by Julia Kent
And, of course, be with Lydia and Jeremy.
The three made their way in serial, Lydia in the lead, the two men stumbling along unfamiliar dirt paths in the dark. Though he’d spent the better part of a month living here, he’d not spent much time in Lydia’s little corner, and found himself wondering how many years you needed to invest in one place to make your way in the dark with sure feet and a steady stride.
“I can’t believe they knew,” he said, right behind Lydia.
“Unbelievable,” she called back in a fake whisper.
“You had no idea?”
“None. I feel like a complete idiot.” The nearly-full moon shone down on her bare head, making the crown glow as moonbeams reflected off the soft shine of her lustrous hair. He reached for her elbow and she halted, turning.
“You’re no idiot.” Her coated arm was cold in his palm, but he could practically feel her heat as their eyes locked.
“And you’re no Michael Bournham,” she answered, yanking her arm away and jogging the final hundred yards to her cabin.
What the fuck did that mean? He ran after her, but her knowledge of the terrain trumped his, leaving him with sore ankles and a slightly bruised ego as he reached her cabin door far behind her, Jeremy right behind him.
“You pissed her off.” It wasn’t a question.
“She told me I’m no Michael Bournham after I told her—oh, fuck it. Not explaining,” he barked, entering the one-room cabin with a rush.
The three were ensconced in the tiny space as Jeremy shut the door. Lydia fed a few small, well-dried pieces of oak into the impossibly-tiny wood stove that gave the cabin some warmth.
“This isn’t the same cabin,” Jeremy said absent-mindedly, looking around. His jaw tightened as Mike thought about that: Jeremy and Lydia had days together here at the campground that he hadn’t shared.
Because he was busy being an idiot and Michael Bournham. In disguise.
He couldn’t disguise his feelings, though, as Lydia marched over to him, tore the coat off like it was burning her, and flung it on the bed.
“I tell you how I feel and you negate it.”
“What?”
“When I tell him how I feel,” she said, pointing to Jeremy, “he validates me. When I tell you how I feel, you deny it. Or hide from it. Or invalidate it. In my imaginary world, Michael Bournham doesn’t do that. He’s smart and witty and debonair and treats me like an equal. He doesn’t tell me I’m not an idiot.”
“Uhhh,” Jeremy stuttered.
“Shut up,” Mike snapped.
“I will not shut up!” Lydia retorted.
“Not you. Him.”
“Why should I shut up?” Jeremy was across the room and facing Mike, a head taller and looking down, down on him, in one of those moments when time suspends and you get whatever you take.
And then Mike got it.
“Because Lydia’s just picking a fight with us to postpone the inevitable.” Raking a hand through his hair, he looked up and gave Jeremy a half roll of eyes that then zeroed in on Lydia.
“She did it again,” Jeremy groaned. Working together felt good. Familiar. Not ganging up on Lydia, but not being rivals, either. The whole point of coming here was to talk.
Talk.
Even though he wanted action more than words, he needed the right words more than a fight.
“The man has a point,” Jeremy said to Lydia, not breaking the look with Mike.
“Shut up,” she said.
“Why is everyone telling me to shut up?” Jeremy protested.
Lydia flopped down on her bed and pressed her back against the mattress, face pressed into a wince. Mike wanted to smooth the lines from around her eyes, to help relax her brow, to do whatever it took to make her feel safe and wanted and adored.
“Because it’s too scary to listen and be listened to,” she said in a long, drawn out breath, her words airy yet firm.
Mike looked at Jeremy askance, both of their faces serious. She had a point.
“How about we start one sentence at a time and take it from there?” Jeremy asked.
Like sex, Mike thought. You start with a touch that turns into a caress, steeped in meaning and longing. Then the gentlest of kisses, where passion can make the difference between a whisper and a roar.
What happens next, stroke by lick by thrust by confession, is up to you. But it all starts with that moment when you make yourself vulnerable. Take a chance. Reveal your desires.
And be naked.
Listen! she wanted to shout. Listen to me. Slow the world down and make my heart stop screaming.
