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We settled into a bit of a groove after that.

Peter and Aidan moved in, bringing more and more belongings over, until there was nothing more to bring.

We didn’t mark it in any way, but they lived here now, in our quiet house.

We all slept together in my bed, though Kade had begun to slip out and sleep back in his own after the nightmares stopped.

We lived in a quiet bubble of endless movies on the TV, lying curled around each other on the couch, a steaming cup of tea waiting on the coffee table, just resting, healing, waiting.

The first morning I’d woken to find myself in bed with two attractive men had been a difficult one.

I’d stretched sleepily, clad only in one of Peter’s shirts again, before opening my eyes to see Aidan—not Kade—watching me.

He didn’t move, didn’t say anything, but those hazel eyes studied my face, then skimmed down over every part of my body that was revealed by tossing off the covers during the night.

But his eyes returned to mine, searching for signs I was OK, I was willing to bet.

They did it a lot when they thought I wasn’t looking, touching base with each other with some kind of secret guy language.

I stared back, which was better that than letting my eyes wander.

The guys were wearing less and less to bed lately, stripping down to what felt like the flimsiest of sleep shorts.

They weren’t really, but the stretchy grey material—that I’d seen many women on social media call male lingerie—clung to both their muscular forms.

Not that I looked. Whatever a pack was, we had it going on in here, with Kade at the centre of it. I made sure to keep my eyes above the waist at all times.

But Kade wasn’t here right now.

Aidan smiled, slow and lazy, the sleepiness not entirely gone from his eyes, his breath coming in long and slow, almost as if he breathed me in. His hand slid across the bed, stopping well short of touching me, but the offer was clear. Then I heard the groan.

My eyes went wide when a hand slid around my waist, flattening against my stomach, and Aidan’s eyes followed its progress.

They went even wider when I felt lips against my neck, a strangled gasp fighting its way out of me.

Aidan’s head jerked up, and he rolled into a seated position, ready to intervene, but my hand slid out and grabbed his.

“Experiment and play, Flick,” Ophelia had said at one of our sessions. “You are entirely safe. Consent is queen in Sanctuary. All boys and men are taught no means no from a very young age. Both of them would be delighted to let you explore things a little, I’m sure. What do you have to lose?”

“But what if they?—”

I stopped, all of a sudden feeling uncomfortable talking about sex with someone who could have been my grandmother.

“Get hard? Want to have sex? That’s their responsibility, isn’t it? If they feel out of control or uncomfortable, they’ll withdraw. Consent is for men as much as it is for women. If you don’t want to have sex, don’t. If you don’t want to touch them, don’t. But I think you do.”

Those merciless grey eyes cut straight through me, through all my excuses and explanations, until there was just me.

Aidan cradled my hand between both of his, nodding his encouragement as a sleeping Peter grew bolder.

If you’d asked me if one hot guy would egg me on in responding to another hot guy before I came here, I’d have thought you were on crack, yet here I was.

His eyes shone with a curious mix of lust and compassion as Peter thrust something weighty and hard against my butt, his hand pushing me back to meet him.

And I wanted him too—that was the shocking part.

His sandalwood scent filled my nose, drowned me within it, until my eyes closed and I just felt.

The kisses grew into sharper, nipping things, something that had the burning venom filling my mouth.

His hand slid down, nestling so close to where I needed him to be, making me ache that much harder.

This was a beautiful, hard, clean thing.

It was so different to my other sexual experiences as to be almost something else entirely.

I wasn’t nervous or worried, thinking about all of the flaws in my body while trying to ignore his.

It wasn’t a brutal act of dominance, to hold me down and insert himself in me, or just plain, banal, loveless exchanges of fluids.

Had I ever wanted it this much? Had my body ever responded so completely and enthusiastically?

I just wanted Peter’s fingers on my clit and Aidan’s mouth on my lips and then one of them to peel down their shorts and?—

“Mum! Aidan?”

Peter jolted awake with a snort, my own eyes flicking open to see Aidan’s gone hazy with need. He moved his arm quickly to hide his straining hard-on, but I caught sight of it. I cocked an eyebrow, something that had him grinning again. Peter, however, wasn’t so pleased.

“Oh shit, Flick!” he mumbled, wrenching his hands, then his body away as if stung. He scrambled off the bed, jamming on a pair of jeans. I rolled over on my back, only remembering to push the hem of his shirt down when he paused, his eyes sliding up my bare legs.

“Mum?”

“I’ll go,” Peter said abruptly, then he was out the door in the next breath.

I frowned, feeling a pang deep in my chest, but Aidan rolled me towards him, stroking my hair back from my face.

“Don’t overthink it,” he said. “Pete… Let’s just say he has his hang-ups as well.”

“Hang-ups that include running away from me like I was a savage beast, wanting to claw his clothes off?”

“Yup.” He scanned my face, still stroking me. “You know he’s into you. You would have…been able to feel it.”

“Ah, yeah…” My eyes dropped down to his chest.

“We’re all going to have to give it time, even if it feels like it's gonna kill me.”

“Yeah?”

I glanced up to see him smile. His tongue flicked out to pass over his full bottom lip, and I watched its movement.

“Flick…” he growled, a low sound that felt like it vibrated through my every cell. “I need you to know I really, really want to kiss you.”

I had something flippant to say about that, but it died when I saw what burned in his eyes. All Ophelia’s statements made sense now. Had anyone looked at me with such a need before? Like he could taste me on his tongue before we even touched?

I leaned forward on impulse, his eyes heating up as I paused, but he waited, his breath little more than a weak whistle, waiting for me to close the gap. I moved slowly, so slowly I could hear the quiet separation of his lips, the shift of his tongue and then…

The door slammed open.

“Mum! Aidan! You said you were making me pancakes for breakfast, remember? You were going to try to make them look like Yoda or Boba Fett?”

“Right,” I said as Kade draped himself over my shoulder to put his face in mine.

“Pancakes,” Aidan said with only a little resignation. “I couldn’t possibly stuff that up, could I?”

“Don’t you dare!” I replied. “The house still smells from your last experiment.”

He reached over and swiftly dropped a kiss on my forehead, a sensation that burned long after he pulled away.

“First one in the kitchen gets to cook!” he called out, yanking on shorts and making for the door.

Kade and I lay around on the couch, the morning cartoons playing in the background. The guys had gone out for something, but I hadn’t really been paying attention. It was nice, nicer than I would have let on, just having my baby lying along my side, my fingers in his hair.

“Why didn’t you ask Peter to make you pancakes?” I asked as explosions of fast paced action played out on the TV. He looked up at me for a moment, then focussed back on the screen.

“Peter looks after you. Aidan looks after me,” he said, as if it was that simple.

“So you don’t think Peter can look after you as well, or Aidan with me?”

“No, that’s just what they do.”

“But have you ever asked him? Maybe he’s waiting for you to show that you want him to.”

“Hmph.” He shrugged. “I guess. Ophelia said that too.”

He’d been seeing her as well several times a week, and the nightmares had been dropping dramatically. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he was improving.

“Mum, Mila and Kiralee said in Sanctuary, I could have more than one dad. Is that true?”

“Well, yes, if I wanted?—”

“OK, I’ll ask Peter next time then.”