The spreader bar waited in the end bay, propped against the wall beside the saddle stand like it had always belonged there, its hardwood dark against the boards. Steel plates reinforced the timber at intervals. Two lifting eyes sat along the top, with a row beneath for changing the width and position of whatever hung from it.
“That was quick,” she said.
“Couldn’t sleep. Had to build something.”
“There’s another in the truck.”
“You made two.”
“Different loads, different shapes.”
“Of course.”
Bryce looked at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She knew better.
The next movement should simply take them to the truck and show the crossed frame as they unload it. No further explanation yet.
It lay across the tray beneath a tarp, two hardwood beams fixed at right angles and braced through the centre with steel. Chains were already shackled to the upper lifting points. More eyes ran beneath all four arms.
Vael came around the other side of the truck and studied the frame.
“What is this one for?”
“Four-point lift,” Bryce said. “Bulk bags. Pallets. Anything that needs four points kept apart.”
“And me,” Elara said.
Bryce met her eyes.
“And us.”
He lowered the tailgate.
“Need a hand.”
Elara took one arm while Vael lifted the opposite side. Bryce guided the centre. Together they brought the crossed frame down from the tray and carried it beneath the hoist.
It was heavier than it looked. The hardwood had been sanded smooth, but Bryce had left the steel visible: reinforcing plates, bolts, shackles and lifting eyes. Nothing about it needed hiding. It belonged in a barn.
They set it on the dirt.
Elara looked from the crossed frame to the straight beam against the wall.
“Couldn’t sleep, huh?”
“So you built two lifting frames and a harness.”
“One frame. One beam.”
“That makes it much more reasonable.”
Bryce ignored her.
Vael crouched beside the crossed frame, tracing the line of the lower eyes without touching them.
“You can alter the position of each support.”
“That’s the idea,” Bryce said. “Keeps the load balanced.”
Elara looked down at the frame.
“The load.”
Bryce’s mouth shifted.
“You know what I mean.”
She did.
Bryce hooked the two chain legs from one side of the frame to the hoist, then the matching pair from the other. When he took up the slack, the crossed frame lifted evenly from the dirt and hung level above them.
He raised it until the lowest eyes were just beyond reach.
Vael stood beneath it, looking up at the metal square bracing the beams.
“It remains stable.”
“It should.”
“You calculated the balance.”
“I built it so I wouldn’t have to.”
Elara looked at Bryce.
That, more than the second frame, told her how long he had been thinking about it.
He lowered the frame enough to reach the attachment points.
Beside the saddle stand, the broader harness waited on the workbench. Bryce had replaced the narrow lifting slings with heavy leather supports, reinforced where they would carry weight. Separate straps were shaped for Elara’s waist, lower back and thighs. Nothing passed through the centre.
“Waist support here,” he said. “Lower-back strap behind. These two carry beneath the thighs and rise outside the hips. Front and rear supports clip separately so I can change the angle without putting anything through the middle.”
Vael studied the arrangement.
Elara touched the leather.
“Show me.”
Bryce glanced at her.
“You need to be in it for the adjustment.”
She was already pulling her shirt over her head.
The barn air hit her skin, cool against the flush already rising through her. She stepped out of her jeans and stood in the morning light coming through the gaps in the boards. Bryce watched her with that steady look, the one that held her without grabbing. Vael watched differently, studying the harness and the frame above, following the path each strap would take once her weight came onto it.
“Arms up,” Bryce said.
She raised them and let him settle the harness over her shoulders. The straps ran down into the broad waist belt, keeping the upper half from tipping or folding once she was off the ground. Bryce tightened the belt low around her hips, then checked that he could still slide his fingers beneath it.
“Leg.”
She lifted it.
The first thigh support sat high, tucked into the crease where her thigh met her body.
“Other one.”
She lifted the other leg.
“Squat.”
She complied.
Bryce drew the front strap up short and straight to the front of the waist belt.
He repeated it on the other side.
He carried the rear straps beneath the curve of her arse and across behind her, crossing them high, close to the top of her cleft, before fastening at the waist. Together they formed two narrow cradles beneath her, supporting her where thigh met pelvis without covering the centre.
Bryce adjusted them a little at a time.
“How does that feel?”
“Exposed”
“Any pinching?”
“Not yet.”
Vael moved behind her and studied the crossing point.
“It leaves the centre open.”
“That’s the idea,” Bryce said.
