Chapter 4
Mila
I sit on a stool at the kitchen bench, sipping on my coffee, my mind a riot of memories from last night. Despite Frankie’s promise to keep me coming all night long, I’d literally passed out after the double blow job/sixty-nine orgasm, and not woken till around seven this morning, enveloped between the two men I’d given that double header to.
Slipping silently from between them, I’d gone to my own room, showered, dressed in my favourite trackies and hoodie, and made my way out here to the kitchen in search of coffee.
There’s a fancy but complicated-looking coffee machine built into the cabinetry. Thankfully, there’s also a simple pod machine sitting on the side. Simple is what I need this morning, and when I find the pods in the drawer directly below, I go with the highest intensity number.
Caffeine is going to do nothing to calm my brain, but for the day I have ahead of me, I’m going to need the energy. I turn at a noise behind me and watch over my shoulder as Sam walks in still pulling a white tee over his head. A pair of grey trackies sit low on his hips, and his feet are bare.
“Morning, beautiful,” he says as he pulls down his T-shirt and his eyes meet mine. “You good?” He leans in and kisses the top of my head before quickly moving around to the other side of the bench.
“You had enough of us already, Mils?” Frankie calls out before he even enters the room. “You crashed on us last night, then disappeared before we even woke up this morning. If I were an insecure, paranoid man…”
“You, insecure?” I respond as he comes to a halt beside me. I overemphasise my eyeroll.
He smiles and shrugs. “Why you up so early?”
“I have to go see my mum.” I take in both men now around the other side of the bench making coffee. Sam uses the pod machine while Frankie pulls a bag of beans from the fridge and starts doing things I don’t understand with the complicated machine.
“Your mum?” Frankie questions over the sound of the noisy contraption. Although I will admit, the aroma of the freshly ground beans is delicious.
“She’s in a care facility on St Kilda Road. I used visiting her as my excuse for coming into the city for the weekend, remember?”
Sam’s leaning on his elbows, hands wrapped around his cup in front of me. Frankie joins him a moment later but stands upright.
“Why’s she in a facility? Is she elderly?” he asks.
“Not even sixty, but she has early onset dementia.” I pause for a moment, take a sip of my coffee, then continue. “She’s lived a life of excess, and it’s apparently taken a toll.”
“Didn’t she fuck off and leave you all when you were kids?”
“She did. I hadn’t seen or heard from her in years. Then one night, I get a call from my sister—she’s a nurse at the Alfred. A colleague called her to say a patient had been admitted and kept telling them her daughter was called Saskia and was a nurse there. Sas went straight to the hospital, and it was Mum. She couldn’t remember her own first name, just her last, but somehow remembered she had four kids: Alexi, Danil, Saskia, and Mila. From what they could work out, she was couch surfing at friends’ places but had no permanent address. She was malnourished, and somebody at some stage had kicked and punched the fuck out of her.”
“Fucking hell,” Sam says with a head shake.
I pause but don’t look at him, instead drawing in a shaky breath as I recall seeing my mother for the very first time in my living memory. She was frail and gaunt, but those grey-blue eyes of hers—so much like my own—were still striking.
“I… I drove down immediately. Got her into a private hospital, had every kind of test done to find out what was going on.” I pause again, a surge of guilt making my stomach churn when I recall how good Logan was at the time, but it’s gone in an instant. “Logan paid for everything: her hospital stay, all of the tests. He insisted we get her into the best care facility when the dementia diagnosis came back.”
There’s silence as I take a moment to swallow down the lump in my throat before I’m able to continue.
“I know she did what she did, but she’s my mum, so I was grateful, so very grateful to him, for financially looking after her… until I realised it was just another thing he has over me now. Another way of keeping me tied to him.”
“Whaddya mean?” Frankie asks, brows pulled down over those gorgeous green eyes of his.
“It’s the first thing he threatens me with if I do something he doesn’t like, and that can be anything. If I wear a dress, a lipstick colour, cook a meal he doesn’t like, he threatens to pull the funding and have her kicked out on the streets.”
“You’re fucking kidding?”
“Wish I fucking was. Not only that, but his family now own the care facility she’s in, and whenever I come down here to visit my mum, he checks with the staff that I’ve been, how long I stayed, did I take her out. Everything about my visit.”
