Chapter 22 Same With You #3
“Enthusiastic?” Zane snorted. “He nearly turned your windpipe into an accordion!”
“You withdrew the moment I signalled you.” My fingers brushed the seam of Koa’s welded lips. “That’s more control than most could manage.”
“Yeah, unlike some of us who have to be threatened with castration to pump the brakes,” Zane muttered.
“Talking about yourself?” Casimir rumbled. “You did once get your dick stuck in—”
“We do not speak of the pool noodle incident, Casimir!”
“Shut up, you two,” Koa growled. When I moved closer, he flinched, but didn’t pull away. “Seri, I could’ve—”
“Crushed my larynx? Bruised me? Tore something?” I arched one eyebrow, taking a page from Zane’s book.
“Please. The other night, you stopped mid-thrust because I whimpered from a cramp in my calf.” His cheekbones flushed crimson, making my pulse skip a beat, and I climbed into his lap, my knees bracketing his hips.
“Want to know what I felt? Powerful. Because Koa Rain Cimmerian came undone for me.”
“You shouldn’t have to tolerate—”
“I crave you, not tolerate.” The confession spilled out unplanned. “Your hunger doesn’t scare me. It…” I swallowed, heat flooding my cheeks. “It makes me feel precious. Wanted.”
“Oh, you’re wanted, all right. Zane’s been leaking on the sheets for the last five minutes.”
“Screw you, Cas! I’m emotionally invested in the moment!”
The tension shattered like dropped crystal. Koa’s shoulders relaxed a fraction as I pressed our foreheads together, our breaths mingling, but his arms locked around me like living chains.
“Never again,” he rasped into my hair.
“Oh, you’ll absolutely again,” Zane taunted. “Once she’s done doe-eyeing your guilt complex into submission.”
I pinched his ankle without looking, earning a yelp.
“You’re certain you’re—”
“Alive? Thrilled? Planning to do that again?” I tilted my head to nip his chin. “Yes, yes, and yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“You think I don’t know my own monsters, Koko? The only thing about you, about any of you, that terrifies me is the day you stop wanting me.”
“Never,” he rasped, a shudder wracking through him. “Never that.”
“Ugh, emotional growth. My one weakness.” Zane fake-sobbed into his fist. “She broke you, Ko!”
“Broke me?” Koa laid an open-mouth kiss on the side of my throat, the barest pressure of fangs making me gasp. “She’s remade me.”
“Blech! Someone pass the barf bag.”
Zane’s dramatic retching noises dissolved into laughter when Casimir shoulder-checked him off the bed, and for one crystalline moment, the world narrowed to Koa’s heartbeat syncing with mine.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “If I ever—”
“You won’t,” I assured him. “But if you do? I’ll bite you. Hard.”
A startled laugh rumbled through him. With a whoop, Zane vaulted back onto the bed and tackled us both into the nest of rumpled sheets.
“Group hug! Cas, you’re on spoon duty!”
“We’re going to smother her,” Cas sighed, but folded himself around us, his nose buried in my hair.
“Already dead,” I wheezed, squished amid hundreds of pounds of husbands. “R.I.P. Serafina Rose Cimmerian. Killed by excessive cuddling.”
“Well, you better rise from the dead real quick, starfire, because it’s our turn.” Zane’s eyes gleamed with a promise that made my pulse quicken. “And I’ve got a few ideas about exploration myself.”
“What?” I sat up on my knees as best I could in the tangle of bodies and stared down at three pairs of hungry eyes. Even Koa’s had changed from upset to smoldering in the space of a heartbeat.
“Fair’s fair, I believe you said.” Casimir’s fingers were already peeling Steve’s hem up. “Now it’s our turn to show our beloved how much we appreciate her and her curiosity.”
In no time, my clothes were gone, six hands stripping them away, and Casimir’s thumb circled my navel in lazy patterns, his broad palm flat over the quivering plane of my stomach.
Koa’s index finger brushed the sensitive crease where my thigh met my hip, and I shivered, my body already humming with anticipation after exploring theirs.
“Would you like me to use my mouth or tongue on you?” Koa leaned closer, his lips nearly brushing my ear.
“What? No!” Zane howled before I could answer. “She didn’t put her mouth on me at all, so I should get to put my mouth on her first!”
“Poor Zoodle!” A giggle escaped me even as I rolled my eyes at his ridiculous logic. “Is there a rulebook for this that I don’t know about?”
