We were quickly cleared on our way, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re going to have to get your paperwork, babe. Is it in your penthouse?” I looked to Nate with a smile—I was happy anytime they reminded me that my life with them was permanent. “My passport and birth certificate are, yeah. What else do I need?”
Rex sat down across from us and fastened his seatbelt. “That’ll do for now—but once you’re out of danger, we’ll need to get you a visa.”
“And I’m sure daddy is worried…” Nate shot Rex an uncomfortable glance.
Early the next morning, we checked into two rooms at a semi-decent hotel close to the hospital in Nate’s hometown. Nate joked he got two rooms instead of three to keep them guessing who the couple was. We collapsed into a king sized bed in one of the rooms, fully clothed, and slept until the alarm went off.
As soon as we could, we headed to the hospital the next morning. Rex and I waited in the long, sterile hallway in plastic chairs as Nate hugged his sister and, much to our relief, his father. “I’m sorry, Dad, I-I didn’t know,” he said with tears floating in his steel-blue eyes. “You’re here son, that means the world to me. She wants to see you.” The three of them walked into the hospital room arm in arm.
I waited with Rex for over an hour. He rejected my offer to go get everyone coffee with a gruff, “You don’t leave my sight. Not even to take a shit, got it?”
“Romantic,” I replied with an eye roll.
“We took a huge risk leaving the compound with you. If anything happened to you…” He took a deep breath and walked to the windows at the end of the hall.
Nate’s mother, Nancy, continued to decline over the course of the week. The family sat by her side night and day, praying, begging, and pleading with God to save her. On Thursday afternoon, she died in her sleep at the young age of fifty-six. Nate was inconsolable as we held him in the chapel of the hospital, four loving arms wrapped around his tall, lean frame as he wept.
We managed to get him to eat only a few crackers that night before we went to sleep. The viewing was scheduled for the next afternoon, and the funeral the day after. I begged to be allowed to go, but both men insisted that I stay behind with Rex—there was too great a chance of pictures of me leaking out, putting all of us in danger. The media was already arriving to the small town and setting up news vans outside the hospital. The return of missing billionaire Nathaniel Slater wasn’t going to go unnoticed.
As was our routine, we went to bed curled up in front of the television, only this time, rather than me in the middle, Rex spooned up behind Nate and we both held him tight as he worked through the grief of losing a parent. While I dozed off to sleep with heavy eyelids, I heard Nate whisper to Rex, “Say it.” Rex moved toward him, but I kept my eyes shut to give them some space. “You know I do,” Rex’s deep voice said. “I need to hear it tonight, please.” Nate sounded broken, pained. “I love you, Nathaniel, you belong to me, forever.”
When I woke the next morning, the hot sun streaming through a crack in the vinyl curtain liner, I looked over to the men I loved. Nate’s head was on Rex’s sleeping chest, the same way I normally slept with Rex, and Rex’s strong, comforting arms were wrapped around Nate’s back, holding him close. I crept to the coffee machine as they slept, flipping through the muted TV channels. A local morning show was running the story of Nate’s return from the Amazon to be by his mother’s side as she bravely fought cervical cancer.
I wasn’t allowed to be seen at the funeral home, but Nate’s father, Al, invited us for dinner at their house after the viewing. I wore the simpler of the two black dresses I’d brought, and as I slipped into the shiny black pumps, I asked Rex, “So when they ask, who am I with?” He was standing at the mirror, carefully tying his black silk tie into a Windsor knot. I was so used to seeing Rex dressed for jungle survival that the sight of him in a suit peaked my libido, but I fought the urge to flirt as I remembered the pain Nate was in.
“Well,” he said, straightening the tie and adjusting his collar, “that’s up to Nate, I think. Al has hinted a few times that we might be together, but he’s never come right out and asked. I’m sure the addition of you really has them scratching their heads.”
“How would you define it?”
“I wouldn’t,” he said flatly.
