“It does help, a bit,” I reply, feeling myself relax slightly. “Fuck it, it’s my store. We’re closed until Lars gets back. I’ll text him.”
“Perfect,” Damian replies, grabbing my hand in his and squeezing it slightly after I send a text off to Lars.
Damian
The feel of her soft skin in my hand comforts me beyond belief. The shock of finding my mate still hasn’t left me, it’s like looking at the world with new eyes. I’m also pleased to find that my love for Rhett has not faded at all, even with the mate connection sparking. It’s like my heart just got bigger instead of a piece being replaced from one person by another. She looks up at me shyly, which is complete whiplash from the first moment I saw her. The fieriness of her personality is still there, just lying beneath all the confusion she must be feeling about all of this.
Rhett walks on the other side of her, and I can see by the way his muscles are tense and how his hand flexes that he wants to be holding her hand too. To just be touching her in some way.
We talked about this last night, about giving her a chance to navigate through these unknown waters without us pushing her. Our animals scream to us to take and claim, but she wasn’t built the same way. She needs time to adjust to what her life has become, to what it will be. There’s no doubt in my mind that this will happen. She is mine. Ours. I’ll be unable to let her go now that I’ve found her. It would kill me. Rhett was combative at first, insisting that once we claim her that everything will be fine. That finalizing the connection will make things easier for her, but I disagree. We can’t force this on her, and after hours of fucking each other in every way possible, he eventually agreed.
Fucking Rhett has always been amazing. Although I miss the softness of a woman, it’s something amazing to be completely unleashed. I never have to fear hurting Rhett. His body is hard and strong, so he can take everything I can give him. Last night, all the pent-up aggression of not claiming our mate and the unbearable lust led to a very long and pleasurable night. It did little to take the edge off though, as Rhett and I are both battling ourselves again today while in her presence.
As we get to the edge of town, near the wooded area near our home, we stop. Looking down at her, I smile. “How fast can you run, Luna?”
“Run? My ass wasn’t built for running,” she replies with a laugh, looking at us both warily. “Don’t say we’re running.”
“Your ass was built for everything,” Rhett growls and smacks the offending body part. I shake my head as Calluna jumps with a squeak.
“It was built for a lot, but not running,” she jibes back, stabbing her finger into his side.
“We don’t have to run,” I tell her as I watch her relax a bit. “Rhett, grab your bikes.”
She tenses a bit as Rhett smiles and runs over to his shed about a hundred feet away from us. “Bikes?” she asks carefully. “What do you mean bikes? Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” I answer, squeezing her hand in mine. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.”
She makes a tsk’ing noise under her breath as she looks over at Rhett, who begins pulling his dirt bikes from the shed.
I pull her with me as I walk towards the blue dirt bike that Rhett has set up in the grass, leaning on its kickstand. I release her hand, but not before pressing another kiss to it, then throw a leg over the machine and grip the handlebars. “Get on back, mi Luna.”
She looks at me incredulously. “I’m not getting on that.”
“Of course, you are,” I reply, scooting forward a bit. The sound of Rhett’s bike starting up makes her jump. He flashes her a smile before revving the motor a bit and flying into the wooded area, following the worn-down paths. “Better hurry, or we’re gonna lose him. You don’t want that cocky fucker to win, do you?”
“Win what?” she asks, biting onto her full lower lip and looking from me to the forest with unease.
“Hop on and find out,” I tease as I lean forward to pat the seat behind me. I watch as she sighs, then she walks over and gets onto the bike behind me. I scoot back a bit, feeling her warmth behind me. “Hold on,” I yell as I start up the bike, and smile as her arms wrap around my waist, holding herself close to me. I could live like this forever, I think as I kick the bike into gear, and then we fly into the forest.
