* * * *
Once she’d bid the men good-bye, Betsy sat on the couch in the apartment and closed her eyes, trying to think about the lessons June had taught her that first day out on the beach on Manasota Key.
Hell, if Ted had asked her that first day she talked to him where she’d be in a few weeks after escaping Jack, she never would have dreamed she’d be here. Emotionally, spiritually, physically.
Romantically.
As much as she wanted to be sharing a house with her men, she knew she needed to do this. Maybe it was a little overkill on her part, but she needed to be out on her own again for a while before deciding to merge households with not just one, but two Doms.
Two handsome, hunky, sexy Doms, yes.
Two Doms she absolutely trusted, yes.
Two Doms who came Tilly-approved, yes.
But this was for her, to prove she wasn’t making a mistake.
Under the same roof with them, romantically, for now, she’d always be second-guessing herself. This way, she could be as crazy as she wanted with them and still have her own sanctuary to which she could retreat.
Would she one day move from here back to their house?
Signs point to yes.
Then again, she might save up a little, get a regular apartment somewhere, and live there for a year first.
But the point being she had a job. She had a life again. She had a car.
She had hope and freedom, and giving all of that up this soon wasn’t something she thought was very smart.
Taking to heart what Tilly and Ted had both said, she’d devoured the self-help books on the Kindle. That was another point, while she didn’t have people to pay back financially, she needed to make sure she took steps to make them proud.
Not for their sake, but for hers. To pay them back in the only way they would let her pay them back, living proof that their faith in her, their trust in her, hadn’t been misplaced. That she wasn’t some emotional wreck just bouncing from harbor to harbor once she’d been torn free from her secure moorings by the hurricane that had been Jack Bourke.
Tonight, in her apartment, she’d be cooking dinner for Eliza, June, Gabe, Laura, Brooke, and Loren. Tilly would be joining them from California via Skype. Not quite the same thing, but close.
She wanted tonight to be about her being able to personally thank these women. Her tribe, her band of adopted sisters who’d not just given her help, but strength and hope as well.
And first, to do that, she needed to go grocery shopping.
* * * *
Nolan didn’t speak much after they got home. The house felt lonely, empty without her there, when before her arrival he’d never noticed the gaping voids of quiet before.
He didn’t feel like cooking dinner, and neither did Kenny. They both scrounged for themselves, sitting in front of the TV and eating without talking.
Loneliness.
Yes, they had each other.
But it felt like part of them was now gone, even if they were getting more of her back in the process.
She wasn’t here.
“What if she decides she doesn’t want to come back?” Nolan asked. “What if she decides she likes it better on her own?”
“That’s a chance we have to take. She knows how we feel about her. We have to trust her that she’s telling us the truth about how she feels about us. We can’t force her to stay with us.”
He set his plate on the coffee table and laid over, his head in Kenny’s lap. “Please tell me this is going to work out all right.”
Kenny set his plate on the coffee table, too, and stroked Nolan’s hair. “It’s going to work out all right.”
Nolan laced fingers with him. “Please tell me she’s still going to want us when she figures out what it is she needs.”
Kenny looked down into his eyes, those sweet, deep mocha eyes of his. “She’s still going to want us, because we’re still going to want her. This is only temporary. And we’ll be spending tomorrow night with her.”
“It’s not the same. She’s not here.”
* * * *
Kenny knew he had to keep it together for Nolan’s sake. Honestly? All he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry. Logically, yes, he knew she wasn’t “gone.”
But like Nolan had said, she wasn’t “here,” either.
And despite what he’d assured Nolan, no, he had no crystal ball. All he could count on was their promise from her not to lie to them.
And if she was telling them the truth, then this was just a temporary transition she needed to make to be healthy and happy with them later.
She still was “theirs.” Their submissive. Kenny kept his hopes high that she would return to them permanently. And if she did, he’d ask her if she’d become their slave, a commitment to them, their commitment to her.
