Maddy Collated: The Complete Trilogy (12 page)

A flat, nondescript box sat inside the package. It was pink and shiny. Reaching down,
Maddy
opened it, then gasped and felt a blush thunder up her throat and over her cheeks.

Inside
lay
a beautiful red silk brocade and black lace corset. A tiny red silk g-string and black stockings accompanied it.

Next to her, Sandy squeaked. "Oh, wow. He has got it bad!" And she reached over and lifted the corset out.

Maddy
wanted to crawl under the table. No one, but no one, had ever bought her sexy underwear. All her sexy underwear was currently too small and had been purchased when she was just out of college and trying to live the dream of the big girl on her own. She'd thought that sexy underwear would give her confidence. And it did.
For about an hour.
Then it was constricting, hot, and far too often rode up in the wrong places just when she needed it not to. Granted, her non-sexy underwear did that, too, but at least it was cotton. Cotton breathed. Sexy underwear... usually didn't.

Around the table everyone exclaimed over the corset. "Your mob stalker has good taste," Melissa said.

"She doesn't have a mob stalker," Janet said. "Stop saying that. It's creepy."

"But who else has this kind of money?"

"Maybe a really nice rich guy who thinks I'm his one and only?"
Maddy
ventured.

The laughter that burst out at that was just a little too loud and lasted just a little too long. As if none of them could envision a really nice rich guy who thought
Maddy
would be sexy.

The only one who wasn't laughing was Sandy. She was, instead, giving
Maddy
a very calculating look, one that was almost worse than the laughter. "What?"
Maddy
mouthed at her.

Sandy shook her head. "Nothing," she mouthed back. But when they got back to the office, Sandy didn't speak to her for the rest of the day.

Maddy
sat at her desk, entering sales figures into the new system in misery. She knew what Sandy was thinking. She was wondering what it was that Sam—because Sandy was the one who had guessed Sam was
Maddy's
secret beau—what Sam saw in her. She was sizing
Maddy
up and finding her more than ample. She was evaluating her own perfect body and finding it just right. She was wondering how she could worm her way between
Maddy
and Sam.

It was a paranoid thought. But it had happened before. Other women thought she was easy to shove aside, and the worst thing was that, to most of the guys she'd dated, she was.

Maddy
sat in her chair and felt the seat digging into the flesh of her thighs. Her back, soft and rolled, pressed against the back rest, and when she took a sip of water from her bottle, a drop of condensation on the bottom splashed against her breasts instead of falling into her lap, where it would have gone if she were thin.

The whole thing was making her feel like shit, which,
Maddy
was pretty sure, was not Sam's—or Chet's—intention. But she couldn't help how she felt.

These gifts were for a lover. And she had no idea what she was to either Sam or Chet. Chet had told her that Sam was really into her, but she had done her best to bring the two of them together, and Sam had explicitly agreed to give that a shot. Were all these gifts an indication that the transition from best friends to lovers had failed? Was Sam trying to woo her? Or was it Chet? Chet had expressed an interest in her, too.

Though, to be honest,
Maddy
had no idea why either of them would be interested in her. They could have any women in the world. What was it that made her special?
Aside from her quick wit and charm, of course.
It wasn't like women willing to be in threesomes with two hot billionaires were in short supply.

Was that it? Did they just want a woman to go in with them again and they knew she would? The thought was insulting.

When five o'clock rolled around,
Maddy
decided to call it quits. She was exhausted and
 
she'd
only managed to get through one file during the whole week. It was just too much. If Rick really needed those new sales numbers in the system by Monday morning, he could do it himself. Her wrists ached, her eyes hurt, and there was a knot the size of a baseball in her shoulder.

For Friday.

The notes had indicated that the clothes were for today. But there hadn't been a time on them. And
Maddy
had had enough of guessing.

Standing up,
Maddy
gathered her things and headed toward the elevator. She felt the eyes of every woman in the office on her the whole way there. She was going to have to come up with some kind of story to tell them all on Monday.

If she had been on a TV show or in a romantic comedy, the doors would have opened to reveal both Sam and Chet.
Maybe making out.
But instead she found only a cluster of upper-management
douchebags
when the doors hissed.

Maddy
went home.

*

At seven thirty someone knocked on her door.

Maddy
, sitting on the couch wrapped in an afghan, grumbled. Hauling herself to her feet she tottered to the door, her tired eyes throwing her off balance. Peering out the peephole, she saw just what she expected to see.

With a sigh, she opened the door.

On her doorstep stood Sam and Chet, dressed to the nines. If anything, they were even hotter now that she'd experienced what they had to offer than they were when she first met them. She knew, for instance, that Sam had a light dusting of the same sandy-colored hair leading from his navel down to his cock, and that Chet had a little mole on hip. She knew Sam was prone to laughing so hard he wheezed, and that Chet only stopped glowering when he was fucking.

She also knew that right now they were a giant pain in her ass.

"What do you want?" she asked.

In tandem, they raised their eyebrows. It would have been funny if she weren't so tired.

"We're here to pick you up," Sam said after a moment. "Are you... you aren't dressed, are you?" He frowned at the afghan
Maddy
had wrapped around herself like a cocoon.

