by Brynn Paulin
“Hey!” the man in question protested. He came to the table with two mugs of coffee in one hand and his own in the other. Kyle and Marina each took one, then Marcus sat down across from the laptop. “It’s all ready to go for her?” he asked.
Kyle paused for a half second before nodding. “Yep. All set.”
It was the half second pause, Marina remembered all day. At first, she wasn’t sure what to do. She finished her coffee and straightened the kitchen after Kyle and Marcus left. Then she went into the family room and cleaned up a bit. They had weekly cleaners, but she really didn’t want them cleaning the wax foray.
It was procrastination, and she knew it. After she’d showered and dressed for the day, she returned to the laptop. She stood in the doorway for a minute and stared at it, trepidation swirling in her middle. A hot prickle crawled across her back. What would she find in there? Why was she so worried? She’d been the one to insist she got back to business.
Dread growing in her, she sat down. Nothing more ominous that a whisper of Emily came to her as she put her hands on the keyboard, but she had grown accustomed to that. Whatever the meaning, her mind wasn’t in a hurry to reveal it.
Kyle had been right. Her files were all labelled and easy to manoeuvre. She sorted through them for a few hours and learned the magnitude of what she usually did. Before lunch, she had a notebook beside her with notes scribbled all over the first few pages. Her accident had happened at a critical time during the Independence Day planning. If she didn’t catch up soon, there might not be fireworks on July fourth. On top of that, she’d gotten hundreds of emails.
After lunch, as she started on her second pot of coffee, she delved into the mail. Everything seemed pretty straight forward. Most were business, at least fifty were well wishes and one perplexed the hell out of her. She opened it in the late afternoon, it came from someone with her last name, and she could only assume it was a relative.
Hey Mar,
I gotta say, this is a shock. I never thought you’d leave them, but of course you’re welcome. You can stay as long as you’d like and I’ll help you get settled in someplace. I can’t say after Emily that I’m surprised. This is normal. Just call when you get in town and I’ll give you the code for the house.
Raisa
What. Was. This? Sent mail… She had to look in sent mail. It was there, like a beacon amongst a ton of other emails that all seem inconsequential at the moment.
Dear Raisa,
Hey… I can’t even tell you how hard it is to write this email. I’ve decided to leave Marcus and Kyle.
Marina’s stomach churned as she stared at the words, tears flooding her eyes.
I just can’t pretend everything’s okay anymore. The pretending’s not working anyway. We just walk around like strangers. I can’t let them touch me. At least they have each other… It’s not fair to them. I just can’t get over this.
This was what Kyle had been talking about last night. Her breathing had turned choppy, and she thought she might vomit. They were so happy together. She’d known something was off…but this was worse than she’d dreamt.
Can I come stay with you? Just for a while until I figure out what to do. We’ve talked. And we’ve tried. It’s hurting us all. I’m just going to go. Tomorrow, I’m taking clothes to the mission in Marywood and I’ll just keep driving after that and come there. I’ll call them once I’ve gotten to your house…
She’d planned to leave, and instead she’d been in an accident and lost her memory. She must have left her ring behind on purpose that morning when she’d left for the mission.
For a long time, she sat there as the devastation of the notes sank in and tore at her insides like emotional piranha. As it drew closer to the time Marcus and Kyle would come home, she considered retreating to her hidey-hole upstairs and curling in the big chair to stare out the window. Instead, she moved into the living room and waited in one of the overstuffed armchairs.
By five-fifteen when they came through the door with briefcases in hand, she was pacing. Their smiles fell. “What’s wrong,” they asked almost in unison.
She turned to them, her arms around her middle. And it hit her. Hard. No matter what was wrong, no matter what they said in a few minutes, she could never leave them. She loved them too much. And whatever pain she’d been through, stepping away from them, not being with them, wasn’t the solution. Through all of this, the only place she’d truly felt completely all right was in their arms.
