze them flush against my body.

There it was. That throbbing ache that could dismantle a lifetime of ladylike behavior. During my freshman year, Vic had stretched me in the backseat of a car, a position I wouldn't have been caught dead in with anybody else. All it had taken was a wicked kiss on the dancefloor. But why, why, why did this person have such an effect on me?

Vic kneaded my breasts while Devon simply stood back and watched. I saw him in my periphery as my lashes fluttered in response to Vic's skilled mouth gliding from my lips to my jawline. Teeth and tongue flurried nip by lick over my burning skin. Each placement made me flinch with bliss. The luxe duvet shifted and slid beneath me as I writhed. My exquisite torturer squeezed my nipples with just enough pressure to make them ache in the best way imaginable. I wanted to explode.

It felt like, inside of me, gravity reversed, and the polarity shift called forth a wildness I couldn't anchor down. So, I slid a questing hand between our bodies to touch myself, to touch them. I couldn't resist. I caressed Vic's sex with the silky wetness clinging to my fingertips.

"Damn, Lexie," they gasped.

"Right there?" I explored their erogenous zones with increasing urgency.

Nodding, Vic bit their bottom lip and then dropped that same hot mouth over the peak of my breast. I tried to dam the overflow of my libido. Yet, my self-control was not up to the job.

"Got room for me?" Devon's lust-rasped voice cut into the fray.

And then there were three. Three curious bodies in the bed. Dev eased beside us, his welcome weight on the mattress distracting me from the heights of ecstasy long enough for me to catch my breath. Vic shifted to the other side of me to give him access. I vaguely wondered how this should be done. Never adventurous enough to try multiple partners at once, I had no idea how to proceed.

Regardless, Vic's expert adoration of my breasts erased coherent thought. Devon clasped my face to draw my lips to his. The firestorm of a kiss we had shared for "pretendsies" in the hall the other day came to mind, but this was something else. The promise of completion breached my inner recesses along with his tongue. It occurred to me that none of us had to figure out the particulars.

I laid back, languidly enjoying the newness of being worked over by two individuals who simply wanted to please me.

"You know . . ." Devon breathed into my ear as his slick tongue outlined my earlobe.

I shivered, giggling. "What?"

"You're like a drug," he said.

"Mmph," Vic hummed.

More laughter bubbled free but turned into a moan as Devon boldly placed my hand on his corded manhood. My manicured fingers weren't long enough to encircle him entirely, which garnered an impressed eyebrow raise from me. Like the rest of him, his erection was godly. Excitement mounted as I slowly swirled my wrist up and down, stroking him until his chest heaved. He murmured my name and plundered my mouth with another hungry kiss.

They thought I was the drug, but the two of them were my favorite vices. I had lived such a sexually frustrated life, getting by on romance novels and a vivid imagination. Neither of them knew how many times they had featured in my fantasies.

With eyes shut, floating on a cloud of rapture, someone took up where I left off touching myself. In and out, a finger penetrated me. The pulsing ache in my clit begged for more direct attention, however. I blindly reached for Vic. Guiding them by a fistful of their beautiful hair, the curves of my body undulated to meet their lips. Vic's nose skimmed over my ribcage, exhaled into the concave of my stomach, buried itself in the Brazilian strip of pubic hair.

The initial sweep of their tongue made me tremble. Carnal hips slanted forward to place my pelvis exactly where it needed to be for maximum access. The soft prayer of Vic's cunnilingus worshipped the goddess in me, and my body blessed them with a holy water baptism.

At the same time, Devon took advantage of the way my hands involuntarily clenched and unclenched in mindless pleasure. A warm drizzle of saliva on my fingertips kicked things up a notch as I went back to touching him. I tried to keep apace even though it felt like I was devolving into a pool of lust. More like my body was molten lava. A part of me knew I was breaking new ground, and when this was all over, I wouldn't be the same person.

Fresh wantonness scrubbed the fear of what my parents would think right from my mind. I didn't care. Nothing mattered but the next nine days of more of this. But would that be remotely enough for me?

