Steady Rain Read online

  Yeah, she loved this. Because everything they did with her in bed was filled with love, and she felt it.

  She bobbed her head up and down on Kyle’s cock, sucking hard, working, reaching up and cupping his sac in one hand and gently massaging and tugging on it.

  That did it. He clamped his lips around her clit as he came, every vibration in his moans rolling through her sensitive, swollen nub and Tristan’s cock and triggering another in her. She managed to swallow his cum without choking herself on it through her own moans and Tristan started moving again.

  “That’s what I needed,” he gasped. He fucked her hard, fast, owning her and driving his cock deep with every thrust. It didn’t take him long to come, and he didn’t pull out even after he finished. Beneath her, she felt Kyle start licking and sucking again, trying to get his tongue inside her pussy with Tristan’s cock. But Kyle reached around her and held her in place, not letting her go. Tristan wouldn’t let go of her, either, leaving her squirming and helpless as Tristan chuckled.

  “Get used to it, baby. If not him, you’ll have me down there. You said you wanted to be our slave. That means you’re going to learn to take it and like it and let us show you what it means to be well-owned and well-loved.”

  She had three more smaller orgasms before Tristan’s limp cock finally fell out of her. Kyle’s tongue quickly took his place and he seemed to enjoy licking every drop out of her he could reach and making her come again as he did.

  Finally, Tristan helped her roll off him, to Kyle’s good side so they didn’t accidentally hurt his knee. He caged her body with his arms and kissed her, sweeping his tongue through her mouth and taking his time doing it.

  He smiled down at her. “You know you’re in trouble now, right?”

  “Why?”

  His smile widened and he nuzzled noses with her. “When Dillon’s not around, you’re not allowed to wear clothes inside. Unless you’re cold. I want that sweet body of yours available anytime I want it.”

  She shivered, but it was the good kind, the thrill of knowing he meant every word and her body looking forward to it. “Yes, Sir.”

  He arched an eyebrow at her.

  “Yes, Master.”

  He grinned. “Much better.”

  “That’s going to get confusing,” Kyle joked. “Calling us both that.”

  “I don’t care. At least we’ll both come when she calls.”

  Kyle burst out laughing. “When she calls, when she sucks, when she moans.”

  She giggled. It felt good to…feel good.

  She was still scared, but that was quickly fading.

  “We’re getting married when you get back,” Tristan said, his smile fading. “First weekday back, we’ll get the license. Okay?”

  She nodded. “Yes, Master.”

  His smile returned, wide, beaming. “Fuck, that will never get old, hearing you call us that.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  It was late Sunday night when the men slowly trudged through the main terminal at TIA. Tristan carried Kyle’s bag for him, because Kyle could barely walk, but had refused Tristan’s offer to ask for a wheelchair for him.

  “Just get me to the arrivals curb and go get the car, please,” Kyle said. “I can make it that far.”

  Tristan worried about him, the pain in Kyle’s eyes that had turned them more dark steel than blue tonight, like threatening storm clouds, impending rain.

  He hated leaving Jess behind, but she had a job to do, a job they were proud of her for how well she did it.

  Yes, it’d suck she’d have to go on restricted duties now, but it wasn’t like she was losing her job. She’d still be training on the administrative end of things, and once she had the baby, as soon as she returned to work she could resume her full duties. Tracy had even come up with the solution that Essie could take on some of her office duties, up until she had her baby, and Tracy would help Jess, so they wouldn’t have to hire another employee. Once Essie went out on maternity leave, Jess would cross-train on Essie’s duties and Tracy would fill in, with Essie helping out with Jessica’s duties while Jess went out on maternity leave.

  Essie had eagerly signed off on that deal. It would mean Jess would have more knowledge on how to help run the business.

  Meaning Jess could still get her raise, and taking a lot of the sting out of this for her.

  At least they didn’t have to worry about getting Stanley tonight. Essie had offered to take him over to Michelle’s tomorrow morning on her way to the office.

  And the men now had Jessica’s apartment key and the alarm code. Kyle wouldn’t be able to help much because of his knee, but Tristan was already running down a mental list of people to call for help.

  Starting with Kel, Cali, Max, and Sean.

  On the way through the main terminal, they had to pass several shops and Tristan pulled up short in front of the window display of one of them. They were closed because of the late hour, but the mannequins were modeling children’s clothes and toys.

  And there was a baby wearing a onesie with a graphic of dolphins on it.

  Kyle had kept going, then stopped and turned when he realized he was alone. He slowly limped back and laid his hand on Tristan’s shoulder. “Tris?”

  He hadn’t expected the lump that formed in his throat. “We…we’re going to be dads.”

  Kyle squeezed his shoulder. “Yeah.”

  He could see Kyle’s reflection in the darkened window, standing beside him, his hand on Tristan’s shoulder, but he couldn’t pull himself away from staring at that onesie.

  “What if I’m a horrible dad?” he softly asked.

  “You’re going to be a great dad,” Kyle gently said. “Horrible dads don’t question if they’re horrible—they’re horrible and think they’re great.”

  “What did we do?”

