“It’s complicated, Devvy.” Bastien rubbed a hand over his nape, and from the flash of pain that had him frowning, she knew his migraine was still there or coming back.
“So explain,” she retorted, voice cool, ignoring his discomfort. He wasn’t the only one with a tension headache waiting in the wings. “I want an answer.”
“You won’t like it,” he muttered.
“Tough. I don’t like this! You’re frightening me.” Maybe fright wasn’t the correct way to describe how he was making her feel with his comments, but it summed up her nervousness.
A burst of French cascaded over the room as Alex and Bastien started to yell at one another. Devvy had a basic understanding of the language. She might be one of the top cosmetic scientists in the world, but the Romance language just escaped her at every turn. Something she bitterly resented as Alexei and Sebastien engaged in a war of words right in front of her, and she couldn’t understand a fucking word.
“Enough!” she barked, digging deep and finding a previously unknown source of courage at her very heart. She was not known for her confrontational side. If anything, she was likely to flee from an argument, not dive right into battle. “Explain. I’ve already waited longer than I said I would, Sebastien. I think I deserve an explanation.”
The two broke off, looking guiltily at each other, before Alex cleared his throat and said, “We enjoy the opposite sex.”
“We enjoy the opposite sex,” she mimicked, glowering at the pair of them. “I should damn well hope so considering you’ve just spent the last two years married to me, Sebastien.” A thought popped into her head and she choked out, “Is that why you haven’t touched me for over a month? You’ve stopped enjoying the opposite sex?”
Sebastien snapped, “I haven’t touched you because La Belle sans la Bête was under threat of a hostile takeover! As much as I love losing myself in your body, ma petite, sometimes the spirit might be willing but the body is weak.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the takeover?”
He rolled his eyes. “Women. You can’t win either way!”
“If it stresses you out, then it stresses me out. Is that so hard to understand?” she directed the question at Alexei, who held up his hands in surrender.
“Don’t get me involved. I’ve already had this argument with him. Many a time. He knows how I feel on the subject.”
The pair of them directed their gaze at Sebastien. “Don’t keep scowling like that. The wind will change and then you’ll be stuck that way forever!” she told him, watching him try to fight a smile at the nonsensical advice. Something her grandmother had told her long ago.
“And do you care for my pretty face, mignonne?” he asked, the smile breaking free and tugging at his lips.
“Maybe,” she retorted, unwilling to stroke his ego. “Look, I’m still waiting for an explanation. I think I’ve been more than patient.”
“And your patience shall be rewarded, Devvy,” Bastien muttered, sinking back into the sofa with a sigh. “We might as well relax while I tell the tale.” He waited until Devvy and Alexei had taken a seat, his wife moving to the place beside him, leaving the armchair free for Alexei. It was a small act of possessiveness that both men recognized instantly.
“Firstly, you must realize, Devvy, that neither of us meant you any harm. If anything, it’s the contrary.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“We both wanted to love you.”
Stunned, Devvy sat forward, half-stood up, and then sat back down again. “Both of you?”
Alex nodded. “Yes. I have known Sebastien for nearly twenty years. Before he was the rich industrialist we see now.”
“You’ve been friends? Or more than that?”
“More,” Alex murmured, voice gentle.
“Oh.”
“Don’t look so broken-hearted, mignonne,” Sebastien whispered, seeing his wife’s beautiful features crumple with her pain made the tension at his temples beat to a tune of its own. “I am not a stranger now I have made this revelation. This is simply another facet to my nature.”
“A rather large facet,” she snapped. “You’ve had a male lover for twenty years and you didn’t think your wife might appreciate knowing that?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“It’s a funny time to start being honest. What changed?”
“You asked if I was cheating on you.”
“And I was bang on the money, wasn’t I?” she spat, her anger making itself known in her hissed retort, before it whooshed out of her and she collapsed back into the sofa.
“Technically, he has been cheating on me with you,” Alexei pointed out and shook his head as her eyes shot a warning his way. “I do not say this to hurt you, Devvy. It is simply the truth.”
“One that does hurt!” she cried, unsure whether the tears pricking her eyes were from anger or sorrow.
Sebastien grabbed her shoulder and gently began to knead. It was a sharp contrast to the way she’d cosseted him only ninety or so minutes ago. She wanted to move away, shove his hand off, but Devvy didn’t want to hurt him. Unlike the way he’d hurt her.
“I’m sorry, chérie.” Bastien sighed. “But there is more to this than pigeonholing me as gay. What Alex and I have together is not strictly monogamous. Before you, we took other women to bed, but not men.”
“So you’re bi?”
“I hate labels, Devvy. We are what we are.”
“God, this belongs on some bad soap opera. What do you want me to do? Condone the fact you have a male lover and just put up and shut up?”
“No,” he murmured softly. “I wish you to take my male lover, as you label Alex, for your own.”
This time, Devvy didn’t hover. She leapt off her seat and strode over to the fireplace to gawk at them both from a distance.
Sebastien’s jaw took on the characteristics of concrete. “We are not contagious.”
