Page 153 of Better When Shared
Rhodes, Greece
The weeks blurred together in a haze of azure waters and golden skin, each port more beautiful than the last. In Crete, we’d hiked through ancient ruins and had a picnic along dramatic coastline. In Santorini's Gemma had rented a cliffside villa, where we’d spent the day enjoying each other, and the view, leaving just as a sunset painted the sky in shades of fire. Then we’d landed in Rhodes, with its medieval walls and lovely beaches. Gemma had somehow rented a private beach, where we'd spent the afternoon fucking in the shadow of ancient stones.
Back on the ship, we lounged in bed, exhausted from the adrenaline rush of fucking right on the beach. My hands worked over Enzo's shoulders, kneading the tension from his muscles, and I couldn't help but marvel at how natural being with him and Gemma had become.
Enzo lay face-down on the Egyptian cotton sheets, his dark skin still flushed from our earlier activities, and I let my palms trace the familiar geography of his back. Every ridge of muscle, every scattered freckle from the Mediterranean sun, every place where Gemma and I had left our marks. His body was a map of our journey together, and I was memorizing every detail like a scholar studying sacred texts.
"Fuck, that feels good," he murmured, his voice muffled by the pillow. "You've got magic hands, Brian."
My fingers drifted lower, working the firm globes of his ass with practiced attention. He was still loose from when I'd taken him on the beach, still slick with the evidence of our passion, and I couldn't resist pressing my thumb against his entrance just to watch him arch beneath my touch. The soft gasp that escaped him sent heat straight to my cock, but I forced myself to focus on the massage, on giving him this moment of pure sensation without expectation.
Through the suite's floor-to-ceiling windows, I could see the lights of Rhodes harbor twinkling like fallen stars. But the real constellation was right here in our room—Enzo sprawled beneath my hands, and Gemma stepping into the glass-enclosed shower with a smile that was pure sin and satisfaction.
Fuck, she was beautiful. Water cascaded over her pale skin as she reached for the handheld showerhead, and I watched transfixed as she ran it over her body with deliberate sensuality. The evidence of our afternoon adventures washed away in streams of heated water that made her skin glisten like pearls.
"You two are going to be the death of me," I said, my voice rougher than intended as I watched her soap her breasts with languid strokes. “Look at her. Anyone who ever called her an ice queen must have been nuts.”
Enzo lifted his head, following my gaze to where Gemma stood framed by glass and steam. Her eyes met ours through the transparent barrier, and she gave us that wicked smile that had become as essential to my happiness as breathing. Then she turned, presenting us with the elegant curve of her spine, the perfect heart shape of her ass, and began washing herself with movements that were clearly designed to drive us both insane.
"She knows what she's doing," Enzo said, but his voice carried a note I hadn't heard before—something wistful, almost melancholy.
I resumed my massage, working my thumbs along his spine as I tried to place the shift in his mood. "You complaining?"
"Never." He was quiet for a moment, and I felt tension creeping back into his shoulders despite my ministrations. "It's just... this is all so perfect. Too perfect."
The words hung in the air like a challenge. I continued working his muscles, buying myself time to think, to process the vulnerability I could hear threading through his voice. Enzo was never vulnerable—he was sunshine and easy laughter, the kind of man who deflected serious conversations with jokes and wild stories. But lying here in our bed, watching our woman shower off the evidence of our passion, he sounded almost... fragile.
"Perfect how?" I asked, though I suspected I knew where this was heading.
He turned his head, and when his dark eyes met mine, I saw something that made my chest tighten with unexpected emotion. Fear. Raw, honest fear that he was trying to hide behind his usual charm.
"The cruise ends in less than a week," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Five days, and then what? You go back to Philadelphia, Gemma goes back to England, and I..." He trailed off, his gaze drifting back to the shower where Gemma continued her sensual display. "I don't want to go back to my old life, Brian. I can't. Not after this."
"Enzo..." I started, then stopped. My hands stilled on his back as I struggled to find words that wouldn't sound like the emotional coward I'd spent years perfecting. "This was supposed to be casual. Just... just a vacation thing. You know that."
The moment the words left my mouth, I knew they were wrong. Not just wrong—actively cruel. I watched Enzo's face change, saw the way his eyes shuttered and his jaw tightened, and I realized I'd repeated the same bullshit defense mechanism that had kept me isolated for years.
"Right," he said, his voice carefully neutral. "Casual. Of course."
But it wasn't casual. Nothing about what we'd built together was casual. The way he'd offered himself to me, the way Gemma had bloomed under our combined attention, the way I'd foundmyself thinking about forever for the first time in over a decade—none of that was casual. It was terrifying and complicated and unprecedented in my carefully ordered life, but it wasn't casual.
I watched him start to pull away, saw the familiar walls going up behind his eyes, and something fierce and possessive unfurled in my chest. No. I wasn't going to let him retreat, wasn't going to let my own fear destroy what we'd built.
"That's not true," I said, my voice coming out rougher than intended. "That's not fucking true at all, and the only reason I said it was because I’m scared shitless of the intensity between the three of us."
Enzo went still beneath my hands, and I could feel the tension radiating from him like heat from a furnace. In the shower, Gemma had disappeared from the shower, which meant she was in the bathroom, drying herself.
"I've spent years convincing myself that I don't do relationships, that I'm not capable of commitment. But this... what we have... it's not casual. It's the most important thing that's ever happened to me."
The words felt like jumping off a cliff, like free-falling into space without knowing if there was a safety net below. But they were true, and Enzo deserved the truth. Gemma deserved the truth.
"You mean that?" Gemma’s voice came, soft and shaky from the bathroom door, and I could hear the hope warring with caution in her voice. I could see it echoed on Enzo’s face.
"I mean it." I met her eyes. "I don't know how we make it work. I don't know the logistics or the practical details. But I know I'm not ready to let either of you go."
Suddenly Gemma was there, water still beading on her skin, her hair slicked back from her face. She didn't say anything, just climbed onto the bed with us, her wet body pressing against Enzo's side as she looked between us with those sharp green eyes.
She smiled—not the wicked, seductive smile she'd given us in the shower, but something softer, more vulnerable. "I've been thinking the same thing," she said quietly. "About not wanting this to end. About not wanting to go back to the way things were before."
