24. Jade
JADE
The bruise on Killian's jaw has gone yellow.
Nine days and it's fading—the worst of the purple gone, just that sickly gold at the edge of his chin—and I watch him across the dinner table and I think about everything that bruise cost. The fistfight in the yard.
Ryan's knuckles. The look on Killian's face in the aftermath when he understood what it meant.
He's not sorry it happened. I don't think Ryan is either.
Some things have to come out the body before they can come out the mouth.
I watch Killian cut his food and I think: tonight.
Cormac pours my wine first. He always does, but tonight he comes to my glass before his own—before either of his sons—and he looks at me once over the pour.
Just the look, one second. I look back and I know from the steadiness of his face that he's already made arrangements in his own head and is waiting for me to catch up.
Ryan is at the end of the table.
He's been here nine days and I still feel the weight of his attention even when he's not aiming it at me. Tonight he's quiet in a different way—watching Killian's jaw the way I was watching it. He reaches for his wine. Not mine.
Good.
"Harvest in five days," Killian says. "East section, if the overnight holds."
"It'll hold," Cormac says.
The conversation goes around the table and I eat my food and I'm aware of all three of them the way I've been for nine days—like a presence behind my sternum, warm and distinct, each one different. Tonight that warmth has an edge to it. I'm not telling any of them that. But Cormac already knows.
After dinner Killian takes the plates. Ryan gets the dishes. They've built a routine out of it—not friendly, not hostile, just functional. I dry the pans. I hang the towel. I catch Cormac's eye across the kitchen.
I nod once.
He sets his glass down. "Leave the dishes." Both sons look up. "Study," he says. "Five minutes."
I go up.
I sit on the edge of the guest room bed and I think about what I'm doing.
Not second thoughts. The other thing—the thing I've been not-quite-looking at. Nine days of one man at a time, and tonight is something else. Tonight every one of them knows. Tonight is me not on the pill and being fully honest with myself about what that means.
I felt my window open this morning. The low ache of it. My body doing its calendar.
Tonight isn't one man. Tonight is something I haven't done before. And my window is open.
I'm not afraid of that. My body has been asking for this since the first night and my head has been making arguments and the arguments have run out.
The footsteps on the stairs are heaviest of the three. Patient. I know all of them now.
A knock.
"Come in," I say.
Cormac comes through the door and closes it and takes his time—shrugs off his coat, hangs it over the chair, looks at me on the bed the way he looks at everything. All the way. Nothing hurried.
He sits on the edge of the bed.
His hand rests on my hip over the blanket. Warm and still.
"How are you?" he says.
"Decided," I say.
A nod. Like I've confirmed something he's known all week.
"There's something I need you to know first," I say. "My window's open. Since this morning." I hold his eye. "I'm not on the pill. Haven't been this whole time."
He goes very still. Not alarmed—focused. The way he gets before he makes a decision.
"How long have you known?" he says.
"That I was off it? Since the cellar."
A long pause. Then, quiet: "And you still want tonight."
"Yes."
He looks at me for a moment longer—the full steady assessment. Then: "I'll tell them. Before I send them up. They should know what tonight is." His thumb traces a slow arc on my hip. "Three of us, your window open, no pill." He looks at me. "Don't know whose it'll be."
Something goes warm and urgent in my chest. Three of them and nobody certain.
"Okay," I say.
"I go first," he says. Not asking. "That's how this works."
"Yes," I say.
He reaches for the blanket and draws it down slowly.
He looks at me for a moment—just looks, the way he looks at the rows at first light, taking account of everything.
Then he leans down and kisses me. Slow, his mouth certain on mine, one hand coming to my jaw to hold me exactly where he wants me.
I open for him. His other hand moves between my thighs.
My pussy is already wet.
He stills. Pulls back enough to see my face.
"Since dinner," I say.
Something moves through his expression. Then: "Good."
He works me with two fingers—the unhurried circles I know now, the exact pressure he found the first night and stored. Reading every sound I make the way he reads the estate. My hips shift toward his hand without permission.
"Look at me," he says.
I look at him. He watches me come undone—every flutter, every small sound—with the same patient attention he gives everything that matters to him on this land.
"Good girl," he says quietly. "Give it to me."
I come against his hand. A long rolling wave, clenching around his fingers, my thighs shaking. He keeps moving through every pulse, drawing it out until I'm limp against the pillow and breathing.
He withdraws. Stands. Undresses with that same economy—shirt folded over the chair, unhurried—and comes back to the bed.
He gets between my thighs and looks down at me.
"Three of us tonight," he says. Low, certain. "All of us bare. Your window open." He holds my eye. "You understand what that means."
"Yes."
"Say it."
"It means I could get pregnant," I say. "From tonight. From any one of you."
He makes no sound. He just reaches down and lines himself up and looks at my face and pushes inside me.
The stretch of him takes my breath—thick and deep, filling me all the way in one long deliberate push—and I feel him immediately—his cock seated warm and full against my walls, my body clenching around him in small pulls before he's even moved.
"There," he says quietly.
He starts to move. Long rolling strokes—drawing almost all the way out and pressing home, slow enough that I feel every inch of him on every pass. My hands grip his back. His eyes don't leave my face.
I look down between us. At where we're joined—the visual of it, his cock disappearing into my pussy, how I stretch around him—and the sound I make is completely outside of my control.
"Keep looking," he says.
I keep looking. My body is clenching around him on every stroke, helpless, trying to pull him deeper, and each time I clench his breath changes—just slightly, a controlled exhale—like he's counting them. Like he can.
"That's it," he says. "Just like that."
"Cormac—"
"I know." He grinds in deep and holds. I feel every ridge of him, the full weight of him seated inside me, his pulse and mine indistinct. "Tell me what you want from tonight."
"I want—" I can barely get words out. He pulls back and drives in and I grip harder. "I want all three of you?—"
"You'll have all three of us." Steady. Certain. Another deep stroke. "And after—don't know whose it takes. Could be mine." He grinds in again. "Could be one of my sons."
Something tears loose in my chest.
"Breed me," I say. "Please—I want your cum inside me, I want you to?—"
He makes a sound I've only heard once from him—fractured, just for a moment—and then his hand comes between us, his thumb finding my clit, and I break apart.
The second orgasm is harder than the first. I'm clenching around him so hard he stills, buried inside me, jaw locked, breathing. I feel his cock pulsing against my walls as I grip him through every wave of it. My back arches off the bed.
He drives through it. Slow and deep and relentless, working me through every wave, until I'm shaking and completely wrung out.
Then he takes what he needs. Steady strokes, his forehead coming down to rest against mine, his breath controlled. I hold his face in my hands. His eyes stay on mine.
When he comes it's three deep strokes—held breath—and then the warmth flooding into me in long slow pulses, each one distinct and deliberate, his cock beating against my walls as he fills me. He stays buried. His hand comes flat to my lower belly.
We stay like that.
"Don't let it out," he says finally. Quiet.
I clench around him. He closes his eyes for a beat.
He pulls out slowly. Watches. Draws the blanket over my hips.
He looks at me the way he's looked at me since the first night—like something he built a place for long ago. Like he's been waiting.
"Okay?" he says.
"Yes." Completely.
He kisses my forehead. Gets up. Puts himself together. At the door he stops.
"I'll send Killian," he says.
He goes out.
I lie in the quiet with Cormac's warmth settling inside me. My window open. Two more men coming up these stairs.
I am not even close to afraid.
The footsteps, when they come, are quick and barely held.
A knock.
"Come in," I say.