All for One (8 page)

Shifting in an attempt to relieve the pressure on his shoulder, Benoît bumped against the musketeer. Startled, he turned toward Aristide intending to apologize, but the movement caused his hip to brush the other man’s groin. His aroused groin. With a dismayed cry, Benoît pulled away, struggling to sit up. “I… I need to check on Sagace.”

With an amused sigh, Aristide raised a hand to the blacksmith’s sound shoulder, pushing him back onto the bed. “You’d collapse before you made it down the stairs. Relax. Nothing will happen that you don’t want to happen.”

“But… how can you react that way? It’s unnatural!” Benoît protested, though he had to admit, if only to himself, that he probably would not be able to make it to the barn.

“It feels completely natural to me,” Aristide admitted with a smile he knew the blacksmith couldn’t see in the darkness. “I’ve known since I was a youth that I’m drawn to men, not women.” He fell silent for a moment, then added, “I’m in bed with a strong, well-built and undeniably handsome man who I’ve grown to admire over the past days. It’s perfectly natural that my body should react to that.”

Benoît shuddered, the admiration he’d developed for the musketeer warring with his ingrained reaction to the idea that another man might be attracted to him. It went against everything he had been taught to believe. He should be denouncing Aristide for sodomy, but the musketeer had taken care of him these past days. “Is this how you expect me to repay you?” Benoît asked before he could censor his tongue.

“I haven’t touched you, as you’d notice if you stopped being so scandalized,” Aristide answered mildly. “Nor have I asked you for any type of repayment. I cannot hide the fact of my attraction to you, but that doesn’t mean I have to act upon it. Were you interested, ’twould be another matter,” he added somewhat wistfully, “but I would no more force my attentions upon you than I would force a woman.”

Benoît had the good grace to blush, though he doubted Aristide could see it in the darkness. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. You’re clearly an honorable man or you’d have let me die so the plot against your captain never saw the light of day, but you chose to give me the benefit of the doubt and help me. I’m just… unused to your worldly ways.”

“I doubt you’ll stay so innocent for long if you choose to remain in Paris,” Aristide answered wryly. “King Louis’s court is nothing if not ‘worldly’.” He settled on his back, his arms tucked under his head to lessen the chance of contact with the man beside him. “So, tell me about yourself, then. Have you abjured pleasurable contact with women as well?”

“What business is that of yours?” Benoît shot back immediately, thinking of his wife and baby lost in the plague.

“Are you always this testy?” Aristide asked, shaking his head. “I was just wondering if you’d taken a vow of celibacy—though maybe that would account for your bad humor.”

“I haven’t taken any vows,” Benoît retorted, glaring at the man reclining so casually next to him, “but it hardly seems fitting to fall in bed with the first woman to cross my path when I only buried my wife and unborn child six months ago. As for my bad humor, you try living my life as it has been and see how you fare.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” Aristide said sincerely. “But you’re scarcely the only man in France to have suffered one—the plague strikes where it will and claims its victims whether their estate be high or low. Nor will your ill grace bring back the ones you loved, or do aught but make your life now all the more unpleasant.” The musketeer twisted on his side to face his companion. “I know how hard it is to lose everything you know and hold dear. But the only choice you have is how to live your life going forward: in gloom and anger, or in hope for better days to come.”

“Easy for you to say,” Benoît huffed under his breath, turning onto his side, back to the musketeer. He feigned sleep, promising himself he would not react to anything else Aristide said.

Aristide rolled to face the opposite wall and breathed deeply, directing his thoughts to the morning when they could resume their journey back to Paris, rather than to his awareness of the man lying stiffly at his side. It was going to be a long night.

Chapter 6

P
AUSING
in pulling the shutters closed to stare at the setting sun, Perrin shook himself with a frown and latched them. “Is everything ready for the morning?” he asked Léandre, turning back into the room.

