Chapter 26 Jennifer
JENNIFER
Santos's tongue traces my lower lip, soft and certain, asking rather than taking, and I open for him and his hands tighten fractionally at my jaw and the saffron in his scent floods the room and I taste him, amber and warmth and something underneath that is just Santos, just him, the particular flavor of a man who has been thinking about this for considerably longer than he would have admitted before tonight.
I put my hands against his chest.
Not pushing. Just there, feeling the warmth of him through the fabric, the steady rhythm of his heart which is going considerably faster than his exterior suggests, and he makes a low sound into the kiss that moves through my chest like a current.
"The doctor said it is fine for you to be in full heat. You have nothing to worry about. You and your baby. We'll take care of you. Just tell us if it's too much."
I nod my head, finding myself speechless as Tomas puts his hand on my shoulder from behind.
Warm and solid, the weight of him settles into the room around Santos's saffron, the three of them layering in the air. My omega moans at the idea of being where she's been craving to be since that one weekend in Vegas.
Matteo's hand finds my waist from my left, and between all three of them and their scents and the window going gold behind me and the heat moving through me in slow warm waves, I feel something that I have not felt in months, possibly longer, possibly ever.
Held.
"Jennifer," Tomas says, his mouth at the back of my neck, his breath warm against my skin. "Tell us if you need anything."
"I know," I say. "I trust you."
I feel him absorb that. The slight change in his breathing, the way his hand on my shoulder becomes something steadier and more deliberate.
"Good," he says.
Santos lifts his head and looks at me, his eyes warm and dark and completely unhidden. "Can I," he says, his hands moving to the hem of my green shirt.
"Yes," I say.
He lifts it over my head and the warm air of the room meets my skin, the late afternoon gold from the window laying itself across me.
He reaches around and undoes the clasp of my bra, draws the straps from my shoulders, and sets it aside.
Santos's eyes move over me in the light with the expression I have been cataloguing since the kitchen, the one that has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with the plain honest fact of wanting.
"Bellissima," he says, quietly, and it comes out rougher than the Italian usually comes, three months of restraint behind it. "Sei così bella, principessa. Ogni curva di te."
He doesn't rush.
His hands come to my waist, warm and broad, tracing the curve of it from my ribs down to where my hips flare wider, and he takes his time there, his palms following the shape of me like he is memorizing something, like he has been waiting for the particular sensation of this and intends to let himself have it properly.
"This," he says, his hands at my hips, the full generous curve of them, his fingers spreading wide enough to feel the softness of me.
"And this." He moves to my belly, careful and reverent, both palms flat against the curve of it.
"And these." His hands come up to cup my breasts, heavy and full in his palms, and he exhales slowly, like a man receiving something he has been waiting for.
I moan as I don't fight anything, and just enjoy their touch.
His thumbs trace slow circles and the sensation moves through me in ripples the way the morning water moves, one after another, spreading outward, and my rose scent floods the room and I hear all three of them breathe in at the same time.
"Still good?" Santos asks, his eyes on my face.
"Very," I say.
Matteo turns me slightly toward him and his mouth finds my neck, just below my jaw, his lips warm and deliberate, and his tongue traces a slow line down to my collarbone and his scent is dark and close and warm and I tip my head back and his mouth follows the line of my throat with the focused patience of a man who does everything with focused patience.
"You smell extraordinary," he says against my skin, and his voice has dropped to something I have never heard from him before, all the control present but the warmth underneath it visible, warm and certain.
Tomas's mouth finds the back of my neck, the place just below where the bond mark is, and the sensation of it moves through me like the water moves when the morning wind crosses it, all those small simultaneous ripples spreading outward at once, and I reach back and grip his forearm and he makes a sound into my neck that is low and satisfied and entirely his.
They hold me.
Then he gently lays me on the bed, Santos in front with his mouth still finding mine in slow unhurried intervals, Matteo at my side with his scent in the air, Tomas at my back with his silver musk steady and grounding, and I sit on the edge of the bed and look up at all three of them in the gold afternoon light.
