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The morning after she tied him up and edged him until he cried, Shepard came to Garrus with a request.
“You told me I could ask for anything,” she said. “This is anything.”
“I meant it.” And he did. When they had laid out their terms and conditions, finally free of the war and ready to explore what that freedom meant, he had offered her one thing: his ultimate and open permission. So far, she had only used that permission to give him what he wanted, to test his boundaries and learn his limits and ease into her new role as a different kind of commander.
He had flourished. He trusted her in the bedroom as much as he had ever trusted her on the battlefield, and under her ministrations he had grown into a truer, more satisfied version of himself. And the idea that he could help her find that same peace…
“Anything,” he said, giving her words back. “Please. Let me make you happy.”
And so, a scant handful of days later, Garrus found himself at one of the nicest multi-chirality restaurants on the Citadel, sliding awkwardly into a chair across from Thane Krios.
“Hello, Garrus,” Thane said, tone measured and respectful despite the fact that he had certainly noticed Garrus knocking his knees into the table. “It’s nice to see you. It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, it has. Ever since…”
“The Cerberus coup, I believe.” Thane’s smile interrupted the wince that was already half-formed on Garrus’s face. “Even my doctors didn’t foresee my survival, Garrus. It’s okay that you did not visit, particularly in a time of war.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, fully aware that he was telegraphing his nerves to anyone who was paying attention. “Right. And in the months since the war…”
Thane shrugged, conciliatory. “We’ve all been busy.”
“Right.” He had known, going in, that this would be awkward. Thane had always intimidated him, and they were separated from the forced but earned camaraderie of the suicide mission by a couple of years and several more near-death experiences. Still, Shepard had asked him to set this up. She believed he could do this. And if she believed in him…”
“Right,” Garrus repeated, clearing his throat. “Thank you for meeting me for lunch. I actually — well, I wanted to ask— it’s—”
“You’re with Shepard, is that correct?”
“What?”
Thane blinked once, twice. “It was my understanding that you and Shepard had continued the romantic relationship that you began aboard the SR2.” He spoke slowly, the same way he had been trained in C-Sec to approach a stray varren or a crying child. “Is this incorrect?”
“No!” Garrus reached for the complimentary water that had been placed on the table before his arrival and sloshed in into his cowl in his attempt to take a drink to calm his nerves. “No, Shepard and I are together. We live together, actually.” He gestured vaguely over his shoulder, where the faint shape of Tiberius Towers could be seen shining through the manufactured haze of the afternoon’s fog. “Right over there.”
Thane looked neither impressed nor surprised; it was the opposite of the way most people reacted when Garrus mentioned his and Shepard’s ritzy Silversun Strip apartment, but then, Thane Krios had never been the kind of man who had entered into a conversation without knowing all the possible angles of the person doing the talking. In fact—
“Oh, spirits.” Garrus fought back the urge to pull off his visor and bury his face in his hands, but only because he was afraid that he might flop it into the butter if he wasn’t careful. “You already know why I asked you to lunch, don’t you?”
Thane smiled like one of the strange reptilian creatures from Grunt’s nature documentaries. It sent a shiver down Garrus’s spine. “To be honest, I don’t. You have given off rather mixed signals.”
Garrus swallowed his subvocals. “I have?”
Thane leaned forward, placing both of his elbows on the table as he rested his chin atop his hands. It wasn't a posture that Garrus had ever associated with either power or poise; he flushed with the abrupt realization of his own ignorance.
“First,” Thane said, “You sent me a message that simply read, “Lunch?’”
That was true. High on Shepard’s confidence in him and full of the swagger that only a good night sleep and a couple of good orgasms could bring, he had reached out to Thane with the full assumption of an immediate affirmative response. But the moment that he had pressed Send, the reality of the years spent apart had crashed down atop him, and he had scrambled to explain himself with a rather frantic volley of messages.
