Chapter 11
Ivan
Griffin rose from between Maya's legs, his mouth glistening with her arousal.
I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to taste her on his lips. But Maya's mouth was wrapped around my cock, her tongue doing things that made it impossible to move.
Griffin positioned himself at Maya's entrance, dragging his thick head through her slick folds. She quivered at the contact. He caught my eye, held it, and then sank into her in one smooth thrust.
Maya moaned around me, the vibration rolling down my shaft. My hips jerked involuntarily.
I watched Griffin move inside her. Watched his back flex with each thrust, the muscles rippling beneath sweat-dampened skin. Watched his hips drive forward, burying himself inside her, her wetness coating his length every time he pulled back.
He was beautiful. There was no other word for it.
A year ago, I would have called myself crazy for thinking that about another man.
A year ago, I knew exactly who I was. What I wanted, what I didn't want.
Now, watching Griffin's body work above Maya, feeling myself throb harder at the sight of him, I understood that I'd only known part of the story.
The realization sat wrong in my chest. Heavy and unsettling. I'd spent thirty-two years certain of who I was. Now I was watching a man's ass flex while he fucked my girlfriend and wanting to touch him. Wanting to be touched by him. Wanting things I didn't have words for.
Maybe that's okay. Maybe I don't need a word for what I am.
I wanted to believe it. I wasn't sure I did.
"Is there lube?" I asked.
Maya released me from her mouth. "Nightstand. Top drawer."
I climbed off the bed and found the bottle. Condoms too. I rolled one on, my hands steadier than I expected.
When I turned back, Griffin had slowed his pace. He was watching me over his shoulder, blue eyes dark with want. His back was a landscape of muscle and shadow in the lamplight, broad shoulders, the valley of his spine, the tight curve of his ass where it met Maya's spread thighs.
He knew what was coming. His body was already adjusting, lowering onto Maya to give me access.
I knelt behind him on the mattress.
"You sure about this?" My voice came out rougher than I intended.
"Are you?"
The question was followed by a silence between us.
My hands were shaking. I could see them trembling as I held the lube.
If I did this, there was no going back. No pretending it was just the vodka, just the heat of the moment.
If I put my cock inside another man, I'd have to live with knowing that about myself forever.
Griffin waited. Patient. Giving me the out I wasn't sure I wanted.
"Yeah." The word scraped out of me. "I am."
I poured lube into my palm, warming it before I touched him. When my slicked fingers found his entrance, he tensed for just a second, then exhaled, consciously relaxing.
I circled him slowly. Pressed one finger against that tight ring of muscle. Pushed inside.
Griffin groaned, his head dropping forward. "Fuck."
"Too much?"
"No." His voice was strained. "More."
I added a second finger, working him open with patience I didn't know I had. He was impossibly tight, his body gripping me. I scissored my fingers, stretched him, felt him gradually yield.
"How does that feel?" Maya's voice, soft beneath us.
"Good." Griffin's voice broke on the word. "Really fucking good."
Maya's hand appeared on Griffin's face, turning him toward her for a kiss. I watched them over his shoulder, her fingers in his hair, his moan swallowed by her mouth. The intimacy of it made my chest tight in a way that had nothing to do with arousal.
I withdrew my fingers and positioned myself at his entrance. Added more lube. Pressed the head of my cock against that slick, waiting heat.
"Ready?"
Griffin broke the kiss with Maya. Looked back at me. "Do it."
I pushed forward.
The resistance gave way slowly. His body opened for me, inch by inch, and I had to clench my jaw against the sensation. Tight. Hot. So different from Maya, but no less overwhelming.
"Christ," I breathed, barely halfway in. "You okay?"
"Keep going." Griffin's voice was tight. "Don't stop."
I sank deeper. Felt him stretch around me. Kept going until I was buried to the hilt, my hips pressed against his ass, the three of us connected.
Nobody moved. The room was silent except for our ragged breathing.
Then Griffin rolled his hips, forward into Maya, back onto me, and we all groaned in unison.
"Oh God," Maya gasped. Her back arched off the bed. "I can feel you both. I can feel..."
Griffin cut her off with his mouth, kissing her hard as he began to move. Each thrust forward drove him deeper into her. Each pull back impaled him on my cock. I held his hips and matched his rhythm, meeting him stroke for stroke.
Heat everywhere. Griffin's ass clenching around me with every thrust. The wet sounds of him fucking Maya while I fucked him. Maya's muffled moans. The slap of skin against skin.
I picked up the pace. Drove into him harder. Griffin hissed and looked back at me, his face flushed, sweat beading at his temples.
"Don't hold back," he said. "I can take it."
My restraint broke at those words.
I gripped his hips hard enough to bruise and gave him everything I had. My thrusts turned punishing, deep and fast, driving him into Maya with every stroke. The bed frame knocked against the wall. Maya cried out beneath us, her nails raking down Griffin's back.
"Yes—fuck—Ivan—" Griffin's words dissolved into sounds, his body shaking between us.
I felt Maya's orgasm first, her whole body seizing, her scream cutting through the room. The vibration of it rolled through Griffin and into me. Then Griffin was coming too, his ass clenching around my cock in rhythmic pulses as he emptied himself inside her.
The pressure was too much. I slammed into him one final time, burying myself as deep as I could go, and let the wave take me. My vision whited out. My hips jerked in uncoordinated spasms as I came harder than I'd ever come in my life.
I collapsed forward, catching myself on my hands before I crushed them both. None of us moved. Just breathed.
When I finally pulled out, Griffin winced.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Better than okay." He turned his head, caught my eye. "That was..."
