Season of Gifts (Neighborly Affection #8)

85. 2

He deployed a serene smile. “Give her another to match, would you?”

As Jay swayed toward Alice’s other shoulder, their bodies brushing, he snaked an arm around her waist. Slowly his arm rose, until he clasped her just beneath her own arms and the bowl she held. His forearm flexed, and Alice’s relaxed. A clever bit of assistance, that, and a true reflection of how Henry’s spouses instinctively supported one another. He would hold his praise until later. Let them believe they alone shared this small bit of beauty.

Jay teased free a plump burgundy grape. Its delicate sugar snow eagerly transferred to Alice’s skin, gleaming in the warmth of the fire. At the near end of the crystalline vee, Jay pushed the grape into his mouth and lapped at the sweetness left behind. His jaw worked, his cheekbones prominent as he finished the treat and swallowed it down. With a scant glance at Henry, he pressed his mouth to Alice and pulled.

Magnificent composition. Jay’s dark head bent to her shoulder, black strands dangling forward. Alice rose above, her head tipping back, neck corded, teeth gritted, waves of wheat-gold shaking across Jay’s upper back. A low hiss might have been her inhalation or the wood sweating on the fire; they were one and the same, locked in a cycle of desire and combustion.

His girl wanted a more active role. More control. So long as he refused to allow it, her arousal would simmer and boil. The closer he pushed her to the boiling point, the longer he held her there, the more frenzied her passionate spillover would be.

Pucker lines decorated Jay’s mouth and Alice’s flesh, a testament to his devotion. The first flush of bruising might appear in minutes.

“It occurs to me—” Henry waited for Jay to lift his head. Jay’s deeply trusting eyes, his enormous pupils, suggested his enjoyment of service and exhibitionism had flooded his bloodstream with the feel-good chemicals that altered mental states. “That our dear Alice is falling behind.” He tsk ed in mock sorrow, and Jay subtly mimicked his headshake. “Aha!” Henry raised a finger; Jay tracked him with his eyes. Henry plucked an imaginary grape from an imaginary bowl and dragged it up his chest to his mouth. He kissed the tips of his finger and thumb. “If you feed her a grape, she’ll begin to catch up, won’t she?”

Jay rubbed a line of sugar from Alice’s sternum to the collar at her throat. He presented the grape to her lips with the same twisting flourish Henry had used. Mouth at her ear, he issued a ragged whisper. “Henry says you should eat.”

Alice smiled; a hint of a scoff passed through her lips. “Henry likes playing with fire.”

Ohhh, good girl. He held himself back, though the balls of his feet pushed into the floor, ready to propel him to standing. Ready to propel them all from achingly slow foreplay to wild, driving pleasure. She would plan extensive scenes of her own soon enough, and then what shows he’d witness—surprises, gifts for his pleasure as she and Jay explored their bond.

Taking the grape between her teeth, Alice bit down. Juice flowed over Jay’s fingers, which she sucked thoroughly clean, each in turn. Jay rocked against her, his ass clenching.

Alice deserved a reward for that ingenuity, though she might imagine it a punishment for rushing the timeline.

“Grapes are not the only source of sweetness from your partner, Jay.” Henry tapped two fingers against his mouth, miming losing himself in thought. “How far does your reach extend? Might you dip your fingers into another bowl and see what sweets you discover?”

Jay slipped one hand down Alice’s side as neatly as if sliding into a pocket. He stroked broad circles over her hip. Tangled his fingers in the short hairs guarding her center. Fingers leading, Jay cupped her in his palm.

Alice inhaled sharply, her tongue tip touching her lips. Jay must have found the treasure he sought. The tendons rose in the back of his hand; he drew back and curved forward again. Alice widened her stance. A soft moan wavered in her breath, her mouth open, her eyes lidded. The scent of her floated on the currents, musky desire woven with woodsmoke. The bowl in her hand trembled.

Henry’s zipper had grown bothersome, an impediment to free movement, damming up his energy behind it. “How many fingers, Jay?”

“Two.” Jay raised index and middle slightly, their wet sheen glistening in the light.

