34. Dante #4
The single word is rough, certain. It echoes in the quiet room.
Maya pushes up on her elbows. “Good. Get undressed. Both of you. Now.”
I strip. Her eyes track down my body. When they reach the piercings, her lip catches between her teeth, the same reaction every time, except now it is followed by a reach.
Her hand wraps around me. Her grip adjusts to the barbells, thumb riding over each one.
She presses the sixth. A bolt of sharp, bright pleasure shoots up my spine, and my jaw locks.
“Every time,” she says, satisfied.
“Every time,” I confirm through my teeth.
Cole strips beside us. Maya’s free hand finds him.
She strokes us both at the same time, her eyes moving between our faces, watching what her hands do to us.
The dual sensation is overwhelming—her palm on me, her fingers on him, the friction just shy of enough.
I watch Cole’s throat work, watch his eyes fall shut for a second, and the sight is almost as good as the touch.
“You look very pleased with yourself,” I say.
“I’m holding two national champions in my hands. I’m allowed to be pleased.”
She lets go. Cole reaches into the nightstand, gets the condoms and lube, and hands one condom to me. His hand is steady. His breathing catches once—a tiny, telling hitch.
“Come here,” Maya tells him.
Cole rolls on the condom with hands that look almost controlled, then moves over her. Maya lies back against the pillows, knees parting as he settles between them. He lowers himself into her, one hand braced beside her head and the other gripping her hip.
The sound that leaves her is low, deep, full. His jaw clenches.
She pulls him closer, chest against chest, face in his neck. Her hips move once, testing the fit, and Cole’s head drops against her shoulder.
“Fuck,” he breathes, the word ragged.
I shift behind him on the bed, reaching for the lube. Cole looks over his shoulder at me. His pupils are blown wide, and his hand flexes once against the mattress. The muscles in his back are tense, coiled.
“Tell me if you need me to stop,” I say.
“I’ll tell you.”
Maya turns her face from his neck. “And I’ll make sure he does.”
I bend over him and kiss him before I touch him.
His mouth opens under mine, hungry and rough, the championship still burning under his skin.
Maya watches us from beneath him, her hands on his chest while I take his mouth.
His breath catches against mine, then roughens, and I can taste the sharp edge of his want. It matches my own.
When I pull back, Cole’s lips are wet and parted.
I take my time with him.
Lube slicks my fingers. I press slowly, and his body tightens over Maya’s body.
He is inside her, held deep, breathing against her throat every time I work him open.
I feel the resistance, the hot, clenching muscle, and then the gradual give.
His breath hitches, then evens out. Cole rocks into her once, small and helpless, chasing relief before he can stop himself.
Maya’s breath catches, and her hands slide up his back, soothing, anchoring.
“That’s it,” I murmur. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing,” Cole says, voice strained.
“No, you’re arguing.”
Maya laughs once, breathless, and rolls up into him. Cole’s answer breaks into a groan.
“There,” she whispers. “That helped.”
“You’re both terrible people,” Cole says, but there’s no heat in it, only a wrecked affection.
“You won a national championship,” I tell him, pressing deeper. “You can take this.”
His eyes lock on mine. “Then give it to me.”
I roll on the condom and position myself behind him. Maya stills completely, watching my face, watching Cole’s. Her hand slides up his chest to his jaw, turning his face toward hers.
“Look at me,” she says.
Cole does.
I press forward.
His whole body locks. Maya holds him from beneath, her palms on his face now, her body going still around him.
I hold there, halfway inside, giving him the space to take me, to breathe through the pressure, to decide again.
The heat is intense, almost too much, and my own control frays at the edges.
“Still good?” I ask.
Cole’s throat works. “Yes.”
Maya kisses him. “Then take him.”
I push in the rest of the way.
Cole’s body takes both of us at once—Maya around him, me inside him—and the sound that tears out of him is raw enough to punch through my chest. His hands fly to her hips, gripping hard, anchoring himself in her while his body adjusts around me.
I feel every inch of him, tight and hot and trembling, and for a second I can’t move, can’t breathe.