“We have only to pick up some horses from the stables,” Léandre asserted, pulling his hair from its queue and stretching before untying the laces of his linen shirt. Their saddlebags sat packed beside the door to their apartments, swords and pistols ready along side, though Léandre sincerely hoped they wouldn’t need them. “That stranger must have been weaker than we thought,” he mused, watching Perrin’s breeches slither down his thighs, not voicing the other reason that might have delayed Aristide’s return.

Lost in thoughts of Aristide and the stranger, Perrin missed Léandre’s perusal. “He was pretty skinny,” he agreed, “and we don’t know how long he’d been lying there on the road. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m not so sure the attack had anything to do with the letter.”

“What other reason would anyone have to attack him?” Léandre asked, slipping out of his own garments and into the bed sheets.

Perrin slid into bed next to him. “I don’t know, but if they’d wanted to stop him from delivering the letter, why leave it there for us—or anyone—to find? As much as we’d like to think the roads are safe, you know as well as I do that there are bandits who prey on the byways. They could have seen him as an easy mark. He wasn’t armed, unless they stole his weapons, so he couldn’t even have fought them off.”

“True, though it seems a cursed unlucky coincidence if that’s the case,” Léandre admitted, turning onto his side to face his partner. “We didn’t see any trouble on the road, but bandits would be looking for easier prey than two musketeers, even if we weren’t in uniform.” He ran a finger through the dark curls on Perrin’s chest, tracing them downward to the nest of thicker hair at the juncture of his legs. “You’re impressive in or out of uniform,” he murmured, leaning in to follow the path his fingertip had blazed with his lips.

Perrin bit his lip to hold back the groan that threatened. “So are you,” he agreed, hands tangling in Léandre’s long hair. He rocked his hips forward, silently asking his partner to take him in his mouth. He needed that moist heat around him with an urgency that never completely faded.

Knowing what Perrin wanted, Léandre nonetheless took his time, indulging himself in inhaling the heady scent of his lover’s arousal. His fingers traced the strong lines of Perrin’s abdomen, the feel of powerful muscles quivering beneath his touch its own aphrodisiac. Darting his tongue out to comb through the dark pelt, he teased at the full sac swinging beneath before returning, nipping at the curls surrounding the thickening shaft. Only when Perrin’s hands tightened in his hair, dragging him upward until the tip of the bobbing cock bumped his nose, did he relent, taking the head into his mouth and humming at the salty tang of the fluid anointing it.

The groan escaped Perrin’s throat this time, his eyes rolling back in his head as his hands clutched, one at Léandre’s head, the other at the sheets that still covered his lower body and hid the vision of Léandre sucking him in. He started to lift the covers away so he could watch when the door to the bedroom slammed open and Aristide strode in, followed by the stranger from the road. Perrin’s head fell back against the pillows with a frustrated groan. He wouldn’t be getting off any time soon. “Can we kill him now?” he asked grumpily.

“No,” Aristide answered shortly, wondering for a moment why Perrin was alone in bed before he realized where Léandre must be—and why Perrin sounded so displeased. “He had nothing to do with the plot against
M.
de Tréville.”

“Can we fuck him, then?” Perrin asked, even more annoyed. “Please?”

“No!” Aristide answered at the same moment that Léandre’s head popped up from under the bedclothes.

“Not enough for you, ingrate?” Léandre asked, frowning at Perrin before nodding a greeting to Aristide and his companion and disappearing back under the sheets. Aristide wouldn’t have brought him into their bedroom if he wasn’t comfortable with the stranger knowing the truth about the three of them, he thought, turning his attention back to making it impossible for Perrin to speak.

At Aristide’s shoulder, Benoît took in the scene with growing horror. He knew from the night at the inn in Saint-Hilaire that his companion preferred the company of men, but to walk in and find…. He shuddered and turned on his heel, escaping back into the sitting room of the small townhouse. He clearly could not stay here.