Sam’s still leaning on his elbows, but he’s put his cup down, laced his fingers together, except his index fingers, which are steepled and tapping against his lips as he watches me. I can see his jaw working as he grinds his teeth.
“So, yeah,” I say with a shrug. “Another reason—the main reason in fact—that I stay with him. If it was just me, I’d walk away. I’d have nothing, but I’d survive. There’s just no way I’d ever be able to keep Mum somewhere like where she is now. She can’t walk, can’t feed herself, and she’s mostly non-verbal. She needs twenty-four-seven care. If I leave Logan, I’ll have to work to support myself. That means I won’t be able to look after her. Sas has a family, and she works. She’d do what she could, but it wouldn’t be much, and I have absolutely no idea where my brothers even are. Not that I’d expect any support from them.”
“She had no problem walking away from you,” Frankie reminds me.
“Mate,” Sam responds with a headshake.
“What? She didn’t. Everyone in town knew Mila’s dad liked a beer, but she left her four kids with him and didn’t look back.”
“But I’m not her,” I state. “I know this…” I gesture between them with an upturned palm. “What we’re doing isn’t going to win me any Wife of The Year awards. Like I told you at Scott’s party, this is just me living out my fantasy of being fucked by two men at the same time before I settle down to a life of tedium, very bad sex, and motherhood.”
“Motherhood?” Frankie questions, his brows raised.
“Logan’s desperate for a baby. I can’t put him off anymore, so this is me, quite literally, going out with a bang before I do that for him. At least this way, if anything ever happens to Logan, everything except the business will go into trust for our kid, but there’s a monthly allowance from the trust set aside for me to raise him, her, them.”
“What happens if Scott dies before Logan, which is highly likely?” Frankie asks.
“Then everything goes to me and our kids, except the business. I don’t get any of that. Again, it’ll be held in trust for our kids.”
“What a weird fucking family,” Sam mumbles.
“Mate, you have no idea.” Frankie shakes his head.
“Like I said before, if I walk away, divorce him, I get nothing. So, I’ll stay, give him, the family, the future generation it desperately desires, and become a dutiful wife. That’ll also ensure my mum gets looked after for whatever time she has left.”
“Is that even legal? If you challenged him in court, could you getting nothing be overturned?” Frankie, still frowning, asks.
“I’ve no idea. Apparently the prenup is airtight, and I don’t have the funds to fight him, anyway.”
I’ve had the eight years we’ve been married to get my head around all of this, and I no longer have to fight with my own fists not to punch something every time I let myself think about it.
My gaze slides to Sam, who remains silent as his jaw continues to work at grinding his teeth down to nothing.
“Anyway, I’m gonna head off in a bit. I’ll spend a few hours with Mum, do some shopping—because no doubt he’ll check the bank account to see where I’ve been and what I’ve spent—then I’ll come back here later.
“Can I give you a lift anywhere?” Sam finally speaks.
“Could you drop me somewhere near Albert Park? It’s where our apartment is that he thinks I’m staying at.”
“Why there?” Frankie asks.
“It’s where I left my car. I didn’t want to take any chances so I parked in our reserved spot.”
“You think he tracks your car?” Frankie’s voice rises in disbelief.
“I have my suspicions and didn’t want to take a chance, so I left my car there yesterday, along with my phone. This is a spare I’ve had all my calls and messages diverted to for the weekend.” I hold up my ‘second’ phone. “If you drop me at our apartment, I’ll grab my phone, and get an Uber to my mum’s. The account’s in his name, so he’ll see where I’ve been.”
“Will he know you came here yesterday, then?” Frankie now sounds panicked.
“No. I had some cash that I used for a taxi. I didn’t even take a chance hailing it outside the building. I went out through the carpark instead of the main entrance and walked up the street for a bit.”
“I didn’t realise this was going to be so complicated for you, Mila.”
I shrug. “It is what it is. And why would you? You’ve no idea what my life with him is like. I’m the one who called this on, fully aware of what it would involve.”
“Makes it all the more important we make it worth her while,” Sam says with his customary wink. “I’m just gonna grab my runners, then I’ll be ready to go.” He heads out of the room, and my gaze follows him.