“What is it that was so awful that I was planning to leave you and go stay with Raisa?” she asked. There was no more dancing around the matter. They had to tell her, whether her psyche was ready for it or not. Surely not being able to have a baby hadn’t caused this much wreckage.
Both men stared at her aghast, but where she’d expected sadness or guilt, anger sprouted.
“You were going to leave us?” Kyle demanded. “After everything? After all the pain and all the trying, you were going to leave?”
“How could you think that, Marina? You know how much we love you. We’d do anything for you. Hell, we’ve done more than I ever thought imaginable before we married. We tried not to push you. We tried not to make you hurt more—and we were hurting, too. It didn’t just happen to you.”
“How could you think this was a solution?” Kyle demanded.
“I don’t know, but obviously, I did. I can tell from this note that I’d been struggling with it for a while. And who’s Emily? I keep getting her name whenever I touch things and it’s always so…sad. You said you didn’t cheat, but…did you? Did you…have an affair? Is that what I can’t get over?”
They stared at her, their hurt evident.
“How could you think that?” Marcus whispered. Kyle stumbled from the room, his face stricken.
“I…can’t…remember!” she rasped. She paced to the far wall where a picture of the three of them hung on the wall. They looked so happy. Why couldn’t she shake the feeling that something dark stalked them. Something she could fix. Something they all needed her to fix. “Do you think I want to think that? Being with the two of you…it’s perfection.”
Kyle returned with a large book—a photo album—and dropped it heavily on the coffee table. Taking a seat, he turned it to face her while Marcus sat beside him.
“This is Emily. We cleaned the house of evidence of her—to help you. Even that didn’t work.”
With tentative steps, Marina moved towards the men…and the book. Her heart clenched painfully. She trembled, unable to breathe as she approached.
A beautiful blonde baby smiled up at her.
Emily…
Our daughter…
It wasn’t that she couldn’t have children—she didn’t want to. She couldn’t bear to try. She’d been too scared. Too scared she’d lose another. Her terror and pain had kept her away from the two people she loved most.
Picture after picture filled her mind. Scene after scene.
Pain. Guilt. Grief. Emptiness. Desperation. Relief.
Relief?
She remembered her brief time at the mission. Speaking with the priest there.
Her head spun as all the memories assailed her at once, becoming a blur as they barraged her. It was too much. The light around her faded. Her knees buckled.
“Marina!” Marcus yelled.
She couldn’t answer. She crumpled under the weight of all she’d forgotten.
* * * *
“You shouldn’t have shown her,” Marcus growled at Kyle as he cradled Marina to his chest. Somehow, she knew she hadn’t hit the floor when she’d fallen. He must have caught her.
“I didn’t think…” Kyle whispered.
“Yeah, you didn’t think,” Marcus snapped.
“Stop,” Marina mumbled.
“Marina, baby, are you okay?” Marcus asked urgently.
“Maybe we should take her to the medical centre,” Kyle offered.
“Oh, now you’re concerned?”
“No,” Marina sighed. “Stop. I’m
okay. And…” She struggled to get out of Marcus’ arms and sit. “I had to know. And…I remember.” Kneeling, she pulled the album from the table and sat back. Her thumb stroked over Emily’s face. “I wasn’t going to leave you.”
“But…”
“That morning, yes, I was going to. I was so full of pain. So empty. I felt guilty, as if this were all because of something I’d done, but also because I couldn’t move on, and I knew I was hurting you. It had been almost two years! I…well, I thought you’d be better off with me gone and not holding you back from healing.”
“Marina!” Marcus gasped. “We’d never be better off without you.”
“Never,” Kyle reasserted. “Do you know how panicked and scared we were when you were in your accident? They wouldn’t tell us anything. At first, we thought you’d died. We were terrified. Being without you…”
“Hell,” Marcus finished.
She smiled for the first time. “The accident…”
Closing the book, she handed it back to Kyle who placed it on the table again.
