Chapter 22
Marcus had agreed to sleep in Linc’s bed again with nothing more than a shrug. It was like a dream to have him between us, his soft smell thick in the air, his body finally healing.
I wanted to stay up and enjoy it, watch over him for at least a part of the night, but I couldn’t manage it.
Instead, I woke not long after sunrise, Dom’s hair tickling my chin.
He was on his side, facing our mate. He’d been complaining about Linc hogging him again, and I wasn’t going to argue with Dom snuggling in on Marcus’s other side, not after a very promising evening.
I lifted my head off the pillows to look at Marcus and found Linc was already awake. His arm was around Marcus, who’d pushed the sheets off himself when we went to bed, saying it was too much with the werewolf ovens.
“He’s still deep asleep,” Linc whispered.
I nodded. It was Sunday. I had Sundays and Mondays off.
I’d been zoning out at work a lot, so a break and a couple of days where I didn’t have to leave our mate behind would be good.
It would take Marcus allowing the bite to really get all of us back to feeling less anxious, but he might not.
He might never, no matter how wonderful last night had been.
Even if he did reject us, at least I’d have that memory of coming home and finding the three of them lying there wrapped up in each other.
A sudden urge to hold on to all of them built inside of me, and the smallest of whines slipped out of my mouth before I could calm down.
It wasn’t rational to be afraid of what-ifs.
It was a constant fear I saw in the parents of my patients, and it never helped with decision-making, with doing the right thing. Yet here I was.
Linc heard me—of course he did. His brow creased, and he carefully lifted his arm off Marucs and reached for my hand.
“Want to come over here?”
I didn’t wait for him to ask twice. Climbing over Dom was easy. He’d be out for another hour at least. But I didn’t yet know how Marcus slept—if he was easy to wake once morning came or if he was like Dom, able to fall back asleep at any point before nine or ten o’clock.
Linc ran a hand over my cheek as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other in an awkward push-up position. I could’ve walked around the bed, of course, but that would’ve felt too much like getting up when I didn’t have to, and when the three of them were still in bed.
I lowered myself to the bed next to Linc and let out a sigh, then spooned him from behind.
“Is it silly of me that I don’t like Dom being closest to the door?” he whispered.
Closest to the door meant it was a guard position. Linc tended to think through stuff like that a lot. It was part of his job, but also his character to be overcautious.
I breathed him in, enjoying how Marcus’s scent still clung to him. “He’d take offense at that, and you know it. Sleepy doesn’t mean weak.”
“No, but he’s in my bed, and I should be protecting him as much as Marcus.”
I ran a hand over Linc’s side. Everything about the touch was familiar, and yet it was all new. Everything was new because we were changed. We were making an adjustment not dissimilar to how Dom and Linc had made an adjustment for me. Except that had been easy, so easy.
Linc pushed his hips back to grind against me.
“That how it is?” I whispered in his ear.
“Only if we can be quiet. Or is this weird? Do you think he’d find it weird?”
There was a chance. People could be weird sometimes—perfectly fine with the idea of having to have surgery, but then the idea of having their blood taken freaked them out. I was glad Marcus wasn’t like that. I’d be able to get him to help out with the blood drive as well as the other two.
“I don’t know.”
I felt Linc tense. He was a thinker, as Dom would put it. Dom, in his way, was a thinker too, he was just very good at not showing it.
“Do you want to?” I kissed his neck, then gave it a quick nip.
Another hesitation. “Yeah.”
“Then I’ll be quiet, and you’ll be quiet. Try not to move too much either. I’ll do the moving.”
“That could work. Uh, can you get my pants off though?”
He’d put on pajama bottoms. So had I, mostly for Marcus’s comfort. Dom had gone with just briefs, fair in the grand scheme of things since Marcus was wearing Dom’s pj’s.
Getting Linc naked involved more movement. This was like Operation, the game, except, of course, if Marcus happened to wake up we’d feel bad, but…he’d be awake. Which would be good. If he was feeling horny this morning, maybe he’d want to join.
I’d always been pretty good at Operation, even before I’d decided on my career path, and I managed to undress Linc though I kept his underwear in place.
It was one thing to do this while the other two were asleep, quite another thing to come all over them.
This way, it was just going to be some laundry effort.
