Chapter 178: The Dress Had Nothing to Do With It

Dove asked to read the notice before letting anyone tell her what it meant. The guard passed it over, looking tired enough that she decided to save the first rude comment until he earned it.

The restriction concerned equipment connected to the district’s limited power supply. Returning parties had to declare large electrical goods for inspection before using them. It did not ban every box with a cord from entering B, and it did not say a woman needed her husband’s approval to own one.

"Fine," she said. "We brought an awning, storage boxes, and kitchen things that don’t plug into anything. Would you like to admire my excellent timing?"

The guard looked into the pickup bed, then laughed despite himself. He checked the load and let them through after recording the ordinary goods. Nobody confiscated her purchases, and Dove didn’t need to turn a sensible safety rule into a fight just because the queue had annoyed her.

Her concern was the cooling unit already in their shop. Edrik asked where existing equipment should be checked. The guard pointed them toward a maintenance desk near the market and gave them the inspection hours.

"We’ll do it tomorrow," Dove said. "After breakfast. The world can wait until I’ve had toast."

Thorne took her hand as they left. "You managed that without threatening anyone."

"I charge extra for threats after a long day."

Edrik glanced at him. "She gives mine away."

"That’s because you enjoy it. Don’t act employed."

They laughed, and the road home felt shorter. Dove reached the shop with a full pickup, useful information, and enough energy to tell both men where the awning pieces belonged before sitting down.

The restaurant neighbor had kept an eye on the closed front as agreed. No one had entered. Their rent remained paid through Day Ninety-Nine, their second cart remained in the yard, and the personal fans were where they had left them. She liked finding ordinary facts exactly as they should be.

That evening she unpacked the yellow dress and tried it on behind the curtain. It fit better than she expected, falling loosely enough for hot weather without making her feel wrapped in a bedsheet. The pockets were as good as advertised.

She came out to ask whether the hem looked crooked and discovered neither husband was studying the hem.

"If either of you says it needs taking off, you can sleep with the stock," she warned them.

Thorne’s expression softened before he answered. "You look happy in it."

That was unfairly effective. Edrik looked at the neckline, then deliberately back at her face.

"You should keep it," he said.

"I already kept it. I’m asking whether it needs fixing."

"It looks perfect from here," he said, doing absolutely nothing to make his answer more useful.

She threw a clean cloth at him. He caught it with an expression that suggested this had only improved his evening.

They ate dinner with the front closed and the rear window open behind its screen. Dove kept the dress on. She hadn’t worn it to make a point or earn a reward. She liked the color, liked the way her husbands looked at her, and liked not having to choose between those reasons.

Sprout settled the stool sales and the day’s tasks at 1,033 normal coins and thirty-two Favor. Dove asked it to keep tomorrow’s target ready, then closed the notice. She wanted one evening without a list floating between her and the people she liked.

Edrik touched the blue stone at her neck. "Did you choose the dress for the pockets or to make me useless?"

"The pockets. Being a public nuisance is a bonus."

He laughed quietly and let the pendant fall. His hand stayed open beside hers on the table, waiting until she put her fingers in it. That little wait pleased her more than another compliment would have. She moved her chair closer herself.

Thorne was still looking at the dress. "I want to take you somewhere you can wear that without working."

"If you mean an inspection desk, we need to talk about your standards."

"Dinner. Somewhere I don’t have to share you with six customers."

She could have teased him for sounding jealous. Instead, she asked what he’d pick, because she wanted to hear him plan it.

"Somewhere quiet," he said. "Where you stay beside me after you’ve finished eating."

Dove looked at the empty plates, then at the curtain behind them. "I could do that now."

Edrik’s smile changed. Thorne held out his hand, and she took it, bringing him with her instead of waiting to be carried. At the bed she turned, caught Edrik’s shirt, and pulled him close for a kiss while Thorne’s arms settled around her.

"I bought a very nice dress," she murmured against Edrik’s mouth. "Try to remember that."

The sundress is the first thing to go, except it doesn’t go anywhere at all. That’s the problem, or the point; Dove can’t decide which.

"Leave it on," Edrik says, when her fingers find the little buttons at her collar. He catches her wrist, gentle, and presses his mouth to her knuckles instead. "I like it on you."

"It’s just a dress."

"It’s yellow," Thorne says, like that settles something, like that’s an argument. He’s already on his knees in front of her, and the look on his face is the same look he gets when someone puts a plate of food in front of him that he actually wants to eat slow. "You look like summer. We’re not wasting that."

She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, and the two of them have her boxed in, Edrik behind her with his knees bracketing her hips, Thorne in front with his hands sliding up her calves like he’s got nowhere else to be and nothing else to do for the rest of his life. The fabric of the dress is thin, worn soft from washing, and it rides up when Thorne pushes her knees apart to make room for himself.

"This is unfair," she says, and it comes out breathless already, which is embarrassing, because nothing has even happened yet.

"What’s unfair about it?" Edrik’s voice is right against her ear, low, and his hands come up to rest on her waist, thumbs tracing slow circles through the cotton. "Two against one. Entirely fair, actually. We’ve got twice the hands."

"That’s the unfair part."

"Mm." He kisses the side of her neck, just below her ear, and she feels him smile against her skin. "Too bad."

Thorne starts at her ankle. Kisses the knob of bone there like it’s something precious, like her whole leg is a cathedral and he’s working his way up the nave one station at a time. His mouth moves to the inside of her calf, and she feels the drag of his teeth, not hard, just enough to make her breath catch.

"You taste like sunscreen," he says, amused.

"We were outside all day."

"I know. I watched you the whole time." He noses along the inside of her knee, and she squirms, because it’s ticklish there, it’s always been ticklish there, and he knows it, the terrible man, he’s doing it on purpose. "Hold still."

