by Saba Sparks
It hadn’t.
The three of them worked.
And maybe it was odd. Maybe under society’s rules they didn’t
quite fit the normal set up, but Jack was happier now than he had been in a very long time. When Lee rubbed Anna’s head in the way she
liked, it simply made Jack happy that she was happy. When Lee ran his fingers down her thighs and buried his head between her legs, he watched her sigh with pleasure and was pleased by it.
He had no idea what any of it meant…only that it meant
something. Which was why he found himself sat on this chair, the cold air chilling his exposed skin, the whisky warming him.
* * * *
Lee knew that the words he was thinking were not exactly the
words he should be saying. But they were there, and in this
relationship of theirs, a relationship that was founded above anything else on total honesty, they could not be held back.
“I can’t imagine her not being here next Christmas.”
Jack let out a deep sigh. “Lee…she’s only here for the winter.”
“I know that,” Lee said.
“Well then.”
“But she’s never talked about going home,” he said. “Oh, I know
she’s meant to. That she’s only here for the winter. And I know she has a life back there. Friends, an apartment, her business. That guy who keeps calling for instance, what’s his name, Bob?”
“Exactly.”
“But she doesn’t have any family,” Lee said. “There’s no one
there to hold her there.”
Jack shook his head and took a swig of his drink. Lee didn’t need to look to know his friend’s face would be fixed into a frown. “You think we can hold her?”
Did he? Lee smiled slightly because he didn’t need to think twice about that. From the moment Anna had turned the corner of their
cottage, her nose pink, her hair moved by the breeze, Lee had known she was something special. The first time he had run his hands over her soft skin that feeling had only intensified. He loved being around her. Loved waking up next to her. Loved talking to her. And it was weird but it didn’t bother him at all that he shared those moments with Jack. In a way it made sense. Jack was his best friend. They had spent an awful lot of their lives together. Why wouldn’t they share Anna?
Why wouldn’t they love her together?
Lee paused, his drink halfway to his mouth.
Love?
Was this love? He wasn’t sure that he did love her, but then he wasn’t sure he didn’t. One thing he did know was that he wanted Anna in their life, and he was willing to do whatever it took to keep her.
“Why the hell not?” he asked, lowering his glass. “She’s happy
here with us.”
“She’s still grieving,” Jack said.
And yes, she was, Lee recognized that. The shadow he had seen
in her eyes the first time in his studio was still there. Sometimes it dimmed, sometimes it was almost gone altogether, but it came back.
Still, he knew it was simply a question of time. As the months went by she would hurt less and laugh more. They could help her to do that, Lee knew they could. “She’s getting better.”
“I know,” Jack agreed. “But you’re missing my point. Here, right now, with us, she is doing what she wants to do. But we can’t forget that she’s delicate, vulnerable. She’s wrapped in this sort of bubble with us.” He paused. “We pleasure her, we make her happy, but she is completely sheltered from the consequences of her actions.”
“Consequences?”
Jack looked up, his gaze fixed on the nighttime sky. “Her grief is blinding her,” he said slowly. “It’s like when we came home. You remember some of the crazy things we did? You disappeared for
months, doing that stupid bike ride through South America.”
Lee winced, remembering just how stupid he had been. It was
luck more than anything that had brought him home and the only way he could explain it to himself now was that he had needed to do something. When they’d lost their friends…when they’d been the
only ones to come out of that attack…
“I needed some space.”
“You took a risk,” Jack said. “Some of the areas you rode
through…”
“I made it out okay.”
“You were lucky to.”
Lee snorted, even as he tried to push away the memories of those dark days. “You can’t say shit. You were jumping off buildings.
Climbing sheer cliffs.”
“Chasing the adrenaline, my friend,” Jack said. “Trying to numb
myself and make myself feel.” He paused. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
Jack sighed. “But you’re right and my point is that to Annie
we’re her crazy. We’re her bike ride, her rock climb. With us she can forget that she’s hurting. She can forget that she’s taken herself completely out of her real life.”
Lee frowned, not liking that analogy at all. “You think we’re a
phase?”
“Not a phase, no,” Jack said. “I think we’re easy. I think we make her feel good. And I think that when the time comes, when her lease comes to an end, she’ll wake up and move on.”
“I don’t want her to.”
His words were blunt. Falling between them and exposing the
truth that they both felt.
“I don’t want her to either.”
Lee sighed and stood up. He walked over to the edge of the
verandah and looked out at the wide space in front of them. He loved this place, loved the way it soothed him, the way it had always
soothed him. He’d loved it more since Anna arrived.
He had to ask the question that was burning inside him.
“Jack, what do you feel for her?”
“You’re seriously asking me that?”
Lee turned to look at his friend. “Why not? I know it’s not just sex for you.”
“And you know that how?”