“Well, I mean, you two don’t have sex—I mean not together, not together alone, anyway. But Nate would if…”
“Can we move on?” He slid his designer jacket on over his broad shoulders and grabbed a black pair of socks from his suitcase. When not in combat boots, Rex rarely wore socks. He often wandered the house shoeless, and I loved his sexy bare feet. He was ink-free from the waist down, and the contrast of his untouched skin below with the elaborate tattooing above was stunning. I hadn’t found any further body jewelry on Rex, and I’d explored every inch of his fine physique, but he did have several piercings that he left open—ears, the other nipple, and a few more man-made holes riddled his gigantic ballsack. In addition to the holes, his body was lined with thin, barely visible scars in straight lines. He also had a puffy, larger scar from what appeared to be a surgery underneath where the word Trust was inked below his ribs. My mind drifted back to what to refer to their sort of bi, sort of not, unique relationship.
“I’d say you are hetero life partners,” I eventually decided as I swiped a line of black eyeliner around my eyes.
Rex dropped his sock, his head whipping around to glare at me. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I think it’s from SNL…”
He sighed and finished pulling up his socks before sliding his feet into a stiff pair of leather shoes. “I haven’t seen Saturday Night Live in sixteen years, baby girl.”
“You should wear underwear,” I teased as I dabbed lip-gloss around my mouth. Rex was usually commando, but I didn’t want his metal piercings showing through the satiny fabric of the suit at a family dinner. “I’m not a teenager, Penny, I’m wearing underwear, see?” He pulled the waistband of his trousers down to show me the band of his brand-new Calvins.
“Okay, let’s go, I hate to be late. We’re supposed to meet the family back at the house,” he nagged as he looped the battered Omega watch he wore over his wide wrist. With metal and ink covered by the dark suit, he looked more like a successful businessman than the primal Rex I was used to. “I hope all this grief is over with soon, Princess, because I can’t wait to fuck you again. Or watch Nate fuck you…”
“You’re a voyeur,” I teased, slipping gold hoops into my earlobes.
“Oh big time. Watch, be watched—yeah, baby, that’s definitely my kink. But if anyone other than Nate ever touches you,” he made a cutting motion across his throat with his hand.
“What about Nate with someone else?” The thought of it made me cringe with jealousy, but I was curious about the depth of Rex’s kink. “So curious today, baby girl. Before seeing you on the plane that night, I was never interested in watching Nate with anyone else, no.”
“He said he’d been with women in Colombia. Did that make you jealous?”
“Hm,” he mused, his index finger stroking his chin. “I guess I didn’t really think about it at the time. But now, you both belong to me, we belong to each other. We are three, and it’s what’s right for us. I don’t need to have it labeled as anything.”
“You know, Nate’s not here… I could kneel down and…” I dropped to my knees in front of him and licked my lips. He looked down at me, his caramel color hair flopping down over his forehead. “You’re a naughty girl, and trying to make us late. But, it’s been forever, and I’m about to burst looking at your ass wiggling around in that dress.”
“You went two years without sex, right? What’s a few days?” I teased.
“I went two years without sex with others, I jacked off all fucking day.”
“So is that a yes?”
“Open up but be quick, and I’ll try not to ruin those glossy lips.”
“You’re so fuckin
g bossy,” I teased as I unzipped his suit pants and worked his hardening cock out through the fly.
“Watch your fucking language, Princess, or I’ll turn you over my knee again right now.” I wrapped my lips around him, my tongue toying with the titanium barbell along the underside of his growing cock. “Fuck, baby, you’re good at that,” he groaned, his legs bracing as I sucked him slowly into a shuddering orgasm.
The tip of my tongue flicked around the head of his cock, greedily cleaning every last drop from him. “That’s enough, we need to go,” he said, slipping his half-erect cock back into his pants. “What about me?” I wiggled my hips—I was so turned on I’d come from the slightest touch. He reached down and pulled me to my feet. “No time, sweetheart, you’ll have to wait.” With a swat to my ass, he directed me to the door. “No fair,” I pouted. He looped his arm through mine and walked me into the open elevator. “Life is not fair, baby.”
