Three. The Perfect Number

Madison

“Madison, let me explain…,” Daniel mumbles, gasping.

“There’s nothing to explain,” Madison says, turning to leave. She hears him scrambling behind her.

“Wait!” Daniel calls. He manages to grab Madison’s wrist. Madison turns, trying to yank herself away from him. He’s half-naked, a blanket around his waist. His hands are sweaty. Probably Joanna’s sweat.

“Let go of me!” Madison says. She sees Joanna sitting in the bed, covering herself with a pillow. She doesn’t even look guilty. She just looks annoyed.

“If you’ll just talk to me—”

“I never want to talk to you again,” Madison cuts him off. “Now let go of me!”

Daniel’s grip tightens, and Madison winces in pain. Daniel has a manic expression on his face. He’s anxious he got caught cheating. Madison can’t get away.

Suddenly Daniel’s grip loosens, and Madison pulls away from him. Daniel’s jaw drops as he looks behind her.

Madison turns around and sees Ethan a few steps away, his arms crossed and a dark expression on his face. Ethan can be quite intimidating.

“All good, flake?” Ethan asks, looking at Madison.

His firm, protective stare is something that, weirdly enough, she missed.

Ethan

“No…all good,” Madison says before stepping a little closer to him. If there was any emotion in her, you couldn’t really tell.

“I don’t think there is much to explain here. You are a cheater and to prove that, you were just having sex with her.”

Her cold and almost deadly tone makes Ethan smirk.

“So, let’s just make things easier. We’ve never been compatible and surely we can’t be…not with your standards…”

Her eyes moved from him to Joanna in slow motion as she speaks, still stone-cold.

“And you know…I get that. Why would you try harder to get something if you can win the game in an easy way? I wouldn’t have sex with you, so you found someone that would. What is there to explain?”

Madison’s eyes are locked on Daniel, who at the moment seems to have lost any willpower to react.

“Plus…since we are here and the truth is being told…if you are as good in bed as you were at foreplay, and you last as long…I don’t think I’ve missed much.”

Turning to Joanna, she smiles at her proudly.

“And if you are happy with him…well, I’m happy for you to keep him. I’m looking for something…bigger and better.”

Stepping a little closer, she stares at them for a moment, before she turns and walks away.

Her deadbeat boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—didn’t manage to say a word and is still shocked.

“You bitch! How dare you talk to us like that? You are the one who…,” Joanna tries to say, but Ethan steps forward, practically blocking the entire doorway.

“Watch your mouth, lady. We have better things to do…and they don’t involve you, or you…”

Madison

Ethan’s voice is so warm that it gives Madison a jolt of chills down her spine the moment he speaks, and with a wink, he reaches for the small of her back with his hands.

“Bye now.”

One more death stare to the couple and, as neither of them dares to say anything else, Madison and Ethan leave.

The smirk on Ethan’s face is so big that it makes Madison laugh until he turns to her with a very questioning expression on his face

“Oh…Ethan, please, don’t even start.”

“What now? I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Mm…sure you weren’t.”

“Well…one thing actually…,” he says now, stepping his way closer to her.

From where he is she can feel the warmth of his body.

“You two never had sex?” He is so close that his minty breath brushes on her face, forcing her to bite the corner of her lips.

“Oh, please,” Madison just rolls her eyes, avoiding the question. If the twins found out she was still a virgin, she’d never hear the end of it.

The two of them make their way out the dorm and into the SUV.

“Ready to head home, flake?” Ethan asks once they’re buckled in.

Madison sighs happily. It feels like a huge weight just slipped off her shoulders. “You have no idea.”

Ethan

Being her usual self, Madison’s lips are curved into a happy, relieved smile.

However, the idea of meeting her brothers and her best friend soon only helps that smile grow so big that her dimple decides to show up, giving her a too-cute expression.

“Really, Ethan?!” she mutters the moment Ethan’s index finger strikes right into her dimple, but even the annoyance in her tone seems to be funny for him.

“You know I can’t resist,” he answers simply, shrugging his shoulders and smirking at her one more time before he looks back at the road.

“Besides, you are funny when you are annoyed…and that doesn’t seem to have changed.”

