After a moment, Knox pulls himself out of my mouth. A moment later, Logan pulls out too, and I sit back on the bearskin rug feeling dazed. Knox kisses me first, his arms around me, and then Logan kisses me as well.
I sit there, snuggled between them, for a little while, the fire warming us. None of us says anything, but none of us needs to.
I know that it's unconventional at the very least, and it's dirty and filthy and wrong at worst. But it doesn't feel that way, not with them.
When I'm fucking one of them and sucking the other, it feels dirty as hell but not in a bad way. It feels like what I'm supposed to be doing. Like maybe lust and love come in a lot of different forms, and I just ended up with a slightly off-the-beaten-path kind.
I'm nearly asleep, my head on Knox's shoulder and Logan's arm around my waist, when one of their stomachs growls loud enough to wake me up, and Logan laughs.
"Sorry," he says. "But do you mind if we eat dinner?"
I gasp, then laugh.
"I'm so sorry, I completely forgot," I say. "I made you some, it's in the fridge since I didn't know when you were getting back."
They both kiss me again as they stand, and then we all find our clothes.
"Don't worry," Logan says. "The wait was worth it."
And he winks at me.
Chapter Twenty
Logan
It's Knox's turn to have Rose sleep with him, so I stay up a little later to check in on the radio. He filled me in during the hike — that he made contact the night before, but Rose hadn't been reported missing yet.
I hope it's just paperwork and bureaucracy. With the snowstorm, everything has been completely crazy, power was out all over the forest and valley, so I'm sure some missing persons reports weren't filed correctly.
Because I can't even imagine the other possibility: that no one reported Rose missing. That she was alone and cold during a snowstorm, that she nearly died, and no one noticed.
I know she's safe with us now. I know, deep down in my soul, that neither of us would ever let anything happen to her. But I know, and so does Knox, that she won't be staying here. A cabin on top of a mountain with two men who generally prefer trees to other humans is fun for a few days, but she's got a life to get back to. Family, friends, all that.
As much as I hate it, I know Rose won't be my dirty little girl for much longer, and it fucking breaks my heart.
I try not to think about it as I turn on the radio and find the right frequency. Now, the voice on the other end is coming in loud and clear as day.
"Pinecone Bluff Cabin reporting in again," I say.
"Hey there, Pinecone Bluff," Evan says, his voice tinny on the radio. "Heard you've got a pet."
"Yeah, there's a bobcat in one of our pens," I say. "Got his leg pretty torn up by a poacher's trap, so we gotta get him into town as soon as we can."
"It's supposed to warm up some tomorrow, so it's looking like the day after that might be a possibility," he says. "Equip your plow on that truck and come on down."
The day after tomorrow. No. It's too soon, way too soon. I don't want to leave Rose yet, take her back into town, to her life where she'll forget all about us.
But I have to. It's not fair to make her stay here, with us, in this lonely cabin.
And there's the bobcat, outside in the pen. He's got a heater, but his leg is broken and fucked up. The poor thing needs a vet, as soon as we can get him to one.
"Right," I say, swallowing hard. "Day after tomorrow."
"Oh, and I did a better search on your missing person," he says, changing the subject. "It's Rose Hammett, right?"
"Right."
"You sure she's from Whistlepig County? No one by that name has gone missing here. Not that's been reported."
I let that information settle over me. It feels like a cloud of dark smoke, ugly and insidious.
"We're sure," is all I say.
"Must not have been reported yet, so you're in the clear," Evan jokes. "No kidnapping charges or anything."
I know he's kidding, but the words feel like an ice shell around my heart.
Everything she told us, about her family, about her dad, was true and worse. There's no one waiting for her at the bottom of the mountain, no one who's worried about her right now.
Rose has no one. No one but us, and we're not what she needs, two surly mountain men who can't stand society.
"Thanks for checking," I say. "Anyone asks after her, we've got her and she's completely safe. Perfectly fine."
"Glad to hear you found her," Evan says, because he's a nice guy. "That Rose is a lucky girl to have you two."
Is she lucky?
I think we're the lucky ones.
"Over and out," I say.
"Over and out," Evan confirms.
