by Nhys Glover
“Flea... Frag it. Flame! Gods’ Balls... More!” he ground out.
It was all he could take. He frantically reached up and held my head still while he fucked my mouth, sending a frenzy of hot seed spurting into the back of my throat.
This was still a comparatively new experience for me. Zem’s out-of-control power suddenly frightened me. I was suffocating! Gods, I was suffocating. I couldn’t get enough air.
Landor pulled me out of Zem’s grip, and Zem let him. I choked on the last of the salty cream as Zem writhed on the bed in the final throes of his release. The whole frightening episode had taken no more than a fraction of a moment and yet it had changed everything.
Landor’s hands stroked my hair back from my face, as he kissed my cheek tenderly, coaxing me back from the fear.
“Zem would never hurt you,” Landor whispered into my ear, as I calmed a little more. “Not ever! Neither would I. You know that.”
Zem scrambled up and took my face in his hands. His body smelled of his spilled seed, and for a moment I was repelled by it.
“I lost control... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said desperately, raining kisses over my face.
I shook my head. “You didn’t. I just got scared. I couldn’t get away and I thought I would choke...”
He groaned and kissed my face more feverishly. “I’m not him, Flea. I’m not Airshin. I didn’t mean to scare you... Gods, it was just too good that I lost control.”
“Lay down, sweet lass,” Landor urged. “You are safe. Always safe with us.”
I let him lower me to the bed. How was it possible to go from aroused to the point of release in one moment to frozen by fear, unable to bear the thought of what we’d been doing, in the next?
I knew he wasn’t Airshin. I knew it was Zem. I loved Zem. I wanted him. Why did that bastard have to interfere with the best moments of my life? It wasn’t fair. It had only been a quarter turn of my life. A quarter turn! And yet it still had the power to switch me from fire-haired warrior to pathetically scared mouse at the very worst of moments.
Zem slid off the bed and went to clean himself off. While he was busy at the bowl in the corner, Landor was stroking me gently, whispering sweet silly words into my ear as he did so. I had a better giggle than the girls he’d been with that first night. I was beautiful and strong. My breasts were perfect teardrops with coral peaks just made for suckling on.
My discomfort was fading and pleasure was returning. As he tweaked my nipple and spoke of suckling, I felt the heat unfurling inside me again. But not without Zem. I needed Zem’s hands on me. His mouth on me. I had to prove to myself that this had nothing to do with Airshin.
And even as I thought it, Zem was back. His mouth closing around one nipple as Landor did the same to the other. My scream as I released took me by surprise. How could that happen? It was so fast. I’d gone from terrified to climaxing in a few moments, and all they’d done was suckle.
Landor’s hand was sliding down my belly and into my thatch of curls. I arched into that hand, wanting him to go deep. He obeyed me, his fingers sliding inside where I was wet and needy. He moaned against my breasts.
“So wet,” he said as he sucked me deep.
I came apart again, pressing into his palm, beyond caring what I sounded like. The walls were thick. My screams would not be heard. It didn’t fraggin’ matter if they were!
Gods, the sensation of his fingers sliding and curling against the spot... why that spot? More... I needed more.
Zem drew back and glanced across at Landor. My pale lover nodded and moved away. I nearly cried out in dismay. Then he was back, opening me wide as he stared down at me there. Yawning and needy. I felt like my whole body was just one open mouth. Wanting to suck him in. Suck his long cock inside me so we became one.
Zem was watching, his eyes heavy-lidded, his cock already growing hard again.
Landor leaned down and turned my face so I was looking at him. At the same time he slid deep inside, where I needed him. I closed my eyes, unable to withstand the double assault of sensation. In my mind, he called to me to open my eyes.
Obeying him, I drew in a gasping breath. The love and utter vulnerability I saw in his dark gaze brought tears to my eyes.
“I am yours now, just as you are mine,” he said, his voice deep and silken and raw with need.
“Yours and...” I turned to Zem who was watching my face with fascinated intensity. “Yours.”
