17. Rue

Rue

Calix was pressed against the wall, with one of my hands against his hip to keep him there. As if he'd move. I enjoyed the noises he made as I played with the head of his cock with my tongue. I always knew when I hit something particularly good for him—his hand would go to my head.

He was never pushy, didn't even begin to suggest anything. The only thing he did was gather all my hair in one of his hands and hold it. When I glanced up, I found he did this so he could watch me without the curtain of my hair obstructing his view.

His dark eyes watched me as I pulled my mouth back and swirled my tongue over his crown. From a sudden jerk of his hips, I knew he was close. I went back to one of the tongue moves that he seemed to really like and had only made a single flick of my tongue over his slit before I started sucking him in earnest, bobbing my head like a good slut, when he pulled me away from him.

He dropped my hair and took his hard-on in his hand, stoking it aggressively. I glanced up and was surprised to see his eyes watching me, then he smiled wolfishly and continued. My body burned, the heat pooling between my legs again as I watched him handle himself. Who knew this could be so arousing? I wanted to touch, to help him, but didn't want to distract him from his goal. So I watched as my hunger grew.

Calix shifted suddenly and with a hiss, he blew his load away from me. Thoughtful, even when he's ridiculously turned on. Then again, I expected nothing less from him. He was always thoughtful.

His strokes slowed as he seemed to coax the rest out, drop by drop, his grip getting tighter as he neared his head. I put my hand on him, thinking maybe I could help a little more now. He released himself. only to wrap his hand around mine, bringing it firmly closed. Our hands moved together for some time. Then he sighed, releasing my hand and his still mostly hard cock.

After a minute, Calix pulled me to my feet and kissed me. With a sigh, he turned off the water and brought our naked, wet bodies out of the shower. He held me close, his mouth constantly brushing kisses to mine.

"Let's get dressed. We can shower again later," he murmured.

With one last kiss, he let me go but took my hand in his as he led me to the door.

Calix stopped in the doorway, pressing his hand to my stomach to keep me behind him. "What're you doing, baby?"

I peeked over his shoulder to find Koa sitting on the bed. He was surrounded by stuffies, wearing shorts and a superman shirt, and watching cartoons. He looked over and grinned.

"Watching TV," he answered.

Calix backed us back into the bathroom and offered me a towel. He winked, kissed me quickly, and we walked out again. He didn't bother with a towel, though. I wondered if Little Koa would have been bothered if I were naked.

Then again, I wondered if Big Koa would have been?

"Where are Dada and Papa?" Calix asked.

"They left," Koa said. "Oh!" He started lifting his stuffies and looking under them. Under an elephant, which he bopped their nose for hiding what he was looking for, he pulled out a cell phone and offered it to Calix. "Papa said to give you this. "

Calix grinned, leaning over to place a kiss on Koa's forehead. "Thank you."

I watched as he read the message while finding clothes to wear. Stepping back into the bathroom, I dressed and brushed my hair. Calix offered me the phone so I could read the message.

[Javan] We're headed to HP to relay what we'd learned from Koa's program. We're hoping to come up with a way to narrow down when Silence will attack next. We didn't want you to worry about Koa, so we set him up in the bedroom. Be back in a few hours. Love you all.

"They could have just come into the bathroom to tell us," I mused as I set down the phone and turned back to my hair.

"I'm sure they did. We likely didn't see nor hear them, so they resorted to text a message."

My cheeks flushed and I laughed. "Ah."

Calix kissed my cheek.

Back in the bedroom, we joined Koa on the bed. Cartoons stayed on and we just relaxed as Koa played with his stuffies and watched television. More times than not, I watched between the two of them. Admiring them. Wondering how I'd lived so long without them.

After Koa yawned for maybe the dozenth time, Calix asked, "You tired, baby?"

"No, Daddy," Koa said. "I'm just watching TV."

Calix smiled, amused as another yawned tacked onto the end of that. "Well, I'm tired and want to cuddle with my little boy."