"I can’t, it tickles."

"Hold still," he says again, laughing now, low in his chest, and he pins her knee down with one broad hand so he can keep kissing up her thigh, slow, deliberate, like he’s got all the time in creation and intends to use every second of it.

Behind her, Edrik’s hands have found the buttons at her collar after all, undoing them one by one, not to take the dress off but just to get at more of her, the hollow of her throat, the line of her collarbone. He kisses each new inch of skin as it’s uncovered. His beard scrapes pleasantly against her, and she tips her head back against his shoulder, giving him more room, more of her throat, and he takes it, sucks a mark into the soft skin there that she’s going to have to explain to absolutely no one, because she doesn’t care, let them see it.

"There," Edrik murmurs, pleased with himself, thumb brushing over the new mark like he’s admiring his own work. "Pretty."

"You’re both ridiculous."

"We’re thorough," Thorne corrects, from somewhere near the hem of her dress now, which has ridden up to her hips, and his mouth is on the inside of her thigh, close enough that she can feel his breath through the thin fabric of her underwear, and her hips twitch forward without her permission. "Oh, look at that. Somebody’s needy already."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

Edrik laughs against her throat, and his hands slide up, over the dress now, cupping her breasts through the fabric, and she arches into it, into both of them at once, Thorne’s mouth getting bolder between her thighs, Edrik’s thumbs finding her nipples through the cotton and rubbing slow circles until they’re hard and the fabric catches on them, a maddening friction that isn’t enough and is somehow also too much.

"Edrik, please."

"I’ve got you." He says it like a vow. He pulls the collar of the dress down, just enough, baring one breast to the warm air of the room, and he makes a low sound in his throat at the sight of her, like he’s never seen anything so good in his life, even though he’s seen her a hundred times, a thousand. He bends and takes her nipple into his mouth, and the wet heat of it makes her gasp, makes her hand fly up to grip his hair, hold him there.

His tongue flicks over her, his teeth graze, just barely, just enough to make her hips jerk, and at the same time Thorne finally, finally pulls her underwear aside and puts his mouth on her, and the sound she makes isn’t a word at all, isn’t anything but need given voice.

"There she goes," Thorne says against her, the vibration of it almost worse than his tongue, almost better, and he licks a slow line through her that has her knees trying to close around his head, trapped as he is, trapped as she is, caught between the two of them like she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.

Edrik switches breasts, mouths at the other nipple through the yellow fabric this time, soaking it through, and he bites down, gentle but insistent, right as Thorne’s tongue finds the place that makes her whole body go tight and bright.

"Oh, oh, god."

"Not quite," Edrik says, laughing low against her skin, "but close enough, I’ll take the compliment."

"I hate you."

"You don’t," Thorne says, pulling back just enough to speak, his breath hot against her, his fingers replacing his mouth for a moment, two of them sliding into her slow and sure while his thumb circles where she needs it. "You love us. Say it."

"I’m a little busy."

"Say it anyway." He curls his fingers, finds the spot that makes her back bow, and grins up at her from between her thighs like he’s won something. "We’re very good listeners."

"I love you, I love you, don’t stop."

"Wasn’t planning on it," he murmurs, and puts his mouth back on her, and above her Edrik bites down on her nipple again, firmer this time, sucking hard right after to soothe the sting, and the two sensations tangle together until she can’t tell where one ends and the other begins, until there’s nothing in the whole world but the drag of Thorne’s tongue and the ache of Edrik’s mouth and the coil low in her belly winding tighter, tighter, impossibly tight.

"Let go," Edrik says against her ear, voice wrecked and low. "We’ve got you. Whatever happens, we’ve got you."

And that’s what does it, that’s the thing that breaks her open, his voice and Thorne’s fingers and the two of them worshipping every inch of her like she’s something holy. She comes with a cry that she doesn’t try to muffle, back arched, one hand fisted in Edrik’s hair and the other clutching the yellow fabric bunched at her hip, shaking through it while Thorne works her through every last wave, gentler now, softer, pressing one last kiss to her inner thigh like a period at the end of a sentence.

She sags back against Edrik’s chest, boneless, and he wraps his arms around her, presses a kiss to her temple, and she can feel him smiling.

"Good?" he asks, like he doesn’t already know.

"Mm." She can’t manage more than that yet.

Thorne climbs up beside her, pressing a kiss to her knee on his way, then her hip, then settles against her other side, both of them bracketing her now instead of boxing her in, and she thinks, hazily, that she could stay exactly here, in this yellow dress gone soft and wrecked, between these two.

She kept the necklace on the shelf beside the bed where it would not get tangled in her tail. In the morning, it was still there, another small thing she had chosen for herself and managed to keep.

The next morning began with washing, breakfast, and practice. Dove chose household goods. Three large insulated drink jugs filled the cabinet, three sales for sixty-two normal coins. She tested a sample lid and put the capacity beside the price. For once, a thirsty man wouldn’t have to finish the whole thing in three gulps and hand it back empty.

They strapped the cooling unit to their handcart and took it to the maintenance desk, leaving the heavier cart in the rear yard. The cooler was empty, with its matching cord packed beside it. A worker checked its identification and asked about the replacement fan. Dove answered with what Nolan had actually tested, not a claim that it had become perfect.

The worker offered an appointment for the transport mechanic to inspect both the unit and any vehicle she was considering. Iris had passed on her inquiry, but no booking had been made without Dove agreeing to the price.

She liked that. She liked the price less, though it could be met with useful goods and a share of repair work rather than money that no longer served the same purpose everywhere.

Then the worker unfolded a map showing which parts of B were losing power next. Their street lay inside the next planned shutoff area, and this one would last two full days.