He leaned in and kissed me tenderly. “Aye. For always.”
And then he was kissing his way down my neck as Landor began to thrust in earnest. He grabbed my hips and pulled me up to him, beginning to pound into me with more passion and need than I would have expected from the gallant gentlelud. All civility was gone, what was left was raw and primal and powerful.
I surged up as another release drew close. I needed all of him, hard and fast and...
On a guttural cry, Landor climaxed. I felt it to my toes as I surged after him. The tug on my nipple as Zem sucked it so deep it hurt only intensified the release. And it seemed to go on and on. All the while, Landor continued pulsing his seed deep inside me.
When he collapsed on top of me, it was Zem that pushed him off. “Don’t suffocate her.”
Landor obediently slid to my side and pulled me in so my head rested on his shoulder, proprietarily. Zem, not to be outdone, began kissing and licking his way down my stomach.
He wasn’t going to...
Oh, gods, he was. He licked at my nub and I came again, sharp and hard. Zem laughed with pleasure.
He drew back and then urgently buried his cock in me, forcing Landor to let me go a little so I lay across his chest while Zem throbbed within. I was so sensitised to every touch. It was exquisite torture, what he did to me.
When he grinned down at me, rolling his hips—making me feel all of him against the walls of my channel—I dug my fingers into Landor’s side with one hand and the bedding with the other. I clawed deep as the pleasure washed over me in monstrous, pounding waves.
How was this possible? I had been finished. Wrung out. And now I was so aroused that every thrust was too good, too much. Tears pricked at my lids and I gave into them. Too much sensation... too much. And still he rode me, hard and deep. One thrust after another, one guttural grunt after another, and Landor cupped my breasts and twisted my too-sensitive nipples between his clever fingers.
I came again and again and again until, unable to take any more, I fell still. Boneless and satiated, I waited for Zem find his own release before collapsing on top of me.
It was Landor’s turn to push Zem off. With a tired laugh, Zem let him. Then, for a long time, I lay on Landor’s chest with Zem’s head on my belly, and I experienced the most profound peace I had ever known.
Chapter Thirteen
“Does this mean I’m aroused by men?” Zem asked sleepily less than a quarter turn later.
“Because you enjoyed watching Flame minister to my cock?” Landor replied languidly.
“Aye. It shocked me how much I wanted to see her do that.”
“Did you want to do that to me yourself?” Landor seemed unconcerned about the answer, whatever it might be.
Zem was silent for a few moments as he reviewed his responses, considered the possibilities. This was so Zem. Even something as emotional as sex had to be analysed. Though when he was in the throes of it he was less analytical. More his warrior side.
Eventually he said. “No, I had no desire to do that. It was watching her that aroused me. Watching her with you. I should have been bothered by it, jealous. But it was the opposite. The more she focused on you, the hotter I became. Strange.”
“I had barely come and I was aroused again as you took her while I held her against me. It was primitive and unacceptable... and yet it was very arousing.”
“I saw you getting hard again. Was any of it over me?”
Landor was silent for a moment before answering, still as seemingly disinterested as he
had been all along. “A little, possibly. But mostly it was watching you riding her spent body, dragging even more climaxes from her. It was like she was totally at our mercy. We had done that to her. We could have done anything to her. I do not think I like that I enjoyed that so much.”
I wanted to say something, to add to this debate, but I was beyond words. I was just as Landor described me... spent. And gloriously so.
After a moment Landor said to me. “I am glad you did not find that offensive or threatening. I am glad you are well pleased.”
He had read my thoughts so I hadn’t needed to contribute. There was something to be said for having this mind-reading gift of mine working both ways. It saved a lot of energy looking for words.
“Mmmm,” I managed to get out before the world around me grew dark and I slipped into blissful sleep.
I was jerked awake with an image of blood and entrails fresh in my mind. I had been in the thick of the battle. I’d been trying to get to Zem. But Airshin stood in my way. His smug smirk infuriated me so much that I slashed at him with my sword. The blade severed him in two, his entrails stuck to the blade.
