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I should have been more cautious when Bev’s sister Rom – who I hadn’t really spoken more than a few words to at any one time since that night out with my Hendon mates I didn’t quite remember all of, some years ago now – returned my greeting by offering me a spliff. Which just went to show that Bev’s extended family had somehow, as extended families do, managed to forget I was police. This was despite the thing where I’d arrested her niece Olivia, albeit temporarily, for manslaughter and drug trafficking, and come within a few words of arresting Lady Ty, which would not have gone well for anybody, most especially me. Although I was pretty sure Ty understood I’d been calling Olivia’s bluff at the time. The way I was still alive and breathing and she came to my stakeholder engagement meetings and didn’t verbally eviscerate me more than two times out of five on average was proof of that.
I declined the prooffered chemical recreation politely and casually, because there’s never any point in causing unnecessary offence when you’re at a social event, and most especially when that social event is being run by the Court of the River Thames and you’re there in a spousal capacity. Rom just shrugged, so I thought I was okay.
“You’ve got old and boring since you and Bev got hitched,” she said, but without rancour.
Honestly, I’ve never been particularly into the drugs thing at any stage of my life – with such a shining example growing up, how could I – but I’ve been called much worse than boring by Bev’s sisters. Mostly by Lady Ty, funny that. And Nicky, but she’s just emerging from the throes of adolescence, so that hardly counts.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “Happens to us all.”
“You even brought your boss along tonight,” said one of Rom’s friends in distaste. I didn’t recognise her, but she was definitely, definitely fae. I don’t even need a good look at people these days. I just know. It’s like that thing where people who sex chickens have to learn by watching someone else do it for ages; they can’t make a list or draw a chart of the indicators they use, it’s not a process that engages your conscious brain, but at some point your subconscious has done the learning for you. Which doesn’t preclude an error rate, mind, but I would have put down money on this one.
“I didn’t bring him,” I said, keeping up the casual tone. “He had his own invite.”
I glanced over to where Nightingale was, at that moment, chatting to Beverley. I entertained myself for a second by imagining a spirited conversation about the best way to plant willows or some shit, but probably it was nothing like that at all. It just annoys both of them when I exhibit total disinterest in the grandeur of nature.
Rom’s fae friend made a face, and Rom just looked resigned – the Nightingale was still the Nightingale, after all. Bev’s family regarded her marriage to me as a slightly odd but basically comprehensible choice. Her evident comfort around Nightingale was regarded as a lot stranger, even though they pretty much all knew how things stood there. Maybe because they all knew how things stood.
“He’s not part of this,” said Rom’s friend, looking around the celebrating court.
“He is as much as I am,” I argued. And more, I didn’t say, because depending on exactly how you defined fae – and it was a very broad and very fuzzy-edged category – well, arguably you could put Nightingale in it. The whole reverse-aging, functional immortality thing. You know.
I glanced again at the pair of them, Nightingale and Bev. Nightingale was in one of his quiet but well-cut suits, effortlessly elegant because he doesn’t know how to be any other way, and Bev was stunning in a cap-sleeved maroon silk dress with a narrow but deep v-neck, her dreads twisted up on her head and long gold earrings gleaming against the dark curve of her neck. They made quite a picture. I felt, but carefully suppressed from my expression because it wasn’t anybody else’s business, the swell of something between pride and disbelief that that was my wife and my boyfriend.
Not that I ever call Nightingale the latter in public – or Bev much the former, since it’s not often relevant – but the point stands.
As I looked back Rom’s friend narrowed her eyes, and then gave me an unexpected little shove between the shoulderblades before I could turn fully towards her. It was a much stronger shove than you’d anticipate for someone a good ten inches shorter than me and with delicate, pale hands, heavy with cocktail rings in what might or might not be antique silver. It tingled, the way an unexpected touch often does.
I am a master of the hidden arts and an officer of the Metropolitan Police Service and, I have come to accept, something of a suspicious bastard by both nature and upbringing, all the better to do my job. But like I said, it was a social event being held by my family-by-marriage, and I’d had a pint, and it was the end of a long week. So as occasionally happens, I rolled a natural one on perception and didn’t think anything of it right that second.