"Yeah." I didn't need him to finish. "It was."
I disposed of the condom and collapsed onto the bed beside them.
Maya was still spread out, her body glistening, her chest heaving. Griffin rolled off her and onto his back, one hand reaching out to rest on my thigh. She curled into his other side, her head on his shoulder.
The three of us lay there in the wreckage of the sheets, tangled together, breathing in sync.
"So," Griffin said eventually. "I guess it's official."
"What's official?" Maya asked.
"Us. This. Whatever this is."
Griffin laughed, a real laugh, tired and satisfied and happy. "That's one way to put it."
Maya lifted her head to look at us both. Her eyes were soft in the lamplight, her smile small but certain. "It's official," she agreed. She reached for both of us, one hand on Griffin's chest, one on mine.
Griffin's hand squeezed my thigh. Maya reached across him to lace her fingers with mine.
I looked at the two of them, the woman I'd loved and lost and found again, the man I'd never expected to want, and felt my chest crack open.
What does this make me?
I shoved the thought down. Focused on the warmth of Maya's fingers in mine. The weight of Griffin's hand on my thigh. The sound of their breathing slowing toward sleep.
This was good. This was what I wanted.
But underneath the warmth, unease stirred. A thread of panic I couldn't shake.
I closed my eyes and let their bodies anchor me.
* * *
I woke at 4 a.m. in cold sweat, gasping for air.
Maya was curled against my chest, her breathing slow and even. Griffin's arm was draped across her waist, his fingers brushing my hip. In sleep, they'd arranged themselves around me.
I couldn't breathe.
The panic came without warning. My skin felt too tight. The room felt too small. Their bodies felt too close, too warm, too much.
I'd spent thirty-two years knowing exactly who I was. Three weeks had undone all of it.
I eased out of bed slowly, carefully, holding my breath until I was standing free. Neither of them stirred. Maya made a soft sound and curled tighter into the warm spot I'd left. Griffin's hand found hers in the dark.
Even in sleep, they reached for each other.
I grabbed my clothes from the floor and dressed in the hallway, my hands shaking so badly I could barely manage the buttons. Downstairs, I found a pen and a scrap of paper.
I need a few days. Don't call.
I stared at the words. Coward's words. But I couldn't make myself write anything else.
I left the note on the kitchen counter and walked out the front door.
I called an Uber to take me back to Velvet for my bike.
Twenty minutes later, the motorcycle roared to life in the predawn dark.
I didn't care about the looks from the driver or the empty parking lot.
I needed to move. Needed air. Needed to be anywhere but in that bed, surrounded by two people who made me feel things I didn't understand.
I rode until the sun came up.
* * *
Three days.
Three days in my apartment, pacing the floors, staring at walls.
The place felt wrong now. Too quiet. Too empty. Too much like the life I'd built to prove I didn't need anyone.
I'd told myself I was leaving to protect them. That I was too fucked up, too confused, too broken to be what they needed. That they'd be better off without a man who didn't even know what he wanted.
But that was bullshit.
I was leaving to protect myself from the terror of wanting something I didn't know how to hold. From the possibility that I could have this, really have it, and still find a way to destroy it. From having to look in the mirror and figure out who I was now.
My phone sat on the counter, silent. I'd told them not to call, and they hadn't. On the second day, I pulled up Maya's contact. Stared at her name for an hour. Typed a message. Deleted it. Typed another. Deleted that too.
On the third day, I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Three days of stubble. Dark circles under my eyes. I looked like a man who'd made a terrible mistake and was only now realizing it.
I kept hearing Griffin's voice. Don't hold back. I can take it. The trust in those words. He'd given me something he'd never given anyone, and I'd repaid him by disappearing.
I kept seeing Maya's face. The way she'd looked at me after, her eyes soft, her smile certain. It's official. She'd already lost me once. I'd promised I wouldn't do this again.
I'd lied.
The apartment was silent around me. No laughter. No footsteps. No bodies curled against mine in the dark.
This was the life I'd built. The life I'd told myself I wanted. Independence, freedom, no one close enough to hurt me. And now that I was back in it, I understood what it actually was.
Empty.
I grabbed my keys.
* * *
Maya
I woke to cold sheets where Ivan should have been.
The spot beside me had long since lost his warmth. I lay there for a moment, listening to the silence of the house, hoping to hear him in the bathroom or padding around the kitchen. Nothing.
Dread settled in my stomach as I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Griffin. I checked the other rooms first—empty. Then downstairs, my bare feet cold on the hardwood, the house too quiet, no coffee smell, no sounds of movement.
The note was on the kitchen counter.
I need a few days. Don't call.
I read it three times before the words made sense. Then I climbed back upstairs, needing Griffin's warmth, needing not to be alone with this.
I slid back into bed. Griffin stirred at my cold feet against his legs, reached for the warm spot where Ivan should have been. Found only sheets.
"He's gone," I said. My voice sounded far away.
Griffin sat up, instantly awake. "What?"
I handed him the note. Watched his expression harden as he read.
"Son of a bitch." He threw the covers back, reaching for his jeans. "I'm going to..."
"Don't." I caught his arm. "He said don't call."
"Maya, he can't just..."
"He did this before." The words tasted like ash. "He left before."
Griffin went still. "And you took him back."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I love him." My voice cracked. "Because I believe he can change."
"And if he doesn't?"
I didn't have an answer for that.
Griffin sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. "So what do we do?"
"We wait. And we trust him to come back."
"That's it? Just wait?"
"That's it."
I curled against his back, pressed my forehead between his shoulder blades. His hand found mine.
Three days. Three days of silence while I wondered if I'd made the same mistake twice.