Nicky and I looked at each other and, without a word, went to Dev. ‘Let me help you out of those clothes,’ I said, trying to put teasing and sexiness in the words.
Dev looked at me, eyes too big, face sort of slack with the edge of panic he was fighting. He held his hands out to me like he was five and had hurt himself. There was no mark on his hands; they looked clean to me, but sometimes you have a sort of Lady Macbeth moment, and even after washing away the blood, it’s like you can still see it, feel it, ingrained on your skin.
I reached out to touch his hands, but he jerked back. ‘I’ve got … stuff on me.’
‘Me, too,’ I said, my voice soft.
His eyes fluttered and flashed white like a horse about to bolt.
‘It’s okay, Dev, it’s okay.’
He shook his head.
‘You said you thought you’d never get me out of my clothes, and you haven’t even said how cute I look,’ Nicky said.
That got a smile from Dev; it was weak, and a little uncertain, but it was better than I’d gotten out of him. He looked at Nicky then, really looked at the other man. He looked at his bare, muscled chest, the way Nicky had looked at my breasts. There were some men in my life who, even as comfortable as they were sharing a bed with me and other men all at the same time, they wouldn’t have taken that look from Dev without it being a fight, or at least severely uncomfortable, but Nicky took it in stride.
‘That’s better,’ Nicky said.
Dev put his head to one side and said, ‘You don’t like men, so why do you care if I admire the view?’
Nicky shrugged as much as his shoulder muscles would let him. ‘I like knowing that you’re not just kidding about it.’
‘You like knowing that I’d do you if you’d let me, and you’re still going to get in the shower with me. Most straight men would be totally creeped by it.’
‘I’m secure in my masculinity.’
‘Well, that’s the truth,’ I said.
Nicky smiled at me, and I smiled back.
‘But you wouldn’t be doing me; I don’t bottom to anyone,’ Nicky said.
‘That works for me,’ Dev said.
I was no longer certain we were joking.
Nicky grinned. ‘If I come across for you then I’ll have to fight off Jean-Claude and Asher. I think I’ll stay on this side of the heteroflexible divide; it’ll make things less complicated.’
Dev pouted at him, and if you’ve never seen a handsome, athletic, six-foot-three man pout and be able to make it totally work for him, then I’m sorry, because it was way fun to watch.
Nicky laughed. ‘Let’s get naked and wet.’
The look on Dev’s face at such a bold comment from the other man ruined the pout and stripped his face to something uncertain and hopeful. I hadn’t known that Dev thought Nicky was cute, but Nicky’s maneuvering of the other man let me know that my werelion had known. Was I that blind, or was Nicky just that observant?
Dev stripped off his shirt in one fast motion and threw it on the floor as if he didn’t want to touch it any longer than he had to, but he unzipped his pants and stripped them off to join his socks and boots, which were already on the floor beside him. He was suddenly totally nude and beautiful, but he wasn’t looking defiantly at me, he was looking at the other man. It was almost as if he thought Nicky would chicken out and have a moment of heterosexual panic, but I knew better. If it was a test of nerves, my money was on Nicky.
He didn’t disappoint me. He just unfastened his pants and stripped them off – okay, he had to peel them off due to some fluid that had dried on one leg, but he got them off and let them fall on top of his own boots and socks. He stood there naked and yummy and stared at Dev like he was daring him to say something.
Dev opened his mouth, closed it, and then laughed, head back, eyes closed, totally delighted. Nicky looked at me and smiled. I decided then and there that I would never try to bluff Nicky, because he was out of my league. I could lie, but I couldn’t manipulate like that, not even for a good cause.
Nicky held his hand out to me, and I went to him. ‘You have too many clothes on,’ he said.
‘We can fix that,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Dev said, his voice still holding an edge of laughter, ‘we can.’
We did.
