Chapter 13

In sunstreaked light, through giddy halls, they moved to the bedroom—not simply Ash's bedroom, but theirs, because it was, Blake thought. The thought opened up bashfully, like one of the decorative flowers. All three of theirs—

Cam kicked the door shut with alacrity. The servants no doubt heard the thump; Ash shrugged and said, "Everyone I employ knows I love you both, and, honestly, they love you too; I've asked."

"They like you, too." Cam hauled him in, kissed his throat, a hint of roughness; Ash moaned, and Blake watched the pink mark take shape over the column of his neck. Cam added, a murmur over that spot, "I've asked, too. Downstairs. Not as much a gentleman as you are; figured they'd talk to me. They know you've been doing your best, with the house and the estate and all. On your side, they are."

"Oh." Ash sounded somewhat dazed. "That—truly? Oh."

Cam turned back to Blake. "Now, then. What should we do with you?"

"Anything," Blake said. He meant it. "Anything you want."

"As your physician…" Cam was plainly not above using that, grinning about it; well, he'd earned it. "I'm advising you to strip naked. And get on your knees. Hands behind your back."

Blake heard himself make a sound. Pure need. Inadvertent. Yes. Oh yes. Please.

Ashley's eyes got very wide, starshine saucers.

"Ah," Cam said, "right, this's new to you—"

"I think I've got the idea." Ash sent a smile Blake's direction. "I'm good at words. Poetry. Languages. Blake…he gave you an order, didn't he? Should I repeat it? Or are you going to be good for us?"

"Oh fuck," Blake got out, barely coherent. The sweetness, the glory, the relief, had shot right through him. His cock, his balls, his chest, his knees.

He managed to strip off his clothing with fumbling hands. He knelt, as ordered. On the rug, beside the bed. Hands behind his back. Cock standing stiff and hard in front of him.

"You want to be ours." Ashley stopped in front of him, still dressed aside from having lost the slippers someplace. In that blue brocade robe, hair loose, he was a prince, a story himself. His hand stroked Blake's hair, thin fingers in the black strands. "Is that it? You want to belong to us. But, Blake…love…you already do."

Blake quivered. His cock was wet, at the tip; he felt himself fill and swell with pleasure.

"Oh, that's nice." Cam came over too, arm fitting around Ash's waist. He'd stripped off shirt and waistcoat, but left his trousers and boots on. "You liked that, didn't you, lad? Tell us."

"Yes…God, yes. Please."

"Oh," Ash said, breathless, "I want to just…just take you, have you, touch you everywhere…the way you look…I don't know exactly what, but I want to see what you'd do, if I touch you…your cock, maybe….would you come for me, if I told you to?"

" Yes ." He was all but begging. The world was made of their gazes on him, the thrum of his body, the way they were making him wait and looking at him and claiming him.

"Could you," Cam murmured, "right here, on your knees, just thinking about us playing with your prick? Not touching you, but watching you, the way you're craving it, we can see it, you're so wet and dripping for us…"

"Cam," Blake whimpered. The answer was yes, yes, he hadn't done that before but he was pretty sure he could, right now: pinned on his knees, exposed and bare in so many ways, cock leaking and spilling and showing them all his need, the need that pulsed in his head like their fire and moonlight…

"So very good," Cam approved. "Come here for a moment. Undo my trousers. You can move your hands."

That required shuffling forward, on his knees; he did it gladly. He found buttons, opened the fall. Found Cam's prick, felt his mouth water at the length, the girth. He remembered this much: himself on his knees, Cam's voice surrounding him, Cam's cock pushing into his mouth, using his throat, filling him up the way he needed.

Cam let him nuzzle against the thick blunt hardness, rubbing his face into heat, breathing the scent of male desire in, pleading; and then took pity on him, holding Blake in place, guiding that cock into Blake's mouth. So good, it was so good, hard and heavy, making him open up and take it; he moaned around the size of it.

"Lovely." Cam had a hand on his head. "Gentle, though—you're recovering, lad, and we're taking care of you. Not about hurting you, is it? Not in ways you don't like, at least."

Ash inquired, "Is that something you like? A bit of…hurt?" He bent down, touched Blake's face; traced Blake's lips, stretched around Cam's cock. Then pushed his finger in alongside, making Blake's mouth open further, messy. Blake's hips jerked instinctively. His body was theirs.

"A bit," Cam said. "We did a bit of that. Figured out you like my hand on your arse, didn't we? All red and hot. And some rough handling, holding you down, making you take it…so you couldn't do anything but take it, knowing you were there to be fucked, to be taken…"

Blake shuddered desperately with the words, the rightness. Mouth full, cock bobbing mid-air. Yes. What he was there for. Yes.