Clit, too.
Here they both were, four eyes on her, watching her every move, tracking each breath she took, reading her sighs and glances and fidgets as if she were a language they were decoding.
And yet she felt so unheard.
Whose fault was that? The chiding voice cut through her looping thoughts and made her go perfectly still. Maybe you’re just letting yourself feel unlistened to.
Closing her eyes, she sighed and said, “Here’s my first sentence: I want you both.” Her eyes flew open and she forced herself to find the courage to look up at them.
A small smile stretched one side of Jeremy’s mouth as he leaned against the tiny kitchen table, just feet away. It made her heart expand.
“That’s good,” Mike said. Ever in control, his face was hard to read, though he seemed pleased. Damn well better be.
“That’s great,” Jeremy jumped in.
So far, so good. The world hasn’t ended. She sat there, blinking hard, wondering what to say next as her body roared with desire, racing with want. Feeling uncomfortably disconnected from them both, yet so full of promise, their proximity driving her mad. She wanted to take Jeremy’s hand, for Mike to undress her, for the three to get under the covers of the very bed she rested on and make love all night, however that took form. The thready pulse and flush she felt on her cheeks and chest were a testimony to how much her body tried to override her own head games.
And did Mike’s ass have to be so damn fine? Or Jeremy’s body, stretched out next to her, those long legs strong and possessive in bed, make her drool? Her body took her mind to erotic places even as her heart needed to untangle so many emotions, a process that needed more words. Or did it?
Was she just inventing obstacles? This was getting out of hand, but before she could make the leap, they had unfinished business to manage.
“Your turn,” she said, chickening out. If she’d opened her mouth and admitted all those thoughts that had just streamed through her mind, she would have done better. But she wasn’t thinking linearly right now. Hormonally, yes. Emotionally—definitely. Rationally? Hell no.
One sentence at a time, right? They could have some of the sentences.
“Lydia,” Mike said, sitting next to her on the bed, the pressure of his body making her roll slightly toward him, her thighs rubbing together and making the ache for intimacy turn into a searing pain.
“Lydia, I hear you.” He brushed the hair off her forehead and she closed her eyes, willing herself to be present and aware and to just experience his touch and words. “I hear every word. I’ve wanted you for years. Needed you for months. Lusted after you, imagined a future with you, torn myself apart fighting what I know is true.”
Her eyelids opened and she saw Jeremy walk over and sit on her other side, his hand resting on her knee. Ah, the heat of both of them was so relaxing, even as she surged with lust.
“We both feel it,” Jeremy added, looking to Mike for confirmation. Watching them communicate with some secret code should have put her on edge but, instead, it made her feel like she was part of their club. Invited and accepted, and now...
The initiation would be so divine.
“Why fight anything?” she asked, her eyes grave and bold, meeting Mike’s. Respect glittered back in his hard look, a dark wanting making his eyes turn to blue steel.
“I’m accustomed to fighting for somet
hing—not against it.” His answer made her shiver, because that was the most cogent explanation of her struggle she’d felt yet.
“And I don’t fight at all,” Jeremy murmured, now laying back on the bed with her, staring up at the beams. His hand found hers, interlacing their fingers, his thumb stroking the soft flesh between her thumb and index finger. It made a moan build in the back of her throat.
“But,” he added, “for you, I’ll stop fleeing.”
“Fleeing?”
A shift on the bed and he was on his side, head propped on one elbow as he took her in with those deep brown eyes. “I’ve spent more than ten years drifting from place to place, searching for some life that would make me feel whole. Thailand, Russia, Costa Rica, South Africa—you name it, I tried it, thinking I’d find the real Jeremy somewhere else. It turns out the secret place isn’t a place.”
His finger touched the tip of her nose. “It’s a person.” Then his eyes drifted up to Mike. “Persons.”
