(this chapter is basically just gratuitous sex)
Tessa woke up to the play of fingers on her arm and tried to roll into the hand but she was held in place. Even with the dissonance of being held down, waking up was slow. He was playing with her hair now, gently like he didn't want to disturb her but the arm around her waist that made sitting up impossible wasn't his. It might have been alarming. She had never woken up wrapped up in two different people but she knew exactly who they were and it made all the difference.
It wasn't quite graceful but she managed to wriggle around so she could face Will. He smiled and the rush of treasured memories that went with Will sleepy eyed and smiling rolled over her. Behind her, still asleep, Jem pulled her back into place so she could feel him up and down the length of her body. He held on and pressed his cheek to her shoulder. Even as she reached out to touch Will's hair, she cuddled back against him because she knew he found it reassuring even as he slept.
"I could get used to living like this," Will said to her. "End a day like that, begin the next one like this."
"Me too," Tessa said.
He shifted closer to her in the nest of blankets and cupped her face in his hands. She was smiling before he made it to the kiss. He hadn't been the one to kiss her yet and she melted into this one. It had all the thrill of a first kiss with none of the anxiety. It was slow and sleepy and she let him keep it that way. She teased his mouth open but let him decide how hard it was and how fast it happened. He was clumsy with his tongue but such a fast learner that it was barely worth noting.
He kissed her deeper and she wrapped her arms around his neck to hold him near. She couldn't follow him if he pulled back because Jem still held onto her and she wanted him right where he was. Will wasn't a tease and he had no interest in moving away. His body kept pushing closer and he hooked a knee over her leg. In attaching himself to her in the night, Jem had done the same thing from the other side. Will adjusted so he was wrapped around both of them. Tessa was left pinned but barely noticed because Will was getting more adventurous with his hands.
"Am I too forward?" he asked before sliding his hand off her shoulder.
"Absolutely not," she said nuzzling his cheek.
He touched her breast and when he caught her smile he squeezed just a little. She pushed into his hand and murmured something inarticulate but happy in his ear. He chuckled and did it again. He was all smiles as she murmured his name.
It was strange to know more about him than he did. He had always loved gasps and moans. The sounds she made could pull stronger reactions from him than touches could. There was a place for words but words when he was like this were better saved and measured. His hand tightened and she didn't hold back the sigh it pulled from her.
He explored. His hands caressed and squeezed and would have slid lower down her stomach if Jem's arm weren't still latched around it. Will got distracted by that and his hand ran up Jem's arm to his shoulder. Jem muttered and Tessa felt him shift as he started to wake up.
It made her realize she was held between two people. That should not have been a surprise. She had laid down here, she had felt Jem around her while she had been kissing Will but it was more real when he was awake. Her heart rate picked up and it wasn't fear though it almost felt like it.
Jem shifted again and she felt him attempt to stretch out his legs but they were so tangled in hers and weighed down by the addition of Will's that all he could do was struggle. Rather than say anything he fell still and kissed the back of her neck. She leaned her head to the side and gave him all the access to her throat that he might want.
"Good morning," she said.
"Hello," he said into her neck.
Will's face was still right in front of her so she leaned up and kissed him again. His lips were flushed and hers felt swollen. He kissed her harder than he had before and she could feel that he was reaching past her and touching Jem though she wasn't sure where or how. There was some jumbled shifting as they untangled their legs and Tessa was a little disappointed by the amount of space it opened up.
Will held her jaw in one hand and kissed her deeply and Jem's hands were on her leg, running down from her hip and then turning and sliding back up the inside of her thigh. Even with the flannel pajamas she wore the contact was electric. She shifted into it and let him push her knees wide.
"How far are we going this morning?" Jem asked with his palm against the inside of her thigh, almost at the very top. Tessa pulled back from Will and he let her go without really giving her any more space. She looked at Jem and then kissed him. In that moment, she was more sure of that as a language than she was of words.
"Tess?" he said and she pulled away from Will to roll into him.
These conversations were not embarrassing but something about having Will there made her shy of them. It took her a moment to realize why. There were things she did with Jem that she and Will would never have done. In some cases it was because it had never occurred to them, in others it was simply a matter of different tastes. It was unnerving to have to consider them at the same time. More than any other moment since his arrival, it made Tessa conscious of the way her two lives were winding together.