"Might do a bit more with you, sometime." Cam's cock pushed deeper into his mouth, fucked his mouth; Ash's fingers, two of them, fondled Cam's length, played with guiding the shaft in and out, between Blake's lips. "Wondering how you'd handle some leather, a riding crop, could be, mayhap…oh, not too hard, I wouldn't like seeing you in pain for me. But enough to make you feel it, intense, like. So you'd know it. All through you. Giving yourself over to it, all of it."

Blake tried to nod. He would like that. He would. He trusted Cam, and Ash. They'd give him what he needed. His hair got into his eyes; Ash's other hand stroked it back.

"Not now," Cam said. "Not today. Not asking too much. But…only because I want to see you, mind…and that poor prick could use something…you come here, now. Not to finish, just so we can show our Ashley how good you are." He shifted a leg. Moved a boot forward. Implication clear.

Blake scooted forward. Pressed himself against Cam's boot. Cock rubbing against tall leather. Cam's prick forced further down his throat. He heard Ash gasp softly, and the sound hummed in his head; he rocked his hips, pumping himself against the line of Cam's boot. It felt so good. He felt so good. He could do this forever.

"God." Ashley's voice held pure awe. "That—that…" His fingers had slipped out of Blake's mouth, and trailed across Blake's cheek. "Oh, the way you look…"

"And you." Cam gathered Ash in, kissed him hard, eased the robe down. Peeled off Ash's shirt, both hands briefly leaving Blake to shiver and rock in place. Ash melted against him, liquid and eager, curious and willing. He reached out to touch Cam, running hands all over him: muscles, fuzzy hair, flat stomach, the line of red hair down toward his prick, above Blake's head.

Blake watched them hazily, looking up. Did not come, because he'd been ordered not to. Just trembled and shook and left messy traces of his need all over Cam's boot, suckling on Cam's cock, lightheaded with the hugeness of it, small gulps of air around the girth.

Cam looked down at him. One big hand had dipped inside Ash's trousers, cupping Ash's arse. "Thinking we should both fuck you. To show you you're ours."

"At once ," Ash said, astounded, a question.

Cam laughed. "No, no…not without a lot more working up to it, that'd be…"

"You mean we could?"

"And I'd be asking him about it first. Clear, beforehand, so he knows what he's saying yes to."

"Oh." Ash got a tiny frown between pale eyebrows. "Does he…not know? When he's…like this? Blake, I…I'm not comfortable with this if you don't know what we're doing."

"Ah." Cam put a hand on Blake's head. "Stop. Be still, for a moment."

Blake drew back, reluctantly; knelt, cock aching, mouth and jaw ecstatic with use. Hands back in place behind himself.

"Tell him." Cam did a head-tip toward Ash. "That you're here and wanting it."

Blake swallowed, winced, tested his voice. "I am. I do."

The starlit worry hadn't gone away. "But—"

"Sometimes it's…a lot. When I'm feeling…this. It's hard to think. I don't want to think." He looked up at Cam. "You asked me, in Edinburgh, what I wanted. What I'd be good with. And you listened."

"And so I should've," Cam said, "because that's the way it works. Rules, beforehand, for this sort of thing. So we're both feeling good. So I won't do more than we've already discussed, not until we've discussed it, if you see what I mean."

"I think so, yes." Ash considered this for a moment. "I'm not sure I could do that, that role…I think I want more what you want. Being in charge. Or not exactly. I'm not sure yet. Is that all right?"

"Of course, lad." Cam kissed him, swift and certain. "Would you like to fuck him? Or to spend yourself all over him, claiming him?"

"Oh," Ash said, and did a little excited shiver. "Yes, that. How would I…oh, I've got an idea. Blake, on the bed. Lie down."

Evidently Ashley was going to be very good at giving orders. Blake managed to get up, and to collapse across the bed, on his back. Clean linen. Blue satin hangings. The feathers of the mattress under him. The wetness of his prick. So many sensations.

He turned his head to see Cam's hands helping slide away Ash's last clothing, leaving acres of fair smooth skin, graceful as fresh parchment, about to learn a new indelible story. Ash's cock was longer than Blake's own, more curved, less thick; beautiful, like the rest of him.

Ash came over to the bed, Cam's hand playing with the curves of bare pert arse. Ash liked that, from the smile, the tiny blushing laugh. Cam shrugged. "Love your arse, lad. Love all of you. Nice and tempting."

"Agreed," Blake said fuzzily, from the pillows.