Thane continued, reading verbatim from his Omnitool: “Then, 48 seconds later, you said, ‘Wait, hang on, sorry.’ That was followed by ‘I didn’t want to sound so casual.’ That was followed by, “Hello – comma – Thane Krios – period – would you like to catch up over lunch – question mark—’”
“I dictated the last one to my ‘tool,” Garrus screeched, ignoring the open stares of the asari couple sitting at the closest table. “I didn’t realize that the punctuation was—”
Thane’s raised eyebrows gave way to a smug smile, and he raised a hand to silence Garrus’s increasingly frantic speech. “As you can see, your messages all suggested a different tone. It left me at a complete loss as to your intent. To be honest, Garrus, at first I thought that you were asking me on a date.”
“I…was?”
Thane cocked his head to the side. “This certainly isn’t clearing up the mixed signals I was referring to.”
“Spirits, I have no idea why Shepard thought I could do this,” Garrus said, standing and gesturing to the nearest server for the check. “Can we go for a walk? This will be easier if I’m not making eye contact.”
***
“Let me get this straight. Shepard has expressed to you that she would like to be tied up and dominated while you watch, and asked if you would be able to locate a partner who would be suitable to both of you. You invited me out to lunch to test my interest in setting up this arrangement. Is this correct?”
It had taken Garrus one and half laps of the Presidium Commons and a substantial amount of stammering and blushing to communicate what Thane had neatly summed in up one sentence. “Yeah, that pretty much covers it.”
“Why?”
Garrus had expected some follow up questions. Mostly: Are you kidding?, though he had also mentally steeled himself for the worst case scenario, in which Thane either started laughing or just skipped straight to pulling out a pistol and shooting him directly between the eyes. He hadn’t planned for confusion.
“Well,” Garrus finally said, “Shepard and I have a very unique—”
“You misunderstand. I am well-versed in the dynamics between dominants and submissives.”
“You are?”
“You’re very sweet, Garrus.” Thane’s smile was warm, and Garrus allowed himself two full seconds of eye contact with the other man’s lips before he dug his talons into his palms and turned back to the pleasant vista of the Presidium. “Allow me to elaborate. Why me? You told me that Shepard asked you to find a willing partner; you never specified that that person should be me. Surely there’s someone you may be closer with who would be willing to join you.”
He was kidding. He had to be kidding. He was standing in the Commons in the middle of the day wearing an ensemble made mostly of leather, and had spent the entirety of the last hour and a half listening to Garrus with nothing short of respectful diligence. His eyes lit up when he smiled, and he had the kind of charisma that Garrus could only dream of, and he wrapped his hands around gun like—
“Back on the SR-2, you and Shepard were close. Before she propositioned me…well, sometimes I’m still surprised she didn’t end up with you.” It was so much safer to deflect, especially because he could do it while telling the truth. She had always been interested in Thane; he didn’t need to know that Garrus had noticed because he had been watching them both. “And we trust you. I trust you. That’s important.”
“There is no one else that you trust?’
“There is. I didn’t ask them. I came to you first.”
Garrus didn’t see Thane move. One moment, they were standing side by side in front of a handful of bushes; in the next, Thane had him backed against a light pole with one hand grasping at his waist.
“Send me a date and a time, Garrus Vakarian. I will be there, and I will make it worth your while.” One fanged tooth slid over his bottom lip as his smile widened. “Both of your whiles.”
And then he was gone, leaving Garrus horny and alone and eagerly anticipating the future.
He couldn’t wait to tell Shepard.
***
Garrus paced when he was nervous.
When Shepard had disappeared for two days on Aratoht, Garrus had done so many laps around the CIC that Joker had started keeping count. When he had gone home to Palaven and had discovered that his mother had been hospitalized, Solana had threatened to tie him to a chair to make him sit still.
Today, he found himself walking back and forth between the bedroom and living room, taking the stairs two at a time and mumbling to himself under his breath about all of the ways things could go wrong.
“It’s going to be fine!” Shepard called from where she lounged on the couch. “He’s just coming over so we can all talk things out. Set some ground rules.”