Chapter Twelve
After the funeral, the plane was loaded up with our American supply bounty as we strapped in our seatbelts for the flight back home. Home, it was now home to me. Nate was still dressed in the black suit he’d worn to bury his mother. We’d given him space to just be silent and grieve, so little had been said after we picked him up for the airport.
Within an hour, Rex was asleep in his chair. I looked over to Nate—I had no idea what to say. “Come back and just lie with me?” His steel blue eyes looked so sad as he stood from his chair and reached a hand out toward me. I walked with him to the back—the bedroom where I first woke up after being drugged and taken by him. It seemed like forever ago—then I was terrified, now I realized that these two men risked their lives to save mine.
He pulled off his suit coat and tossed it over a side chair, followed by his black tie. We curled up together against the padded headboard, my head on his chest as he held me against his crisp cotton dress shirt. “I’ll get makeup on your shirt,” I said absently. “I don’t care,” he muttered, his long fingers running through my hair. “Does it ever stop hurting?” I nuzzled closer into him and honestly answered, “No. But it gets easier to deal with as time passes. You’ll never stop missing her.”
“I feel so guilty for not being there more. If only I’d—”
“You can’t change the past. She knew you loved her, that you were doing the best you could.”
“She said that to me—that she wanted me to be happy and healthy. She was so proud that I’d been clean for so long. I just keep seeing her there, all hooked up to tubes and wires, in so much pain.” His eyes misted with tears as I held him. “Tell me something about her, something that will always make you smile.”
He smiled a little. “She always cut the crusts off my sandwiches. I mean always—even as a grown man. One time I told her, ‘Ma, you don’t have to do that, I eat crusts now.’ She said, ‘Nathaniel, it’s our special thing.’ I loved her so much.”
“Love, not past tense. Love doesn’t die, just bodies.”
“I like that, Penny. Did I tell you that my dad plans to come out to Colombia next month? He says he wants to learn some jungle stuff, but I don’t see him doing that.”
“I’m glad your mother brought you back together. He didn’t ask about us, though?”
“He did,” he said quietly, his lips brushing across my forehead. “And I told him the truth. He was a bit surprised, but echoed my mom. He said as long as I’m happy, he’s supportive.”
“Your sister?”
“She wasn’t happy at all. Didn’t you see her flirting with Rex?”
“Oh my God no!” I giggled.
“Talk about awkward…” We laughed, and as we did I felt him relax, the emotional drain of the last week relenting for a few stolen moments.
“I’ve missed touching you, Pen. Feeling your skin, hearing you moan—the way you say my name when you come. I-I’m ready to feel again.”
I turned my face to his. “I love you, Nate,” I said before kissing him—the kind of kiss that binds you in a moment so perfect, so complete it lives forever. His hand stroked my cheek as his tongue explored my willing mouth. It had been so long since we’d made love, and I needed him desperately. His hand ran up my back before reaching around to pull the sweatshirt over my head. I clawed at his shirt, opening it to reveal his chiseled chest. I planted a row of kisses across his toned pecs before focusing on his hardening pink nipples.
“Shit, babe, I’ve missed you,” he moaned as I stroked him through the suit pants. Within seconds, we’d undressed, our skin craving the intimate contact of two lovers parted for too long. I straddled his hips, gasping as he entered me in one long stroke. “Ah,” I nearly screamed as his long cock knocked against my sensitive cervix. His hands held on to my hips, raising me up again. “More?” I slammed down on him again, taking his entire length as I moaned, “Yes!”
With his thumb stroking my swollen clit, I continued to fuck him hard, up and down, all in one solid stroke, over and over until I shook from the force of my climax. “Fuck, when you do that, it makes me come, too,” he grunted, spilling into me as his hands dug into my hips. I collapsed on top of him, my head against his shoulder, panting as I tried to catch my breath. When I moved to pull off him, his hands grabbed my hips once again, holding me in place. His tireless cock stirred inside of me as he said, “We’re not done yet—there’s still lots of catching up to do, babe.” My Energizer Bunny of sex went non-stop through three climaxes, never once withdrawing from my soaked, throbbing pussy. I lost count of how many times I came that night on the airplane before we finally rolled into the covers in exhaustion.
