"I know." Dominic's voice is wrecked. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."
"I wanted you so badly and you were using me." My hands fist in his shirt. "I wanted you before I even understood what wanting felt like because my mother made sure I never learned. The first time I let myself want something, it was a scheme."
"I know." His hands hover near my face without touching.
"Every time I think I'm past it, something reminds me." My voice cracks. "A word or a touch or the looks you give each other when you think I'm not paying attention. And I go right back to wondering which parts were real."
"All of it was real by the end. Every part." Amos speaks from behind me, his arms still around my waist, his mouth close to my ear. "The beginning was wrong and we own that. But every moment after we fell for you was real."
"The beginning matters." I press my palms against my eyes. "The beginning is where I was vulnerable and you were calculating."
The bedroom is quiet except for my breathing.
Dominic is kneeling in front of me on the carpet with his hands at his sides, his belt still unbuckled. His face shows every crack that his boardroom composure would never allow.
His hands come up slowly and cup my face. The gentleness makes me flinch because five minutes ago these same hands were holding me down.
"I love you." He says it looking directly into my eyes, his hands on my face. "I should have said it before we bonded you. I should have said it before I ever touched you. I love you, Mattaniah. That was never part of any scheme. That was never strategic. That was just me falling for you and being too much of a coward to say it."
The words don't fix anything.
"I love you too." Amos says it against the back of my neck, his lips brushing the bond mark he left there. "I've loved you since the garden. Since the night you sat in the dark and cried because you thought nobody could see you. I sat on the other side of the wall and knew I was done pretending."
"I don't know if I can trust that yet." My voice comes out small and honest. "The love might be real but something in me is broken and I don't know how long it takes to fix."
"Then let us prove it every day, as long as it takes." Dominic's thumbs trace the tracks of my tears.
"You keep saying that."
"Because it keeps being true." His forehead drops against mine. "I will say it every day until you believe it. And then I'll keep saying it."
My hands come up and cover his on my face. The contact sends warmth flooding through the bond marks on both sides of my neck.
"No more sex tonight. Just hold me."
"We've got you." Amos' arms tighten around my waist.
They clean me up without being asked. Amos retrieves a warm washcloth from the bathroom while Dominic lifts me onto the bed and pulls the blankets up. The nest fabrics are there, surrounding me. Amos climbs in on my left. Dominic takes the right.
Dominic's thumb traces my lower lip. My mouth opens around it on instinct and my jaw closes on the familiar pressure.
"You used the safe word." Dominic says it against my hair, his thumb still in my mouth. "I didn't hear it the first time."
I pull his thumb out long enough to answer. "The second time was louder."
"The first time should have been enough." He's quiet for a moment. "I should have been paying closer attention."
"You stopped the second you heard it. You stopped the first time too, you checked." I guide his thumb back to my mouth. "That's what matters."
"Niah is right." Amos' hand rests on my stomach. "The safe word worked. You stopped. That's the system functioning."
Dominic's face is against my hair, his thumb remaining in my mouth. The bond pulses between us, his anger at himself running alongside Amos' reassurance.
My eyes are closing. The crying wrung out everything I had left.
"Dominic." I say his name around his thumb, the word barely intelligible.
"Hm?"