When I look back, Frankie’s studying me. “What?” I question.
“Nothing,” he replies with a headshake.
I know there’s something, but I don’t have time to push him further. I pull on my UGGs, grab my bag, and wait for Sam to come back.
After Sam drops me off,I grab my phone from my car, and get an Uber to drop me near Mum’s facility, calling into the nearby supermarket to buy her some toiletries—a few packs of her favourite biscuits, and a couple of bars of chocolate—making sure to use my card to pay for everything.
I have some new nightshirts and underwear I bought for her with me, but I’ll pop out in about an hour and head to the nearest Kmart to buy her a few more bits, then tell Logan that she needed them when I get home. Hopefully, it will make me appear like the dutiful daughter and lay the foundation for my future excuses of needing to visit her more often.
Since the conversation I had with Frankie at my father-in-law’s party three months ago, I’ve stratagised with military precision how this will all work. I knew I had to have my stories and excuses airtight so as not to rouse my husband’s already overly suspicious mind.
The facility uses a facial recognition feature upon entry. I stand in front of the screen and swipe my driver’s licence. It matches the two images together while also taking my temperature to make sure I’m healthy, or at least not running hot. Although, after last night…
I purse my lips together as my face is scanned.
The door from the lobby to the main entry finally opens to allow me in.
I make a point of saying a good morning to all the staff I come across and leave a big tin of Cadbury’s Roses at the front reception desk, just to make sure they all remember I was here when Logan checks up on me.
Even though I know the way, I’m escorted down to the day room where Mum is apparently doing her morning exercises.
The group is in a circle while seated in their wheelchairs, with a member of staff behind each of them. Currently, everyone’s arms are raised in the air. I spot my mum straight away, and as always, it feels like I’ve received a punch to the gut.
I’ve heard all the stories about what a great beauty she was but have no recollection of witnessing it in person. I’ve seen photos, of course, but I’m told they don’t do her justice. Despite the toll the years and her lifestyle have taken on her, it’s still very apparent how stunning Sofia Grace née Kovalenko must’ve once been.
Her blonde hair was silver when she was first admitted to hospital, but since she got a place here at Saint McCarten’s, I’ve paid for a hairdresser to come visit her once a week. I’ve tried to think of all the ways I’d like someone to look after me if I am ever in her situation. We had her hair dyed and highlighted back to a natural-looking honey blonde, her roots are touched up every month, and that’s when she also gets her brows and chin waxed, as well as receiving a mani-pedi.
All of this might appear superficial and unnecessary for someone who doesn’t even know their own name, but after witnessing the absolute joy and wonder on my mum’s face after we got her hair coloured that first time, I feel like I’m redeeming the fact I’m an awful person in some small way.
After a few arm raises and leg lifts to the sound of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”, a member of the care team wheels Mum back to her room, and I follow.
She’s so tiny now, it only takes a moment for the two young staff members to move her into her comfy chair. Once her tray table has been manoeuvred in front of her, we’re left alone.
I lean in and wipe the drool from the side of her mouth, and as I always do during these visits, I look into my mum’s eyes and stare. I don’t know what it is exactly I’m looking for. Some sign of recognition maybe? I have so many questions I want to ask her, but now that I finally have her back in my life, she’s unable to answer.
I set all of her goodies out on the chest of drawers below the television, right next to the photos I put in frames of my dad and us four kids when we were younger, of Sas in her wedding dress, and of Saskia’s two kids, Tilly and Alfie.
While I’m doing all of this, I talk to Mum about life in Yira, fill her in on the local gossip, and tell her how well Alfie’s doing at footy and Tilly’s doing at dance.
Her head lifts at the mention of the kids, and she looks towards the door. Her lips move, and from the sound that comes out, I think she’s trying to say Tilly.
I want to cry. This is just awful. It’s not living. It’s not even existing. I don’t care what she did in the past, or about how shitty my life ended up because of her selfish choices. I would never, not ever wish this on her.
“Not today, Mum. Remember? I just told you; Tills has a dance competition this morning, and Alfie has footy this arvo. Maybe in a couple of weeks they’ll come.”
