“I know that, but —”

“All three of us have found a place in this arrangement – something about it that sets us on fire. And I’ve never known sex could do this to me.”

The sting must have shown on his face; she hurried on. “Not just because of him – because of both of you, or just the taboo of it. I didn’t know I could feel that way, like sex has gone from two dimensions to three. It’s not something either of you could do on your own. It’s not something he has that you don’t. And I can only be honest and say I don’t think I want to give that up forever.”

Fucking Pandora’s box, then, was it?

“Can I give it up for now to prove to you that you come first?” she asked. “Absolutely. Eagerly. But eventually, I think I’d want to get back there. I’ll want to feel that fire again someday, when we’re ready. Just like you should fight to keep what lights you on fire in your life. We can fix this, Mike. I’m sure of it.”

He let her hands go to rub his face. “All I’m sure of is that I’m scared to fucking death.”

“I’m just not willing to believe that we’ve wrecked this – not with one night of too-emotional sex, and not with one punch.”

“He cares about you. More than I’m comfortable with.”

“And he’s also a thirty-six-year-old man. He can control his expectations and his emotions, if the payoff is worth it to him – if what the three of us can be for each other is worth it to him, and I believe it is. We need a little space and some time off, and some firm rules, if we all decide this is worth working on.” She rubbed his forearm. “And, Mike, I really think it is.”

He stared at her, long and hard, and took a deep breath. “I don’t know yet. I just don’t. Can you really promise that you won’t… fall in love with this guy?”

She frowned, said nothing for a long breath, then broke his heart. “No, I can’t promise that.”

He buried his face in his hands, feeling he had his answer, right there. “I know it makes me a big fucking coward, and a hypocrite, yeah, but I can’t deal with that. Pretending you want him more than me – even imagining maybe you do, for real… That, I can handle. That gets me hot – I’ll admit it. But love…? I can’t risk that much. I can’t share that much, Samira.”

She spoke calmly, plainly. “I can’t promise I won’t fall in love with him. But I can promise he’ll never take your place. I’m never going to leave you for him. We’ve built a life together. We’ve been testing and strengthening what we’ve got for years. Whatever Bern and I are, it’s new. In some alternate world, it might last a month or forever – we’ll never know, though, because this is reality. You and me. We’re the constant in all this. I think maybe I trust that more than you do.”

“After watching that tape… Yeah, you probably do.”

She winced, and he knew it had been a low blow.

“I can’t ask this of you now,” she said. “But in time… unless it’ll tear you apart, in time I want to try it again. I want to crawl up inside your kink and take it as deep as it goes – with him. Let me be with a man I feel for. Not more than you. Different from how I feel for you. Trust that it’ll always come back to you and me. Let’s try, and I’ll prove to you it’ll always come back to you and me.”

He turned that around in his mind, feeling blindsided by it all. Shocked by her insistence, when this morning she’d been so mired in remorse. Remorse, or fear? Fear that she’d hurt him – he knew that to be true – but perhaps also fear of losing what they’d found with Bern.

“You really care about this,” he said.

She nodded. “I do. I think I want it as badly as you want the cuckolding.”

Something she’d said earlier nagged at him…

“I never fought for my kink,” he said. “Not like this.” What he had fought for, though, was to keep Sam, back when his jealousy and dishonesty had nearly driven her away. He was struck now by the tone of her voice, its strains of both neediness and insistence. So like how he’d sounded himself, begging for a second chance, a chance to explain. A chance to prove he could control his emotions and articulate his wants.

We’ve been here before, haven’t we?

“There’s so much in this for you, for both of us,” she said. “Where we are now, it grew out of your desires. I found my own along the way. Just tell me you’ll think about it, and we can all maybe still have exactly what we want. Just with rules, so we don’t end up back here again.”

He breathed slowly, feeling lost and scared and exhausted and utterly uncertain. What if back when he’d fucked up, acted like an ass, and almost wrecked their relationship… What if she’d denied him a chance to fix things? To prove himself rational, just as she was pleading for a chance to prove herself trustworthy. What if she’d refused and simply ended it all, shot what they had between the eyes and walked away? He’d be years into missing her, years into wondering what might have happened, if he’d had a chance to fight to keep them together. Years into treading water, trying not to drown in all that regret.

A long breath hissed through her nose. “Say you’ll think about it, Mike. Please.”

He held her gaze and took her hands. “I’ll think about it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Six months later

Samira looked up at the sound of two men groaning in unison. It wasn’t a sordid noise – not yet, anyhow – but enough to pause her hands in the midst of spooning guacamole into a wooden bowl.

“What?” she called over the breakfast bar.

Mike was on the couch, Bern kitty-corner on the easy chair, both their sets of eyes on the TV.

“They just scored,” Mike said, reaching for his beer.

“Field goal,” Bern added. “Not that it’ll save them.” He was wearing a yellow-and-black-striped beanie with a pom-pom on its peak, and Mike was in his supposedly lucky Steelers sweatshirt. It appeared to be working today.

“I’d sympathize, but I don’t have a dog in this fight.” Sam carried the snacks over and took her seat beside Mike, swinging her thighs over his.

“I’ll convert you yet,” he told her.

“No chance. I’ll die a Giants girl.”

Mike hooked a thumb toward Bern. “He switched, like a respectable citizen.”

“I rooted for the Titans when I was a kid,” Bern said, “but Kentucky doesn’t have any real allegiances. It was nice to move to a city where people get rabid over this shit. Though on the flip side, around here it’s like, convert or get lynched.”

“Sam’s not even from New York,” Mike said. “I don’t get where the loyalty comes from.”

“Newark is, like, three feet from New York. Plus I lived there for twelve years.”

“You marry me, you marry the Steelers.”

“I took your name,” Sam said, rooting through the chips for a folded-over one. “But I’ll never take your colors. Everyone looks terrible in yellow, anyway.”

“Blasphemy.”

“Have we ever been in the Super Bowl against each other?” she asked Mike. She might own a Giants jersey, but she couldn’t claim any sort of superfan status.

“Never. And we’ll need marriage counseling if it ever happens.”

Bern laughed and tipped his beer bottle to his lips.

Sam smiled, zoning out as the game came back from a commercial. She wanted to pinch herself, to be sure this was all real once more.

How had they gotten here, to this moment, on this lazy Sunday afternoon? Outside it was dark and snowy, with a bitter, biting wind, but here, by the glow of their little Christmas tree and the flashing television, all was so cozy, almost innocent.

It hadn’t been easy, that much she knew.

Sam had pled her case with Mike, firmly, and repeatedly, and he’d listened, if not immediately agreed. She didn’t speak to Bern for six weeks after the Incident – as she’d come to name that out-of-bounds night, and Mike’s thuggish rebuttal – while she and Mike worked toward healing the scrapes she’d put on his trust. His anger and hurt had faded with time, thanks in no small part to Sam’s willing abstinence from contact with Bern, and the fact that the man had respected their marriage and not reached out to her, either. Then in early September, Mike had come around. What had he said to her, late that night, after a long day of contemplative quiet and a near-silent, slow, intense bout of sex?