35. Cress
Phaeron placed me back in the same room we’d just been sharing with Ben. “I’ll go get the others. Just rest a moment.” He felt concerned for me, which was about as defined in my mind as if I were the worried one.
“Okay,” I said.
He vanished back into the shadows, and it was a relief to be alone for a few minutes. I rested my head back against the couch, waiting for my ears to stop ringing. The dizziness would probably return when it was just me and my men, but I sure hoped it wouldn’t be so bad after we consummated the mating circle.
I was a married woman now. Just thinking about it gave me butterflies. How’d I get so lucky as to have this experience, even if it was in the service of taking down a larger threat? Now that we were bound together in the same circle, I would not need to pick and choose my affections. I could have all three of them without fear of judgment in supernatural eyes.
Supernaturals often formed groups with multiple partners, especially with notable someones like Dr. Aurina and her five partners or Madigan and her three husbands. It’d been on display during the Mabon feast as well, when family units had included children and multiple spouses to a single partner.
And I was that core figure now. Me, someone who only a year ago had no idea that the supernatural world existed. Once we ended the threat Myuna posed, I would get to spend my days with three incredible men.
They arrived, and I felt the general shape of their thoughts as I teetered to my feet. Ben reacted first, catching a hold of me around the waist before I could fall. He was wondering, Is Cress all right?
“I’m fine, I think,” I said, though he hadn’t spoken aloud.
Geo observed our surroundings and noted the bags of gifts and the fading smell of sex from the night prior. I knew it, he seemed to think.
And Phaeron was considering how to change the mood in the room, noting how tense we were. My mate will not know peace again if we don’t stabilize the circle. How can this be romantic if those two males stand there gawking at her?
“I was admiring her. She’s shining,” Geo said in a defensive tone.
I glanced down at myself from their concentrated attention. “Oh nooo,” I stated dramatically, pulling at my shirt. “It looks like I drowned in a glitter factory!”
Geo and Phaeron exchanged a glance. They didn’t understand, but Ben pulled a sympathetic face. “This is never coming out,” I explained. “Is it in my hair? On my face?”
“No, and yes,” Phaeron answered. “I believe we’re meant to…smear it around. It’s cupid magic.” Though unsaid, I felt him imagining us skin to skin, the sparkles absorbing into us because of shared pleasure.
I flushed with heat at the thought. “Shall we see how much of me it covers?” I invited.
Judging by the arousal suddenly leaking from all three of them, that was a major yes. Phaeron had wanted to change the mood, and it seemed he had with one lusty thought.
Kind of like animaris, spreading through the bloodstream once it hit the heart. His gaze flashed with awareness, and he wondered if I wanted another bite. And while I did…no, it wouldn’t be right for this moment to let my body take over.
He nodded. We’d just had a full conversation in the space of a few moments… How surreal. I toed off my shoes while Geo murmured, “What even is animaris?”
“Phaeron’s sexy venom,” Ben said.
The gargoyle’s brow furrowed. “His what?”
Phaeron barely cracked a smile, but now I felt him using all of his impressive self-control not to die laughing.
I giggled for him, and that, plus the shimmy of my hips as I slipped out of my jeans, had their undivided attention. Ben started to help me. He’d gotten a thrill at hearing my sexy little laugh,and then all three of them were reaching to pull my clothes away faster. A few seams popped in the frenzy to get me naked.
“I think it’s safe to say all of you sparkles,” Geo remarked. I saw hints of creamy, glimmering flesh, but their mouths and hands were on me. Ben tilted my head up, our lips meeting, breath heating, tongues and teeth clashing.
Geo’s broad palm splayed over my lower back, holding me steady. He tweaked one hard nipple between his fingers with practiced care, and that was him laving up the soft plane of my belly.
I knew it wasn’t Phaeron, since the sharp edges of his fangs were working their way up my inner thigh. He braced my shaky legs as he snuck a taste of me, projecting a feeling of smug satisfaction.
