I had just removed my jacket and was untying my tie when Piper knocked from the doorway. I looked up to see her dripping on my carpet. I smiled and turned my attention back to my tie.

"Well, hello," I greeted.

"Hello," she replied, still somehow shy as if we weren't yet past that little obstacle. And as if I hadn't just overheard everything she and her friends were saying about me mere moments ago. But then, maybe she didn't realize I had.

She was waiting for something, it seemed, still standing in the threshold, watching me.

"You left your friends outside?" I asked, raising a brow as I set my tie aside and moved to the buttons on my shirt. Her eyes flicked to my exposed chest the moment I started unbuttoning. She didn't reply, just stared at me as I continued to undress. So I said her name to get her attention. "Piper."

"What?" She replied then, her eyes snapping to mine as if drawn from a trance. I smiled, walking toward her, shirtless. I placed my fingers beneath her chin and raised her face to look at me.

"Why did you leave your friends outside?"

I wanted her to say it, to tell me that she wanted me as badly as I did when I'd come home to find her wet and smiling in that killer bikini of hers. But she just blinked back at me, blushing, as if caught. I sighed and let her go, turning around and walking back toward the bed. I took a seat on the bench at the end of it and busied myself with taking off my shoes.

"I know you've missed them," I told her without looking up at her. "I meant what I said about wanting them to feel at home. You don't have to check up on me while they're here. If you want to spend time with them, I—"

I stopped. She had strode across the room while I was speaking and now she was kneeling in front of me on the carpet in front of the bench. My lips parted slightly in surprise at her position as she leaned forward and look my foot in her hands. She untied the shoe that I had been working on and pulled it gently off of my feet. Then my sock. Then she raised the other one and did the same. I just watched her, hypnotized by the movement, my brain unlocking some sort of fetish I didn't even know I had. Though, in all honesty, I imagined my fetish was more for Piper and anything she did. Anything at all.

Her hair was still dripping onto the carpet as she looked up at me but neither of us cared. I reached out and cupped her cheek in my hand, running the pad of my thumb along the smooth skin of her jaw. She opened her mouth when I neared it and I played with her lips for a moment before sticking my thumb gently inside. She closed her mouth immediately and sucked. I closed my eyes and took a breath, trying very hard to maintain control.

She stood then, taking my hands and pulling me to my feet. But then she lowered herself back onto her knees and my breath hitched. She took her time, undoing my belt and sliding it out of my pants, loop by loop. Then she unbuttoned my pants and slid them down over my thighs, my calves, until I was stepping out of them and she was tossing them to the side. My boxers were next. She took her time with them as well so that, by the time I was standing before her, naked as the day I was born, my cock was rock hard, solid.

"Piper, the door," I said, nodding toward the open door on the other side of the room.

"Leave it open," she shrugged and then opened her mouth and took me inside of it. I moaned at once, closing my eyes and enjoying the sensation of her lips around my cock. She started slow, almost tentative, but then picked up speed and intensity. I opened my eyes and looked down to see her wet hair waving back and forth as her head bobbed up and down in my crotch. My eyes rolled back into my head as I looked up at the ceiling, wondering, not for the first time, how I'd gotten so lucky.

The moment I finished, she stood, wiping her lips and smiling at me. I stood in front of her, chest heaving, eyes heavy as I watched her stride forward, pushing me gently back onto the bed to rest and catch my breath. Then she laid down next to me, still in her wet bikini. We both stared at the ceiling fan above us for a minute in silence.

"Thanks for letting my friends stay," she said after a moment and I turned to look at her, raising a brow.

"That was a thank you?" I asked. She just smiled and shrugged, sitting up. "Tell them to book their next trip as soon as they get home."

She snorted and stood, reaching out to me.

"Come and join us," she said with a smile. "I want you to meet them."

She could have asked me to go to the zoo with her and steal and elephant and I probably would have agreed in that moment. Luckily, all she was requesting was that I met her friends. So I stood, pulling on the swim trunks she tossed at me from the closet, and allowed her to lead me, pulling me by my hand, back out to the pool where her friends awaited.

As soon as they saw us coming, they smiled as if they knew. I wondered briefly if she'd told them before or if I had some sort of stupid, goofy look on my face but found that I didn't really care. As it was, my brain was still in the fog of post coital bliss and the only thing I could really focus on was Piper's ass shaking side to side in her thong bikini as she walked in front of me.