53
We helped one another get clean. It took three times through the shampoo for Dev’s hair to get clean. He’d gotten hit the worst from something, or maybe it was the baby-fine texture of his hair; whatever. Nicky helped me pick bits out of the back of Dev’s hair. He started shivering even though the water was steaming hot, but there is cold that no amount of hot water will warm. I think we could have turned his skin pink with heat and he would still have shivered.
He put his hands on the tile of the wall and leaned, as if he were trying to take strength from the wall to keep standing. Nicky and I exchanged a look; he motioned with his head for me to get closer to Dev while he kept picking bits of zombie out of the other man’s hair. I touched his arm, and he jumped.
‘It’s me, Dev, it’s just me,’ I said.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
I let that go; we both knew what was wrong, but knowing doesn’t always fix it. I touched his arm again, and this time he stood still for it. I slid in under his arm, and even with him leaning against the wall he was tall enough for me to look up at him and not have to bend over at all. He was a foot taller than I was, and standing there with his arms on either side and above my shoulders, his face above mine, I was suddenly aware that he was really big, not just tall, but wide through the shoulders, broad through the chest. If he had spent half the time that Nicky did in the weight room, Dev would have been massive. I wasn’t sad that he didn’t; I might have felt physically overwhelmed, but then again, maybe I wouldn’t. I could see Nicky’s shoulder on one side of Dev’s, and I didn’t have a problem with Nicky. I didn’t think a few inches of extra height would have tipped the difference for me.
Wet, Dev’s hair fell a little below his shoulders, framing that square and very masculine jaw. His blue-on-blue eyes blinked a little too quickly as he stared down at me. I slid my hands over the slick wetness of his chest as Nicky kept working on his hair.
‘I don’t think I’m in the mood, Anita. I never thought I’d say that, but I can’t stop thinking about what Nicky is cleaning out of my hair. Now I know why you insist on a shower before you greet everybody some nights.’
I touched his face, made sure I had serious eye contact. ‘The thing in the basement tonight was bad, Dev; even by my standards it was a slaughter. I don’t do that every night. Hell, I don’t do it most of the time.’
‘You mean I’m not being a serious pussy?’
I smiled at him. ‘Well, you are a pussycat, but no, it was bad, worse than normal even by my standards for mess and brutal fighting. Flesh-eating zombies just don’t stop coming. I’ve never, ever seen that many of them.’
‘Really?’ he asked, and his voice was fragile, like the look in his eyes.
‘Really,’ I said, my hand on the side of his face.
His head pulled back as if Nicky were moving his hair too much. Then I saw Nicky’s hands come up and he ran his fingers through Dev’s hair. ‘There, all clean.’
Dev let out a shaking breath, but he straightened, pushed away from the wall, and ran his own hands through his hair. He did it a second time, a look of relief on his face as he smoothed his hair back from his face.
‘Thanks, Nicky,’ he said.
‘You can return the favor sometime,’ Nicky said.
Dev looked over his shoulder at the other man. ‘Are you inviting me to shower with you again?’
Nicky smiled. ‘So far you’ve been a perfect gentleman; I think my virtue is safe.’
‘You have virtue to keep safe?’ I asked, peering around Dev’s body.
Nicky raised an eyebrow at me. I realized he’d swept his wet hair back from his face, co
mpletely exposing the scars that covered the socket of his right eye. He usually hid the scars with that triangle of bangs, so I valued when he didn’t. It meant he was comfortable. I liked that.
‘No, no, I don’t,’ he said, and there was something about the way he said it, more sad than teasing back, that made me remember that he’d been abused as a child both sexually and physically by his mother. She’d been the one who took his eye. I suddenly felt stupid and slow and …
I went to Nicky, stroking my hands down his bare, wet arms. ‘I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay,’ he said.
I wrapped myself around him, nakedness to nakedness, and it wasn’t erotic, because he didn’t hold me back, he stayed upright and didn’t meld into the hug.
‘I missed something,’ Dev said behind us.
Nicky said, ‘Yeah, you did.’