  Kyle made him turn to face him and held Tristan’s face in his hands, forcing him to look him in the eyes. “We fell in love with each other, we met a fantastic woman we both fell in love with and who fell in love with us, and now we’re going to have a baby together and spend the rest of our lives loving each other. The end.”

  “It can’t be that easy. It’s never that easy.”

  “I’m not saying it’s always going to be easy. That’s the simple version. But that’s the way you can look at it. You don’t have to look at all the imperfections and the dark times. Life isn’t full of storms. Just because it’s raining one minute doesn’t mean it’ll be raining a day or a week later. We weather the storms together. We hold each other’s umbrellas. We never let go. Ever.”

  “I’m so scared,” Tristan whispered. “I’m so scared I’m going to fuck up.”

  Kyle hugged him hard as Tristan started crying. “We’re all gonna fuck up, buddy. That’s a given. But fuck-ups are part of life, and it doesn’t mean they’ll be big ones. My parents will be the first to admit they weren’t perfect, but everything they did, they did with love and the best of intentions, and I turned out okay, huh?”

  Tristan turned his head where it rested against Kyle’s shoulder, so he could see the window display.

  The two of them reflected in the glass, the onesie inside.

  A baby.

  Their baby.

  “Promise you’ll call me out if I screw up?”

  “We all will, for each other,” Kyle said. “We’re on the same team. You know how to love someone besides yourself, and you love damn hard. You love in selfless, strong ways. You’re patient, and kind, and a good man.” Kyle kissed his forehead. “And I’m proud to be your husband and have a baby with you.”

  Tristan lifted his head and stared into Kyle’s eyes. Despite the pain still there, a little blue peeked out.

  It won’t always rain.

  “I love you, and I love her, and I’m scared shitless.”

  Kyle smiled. “Ditto.”

  “You don’t look scared shitless.”

  “Yeah, well, I do a damn good job hiding it, I guess.” Kyle hooked an a
rm through Tristan’s. “Come on, Daddy. Let’s get my gimpy ass home, huh? Five o’clock in the morning will come damned early.”

  Tristan found Kyle a bench to sit on in the curbside area and headed to the long-term parking garage to retrieve his SUV. He dumped their bags into the back hatch, but he had to sit behind the wheel for a minute to let his hands stop trembling.

  Fathers.

  It terrified him.

  Yet…

  When he thought about holding a baby who might have Kyle’s grey-blue eyes, or looking down into eyes the same shade of brown as his…

  He felt a gentle little thump in his heart.

  Hope.

  * * * *

  Kyle didn’t try to make Tris talk on the way home. He found himself a reasonably comfortable position where he could lean the seat back a little and stretch out while still keeping his left hand on Tristan’s thigh.

  Standing there in the airport, he’d finally felt his guy’s wall tumbling down, the one Tris had slapped together Thursday night and had held firmly in place, a wall built of fear.

  He got it. It wasn’t that he was without his own fear, but what the three of them had was stronger than Tris and Jess knew. He felt it with all his heart.

  Neither of them had been married before and had survived what he’d went through with Anne. Want to talk about ball-churning fear? Of having your life yanked out from under you and being forced to start over, all with a heaping side order of loathing, resentment, and self-hatred?

  He would have preferred a simple flood, like Jess went through.

  He was laying himself bare to Tris and Jess. He was the one with the most to lose in this arrangement, but he was the one who trusted the most that this was perfection. With them married, sure they could one day choose to freeze him out and, legally, there wouldn’t be a damn thing he could do about it.

  Except he knew they’d never do that to him.

  That was trust.

  Because he didn’t want to live the rest of his life never being able to trust, never being able to fully tap into love because of always holding back.

  He wanted their child to see three parents who loved each other even through the bad times, even though it wasn’t “conventional.”

  Who made their happiness and weren’t dependent upon events of the past to create it.

  They could do this.

  They would do this.

  * * * *

  The next Sunday evening, Jess sat with her eyes closed as their flight made its final approach to land at TIA. She was sitting on the aisle for this flight so she had an easier run at the lavatories.

  At least she hadn’t puked during the flight.

  Next to her, Ted was crammed in the middle seat, with Mark on the window. The rest of the job had gone smoothly, with the couple saving their house by satisfying code enforcement and social services.

  She’d also confronted Purson in private on Sunday night at the hotel, after Mark had driven Kyle and Tris to the airport. He’d answered his room door and welcomed her in without a word, apparently knowing what she wanted.

  Once the door was closed behind her, she’d let him have it.

  “How could you tell Mark and Ted about me?”

  He arched an eyebrow at her. “Because I can’t in good conscience let someone be put at risk. Kinda against my whole reason for being. Besides, my boss would fucking kill me. Frankly, I’m more scared of him than I am of you.”

  She hadn’t met the network president Ryan Ausar, although she’d talked to him once on the phone. The man’s sexy British accent had burrowed into her brain in a scary way.

  “You didn’t know I was pregnant! It was just stupid luck that I was. What you heard was Brenda and Jim suggesting I could be! I didn’t know until after dinner, when they bought a test kit for me and we went back to my room!”

  He laid a hand on her shoulder, the other holding his amulet. “Remember the talk we had before, about staying flexible?”

