Chapter 16 Unanswered Questions #2
And yet, when she closed her eyes at night, the face that floated up first was still the prince’s.
She would lie there with Silas’s arm heavy over her, Dax’s back a solid line of warmth at the other side, and her fingers would creep up to the token at her neck.
She’d trace the tiny falcon, wondering where he was now.
Whether he’d ever married some noble girl.
Whether he ever thought about the ragged stable girl who’d bonded with him over their shared love of horses.
Part of her scolded herself for such foolishness.
“You have what you need,” she’d remind herself silently.
“You’re fed. Safe. Not hunted. Wanted.” Another part whispered, But he saw you when you were no one at all, and he didn’t shy away.
She didn’t know which part of her would win in the end.
For now, there was laundry to scrub and bread to knead and men to send off to work with full bellies and clean shirts.
There was a new batch of shirts drying on the rocks by the stream one afternoon, so Harry and Bennett decided to join her.
She knelt at the water’s edge, the stream cold and quick around her bare calves, the men’s shirts heavy in her hands as she dunked and scrubbed, dunked and scrubbed.
The dirt of the mines leached slowly into the water, turning it cloudy downstream.
She didn’t mind the work. It gave her something to do with her body while her mind wandered.
Today, unfortunately, her thoughts had wandered back to a blade at her throat.
She could feel it as clearly as if it were there again: the cool metal, the warmth of Hunter’s body behind her, the way his hand had slid from her shoulder to her breast. She shook her head once, sharply, trying to dislodge the memory.
“Want some help?” a voice called. She looked up, startled.
Harry and Bennett were descending the slight slope from the cottage, each with a bundle over their shoulder.
“We brought the rest,” Harry said cheerfully, hoisting his load. “Figured we’d speed this along. Maybe get a swim out of it.”
Bennett smiled in a small, apologetic way, his arms full of trousers.
“You don’t have to,” she began.
“We know,” Harry said. “That’s why it’s fun.”
They made a show of rolling up their trousers, then, with a whoop, stepped straight into the water, splashing her in the process. “Hey!” she protested, laughing as the cold hit her.
“Oops,” Harry said, utterly unconvincing. “My foot slipped.”
Bennett’s quieter chuckle joined hers. They helped wash for a while, the three of them falling into an easy rhythm. Harry teased each shirt as if the garment were responsible for the dirt. Bennett hummed while he worked, a half-remembered tune from somewhere far away.
After the last shirt was wrung out and laid on the rocks, Snow White sank back onto her heels, stretching her arms. The sun was warm on her face for the first time in days. The chill water had numbed her feet, but her blood felt pleasantly heated from the work.
She sensed it before she saw it: the weight of their gazes shifting from the laundry to her.
She opened her eyes. Harry and Bennett stood side by side in the shallows, water lapping at their calves.
Both had paused halfway through whatever they’d been doing, eyes fixed on her with a warmth that made her cheeks flush.
“What?” she asked, half-laughing, self-conscious.
“Nothing,” Harry said, though the dimple in his cheek gave him away. “Just thinking we’re very lucky bastards.”
Bennett nodded, his expression softer. “You look happy,” he said. “By the water. It suits you.” The compliment landed differently than the usual ones. Happiness was not something people often told her she wore well.
On impulse, she stood. Her dress clung to her shins, already damp from splashing. The stream glinted, inviting. The men’s smiles were easy, familiar. “Turn around,” she said.
Harry raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“So you won’t get an eyeful too early,” she said, surprising herself with the boldness in her tone.
They laughed, but they obeyed, facing the bank.
With quick fingers, she unlaced the front of her dress and pulled it over her head. The air kissed her bare skin, raising goosebumps along her arms. She set the dress on a dry rock, then reached back to untie her chemise.
Sliding into the water naked was shocking, cold, and exhilarating. The current curled around her thighs, then her waist, then—when she ducked lower—her shoulders, washing away soap and sweat and the constant, invisible weight of eyes.
“All right,” she called. “You can look now.”
They turned. For a heartbeat, no one spoke.
She stood waist-deep in the stream, hair tumbling over her shoulders, water beading on her skin. The sunlight turned the droplets into tiny sparks as they slid down her collarbones, over the rise of her breasts, along the soft curve of her stomach.
She felt vulnerable and wild at once.
Harry let out a low whistle. “Now that,” he said, “is a sight to cure a man of mining forever.”
Bennett swallowed, color high in his cheeks. “You’re so breathtaking,” he confessed quietly. “I still can’t even believe it.”
She met his gaze steadily. “This time I want you both,” she started, confidently. “On my terms.” That last bit was new, and it rang true in her own ears.
Harry and Bennett exchanged a glance. Then, with twin grins—Harry’s shameless, Bennett’s still tinged with shyness—they stripped off their clothes and waded toward her.
The water swirled around them, cool on hot skin.
Hands found her under the surface—one sliding along her hip, another tracing the line of her spine.