He fitted a broad strap above each knee, buckling them around the lower thighs. Long adjustable lines ran from the outer rings on those straps to the farthest eyes beneath the crossed frame.
“These don’t carry you,” Bryce said. “They’re just to hold you apart.”
Elara looked at the lines rising away from her legs.
“And the rest?”
He clipped the waist points to the inner eyes of the frame, the lines angling outward from her hips. The thigh supports fed back into the waist harness, carrying her weight through the straps beneath her.
The shoulder lines rose almost straight above her, holding her upright against the outward pull from below.
Bryce checked each buckle again, then took up the slack until the leather settled firmly against her.
“Ready?”
Elara looked from him to Vael, then down at herself. She was completely exposed, and slick with the thought of what was about to happen.
“Lift me.”
Bryce worked the hoist.
The crossed frame rose. The waist lines tightened, followed by the supports beneath her thighs. Her heels lightened against the dirt, then left it.
For a moment her legs hung beneath her.
Bryce shortened the outer lines, gradually drawing her knees upward and apart.
He continued to hoist her until the pressure settled evenly through the high thigh supports and around her hips. Her back settled against the shoulder straps without pulling her rigid.
By the time Bryce stopped, she hung in a deep supported squat, knees raised and spread beneath the outer arms of the frame.
Nothing crossed the centre in front of her.
Behind her, the supporting straps disappeared high beneath each cheek, leaving the space between them clear.
Bryce stepped around her slowly, checking every line.
“How does it feel?”
Elara shifted her weight experimentally. The harness moved with her, but did not slide.
“Like it’s holding me where you wanted.”
Bryce looked at Vael.
Vael was already studying the space the harness had left open.
“No,” Bryce said.
Both men looked at her.
“Where you wanted.”
Vael stepped behind her, his hands finding her hips.
The frame held her open without pulling her out of alignment. A pleasant ache had begun high in her thighs from the width. Nothing covered the centre. Cool air touched the wetness between her legs.
“This is going to work.”
Bryce watched without moving. Vael kept his palms against her hips, steadying the gentle sway of the harness. She felt the weight of both men in the moment, and the understanding that had grown between them without needing words.
“Lower me,” she said. “I want to know what it feels like with someone inside.”
Bryce eased the hoist down until she was low enough for him.
Vael looked past her to Bryce.
“Front or back?”
“Back.”
Vael moved around her. By the time he stopped in front, his hands were already at his belt.
“Slow,” she said. “I want to feel all of it.”
Vael stepped between her spread legs and caught her hips, lifting just enough to take the sway out of the harness. His cock pressed against her entrance, not yet inside. Waiting.
“Tell me when.”
She shifted within the leather, testing the small range of movement Bryce had left her. The frame held her knees apart, but the harness still allowed her to tilt her pelvis.
She rolled her hips forward. The head of Vael’s cock caught against her, and she pressed onto him.
He entered her slowly.
Leather creaked above the quiet movement of the hoist. She felt every inch of him as her body settled around the new angle. The width of her thighs changed it, opening her differently, drawing him deeper than she expected.
She gasped.
“Stop there.”
Vael held still.
Elara shifted her weight carefully, feeling the pull high beneath her thighs, the firm support around her hips and the fullness inside her. Held by the harness, spread by the frame and anchored against Vael’s body, she felt exposed without feeling unstable.
Bryce had been watching silently. He stepped closer and tested the tension in the lines at her hip, then followed them upward with his eyes.
“Everything’s holding. No slippage.”
Bryce’s erection strained against the front of his jeans. She could hear him unbuckled behind her, he shoved them low enough to free himself, then spat into his palm and worked it over the length of his cock.
Elara felt Vael still inside her, holding steady while Bryce stepped in behind.
Bryce’s hand settled on her hip. The other guided himself to her arse.
“Slow,” she said.
He pressed against her, waited for her to loosen, then pushed forward carefully. The first stretch stole her breath. She held still in the harness, suspended between them, while he eased deeper a little at a time.
Vael did not move.
Bryce kept going until she had taken him, the pressure building behind the fullness already inside her. The harness creaked softly as her body adjusted around both men.
For a moment, none of them moved.
"This works," she said. Her voice was rough.
She wanted to stay in that moment. The light through the gaps in the boards had shifted, a bar of sun falling across Vael’s shoulder. She could feel the smallest movement of him inside her with every breath he took, and Bryce behind her, held just as deep, the pressure of both men meeting through her body. Both mens hands rested on her hips, not gripping, only steadying her.
