Chapter 3
chapter three
Morgan
The hunger hits me all at once.
Not gradually. Not building. Just there. Like I've missed a step in the dark, that lurch in the stomach that won't settle.
They're real. They're here. And my body hasn't caught up to what my mind already knows.
Trenton sees it before I can say a word. He always does. His eyes drop to my mouth, then back up, and something shifts in his expression, the careful restraint he's been holding all evening cracking at the edges.
He doesn't ask. He moves.
One arm behind my knees, one at my back, and then I'm off the floor entirely, gasping, my arms finding his neck automatically.
"Where do you want her?" His voice has dropped low and rough. He's asking Matthew, but his eyes stay on me.
"The bedroom." Matthew's already moving, pushing open doors ahead of us. "Our bedroom."
Trenton carries me like I'm nothing. Like he could carry me forever and barely notice.
I feel every controlled step, every measured breath, the tension in his biceps beneath my back.
Six months. Six months of video calls and static and the particular loneliness of a bed that was always meant for three.
The master bedroom is exactly as we designed it. The king-sized bed. The wide windows. The last of the evening light coming in warm and gold across the floor.
He lays me down.
Then he hovers over me, the restraint gone from his face entirely.
"Six months," he says. Low. His mouth finds mine while Matthew's hands move to the buttons of my dress. He doesn't fumble, doesn't rush. Each button is released with a slow purpose that makes me tremble.
The dress goes. Matthew's shirt follows. Trenton's belt hits the floor with a thud that tightens deep in my stomach.
Skin. Finally skin.
Trenton's mouth finds my breast and I gasp, my fingers curling into his hair. The sensation is almost too much, too sharp, too real after so long.
"Missed you," I manage. "Missed this."
Matthew's lips trace a slow path down my stomach, his stubble dragging a trail of sensation across my skin. He looks up at me from beneath his lashes.
"Easy," he murmurs, his hands moving with slowness. "We've got all night." His voice is steady, but his hands aren't. A slight tremor is in his fingers when he grips my hip. He's holding back. He always holds back, right until he doesn't.
I watch him. Watch them both. The way they move around each other, around me. No hesitation, no collision. Just this choreography that belongs to the three of us and no one else.
"I need you." I'm past waiting. Past patience. "Now."
Something passes between them. That look, the wordless fluency they've always had with each other. Then they're moving, repositioning, Matthew's mouth coming back to mine while Trenton settles behind me, his breath warm against the back of my neck.
Matthew holds my face in both hands. His eyes are open, watching me, and the love in them is so direct it almost hurts.
When Trenton enters me, we both cry out.
Matthew's gaze holds mine. His hand drops between his own legs, giving us this moment, but his eyes never leave my face.
Then he joins us.
The pleasure doesn't build so much as it collapses inward then outward then inward again, each time taking more of me with it. I'm clinging to Matthew's shoulders, Trenton's arm locked around my waist, and somewhere in the middle of it all I realize I'm crying.
Not from sadness. Not from pain.
Just too much. Too much feeling with nowhere left to put it.
When the release finally tears through me, I hear my own voice, ragged and broken, and then theirs joining it.
Afterward, I can't stop touching them.
I trace the new scar on Matthew's shoulder, the one he'd kept carefully angled away from the camera during every call. My fingers follow the ridge of it, pale against his tanned skin.
"Tell me," I whisper.
He catches my hand. Brings it to his mouth. "Not tonight."
I look at him.
"Tonight is just us," he says. Quiet. Final.
Trenton's fingers skim my waist from behind, light enough to raise goosebumps. "You're perfect," he murmurs.
I laugh. It comes out a little wrecked. "I'm a mess."
"You're our mess." Matthew presses his lips to my temple. "Wouldn't have it any other way."
Trenton is already moving, already lifting me again.
"Shower," he says. Not a question.
The bathroom fills with steam. The glass enclosure is large enough for three, a detail we'd insisted on. Matthew catches my eye as I step inside, and a shared smile passes between us. He remembers, too.
I'm laughing again now, softly, as Trenton sets me down under the spray.
Matthew works shampoo through my hair, his fingers thorough and unhurried. Trenton soaps my back, his palms moving in slow circles, cataloging every inch. The water runs hot. The world outside doesn't exist.
"Turn," Matthew says.
