Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Sleep didn’t come so much as it ambushed him. One moment Ethan was standing at the window, his mind a trapped wasp buzzing against the glass of his new reality, and the next he was jerking awake in the strange bed, disoriented. He must have collapsed onto the mattress at some point. The white duvet was twisted around his legs, the pillow humid under his cheek. A deep, unnatural quiet pressed in on the room, broken only by the low hum of central air.
He’d been dreaming.
The details were already fraying at the edges, dissolving like sugar in water, but the sensation remained, stamped onto his nervous system. A heavy, drugging warmth pooling low in his belly. The feeling of hands—large, callused, unmistakably Luca’s—sliding up his bare sides. But then another touch, smoother, more deliberate, tracing the line of his jaw—Marco’s. In the dream, there was no warehouse, no fear. Just a dark, liquid space where those hands were the only things that existed, mapping his skin with a possessive certainty that felt less like a violation and more like a claim. A hot mouth on his throat. A whisper in his ear, the words lost but the tone a velvet command. He’d arched into it, a sound caught in his own throat, his body responding with an urgency that shocked him even in the dream.
Now, in the grey pre-dawn light seeping around the window shades, the warmth solidified into a specific, tangible heaviness between his legs. He was painfully, undeniably hard. A flush of heat raced up his neck to his ears.
He was alone. Thank god.
He shifted, trying to will the arousal away, but the friction of the soft sweatpants only made it worse. A groan escaped him, part frustration, part shame. He buried his face into the pillow, which smelled faintly of laundry detergent and something else, clean and masculine. In his half-awake state, seeking comfort from the confusing storm in his body and mind, he curled onto his side and dragged the other pillow close, hugging it to his chest. It was firm, warm. He nuzzled into it, breathing deeply.
Except it wasn’t a pillow.
The solidity was all wrong. There was a heartbeat, a slow, steady rhythm under his cheek. And a scent—leather, spearmint, a hint of sweat.
His eyes snapped open.
He wasn’t hugging a pillow. He was wrapped around Luca’s torso, his face pressed against the man’s ribcage where his t-shirt had ridden up. Luca was propped up against the headboard, bare-chested, tattoos a dark tapestry over the defined planes of his stomach and chest. He was utterly still, just watching. On the other side of the bed, sitting upright against the headboard with one knee drawn up, was Marco. He was still in his suit trousers and a crisp white undershirt, sleeves rolled. A book was open in his lap, but he wasn’t reading it. He was watching Ethan too.
Ethan recoiled as if jolted by electricity, scrambling back so fast he nearly tumbled off the edge of the mattress. His face burned with a humiliation so complete he thought he might be sick. The prominent arousal straining against his sweatpants was hideously visible.
“I… I didn’t… I was asleep,” he stammered, voice choked. He yanked the duvet up to his waist, a pathetic shield.
Luca’s expression was unreadable for a terrifying second. Then, a slow, deep smile spread across his face. Not a smirk of mockery, but something warmer, more satisfied. “We know,” he said, his voice rough with sleep. “You were talking in your sleep, too.”
Ethan’s blood turned to ice. “I wasn’t.”
“Mhm.” Marco closed his book with a soft snap and set it on the nightstand. “Little murmurs. My name. Then his.” He said it like a scientist noting a fascinating result.
“It was a dream,” Ethan whispered, the defense pathetic even to his own ears.
“Yeah,” Luca said. He reached out, not quickly, giving Ethan every chance to flinch away. His fingers brushed a strand of hair from Ethan’s damp forehead. “We know what it was. Felt you getting hard against my leg about five minutes ago. Been watching you for a while. You looked peaceful. Finally.”
The casual statement, the sheer intimacy of the observation, left Ethan exposed and raw. He couldn’t speak. He just stared, paralyzed by shame.
Marco swung his legs off the bed and stood, stretching with a casual grace. He walked around to Ethan’s side and sat on the edge of the mattress, his weight dipping it. He didn’t touch the duvet Ethan was clutching. He just looked at him, his gaze analytical but not cold.
“There’s no shame here, Ethan,” Marco stated, as if explaining a fundamental rule of the house. “Your body reacts. It tells the truth your mind is still fighting. We find that honesty… compelling.”
Luca shifted, lying down on his side now, head propped on his hand. He was a wall of muscle and ink, too close. “You wanna know what I dreamt about last night? After we put you to bed?”
Ethan shook his head, a frantic little motion. He didn’t want to know. He absolutely needed to know.
“I dreamt I had you in our shower,” Luca continued, his voice dropping to a confidential rumble. “Pinned against those cool tiles. Water running, steam everywhere. You were slick and warm, and you just let me hold you there, your head back, mouth open. Couldn’t tell if you were crying or coming. Maybe both.”
The image was vivid, violent, searing. Ethan’s breath hitched. He felt a traitorous, involuntary twitch under the duvet.
Marco watched the reaction, a slight smile touching his lips. “Mine was different,” he said, his tone conversational. “It was in this room. You were asleep, just as you were. And I was simply watching. Then you stirred, and without opening your eyes, you reached for me. Pulled my hand to your mouth. You were so perfectly pliant in your sleep. Accepting. You took my fingers into your mouth and sucked on them, like you were starving for it. I dreamt about the taste of your skin when I finally leaned down to bite your shoulder.”
The explicitness was a shockwave. It wasn’t crude; it was horrifyingly specific, lush with detail, turning his dream into a shared, carnal landscape they now all inhabited. The shame was still there, a hot coal in his gut, but it was being smothered by a burgeoning, dizzying sense of exposure that felt perilously close to power. They wanted him. Not just to own him, but to want him.
