Except we fucked it all up last night.

But had they really? Permanently? And fucked it up how, precisely?

By being human beings. With feelings, and impulses, and moments of weakness.

So many times, for the sake of her role, she’d imagined cheating on her husband. She’d always been cruel in those fantasies, selfish, shameless. But now it had actually happened, in a way, and yes, she had been selfish, but not cruel. Vulnerable and mixed up. And while she didn’t feel ashamed, per se, regret hounded her. Her actual infidelity hadn’t fit Mike’s script. It had been too quiet, too emotional, too real. Too human.

What had Bern said to her that had set these gears turning? Something about how the alternative to their present predicament was to do all those things with a man she was indifferent toward. The way Mike looked at it, that was the only safe option, if they wanted to try this again someday. The thought turned her stomach.

And beneath the uncertainty lay sadness. Grief, to imagine losing all those vibrant new facets of her sexual self. To imagine she’d never again feel what she had, with her body worshipped by both of theirs.

I’ve given everything I have, accommodating Mike’s needs. Last night I needed to feel those things with Bern. Not for keeps, but for a little while. With a man she’d performed a hundred filthy acts with, and yet true romantic attachment was too taboo to ever move on from?

Why did that smell so distinctly of bullshit?

Sam sat holding the steering wheel, staring straight ahead at nothing, as an unexpected emotion took shape in her chest, growing and solidifying with every breath.

Anger, or something like it.

And as she drove home, she assembled those feelings into thoughts, into an argument.

These sexual adventures had been worth gambling their marriage on, after all. Surely preserving them was worth fighting for.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mike paced the front landing for fifteen minutes or more, mind and heart racing, pulse pumping, body tight. When the sound of his own footsteps began to grate, he went to the living room to stare blindly at ESPN. He’d been pissed when Sam had left, but it mellowed quickly, leaving him feeling scared and stupid, ashamed of how he’d lost control. He squeezed his aching fist and let the pain humble him and cool his temper.

Beneath the jealousy and the anger lay sadness. They’d had it so good, these past few months. They’d ridden his kink further into the wilds than he’d ever expected, and now that was over. Thanks to Bern losing track of his place… and thanks to Mike as well. It was all thanks to him, in the end. He’d drawn them all together, created this whole new entity among the three of them, and now he’d stomped on the thing the second it slipped off its leash. The second that human nature hijacked the script, and —

He sat up straight at the sound of the lock flipping. “Sam?”

“It’s me.”

He stood, his legs feeling boneless, and met her in the hall.

“Let’s sit down,” she said. “I want to talk.”

“Okay.” Jesus, that didn’t sound good. She had her business face on, and Mike had to wonder, how had his actions sounded, as retold by Bern? Psycho, no doubt. And had they been? He’d felt nothing but blind, searing righteousness in the moment.

Mike switched off the TV. Sam sat cross-legged on one end of the couch, and he did the same – close enough to take her hands in his and rub her knuckles. “What happened?”

“Very little. I told him I was sorry it had to end like this. He said the same. I thanked him for everything he’d been for us, and we said good-bye.”

“Okay. That sounds civil.”

She sighed, shaking her head, then met his eyes squarely. “Mike, it doesn’t have to end like this.”

“He has feelings for you. You… you have feelings for him. I know it’s hypocritical – I know it’s fucking ironic, given my fantasies, but this can’t work. It could only ever have worked for as long as it stayed purely sexual.”

“Do you think we’re ever going to find someone as right as he was, ever again?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure we should ever even try, given how it’s gone.”

“You can’t really mean that. Not after all the fun we’ve had these past couple of months.”

“I know it sucks, but it’s a catch-twenty-two. You need to feel something for a guy if you’re going to feel secure enough to sleep with him. I won’t feel secure if I’m worried you might have feelings for him, for real.”

Another sigh, and she gazed down at their hands. “I just feel like…” She looked up. “I just kind of think that’s bullshit, Mike.”

He blinked, confused.

“It’s bullshit, and it’s unrealistic, and it’s not fair. I drove around after I left his place, and I thought a lot about this. Before last night, all three of us were living our fantasies. You were getting cuckolded. Bern was getting watched and recorded.”

Mike rankled at the man’s mere name, whispered by Samira only last night, no doubt, too quiet for the computer to catch.

“I was getting to be with two men,” she went on, “something I never realized would light me up the way it has. And he and I aren’t teenagers, incapable of keeping our feelings in perspective. Now that it’s all out on the table, I don’t understand why it has to end. I told you already, I’m not going to leave you for him. If you can trust that, and he can accept it, why does this have to stop?”

“Be —”

“You’ve had no trouble dealing with me sharing my body with another man. Can’t you see your way to sharing just a tiny piece of my heart? Just one little sliver?”

Mike didn’t reply, way too muddled to make sense of his feelings. It all sounded so idealistic, so naive, after what had just happened.

She squeezed his hand. “I know I hurt you. We both hurt you, last night, but we never meant to. Maybe he does have feelings for me, but he didn’t plan this. I believe that. I know it.” She pressed a fist to her heart. “And the entire situation is so complex and intense, it feels like the only thing we can really control is our intentions.”

“You have no idea how much that scares me.”

“If he can accept that he and I can only be together within the bounds of the three-ways, why can’t this go on?”

Mike didn’t answer, paralyzed, too afraid to entertain logic.

“Why does the fact that I have feelings for him have to equal failure, Mike? Why does that have to be a bad thing? It’s been so much hotter for me since those feelings developed, so much deeper. I went into this willing to do those things as a gift to you, but now I’ve found things in it that I want for myself, too. Because I value him, and what he’s brought into our sex life, and because I feel valued in return.”

Of course, when she put it like that, he felt like an ass.

“My body and my heart are a package deal,” she said softly. “I don’t want a man touching just one or the other. And I think if we’d tried those things with some guy I felt apathetic toward, we’d have found that out the hard way, and maybe turned me off the idea permanently. But instead we kind of hit the jackpot, Mike. Can you see that? Just a little?”

He kept his gaze on their hands, no words coming, just echoing uncertainty. Everything she said made perfect sense, but logic wasn’t any comfort to his mangled ego.

“We could change the rules,” Sam said at length. “There’s no reason this needs to end, not for good. We can take a break, get some perspective, figure out what it might take so everyone’s getting their needs met and everything feels balanced again, but then… Jesus, Mike. It seems wrong to throw this all away, after everything we’ve done, the three of us. I know how hot it’s gotten you since it started. And it’s done the same for me, and for him. What are the chances we’d meet someone out of the gate that we clicked with the way we did with him?”