Page 31 of Room 13: Bred By the Bears

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“Thankyou for giving me a reason to get out of that madhouse!” Odin greeted Armel with a backslap and started loading luggage into his Yukon. “I love my family. But when it’s just the triplets and us – it feels like managed chaos every single day. Throw in two more families, plus all the other couples? It is stimulation overload. Poppy, Indigo, and JP3 are just complete terrors right now. They are completely over stimulated, and I desperately need them to simmer down otherwise there’s no way Clover will leave them with a babysitter tonight.”

We chatted about the town as we drove toward the resort. He told us about all the upgrades they’d already done in the nearly two years since they purchased the land. The idea held appeal. A town where everyone was kink friendly. Somewhere people who wanted to live our lifestyle could still raise their kids and be normal people, without being shunned by society for being different. He had a handful of doctors, lawyers, and therapist just with their families and friends alone. With all the work being done, they had plenty of construction workers, pipe fitters, and electricians expressing interest in living thereif they ever found the right women. So now they were working on a way to get singles up to the resort. Hence the overhaul that Miele was involved in.

“Can you do me a solid?” Armel asked as we turned onto the lane with a wooden sign welcoming us to the resort. “Miele doesn’texactlyknow we’re coming. Not that it will come up but just in case it does, we have a project we’re working on and needed to spend a few days behind closed doors working through some kind of bug.”

“A bug?” Odin tried to his mirth behind his hand. “What kind of bug exactly are we supposed to be fixing?”

“Does it even matter?” Armel chuckled. “None of these people know what kind of work we do. They’ll have zero clue that we work on different projects for different administrations. But it sounds plausible enough, right? We’ve worked together before.”

The property was everything they promised and more. A beautiful crystal clear lake extended the entire length of the drive up to the main house. Small houses either dotted the space surrounding it, or were in the process of being built. Off in the distance was an oversized white clapboard home, littered with children’s toys, and a bounce house in the front yard. Obviously home of the Kapling family. It looked so damn normal it made my chest squeeze.

For the first time, my heart beat with the prospect ofmaybe. Maybe Ryker wasn’t wrong. Maybe wecouldhave this too. I wanted so badly to believe he was right. Especially imaging the three of us and Miele. Kids toys littering our front driveway, the sounds of a ruckus greeting me every day when I walked through the door. Falling into bed at the end of the night, laughing at what utter chaos our lives were but never wanting it any other way.

“Where would we sleep?” I turned to Ryker, as if we’d been sharing the same day dream. “Would we all be together, or would she like rotate between our bedrooms?”

“We’re putting you in Kodiak House.” Odin glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “It’s a studio but it has a double king bed, an oversized jacuzzi tub, and a shower meant for multiples. You’ll be our first guests in there.”

“Perfect opportunity to see how we enjoy sleeping together.”

“Miele is in the big house right now. The main resort. That way she had a quiet place to work without our little monsters driving her up the wall twenty-four hours a day. Gideon, Margaux, Dax, and Lazlo are with us. Journey, Marlowe, Rohm, and Wilder are down the path from you in Mustang House. Margaux’s other friend Rae and her men Leo and Fraser arrive on Saturday. They are staying down by the doctor in one of the actual houses. They’re renting it for the summer while they start their fertility treatments. It was the little green house on the lake we saw as we came down the path. Having them here is going to be amazing because Leo is a contractor and will be an enormous help managing the team building the to-suit houses.”

“You have something really special here Odin.” Ryker craned his neck as we passed by the Big House on the way to our cabin. This place is going to be hopping once you get the big house set up.”

We collected our bags from the trunk and followed Odin through the front door into the largest “cabin” I’d ever seen. It was as big as my first apartment. The oversized bed sat elevated on a platform at the back wall of the place, muslin curtains draped all around the bed, to create privacy screens from all sides. There were floor to ceiling windows running the length of the cabin looking out onto the lake. A small kitchenette was nearest the door, and I assumed a bathroom and closet just beyond the bedroom. It looked like heaven.

“Once you settle in and unpack, you just follow the dirt path out front and it will take you right to the big house. I know for sure that’s where Casey and Miele are discussing the renovation. Everyone else…” He shrugged his shoulders and exhaled heavily. “Like I said in the car. Managed chaos. Twenty-four seven.”

nineteen

The way Obi acted,I started to second guess myself. Maybe coming to Troublesome Creek had been a bad idea. But the way we left things, it felt wrong. Off. I tried to convince myself that it was because I’d shown her things. Pieces of me. Of us. And that’s what felt off. She was the first who’d seen the three of us together as a unit but also separately as men. How I wanted the four of us to be. I hoped she wanted us to be.

Not that Obi was being a stubborn mule just to practice being obstinate. Miele didn’t want us the same way we wanted her. Or, none of us had wanted that in the beginning. It was supposed to be just fucking. But once we’d all experienced the inexplicablerightnesswe felt when we’d all been together. Heady. World-tilting. Since we’d been with Miele the world felt different. Armel wassmilingfor fucks sake. The man was a walking military funeral, all stoic silence, and masked emotions. Then in walks Miele and suddenly he’s throwing jokes around like he’s Jerry fucking Seinfeld, andlaughing.

Obi and I have always had synergy. It was why when the first art dealer asked to hang my work in his gallery, I called Obi. The man dropped everything and came running. He was shrewd and an incredibly talented businessman. With him as my agent and business manager, we’d built Trygg the artist into a global success.

It was because ofthattrust in his instincts, that I worried this was going to gloriously blow up in our faces. But being an artist is about sensing emotions, reading people and situations. And I felt something with Miele. It was more than sex for her too. Otherwise, she wouldn’t smile like we were responsible for the air she breathed, every time one of us came into a room. She wouldn’t banter with us in a group chat.

By the time we’d gotten to our house in Bouge Chitto it was too dark to take her on a tour of the grounds. To show her all the pieces no one has ever seen. I wanted her to see them. To stand next to her while she took in the most intimate pieces of me. But there’d been no time. Of course the evening was intimate in other ways. Armel’s cooking, our easy conversation around the campfire. Our sexual awakening. And when I’d carried her, blissed out from our conquests back to the house, I brought her intomybedroom, and cleaned her up inmyshower. Just the two of us.

“I thought you liked when I was filled and dripping,” she’d said with a voice heavy with sleep as I gently washed between her legs.

“Sometimes I like to fill you and watch you be filled. Right now, I just want to take care of my woman.”

“My woman.” Miele sighed, wrapping her arm around my neck, arching her head to tuck it beneath my chin as I ran the washcloth between her folds. “I love when you say that.”

“You are mine, Miele. My beautiful, precious, treasure.”

She turned around to face me, the water dripping down her face as she kissed me. Soft and sweet. Like lovers would. As if she were my wife and I’d just slipped into her morning shower.

I tipped her head back, massaged shampoo into her hair, rinsed and conditioned it.

“No one’s ever done this for me.” Her voice was practically feline.

“Washed your hair?”

“Took care of me.”

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