'Really?' he asked, and his voice was fragile, like the look in his eyes.

'Really,' I said, my hand on the side of his face.

His head pulled back as if Nicky were moving his hair too much. Then I saw Nicky's hands come up and he ran his fingers through Dev's hair. 'There, all clean.'

Dev let out a shaking breath, but he straightened, pushed away from the wall, and ran his own hands through his hair. He did it a second time, a look of relief on his face as he smoothed his hair back from his face.

'Thanks, Nicky,' he said.

'You can return the favor sometime,' Nicky said.

Dev looked over his shoulder at the other man. 'Are you inviting me to shower with you again?'

Nicky smiled. 'So far you've been a perfect gentleman; I think my virtue is safe.'

'You have virtue to keep safe?' I asked, peering around Dev's body.

Nicky raised an eyebrow at me. I realized he'd swept his wet hair back from his face, completely exposing the scars that covered the socket of his right eye. He usually hid the scars with that triangle of bangs, so I valued when he didn't. It meant he was comfortable. I liked that.

'No, no, I don't,' he said, and there was something about the way he said it, more sad than teasing back, that made me remember that he'd been abused as a child both sexually and physically by his mother. She'd been the one who took his eye. I suddenly felt stupid and slow and ...

I went to Nicky, stroking my hands down his bare, wet arms. 'I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry.'

'It's okay,' he said.

I wrapped myself around him, nakedness to nakedness, and it wasn't erotic, because he didn't hold me back, he stayed upright and didn't meld into the hug.

'I missed something,' Dev said behind us.

Nicky said, 'Yeah, you did.'

I looked up at the man in my arms, searched that closed-down face. He'd turned away from me just enough to hide the scars, not to be pretty the way Asher would do to hide his, but it was either that or reach back up and smooth his wet hair down over them, and that would have been admitting it mattered to him and Nicky wouldn't do that.

'Look at me, please,' I said.

He did, but the look on his face was arrogant, distant as his body still felt because he wouldn't hug me back.

'I'm sorry, I forgot.'

He glared at me, and I felt the first rush of heat as his anger hit his lion and it stirred. 'How can you forget when you have to look at this every time you see me?' He touched his finger to the edge of the scars.

It was the first time he'd said out loud that the scars bothered him, reminded him every time he looked in the mirror. The way he wore his hair let me know that it bothered him, but he'd never actually said so before.

'It's just a part of you,' I said. 'That's what I think when I look at you; that's all I think.'

He stared down at my face, studying it. 'I can feel that you mean that.'

'I like the scar,' Dev said, 'and the fact that you are as good as you are with weapons and hand-to-hand having to compensate for the lack of depth perception is impressive.'

Nicky shifted in my arms, and that flare of anger was like heat marching down my body, as if the heat of the shower were starting to emanate from his body and not the taps behind us. 'He really does like scars,' I said. 'Dev's a texture junkie.'

He relaxed a little in my arms and finally put his arms around me. He wasn't holding me tight, but it was progress.

'I'll prove it to you, if it won't freak you out,' Dev said.

Nicky gave him a look, as if nothing he could do would be that freaky, but I knew Dev better than Nicky did. I was betting there was plenty that the weretiger could do to freak out the werelion. The reverse was also true, but Dev's would be sensual and Nicky's would be more violence. I didn't really want them to try to freak each other out, though; I feared it would go badly.

Dev moved in behind me until his body was pressed up against mine, which pinned Nicky's hands between my body and the other man's. Nicky was only touching against Dev's stomach; he didn't complain or move his hands. Neither man's body was excited to be there yet, so though it was nice, it wasn't as erotic as it might have been. He reached out to touch Nicky's cheek.

Nicky jerked back.

Dev let his hand fall and smoothed his hands down my arms. 'See, it freaks you out.' He leaned down to lay a kiss on the top of my head, nuzzling against my wet hair.

