--Ethan's POV

"So, are you interested?" Mr. Phelps asked as I gathered my supplies and meticulously put them into place inside my school bag.

It was an opportunity I wouldn't pass up. Something Mr. Phelps knew when he'd brought it up. "When would it start?"

"In a couple of months, starting at the beginning of August and if it works out, you'll intern with the company for a full year. Are you able to travel?"

Europe for an entire year to intern with one of the most influential businesses around... a multi-billion dollar corporation and I'd get to be working with a handful of people just under the owner.

The thought of Cassie and Seth made me pause and I swallowed. I had a couple of months to think about it, but the idea of bringing it up to them at such a fragile time might not be the best one.

"I'm interested, but I need a few months to—"

Mr. Phelps interrupted, "—tooooo ... to get your priorities in order? Yes of course. Leaving the states is a big decision in and of itself, but I feel you're the right person for it, not to mention it'll shine a new light on this school."

"Of course," I said. "I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Phelps."

"Yes," the elder man with graying hair nodded. His bushy eyebrows lifting as he patted his front pocket looking for a pen. "Two months, Ethan. They need to know in two months, but there should be no issue when I send them confirmation in a few days. Is that correct?"

I swallowed but bowed my head. "Yes, sir." There wasn't any other answer I wanted to give.

I heaved a sigh. What would Cassie and Seth think? I wanted to go. I knew I would go, but this couldn't have come at a more horrible time. Cassie was trying to have a baby for that couple they'd met at the Wendy's down the street. In a few more months, Seth would be studying for the bar non-stop. Would this be the change that ruined everything?

One thing at a time, just take it one thing at a time.

When I got home, I settled my school bag at the door as I quietly walked towards my room. Seeing them lifted the weight of the future—my future—off my shoulders and I felt like I could breathe again. Seth was bent over a sleeping Cassie, watching her so intently he didn't even notice I'd entered the room. Something had happened, with me, but most importantly, with them. I knew it. I could see it. Hell, I could feel it. And whatever it was the bedroom was saturated with it.

Licking my lips, I shucked my clothes off to my boxers and slowly slipped in on the other side of Cassie. "Have you both been in bed all day?" I whispered, not wanting to wake her up.

When he didn't answer, or tear his gaze away from her I reached forward and nudged his bare shoulder. His startled expression as he registered my presence made me what to kiss his surprise away, but I held my self still. That intangible something was good but unsteady. The almost frightened, deer-in-head-lights look Seth gave me was more telling and familiar than I cared to admit because that's what he'd looked like the night I'd told him I loved him.

I leaned over Cassie to place a kiss against her forehead, offering Seth a small, calming smile as his arm tightened possessively around her. The action lifted the heaviness in my heart and this time when I smiled it was more than just for a calming effect on Seth. It was for me. It was real, true happiness. Could I really... I stopped the thought, shaking it out of my head.

"I love your caveman ways," I whispered to him, letting my lips linger on Cassie and relishing the confused 'caveman' like response of he had to be touching her, "but she's mine too."

Seth cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I—"

"Babe, I'm teasing you. I gather something significant happened today?"

His eyebrows snapped together as his frown deepened. He glanced back down, almost helplessly at Cassie, and then back to me. "Well, the intercourse ban is off," he mumbled.

I don't know if it was Seth's use of the word 'intercourse'—a word Cassie had exclusively used to describe the tiny 'break' between them—or the idea that I'd be able to feel her around me again that got me hard. It would have to wait though. Cassie was exhausted, even if it was only the late afternoon, and Seth just seemed lost.

"Did she feel as good as you remembered?" I asked, lacing my fingers through his where they rested over her stomach.

His head didn't shift, but his pine green eyes did and that stab of lust in my gut made me regret keeping my desire at bay. "Better," he said.

"Then turn that frown upside down!"

Seth rolled his eyes at me and I loved that even for a moment I was able to erase that serious, worried expression from his face, but it didn't last. "She told me she loved me today."