And with that, Lydia made the first move, courage and hope pushing her forward to kiss Jeremy, the touch of her lips on his the taste of freedom
Mike’s hands were on her shoulders, caressing as her tongue slipped between Jeremy’s lips, his arm sliding up her torso to find the heat of her breasts, the flush unimaginable, his palm like fire against her skin. So many hands...
Crossing over made her body melt, knowing that what had been chosen could not be unchosen, and she wouldn’t anyway—this felt so right, as Mike’s muscled chest warmed her from behind, Jeremy cupping her breast and her own arms wrapping around him to deepen the kiss.
Breaking away, she smiled at him as he touched her cheek, then turned away, his arms still under her shirt, to kiss Mike, the taste and feel of his mouth so different yet so welcome. Jeremy’s casual, anything-goes openness contrasted with Mike’s white-hot intensity, the two in perfect balance as their bodies moved in triplicate, trying to find how to calibrate to this new norm.
Norm. Would this ever be normal? And how was it that already it felt more “normal” than her regular life, Mike’s hands on either side of her face, fingers buried in her hair, his lips sucking on her lower lip, tongue grazing her teeth, body taut with long-restrained desire. Even their night last week had clearly not been enough. The man was so wound with pure lust aimed at her.
Jeremy’s hand stayed under her shirt and joined the other to release her bra clip, a tiny sigh turning into an aching sound of arousal as his thumbs found her nipples, quick strokes making her hard and hot. His hands on her, Mike’s fingers lolling at the base of her neck, his tongue taking and giving...she lost her mind.
Lost. Her. Mind.
The woman who met Mike in the parking lot two months ago, pissed and furious and righteously feminist, stewing in her little car reading a naughty book for research, was now being disrobed by the same man and his best friend. In a cabin at her parents’ campground.
The very place she’d spent so long trying to escape.
But escape had a new meaning now as Jeremy pulled her shirt and bra off with a drawn out movement that showed he enjoyed watching the unveiling of her skin, Mike now watching, too, as she was revealed to them. Any shyness had long faded away, her body on display along with every emotion.
She reached for Mike and her palms found his abs, lightly sprinkled with hair and his skin so hot she needed to touch it all, to blend their heat. Pulling his shirt over his head, she admired those broad shoulders, and then turned to Jeremy with a full smile that urged him to undress, too.
He didn’t need to be asked twice, peeling off his Irish cable sweater and the silk turtleneck underneath, soon leaving her with two muscled chests on either side of her, both ready for her hands, her mouth—
Her.
“You are so beautiful,” Mike said, pressing her into him, nipples teased by the brush against his chest, her mouth taken by his. Hands slipped her sweatpants over her hips, then thumbs hooked into the sides of her panties as Jeremy did the honors, revealing her in full.
They were hard angles, she creamy curves. Both were tall and broad, while she was short and soft. The hard bulges in their pants told her exactly how much they wanted her, and a sudden urge gripped her to bare them both, instantly.
The languid path this encounter was taking had felt right in the beginning, but now that all had been breached she just needed fire and slick, heat and wet, mouths and tongues and fingers and skin against skin as she slaked a thirst for something she’d not realized was so critical to her very survival.
The rest of the clothing made its way to the floor, and they moved as one being, sliding under the covers as the cabin warmed so fast from the wood stove that she felt cozy and excited, alive and aloft, her body brimming with possibility. Her fingers tingled as they buried themselves in Jeremy’s chest, the pulsing anticipation making her wet and swollen, the craving for fingers and tongue on her robbing her of her voice.
Completely enveloped by hard man and nothing but, her hand sought out the hard muscle of Jeremy’s ass, finding curved athleticism, twinned with the same on Mike’s body as she marveled at her two hands caressing the toned bodies of two utterly different men—both nude in her bed, both hungry for her, four palms now stroking her breasts, one wedging between her thighs, a well-targeted thumb edging up through her pussy to pull wetness to her needy clit.
“Oh,” she gasped, amazed to realize she had no idea whose thumb that was—and not caring. The red cloud that bloomed behind her eyes as her mouth opened became a vortex of sensual pleasure as Mike’s mouth claimed her nipple, sucking and nipping just as Jeremy went under the covers, parting her legs with hands that lingered at just the right places, and then...
