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“Is there a rule that we stay here during the heat?” I asked, walking into the lounge room wearing Aidan’s t-shirt. Both Noah and Sen looked up, eyes boring into me and seeming to see past the fabric.

“What did you have in mind?” Sen asked. “Why don’t you take a seat with Noah there?”

I smirked at his tone as he tried to make it a suggestion and failed miserably.

I padded over to Noah, who was slouched on the couch.

Those pale blue eyes tracked my every moment, his body shifting to make room for me before I’d even sat down.

I stopped and reconsidered what I was going to do, then lowered myself onto his lap.

I still felt the residual effects of what he had done to me, but I knew little about the man himself.

If proximity was what made things happen here, then I may as well put myself in his path.

Which was Sen’s plan all along , I thought as I settled. “This OK?” I asked Noah.

His nod was enthusiastic and fervent, his eyes wide, trying to take everything in as I relaxed against his chest. His arm went around me, stiffly at first, then they softened as I laid my head down, the other stroking down my legs in slow, soothing movements.

He tensed again when I tilted my head back and placed a kiss over the rapidly beating pulse, holding himself oh so still.

I just waited for him, and sure enough, his head came down, lips perilously close to mine.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Please,” I said.

As that wave of warmth he always seemed to exude washed over us, I wondered if men realised how much feeling safe made some women— this woman—so much more responsive.

In not having to hold myself tight and on guard against him, I found all that lovely desire rushing up unimpeded by worries and concerns, and just felt soft and natural.

What other crazy shit will Noah want us to try ?

I thought as I squirmed a little. His hands snapped down on my thighs and held me in place hard against him, as a dizzying array of possibilities popping into my head.

“What are you thinking about?” Noah asked when he finally pulled away.

“You were saying something about—” Sen went to interrupt, but Noah held his hand out.

“What was it?” he asked again, more gently.

“I guess I was just wondering what that mind of yours had in store for us today.”

“Swimming,” he announced.

“What?”

“You want to get out of here? Getting cabin fever, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, realising that was what it was, the itch under my skin.

“We could go down to the Old Man Falls,” Aidan said. “It’s nice down there this time of the year.”

“I’ll ring Ophelia,” Sen said. “Ask her to put the word around to keep everyone else away for the day.”

The car ride over was an interesting one, especially after the last time I was in Aidan’s truck.

“Nice memories?” he asked with a smirk, pulling himself into the driver’s seat.

“I know I’m gonna get hard each time we get in here for a bit,” Peter said from the passenger seat. “I’m taking mine when I do the school run for now.”

“Don’t want the ladies at the school gate getting all flustered?” I asked as a joke, but as he turned around, he smiled at seeing my eyes narrow down, a growl rising in my chest. “They better not.”

“Fuck, that growl is sexy,” he replied. “So, to be clear, we aren’t having sex down at the waterhole, right?”

I nodded slowly, not so sure about the plan that had seemed like such a good idea moments before.

“So what is your definition of sex?” Noah asked, lifting my thigh onto his knee, resting my foot on the centre console so I sat there with my legs splayed.

Those sensitive fingers trailed across the bare skin there, revealed by the brief shorts I was wearing.

“Like is this considered sex? Anatomists have found that in some women, the same nerves connected to your clit can be found all the way down here.”

Right now, I could believe that, as I felt every single stroke of his fingers, an answering pleasure flaring somewhere much deeper.

“Keep your leg there,” Sen said when I went to pull away. “Keep stroking her for the drive over. Tell us more.”

“Ah…well, the movement of the muscles in the thighs and pelvis can also contribute to stimulating the clitoris indirectly. Not as intensely, obviously, but if you lift her other leg.” Sen’s hands went under my other knee, drawing my foot up onto the seat.

“Uh!” I yelped, feeling an incredible stretch throughout the whole groin area, one that seemed to make my clit sit up and take notice. I started to squirm, feeling an emptiness I wasn’t aware of until now.

“Fuck…” Aidan grumbled. “I’m gonna wreck us if you guys keep doing that. Five minutes out. Keep it in her pants until then.”

The heat wasn’t entirely at bay, hence the call to Ophelia.

The beautiful waterhole was completely empty, so we weren’t going to scar anyone.

I slid out of the car and into Noah’s waiting arms, his smile growing as my body brushed against his.

He pushed me against the side of the car, his hand above my head as he kissed me.