Ah. There it was.

This was the hurdle they all needed to focus on first. The thing that would happen in two months could be addressed at another time. Honestly, when I'd come in here, I'd figured that's what it had been, but hearing the confusion... the awe at it in Seth's voice let me know he was still processing it. "Why so confused by it? You're a very easy man to love, Seth."

Another eye roll. "Whatever."

Step two.

"Tell me you love me, Seth."

"You know I love you, Ethan."

Step three.

"I love you too," I said, carefully studying the changes of expression his face went through, but it was the disbelief that settled there.

I glanced down at Cassie, feeling my heart's normal lub-dub stutter as I watched her angelic sleeping form. Without a doubt, I knew if there was a picture next to the word 'perfection' it would be of Seth possessively curved around a sleeping Cassie.

Their relationship had progressed and regressed at the same time. It had taken more than a year for me to get him to be okay with saying that, another couple of months for him to get used to me saying it to him. And now, he had another person who loved him as much as I did.

Another person who could love unconditionally.

Such a rare trait.

We were both so lucky and we needed to keep her with us at all costs. Mr. Phelps steel-like gaze flashed behind my eyes as he presented the offer of a lifetime too me. At all costs? Me going to Europe could do one of two things: make us stronger or tear us apart. I knew where my feelings were. They were with Seth... with Cassie and this new hiccup in our lives would make my heart yearn and grow fonder of them. I just hoped Seth was starting to realize how important Cassie was to both of us. Today, their moment, was the first step.

"Oh babe," I whispered, leaning over them again, but this time seeking Seth's mouths over Cassie's forehead.

Seth shrugged but leaned into my kiss. "I'll deal with it. I'll get used to it."

"I've known her my entire life and I'm not even used to it. It's pretty consuming, isn't it?"

Seth swallowed and licked his dry lips. "She wouldn't stop saying it."

I raised an eyebrow at his admission, but kept silent and let him continue. He was so unused to being loved. It broke my heart too many times to count and this—moments like this or before Cassie when I would strategically place him in a similar situation—was the only way he would talk about it.

"She just kept saying it," he said, his voice wobbling with emotion.

So Cassie took the extreme exposure route. I don't know why I expected anything less really. She was usually an 'all-in' kind of girl.

"How do you feel about that?" I asked, keeping my voice low and steady so I didn't startle him or Cassie. "Or maybe the better question is how did you feel when she said it?"

Seth inhaled shakily and swallowed before glancing up at me. "Stunned, at first, then there was disbelief, anger, acceptance... and something else."

"What was 'something else'?"

"That I could let her love me."

I nodded, knowing that he'd just taken a huge step, but that he was leaving something more important off. "It's healing. Letting someone love you, I mean. You're worthy of it, so let her, as you let me. What about you though?"

His hand still clutched at Cassie, but his other one pulled away and rubbed the back of his neck. "What about me?"

"Do you love her?"

I silently cursed as the words came out blunter and sooner than I'd wanted. My impending departure was making me push things already and my mistake was clear when Seth's face closed off. With his eyes dulling, and his jaw tightening, Seth pulled away, putting distance between both me and Cassie.

"I-I'm not ready to talk about that."

"Okay," I said, offering an encouraging smile and a small nod, "maybe another time."

The silence that followed was stiff and uncertain, and for a moment I wondered if maybe I'd pushed too much and now Seth would retreat, but when his shoulders slumped and he settled back down I breathed a sigh of relief. I needed to change the topic to something he was more comfortable with. If I wanted this to work between the three of us and then between the two of them while I long distanced with them—and I desperately did want it all to work—then slow, but steady was going to be the route to success.

"So, intercourse ban over?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows at him.

He lifted his head and the slow smirk that parted his lips left me breathless. Everything about Seth should be illegal. I suppose we should be lucky the government hadn't caught on. If they had, they'd be taxing people out the ass just to stare at him. "Yeah," he said with a chuckle. "It's gonna be a fun night."