"I knew it would be like this." Devon's grunt of satisfaction rumbled against my neck.

"Oh? Did you read my diary?" I grinned as I fondled the bulbous tip and meaty shaft of his tumescence, feeling the blood pound through his veins. If his tremulous reaction was any indication, I was hitting all the right spots. Of course, I knew I was ushering him closer to completion.

The tiny devil on my shoulder whispered in my head, You won't be the only person arriving way too soon tonight.

Because Vic's concentrated efforts on my most sensitive point had me at the edge of oblivion.

I tossed my head as I arched off the bed, and my legs quivered. "Wait, wait, wait," I gasped.

Only, the mewling sounds coming from my vocal cords didn't sound like me. The airy moans were much too steamy for the girl who had grown up sheltered in the suburbs. Vic lifted their head to lock eyes with me. In the depths of their gaze, I saw what they were thinking and realized I only sounded foreign to my own ears. We had done this before, and no one else had gotten such a response from me except Vic.

"You okay?" they asked. "You want me to stop?"

Damn. Consent was sexy as hell.

Smiling, I shook my head as my free hand nestled in the luscious cascade of black hair that fanned my upper thighs. I held onto the crown of Vic's head. I pushed them back to the source, remembering the same way they remembered, and riding their mouth like a surfer in search of a familiar wipeout. The rolling oscillation of my womanhood forwards and back chased the flick of their tongue in a rhythmic dance.

I hardly noticed Devon repositioning closer. Hardly felt his fingers lace with mine in Vic's satiny hair, guiding the movements. His deep voice murmured sultry encouragement that added to the orchestra of moans, heavy breathing, and the tell-tale music of oral sex.

"I want to feel you," he whispered.

I didn't know whether the directive was meant for me or Vic. Either way, I couldn't think straight. I felt it coming. The orgasm didn't strike like lightning. It built. It bunched in my lower stomach. It tightened my pelvic floor and gathered in the mound of my sex. It followed the suck and swirl of Vic's relentless mouth until the primal pleasure could no longer be contained. I ceased the disjointed hand-job I was giving Devon and let myself lose control. Suddenly, my pounding heartbeat slowed, deepened, skipped beats.

Just as the magic happened, Devon nudged Vic aside and plunged into me.

"Oh my fucking God!" I wailed in release.

The rush of orgasmic pleasure blunted the sting of losing my virginity, but I guess that didn't stop Devon from realizing too late that he was the first man to enter me.

"Alexis." He breathed my name as he reigned in the need written all over his face.

"Don't stop," I begged.

With a rough growl of frustration, he pushed deeper, and I clung to his shoulders. His thrusts were nothing like I could have expected. More surges of ecstasy flooded every nerve ending. My hands slid over his broad, muscular back as he rocked as gently but firmly as he could. I felt him holding steady so that he wouldn't hurt me, but there was no caging the beast of desire that our intercourse had awakened within him.

Devon wrapped his arms around my thighs to drag me closer as he rose on his knees, staring down at me. His burning gaze bore into mine. "You could've told me."

"How?" I inhaled sharply through my teeth. I felt another wave coming. Everything was happening so quickly. I didn't know what to focus on. I just wanted the pleasure to keep going. "Harder," I gasped. Devon looked surprised but chuckled in a hoarse, turned-on voice. He promptly did as he was told.

Meanwhile, Vic had disappeared somewhere in the room, and I heard the rustle of a zipper unfastening. Moments later, they returned with something in hand. Then I felt the electric zap of a vibrator come to life against my clit. The well-timed introduction of fireworks added to the canon blast of Devon's erection hammering some erotic point within my anatomy that made my entire body sing.

Dev jerked away from me with a groan, his spasming manhood finding Vic's waiting mouth. My eyes widened—both from what I was watching and what was happening to me. To the sound of Devon pounding out an orgasm all over Vic's face, I came. Harder.