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***
"Here. Take these." Flo put two Aleve and a Dove dark chocolate bite in its bright red wrapper on Sam's desk, next to her open can of Diet Coke. "You're moving like you're ninety."
"I think I wept during Downwa
rd Dog at yoga this morning," Sam confessed. She wagged a finger at Flo. "Do not smirk."
"Don't give me orders, little sub." Flo flicked Sam's ear with her long nails, but she softened it with a light touch on Sam's hair. Then she smirked. "So things went as planned after I dropped you off?"
"Yes. But I'm having to rethink the plan. I wanted to get them on the same page, feeling comfortable with all of us . . . being together." Out of habit, Sam glanced toward her office door, making sure none of their other coworkers were wandering by to hear their assistant manager discussing her sex life. "Apparently, them being on the same page means they're happy doing it one-on-one and as a threesome. They're insatiable."
"They're men. Handsome, powerful young men at their sexual peak." Flo shuddered. "You poor thing."
"Your sympathy is bringing tears to my eyes. Again. I think the plan is out of my hands now."
"Then all is as it should be," Flo intoned, and dodged her jabbing elbow. "I've got to get back to my desk. Take the painkiller and chocolate to get you through the rest of Monday."
As Flo retreated, chuckling, Sam tossed back the Aleve and chased them with a swallow of Diet Coke. Unwrapping the Dove bite, she placed the smooth chocolate on her tongue, her lips curving slightly at the taste and . . . well, everything. Despite Flo's teasing and her own complaints, she wouldn't have traded a moment of her weekend. And yet . . .
She stared sightlessly at the screen as her mind dove backward into all the amazing experiences they'd shared over the past forty-eight hours. Geoff's intent gaze, Chris's hands sliding over her skin, them inside her, around her . . . It had been the erotic bliss she'd fantasized about for months. Glancing down at her hands, she turned them upward, staring at her palms. They looked so empty, as if she needed to be holding onto Geoff and Chris physically to be . . . right. She shook her head, trying to get rid of the feeling. She'd had it several times this past weekend, but it kept coming back. She thought Geoff had picked up on it once or twice, giving her odd looks, but he'd left it alone and she hadn't wanted to talk about it. She hadn't wanted to ruin anything with some weirdness she couldn't define.
Today, when they'd had to turn their attention back to work and real-world demands, she'd expected the feeling to vanish, but as the morning progressed and she struggled with her reports, it came and went more frequently, an urgency that pricked at her until she couldn't sit still. The uncomfortable tides of emotion and physical agitation made her feel slightly hysterical one moment, close to tears another. But when it passed, everything else was a humming euphoria, it had to be a temporary thing.
When it had happened during the weekend, all she'd wanted to do was jump whichever one of them was available. Pounding, insistent sex appeased it for a time. She should have talked about it to Flo, and couldn't pinpoint why she hadn't.
Stop it. You have to work. You remember work, right? That thing that allows you to pay your bills.
She shook it off, but compromised. For every fifteen minutes she worked, she indulged in a two minute fantasy flashback. As soon as it gave way to that strange, less comfortable feeling, she forced her attention back to the job. It didn't result in a terribly productive day, but she supposed the silly grin Flo kept seeing on her face for the fantasy part of things provided her coworker some Monday morning levity. And kept her from noticing the other, darker feeling Sam was unable to comprehend.
At least by quitting time, Flo's Aleve and chocolate had helped restore her energy and flexibility. As she pulled into the driveway and got the mail from the box, Sam was moving more easily. She flipped through the mail, mostly bills and junk, and found a hand-addressed lavender envelope from Naughty Bits. Opening it up, she smelled a hint of jasmine. Reading through the contents, she smiled, making a note to share the invitation with her men.
Her men. She liked thinking of them that way. Curiously, though, when she thought of Geoff alone, she simply thought Master. She'd even doodled it on her notepad while on the phone resolving an account problem today. Sir came more easily to her in front of Chris, though she wasn't sure why she was self-conscious about calling Geoff Master with Chris watching.