“You can go forever,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Ah, King Rex has his moves, but he can’t do that.”
From the door, his voice boomed as we startled. “Please, boy, when I was your age, I’d have fucked her until she couldn’t stand up, fucked you, fucked my hand, fucked the wine bottle, fucked the sink, and that would have just been foreplay. Then, I’d be ready to fuck the—”
“We get it,” Nate said with mock exasperation.
“You were spying on us,” I said lustily as Rex walked over to the bed. “Don’t flatter yourselves. You woke me up with all that moaning and groaning. Sounded like two cats in heat.” He slid in behind me, fully dressed against my sore, naked body.
“You left me with sore sloppy seconds?” Rex teased with a gentle swat on my bare ass. “Sorry,” Nate said with a grin and a shrug of his shoulders. Rex pulled close to me in a classic lovers’ spoon. “How are you feeling, man? No urge to—”
“No,” Nate interrupted. “Not once did I want to turn to drugs. I had you two there to get me through.”
“I’m beyond happy to hear that. You’re on your way to being free of it.”
We were quiet in the dimly lit airplane cabin, cuddled up together in the wide bed. I thought Nate was asleep—his eyes were closed. “He looks peaceful,” I whispered, rolling over to face Rex. “Yeah, I was worried this would send him into a tailspin. I’m super proud of him.”
“Would you ever get a tattoo for Nate?” Rex’s tattoos were a constant source of curiosity for me.
“He has one,” Nate yawned behind me, rolling over to wrap his arm around my waist. “There’s a Nate in there?” I’d spent far too much time pouring over Rex’s ink, but had never seen the word Nate etched into his body. Rex took my hand and placed it on his left side, the hard ripple of his abs underneath my probing fingers. “Trust, that was for Nate. He’s the first person I ever truly trusted.”
“It’s over a scar…” My finger ran over the faint puffy line beneath the script of the word Trust.
Rex sighed and looked at Nate—I’d touched upon something.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.” I meant it—as curious as I was, I didn’t want to push Rex.
Nate was silent, waiting to see if Rex would share. “I have an addiction too, Princess.” His words hung in the night as I absorbed them. “To what?” I finally asked. “Pai
n. I use physical pain to mask emotional pain. I’m a cutter, or I was a cutter. This,” he ran my finger over the scar again, “is the last time I purposefully cut myself with a blade.”
My heart hurt for him. All the fine, faint scars on his perfect golden skin… “All the piercings—I did those, to myself, to numb some emotion or another.” I lay there silently, my fingertips still tracing the scars along his torso. It was no longer a mystery why the three of us were drawn together—we all shared some vein of self-destructive behavior, we all drove those we loved, who loved us, away. My fingers drifted to his pierced nipple, the one that still contained a titanium barbell through it. “That mother fucker,” he said with a nervous laugh, “hurt more than anything I’ve ever done. I’ve taken some serious pain, but a needle through that nipple nearly caused me to pass out. This one wasn’t so bad.” He pointed to the empty left nipple piercing. “The dick piercings were tiny pinpricks on my prick compared to that bitch.” I was silent, absorbing his words, struggling to understand.
“Did it ease the pain?” I finally asked.
“Of course not,” he answered softly. “It never does. Just like drugs didn’t ease Nate’s pain, just numbed it. Taking endless douchebags to bed sure as hell didn’t make you feel better, did it?” I didn’t answer—he was right. “So the night she told me she’d never loved me and that our son’s death was my fault, I spiraled. She’d left me months ago, and had already filed for divorce. In a drunken moment of weakness, I called her and she said those words to me and hung up. I locked my bedroom door—Nate was already living with me at the time—and pulled out a new razor and began to cut. This time, though, it wasn’t enough. The blood and the faint sting didn’t ease the pain, so I pulled out a field knife, wiped it with alcohol, and cut a nice, satisfying slit across my side—right where you feel the scar.” Nate rustled behind me, the memory difficult for him.
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