"Ah, you're still talking." Cam flicked fingers against Blake's cock. It stung, gloriously. His tip dribbled more want. "Well, I love that too." His hand stroked Blake's length, after, more gentle. Pleasure, anguish, bliss, sharpness: they all melded into pure overwhelming happiness. Blake spread his legs, unthinking, hips lifting into the touch.

"Some hurt," Ash said, watching, "and some petting. I can do that." He did, mirroring both.

Blake whimpered. His Ashley, touching him, toying with him, like this…his Cam, too, hand on Ash's arm…so right, so good, he would be so good for them…every sensation felt so big and billowing and immense, but that was so good too, and he sank into it, yielded to it, knew peacefulness in the midst of it. They would make him feel everything, because he was theirs. They wanted him.

Ash got up on the bed with him. Knelt over him. Hand leisurely stroking his own length. "I like the idea of this…seeing myself, all over you…Cam, I want you, too. What did you have in mind?"

Cam nudged his leg. "Scoot yourself up a bit. I want to feel that arse. And yes, I've also got something in mind."

Some rearranging happened. Blake let them move him, spread and lift his legs, position him how they liked. They ended up between his thighs, Cam behind Ash, partly for support, partly so that Cam's cock nestled between the curves of Ash's arse, partly so that Cam could reach around and stroke Ash's luscious cock.

Ash moaned. "You're good at that."

"I'd like to think so." Cam sounded smug about it. "We're going to make you spend yourself all over him, so you both feel it, aye? My hand on your prick, and you covering him in it."

"Stop talking about it," Blake begged, "and do it." His own cock was so messy and so hard it stuck to his stomach, denied release; but that felt splendid too.

"I love you," Ash said, watching his face. Cam's purr of agreement underscored the answer.

Blake gazed up at them, blurrily incandescently happy. Cam's hand stroked Ash's cock. Ash moaned more, and thrust into the grip. In and out, head pushing forward, slick.

Ash was eager and needy and new to this, and Cam was very skilled; it did not take long. Cam's hand moved, and Ash gasped, back arching; he began to come, hips jerking, cock pulsing. Spurts of white landed in cleansing hot stripes across Blake's body, spread out under them both.

Blake sobbed with pure pleasure. Ash moaned again as Cam played with him, drawing out the climax. "Please, please…oh…"

"Lovely," Cam told him, "the two of you, giving me this…oh, look at you…" He eased Ash tenderly down, nestled against Blake, with kisses, with petting. "Love you. Love you both."

"Yes," Ash gasped. "Yes…oh, both of you, yes…" He pressed himself against Blake, shivering; but his hand found Blake's cock, wicked and just the right sort of rough, having learned fast. Blake squirmed, spasmed, jolted with the feel of it. Ash whispered, "You look so good, like this…everything I dreamed about…you, being mine…"

Blake couldn't think well, but nudged his hips up, pushing himself into Ash's grip. Yes. Yes. More. Feeling it. Yes.

"I do want to fuck you," Cam told him, "if you're still willing. Can you nod, or shake your head, for me?"

Blake nodded. Found a word, a drop of serenity. "Yes."

"Love you," Cam said, with feeling; and moved away, got something from a bag, came back. "It's a sweet oil," he explained, to Ash's interested look. "Good quality. Made by a friend, in fact—no, not a friend in the bedroom, he's got his own arrangement. But he's good at oils and salves and balms. Different types, too."

"Different types?" Ash took the small vial, examined it. "Of oil? For—oh. Oh, there are…different…sensations? Like flavors?"

"More heat, ginger, that sort of thing. But aye. Here, hold out your hand." Ash did; Cam poured oil into it, across his fingers. "Feel how slick that is? Here, put your hand here…" He guided Ash's touch: between Blake's legs. That spot. The opening, vulnerable and furled and yearning for this, exactly this, the two of them conquering him.

"Oh," Ash breathed, wide-eyed: watching his fingers stroke Blake's rim. Blake couldn't quite see, but he could feel, strung out like pearls of fire or water or those familiar beloved stars. He felt Ash's finger push inside him, in him; he cried out softly at the immensity of it.

Ash hesitated. Cam said, "No, that was good, I know that one; more, here…" and more fingers fondled him, caressed him, opened and loosened him. Cam's hand. Ash's. Surrounding him, entering him. Slippery as silk and rain and need.

He floated amid sensations, body reacting, responding, wholly theirs. He surrendered to every flare and spark, tranquil.

He heard Cam say, "Here, tease his prick, he likes that, while I fuck him…" and the fingers withdrew, replaced by a blunt massive weight. Cam pushed Blake's legs up, over his shoulders; lined their bodies up, thrust in.