He stroked Nolan’s cheek. The man hadn’t shaved that day, and a light spray of stubble covered his face. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Kenny leaned in and kissed him. It reminded him of the early days, when they were still exploring, still learning each other, what they liked, what turned the other’s crank. After a few minutes, Nolan rolled over and Kenny helped him open the front of his shorts. Nolan fished Kenny’s cock out and started sucking it while Kenny stroked the back of his head.
Closing his eyes, he focused on the feel of Nolan’s mouth on his cock, sucking, licking, trying not to compare and contrast him to Betsy’s soft skin, smooth cheeks, silky mouth.
“Don’t get me all the way off, buddy,” Kenny said as he reached down Nolan’s body and squeezed his cock through his shorts. “Just get me hard enough to fuck you.”
Nolan let out a soft groan as Kenny squeezed his cock again. It grew harder under his fingers. “Yeah, right here,” Kenny said. “Gonna fuck you right here. Have you sit on my cock and fuck your sweet ass on it while I stroke your cock.”
Another groan from Nolan, this one deeper, more throaty. Yes, Nolan was in the zone.
He tried not to think about how the only thing better would be Betsy sitting on his other side, kissing him right now.
After a couple of minutes, he grabbed Nolan by the back of the hair and forced him off his cock. “Go get the lube and stuff and bring it back here,” he said in Dom tone, watching the way Nolan’s eyes looked heavy, glazed.
Tonight, his guy needed a mental break. That was fine, he’d give it to him. That was what being in love and being partners was all about, the give and take.
Nolan stumbled up off the couch and headed to the bedroom. Kenny stood, stripped, and then sat down again. He fisted his cock and slowly stroked, trying to keep himself hard.
He couldn’t shut his brain off tonight. He couldn’t stop worrying about Betsy, couldn’t go park outside the apartment and sleep in his car without her knowing, so he could assure himself she was safe.
He couldn’t.
She was an adult and needed this.
He’d have to give it to her.
Nolan returned, naked and with everything they’d need. Kenny spread his legs and pointed at the floor in front of him. When Nolan knelt, Kenny grabbed his hair again and leaned in. “Worship my cock first before you put the condom on.”
Nolan didn’t need to be told twice. He went down on Kenny again, all the way to the root, laving his tongue over it and making him even harder. Then he finally ripped open the pouch and rolled the condom on him, slathering Kenny’s cock with lube. He lubed himself, wiped his hands on the towel, then straddled Kenny’s lap.
Kenny grabbed Nolan’s ass cheeks and held them apart as his lover slowly lowered himself onto Kenny’s cock.
“That’s it,” Kenny told him, watching him do it, his gaze never leaving Nolan’s face.
The other man’s eyes had dropped closed, lower lip caught under his teeth as he slowly impaled himself. The head of Kenny’s cock breached his rim and he started rocking, slowly, gaining a little more ground each time before he finally settled all the way on Kenny’s lap.
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Kenny smacked Nolan’s ass. “So, so fucking good,” Kenny said. He reached up and played with Nolan’s nipples. When Nolan tried to reciprocate, Kenny stopped him. “Hands behind your back.”
Nolan complied.
“That’s good.” He watched Nolan’s cock twitch, pre-cum pearling at the slit. “Slowly fuck my cock,” Kenny ordered.
Nolan began a slow, rhythmic rocking, the long, deep strokes he knew Kenny wanted. Kenny wrapped his right fingers around Nolan’s cock, sweeping the pre-cum from the head and licking it off his fingers before fisting it again. He rested his other hand on Nolan’s hip, slowing him down, guiding his motions, his speed as he began stroking Nolan’s cock.
“Let me set the pace,” Kenny said. “I want to do this together.” He knew his lover’s body almost as well as he knew his own. He knew when to speed up, when to take firmer strokes with his hand, when to thrust up a little on the bottom of a stroke with his hips to get a little more of his meat deep inside him.
