David and Mati laughed while he dragged his briefs back up and marched into the bathroom with as much dignity as he could muster—which wasn’t much.
David joined him at the sink a minute later, one hand cupping Reese’s hip and the other reaching for his toothbrush. Mati slipped in behind them and started the shower. He and David, with toothbrushes hanging from their mouths, watched her strip off her gown, flashing them a tantalizing view of her bare ass before disappearing behind the curtain.
He and David grinned at each other in the mirror.
Reese followed David back into the room and found him gathering the couch cushions and setting them aside. Reese forced himself not to sigh and went to help.
“It’s not about you guys,” David said as he reached for the handle to pull out the bed.
“I know,” Reese said.
David still looked disappointed. “Okay.”
“You know you’re welcome to sleep with us anyway, right?”
David stopped straightening the sheets. “What?”
“We don’t care if you wake us up. We’d rather have you with us.”
“Shouldn’t you ask Mati first?” David asked.
“I haven’t a doubt in my mind she’d agree.”
“But she hasn’t seen it. What I’m like.”
“I have,” Reese reminded him. “More than once.”
David grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
“Did I not just ask you to sleep in bed with me? Does that sound like I want an apology?”
“It won’t—it doesn’t get better when I sleep close to someone else. That doesn’t help.”
Reese thought it might, since it would allow him to soothe David sooner. To hold him, if that might make a difference. But even if it didn’t, it didn’t change his answer. “That’s not why I’m offering.”
David looked thoughtful as he set out his pillows and folded down his covers. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
Which was more than Reese thought he’d get. He kissed David’s cheek. “I hope you sleep well,” he said gently. “No matter where.”
David smiled, but it was sad. “Thanks.”
Reese went to his bed and buried himself under the covers. Mati came out of the bathroom, hair braided and legs bare, and joined Reese after a brief detour to the couch for a kiss.
Reese noted her new pajamas were hot pink satin panties under one of his undershirts. Reese was astonished he could get hard again so soon.
Mati put her glasses aside, turned off the light, and curled up against his chest. There was no way she didn’t feel his dick poking her hip, but they both ignored it.
“Goodnight,” she said with a smile.
David answered from across the room. “Sweet dreams, you two.”
“You, too,” Mati said.
Reese hoped with all his heart that would be true. He wasn’t surprised, though, when something woke him in the middle of the night. He lay in bed, listening, but didn’t hear anything. He propped himself onto an elbow to get a look at David.
He was sleeping peacefully.
Reese was so unprepared for Mati to jerk violently beside him, he almost fell out of bed.
She settled again, eerily still. A wrinkle creased her forehead and she whispered, “No.”
Then a tear leaked from the corner of her eye.
Reese couldn’t suppress his whimper of distress. David sat up and looked at him.
Mati let out a loud, sharp cry.
David practically materialized at her side of the bed, moving frighteningly fast. He put his hand on her shoulder, as visibly upset to see Mati crying in her sleep as Reese felt.
David shook her gently. “Mati, honey, wake up. Wake up. You’re safe. You’re in Boston with Reese.”
Mati’s face scrunched up.
David shook her again. “Come on, honey. Wake up.”
Mati vaulted upright, gasping and throwing off the covers. She spun toward David, her braid whipping around her arm and lashing at Reese.
“Whoa, whoa, you’re okay,” David said, his hands up. “It was just a dream, I promise.”
She looked as if she didn’t know where she was.
“Mati—sweetheart,” Reese said. He touched her elbow.
She flinched away, then his arms and lap were suddenly full of clinging, gasping Mati.
“You’re okay, sweetheart,” he said, holding her tight against his chest, one of his hands wrapped around a bare thigh. “It was just a dream. You’re okay. We’re in the hotel. In Boston. David is here.”
She sniffled against his neck. “David?”
“Yeah, I’m right here.”
She held out her hand, flapping it until David took it in his. He let her tow him forward, crawling onto and across the mattress. He was wearing only boxer briefs and had an excellent case of bedhead going, which made him look younger and sweeter than should have been possible.
He landed with a bounce, and they tipped into his broad chest. David wrapped them in his arms and squeezed until the tension bled out of Mati.
“You’re okay,” David said softly, the vibration of his voice soothing. “It was just a dream.” He ran his hand up and down her back. “It was just a dream…”
It sounded like a mantra, one Reese feared David had often repeated to himself.
“It wasn’t just a dream,” Mati mumbled, her voice muffled in the dark space between their bodies.
“What’s that?” Reese asked.
“I was remembering the run to the panic room. Hiding in the bedrooms.”
Reese’s heart ached, his stomach churning with his own culpability.
Mati sighed. “And then there was Frankie.”
David held them tighter.
“Have you dreamed about him before?” Reese asked, hoping that talking about it would help, and that David would tell him if he was going in the wrong direction.
She shrugged. “Yeah. This time I dreamed he was the one chasing me.”
“Bad dreams are funny that way,” David said. “Sometimes they jumble things up in your head, you know? The past and the present. But it was still a dream. You’re here now, and safe. Focus on that.”
