He reaches out and traces one finger down the center of my chest, from my collarbone to the curve of my sternum, slow and deliberate and barely there, and the sensation ripples outward from that single line like the way the water ripples when youdrop something into it, spreading in widening circles until I feel it at the backs of my knees and the inside of my wrists and everywhere.
"Matteo," I say.
"Yes," he says.
"Do that again," I say.
His mouth curves. The actual smile, brief and warm and real. He does it again, the same single finger, the same slow deliberate line, and I exhale and the rose in my scent opens up fully in the warm air and his scent sharpens in response.
"You're perfect," he says, quietly and without any of the armor that usually wraps around the things he means. "I need you to know that. Every part of you."
He cups my breast in his palm, unhurried, and his thumb traces the curve of it and then presses very softly and the ripple that moves through me is not the gentle kind this time, it starts at the base of my spine and moves upward and outward and I grip the sheet with one hand and his arm with the other.
"There," he says, watching my face.
"Yes," I confirm.
Tomas comes around to my other side and his hand finds my hip and he pulls me gently back until I am lying against the pillows, and all three of them are around me. Santos takes the waist of my underwear between his fingers and draws them down and off before his hands find my ankles and begin moving upward with the same unhurried patience he applied to the mascarpone this afternoon, Matteo at my side with his mouth following the trail his finger made down my chest, warm and certain and close, Tomas sitting beside my head with his glasses off and his gray eyes warm and steady.
"All right?" Tomas says.
"Getting there," I say.
"Tell me when you get there," he says.
"You'll know," I say. "Everyone in a twenty meter radius will know."
The corner of his mouth moves. "Then we'll proceed," he says.
Santos's hands reach my thighs and his thumbs press gently at the inside of them, spreading warmth in slow circles, and the heat that has been building since the living room moves up a degree, deeper and more insistent, and my rose floods the room and my strawberry blooms warm and open and my omega is doing absolutely nothing but leaning into every bit of it with complete shameless enthusiasm.
"You have been," Santos says, his hands still moving in those slow circles, "in my kitchen, and in my corridor, and in my living room, and on my island for six weeks."
"Your island," I say. "That is very possessive."
"Yes," he says, completely unapologetic. "And in six weeks you have fixed my pasta, corrected my knife grip, named my bay tree, and made the best tarragon sauce anyone has eaten in this house." He looks up at me with those warm brown eyes. "And I have been thinking about this every single day."
Matteo's mouth is at my ribcage now, each press of his lips warm and deliberate, moving with the focused patience he brings to everything that matters, and his tongue traces the curve of my ribs and the sensation sends ripples outward the way the light sends ripples across the water in the morning, layers of them, one over another, and I close my eyes and feel all three of them at once, Santos's warmth at my thighs, Matteo's mouth at my ribs, Tomas's hand in my hair, stroking slow and certain.
I open my eyes and look at him. His gray eyes are warm and direct and without the careful composure they usually hold, and behind the glasses he put back on without thinking about it, there is just Tomas, the version of him that exists in the libraryat four in the afternoon with the afternoon light on the water, the version that marked his page before I walked through the door.
Then I put my hand on his face, the way Santos puts his hands on mine, warm palm against jaw, and I look at him with the particular directness I use for things I mean completely.
Santos's hands reach my hips and he looks up at me and his saffron is everywhere and warm and bright. "Still good?" he says.
"Yes," I say. "Santos. Still yes."
"Buono," he says, and his mouth follows where his hands have been, warm and deliberate, his tongue tracing a slow line along my hip bone that sends ripples outward in all directions at once and I grip Tomas's arm with one hand and the sheet with the other.
Matteo's mouth moves upward to my breast and his tongue traces the curve of it, slow and thorough, and then he presses his lips to the peak and the sensation is not a ripple this time, it is a wave, full and warm and total, moving through me from the top of my head to the soles of my feet and back, and I make a sound that I have never once made in a composed or professional context.
Santos's mouth is warm against my inner thigh and his tongue traces slow circles that are not quite where I want them and exactly where they need to be, building rather than arriving, and the heat inside me has moved from low and warm to something deeper and more insistent, and my rose scent is so open in the room that I can smell it alongside all three of them, the combined layered warmth of it, and my omega is entirely done with subtlety and has been for approximately twenty minutes.
"Santos," I say.
"I know," he says, against my thigh.
"Santos," I say again, differently.