“Give her three.” Three fingers and one weighted plug would well prepare her for the pleasure he envisioned.

Jay thrust slowly. The heel of his hand flexed into her clitoris on his backstrokes. His fingers disappeared between Alice’s legs, there and gone, again and again. Her erratic shaking spread from her hands to her ribs, tremors rippling down through her stomach and thighs. Her breath came in short hitches.

“Time for a taste, my boy. Fingers out.”

Oh the daggers Alice stared. So cruelly he’d snatched orgasm from her.

“Turn, sweet girl. Face our husband. Offer him the sugar decorating your rosy skin.”

Alice thrust her chest forward. Jay bent and sucked a line up to her collarbone, meeting a mote of darkening flesh. He kissed lightly atop the forming bruise.

“Yes, you’ve marked her well for us, haven’t you?”

Splaying his fingers, Jay curled his tongue around one and added the taste of Alice to the sugar sweetening his mouth. He chased that meal with a second line of sugar and a second finger. His cock bobbed against Alice’s stomach, drizzling her with his eagerness to serve. The final line of sugar led Jay to Alice’s collar. He pressed his mouth to the initials at her throat, then sucked clean his third finger.

“Set the bowl aside, please, Jay.”

Alice’s unsteady grip would falter soon if he didn’t. Freed of the burden, she flexed her fingers and clenched them tight, white knuckles against the stunning pink blush coloring her from cheeks to breasts.

“Alice.” Henry called her name softly, and she turned her head at lightning speed, her eyes razor-sharp.

Jay laid the bowl on the side table in ghostly silence, his feet having never left the sheets.

Henry crooked his finger and gestured Jay to him. Leaning forward, he raised his hand to Jay’s face and lifted his chin between thumb and forefinger. Henry mouthed a kiss and tilted Jay’s face toward Alice. He captured her gaze, shards of hazel possessive and predatory. Now, yes. Now she craved escalation at the edge of her self-control. “Tell me, dearest. What urge takes hold of you?”

Curled open, her fingers resembled talons. “I want to devour him. I want to ride him into the floor.”

Jay trembled, his cock leaping. A thin tenor whine of longing escaped.

Henry stroked Jay’s strong jaw back to his ear. Down his neck, fingering the collar as he passed. Alice breathed deep in her belly, rhythmic expansion rounding her stomach and lifting her breasts.

Pushing gently on Jay’s shoulder blade, Henry sent him to her. “Show me.”

Arms outstretched, Alice claimed Jay in a fierce hold as he stepped near. Fingers threaded in his hair, she clasped both sides of his head and kissed him. Her teeth flashed, nipping at his lips, demanding control. Jay gave ground willingly, in sweet whimpers, in hands tucked behind him, not daring to touch what hadn’t been granted him.

Elemental forces swirled together in a clash worthy of the gods they were. Where Alice grew like fire, pouring out heat, Jay absorbed like earth, pulling the energy into himself and reflecting it back at her. She dragged her hands down the back of his skull and kneaded his neck. The kiss went on, the two of them taking quick sips of air without parting.

Alice braced her hands atop Jay’s shoulders. “Down, boy. Finish what you started. No stopping this time.”

Jay sank to his knees before her. His fingers sliding between her thighs became a scent, a sound. Alice draped one leg across Jay’s shoulder, balancing with her hands woven through his hair. “More. Give me your mouth and fingers both. Serve me.”

“Always, Mistress.” Shuddering, Jay spoke in an awed whisper. Firelight lit his face as he gazed up at her. A man receiving knighthood might gaze so, his heart exposed, his loyalty honored, his courage rewarded. Jay bent his head to his task, covering Alice with his mouth as his fingers thrust.

Alice rocked against him, rolling her hips toward his cheeks, crooning encouragement. “Just like that, right there, right there, keep going.”

The fire silhouetted the peaks of her breasts and the dangling waves of her hair. Radiantly powerful, she towered above their husband, clinging to his back with one leg, her heel digging into his muscles. Kneeling, one hand yet limned in light behind his back, Jay served her with his entire focus, his cock hard and waiting.