The soft scratch of his stubble made her quiver, her breath hitch, his tongue landing on her clit at the exact moment Mike sucked on her, as if choreographed.
She came right then, without pretense or forethought, layers of muscle clenching as blood rushed everywhere, without pattern or warning, her body releasing in shock what had been hovering, repressed and needing to be unleashed.
No cameras, no sorrow, now what ifs, no wondering—this was Lydia in bed with the men she wanted to be with and as she climaxed, Jeremy and Mike followed her until she begged them to stop, too sensitive to continue the wracking orgasms and, frankly, wanting more.
More. What did more mean with two men at the same time? Laughter bubbled up in her as she sat up, completely naked, the covers draped haphazardly over her legs, Jeremy and Mike watching her with bemused looks.
Jeremy turned to Mike and said, “She laughs a lot in bed. Get used to it.”
Mike gave Jeremy’s naked body a quick once over. “Maybe there’s a reason she’s giggling.”
“Hey!” Jeremy shouted, throwing a pillow at Mike. It bounced off his shoulder and onto the floor, making Lydia laugh harder.
What had been intense and overwhelming suddenly became fun and playful, exactly what she needed in the hot little cabin where the rest of her life had just started.
One orgasm at a time.
“Seriously—this is amazing,” she said, volleying between them with her eyes. “I feel like every second is an hour. It’s surreal. I’m supposed to feel like a freak and instead, it’s like life out there is the freak show.” She pointed at the door.
“Why does anything have to have a label?” Jeremy asked, tracing a circle on her naked hip, then a line from her ribs down.
“What do you mean?”
Mike stayed silent as she questioned Jeremy, just taking their words in, eyes calculated and relaxed, but with a predator’s focus.
“Why ‘freak’ or ‘freak show’? How about we just be ourselves and follow what seems right within our own framework, and let the rest of the world do the same?”
That triggered a reaction from Mike. “Because that’s the fastest way to get eaten alive.”
Jeremy gave Lydia a very naughty look. “Worked for Lydia.”
She gave a throaty laugh as
his hand moved up, under her breast, teasing the soft skin of her areolae.
“You know I didn’t mean it that way,” Mike countered, his own hand now under the covers, finding her leg, the rough callouses on the palm jarring. He’d mentioned kayaking—had the month here taken those soft, manicured hands from the pampered executive’s life and made them more appropriate for life in Maine? Had he changed that much in so little time? A shaky breath slipped from her as they leaned her back and she reached for Jeremy’s erection, her hand clenching the base and stroking up once, making him rasp.
“Lydia,” he uttered, her name like a password, her hand pulling him up to her as she wanted more.
More.
“Do we have to deconstruct this?” All the years of talking and thinking drained out of her as Jeremy’s enjoyment of her breast took hold. A primal urge set in, making her want their fullness, needing to have them drive into her and commune on some level that labeled her, actually.
Labeled her theirs.
Those delightful, throbbing cocks both begged for attention, and Lydia found Mike’s with her spare hand, instilled with a sense of power. Her hands could bring them to ecstasy, just as they’d both elicited release from her with their mouths, pulled by a greater love than she could imagine, even if it remained unspoken. She could feel it.
But Mike had other ideas, moving to his knees as Lydia guided Jeremy to her mouth, the sharp intake of gratitude in Jeremy’s inhale making her smile as she encircled him with her wet warmth, her tongue teasing him to a rigid tension that she suspected would soon turn to release.
Suspected?
Knew.
Mike, meanwhile, reached down for his pants, finding a condom and rolling the sheath on. Even with her eyes closed she knew what he was doing, turned on by the visceral awareness of his response at what she did to Jeremy. For him.
With them.
The pounding of blood through her body, the thrumming of her clit, the swell of lust and the taste of Jeremy as she licked and sucked until his thighs tightened—she lost herself in it until Mike’s hands found her clit, making her leap up, hips grinding up.