Their emotions, thoughts, and desires came together for a moment. They gave and I took, but I didn’t just want them to pleasure me. I tugged at the back of Geo’s shirt and fumbled for Ben’s pants, needing to feel their skin on mine, wanting to give back.
“Whatever you want, babe,” Ben groaned once he pulled away from my lips.
Clothes hit the ground, and claws pressed into my skin in warning not to move. Phaeron dove in eagerly for a feast, suckling on my clit and sharing how I tasted with the other two men. That wasn’t playing fair. Ben and Geo throbbed with need as they revealed their bodies—and a bit of cupid magic on their chests, I noted vaguely. I jolted with a moan when a smooth tail ran between my pussy lips, twisting to get the first few inches slick.
“Fuck,” Ben said. There were grunts of agreement. “Your body is putting off ‘fuck me’ signals that I can feel now.”
Phaeron maneuvered my legs around his horns to lift his head after giving my clit one last lick. He shook his head briskly, focusing long enough to take us all in. “If you stay like this, Cress…”
He outlined a simple enough plan to account for all our limbs and their general bulk. Despite some crowding and kneeling, it seemed like the soundest way for me to have all three of them at the same time. We agreed enthusiastically as a unit, and I coaxed Ben and Geo in closer with a shiver of anticipation.
Phaeron shaped the curve of my hips and ass, and I glanced over my shoulder when he reappeared there with an eddy of shadows. I thought, You’re still wearing too many clothes.
And he answered, Patience. The slickened tip of his tail brushed the edges of my hot core again before pressing into my ass with intention. My mouth opened on a gasp, and Geo took me by the jaw, turning my head toward where he stood beside me. His quicksilver eyes glimmered with love, and we kissed for a long moment.
Ben’s hands were on me too, squeezing my breasts and gripping my waist above Phaeron’s clawed fingers. His cock throbbed against my lower belly, and he was the one to note the awkward angle and think I needed to kneel more. They helped me sink further, my lips leaving Geo’s and traveling down his perfectly sculpted chest in featherlight kisses before we all acknowledged it was perfect.
My lips met Geo’s blunt tip. I flicked my tongue out, tasting his salty essence. The tail in my ass flexed, wiggling a little deeper to curl my toes. And Ben was rubbing against my clit, getting ready to slide inside of me.
If I thought of being shared between two guys was intense, it didn’t hold a finger to the focused attention of all three of my men. I sank into the feelings of their shared affections and desires, which only built as the tension between us pulled taut.
“Take her,” Phaeron demanded. He shook with restraint, holding me to his now bare chest as he continued preparing my ass with slow pumps of his tail. The other two barely needed the invitation. Ben pushed the first few inches into me while I sucked an equal amount of Geo into my mouth. We moaned together when their pleasure was a separate sensation yet as bright as a starburst when mixed with mine.
The synchronized way they claimed me broke. Ben slammed home, his hard lower belly grinding my clit from this position. Fingers threaded through my hair, Geo claimed my mouth with more care. I gripped what I couldn’t fit my lips around and moved my head in counterpoint to the thrust of his hips.
They adjusted, finding a new balance that was insistent, gentle, and teasing all at the same time. Phaeron didn’t use any shadowy tricks, not with three sets of hands making sure no sensitive skin went untouched. His claws left light scratches down my thighs, a little pain to ground me in the here and now.
I was beginning to feel a tug of magic between Ben and me, stronger than the sparks of our anam cara marks. Little did I know that I was shedding cupid sparkles by the moment, a minor detail compared to how it felt to join with him. The snap of his hips drove my pleasure higher and made it clearer that a tether of sorts was forming between us.
The sensation of claws left my skin. I only noticed when the tail slide free of my ass, an absence quickly filled by the nudge of Phaeron’s throbbing length. His sudden entrance pushed me into Ben, and I held fast to him. When I came, it was like a detonation—no, an implosion. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I came close to losing consciousness.