Alice’s back bowed. An arc of the moon she was, a crescent resting on a sculpted athlete, the young man with his face upturned to her beauty. A delicate, precarious position.

Her knee wobbled; she clenched Jay more tightly to her. Orgasm might send her toppling. Such fun, standing— weighing the competing imperatives of keeping one’s balance while urgently desiring to come.

But Henry had seen enough for now. His churning heartbeat had desires of its own.

Finishing the work Alice had begun, he slipped free of his shirt and rose from the sofa. He dragged his belt slowly from its loops, its shurr ing glide a ghostly touch against a body attuned for action. On another night he might create a makeshift binding; Alice in particular responded enthusiastically to surprises. But tonight’s enjoyment did not depend upon impressing his partners with his creativity or overwhelming them with flashy shows of dominance. Tonight, he gave them merely himself—their husband, enraptured by their beauty and the tender astonishment that their love had survived challenges that might have shredded other hearts.

“Not ours, though,” he whispered as his unfastened pants collapsed at his feet. He stepped out, stripping his socks as he went. “We are one heart in three bodies.”

He flipped the miniature lube bottle from his pants pocket to the blanket and entered his domain. The very air crackled with intensity around Alice. Her words faltered, giving way to a string of moans. Shaking, she pushed forward even as her body arched back.

Henry strode swiftly behind her and wrapped his arms across her collarbone. He filled his chest, lifting her, stabilizing her as her knee sagged into Jay’s shoulder. He nipped the tip of her ear.

Her breath hitched. She dragged a hand from Jay’s hair and clenched Henry’s forearm, her fingers biting deep.

“How beautiful you are,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck. “Such agony on the verge of ecstasy. No stopping this time, hmm?”

Her panting breaths and reflexive squeezes gave away her fleeting panic as he softly laughed.

“No, I won’t stop you, sweet girl. Have your pleasure.” He fit himself to her back, his aching cock at last nestled against her soft, cushioned ass. “And then I shall have mine.”

She clung to them both, a vibrating tongue of flame, her wail rising to the ceiling—then staggered and hung limp, her body yet shaking. The change swept through her in an instant, from utmost strain to boneless relaxation, every twitch and jolt felt where her body pressed to his. He peppered her temples and cheeks with kisses even as he slipped one arm beneath her thigh and raised her foot from Jay’s back to his shoulder.

“On your back, my devoted husband.” He nudged Jay with Alice’s foot.

Jay toppled back into the pillows, his smile broad and his chin wet. “Found the source of the sweetness.”

“And what a feast you made of it. I had thought to watch a bit longer, and yet here I am, called by your beauty together.” He funneled the passion of their display through his eyes, allowing his hunger to show. “Take yourself in hand.”

Jay’s arm moved before his face even registered the command. He tugged his bottom lip between his teeth, his gaze fixed on Henry’s, and swallowed hard. “Want me to make a show of it?”

Tempting, the way the fire cast a net of light over Jay’s lean form. Sweat deepened the musk in the air and the sheen on his skin. Knees fallen to his sides, he held his cock in his left hand. Jay’s wedding band danced with light.

Henry might witness that show every day for the rest of his life and never grow tired of it.

“Another time. I’ve a different task for you.” Henry shifted his grip, threading his arms beneath Alice’s shoulders. “One I expect will bring even greater enjoyment.” He lowered her carefully to her knees, straddling Jay, hovering above his cock with its suddenly tightly clenched fist at the base. “Yes, precisely like that. Hold yourself steady for our girl.”

Alice found purchase with her hands alongside Jay’s shoulders, elbows trembling but holding. Henry caressed her sides, following the curves from ribs to waist to hips. “You seem to have overexerted yourself, dearest.” His tone might have been a touch smug, but his pride was warranted. His loves had outdone themselves, taken his scenario and enhanced it. “Perhaps you’d care to take a seat? We have one prepared for you.”

Swiveling her hips, Alice eased down onto Jay with the satisfied exhale of one entering a long-awaited bath.