I follow the path closely, slowing down a bit at the small hills I’ve memorized so that we don’t ramp them as usual. I ease her into the feel of the bike beneath us, slowly building up speed until I feel her tight hold relax a bit. I see Rhett ahead and know that he must have stopped to wait for us as I assumed he would, not wanting to miss out on seeing Calluna ride with me. I feel her laughing behind me as we watch Rhett do a quick donut and speed through the underbrush and off the path to get behind us. I take her laughter as acceptance to speed up a bit, doing less strolling through the paths and speeding toward our destination. She tightens her grip on me once again, but her chest quakes with laughter as she watches Rhett weave around us.
“Beat him!” she yells into my ear, and I smile, pulling back on the throttle to gain more speed.
As we come up to the small pond in our clearing, I slow down, whereas Rhett speeds by us, skidding to a stop and throwing dirt and grass into the air. “Show off,” I yell at him as he kicks the bike into park and sidles off of it.
“Don’t be jealous of my skills.” He brushes off his shoulders exaggeratedly, winking at Calluna. She releases her hold on me, and I immediately feel her absence, the urge to keep touching her strong. I watch as Rhett walks up to her and pulls her into his arms. “I don’t do slow,” he says the words in a deep, husky tone that makes me hard as I catch on to the innuendo. Mi Luna also catches onto the innuendo and smiles up at him, not pulling away.
“No, it doesn’t seem that you do.” She stands up on her tippy toes a bit, pressing her lips into his. He kisses her back, but doesn’t push her as I know he wants to. Good boy. “Lucky for you, I don’t do slow either,” she purrs, causing heat to surface in his eyes and my cock to get perceptibly harder. They’re both going to kill me, but it’ll be the sweetest death.
“So, where are we?” she asks, turning to look around. Rhett releases her for only a second before pulling her body back into his arms, this time with her ass pressed into him.
“Just our own little slice of heaven,” Rhett replies, eyeing me with a smile. “This has always been mine and Damian’s spot, and we wanted to share it with you.”
Her eyes widen, and she looks at me in surprise, so I smile and nod at her. “That’s really…that’s really nice. Thank you.”
“We want to give you time to adjust to this, but we also want to spend time with you. We can do this as fast or as slow as you want. We can give you time to adjust to this, we just ask that you let us be a part of that adjustment,” I explain, sitting on a log near the pond and looking out at the water. She comes over and sits down next to me, her hand linked with Rhett’s.
“Thank you for sharing this with me. I truly appreciate this,” she says to me, looking at the area with a smile on her face. A smile that makes my heart feel as if it stopped. “It’s so beautiful. How long have you guys been coming out here?”
“Together, a couple of years. I found it a few years back when I used to go on runs by myself, and then when Damian and I got together, I brought him out here. Now it gets to be our spot,” Rhett says, scooting next to her on the log and squeezing her between us. I put my hand on her leg and feel her relax into me.
She nods her head. “So, you guys have been together for two years? How does that work?”
“It works like you’d think it would,” Rhett replies with a laugh, but I understand her underlying question. How does it work with us and her? Will she be okay with our relationship being separate from hers, even if she’s in the center of it? Can she mesh into our lifestyle, or will she not like the relationship that Rhett and I have established?
“How do you want it to work?” I ask her, fearing the answer,
yet dying to have it at the same time.
She looks up to me, and I study her features, trying to decipher what she’s thinking. “I don’t want to split you up. If I thought that could happen, I’d leave right now.”
Relief fills me, and I grin at her. “What do you think of integrating yourself into our relationship?”
“I don’t know. Would you guys get jealous? Say I fucked Rhett without you, would that feel like cheating? Do you guys even want me?” She pauses, tensing slightly. “I mean, I know this mate connection is forcing you into this attraction you have for me. Forcing you to want to claim me, but if it wasn’t, would you want to add me to the mix?”
“Beautiful, it’s a lot more than instinct that’s drawing me to you. Every single part of you calls to me. From your sassy attitude, to this shy demeanor I’ve just recently seen. Your plump lips and your voluptuous body that I can’t help but put my hands all over.” Rhett grabs ahold of her chin and turns her face to his, looking at her more seriously than he typically would. “Sure, the mating drive is fucking strong. Looking at you, smelling you, just even fucking thinking about you makes my cock hard as a rock, but it’s you that draws us. We love each other, but there’s still room in our hearts for you. You’re ours. The fates and magic don’t have shit to do with that. No, that’s in here.” He points to his chest.