It felt much like the sun on my skin—warm, comforting, sensual.

When he pulled away, my lips followed his.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

We carried down towels and baskets of food Aidan had carefully packed, walking down to the banks.

A kind of calm settled over me at the sound of the water running down a tiny little waterfall.

A faint mist from the stream hitting the rocks made it feel considerably cooler, especially with the trees growing around it, shrouding us in shade.

“This is so pretty,” I said. “God, I feel better already. It was starting to feel like the walls were closing in on us.”

“I didn’t mind,” Noah said, nuzzling my neck. “I felt like I was drowning in you. Your scent was everywhere.”

“There’s a kind of magic to it, the heat,” Sen said. “For just a moment, it creates a little world within a world.”

“You sound sad that it ends,” I replied.

A quiet fell over the group, the sound of the wind in the trees and the birds calling all that could be heard.

“I’m going in for a swim,” Aidan said, my eyes following him as he jerked his shirt off. “Coming, Pete?”

I couldn’t focus on anything else until those big bodies were submerged under the water, but when they were, I felt a pressure inside me to say something, do something, break the silence.

“What if it didn’t have to?” My voice to my ear sounded like a little squeak, tinny and high, but I forged on. “Not like this exactly, obviously, but if you guys…”

Fuck, my heart pounded so hard in my chest. Just get the words out, Flick. If they don’t want to pursue things, that’s the way it is. You have two gorgeous mates. It’ll hurt, but it’d be better to nip things in the bud now.

“Ifeelaconnectionwithbothofyouandwanttoseehowthingsgo. Whoa!”

Noah jerked me back so my head was lying in his lap, and those intense eyes studied me, searching for something, perhaps the meaning of my vomit of words, because damn.

“Noah, let the woman up.”

His head whipped around to face Sen, and an honest to goodness snarl formed on his face.

“No, mine!”

He covered me with his body, angling it to almost protect me from Sen.

“Let's hope so, mate, but right now, Flick needs to talk to us about what she just said, slowly. How about you turn around and hold her in your lap, if you’re feeling that strongly about her. Feel her body pressed against yours, and then we can talk this out, yeah?”

It took a while, but he followed Sen’s advice, the other man’s eyes watching our every move as Noah rearranged us.

“Flick…” Noah whispered against my back, thinking I didn’t hear it as he pressed his forehead against my skin.

“So,” Sen said, fighting for calm, but I saw the flash of red in his eyes. “You want to pursue things beyond…?”

I nodded.

“With both of us?”

Noah’s arms tightened around me, so I ran my hand along them, stroking him until they relaxed a little.

“I can’t promise anything. A lot relies on Kade, how everyone gets along, whether we’re all compatible, but…”

“‘But,’” Sen said with a smile. It was a strange one, like it wanted to be a whole lot bigger, more relaxed, but he kept that held back. He nodded. “I can work with ‘but.’ Noah?”

“I…” I heard his voice crack as he forced the word out. “Flick, can we go for a walk?”

“Uh, sure. Where did you want to go?”

“I’ll take you up to the top, where the stream runs through.”

Sen passed me a bottle of water as I got to my feet, and Noah’s fingers tightened around mine when I reached down to take it.

“I’m heading in for a swim,” Sen said, standing up. He moved in closely, slowly, but I think even he felt the tension in Noah’s body. He placed a gentle kiss on my lips and pulled back before Noah could get too wound up, then stripped down to his shorts and ambled off down to the water.

It was beautiful up here. We’d walked up a well-worn path past the water, rising up past an outcropping of rocks. Noah had smiled when he saw me pause, watching the three guys sitting in the water. Someone had gone to get beer cans, and they were relaxing with them.

“They really pull at you, don’t they?” he asked.

“You all do. This is…” He took my hand, helping me traverse a fall of rocks.

“If I was back at home, telling people how deep I was getting in with a bunch of guys I’d either met a bit over a month ago or had only just slept with, they’d think I was mad.

Being…whatever Tirian is or means makes everything really intense.

My wolf wanted to mark you when we had sex. ”

His fingers went limp with shock, and he froze where he was, leaving me to jump onto the ground unaided. He just stared until he finally seemed to realise what he was doing.

“She did?”

“I stopped her. You might not like that, but I had to. Noah, I don’t know anything about you except for your seemingly endless knowledge of human sexuality.”