I grabbed the unscented lube Linc preferred from the floating shelf on that side of the bed and settled back in behind him.
I could smell his lust—the normal, early morning kind of wanting to have sex first thing, but something other than that as well.
I couldn’t place it. If it was anything like what was going through my head, then it was wanting to keep everyone together, wanting to be enough for Marcus, and for everyone else too.
I needed more than just that scent to get ready, and before I started touching Linc, I gave myself a few good jerks. It didn’t take much. Having your mate in bed with you apparently did that.
I kissed Linc’s neck again. “Can I bite you?”
He huffed. “That’s not going to give me any ideas at all. Sure, go ahead.”
He wasn’t wrong. He did have Marcus right in front of his nose, and there was no way he didn’t want to give him the bite. I started out with licking Linc’s neck, and at the same time, I slipped my lube-slick fingers under his briefs.
In bed, Linc was undoubtedly fun. He was pretty much open to anything, and whereas Dom could be the prettiest and most mischievous bottom, Linc was hot in both configurations and easily moved between them.
However, he was also annoyingly good at holding back.
It had taken time for trust to grow between the three of us before Linc had allowed himself to be unraveled.
It would have been fun to unravel him now, but that wasn’t what I wanted.
I could smell his reaction to me opening him up, felt the tensing of his neck and shoulder muscles.
I glanced over his head, but the other two were still asleep, looking totally at peace in a sharp contrast to Linc’s subdued writhing.
After a while, Linc’s breathing started into the heavy, no longer quite rhythmic kind.
He made the smallest of movements with his hips as he relaxed, and I moved my fingers faster, pushing in as deep as I could.
When I rubbed his prostate, his gasp was minimal but there, making me grin against the skin of his neck before I closed my teeth around it.
“It’s enough,” he said at the tail end of another gasp.
There was no reason not to take him at his word. I adjusted my position without rocking the bed too much. Doing this without waking the others was an entirely new challenge, but Linc and I found a good angle that allowed me the best access.
His ring was still tighter than I would’ve liked, so I moved slowly, enjoying the way he shivered in response.
I licked his ear. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, keep going.”
I did, pushing forward and feeling him stretch around me, his breathing responding to my slow thrusts. With the angle, I wasn’t going to be able to get as deep as I might have liked, but that didn’t matter.
Careful not to nudge Marcus awake, I wrapped an arm around Linc as I moved in and out of him languidly. I held him tight as he worked hard to control his reactions to what we were doing.
He was reacting though, his back going slick with lust and the room filling with the musk of the two of us.
It was odd—carnal, yes, but I barely cared about that.
I cared about holding Linc and showing him he was loved.
It was about reassuring the both of us that everything would be fine.
Our mate would love us and accept us, and we’d always have each other to lean on.
Linc tucked his chin forward, closer to Marcus’s head. It bared his neck to me, and I bit down. I didn’t want to draw blood, but I kept him still between my teeth.
Lust spiked unexpectedly, and I rushed to thrust into him. I came just seconds later, a thin whine escaping the seal of my teeth around Linc’s salty skin. Through the rush of it, through my racing heart and through Linc’s strained breaths, I kept moving to help him get there too.
He didn’t quite. I felt him squeeze around me, wanting to come too, but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t release his neck, but I reached down to his cock, ever careful not to nudge Marcus awake.
Linc was hard and wet, and I cupped the head of his cock in my hand, rubbing and squeezing the way he liked.
That did the trick in under twenty seconds. He came in my hand too, none of the messiness getting on the non-participants.
After, I pulled out and we lay there. When I felt Linc relax, I opened my mouth and kissed the spot I’d bitten.
If he’d been human—like Marcus—I’d have left a bad bruise and teeth marks.
I could still see them, even though the curtains kept most of the light out, but Linc would heal quickly, maybe even before breakfast.
He turned until he caught my eye. “I love you.”
I kissed his shoulder. “You too. Think they’ll wake up soon?”
His smile was incredibly soft. He smiled like that when he talked about Dom, maybe even about me when I wasn’t in the room.
“Not soon.”
“I’ll try napping, then. You should too.”
“Yeah.”
Linc turned back, but the tone of his voice said he was going to stay awake and watch over all of us. That was so silly, and yet so typically Linc.
I loved him so much, loved them all so much.