“Who is this man speaking such pretty words?” I ask with a teasing smile, causing Rhett to blush slightly. “In two years, I haven’t seen this gushy side of you.”
“Fuck off,” he growls at me, his eyes intense. “How do you feel?” he asks me, making my heart clench. The fact that the three of us can discuss this as rational adults makes me truly believe that this will work. Mate connection to hell, we can make this work.
“All that you said and more.”
Calluna
Thousands of emotions overwhelm me as I sit between these two men that have me squirming on the hard log below me. Not that I normally argue with a hard log beneath me, it’s just not quite the one I am yearning for.
Having Rhett explain their feelings to me gives me whiplash. The intelligent side of me screams that I just met these men, and that this can’t be real. The gushy side, as Damian put it, is screaming that this must work, because even in this short amount of time, I know that they’re mine. These two men are mine.
“Enough heavy stuff,” Rhett says suddenly, breaking into my thoughts. “Wanna skinny dip?” He raises his eyebrows and gives me a flirty smile.
“I’m more of a chunky dunker, myself,” I reply with a laugh, feeling more comfortable with them.
“Call it what you want. If you’re naked, I’m down,” Rhett says, standing and removing his shirt.
“You don’t have to get naked,” Damian says, his hand rubbing my leg comfortingly.
“What the hell,” I reply with a grin as I stand. I pull off my shirt, revealing my lacey red bra, and pull down my leggings to show off my matching red lace panties. I may have dressed in relaxing clothes today, but I dressed up in terms of my underwear. With the amount of horniness I felt all last night and this morning, I knew that if I saw them, I’d want to jump them, and I’m nothing if not prepared. I don’t feel self-conscious of the stretch marks on my stomach or the fact that I’m exactly what I said earlier—chunky—because of the looks in their eyes. They eye me like it’s their last meal and I’m a filet mignon, with their mouths slightly open and their eyes blazing with heat. I feel my core clench under their lustful gazes, and I look at them expectantly. “Well, am I in this alone?”
“Holy fuck, sweetness,” Rhett gasps, causing me to smile at him flirtatiously. He grabs onto the waistband of his shorts and pulls down, and I realize that he’s going commando. His thick cock springs from his shorts, hitting him in the stomach, and it’s my turn to stare.
Holy shit. Mama, may I?
The sound of clothes rustling beside me pulls my attention from Rhett back to Damian, just in time to see his shirt come off. I marvel at his sculpted chest, having never seen his body before. I mean, I saw Rhett while he was cursed, and although I tried not to look, I definitely accidentally on purpose sorta looked. Oops. Damian’s tanned skin has a small amount of hair on his upper chest, then a mouthwatering happy trail heading down to his perfectly formed V. His sweatpants sit low on his hips, and I watch with my breath held as he slowly pulls his sweatpants down, releasing his own hardened cock. Holy fuck, are these men always commando or just today? Dear Maker, I want to find out that answer.
“Stop ogling us and get the rest of your clothes off.” Rhett comes up behind me, his finger gliding under the strap of my bra and causing chills to run through my body. His finger continues its trail down until it reaches the clasp at the back, where he pauses, asking for my permission. I nod, and my breathing becomes shaky as he unlatches the bra and slowly pulls the straps down my arms, unleashing my large breasts. “Now let’s get in,” he growls in my ear, giving me goosebumps.
He and Damian jump into the water, splashing the entire way like a couple of children. The cool water seems to sizzle as it hits my skin, and it feels like it’s streaming with electricity from their looks and touches. I slip out of my underwear and run into the water behind them, and the water is up to my breasts before they catch sight of me.
“That hardly seems fair,” Rhett says with a chuckle as he swims closer to me. The water is deep enough here to where I can’t touch the bottom, so I kick my feet, keeping myself afloat.
I smile at him, feeling myself come out of my shell more. “Never said I played fair.”
