Takedown: An Enemies to Lovers Dark Romance

by Lana Hartley

  “Don’t fuck this up,” I say, and I turn to Nathan to say this, even though I want to keep my eyes on Isadora. She’s walking toward us both, and I don’t know how my chest is containing my oxygen now. My ribs could crack from the strain I’m facing.

  Isadora’s eyes are not cast downward. She’s not timid, despite the definite uncertainty that she must face in this move. An advantageous agreement like this would have come with more guile and coordination if she had any.

  “Your Highnesses,” Isabella says, her voice breathy for an instant before she gains her resolve.

  “Please, we’re Nathan, Vincent,” Nathan says with a wave of his hand.

  I capture Isabella’s. “May I?” I ask, hoping to kiss her hand. I like old-fashioned charm. Nathan is hard-on seduction with no subtlety. I try to avoid feeling sickened by him.

  “Yes, you may. I imagine you’ll both do so much more in time. There is to be a bedding,” Isadora says. I’m surprised at her language, whispered so that only the three of us can hear it. A bold move. She doesn’t say it lasciviously, and I can’t describe how it turns me on. What a filthy fucker that I am. Sweet Isadora brings out the naughtiest thoughts within me, because I want her. So much more than just a fuck. I like her. I like her personality. I like her courage.

  I want to taste her courage come undone around me. I want her perfect peach lips to tremble from pleasure, her courage putting her in an ultimately pleasurable moment. I want to see her ‘o’ face be one of ‘oh god do that again.’

  If my horny thoughts are all over my face, then my diplomacy is worse than I could have imagined.

  Isadora’s face flushes a little, and I know she’s wondering how she was so bold.

  Nathan’s hand goes to the small of her back, and I see her warm to the idea though she’s still so demure.

  Fuck, what was I thinking? I’m enraptured by thought of her, and I want to decimate this sharing notion as soon as possible.

  I won’t, because I won’t choose the battlefield for my country over something to do with my cock and my pride, but it does make this even more difficult. Worse than I could have imagined.

  “Thank you both,” Isadora says, reaching her hands out to claim one of ours into hers. “I know that this is an odd, antiquated plan, but I appreciate you all for doing what’s good for our people, for the world.”

  Isadora is going to be an excellent queen. I just want her to be only mine.

  Nathan

  Marriage alliances are the best political move. Diplomacy will always be more valuable than war. Even if it means I’m arranged to share a wife this brute attempting to have tea with me.

  Even if Vincent Lyvester is that brute.

  I watch Vincent, every bit the prince I am, sipping his tea, his hand clenching on the glass.

  When this marriage is final, Vincent and I will be shared kings of two allied nations.

  He seems to actually be attempting to be civil. I know better than to assume Vincent is being anything other than genuine, because he doesn't have a properly manipulative bone in his alpha male shell.

  At least I have the abs and the political prowess. We can't punch our way into peace…

  “I hear you are a just and clever general,” I offer to Vincent. I know how to be genuine, too.

  Hey, I do.

  For the record, my general path to peace—we all want peace—is to give that damn cocky smirk I swear was plastered on when I was born.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket. Marius, no doubt, my second-in-command, keeping me up to date on my kingdom’s goings on, and those of every other nation. I don’t pull my phone out now because that will just undo my own goodwill gesture toward Vincent, now won’t it?

  Yes, yes it would. I don’t make stupid moves, so I’m not about to start now.

  “You want to get that?” Vincent says in a hushed but ultimately loud whisper. I’m clearly going to be the husband with all the grace, but that won’t come as a surprise to anyone.

  Except, perhaps, the bride herself.

  Isadora Brevintos. She’s nothing like the trash I take into and out of my bed on a regular basis. My chambers have seen more maids than would be needed to clean a whole castle, be the woman actual servants or just girls I pick up in bars that are groupies not deemed too dangerous by my staff doing risk assessments. No, Isadora brought no secondary missions to the table, performed no diligences outside of standard channels.

  Isadora is two things I’ve never seen before.