“Go on back to your friend, then,” she said, and I know when I’m not wanted, so I nodded to Rom, who looked vaguely apologetic, said “Evening, ladies,” and left. I’d only stopped by to say hi to Rom anyway; I hadn’t expected to get drawn into conversation. Definitely not the conversation we’d had.
The place between my shoulderblades kept tingling, which I put down to the glare I was probably getting as I walked away, but it didn’t do anything else until I got to Nightingale and Bev. Bev turned and smiled at me and put a hand on my arm. It was a warm night and I wasn’t wearing a jacket, and the warmth of her palm on my forearm did...something. The tingling spread, and my mouth went suddenly dry; I could feel my gaze dragging down to the point where Bev’s cleavage was just visible, and held it on her face with a force of will. It was a little like the sucking undertow of desire I’d felt when she’d gone swimming at Oxley’s, or when I’d met Mama Thames the first time, long ago; palpable but not quite mine. And not hers, either, not that way.
“Peter?” she said, a frown creeping onto her clear brow. “What...”
“I don’t know,” I said, licking my lips. Bloodflow I needed in my brain was being diverted elsewhere. These were not particularly loose-cut trousers, and it was going to be embarrassing. I thought very hard about unsexy things, like DCI Seawoll talking about porn viewing rooms or the time I’d walked into the kitchen when Molly was making haggis for Dr Walid, when he’d retired. (Officially. Unofficially we were never getting rid of him.)
Then Nightingale said “Someone did something,” and cupped my other elbow for the briefest of moments, and it was no fucking good; I swayed closer to him, my fingers suddenly itching to run through his neatly-parted hair. I wanted to bite at his mouth until it was red, while –
“I was talking to Rom and some of her friends,” I said between clenched teeth, trying not to lick my lips. “One of them was pissed off about you being here –”
“Like it’s her business,” said Beverley coolly, and I didn’t think I’d want to be Rom’s friend anytime soon, or possibly Rom.
“– and Rom’s friend, she pushed me between the shoulderblades and told me to leave, and it was fine until I got over here and Bev put her hand on my arm and now I...”
Without even talking about it Nightingale and Bev had closed in so my back was to the outside of the gathering and they were between me and everybody else. This was a real win for my dignity, because by now I was achingly hard and frankly if one of them had jumped me then and there it would have taken me at least ten seconds to try and stop them, if I’d tried at all. And exhibitionism is really, really not my thing.
“Let’s take a walk,” Nightingale said firmly, and took me by the arm. I tried not to make a whimpering noise.
Here is the most important thing I know about sex and magic: there isn’t a lot of direct crossover between the two. It’s true that both happen almost entirely in the brain, with secondary but often spectacular physical effects. But wizards’ magic, Newtonian magic, is about control and concentration, and while sex can be about those things, and there is definitely a distinct link between the reasons Nightingale is so good at magic and also pretty fucking incredible in bed – not that I have said that to him in so many words, which is fine, his end-goal tends to be rendering me incapable of commentary – somewhere in there technical proficiency becomes far less important than things like enthusiasm and passion, at least if you’re doing it right, which is pretty well the exact opposite of magic.
So there aren’t a lot of sex spells, as such. I mean, there’s definitely been research into the area. Documented in Latin. Which was the language of high-quality pornography at one point, as Nightingale pointed out to me the afternoon I spent reading up on this stuff, and is therefore more useful for such documentation than you’d expect. But the human sex drive is a finicky and complex thing, as much about hormones and psychology as it is about the body. And official British wizardry until not much over a decade ago was restricted to men, and there’s a number of physiological constraints on male sexuality – you can’t die of blue balls, but an erection that persists for hours is really not good for you, as the warnings on any number of drugs will tell you.
(I did get Caroline drunk and ask her what the distaff brigade from whence her mum sprang had done in that line once, but she just giggled into her drink for half an hour until Sahra took her away, and I didn’t have the balls to do it twice. And like hell I’m ever asking Abigail or any of the other female apprentices to ask her again. Even though I bet they already have.)
