Four Of A Kind

Her lips trailed down my temple, my cheek, the corner of my mouth. Each kiss was gentle. Almost reverent. The complete opposite of Cassidy’s aggressive claiming, but somehow just as effective at making my heart rate spike.

"Let me take care of you. Please? I’m really good at it. I make amazing waffles. And I give great hugs. And I..." She paused, and when she spoke again her voice had dropped into something warmer. More intimate. "I can do other things too. Things that would make you feel really, really good."

Her hand slid between us and wrapped around me, and the gentle stroke she gave was nothing like Cassidy’s aggressive intensity or Sabrina’s patient exploration. It was tender. Loving. The touch of someone who wanted to give pleasure more than receive it.

"Is this okay? Tell me if this is okay. I want to make you happy, Isaiah. That’s all I ever want."

I grabbed her wrist to stop the movement before I lost the ability to think entirely.

"Stop."

She looked at me with Harlow’s wide eyes and Harlow’s concerned expression, and for a moment I genuinely couldn’t tell who I was talking to.

"Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to..."

"Sabrina."

The name hung in the air between us. She held the Harlow persona for three more seconds before letting it fall away like a mask being removed. The wide-eyed innocence faded, replaced by her usual knowing expression.

"You called my bluff."

"That wasn’t a bluff. That was a psychological horror movie."

She laughed, genuine and warm, and released my wrists to sit back on my thighs. The moonlight caught her face at an angle that made her look almost ethereal, this impossible creature made of pale skin and wine-dark hair and purple eyes that saw too much.

"I could be Vivienne too, if you’d prefer. I know her better than anyone. Every schedule she’s ever made, every strategy she’s ever employed, every insecurity she tries to bury under productivity and achievement."

"Please don’t."

"Are you sure? She’s very good at giving orders. Very good at taking control." Sabrina’s posture shifted, spine straightening, chin lifting. Suddenly she looked down at me with Vivienne’s imperious gaze, like I was a problem to be solved rather than a person to be desired. "This arrangement is inefficient. I’ve prepared a comprehensive document outlining optimal procedures for physical intimacy. You’ll find the timeline in section three."

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

The Vivienne impression cracked immediately, Sabrina’s lips twitching as she tried to maintain the stern expression. She held out for about three seconds before dissolving into laughter herself, collapsing onto my chest and shaking against me.

"That was mean," I managed between breaths.

"That was accurate. She actually made a document. Twelve pages. Color-coded sections."

"I know. She sent it to me."

Sabrina lifted her head, genuine surprise flickering across her face. "She sent you the intimacy guide?"

"With footnotes."

"Of course with footnotes."

We lay there in the darkness, laughter fading into comfortable silence. Sabrina’s weight on my chest felt natural. Right. Like she belonged there and always had.

"You can’t actually be all of them."

"I can try."

"That’s not what I want."

She propped her chin on her hands, studying my face with that intense focus that made me feel like a specimen under a microscope. "Then what do you want?"

"You. Just you. Not Cassidy or Harlow or Vivienne wearing your face. Not some impossible composite of everything your sisters are and everything they could be." I reached up and tucked a strand of wine-red hair behind her ear. "I want Sabrina. The real one. The one who watches from corners and speaks in half-sentences and pretends she doesn’t feel things as deeply as she does."

Something shifted in her expression. That knowing confidence wavered, just for a moment, replaced by something younger and more vulnerable than I’d ever seen from her.

"What if the real one isn’t enough?"

"Then we’ll deal with that when we get there. But I don’t think that’s going to be a problem."

She was quiet for a long moment, processing my words with that computer-brain of hers that never stopped analyzing and cataloguing and planning three moves ahead. Then she kissed me, soft and slow, and it felt different than all the kisses before.

It felt like an answer.

"Stay anyway."

"Sabrina..."

"Not because I can be everyone. Not because I’m trying to monopolize your time or cheat the rotation." She pressed her forehead against mine, her breath warm on my lips. "Stay because you want to. Stay because this felt like something real. Stay because tomorrow I’m going to wake up alone in this ridiculous bed in this ridiculous mansion and pretend it doesn’t hurt that you’re not here."

I thought about Iris waiting at home. About the essay due Tuesday that I hadn’t started. About the shift at the Velvet Room I was supposed to cover next weekend and the train schedule I’d memorized out of necessity and the thousand small obligations that made up my life.

Then I thought about Sabrina’s face when she dropped her mask. The way she’d looked at me in front of that Vermeer painting. The sound she’d made when I’d first slid inside her, half surprise and half relief, like she’d been waiting for that moment her entire life.

"One night."

She went still. "What?"

"One night. I stay until morning, and then I have to go. Iris is going to give me so much shit and Cassidy is probably going to try to kill me and Vivienne is going to add this to some spreadsheet tracking my time allocation, but..."

Sabrina kissed me before I could finish the sentence.

This one was different too. Grateful and happy and just a little bit desperate, her hands cupping my face like she was afraid I’d disappear if she let go. When she pulled back her eyes were bright in a way that had nothing to do with the moonlight.

"One night."

"One night."

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