Ben came with me, and snap. Something fell into place between us. I could feel him in a magical sense, a presence woven with shades of maroon and gold and tied to me by fine strands.
With a jerk, I returned to myself and the feeling of the warm liquid rush between my thighs when Ben withdrew, panting hard. My legs had crumpled, but Phaeron held me to him by the hips. Take her next, Geo, he thought.
Geo pulled free of my mouth, grunting an agreement. He supported me under the arms, and Phaeron lifted, the two of them pushing me between them with effortless strength. A muscle sandwich. My favorite.
Phaeron chuckled close to my ear. “Is it?” he growled. He rolled his hips, pushing deeper into my sensitive ass. I’d have been weak-kneed if my legs weren’t already jelly.
“Mmm, yeah,” I moaned. At Geo’s urging, I looped my arms around his neck.
Geo lifted my knees and walked into the circle of my legs, brushing the thick head of his cock between my slick lower lips. He took himself in hand and claimed me next. I could feel he wanted to take his time, yet it was difficult for him not to spill immediately from the tight, hot squeeze of my pussy.
Cupid magic smeared between us, bright against his dark skin. I watched it disappear as that feeling of connection built between us with each slow, powerful thrust. My pleasure mounted to match his quickly, as Phaeron stroked into me the same way, following him like an echo.
Ben tugged my head to the side. With a little reach, we could kiss, and his lips were a gentle and soft counterpart. Unhurried compared to Geo’s tightening hold and the couple body-shaking pounds of his hips before he came and I followed a moment later.
With a second snap,Geo and I connected, and his presence, glittering with multicolored shards like the quartz in his gargoyle form, slid into place next to Ben’s. My eyelids sagged, and darkness clustered at the corner of my vision before I came to with my mating mark sparking with awareness.
Phaeron suckled on the swirls of ink he’d left in my shoulder. Come back to me, mate, he thought.
“I’m here,” I croaked.
Ben had stopped kissing me to watch the force of that second orgasm. He helped hold me up when Geo had to stagger away to take a moment to recover.
The cock buried in my ass throbbed insistently, jerking with restraint. Phaeron’s claws dimpled the skin around my waist, and he panted while he licked his mark. “One more,” he said.
“One more, babe,” Ben said.
I nodded, echoing them both. I could do one more, even though I’d never come so intensely twice in a row. Phaeron jerked at the end of his next thrust, growling like the roll of thunder.
Ben’s clever fingers pressed between my thighs, thumb circling my clit. He curled his fingertips within my pussy, searching within me by touch. I leaned onto him to take the force of Phaeron’s next push. Judging by the way he trembled with restraint, he had one more left before he came.
Another pair of hands rejoined us, landing on my breasts to stroke and tease. Geo rubbed my painfully puckered nipples. I moaned hard—he nipped my free shoulder just as Ben found the ultrasensitive patch within me that lit my whole body up with bliss.
I felt the cupid magic entwining us together, my head falling back with Phaeron’s last thrust before he came and I followed with a little extra coaxing. He was already there, like our mating bond combined with the tether of fine strands, ensuring his shadow-black presence was bound to me in both ways.
I drifted down from my third high far more slowly, becoming aware that we’d moved to the bed at some point. All three of my men lay touching me, waiting for me to stir. I blinked a few times, relaxing into the sensation of being surrounded by them, and not only in the physical sense.
Where I could reach into the depths of my librarian and celestial witch magic, there were now three more strands. Their magic orbited mine, just a little extra reach away. I could borrow shadows as easily as the piece of celestial witchery Ben held in his aura. They were contained and separate from me. It was already better than the crush of their emotions, senses, and thoughts all at the same time.
“Welcome back,” Geo said. He was propped on his side, still hard but patient about it, like he always was. I felt his arousal first, but it pulsed all around the mating circle. It seemed heightened emotions were still shared between us.
I wasn’t going to leave this bed for a long while. Not that I minded.