Other sorts of magic, well. The fae – and genii locorum like my in-laws – have a natural sort of magical protection, the Glamour, what wizards call seducere, but despite the name it’s not necessarily about seduction-as-in-sex. It’s just about making you like them, want to help them; the wanting part depends entirely on whether that’s a switch that works to motivate you. If they want you as well – then it gets trickier, but it’s still not directed, not anything like flipping a switch. And like any strong human emotion, sex and sexual activity can leave behind its own vestigia – which is sodding distracting if you have to hang around it, ask me how I know – but you don’t carry it around with you, it wears off if you leave wherever it is, and it’s subtle, like vestigia always are, creeping up on you. It’s all in your bloody head, which doesn’t mean it’s not real.
But this, this wasn’t that.
Right now, what I knew for sure was that a probably high fae woman had touched me, and as soon as Beverley had laid a hand on me, snap, that’d been it, when moments before I’d been mostly thinking about finding another drink and who I still needed to make sure I talked to. Now she and Nightingale were steering me away from the party, out through the parked cars in the field, and just Nightingale’s hand on my arm was making me dizzy with wanting. When we got to the Jag and I sagged against it, Bev leaned in to peer at my eyes. I don’t know what good she thought it was going to do in the dark. The only illumination was the distant light of the party and a crescent moon that was barely putting in any effort. I felt her breasts brush against me, the faint scratch of the lace on her bra through the thin silk of her dress, and I think I moaned. Nightingale’s hand tightened a bit on my arm.
“Do you think if you get off, that’ll be it?” Beverley asked. “Or do you just need to count to ten and think about writing reports?” She let her hand drift along the top of my thigh, then pulled it back. I shivered.
“Not a clue,” I gritted out. “But if you keep touching me it’s going to be a moot point.”
She glanced at Nightingale, who shrugged, with a frown on his face. “This is a new one for me, I’m afraid.” He kept tensing and loosening his grip, like he wanted to pull away and couldn’t quite make himself.
Here’s the other thing, see: I love Beverley very much and we are happily married and the sex is still fantastic, thanks for asking. Although it is with Nightingale too and I am definitely not married to him, but it’s been a few years now and I hear these things cool off even without the aid of a wedding licence. My point is. One of the rules Beverley laid down when we started – I mean me and Nightingale – was not in my house, which is very reasonable and something we absolutely respect. Except for that one time we all got a bit drunk and Bev asked us to make out on the couch, giggling into her wine glass, and it only seemed polite to comply, in a strictly hands-above-clothes way. We never spoke of it again afterwards, and we definitely never spoke about the way Bev jumped me after we’d finally gone to bed, although the spare room isn’t that far from the bedroom and I’m pretty sure Nightingale knew. I do not speculate about what he was doing in the spare room. Much.
And Bev can come to the Folly now, but she almost never stays over there, so I don’t think we’ve even ever had sex in the Folly. It’s not that we couldn’t, but we haven’t. So, by and large, all things being equal, the most affectionate I have ever gotten with one of them in front of the other is a quick kiss, or a hug, or a casual touch. You know, stuff you’d do in front of almost anybody.
Furthermore, before you ask, I think the last time Nightingale was in the presence of a naked woman in a non-job capacity – policing can be a bit weird that way – was probably the day he was born, because Edwardians, and then boarding school, and then working for a strictly gender-segregated organisation, and in-between quite contentedly inhabiting the very upper end of the Kinsey scale. Beverley likes him a lot, so far as I can tell, and will hug him hello and kiss him on the cheek and slap his hand if he tries to steal chips from her, and finds him approximately as sexually attractive as her upstream cousin Rivers, which is to say not at all.
So that’s just not – despite the amicable state of both my relationships there are things that are really not on the cards except in my very private fantasies, which I do not share, because some things aren’t really intended for sharing. Also because I have a thorough understanding of the difference between ‘things which it gets me off to think about’ and ‘things I and/or my partners are actually going to do in bed, ever’.
But right now, I was riding the high sharp edge of sexual tension, with both of them right there, all because of a stupid spiteful piece of magic. I hated that, being put here without any of us wanting or asking for it, but right then and there I didn’t care because if they didn’t touch me I was going to touch myself. If they hadn’t both had a grip on my arms I probably would have. Instead I just shifted my hips restlessly, trying not to thrust at the air. It was getting worse by the second, the kind of panting urgency that normally takes some quality time with a partner or your pornographic entertainment of choice to work up to.
