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Alertness tingled through my veins and aroused every point of contact. We lay on our sides on a blanket covering the hard floor, all three of us in cotton shorts, chests bare, with me in the middle. My breasts pressed against Roark’s back. The hard ridges of Michio’s chest pinned me from behind. My fingers rested on the deep cuts of Roark’s abs, and Michio’s legs hooked around mine. Roark’s feet angled away—heaven forbid, the guys accidentally touch.

Through skin-on-skin, their masculine force of Yang somehow protected me, a theory that stretched the limits of my agnostic beliefs. But I couldn’t argue with the evidence. Swaddled by strength and satiny flesh, I escaped the nightmares that had terrorized me since the outbreak.

Warm breaths glided across my shoulder. The nearby flames flickered shadows over our cuddle, the waft of hickory smoke smothering the mildew that clung to the cabin walls.

Michio’s hand curled around my hip and flattened over my stomach, his knuckles so close to Roark’s ass he had to have bumped it. His caress dipped beneath the elastic of my shorts, and all the heat in my body descended, throbbing beneath his fingers, as he rubbed and teased and spread me open.

I held still, certain I shouldn’t encourage him while sharing the makeshift bed with another man. But those fingers persisted, his intention blatant in the hard jab against my thigh. My inner muscles clenched, and I lifted a knee to part my legs, even as my stomach tightened with guilt.

A glance around the room confirmed Jesse was outside, either sleeping on the porch or guarding the edge of the woods. The single interior door closed off the room where Elaine slept. When we cured her a month earlier, we burned her bed and the three bodies decomposing atop it. Thankfully, she only remembered her children alive and healthy, her nymph fever saving her from the gruesome details of their deaths.

The hand between my legs pulled me back, mentally, then physically, stroking with the intoxicating skill of a doctor. He scissored his fingers, sliding deep, in and out to the pace of his quickening exhales.

Goosebumps prickled my spine, and wet heat eased the entry of his fingers. Of my three guardians, he knew my body best thanks to months in his care during my captivity on Malta. In the span of a few panting heartbeats, he took my arousal from a low burn to a frenzied boil.

I flexed my fingers, brushing the short hairs below Roark’s naval. His blond dreads tickled my nose, the strands knotted with leather ties and braids, yet soft against my face and clean with his oaky scent, like his skin. If he were awake, his hips would’ve rocked to urge the path of my hand. So responsive, my priest.

He was celibate in the most literal way. Other than our one time, he didn’t fuck me. At least, not my pussy. He found relief in my mouth, my hand, and most often, grinding against my leg. The man had mastered the art of dry-humping.

Technically, his vow was long past violated. Blow jobs, hand jobs, all of our stolen moments forbidden by the Church. The Vatican was gone, the Pope likely hunting the streets of Rome with a serrated mouth. Laws and doctrines no longer existed, but Roark’s integrity and faith remained intact, practiced through his own rules. Foreplay without shagging gave him some whacked-out balance between his god and the woman he loved.

My feelings about that wrestled in constant battle. Relief. Frustration. It made a mess of my emotions. I wanted him. That much, I knew. I also wanted Michio and Jesse, and if asked to choose between them, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I shared something different and special with each of them. Did that make me selfish? Would it be kinder if I ignored their reciprocated desire? God, their heated looks. I would have to avoid eye contact. It would make things weird.

And empty.

It was already uncomfortable, my nipples pressed against Roark, as Michio fingered me with long strokes. The diabolical rhythm of his thrusts produced a quiver in my thighs and a sheen on my skin. His erection nudged my ass, and his free hand shoved down his underwear just enough to free his cock.

I turned my head and found his eyes. Black as the night and too deep to measure, they sucked me in and swallowed me whole. Hints of his Japanese heritage delineated their large shape, as well as his olive skin and the inky shine of his cropped hair. But his Caucasian father must have given him the square chin, thick neck, and long legs.

His powerful frame flexed into a tight curve around my back as his fingers thrust deeper, harder. He kissed my mouth, neck, and shoulder, and slid his cock against his strumming fingers, prodding my flesh, seeking entry.