Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Wren

A fter they were reunited, Wren had never intended to let Aiden or Emilia know the truth about the last seven years. It had hurt him enough that he didn't want to drag them into it. But he was, as he had always been, weak to them. And so he would hurt them and batter himself in the process, reliving moments that had burned like fire across his skin and had hollowed him out until he felt empty.

Aiden was staring at him, his eyes wide and his skin pale. "What…what does that mean?"

"Yes, please explain," Emilia said. She hadn't removed her hand from its place on his and she squeezed gently, offering support when he most needed it. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like.

"You wanted to know what our lives were like in the last seven years," Wren said softly. "I'll tell you and you might wish I hadn't. Yes, I became a successful investigator and I'm good at my work. I even enjoy it much of the time. People are puzzles and I am driven to solve those puzzles. And yet the tools I developed in my work stabbed me as often as they saved someone else."

He stopped talking for a moment as memories flashed through his mind. He must have shown it on his face because Aiden got up from the table and came to where Wren sat. His fingers threaded through Wren's hair, soft and gentle, and for a moment as he was touched by both of them, the world settled.

"The first time I used my skills to find one of you, it was accidental. I was researching the attendees of a ball for a case my mentor, Mr. Boyd, was investigating and I realized that Emilia and the viscount would be there. My world stopped as I stared at their names on the guestlist: Viscount and Viscountess Wilburn. All I could think was Emilia, Emilia… my Emilia."

He looked up and found Emilia's eyes had misted with tears. "It must have been a shock," she whispered.

He nodded. "It had been over a year since I last saw you at that point. I felt like I'd been riding at full speed and someone had ripped the horse from under me and I was just…falling. I had to fight to finish my work on that case and I promised myself I would forget it. Forget I'd seen your name, forget all the memories it stoked it me. But I couldn't. I'd find myself getting up at night, searching through documents on other cases, looking for your name. Looking for Aiden's."

Aiden's fingers stroked through his hair again and Wren let out a shuddering sigh. "You both became my obsession, as if no time had passed. I would do my work, of course I would. But at night I would use my resources to look into each of you. I didn't know about your unhappiness, Emilia, I swear to you I would have intervened earlier and bugger the consequences."

"Of course you didn't know," she said softly.

"But I knew when you were in London," he said. "I knew when your debts were paid at the milliners and the apothecary. I knew when Wilburn was out of town. You don't know how many times I rode past your house at those times, watching up at your windows as if I could see you. As if I could float up to you and steal a moment."

"Oh, Wren," she whispered, tears leaping to her eyes. For him. For her. For all of them.

"And you," he continued with a nod toward Aiden, who was now still as stone and just as unreadable with these confessions. "I knew about this cottage not because Wilburn asked me to chase you two down, but because I uncovered when it was gifted to you as payment for a contract you handled. I…I watched you. I knew which clubs you frequented. I even knew about your lovers. I would research them to ensure they wouldn't take advantage of you."

There was a long silence as both of them stared at him. He cleared his throat. "I violated your privacy, both of yours, many times. If you're angry about that, I deserve nothing less. And I apologize."

Emilia pushed back from the table and moved to him. Now he was buffeted on each side by his lovers. He had been before, in the passionate days and nights in the bedchamber. But this was different. They wrapped their arms around him, surrounding him with nothing but love.

Aiden leaned in, his mouth brushing Wren's cheek. "That must have been so painful."

He felt the pain keenly now and bent his head. A tear he couldn't control slid down his cheek, and Emilia brushed it away before she turned his face toward hers and lifted to kiss him gently. "I'm so sorry, Wren. I'm so sorry."

"The years went by with my nights filled with research of you. And during the day I worked for exactly the same kind of people who had taken my greatest loves from me," he continued, for he couldn't stop now. "With their pompous sneers and utter belief that they'd earned what they stole and hid and burned. I filled my coffers and hated myself."

"Look at me," Emilia said, cupping his cheeks and forcing him to do just that. "What you did to survive, to thrive, is not anything to be ashamed of. And if you did spy on us, then I know I, for one, don't judge you. If I had the resources, the freedom, I might have done the same, just to know you were both alive and well and moving through the world outside my window."

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers. "You could offer me forgiveness?"

"I will always offer you forgiveness for any transgression, Wren. That is the way of love," she whispered.

"And what about you?" Wren asked, almost afraid to look at Aiden. He might have offered sympathy for the pain Wren had endured in his obsessive work to watch them, but that didn't mean he wasn't angry.

"What you did, I longed to do," Aiden said softly. "But I was too cowardly. So I can't judge you, only marvel at how strong you were. And be glad that you were my unseen guardian angel."

"Did you ever give yourself time for pleasure?" Emilia asked. "For joy?"

