These hands. The same fingers that pressed the keys on a phone at 2 AM. The same thumbs that hovered over the keypad while I slept. The hands that dialed a number memorized at seventeen and the hands that are now pressing lavender into my scalp, and I let both truths sit in the water with us.
My eyes close.
Cole keeps me steady from behind. His arms around my waist, keeping me upright while Dante works through my hair from the front. The two of them coordinate without speaking, Cole holding me still while Dante works.
Dante's fingers move to the crown of my head. The pressure changes, deeper, unhurried, circles that I feel in my jaw, my shoulders, the base of my skull. The tension I've been carrying in my neck loosens by degrees. One knot. Another. His thumbs press behind my ears and a sound comes out of me, low,involuntary, the sound the body makes when something held too tightly finally opens.
His hands still. His thumbs behind my ears. His mouth close to my forehead. His fingers press deeper into my scalp, the rhythm breaking, the care becoming something heavier.
"I love you," he says. Quiet. Into the steam.
His fingertips resume. The circles. The care. The words settling into the lavender, the warm water, the gentle pressure on my scalp.
"I hear you," I say.
"Tip your head back," he says.
I tip. The water reaches my hairline. Cole's palm cups the back of my skull, supporting. Dante pours water over my hair with one hand, cupped, careful, keeping the stream away from my eyes. His other follows the water, fingers combing through the strands, working the shampoo out.
The water runs down my neck. Over my shoulders. Dante follows it. His palm traces the path the water takes from my hair to my collarbone. Still gentle. His fingers trace my collarbone. The hollow at the base of my throat. Down.
His palm settles over my breast. Light. His thumb brushes the nipple once through the water.
My breath catches. Cole's arms tighten.
"Is this okay?" Dante asks. Low.
"Don't stop."
His thumb circles again. The water makes his touch slippery, warm, the friction reduced to almost nothing. My body arches into his hand. Cole's mouth on my neck from behind, lips, then teeth, the gentle scrape along the tendon.
"Both of you," I murmur. "Slow. Stay slow."
They do. Dante's hand on my breast, sliding lower as he eases back down into the water, his mouth following the path his palm traced. Cole's hands slide from my waist to my hips, his fingerstracing the curve of my hip bones under the water. The pace is deliberate. Patient. The opposite of every other time, the kitchen table, the intensity of the first time all three of us were together.
Dante's mouth reaches my stomach. His lips just above the waterline. His breath warm against wet skin. His hand slides from my breast down my ribs, over my hip, and his fingers brush between my legs underwater. Light. Careful.
I open my legs. The water shifts.
Cole's hand joins Dante's. Two sets of fingers under the water, Cole from behind, circling my clit with the steady pressure he knows I need, Dante sliding one finger inside me, then two, the curl forward that finds the spot on the first try because he's mapped my body and the map is permanent.
The dual sensation builds slowly. The warm water. Cole's mouth on my neck. Dante's fingers inside me, his eyes on my face, watching, reading, his pupils blown wide, his lips parted. My hand grips the edge of the tub. My other reaches for Dante. I grab his wrist and hold. His pulse under my fingers.
"Don't close your eyes," he says. "Look at me."
I look at him. His face close. Water beading on his jaw. The tattoos dark against wet skin. His hand moving inside me with measured care.
Cole increases the pressure on my clit. Dante curls deeper. The combination tightens at the base of my spine. The orgasm building in slow, rolling waves instead of the sharp, cresting peaks I'm used to. The water carries the heat, the sensation. The three of us held in it, through the temperature, the touch, the liquid between us.
"Let go," Cole says. Against my ear. "We've got you."
I come. Slow. The wave rolling through me in long, heavy contractions that I feel in my stomach, my thighs, the soles of my feet pressed against Dante's legs. My grip on his wrist tightens. My back presses harder into Cole's chest. The sound I make isquiet. Almost lost in the water. But both of them hear it, Dante's fingers still inside me, Cole's arms tightening, neither of them shifting until the last pulse fades.
The bathroom is quiet. Steam on the mirror. Water cooling. My body loose and heavy against Cole's chest.
My hand wraps around Dante under the water. He's hard, has been through all of it, keeping himself at bay while he put my body first.
"You don't have to—"
