“We are not one of your random lovers from the past, Simon,” Robert said very slowly.

Christy had turned her face into Robert’s neck, and he could feel her tears on his skin. But she was stoic and said nothing. So be it. Robert would speak for both of them.

“Look at us. Christy deserves better, and you know it. How dare you come in here and speak words of love to her only to shut her out like this? Whilst at the same time you share a physical intimacy with her that is precious and rare and so perfect that you are undeserving of it until you admit your true feelings.”

Simon ripped his head out of Robert’s grip. “My true feelings?” he said angrily pushing to his feet. “Was this about feelings?” He pointed to the ground. “Making me kneel at your feet to apologize? The two of you together up there?” He paced away, and as always the sight of his ruined back made the muscles in Robert’s stomach clench.

“You don’t understand—” Robert began.

“Oh, I understand perfectly,” Simon cut him off. “You wanted to make certain that I knew Christy was yours. Well, never fear, I wouldn’t dream of trespassing again.” He faced them, his arms outstretched at his sides. “So here I am. Use me as you see fit. I am here to atone for my sins. And then you may cast me aside and consider my punishment fitting.”

“Simon,” Christy said softly. “Darling, you know I would never do such a thing.” Her voice was rough with tears and emotion and unfulfilled desire, choked off at its peak. “Everything I have said to you since your return has been the absolute truth. You must believe that.”

Simon wrapped his arms around his stomach as if he’d received a blow. “I thought…I knew that. I know it. But I can’t blame Robert for what he’s doing. I felt the same way when you accepted his proposal. I know that was my fault…God, let’s not go through all that again.”

He ran his hand through his hair and continued to pace, and Christy shifted in Robert’s lap so that she sat on one leg and cuddled in close to him. He wrapped his arms around her. He needed her warmth and support right now, too, to help him do what he knew needed to be done.

“Simon, I want you, too,” Robert said. Simon spun around and faced him. “You have to understand I don’t have experience with…with any of this. I’m tiptoeing through unfamiliar ground, surely you must see that. And surely you know me well enough now to know I wouldn’t intentionally hurt you like that, or seek retribution in such a manner. And I certainly wouldn’t involve Christy like this, not when her feelings for you are so genuine and so deep.”

He sighed and looked around, trying to find the words and gain his composure. “The truth is I never know what to say to you. Half the time I never know what to say to Christy.”

At his confession Christy looked up at him and ran her hand down his cheek until her index finger settled on his lower lip. “Robert,” she whispered. “You don’t have to say anything.”

“I know,” he said with a desperate little laugh. “but I’d like to. And lately, I felt like we were getting better at it. I do adore you. I love you.”

She raised her face for a kiss, and he obliged her with a kiss that was sweet yet arousing as their lips clung. Christy lightly sucked on his bottom lip and smiled at him as they pulled apart.

“I have never been good at discussing my feelings,” Robert told Simon, still looking at Christy. He finally looked at Simon. “When we are together I’m confused by feelings I’ve never had for any other man. You excite me, arouse me, challenge me. I breathlessly anticipate your touch in the same way I do Christy’s. What does it mean? I don’t know. That’s why I agreed to this. Am I falling in love with you? What does that even mean? Are my feelings an extension of Christy’s? Am I so afraid of losing her to you that I’ve imagined these feelings for you to make a place for myself in your lives? Based on the things I was feeling before your foolish comment, I don’t think so. My feelings appear quite genuine, as does my desire for you.”

He laughed ruefully. “But fair warning. I am only just learning my way around physical intimacies with Christy. What you were doing before, kissing her quim? I have only done once, last night. I still have a great deal to learn.” He paused, licked his lips and confessed, “When she kneeled between my legs to…well, I imagine she was offering to take my penis in her mouth. I’ve never done that.”

“I’ll be gentle.” Christy playfully bit his jaw and he laughed.

Simon had been silent through his entire confession. Robert looked at him, unwilling to bare any more of his soul until he knew what Simon was going to do.

He was unprepared when Simon strode over, cupped his face in his hands and kissed him hard. When Simon’s tongue probed, seeking entrance, Robert opened his mouth. He had kissed Simon before, that morning in his apartment. But it was a hazy memory, dimmed by sleep. This was a burst of rough desire in his mouth, as Simon drank his inexperience and his passion and gave him a lesson in seduction and leashed eroticism.

When Simon ended the kiss, he dragged his thumbs along Robert’s cheekbones while he stared into his eyes. “God,” he said, his voice a low rasp. “There is so much I’m going to teach you.”

