Page 199 of Ex Somnis

“And since we do…” Ridge starts. “How about we go back to where we were before we got so rudely interrupted? I’m just saying being this good at something has to get rewarded. Am I right?”

“I’m not leaving,” Paul protests. “Just so you can…” he gestures, vaguely, at the entire concept “… do whatever it is you do in dreams to her.”

“Oh, who said anything about you leaving?” Ridge’s grin sharpens into something I should genuinely be more worried about. “I’ve been here when baby boy fucked Lennon in her dreams before, and honestly? It wasn’t half as bad as I thought it’d be. And our girl loves having all our hands on her at once. Don’t you, sweetheart?”

Heat goes up my neck so fast I could fry an egg on it.

“I never,” Nevan says, looking from Ridge to me and back. “Slept with her in dreams.”

Ridge’s grin gets worse.

“Ridge,” I warn.

“Oh, you didn’t,” Ridge agrees pleasantly. “But Lennon’s dream version of you did. Repeatedly. The girl wanted you long before you’d worked up the nerve to want her back, so she dreamed up a Nevan who’d actually do something about it.”

“Ridge. Goddammit.”

“What?” He spreads his hands, the picture of wounded innocence. “We’re one big happy family now. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

Paul mutters something I don’t catch and pinches the bridge of his nose like he can press the headache out through the front.

“I’m serious,” Ridge goes on, and underneath the smirk there’s something that’s actually serious. “We eat together. We sleep in the same bed. Imagine if we agreed on sharing her in bed, too, then we wouldn’t have to do this stupid thing every night about whose turn it is to sleep next to her, and our entire lives would get easier. Sure, I could come to Lenny in dreams and handle the little itch she has myself. Be all of you. Save you the trouble.”

Ridge turns into a second Paul right before my eyes, then wiggles Paul’s eyebrows at me before he grows even taller and turns into a second Nevan.

“Ridge,” I warn again, even though I know it won’t do shit at this point.

Ridge turns back to himself quickly, and I’m already exhaling in relief when he splits, with a Paul standing to his right and a Nevan to his left. They’re obviously projections, but they’re flawless.

Nevan stares at the copy of himself with naked wonder, as if he’s meeting a twin.

Paul stares at the copy of himself as if it owes him money.

“Ooor,” Ridge says, reabsorbing the projections with a flick of his wrist. “We use what we have right now as a stability exercise for our baby boy. Holding lucidity in a dreamscape that isn’t even yours, while you come.” He whistles low. “That’s the highest level there is. And I want her to come at least twice tonight, so educational.”

“For fuck’s sake, Ridge.” My whole face is on fire. “I don’t think they want⁠—”

“Do you want it?” Paul cuts right across me, the question written all over his face.

“I-I mean, yes. But only if you actually want…”

“It’s just a dream, right?” Nevan shrugs, and I turn to him already braced, already feeling the little splinter going in, because it’s just a dream, can mean so it doesn’t count, so it’s fine, so don’t make it more than it is.

“No, Lemon.” He catches it on my face before I can hide it and steps in. “Baby, no, I mean, we can try it in a dream because it’s just a dream. Like, if sharing you in the actual bedroom, awake, isn’t my thing, or Paul’s thing, then the worst that happens is we tried it once in a dream, and we know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “And if we like it…”

Paul lifts one eyebrow. “If we like it?”

Ridge starts laughing. “Look at that,” he says, delighted, pointing at Nevan. “Baby boy is out here proposing waking-life group sex. What do you think of that, Lenny?”

I think I have lost the ability to form language. That is what I think.

“I’m aware,” Paul says slowly. “That boundaries is a word Ridge Wells has never once used correctly in a sentence. But…” He looks at me, the teasing draining out of his voice, and something steadier taking its place. “If we can hold them in at least this one part of our lives, then, I can’t see why we shouldn’t try it. For science.”

My eyes snap to him and go wide. “Really?”

He reaches over, fits a hand to my jaw, and kisses me in front of them.

“I told you,” he says against my mouth. “You are everything I want. And I want everything for you.”