Chapter Thirteen #3
Mitch’s mouth found the longest scar on my ribs.
A thin white line that ran from my sternum to my hip, a story I would never tell, and he licked it slow, deliberate, his tongue warm against raised tissue, and the sound he made—low, almost reverent—landed in my chest with a warmth that had nothing to do with sex.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured against my skin. The word was rough. Spent carefully. Directed at a scar that had never been spoken to before, and the contradiction of it—Mitch, tender, focused on damage—did more to my control than anything that had happened so far.
Caleb’s mouth trailed across my collarbone. Warm, wet, his tongue tracing the Cyrillic tattoo on my left pec with a focus that was almost academic, like he was reading something written in a language he didn’t speak but wanted to understand anyway.
His hands mapped my chest—broad, slick with muscle, the eight-pack I’d built through twenty years of functional necessity—and his thumbs dragged across my nipples, rough calluses against sensitive skin, and the contact drew a groan out of me that I hadn’t planned on letting escape.
“Right there,” Caleb said. Quiet. Certain. Like he’d confirmed a hypothesis. He did it again, thumb circling with precision, and my hips jerked forward before I could stop them.
My cock was hard. Thick, leaking against my stomach, embarrassing and unavoidable, and Mitch’s hand wrapped around it from behind, warm and firm, one rough stroke from base to tip that made my whole body clench.
“Jesus Christ,” I said, rough against Caleb’s temple.
“Easy, sweetheart,” Mitch said, and did it again.
The bed received us. I went down on my back, the sheets cool against my skin, and Mitch was between my legs before my shoulders hit the mattress, his hands spreading my thighs with a confidence that said he’d been thinking about this for months and had no intention of being gentle about it.
The nightstand drawer slid open. Mitch’s hand came back with the bottle of lube—the same one from the ops office, because I was nothing if not consistent—and the cap popped with a sound that was sharp in the quiet.
His fingers were slick. Warm. One pressed against my ass, slow, careful, and I breathed through the stretch the way you breathe through anything that matters—deliberate, focused, feeling every inch of it.
Mitch watched my face. His eyes dark in the lamplight, that focused, assessing look he gave everything, like he was running probabilities even now, even here, with his finger inside me and my cock hard against my stomach.
“Good,” he said when my body opened around him. Quiet. Certain. The word landed everywhere at once.
A second finger. Scissoring, stretching, the burn deepening into something richer, and I pressed my back into the pillow and said, “More,” because more was what I wanted and asking for it seemed like the responsible thing to do.
“Greedy,” Mitch said, and added a third.
By the time he was satisfied, I was shaking slightly. My hips had been shifting without permission for several consecutive minutes, driving down onto his fingers, seeking pressure, seeking more, and Mitch had given it to me—thorough, patient, exact, the way he did everything that mattered.
He slicked his cock. Thick, hard, his hand wrapping around himself, spreading lube, and the sight of him—Mitch Pruitt on his knees between my thighs, ready, his jaw set, his eyes dark on mine—was something I filed under its own category: Worth The Wait. Possibly Worth Several Waits.
He flipped me over onto my hands and knees and pushed in slow.
One hand braced on my hip, the other guiding himself, and I breathed through the stretch and the heat and the fullness of him, my body opening, taking him, the weight of Mitch inside me a thing my brain had been imagining every second of every day and my body was now confirming was even better than advertised.
He stilled. Checked my face. His jaw was set, his hands braced on either side of my hips, holding himself together by what looked like a very thin margin, and the restraint in him—the sheer, disciplined restraint of a man who could stop when every instinct said go—was its own kind of heat.
“Move,” I said.
Mitch moved.
The rhythm built from careful to urgent in increments. Each thrust deeper than the last, Mitch’s weight braced over me, one hand pinning my wrist above my head, his grip firm and warm.
His hips drove into me with the same long, unhurried stride that covered ground at a pace that surprised people, and right now it was surprising me in approximately seventeen different ways, all of them excellent.
Caleb watched from beside the bed. His hand was on his cock, stroking slow, his eyes dark and wrecked, and when I reached for him, he came to me without hesitation, his mouth finding mine, his body warm against my side.
Mitch fucking me deep, Caleb kissing me thorough, three bodies moving together in a rhythm that shouldn’t have worked, but did.