“Move,” she said. “I want to feel every inch.”
Bryce moved first, slowly enough that she felt the drag of him behind her without losing Vael in front. Vael followed the rhythm a moment later, their movements careful and separate, letting her feel one before the other.
Every stroke reached her differently—the slow withdrawal behind, the deep return in front, then both pressures meeting through her body. She clenched around Vael and felt Bryce answer with another measured thrust.
She could have stayed there for hours.
Vael came first, holding himself deep as warmth spread through her. Bryce stayed buried behind her, motionless while she tightened around them both.
Vael withdrew slowly, and she felt every inch of him leave her.
Bryce waited until Vael was clear of her before he began to move again.
Without the fullness in front, she felt him differently. Each slow stroke drew against the tender stretch inside her, the pressure sharper now, cleaner. His hand closed around her hip while the other steadied the harness above her waist.
“Still slow?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He obeyed for several strokes, pulling almost completely free before pressing back into her with the same measured control. Then her body tightened around him and his rhythm faltered.
Elara heard the change in his breathing before she felt it in the way he held her.
“Don’t stop.”
Bryce drove into her once, twice, then buried himself deep and stayed there. His grip tightened against her hip as he came, the pulse of him distinct inside her.
The frame swayed gently beneath the hoist.
For a while, all three of them remained where they were—Vael standing before her, Bryce pressed close behind, Elara suspended between them with her thighs trembling and the harness carrying what her legs no longer could.
Bryce withdrew carefully, one hand still firm on her hip while the other kept the harness from turning with him.
Elara exhaled as the pressure left her. The emptiness came in stages—first behind, then the cooler air where Vael had been. Her body still held the memory of both men.
“Don’t lower her yet,” Vael said.
Bryce looked past her.
“Why?”
“She’s shaking.”
“I’m fine,” Elara said.
Neither of them listened.
Vael stepped close again and braced her between his hands while Bryce fastened his jeans and moved to the hoist. He lowered her slowly, stopping when the balls of her feet touched the dirt.
“Weight on them?” Bryce asked.
She tried.
Her knees folded almost immediately.
Vael caught her beneath the arms before the harness took her weight again.
Elara laughed once, breathless. “Apparently not.”
Bryce lowered the frame the rest of the way until her knees settled onto the dirt. The lines slackened around her, but neither man began undoing the buckles.
For a moment they simply stayed there with her—Vael kneeling in front, Bryce behind, one hand resting against the small of her back.
The barn had gone quiet again.
Elara looked between them.
"I need a towel," she said.
Bryce handed her a rag from the workbench. She pressed it between her legs and stood for a moment, catching her breath. Vael had tucked himself back into his jeans and was studying the harness, one hand tracing the strap path.
---
Two weeks later, Bryce arrived with a chair strapped upright in the tray.
It had the severity of an electric chair: heavy dark timber, a tall padded back and broad arms fitted with permanent leather restraints. More straps waited at the base and across the front of the seat.
The seat itself was made in three sections. Two broad padded panels were fixed along the outside. A narrower section filled the space between them.
Elara stopped at the tailgate.
“You built a throne.”
Bryce released the straps holding it in place.
“Need a hand.”
Once they had it on the barn floor, Bryce reached beneath the seat and released two catches. The padded middle section lifted free, leaving a long opening between the fixed outer panels.
A fitted hole passed through the removable section.
Bryce picked a wand from the front seat of his truck and slid its handle through from above. It locked into a cradle beneath the insert, leaving the head projecting above the padding.
“With this fitted, she sits over the wand,” Vael said.
Bryce removed the insert again.
The opening ran from the front edge of the seat to the back. The space beneath was enclosed along the sides but open at both ends.
Elara looked through it.
“And without it, someone goes underneath.”
Vael crouched beside the chair and studied the low rings set into the inner frame. He ran his fingers over one.
“These are not for her.”
“No,” Bryce said.
Elara looked from the rings beneath the seat to the permanent restraints fixed across the arms, back and base.
She understood.
“You could lock him under me.”
Bryce met her eyes.
“And tie you over him.”
Vael remained crouched beside the opening.
“Neither of us could move.”
Elara looked down at him.
“Not entirely.”
She stepped back and regarded the chair again.
“What are you going to tell Saige?”
Bryce considered the chair.
“Prototype.”
“Of what?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
Vael ran a hand over one of the permanent straps.
“It is difficult to explain.”
“Only if she asks.”
Elara looked at the removable centre, then at the opening beneath the seat.
