Ménage Material [La Belle sans la Bete Ménages] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (6 page)

“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.

His belief that Devvy would comply with Alex’s request was confirmed when she muttered, “Okay. But no funny business.”

Alex chuckled, once again reminding Bastien of every single reason the man had held his heart for the past two decades.

Alexei, with his mane of blond hair, the amethyst eyes that haunted Bastien’s dreams. The tall, borderline-lanky frame that he padded with muscle, because he knew Sebastien loved his lean, strong length. The man who spent far too much time indoors, who feared the outside world, had cast Bastien under a spell a long time ago, and he had no desire for that particular enchantment to be broken.

The man was a complex puzzle. Vague with the trivialities that were a part and parcel of daily life, yet razor sharp when it came to innovative scientific formulae. The two contrasts appealed to him greatly. Alex didn’t prevaricate. He considered it a waste of time. He spoke the truth, usually of the painful variety, and he spoke it always.

In fact, when his lover had selected Devvy, neither of them had been aware of how similar she was to Alex. Devvy didn’t understand bullshit. There was only black and white, no gray, and to a man who lived in the business world, where everything was a shade of gray, her integrity was infinitely appealing. She lived with her head in the clouds, as did Alex. The pair of them would wander off, mentally, as they tried to solve the latest conundrum that challenged their massive intellects. Bastien was the one with his feet firmly on the ground. He was the kid who had one helium balloon in his hand, and who wanted to add another one to his coterie.

He didn’t mind that he’d be the one to have to coordinate almost every aspect of their lives. And that, regardless of his business concerns, when the babies came, he’d be the one to have to organize the doctor’s appointments or school registrations—and he firmly saw the future that way. Devvy, with her head of shaggy, dark blonde locks merging with Alex’s white-gold gorgeousness in the shape of a little girl. And those dirty blonde traits of hers mingling with his own saturnine coloring to create a tiny little
brun
boy, swarthy olive-colored skin and chestnut hair.

The thought made him shudder with longing.

How long had they been waiting for this moment? How long had they been waiting to make a family together with the one perfect woman who could complement them both?

Too long.

The only thing that stood between Alex and Bastien’s desires was Devvy’s innocence—ironically, this was where she was polar opposite to Alexei. Her innocence was still going strong, even in the face of his own experience, and the amount of sexual acts Bastian had introduced into their bedroom.

He could still remember her shock when he’d first sunk his cock into her butt, spreading the tightly ringed muscle that clung hungrily to his shaft, no matter that he’d prepared her with his fingers and lube. As he’d readied her for him, he’d thought to the day when Alex would be a thin membrane of flesh away from him. Fucking her pussy as he claimed her ass.

She never disappointed. When he’d spanked her for some trumped-up misdemeanor, she’d squealed and rubbed her behind. Then, had trembled on the spot before she’d muttered how much that had “turned her on.”

The truth was the only language Devvy knew. No matter how awkward her response was. And Bastien was fully aware that she meant it, when she said she wouldn’t,
couldn’t
accept what the two of them wanted from her.

For the moment, that is.

She might believe that Alex had only friendship on his mind, but there was a slither of deviousness running through his lover’s nature. It only came out to play when there was something he or someone he loved wanted.

And they both wanted Devvy. Between them, above them, below them. Any which way they could have her. They were far too used to winning to concede defeat now.

She’d been shocked by his words, by his declaration, but she hadn’t stormed out. Or demanded a divorce. Which, after all, she might have done. Christ, she was entitled to! Not many women could keep it together after discovering they weren’t the only person in their husbands’ lives.

He wondered if she realized how telling it was that she hadn’t walked out, and how the pair of them would use it against her.

She would be theirs.

Eventually.

Close to fifteen years of waiting made a man patient. They could wait a little longer to have Devvy where they both wanted her.

Devvy knew that for a woman in her position, she was saying all the right things but she wasn’t necessarily
doing
them.

Oh, she told Alexei she wouldn’t engage in a threesome with them, but had that stopped her from sharing a bed with Sebastien last night? Had she slept in one of the many spare bedrooms?

No.

Had she demanded a divorce on account of Sebastien’s perverse demands?

No.

Had she dined with the two of them after she’d agreed to work on a friendship between herself and Alex?

Yes.

Talk about sending mixed messages. She was confused herself, and a good night’s sleep—because yes, her marriage might be on the rocks, but Mr. Sandman had still visited her as though she didn’t have a care in the world—hadn’t lessened her confusion.

After dining on
coq au vin
that had tasted lovely to her but for which the housekeeper had apologized, as it had been left to overcook—Devvy still wasn’t sure how that was possible with a stew—she’d promised to meet with Alex at his apartment the following day. Had he been a normal man, she’d have agreed to meet for coffee. Considering leaving his home and coming to theirs was like asking him to fly to the moon, she thought it wise for her to see him on his home ground.