I wriggled into Dev's touch, raising my face so he could kiss my lips. We kissed, and the kiss grew until it tightened my hands around Nicky and made me grind myself against Dev. His body was already beginning to react, which encouraged me to grind harder against him. Nicky's arms around my back kept me from grinding as much as I could have, which forced me away from Nicky's body in an effort to touch more of Dev's.

Nicky's body pressed in tighter from in front. It brought me back from kissing Dev and to move my face toward Nicky. This time he leaned over so I could reach his lips. We kissed and it was a soft brush of lips, then a more urgent press of his mouth on mine. He moved his arms from between Dev and me, and at the same time I was suddenly pressed tight between both of them. With one of them thick and growing thicker against the front and the other against the back of me, the sensation of being pinned between their bodies tore my mouth from Nicky's and made me cry out.

It was only when Dev leaned over me for another kiss that I realized why they were both pressed so close. Nicky had moved his arms so he was holding on to the other man's waist and Dev had done the same, so that they were using their strength to press themselves in tighter against my body. Nathaniel and Micah called it making a sandwich, and I loved being the middle of it.

They took turns kissing me, until I writhed and ground against both their bodies and they were both hard, and thick, and achingly ready. With their skills at foreplay it seemed a shame to skip most of it, but sometimes the urgency of the need is its own foreplay.

Dev rose up from kissing me and touched Nicky's scar. When he didn't protest Dev leaned over me, which pressed him even tighter against my ass, and he laid a soft kiss on the scar. Nicky didn't really react to it, so it encouraged Dev to move one hand up to the side of Nicky's face. He leaned in and kissed the scars where Nicky's eye should have been more thoroughly. I looked up to watch the kissing, my body still pinned between theirs. Nicky had gone still, and his body wasn't quite as happy to be pressed against me, though Dev had no way of knowing that.

He kissed down Nicky's face, one soft kiss at a time, and I got to watch each kiss get closer and closer to Nicky's mouth, until finally Dev kissed him.

Nicky drew back from it, shaking his head. 'No,' he said, not angry, but firm.

Dev dropped his hand from the side of the other man's face and kissed me as if he were trying to kiss me as deeply and completely as he could. He drew back from the kiss, lips half parted, his face so eager, so excited, that it made me laugh, a little breathless and shaky.

Nicky kissed me then, and it was gentle, tender, as if he were making love to my mouth. He drew back and left me with my eyes still closed, lips half parted. I was even a little weak in the knees, just from the kiss.

'Wow,' Dev said, 'I feel like I need to try again.'

I opened my eyes enough to see Nicky smiling down at me. He looked utterly pleased with himself. It made me smile up at him, but the smile spread until it was more an evil, happy grin.

'Now I know I need to try another kiss,' Dev said, 'because that is a really good smile.'

'Yes,' Nicky said. 'Yes, it is,' and his voice was already deeper with the first rush of testosterone, and a smile that held all the heat you wanted to see in a man's face. It was full of love, yes, but it was also full of lust, and the thought of everything he was going to do to you and with you.

'Why do I feel like I need to catch up when I've been standing here the whole time?' Dev asked.

'She loves me,' Nicky said, as if that explained everything, and apparently it did, because Dev said, 'You are a lucky man.' That's usually something a man says when what he means is, Your woman is hot and I would totally fuck her, but either it's morally wrong or you would kill me for it. It seemed weird that Dev felt the need to be so polite with his nakedness pressed against my ass and knowing that he was getting sex, too, but sex isn't everything. It's nice, it's great even, if you're lucky, but everyone, eventually, wants love.

I went up on tiptoe to kiss Nicky again, and Dev moved back a little so that we could use hands and arms on just each other, while the kiss grew from tender to urgent. When we drew back just to look at each other, Dev said, 'I'll offer just once more to give you guys privacy, and I should get major brownie points for offering, at this point.'

I looked over my shoulder at him, with Nicky and me still holding each other. I wasn't sure what I would have said, because Nicky said, 'Breast, or ass?'

'What?' Dev said, frowning, obviously puzzled.