Her eyes shine with unshed tears, looking more blue than grey as they search my face.
“Mila,” she says as clear as day.
A sob escapes me instantly. I freeze while fighting the urge to go to her, climb into her lap, and receive one of the cuddles I dreamed of getting from her so many times as a kid.
“Yes, Mum, it’s me, Mila,” I croak out.
“Beautiful,” she whispers. I watch on in fascination as she raises her arm and points my way. “You, me… beautiful. The same.”
A sound escapes me. It’s not a sob this time. I don’t know what it is. Pain? Longing? But as my mum lowers her arm, I once again watch her eyes become vacant as she disappears.
“I love you, Mum,” I tell her, but this time I get nothing in return.
I gaveSam an approximate time to meet me at the Maccas near our apartment later that afternoon, and as I approach the carpark, I see him leaning against the driver’s door of his light green Land Rover Defender.
I walked back from my mum’s facility, then dropped my phone at my car, then walked here. I’m later than we’d planned, but I needed the time to try to clear my head and compose myself.
I don’t know what he reads on my face as I approach, but the instant his eyes meet mine, he moves towards me. I shake my head and hold my hands up for him to stop.
“Don’t. Please, don’t. Just get me home.”
“Home?” he questions as his eyes dance across my face.
“Back to the apartment. To Frankie’s, with you. I just need… I don’t know. I just need. . .”
Everything hits me at once and it’s too much. Too much emotion. Just too much. I’m overwhelmed and can barely breathe as my head spins and my legs start to give out.
Sam steps forward and pulls me into him.
“I’ve got you. Deep breaths, baby. Just take slow, deep breaths.”
He holds me against him until I can hold myself upright, then opens the passenger door, helps me into the car, and buckles me up. After kissing the top of my head, he closes the door before heading around to the driver’s side.
Teddy Swims’ “All That Really Matters” blasts from the sound system the instant Sam starts the car. Using the control on the steering wheel, he lowers the volume.
“No, leave it loud,” I request.
He stares at me in silence for a few moments before taking my hand. After resting it palm down on his thigh, he puts the car in drive, releases the handbrake, covers my hand in his, and drives us ‘home’ in silence.
Sam leavesthe engine running after parking in the underground garage. The rhythmic beat of James Arthur’s “Emergency” plays in the background. This time, I remain silent when Sam turns down the volume.
“Mils, are you sure…?”
“Ya know, I’ve never just been me,” I say out of nowhere, needing to release some of the chaotic thoughts rioting through my mind. “When I was a kid, people—adults—would nudge each other and say not so quietly, ‘That’s the Grace girl. The one the mother left as a baby.’ When my dad’s drinking got out of control as I got older, and he became known as the town’s drunk, I would hear, ‘That’s Micky Grace’s girl. Her mum left them when she was just a bub. That’s why he turned to the grog.’ Then I escaped all of that and became ‘Logan’s wife,’ or, ‘Mrs Walsh.’ I have a pretty name, right? Mila’s a pretty name. Mila Grace was beautiful, but even now it’s Mila Walsh, it’s not enough. It’s never been enough.”
“Mils, you’re scaring me. I don’t think…”
“Today… Today I was enough. Today was the first time I’ve ever heard my mum say my name.”
Sam’s head snaps back like I’ve slapped him.
“I thought she was non-verbal?”
“She is, mostly. But today, for the first time I can ever remember, she said my name and she told me I was beautiful. Today, Sam. Today, Mila was enough.”
I cry. Sam reaches across the centre console and wraps his arms around me, raining kisses down on my head. Then the engine is off, and he’s gone. Silently, he opens my door, unclips my seatbelt, and lifts me out of the car. With his arm around my shoulder, I lean into him for support as he leads us to the lifts and up to the apartment. When we enter, “Ms Hyde” by Halestorm is blasting through the sound system. In the family room, Frankie has his head in the fridge but turns to look our way as we move towards him.
His eyes slice from me to Sam as he straightens.
“What the fuck happened?” he asks with his brows in their usual pulled down low position.
“I just wanna shower,” I state. “Can I just go to my room and shower?” I look up at Sam.
“You want me to come with you?”