“After our years of friendship?” Lee asked. “Hell, I know you as well as I know myself. Better even. I see the way you look at her. I see how you are with her. And there’s no jealousy between us.”
“Some might say that is because it’s just sex,” Jack said.
“No,” Lee said. “There’s no jealousy because we both want her to be happy. It doesn’t matter if it’s you making her happy or me. So long as she’s happy we’re happy.” He paused. “I’ll go first. I care for her.”
A moment or two passed. Lee wasn’t sure if Jack was going to be
speak. But eventually he did, his words coming out in one long drawn out sigh. “Yeah. Me too.”
It was all or nothing now. “The way it’s going?” Lee said. “The
way I feel when I’m around her. This could be the real thing, Jack.”
His friend’s head shot up. Even in the dark surrounding them Lee could see Jack’s eyes widen. “Shit…Lee…”
“I know. Seems weird saying it,” Lee said. “But she’s exactly
what I would look for in a wife.”
It seemed that Jack could not hold back either, not now it was all becoming clear between them. “Me too,” he said. “Only we both can’t fucking marry her.”
“No,” Lee agreed. “We can’t. But she can stay here with us. We
can carry on as we are. The three of us.”
“For how long?” Jack asked.
Lee had thought about this a lot over the last few weeks, and he was at the point of thinking that this crazy relationship of theirs could last for some time. As long as everyone was happy, as long as
everyone felt comfortable, why the hell not? “For as long as it
works.”
Jack stood too to join Lee at the edge of their farmhouse. His
breath came out in little clouds of frost. For a moment Lee was
“Lee,” Jack said. “What you’re suggesting…even if I did want it
—”
“Do you?”
“Right now?” He paused. “In this exact moment? Yes, I do. But,
Lee, we’re assuming that Annie would want the same thing. It’s
different for us. We’ve lived out here for so long. We left conventions behind a long time ago, and after some of the things we saw? Was it any wonder?”
“Conventions don’t mean a lot when people are dying around
you.”
Jack nodded. “Exactly. You know, I started to think it would be
this way until the end. Me and you out here, doing our thing.”
“Like our grandfathers.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Only now Annie, well, she’s changed
everything.”
She certainly had. For both of them. “If we want her to stay we
have to convince her that it is the right thing to do.”
“And how do you suggest we do that?” Jack asked.
“We continue to pleasure her,” Lee said. “Continue to make her
happy. When her time here is up we put it all on the line and we be as honest with her as we’ve been all along.”
“We ask her to stay?”
“Yeah.”
“And if she says no?”
It was Lee’s turn to shrug now. “Then she says no and we’ll pick up the pieces. But we have to risk it all if we want to gain it all.”
“Story of our fucking lives,” Jack finally said, but he held out his almost empty glass and Lee responded by clicking his against it.
“Then we have a plan.”
“Yes,” Jack said. “Let’s just hope it’s one that Annie agrees
with.”
Chapter Seventeen
Spring snuck up on Anna almost out of nowhere. Had she been
more observant she probably would have noticed the leaves emerging from the trees, the grass rediscovering its color, even the sound of the returning birds. But Anna wasn’t being observant, not at all. She was too wrapped up in the bubble that she, Jack and Lee had created.
The winter had unfolded slowly around her. One moment it had
been November and they’d embarked on this crazy relationship of
theirs. The next it had been Christmas and Anna had skipped through every moment, enjoying it in a way she could never have imagined just a few months earlier. And now? Well, now spring had arrived, and her tenancy was officially at an end. She had just a week left of her contract and then it was time to move back to the city.
At least that was what she had always thought.
Only everything was different now.
She wrapped her arms around herself as she walked past the
cottage where all this had started. It was midday and she was coming back from her usual walk. It wasn’t quite warm enough outside yet to get away with just a tee, but she wore only a thin jumper and a pair of jeans. Her trusty walking boots completed the outfit.
Anna looked down at those boots as she walked away from the
cottage and onto the track that led back to the farmhouse. The track was beginning to soften, mud now coated her boots. It was no doubt due to the rain that had been constant for the past fortnight. They’d spent the majority of that time indoors, save for Anna’s walks. Anna had worked on her latest project, a huge quilt for a woman who lived around the corner from Sally. Lee had hidden away in his studio
working on a project that he wouldn’t tell any of them about, while Jack cooked increasingly spicy food and bashed away at his laptop.
Anna had passed it at one point and spotted a balance on a
spreadsheet that made her feel faint even thinking about it. It was funny now to think that she had once thought that his ‘online selling’
involved an eBay shop. Of course, those activities only took up a few hours a day. The rest of the time…Anna jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and smiled…they spent it in bed. It had been months now, but Anna was still surprised by the things they did
together. Lee and Jack pleasured her in ways that Anna had never imagined or expected.