Nolan’s blue gaze had totally glazed over as he stared down into Kenny’s eyes. Yes, like this, they were equals because of trust. They could take turns giving and taking when the other needed it. It didn’t make either of them any less Domly for it.
It made them human. It made them stronger. Individually, and as a couple.
Hopefully, when Betsy worked through what she had to, it could be the two of them giving her everything she needed from them.
Nolan’s ass tightly fisted Kenny’s cock, drawing him closer to release as Kenny pumped Nolan’s cock with his hand. Finally, Kenny felt his own climax close and started stroking Nolan faster, harder.
About the time Kenny’s cock exploded, Nolan let out a long, low groan of his own as his cock spasmed in Kenny’s hand. His cum went everywhere, all over Nolan, all over Kenny. Kenny smiled, gently milking a few last drops from him.
“Ahh,” Kenny said.
Nolan’s eyes had fallen shut. His partner smiled, but it looked sad and worn.
Much the way Kenny’s heart currently felt.
“Love you,” Kenny said.
Nolan leaned in and kissed him. “Love you, too. Now I guess we need a shower.”
“That would be a yes.”
Chapter Nineteen
Betsy was wrong. She’d thought the most terrifying life of her night had been the Saturday she’d freed herself and escaped from the apartment.
But facing Jack in open court…
Tilly squeezed her right hand, while Nolan held her left. Behind her, Kenny stood with his hands resting on her shoulders. Ed would have to be the one to stay with her, because both Nolan and Kenny were witnesses to what Jack had done to her.
A bailiff started to lead her away when she sat up with a loud, gasping croak that woke up both men lying in bed with her.
As the nightmare faded, she tried breathing, tried to focus, to use all the tricks and tips June had taught her.
Kenny and Nolan put their arms around her. “More nightmares?” Kenny asked.
She nodded, inhaling the scent of him, of Nolan.
“Less than two weeks, and it’ll be over,” Nolan said.
“I’ll feel better when it’s over.”
So far, Jack had spent the last several months steadfastly refusing a plea deal. Lately, Kenny and Nolan had spent nearly every night with her at the apartment as her nightmares grew worse.
It’d been three months since she’d moved out of the men’s house, but she felt closer to them than ever. She knew she loved them, and she even caught herself thinking and talking about future plans with them as if being together was a certainty.
This close to the trial date, all she wanted to do was get past it and then she could focus on her men and her life.
No denying it, her men were her life. In all the best possible ways. They hadn’t once begged or pleaded or ordered her to make up her mind. They focused on current plans, focused on her.
She just…
She needed that last bit of closure.
As she laid back down to try to go to sleep, she knew that even if the trial was delayed, that was still when she would tell her guys she wanted to move back in with them.
This time, for good.
If she couldn’t tell they were the right men for her in three months, she never would.
And as far as she was concerned, they were the only ones she wanted.
* * * *
The next Saturday morning, June arrived promptly at five a.m. to pick up Betsy. Last night, the night before, the men had stayed until ten, when she’d finally, gently sent them home. June had made a point of asking her to spend this day with her, and Betsy didn’t want to tell her friend no when she suspected there was a deeper plan.
“You realize I wouldn’t be doing this for anyone but you, right?” Betsy asked after she locked the front door and got in the passenger side of June’s car.
“Not even Tilly?”
“Well, okay, maybe Tilly. And Eliza. And you know what I mean. It’s Saturday.” She’d brought a travel mug of coffee with her and sipped at it. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“This better be good.”
“It will be.”
June had told her to dress appropriately yoga-ish, whatever that meant. That they would be outdoors.
As they headed south, Betsy started to get an inkling of where they were heading. When June turned onto Manasota Beach Road, Betsy knew.
“We’re going to Blind Pass Beach, aren’t we?”
“Sunrise tai chi. Then we’re taking a nature walk down at Stump Pass Beach park.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s there.”
“Why this early? We’re on Florida’s Gulf coast. How about sunset tai chi? There’s a great idea.”