“No,” I say with a headshake. “I’m fine.” I’m not. I don’t exactly know what I am or why I’m falling apart like this. All I do know is that I want to get out of these clothes and wash the day away. I want to feel clean, or is it that I want to feel cleansed? Of the day, my thoughts, my actions? I don’t fucking know, but I step away from Sam’s warm body, and head for my bedroom.
“I’ll be in to check on you in a bit,” Sam calls out.
I raise an arm to let him know I’ve heard him but keep moving, taking off my hoodie as I walk away.
“What the fuck happened? There’s something we need to…” I hear Frankie say.
I pause on the stairs to listen.
“Not now. Not tonight. She’s had a rough day with her mum,” Sam interrupts him. I’m not sure what the rest of Frankie’s words were going to be, but the way Sam has my back ignites a spark of warmth in my chest somewhere very close to my recently rediscovered heart.
After kickingoff my UGGs when I reach the bathroom, I turn on the shower, pull off my trackies and undies, and step under the water.
I stand completely still for a long moment, enjoying the sensation of the spray from the body jets hitting me, the warmth sinking into my skin, my bones, my very soul. It’s as I’m standing with my head tilted to the ceiling that I realise the music Frankie has playing is also coming through the speakers in my bathroom. It’s The Kaiser Chiefs’ “I Predict A Riot” now, and I wonder if this playlist is titled Rage, or Fuck You. It’s probably Frankie’s favourite—one he has on repeat because he always comes across as just a little bit angry, dangerous, or both. Frankie Says, ‘Fuck You!’ Yes! That would definitely be the title. I don’t know why, but that train of thought has not only calmed my racing my mind, but it’s also brought a smile to my lips.
Once my hair is washed and conditioned, I turn and face the stream of water, letting the spray hit my chest and bounce up to my face. With my eyes closed, I reach for the body wash stored in the tiled recess, but instead my hands hit warm skin.
I’m instantly surrounded.
They’re both here. One either side. Their hands slide over my breasts, my belly, my hips, and waist. Then from both the front and the back, between my legs.
Four fingers. Two from each of them push inside me. One thumb works my clit, the other presses against my arsehole, and a mouth covers each of my nipples. I reach out, find their cocks, and begin to stroke.
This! This is perfect. This is exactly what I need right now, to lose myself in these two men. To shut down my mind and not have to think. To give them total control. And from the way Sam looked after me earlier, and the look of concern on Frankie’s face, I know I can trust them to do that.
Both of their mouths find mine, and our tongues tangle in a wet, three-way kiss. Their fingers push deeper inside me, with Frankie’s thumb pressing into my arse, and then I’m lifted. I wrap my arms around Sam’s neck, my legs around his hips, and then I’m lowered down onto his cock. We both groan, but I only get a moment to appreciate how good he feels inside me before I feel Frankie at my arse. His thumb’s gone, and now there’s something much bigger trying to gain entrance.
Reaching around, he finds my clit and works it with his middle finger. Sam grabs him by the hair, and the pair of them begin to kiss, and as Frankie pushes inside my arse, I know their kiss was just a distraction.
The boys find a rhythm that’s slow and gentle, and I give over control, letting them move me to it. Unclasping my arms from around Sam’s neck, I lean back against Frankie’s chest. I have hands at my breasts, cocks inside me, fingers at my clit, mouths all over me, and I come apart—dissolve. The three of us melt into one as we thrust, groan, bite, lick, suck and fuck our way to a long, slow, languid, orgasm.
Silently,we soap, stroke, and wash each other. Then, with each of them holding one of my hands, I let the boys lead me from the shower, along the hallway, and with our hair and bodies still dripping wet, we fall straight onto our huge bed.
Frankie instantly buries his head between my legs. I have Sam leaking out of me, but Frankie eats me out like a starving man, lapping and sucking.
Looking up, he wipes his face on the back of his hand.
“I can taste you both,” he says before laying kisses on my belly.
It’s moments like this that my compartmentalisation implodes. They were only supposed to be two men I hook up with every couple of months to fuck. Depending on how long it takes for me to get this longing, need, want, and desire out of my system—once I’ve lived out every one of my fantasies—it’s supposed to end.
No strings.
No emotions.
Just sex.