I’m starting to feel more comfortable with them after speaking with them about the…err, terms of our relationship. I’ve never been one to overthink things, usually jumping in headfirst and dealing with the consequences later, but I felt like this situation was too important to just YOLO that shit. I meant it when I said that I didn’t want to destroy their relationship. I don’t know if I’ll feel jealous or if they will, but the way that Rhett described it, it felt right. We just have to jump in and see how it goes.
Damian comes up behind me, and I see that he’s standing, fucking tall bastard. He grabs ahold of my waist and helps me stay afloat, giving my legs a rest. He keeps his arms extended straight out, not pulling me into his chest like I want him to.
“Is this okay?” he asks quietly, timidly. I answer his question by spinning in his hands and wrapping my legs around his waist, feeling my core press against him. It takes everything in me not to squirm against his hard waist, but I refrain.
“This is better,” I say as I wrap my arms around his neck. “Does anyone ever come out here? I’d hate for us to get caught out here all nakey and shit.”
“Caught doing what?” Rhett asks, lying back to float in the water, which puts his cock on full display.
“Well, caught chunky dunking, I suppose. Or in your case, caught with your dick straight in the air.”
“No one else comes out here. It’s public land but not used often, mostly because of our scents being all over it,” Damian explains, his hands sliding down to grip me closer to him, and I squirm a bit. Shit, I tried. He groans at my movement, and I try to hold in my small smile.
“Like you peed all over it?” I ask, scrunching my nose as I imagine nature documentaries and male lions peeing all over trees around their area.
Damian laughs, and the sound is so freeing that I can’t help but smile widely. He seems to be relaxing at the same rate as I am, a seemingly slower pace in comparison to Rhett, who seems to move one hundred miles per hour. “No, we didn’t pee all over it. Just us being here so much has marked the area with our scents. Besides, meerkats scent mark with their fur.”
“Right, that’s true. I’ve seen Meerkat Manor,” I say, thinking back to the TV show about the meerkat family headed by a matriarch, Flower.
Damian chuckles. “Right. Well, those are mostly real meerkats.”
“Mostly?” I ask, surprised. “Which ones are shifters?”
&nbs
p; “Tosca. She was a student at Cambridge University and really submerged herself into the study. That’s why Flower ousted her. Knew she wasn’t a natural.”
“I thought it was because she’d mated with Carlos and had pups when she wasn’t supposed to,” I say, because I obviously know too much about the show.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you see on TV, even if it is a nature documentary,” Damian teases.
“Stop that. I refuse to believe that any of it is rigged. Next, you’ll be telling me The Great British Baking Show isn’t authentic or that the people on The Bachelor aren’t really in love.”
He shrugs, and I audibly gasp. Do not mess with me and my reality shows.
“So, you know what I do, what do you guys do?” I ask, interested to know more about the men.
“I’m a counselor. I work at a small center in town, run by the county. Mostly children and teens,” Damian explains, and I feel a few butterflies flutter in my stomach. He’s been so methodical and sensitive to this whole situation. I can see him helping kids.
“And what about you?” I ask, turning my head towards Rhett. “Something dangerous, I assume. You seem like an adrenaline junkie.”
“Ha!” Rhett barks, skimming his fingers along my arms. “Nope, I work construction. Man’s work.” He winks at Damian, who just snickers and rolls his eyes.
We continue to spend the day swimming and talking as I get to know these men that are seemingly working their way into my heart. Rhett constantly finds excuses to touch both Damian and myself—grabbing me to throw me into the water like I weigh nothing, and using Damian as a shield when I try to splash him. He sneaks up behind me, placing kisses on my neck and grabbing my ass below the water, then swimming away quickly before I can smack him.
Damian begins to relax more as well, his hands slipping down to cup my ass when he holds me against him or dragging his fingers gently against the side of my waist and breasts. I work hard to keep my libido under control. I touch them the same way, but we all play it safe. I glide my hands against their sculpted chests, abdomens, backs, and shoulders. I revel in the feel of their hard muscle beneath my fingers, imagining gliding my teeth and tongue against them.
Calluna Page 7