She was asking about lovers, Wren supposed. About moments were he might lose himself the way he lost himself here with them. He cleared his throat. "I was no monk," he admitted. "But I never saw my dalliances as anything more than a way to purge a physical need when it hit a peak and distracted me from my cases. I had little heart for anything else."

Emilia's pity was clear on her face as she cupped his cheek. "Then you have earned every pleasure you denied yourself over the long years, Wren. And if you'd come back to the bedroom, I hope you would let Aiden and I give you what you missed. What we all missed. Please?"

He was trembling as he looked back and forth between the two loves of his life. How he needed them. How he so desperately didn't want to lose them again. And if he might, then he wanted to make the most of the time they had left before they had to make decisions about a foggy future fraught with danger.

"Yes," he murmured, and it was Aiden who pulled him in for a hungry, heated kiss. He surrendered himself to it, to the flavor of his man, to the feel of his fingers digging into Wren's bare back even as Emilia kissed a heated trail along his shoulders.

They moved together, just as they had that first day, back into the bedroom where they had shared so much over the past few days. It always felt like coming home to Wren, but now it felt like something more. As Aiden unfastened his trousers and Emilia reached around to stroke his hardness, their wonderful attention fully focused on him, and he realized that they were freeing him. From the past, from the pain, from everything but them.

He moaned as pleasure streaked up his cock, powerful and wild as Aiden joined in the gentle stroking of his shaft. Emilia's fingers tangled with his and she whimpered as her teeth scraped the flesh of Wren's shoulder.

"We have had you together, Emilia. Does it make you feel loved?" Aiden whispered, sucking and swirling his tongue around a spot at the base of Wren's throat that drove him wild between each word.

She nodded. "Yes. It makes me feel complete."

"I want to do that for Wren."

Emilia's eyes widened. and Wren watched as his two lovers' gazes met over him and she smiled.

"Would you like that, Wren?" she asked softly, seductively.

Wren nodded, fully surrendering to this and to them and feeling the warmth of that wash over him and take away all the agony his life of responsibility and loss had created in his chest.

"Lie back," Emilia urged him, pressing him toward the bed as Aiden pulled away and went digging in drawers for the familiar bottle of slick oil that they used to ready Emilia so many times since their reunion.

"Have you done this before?" Aiden asked as he returned to Wren, climbed onto the bed at his feet and spread his legs slightly so he could ease closer. His palm cupped Wren's calf and it felt like his skin was alive as he arched with a hiss of pleasure.

"Had a man in my arse?" Wren gasped out. "Y-yes."

"Good," Aiden said, licking his lips. He motioned his head toward Emilia. "Suck him, let me see you ready him for you."

She nodded and smiled at Wren. "I love to have you in my mouth, you know. I used to dream of it."

Those words were as powerful as any touch and Wren let out a garbled groan before he caught her hand and drew her across him. He kissed her, deep and slow, tasting every inch of her mouth until she was whimpering and moaning his name.

"I want you to straddle my mouth while you lick me," he murmured as he let her part from him. "Do you understand?"

Her pupils dilated as what he desired became clear and she moved fully onto the bed. Aiden hadn't moved as he watched them together, almost like he was frozen with the images of their passion. But when she straddled Wren's shoulders, Aiden at last leaned in to kiss her over Wren's hard cock.

"Fuck his mouth, Emilia. Come all over him so I can taste you later," Aiden ordered, his voice suddenly harder, more in control.

She responded by catching Wren's cock and stroking him again. Wren gasped and gripped her hips, looking up at the gorgeous, wet pussy poised over him. He could scent her excitement and it only encouraged his own, and just as she covered him with her mouth, he licked her.

They both jolted at the feel of the other and he smiled against her as he gave in to the heated pleasure of what they were doing. She thrust her mouth over him, eager and hungry, taking him all the way to her throat before withdrawing and smothering him in perfect suction and wetness. He responded by devouring her with all the enthusiasm he felt for the act, tasting her and teasing her, fucking her with his tongue and sucking her clitoris until she was rolling her hips over him and chasing the high of release that he could already feel coming by the way her thighs shook and gripped around him.

And just when it couldn't get better, just when he was lost to the bliss, Aiden finally parted his legs, tilted his arse up, and began to circle the tight hole there with his fingers.

Wren came without warning, pushing his hips so hard that he feared he could hurt Emilia, but she only gripped him tighter, taking every drop of his release and continuing the sucks and licks as Aiden thrust his finger, then another, then a third into the place where he would take Wren. Claim him.

Emilia rocked her hips back and only then did her mouth leave his cock. She cried out, her pussy flooding with release and rippling against his tongue as she swore and moaned and shook with her own orgasm. He collapsed against the pillows, still twitching as she stroked him absently with her hand and Aiden continued to ready him with his fingers.

Wren knew his night had thankfully only just begun. He couldn't wait for everything that would come next.