"I
am
dressed," she snapped at him
,
then let the
afhgan
slip from her shoulders to reveal an oversized t-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms.

"No, you aren't," Chet said. His customary sexy glower had taken on a confused air.

"I'm dressed in pajamas,"
Maddy
told him. "That's what you meant, right?"

Sam waved a hand. "And you look divine," he said. "But where are the shoes?
And the dress?
And the handbag?
Did you not get our presents?"

Ah, so the presents had been from the both of them. They were trying to bribe her into another threesome.

Well, it wasn't going to work. She wasn't the sort of girl who gave it up for expensive presents or money or whatever. No, she gave it up for free. They only had to ask.

"I got them,"
Maddy
said. "I sold them on
Ebay
."

Chet looked faint, and
Maddy
felt a flash of guilt. "I'm just kidding," she said. "But what do you want me to do with them?"

Sam appeared to search for the correct words. "...Wear...them?" he hazarded.

"We were hoping to take you out on a date," Chet cut in, recovering well. "Did you not get the card?"

"Yeah.
It just said
For Friday
on it."
Maddy
scratched the side of her nose. "That didn't give me a lot of information."

"We have reservations at La Mirabella," Chet said. "If you throw the clothes on now you will look just fine and we can go get something to eat."

"And then?"
Maddy
put a hand on her hip.

Chet and Sam exchanged a glance. "And then we would see where the night takes us," Sam said. "Is... you don't want to do that?"

Maddy
put a hand to her forehead. "Look," she said, struggling to keep her voice polite, "I'm sure this works on the sort of woman you guys usually go out with, but I kind of want to know what you think of me first. You can't just throw expensive gifts at me and expect me to be knocked off my feet, you know."

"I could if they were heavy enough," Sam said.
Maddy
glared at him, and he coughed. "Sorry."

Maddy
took a deep breath. "The point is you sent me a bunch of really expensive stuff that I've never even touched before and I have no idea why. You said it was for Friday. Well, I want to know what's happening."

"Dinner," Chet said,

"Yeah.
But don't you think you should tell me that?"

They glanced at each other again and
Maddy
had the distinct impression that if she were not standing there, one of them would have punched the other. She shook her head. "And delivering them to me at work?" she said. "That's... I mean, thanks, but you should really look up your own policies."

Both of them looked confused at that. "What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"We're not allowed to have personal deliveries at the office," she said. "It's against your own company policy."

That actually seemed to get their attention. "Did your boss give you trouble for it?" Chet asked her.

"Yeah.
I now have more work than anyone can get done in the next six months, and it was all, according to him, due last week." She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to tamp down the feeling of panic the predicament engendered in her. It was hard to find full-time with-benefits work right now, especially with her skill set, and if Rick decided she needed to be fired, she was screwed.
Screwed in ways that even Sam and Chet couldn't match.
"I'm probably going to have to go into the office tomorrow.
To work.
So you'll forgive me if I'm not falling at your feet and begging to suck your cocks in gratitude for all that expensive stuff that I don't need."

A warm hand landed on her shoulder and she looked up to see Sam's concerned face looming above her. "
Maddy
," he said. "Are you all right?"

No. No, she wasn't all right. She was buried at work, and she had no idea what the two hottest lays in her life were going on about, and now she had a bunch of expensive clothes and a horrible feeling that she was now obligated to go out to dinner and screw both of them simply because they'd dropped fat stacks of cash on her.

She'd told herself that she wouldn't mind being Sam's quick weekend lay. She'd told herself that it would be just fine to fuck him and Chet whenever they wanted her to because it was hot and sexy and the most erotic and
mindblowing
thing that had ever happened to her.

But she wasn't fine with that. She wasn't fine with it at all.

She actually liked them. She could see herself falling for one or both of them. And that was a recipe for disaster.

"I'm not doing so hot," she said. "And you guys aren't helping."

Without saying a word, Sam drew her into his arms.

Maddy
stiffened, the gesture startling her, but he felt so good—so warm and solid—that she found herself almost falling against him, her whole body sagging with a sudden release of tension. His warm, firm chest, pressed to her forehead, was like a pillar.
A delicious, squeezable pillar.
If she held on, she would be okay. If she just let him hold her up, she would make it...

"May we come in?" The rumble of his voice felt good against her face, and
Maddy
found herself nodding. She didn't think she could let him go just yet.

Chet brushed by them, and Sam helped her into the entryway. Closing the door behind them, he kept his arm around her shoulders and guided her gently toward the couch where a TV tray with a bowl of ice cream and a package of
oreos
stood as testament to the stressful week she'd had. Together, she and Sam sat on the couch. Meanwhile, Chet entered the kitchen and opened the pantry. "Where do you keep your tea?" he
asked,
his voice brisk and businesslike.

"Why would I want tea?"
Maddy
said. "I need a drink."

"Who says the two are incompatible?" Chet asked. "But I'll make coffee instead." He drew a canister of instant Folgers out of the pantry and set about heating some water. Next to her, Sam rubbed her back.

"We're sorry," Sam said. "We had no idea you would have a problem with the presents."