Matteo's hand finds my waist from my left, and between all three of them and their scents and the window going gold behind me and the heat moving through me in slow warm waves, I feel something that I have not felt in months, possibly longer, possibly ever.
Held.
"Jennifer," Tomas says, his mouth at the back of my neck, his breath warm against my skin. "Tell us if you need anything."
"I know," I say. "I trust you."
I feel him absorb that. The slight change in his breathing, the way his hand on my shoulder becomes something steadier and more deliberate.
"Good," he says.
Santos lifts his head and looks at me, his eyes warm and dark and completely unhidden. "Can I," he says, his hands moving to the hem of my green shirt.
"Yes," I say.
He lifts it over my head and the warm air of the room meets my skin, the late afternoon gold from the window laying itself across me. He reaches around and undoes the clasp of my bra, draws the straps from my shoulders, and sets it aside. Santos's eyes move over me in the light with the expression I have been cataloguing since the kitchen, the one that has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with the plain honest fact of wanting.
"Bellissima," he says, quietly, and it comes out rougher than the Italian usually comes, three months of restraint behind it. "Sei così bella, principessa. Ogni curva di te."
He doesn't rush.
His hands come to my waist, warm and broad, tracing the curve of it from my ribs down to where my hips flare wider,and he takes his time there, his palms following the shape of me like he is memorizing something, like he has been waiting for the particular sensation of this and intends to let himself have it properly.
"This," he says, his hands at my hips, the full generous curve of them, his fingers spreading wide enough to feel the softness of me. "And this." He moves to my belly, careful and reverent, both palms flat against the curve of it. "And these." His hands come up to cup my breasts, heavy and full in his palms, and he exhales slowly, like a man receiving something he has been waiting for.
I moan as I don't fight anything, and just enjoy their touch.
His thumbs trace slow circles and the sensation moves through me in ripples the way the morning water moves, one after another, spreading outward, and my rose scent floods the room and I hear all three of them breathe in at the same time.
"Still good?" Santos asks, his eyes on my face.
"Very," I say.
Matteo turns me slightly toward him and his mouth finds my neck, just below my jaw, his lips warm and deliberate, and his tongue traces a slow line down to my collarbone and his scent is dark and close and warm and I tip my head back and his mouth follows the line of my throat with the focused patience of a man who does everything with focused patience.
"You smell extraordinary," he says against my skin, and his voice has dropped to something I have never heard from him before, all the control present but the warmth underneath it visible, warm and certain.
Tomas's mouth finds the back of my neck, the place just below where the bond mark is, and the sensation of it moves through me like the water moves when the morning wind crosses it, all those small simultaneous ripples spreading outward at once, and I reach back and grip his forearm and hemakes a sound into my neck that is low and satisfied and entirely his.
They hold me.
Then he gently lays me on the bed, Santos in front with his mouth still finding mine in slow unhurried intervals, Matteo at my side with his scent in the air, Tomas at my back with his silver musk steady and grounding, and I sit on the edge of the bed and look up at all three of them in the gold afternoon light.
Santos crouches in front of me.
He takes my face in his hands again and looks at me with those warm brown eyes and the saffron sitting bright and open in the room. "I have been thinking about you," he says, "trying to convince myself we didn't want you in our lives." His thumbs move across my cheekbones. "I'm done being an idiot."
He kisses me again, deeper this time, his tongue tracing mine slowly, and I taste saffron and warmth and the tiramisu underneath everything, and he pulls back just enough to press his forehead against mine.
"Tell me what you want," he says.
"All of it," I say. "Everything."
He smiles. The real one. The one that takes over his whole face. "Va bene," he says. "Then that is what you get."
Matteo sits beside me on the bed.
He is closer than he usually allows himself to be without a reason, and his scent in the air beside me and his pale blue eyes are on my face and they are not the controlled careful eyes I have been studying for six weeks. They are open, in the particular way that Matteo goes open when he has decided to stop managing, and the difference is remarkable.