She laughed weakly and the men smiled at one another. “We’ve been best friends all our lives, Sidney. We’re connected like brothers and need someone who isn’t afraid to love us both and let us love her back. Okay, I used the word love and your entire body locked in fear.” Boyd’s rhythm didn’t change as he grinned at her. “It’s awful someone like you has had so little love. You’re going to be so easy to love. Look at me, Sidney. You’re the first woman we’ve both felt such a powerful connection to. There have been women I thought would work but Zane thought were all wrong and vice verse. You need to come again, baby…yes you can. You want to so bad.”
She let the climax take her, weakly hugging Boyd to her body as she said his name and he joined her. Zane left the bed and she heard water running. Boyd stroked them both through their climax before pulling out carefully, lifting her, and carrying her across the floor.
Enigma started pounding through the open space. In the enormous bathroom, there was a huge concrete tub in the center. The light was dim and the tile was so dark it looked like the opening of a deep well.
To her utter mortification she felt the beginnings of a panic attack, wrapping her body tight around Boyd’s and whimpering in pure terror. “Sidney, it’s just the tub, baby. We should have given you a tour when we got here.” He kissed her shoulder, “You’re shaking like a leaf, Sidney. What’s wrong?”
Her voice was barely a whisper, “I…I’m scared of the dark and small spaces. It was an optical illusion. Just an illusion. Sorry.”
Stroking her hair back from her face, he said, “We will never, ever hurt you, baby.” He sat on the edge of the tub and turned, lowering them into the steamy water. “We’re going to let your body relax. There are salts in the water that will help keep you from being sore, that will soothe muscle and soft tissue.”
“It’s very…tingly.”
“Yes it is. Are you alright, baby?” She nodded. “I’m sorry I scared you.” Sidney wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him weakly. “You’re exhausted. We worked your body so hard. We shouldn’t have but we only have one night to convince you to come back to us.”
Zane got in the tub and Boyd handed Sidney to him. She wrapped her body around him and he settled back with her face on his chest. “Are you wondering how we’re sure you’re the woman we need, Sidney?” She nodded. “There was a tug when we first saw you, a bigger one when you said you would have trouble choosing between us, more throughout the evening when you touched us both constantly, and so much more once we got you back here.” He cupped warm water in his palms and poured it over her back while he talked.
“Women, in general, are naturally skittish when they consider taking two men at once, Sidney. Though it excites them on a primal level, they recognize they are outmuscled if anything goes wrong. Basically, it takes a lot of trust to take one man so taking two is almost unheard of. There are so few women who can handle it casually, far fewer who could handle it long-term. We were certain in the bar you were strong enough to take us on. Then we started thinking about how much you might need us, too.”
Boyd stroked his hand through her hair, “I’m sorry we had to push you so hard, Sidney. If there had been more time, we could have been gentler. We were worried we wouldn’t get another opportunity like this, to work you up again and again, to watch you dance for us. A hotel room wouldn’t have given us the space and privacy to spar with you, to chase you. We knew we needed you here to play.”
When she spoke, her voice was very sad, “I’m fun short-term but I’m not the type men want day in and day out. You’re making a mistake picking me.”
Zane’s heart clenched for her, “Why would you think that, Sidney?” They were stroking her, massaging the muscles of her back and legs with firm, knowing hands.
She sighed heavily, “I wouldn’t know the first thing about long-term. I can’t cook. I don’t know how to do laundry. I don’t even know how to balance a checkbook. I don’t have credit cards because I forget to pay things. I stay up late but sleep little. I don’t know how to drive. I’m scared to death of kids because I’m afraid my crazy is contagious. I can make people look good, I can dance, and I’ve got a high sex drive. Those are short-term qualities. Stuff that makes for a good time but not a good relationship. It would get old with one person, but two? It will never work. You’ll get sick of my shit in three days, once the novelty wears off.”