“Sorry about that,” Aristide muttered, following the blacksmith back to the common room, the muffled sound of Perrin’s moans following them. He should have known better than to walk in on those two unannounced, but for the past two days his mind had been fixed on reaching home, to prevent himself from dwelling instead on the temptation of his unapproachable companion. “I told you Perrin never stops talking. They aren’t really going to do anything to you.”

“If you say so,” Benoît replied dubiously, “but as much as I appreciate your help and your hospitality, I think it’s time for me to go. I really don’t know anything else useful, and you have no other reason to keep me around.” He offered a short bow, barely more than an inclination of his head, and started toward the door. Reaching it, he turned back. “Don’t worry that I’ll say anything. I do owe you my life, and I won’t repay that by spreading anything that could hurt you. Or your friends.”

“And just exactly where are you going to go?” Aristide asked. “Can you find your way around Paris after dark? Do you have any idea where to find lodgings? And how do you plan to pay for them?” He knew he was being blunt, but it seemed nothing else could get through the blacksmith’s stubbornness. “We have a room upstairs, servants’ quarters really, but since none of us keeps a servant it’s free for you to use. And I won’t expect any repayment for it, either,” he said wryly.

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve slept in the open,” Benoît muttered, but his shoulder still hurt like the devil, and the idea of curling up in the corner of a stable yard or under a haystack didn’t appeal. “Fine, I’ll stay tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll start looking for a way to earn my keep elsewhere.”

“Tomorrow, you’ll accompany me to speak with
M.
de Tréville,” Aristide corrected, lighting a taper and leading Benoît up the narrow stairway to the upper story. The room was little more than a wedge under the eaves, with a cot and a table where Aristide set the candle. “I’m afraid it’s a bit dusty up here; perhaps you can open the window to freshen the air,” he suggested. “Come down whenever you’re ready in the morning.”

Benoît shook his head, already opening the window to let in the cool night air. “I think I’ll wait for you to come find me. I’d rather not walk in on another… demonstration of your friends’ activities. Where will you sleep? I only saw the one bed, and it’s obviously occupied.”

Aristide paused at the head of the stairs, turning his head to smile back at Benoît. “With Perrin and Léandre, of course. ‘One for all, and all for one’, remember?” Feeling an unworthy satisfaction at the blacksmith’s shocked expression, he started down the steps, adding over his shoulder, “I hope we won’t keep you awake, but Léandre does tend to get rather loud.”

Benoît blushed furiously as Aristide disappeared into the sitting room. Aristide intended to join them? All three of them? His mind reeled at the images it conjured up. How was that even possible? Closing the door to the small room, he determined to put such thoughts from his head and get a good night’s sleep.

He really shouldn’t take such pleasure in shocking an innocent provincial, Aristide berated himself as he returned downstairs, making sure the door was latched before heading into the bedroom. Benoît had made it clear he had no interest in men, or in Aristide personally; it was unworthy to taunt him about it. Or to feel vaguely guilty about stripping off his dusty travelling clothes and pushing Perrin aside to make room for himself in their bed. This was where he belonged, not mooning over something he could never have.

“Welcome home,” Perrin purred, pulling Aristide between him and Léandre. “We’ve missed you.” He ran eager hands over the hard planes of Aristide’s body, not at all surprised when the third musketeer stirred in response.

“Not as much as I’ve missed you, I’m sure,” Aristide husked, his blood heating in response to his lovers’ greetings. Léandre’s blond head swung from bobbing over Perrin’s cock to lick eagerly at Aristide’s stiffening shaft, prompting Aristide to pull Perrin’s head to his for a hard kiss. Pushing thoughts of the man upstairs firmly from his mind, he focused his attention on remapping the familiar terrain of the dark-haired musketeer’s mouth, then urging Léandre up to kiss him with equal thoroughness. “Fuck, I need this,” he groaned. “You two had each other. I didn’t have privacy even for the relief of my own hand.”