Oh, so good; so full, so stretched; the cock rubbed along his walls, took him, completed him. Ash's hand was doing marvelous things to Blake's own cock, another center of pleasure and bright quick sharpness and heat; the mirrored sensation rippled and reverberated and redoubled. Blake moved frantically, helplessly, claimed by them together; Cam's cock pounded inside him, found that crackling spot, did not let up…

"Go on," Cam told him, "come for us, show us how good you feel, we love you and you're ours and we want to see you feeling good, let it out, let it come…" The next thrust slammed into him right there , and Ash's hand was doing—something shimmery and delirious, and Blake couldn't even cry out, because the peak gathered up and swept through him and burst in a crescendo, emptying him out, until the drawn-out endless rapture became all he was.

He felt Cam stiffen, going taut; he felt the rush of new heat, Cam's release inside him. He lay limp and dreamy and faraway, loving it. He heard himself making small sounds, mumbles that weren't words; his head rolled against the pillows.

Cam eased out of him; Blake sobbed at the emptiness. But Ash petted hm, kissed him, caressed him, spoke to him; the words were hazy, but Blake felt safe, and secure, and cherished, because Ash was there taking care of him, and so was Cam, who came back with soft cloths and cleaned him up, love in every gesture.

He drifted, shaken but serene, tugged by tides but anchored. Opened up, raw, but protected. Annealed.

He woke up more, to find Ash kissing his shoulder, half draped over him. Cam had settled on his other side, solid and tall as a hill-fort, eyes very green, studying him. Cam said, hand resting over Blake's stomach, idly proprietary in a way Blake rather liked, "Back with us, yet?"

"Mmm. Mostly. I feel…"

"Good, was it?"

"Not the word. It's like…I don't know. God. What did you do to me?"

"Loved you," Ash said, and bit his shoulder, not too hard. "Because we do. Love you."

"Yes," Blake said, tentatively. Yes. Here, in this bed, surrounded by them. He could touch them. He could hold them. They'd given him this. Because they wanted to. Because they wanted him. "Was that…was it…good, for you both?"

"Wonderful," Ashley informed him promptly. "I want to do that more. So much more. I have so many ideas. Oh, and I could do research! The Greeks. The Romans. Different types of oils. Positions we could try."

"Oh, Lord above," Cam said, cheerful but still just a little quiet, "we're in love with a scholar, there's going to be research, now…"

"Definitely yes!"

Blake turned his head to look at Cam more. Cam smiled at him, ran a hand along his hip, nudged a kiss into Blake's temple. "So good for me, as well. But you know that."

"I thought so," Blake said. "I mean, as far as I could tell." He extracted an arm from between them, looped it around Cam. "I like being yours."

"Yes." Cam burrowed into him. "We're good, then."

"I think we are."

"We're brilliant," Ash said from Blake's other side. "Blake's a genius writer and you're a genius physician and I'm a scholar. We're perfect."

Cam began laughing, shaking them all.

"Sounds good to me," Blake said. It did. He held them both tightly. He kissed Cam one more time, because he thought maybe he needed to.

"Ah," Cam said, an answer. "You heard what I said, when you were…when I wasn't sure you'd be…I wasn't sure you'd heard."

"I did. I'm here." He tapped Cam's shoulder with his thumb, mostly because he couldn't move more, having Ash's weight atop him. "I just want you to know that."

"What did you say?" Ash lifted his head. "And why don't I know? And of course I'm here too."

"Oh, you two," Cam said. "So sweet, both of you. Right where you belong. Where I can love you."

"Yes," Ash said. "Yes, please."

Blake echoed, heart in the word, "Yes."

"About that, then…it's about how I felt, y'know. How I feel. Not about how I love you, I've said it, aye?—but the moment of it, knowing…" Cam did not flinch, but let them in, instead. A memory in the green. "You know I'm a bit older than you both, right?"

"You're not old," Ash protested.

"Didn't say I was. But you're, what, twenty-eight, the pair of you? Nine years on you." Cam tapped Ash's nose, more affection than scolding. "And the thing of it is, y'know…that night in Edinburgh…it was the day right after an anniversary, though you'd no way of knowing that. I'd had someone, you see—not recent. Long gone. Six years, that day. It's a bad few days, all of them, right together."

The grief lay bare as sun-scoured bone, in his voice; Ash made a wordless sound, sympathy, hurting for him, and managed to stretch an arm all the way over to pat him. Blake held on closer, Cam right up against him, muscles and competence and strength and pain for the comforting. "What happened?"