“See?” Luca murmured, his hand coming to rest on Ethan’s ankle over the duvet, a heavy, warm weight. “You’re not the only one waking up hot and bothered. It’s just biology. Chemistry. Your body knows who takes care of it now.”
Marco leaned in closer, his voice a soft, intimate vibration in the quiet room. “The dream you had… the one with both of us. Tell me, did it frighten you? Or did it feel like coming home?”
Ethan shut his eyes, unable to bear the intensity of their dual gazes. The truth was a tangled knot inside him. It had felt like both. The terror of the freefall, and the shocking relief of the impact.
He couldn’t say it. He gave another tiny, desperate shake of his head.
“That’s okay,” Marco said, and he did something then that sent a jolt through Ethan’s entire system. He leaned in and pressed a soft, closed-mouth kiss to Ethan’s temple. It was brief, gentle, unbearably affectionate. “You don’t have to say it. We felt it. We know.”
Luca’s hand squeezed his ankle, a firm, grounding pressure. “Next time you have a dream like that, you don’t have to wake up alone. That’s the whole point. We’re right here.”
The promise—or the threat—hung in the morning air, mingling with the scent of their skin and Ethan’s own sharp embarrassment. He kept his eyes closed, clinging to the duvet, his body humming with a conflict that was tearing him in two. The arousal, unabated, pulsed in time with his heartbeat—a heartbeat they had both felt, a body they had both claimed, even in his sleep.
He was theirs. Every confused, shameful, yearning part of him. And in the silent, sun-lit room, with their confessions hanging between them like a promise, the most terrifying part was the part of him that, deeply and secretly, was glad.
The silence stretched, thin and taut, vibrating with everything they’d just said. Ethan felt the phantom press of Luca’s leg, the ghost of Marco’s kiss on his temple. His own need was a live wire under his skin, humming in time with his frantic pulse. The part of him that was glad swelled, pushing against the fear until something brittle and final snapped inside his chest.
He let go of the duvet.
His hand, trembling slightly, moved of its own volition. It didn’t go to cover himself. It reached out, fingers brushing first the warm, tattooed skin of Luca’s stomach. Luca inhaled sharply, a low sound catching in his throat. Then Ethan turned his head, his gaze finding Marco’s. He reached for him too, his fingers curling into the soft cotton of Marco’s undershirt, pulling him down.
“Okay,” Ethan whispered, the word barely audible, a surrender and a plea fused into one shattered syllable.
It was all the permission they needed.
The next moments were a blur of heat and motion, a deliberate, consuming fire. Luca’s mouth was on his, hot and demanding, swallowing his gasp. Marco’s clever fingers pushed the sweatpants down, his cool palm skating up Ethan’s thigh. Clothes were pushed aside, fabric tearing slightly, a sound that made Ethan flinch and then moan. They handled him with a terrifying efficiency, turning him, positioning him, their hands everywhere.
“Look at you,” Luca growled against his shoulder, biting down, not enough to break skin but enough to brand. “Mine. Ours. Gonna feel me for days.”
Marco guided him, his voice a hypnotic stream of filth and praise as he prepared him with slick, careful fingers. “Taking it so well, aren’t you? So perfect for this. Made for us.” The stretch burned, then melted into a deep, shocking fullness as Luca pushed into him from behind, his big hands vise-like on Ethan’s hips. The air left Ethan’s lungs in a punched-out sob that twisted into a broken cry of pleasure.
“Now me, darling,” Marco murmured, and he fed his cock into Ethan’s willing, open mouth. Ethan gagged once, tears springing to his eyes, then relaxed his throat, letting Marco set a slow, deep rhythm. He was suspended between them, utterly filled, a shaky bridge of straining muscle and overwhelming sensation.
They used him, worshipped him, in equal measure. Luca’s thrusts were brutal, piston-like, chasing his own release, while Marco fucked his mouth with a luxurious, controlled pace. The slap of skin, the wet sounds, Luca’s ragged curses and Marco’s gentle praise—it all fused into a single, overpowering symphony. They traded places, maneuvering Ethan’s pliant body into new configurations, whispering dark, beautiful promises about keeping him full, about marking him inside and out.
When Luca came, it was with a raw shout, his teeth back on Ethan’s shoulder, hips stuttering as he pumped his release deep inside. The hot spill triggered Ethan’s own climax, a devastating wave that left him blind and shuddering. Marco followed, pulling from his mouth to finish across his back, painting stripes of possession over Luca’s bite marks.
Then, stillness. Heavy, breathless quiet.
Ethan trembled violently, the aftermath a physical crash. He expected to be discarded, left sticky and ashamed in the wrecked sheets. Instead, Luca gently pulled out and gathered him, turning him onto his back. Marco returned from the bathroom with a warm, wet cloth.
They cleaned him with a focused, quiet tenderness that dismantled him more thoroughly than the sex had. They wiped the sweat from his brow, the spend from his stomach and back. Luca inspected the red mark on his shoulder, kissing it softly. “Beautiful,” he mumbled, his voice thick.
Marco arranged the pillows and pulled the clean duvet over all three of them. He spooned up behind Ethan, an arm slung possessively over his waist. Luca settled facing them, his forehead resting against Ethan’s, his breathing slowing. They held him in the warm, safe space between their bodies, a living fortress of flesh and bone.
“We’ve got you,” Luca whispered, his thumb stroking Ethan’s cheek. “Just sleep.”