“I was actually in a hurry to get home. The pastor at the mission, Reverend Kinney, had asked me what was wrong. I’d been on the verge of bawling the entire day—I didn’t want to go. I just knew I needed to.”
Marcus growled while Kyle made a sound to deny her assertion.
“We would have been right behind you,” Marcus rasped. “And we would have dragged you home…and God help us then.”
“No, listen,” she insisted, her stomach fluttering at his adamant possessiveness. “I told him about Emily. I told him how guilty I felt…that I believed I was being punished for my alternate lifestyle. I never felt wrong about it, but after Emily died, I grasped at every straw within my reach. That one was the only thing that stuck with me. I was being punished. We lost our beautiful baby because I—maybe we—were being punished.”
“Marina…” Kyle whispered. “We never knew you felt that way.”
She shook her head. “Reverend Kinney said no. We talked about our lifestyle—yours and mine. How we love each other. How we’re faithful to one another and are never with others. That we’ve been together for so long… He understood! I never expected someone from the religious community to listen without condemning us. I never thought one of them would ‘get it’. But he did. He understood. We talked about polygamy and love, and well, he made me see Emily’s death wasn’t my fault. I shouldn’t feel as if I were being punished. We have a committed relationship—maybe not enough spirituality, but I promised to work on that and he promised it had nothing to do with Emily. I planned to meet with him again. Just talking with him lifted a weight off me. I was excited to come home and tell you. Then that truck…”
“Almost ended everything,” Marcus finished.
She nodded. She got to her feet and walked to the window overlooking the street. Her arms went around her middle, and she lifted a shoulder. “It could have been the end, but it wasn’t. And it gave me a filter. Since it happened, I’ve gotten blips of memory, but really all I’ve had is what’s most important to me.” She turned and looked at them. “You two. From the minute you walked into the hospital room, I sensed it, and since I’ve been home, you’ve proved it. Do I hurt? Yeah. But not as much as before.”
Both their faces were worried, as if they weren’t quite sure what to expect. They probably thought she would go back to sleeping in the room down the hall, that she’d shy away from them and spend hours holed up on the third floor where she’d hidden from the world.
Not a prayer. In her grief, she’d made huge mistakes and almost destroyed everything precious to her by pushing away her life.
She looked at Kyle, remembering last night. “I know you’re worried. Don’t be. You know what I want right now? I want to be in the arms of the men who love me best.”
Kyle’s face crumpled and he had her in his arms almost before she finished speaking. Marcus came more slowly, and when he did, it completed their circle. His arms came around them both and their heads all rested together. Tears streamed down all their faces, but they weren’t the tears of grief anymore.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you both so much. Thank you for not giving up on me.”
Kyle kissed her, and Marcus feathered his lips over her ear. “We love you, Marina. You’re our world.”
He kissed her as Kyle moved to her other ear. “I never want to be without you again.”
“You won’t,” she promised. Her hands caressed down both their backs. “I’m definitely not leaving. And I’m not moving back down the hall again either.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t tell you how much I needed to be with you, how much I missed you. I was just too scared to come back.”
“You were scared of maybe getting pregnant?” Marcus observed.
She nodded. “Or of losing one of you. I’m not ready to try for a baby yet, but I know I will be ready eventually. When I am, I want to try the procedure Jahz used. The one her cousin used too. The one that would give us a baby from each of you.”
“Really?” Kyle asked.
She grinned. “Yeah, ‘cause it’s the last time I’ll do the pregnancy thing.”
“What if we practice?” Kyle suggested, with the cheeky grin that had always endeared him to her.
Marcus batted at him.
“And celebrate you truly being back with us,” Kyle quickly added.
Marina nodded, anticipation starting to coil in her. When nothing else was right, being with Kyle and Marcus always was. And it was looking like a wide swath of right lay before them just waiting for them to step into it. “I think that would be a really good idea.”