Garrus padded into the living room on heavy feet and threw himself into his usual armchair with a sigh. “I really want this to go well.”
Shepard looked up from the book she was reading with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Which part? The part where I get restrained? Or is there another part—”
“Careful, Shepard,” he said, brandishing one of the ornamental pillows that bedecked all of the furniture in their home. “I know I’m out of practice, but I’m still a sniper.”
“Out of practice my ass. You go to the Arena more than I do, and my picture is on the wall.”
“Yeah, well, it isn’t the same if the bullets aren’t real.” He leaned back into the chair, stretching out the tension that had been building in his neck and shoulders since he had woken up. “I hate waiting. I just want him to get here.”
“Aw, Garrus. You’re cute when you’re excited.”
His reply was cut off by the polite chime at the door, letting them know that a visitor had arrived outside. He was on his feet in moments, rushing to the door and throwing it open with barely more than a glance at the video feed.
“Hi,” he said breathlessly. “Er, hello. Welcome to our home?”
Behind him, Shepard chucked quietly. “Real smooth, big guy.”
Thane’s expression was characteristically friendly, though his voice betrayed his amusement. “It is nice to see you too, Garrus. May I come in?”
Shepard appeared behind him, extending a hand in welcome. “It’s our pleasure.”
“Not yet,” Thane promised, taking her hand and kissing it gently. “But it will be.”
If Garrus hadn’t been looking at her, he wouldn’t have seen it. But he was lucky; his eyes were on Shepard — cool, calm, unflappable Shepard, who had spent the entire morning reading as today were any other day — as she took in Thane’s words, and so he saw her blush faintly in response.
Spirits, she was so lovely and she was so excited, and in the wake of his love for her his anxiety felt so small. He had trusted her with his life in situations much more fraught than this one; if she wasn’t nervous, he had no reason to be either. He trilled quietly as his nerves evaporated, gone as quickly as the early morning dew of Cipritine.
“We weren’t sure if you’d be hungry,” Garrus said, leading Thane over to the couches as Shepard locked up behind them. “We already ate, but we have plenty of leftovers. Fireplace on or off?”
“On,” Thane said with a grin. He took the chair closest to the fire, and tilted his head towards the flames with his eyes closed. “This feels lovely. And I am not hungry, but I thank you for the offer.”
“You’re welcome.” Shepard was quiet as she sat in her usual spot on the couch, but there was a frisson of excitement in the air that sharpened with her presence. Garrus joined her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders in overwhelmed anticipation just in time for Thane to slowly open his eyes and turn his heavy lidded gaze on them both.
“Have either of you done this before?” he asked.
“No,” Shepard said, “Not unless you count what we do together.”
“It’s…new.” Garrus explained. “Since the war ended.” Thane nodded, as if this was a casual conversation about favorite foods or new gun mods and not the intricacies of their sex life. Unless – oh, spirits - maybe for him this was just as commonplace. Thane had already mentioned that this wasn’t his first experience with this kind of relationship; for all Garrus knew, he had come to their house immediately after engaging in a dalliance with the new Krogan councilor. Would Wrex even allow that? Unless—
Thane cleared his throat. “Garrus, you are thinking so loudly that they can hear you in the Wards.”
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head to clear the thoughts. “This is slightly overwhelming for me.”
Shepard squeezed his thigh in reassurance. “That’s why we’re talking it through.”
Thane leaned forward, the picture of easy confidence. “If the three of us cannot come to an understanding that benefits each of us, I’ll leave. No hard feelings. We will remain friends and never speak of this again, if you wish.”
Garrus couldn’t help the slight rumbling that undercut his words. “But if we do want to proceed…”
“I am free for the next 24 hours.”
“Right,” Shepard said. She was using her Commander voice; Garrus had to concentrate to keep his plates from spreading at the sound. “I guess I’ll start—”
***
Garrus stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, trying his best to look anywhere but at the drell undressing in the corner.