“She’ll ask.”
Bryce sighed.
“Then I’d better think of something better than prototype.”
"First though, want to try it?"
Bryce fitted the centre section first.
Elara stripped and sat while he fastened the straps across her wrists, chest, thighs and ankles. The wand pressed firmly against her the moment her weight settled onto the seat.
“Too high?” he asked.
She shifted as far as the restraints allowed.
“No.”
Vael stood beside the chair, watching her breathing change.
Bryce switched it on.
The first setting made her laugh. The second took the sound from her. By the time Bryce turned it off, her thighs were trembling against the straps and she had stopped pretending she could lift away from it.
They gave her time to recover before unfastening the restraints.
“My turn next,” Vael said.
---
A fortnight later, Elara arrived at the barn to find Vael already there, sitting on the saddle stand, Bryce beside him on the kneeling ledge. They weren’t talking. They simply waited in the same silence, contemplating something she couldn’t yet see.
“What are you two up to?” Elara asked.
Bryce nodded over her shoulder.
At first it looked like a solid wall built between two upright posts, heavy enough to stand on its own. Then she saw the openings cut through it.
A large oval sat high in the centre. Smaller holes flanked it. Another opening broke the boards lower down, with two more beneath that.
Vael rose and came around beside her.
“What is it meant to be?”
Bryce grinned.
“Restraint panel.”
“For what?”
“Anything that won’t stand still.”
Vael studied the arrangement of openings.
“That answer is technically true.”
Bryce looked at him.
“Exactly.”
Elara moved closer. The panel stood on broad timber feet. Steel pins held the horizontal boards between the posts, allowing each section to be removed or changed.
She ran her fingers around the edge of the largest opening. The timber had been rounded smooth.
“You planned for more than one position.”
“Different animals,” Bryce said.
She looked back at him.
“Of course.”
Vael was already examining the lower boards, working out where each opening would leave someone exposed.
Elara stepped behind the panel and placed her hands through two of the smaller holes. From the other side, Bryce closed his fingers around her wrists.
The timber trapped her arms without touching anything else.
She looked at him through the large opening.
“This one might be harder to explain than the chair.”
“Livestock restraint prototype.”
“What livestock?”
“That depends on Vael.”
Vael moved behind her and rested his hands on her hips.
Elara smiled through the opening.
“Then we should probably test it before Saige sees it.”
---
The storm caught them halfway back to the house.
Rain struck the dust in dark spots, then came down all at once. Bryce caught Elara’s hand and pulled her towards the barn. They reached the main doors already wet and slipped inside as the roof began to roar above them.
The centre aisle darkened beneath the storm. Water blew through the doorway and spattered the packed earth. Beyond the bays, the far wall sat in shadow.
Elara brushed wet hair from her face.
“We could have made the house.”
“Could’ve.”
Bryce did not sound convinced.
He stood beside her, looking down the length of the barn.
“What?”
“Just thinking.”
“That usually means timber.”
His mouth shifted.
“A low stage would fit across that wall.”
She followed his gaze past the bays and the high beams crossing overhead.
“For what?”
“Depends.” He pointed as he imagined it. “Socket in the floor for a removable pole. Bring the chair out when we want it. The stockade. A cross.”
Elara looked at him.
“You’ve thought about this.”
“I’m throwing ideas around.”
He moved a few steps into the aisle, measuring the width with his eyes.
“People could sit back here and watch. Whatever was on the stage becomes the focus.”
Thunder rolled across the roof.
Bryce glanced towards the bays on the left.
“Small bar in one of those.”
“The first one?”
“Maybe the third. More central. Caterers in the bay beside it.”
Elara followed the space as he built it.
“Tables up the middle.”
“Chairs. Hay bales. Some proper seating along the sides.”
He nodded towards the far end again.
“Band on the stage. Or put them in the loft and leave the stage as a dance floor.”
“Dancing on dirt?”
“Wouldn’t be the first country wedding.”
She turned to him.
“Hire it out as a venue?”
Bryce shrugged, still looking down the barn as though he were moving each piece into place.
“Or use it for ours.”
The words seemed to catch him only after he had said them.
He glanced at her.
“Either way. Maybe both.”
The rain filled the silence between them.
Elara looked towards the empty wall again. This time she could see tables through the centre aisle, people gathered beneath the lofts, light caught in the hay dust. A stage at the far end. Bryce waiting there.
She said nothing.
But when the storm eased, the barn no longer looked quite the same.