A Crafty Ever After [Suncoast Society]

by Tymber Dalton

  “Ah!” Max’s cock exploded and Sean stayed with him, finishing him off and only slowing his strokes once he was sure Max had gotten all the way over.

  Then, still holding Max, he eased him out into deeper water and wrapped his arms around him. Max’s head lolled back against Sean’s shoulder, his man’s eyes closed and looking quite contented.

  “Okay,” Max finally said. “I have to admit the way you were saying Sir was really fucking hot.”

  Sean giggled. “Not too sarcastic?”

  Max rubbed his head against Sean’s. “Not if you meant every word you said, no.”

  Chapter Four

  The men had Monday morning meetings and project status updates to work through, meaning both of them hit the ground running as soon as they walked into the office.

  It wasn’t until just before lunch when Max finally had more than two minutes to breathe and think about something other than work.

  That’s when he closed his office door, grabbed his personal cellphone, and called Loren.

  “Hey, you,” she greeted him. “How’s Miss Gimpy Paw doing? She chewing at her dressing or end up in a cone of shame yet?”

  “I don’t have the details from her morning appointment, but Essie texted us that the doctor says Cali’s hand is looking good.”

  “Excellent news. So what’s going on?”

  “Sean and I have a very…unusual favor to ask of you.”

  “I’ll hear you out, but you know Señor Sadist gets the final ruling, if I need him to.”

  “Well, for starters, I’d like you to not mention this to Cali, and why will soon be apparent.”

  “Oookay?”

  He outlined what they wanted her to do. This wasn’t a plan he’d run past Sean yet, simply because he didn’t want him being too disappointed if Loren said no. But he knew the kinky bastard would readily agree to it on general principles, if for no other reason.

  It took Loren a moment to stop laughing. “Yeah, I think that’s a doable plan. Let me clear it with his royal kinkiness first, but I don’t think he’ll have a problem with it. Especially if he’s there with me.”

  “That’s a given. We’d also need his signature as a witness.”

  “I’ll ask him when I get off here. He’s out mowing the yard right now. I’m sure if Ed isn’t free to go with you to the county clerk’s office that Ross would probably love a chance to get in some guilt-free sadism of his own.”

  “Excellent. Please feel free to tell him we’d be happy with that, too. I don’t know what days this will all take place, but I’m pretty sure part two will go down later this week, or maybe next week, at the latest. I’m done screwing around.”

  Loren snorted. “You mean you’re done waiting. I’m sure you’re both going to be screwing around with her literally and metaphorically for the next several decades.”

  “Lord, I hope so.”

  He’d just finished the call with her when he heard Sean’s signature three-beat knock on his door.

  Rap-raprap.

  “Yeah, come on in.”

  Sean slipped in and closed it behind him, then realized Max wasn’t on the phone and walked over. “Lunch? Totally forgot about it this morning.”

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  Sean arched his half-regrown eyebrow at him and Max giggled, reaching out to brush his finger along it. “In the car, buddy.”

  Once they were in the car and safely away from coworkers, Max had started to tell Sean about his conversation with Loren. They’d taken Sean’s car today, and he was driving. Before Max could finish the telling, or Sean could ask him any questions, Max’s cell rang and he held up a finger when he spotted it was Ross.

  “Hey, there. Your wife talk to you?”

  “You mean your accomplice? Yes.” He laughed. “Count me in, too. I know Ed’s tied up in court the next couple of weeks. I’ll be happy to help you guys out. I take it the actual nuptials will be taking place at your home?”

  “Yeah, and that works out even better if you’re there to be the second witness.”

  “If she agrees to it.”

  “Oh, she’ll agree to it, all right.” Max reached out for a fist-bump from Sean. “The only question remaining is when all this will take place, exactly. The trip to the clerk’s office could be as early as tomorrow morning, or as late as next Tuesday morning, depending on when she folds.”

  “That’s fine. Just shoot me a text and I’ll meet you there. My schedule is clear.”

  “Thanks, buddy.” After ending the call, Max grinned at Sean. “Ross is in. You’re one step closer to having a name change.”

  * * * *

  “Are you going to fill me in, Sir, or are you going to keep me waiting?”

  Sean didn’t even need to add the sarcastic emphasis. It felt right calling Max that.

  His only problem would be slipping and doing it in front of coworkers.

  Max rested his hand on Sean’s thigh while he drove and filled him in on the plan, leaving Sean giggling. “Man, she’s going to kill you.”

  “Me? Don’t you mean us?”

  “Well, yeah, but heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that bullshit, right?” He glanced at Max. “You’re in charge—you bear the brunt.”

  Max threw his head back. “Motherfucker,” he muttered.

  Sean pulled into the parking lot of the sub shop they tended to favor.

  The irony did not escape him.

  “Do you have a backup plan just in case yours somehow manages to fail?”

  “Yep.” Max unbuckled his seat belt as Sean shut the car off.

  “Care to enlighten me?”

  He shrugged, smiling. “We gang up on her, get her so horny she can’t see straight, and lock a chastity belt on her and take the key and bolt cutters with us when we leave for work tomorrow morning.”

  “So…finesse?” Sean rolled his eyes.