“What do you want to do?” Nightingale asked me, keeping his voice low.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Fix it. At least so I can think.” If he was asking me to – I wasn’t supposed to have to make this sort of decision, it wasn’t fair.
Beverley scanned the party behind us, apparently checking for people coming our way. “Alright. You reckon we can sort this out in under a minute?” The last was, I realised, not directed at me.
“Thirty seconds,” said Nightingale promptly, with an edge of smugness that really wasn’t called for.
“Wait, what –” I started, but I was cut off by Bev pulling my head down and kissing me. She licked right into my mouth like she was on a mission, a point of wet heat, and a jolt went through me even though nobody was touching my cock; I groaned. I groaned again when she slid a hand up under my shirt and ran a thumb over one of my nipples, then pinched at it, a careful hint of nail, and Jesus, I put a hand out and grabbed at her wildly, I needed to – my trousers were somehow undone and even like this I was mentally counting hands and getting confused. Then I realised my right arm was free and went to press my palm against myself and instead my hand hit the line of Nightingale’s cheekbone and that was pretty much all the warning I had before he swallowed me down. I clutched at his hair, which he likes more than I would have guessed – Bev hates it – and Bev put her other hand on my waist and bit my lower lip and scraped a nail over my nipple again and that was it, I was gone, hips snapping up. Nightingale let me hold him there, which was – it made it worse, better, I didn’t even know. I didn’t really have any processing power left. I made quiet desperate noises into Bev’s mouth.
It was less than thirty seconds, but it took at least another thirty for my brain to come back online, so I’m not sure who was right.
It was taking a long time for me to come down, arousal still fizzing down my spine, and Bev’s eyes were bright in the darkness, so I couldn’t quite help sliding my hand up under her skirt, along the smooth line of her thigh, and brushing a thumb over the front of her knickers. They were damp, and when I pressed in gently, mimicking what I might do with my tongue, she sucked in a breath.
“Peter,” she said, and I gulped and pulled my hand out from under her skirt, and for good measure snatched back the other hand, which had been combing through Nightingale’s hair. She was already patting my shirt back in place. I wanted to bring my thumb to my mouth and – no, okay, no, one-off special occasion, we were done. I was done. I was going to be done any second now, when I finished coming down from that frankly spectacular orgasm. I looked over at Nightingale, who’d stood up when my hand dropped away from his head, brushing at his trouser knees. I went a bit dizzy again when I realised he had a tiny smear at the right corner of his mouth. His eyes were bright, too.
“Thomas.” Bev was only slightly breathy. “You’ve got – you –” she gestured at her mouth.
Nightingale actually flushed, went to wipe it away, but before he could I thought fuck it and kissed him, okay, if we were doing this once I was going to take full advantage, we were still under that minute, nobody would be looking into the darkness. He tasted a little of beer and mostly like he’d been sucking cock, and he was hard against my hip. I chased into the corners of his mouth, enjoyed the way his hand tightened on my elbow again until I was going to bruise, that was okay, later in the week Bev might push me gently down on the bed and put on her harness and fuck me until I didn’t have words to beg, and she’d put her hand on my elbow when she did and squeeze, they thought I didn’t notice them doing that, I didn’t know if they knew they were doing it but they both did it, they –
Fuck it, I realised as I pulled away from Nightingale, I was still hard and I was still as twisted up with wanting as I’d been five minutes ago. It was just that now I was having trouble standing, as well. Here was another potential problem I hadn’t considered about the possibility of sex magic: orgasms really take it out of you. A few more like that might do me in. Nightingale was breathing heavily, and his mouth was wet, and oh god. I didn’t have it in me to care.
Beverley was staring at us, and she muttered something under her breath which sounded like fuck you, Rom, which seemed a bit unfair; Rom hadn’t actually done anything. Except get me into a conversation longer than “hi”, but that wasn’t a crime.
“That didn’t do much, did it,” she said out loud. “Shit.”
“I think,” Nightingale said very, very carefully, “I should drop you and Beverley off home, and you can...let this work itself out. Most likely it will.”