Santos crouches in front of me.
He takes my face in his hands again and looks at me with those warm brown eyes and the saffron sitting bright and open in the room.
"I have been thinking about you," he says, "trying to convince myself we didn't want you in our lives.
" His thumbs move across my cheekbones. "I'm done being an idiot. "
He kisses me again, deeper this time, his tongue tracing mine slowly, and I taste saffron and warmth and the tiramisu underneath everything, and he pulls back just enough to press his forehead against mine.
"Tell me what you want," he says.
"All of it," I say. "Everything."
He smiles. The real one. The one that takes over his whole face. "Va bene," he says. "Then that is what you get."
Matteo sits beside me on the bed.
He is closer than he usually allows himself to be without a reason, and his scent in the air beside me and his pale blue eyes are on my face and they are not the controlled careful eyes I have been studying for six weeks.
They are open, in the particular way that Matteo goes open when he has decided to stop managing, and the difference is remarkable.
He reaches out and traces one finger down the center of my chest, from my collarbone to the curve of my sternum, slow and deliberate and barely there, and the sensation ripples outward from that single line like the way the water ripples when you drop something into it, spreading in widening circles until I feel it at the backs of my knees and the inside of my wrists and everywhere.
"Matteo," I say.
"Yes," he says.
"Do that again," I say.
His mouth curves. The actual smile, brief and warm and real. He does it again, the same single finger, the same slow deliberate line, and I exhale and the rose in my scent opens up fully in the warm air and his scent sharpens in response.
"You're perfect," he says, quietly and without any of the armor that usually wraps around the things he means. "I need you to know that. Every part of you."
He cups my breast in his palm, unhurried, and his thumb traces the curve of it and then presses very softly and the ripple that moves through me is not the gentle kind this time, it starts at the base of my spine and moves upward and outward and I grip the sheet with one hand and his arm with the other.
"There," he says, watching my face.
"Yes," I confirm.
Tomas comes around to my other side and his hand finds my hip and he pulls me gently back until I am lying against the pillows, and all three of them are around me.
Santos takes the waist of my underwear between his fingers and draws them down and off before his hands find my ankles and begin moving upward with the same unhurried patience he applied to the mascarpone this afternoon, Matteo at my side with his mouth following the trail his finger made down my chest, warm and certain and close, Tomas sitting beside my head with his glasses off and his gray eyes warm and steady.
"All right?" Tomas says.
"Getting there," I say.
"Tell me when you get there," he says.
"You'll know," I say. "Everyone in a twenty meter radius will know."
The corner of his mouth moves. "Then we'll proceed," he says.
Santos's hands reach my thighs and his thumbs press gently at the inside of them, spreading warmth in slow circles, and the heat that has been building since the living room moves up a degree, deeper and more insistent, and my rose floods the room and my strawberry blooms warm and open and my omega is doing absolutely nothing but leaning into every bit of it with complete shameless enthusiasm.
"You have been," Santos says, his hands still moving in those slow circles, "in my kitchen, and in my corridor, and in my living room, and on my island for six weeks."
"Your island," I say. "That is very possessive."
"Yes," he says, completely unapologetic. "And in six weeks you have fixed my pasta, corrected my knife grip, named my bay tree, and made the best tarragon sauce anyone has eaten in this house." He looks up at me with those warm brown eyes. "And I have been thinking about this every single day."
Matteo's mouth is at my ribcage now, each press of his lips warm and deliberate, moving with the focused patience he brings to everything that matters, and his tongue traces the curve of my ribs and the sensation sends ripples outward the way the light sends ripples across the water in the morning, layers of them, one over another, and I close my eyes and feel all three of them at once, Santos's warmth at my thighs, Matteo's mouth at my ribs, Tomas's hand in my hair, stroking slow and certain.
I open my eyes and look at him. His gray eyes are warm and direct and without the careful composure they usually hold, and behind the glasses he put back on without thinking about it, there is just Tomas, the version of him that exists in the library at four in the afternoon with the afternoon light on the water, the version that marked his page before I walked through the door.