“You are safe. Flame, listen to me. You are safe. It was a dream,” Landor said into my ear as he held me gently to him. I felt Zem tighten his arms around my waist. Had he fallen asleep with my belly as his cushion?
“It wasn’t a nightmare. I was killing Airshin. It felt wonderful,” I said needlessly.
“I forget what a bloodthirsty little thing you can be,” Landor said amiably, his voice croaky from sleep.
And once more I dropped into deep blissful nothing, the blood dissolving away with the darkness.
When I surfaced again it was morning and I blushed as I turned to look at the two naked men curled up around me, arms and legs everywhere so it would have been hard to tell who belonged to what if we weren’t so different. For a moment I just lay there, soaking in the pure joy of it. The pure peace of it. I had been dreading this since the Goddess made her pronouncement. Was it just a half moon ago? And yet here I was in the arms of two men who made passionate love to me the night before and to whom I felt a connection that was so much more than just the marriage bond we had committed to last night.
“I know how you feel. When I remember all the lonely, dark days of my life, broken only by the pleasure of a candle’s length of light, a book, and the company of my aunt—who was far madder than our fragile Shardra, I have come to accept—I cannot quite believe this is real. You have given me so much, Flame. You and Zem have given me a life filled with love and laughter and... purpose. Oddly enough, the last feels the most important. Before, I just existed for no reason. Now I have a reason for being, and a part to play in this drama playing out. I am needed.”
I turned on my side so I could look at his profile. It was an impressive one, strong brow and chin, long elegant nose, deep-set eyes and chiselled cheek bones, all covered by pure white skin so fine as to be almost translucent. I was pleased the unguent the herb mage had given him was protecting his beautiful skin from the worst of the sun’s rays. Seeing it burned and blistered would hurt me as much as it would hurt him.
With a tentative finger I outlined his profile, pausing for long moments on his full bottom lip so he could lick at it. It should have aroused me—us—but our mood was not sexual. Instead, we drifted in another place, a companionable place that held no tension.
“I am so grateful to have found you. Zem and me... all right, Zem and I were always enough before. Or I thought we were. But then I also thought that being just friends with Zem was all I needed. It is odd how you don’t know what you are missing until you are forced to claim it. Claim what was always supposed to be yours. Mayhap we were always meant to be this... us... Mayhap the Goddess didn’t choose us, we chose Her. Or this chance. Oh, I don’t know.”
He laughed softly. “Why the formality? You do not have to put on airs and graces for me. I am not ashamed of your common birth.”
I rubbed my cheek against his cool white shoulder. “My Dah, or the man I thought was my Dah, was a fisherman. He spoke roughly. Mam spoke like a lady and made me speak like one too, even if it made us stand out like a whale in a fisherman’s net full of fishlings. Every chance she got she would correct me. ‘It is not My dah and me it is My father and I.’ ‘Do not slump’. ‘Do not put your elbows on the table.’ And Dah was hurt by it, belittled by it, I think, though he didn’t show it. Would make jokes about it.
“After he died... and we left to become consters, it became worse. I had to be the perfect little lady, dressed in pretty clothes, speaking properly and with the perfect manners of a lady. All to entice those lecherous bastards in. And it was a good ploy. It gained me entry where I might have otherwise been turned away. But after she was dead... after Airshin... I rejected everything to do with her. All but the safest short cons and the anonymous thievery, which I used only when I was desperate. It was part of the way I could hide. No one looked at me if there were no more pretty dresses, no more pretty manners and no more perfect speech.”
Landor tightened his arm that was wrapped around me and I appreciated his support. Zem must have woken sometime during my sharing, because he was stroking my thigh softly and rhythmically, the way one might stroke a tame wadja.
