Double Team Read online

  I push him back, ignoring the yell of several of the camp counselors on the sidelines. “Did you screw her?” I growl.

  Aiden stumbles back a few feet, giving me a smug look. “Jealous?”

  I don’t wait for him to say anything else about Grace. I just rush him, knocking him to the ground hard.

  Grace is suddenly beside us, yelling loudly. “Noah and Aiden were just demonstrating a football play. Kids, take five. Or twenty. Counselors, can you find another activity to do? The players are going to practice and they’ll show you some plays later.” Before either of us can hit the other one, she squats down and glares at us, fire in her eyes. “Stand. The. Fuck. Up.”

  She punctuates each word with a sharp inhale of breath.

  Shit.

  I get up, adrenaline still coursing through my veins, but I don’t lay a hand on Aiden as he rises and wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist, looking more smug than before.

  “You should get your anger under control, Noah,” he taunts.

  “Wait until later,” I warn.

  “No,” Grace snaps. “The two of you jackasses are going to turn around and wave at the kids and pat each other on the back. Then you’re going to laugh and pretend like you didn’t just try to start a fucking fistfight in front of a bunch of children who see you as role models.”

  Chastised, we do exactly as she directs, grinning like a couple of idiots and clapping each other on the back for show. When I lean in to slap Aiden on the back – extra-hard – he grins broadly and fake-laughs, all the while glaring at me. “Sorry you didn’t make your move on Grace before I did.”

  I lean in to bro-hug him, a fake smile plastered onto my face. “Later, I’m going to kill you,” I reply, my voice equally pleasant. "Maybe in your sleep."

  “Enough,” Grace says harshly. “Turn around and walk back to the ranch house like you’re not five-year-olds who have to be told to keep their hands to themselves.”

  Both of us walk silently toward the house with Grace behind us. Yeah, of course, the mature part of me feels like an asshole for getting into a fight with Aiden in the middle of a touch football game. The rest of me thinks I should have slugged him when I had the chance.

  When we reach the front door, Grace turns to her security detail. “There’s probably going to be yelling. A lot of yelling.”

  One of the agents looks like she’s almost about to crack a smile. “Roger that, ma’am,” she says. “If we hear screaming, we won’t assume you’re in distress.”

  Grace opens the door and walks inside without saying a word, her stride brisk, and we follow her through the living room. Okay, apparently she doesn’t want to have a conversation in the living room where there are seats.

  Nope, she’s going for the kitchen. Where there are knives.

  Aiden must be thinking the same thing because he raises his eyebrows as he looks at me. “Why don’t we get a drink, maybe a little chocolate, and talk about this like adults in the living room?”

  “A drink?” Grace asks. I think her nostrils are flaring. “Chocolate?”

  “What?” Aiden asks, putting his hands up. “I thought maybe, you know, you might want some chocolate since you’re kind of upset right now…”

  “Oh, shit.” I hear myself say the words aloud. Even I’m not dumb enough to say what I think he’s about to say.

  “Chocolate,” Grace says flatly. “Because why, exactly?”

  Oh God. I stare at Aiden with my eyes wide, trying to telegraph to him not to say what I think he’s about to say. Don’t say it, man. Say anything else. Say you think she might like chocolate because she’s looking a little thin. Or because you heard chocolate was good for you. Do not remotely suggest that she might have PMS.

  “Uh…”

  When Grace turns to look at him, I mouth the words “she’s too thin” and point at Grace. Aiden squints as he looks at me, obviously confused.

  “Did I say chocolate?” he asks. “I meant chocolate… syrup?”

  Nice save. I give him a thumbs-up.

  Grace glares at us with her hands on her hips for what seems like an eternity. “You got into it in front of my campers. Kids who look up to you.”

  “That was unfortunate,” Aiden admits.

  Shit, man. He’s worse than I am at apologizing. I didn’t think that was even possible.

  “We’re sorry about the football game,” I say.

  “If it helps, I’m positive that the kids really believed we were just practicing plays,” Aiden chimes in.

  “No. That does not help.” Grace looks like she’s fuming. The problem is that when she’s fuming, she looks really hot. A couple of pieces of hair fall out of her ponytail and she pushes them furiously back in place, but they tumble down again, irritating her more. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s breathless as she looks back and forth between us.

  I think she might be really angry until she pauses for a second, pulling her lower lip between her teeth as she catches her breath. It’s the same thing she did before, when she and I collided in the hall and she looked at me like she wanted me.

  “You’ve been acting like complete… idiots these past few days! Stupid adolescent pranks? Getting into a fight at a charity camp?!”

  “To be fair, the stupid adolescent pranks have been going on for a while,” I say, my eyes on hers as I step closer to her. I don’t give a shit about how mad she is anymore. All I can think about is how much I want her clothes on the floor.

  She puts her hands on her hips again. “So the pranks have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the two of you have apparently decided that you need to act crazier and crazier because… I don’t know… you have some misguided notion that can impress me this way? Or you’re trying to actually drive me insane…?”

  “Maybe it’s the fact that you want us that’s driving you insane,” Aiden points out. He’s suddenly standing on the other side of her, just as close as I am to her but neither of us makes any kind of move on her. My eyes meet Aiden’s and something unspoken passes between us, a silent understanding that she’s either about to choose one of us, or… it's possible that she’s going to choose both.

  “Want you? Right now, I’m not even sure I like either of you!” Grace bursts, then pauses, inhaling deeply. “You are two of the most arrogant, juvenile, completely inappropriate men I’ve ever met. And you think that I’m going crazy because I’m lusting after you?!”

  “That’s right.” The words come out low in my throat, my own desire for this girl apparent even in my voice.

  “We think you’re lusting after both of us,” Aiden agrees, equally intense.

  Grace sucks in a deep breath, her hands going to each of our chests. She grips a fistful of our shirts, and I glance at Aiden, half-certain she’s about to push us way the hell away from her. Instead, she exhales heavily, closing her eyes. “Both of you,” she whispers. “And I can’t just… choose.”

  “Then don’t,” I say at the same time that Aiden says, “Okay.”

  22

  Grace

  “Okay.” I echo Aiden’s words, my voice a whisper because I’m not sure I actually heard either of them correctly. My hands are still there, paused as I grip Aiden and Noah’s shirts, unmoving because I’m terrified to do what I think I want to do next.

  I’m afraid of what it might mean.

  The President’s daughter does not have a threesome. She certainly does not have a threesome with two professional athletes. And she definitely does not have a threesome with two arrogant, frustrating, holy-crap-hot men in the middle of a kitchen during a charity camp while her two Secret Service agents are outside the house.

  “You don’t have to choose between us, because we both want you,” Noah growls.

  I inhale sharply, my palms unfurling before I even realize what I’m doing. Flattening my hands, I brush along their chests, my fingers exploring their muscular bodies over the thin fabric of their t-shirts.

  When I hear myself moan, it takes me