Irolled over in bed and smiled.
Life was good.
Fucking amazing.
Or as our girl said, stupendously spectacular.
Hayden lay facing me, an arm folded under the pillow his head rested upon. The hand of the other arm curved over Marcie’s ass, and if the lump under the bedclothes were anything to go by, it dipped into the darkness between her thighs.
The man took my breath away with how sexual he was—all the damn time. Oh, the joys of having two partners ten years younger. I’m sure at some point they’d make me feel old, but for the time being, I enjoyed getting my dick sucked and my ass fucked regularly. Add in Marcie’s pussy and, holy hell, I was a lucky fucking man.
My eyes moved from one partner to the other. Marcie lay on her belly, her hands and arms tucked under her body. I couldn’t see for sure, but I was certain she had wrapped her hands around the Squirt we bought for her. The OG Squirt, the one her father bought her years ago, now had a spot of honor on the dresser after Hayden refused to sleep with it.
I still fucking chuckled at the look on his face when Marcie climbed into bed with that stuffed toy the first night we slept together.
“Oh, fuck no. Absolutely not,” he said.
He stood next to the bed, naked, his hand stretched out doing gimme fingers.
Marcie’s eyes teared up as she clutched the toy and stared up at him. Naked, sitting crossed legged in the center of the bed the toy tucked protectively between her glorious tits, she encapsulated both innocence and sex. Like night and day, they blended into the perfect woman. And she was all ours.
Unless the fucker I married scared her off by being a goddamn asshole. I glared at him like he’d grown fucking horns and turned into a monster.
“Hayden…”
He turned and grabbed the turtle we’d gotten her before turning back to her. “Switch with me.”
“What’s the big deal? It’s the same damn toy,” I said.
“No. It’s not. Not at all. That one,” he pointed at the one Marcie held, “was purchased by herfather. Read the room, goddammit. She’s naked. I’m naked. You’re naked. Therewillbe fucking. And I, for one, refuse to sleep or fuck in a bed with a toy her dad bought her.”
Marcie’s gaze widened, and she clocked Hayden with the turtle when she threw it at him while simultaneously snatching the newer model from his hand. That had been the last time she carried the OG Squirt around. He had a home, but it wasn’t in our damn bed, and I appreciated Hayden pointing that out before I realized it and got the ick.
A hand found my hip, and my eyes moved from Marcie’s face back to Hayden’s. His eyes were still closed, but they wouldn’t be for much longer, as I knew from experience. The man still got up at a godawful hour every morning to work out.
With so many former service members in the house, the days started early around here because they all worked out as the sun rose. While most of us were up for morning PT, Foster’s boys and I were typically late-nighters and night owls. As were Katie, Jackson, and Marcie. Heidi, while she’d never served, had adopted the practice of rising early when Celeste came home from the military. With Priest and Cameron providing night watch, everyone made sure PT was early enough that those two got their workouts in before crashing for the day.
Despite how well everyone in the house got along, the atmosphere was bittersweet as it had been all the days and weeks that followed our arrival here. The stalker and his accomplices were in the wind while Cato busily searched for them without much luck. Which put us all on edge, but it wasn’t that.
The turmoil came from Jackson and Katie. They were together but not. They slept next to each other every night and from the sounds coming from that part of the house they were fucking again, but they weren’t talking.
The boy was a Holt through and through, though. Determination, grit, and perseverance wove through our bodies like it was part of our very essence, and he had all three in spades. Somehow, he’d tapped into the minuscule amount of patience we each had hidden deep within. I didn’t know how he did it. I’d never found mine, but I assumed it was there since all the Holt men were similar in so many other ways, and they all had a modicum of the trait.
So, yeah, while the atmosphere in the house as a whole was in the crapper, I’d never been happier. Marcie, Hayden, and I were all doing well. Better than good. We were figuring things out and fucking ourselves silly, but fully immersed in this relationship we were forging with each other.
We filled our days with heated glances and shy smiles. Needless to say it wasn’t Hayden and I with the shy smiles. Marcie was still adamant that we keep things on the downlow, and I agreed, to a certain extent.
I didn’t know how the fuck Katie and Jackson hadn’t figured out what was going on. Yeah, they had their head’s up their asses or in the sand depending on the day and the topic, but Hayden and I were physical men. Our girl’s love languages were touch and praise, so keeping our hands to ourselves or even reserved to each other… yeah, we fucking sucked at that shit.
Katie and Jackson were adults. I didn’t see them having a problem with us. None of the security team had an issue with it. At least not after Hayden and I sat our friends and family members down and had a very blunt conversation about Marcie’s position in our relationship.
It had been awkward as fuck, but needed. Marcie knew about the conversation. Now. She hadn’t been aware when we had it because, well… we didn’t think she needed to know until after we slayed those dragons for her, so to speak. Once we told her that the family knew, and had agreed not to tell Jackson or Katie, Marcie relaxed.
The last month has been the best of my life. Hayden and I were in a good place. The demons and ghosts of our past were fading away. Some days, I woke up wanting a drink, but once I got on my feet and started the day’s routine, it drifted away from my mind. Other days, I didn’t think about it at all, not even when the guys around us had a drink with dinner.
The therapist I did my counseling with and Cato explained that it was part of the disorder. Did it suck? Absolutely. But I worked my program, and I didn’t let the fact that I had triggers bother me overly much. I dealt with them as they cropped up and went about living my life. It sounded easy. It wasn’t, but what in life was?
Not a goddamn thing.