  Soothing peace settled over her. “Yeah?”

  “This is that. Now, you’re going to have a long career doing this, but only if you don’t make yourself sick, or harm your baby. You wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt if you did that, would you?”

  He was right. “No,” she softly said.

  “Then don’t be mad at me, or at Mark, Josh, and Ted, for looking out for you. Just go with the flow. This is how your life should be. You should enjoy it, and those two hunks. They’re devoted to you.” He’d let her go, and by the time she’d returned to her own room, her anger at him had completely faded.

  He was right.

  She played with the tag on her necklace. Now that she’d made the decision, she couldn’t wait to be with her men again.

  A bump as the landing gear lowered into place startled her out of her thoughts. And when they landed, she nearly cried when they stepped off the monorail from the arrival gate into the main terminal and Kyle and Tristan stood waiting there.

  They swept her into a group hug. “I wasn’t expecting you guys here,” she mumbled.

  “We told Ted we’d come get you,” Tris said. “We missed you. Besides, you’re ours. Of course we’re going to come pick you up.”

  A thrill rushed through her at the possessive tone as he said that word.

  Ours.

  “What he said,” Kyle added. “Been missing you. Stanley’s ready for Mom to come home.”

  Tristan’s hand settled on her tummy and she realized his gaze was focused there. “How you feeling?”

  She laid her hand over his. “Better, now that I’m back with you guys.”

  They collected her luggage and bid good-bye to Mark and Ted. The men wouldn’t let her carry anything but her purse, even taking her carryon from her.

  At home, once she’d spent time petting Stanley and the men made her eat some dinner, they curled up together in bed.

  Tristan handed her a small plastic shopping bag.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it.” She couldn’t read his expression.

  Inside was an infant onesie with dolphins printed on it.

  Kyle smiled. “He saw it the night we flew back from Texas. The first thing he did when we got there tonight was go find the store so he could buy it.”

  She had to blink back tears as she met Tristan’s gaze. “Really?”

  He nodded and took it from her, laying it over her tummy before resting his head there.

  Kyle was watching Tris, but when he looked at her, she realized there was a story there that Kyle would tell her later. Kyle kissed her, then settled in, with her snuggled against him and Tristan still resting his head on her stomach. When she reached down to play with his hair, his hand closed around hers and he kissed it before pressing it to his cheek.

  Like that, she fell asleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Jess was in her office working on processing photos from job sites and making social media postings when Tracy, their office manager, knocked on her open door. Stanley lifted his head but didn’t move from his dog bed next to her desk.

  “You have a visitor.”

  Jess opened her tablet. “I didn’t think I had anyone scheduled for today.”

  “You didn’t. Her name’s Marilyn Thomas.” Tracy’s eyebrow arched, but Jess was aware Marilyn could hear from the lobby. Tracy had heard this story before and was obviously thinking the same thing Jess was: What the fuck?

  “Um…send her back.” She motioned Tracy farther into the office and dropped her voice so her words wouldn’t carry. “But if I punch the intercom, please send Mark and Josh in immediately.”

  Tracy frowned. “You want them here now?”

  “No, I want to hear her out. She’s Dillon’s mom.”

  “Okay. I’ll stay sharp.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jess hauled herself out of her chair and rounded her desk, smoothing her company T-shirt over her baby bump as she did. Five months along, and she was showing.

  A
lot.

  Something the men were obviously pleased about, considering how much time they spent stroking her tummy and leaning in to talk the baby. Especially Tristan.

  Collectively, they’d decided they didn’t want to know the baby’s sex. They’d rather have the mystery for now.

  Ironically, once her morning sickness passed, she hadn’t had a single episode of nausea.

  She played with her wedding band. The Monday after returning from Texas, the three of them had gone over to the county courthouse at lunchtime and got a marriage license for her and Tristan. Three days later, Loren and Ross met them at the courthouse at lunchtime and she married them.

  Well, married Jess and Tristan. Even though in the private room off to the side in the clerk’s office, where Loren performed the ceremony, she included Kyle in the vows, and he exchanged rings with Jess and Tristan.

  He also signed the license as the first witness, Ross as the second one.

  And both Jess and Tristan’s last names were now Lind.

  Dillon spent nearly every afternoon during the week with them after school, and Jess had even picked him up and brought him to work with her when Marilyn needed someone to watch him if school wasn’t in session. Jess and Tristan had both been added to his school records as emergency contacts and approved pick-ups…but Jess had literally laid eyes on Marilyn maybe a dozen times, and very briefly, since that afternoon confrontation in the men’s house.

  It’d been Jessica’s stipulation. Dillon was always welcome, but Kyle, or Tris, would have to be the primary go-between unless it was unavoidable.

  The men—and Marilyn—had agreed to that term.

  When Marilyn appeared in the office doorway, Jess hoped her own smile looked right. “Hi. Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I just wanted to talk to you.” She held up a large manila envelope. “I didn’t want to talk around Dillon. It’s not bad.”

  “Um, come in. Have a seat.”

  She didn’t ask to close the door, so Jess didn’t offer. She returned to her own chair behind the desk while Marilyn took a seat in one of the visitor’s chairs.