Jay breathed out slowly and tipped his head back into the pillows. He cradled Alice’s thigh in his free hand, fingers idly stroking. “You’re thrumming like an engine inside.”

Dropping to her elbows, Alice giggled and kissed the tip of Jay’s nose. “You got me all revved up, stud.”

Ahh. His giddy girl had made her appearance. Post-orgasm, relaxed enough to take them both. He needn’t wait; he’d nothing to prove. He sank to his knees slowly, reverently. Ran his palms across the soft smoothness of her ass. Curled his finger through the handle of her plug and slid it free. She’d grown as accustomed as Jay to the muscle movements that would assist in speeding their pleasure.

Laying the plug aside, he scooped up the lube and flipped up the cap. Warmed to room temperature, it poured freely against the top of Alice’s ass and slid downward. He poured more into his palm and set the bottle aside. Slick with lube, he grasped his cock and stroked. The tip pressed between Alice’s cheeks, spreading more lubricant as he rubbed up and down, back and forth over the soft flesh waiting to welcome him.

A slow, steady push opened her to him with ease. Shivering, she pushed back, inviting him deeper, her sweet sigh as enticing as the pressure she gripped him with and Jay’s rigid presence alongside him, held together and apart by Alice molding her body to theirs. The magic of the gods, that they should fit so perfectly, so effortlessly. The glorious magic the three of them created anew each day.

Henry sank fully and held his breath. His pulse traveled faster, the song of his life quickening. Alice fluttered around him in waves, squeezing his cock, holding him firmly in her embrace. The sweetness of the woodsmoke kept the rich earthiness of arousal from becoming too familiar and fading from his senses; as he took a breath, their passion swept in, refreshed, a fragrant lure that thickened on his tongue. Skin flushed in rose-gold, Jay and Alice lay as one, waiting on his word.

He could weep for such splendor. “Slowly, my loves. Let us live in this moment.”

He set an unhurried pace. Jay followed, his strength anchoring them and raising them, their bodies a boat drifting on the tide of his rocking hips. Alice’s humming moans provided their lullaby as they settled into a rhythm.

Kneeling upright offered excellent leverage and thrust but kept him far from their low murmurs of pleasure. Alice and Jay rocked with faces aligned, foreheads resting against one another. From above, Alice seemed a disc of woven gold within a raven-dark halo. This was not a time to maintain artistic distance. The referential must become the experiential, trading the vision of beauty for the feel of it.

Henry lowered his palms to the sheets, blanketing Alice with his body. Her heat met his; surely the narrowing space between them shimmered with mirages. She tilted her head aside, shaking her hair so it no longer hid her face from him. Now he might lay his chin upon her shoulder and witness the purity of Jay’s happiness, the dark eyes sparkling in fragments of firelight, the mouth shifting between the roundness of awe and the rising crescent of a smile.

Jay’s hands rested between them, riding the waves at Alice’s waist. Henry traced the path with one hand, along sturdy muscles to the wrist where he would fasten a day cuff for Jay on every morning yet to come. He lifted lightly. “On me, dearest boy. We are all of us owned.”

He belonged to them as indisputably as they did to him. An owner’s cuff— yes . A few calls tomorrow.

Jay reached for him, fingers grasping along his side and curling into his back, a grip at once fierce and loving. “All of us.”

“All of us,” Alice echoed. She left a kiss at the corner of Jay’s mouth and sought another from Henry. The brush of her lips tingled.

Smoldering need sparked into flame. His hips pistoned more quickly, each steady withdrawal accompanied by a faster return to Alice’s embrace. She flowed between them, molten. Needy, as she nuzzled Jay’s cheek, her nose flattening against him, her mouth open, as if she scented the air on her tongue.

Shadow concealed the bruising of Jay’s kisses. A shame they couldn’t yet admire his good work.

Henry brushed his nose along the rising slope from Alice’s shoulder to her neck, musk and lemon mixing with the faint richness of leather from her collar. “Consider the trapezius, sweet girl.” He clasped hers between his teeth, gently testing the give in her muscle, and released. “Should you be searching for a place to mark our Jay.”