“Thank God,” Robert told him sincerely. “I’ve been fumbling in the dark.”

Simon laughed and stepped back, leaving one hand on his cheek. He placed the other on Christy’s. “I’m on shaky ground,” he admitted. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve done this with meaning and significance.” He looked at Christy. “I guess, perhaps, when we were together it had those things, but I didn’t realize it.”

“I know it did for me,” Christy said. “You made me fall in love with you. I’d never been in love before.”

“God, how I must have devastated you. How you must have hated me,” Simon said. “I’m sorry. I can’t say it enough.”

“You say it too much.” Christy got up from Robert’s lap and slid into Simon’s embrace. “I never stopped loving you. That, I think, is what it means to truly love. I thought you had not wanted me, which was nothing new to me, was it? I had grown accustomed to being rejected by the men in my life.”

She turned and held out a hand to Robert, who rose and came to stand behind her. She was such a small thing, between him and Simon, and again Robert felt the thrill that came from that. Why, he didn’t know and didn’t care to explore it tonight. Perhaps another time. Tonight he would just enjoy it.

“You taught me that it didn’t have to be that way,” Christy said to Robert. “That men could be honest and true and not leave. I needed to know that men could just…not leave.” She turned back to Simon. “And I don’t mean that as an indictment of you.”

“I think I understand that,” Simon said. “I’ve just carried that guilt about Giselle around for so long…it’s not going to be an easy task to let that go.” He sighed and hugged Christy close, burying his nose in her hair. “This is complicated and hard.” He looked up at Robert. “I didn’t expect you.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” Robert said.

Christy laughed in delight. “That makes three of us. You have no idea how this delights me.”

“Does it?” Robert asked worriedly. “I don’t want you to feel like you aren’t still very important to me, Christy. I love you. I always will. You are my first love.”

“And I have already told you how I feel, Christy. I have dreamed of this. Of us. Of you. You got me through Africa. Without you…” Simon’s voice broke. He cleared his throat.

“I know,” she said, looking between them. “I fell in love with both of you almost from the first moment I met you.” She faced Simon. “With you, I could be myself, from the very beginning, and you accepted me as I am. No one had ever done that before. It meant the world to me.”

She turned to Robert. “And you…you saw me as perfect. I had never been perfect to anyone before. I had tried, so many times, but I always fell short. For you, I simply had to breathe and I was perfection. There was a freedom and wonder in that that still amazes me.”

She stepped out from between them to stand beside them and took each of their hands. “But back then, neither of you loved the same woman. Now I think I am a combination of both, and to have men such as you love and care for me is a wondrous thing. No, I do not mind if you also have feelings for each other. After all, I can completely understand those emotions, since I am still in love with you both and I always have been.”

Robert bent down and swept Christy into his arms. She squeaked in surprise and threw her arms around his neck. He turned and tossed her onto the bed, and she laughed.

“Where were we?” he asked Simon.

“Right here,” Simon said, crawling on the bed between Christy’s legs. He kissed her thighs. “I’m sorry for the interruption, my darling,” he purred. “I was an idiot.”

Christy spread her legs and guided his face to her quim. “Apology not accepted. Deeds, not words, will win fair maiden’s heart.”

Robert sat down on the bed beside Simon and watched as he began to lick and kiss Christy’s quim again. It was just as exciting as the last time, except he didn’t get the added thrill of Simon’s hand on him at the same time, which was probably a good thing.

“Come here.” It took Robert a moment to realize Simon was talking to him. Simon moved over a bit and indicated the bed next to him. Robert maneuvered next to him, and Christy put her leg over his shoulder. She was completely exposed and completely unselfconscious about it. He loved that about her right at that moment. They were going to be able to do anything they wanted with her, and she would be an enthusiastic bed partner. He shivered at the possibilities, most of which he probably didn’t even know about.

“Don’t just look at it,” Simon teased. “Taste it.”

Robert realized Simon had stopped and was waiting for him to take his turn kissing Christy. It was the most lascivious thing he had ever done, or could even imagine doing. He kissed like he had her mouth, ending by sucking on one of her soft, slick swollen lips. She moaned and her hips jerked.

“You don’t need much guidance here,” Simon said, amusement in his voice.

“It’s pretty instinctual,” Robert agreed. “She tastes so good.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” Simon took his turn and licked her from the soft flesh at the bottom of her slit all the way up to the little knot at the top, where he stopped to play with the tip of his tongue, making Christy thrash her head on the bed and clutch the bedcovers.