In fact, she looks quite different, grown. Definitely in front of him now is not the same shy, at times annoying little girl who left for college three years ago.

It seems more an upgraded version of that: a young woman.

And why is that surprising me now?

He is not sure, but the confusion on his face seems to be quite clear.

“What’s that look?!” Madison’s attentiveness hasn’t changed. “And…anyway, how come you had to come and pick me up?”

“Nothing, I was just thinking,” he answers, looking back at the street before glancing at her for a moment.

“Well, Liam and Ezra both got caught up at work. The new gym was supposed to be ready to open tomorrow but something came up with the swimming pool, so they all had to go on-site to solve the problem…

“And since there is money involved, they took Levi as well for some legal advice. One lawyer was enough, so here I am.”

The mention of Levi’s name brought a new smile to Madison’s face; however, her expression is not yet satisfied yet.

“Are you that upset that I came instead?” His low voice only makes him sound more appealing, but as usual, he sounds like the tease he is.

“Mm, nope… I mean, it could have been worse than this, I guess.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“Mm…don’t know, like the evil twins together?!”

Her frowning expression doesn’t do the job and somehow amazes him some more.

“You think? I think instead that you would have liked that…”

Such a tease.

Madison’s eyes don’t leave Ethan’s features for a moment, which is why she can appreciate how his smile changes into a smirk that has something to hide.

But as she shifts in her seat in order to be more comfortable, she ends up caught up in his eyes for a moment too long.

The look they share is difficult to explain, but the way her body reacts when her brain finally thinks about the idea of being alone with the twins, is surprisingly destabilizing.

Her own thoughts have her blushing, and Ethan seems to notice but weirdly he doesn’t say anything.

Before, in fact, he would have picked up on that, but now he doesn’t. That’s one of the reasons why, before this moment, she would have thought of being alone with the twins as torture.

Right now, it sounds very thrilling.

“I have spent way too much time alone with you to think of it as something that I could like…”

Lies have never been one of her strongest skills, but trying never killed anyone.

“Oh, we weren’t so bad…besides, your brothers trusted us more than nannies.”

Thinking about it, she never had never even had a nanny, even if her parents were never home.

It was true that they trusted them the most, not only because they are basically brothers separated at birth and seven years older than Madison too, but also because of the bond they all shared.

In their alone times, anyway, not everything was a tease and so bad.

It did happen that the twins had taught her a few useful things while her brothers were away, mostly when she was a teen.

“I guess if my brothers knew exactly how you guys were taking care of me back in the day, they probably wouldn’t have let you near me anymore”

“Oh, come on, we had so much fun! You can’t deny that…”

“Fun? I call you the evil twin for a reason…beyond the fact that you two made all the boys that I liked run away from me…”

“Hey now…we did that for you! Those boys weren’t good for you…”

“Sure. And you knew how?”

“We just knew it.”

“Well…thanks to you…look where I am now…”

“Where are you now?” he mutters, almost in a whisper while looking at her for a split second.

That question, however, sounds deeper than it seems and it gives Madison shivers.

What does he know?

“How is he? Levi?” she asks, changing the subject completely. She won’t talk with him ~about her virginity status. ~“You two stopped visiting me after second year…”

“But we called every day! Besides, boys would have run even further if we had kept visiting you.”

There is a little sigh escaping his mouth just as his mind hits a dark spot, but before his eyes can give him away, he smiles once more.

“Levi is just as fine as he could be, and a dick…but he is definitely happy that you are coming back.”

“Yeah…true. Better than nothing, right?” Her sweetness didn’t change either. “Is he still with the blondie?”

A yawn escapes her lips as he speaks and, covering her mouth, she rests her head against the window.

“Nah, thank God…you know us, long term isn’t our thing.”

“Or relationships for that matter…” Another yawn, but Ethan doesn’t seem to be bothered by it.

“Correct,” he answers and as he drives, he glances at her. She seems to be quite tired.

It doesn’t take a lot, in fact, for her to drift off to sleep after a few minutes of silence. Watching her asleep was always quite relaxing, and it is even now.

The only difference is that she doesn’t look like a kid anymore.

That she isn’t seventeen anymore. In fact, it hit him the moment he entered her room earlier today.