  When the marriage was arranged and agreed upon, she was a pure politician with no desires to work through backchannels or to be underhanded.

  And now, walking through those doors, she’s more gorgeous than any woman I’ve ever seen. I feel it like the strongest instinct I’ve ever had. I want her to be mine. I need to have her.

  Sharing her is not my idea of a good plan at all…I understand it politically, but the animal inside me simply wants her all to myself.

  I see that Vincent is staring too, so I quickly pull out my phone and let him go slack-jawed at the sight of her before I do the same and we look like a pair of idiots.

  Marius texted me a few details. I send him back a 100 emoji. Yes, I find those little emoji’s to be quite useful for quick communication; don't you agree? I’ve slipped my phone back into my pocket before anyone has noticed.

  No one knows I’m texting right before the betrothal ceremony progresses, and Marius knows that yes, I am intent on impregnating her with an heir as soon as possible.

  I don’t have to admit to anyone that I’m as much excited about the prospect of seeing Isadora’s stomach swelled and full of my child, because it means I planted my seed in her as much, as I am excited about the alliance we’ve made in this political match.

  It isn’t a love match. I shouldn’t let myself get distracted from the ideas washing over me right now that threaten to overtake me.

  Unlike passionate, brash, alpha bravado Vincent, I maintain control of myself at all times. I’m not so foolish as Vincent to let everything read on my face. No one knows what I’m thinking unless I want them to, and then I design that thought.

  So how come I want to look like the alpha male turned into a fucking puppy at Isadora’s feet?

  I’m no one’s lap dog.

  I take what I want so well that, when it comes to political power, it is willingly ceded to me in a way that people believe all the things that are actually my machinations were, in fact, their ideas.

  A smile forms across my lips, and just as a thought occurs to me, Vincent wises up and looks at me after muttering something about how glorious our intended bride is.

  I offer the smile to Vincent because I realize now that, while I’m regarded as clever, Vincent is one of the only people to see me as cunning. The man chooses to not offer persuasion up as one of his honed skills like I do, but he has always recognized that I’m playing a game where everyone doesn’t seem to know that they are pieces on the board.

  I banter with Vincent but mostly ignore him. I don’t want to waste my breath on him when I could be stealing away Isadora’s and charming her.

  “Don’t fuck this up,” Vincent says, all bravado and gritted teeth.

  Oh, so Vincent cares as much as I do. Is as drawn to her as I am.

  I play the game. I see the players and the facts before me, and right now, I have to figure out how Vincent’s shared lusts and affections for Isadora can be useful for me.

  Isadora approaches us, and I see that she’s without any purposely bewitching moves. She’s not unlike Vincent in that she seems intent to play fair, rather than play the games of politics. If she’s to be a good ruler, honestly she’ll want to balance both. But there’s a spunk in her, a fire, that leaves me without doubt that she can and will do both, and very well.

  Isadora

  I drink in the sight of these two men, and I could get deliriously drunk at their intoxicating attractiveness. The hostility they obviously bear toward each other is frustrating, a
nd I hate that I’m excited by the energy.

  They are barely veiling their insults toward each other now, and it lights a fire in my blood. I want them to be civil, to resolve this. I know they are both well-respected leaders and yet…I daresay they are losing their cools. I feel powerful to know that not only do I want this bickering to end, but that I will make it.

  “Please, don’t burden us with more of your silence, Nathan,” Vincent says, narrowing his eyes and gripping the stein of beer with more force than necessary. “It’s better we hear what shit you’re up to rather than let you simmer in it in your silence.” His words are seething. I can’t ignore what they mean, but I can’t have them. No matter how hushed and separated our position is now, we need to be able to make it through this dinner without the entire betrothal being destroyed before it can totally take off.

  “Vincent, I’m sorry, are you worried you simply can’t keep up?” Nathan sneers at Vincent.

  I place my wine glass down on the table, softly brushing my thumb over the stem and glancing at both of them sternly, my brow arched disapprovingly. Their ill wills fade from their faces, and I don’t have to say a word. They don’t want to disappoint me. They know they are misbehaving.

