Page 84 of Revelry

Was there though? Or will their constant push and pull wear me too thin?At some point all three of us will have to face the reality of what we’re doing here.

Coop makes a derisive sound in the back of his throat, pulling me from my thoughts. Levi bites down on my earlobe, snagging it between his teeth, then he trails kisses over my jaw. His hands tilt my chin towards him and he kisses me, slow and deep, until I feel as though I can’t breathe.

When Levi releases my mouth, I turn back to Coop. He’s watching me with hard blue-grey eyes. I know he’s not happy. I felt it this morning when he kissed me goodbye, but I didn’t know what it meant until now. He’d been studying us since the second he walked through that door. It all becomes clear as day: he thought Levi and I would fuck without him, and the idea scares the shit out of him, if his expression is anything to go by. His eyes seem to bore into me. He looks so tormented, but I know Cooper—he’s stubborn to a fault, and I know this is one question he can’t bring himself to ask.

Infinitesimally, I shake my head, and the tension just drains out of him, replaced instead by a fierce swell of possession. It’s so odd how you can barely know someone and yet know their thought process exactly, and feel all too keenly what him or her are feeling. There’s more than just connection and our bodies joining at play here. I don’t know what it is, but the three of us are supposed to be intrinsically intertwined. I feel that more deeply than I’ve felt anything else in my entire life. I can’t explain it, and it’s far too early to feel anything but lust and affection for either of them, but in many ways they both own pieces of my heart. It’s making them fit together that’s the challenge.

“You’re thinking again.”

I laugh softly. “Yes, I am.”

“What about?” Levi says, his palm splayed across my stomach.

I sigh and swallow down the lump in my throat. “I don’t—”

“Talk to us, Ali,” Cooper demands. There’s so much there in that one look, so much lust and pain and challenge. It’s as if he wants my pain, because he hurts too, so why shouldn’t I? What he doesn’t know is that I already feel it, from head to toe, with every fibre that makes up my body. I feel everything he does and more, infinitely more because I don’t just feel for him, but for both of them, and for me.

I’m the bridge that connects us all, and it scares the shit out of me that a strong wind could come and blow it all away—that’s how tenuously I’m holding onto both of them. That’s how fragile we are. At any given moment, a breath, a harsh word or a mere look could tear it all apart. Tear us apart, and I don’t have a clue what comes after that storm, but I never want to be standing in the desolation left in its wake.

I’m losing my mind. I’m sinking, drowning, and on fire all at once. I’m split down the middle, torn in half by two different men, two different bodies pushing and pulling me in all directions, breaking me down and then lifting me up again, shoving me into the fire and soothing my scorching flesh with their kisses that act as a balm.

When it becomes apparent that I can’t say anything, that I can’t make sense or put into words exactly what I’m feeling, Coop seizes my face with his hands and kisses me tenderly, so softly it brings tears to my eyes. I turn and bring Levi’s lips down to mine, and those wretched tears track down my cheeks.

“Hey, did we hurt you?” Cooper says, but I just shake my head.

Did they hurt me?

No, not physically. Not in any way that will show on the outside, but it hurts, so much, because I know this won’t end well. I know better than anyone that we’re walking on shaky ground, and that we’ll likely all get hurt in the fall, and that after the dust has settled maybe we’ll be okay, maybe we won’t. A part of me never wants to find out. The rest of me knows that I will be walking away with a broken heart. It’s foolish to believe anything less.

“No,” I whisper when I have words again. “I think I did that all by myself.”

“Red—” Levi begins, but I turn so I can see his face too and I silence him by pressing a finger to his lips.

“Can we just sleep here tonight?”

“Yeah,” Coop says, trailing his fingers along my hip.

“Why are you crying, Red?”

“Because I know eventually this has to end.” I stroke his cheek and then turn and do the same to Cooper. “And I’m not ready to face that yet.”

“Why does it have to end?”

“Come on, Levi. You know why.”

“There are plenty of polyamorous relationships that work out,” he says. “Look at Hugh.”

I give him a sad smile. “Last time I checked, polygamy wasn’t working out so well for all of those bunnies.”

“Well yeah, because there’s a hundred of them,” he mumbles.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, my throat constricting. “No matter what we do here, this ends badly for one or all of us.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Levi says, resting up on his elbow in order to see my face. “Why can’t we just be without putting limits on it, especially a time limit?”

“Because it does have a time limit.” I take a deep, shaking breath. “What, are we going to do this forever? Settle down in the suburbs with a dog and a white picket fence, the perfect little household of three?”

“I don’t know. Why can’t we just be with one another and see where it all leads? We don’t need a label; we’ll make our own fucking labels.”

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