Chapter 33 Figuring It Out
figuring it out
BELL
Plenty of time.
I looked at him blankly as I took my last bite of burger, which was unsurprisingly delicious. Apparently, the only thing Ravik was bad at was conversation.
“If you recall, yesterday morning you agreed to—” he started, mistaking the reason for my blank look.
“I recall.” I stood up before he could go into a full recounting like he was a court reporter. “But what’s a nest?”
Apparently, the nest was what the Ayaska called whatever bedroom was reserved for a maul’s mate.
“But I’m not your mate,” I reminded him. “I’m having so much fun, and I’m grateful, but it’s only been a few weeks, and I still can’t work up the courage to see my daughters, much less commit to… all of this. I know you want me to be all in, but I’m still figuring stuff out.”
It had to be said, but I braced, wondering if this would be a deal breaker. We were only one day into this sexy-time arrangement. I wouldn’t blame him if he decided I was a flake and that he and the rest of his maul were out. I’d be disappointed, but I wouldn’t be able to blame him.
Ravik was quiet for a long time, but eventually he said, “The nest is yours. We are yours. If you’re still figuring things out, why don’t you come to my house and figure things out with us?”
Did I really used to think Ravik had a talent for saying the wrong thing to me?
Boone showed up at the sunset end of my workday to help me move my things over.
Zion and Boone also moved into the house Ravik had renovated.
But they were all upstairs again, while I stayed downstairs in the nest, which had a ridiculously large bed and its own private bathroom with a tub I was—new rule—required to soak in every night as part of my care mandate.
From there, we fell into a new routine.
On weekdays, Zion and I went to work after having breakfast with Ravik. I got used to kissing Ravik goodbye in the kitchen, and then walking out with Zion and getting another peck before he got in his car.
I’d spend the day working on the bear commissions, and Ravik would only disturb me for the lunch part of the care mandate.
He would silently stand by until I actually stopped working and took a bite of whatever delicious handheld item he’d brought, then slip away without a word so as not to disturb me.
None of the guys ever disturbed me until it was time for dinner, which was an unspoken respect for my work that made my chest ache.
Boone slept in past breakfast, but evenings we all ate together—though, as July rolled around, Zion often had to stay up in Bear Mountain proper for pageant rehearsals, returning home late with complaints about lazy students and the latest gossip from the production.
Sometimes, I wanted to ask about coming to watch the production at the festival.
But I didn’t want to let him down if I chickened out of showing my face in Bear Mountain before the wedding—or even during the wedding.
I still had panic attacks whenever I thought of seeing the girls.
Of casting a shadow over what sounded like idyllic lives in Bear Mountain with my mess.
The bad thoughts stayed away when I kept myself grounded in the present.
But the thought of seeing my daughters, who’d be even more upset with me because I’d missed the birth of Noelle’s twins, flooded me with panic.
Though, there was one thing that wasn’t quite as scary as the weeks progressed. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Boone and I underwent more training.
We discovered pretty early that the best position was what Boone called stick shift: me on top, guiding his heavy log into my channel, pushing back as far as I could without it being painful.
Then Boone would put a hand between us and work my nub while I got slicker, sliding a little farther down the more turned on I became, until we both came in that not-so-common position.
It was a surprisingly powerful orgasm. And it made me think about what a disservice only highlighting guy-on-top vaginal penetration sex did to women. Over those weeks of training on top of Boone I learned that there were multiple ways to achieve pleasure, and they were all equally great.
As Boone put it, “Figuring it out is fun as hell.”
But the day I finally slid all the way down to the hilt was special.
Heat spread low in my belly, heavy and sure, like my body finally understood and accepted that as large as this invasion was, it was safe, and I wanted it inside of me.
Tears immediately pricked my eyes, and this time they had nothing to do with frustration—or strain.
“Sugar, you okay?” He sat up beneath me, massive hands framing my face to wipe away my tears.
“I’m so good,” I choked out. He was in so deep, I could feel him in my stomach, compressing my breath. Still, I managed to tell him, “I’m so, so good.”
“Bravest girl I know.” He kissed me then, deep and claiming, and I felt it everywhere.
No more stick shift. Boone wrapped his huge arms around me. “See? We figured it out,” he said with a grin before we both started moving in a position that felt more like a hug than anything.
