You're Ours

CW: Some adult content, soul mates, and polyamory.

Cameron

Shadows in the corner of the crowded club hid me from prying eyes as I watched them dance. Even though I was part of their inner circle, they forgot I was here and immersed themselves in each other. They were almost the same height, Logan only slightly shorter than Jace, so it was easy for Jace to reach anywhere on Logan. Their hands slid along each other’s bodies, and their hips ground to the pulse of the sultry beat. The strobe of the lights caused them to take on ethereal qualities. Logan’s long ice-blonde hair glowed while Jace’s long black locks only accentuated Logan’s. Light and dark. Yin and Yang. They are beautiful together. 

What would they say if I told them I wanted to be in the middle? What if I wanted to be the one who lifted my arms behind me to wrap around Jace’s neck, grinding my ass against his groin while Logan rubbed his hands along my chest and sandwiched me from the front between them? Would they be repulsed, or would they let me join in? I rubbed over my heart, trying to dispel the ache growing there. They could never want someone like me.

I’d watched their love blossom over time. Though we’d been separated during college, we found ourselves reunited in our hometown. I was the one who chose to go to a different school. It hurt too much to be around them. But when my mother got sick, and I had to return home, they wanted to pick back up like I’d never left. Like I hadn’t spent four years pining away for them, no matter who I tried to be with. This night out together was supposed to be about us reconnecting—them welcoming me home, they said—but all I could do was stare and wish. Wish I was with them.

Another guy came up to me—the third one tonight—and tried to drag me onto the dancefloor. I waved him away. I wasn’t interested in dancing with anyone else, content to stand back and watch as Jace and Logan practically made love to the music. Their intertwined bodies resembled art as they twisted and gyrated in an erotic rhythm. 

It was always like this with them, perfectly in sync. From the moment we all realized we lived on the same street, we became inseparable, those two especially. They finished each other’s sentences, read the other’s mind. It was as if they were one soul split into two and then rejoined in this life.

I knew, early on, they were meant to be together. They tried to include me, often pulling me along to whatever adventure Logan could dream up. Jace, the more subdued of the two, acted as the protector and safeguarded Logan. If I was honest with myself, he extended that protection to me—never treating me any differently than Logan—but the bond between them was a tangible thing anyone could feel. I felt it immensely. The ache in my chest grew.

I often felt like an outsider looking on, eyes green with envy—not jealousy. I couldn’t be jealous of the love they shared. I wanted to be a part of it, to bask in the light and warmth they exuded when they were together, blazing hotter than the sun. I longed to reach out and get burned. But I could never risk their friendship, so I made myself content to watch from afar no matter how much it hurt. And when it got unbearable, I left.

Jace

Logan raised his hands above his head as he rotated his hips, slow and sensual. I pulled him against me, his back to my front, and we swayed in time with the music. My hands never stayed idle, skimming his chest and sneaking underneath his t-shirt. My permanent scowl sent any man brave enough to venture over, scurrying away. Logan was mine, no one else’s. Well, I could share with a certain someone.

I turned us slightly. Cameron thought he hid in the shadows, but the sweep of the lights highlighted his face every so often. His brown curls framed big, beautiful hazel eyes as he watched us dance. 

Where Logan was a sensual creature, lithe with a swimmer’s body who turned every eye on him just by walking, Cameron’s short, slightly padded frame brought out our protective instincts and made us want to wrap him up and shield him from the world. He reminded me of a dark-haired cherub ready to pull back his bow and shoot an unsuspecting person with his arrows full of hearts. He radiated love and acceptance. But tonight, his look of longing almost brought me to my knees. I hoped this little scheme of Logan’s worked.

Logan pulled my head down until his lips brushed my ear, close enough to hear without having to scream over the music. “Is he watching?”

I wrapped my hand around his chin and tilted his head so I could reach his ear. To anyone watching, it would seem like we were making out on the dancefloor. “Yes. He hasn’t taken his eyes off of us yet. I hope this doesn’t push him farther away.”

Another man tried to entice Cameron out onto the dancefloor, and I tightened my grip on Logan to keep from charging over and running the guy off. Logan patted my hand on his hip and twisted our bodies so he could push against me to keep me from going over there. Of course, other men would see Cameron’s beauty and want it for themselves. But they couldn’t have him.

Logan and I had always agreed Cameron was ours. Growing up, there was never a time we weren’t all together. It may seem like Logan and I were closer, but we both knew things didn’t feel right without Cameron.

We shifted our heads again, and he pulled me towards him. “We’ll just have to try harder if it doesn’t. He needs to know he’s ours.” 

And there was the crux of our problem. Cameron didn’t know he belonged to us, or maybe he just didn’t believe it. Neither of us missed the covetous looks he sent our way, nor the sadness when he told us he was going to a different college than us. We begged and pleaded with him to change his mind. We’d already had a two-bedroom apartment picked out near campus. But he left one day without saying goodbye. It hurt. And with only a few short texts here or there, the last four years had left an ache deep within Logan, not even I could relieve. It hurt my heart, too, but I had to be strong for Logan and keep him from falling apart.

