Page 57 of Bound By Brielle (Crave & Cure Productions)

“This is her,” I repeat, taking them both in. I love them like this, casual, in sweats, hair disheveled, Lance’s silver chain peeking out from his unbuttoned henley. Aug’s got a henley on, too, only his is gray, and his hard nipples and chest hair press tight against it. They’re causing my ovaries to implode, I swear.

“Of course we told her all about you,” Aug says, looping an arm around my waist. I showered quickly, and slipped into leggings, a crop hoodie and some sneakers. His palm finds the strip of bare skip between my leggings and hoodie, and my eyes close easily as he strokes my belly. “Hungry?” Aug asks, dropping a kiss behind my ear, my lower half seizing in pressurized tension.

I nod. “Yes.”

They usher me to the dining room where food is laid out in styrofoam clamshells, two bottles of wine uncorked in the center. “I could’ve picked something up if you were going to order out,” I reply. “You cooked last time and now you’re buying. I feel bad.”

Lance slides into a chair and reaches for the bottle of red wine. “Don’t. He takes care. That’s what he does.” He pours wine into three glasses and pats the seat next to him as Augustus settles in across from him.

Aug and Lance begin popping open containers, the smell of Italian food filling the dining room. “So, uh, your dominance,” I begin, this conversation feeling a lot like treading water when I don't know how to swim. “It’s… not just in roleplay, or uh, in the bedroom,” I sputter, confused but seeking answers. If I’m going to be part of this…

Aug reaches across the table and drops his heavy, large hand on top of mine, comforting me. “I like that you’re asking questions.”

Lance, carefully removing a piece of lasagna then lowering it to my plate, says, “Questions are good. And there is no dumb question.”

“I am always dominant. In everything I do. And if cooking pleases you, you can absolutely cook. My dominance doesn’t reach into your life, it settles around you, and brings you comfort. The moment the comfort feels smothering, we have a conversation and we reset our boundaries.”

I nod as I saw my fork through the mouth watering piece of cheesy goodness in front of me, steam slipping free as I do.

“If I wanted to cook, I mean, in the past,” Lance says, a brief pain flashing beneath his features, as if just mentioning that time they weren’t together makes him angry or ill… or both. “I’d just tell him when I wanted to do something and that was that. You want to cook? Tell him. You love cleaning or changing sheets? Tell him. Everyone is happiest with conversation.”

I blow on my bite and finally bring it to my mouth, feeling saliva pool beneath my tongue at the delicious aroma. “Is this from Bella Cucina?” I ask before taking the bite, moaning at the spicy marinara and the way the ricotta compliments it perfectly.

Aug nods with his mouth full.

“You told Claire about me,” I say after the second bite and first drink of red wine.

“I did, and I hope that's okay,” Aug says, lowering his own wine glass to the table. I look around the dining space. It’s not my first time seeing it but now that the three of us have grown closer, the space feels different. Could I have Thanksgiving here? Could I bring a high-chair to this table? I mean, I’m not dying for a baby right now or anything but I do want to be a mother. Can I even have kids in the city? Is that something I want?

I take another long drink of red wine, and I don’t even wince when I swallow.

“What’s on your mind?” Aug asks, placing his fork down carefully next to the plate while Lance does the same, wiping his mouth with the brown paper napkin he had clutched in his hand.

“Everything,” I admit, the wine giving me a rush of confidence. “What if I fall for you two and you don’t fall back? And… What if you both only want me as a way to have each other? What if you two stop loving each other, and then it ruins what the three of us have? What if Crave doesn’t hire me on, and when my program is over I have to leave, then what, it’s over?” I place my wine glass down and collect all of my hair, bringing it over my shoulder to finger the loose ends. “I can’t just eat dinners and be mentioned to momentous people in your lives and not care to know where this is headed.”

Lance stares me down as he leans back against his chair. I have the strongest urge to pluck that chain from his pecs with my teeth. “What’s the real fear there? I don’t think it’s all that. So whittle it down. Let us set you straight on the real issue here.”

I swallow thickly, because he’s right. It’s all really about one thing and one thing only. “What if you both break my heart?”

Aug’s lips part, and he clears his throat, and my body tenses as it awaits sage words of wisdom. Lance speaks up, dropping his hand to my thigh beneath the table.

“A promise is a falsehood—an illusion. I can’t promise I’ll never break your heart, because if you fall in love with me, I could die. I could get cancer or hit by a car or jump off a bridge. And then your heart will be broken. Promises were invented for false security.” His hold on my thigh intensifies, as the blue in his eyes does, too. “We can tell you that we care about you, and we don’t play with people's hearts and heads. You are the first to be with us, and there’s no longer anus,” he says, waving two fingers between he and Aug. “There’s only anus,” he declares, circling his fingers around the three of us.

I don’t know what else to say, so I take a bite, and Aug begins.

“You know, you’re a brilliant, beautiful, talented woman,” he says, causing my eyes to heat and the back of my nose burn. “You could get tired of us.”

I blink, and with certainty that I feel marrow deep say, “Impossible.”

Then conversation turns to work, and the three of us eat and, of course, argue, finishing the bottle of wine and another. And by the time we’re all buzzed and the food is gone, a comfortable silence settles over us. Aug reaches into the seat of the chair next to him, then produces the collar.

The same one both Lance and I wore before. He nods to it, and I stare at it sitting between an empty container smeared in marinara and the corkscrew, cork still attached. Brown leather, edges softened like it’s been worn many, many times.

“It’s time,” Lance says, and when I look over at him, I find him staring at the collar, too.

Slowly, I reach for it and bring it to my neck. Lance collects my hair, holding it up so I have access to the buckle on the collar. I put it on, a bit tighter than Aug did before, and shiver as Lance lowers my hair back down. I blink at Aug across the table, my pussy pulses in waves. Just wearing it makes me feel… different.

Horny.

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