They took me together. I lay in the middle of the bed on my back. John sprawled out at my side, limbs loose, wearing a lazy smile as he swirled his fingers over my skin. His erection pressed into my hip, but when I tried to reach for it, craving the feel of silk covered steel, he stilled my hand with a gentle touch.

He chuckled at my frustrated groan. "In a moment."

Henry, sitting on his heels between my legs, sent him an amused smile. "John sometimes likes to prolong his release for as long as possible."

I turned my eyes to my husband. "Why?"

His amber gaze followed his fingers as they skimmed over my belly and then up between my breasts. "It heightens the pleasure."

"Truly?"

In answer, he simply nodded. His palm was warm as he flattened his hand over my breast. "Your nipples are so pink," he said, bumping his fingers, one after another, over my right one.

I shuddered beneath him. John, so adept at reading my cues, was proving to be a quick learner. Each time he had heard me sigh, felt me shiver, and watched my eyelashes flutter, he must have noted my responses and filed them away. He rifled through those memories now and employed them like the master tactician he was. His gaze drifted to my neck as he leaned down. He paused there, lips a millimeter from my skin. I drew in deep breaths, filling my nose with the alluring, exotic spice of his cologne.

It was strange, the way the mind and the body were connected. Several times over the past few days, I had walked through a room he had recently been in, caught a whiff of this scent, and stopped dead in my tracks, rendered breathless with desire. It was becoming a trigger for me, because I couldn't smell it without thinking of the last time I had been close enough to bury my nose in it.

John closed the distance between us on some small cue from my body, scorching a line of rough kisses down my neck. I felt a touch on my knee and looked to Henry. He met my gaze and dropped his hands to my thighs. Compared to the creamy paleness of my skin, his own looked even darker in comparison – more of a burnished bronze than deep olive. He curled his fingers in, dimpling my flesh, and then stroked his hands all the way to my hips. His broad chest rose and fell. In the low light, his eyes were like twin pools of liquid obsidian. He gripped my hips within his large hands and tilted my pelvis forward, toward him.

One hand dipped low, between my thighs, and he ran his thick fingers through my folds, pausing at my entrance. His eyes dropped to watch what he was doing, and for some reason, the sight of him staring straight at my sex drew as much pleasure from me as his fingers did.

All the while John continued to kiss me, lips trailing over my collarbone before grazing the side of my breast. Both of the men were touching me, but neither in the places I needed them to. I felt hollow without Henry's fingers filling me up, abandoned without the feel of John's nimble tongue stroking my nipple.

I curled my hands into fists and let out a frustrated growl.

Henry chuckled. "It seems she doesn't share your predilection for delayed satisfaction."

John lifted his head, pausing with his lips just above where I longed for them to fall. "Only because she hasn't yet been taught the joys of it."

"Later," I said, my body thrumming with want and need and impatience.

John sent me a devastating grin from inches away and then fastened his mouth over my nipple. Henry pressed the pad of his thumb to my clit and sunk his thick finger inside me.

My head fell back against the pillow. Yes, this was what I needed. I could come like this. Easily.

John ran his tongue over my nipple, paused to suck on it, and then repeated the motion, while Henry massaged my clitoris with his thumb and rubbed in and out of me in long, languorous strokes. My inner muscles tightened around his finger, and I shifted my hips beneath his hand, trying to find a better angle, wishing it was his heavy cock that filled me up instead. Perhaps I could take one of them after all, if I sat astride them.

That thought fled a moment later when I thrusted upward with a bit more force and my ribs screamed in protest. Henry must have seen me wince, for he slowed his movements and held my hip in place with his other hand.

"Lay still, Kit," he said, the words full of command.

A frisson of lust chased the order. While John and I both craved the chance to cede control to him, I had no scruples about rendering myself vulnerable to the larger man, and I went utterly motionless beneath the men.

I opened my eyes again to see Henry nodding.

"Good," he said.

He continued to stroke in and out of me even as he leaned over and snatched the oil from the nightstand. I expected him to pop it open and coat me in it, but instead he set it on the sheets beside my hips. Then he leaned down, pressed his lips to my clit, and I was lost to my pleasure. God, how I wanted to shift my hips and thread my fingers through John's soft, golden hair, but more than that I wanted to lay here and let them bring me to completion on their own.

Between my thighs, Henry let out a hungry groan and plunged two fingers inside of me. I had to fight the urge to arch into him. What was worse was the struggle to keep my feet planted and my knees where they were instead of clamping my legs around him.

Was this heaven, or hell? Four hands plied my flesh, two tongues chased after my pleasure. Every nerve in my body had come to life, sparking like a million tiny fuses on the verge of catching fire. From everything I'd heard, heaven was far too tame to offer such earthly delights, so if this was hell, then I would gladly join the legions of the damned.

My breaths turned into gasps. My clitoris throbbed beneath Henry's tongue.

I nearly moaned when he pulled his finger all the way out of me. Cold air rushed over my heated flesh as his lips left my mound. I blinked my eyes open to see him reach for the oil.

"Ready?" he asked, lust turning his voice into a deep, base growl.

"Yes," I told him.

