Chapter 1

"You're sure this club is legit? Safe?" Darius, my brother Teagan's husband, questions. Of the two, he's definitely more protective and cautious, despite Teag being my twin.

"You went over the club contract yourself. You know how strict it is about safe, sober, and consensual kink." Is it weird that I asked my brother and his lawyer husband to review the membership contract for a kink club before I joined it? Maybe in some families, but Teagan, Darius and I grew up in the same state-run facility for children of addicts.

The two of them recognized they're gay and soulmates at the same age most of us are still figuring out what makes our motors rev. Darius aged out a year ahead of Teag and me. Always a brilliant strategist, he parlayed his incredible smarts and the hard-knock story of his childhood to land a full-ride scholarship to Xavier University in New Orleans. Teag followed him and enrolled in a nearby junior college as soon as we turned eighteen.

Teagan followed Darius to Seattle when he was accepted to law school after undergrad, and they got married the summer before Darius started 1L. It only made sense that I'd tag along, too. They're my only family, and without them nearby, I'd be lost.

"Contracts are violated all the time, Tali. You can't rely on its existence to prove you'll be safe." His rumbly voice rolls over me, and the tension in my shoulders melts away as it always does when he speaks.

His voice has the same soothing impact on baby Marley, the daughter he and Teagan share. The one created with my egg and Darius' sperm, so she'd have biological ties to both of them. I carried her as their surrogate and have lived with them for the last year to breastfeed. She smiles wide, with her pearly little baby teeth on display, cooing at us from her Jumperoo dangling in the doorway to the kitchen.

The three-story brownstone was the first purchase Darius and Teagan made together when the law firm, which recruited D fresh out of law school, paid him his first major case bonus. He'd won an enormous class action lawsuit and made the firm millions. They'd rewarded him richly, and Darius and Teagan buying their first home together solidified their happily-ever-after in a way only understood by people who grew up without any true home.

They'd insisted on a suite of rooms for me in the basement, so I was already living with them when Teagan came up with the idea to ask me to surrogate for them. As much as the two of them have done for me, there was no way I'd hesitate in agreeing. I struggled more with the request to spend a year breastfeeding, but in the end, Teagan's research into the health benefits for baby Marley and me convinced me.

At first, I was worried it would be difficult to carry a baby for nine months, nurse her at my breast for a year, and then hand her over to other people to raise. The reality of our family dynamic put those fears to rest with shocking ease. I won't deny the deep bond between Marley and me, but I also can't pretend I'm unhappy to hand all the parenting to Teag and Darius to handle.

Midnight feedings are enough mommydom for me at this point in my life. I've got no desire to participate in the panic over choosing the right preschool or keeping my shit together when the pediatrician jabs those giant vaccination needles into her chubby jellyroll thighs.

"Talissa, are you listening?" My brother's softer voice drags me back to the conversation at hand.

"When did you get home?" I ask. Last I knew, he was working a late evening at the physical therapy clinic where he's a massage therapist.

"Client canceled, so I'm out early. Don't change the subject. I'm all for you getting to celebrate not needing to nurse Marley anymore, but maybe, this is too much. Too risky. Maybe, we should do more research before you go." He's always trying to play the big brother, even though our original birth certificates have never been found. So we really don't know which of us was born first or even if the birthdate we celebrate is even ours.

"No. No more research. No more delays. It's already taken this long to get through the membership process and get a night booked in a room. I made a commitment, and I'm not backing out of it because you two want to Smother Hen me." The reference to one of the group home staff, who always clucked over us kids as if we were broken ducklings, always irritates my brother. But it's accurate.

I may not have found my soulmate and perfect partner the way they have, but that doesn't mean anything's missing in my life. Even if my life looks a little different than a storybook one, I've got good friends, a family I can rely on, and a nice little nest egg from their thank-you gift for being their surrogate.

"I still think it's bullshit you won't tell us which room you'll be in. If for no other reason than for safety's sake. So someone knows where you were last if something goes wrong," Darius grumbles. The tension rolling off the three of us finally weighs down the baby's happiness at being in her favorite bouncy seat and she starts to fuss.

Teagan lifts her from the Jumperoo and blows a raspberry on her cheek before handing her to Darius and walking into the pantry to grab a tube of the puffed rice snacks she loves.

"Because it's creepy to be that open about my s-e-x life, yeah? It's not like you two tell me every little thing you guys get up to. Which, no, don't offer to tell me. I'm fine with!" Is it strictly necessary to spell out words like sex around a one year old? I have no idea, but I'm not risking it being her first word and having the two of them pissed it wasn't da-da or poppy, the names they've decided on for her to call them.

"It's not like we don't know you're going there to have s-e-x with strangers. Three of them to be precise," Teagan rationalizes. He spells the word out, too, which validates my decision to do it.

"Can't we all pretend I'm going to the movies with that sweetly confused paralegal who assisted with Darius' last trial?" I ask.

The poor guy asked me out at the firm's annual bar-b-que Teagan and I attended with Darius. The way his eyes tracked the easy way my brother and his husband touched and cared for each other has me pretty confident the shyly sweet smile he gave me wasn't filled with anywhere near as much heat as it would have been if I'd had a different set of chromosomes.

I don't know whether he's hiding his sexuality or just hasn't given himself permission to explore it, but either way, it was a no for me. I may not be ready for a fairytale love like Teag and Darius share, but I'm also not settling for being a man's token partner when he's really meant for someone else.

I leave the guys to their parenting and slip downstairs to my suite. My rendezvous in Room 110 isn't scheduled to start until eight, but I want to make sure I'm as pampered and perfect as possible when I get there.

After all, it isn't every day a woman gets to spend the night with three men who want to worship her, not just for her body, but for the milk it produces. Just thinking about cradling a man's head to my breast while he nurses and two others kiss, suck, and fuck my body has my nipples tightening and prickling with the urge to letdown my milk. Tonight will be incredible; I feel it all the way into my soul.