"Touch me," she said into Jem's chest. Will was the one who did as she asked with tentative fingers like he was afraid he had hurt her or scared her. His hand was on her back so she reached behind her and grabbed it. She pulled it in so she could cradle it against her chest. Once he settled close to her, she kept speaking, "I don't want more than that, not yet. It's all still too new and confused in my head."
In rolling over, she had dislodged Jem's hand from her thigh but he slid it back into place and then all the way up to pull a gasp out of her. The strength of her response to even that much touch surprised her, she hadn't realized how aroused she was. Her body didn't care that it was new and confused and needed time to sort out. Some corner of her mind was just as ready to do anything either of them wanted but the rest of her wasn't.
She needed time to understand how her feelings for Will fit around the person he was and not the person she remembered. She needed time to make sense of having both of them there and how to manage warm, demanding hands everywhere she turned. She needed time to adjust to the distractions of another person and how to balance wants and needs. She needed to be sure that Jem was a comfortable as he seemed. She needed it to go slow.
"Do you want the release?" Jem asked.
He'd laid her out on her back as she'd been trying to quiet the rush of thoughts. Will was touching her breasts again. She needed slow but there was such a thing as too slow.
"Yes, please," she said and she'd intended it to be flippant but Will caught her nipple at the wrong time and her voice came out breathy and desperate. Jem laughed and it was a soft dark sound meant only for bedrooms.
She pulled her shirt off and tossed it away. She looked up at Will who was a little indecisive about what he had been doing now that he was touching skin. It only lasted a moment before his hand was back in place, stroking and exploring. He was gentler now and he watched her. His hand was cupped around her breast, his thumb was testing to see how much he had to rub to make her nipple harden but his eyes were on her face. Dark blue eyes trained on hers and she couldn't look away.
"What do you want?" she asked him.
"Being here with you is better than anything I'd ever thought to want," he said.
His thumb and forefinger were rolling her nipple right up to the edge between pleasure and pain and warmth kept curling up in her stomach with each movement. It was the focus of all her attention until Jem hooked his fingers into her waist band and very slowly pulled the last of her clothing away. Once she was naked he lay against her side and pressed a kiss to her shoulder.
"Less clothing," she said as Will's hand started running down her body. She tugged at his shirt with clumsy fingers. Will almost never denied her what she wanted and once she had his bare chest to lean into she relaxed. It was Will who reached over and demanded that Jem take his off as well.
Her fingers were clumsy when she tried to help and she kept getting distracted and just watching. There were different kinds of arousal and this kind left her needy and almost helpless. She could have snapped herself out of it if she'd tried but she liked the feeling of giving herself over and narrowing her reactions down to sensations. It was the act of putting herself into someone else's hands and then stepping back and watching what happened.
"I trust you," she said with her mouth against Will's collar bone but she meant it as a blanket statement.
She was cradled between them and when Jem pulled her knees wide. She inhaled and settled into place so that one knee was thrown over his so she didn't have to lose the closeness while allowing him to touch her. In a flash of neediness that roiled in her stomach she leaned over and pulled Jem into a kiss. He kissed her deeply and someone's hand made it down between her spread thighs.
It wasn't Jem.
She was expecting Jem. The person kissing you should have been the one with his hands in intimate places but he wasn't as intentioned as Jem usually was. He was curious and uneven. Pressure here, glancing touches there, pressing folds back but not knowing how to make something of it.
She remembered this.
She broke the kiss with Jem and pulled Will in. Kissing him distracted him farther but she didn't care. The sense memory was so vivid. This was Will on their wedding night, careful and curious and trying so hard not to hurt her. She could smell the room - wood smoke and lilac because they'd been married in spring and one of the maids had filled a vase by the bed with purple flowers. It was a flashback that was all bliss and nerves and comfort.
Jem's hand was on her hip and his lips were on her shoulder. He nibbled just hard enough that she felt the graze of teeth and it pulled her out of that past moment and back into the present. Will hit the right place and her head fell back in appreciation. Frustration followed a moment later as he moved on too fast. She twisted a little bit but Jem caught her hip so she had to stay where Will wanted her.