John lifted his head from my breast to watch Henry pour oil into his palm. He paused to heat it between his hands, then he slicked his fingers through it and dropped them to the cleft between my cheeks.

John's fingers tripped down over my stomach and then stroked through my low curls before taking up position where Henry's lips had just been. Henry loomed between my legs, large and brutally handsome. Muscles rolled as he reached out and slicked one large finger back into my cunt.

"Close your eyes," John whispered. "And relax."

It was only when he spoke the words that I realized I had tensed up. One of my banned books had gone into great detail about the pleasures of the anus, but what stuck out to me now was the mention that more training was needed to accept a man there than inside a cunt. For the life of me, I couldn't remember all of the details.

"Will it hurt?" I asked, doing as John instructed.

"Not if we do this slowly," he answered.

It took me several more moments to fully relax. In that time, John's fingers stroked my clit, Henry plied my cunt, and John's tongue tormented one nipple and then the other with an expertise that soon had me gasping again.

Only then did I feel the slight pressure between my cheeks, but I was too far gone with pleasure to tense up this time. And then Henry's finger began pushing inside my other entrance.

I had expected it to hurt. It didn't, not really, but I would never describe it as a comfortable sensation. My muscles clenched around him, resisting penetration. It felt like my body was a hairsbreadth away from actively trying to expel him.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

I nodded, trying not to squirm.

He stilled his hand. "Kit."

"I'm fine," I told him. "Simply adjusting to the feeling."

John's lips left my nipple. "No pain?"

"No," I said. Thank God. I wanted to take them like this. If pain was involved every time...I didn't think I'd be able to.

"Any pleasure?" John asked.

"Uh..."

Henry pushed his fingers a little deeper, angling them towards each other inside me until –

Oh my God.

I moaned.

Henry repeated the motion, and my eyes rolled back in my head. Those long, thick fingers of his were hitting two spots deep inside me that made my entire body shiver in pleasure.

I could feel John smiling as he latched his lips onto me again. His fingers went back to work on my clit, and he lifted his other hand toward my mouth. I knew what he was after the moment he touched my lips, and I parted them and dragged his middle finger into my mouth. My bruised cheek pinched a little in protest, but it was pain I could ignore because my pleasure was far greater.

Yes, this was what I craved, being so filled by them that I felt like I couldn't even breathe. What was air compared to this? It suddenly seemed less critical than I had once thought it.

I sucked greedily at John's finger. His lips popped free from my nipple and he rasped in a ragged breath.

"Christ, Kit," he swore, cock jutted against my hip like iron.

Henry moved closer, and I could feel his larger length pressing into my thigh. All desire to move fled from my body as I imagined their cocks replacing their hands. I lay limp on the bed, only my mouth moving, surrendering to them, a keening moan building deep inside me. Fingers stroked; tongues laved. Fire licked over my flesh, burning with such intensity that I felt like I would be left singed in its wake.

I came a heartbeat later. It hit me fast, hard – a raw explosion of pleasure that tore through me like a lightning strike and then rolled through my core like thunder. My screams were muffled by John's fingers. Thank God Henry held my hips still as my body, moving on instinct alone, tried to buck against him. Henry slowed his strokes as the storm of my release faded, and then carefully and gently pulled his fingers from one entrance and then the other. I lay limp in the bedsheets as he placed a kiss against my bandaged knee and then went to clean his hand off.

John's cock still pressed hard against my hip. He'd gone back to trailing his fingers over the less erogenous parts of my body. My head lolled toward him, muscles loose with spent pleasure.

"Now?" I asked, reaching for him.

In answer, he nodded and leaned just far enough away to open up room for my hand between us. I reached down and trailed my fingers up the length of his cock, lightly, savoring the feel of his heated flesh. A bead of wetness appeared at the tip, and I stroked my fingers through it and then ran them over the head of his manhood.

"Tease," John said, but from the tone of his voice, he liked it.

I shook my head. "No teasing. Just enjoying the feel of you. And trying to learn what you like."

"Oh, I'll tell you what I like." He rolled away from me, falling flat on his back. "Wrap your fingers around my base. Yes, just like that, Kitten."

A thrill shot through me. He had never called me by my nickname before. I realized then that I would do whatever I had to in order to keep him like this – utterly unguarded, wearing every emotion open on his face for me to see. I would gladly wrap my hand around his cock, pleasure him as often as I could. Hell, I might get a hammer and some nails and close us up in this room forever. We could cut a hole in the door so someone could pass us food every now and then, whenever we stopped fucking long enough to eat.

John let out a low moan as I gripped his cock in my fist, eased my hold just a little, and then stroked up the entire length of him.

The mattress shifted beneath Henry's weight as he rejoined us. His bottomless gaze followed the motion of my hand – up, down, up, down – for several long moments. The only sound in the room was that of our breathing and the distant cracking of the fire.

John lifted his head to look at Henry and spoke in a tone made to issue orders. "Are you going to sit there and stare at me, or are you going to fuck me?"

Henry's gaze darkened, but I thought I saw a small spark of amusement hiding there. "You're rude when you're impatient, did you know that?"