It had been easy when Shepard had been in the room. She always commanded his attention, and today was no different; the moment she had looked to him and begun sliding the thin straps of her shirt down her arms, the rest of the world fell away to background noise.
But then she had broken the spell, saying that she needed to go freshen up, and had disappeared into the bathroom without another word.
Garrus fought back a groan as he heard her moving behind the bathroom door. Their talk with Thane had left him on edge, horny and desperate and eager for release — release he wouldn’t be able to achieve without her say.
Thane noticed, of course. “You’re impatient,” he observed.
Garrus didn’t turn to look at him, contenting himself with the flash of green scales and smooth stripes that he could see out of the corner of his eye. “I’m ready,” he corrected. “But she likes me this way.”
“And you like this.”
“I love it, actually.” He squeezed his thighs together, willing his cock to remain still behind his painfully-spread plates. He’d been open and wet for hours, and the pleasurepainyearning of it all was starting to cloud his thoughts. “But it’s a lot.”
He closed his eyes as Thane moved closer, unable to take the sight of the man fully undressed and in his vicinity. It didn’t help; in fact, the loss of one of his senses only served to heighten the others. He could hear Thane so much better now — deep breaths, no longer the shuddering and desperate things of the past — and was wholly unsurprised when the man stepped up behind him.
“A moment, Garrus,” Thane murmured against his cowl. “Just a moment more. Can you handle it?”
He rumbled in unrestricted need. “Do I have a choice?”
A hesitation, warm breath against his shoulder. “Do you remember your safe words?”
“I do.”
Thane rewarded him with a warm, open mouthed kiss to the place where the soft skin of his arm met the plates of his torso. “Then you can handle it.”
His answering groan was interrupted by the soft slide of the bathroom door. Garrus opened his eyes to Shepard, naked but for a lacy pair of stockings that were belted midway up her thigh. Thane was already moving to intercept her, wrapping a gentle hand around her heavily muscled arm.
“Are you ready, Shepard?” he asked, voice lowered in lustful deference.
“Yes.” Her eyes darted over to Garrus, widening slightly as they took in the sight of him. “You’re not naked.”
“No.” His undersuit was half off, hanging loose around his hips. Shepard had begun the process of undressing him before she had started removing her own clothes, but had disappeared into the bathroom before finishing the job.
“Why not?”
Thane answered for him, though he paused to bite a respectful trail up Shepard’s neck first. “You didn’t tell him to continue.”
Shepard’s answer was quiet and restrained, yet it echoed through the room like a gunshot. “Keep your clothes on as long as you can,” she said. “I want you to work for it.”
Garrus whimpered but obliged, heading for the plush chair in the corner that had been dragged upstairs just for the occasion. He was further from the bed than he would have preferred, but the vantage point made up for it; from this angle, he could see both the long lines of Shepard’s body as she laid across the bed and the way that Thane smiled down at her as he took the ropes that adorned their headboard in hand.
“Thessian silk,” he said with approval. “Soft, but strong.”
“Expensive, too,” said Shepard. “But we needed something that Garrus could strain against without snapping.”
“Yes, I can imagine.” Thane’s eyes met Garrus’s for the briefest moment, lighting up when he saw the way that Garrus was twitching in his seat. “It will undoubtedly look as stunning on you as it does on him.”
With his free hand, Thane pulled one of Shepard’s arms above her head, letting it hang delicately in the air as he pressed a tender kiss to her palm, to her wrist, to her forearm. She writhed with each touch of his lips to her skin.
“You’re going so slow,” she whined. Garrus agreed — he was keyed up as Shepard was. These gentle touches were making him squirm with anticipation; had their positions been reversed, he would have already taken himself in hand.
“I’m being patient, Shepard. It is a virtue that you will become familiar with when I’m finished.” He kissed his way back up to her hand, then began to wrap the edge of the silk around her wrist. “It is important that you stay still for this part. We wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself, would we?”