"He died. Carriage accident. In the rain. And it was stupid—a bad road, too fast, avoidable—and if I'd been there maybe I could've done something, saved him—-but I wasn't, and I couldn't, and I didn't even know for two days. Because his family didn't know about me." Cam's exhale might've been the wrenching-apart of mountains. "What I meant, about the days, plural, there. All bad. I only found out when the family thought to tell me, as his partner—I mean professionally, in our practice. He'd been a medical student, too, when we met—just started. Actually that was partly why I went into it, because he loved it and I was curious, and then it turned out I loved it too."

"You were happy." Ashley's eyes were enormous with the emotion of it, understanding. "You loved him."

"I did, and he loved me. We moved in together, that first year. Told everyone it made sense, sharing rooms, then setting up a joint practice. Never could tell anyone it meant more, of course. His family would've…not taken it well. Mine…" Cam's voice went dry, recalling that too. "They most certainly did not. They caught me with a stableboy, when I was fifteen—they're horse-trainers, my family, and good ones—and that was that. Disowned."

"I'm so sorry." Ash dove across Blake to kiss Cam, to kiss Blake, to kiss Cam again, little scattered kisses like sun and shadows. "We're here now. We're not leaving you."

"No," Blake said, "we're not leaving you," and met Cam's eyes. "None of us is going anywhere."

"You ran into me in the rain," Cam said, "and I'd been feeling…grey, I suppose, all flat and dull…and I saw you, and I knew who you were—Blake Thornton, adventurer, all that—but you didn't look at me like that, like you were an earl or arrogant or any of it. You looked like someone lonely, out in the rain. And then you looked me up and down like you saw someone who could make you feel less lonely, maybe, for a night. And I wanted to be that person for you." He hesitated, added, "I'd not been with anyone in, oh, about three years, mind. And that was purely…for release, for one night. I tried to make it good, for you. For us. Kept hoping I'd got it right."

"Very right," Blake said. "Very."

"Was your…lover…" Ash put out a finger to touch Blake's mouth, evidently just because, and then pushed the fingertip into his mouth. Blake licked and sucked obediently, and did not miss the way Cam's eyes got all dark and smoldering at that. Ash finished, "Did he like it like…the way Blake does? Or me, when you tell me what to do, though that's not quite the same."

"He did, and we fit that way as well." Cam watched Blake lavishing attention on Ash's finger. "We were both…a bit new to it, he knew more than me about what he wanted, but we figured it out together. Figured out we made a good pair."

Blake stopped worshiping Ash's fingers—two now—to ask, "What was his name? If you want to say."

"I can tell you. I'd like that. He'd like that, I think." Cam drew a breath, noiseless. "Hugh. That was him. He liked sunrises and terrible wine, too sweet, no refinement at all."

"He sounds lovely," Ash said.

"He was."

"You had each other," Blake said. "You know about love. Being loved. And you've got that now, too. With us."

Cam's smile reappeared, brighter than the afternoon. The bedroom lay warm and sticky and thrilled around them. The painted flowers danced across the ceiling. "I do."

"I was thinking about something, too." Blake drew a breath, let it out. Felt their bodies entwined with his. Recovery, he thought. Renewal. All of them, perhaps. "I'm not leaving. I know I said so. But I mean…voyages, explorations, all of that…I think I'd like to stay put for a while. To help with your library. To write the next memoir. To…be here, not in between travel, but…because I'm home here. I've never had that. I might want to know how it feels. You know. A next adventure."

"Yes," Ash said. "Blake—yes."

"We could travel again, sometime." Cam walked a hand up, let it rest over Blake's heart. "You do love it—the way you write about deserts, glaciers, rivers, castles, like you love them. No more affairs, mind. You're all ours."

"Of course," Blake said, "they were all just to pretend I wasn't me, anyway." He hugged them closer. The future danced, a tempting swirl of starlight and poetry, travel tales and a physician's practice, a library and a home. He could sell his own house, even. His youthful tasteless edifice of defiance, of scandal, wouldn't matter, if he was living here.

That thought surprised him; he turned it over, scrutinized it, for a moment. He could. Not because he hated the place; he did not, or he thought not. Not now.

But he didn't need it. He had a home. Where he belonged.

He said, "If I do travel, if we do, because you said we, and yes, you're both coming with me…if we do, I could show you some places—places you'd like, history, maybe. I could write more. People like the books. They might…like the books even without the affairs and the seductions and all that."

"They would," Ash said. "They do. You're a good writer. I've always thought so."

"So have I," Cam said, amused.

"All right, then." Blake kept both arms around the men he loved, felt the satisfied golden contentment spread out, in his body and in the afternoon and everywhere. "We'll figure out all the adventures. Together."

THE END