"The man of the hour," Leah called out when we arrived, raising her glass in mock salute. "Or should I say, decade."

Piper rolled her eyes and giggled as she pushed me down onto the couch in front of the armchairs that Leah and Connor were sitting in, facing us. It felt almost like an interview until Piper perched her perfect ass right onto my lap. I inhaled sharply, readjusting myself so as not to stab her in the thigh. Leah gave me a knowing smile over the rim of her glass and Connor produced a remote from his pocket which he used to turn off the music blasting from the stereo nearby. I watched him. Was that a feature of my own house? I hardly ever came out here so I doubted I would even know if it was.

"As you know, this is Leah and Connor," Piper repeated the introductions, adding a bit of context as she did. "Friends and roommates from New York."

"You all live together," I said.

"Can't afford not to," Connor replied. "Have you seen rent prices lately? They— no. Of course you haven't."

I smiled.

"Actually, I have. Around here at least," I told them. "I wasn't sure if Piper would be comfortable staying with me when she first came. So I had my realtor keeping an eye out for something nice in the city, not too far but to give her her own space, if she wanted it."

"You did?" She asked, surprised.

"You didn't want it," I told her, raising a brow. Leah and Connor chuckled.

"So, you make video games," Connor said then. Not a question, just a statement of fact, and suddenly I really did get the feeling that I was being interviewed. Apparently, Piper did too because she turned her furious glare onto her friends.

"Guys," she warned.

"No, it's okay," I assured her, reaching up and brushing a strand out of her face to subdue her. "We make video games, mobile apps, interactive experiences—"

"What are interactive experiences?" Leah asked.

"Virtual reality," I explained. "And all of the new kinetic frontiers in the industry. I find the technology fascinating. But I know that makes me a nerd."

Leah snorted at that.

"Lucas Vega, you are anything but a nerd," she replied, staring overtly at my abs. I grinned back at her.

"Nerds can have six packs too, you know. We come in all shapes and sizes."

"This shape's my favorite," Connor remarked and we all started laughing.

"Señor Vega," Luisa called from the house then. "Dinner is ready. Would you like it brought to you outside?"

"That's alright, Luisa. We'll be in in a moment. Thank you."

She nodded and disappeared inside.

"I could never get used to that," Connor said.

"I could," Leah replied, getting to her feet and we all laughed again.

Piper's friends were easy to talk to and even easier to get along with. They had some questions, naturally, and I answered them as honestly as I could. But they really seemed to only have one concern and that was for the happiness of their friend. Once they determined she was happy enough with me, their questions tapered off and we were left to enjoy an amazing meal and a warm night.

By the evening, we were all sitting out by a fire that Connor and I built, telling stories and laughing as we all got to know one another. Finally, at around eleven pm, Connor stood, stretching his arms over his head.

"Well, I'm about tapped out. That time change is a bitch," he said and we all agreed that it was likely time for bed. So we put out the fire and stood from our spots.

"I'm guessing I'm not getting my girls' night, then?" Leah asked, raising a brow at Piper.

"Girls' night?" I inquired, turning to my wife.

"It's this tradition we have," she explained, trying to wave it off like it wasn't important to her, but I could tell it was. Her eyes strayed to Leah now and then as she spoke. "Any time one of us would have a new guy in their lives, almost always Leah, we would spend the night in my room, eating junk food and telling the other person every little intimate detail."

"I've been craving some Sour Patch Kids," Leah added. I smiled up at her.

"Go on," I told Piper, nodding my head in her friend's direction. Her eyes widened in surprise as she looked up at me.

"Really? You want me to?"

"Of course, I don't want you to," I told her, stepping forward and wrapping my arms around her. "It'll be terribly lonely in my big empty bed tonight. But traditions are important, and so are the relationships they preserve. You need to do this. I understand."

She smiled warmly up at me, so much adoration in her eyes that it nearly knocked the wind out of me.

"Even though the express purpose is to tell her every intimate detail?" She asked in challenge.

"If it's a test, I think I'll pass with flying colors," I told her, reaching up to cup her cheek as I gave her a wink. "Besides, I heard what you've already told her. How much more intimate can it get?"

"You have no idea," Leah teased, grabbing Piper and pulling her away. "Goodnight, Lucas!"

I laughed, waving after them.

"Goodnight, girls!"

Then, as they disappeared around the corner in a fit of giggles, I smiled to myself and headed back to my room all alone.