"No choosing sides," she said.
"I'm not," Jem said but he held her a little tighter.
"There are no sides," Will said.
One look at Jem told her that he had been thinking the exact opposite of that. Her imagination followed him to all those places. Jem flashed her a quick look that spoke of ganging up on Will until he was incoherent or maybe of alliances against her that would push her well beyond the things he could already do to her. There were going to be days where sides were chosen and the very thought thrilled through her.
Jem left her to her imagination and quirked a smile at Will before he pulled him into a kiss. His fingers short circuited again and she forgot her attempts to try and twist her hips against his hand. She just watched them. She lifted her head and pressed a lingering kiss to Will's jaw so she could feel him move as well as see them.
If she'd had concerns about getting distracted by the other person, this erased the last of them. The two of them were completely distracted from what they had been doing to her but she didn't care. Jem held Will's lip between his teeth for a moment after the kiss broke apart. Will looked dazed and starstruck as Jem pulled Tessa in for the next kiss.
He dropped his head a moment later so he shared her pillow and started nuzzling her neck. She reached up and found the marks he'd left on Will during whatever they had done the afternoon before. She trailed her fingers over the purpling mark low on his throat and wondered if he had noticed it yet. Tessa was an expert at the little healing spells that cleared them away because Jem loved to leave them in trails over her skin. Rather than fixing Will's she put her mouth a little higher and gave him another one.
Jem's mouth was on her hammering pulse when he pulled a cry out of her by finding the places that Will kept missing and rubbing hard. He pulled Will along, guiding him and pushing him when he was too gentle. He was often too gentle.
"You're not hurting me," Tessa said in response to some lesson of Jem's that left her gasping and Will shying away. It had taken a long time when they'd been young to figure out how much Tessa could enjoy before it hurt. Everything she had done with Jem since had far eclipsed those old boundaries.
Jem turned her body into a classroom and it was thrilling on its own. Will and Jem had never used as many words as other people when they communicated. To be wrapped in the middle of that was like being a part of something bigger and deeper than she'd ever felt with either of them alone.
They were individuals. Complete and distinct.
And yet, they were also something different together.
Jem still had his mouth against her neck and had pushed up to that line where it almost hurt. He nuzzled and sucked and nipped at her skin. She had leaned her head away so he could do anything he wanted. Will was there to cradle her head in the crook of her arm and when she opened her eyes, she could see him run his fingers through Jem's hair.
Different together. Beautiful together.
"Oh," escaped from her as someone slipped fingers inside her. She rocked her hips against him and as Will shifted to make space for her, she felt him against her thigh. He was hard enough that it must be uncomfortable. She reached for him and slid her hand down into his pants. He tensed and jumped a little bit. It had been his fingers inside her. She blinked her thoughts clear to start to apologize but his voice was already there, in her ear as his fingers slid back into her body.
"Please don't stop," he said.
Tessa tried to come up with a response but Will was far better at this than what he had been trying to do before and she couldn't think about anything else. Jem was helping just enough to push her up to the edge but not enough to push her over it. Will leaned in against her hand even though it wasn't doing much but cradling him while she tried to hold herself together.
The phone rang.
Tessa gasped at the interruption as it pulled her out of the world of touch and sensation that had enveloped her so completely. She must have looked startled because Jem laughed at her and kissed the end of her nose as he reached for the phone.
"No, pretend you didn't hear it," she said.
"Five people have this number and none of them call to chat," Jem said.
"I know," Tessa said. Will's hand was against her body and she rubbed herself against it for a moment before she realized what she was doing and stilled. He inhaled and then pushed against her and circled is palm against her. Tessa wanted to relax into it and fall over the edge that was right there but Jem retrieved the phone.
"Throw it away, James," she said in a breathy voice.
"Catarina," he said holding it up.
"Fuck," she said and pulled away from Will's hand. "See, now that I know that I need to answer it. She never calls for anything."
Jem handed her the phone and she answered it with, "Yes?"
"Did I wake you up?" Catarina asked.
"Not quite," Tessa said.
"Which one?" Catarina asked.
"Very funny," Tessa said.
"No really, which one?" Catarina asked.
