Hesitancy, Monty detected a ton of it, but he kept quiet. This was between them.
“Whenever suits you both. Unless you’ve changed your mind.” Kendrick’s naked shoulders moved in a casual shrug, yet his expression said differently as Monty watched. His jaw bunched and the lines around his eyes deepened as the time ticked by with Rue saying nothing. “It’s up to you.”
“Yeah… I mean, if you’re serious, we could do that. I can do it any evening.” Rue, for the first time, looked at Monty. “If you’re still interested, we co-ordinate?”
Shit on a stick, the conversation made it hard to get Monty’s voice box to produce a sound with his heart rate thundering through him. Rue being the one to initiate this, yeah it was epic. He nodded, trusting that was enough.
“Great, I’ll send my work schedule,” murmured Kendrick, coming forward to cup Rue’s cheek and then reaching for Monty’s, encouraging them both closer. The three-way kiss was a little messy, tongues, lips and angles still weird, but Monty didn’t care. He moaned at the two tongues vying for entry into his mouth, sweeping over his lips, tasting, sucking, teasing until he was mindless, hanging on to both men, fighting to get closer as they lifted him to them to make the kissing easier.
He was floating in the air between them; it was fucking hot.
When Kendrick eventually let them go, Monty wasn’t the only one to moan in complaint. They were all flushed and breathing hard when, wordlessly, Kendrick went and unlocked his front door.
Whatever he’d expected after the last few days, it wasn’t this anticlimactic feeling lodged in his chest as he walked out ofKendrick’s home, Rue at his side. Unfinished business. It was unfinished business.
“Later,” murmured Kendrick, standing at the top of the steps, his gaze unreadable.
In the truck they’d borrowed once more, Monty looked out the window, and Kendrick gave them a salute, then stepped back inside as Rue gunned the engine.
Minutes ticked by, the radio playing softly as they made the return trip to the ranch—for the last time.
Blowing out a breath, Monty sighed heavily, his fingers fiddling with the button on his shirt.
“Do you want to continue… this? Really?”
Monty didn’t pretend like he didn’t know what Rue was referring to, despite how he never looked in Monty’s direction.
“I wanted to continue it after you left my home,” he replied honestly, deciding while Rue was willing to talk, that he’d use the opportunity when there might not be another once they returned to the real world. “I’m attracted to you. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that what’s between us is mutual, always has been. Now I understand better that you have needs I could never meet alone, I get the distance you placed between us after we had sex. If I wish you’d mentioned it before, then that’s something I have to deal with, not you. Now I realise why you didn’t.”
He twisted in his seat in the cab. With the sky still dark outside, Monty couldn’t clearly determine what Rue thought. “What we’ve been doing these last few days with Kendrick”—he didn’t say that he’d do it with a different third, he wasn’t sure about that—“I don’t want it to stop. Is that clear enough for you?”
“You aren’t…”
Monty waited but when Rue didn’t look to continue, he prompted, “Aren’t I what?”
“Put off by…”
“You and another alpha getting it on with or without me being involved?” Monty went with, doing his best to contain his amusement.
“Yes,” Rue replied, not sounding particularly happy.
Monty considered his answer, knowing it was important. “I’m gonna say it again, just to be clear. Rue, I’d have taken you any way I could after you paid me a visit.Any way, if you had given me the chance.If you give me the chance now.”
Did it leave him vulnerable, confessing? He supposed it did. Except Monty never shied away from the truth, not when it came with the potential to give him something important.
“Having a third in my bed,as part of a relationship,wasn’t something I’d given any thought to, I confess. However, I’m attracted to Kendrick and you… at the same time. It changes things. And I’m happy with that. Fuck, more than that…”
The truck slowed, and Monty noted they were back at the ranch. A sense of urgency came over him, and he placed a hand on Rue’s sleeve as the truck came to a halt outside the main house.
When he glanced at Monty, out came the worry. “All I ask is that you don’t shut me out like before. I know things will be different without Kendrick to be a buffer for you. Just don’t lock me out, okay?”
The door opened and Ethan stood there in the glow of interior light, and Monty cursed under his breath.
Ethan’s assessing gaze moved between them, his lips tugging into a smile. “I see we’ve been playing hide the sausage in town.”
“Mind your own damn business.”
Monty got out, seeing the conversation was over for now, when Rue continued to have words with Ethan.