  “Seriously. What’s the longest she’s ever held out before?”

  “Ugh. Four miserable goddamned days I hope none of us ever have to live through again. I was pretty sure she was ready to bite my balls off, and that was before we’d had the vasectomies.”

  * * * *

  Later that evening, Sean tried not to stare at Cali as they sat on the couch and ate dinner. She’d actually taken the ultimatum better than he’d thought she would.

  The two of them had presented a united front that they’d practiced on the way home. Neither of them could show the slightest bit of waffling, or she’d pounce on them over it and they both knew it.

  Only if they acted grimly resolute and unbendable would she buy into the idea in the first place.

  And for Sean’s part, he was damned resolute.

  They could beg and plead all damn day long and she’d find ways to wiggle around and out of their arguments.

  But if they teamed up and double-Dommed her?

  She couldn’t resist them. Especially when they used logic on her.

  Although they had fudged things just a smidge. They had told her they’d tell her which one she was going to marry.

  Sean knew once she gave in, she’d go along with the little mindfuck.

  I mean, honestly, how hard would it be to top that story at the next munch?

  After dinner, while he and Max were cleaning the kitchen, he couldn’t resist arching an eyebrow at Max to see if he had a read on her, but then Max started laughing.

  “Dude,” he softly said, “quit doing that until your eyebrow grows back.” He reached up and touched it. “It’s cracking me up.”

  Sean reached out and poked the bare spot on Max’s chest that had also been singed. “Asshole.”

  Max rested his chin on Sean’s shoulder. “Don’t you mean ‘asshole, Sir’?”

  Sean’s eyes fell closed as his cock hardened. “Motherfucker,” he mumbled while Max giggled.

  * * * *

  Oh, Max planned on using this newest psychological lever to move Sean’s soul—and his cock—every prime chance he got. T
his was just too much damn fun not to.

  Like Sean would expect any less of me.

  His read of Cali and her mindset was that she would give in sooner rather than later. What they had to do was give her the space to make the decision. Neither of them would bug her or harass her about it, not even mention it before next Monday.

  If it went that long.

  Honestly? His money was on her telling them tomorrow morning that they could pick.

  Which was why they’d already told work they would most likely be late tomorrow, maybe not in before lunch. They’d been open at work about them being in a poly triad, and had told them what happened when Cali was in the hospital.

  It was easier to let them believe the reason for their tardiness tomorrow might be because of a doctor appointment.

  The irony of the whole situation was with work knowing about Cali and what happened, they wouldn’t ask a lot of annoying and uncomfortable questions about Sean marrying Cali and adding her to his health insurance. They’d immediately get it, because even the head of their company had suggested one of them should marry her when he heard them griping about how shitty her insurance was.

  Cali had already gone to bed, and the two of them were in the bathroom getting ready to do just that when Max held out his hand for a fist bump.

  He wasn’t ready for it when, instead, Sean pulled him in for a hard, desperate hug.

  “Thank you, Sir,” he whispered, without a trace of sarcasm used with the title.

  Max held him. “You’re welcome, boy. I’m always going to take care of you two. I promise. Just be careful how and when you call me Sir around her, until she cracks, or it’ll tip her off.”

  They stood like that for several minutes, Max in no hurry to make Sean let go and knowing he needed this time.

  It was one of Sean’s tells that Max knew all too well from the countless hours he’d spent holding the man in the immediate wake of what they’d endured before.

  Finally Sean nodded, patted Max on the back, and stepped away. Max didn’t miss how he brushed at his eyes.

  Max pretended not to see, and Sean pretended to not know that’s what Max was doing.

  When Max left the bathroom first to climb into bed, he knew Sean would have to blow his nose and take a moment to pull himself together.

  That was his boy.

  And fuckin’ A, he loved him.

  Absolutely he’d take care of him and Cali both. They were his life.

  All they needed was to stick a period on the end of this and call it a happy-ever-after.

  Chapter Five

  Tuesday morning, Cali awoke when the men’s alarm went off.

  Sean groaned. “Motherfucker. I hate mornings.”

  Max slowly sat up, yawning. “Yeah.”

  “Hey,” she said.

  Max saw she was awake and leaned in to kiss her. “You don’t need to be up yet, sweetheart. We’ll wake you up and bring you your meds before we go.”

  “You pick,” she said before she lost her nerve.

  She didn’t have to say it twice, or explain what she meant. She could see the sleep leave Max’s system, the way his expression shifted.

  He smiled, cupping her cheek and leaning in again, this time to press his forehead against hers. “Thank you, baby.”

  Sean rolled over, facing her. “I’ll call work if you’ll text Ross,” he said to Max.

  “Ross?” she asked.

  Sean smiled. “Yeah. We have a little surprise for you this morning.”

  “What kind of surprise? And I thought trying to make me brain before coffee was a hard limit.”

  “You’ll see,” Max said.

  Since the men weren’t going to work, Sean got the coffee going while Max cuddled with her in bed. “We’ll help you take your shower this morning,” he told her. “Then we’ll all get going.”

  “Get going where?”

  “You said no braining before coffee.”

  “Stop using my words against me,” she muttered.