Boyd lifted her chin, “Who fed you all this shit about yourself, Sidney?” She shrugged her shoulders. “Baby, I can’t cook either. Zane does the cooking and he prefers it. I can do laundry but after twenty years in the military, I refuse. We send all our shit out to be done. We have accountants who handle our personal and business finances. Not having debt is definitely not something to consider negative. We’re more night owls now that we don’t have to get up at five in the morning. We can teach you to drive if you want but it isn’t like there aren’t ways to get places if you don’t want to learn. You are not crazy, honey.”
Zane’s voice was gentle, “We don’t want you to do laundry and balance a checkbook, Sidney. We also don’t think of you as a perpetual good time. Personally, one of the things I’m desperate for is someone to have meals with.”
“Someone to sleep with who likes to snuggle,” Boyd added with a smile, “Something tells me you’d be a world-class snuggler, Sidney.”
She lifted her head with a puzzled expression on her face, “I don’t know, I’ve never been snuggled before. How do you not already have those things?”
“Before the military, we had girlfriends of our own. Right before we were deployed, Boyd had a girlfriend whose secret fantasy was being with two men at the same time. Since we’d known each other forever, it didn’t seem like a big deal. We…accommodated her and she was…very happy. We were hooked but she was freaked out about what other people would think and that kind of thing. We saw her on leave for a couple of years but it was always so…seedy, I guess, sneaking around and having to hide being with her. We’ve had girlfriends separately over the years but we always go back to ménage. It is addicting. Once you’ve gone past certain taboos, vanilla just doesn’t do it for you all the time.”
Boyd took up the conversation, “When we bring women home, it’s discreet, Sidney. They rarely stay the night, and no one has ever lived with us. We’ve been out of the military for over a year. During that time, we’ve mostly had women separately. Now that we’re home all the time, the true loneliness is getting more obvious. I sleep alone, Zane sleeps alone. We eat meals together but after knowing each other all our lives, there isn’t that much to talk about that we don’t already know.”
He ran his knuckles along her jaw, “So we work, we train, we have our friends. They’ve also been struggling with the ‘what now’ issue since leaving the military. It would be so nice to have someone who accepted us, someone to talk to and spend time with. You travel, but not year-round. Chicago is in the center of the country just about so you’d be able to get anywhere you needed to go fairly simply.” They’d been washing themselves and her lazily.
Zane added, “You’d always have a home to come back to and men who love you waiting to hold you tight.”
Sidney was quiet for a long time, looking back and forth between them. “How are women not lined up for this? It seems ideal. If you’re mad at one, you have a backup. If one is traveling, you’re not stuck by yourself. I don’t get it. I mean, I figured I’d just rattle through the world by myself but most women are, you know, nesting types. I wouldn’t know the first thing about nesting but I know giving a shit about what other people think is no way to live.”
Raking her fingers through her hair, she added, “Hell, I’d have had a lot worse shit happen to me if I was all worried about being embarrassed. When backed in a corner, I fight my way out and act psychotic which tends to back people down. I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone thinks.” With a shake of her head, she said, “I think you’re making a huge mistake picking me. I will mess
it up. I’m so good at that. But I’ll come back after the tour and give you the chance to figure that out for yourselves.”
Suddenly they were all over her and she was dizzy as they kissed, sucked, and stroked her. Boyd bounded over the side of the tub and Zane stepped out with her, both of them drying her while they submerged her in one sensation after another. Carrying her back to the mattress, she absently realized someone had changed the sheets as her back landed gently against them. She was unable to participate as they moved over her body like men possessed.
They were both between her legs, her legs over their shoulders so they didn’t crush her. Each had a hand stretched out, caressing one of her breasts. She didn’t know whose mouth was on her, whose fingers were inside her.
When she came her body arched from the bed and screamed both their names. Zane and Boyd pushed her up again and again, stroking into her ass and her pussy with their fingers until she was begging them for mercy.