Mouths found her shoulders, her throat, the hollow at the base of her neck.
She laughed when Harry splashed her, gasped when Bennett’s hand cupped her behind.
In the cool water they played, naked, together.
Harry being silly, and Bennett devoted to her—as usual.
Harry splashed around and flirted, stealing glances and proposing dares.
Bennett kissed her softly, deeply, and then lowered his head to explore her nipples with his tongue, his warmth on her breasts, contrasted with the cold water Harry splashed on them.
“Snow, Bennett wants you to take him in your mouth,” Harry said sing-songedly.
Bennett blushed. He had never presented himself for her mouth, thinking it was probably a little demeaning for a woman. But Snow White jumped at the chance.
She took his hand as they waded to shallower water, and she got down on her knees in front of Bennett and looked up at him.
“You don’t have to…” he started to say.
But she gripped both hands around his base and slowly guided him into her mouth, eyes fixed on his the whole time. Bennett had never felt anything better. He had never felt more on fire, more in love with a set of eyes.
Harry appeared at Bennett’s side, peering over his shoulder. “Isn’t it the best? Especially when she looks up at you. Ugh, I want to melt right then every time.”
This made Snow White smile and she pulled back and stood up again. Bennett immediately kissed her deeply as if to say thank you, or I love you, or both.
“Okay, now it’s your turn, Snow. Let Bennett taste you,” Harry challenged Bennett.
Snow White wasn’t sure what Harry really meant, but Bennett took her hand and led her to the riverbank.
He laid her down on the soft moss with the rush of the stream chanting a rhythm for their coupling.
Harry joined them and lay naked by her side.
His touches turned more focused, his kisses more sensual.
Bennett moved between her legs and spread her thighs with his gentle hands.
Snow White wasn’t sure what was about to happen.
The men had occasionally used their mouths on her body, kisses down her torso, licking her nipples, but none of them had ever kissed her down there.
“Hold on tight, Snow. You’re in for it.” Harry said, excitedly watching.
Bennett started slowly, kissing her inner thighs and moving to the middle.
The sensation was electrifying for Snow White.
His lips sent tremors through her body, reminding her of the first time her breasts were ever touched.
She felt his warm tongue slowly drawing circles and then slowly licking up and down as if not wanting to miss a spot.
She let out a loud moan, and then another, her voice growing stronger.
He continued licking and sucking as Harry watched, kissing her, caressing her breasts, and tugging on himself so as not to interrupt her pleasure, but soon Harry couldn’t wait any longer. “Ok, get on all fours, Snow,” Harry said. And he positioned himself behind her as she moved.
“Bennett, will you let me finish what I started?” she asked, waving him over to her face. Bennett nodded and moved around to her face, full and throbbing from the enjoyment he derived from the taste of her juice on his lips.
“Okay, let’s make this fun. Ready?” Harry said, “One…two…three!” On three both men pushed into her at the same time, gently, but firmly—Harry from behind and Bennett from the front.
“Amwh,” she screamed, sounds muffled from Bennett’s erection in her mouth.
The men tried their best to make the moment last. They took what they needed from her mouth, from her breasts, and from the heat between her thighs and finished by pooling a collection on her back.
As they lay in a tangle, catching their breath, Snow White’s fingers clenched and unclenched until her knuckles turned white.
While the men drifted into a quiet riverside nap, spooning Snow White’s body, her own blood still raced with a frantic, static energy.
She stared at the sky, jaw clenched, the heat between her legs pulsing with a question that had received no answer.
She didn’t understand the feeling. She didn’t understand why she felt angry.
This had been happening more and more. She was like a stallion, ready to run, but caged in a stall. She needed someone to unlock the door.
Spring turned to summer and summer to fall.
One day after lunch Dax pulled Snow White aside.
“It’s been almost a year since you’ve been here with us.
We’ve loved having you, but I want to make sure you’re happy here, too,” he confessed.
“I sense that you are, but I wanted to be direct and ask. Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?”
They sat down on the front porch bench as they spoke.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be. You have given me a life, given me a family.
Something I haven’t had in a very long time,” she said.
Should I tell him about my father? My mother?
I think I can trust Dax. I know he will know what to do.
But he’s also the sensible one, the one who makes the decisions for the good of the group. What if he decides I need to leave?
“Ok. I’m glad you feel comfortable. I want you to know you can tell me anything. I will always look out for you,” Dax assured, looking down at her with eyes bright and certain. She smiled, heart twisting.
Over time, their hands had learned her more carefully.
What had once been taken without question was now offered with pause, with listening.
They learned her body and noticed when she winced or when she smiled, when she pushed closer to them or withdrew.
She noticed the difference not in the moments themselves, but also in how she was treated afterwards—as if something unspoken had shifted.
For the first time in her life, the attention she received didn’t feel like a weapon being used against her—it felt like a choice she’d made.
Not a perfect one, not a safe one in every sense, but one that had given her, here in the middle of the woods, something she’d thought she’d lost forever: A home.