She loved being with them.
You love more than just that.
Anna sighed as she trekked the route home, because with just a
week to go until she was due to leave one thing had become very
clear to her.
She did not want to.
The idea of returning to the city, to her old home, to all the
memories and hassle, just made her feel sad. She wanted to stay here with Jack and Lee. She wanted her life to carry on much as it had for the past few months. And it was weird, because one part of Anna felt like she should be worried about that. She knew the bubble she’d wrapped herself in existed. It was there because it had helped her with her grief, helped her to heal. But it had also kept her from considering the consequences of her actions. Simply carrying on as she was with her lovers would mean never facing up to the reality of what was happening between them. That she, Anna, had chosen this crazy
lifestyle. Had gone into it willing, eyes wide open, no guarantees about the future.
But leaving? She frowned as she quickened her pace. Leaving
would mean losing her men, and that was something that Anna could not accept. It no longer mattered to her that this set-up was out of the ordinary. That people would probably frown and be judgemental
about it. She was happy. And she knew enough in life to know that happiness, the sort she had found with her males, didn’t come along all that often in life. After losing Grand, after the things Jack and Lee had experienced, Anna didn’t see any choice but to grab at that
happiness with both hands. What would happen after that would
happen. Maybe they would have five years. Maybe they would have
ten. Maybe there would be babies. Maybe not. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the here and now, and Anna wanted to embrace it in every single way that she could.
Except…
Neither Jack nor Lee had ever spoken about the future, they
hadn’t even discussed their feelings in any great detail, but Anna was sure that there was more between them than simply lust and
friendship.
They worked.
Despite the craziness of the whole situation they did. And now it was time, and then some, to put her feelings on the line.
She passed the marker, which meant there was less than a mile
until Anna made it to the farmhouse. It was wooden plaque in the shape of a kitten. She’d ordered them online about six weeks ago, eleven in all. Each one was a different feline, tabby, ginger, black and white, gray, because Anna had always wanted a cat. Living in the city hadn’t really given her any opportunity to have one. Too much traffic and not enough green spaces. Here of course it would be different…
Anna shook that thought off as she passed the marker. There was
one at every mile marker from the farmhouse to her favorite spot in the forest. Anna liked to see them. They let her know how far she had to go and how soon she would return. Lee had accompanied her to put them in place, that afternoon they had made love on a bed of leaves…
Her men were waiting on the verandah for her. There was a plate
of food on the wooden table, a canter of juice with some glasses, and a bunch of tea-lights were swimming in the middle of the table where a huge bowl of water resided.
“Wondered where you’d got to,” Lee said.
Anna shot him a smile as she took the seat Jack was holding out
for her. Once on it, she poured herself a glass of juice and took a long swallow. The air was crisp, the juice cold, the setting just about perfection. Without even realizing, Jack and Lee had given her the perfect set-up to air her thoughts, only now the ti
me was here Anna was nervous. What would they say when she explained her feelings?
When she told them exactly what she wanted? There was only one
way to find out.
“My lease comes to an end soon,” she said.
Jack poured himself a drink, nodding as he did so. “It does.”
“We’ll need to get in there and apply a fresh coat of paint,” Lee said. “Every single year we have to do this.” He shot Anna a grin.
“Didn’t think we’d have to this year.”
“I guess you didn’t imagine a lot of what has happened this year would have.”
“No.”
Silence settled for a moment. Anna drank some more of her juice
as she tried to frame the question she wanted to ask. She should have known though, should have expected it. Jack beat her to it.
“What are your plans, Annie?” he said. “Once the lease is over.”
“I don’t know,” Anna said honestly.
“What do you want to do?” Lee asked.
Deep breath, Anna thought, and then she took her heart in her
hands and did the only thing she could do. “I don’t want to go back to the city.”
Her words fell between them. There was a pause. The next thing
Anna knew her men were grabbing her, kissing her, telling her how happy they were. Anna couldn’t help but laugh as kisses were planted on her lips, her head, her cheeks. She was surrounded by them…and she loved it…had been right to say the words.
“Thank God!” Jack sighed.
Lee laughed. “Thank God is about right. We’ve been waiting for
those words since Christmas.”
“You have?”
He laughed again. “Of course we have.”
“You definitely want me to stay here with you?” Anna asked
because she needed to be sure that they were all on the same page.
“Long term?”
“Indefinitely,” Jack replied.
“We’ve wanted that for months,” Lee added.
Anna’s heart swelled. Happiness filled her to the very core, and it was the sort of happiness that she had not imagined just a handful of months ago. Here, on the farmhouse, with these men, she had not only healed from her loss, but she had also found something inside of herself, that she had never expected. A desire for excitement, a need for passion, a craving for the pleasure they gave her both in bed and out of it.