Then Zane was over her, driving to her womb before flipping to his back and thrusting up into her body with powerful hips. He pulled her to his chest as Boyd positioned himself at her ass. When both of them were buried fully inside her, she sat up between them and saw the shock on Zane’s face. Using her strong legs, she pulled forward, pushing back hard while they groaned with the unfamiliar participation of a woman between them. Lifting one knee, she leveled her foot on the bed for balance and didn’t realize how it tightened her around them.
“Oh my god, Sidney, what are you doing, baby?” Zane whispered.
“I don’t know if I can handle ‘tighter’, baby. Oh god, I’ve never been held in such a vice grip,” Boyd told her hoarsely.
And then Sidney tested her mobility between them. Twisting her upper body, she wrapped one hand around Boyd’s waist while keeping her other hand on Zane’s chest. Sliding up, she pulled Boyd to her for a kiss then dropped to give Zane one and he murmured, “How are you moving like that, oh my god, Sidney.” She braced one hand on both men and used her leg to lift herself away, stopping before they slipped from her and pushed herself down.
Boyd was moaning, sweat dripping down his chest with his effort to control his body. “Sidney, oh please, you’re killing me. Baby, oh god that feels so good…” He grabbed her by the hair and tilted her head back for an aggressive attack on her mouth as Zane moved his fingers over her clit and breasts.
All she knew were the hands on her, the two cocks inside her body and when she came, their mouths and hands moving over her, it was explosive and they had to hold her up as she screamed their names and listened to them echo through the loft. “Come for me right now…right now.”
Boyd thrust twice and growled, his hands on her breast and in her hair. “Sidney, oh fuck, Sidney.”
Zane came hard beneath her, “So fucking powerful, Sidney, baby, yes…oh god, honey.”
They continued to move as her orgasm began to recede and they were pumped dry, then she collapsed over Zane and passed out. When Sidney opened her eyes, Boyd was kissing her gently and Zane was running a cool cloth between her legs.
She tried to close her thighs shyly and he said, “No, baby, let us take care of you.” She forced herself to relax and drifted back to sleep. The last thing she heard was Zane saying, “She’s so much more than I ever hoped for.” Boyd agreed.
Sidney wasn’t sure where she was when she opened her eyes and came awake instantly with fighting instinct. Lashing out with her arms and legs, trying to get away, a voice talked gently to her in the midst of her terror.
“Sidney, it’s Boyd. You’re safe, no one is going to hurt you, baby.” He stroked her face and stomach gently and the panicked racing of her heart began to slow. “There you go, Sidney, you’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you, sweetheart. Ever.”
“I…I’m sorry. I forgot where I was. I get confused. I…I was in so many different places.” Her eyes adjusted to the light and the two men on either side of her were holding her hands, kissing her fingers. She saw the question in their eyes and whispered as hers drifted shut, “They tried. So many times, in so many homes but they never succeeded. I learned a lot about myself. I’m stronger than anyone thinks by looking at me. I have a high tolerance for pain and I won’t let myself black out. I can bite a man’s hand over my mouth clear to the fucking bone. I don’t need a weapon to bring an untrained man to the ground…or his teenage son. And I survive. I learn, I adapt, and I survive. Always.” Then she whispered, “But I got so tired, so tired.” There wasn’t a sound as tears tracked into her hair from beneath her closed lids.
Boyd and Zane laid their heads beside her, their mouths by her ears, whispering she didn’t have to be afraid anymore, no one was going to hurt her, she would always be safe with them and they already loved her and would wait for her to love them, because she was worth waiting for. She twined their hands with hers, tucked between her breasts.
Before dawn, the men woke to Sidney stretched out over their bodies. One knee rested on the bed on one side of Zane, her other over his thigh, her head on Boyd’s stomach with her arms cupped around his side. They stroked her back and hair gently and she opened her eyes. “Am I heavy?” she asked sleepily. They shook their heads. “’Kay…” Then she was asleep again and they looked at one another with a smile.
The sun was up and lighting the huge windows and the first thing Zane’s eyes registered was Sidney in her bra and panties, her hair in damp curls around her face, going through the flowing movements of Tai Chi about twenty feet away in shafts of morning light.