Garrus was so distracted by the faint flush crawling up Shepard’s cheeks that it took him a moment to realize he was being addressed. “I—no, no, we wouldn’t want that at all.” He swallowed heavily. “I don’t think? I’m not actually sure what I just agreed to.”
“Oh, Garrus,” Shepard said with a grin. “You really like this, don’t you?”
He did; he really, really did. When he was the one tied to the headboard, he was always too overwhelmed to think about anything other than the way he felt. The way he looked — spirits, even the way that Shepard looked — got lost to the ebb and flow of sensation. But it turned out that watching was its own kind of intoxication, and he couldn’t get enough of it. He let his eyes wander at will, stopping to linger only on the sights that deserved a second look: the way that Shepard clenched her thighs together as Thane tightened the restraint on her other wrist, the way that Thane’s cock twitched in wanting when Shepard curled her toes into the sheets. That was nearly too much for him; he felt his own cock stiffen in response, and emerged from his plates with a choked back moan.
Thane’s head whipped around at the sound, while Shepard’s shot up a moment later. A latent thrill zipped down his spine at the sight; not since the war ended had he found himself at the receiving end of a stare from one predator, let alone two. He took a shuddering breath, willing his subvocals to calm down to a respectable level. “Don’t stop on my account,” he said. “I’m just enjoying the show.”
It was the right thing to say. Shepard’s smile gained the soft edges he knew that she only shared with him, and her voice was kind as she said, “Go ahead and take off your undersuit, Garrus. And you can touch yourself now, if you think you can handle it.”
He scrambled to untangle his clothing from his spurs — an occurrence that only ever seemed to happen when Shepard was ordering him to undress — and when he looked back up with his hand firmly wrapped around his cock, it was to find Thane kneeling over Shepard on the bed.
“Spread your legs, Shepard,” he said, running fused fingers up one of her thighs. “Wider.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“You can. You will.” His hand hovered just above her folds. “And if you don’t, I’m more than willing to leave you tied here while I tend to your lover.”
That’s me, Garrus thought stupidly. I’m her lover. He realized, suddenly, how he must look to them: flushed and panting, with his cock dripping steadily onto the chair as he stroked himself as slowly as he could manage. He wasn’t sure if he had ever been so turned on.
“Please, Shepard,” Garrus entreated, biting off a gasp as he slid a finger along his overly sensitive slit. He would touch himself as Thane touched her. “I want to see.”
Maybe it was the sound of his voice that caused Shepard to relax, opening her legs wide enough for Thane’s satisfaction; maybe it was simply the promise of finally being rewarded with the touch she yearned for. In the long run, Garrus wasn’t sure that it mattered. All he could focus on was the end result: Thane roughly whispering, “Excellent job, Shepard,” before pressing his thumb down hard against her clit as he slid two fingers into her soaking cunt.
Shepard bucked roughly against Thane’s hand, keening her pleasure to the ceiling as she struggled helplessly against the ropes that bound her. Garrus knew it had to be driving her crazy; she loved to touch, loved to run her palms down the plates of his cowl or trace his fringe softly with the pads of her fingers as he writhed and whimpered beneath her. Now there was no sensation she could chase but her own satisfaction, and she gave herself over to it loudly and without abandon.
Garrus didn’t know what was more rewarding: the way that Shepard’s eyes rolled back in her head in time with the thrusts of Thane’s fingers, or the way that the other man smirked with pride as his former Commander came undone at his touch. Pleasure fizzled in his veins, and he forced himself to still the hand that stroked his cock before he spilled messily into his lap. But he couldn’t stop his hips from thrusting, couldn’t stop his body from seeking out any sensation at all as he watched the woman he loved fall apart in their bed.
There was a moment of charged silence, as if the gravity of the galaxy itself stopped and abruptly changed direction. One moment, up was up and down was down; the next, nothing mattered but the sharp inhale of Shepard’s breath and the wet slap of flesh against flesh. And then Shepard came, shrieking with her back arched and her head thrown back, and Garrus stopped thinking about gravity altogether.