  “When you’re quite done, we’ll dance… And you’re both done,” I say calmly. I won’t tolerate this behavior. “You two will be civil. In public, in private. Or did you not enter this alliance, the both of you?” I ask, and I keep my voice calm. The truth is that I am terrified that my ignorance of me and my indifference toward them leaves me unprepared. There are only two things in this world I haven’t been trained in.

  Men, and actually being a ruler.

  Sure, my mother, the queen, had me learn everything else. I never cared for men, and she never cared for sharing the crown or teaching anything of it…

  They are each smiling at me. Vincent’s smile has a soft, gentle purity in it that’s barely veiling a hunger in him that I see; I can practically feel it emanating off him in waves. Nathan’s smile is achingly charming, and I know he intends it to be that way. Behind his cocksure glance there’s a warmth, too.

  How can one woman be so lucky as to have two men, sworn to marry her and lead by her side that are taken with me and so damned attractive? I mean, of course they hate each other. Something about this whole arrangement had to be less than perfect, or I’m certain the universe would just be out of balance.

  “I’ll have the first dance, a show of my willingness to maintain the kind of civility we should have been showing our future queen and wife,” Nathan says. Ever the charmer, I feel the heat he’s put into those words. I know it’s still somewhat pointed at Vincent, the way he’s said this. Yet there’s something… a raw need in the way that he stands and extends his hand to me.

  The music is something so delightful that I can forget every care I’ve ever had in the adept hands of Nathan, his arms and body leading me around the dance floor with absolute precision. His body seems to feel the music, at one point I think I see him notice a keystroke that’s off, and I think he seems pleased with it.

  “Do you like it, when live music isn’t always perfect?” I ask. It isn’t until the words escape my lips that I realize that I’m almost breathless, my voice sounding whisked away by the air. It’s true, he’s spun and twirled and dipped me about so much that I’m utterly taken in the moments.

  “Yes, I do.” Nathan is charming, silent, mysterious, but I feel the admission in his statement.

  There’s a low thunder within his soul that I feel roll off him in waves, loudly crashing against my psyche. “I very much look forward to getting to know you,” I offer, and I squeeze his hand in mind so that he can feel the earnestness I hope is clear in my voice.

  Before Nathan can say anything— and I don’t know if he even would have—Vincent is there. I feel his presence just seconds before I see him, and I can’t believe the thrill rising in my body at just his appearance now. My hands tingle to feel his touch. I want him. I want Nathan. How can this all have come on me so suddenly? I’m grateful that I’ve had such a strong, pleasant reaction to them both. I want this marriage, this alliance, to work.

  “I’d like this dance,” Vincent interjects. I’m thrilled that he says this to me, not to Nathan. I demand they get along, and I also demand that they don’t treat me like anything lesser. After all, I am also a royal. I deserve to be treated as equal and not as the wife they’ve commandeered for political reasons. Even if they couldn’t respect each other without it getting in their craws, at least they are both doing their best to respect me. I can appreciate the effort. We don’t all have to have perfect relations right away. With an arrangement of two people to be betrothed, that would not be expected. So with two people marrying the same woman? Of course, there are going to be some initial bumps in the road to smooth out. We’ll get to that.

  Vincent takes my hands and starts to dance with me, a more athletic but less graceful kind of movement. He’s used to being the big, bad man in charge of everything. Vincent takes charge of my body and directs me across the dance floor, and I feel safe when he touches me. There’s a heat between us and we both do our best to enjoy it, despite all of these odd circumstances.

  I notice Nathan watching us dance, and I’m surprised to realize that, while it definitely rankles Vincent, I enjoy knowing that he’s watching. I’m being touched by one of my husbands-to-be and watched by another, and I think I’d like that scenario to play out in the bedroom.

  Mmm, the thought sends a delicious thrill right to my pussy. My sweet boys will place not on my body and won’t have time to be at each other’s necks. It’s a sweet sort of bedroom diplomacy that I’m so not above engaging in. The idea really turns me on, actually, and I hope that the next song will serve to cool me down some.