“Yes,” he said with mock seriousness. “It’s called The Complete Guide to Equitable Pleasure Distribution in Dhampir Marriages by Zane D. Cimmerian. The positions wish list section is especially fascinating.”
Then he moved with preternatural speed, vaulting over Koa with panther-like grace to position himself between my knees.
His gingerbread-brown eyes gleamed with mischief as he used his thumbs to part my slick folds.
Before I could question anything, he blew a long line from top to bottom, making me moan.
Then his mouth closed over my jewel, and the world exploded.
It was nothing like what they’d done before, nothing like the slow build of their fingers.
This was immediate, overwhelming, devastating.
Fireworks behind my eyelids. Supernovas erupting along my spine.
It reminded me of the time Eluned had shoved me into the fireplace, but reversed, all heat and sparks and definitely no pain.
“Zane, you should have warned her first—”
I screamed over Casimir, unable to control the volume as pleasure shot through my body like lightning.
My back arched off the mattress, hands automatically fisting in Zane’s wild hair.
One moment, his soft lips nursed my jewel, the next his tongue circled and flicked it in ways that made my mind melt.
The climax hit me almost violently. I sobbed his name as spasms rocked through me, my thighs clamping around his head until Casimir and Koa each palmed one of my knees and eased them open again. Zane’s tongue gentled, but continued to lap me until I stopped shaking and lay limp and boneless.
“Delicious,” he purred, lifting his head at last.
His face glistened, and his smile was smug as he kissed along the inside of my thigh. It was only when he moved up the bed to hold me that he realized tears were running down my face, and his twisted with panic.
“Oh, darling. Did I hurt—”
“No,” I kissed his frown, tasting myself on his lips. “It was just intense.”
“Cruor! You’re—”
“Radiant.” Koa’s eyes softened as he took in my flushed face and dazed expression.
“Okay?” Casimir lightly traced Claudio’s scar on my arm.
I nodded, my cheek rubbing against the coarse hair of Zane’s chest. My throat tightened as more emotions welled up.
“I never thought I’d get to feel owned. Not like a possession. Like a treasure.”
Zane’s grin faded as he turned uncharacteristically serious.
“You are a treasure, Serafina, and we’re the dragons hoarding you.”
“And I love my dragons. My monstrous, incredible dragons,” I purred, stretching like a cat.
“Your dragons are going to ravish you again if you keep wiggling like that,” Koa cautioned, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he grinned.
“She needs rest.” Casimir’s hand squeezed my hip, his thumb stroking the dip of my waist. “It’s been a long day, and we still have to—”
“Plot. Spy. Kill a Dark witch,” Zane finished with a wave of his hand. “But first, who’s up for snacks?”
Three arms shot into the air, although mine was so weak, it flopped across Koa’s face. Zane howled with laughter, and even Casimir chuckled, a rough sound and one as rare as finding a four-leaf clover.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, trying to retrieve my arm.
Koa kissed my palm before gently moving my errant limb back to my side.
“I’ll take that as a yes for snacks.”
“Thirsty, too.” I tried to sit up, but fell back when my muscles refused to cooperate. “But one of you will have to carry me to the kitchen. I don’t think my body works anymore.”
“I wore out our little bride with one tonguing.” Zane looked absurdly pleased with himself.
“I think the stress of the day may have had something to do with it,” Koa chuckled. “Cas and I will fetch snacks and water.”
“Chocolate?” I asked hopefully.
“Whatever our queen desires.” Casimir leaned in to brush a kiss on my parted lips. “Fireweed, take her to soak in the hot tub. We’ll meet you there.”
“With pleasure.”
As they left to raid the kitchen, Zane rolled out of bed and found his boxers in the mess of discarded clothing.
“You know,” he said conversationally, wrapping me up in the sheet, “I never thought I’d be this happy. With anyone. Let alone someone I was forced to marry.”
“Arranged marriages aren’t supposed to have happy endings,” I agreed. “But I guess we’re breaking all the rules.”
“Story of my life. Breaking rules is kind of my specialty.”
“Along with being deliberately provocative?” I hid my smile in the crook of his neck.
“And shitty jokes.”
As he carried me out of the room, I felt more protected and cherished than I ever had in my life. We had countless threats lurking in the shadows, but right now, with my husbands’ scents mingling on me, none of that really mattered.
I was home. I was safe. I was loved.
And just like I’d told Casimir, I would fight forever to keep this.