“
Mon pauvre
,” Perrin bemoaned teasingly, “let us take care of you.” He slid his hand between their bodies so he could find Aristide’s stiffening shaft, stroking it to full hardness. “This will feel so good inside me, unless you’d rather I give you a long, hard fucking.”

“It’s always good to have some ambition in your life.” Aristide smiled, reaching down to stroke Perrin in return.

“Even when it’s an impossible one,” Léandre added, leaning over Aristide to tweak at Perrin’s nipple. “Aristide will think I’ve been neglecting you while he was away.” Pulling the tawny-haired musketeer’s head closer to his, he murmured into his ear, “He’s had his arse pounded long and well since we parted. I’d be happy to demonstrate for you, if you’d like. And then you can fuck me once we’re finished.”

“Demonstrate on me or on him?” Perrin asked, determined to have one of his lovers inside him before the night was over. He might joke about fucking Aristide, but his night wasn’t complete until one of them fucked him properly.

“And what if I don’t want to wait until you’re finished?” Aristide added, humming with pleasure as Léandre’s hands combed through the pelt of hair on his chest. Wrapping an arm around the blond’s shoulders, he rolled them so that Léandre was in the center of the bed, settling him with a hard kiss. “You fuck Perrin, and while you’re doing that, I’ll fuck you.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Léandre pretended to consider. “But since we’re celebrating your return, I suppose it’s only fair to give you the choice.” Rolling on his side to face Perrin, he twined a leg around the younger man, opening himself to Aristide’s attentions. “What say you, Perrin?” he asked, his voice deepening as Aristide’s hands roved over his cheeks. He ran a palm down Perrin’s strong chest, cupping the balls tightening beneath the heavy cock and lifting it so his own shaft could slide beneath it. He found pleasure in any of the many configurations he and his lovers had explored in the years they’d been together, but this—centered between them, filling and being filled—remained his favorite.

Perrin looked at Léandre like he’d lost his mind. As if he’d say no to anything that got him attention from either of his potent lovers. “Fine with me,” he agreed, rolling onto his back and spreading himself like a virgin sacrifice awaiting despoiling.

“Get the oil,” Aristide instructed, his voice muffled as he bent his head to bite at the cords of Léandre’s neck. He wrapped a handful of blond hair around his fingers, rolling Léandre back to face him before drawing it aside to bare more of the throat to his attentions, his other hand delving between Léandre’s cheeks to trace the cleft.

“Mmnnn,” Léandre agreed, lowering his head to one of Aristide’s peaked nipples. “Oil,” he nudged Perrin before moving to pay equal homage to the other side of Aristide’s chest.

“Fine,” Perrin protested, reaching for the oil on the nearby table, “make me do all the work. I should leave and take the oil with me.”

Recognizing that for the empty threat it was, Aristide barked a laugh around the mouthful of Léandre’s skin he was currently marking. “I was right, you do never stop talking,” he chuckled.

“There’s a cure for that,” Léandre retorted, catching Perrin’s head and pulling it down to his groin. “Less speaking, more sucking.”

Perrin huffed lightly before licking the long cock like a favorite treat. Even so, he looked up and groused, “Before Aristide came back, I was the one getting sucked. Maybe we should make him leave again.” He licked a stripe up the third musketeer’s cock as well to take the sting out of his words before settling in to suck Léandre’s shaft in earnest. God, he loved the taste of Léandre’s cock!

“I can leave,” Aristide replied, though he was reaching for the oil as he spoke. “Since it seems you were managing just fine without me.”

“We wouldn’t want to deprive you of our presence,” Perrin countered, lifting his head enough to speak while latching onto Aristide’s thigh with a grip designed to keep the third man in place. “You’ve been all alone this past week. How you resisted temptation”—he jerked his head toward the ceiling—“is beyond me.”

“There is little tempting about an unwilling partner,” Aristide replied, his gaze drifting upward as if he could see through the intervening lathe and plaster to the attic room and its occupant. “It would seem that temptation found it all too easy to resist me.”