Growing up, his teachers had always reprimanded him for getting caught up in the small details, rather than focusing on the big picture. He would grow out of it, they had always promised his parents. He just needed discipline, and time.
But no matter what he had heard from his commanding officers and his bosses and his father, he had never been able to shake the habit of focusing on the parts that made up the whole. It had served him well behind the scope of his rifle, but it served him better here. Because when he should have been overwhelmed, caught up entirely by the smell of sex and the weight of his cock resting heavy in his hand, he found that he could focus on little more than the strand of hair that had come loose to hang in front of Shepard’s face, and the fact that he wanted nothing more than to be close enough to touch her, to simply to push the hair back behind her ear.
Spirits, but he could look at her forever.
Shepard blinked slowly as her orgasm faded, gazing blearily up at Thane before turning to smile at Garrus. “You didn’t come yet,” she said.
“No,” he agreed, palming gently at himself. “I didn’t know that I could.”
Her smile could outshine the stars. “I love it when you wait.”
It was overwhelmingly intimate. Had it just been the two of them, this was the moment when he would have lost control; the look on her face alone would have been enough to have him blushing and rutting helplessly into his own hand. But Thane’s presence transformed the moment entirely, and Garrus found himself transfixed by the familiar expression on the man’s face as he looked back and forth between them.
He was waiting, Garrus realized. The focus in eyes, the steadiness of his form — this was the posture of a sniper who was waiting for the right moment to strike.
“Thane,” Garrus said slowly, testing the waters. “Are you done?”
Thane’s gaze pierced him like a bullet. “On the contrary, Garrus. I am just getting started.” Then, with the blink of an eye, he grabbed Shepard by her ankles and turned her over on the bed. “On your knees, Shepard.”
Both men smiled as they watched Shepard stretch her fingers towards the edge of the mattress, seeking out the control that the ropes had stripped from her. She wasn’t religious, but Garrus didn’t doubt that this new angle was a gift from his spirits and Thane’s gods. It left her fully bared to the both of them, with her ass up in the air and her arms stretched out over her head. Thane’s knots had done the job; her wrists were neatly pinned by the ropes, and she was completely at the mercy of the way he had positioned her.
Garrus trembled as he watched Thane place his hands reverently on Shepard’s hips. He yearned to trade places with either of them — to feel the firm grip of Thane’s hands against the warm hide of his skin, or to run his own talons gently along the contradictory softness of Shepard’s muscles. To touch — to be touched —
He keened, releasing his cock in reluctance before he could let the waves of his desire carry him too far to recover. But it was still torturous to watch Thane slowly line himself up with Shepard’s core before sinking into her with a decisive thrust.
The three of them moaned in concert. One turian, one human, and one drell. And surely this had been what Shepard had meant when she petitioned the Council for interspecies cooperation, surely this was the future that they had all been fighting—
“Garrus,” Shepard said, speech muffled from where her face was pressed into his favorite pillow. “You’re talking out loud.”
He was, in fact. He was also dripping all over himself, rutting against empty air as his body sought out any scrap of sensation he could find. “Sorry,” he finally managed, though it came out as more of a desperate whine than a true apology.
“I’m not,” Shepard gasped. “You look so good over there. You’re doing so good.”
“Shepard,” he begged, “Please.” He didn’t even know what he was begging for. For her to stop praising him when he was so close, maybe, or to hear more of the little noises that she made whenever Thane pulled nearly all the way out of her before sliding back in to the hilt.
“Not yet — yes, Thane, yes— not yet, Garrus.”
Thane looked over at him, the perfect picture of total control but for a hint of wildness in his eyes. “I understand why you wanted this arrangement, Shepard. He begs so nicely.” One of his hands trailed firmly down her spine, anchoring her further into the mattress. “Though now I have a question for Garrus. Does she always talk so much?”