Wearing those clothes—a short,loose dress with a deep neckline—he easily realises a few things: her features are the features of a young woman and her body has filled out nicely in all the right places.

Her dress, in fact, shows her breasts are now full, round, and firm, and so is her ass, while her stomach is perfectly flat.

Her legs, which go for days, are just as toned and slender as they could be, and her natural tan only makes them look even more defined and desirable.

That she was a natural beauty, they all knew, but her exercising routine sure helped.

“Jesus…,” he growls in a low whisper as he curses himself.

Surely his sex isn’t supposed to react to her, not right now anyway.

A cold sip of water sounds very good right now to get rid of those thoughts and so, adjusting himself in his trousers, he slowly stretches out to reach the glove box where he keeps his water.

Being in a moving car though doesn’t make it so easy to reach it, and so, unintentionally, while pulling back, he brushes the bottle against Madison’s legs, causing her to shiver for a second while still sleeping.

The image that he gets as she tilts her head slightly is quite special: her cheeks are flushed from the heat and her lips slightly parted.

Her eyes seem to start moving and the small noises she makes sound just as good.

It takes her a few minutes really to open her eyes, but when she does and she looks for his eyes, her eyes grow even brighter.

“Mm…sorry…I fell asleep,” she whispers in a hoarse voice. The water in that bottle seems to make her thirsty too.

“Don’t worry, sleep, flake… You looked quite tired.”

“Mm…I was. May I?” she mumbles, adjusting the seat while furrowing her perfect brow and pointing at the water, clearly still sleepy.

“Here,” he answers, handing over the bottle and drying his mouth with the back of his hand. He looks back at the road. “We are almost home anyway.”

“Already? How long have I been out for?”

“Almost four hours.”

“Shit. I didn’t realize I was that tired…”

“It’s okay, I guess you had a lot of things to do, apart from having sex, of course.”

The smug look on his face makes Madison furrow both her eyebrows and, taking advantage of him driving, she punches his arm before showing him her middle finger.

“You know, not everybody likes to fuck like rabbits.”

“I’m sure that is just because you didn’t find any good…tools yet.”

“Whatever… Are the guys home?”

She tries again to change the subject—she really doesn’t want him to know that to be honest, she is a virgin.

“Hm…I’m not sure. They should be home by now.”

“Okay…,” she answers.

Leaning forward to grab her bags from the floor, her straps fall off her shoulder, leaving her left breast completely on show since it’s covered only by her lace bra.

“Um…,” he seems to growl, but without saying anything he simply stretches out his arm and, with his index finger, grabs the straps of her dress, pulling them back onto her shoulder.

The contact of his cold finger against her warm skin makes her gasp, and when the realisation of her being on show hits her, she blushes once more.

“Uh… Thanks.”

From the corner of her eye, she glances at him, and it’s only when he adjusts himself again that she catches a glimpse of his bulge.

A view that has her pressing her legs together tightly as a new feeling takes over her body.

Luckily for her, she doesn’t need to think about it more as Ethan pulls into the driveway. The sight of her house has her forgetting about that for now.

“Happy?” he asks, catching the smile brightening her face.

“You have no idea…”

“Let’s get you in then.”

And stopping the car with one more look in her direction, Ethan jumps out of the car, quickly followed by Madison.

It takes them over ten minutes to take all her stuff out of the car, but once they are done, they both look like a mess.

“Thanks, Ethan, for your help.”

“Yea, no problem, flake. I’ve got to go and meet the boys, but we will all be back for dinner.”

“Sorry for falling asleep.”

“It’s okay, next time I’ll make sure you’ll be awake.”

Whatever he means she doesn’t seem to catch it, and wrapping her arms around his perfect hard waist, she rests her head on his chest for a minute.

“I’ll make dinner then… As a thank you.”

“Sounds good to me…your hands have always been magic.”

Pulling away, she tilts her head just enough to look at the house. “It’s so good to be home, I’ve missed it…”

“And did you miss us?”

Rolling her eyes, she steps back, turns on her heel, and reaches her door.

She doesn’t give him an answer. However, from the smile she sends his way, it does look like one—a positive one—and with one more look, she walks inside, ready to start over again.