Piece Us Together (Monstrous Survivors #3)

21. Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Nolan

I wake up to only Hunter in the bed beside me, the man still fast asleep. It’s sort of amusing that he looks just as calm and in control now as he does when he has me on my knees or Maison blushing under his attention. The man just exudes dominance. Between that and his startlingly good looks, he’s a walking sex dream.

A walking sex dream that’s mine.

Well, my dom .

Well, not my dom, but my almost dom.

I gently turn away from him, ignoring the sudden ache in my chest. The sun hasn’t risen yet, though the sky is beginning to lighten. Something heavy settles in my stomach as I realize Maison probably had another nightmare, this one likely waking him up.

I don’t want to wake Hunter by rifling through the duffel bag for my clothes, so I pull on my underwear from last night and steal Hunter’s sweater. It’s only slightly too big and still smells like him. The ache gets a little harder to ignore.

I find the man I love— one of the men I love? God, this is getting messy— sitting on the rug in front of Hunter’s fireplace. His eyes are locked on the flickering flames as he sits with his knees drawn up and his forearms resting on them. There’s a mug of coffee by his hip. It’s not steaming, which means he poured it a while ago.

I come at him from the side, not wanting to startle him. There’s a blanket on the couch I grab on the way.

“Hey you,” I say before lowering myself to the spot beside him.

He blinks before turning to give me a tired smile. “Hey, baby.”

“It’s early. You should come back to bed.”

“Not in the cards today.” Definitely a nightmare, then.

He scoots closer to me before stealing the blanket and wrapping it around our shoulders. It’s almost like the fabric is a time machine. For just a second, I feel like we’re back at the safehouse, everything between us fragile and new and exciting. Now the fragile, new, exciting thing is Hunter, and I have no idea how to acknowledge that. How much longer are we going to pretend this isn’t happening? How much longer before the word love makes a necessary appearance?

I rest my head on Maison’s shoulder, smiling at the sigh of relief that leaves him at the contact. I always love seeing my effect on him. I like that I can make him feel as safe and happy as he makes me feel.

I just wish I could convince him to let Hunter do it too.

“Why are you awake so early?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I just woke up randomly. When I noticed you were gone, I didn’t want to try to sleep again without finding you.”

“I’m sorry. I can come lie down if you want me to.”

“No. This is nice, actually.” I move his right arm until it’s where I want it, then lace our fingers together in a gentle hold. His thumb immediately starts stroking the stretch of skin between my thumb and pointer. “I wish we got more of this.”

“Just us?” he asks.

He could mean just us without the guys in the house.

He could also mean just us without Hunter.

“Just…quiet,” I decide on. I like this moment, just us, but I’d love to have Hunter here too. It’d be perfect then. Right now, it feels like we have a piece missing. I don’t know when that started. I don’t know how to make it stop.

“Quiet is nice. It’s been a lot of years without quiet,” he murmurs. He tilts his head, resting his cheek against my hair. “Hunter makes things quiet. Have you noticed?”

My eyes close in relief. “Yeah, I have.”

“Scares me.”

“In a bad way?” I ask carefully.

“In a…way.”

I take a chance. It feels safe enough to, here in front of the fire, him with his guard down, us pressed together in our safe little bubble. “Things have changed with Hunter, haven’t they?”

He releases a long, slow breath. “Yeah. Yeah, Nol. They have.”

“In a bad way?” I ask again.

“Is it a bad way for you?”

I roll my eyes, letting some amusement leak into my voice. “I asked first.”

He shifts, the blanket slipping off our backs a little. I lift my head to let him adjust better. His face is lit by the fire, flames dancing in the blue of his eyes.

“He’s more than just your dom now. I don’t know what that makes him, I don’t know how anything is going to work, but he’s more than he was supposed to be.” He lifts a hand to my face, running the pad of his thumb along my jaw, then to my lips. His own curl in a soft smile. “And not in a bad way. Scary. Terrifying, really. But not bad.”

I force myself to maintain eye contact as I ask, “Are you falling for him?”

“Are you?”

“I asked—”

“I answered the last one first. Your turn.”

I narrow my eyes at him, but it’s playful. His smile grows. It feels safe enough to admit the truth. “I think I am, yeah. It’s different than how it felt with you. I don’t know what that means. I’ve never really loved anyone other than you. Crushes on guys in school, sure, but nothing real. Is it different every time? Or maybe I just—maybe I’m just falling for him as a dom?”

“You’re not just falling for him as a dom, baby.” He shakes his head, like he’s amused by me thinking that. “I saw you with him when he was just a dom to you. You couldn’t wait to get put on your knees, but when we weren’t in a scene, you were distant. He was a man you were going to play with, but not a man you were particularly attached to. I think, in the first week or two, I could have suggested trying another dom and you would have been fine with it.”

“That’s true, yeah. He wasn’t much of a person, at first. I think that’s mostly my fault. I framed him that way, in my head. I didn’t want it to feel like I was cheating on you, you know? We agreed to kink, we didn’t agree to opening our relationship.”