I looked up at the man in my arms, searched that closed-down face. He’d turned away from me just enough to hide the scars, not to be pretty the way Asher would do to hide his, but it was either that or reach back up and smooth his wet hair down over them, and that would have been admitting it mattered to him and Nicky wouldn’t do that.
‘Look at me, please,’ I said.
He did, but the look on his face was arrogant, distant as his body still felt because he wouldn’t hug me back.
‘I’m sorry, I forgot.’
He glared at me, and I felt the first rush of heat as his anger hit his lion and it stirred. ‘How can you forget when you have to look at this every time you see me?’ He touched his finger to the edge of the scars.
It was the first time he’d said out loud that the scars bothered him, reminded him every time he looked in the mirror. The way he wore his hair let me know that it bothered him, but he’d never actually said so before.
‘It’s just a part of you,’ I said. ‘That’s what I think when I look at you; that’s all I think.’
He stared down at my face, studying it. ‘I can feel that you mean that.’
‘I like the scar,’ Dev said, ‘and the fact that you are as good as you are with weapons and hand-to-hand having to compensate for the lack of depth perception is impressive.’
Nicky shifted in my arms, and that flare of anger was like heat marching down my body, as if the heat of the shower were starting to emanate from his body and not the taps behind us. ‘He really does like scars,’ I said. ‘Dev’s a texture junkie.’
He relaxed a little in my arms and finally put his arms around me. He wasn’t holding me tight, but it was progress.
‘I’ll prove it to you, if it won’t freak you out,’ Dev said.
Nicky gave him a look, as if nothing he could do would be that freaky, but I knew Dev better than Nicky did. I was betting there was plenty that the weretiger could do to freak out the werelion. The reverse was also true, but Dev’s would be sensual and Nicky’s would be more violence. I didn’t really want them to try to freak each other out, though; I feared it would go badly.
Dev moved in behind me until his body was pressed up against mine, which pinned Nicky’s hands between my body and the other man’s. Nicky was only touching against Dev’s stomach; he didn’t complain or move his hands. Neither man’s body was excited to be there yet, so though it was nice, it wasn’t as erotic as it might have been. He reached out to touch Nicky’s cheek.
Nicky jerked back.
Dev let his hand fall and smoothed his hands down my arms. ‘See, it freaks you out.’ He leaned down to lay a kiss on the top of my head, nuzzling against my wet hair.
I wriggled into Dev’s touch, raising my face so he could kiss my lips. We kissed, and the kiss grew until it tightened my hands around Nicky and made me grind myself against Dev. His body was already beginning to react, which encouraged me to grind harder against him. Nicky’s arms around my back kept me from grinding as much as I could have, which forced me away from Nicky’s body in an effort to touch more of Dev’s.
Nicky’s body pressed in tighter from in front. It brought me back from kissing Dev and to move my face toward Nicky. This time he leaned over so I could reach his lips. We kissed and it was a soft brush of lips, then a more urgent press of his mouth on mine. He moved his arms from between Dev and me, and at the same time I was suddenly pressed tight between both of them. With one of them thick and growing thicker against the front and the other against the back of me, the sensation of being pinned between their bodies tore my mouth from Nicky’s and made me cry out.
It was only when Dev leaned over me for another kiss that I realized why they were both pressed so close. Nicky had moved his arms so he was holding on to the other man’s waist and Dev had done the same, so that they were using their strength to press themselves in tighter against my body. Nathaniel and Micah called it making a sandwich, and I loved being the middle of it.
They took turns kissing me, until I writhed and ground against both their bodies and they were both hard, and thick, and achingly ready. With their skills at foreplay it seemed a shame to skip most of it, but sometimes the urgency of the need is its own foreplay.
Dev rose up from kissing me and touched Nicky’s scar. When he didn’t protest Dev leaned over me, which pressed him even tighter against my ass, and he laid a soft kiss on the scar. Nicky didn’t really react to it, so it encouraged Dev to move one hand up to the side of Nicky’s face. He leaned in and kissed the scars where Nicky’s eye should have been more thoroughly. I looked up to watch the kissing, my body still pinned between theirs. Nicky had gone still, and his body wasn’t quite as happy to be pressed against me, though Dev had no way of knowing that.