“Ssh,” Boyd whispered behind him. “I don’t want her to stop.”
After a long time, she finished and bowed to the sun, giving a glorious stretch. Glancing over, she saw they were awake and smiled, returning to lie between them.
“Good morning,” she said as she snuggled down between their warm bodies. “Did I wake you up?” They shook their heads with drowsy smiles. “You’re so adorable when you sleep. You look like little boys and so still; just fucking cute as hell.” She flipped to her stomach so she could see them and whispered, “Did you sleep well?”
“I would have to say I feel more rested than I have in twenty years, Sidney,” Zane said honestly.
Boyd added, “And relaxed…I feel so relaxed.”
“That’s the first time I’ve slept more than an hour or two in as long as I can remember.” She grinned, “By the way, this is me without makeup. It took me ten minutes to figure out your shower. Complicated fucker.”
“You look even younger, baby,” they told her. In the morning light, they could see that she had far more freckles than they’d realized and both of them found them adorable.
“Which is why I wear makeup. I talked to Brooke and Jeanette this morning. Everyone seems whispery and ridiculously cheerful this morning. Your buddies are still snoring away. Figuratively, not literally. Thank god Jeanette got laid. That girl is the sweetest being on the planet. Has like a two hundred IQ or some damn thing. Total virgin, but it sounds like that went just fine. She’s been so scared about it.” Both men’s brows went up. “Mention I said it and I will hurt you, and not in a good way.”
“Never. Are you serious, though?” Sidney nodded. Zane whistled, “Then Mack was perfect for her. He loves the quiet ones and treats them super gentle.” He shook his head, “A two hundred IQ?”
“Graduated Princeton with two degrees at just eighteen. She’s a child prodigy. We have more in common than you’d think though. She is crazy lonely. Her childhood was major fucked just in a different way. Brooke, wow, what to say about my girl? She’s totally giddy and kind of made me want to hurl. She sounded like that chick from the Sound of Music. Gag.” Her bright smile seemed to brighten the room as she told them, “And me, well, I’m playing it cool because I have a reputation for being a stone-cold bitch. But I’m feeling rather giddy myself. Gag.”
When they came for her, she wondered what had taken them so long and made a note to wear less clothing going forward.
Chapter E
ighteen
Rex and Brooke…
They’d fallen on one another before they made it all the way into Mack’s house, tearing at clothes and tugging off shoes. Rex had barely remembered a condom, fully buried in her body when he cursed a blue streak and had to pull out.
He took her hard against the wall until they were slick with sweat and screaming one another’s names. For hours they’d loved hard. Biting, scratching, pushing, and shoving. Every time Rex came, he stripped off the condom and pulled on another, never letting himself fully soften. He allowed his sperm to replenish while he fucked Brooke. Only when they’d collapsed in exhaustion on the rug in front of the fireplace had they truly spoken.
Brooke was hoarse as she murmured, “May I say thank you? I mean, sweet lord, Rex.” They were lying side by side on their backs, their hands clasped together.
His own voice gravelly and deep, he replied, “No, I have to thank you. I think I’m in danger of dehydration, Brooke.”
“I’d offer to get you water but my legs don’t work. We could crawl into the kitchen.” She wanted to be helpful.
“Fuck that…it’s like thirty feet away. Might as well be three miles.” He’d already considered and dismissed the idea.
She said nothing for a long moment, then so quiet he almost missed it, “Agreed. I don’t want to go, Rex.”
He didn’t misunderstand what she was saying and his heart clenched, “I don’t want you to go either, Brooke. But you have to. You know you do. You made a commitment and people are counting on you. Only a few more weeks, baby. Then you come back here as often as you can and let me give you some normal for a while.”
“Those bar skanks better stay the fuck back. I’ll give ‘em a good old-fashioned country ass-whoopin’.”
Rolling to his side and putting his head in his hand Rex asked, “One of the most beautiful women in the world, talented and sexy, is worried about bar skanks? Do you really think you have to worry about that?”
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