He nods, not looking upset at the fairly obvious direction this is going. “When’d it start changing?”

“I don’t know if I could pinpoint anything, but I realized it last weekend. During the sex mid-nap, actually. It just sort of hit me.” I nudge him. “When did it for you?”

His smirk falters a little. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I—I don’t know.”

My stomach sours. “Oh.”

“No.” He shakes his head, shifting more until we’re fully looking at each other. “I’m not saying I don’t feel something for him. I just—he…fucks with my head. It’s hard to place it. Sometimes I don’t know what the fuck I feel. Sometimes I think I fucking hate him, you know? And sometimes I feel like I—” He stops himself, dropping his chin. It kills me to wait, but I force myself to. He doesn’t make me wait long. “Sometimes it feels like he’s exactly what we needed to be whole. Like we didn’t quite fit somehow, until him.” He lifts his chin, eyes wide. He looks desperate. “It’s awful, I know. Fuck, it makes me sound like such a dick. I don’t mean we can’t be happy just us. I was— am , I am happy just in a relationship with you, Nol. You’re fucking everything. I promise. I don’t mean—”

“I know,” I say, grabbing his cheeks before he can spiral into a full-blown panic. “Hey. Shh. I know. I feel it too. Like—maybe he’s not a missing piece, but he’s the glue. The gold, like that art you told me about, remember? The Japanese one?”

“Kintsugi,” he says softly.

“Yeah.” I shrug. “We’d be fine without him. We’d just use regular glue. But the gold makes it into the art, you know? And Hunter—well, I think Hunter might be our gold, Mais.”

He leans in, resting his forehead against mine. “Yeah, baby. I think maybe he is.”

“I think we have to decide.” I say the words quickly. Breathlessly. “We have to decide if we’re going to let ourselves keep falling or if we need to stop before it’s too late. I don’t know how much longer I can—once I fall in love with him, all the way, once I’m in it, I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk away. There’s no way I could have with you, you know?”

His eyes close, the pressure from his forehead a little harder as he presses against me. I move my hand to the back of his neck to anchor him there. He grabs the fabric above each of my hips. Hunter’s sweater. He clings to it, exhaling shakily. “I think—”

“Well, good morning.”

We jerk apart, Maison spilling his coffee and me almost tossing the blanket into the fire. Hunter frowns as we shove to our feet, nearly push each other back down, then steady ourselves. “I’m sorry. Did I interrupt something? I can—”

“Nope,” Maison says, cutting him off. I shoot him a look that he unfortunately doesn’t see. He just weaseled his way out of finishing that conversation, the lucky jerk. “Good morning.”

I let myself sigh once, dramatically, then force the whole conversation into the back of my mind for later and give Hunter a sunshiny smile. “Good morning, sir.”

Hunter eyes us, calculating. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sees right through us. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could tell exactly what our conversation was about, and not because he was eavesdropping. He’s so good at knowing. Scary good, as Maison would say.

Does he know we’re falling?

Is he too?

“Well then,” he says after a few seconds. “Shall we figure out breakfast? I hear we’re only two movies away from another Captain America . I’m hoping Cap makes another handsome friend like Bucky. Or I’m hoping Cap walks around shirtless. Or both, actually. I’m down for both.”

I have to bite back a smirk. He doesn’t know Bucky is still alive. I hadn’t realized today would be when he finds out. I can’t wait to see his face.

I can’t wait to beg him to fuck me after watching Bucky in that sexy-as-sin outfit, stalking around like he’s about to tear someone— me, please, thank you —apart.

“Eggs?” I ask since they’re fastest.

Hunter chuckles. “Sure. Let’s have eggs.”

Sometimes I forget Hunter is a sadist. He’s been going relatively easy on me. Or, more accurately, easy on Maison by way of me. He’s only shown little peeks of it, skirting the edge of the more intense stuff, testing the waters.

Now, settled at the edge of the bed with a waist harness of rope that dips down to bind my cock and balls almost painfully tight, a softly vibrating plug in my ass, a back covered in warm-up marks from a flogger, and Maison’s cock in my mouth—all of this after Iron Man 3 but before Winter Soldier , regardless of how much I begged for us to get to continue—I’m remembering the whole sadist thing.

The vibrator turns up. It distracts me just long enough for me to miss Hunter grabbing the flogger again. The leather slaps heavy against my ass. It hurts worse now that he let me have a break. I shiver with the intensity of the pain, trying to keep myself from begging for more. I’m already in enough trouble after the complaints about taking a break. I just wanted to see Bucky Barnes, okay? A guy has priorities .

“Am I boring you?” Hunter asks just before his fingers pinch the abused flesh of my ass cheek. I jerk forward, choking myself on Maison’s cock. Maison’s hand grips my hair and keeps me there instead of letting me lurch back. It startles me, almost making me gag for the first time in years. Hunter laughs. “That’ll entertain him.”