He kissed down Nicky’s face, one soft kiss at a time, and I got to watch each kiss get closer and closer to Nicky’s mouth, until finally Dev kissed him.
Nicky drew back from it, shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said, not angry, but firm.
Dev dropped his hand from the side of the other man’s face and kissed me as if he were trying to kiss me as deeply and completely as he could. He drew back from the kiss, lips half parted, his face so eager, so excited, that it made me laugh, a little breathless and shaky.
Nicky kissed me then, and it was gentle, tender, as if he were making love to my mouth. He drew back and left me with my eyes still closed, lips half parted. I was even a little weak in the knees, just from the kiss.
‘Wow,’ Dev said, ‘I feel like I need to try again.’
I opened my eyes enough to see Nicky smiling down at me. He looked utterly pleased with himself. It made me smile up at him, but the smile spread until it was more an evil, happy grin.
‘Now I know I need to try another kiss,’ Dev said, ‘because that is a really good smile.’
‘Yes,’ Nicky said. ‘Yes, it is,’ and his voice was already deeper with the first rush of testosterone, and a smile that held all the heat you wanted to see in a man’s face. It was full of love, yes, but it was also full of lust, and the thought of everything he was going to do to you and with you.
‘Why do I feel like I need to catch up when I’ve been standing here the whole time?’ Dev asked.
‘She loves me,’ Nicky said, as if that explained everything, and apparently it did, because Dev said, ‘You are a lucky man.’ That’s usually something a man says when what he means is, Your woman is hot and I would totally fuck her, but either it’s morally wrong or you would kill me for it. It seemed weird that Dev felt the need to be so polite with his nakedness pressed against my ass and knowing that he was getting sex, too, but sex isn’t everything. It’s nice, it’s great even, if you’re lucky, but everyone, eventually, wants love.
I went up on tiptoe to kiss Nicky again, and Dev moved back a little so that we could use hands and arms on just each other, while the kiss grew from tender to urgent. When we drew back just to look at each other, Dev said, ‘I’ll offer just once more to give you guys privacy, and I should get major brownie points for offering, at this point.’
I looked over my shoulder at him, with Nicky and me s
till holding each other. I wasn’t sure what I would have said, because Nicky said, ‘Breast, or ass?’
‘What?’ Dev said, frowning, obviously puzzled.
‘Do you want to fuck her first, or have her suck your dick first?’
I turned back to look at Nicky; the look was enough, because he said, ‘You love me and I love you and it’s amazing, but at heart I’m a thug, Anita. I’m crude and rude and violent, and you’ve taught me the only gentleness I’ve ever known, but I’m still me.’
I nodded. ‘Okay, it’s not that I don’t agree with the division of labor; it was just a little crudely put, that’s all. You surprised me.’
He smiled. ‘Okay, Mephistopheles, are you a breast or a thigh man?’ Nicky looked at me, head cocked to one side. ‘Better?’
I grinned. ‘Yes, thank you.’
Dev watched us like he’d never seen us.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘I’m just wondering when you guys became a couple and why didn’t I notice?’
I looked back at Nicky and he slid his arms more securely around, bringing me in against his body in a way that was less sexual and more romantic. It seemed weird in the shower all naked with another man, but there you are; if it works, don’t poke at it. I was trying to be smarter.
‘You were busy worrying about Asher,’ Nicky said.
Dev nodded. ‘True, and I’ll take thighs.’
Nicky grinned quick and fierce, more a baring of teeth, like a happy snarl. ‘We fuck both ends.’
‘I’d like to go down on her, while she goes down on you.’
‘That’s hard in the shower,’ I said.
‘Bed?’ Dev asked.
‘Normally, I’d say not only yes, but hell yes! But if the police call before I get some sleep I’m going to cry, so just this once let’s just have intercourse,’ I said.
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