  “Would you like to walk with me in your palace gardens? I’d… like to see them,” Vincent says. I can tell that he’s looking to be honest with me, despite the fact that he wants to go to the gardens. Perhaps the fierce general is also into romantic strolls?

  And I definitely have no problem with that. I take his hand and feel calmer just thinking about it. I want to be able to breathe in the air around us and not feel like everything is so heavy. The dancing calmed my nerves until it built them up again, and I remember Vincent’s nerves at being watched by Nathan.

  “I’d like that, yes,” I say, taking Vincent’s hand he’s offering me.

  Isadora

  I want to go to the garden. It’s such a pleasant night, and I can imagine all the sweet smells of the orange and yellow Gloriosas. They look like fire; they are gorgeous and smell so luscious. And then all the roses. I mean, roses are kind of generic, but they still need to be appreciated.

  There’s also the smell of honeysuckle, and wet dirt, and it all combines to build the most heavenly scent. And you can’t just get that indoors.

  I’m growing restless thinking about the garden.

  I look at Isadora and try and determine what kind of flower she is. She just wants to kiss my lips. She keeps tracing her soft lips over mine, and then she’ll glide her soft lips across my stubble. I haven’t shaved today. I feel I’m having a bit of an off day, but she seems to like it when I don’t shave.

  “So manly, my Vincent,” she’ll say, wrapping her arms around me.

  Does she like it when Nathan doesn’t shave?

  She takes my square jaw into her hand and plants a hungry kiss on my mouth.

  “Vincent.” She runs her hand through my hair.

  She seems addicted. I won’t kiss her the way I usually kiss women. I’m not sure why. Because she’s a princess, you dimwit.

  My tongue won’t plummet into her sweet little mouth even though I know she wants it, too. Her eyes might as well be two signs of lights that spell my name.

  “Isadora,” I say her name out loud. I just want to. I love that fact that I’m with her tonight, and saying her name seems to celebrate the fact.

  “Your voice is so deep,” she
says, admirably. “If it were paint it would be black.”

  So she’s comparing me to paint? I’m a little offended. She kisses me like she knows and wants to apologize.

  She runs her hand over my knee. I want her to apply it to another part of me. I’m aching. I kiss her neck and breathe her in. She put on perfume today – I’m betting this morning, because it’s not overwhelming. The scent has faded somewhat, the way I want to fade into her.

  “Let’s go to the garden, sweetheart,” I say. I stand up. My nice suit has come a bit undone. My shirt’s no longer in my pants. She unbuttoned one cuff around my wrist when she said, “You have such strong wrists.” Her dainty fingers circled them. My sweet Isadora seems to want to explore every part of me but that one part.

  I end up having to touch myself, hoping she’ll take note and copy. She doesn’t.

  She just breathes my name into my ear again.

  I know my name. I want her to touch my cock.

  “Vincent…”

  She’s burning for me, and I know then. She is a Gloriosa. A bright orange and yellow one, at least when I’m in the room.

  “Baby, let’s go to the garden.”

  “Why you want to go to the garden so bad, huh?”

  “I…” Because it’s a garden and lovely?

  “Vincent…” she sighs my name yet again. She’s quite gentle when it comes to touching me, tracing her finger along my ear and through my hair.

  It’s the most pleasant sensation in the world.

  But still, I want to take her to the garden.

  “Baby, please,” I say.

  She stands up and glances at herself in the mirror and runs her hands down her long, lovely white dress.

  I want to tell her that she is beautiful and she shouldn’t ever feel like she needs a mirror to confirm the fact.

  Maybe she just likes to look at herself, and who can blame her for that?

  We go into the garden, which is a ways from the castle. We must walk down a trail of steps that snake around the side of the castle and then there is a swing bridge. There is also the ruins from a castle before, like some old dream that starts to fade no matter how elegant it was—special, sweet surprise in the middle of the night. That dream will soon be gone from memory. It’s gray like cigarette smoke. I’m so afraid of the day I won’t be able to see it anymore.