“Does he need to hurt you more, baby?” Maison asks. It’s hot. Later I’ll be mind-blown about how good he is about the pain thing when it’s Hunter delivering it, but I’m way too turned-on right now. I rut my stupid, bound cock against the bedding even though I know it’ll be fruitless. They both laugh at me. My face burns with the humiliation, my cock throbbing in sympathy. “I think he needs more, Hunter.”

“Well, can’t tell our boy no, can I?”

I have just long enough for my mind to snag on our boy like it always does.

Then I’m hit with something that has a much sharper bite.

I pull off of Maison’s cock, him allowing it the moment he realizes what I’m trying to do. His eyebrows bunch together in concern. I ignore it, looking over my shoulder just as Hunter brings the flogger across my ass a second time. I manage to stop the shout of pain, but I can’t stop the small whimper that follows it. “That’s a different one.”

He smirks. “Good boy. Yes, it is.” He swings it again. I flinch a second before it hits, which means my stupid muscles are tense, only making things worse. It stings. It fucking stings a lot .

Tears burn my eyes. Hunter tilts his head, not looking concerned, just curious. “Color?”

“Green, sir,” I gasp, turning my head away. It was the surprise that got me more than anything. Then the tensed body, which always hurts more than when you’re relaxed. I can handle a flogger that’s less thud and more sting. It just threw me off. I look up at Maison to see he’s still worried. “Green, Mais. It’s good. It’s—” I pause, sucking in a rough breath when the tendrils slice across my ass again. It’s a white-hot kind of pain. And I thought him not letting me watch Winter Soldier was sadistic .

“What were you saying?” Hunter asks, sounding amused.

Maison looks relaxed again, palming his cock with one hand while running the fingers of the other hand through my hair. I whine and press into his touch, then press my face into his wet cock. He chuckles as I nuzzle my way to the tip and get my lips around it. Hunter hits me again just as I swallow Maison’s cock down.

I don’t know which one of us moans louder.

“You can hump the bed all you want, darling. I don’t think that rope is going to let you finish.”

I don’t understand what he’s talking about until I realize I’m working my bound cock against the bed again. This time is different than before. It’s not leisurely. It’s not just a warm pleasure. It’s jerky and desperate, a fire inside threatening to drive me mad.

The vibrator is turned up.

I sob against Maison’s cock.

“You know what? I think we should play a game.”

There’s just a second—just one—where my body goes perfectly still.

I’ve played some very awful games in my life. Some of them I don’t know how I survived. Some of them I didn’t want to.

Then I have Hunter’s hands on my waist, warm and steady, and Maison is pulling his cock out of my mouth and grabbing my wrists to guide me up on my knees. I can smell Hunter’s deodorant. I can see the brilliant blue of Maison’s eyes. Safe. I’m at Hunter’s, I’m with him and Maison, I’m safe.

I relax just as Maison drops a hand to my cock and drags a fingertip down it. I shudder, falling back against Hunter with a needy moan. He holds me up easily, his teeth nipping at my shoulder.

“I like games,” Maison says, looking at Hunter instead of me despite his hand still playing with my throbbing cock. It’ll never stop being hot to have them talk about me like I don’t have a say. “How do we play?”

“Nolan, get on your hands and knees in the center of the bed, your back nice and straight. Maison, get off, I’ll need you standing.”

With a lingering squeeze of my cock that has me a little dizzy, Maison lowers me until my hands are on the bed, then climbs off to stand by Hunter.

They murmur, too low for me to pick up the words. Then someone is kneeling on the bed beside me. I get a flash of a blue shirt—Hunter, then—before he brings a black strip of fabric to my eyes. I hold still as he secures it, anticipation trickling down my spine and pooling in my groin.

“You were so good at noticing the difference in the flogger. So observant, darling. Let’s test that, shall we?”

It doesn’t seem like he wants an answer, which is good. I’m a little upside down mentally at the moment. I blame all the blood going to my damn cock.

“Now you get to guess which one of us is playing with you when we ask. Guess right, we’ll give you nice things.” He tsks, sounding disappointed even though I haven’t messed up yet. “Guess wrong, and your ass gets more red.”

I moan, not even sure which of those options I want most.

To be good, I guess. I always want to be good.

“Pay attention,” Hunter warns from the left.

A hand touches me on the right. I turn my head as if I can see, trying to pay attention like I was told. It’s not a calloused touch, but that might just mean Maison is using his fingertips. Or it could mean Hunter moved over there after speaking.

There’s another touch on my left ass cheek. It drifts down, nudging at my plug until I’m arching my back and whining all high and needy. I don’t beg though. I’m going to be good. I’m going to play the game and be as good as I can be and they’ll let me come when they decide I’ve earned it.

God, just the thought of that has me dizzy with another wave of—

“Maison?” Hunter says, the name sudden and off-tone.

Someone settles their hand on my back, not to stroke or hit, just to steady me. It’s like a touchpoint as I feel the presence behind me move away. A reminder that I’m not being abandoned.

There’s a single moment where I wonder if this is part of the game. I hold my breath, ready for whatever mindfuck they’re about to toss my way.

Then Maison responds.

“Red.”