“But what about,” I said.
Nightingale flicked a glance at Beverley, impossible to read, then leaned in to breathe in my ear, “I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, and I’m not under any sort of compulsion.”
I think I made a noise. “That is not helpful.”
“Okay,” Bev said, eyes still wide, pressing her lips and her thighs together. “Okay, okay.”
I sat by myself in the back of the car, just to be safe, knees spread, trying to remember how to breathe, trying to remember that no sex in the Jag was on the list right after no kebab in the Jag – although I’d had Beverley and Nightingale, at very separate times, up against a certain Ferrari, because some things are worth doing for the hell of it and there hadn’t been quite enough room inside. Then I had to try and not think about either of those times because they’d been individually amazing, and I was hoping to not come in my trousers tonight. I wasn’t hopeful, but I was hoping.
When we got to the house, I practically leapt out, because privacy, indoors, bed, except that I realised Beverley wasn’t behind me. When I turned, she had the driver’s side door open and was leaning in, saying something to Nightingale. I moved back and around to see what; they were quiet.
“– if there’s something else wrong,” Beverley was saying.
Nightingale was shaking his head. “I – with all due respect, Bev, it’s a bit beyond me to just sit in your lounge on the off-chance while –”
Bev looked at me, then leaned down further, and said something very quietly in Nightingale’s ear. I’m always going to remember his expression as she spoke. He’s never actually told me what. Neither has she.
I’ve got some pretty solid conjectures, though.
She leaned back, face impressively still. Nightingale looked at me, and then her again.
“I suppose I could manage that,” he said.
“Cool,” Bev said. “Yeah. Alright.”
“Uh, guys,” I said. “Do I get a vote on whatever you just decided?”
“Same vote we all get – yes or no,” Bev said, coming over and taking me by the arm again. My cock twitched in my trousers. This was cheating.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them they were both still there.
Nightingale followed us into the house, so close behind me I could almost feel his breath. I could feel the want building up again, winding up on anticipation. I ended up coming in my trousers while Bev fumbled, cursing, for her keys, because Nightingale put his hands on my hips and nipped at my earlobe, but that was probably inevitable. I closed my eyes and let him hold me up while I shuddered through it, because my knees weren’t doing the job.
“Peter, did you just,” Bev said, letting the door swing open. “Jesus, okay, get in here.”
We complied.
I thought Bev was going to take us into the guest room – I would have – but she walked straight into the main bedroom instead. She turned the light on as she went; no fumbling around in the dark for us. But of course whenever Beverley makes up her mind to do anything, she does it right.
“Bev,” I said.
“Everything’s in here,” she said, but it came out strained because she’d twisted her arm up to get at her zip; I would have helped but Nightingale chose that moment to pull my shirt off over my head. By this point I’d just decided to go with it. I was still iron-hard, and starting to wonder if my body was just going to have to be physically exhausted into giving up. If not, giving my brain all sorts of sexual stimuli in the form of – oh god – Bev just letting the dress pool and standing there in bra and knickers while she went up on one foot to get rid of the heels, graceful as the goddess she was, while Nightingale got to work on my trousers again, did not seem like the best plan. But apparently it was the plan we were going with.
I twisted back to see that Nightingale had managed to discard his jacket and tie somewhere and was standing there in his shirtsleeves with his hair mussed where the tie had dragged over it, looking indecently like the hero of a modern-made Jane Austen adaptation. I couldn’t help reaching for him, but he knelt down to take off my shoes and socks, carefully pulling them off, and I had to grab at the doorframe for balance. He kissed me again before he walked me back towards the bed, and the feeling of his clothes against me while I was fully naked and his tongue was in my mouth, his cock hard through the fabric of his trousers, was – it did something for me, okay, I won’t lie, but then again I was pretty sure nearly anything he did right then was going to do something for me.
Then I was on my back on the bed and I didn’t really have time to figure out where we were going from there because, I swear to god, Bev just slid on and I didn’t actually come then and there, but it was going to bring my average down by a really considerable amount. I decided we should call it an outlier and discard it. I did not voice this thought. I wasn’t quite that far gone.