It quickly shot to the top of the list as our favorite for reasons that had nothing to do with the level of orgasm it brought.
The honor of most earth-shattering orgasm would go to both him and Ravik, who said, “Now that you’ve been claimed by Boone, we can try other things.”
Other things were also on my “Never Have I Ever” list and also involved a copious amount of lube and me lying on my side with Boone impaling me from the front, calling me his brave girl, while Ravik’s fingers did wicked things behind me while he encouraged me to breathe.
Turned out, I was braver than I’d ever given myself credit for.
Somewhere in those weeks, I told them they didn’t have to keep asking for my permission to touch me—“Especially when we’re naked.”
I’ll admit, by that point I felt like a bit of a hypocrite because, contrary to what that “change of life” pamphlet I got from my primary care physician said, I had not lost interest in sex.
In fact, I was discovering that I was quite horny. And a little mischievous.
I loved crawling underneath the kitchen table, putting a pillow on the ground at Zion’s feet when he tried to work there, then sing-songing, “Nothing…” when he asked what I was doing, then getting called his “undoing” when my nothing made him spill down my throat.
Jacobi Baerlow will never know it, but that first and only “A” he ever got from Zion on his essay about how The Odyssey was just a bunch of guys dying because Julius Caesar decided to simp out over the wrong girl… All me.
If Boone slept in too late, he became used to hearing, “Wake up, Boomer” before I crash-landed on top of him.
And heaven forbid Ravik try to do something as mundane as the dishes. He quickly learned that if I caught him doing it, that earned him a hug from behind and a hand job outside what he called “our designated intimacy schedule.”
But I wasn’t sure that counted as a horny prank. Ravik was a very neat and orderly person in general, but I noticed he did a lot of dishes that June and July. Sometimes, I’d find him washing a single saucer and whistling at the counter.
So, yeah, it felt natural to fully do away with the no-touching rule.
And then, in one particularly intense Sunday morning session with Zion, the “no lying on top of me” one as well.
“I want to feel you,” I explained to Zion. We were lying face-to-face on my bed, plastered to each other as our hips rolled in tandem, but it still wasn’t enough. “I want your weight on top of me, blanketing me, making me feel…”
I didn’t know what, exactly, but I exploded beneath him moments after he put me on my back and drove into me with a couple of sure strokes.
This was the opposite of Dennis using me like a repository.
I felt elated… grounded… safe.
Claimed in the best possible way.
I still didn’t know where this was all leading with the three of them, but the next time we had our weekly group date, afterwards, all three of the bears took turns, reveling in getting to do simple missionary with me.
I was figuring it out.
Monday through Thursday belonged to Boone and Ravik, but Zion got me on Saturdays and Sundays.
On Fridays, we all went out on a group date.
Which was essentially going down to the lakeshore with Zion’s CD boom box and dancing underneath the starry sky.
Boone danced like a tank on party drugs.
And Zion quickly reverted back to his island roots, pulling me into his chest for a slow, sexy grind whenever anything by an R&B singer from the ‘80s or ‘90s came on.
But Ravik surprised me by having a strong sense of rhythm and the willingness to use it to dance wildly with me.
Even bears couldn’t see or hear all the way down to the people standing on the shores of the Outer Limits lake at night. But if they could, they would have caught us yelling out all the lyrics to dance classics like “It Takes Two” by Rob Base every Friday night.
I’d never been on a proper date, but somehow I knew those Friday night outings were the best ones even if I had.
We were just so…
The word “happy” hovered in my chest, but the bubble we had made in the Outer Limits felt too tentative. I never said the word, even to myself, for fear that it would pop.
But then one Friday evening, Ravik came to fetch me early from the widow’s cottage.
“Just give me one moment. I’m so close to being done with the last detail work on Holly’s black bear cub.” Even though I was still having minor panic attacks at the thought of giving it to her. “I need a few more minutes—sixty-five minutes, tops.”
Usually, this was when Ravik would intone, “How much time?” Then set a timer for the exact amount I asked for, remind me of the care mandate I agreed to uphold, then sit in the metal chair with the warning that he’d drag me away if I tried to keep working after it went off.
Which was why I always asked for sixty-five minutes, even if I thought I only needed five.