  But they had her…curious. She knew they wouldn’t let Ross actually do anything to her. While he’d helped the men with rigging and shibari before, he didn’t actually play with her. So it couldn’t be that.

  She also knew he was an attorney. While his practice had primarily been IP and copyright law, he was semi-retired now and frequently helped Ed take up the slack with anything having to do with one of their Suncoast Society friends.

  Hmm.

  Max turned on the early morning news for them to watch while they waited. Sean returned a few minutes later, carrying a tray holding their mugs of coffee, as well as a glass of water for Cali, and her morning meds.

  “We also need to tell Essie that we won’t need her as early today,” Sean reminded Max.

  “Ah, you’re right. Can you please do that for me?”

  “Sure.” Sean left the room to get his phone.

  “You guys are sure acting weird,” she noted.

  Max arched two intact eyebrows. “You mean weirder than normal?”

  She snorted. “Yeah.” Her hand throbbed and she’d be glad when her morning medicine kicked in. The sling helped that, but it wasn’t worth putting it on right now when they’d be getting showers soon. “What’s next?”

  “Once Sean’s back, we’ll all take our showers, then we need to get you dressed in appropriate going-out wear.”

  “That means real pants?” Clothes had been a pita to manage with her dominant hand useless to her right now. She’d defaulted to a long T-shirt and panties when she didn’t have to go anywhere, and Essie had helped her get dressed before her doctor appointment and their errands yesterday.

  “Yeah, babe. Jeans and a shirt, nothing fancy.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  They waited until after they had securely taped a plastic bag over her hand to protect it from getting wet and they were all in the shower to reveal the plan to her. Sean led the way by just saying it.

  “We’re not telling you which one of us you’re marrying.”

  Maybe she hadn’t had enough coffee yet. Or maybe it was the pain meds messing with her brain. “What?”

  Max’s sadistic smile helped her start processing a little better. “Eventually, sure, it’ll come out. Either accidentally or unavoidably. But for this process, we’re going to hide it from you.”

  “How, exactly, do you plan on doing that, genius? We have to fill out forms for the marriage license.”

  “Exactly. You’ll fill the form out first, with our help because gimpy hand, yo. And oh, the pain meds are messing with your eyesight and making things blurry, we’ll tell them, and we’ll take it from there. We’re both going to be standing there at the counter, and you stand off to the side. Ross, as our attorney, will help out, of course.”

  “Of course.” She stared at him, grudgingly admitting it was pretty genius. “But what about when I go to get my name changed on my driver’s license? That’ll be a dead giveaway there.”

  Max’s smile widened. “You’re taking both our last names. You’re going to be Cali Dennison-Trendle. I’m adding Dennison, and Sean’s adding Trendle. Ross can go with you to help handle the driver’s license issue so you don’t see the paperwork.”

  “How long do you plan on trying to keep this a secret? And why?”

  “The why is, in part, because we’re sadists, duh.” His smile faded. “But mainly because we’re hoping by the time you find out the truth that you’ll have come to the realization that whoever is legally your husband, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in what the three of us have together. Promise us you won’t try to find out or look it up, please?”

  “For how long?”

  “Six months,” Sean said. “If it doesn’t come out before six months, we’ll tell you.”

  “How did you two decide this?”

  “Does it really matter?” Sean asked. “We love you, and we love each other. In a perfect world, we’d be able to marry each other, the three of us. But we’ll
settle for one of us marrying you so we can check one goddamned worry off our plates that shouldn’t have been a worry for us from the beginning.”

  * * * *

  Sean loved the plan, but honestly wasn’t sure how they’d really be able to pull it off. Surely someone would spill the beans, or the truth would come out sooner.

  At least Cali was going along with it and not putting a halt to things.

  Less than two hours later, they were waiting just inside the county building’s front entrance for Ross to arrive. He’d made a quick trip past Ed’s office to pick up a POA form for them, just in case the clerk’s office tried to hassle them for his presence. They didn’t think there’d be a problem, but Ross was a well-prepared man and preferred not to take the chance.

  Max stood there, holding Cali’s back pressed against him, his arms around her. Outside her hearing, Max had told Sean to follow his lead this morning because he was going to try to fake her out a little and drop some red herrings.

  Like acting as if Max was the soon-to-be groom.

  Again, Sean found himself going along with it. Mostly because he knew Max was right. As they stood there and he studied Max’s profile, he struggled against the tears he felt pricking his eyes and threatening to fall.

  The better part of fifteen years together in total, and most of that spent thinking he’d never get a chance to marry the man. By the time the gay marriage ban fell, they had Cali, and Sean shoved that one little fact to the back of his brain. She had been adamant that she wouldn’t choose between them, wouldn’t marry only one of them.

  Frankly, the paperwork and trusts that Ed drew up for them was better than a legal “marriage,” anyway.

  While Sean been content with that arrangement, there was always the little germ of hope that maybe, one day, she’d tell the two of them to tie the knot and he could look into Max’s eyes and know that, in the eyes of the law, the man really was his husband.

  Yes, they wore wedding bands, all three of them. People, even close friends, already assumed two of them were “legally married” to each other.