Bev still had her skin-coloured lace bra on, sweat gleaming on the flanks of her breasts. I cupped one and thumbed a nipple through the lace; she gasped and ground down. There certainly hadn’t been time for her to come, but I wasn’t really flagging in between, certainly not with her clenched warm and wet around me. She hadn’t bothered with – we weren’t using condoms right now, just seeing what happened, and I knew Nightingale knew that, because there are bizarre conversations you are required to have when you’re sleeping with two people, but he’d just seen it, I realised, Bev sliding onto me, just thrown me onto the bed so she could do that, and my hips bucked up. I didn’t know what that had done for him, if anything at all, but that was definitely doing something for me. I wanted him to watch, wanted –
I gave up trying to move because Bev had all the leverage, so I just let her ride me, played with her breast and grasped at her hip to steady her, until she came, head thrown back and the earrings she hadn’t bothered taking off glinting in the light, along with the ring on her left hand. I almost followed her, but she climbed off just before I could and I was left arching up into empty air and clutching the bedsheets.
“Sorry,” Bev gasped, clearly in need of a breather, and then she said “Second drawer,” which made no sense at all, until I looked over and could just make out Nightingale’s now-unclad shoulders and back as he rummaged in the drawers of our bedside table – Bev’s bedside table, actually – where we kept certain bedroom-related items.
I wondered what I was going to do if he pulled out the handcuffs and then I sort of hoped he did, but he didn’t, which was probably for the best.
(We have another set at the Folly, if you’re wondering. Not police-issue. Those things are hell on your wrists. As Bev found out the one time she thought it’d be sexy to try.)
Nightingale straightened and looked right at me, eyes gleaming, and Bev almost idly reached over and gave me a nice smooth pull. I came all over myself. I wasn’t sure how, at this point, and yet.
“Hnnnngh,” I mumbled once it receded, and then I rolled over, because I could figure out where this was going; Nightingale had been holding the lube.
“Get him up on his knees,” she said authoritatively to Nightingale, and, okay, that was – yeah, I should have already known that was going to work for me. I still shivered when I felt his hands on my hips, and pushed myself gracelessly up.
“A bit wider, there we go,” he said, kneeling in between. Bev tossed her dreads back over her shoulder and moved up the bed.
“If you’re just going to be hanging around there,” she said, reaching around to undo her bra, and I grinned and got to work with my mouth, gently, because she’d already come once and she’d be sensitive. I had to slow down even further when Nightingale started working me open. Too slowly for my tastes, right now. I bucked back, trying to indicate my interest in speeding things up, since my mouth was otherwise occupied. I was in the mood to be fucked hard and thoroughly, and when Nightingale was in the right mood, he was really good at that. I was beginning to sense the ups and downs of this, and I felt like we were getting – somewhere, like this was starting to be something coming from me and not imposed on me. Bev and Nightingale were helping with that, their hands warm and familiar on me, the taste of Bev and me mingled as I licked her, Nightingale’s long fingers pressing and spreading and rubbing in a way that made me swear into Bev’s cunt.
“Mmmmmmmm,” she sighed, and then, “Slow down. I bet you can get him off like that.”
“Mmmm,” Nightingale said thoughtfully, and the bastard slowed down, not even putting a hand near my cock, just fingering me like we had all the time in the world.
I managed to get down on an elbow and slide a finger or two into Bev, in retaliation, but she just ground up against my mouth and sighed and came in long slow pulses, fluttering against my mouth, and Nightingale somehow chose that moment to rub right up against my prostate and I was coming too, without anything or anyone touching my cock. By this point it was almost painful. In the state I was in, that made it better.
I’d just pulled back and kissed the outside of Bev’s thigh, her hand petting my hair, my face wet, when I heard the faint crinkle of a condom packet and then Nightingale just fucked right into me in short little thrusts, testing it out. Normally I wouldn’t want it at all right after I’d come, but tonight was anything but normal. Bev’s fingers clenched in my hair before she untangled them and resumed stroking gently. I didn’t look up at her. I wasn’t sure what was on my face. I was sure she was watching and that was – right, okay, that was a thing, it was both of them, pity this was never happening again. It could happen in my head any time I wanted, though. I was going to remember this a lot.