"Night? I'm thinking now—"

"I wore her out. Let's let her sleep."

I frowned. "Was it that rough?"

Seth tilted his head, cracking his neck all the while giving me a worried look. "There might be some bruising. It was just everything all together," he started to explain, "and we haven't had a sub/dom session in awhile. I know we initially did it for you, but I don't think I realized how much it did for me."

Any thoughts of Europe have washed away in that one comment. The tight knot curling in my groin had me struggling to breathe once more and the head of my dick was weeping from the memory of our last BDSM experience. The shaking breath I managed was sloppy due to my mouth-watering and I could feel the tension building in my lower back at the promise of another 'experience'.

We'd done small things in front of Cassie but never full out. It was me who'd thought she wasn't ready for all that. Honestly, I still didn't think she was fully ready for it, or maybe it was me, not wanting her to see that darker side of me... of us. But the idea of never giving her the chance to witness something both Seth and I needed rather frequently seemed like we were cheapening her involvement in our relationship, something I wanted to avoid at all costs. It was a part of who we are—something I was still struggling to accept at times—and Cassie had to be a part of it now too.

"Maybe we can go a little further this time with her," I whispered and now it was my turn to eye her sleeping face as worry slithered into my gut, dampening my excitement.

Seth reached over Cassie and I shivered as his fingers slid up my cheek, folding into my hair. "All the way," he said. "Ethan, you know Cassie better than both of us...probably better than she knows herself. She won't reject you for this. It's nothing to be ashamed of and she'll tell you that."

We all had our hiccups and mine just happened to be linked to my sexuality. My partner preferences and activities in the bedroom on the top of that list. Both something I've struggled with since the day I admitted to myself that I was attracted to men and liked sex to occasionally be rougher than normal.

"She'll be fine," Seth said. "I think the real question is whether or not she wants to participate."

I frowned. "Participate in how?"

"Well, I could tie her up next to you or bind her at your feet or--"

I shook my head even though the image of her bound accelerated my heartbeat. "Not that much. She can do what she wants to me, but that's the extent of her participation."

Seth heaved a sigh but nodded. "For now, sure but I've seen how you are with her. It'll be fun to see our roles reversed."

I swallowed, knowing he was talking about me doing to Cassie what Seth does to me. The idea appalled me at first, but the more it played with my thoughts the more I wanted it.

"You're shivering. Good image?" Seth asked, letting the corner of his mouth lift in a half-smirk.

All I could do was nod. I'd been dreaming about it. The idea of being able to explore and role reverse with Cassie seemed to be a two way street of fear and excitement, but the fear was heavier than the other.

"We'll bring it up tonight after dinner," I said but wasn't surprised it came out as a rough, shaking whisper.

"Purple people eater," Seth said.

I frowned, still trying to focus on steadying my breathing. "What?"

"That's gonna be Cassie's safe word. We kind of already talked about that part of it... when we, ya know, in the bathroom?"

Settling on my back, letting the images of that night in the bathroom flood in. I folded my arms across my chest and stared at the ceiling, flipping through the idea of Cassie's proposed safe words. "Purple people eater? Talk about a turn-off. What a safe word!" I said, still staring incredulously at the ceiling. "I don't know why I'm surprised."

Flipping back onto my side, I eyed Seth, trying to contain the laugh that was threatening to boom out and bounce off the walls. "Could you imagine yelling that in the throes of passion? Pft."

"No one says 'throes of passion' anymore, you old fart," Cassie mumbled sleepily. Her jaw cracked as she yawned. "And stop making fun of me! I'm trying to sleep here."

Her waking up and scolding us only made the urge to laugh come harder. "It's just too easy," I said and then made a kissing face at her.

She let out an annoyed grunt and whipped the covers over her head. I jerked away from her flailing arms as she tried to punch me in the chest, but didn't anticipate the shot to the gut she was actually aiming for. The wind knocked out of me, but once I got my breath back I couldn't hold in my laughter anymore.