Her shudder rippled through the three of them, disrupting the rhythm and sharpening its urgency. Now he moved faster than thought, body racing ahead of the mind.

Alice bent to her task, fastening her mouth into the muscle beside the juncture where Jay’s collar lay. Dark head tipped back, chin pointed toward the ceiling, Jay whined a wordless plea. His fingers dug deeper into Henry’s flank, five delicious pinpricks of pain-pleasure.

Henry lowered his face, dropping his shoulders and packing the three of them more tightly together. Three bodies joined. One entity moving, burning through the face of creation at the speed of one pounding pulse.

He latched his teeth into Alice’s muscle and held fast. Muffled by Jay’s flesh, she moaned through her chest, a resonance Henry too took up, signaling his pleasure. He would leave his mark upon her, a bruise she might run her fingers across for days as she throbbed with remembered passion. Their moans swirled in harmony, undercurrents whipping up the fierce wind of Jay’s spiraling whines.

Alice flailed one hand back, hunting, gripping, the bite of her fingers finding Henry’s shoulder.

Let them have this singular moment, this perfection, this firestorm—

Jay’s thrusts grew erratic. Alice clamped down so tightly she might never let them go.

Climax seared through him. The wildfire burned away the old world in birthing the new.

He floated in a haze, his hearing muffled, buffeted by wind. No, not wind. Breath. Three sets of heaving lungs sucked down air as their owners succumbed to the heavy lassitude of satisfied exhaustion.

Would that he could rest here forever without crushing his spouses. But careful maneuvering might allow for a compromise.

He forced his hands to take up his weight, though his muscles cried for luxurious rest. “Hold tight, please, Alice.”

She mmm ed agreeably. “Cozy. Not going anywhere.”

“Jay?” The length of Jay’s throat lay exposed, but he’d yet to lift his head.

Slack fingers wiggled to life, one hand cradling Henry’s waist and the other at Alice’s, against his stomach. “We rolling?”

Such a brilliant boy. “To your right.”

“On three?”

Henry counted them down, and with their arms caged around one another, they tipped sideways without losing connection. A physiological necessity soon enough; they needn’t rush it along.

Alice settled back against him, resting her head on his arm. Now could he kiss her properly, lips slanting across each other with the decadent slow pour of molasses. Jay as well, finally within reach and him with a free hand to stroke silky dark hair. He stretched across Alice’s shoulder and delivered a kiss of belonging, thick with gratitude for Jay’s presence, for his very existence.

“Rest, my loves.” He studied the flickering flames and the light they cast as his spouses lay content, shifting lazily, humming peaceably.

Thoughts drifted past; he captured one for later perusal, that midsummer might be an excellent evening to replicate this night beneath the stars. They too shed radiant light.

Only when he’d lost all stiffness did he rouse from delectable drowsing. Alice and Jay yawned and stretched, issuing soft peals of satisfaction. He undertook their ritual cleanup, tenderly caring for his submissives and inspecting the suitably impressive hickeys darkening near their necklines.

While Alice lounged, Jay heaped the pillows higher and set the water and grapes within reach. As promised, the fire yet burned merrily in the hearth, crackling as they basked in their nest.

Alice lay on her back, gloriously naked. She’d bent one arm behind her head, elbow outthrust. With her other hand, she stroked her stomach. Hungry, perhaps. They’d expended a great deal of energy setting the world ablaze.

Henry fed her a grape without teasing, a simple presentation at her lips and her acceptance. Light flared in her eyes as she bit down, juice and sugar coating her tongue.

A more substantial tray awaited them in the refrigerator, filled with chocolates and honey, figs and soft cheese, salami and other small bites. The cordial glasses, as well, for their celebratory sips to greet the new year. Not long now; the wall clock ticked ever closer.

They could enjoy those just as easily here, and he himself was loath to move from the haven they’d created. But he would give them the option nonetheless.

“It’s coming on midnight.” Lying on his side, his head propped on his hand, he nodded toward the clock. “If you wish, the fireworks ought to be visible from the roof deck.” Though not their nudity. That he would keep for himself. “Sadly, such an endeavor would require substantially more clothing.”