Epilogue
“Yes…” Marina hissed. The cuffs on her wrists rattled on the iron bed frame as she rode Kyle’s cock and Marcus worked his magic with wax on her back. A hot droplet rolled across her ass, and she shuddered.
The cock ring Kyle wore buzzed against her clit with each downward motion. She was inches from coming, but she didn’t want to until Marcus was deep inside her, too. She groaned at the press of his fingers on her anus and prayed he’d hurry. Her pussy quivered with her barely restrained orgasm.
“Don’t come,” Kyle breathed, obviously feeling the tiny spasms on his cock. How could she not be on the verge of it when they’d decided to fulfil one of her favourite fantasies today. On her knees, cuffed and at their mercy.
Marcus’ finger pressed into her, working in and out and loosening her tight muscles. He added a second. She moaned, trying to work against it while she fucked Kyle. Marcus pushed her down Kyle’s shaft with his free hand and held her there. She screeched at the sensation—the cock filling her, the tiny egg in the cock ring buzzing merrily on her clit, Marcus finger fucking her ass. To her relief, the mattress depressed, and a moment later, his cock pressed to her tight opening. Slowly, he pushed inside. His shaft rubbed Kyle’s through the thin membrane separating them. Marina thought, as always, that she’d never felt anything so good. And as they took her in their own special rhythm that left her breathless and helpless between them, she knew, as always, that she was right. So right…
Kyle pulled at the clamps on her nipples, and that was it. She lost it and went sailing over the edge. Lights flashed before her eyes as she gasped, release stealing her breath and even the tiniest ability to voluntarily move. Over and over, shudders racked down her body. Her muscles clenched, and her pussy and ass clasped her men as tight as a fist. Finally, Marcus reached beneath her and released the leather cock ring that held Kyle. In mere moments, Kyle shot into her. Marcus groaned, a few strokes later, finding his climax as well.
“Oh God,” she moaned, resting on Kyle. “That was…”
“Oh yeah,” Kyle replied. He kissed her, lingering at her lips as Marcus pulled free, then climbed from the bed. They’d turned the third floor room where she’d once hidden into their playroom. They escaped here, playing their bondage games, their wax games, their games that made her utterly scream and might wake the
toddlers down the hall if they played them in the master bedroom. This large room was perfect for any role playing they wanted to indulge.
She smiled as Marcus cleaned up then came back with a damp cloth. He washed her, then released the cuffs that had held her bound. She slid bonelessly to the mattress. It had been a long day and this was the perfect topper.
“All your event planning paid off today,” Kyle commented. He tenderly pushed a curl from her eyes. “The birthday party was perfect even if the boys probably won’t remember it. But, lord, they were cute digging into their cake.”
“We have pictures,” Marcus said, dropping down beside them. “I filled up a memory card and then some on the digital camera.”
Marina shook her head, laughing at the proud dads. She couldn’t be happier. Their sons, Declan and Lucan, had turned one a few days ago and today had been their first birthday party. They’d toddled all over, charming those attending the party while just about everyone there had breathed a giant sigh of relief over their health and their monumental birthday.
“We should go back down,” she murmured.
“In a minute,” Marcus said, resting his head on her shoulder. “We have something for you.”
We have something for you had been their opening to bringing her upstairs.
“You already gave me something,” she laughed as Kyle clipped a beautiful diamond necklace with three entwined circles around her neck. Their three lives forever interconnected. She kissed him then twisted around and kissed Marcus. How could she tell them she didn’t need gifts? She already had everything she’d ever want, and she never wanted any of them to forget that again.
About the Author
When it comes to books and movies, Brynn Paulin has one rule: there must be a happy ending. After that one requirement, anything else goes. And it just might in any of her books.
Brynn lives in Michigan with her husband and two children, who love her despite her occasional threats to smite them. They humour her and let her think she's a goddess...as long as she provides homemade chocolate chip cookies on a regular basis. Brynn has conducted workshops at several writers’ conferences around the country. She enjoys mentoring and meeting new people.