Everyone knew Logan and I were a couple. No one batted an eye when we came out and professed our love for each other. It was as if everyone knew but was waiting for us to come out of the closet, so to speak. What surprised us more than our parents’ reaction was the question of “What about Cameron?” Even they realized we weren’t whole without him.

So now Logan and I put on a show more than we usually would, hoping to convince Cameron to give us a try. No, not a try. We wanted him to choose us, to be ours.

Logan

I loved coming to this club. They featured amazing DJs who mixed the latest music with old classics, creating any kind of beat you were looking for, whether it was dancing-on-top-of-the-bar music or the seductive thrum Jace and I ground to now. Dancing was the only time I could feel free and forget for just a moment a piece of me was missing. Jace brought me here many times, knowing I needed the release. But this was the first time we’d been here with Cameron.

He thought we didn’t know he kept himself apart from us. We’d always included him in everything we did. As kids, we spent almost every waking moment with each other, only separating when our parents demanded we spend at least one night in our own beds. As soon as day broke, we sought each other out again.

Things shifted when we reached high school. Growing boys turned into young men, but it only drew us closer. Even then, people had a hard time discerning who was dating whom because we were always together. But during our senior year, Cameron started drifting away from us. He was ‘too busy’ to go swimming at night in the quarry or ‘had too much schoolwork’ to get ice cream. Jace would wrap me in his arms when we lay in our old treehouse, the three of us built together, and I cried. I missed my friend, and while I loved Jace, only Cameron completed our circle.

Now he was back, and we were determined not to let him get away again.

When the song ended, I tugged Jace into the shadows where Cameron stood. We surrounded him, backing him up against the wall.

“Wh-what are you doing?” His beautiful eyes widen.

I reached out, running a finger along his cheek, and marveled at how he subtly turned toward my hand instead of away. I wasn’t even sure he realized what he was doing. “Why won’t you dance with us?” He was shaking his head before I finished my question.

“I-I can’t.” He choked out. “I need to go.” He tried to skirt between us, but we moved in to block his path.

“What are you afraid of, baby?” Cameron’s breath hitched at Jace’s endearment. I watched as emotions, ranging from shock to want, waged war inside him. Our little rabbit wanted to run and hide again, but he felt the pull too. We just had to convince him to stay.

Cameron

The blood rushing in my ears almost drowned out the music. Logan and Jace crowded me in the dark corner, each taking liberties to touch me in some way. A grasp to my chin, a finger caress of my ear, a hand sliding down my chest. We’d roughed and tumbled in our youth, but neither had touched me in such intimate ways before today. My body couldn’t decide whether to lean towards them or rush through the throng of people and flee. My heart wanted to stay.

“Please…”

“Please what, baby.” There was that word again. Neither Jace nor Logan had called me that before, only reserving it for each other.

What could I say? Please let me go? Please make me yours?  

“Cameron.” I focused on Logan. His broad smile grew, almost causing my lips to pull up as if I was a puppet and he was the puppeteer. While Jace was the broodier of the two, Logan was the carefree spirit, always smiling while doing what he wanted with complete abandon. Jace usually followed behind, watching carefully and making sure Logan stayed safe. “You’ve been gone too long. It’s time for you to stay, stay with us.”

The din of noise around us seemed to quieten as I became their sole focus.

“Stop running. You know you’re ours.” 

My heart thundered in my chest, and the lights grew dim as a roar started in my ears.

“Breathe, baby.” Jace’s voice filtered through the fog in my brain, and I sucked in a lung full of air. “There you go. Breathe with me.” I watched Jace take a breath in through his nose and out of his mouth, and mimicked his actions until everything came back into focus.

“Did we break you?” Logan’s laugh drew my attention to him, his beautiful smile crinkling the skin around his blue eyes.

I glanced at Jace, gauging his reaction. I wanted to believe this was another hair-brained scheme of Logan’s, but Jace’s shimmer of love in his eyes told me he agreed with Logan.

“Come on.” Logan pulled me from the shadows and out onto the lit dancefloor. Multi-colored lights cascaded around the bar as people slowed their frantic rhythms into a mesmerizing hedonistic motion when a new song started. He turned me to face him and backed me into Jace until he had me nestled against Jace’s front. All the while, he smiled and love blazed in his eyes. Just like Jace.

Logan moved in, sandwiching me between the two, and placed his hands over Jace’s, already on my hips. He rotated slowly and urged me to mimic his movements. When I followed his unique rhythm, he let go and ran his hands up my arms, taking my hands and placing them above my head and looping them around Jace’s neck. He roamed my body, just like Jace had earlier on Logan. I gasped at the sensations flooding through me. Warmth and love radiated from them and filled me with heat like I knew it would if my dreams ever came true. And here I was, in between the two men I loved most. The two who made me whole. My soul mates.

Jace leaned down and tickled my ear with his lips. “You’re not getting away again. You’re ours, and you always will be.”

Logan reached over and kissed Jace on the lips, then smiled down at me. “Yes, you’re ours.” He brushed his lips against mine, and everything fell into place. We were no longer three men gyrating on a dance floor. We were now one, whole and complete. This was where I was meant to be all along.