“So part of my laddish, common ways was for safety, the other part was out of respect for Dah. But I don’t need to be that way anymore. You were right, I’m not Flea anymore. And I can choose to speak and behave anyway I want, dress any way I want, because I’m not hiding anymore.
“And I see you cringe a little every time I say Zem and me,” I held up my hand when he began to argue. I knew he would say he didn’t want me to change anything about myself for him. I was perfect just as I was. But I knew how aggravating bad speech must be to a person who had only ever heard the speech of a noblewoman. I wanted to soften my edges a little for him. Not because he wanted me to, but because I wanted to. And because I didn’t need to hide anymore.
“Let me finish,” I went on when he closed his mouth politely. “I can give you this. I can say Zem and I, or Landor and I, without betraying who I am. It is a small thing, so let me do this, all right?”
“Aye, if it pleases you,” he said with a teasing smile. I didn’t miss his use of the commoner’s aye instead of yes. Two could play at this game it would seem.
“I also changed the way I spoke to help me hide,” Zem shared. “On the streets my noble speech could have gotten me killed. But I can shift between them now. I have remained more common with you, Flame, because you seemed to prefer it. But if we’re going to change... I’ll happily go along with it. Though I do prefer contractions. Much faster and more efficient.”
“Contractions?” I asked in confusion.
“Landor would say, ‘I am going out and do not know when I will be back.’ You would say, ‘I’m going out and don’t know when I’ll be back.’ You contract two words into one. Most commoners do it. They don’t have time to waste on more words than necessary to get their point across.”
“I like your contractions,” Landor owned. “I would like to learn to use them.”
Zem had turned on his side so he was now spooning me from behind as we chatted amiably about nonsense. It was as good as sex. Almost.
“Then start with that,” Zem said, slipping into teacher-mode. “I would like to learn becomes, I’d like to learn.”
Landor nodded, smiling. “I’d like to learn to use them. I’d like to make love to this beautiful, naked woman we have sandwiched between us too.”
Zem and I laughed, and I leaned in to kiss Landor’s cheek. “I’ll hardly be able to walk as it is. And we have a sparring session to get to. Honing your fighting skills and your physical strength is important.”
He turned to kiss me full on the lips and Zem began nipping at my neck.
“It can wait a half a turn,” he growled between kisses.
Half a turn indeed! When we finally left our room, over a full turn later, I felt as limp as
a piece of seaweed on the shore. But I knew I had a smile on my face, and so did my husbands. And I was happy.
Laric and Prior were already at the arena when we arrived. They looked at us and grimaced, either reading my mind or seeing the satiated expressions on our faces. Part of me felt guilty for leaving them out. But I was starting to think that sharing pleasure with four of them at once was never going to work for me as it did for Airsha, even if I could get Zem to accept Laric or work out some way to fireproof ourselves from Prior’s passion.
“You’ve been getting your workout already I see,” Laric said, letting the lechery infect his words.
Zem shot forward and knocked Laric to the sandy ground, his movement so fast Laric didn’t have a chance to defend himself. He struggled ineffectually as Zem pressed one hand to his throat, strangling him.
Gods, why couldn’t Laric shut up? He didn’t need to attract my attention with bad behaviour anymore. And Zem would never accept him if he kept it up. He didn’t get Laric yet. Maybe he never would.
I came up behind Zem and kissed his cheek, gently urging him to release Laric. “We need him. His comment was just a habit. Pulling your strings is just a habit. He’ll stop. I promise you he’ll stop.”
Slowly, Zem slackened his grip and the flailing stopped.
I looked down at Laric and rolled my eyes. “You can stop, can’t you? If you want me, you have to play nice with him. There’s no other way.”
Zem stood and stalked a few steps away, still breathing hard, his fists tightening and releasing as he fought to control his fury.
“I’m jealous. It just slipped out. Sorry,” Laric muttered, climbing to his feet without taking the hand I offered him.
“Who’s the hound now?” Zem snarled sarcastically, mimicking Laric. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I just want to fuck you and I can’t. Take pity on me. Pathetic!”