She paused in the kitchen, clutching the mail to her chest, overcome with a longing for the two of them so hard it almost made her lightheaded. "Stop it," she whispered. She knew there was something wrong with the strength and tone of that feeling. It was like the exuberance of a child confronted with pounds of candy and no parent to supervise how much was consumed. Over time, that ebullience would give way to uncertainty and unbalance, as well as a weird, unsettling panic, as if tipping over an edge with nothing to hold. A blind search for structure, safety and control needed would be accompanied by a serious sugar crash.
She wanted to keep consuming the candy, but she was an adult. She knew how to tell herself no, right? Yet she resisted that idea like a child, resentful that too much candy could make her sick. She was going to keep eating it until someone told her no . . .
Well, someone had said no, hadn't they? She wondered if that was the root of what was bugging her. At the end of the weekend, Geoff had suggested no sex or sexual activity for the next several days, giving them a mental breather to wrap their minds around what had happened thus far. Which she'd agreed to, in theory, though her assent had felt hollow to her. They needed to keep pushing this. Didn't they see that, feel that, the way she did?
She shook her head. Even if she had talked to Flo about it, she wasn't sure how she would have presented it. Her mind was cycling like an engine caught in a higher gear, with no way to downshift. Then suddenly it switched off again, leaving her achy and uncertain. Strangely empty.
Fortunately her phone distracted her from the dilemma, with a beep tone that told her she'd received a text from Chris or Geoff.
When she opened it, she saw Geoff had sent one to them both. Hey, Merry's got a free overnight for us at her Bat Cave place. The one with the crazy decorating and hot tub. Fri-Sat, just the three of us. Sound good?
Chris had sent a thumbs-up emoticon, and she did the same. They'd gone up to Bat Cave before. The quaint little North Carolina town was in the shadow of Chimney Rock. However, on their previous trips they'd been there with Merry and her husband. This would be the first time they'd have the place to themselves, under their new circumstances.
She frowned. Circumstances. When people talked about a threesome, they thought of something temporary, a fling or fantasy come to life. She thought of what Chris had said, joking about the unrelenting demands of three-way sex. But that wasn't the main obstacle to thinking of a threesome as . . . a relationship. A permanent one. Society, emotions, jealousy . . . hell, tax returns. Things weren't set up for three people to be bonded, were they?
Going into her bedroom with a fruit snack, she sat down at her computer and pulled up the FetLife website, one of the more reputable lifestyle forums. She typed in polyamory. That was the term Flo's friends used, the ones Sam had met when Flo took her to their private parties.
From listening to their discussions, she knew swinging was categorized differently from polyamory. Yet polyamory had its own subcategories. Three or more polyamorous partners whose connections were primarily sexual were still considered different from swinging because the connections were long-term and consistent, though it appeared the lines could be blurred. Then there was further overlap with three or more partners who shared lives as married couples did, which could include child care, living together and providing emotional support as well as physical intimacy. While it reassured Sam to know her questions weren't unique, the different opinions offered on the forum thread made her head spin.
Throw in the BDSM elements, and it became even more complex. There were plenty of permutations of Masters, subs, slaves, domestic discipline households and the like. As she read through different postings, she found some of it matched what she knew about her, Geoff and Chris, and some of it didn't. Did it have to fit, or was it like an ocean, with all different types of life and ecosystems that work
ed as a part of the whole? She liked thinking of it that way.
The funny thing was, she was a traditional girl. She'd always thought of a relationship as falling in love, getting married, maybe having kids. How did that work if she was in love with two men? What would her parents and siblings think? She wouldn't spend her life hiding who she loved. She was part of a practical, up-front family, and she couldn't see herself pretending to be something she wasn't with them, no matter their initial disapproval or negative reactions. They loved her and she loved them; hence, they'd work around to acceptance or at least tolerance in time. They all knew Geoff and Chris, and her parents liked them both a lot. Even though they'd initially had mixed feelings about her living with two men, they'd seemed okay with it when they understood it was a roommates situation. Though her mother had nudged her in Chris's direction. Then Geoff's. Or maybe both?