“Okay,” I panted out, “okay, now just go, stop screwing around back there,” and Nightingale fucking kept up the short little movements until Bev said, voice rich with amusement, “Go on, you know he means it,” and then I was too busy having my brains banged out to remonstrate with either of them but I definitely considered it. All that came out was useless stuff like “please” and “God” and “come on, harder,” and it was so fucking good I barely noticed Bev rolling off the bed, or that I was still hard but I hadn’t come yet, didn’t for long enough that Nightingale swore and clutched my hips and slammed into me one last time.
I always enjoy it when he gets worked up enough to swear during sex. It’s more often than you’d think but not nearly as often as I’d like.
“I think,” I panted, “I might, we might be getting, it feels like,” but Nightingale was pulling out and away from me. I just hung my head down and rested on my knees and elbows, everything wobbly, but I just needed – I thought maybe once more – if someone would just –
“There we go,” Nightingale said, and hands ran down my back and spread me open again, but they were smaller, and Bev pushed the smooth head of the dildo into me and I groaned deeper this time.
“We’ve got you,” Bev said gently – she’d been getting into her harness, that’s what she’d been doing, while Nightingale fucked me, getting ready for her turn, and this was unfair and possibly illegally hot.
She did me slowly and that was fine, I could use the breather. She ran her nails gently down my flank and everything was just blurring into one big ball of sensation. Nightingale flopped down where I could see him, still half-hard. I wanted to see if I could fix that, let him fuck into my mouth the way I had his earlier, but there are things it’s just not smart to do in a certain order without a pause for showering in between, even allowing for condoms.
“Touch yourself,” I said, and my voice came out raspy. Nightingale looked down at me and I saw him process what I’d said, saw it hit him.
“That’d be wishful thinking,” he said, but he rubbed his thumb across my cheek as he did. Bev picked up the pace a bit, and I bit my lip.
“You did say once or twice,” I reminded him. “And you’ve both got to watch. I want to watch you. Thomas. Come on.”
I thought he just might not want to in front of Bev, maybe that wasn’t – maybe that was too – but his tongue darted out to brush his lower lip and he wanted to, I could tell, and when he took himself in hand I let out something between a laugh and a sigh.
“Peter,” said Bev, moving her hand lower. “Do you want –”
“No,” I said, forcing myself to stay verbal, “it’s – just keep going, please, just a bit longer,” and I watched Nightingale’s cock slipping between his fingers, his eyes half-lidded, watched him get hard again as he watched Bev fuck me slowly, her hands warm on me, knowing me so well, and I went down on one elbow and reached down and touched myself properly for the first time that evening, and came one last time, not as hard as the others but slow and sweet and barely any wetness in my fist at all. I wasn’t really expecting Nightingale to come again and I don’t think he was either, but when my eyes opened he was biting his lip and coming all over his chest and stomach. I think maybe some got in my hair. I really couldn’t have cared less.
Bev withdrew carefully and stumbled around getting rid of the harness and tossing Nightingale something to do some cleanup on me, which was great, because I was quite literally all fucked out. When she sat back down I patted at her thigh, but she just patted my head in return. “No, I’m good. I don’t think I could if I tried.”
“Me too,” I said, too content to move, even though I was lying in several wet spots.
“Indeed,” said Nightingale, because of course he fucking did.
“So you’re...” Bev said to me.
“Back to normal, all good, fine, sleep now.”
“Oh good,” she said, and flopped backwards. I wondered if all the nudity was suddenly going to become awkward but Nightingale was just lying back against the headboard again, still breathing a little hard, having apparently exhausted himself cleaning me up, let alone himself, and Bev was basically spreadeagled beside me, so apparently not. “Oh my god. I am going to kill Rom. They will never find the body.”
“I don’t think it was actually Rom’s fault,” I felt forced to say. “Her mate, though. You can definitely kill her.”
“And you won’t arrest me?” Beverley’s voice was dreamy-tired.
“I’m fairly certain justifiable homicide is still on the books,” said Nightingale, his eyes closed but the corner of his mouth tilted up.
