29. Maya #2
Cole's hand joins Dante's. Two sets of fingers under the water, Cole from behind, circling my clit with the steady pressure he knows I need, Dante sliding one finger inside me, then two, the curl forward that finds the spot on the first try because he's mapped my body and the map is permanent.
The dual sensation builds slowly. The warm water. Cole's mouth on my neck. Dante's fingers inside me, his eyes on my face, watching, reading, his pupils blown wide, his lips parted. My hand grips the edge of the tub. My other reaches for Dante. I grab his wrist and hold. His pulse under my fingers.
"Don't close your eyes," he says. "Look at me."
I look at him. His face close. Water beading on his jaw. The tattoos dark against wet skin. His hand moving inside me with measured care.
Cole increases the pressure on my clit. Dante curls deeper.
The combination tightens at the base of my spine.
The orgasm building in slow, rolling waves instead of the sharp, cresting peaks I'm used to.
The water carries the heat, the sensation.
The three of us held in it, through the temperature, the touch, the liquid between us.
"Let go," Cole says. Against my ear. "We've got you."
I come. Slow. The wave rolling through me in long, heavy contractions that I feel in my stomach, my thighs, the soles of my feet pressed against Dante's legs.
My grip on his wrist tightens. My back presses harder into Cole's chest. The sound I make is quiet.
Almost lost in the water. But both of them hear it, Dante's fingers still inside me, Cole's arms tightening, neither of them shifting until the last pulse fades.
The bathroom is quiet. Steam on the mirror. Water cooling. My body loose and heavy against Cole's chest.
My hand wraps around Dante under the water. He's hard, has been through all of it, keeping himself at bay while he put my body first.
"You don't have to—"
"I want to. Let me."
I stroke him under the water. Slow. My thumb tracing each barbell the way I've learned to trace them, each one a point of contact, each one pulling a sound from him that he fights to contain.
Cole reaches past me, joining me on Dante.
Both of us stroking together, our grips overlapping.
Behind me, Cole is hard against my back, and I press into him deliberately, the slow grind of my body against his while our hands work Dante.
Cole's breath breaks against my neck. Three bodies connected through touch and water, everyone held at once.
Dante's head drops back against the porcelain. His throat exposed. His jaw clenched. His hips roll into our hands and the water surges.
"Look at me," I say. Giving his words back to him.
He looks at me. Eyes open. Unguarded. The composure stripped away by the water and the touch and the two people holding him.
He comes. His body tightening, his hand gripping the edge of the tub, the sound pulled from deep in his chest. I feel the pulse through my palm. Cole tightens his grip. We hold him through it, the same patience, the same care.
After, he sinks deeper into the water. His forehead drops forward until it rests against mine. Our breathing mixing in the steam.
I reach behind me. Find Cole. He inhales sharply when my hand wraps around him. He's been on the edge since the grinding, since his hand was on Dante with mine.
"Maya—"
"Shh. Let me."
I stroke him. Dante's forehead still against mine, Dante's hand on Cole's knee under the water, keeping the contact.
The water moves. Cole's breathing fractures against my neck.
His arms tighten. When he comes, his teeth sink into my shoulder, gentle, controlled, the bite that is Cole's language when words aren't enough.
The sound he makes is bitten off, pressed into my skin, felt in my bones.
All three of us in a bathtub. The water is cooling. My hair is clean. The tile floor is wet where the water spilled. The shampoo bottle has fallen into the tub at some point and is floating between our legs.
"The shampoo is floating," Cole says.
"Leave it."
"It's bumping against my knee."
"Consider it involved."
Dante's mouth twitches against my forehead.
"This bathtub is definitely too small," he says.
"Next place," I say. "We get one with a bigger tub."
The sentence leaves my mouth before I think about it.
Next place. We. The assumption that the three of us will still be standing in the same rooms when the rooms change.
My chest tightens around the words. Wednesday hasn't happened yet.
The hearing, the courtroom, Ashford. The trust broken twice and rebuilding slowly.
Dante pulls back enough to look at me. He heard it. He heard all of it, the word and the flinch after the word.
"Next place," he repeats. Quiet.
"If you want."
"I want."
"Cole?"
"A bathtub I can fit in. A kitchen where the table doesn't move every time things get interesting. A bedroom where I don't bang my elbow on three walls." He shifts behind me, his chin on my shoulder. "You two. Obviously. That's the whole point of the rooms."
The water is almost cold now. The steam is gone.
The mirror is clearing, our reflections becoming visible in the glass.
Three faces emerging from the fog. Wet hair.
Flushed skin. I've never seen us like this.
Side by side and facing the same direction.
Dante's jaw, Cole's shoulder against mine, my face between them.
"I'm getting out," I say. "My fingers are pruned."
"Your fingers are pruned because you've been in here for an hour."
"I've been in here for an hour because two men got in my bathtub and made it difficult to leave."
"You invited us."
"A lapse in judgment. I blame the hot water."
Dante stands first. Water cascading off his body. He grabs the towel from the rack and holds it open. I stand. Step out. He wraps it around me, pulling it tight across my shoulders, tucking the edge, his hands lingering on my arms.
I look up at him. His face close. Water still beading in his stubble.
"The drawer stays closed," I say.
"The drawer stays closed."
"And you talk to me. When the fear comes. When the instinct says call someone at two in the morning, you wake me up instead. You tell me. You let me be in the room when the decision is being made."
"I will."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
"You promised last time too."
He holds my gaze. He doesn't flinch.
"I know," he says.
Behind me, Cole steps out of the tub. Wraps a towel around his waist. He squeezes my hip once.
Towels and steam and wet footprints on the tile. The shampoo bottle floating in the draining tub. The mirror clear now, showing all three of us.
We go to bed. All three. The lights stay on.