The voice of experience. Reese wondered how often someone had been there to chase David’s dreams away. To tell him it was going to be okay. He hoped someone had, but given David’s resistance to exposing them to his troubles sleeping, Reese suspected he’d mostly gone it alone.
Reese burrowed closer until the bridge of his nose was pressed to David’s neck and Mati’s head was tucked under his chin. He wrapped his arm around David’s waist and clutched Mati to his chest.
David took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
They stayed like that, unmoving except for the brush of hands over arms and shoulders and backs, for a long time.
Mati let out a soft sigh.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“Yeah. But tired,” she admitted. “Can we lie down?”
“Sure.”
They stretched out on the mattress with the covers over their legs. David moved away as soon as they were settled, sliding toward the edge of the bed.
Mati grabbed his arm. “Stay?”
David looked at Reese, perhaps hoping Reese would let him off the hook.
He didn’t. He ran his hand down David’s arm and tried to make it clear he’d understand either way.
“Okay,” David said at last, lying down slowly.
Mati was tucked close to Reese’s side, her head on his shoulder, while David left a few careful inches between himself and Mati. Reese tugged the covers up over all three of them. Mati closed her eyes and lay a hand on his chest.
He pressed his palm over her hand and fell asleep within seconds.
David was the first to wake up, his head on the same pillow as Mati’s, cocooned in the warmth of three bodies curled together. He felt strange, relaxed and fuzzyheaded in a way he hadn’t in a long time. It took him a while to figure out that what he felt was rested.
He’d dreamed—of course he’d dreamed—but it had passed quickly, and when he’d awoken, he’d been able to go back to sleep. That was probably because any time he’d woken up, Mati had pressed in closer to his chest, or a strong hand had gripped his arm, often accompanied by a quiet murmur against his cheek.
David wasn’t going to admit it to anyone, particularly Reese—and one night wasn’t enough to make a case that it would always work—but being in bed with Reese and Mati did seem to help him sleep. They helped him sleep.
Not that it made much difference in the long run. It was interesting, of course. And feeling as though he’d gotten a decent amount of sleep was fucking rare and amazing. But they wouldn’t be here forever, and there was no reason to think they were going to allow David to ruin their sleep night after night until they left.
David sighed and let his eyes close again. One night wasn’t enough to erase a sleep debt like the one he carried, but it felt like he’d made a dent, and being able to snooze like this and not be dragged under by exhaustion was novel, at this point.
When he woke again sometime later, Mati was still tucked against his chest and Reese’s arm was around them both, his hand resting on David’s waist. David ran a gentle hand down Reese’s side, confirming that Mati’s ass was firmly planted in Reese’s lap. Reese’s fingers twitched against David’s bare skin.
He knew the moment Mati woke up, her eyes fluttering open and her lips curling into an utterly satisfied smile.
“Good morning,” she whispered, stretching her neck and back as she ground her ass against Reese.
Reese grunted, his eyes still closed, his fingers digging into David’s waist.
One second later, he jerked away and rolled from the bed.
“I’m going to go shower!” he called, already halfway to the bathroom. Perhaps he thought the two of them didn’t have eyes and wouldn’t know why he was holding his hand just so.
The bathroom door shut with a snap.
David smirked and propped himself up on one elbow. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Why’d he leave?”
“Maybe he’s worried he’s going to run out of wearable pants if you’re left to your own devices.”
Mati grinned. “He was feeling awfully happy before I did anything,” she said, as if this somehow left her innocent.
“That’s hardly a surprise. I think he’s been at least half-hard for most of the last two days.”
Mati laughed. “God, am I awful if I say I hope that’s true?”
David chuckled as he and Mati listened to the water kick on in the bathroom.
“I can’t believe he ran to take a shower,” Mati said. “We could be doing way more interesting things than listening to him jerk off.”
David shook his head. “You can’t hear him jerking off.”
“It’s a good guess anyway.”
David suspected it was. “Maybe he needs private time in the morning.”
Mati gave him a look he took to mean, Yeah, private time to jerk off. Her smile faded. “Do you think this thing between the three of us has freaked him out?”
“Yes,” David said. Mati deflated into the bed with a muttered curse. “But not in a bad way,” David added. “I think it’s new and he’s feeling uncertain.”
“About me?”
“No, that’s the one thing I think he’s certain about. I’m more of the reason to freak out.”
“I think most of his experience has been pretty vanilla.”
“Mine, too,” David admitted with a self-conscious shrug.
Mati blinked, clearly surprised. “But, you’re so…”
“Forward?” David asked with a smirk.
“Yes.”
“I’m not saying my experience has been limited. But this is, in fact, my first threesome.” And it was safe to say it wasn’t going anything like he’d imagined a threesome would go.
“It is?”
“I’m guessing it’s not yours.”
“No.”
She didn’t elaborate, and David took a few seconds to practically gag on the urge to ask before quashing it. For now.
“I probably came on a little strong, right out of the box, huh?” Mati said.