I got my hand between us. Found the bottle of lube. Slicked my fingers. Reached for Caleb.
He went onto his back beside me, his thighs falling open, and my fingers pressed against his ass slow, careful, feeling the heat and the tightness and the way his body resisted and then gave, resisting and then gave, like Caleb himself—open, yielding, trusting in a way that made my chest do something complicated behind my ribs.
“Please,” Caleb murmured against my shoulder. One word. Spent carefully. Directed at me with a warmth that cut through every defense I’d built.
I pulled Caleb underneath me and pushed my cock into him. Slow. Deliberate. Feeling the stretch and the heat and the way his body opened around me, warm and tight.
Behind me, Mitch was still buried deep, his hips pressing forward with each thrust, driving into me while I drove into Caleb, and the coordination of it—three bodies, one rhythm—was so perfect it bordered on offensive.
I got my free hand on Caleb’s chest, feeling his heart hammering under my palm, fast and hard, and the warmth of him—Caleb, open, yielding, taking me completely—did more to my control than anything that had happened so far.
“I’ve got you,” Mitch said against my shoulder. His voice was rough. Wrecked. The sound of a man who had stopped performing and started meaning it. “I’ve got both of you. Let go, Sterling. Just let go.”
I came hard. Mitch’s cock deep inside me, Caleb clenching around me warm and tight, and the release hit with a force that pulled a groan out of me that bounced off the low ceiling and the pine walls and the window gone black with night.
My whole body pulled tight, hips driving into Caleb, ass clenching around Mitch, and the warmth spread through me from somewhere behind my sternum and didn’t stop.
Caleb followed. His body tensed, his cock pulsing hot against my stomach, his groan muffled against my shoulder, and the feeling of him coming around me—warm, tight, shuddering—drew a second groan out of me that I hadn’t planned on having access to.
Mitch was last. Driving into me hard through both our orgasms, his hips snapping against my ass, and the sound he made—low, ragged, pressed into the muscle between my shoulder blades—was the most satisfying thing I’d heard in months.
We collapsed together. Breathing. Warm. Mitch’s weight partially on me, partially braced, his arm across my middle. Caleb nestled against my side, his head on my shoulder, his hand flat on my chest.
The lamplight held. The wood stove’s warmth reached upstairs and wrapped around us, and the bunkhouse creaked, steady and patient, entirely unconcerned with whatever had just happened inside its walls.
Which, from where I was lying, was considerably more than I had dared to hope for.
Twenty years of walls. Gone in one night. Dismantled by Mitch’s mouth and Caleb’s hands and the particular warmth of two men who had decided, without debate, that I was worth keeping.
I didn’t try to rebuild them.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
The bed was too small. Objectively, measurably too small. My legs hung off the edge, feet bare against the cool air, and Caleb was nestled against my right side with his head on my shoulder and his hand flat on my chest.
Mitch was draped across my left flank with one arm thrown over my stomach and his face pressed into the muscle between my neck and shoulder, and the configuration defied several laws of physics that I had once believed were non-negotiable.
The sheets were a disaster. Lube. Cum. The evidence of three men who had stopped being careful approximately two minutes into the proceedings and had no regrets about it.
The lamplight pooled low on the nightstand, amber and warm, and the window beyond the foot of the bed had gone solid black, the ranch invisible in the dark, and the wood stove’s reach upstairs carried just enough heat to take the edge off the March cold that pressed against the glass.
My body felt better than it had any right to. Spent. Warm. The looseness of muscles that had been clenched for months, maybe years, finally allowed to rest, and the sensation was foreign and familiar at once, like returning to a language I’d spoken as a child and forgotten I knew.
I looked at the ceiling. Pine boards, aged to honey-brown by years of wood stove heat. I’d looked at those boards every night for months. Tonight they looked exactly the same, which meant the change was internal, and internal changes were the kind you couldn’t shoot or fence or negotiate with.
“This bed is too small for three people,” I said. The words came out with a half-laugh behind them. Dry. Almost not there, the kind of laugh I deployed when I’d decided that something was funny, but didn’t want to commit fully to the performance.
My chest vibrated with it.
Caleb felt it—his hand shifted on my sternum, fingers splaying wider, like he was cataloguing the sensation.