Then I brush my teeth and head to bed, where I listen to Knox and Rose's breathing for a long time, impossibly grateful for it, before I finally fall asleep.
I don't know how to tell them. The next morning, instead of getting up, I get into Knox's bed with the two of them, one of us on either side of Rose, her sandwiched between us, naked and warm and soft.
She wraps one leg around me, and before I know it I'm pulling her hips against me, sliding inside her perfect, tight warmth while Knox cups her breasts and kisses her neck. When she comes, that's all it takes to push me over the edge and I spill myself inside her yet again.
Then it's Logan's turn, and even though it's not me inside her she's still beautiful as hell, flushed and panting, kissing me slowly while he fucks her. I know, right then, that I could never do this with anyone else but her. I could never stand to share, except with Rose, our dirty little girl, somehow made dirtier and even more beautiful and perfect because she belongs to both of us.
We make breakfast, laughing over orange juice and coffee and bacon and toast. For once, we haven't got any plans all day long — the roof is snow-free, and there doesn't seem to be any wildlife in distress.
Rose spends a while putting together a puzzle. Knox reads a book, and I start going through some old reports that I've been meaning to digitize — there's no internet in the cabin, obviously, but there's an old laptop that runs Excel just fine.
It's not a sexy day. It's just lazy, three people doing the things that they like, all co-existing in the same space. It feels like we've been doing this forever, like this is us.
And it kills me that it's going to have to change.
Chapter Twenty-One
Knox
The bobcat eats frozen rabbit carcasses. We keep them in the deep freezer, in our storage room, for exactly this purpose — sometimes, we have to rehab injured carnivores for a while.
It's kind of a strange job, but I like it.
After lunch, it's Logan's turn to head out and feed the critter. He's been yowling intermittently all day, unhappy to be stuck in a pen and probably even more unhappy that his leg is broken, but we're trying to keep him sedated and relatively still until we can get the poor guy real help.
While he's out there, feeding the bobcat and puttering around the yard, cleaning up some things that the wind scattered, putting all the firewood back on the pile, Rose starts cleaning up the kitchen a little. She's got a window that looks right out onto where Logan is.
And I have an idea. It's wicked, but I think that's okay. Besides, it's been a couple of hours since our session this morning, and what else is there to do?
I come up behind her and kiss the back of her neck. Rose gasps, then laughs, and I slide my hands under her shirt and across her belly, holding her hips.
She makes the slightest noise, a tiny half-moan. I'm already hard, and I press my hips against hers, pushing her into the counter, my hard cock between her firm, round cheeks.
Rose makes the noise again. I grab her hair in one hand, tilt her head to the left, and bite her earlobe. Since last night I've wanted, desperately, to take Rose's ass. I know that technically I was the one to pop her cherry — though I really think we both took her virginity — but I want her there, too. I want Rose every single way that I can have her. I want every inch of her to be mine as well as Logan's. Ours.
I kiss her neck and she sighs. Out the window, Logan is still puttering around, picking up bits and pieces of things that got tossed around by the wind.
"Think he'll notice?" I murmur into her neck.
"He hasn't yet," Rose says.
"We've barely done anything," I say. "Give me another few minutes and I guarantee he'll come barreling in here at top speed."
Rose laughs. I kiss her neck again, sucking at her soft skin, and she sighs.
I don't want to have her without Logan. That's not the point. This is just a fun game, a way to get started. Hell, if I saw Logan and Rose doing this through the kitchen window, I'd probably dive through the damn thing to get inside.
But he's still not looking. I push my hands further up Rose's shirt and slide my rough palms over her nipples, and she arches her back, pressing her breasts into my hands and her perfect ass even harder against my cock.
At this rate, I'm going to be balls-deep inside her before Logan even notices. I feel a little bad about it, but there's no fucking way I can stop. Not now.
"Knox," Rose whispers, her head rolling back against my shoulder.
"Yes?"
"I just like saying your name," she murmurs.
I kiss her roughly, her head turned around. At the same time, I unbutton the flannel shirt of mine she's wearing right now, slowly revealing her perfect, creamy skin to the window and to Logan outside before taking her breasts in my hands again, cupping and squeezing them.