Part of Jason’s brain caught back up -- the rest of his thoughts were trapped in the vicinity of the white-hot rigid need in his pants -- and he managed to say, “When did you two talk about this?”

“Oh, well, Simon texted me, in fact.” Colby took a step closer to him, holding black leather. The silver rings gleamed in candlelight, suggesting control, fastening, restraint. Fantasies bespelled into existence. “To say he and Ben had bought me a present. Well, us. For both of us.”

“For the record,” Ben said, “I just planned to give them to you. Not to have my submissive talk about what you like in bed, out loud, when you’ve just had us over for dinner, and thank you again, by the way.”

“Oh, of course ...” Colby took a deep breath. Put one hand on Jason’s arm, possibly for support. “Of course you’re always welcome. We’re friends, after this, aren’t we? That is -- I think we are? If you’d like that?” That was a genuine question; Colby even now never quite believed that people truly liked him, Colby Kent-Mirelli, rather than the movie star persona.

Jason said, “They’re our friends, babe,” and put his hand over Colby’s, for warmth, for reinforcement. They’d better be Colby’s friends. Jason would ensure that, if his husband wanted it to happen.

At the same time, Ben was saying, “We want to be your friends, Colby, of course we are,” and had also come over to Colby’s side, shorter than both of them but firm and commanding; that dark brown voice, unassuming secret-agent muscles, unquestionable control of a room and a mission. “Look at me, kitten. We like you, okay? And I’m honestly pretty damn amazed, really, I might’ve been a lot of places but I’ve never been friends with a movie star before, and I don’t mean we’re friends with you because of that, we’re friends because you’re a pretty cool person, understand?”

Colby blinked at him, expression somewhere between surprised and -- Jason was decently sure -- kind of into being lectured. “Er ... kitten?”

Ben shrugged a shoulder, not apologizing for it. Jason thought about skills, and confidence, and dominance. He himself was good at taking care of Colby, and he’d always had those instincts, but Ben was impressive.

“Mmm,” Simon said, now sitting on the table, swinging short legs. His toenails were painted glittery silver. They matched his shirt. “He’s so good at that.”

“I was actually going to say ...” Colby leaned into Jason’s muscles more. “I ... I rather liked it. I mean, I was thinking ... not all the time, but ... I do love being Jason’s, and ... it sounded so lovely, the way you said it, so natural, yes, sir ... and then you were talking about discipline, and spanking him, and we don’t really ... but we could ... I mean, we do, sometimes ... so I was wondering ...”

“Wait,” Jason said. His head had gone light, buoyed up, spinning with want and astonishment and disbelief. “Baby, you don’t like punishments. We don’t -- we don’t do that.”

“Not exactly,” Colby said. “I don’t like feeling ... not good enough. You know that. But that wasn’t exactly what Ben meant, and you do sometimes, er, spank me just because we like it, and ... I was curious, you know, about what makes that feel good, the way they were talking about it ... if we could, if I wanted to know ...”

“Oh my God,” Simon said, nearly falling off the table, catching himself. Pure glee in summer-blue eyes, framed by smoky eyeliner decoration. “Are we having an orgy?”