Koa grinned and crawled back to us. He settled between me and Calix as another big yawn took over. "I just might rest my eyes."

"Okay. I'm going to watch your show to make sure you don't miss anything while you're resting your eyes."

Koa giggled. It was less than five minutes later when his big body was limp and he was snoring softly, fast asleep.

I brushed Koa's hair, and he sighed quietly in his sleep. Calix's arm tightened around my shoulders, and I felt his lips against my forehead.

"He's a good boy," he murmured.

I grinned. "I know."

"He was stressed when we met. But then, he was working for someone who took advantage of him. I hadn't thought he could get more stressed than that. Obviously, I was wrong."

Chuckling, I glanced up at him. "You've been together a long time, right?"

"Mhmm," he said. "It was really rough at first. Finding balance in this family was a struggle."

Bryn and Javan stepped into the bedroom.

"It was always easy," Bryn countered, his eyes dropping to Koa.

Javan snorted in response, shoving him gently.

They joined us on the bed, Javan behind me and Bryn behind Calix.

"Actually, it was really hard," Bryn admitted. "Like, I think there were days when we all wondered if this was going to work."

"Koa too?"

When the three of them nodded, my heart hurt for all of them.

"Bryn and I have been together since we were young. Foukes are always drawn to a mirror monster—another of their species they bond with. It helps us control our urges. Kind of like a mate but… Well, I suppose it is a mate thing, yeah?" Javan asked.

"Meh," Bryn answered, shrugging. "In the roughest sense of the word, I guess. Foukes just refer to it as their mirror monster."

Javan nodded. "Yeah, so there's that. We've always had each other. Then we met Calix when we'd been alive for maybe a couple decades."

"By alive, he means together. There are some strange folktales within the fouke species that say we aren't truly alive until we see our mirror for the first time," Bryn explained .

"Seriously? So you're like… just a spirit?" I asked.

The three of them chuckled.

"No. I really have no idea how to describe it. We're alive. Like, we've been born. We're whole, except… not at full maturity? Or not at full monstrous, uh, life?"

"Damn," Javan said. "This is far more complicated to put into words than I thought it was."

Calix snorted. "It's far more comprehensive than when you tried to explain it to me years ago."

"Excellent. We're doing a good job," Bryn said.

I laughed.

"So yeah, anyway. Calix busted up on us in the middle of a rather compromised position and I swear to fuck, it was like watching my life flash before my eyes," Javan admitted, chuckling.

"Anyway," Calix said. "First impressions with their dicks out? Yeah, I liked what I saw."

It took a lot not to loudly laugh. I had to remind myself that Koa was asleep.

"You probably understand the need for a monstrous monster to be surrounded by other darkness. Other monsters who can match your aura and energy. For me it just kinda flipped one day. The need to breed was consuming," Calix said.

"Breed, eh? Do fouke men carry offspring?" I teased.

"In his case, I think he means mate," Javan explained, "though I suppose your question still stands. No. We do not."

"Yeah, so I felt their energy and here we are," Calix said.

"That's so romantic," Bryn scoffed. "Good to know you settled for the first fuckers you saw."

"Pun intended," Javan said.

"Must have been really impressed with our dicks, huh?"

Calix rolled his eyes as I continued to try not to laugh. "No. I think you were one of three or four dark spots I felt. Not the first I visited, mind you. I remember two others really did nothing for me. So, if you like the idea of being my third choice better, then cool."

Calix jerked, and I heard a loud smack .

"You're going to wake him," Javan chastised, but Koa was still sound asleep.

"We were together for a long time," Javan said. "But Calix needed something Bryn and I just couldn't give him, so we encouraged him to find a Little to fill that need."

"In came Koa," I said, smiling. I smoothed his hair from his forehead again.