Robert noticed a bead of sweat rolling down Simon’s temple, and he leaned over and licked it off. Simon turned to him and kissed him lightly on the lips. The taste of Christy in their kiss was more erotic than Robert could handle. His mind simply shut down and his senses took over. The salty smell of Christy, and sweat, and summer flowers from outside, the creak of the house, the call of an owl.

Simon moved and Robert kissed Christy again, this time using his tongue as Simon had. Simon pushed two fingers back inside Christy and began to fuck her with them, hard thrusts, his fingers buried inside her to the base, and she fucked them back, grinding her quim on Robert’s mouth. Robert focused on the top of her slit, on the knot there, since Simon was busy below, and in moments Christy came apart beneath them, gasping and moaning as she arched her back and reached down to hold Robert’s head in place.

When her peak had passed, she collapsed on the bed and pushed Robert away. “No more,” she gasped.

Simon gently took her leg off Robert’s shoulder and moved it to the side. “Do you mind?” he asked. “Robert and I have unfinished business.”

“What?” Christy looked at them with dazed eyes. Comprehension dawned. “Oh, yes.” She rolled over onto her stomach and out of the way, watching them, still breathing heavily from her climax.

Robert was nervous, but so aroused he feared the scrape of his trouser buttons was enough to make him come. Simon didn’t give him time to think too hard about it. He pulled Robert close with an arm around his shoulders and kissed him, rough and deep, the way Robert liked it. Simon had learned that quickly. Or perhaps it was the way he liked it, too.

Robert kissed him back. The rough scrape of their whiskers was incredibly exciting. He could taste Christy everywhere on both of them. That was exciting, too.

Simon pushed his hips away but at the same time kept kissing him. Robert hesitated when he felt Simon’s hands on his trouser buttons, but he didn’t resist and he let himself fall into Simon’s kiss again. Simon just unbuttoned his trousers and nothing more, and it was a relief.

A moment later Simon pressed their bodies closely together, and Robert let out a cry into his mouth when their hips came together and his bare erection met Simon’s bare erection. Simon was gripping him tightly, his arm wrapped around Robert’s back, so Robert couldn’t move far away. He didn’t want to, not really.

“Tell me this is all right,” Simon said breathlessly when he finally broke the kiss. He kissed Robert’s jaw and then his collarbone and shoulder. He bit Robert’s shoulder, and the sting went straight to Robert’s cock. It felt hard as rock and he thought he was going to ejaculate any moment.

“Fine,” he gasped. “Fine.” His hips jerked, bumping his penis into Simon’s, and it felt so good he moaned.

“This will feel better, lover,” Simon told him. He pulled his hips away and Robert protested.

“No,” he said, grabbing at Simon’s hip, not willing to give up that penis next his. He never thought he’d feel that way, but right now Simon’s penis was as essential to him as Christy’s quim.

“Let me,” Simon said, slapping his hand away. “Watch.”

Robert opened his eyes and saw Simon aligning their cocks again. Then he wrapped his hand around them both. It didn’t quite fit. “Damn,” Simon muttered. “You’re bigger than I thought. Up.”

He went to his knees and pulled Robert up in front of him. Robert understood what he was trying to do now. He pressed his cock to Simon’s without being told, and the contact caused a shiver throughout his whole body. Simon noticed and looked up at him with a grin. Then he wrapped both hands around their cocks and began to pump.

Robert shouted at the bolt of pleasure that shot up his spine. He wrapped his arm around Simon and pulled him close, pressing his mouth to Simon’s shoulder to silence his sounds of pleasure so as not to wake the whole house. Simon was sweating and shaking and pumping his arms, and Robert didn’t care, he held onto him. As his orgasm got closer and closer, he bit into Simon’s shoulder to stifle it. Simon just grunted at the pain.

Then Robert came and it was glorious. His cock throbbed with each pulse of pleasure and his semen slicked down Simon’s hand, making his grip slippery, and then Simon came, too, and when his hot semen hit Robert’s stomach, he thought he might die from the pleasure of it. It was the same way he’d felt the first time he’d lain with Christy.

When it was over, when his thoughts, which had scattered across the universe during the onslaught, came back to settle in his head again, he reached out blindly and felt Christy take his hand in hers. She kissed his palm and he clasped her dainty hand in his and held Simon to his breast. He took a deep breath and felt everything fall into place inside him.