This. This is what she wanted. This connection, this vulnerability, this complete possession.
I don’t move.
Maya doesn’t either.
For one long breath, the three of us hold there, locked together, Cole shaking between us.
“Move,” Cole says, wrecked. “Both of you.”
Maya moves first, a slow roll up into him that makes Cole’s grip tighten on her.
I follow, careful at first, letting him feel the rhythm before I give him more.
His body clenches around me every time he drives into her, every time her hips lift to meet him, and the pressure drags a sound out of me I can’t stop.
It’s a rough, broken thing, torn from somewhere deep.
“Dante,” he breathes.
“I’ve got you.”
Maya’s mouth finds his throat. Her hips move with more certainty beneath him while I fuck him from behind, the rhythm building until Cole is taking both of us in the same breath.
His body goes tight over her, open around me, his shoulders shaking under my chest. Sweat slicks my skin where I press against him.
The room fills with the sounds of us—skin on skin, ragged breaths, the soft, wet slide of each thrust.
She grips Cole’s shoulders. Her nails leave welts. His body arches between us.
I lean over him, my hand sliding between his body and hers to find her clit. My wrist brushes his hip, then her thigh. My fingers find her, slick and swollen, and her voice breaks around it.
“Oh god,” she gasps. “Don’t stop.”
Cole’s hips drive into her. His body clenches around me. I thrust into him harder, and Cole’s next stroke into her goes rough, uncontrolled. The rhythm fractures into something desperate, beautiful.
She comes first, clenching around Cole in waves that make his whole body lock over her. His head drops back, his mouth open, our names tangled in one broken sound.
“I can’t hold,” Cole says, wrecked. “Maya, Dante, I’m—”
“Don’t hold,” Maya says, her voice thick with pleasure. “Let go.”
Cole comes. His body goes rigid between us, hips driving into her while he clenches hard around me, Maya’s name buried against her skin and mine breaking against the room.
I feel every pulse of him, feel him come while he is still wrapped around me, still buried inside her, and his body clenches around me while her voice breaks underneath us.
The sensation is overwhelming—the tight, rhythmic spasms, the heat, the utter surrender. It unravels me.
I drive in deep. My hips lock against him. I come saying both their names, the words broken out of me, ripped from a place I usually keep guarded. Pleasure crashes through me in hot, relentless waves, leaving me shaking, breathless, hollowed out.
We hold there, trembling, breathing hard in the silence after.
I withdraw first. Gently. Cole shudders over Maya. He pulls out of her slowly, and she makes a rough sound at the loss before he lowers himself against her chest.
“Here,” Cole says, holding her tight. “I’m here.”
“I’m here,” I say, my hand on his back, then hers. Their skin is damp, warm. The scent of sex and sweat and us fills the air.
“You’re both very here,” she murmurs. “Excessively here. Aggressively here.”
“Championship-level here,” Cole says, voice ruined.
“If you say championship-level one more time tonight, I’m sleeping on the couch,” Maya says.
“There’s ice in your hair,” Cole says to me.
“What?” I ask.
He picks something off my temple and holds it up. A tiny sliver, glinting in the lamplight.
“Championship ice. In your hair. While you were inside me.”
Maya lifts her head from his chest. “That’s disgusting.”
“That’s memorable,” Cole says.
“It’s both,” I say. “Like most things about us.”
Maya laughs, and the sound fills the room, warm and real. Cole flicks the ice onto the floor. I pull away long enough to strip the condoms off and knot them. Cole rolls onto his back, Maya curls against him, and I settle around her, my arm draped over her waist, my face buried in her hair.
The lamp stays on. The house settles. Somewhere under the refrigerator in the kitchen, a clove of garlic holds its ground.
Cole’s breathing slows first.
Then Maya’s.
I stay awake out of habit, listening to the house after everyone else has stopped moving. Maya breathes against Cole’s chest.
Four in.
Four hold.
Four out.
One cycle.
She exhales and settles deeper against him.
The count doesn’t restart. The quiet, for once, feels like peace.