“Rom, though, I wasn’t really talking about –” she started to say, and then waved a hand. “Never mind. Not important.”
“Okay.” I could ask later. Or not. Not was fine too.
Nightingale cast an appraising glance over me – I looked up and saw it – and then, I couldn’t fucking believe it, held out a closed fist to Beverley. “Good job.”
She lifted her arm and they fistbumped. I wished I had a camera. Not that I could show it to anybody, ever, under any circumstances, but just so I could know I hadn’t hallucinated it.
“This bed is a wreck,” Beverley said, wriggling a bit; apparently she’d discovered a different wet spot.
“Spare room,” I mumbled. “When I can stand up.”
“I knew I kept you around for a reason,” she said happily.
“If you’d rather I absented myself,” Nightingale said, “could I have half an hour to recoup first?”
Beverley waved a hand. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Right,” he said, and closed his eyes again, and then after a minute or so got up, presumably to grab the wipes we kept in the bedroom, since the bathroom was on the first floor and that was a long way to go for a damp flannel.
To be perfectly honest, the next thing I remember is waking up in the spare room, so how we got there, or at what point it had been decided that bed-sharing was acceptable, I couldn’t tell you. But it was nice and cosy in the middle.
I felt pretty much like I’d had my brains banged out a couple of times over, no surprises there, so I gingerly hauled myself into the shower. I was so deeply glad I wasn’t still doing sponge baths here. For a moment I felt bad about leaving the two of them in the bed alone, but they were adults, they could cope. Beverley showed up to nab the shower before I was even done, and by the time I was out Nightingale had nicked my dressing gown – which he’d given me, to add insult to injury – and was retrieving his clothes from the variety of locations they’d ended up in, so apparently they were adults and could cope. Thank god. It wasn’t as if Nightingale had never stayed over before, so if it wasn’t for the still over-sensitive feel of my body, it might be any weekend morning.
“So,” I said over coffee. I would like to say the sun was shining and it was a beautiful Sunday morning, but actually it was grey and drizzly, as is traditional in an English summer. “We shall never speak of this again?”
“If you’d prefer,” said Nightingale, after a considering pause.
“Screw that,” said Beverley, shaking her head. “I mean – I’m not saying it’s going to happen again, because talk about special circumstances, but, you know. It happened. A good time was had. We don’t have to pretend it didn’t.” She looked from me to Nightingale. “A good time was had, right?”
“Oh, yes,” said Nightingale, who still wasn’t quite nonchalant enough to maintain eye contact, thankfully, but not because he didn’t mean it.
“Did all the babbling not clue you in?” I asked. I could have said ‘begging’, but, you know, there’s things that should only be admitted to in the moment.
Beverley patted my hand. “Just making sure, babes.”
“So we could, uh,” I said. “Keep our options open for things happening?”
“That seems reasonable.” Nightingale gave a little one-shoulder shrug as he said it, but there was a very specific sort of smile flickering on his face. I wondered exactly how he felt about, considering he’d told me once he hadn’t ever – and then I decided there was no point asking because that was up to him, really.
I wondered what Beverley was thinking, too, but she’d pretty much instigated this, so that was up to her as well.
“Do we need to worry about that mate of Rom’s, though?” I asked. “I don’t think we could actually do her for anything, but at best it was a bit rude.”
“Let me worry about that.” Beverley frowned. “I don’t know about your whole legal perspective or whatever, but definitely it was fucking with Mum and Father Thames’ peace, and I already have five separate text messages asking why we left early, so yeah. Let me worry about that.”
“Good,” said Nightingale decisively, and if he was satisfied with Beverley taking care of it then that was, I supposed, that.
“And, while I’m thinking about it,” Bev mused, “I’m still not saying this is ever happening again, but, like, if it did....”
“If it did?” I tried cautiously.
She favoured me with a slow smile. “We should get the handcuffs out of the drawer next time.”
“I think our pair might be slightly sturdier,” said Nightingale, who was probably not wrong.
“That works too,” Bev said cheerfully.
I buried my face in my coffee, because they were going to kill me, I was going to die right here at Bev’s kitchen table and Nightingale would have to deal with all the apprentices by himself and it would serve both of them right, but hey: what a way to go.