But after just one day, it’s not going to plan. Their tenderness, the head kisses, those belly kisses, Sam holding me the way he did, calling me Mils, and Frankie’s panicked look of concern when I came in earlier… it’s all humanising them, making me feel things I never expected to feel.
Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe because I’ve been so starved of any kind of affection for most of my life, I’m clinging to things that mean nothing to them, but those gentle touches and those looks of concern mean the world to me, and I don’t exactly know what to do with that.
Frankie’s fingers pushing into my body bring me back to the here and now, and I realise I’ve closed my eyes as I’ve gotten lost inside my head instead of enjoying the delicious things being done to me.
When I open my eyes, Sam’s looking down at me.
“Where’d you go?” he asks with a head tilt.
“You don’t wanna know,” I whisper, my eyes instantly filling with tears. I blink, and they trickle back into my hair line.
His hand comes to my jaw. “I always wanna know. You good, or want us to stop?”
Frankie’s pauses his tongue fucking and looks up from between my legs. My eyes slice between the two of them.
“I’m not good, but I don’t want you to stop. I want you to make me forget the world exists outside the three of us.”
The Arctic Monkeys’ “I Bet You Look Good on The Dancefloor” is blasting, and I get the giggles. “What the fuck is this playlist?” I ask. “I’ve named it Frankie Says, ‘Fuck You!’”
That earns me a grin from Sam and an eye roll from Frankie.
“Did you just roll your eyes at me? You are such a girl!”
Rising up onto his knees, he reaches for his cock and begins stroking. My eyes blaze a path from where his hand’s wrapped around himself, over his spread thighs, that V, his cut abs, broad chest covered in a smattering of dark chest hair, his stubbled jaw, and up to those mesmerising green eyes, stopping at his raised brows.
“A girl?” he questions as my gaze lands back on his. “Did you just call me a fucking girl? Shut her up,” he says to Sam with a chin lift.
Before I get a chance to respond, Frankie thrusts inside me, and Sam straddles my lap with a grin before he feeds his cock into my mouth.
With his palms pressed flat against the wall behind the bed, he slowly moves his hips back and forth. Despite the pace, when his cock hits the back of my throat, I gag.
“Again,” Frankie orders. “Make her gag. I want to see her eyes water and hear her choke.”
It’s fast and it’s frantic. I have no time to think, only to feel, and it’s perfect.
As quickly as he was there, Sam’s gone, and Frankie’s mouth is on mine. He’s up on his knees, while my hips are raised to meet his as he supports his weight on his elbows. “I need this,” he says into my ear.
My brows pull into a frown of confusion as I look up at him, unsure what he’s talking about. That’s when, from behind him, Sam appears. With his eyes on me, he pours lube into his palm, leaving naive me wondering how this is going to work.
Frankie buries his face in my neck as Sam looks down, and I can only assume he’s covering his cock with the lube. His top teeth are biting down on his bottom lip as he concentrates, and again, something foreign stirs in my chest, warming me from the inside out as I watch him. Sam’s left hand moves to push down between Frankie’s shoulders. I can’t see what the right is doing, but his blue eyes come back to meet mine. His hips buck forward as both his hands move to grip Frankie’s shoulders. We all still for a moment. Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” is playing. I curb my urge to say something facetious, my eyes still on Sam.
“Again,” Frankie hisses, and it’s not until that moment I realise what’s happening. Sam’s fucking Frankie while Frankie fucks me.
My head spins from the level of desire rolling through me. Pushing my heels into the bed, I move my hips against Frankie, and when Sam starts pumping into him, he pumps into me. As we’ve already become so good at doing, we find our rhythm, and we fuck.
Frankie’s eyes are on mine, mine are on Sam’s, whose gaze shifts from looking down at what he’s doing to back up to meeting mine. When he throws his head back and tilts his face to the ceiling, I tighten every one of my internal muscles around Frankie, and then I let go.
I don’t know if I’m dissolving or igniting, exploding or imploding. I just feel. This is everything. This is the sensation I’ve yearned for. This has been my fantasy forever, to be fucked by two men at once, and finally, it’s happened, and it’s so much better than I ever could’ve imagined. My orgasm rolls through me with so much intensity, it gives me a headache.