John rolled his eyes at him. "Yes, yes, it's one of my many character flaws. We can – Christ, Kit, do that again – we can discuss it in detail later."

Henry unstoppered the oil and coated his cock in it. He eyes rose back to John's. "After I fuck you?"

John nodded. With his hair disheveled and his pupils blown wide from lust, he looked wild, half feral as Henry closed the distance between them. Henry handed the oil to me as he settled himself between John's thighs, and I went to work coating my own hand in it so I could stroke my husband with greater ease.

Henry gripped one of John's muscular thighs and lifted it, while the other fell to his cock. I watched from a foot away as Henry angled his length between John's cheeks.

"Don't you dare be careful with me this time," John said. "She's not going to run screaming from the room if we get rough."

Henry paused at the point of penetration. "Is that what you want?"

John nodded again, this time a little frantically.

Henry bared his teeth in what might have been a grin, albeit a savage one. "Too bad."

John let out a low groan that was half pleasure, half frustration as Henry slowly pushed inside him.

"Kit loves us. We love Kit. And we almost lost her today," Henry said through gritted teeth. "I am not going to fuck you. I am going to make love to you. Because today taught me a lesson about cherishing the people I love for however long I'm able to. And you, John, are going to lay here and you are going to take my cock as long and as gently as I tell you too." He paused, barely inside, and stared down at the smaller man.

The wildness fled from John's eyes. Jaw gritted, he nodded.

Henry glanced over at me and then leaned down to press a kiss to my temple. "Together," he murmured.

I wrapped my hand back around John's cock, and as one, we took him, just as they had me. John's expression remained frustrated for several long minutes as Henry thrust, slowly, in and out of him and I matched the tempo with my hand. But then Henry leaned down and kissed him, and when their lips pulled apart, he whispered, "I love you."

John stiffened, as if some part of him rejected the words, thought himself unworthy of the words.

"I love you," I echoed.

John closed his eyes, tightly.

I had always thought him so strong. The master of his emotions. He masked them so easily and expressed them so rarely that I still underestimated the strength of them. Where I had tried for so long to ignore the darker, more problematic aspects of my personality, John seemed to embrace his, but now I questioned if it was that simple.

John knew that he was different than others. And not just because he was attracted to both men and women, but because he felt so little for those he didn't think of as "his". Because of his struggle sometimes to understand and relate to the emotions of others, even those he loved, like me and Henry. He knew that some of his desires and wants and needs were considered abnormal. I began to wonder, just a little, whether part of his confidence was nothing but bravado.

He had all but declared himself a monster to me in the carriage the night he asked me to consider taking both men as lovers. Why? To warn me? To push me away? Or so he could be the first to do so? Had he worried that once he let me in, once he really let me see him, that I would be the one to call him monster and so he had gotten ahead of it?

Oh, John.

Despite my injured cheek, I leaned closer to him and dropped a kiss on his shoulder.

"I love you," I said again.

"I love you," Henry told him.

I don't know how many times we said it before John was finally able to accept the words. Eventually he blinked his eyes open, resignation apparent within those beautiful ochre orbs. His jawline relaxed, and instead of gripping Henry's shoulders like it was only the larger man's command that kept John from trying to haul him closer, harder, faster, they fell to his back and he began trailing his fingers over him as he had me.

Henry glanced in my direction and grinned, brilliantly, triumphantly, before dropping his lips back to John's. I sighed as they kissed, and even though I was spent, desire coursed through my body. Before, Henry had set a measured, almost lethargic pace, but now he increased his rhythm and thrust into John with strokes that were a half-tempo faster than slow.

I lay on my least injured side, facing them. John's hand fell from Henry's back and landed on my hip, fingertips digging into my skin as he arched his back. With my free hand, I took him by the wrist and guided his fingers between my legs. He let out a low moan as they slicked through my wetness. I kept my legs closed, increasing the friction between us, and he made love to me with his hand as Henry and I made love to him.

My climax was less intense this time, but no less pleasurable, for it allowed me to look, with eyes wide open, at John's face while he made me come. The sheer joy I saw there stole my breath away.

"God, Kit. Henry," he moaned.

A moment later, warmth coated my hand as he came.

Henry was last, driving deep into John, his chest shaking with shudders as he called out his name. He collapsed to his elbows then, still inside John, and dropped a line of languid kisses down his neck. I snuggled closer to them, nuzzling my nose against John's shoulder, so deliriously thankful that I had survived the horrors of the attack and the riot, to return home to the men I loved.

John let out a low sigh. "Fine."

"Hmmm?" Henry murmured into his skin.

"I needed that more than a fucking," John said, sounding for all the world like the admission had actually hurt him.

Henry pulled his lips from his neck and looked at me. "Grab a piece of paper. We need to mark the date and time."

I grinned.

John rolled his eyes at the larger man. "You're not funny."

Henry raised a hand and booped him on the nose with the tip of his finger, like he was some sort of small, adorable baby animal and not the Hellion of Hampshire.

John's eyes flashed wide. His face became the most perfect portrayal of affront that I had ever seen.

I rolled onto my back and gave myself over to laughter.