"Yes. He's been through shit." Calix's words made my heart clench. "No one wants a Little covered in tattoos and piercings and so much bigger than them. Even in play groups he was… not treated well. Then he has the pressure of carrying around the beast that lives inside him, and the stress he carries that is the burden his intelligence brings him… he was in a rough state when we met."

"That's awful," I said.

He nodded. "Yep. But in Koa, I found the Little I'd always wanted. The problem was, Koa used his little space to balance out the hell that was in his adult life, so once he became comfortable with us, he was Little all the time."

"Which started to cause tension because we missed Calix," Bryn said. "Admittedly, a lot of that probably came from me. I didn't know how to treat Koa—it was awkward for me, though I tried. But more than anything, I was getting jealous and resentful that he took so much of Calix's time, and we rarely got to see him."

"What changed?" I asked.

"One Christmas about three years after Koa joined us, Koa told us he knew what was going on and he wanted to change it. I felt like a shitty ass bitch knowing he understood how I felt," Bryn said. "I'd tried really hard to hide it from him."

"Back then, Bryn didn't really understand that even though Koa is Little, he's still very much aware of what's going on around him. Unlike children, Koa actually understands completely, even if he doesn't appear to notice," Calix explained.

"So he gifted us an entire forty-eight hours alone. Just the three of us," Bryn said. "I couldn't walk for a fucking week after."

Javan chuckled. "That's what you get for making Daddy's little boy upset."

"Oh, I'm not complaining, but yes, I felt like shit," Bryn admitted.

"When the weekend was over, we sat down—all four of us together—and we talked about how we felt. Honestly. For several years, we checked in a lot," Javan said. "Almost on a regimented schedule so we didn't allow ourselves to get to that near-breaking point again."

"It worked out, though," I said.

"It did." Bryn reached over Calix and ran his fingers over Koa's jaw. "It took us some time to find balance and I think Koa ended up Big far more than he wanted to be. But I think it was necessary because once I fell in love with Big Koa, loving Little Koa was natural."

Javan nodded. "We had rarely seen Big Koa up until then. Once he understood he was safe with us, he was almost always Little. So yes, it was definitely roughest on Koa during that transition period, but I'm sorry to agree that it was necessary."

"I would have been Big sooner if I understood that's what you needed," Koa whispered.

"We didn't mean to wake you," Calix said.

Koa shrugged. "I've been awake for a little bit. It's easy to forget how far we've come until it's broken down like that. I haven't thought about it for a while."

"I hadn't really meant to get into all that," Calix admitted, chuckling. "I was just musing that I don't think I've ever known you without stress. I remember there was a point when I didn't think you could get more stressed than when you worked for those assholes I hated. "

Koa snorted. He craned his neck up to look at Calix. "You regret urging me to build my own company?"

"Not at all," Calix said, tapping his nose with a finger. "Yes, you're stressed, but up until we began to truly focus on Silence and ORKA, your stress had actually lessened."

"And you were finally happy at work," Javan said.

"Yes," Calix agreed. "This new level of stress isn't your normal. And it won't be forever. I was actually just cursing myself for feeling like I challenged the universe to prove me wrong when I always thought you couldn't possibly be more stressed than you were back then."

"It's almost like we verbally heard someone say, ‘hold my beer' and prove us wrong," Bryn mused.

Koa laughed. He picked his head up to look at Bryn. "I love you, too. And I agree—being Big for all that time really sucked, but it was necessary. Our life now is much better than whatever it was back then."

Bryn leaned over Calix to kiss Koa's cheek.

We settled back down, and I asked, "You joined The Harem Project together then?"

"Yes, though not until maybe eight years ago," Javan said. "We were waiting to be sure we were in a place where bringing in someone new wasn't going to cause the same stress as it had when Koa joined us. We hadn't understood the implications and effects bringing a fourth into our relationship would have and as we just told you, it was a big learning experience."

"But we've been ready for you for a while now," Koa said, shifting between me and Calix so he could look at me. "And we're really happy you're here."

I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his forehead. "Me too. Not a moment too soon."