No explanations, no excuses. Just this.
I'm so sorry.
The wonderful thing about what they have between the three of them, Gregory reflects, is that they take turns taking care of one another.
Sometimes, Gregory is the one being cared for.
He knows he shouldn't have come in here, dammit, he has a room to ready and a guest to greet, but the kitchen door was open and he can't seem to regret inviting himself in.
He feels himself being pulled back onto Chef's lap by steel-strong arms. He feels huge, gloved hands carefully stripping him down and whispering over his skin, up, down, around in circles, grounding, calming, preparing. He feels a high needy sound in his throat and chest and the pit of his stomach, because he needs more than this and he knows Chef isn't going to let him up.
This is when Catherine stops her appreciative observation and moves languorously forward, and leans in to lick from his collarbone to behind his ear. He gasps, and the keening in his chest lowers into a moan when she wraps her long fingers around him and begins to stroke.
A large, gloved finger probes gently at him from behind, and he does his best to relax as it presses into him. Catherine is helping, but he still can't quite keep from squirming when the second finger works its way in.
By the third finger he is panting, grasping at Chef's arm, at the juncture of Catherine's neck and shoulder; and when the fingers are suddenly gone, he braces himself, as Chef shifts behind him and Catherine murmurs words of encouragement into the pulse of his neck, her tongue tasting the blood under his skin.
Then Chef is inside him, and although he is slow and careful and they've done this many times before and it doesn't hurt, exactly, it is still uncomfortable as hell for the first few thrusts.
Then Chef adjusts him slightly on his lap, and now Gregory is feeling something other than discomfort.
It takes a minute, but eventually he starts to adjust and find his rhythm. Between the slow building ache of Catherine's ministrations and the short, sharp bursts of pleasure from the movement inside him, he is beginning to feel pleasantly overwhelmed.
It is, of course, at this moment that Catherine straddles both his and Chef's legs and lowers herself onto him with a low hiss. The warmth and wet and heat of her is almost startling, especially in comparison with how cool and smooth her skin is, and his breath hitches sharply. It hitches again when he sees the look on her face, lazy and wicked and hungry, and again when she starts to move.
As Chef's powerful thrusts push his hips upward, Catherine meets him at the top and smoothly rolls him back down. There is no respite from the pleasure, and his gasps and cries and ragged breathing steadily increase in volume. He's getting close; judging by Catherine's husky, sibilant moans and the rumble in Chef's chest—the only noise he ever makes when they are together like this—they are neither of them far behind.
Catherine comes first, and makes sure of it. The fingers that aren't clawing at the back of Gregory's neck are circling between her legs, and she slows almost to a halt to focus on herself. The sound Gregory makes is undignified and desperate, and he is so frustrated he almost bites her, but she's caught up soon enough and picks up the pace again, to his sob of relief.
Her nails dig painfully into his neck, her hips judder, and her mouth falls open; and she kisses him, deeply and hard, as she constricts sharply around him and brings him with her.
The edges of his vision go white, and his cries are swallowed up by Catherine's mouth, her tongue curling around them as though they are treasures or secrets or bright drops of blood.
Chef presses his shadowed face into Gregory's back and goes rigid, shivering, his hips jerking through the aftershocks. Gregory feels the warmth of cherry-red eyes burning against his spine, and a silent wail reverberating through his chest cavity.
Then it is over, and they sit, the three of them, in a tableau of stillness and release and warmth, as their breathing evens out and their senses return.
Eventually, they will move. Catherine has patients to look after, Hell's Chef has fine cuisine to murder up, and Gregory has a hotel to run. They will go back to sniping and bickering, when they see each other at all.
For now, though, they are content to rest in each other's company, and know that they are each of them taken care of, until the next time the kitchen door is open.