“No bitching. You’re stalling. It’s been three months now since you moved out, and you’re terrified to make a decision.”
“Ah, Tilly sicced you on me.”
“Duh. Look, the trial is in a little over a week. Then, you’re free.”
“If he’s convicted. Everyone said he’d cop a plea by now.”
“And he still might. What’s the latest from Ed?”
“He gets back from vacation late tomorrow. He’d planned it before all this shit hit.”
“Your guys deserve an answer.”
Yes, they did. They usually spent at least two nights a week together overnight, and saw each other at least four or five nights a week. Sometimes more.
It wasn’t much different than living together, except on the nights they didn’t stay she sometimes rolled over into a cold, empty, lonely stretch of bed that would have felt much better had there been a Kenny- or Nolan-shaped mass laying there.
Except for the nightmares. Because of them, except for last night, they’d spent most every night with her over the past couple of weeks.
She always slept better with them than without them.
“I’m going to talk to them next week.”
“What if the trial gets delayed?”
Betsy shrugged. “No, next week. If I can’t tell that those two guys are the loves of my life and nothing like Jack in three months, I’ll never get it through my thick skull.”
“Hallelujah! Tilly will be so happy.” She pulled into the county park’s parking lot. They locked their purses in the trunk of the car, grabbed their yoga mats, and in the grey, pre-dawn twilight headed across the road with a few others toward the beach.
* * * *
Kenny had been having a dream that Betsy had finally moved back in and the three of them were celebrating when some godawful, annoying alarm rousted him from what had been turning into a perfectly good wet dream.
“Answer your fuckin’ phone,” Nolan griped.
Oh, yeah, that was his phone ringer. He finally fumbled around and grabbed it. “Hello?”
“Kenny? Is that you?” He didn’t immediately recognize the man’s voice.
“Who the hell is this?”<
br />
“It’s Ed Payne. Where’s Betsy? Is she with you?”
Cobwebs blasted out of his brain, between Ed’s tone of voice and the mention of Betsy’s name. “What’s going on? Do you know what time it is?”
“What’s going on?” Nolan mumbled. Kenny shoved him to shut him up and switched on the lamp on his side of the bed.
“I know it’s fucking goddamned dark thirty here in motherfucking Mexico,” Ed said. “But I haven’t been near Wi-fucking-Fi to get a motherfucking signal to check my voice mails in a couple of days until now. We just arrived at our fucking hotel here from our trip out to the fucking ruins last week. We’re here until tomorrow morning. I’m sweaty, I need a fucking shower, I’m exhausted, and now I’m royally fucking pissed off after getting this news. Now where. The fuck. Is Betsy?”
That the attorney had just used more f-bombs in the past several seconds than Kenny had ever heard him use in the all the years he’d known him scared him shitless. “She’s at Kel’s apartment.”
“And you’re not there?”
“No, we’re home. What’s going on?”
“Fuck me, get her on the phone, right now, and get your asses moving over there. He’s out on fucking bail.”
“What?”
Nolan sat up. “What?”
As Ed talked, Kenny stood and rounded the bed, grabbed Nolan’s phone from the bedside table, punched Betsy’s number in, and shoved the phone at him after he hit connect.
“The state attorney’s office didn’t call me on my sat phone like I told them to if there was a development,” Ed said. “They couldn’t stop him from making bail.”
“When did this happen? What about the bond reduction being denied? He goes on trial next week!”
“No shit, Sherlock. Apparently one of his relatives died and there was some money, and someone was dumb enough to post the original bail amount for him. He’s been out since late Wednesday your time.”
“Shit!” He looked at Nolan, who held up his phone and shook his head. Kenny circled a finger at him, indicating for him to try again. “Fucking Wednesday?”
“Yeah. As soon as you have eyes on her, call me at this number. Write it down, it’s my sat phone.” Kenny ran out into the kitchen and grabbed the notepad from the counter to write it down. He repeated it back.