By the time we reach our apartment, we've decided to at least hear them out at brunch. See the property. Decide as a pack whether this feels right.
But one thing is clear: Eleanor and Harrison aren't the same people who cut Dorian off two years ago. They've changed. Genuinely changed.
Maybe enough to trust with this.
We get back to the apartment—a comfortable one-bedroom in Queens that we upgraded to when the trust fund wasrestored. Not extravagant, but spacious. Ours. The reviews post at midnight. Until then, we have four hours to exist without knowing if the critics loved me or destroyed me.
Four hours to be just us.
"I'm going to shower," I announce. "Then I want all three of you in bed."
"We can do that," Dorian says, and I hear the heat in his voice. We've been careful leading up to opening night—no sex, no distractions, just focus. But the show is open now. And I'm so wound up from the performance and my mother and Eleanor that I need to feel something other than anxiety.
I need to feel them.
The shower is hot enough to burn, washing away the theater makeup and the institutional smell of Riverside and the weight of two years of fighting for every inch of success.
When I come out, wearing nothing but a towel, all three of them are waiting.
"Strip," I say. "All of you."
They obey immediately, and I watch the reveal of bodies I know intimately now. Two years of sharing space, sharing beds, learning exactly how to make each other come apart.
My heat isn't due for another week, but I feel the edge of it approaching. The sensitivity. The wanting. The biological drive that tried to trap me and now just adds edge to desire.
"On the bed," I order. "I'm going to ride each of you until I'm satisfied, and you're going to take turns making me come."
"Fuck," Dorian breathes. "Yes."
I drop the towel and climb onto the bed. They're all hard already, cocks leaking, bodies responding to my scent and the command in my voice.
I start with Oakley because he's been patient. Straddle him and sink down slowly, taking his cock inch by inch while he gasps underneath me.
"You held me when I cried about my mother," I say, rolling my hips. "You came to Riverside even though institutional settings remind you of your father's rehab visits. You've been perfect."
"Vespera—" he moans as I clench around him.
"So you get rewarded," I finish, riding him hard. "Come inside me. Fill me up. Claim what's yours."
He does, gasping my name, hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. I feel his knot start to catch and pull off before it fully locks.
"Not yet," I say. "You don't get to knot me until I say."
His groan is agonized and aroused.
I move to Corvus next. He's watching with that calculated intensity, tracking every movement, analyzing what makes me gasp.
"You've been researching Riverside," I say, sinking onto his cock. "I saw your browser history. Looking into treatment options, success rates, family support structures."
"You weren't supposed to see that," he says, but his hands come up to grip my breasts.
"You're still taking care of me," I say, riding him slowly. "Still trying to fix what's broken. Still being better than you were."
"Always," he promises, and I feel his cock pulse inside me.
"Then come for me," I order. "Show me you're mine."
He does, spilling inside me with a control that breaks at the end, his fingers digging into my hips as he fights not to knot.