“I take it back,” she muttered, shaking her head and ignoring his pained anger. “This isn’t a soap opera. It’s a goddamn porn movie! Why the hell should I want to take a lover? Until now, I’ve been happy and damned busy keeping up with you!” She raised her hands and hugged herself. Self-comforting was the only way to go when she had two men wanting something from her that she had no idea how to give.
“I would like to see you with him.” His anger had bled out, making his voice a soft rasp that sent shivers down her spine even though she told herself to man up and add some starch to her bones.
“Why?” she whined. “That can’t be normal,” she added, mumbling more to the room than the two men in front of her.
“What is normal, Devvy?” Alex slotted in.
“Well, what the pair of you want sure as hell isn’t.”
“I would like to see you with him,” Bastien continued, almost as though the pair of them hadn’t interrupted. “I would like to share you with him. I would like us both to love you and to pleasure you. And for you to love and pleasure us.”
For some reason, only one thing popped in her head and she gasped out, “At the same time?”
Alex made a muffled sound and from his ducked head, she could tell he was fighting not to laugh.
“This isn’t funny!”
“No, it isn’t but you are such an innocent.” Alex sighed and it was strangely redolent with pleasure. How she could sense that, she wasn’t sure. She just knew she’d pleased him somehow. His next words confirmed it. “When I saw you in that article, I knew you’d be like this. Innocent, naïve, so intelligent you’d keep the pair of us on our toes. Creative, passionate, sexy.” Another happy sigh. “I was not wrong in my judgment.”
“You damn well were if you think I’m going to sleep with both of you at the same time!”
“There will be very little sleeping,” he murmured silkily.
She stomped her foot. It made her feel like a toddler, but goddammit, he wasn’t listening to her. “Look, I’m not interested in your perverted little games.”
&n
bsp; “Perverted?” Alex cocked a brow. “I think not. We do not wish to harm you, or do something that is morally abhorrent.”
“Where I come from, wanting to share a woman is ‘morally abhorrent,’” she hissed.
“Then America is not as enlightened as I thought.” He sounded almost disappointed. “We French are far more open to such things.”
“A ménage à trois might be a French term but I doubt there are many households of three in this country,” she retorted, borderline snootily. Her nose popped up in the air as she made her cutting remark.
“Ah, so you do know of the phrase.”
“Of course I do. I’m not totally out of touch.”
“I fear you are.”
Alex rose from his position and stepped toward her. She backed into the fireplace as he neared, ultimately leaving a sparse two inch gap between them. He was so close she could smell his aftershave. Could see a small graze on the firm, lean line of his jaw where he’d nicked himself shaving.
She could see the expensive cut of his clothing, a cut that was tailored to his body, and showed that while he might be on the cusp of agoraphobia, and while he might subsist in his lab, the man was built. His shirt rested against the flat plain of his stomach, and underneath, there were corrugated ridges.
In Cali, she’d seen many six packs, but had never thought any of her lovers would possess them. She’d imagined fellow lanky geeks would be the sort of men she’d take to her bed, and her first lover had been the epitome of a nerd. Like a beanpole, thick-rimmed glasses, bony, and with no clue of what to do between the sheets. She’d almost resigned herself to an unsatisfying sex life for the rest of her days as she herself was no babe. Then, she’d met Sebastien. Who not only had a six-pack, but biceps nearly three times the thickness of her own.
Sebastien dealt with stress in the gym.
And she thanked God every day for that fact.
Why she was thinking about lovers and Alexei in the same breath, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter that he had a six-pack. She wasn’t some vacuous slut who could be swayed down a path she didn’t want to take, because the man doing the asking had muscles on top of muscles.
At least, she didn’t think she could.
This was Alexei Ivanov, for God’s sake.
One of her idols. A scientist beyond repute. A man who had shocked the world with his discoveries, and who had only lived for less than four decades! The man was brilliant. So brilliant, his aura—not that she believed in auras—glowed with his genius.
When it got down to it, this entire conversation was taking place because he wanted her. A man with a reputation that would someday rival Einstein’s, and he wanted plain-Jane Devvy Jacques.
“This is some kind of practical joke, isn’t it?” she whispered.
Somehow, the idea that he could want her was borderline painful. It would make more sense if this were a mean prank.
She’d already hit a home run by marrying Sebastien, even if he had some weird perversions. The man was gorgeous and rich. He’d settled her in a mansion that had been the home to countless families in the two hundred years of its existence in the French capital. He’d installed a laboratory here, so she could work in peace amid the flowers and herbs in the garden she adored. Anything she wanted, she could have.
He was a modern day Prince Charming and he’d chosen the ugly duckling for his princess.
To think that Alexei Ivanov might want her as well…
Devvy could only believe that this was some kind of trick.
But no, Alex slowly shook his head. “Why would you think this is a game?”
He brushed against her, narrowing the two inches between them until they were no longer separate entities. At the contact, she jumped. And then, she jolted again when she felt his erection.
Devvy blinked and shook her head. “You want me?”
“I wanted you two and a half years ago, Devvy.” He growled under his breath. “I showed Bastien the magazine, and told him to get you for me.”
She frowned. “You make me sound like a bar of chocolate.”