"Yes," Tessa said, unsure if anyone else could hear Cat on the other end of the phone. She was silent a moment and then made a little noise that was somewhere between shocked, disapproving and impressed.
"I know how that Zoya person is powering her portals," Catarina said, letting the more scandalous aspects of the conversation go. Tessa could picture her looking mortified to have asked.
"How?" Tessa asked. She had sat up and Will was still nearly wrapped around her. She leaned into him. She didn't really care about Zoya.
"There's a nest in the Bronx," Cat said, "I've already called Jace and Clary. They're on their way down to start sweeping it. Can you get there in the next two hours?"
"Yes," Tessa said. She waited until she'd disconnected the call before she let loose a torrent of swearing that made Will pull back and look at her with raised eyebrows. She was naked and half drunk on all the touching and it was being blow away by this piece of news.
"What is it?" Jem asked.
"Nest in the Bronx," she said.
"Shit," Jem said.
"Not a nest of fuzzy ducklings then," Will said.
"No," Tessa said.
She needed to be fully dressed before she explained a Barunka nest. She started to get up and Jem, caught her and pulled her back into his arms. She tucked herself in tight. Her mind was running a mile a minute but her body still craved touch. Will hesitated and both she and Jem reached for him at the same time. He joined the little knot and Tessa tried to absorb enough comfort to get her through the day that was now staring down at her.
"You'll feel better," Jem said into her ear.
"I'm too upset now," she said.
"That sounds like a challenge," he said.
She looked at him and considered walking away from that particular comment. She was already thinking about whether it would be faster to take a train or a car. They couldn't portal in because none of them had ever been there. Jem met her eyes with a bedroom smile and she let the thoughts go. Maybe she wasn't too upset to fall back into that look.
"We've got fifteen minutes, because I need to shower before I go across town to-" Jem put a hand up over her mouth because no one wanted to hear the end of that sentence. She smiled under his palm. Then she pulled away and lay back down in the middle of the bed. Will resettled beside her but Jem lay down on his stomach between her legs. She bit her lip because just the way he looked at her like that was enough to make her heart rate jump.
Will had questions on his face but she had started something before with him and it wasn't finished. Even with the distraction of the phone, he was close enough that wetting and sliding her hand back into place made him grown. The way he looked at her told her, she was going to be able to lick her finger in a council meeting and make him uncomfortable.
Jem ran his tongue over skin that hadn't had time to relax while she'd taken the phone call. She tightened her hand on Will and matched her hand's rhythm to whatever Jem did to her. Her eyes felt shut and she put her cheek against Will's bare chest and timed her breathing to his. She blocked out everything else and lost herself to it.
Jem lapped and sucked and then, as though it were as easy as flipping a switch, he pulled an orgasm out of her that arched her back.
Will reacted with a hiss of breath before folding her in closer to his chest as though she needed protecting. He held on as Jem pulled a cry out of her that she muffled by pressing her face against him. He didn't release her when Jem did and kept her close.
Will moaned as Jem got closer and added his hand to what Tessa was doing. She couldn't tell what he did, only that it pushed Will from close to grabbing her and groaning. She felt him spill out across her hand and her hip and as his body shook against hers.
They collapsed together into a heap of tangled limbs. She pulled herself loose enough of Will twist down and get her mouth on Jem.
"Catarina," Jem said.
"I was going to shower, I don't need to shower," she said. Her hair was damp because of the warmth of skin on skin for so long and her inner thighs were wet with what Jem had just done and she had smeared everything Will had left on her across her stomach when she'd rolled over.
She needed to shower.
She ran her tongue down him instead.
Will cuddled as she took Jem into her mouth and sucked him back as far as she could. He wasn't going to last long. She opened her eyes and looked up at him to find him lost in a deep slow kiss. Will after sex always seemed to want to find ways to melt them together. She'd never seen it from the outside. He was slow and lazy and contented.
Will's wandering hands and kisses were as much responsible for Jem's release as she was. He came with a jerk that pushed him deeper into her mouth than she wanted him and she pulled back. Now she had it running down her chin. She was a mess. She needed to shower and get halfway across the city during the morning rush.
She smiled at them instead and burrowed her way back into the space between her boys. Hers. Five more minutes of this before they went out to face the horrors of the world again.