Jay mirrored Henry’s positioning, his pose enchanting with the glow of the fire behind him and shadows draping his front. Suggestive, subtle, he gazed at Alice, clearly prepared to defer to their wife’s choice. But she lay with heavy-lidded eyes fixed in the distance and kept her silence.

Jay wound a lock of Alice’s hair around his finger. “I’m better here. If you are.” Tugged, the curl slipped free. Bottomless brown eyes met Henry’s. Jay smiled with soft shyness, not the life of the party but the man beneath, the one who had so often feared to voice his desires. “Dunno that any fireworks can beat the ones we’ve had today.”

“No, they cannot.” He rewarded Jay with a fresh grape, swiped the sugar from Jay’s lips, and licked it from his thumb. Sweet victories, no matter their size, were to be savored. “Thank you for speaking your mind, my brave boy.”

Alice resettled herself in a slow undulation from head to toe. “I think we should have kids.”

Even the tick of the clock vanished in the unnaturally crisp silence. Alice gazed at the Christmas tree, the front side now rich with their personal histories and bisected by the cheerful banner from Jay’s nieces and nephews. Utterly relaxed, she held Henry’s heart in her hands, seeming not to notice the beats he’d skipped before stuttering back to life.

Ever so gently, he laced his fingers with hers and rested them atop her stomach. “Shall we run out and fetch some this evening? Two, five, a dozen?”

His voice held steady, droll even, a surprise given the quaking in his body.

Smiling, Alice bumped him with her shoulder but shook her head. “Not tonight. We’re not ready yet. We still have work to do on ourselves.”

A wise choice. His longing for a family had survived the last decade; it could stand a while longer.

Alice cupped Jay’s face, which gave away his joy in every crinkle and curve. She rubbed his cheek as he pressed into her hold. “You realize days like today will be tougher when we’re parents.”

Jay angled for a kiss, leaning in with his entire body. Granted one, he shook down through his toes. “I’ll cultivate babysitter friends. We’ll have a whole roster lined up.”

“In a year—” Alice gazed up at Henry, her hazel eyes clear and bright beneath lifted brows. “Can we write this into the contract tomorrow?”

Trying to modulate the eagerness in his voice, he fell into a deep, coaxing bass. “What do you wish to add, my sweet girl?”

Face scrunching in a smile, she shivered. “First, more of that tone. But second—” Lips pursed, she blinked twice. “Something like: In one year, if we unanimously agree that we’ve got a handle on our own childhood shit, and we think we aren’t going to fuck up our kids too badly, we start trying.”

Jay pumped a fist in the air. “Hell yeah! I’d sign that.”

Henry squeezed Alice’s hand, his throat momentarily too overcome. A light ahem cleared the obstruction, though Alice’s eyes were far too knowing to believe it anything but the emotional reaction it was. “I would be delighted to draft such an addendum.”

He approached her with eyes open, searching, his lids falling only as their mouths made contact. Noses brushing, they rode the currents between them, give and take, the kiss surging and retreating in turn.

The wall clock began to chime. Midnight had arrived.

Fumbling for Jay, he met Alice’s hand at the back of his head. The two of them hauled their husband into the kiss together, mouths awkwardly meeting, noses bumping, laughter chasing them. Dissolving into giggles, Alice sank into the pillow and left him to finish thoroughly kissing Jay senseless.

A distant booming sounded as they parted. The fireworks at the harbor showered the city with the joy of the new year.

Jay shook the haze from his eyes. “Oh! Should we be toasting? Want me to fetch that stuff from the kitchen?”

That stuff was a lovely Oloroso sherry he’d handpicked for the occasion. But the occasion did not need it.

“In a moment.” Henry nudged Jay back to the pillow and carried Alice’s hand with his to Jay’s chest. Heads bent together, dark and light, they embodied his sketches, his hopes. This view was his forever, as their faces lined with age, as their features someday peeked out from tiny new faces—how wondrous that he could draw a dream and Alice and Jay would give it life. “My heart is too full for anything but the two of you just now. Happy new year, my loves.”