He had to think about it. It took a moment, being that all of the blood in body had long abandoned his brain to rush insistently downward, but after several moments of very purposeful contemplation he did have an answer. “We both talk a lot, actually. She likes it.”
“Hmmm,” Thane said, focusing all of his attention back to where Shepard was writhing beneath him. “I think I can rectify that.”
The hand pinning her shoulders shot up like a bullet, wrapping around her throat and squeezing lovingly, threatening. “You asked for dominance,” Thane said, voice gone low and full of lust. “I’m giving it to you. Submit, Shepard.”
And then he rolled his hips, once, twice, again and again, until Shepard was whimpering wantonly into the sheets and Garrus was forced to dig his talons into the meat of his thighs in an attempt to distract himself from coming early.
It was difficult. He being driven forward on two axes – one that was entirely focused on the bright shine of Thane’s scales and the enticing way that they glinted on the curve of his ass, and another that was being driven mad by the sharp points of Shepard’s nipples and the harsh rhythm of her breathing. Shepard had put rules in place that ensured no one else was allowed to touch him without her permission, but he was overwhelmed with sensation in spite of it. The scant handful of feet that separated the chair he sat on from the bed where Thane was slowly breaking Shepard down might have been miles away, it might have been inches. It didn’t matter. There was nothing left of him anymore but desire.
Garrus wrenched his eyes shut and counted his heartbeats. One, he wasn’t going to come and Shepard was panting. Two, he wasn’t going to come and Thane was moaning. Three, he wasn’t going to come and Shepard was screaming and Thane was laughing and Garrus was ripping his favorite armchair to shreds—
Four, and Shepard was sinking bonelessly into the bed with her ass still up in the air. Four, and Thane was gesturing to Garrus with an inviting smile, asking him to join them on the mattress. Four, and Garrus was tripping over his spurs as he made his way to the bed, his cock hanging heavy between his thighs.
“She’s waiting for you,” Thane said, stepping away from the bed on silent feet.
Garrus hesitated. He was used to the orders coming from Shepard’s lips, was used to her playful, flirty tone.
Then she rolled over onto her back and blinked up at him. Thane hadn’t united her; her arms were still stretched out over her head. “What are you waiting for?” Shepard asked. “I missed you.”
Garrus and Shepard had picked out the mattress in their room together, after a long afternoon of debate about firmness versus softness and the importance of cowl support. But when his knees hit the bed, it might as well have been for the first time. Everything felt brand new in the light of the look on Shepard’s face. It was softer, more content…more blissful than he had ever seen before. Thane had given her something that Garrus couldn’t have, and even so — even so — she had missed him.
He hovered over her, one talon gently tracing along the line of her jaw. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.
“No, you.” She turned her head, pressing a kiss against his palm. “You’re so good. You’ve been so good.”
He couldn’t help it; he whimpered, his hips stuttering forward helplessly as precome dripped obscenely on Shepard's thigh. “Can I fuck you now, Shepard? Please, can I—”
Thane cleared his throat. From the sound of it, he had settled into Garrus’s favorite chair, though Garrus had no intention of taking his eyes off of Shepard to verify that. “Actually, I have a better idea.”
The hazy look in Shepard’s eyes threatened to sharpen before it fell away all at once into blissful submission. She was still happy to take orders from Thane; he would be remiss not to follow her lead. “What do you want me to do?” Garrus asked.
“Both of you talk too much for my liking.” A shudder of breath, the wet sound of skin against skin. Thane was touching himself. “I would like it if both of your mouths were…occupied.”
Oh.
Oh.
Garrus pressed a gentle kiss to Shepard’s forehead, then rose to his knees. “Roll over for me, sweetheart.” She did, turning so that her face was once again pressed into the pillows. He reached down, grabbing one that wasn’t completely pinned under her shoulders. “Lift your legs for me?….Okay, hold still…”
It was strange. He had been on the receiving end of Shepard’s ministrations more times than he could count; never in his wildest dreams had he imagined himself on the other side. But this was different. With Thane in charge, he was still…safe. Safe to give, safe to take, safe to feel any and every overwhelming emotion that being with Shepard brought to the surface. As long as he was being guided, he was free.
