Some minutes had passed before anyone spoke or moved, the only thing punctuating the air being rasping breath and thundering hearts. Sam finally managed to open her eyes, in time to see Chris press a kiss to Geoff's shoulder and Geoff turn his head to return the favor, a brush of lips over his forehead.
Chris was the first to recover motor function, withdrawing and murmuring something about washcloths. He disappeared down the hall into the bathroom, the running water telling them he was cleaning up and heating the water to dampen the cloths. He returned with one for each of them. With a groan, Geoff slowly pulled out of her, but he didn't leave her without his body heat. He settled her into the cradle of his thighs, putting his back against the half wall that divided the kitchen from the living room. Taking a cloth from Chris, he cleaned between her thighs with gentle strokes.
"I could do that," she said.
"You're ours to care for, right?" He pressed the heat of the cloth against her and held it there, firmly enough she felt the blood pulse through her cunt against his touch. She nodded, her throat suddenly tight. Chris had also brought bottled water from the kitchen and now knelt on the other side of her, offering it. They cared for one another. It was intuitive for all three of them. That desire to care had been there even before sexual desire had entered into it. As such, she knew it would pervade the many ways they'd explore sexual intimacy and a life together as lovers, where they'd need to nurture one another in myriad ways, large and small.
Sam recalled what Flo had said, that the good response to an event like the Carnival showed things were changing. Even where opposition existed, there were others like her, Geoff and Sam. People who believed love had a broader definition, and it could be celebrated in all its positive forms. Remembering such a thing would help her always focus on what was most important. Not the opinions of others, but what lay in her heart, and the hearts of the two men beside her.
She put her hands on them, touching faces, chests, letting them feel the painful joy of her need. "I don't know how to say it. This feeling . . . it's like the closest thing to . . ."
"To what everything important is supposed to be about," Chris said.
She caressed his jaw. "What did you mean, that day in the park? When I asked you if it would have been easier if I'd chosen one of you?' You replied, 'Depends on who was chosen.' You didn't want to explain that then. Can you explain it now?"
Geoff shifted behind her, an indication of his curiosity. She had to suppress a little smile as Chris's focus turned inward, thinking his answer through. Geoff pressed his lips to her limp fingers, as they both waited patiently.
At length Chris shifted his gaze to Geoff. He held there a moment, such that Geoff grew more still behind her body. "If you had chosen, Sam, it should have been Geoff. He's more of what you needed . . ."
Chris shook his head as they began to protest. "And even if that's just my bullshit insecurities about all this Dom stuff, it was more than that. I could handle having my heart broken. I couldn't handle seeing his broken again. Not after seeing what his family did to him. Or what my dad did to my mom."
Sam closed her hand on his big wrist. "Chris."
Geoff's jaw tightened against the side of her head. "He did it to you, too, man."
"Eh, yeah, but . . ." Chris shrugged. Sam expected the gesture was an echo of the boy he'd been, because suddenly she could imagine him as a serious-eyed child, taking it upon himself to be man of the house long before any other boy would have considered it. But not every boy had the makings of a wonderful man so early in life. Chris had. She was sure of it, because otherwise Geoff wouldn't have been so totally in love with him for so long.
"What mattered to me was taking care of her," Chris said. "Making sure she knew that she was enough. That I would never be like my dad. That she could always rely on me to love her and be there for her. That kind of took the place of that hole, if t
hat makes sense. Like taking care of the two of you."
Locked in place by the weight of the emotions passing between the two men, Sam could only watch in simple, painful happiness as Geoff reached out and clamped a hand on Chris's shoulder, tightening his grip. "I guess that means Sam was always right," her Master said. "About us being a triangle. I couldn't bear hurting you that way, either. And neither of us can tolerate her unhappiness. So it's a trinity or nothing. We work best when there are no limits between the three of us."
He hauled Chris closer, roughly enough he had to put a hand on Geoff's knee to keep from toppling into Sam. Which also gave her the excuse to grip Chris's biceps. "And if it wasn't for you," Geoff said steadily, "my heart would have been screwed up forever. Maybe putting me in a place where I couldn't have seen the love you're both offering as the gift it is, or tried my damnedest to return the favor."
Chris swallowed, his eyes suspiciously moist. "If this is where you do the old-lady Titanic speech about how I saved you in every possible way a person can be saved . . ."
Geoff snorted and shoved him away, following it up with a headslap that Chris blocked, grinning. "Fuck. See, you made her cry."
"Happy tears," Sam declared, wiping them away. Then, because she was delighted, and being a girl made such gestures completely acceptable, she twisted around and flung herself at both of them to hug them close. It allowed them to put their arms around each other, a three-way hug she knew would add the right kind of emotional follow-through to what they'd just told one another. Girls were good for that, too.
At length they drew back. Chris smiled, kissed her palm, then bemused Geoff by taking his hand and kissing his palm. Geoff stroked his hair.
"Sloppy romantics, both of you," he said, but there was no criticism there. "By the way, before we call it a night, I intend to have your ass myself," he told Chris. "And I expect you'd like to have her come around your cock."
"You're the Dom," Chris said, amused. "I'm not going to argue with you. Not right now."
Geoff snorted. When Chris started to get up, Geoff slid his hands under Sam's armpits and half lifted her, Chris completing the move by scooping her up off the floor. "You know, I can walk occasionally," she pointed out, dropping her head back over Chris's arm to look at Geoff upside down as he got to his feet.
"We plan to keep your knees weak until dawn," Geoff told her, bending to kiss her forehead. "Got a problem with that?"
"I'll let you know," she said, a little more faintly than she'd intended. His light smile couldn't detract from the flash of heat in his expression, which told her he wasn't teasing her about that. Chris's satisfied male expression said he was in perfect accord.
She was right, what she'd told Flo. They might kill her with their unending needs, but if being taken over and over by the men she loved until her heart gave out was her fate, who was she to argue with destiny?
***
She made them omelets for breakfast. While the coffee was brewing, she stood at the kitchen window wearing one of Chris's shirts and watching the sun rise. She brought the meal to the bedroom on a tray and sat cross-legged between them, snacking off the fruit she'd added to their plates and exchanging tidbits of conversation with Geoff as Chris sipped his coffee to wake up. Sometime during the night they'd both donned their shorts, but Chris didn't object as she ran her fingertips along his thigh and under the loose flannel leg of his to caress the curve of his testicles.