Alex chuckled, and she glared around him as she heard Bastien laugh too. “You are as decadent as the finest chocolat, Devvy. But no, you are not something to be bought, sold, or traded. I did not mean it as an insult. Sebastien has a way about him that few can resist.”
“Strange, he said you were the charmer.”
His snort had her jerking with surprise. It was such a down-to-earth sound, and it shocked her silly to think Alexei was capable of such a…human noise.
He was a God of science. Such a mortal sound had her ears, her goddamn ears, throbbing with pleasure. She hadn’t even realized ears could be pleasured. It would seem anything was possible where this man was concerned.
“Another aspect the pair of us agree to disagree on,” he eventually said.
“Am I the first woman you’ve asked to do this with?” she asked, as the thought popped into her head.
Alex hesitated but ultimately shook his head. “No. There have been two others. One who disagreed,” he told her, before she could butt in and ask. “Another who joined us and was with us for around eight or so weeks. But that was a long time ago.”
“Why haven’t you asked anyone else?”
“Because it is rare that the two of us agree on a woman.”
“And you both agreed upon me?” she asked, her disbelief evident in her scornful tone.
“Oui.”
The pair of them spoke simultaneously. Not even a second’s difference between their uttering the same word. More than anything, that made her realize, as mad as it was, they were not lying.
“But I’m so ordinary,” she mumbled, hating herself for making the comment but needing to understand. She was not a vain woman, and knew the truth of her looks. She had long since come to terms with them. Christ, her mother had told her every day what her faults were, and how she had to counteract them with some piece of cosmetics—hell, that was what had flung her into the beauty industry in the first place!
Her hair was neither blond nor brown, but a dirty shade in between. Her heart-shaped face was attractive, but her eyes were too big and with the freaky light blue, they gave her an exoticness that was more strange than appealing. Her figure was decent. Curves in all the right places, a bit too much padding on her butt, but she ran three times a week to combat her body’s leaning toward extra softness.
Every flaw, as her mother called them, Devvy had accepted and embraced. But a little self-doubt was only natural, she thought, when two guys as hot as these were trying to make out she was more than what she was.
“That is where your appeal lies, my sweet. The very fact you do not realize what a gem you are.”
“You can’t bullshit me, Alex. Or charm me into thinking I’m something I’m not. I’m very comfortable with who and what I am, but I know the pair of you are in a whole different league to me.”
“What league is this?” Sebastien snarled, suddenly sounding very French.
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to defend my honor from myself,” she told him. “I just don’t see how you could have seen my photo in a magazine, Alexei, and decided you wanted me.”
“Want is a strange verb in the English language. There are too many different meanings. Did I desire you? Yes. And did I want to know you? Yes. But I knew that Sebastien would vet you. You could have been completely unsuitable and in that case, we wouldn’t be standing here today.
“I didn’t want you like a child wants a toy. I wanted to explore the possibility of the promise in your eyes.”
“Okay, I can see why you say he’s a charmer, Sebastien,” she muttered, at a complete loss as to how to reply to that loaded statement.
“And that is all you have to say?” Alex snapped, finally losing his patience with her. It was only then she realized how calm he’d been. But then, she was the one who should be in hysterics, right?
Or in the twenty-first century, were women who learned
their husbands were gay supposed to blithely accept it? Almost like they hadn’t ruptured the cozy little matrimonial bubble in two?
That being said, she had handled all this very well. It was almost like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop, only Devvy didn’t think this could get much worse.
“What do you want me to say?” she asked, her tone bleeding with her confusion. “You want something from me that I can’t give. You can’t charm me into it. It’s too…alien to me. Things like this just don’t happen. And not just to people like me, but to anyone. What you want…it’s so out there! You’re asking for too much from me.”
“We shall see what is too much, Devvy. I ask only one thing of you.”
“Just the one?” she mocked.
“Yes. Just the one.”
“I’m not entirely sure that I owe you anything, but…” In a tone that said she’d rather leap off the Niagara Falls in a barrel, she asked, “What is it?”
“I would like the chance to become your friend.”
The instant those words passed Alexei’s lips, Sebastien knew they had her. There was no way on God’s green Earth Devvy would pass up the chance to know a man she’d idolized from afar—damn, he wished he’d known about her crush. It would have spared them a lot of time. The way she’d reacted the instant she’d seen him…if he’d known, he’d have brought them together sooner.
The original plan had been to introduce them, let them get to know each other. Start a friendship and hope sexual attraction would work the rest of its magic for them.
Instead, with her coming out and asking him if he was cheating on her…
Sebastien was quite capable of lying. For the last two years, he’d hidden his relationship with Alex and felt little guilt. But when asked, point blank, if he was cheating…he hadn’t been able to lie to her.
Time would tell if honesty truly was the best policy.
The only saving grace was the fact Alex wasn’t just any crush. He was a man who lived at the very top of the scientific social stratosphere. Bastien should have realized she would never pass up such a chance to talk to the twenty-first century’s version of Einstein. He’d been very shortsighted by failing to realize that, something which was unusual for him.
Ménage Material [La Belle sans la Bete Ménages] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 4