Garrus slid underneath her with ease, not stopping until his feet pressed against the headboard. He felt oddly as if he was floating, like the mattress beneath him had disappeared and there was nothing holding him to reality but the pillow he had placed behind his head to keep his fringe from gouging holes into the mattress and the overwhelming heat of Shepard’s body as it slowly lowered down on top of him. She pressed kisses to his thighs as she steadied herself, though she held herself back from taking it any further, much in the same way that he forced himself to think of anything but the fact that her cunt was warm and wet and inches from his face.
“You want to taste her, don’t you?” Thane was nearly purring. “I do. I will admit, I didn’t know that a human could get this wet. I’m sure she tastes exquisite.”
“She does,” Garrus said, though his subvocals were thrumming so insistently that the words came out flanged and rough. “And I want to. I thought— I thought—”
Shepard cut him off with a whimper. “Please.”
Garrus could hear Thane’s grin. “Well, since you’re asking so nicely. Go ahead, both of you.”
His last coherent thought was that Thane was a bit of a bastard. Then Shepard’s lips closed around him at the same time that his tongue pressed against her clit, and the world around him was reduced to a heady mix of sensation.
He had known it wouldn’t take him long. This wasn’t the first time that he had been brought to the edge and then left there for hours, and spirits willing, it wouldn’t be the last. But it was the first time that he got to enjoy the musky taste of Shepard on his tongue at the same time as he bucked up into her mouth, all while Thane moaned behind them in unrestrained lust. All of the time spent talking and planning and teasing — it was for this, for this, for this—
Shepard came with a scream and a rush of fluid that coated his chin. Thane followed just behind with the exhale of her name. And Garrus—
Shepard pressed a delicate kiss to the head of his cock. Feather light, softer than air. “You can come now, Garrus.”
He did. And then, very promptly, he passed out.
***
Garrus liked living on the Citadel well enough. The streets were clean and the restaurants were good, and no one ever made him and Shepard pay for parking since they were the only reason that there was still parking to pay for. But no matter if it was the keepers or the council who were running the place, one thing stayed the same: the lighting was disorientingly artificial.
That was Garrus’s excuse, at least, when he woke up sticky and satiated and completely confused about what day it was, how he had ended up in this state, and who was making Shepard laugh so loudly that it echoed through the apartment.
Then he looked over at the sodden mess of his formerly favorite chair, and he remembered.
Garrus stumbled to his feet, forgoing his own discarded undersuit from earlier and pulling on the robe that Shepard always left hanging on the back of the bedroom door. It wasn’t the most dignified outfit, but Thane had already witnessed him having an orgasm so intense that he lost consciousness — his dignity was long gone.
He followed the sound of voices to the kitchen, where he found Shepard seated comfortably on top of the counter while Thane stirred something on the stove. The other man was wearing Shepard’s sweatpants, and something fluttered in Garrus’s stomach at the sight. It looked natural. It looked right.
And it felt right, too, when Thane looked at him with a warm smile before he even had the chance to speak. “Good evening, Garrus. How did you sleep?”
“It was more of a coma than anything else. What are you making?”
“Fudge,” Shepard answered, happiness glinting in her eyes. “I told him we had plenty of food for dinner, but nothing for dessert.”
“You’re staying?” Garrus asked. “I mean, you can, you’re more than welcome. I just— well, you mentioned having plans, and I—”
“I’m staying for dinner—” Thane said.
“I invited him to stay the night,” Shepard said, interrupting.
“—and I’d like to stay the night, if you’ll have me.”
There were a million things he wanted to say. Yes, primarily, followed by please and of course and thank you for doing this for us. But when he opened his mouth, what came out was, “I’d love to have you.”
Oh well. It wasn’t his smoothest moment, but Thane was staying the night. He had time.