I face him. For just a second I feel exposed, not physically, but in some other way I can't name. Like every lonely night is written on my skin.
He doesn't look away.
"What's this?" Trenton's fingers stop on my outer thigh. He's found the scar. A pale crescent, still slightly raised.
"Playground," I explain. "Last month." Trenton's jaw is tight.
He's not looking at the scar anymore, but at me, and his expression is hard.
It's a look I recognize, a quiet fury he turns on himself when he feels he's failed to protect us.
An expression that I recognize, the same look he used to get in high school when Jason Cooper put his hands on me. Controlled fury. Directed inward.
I reach up. Cup his face. Make him look at me properly.
"You were exactly where you needed to be," I tell him.
His eyes hold mine for a long beat.
"Not anymore," Matthew says, low and fierce. His hands resume their movement through my hair, but his voice doesn't soften. "Never again."
I let the water sluice over me, watching as it cascades down my body and swirls toward the drain. My skin glows pink in the steamy bathroom, sensitive from their touch, their mouths, their possession. After six months, my body feels newly legible to me, each nerve ending relearned.
"Let me," Matthew says, taking the loofah from my hand. He works methodically, covering every inch of me with lavender soap. Trenton watches from against the shower wall.
The weight of their attention is a physical pressure, warm and heavy and perfect. I've missed this most of all, the way they see me. All of me.
"We should eat," I say, though food is the furthest thing from my mind.
"Later," Trenton cuts in, his voice rough. "We've waited six months for this, Morgan. Nothing else matters right now."
Matthew's hands are still on my waist. "You're not hungry?"
I turn to face him, water dripping from my hair, my skin. "I'm starving. But not for food."
The sound that escapes him is somewhere between a groan and a laugh. He presses his forehead to mine, the water beating down on both of us.
"I love you," he says, simple and direct. "God, I love you."
Trenton moves then, stepping into the spray again.
"What are you doing?" I laugh, but he's already crowding me back against the tile, his mouth finding mine.
"Couldn't wait," he murmurs against my lips. "Too far away."
We stumble out of the shower eventually, drying each other with exaggerated care. Matthew's eyes track every movement of my hands as I rub the towel through my hair. Trenton's fingers trace the water droplets still clinging to my spine.
The bedroom is dark now, the sunset long gone, replaced by moonlight streaming through our windows. Our windows. The thought still sends a little thrill through me.
"I kept your things," I tell them as I pull on one of Trenton's t-shirts from the dresser. It hangs to mid-thigh, smelling like cedar and him. "Your favorite clothes. Your books. Even that ridiculous stuffed bear Matthew won at the fair."
Matthew's face softens. "You kept the bear?"
"It's on the shelf in the living room," I admit. "Right next to that framed photo of us at the beach."
Trenton pulls on a pair of sweatpants, his hair still damp. "You were building our life here while we were gone."
I move to the bed, watching as they follow. "I was trying to make it feel like home for when you came back. Even if it wasn't finished."
"It was always home," Matthew says, joining me. "Because you were here."
The bed dips as Trenton settles on my other side. I'm bracketed between them, safe and warm and whole. My hands find theirs in the darkness.
"I had this recurring dream," I confess quietly. "That you'd come back and I wouldn't recognize you. That the distance would have changed us somehow."
Trenton's fingers tighten around mine. "Never."
"I used to watch those home renovation shows," Matthew says, "the ones where the couple sees their finished house for the first time. I'd think about you walking through our door, seeing everything we planned together."
I turn to look at him, the moonlight catching the silver in his eyes. "It was better than I imagined."
Trenton shifts, propping himself up on one elbow to look down at me. His free hand brushes a strand of hair from my face. "This is it, Morgan. No more goodbyes."
I believe him. I've always believed them.
They fall asleep eventually, exhausted from travel and emotion and the physical reclamation of each other. Matthew's arm curls around my waist, his breathing deep and even against my neck. Trenton lies on his back, one hand resting on my hip, as if even in sleep he needs to maintain contact.
I stay awake longer, watching them. Memorizing this moment. The small twitch of Matthew's fingers against the blanket. The way his brow furrows slightly in sleep. The absolute peace on Trenton's face when he isn't holding himself so carefully controlled.
This is what I've waited for. What I've built my entire adult life around. The three of us, together, in the home we created.
I finally let myself drift off, secure in their arms, knowing that when I wake up, they'll still be here.