The lining of my stomach turns to acid, my knees beginning to tremble like they did when I was a little girl. I have an embarrassing impulse to run as fast as possible to my old room and hide under the bed. But then I remember I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a grown woman with a new life. A job and a home…and two men who love me. Need me. Have opened themselves up to me and tried to cure me of my fear in the process.
Both of them have fixed their clothing and are now bristling, preparing for a fight. Possibly even ready to kill my father. And they could—easily. Especially when my safety is at stake. I can see that. A moment ago, they were my tender lovers, but right now, they are hardened and dangerous. Eyes glittering, jaws full of tension. An eerie calm has settled over Klay while Ruger wears a mask of fury, just waiting for the word so he can attack.
It’s when I’m looking at them that I realize…they have cured me.
Or rather, encouraged me to cure myself.
I’m not running anywhere as long as these two are by my side.
I’m a woman capable of turning three lost souls into an unlikely threesome. I’m the glue these two men need and they’re mine. I now have the power of three instead of one inside of me and that strong bond can’t be broken by my father’s hate or thirst for control. In fact, as I look at his sagging jowls and hunched frame, the very idea is laughable.
“Klay,” Ruger says. “As soon as I’ve got him out of the doorway, bring her outside and I’ll handle the rest.”
“Sound plan, mate,” Klay responds without missing a beat. “Do be careful. A man like that doesn’t issue a challenge unless he has a weapon hidden somewhere.”
Ruger grunts and starts forward, but I stop him with a hand on his elbow. “No.”
My lovers turn to me with raised eyebrows.
“I don’t need him…handled. I’m not afraid of him anymore.” I laugh a little incredulously to myself, then sober, putting some steel in my spine. “It’s a far worse punishment to let him live, anyway. Let’s go home.”
“I’d really like to kill him, Wendy,” Ruger rasps, nostrils flaring.
I smooth my hand up Ruger’s spine and his eyelids droop, stiffness draining from his muscles. “You’re not a killer anymore.” I lean over and kiss Klay, lightly. A tease of lips. “And they don’t decide our actions ever again,” I whisper, referring not only to my father, but Klay’s.
Klay blinks several times to camouflage the emotion in his blue eyes, but it’s there and eventually he stops trying to hide it. I reward him with a smile and take hold of the hands of both men, walking as one unit toward the door.
When we’ve almost reached where my father is standing, his bravado begins to crumble. He knows it’s over. He has nothing and no one to control or terrorize anymore. And in that panic, he produces a butcher knife from the inside of his dirty jacket, the steel glinting in the moonlight. My skin turns clammy and cold. One again, the fear threatens to rear its ugly head, but I force myself to calm down. Instead of running or letting Ruger attempt to disarm my father, I simply reach back and pick up the matches left behind on the kitchen table.
I strike one and throw it down on the twirling pattern of lighter fluid—and I watch the flames zip off down the hallway like I used to do.
“What—no! I have nowhere else to go!” My father drops the knife and looks around frantically for a way to put out the fire. Of course, there is none, so he strips off his shirt and tries to pat out the flames. But it’s already too late.
The last time I see my father is when we’re driving away and I watch his silhouette among the flames, looking like the devil himself, still trying to quell the fire.
And when I hear the roof cave in with a sickening crash, I don’t bother looking back.
I simply allow Ruger to pull me into his lap. I meet Klay’s reassuring eyes in the rearview mirror and I know that with the past in ashes, we’re going to build a beautiful future.
Epilogue
Ruger
Five Years Later
I close my eyes and listen to the breath rattling in and out of my lungs.
The sound of ocean surf seems distant, even though our house is right on the beach. Klay is out there with Wendy. Swimming. They love to swim, especially in the turquoise waters of Mexico. I’m usually out there with them, reminding them to wear sunscreen, but today is a special day. My birthday. So they’re giving me the gift of a slow tease. Divine torture.
I’ve been roped to this headboard for hours without a stitch of clothing on. A homemade sex tape featuring me, Klay and Wendy plays on the flatscreen. It’s been going for hours, the sounds of moaning and wet smacks filling the airy bedroom. My cock is like a monument pointing straight up from my lap and I’ve about reached my breaking point.
Cracking an eye open, I watch myself ride Klay from behind like a horny beggar, my hips pumping desperately, sweat dripping from my forehead to his back. I’m grunting, keening, grinding out their names in a chant. And all the while, Wendy kneels in front of Klay, stroking his dick, slowly, petting her pussy with the opposite fingers. Watching us with lust and approval and encouragement in her gorgeous eyes.
She leans forward to kiss Klay, but he keeps having to break off to moan.
Because of what I’m doing to him.
Now, I shift my hips on the bed, pulling at the restraints, searching anxiously for some kind of friction or relief, but there’s none to be had. The frustration and anticipation make me hotter, though. Puts a fine sheen of sweat all over my body.
One afternoon a couple of years ago, the three of us discovered how much I love being teased while watching Klay and Wendy fuck. Klay told me he’d let me join if I could watch for twenty minutes without laying a finger on my shaft—and by the time those twenty minutes were up, I was burning alive. We almost broke the bed after that.
The game has escalated a lot since then—as it has today—and I love it. Crave it.
We don’t play it all the time. Our relationship is loving and committed. Equal in all ways. No one is ever left out. No one is ever jealous. We each have an important role. Without one of us, the balance would be off. And the love we have for each other only grows stronger with each passing year here on the beach.
After the night Wendy torched her childhood home, we went back to her house, packed her things and drove to Mexico. From there, she sold her house and invested in our bungalow on the beach. She works as a manager at a nearby boutique hotel, which comes very highly rated, due in part to the signature scent given to each room. Sometimes me and Klay worry she misses her old job in scent branding, because she operated on a much larger scale, but she always finds a way to reassure us.
My whole heart is here. With you. My men.
I covet this life and I’ll never wish for a second to be anywhere else.
I hear Wendy’s voice saying those words and I sigh warmly, trying to will her into the doorway. Her and Klay. I need their mouths and hands on my skin. Did someone turn up the volume on the television? I can’t tell if the sound of panting is coming from me or the speakers—
“Had enough, mate?” Klay asks, sauntering into the room, board shorts riding low on his hips, his skin bronzed from the sun—as is mine—thanks to our job taking tourists out on chartered fishing tours. When we arrived in Mexico, neither one of us knew a damn thing about fishing, but Klay faked it until he made it, getting us jobs as crew members on a vessel. When we’d made enough cash and knew the trade, we bought the boat and started running tours ourselves. We spend our days on the water now, in the wheelhouse together, usually plotting out how we’ll make Wendy moan when we arrive back on land.