“Nope,” David said firmly.
Her eyebrows scrunched together. “But—”
“I have never in my life seen a dude happier to come in his pants, okay? I thought he was going to explode when you told him to keep his hand where it was.” David hadn’t been in much better shape, for that matter.
“I thought he looked nervous.”
“Yes, but eager. And so fucking turned on. Those bright pink patches...”
“On his cheeks?” she asked with a smile. “I love those.”
David nodded, because he did, too.
“And you?” she asked. “Did we come on too strong for you?”
“Not even a little.”
“Good, because I’m pretty sure Reese is dying to do all kinds of things with you, and I’m dying to watch.”
David’s cock started to fill with blood and his mouth went dry. He swallowed. “Just watch?”
“Hell, no. But can you imagine? What those spots on his cheeks will look like the first time you sink into his body? The first time he gets to feel that full?”
David’s brain came to a screeching halt. “Oh, god.”
Mati hummed. “Yeah. Oh, god.”
Then there was a very faint, “Ooohhh, god,” from the bathroom.
David and Mati stared at each other with wide eyes before Mati buried her face against David’s chest, giggling helplessly.
“Jesus. You’d think they would have soundproofed the bathroom when they did the rest of the room,” David muttered.
Mati laughed harder.
Reese strolled out of the bathroom and found David and Mati were still curled up together in bed. His cock actually twitched, which shouldn’t have been possible.
There was a restlessness under his skin that even a satisfying orgasm didn’t dampen. Breaking and entering, hot bodyguards, hotter sex, previously undiscovered bisexuality, overdue phone calls to his best friend, and being trapped in this goddamn room for two days were adding up to be too much without more than one kind of release.
It was time—past time—to shake things up.
“Can we go to the gym today?” Reese asked, knowing their options were limited, and shamelessly appealing to David’s obvious commitment to fitness.
David sat up and swung his long, thick legs—holy shit, how do his thighs fit in those boxers?—from the bed.
He caught Reese looking. “Yeah, I think we can manage that.” He stood and stretched, which was dirty pool.
Too bad Reese was too busy drooling to call David out on it.
“This morning?” Reese asked, his voice coming out weirdly high.
Mati put on her glasses. “You okay?”
“I think I’ve got cabin fever. I need to swim or run or do something.”
“There’s a yoga class at eleven,” she suggested.
David looked at her. “How do you know that?”
Reese let out an amused huff. “She’s a human sponge for information.”
“And there’s a brochure for the gym right there,” she said dryly, pointing at the coffee table.
“Well, that, too,” Reese agreed.
Mati laughed. “If we take yoga, does that mean you have to, too?” she asked David.
“I can always hang out in the back of the studio. I don’t have to take the class.”
“Chicken?” Reese asked mildly.
David’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not going to work on me.”
Reese smirked at Mati. “Chicken.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” David said, clearly unimpressed. “I’ll take yoga with you, and afterward, you two either have to stick with me in the gym for an hour while I work out or allow Chance to assign someone else to come back up here with you while I’m down there.”
�
�The gym sounds good to me,” Mati said, jumping to her feet and crossing the room to dig through her suitcase.
Reese hesitated. “Okay.”
David narrowed his gaze. “What would you rather do?”
“Swim,” he admitted.
David’s eyes slid over Reese. “I’ll arrange it,” he said at last.
Reese hoped like hell the pool was really fucking cold.
Chapter Thirteen
Reese sprawled out on his back, a borrowed yoga mat cushioning his aching body from the floor while he didn’t move a muscle and yet still sweated his ass off.
“What kind of sadist invented hot yoga?” he wondered aloud.
David grunted in agreement.
Mati sat up and stretched her arms high above her head. She was absolutely glowing with good health. “It’s great, right? I feel so much better.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” David said cheerfully, lying on the floor with an arm thrown over his face, “but there is something wrong with you.”
Reese ran his eyes over David’s gleaming muscles and his damp hair spiked in all directions. Reese thought he’d acquitted himself well in the class today, and Mati was a fucking contortionist—a fact he was glad not to have known before now—but watching David had ended up being the best part. His consternated frown as he had attempted the various poses had been adorable, and while there was no denying he was not the bendiest guy, he was incredibly powerful and oddly graceful.
“You ready to hit the gym?” Mati asked, jumping to her feet.
David opened one eye. “Are you?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
David sat up, his tight, sweat-damp t-shirt sticking to his bulging muscles in all kinds of attractive ways. “Okay, let’s go find out who Chance sent to keep Reese company.”
They found a handsome and patient man named Marcus waiting for them in the gym’s lobby. David explained that they’d worked together before, which was maybe why Marcus didn’t bat an eye at David’s long, stern lecture and thinly veiled threats before he was entrusted with Reese’s safety.
Reese apologized for David’s over-protectiveness as Marcus escorted him to the changing rooms. Marcus just smirked and waved it off.
When they returned to the pool deck, Reese was surprised to find Mati and David sprawled out on two lounge chairs. Reese arched an eyebrow at them.
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