Gilt and Midnight Page 3

  Then, for fun or spite, she had caused them to quarrel. Not with swords, for at that they’d have been too well matched. It would have ended in death for the pair of them. No, she’d urged them to battle with their words. Accusations, old hurts, imagined slights and falsehoods had torn them apart.

  Alain and Gerard had not known each other as children, though that had ceased to matter a mere three days into their acquaintance. They’d both been assigned places in the King’s Guard, an elite division of the Royal Army.

  The first thing Alain had noticed about Gerard was his hands. Big, strong hands, scarred from work and battle. Gerard had been demonstrating his skill with his broadsword, using the flat of the blade to smack at his opponent. The sun had come out from behind a cloud, highlighting Gerard’s hair into shimmering gold and Alain had, quite literally, lost his breath.

  “You there,” Gerard had said with a crook of his finger. “Get your ass over here and let me beat it.”

  Even now, recalling Gerard’s surprise at not winning that first fight, Alain smiled. Arrogant from never losing, Gerard hadn’t paid enough attention to the newcomer and had ended up on his back with Alain’s blade at his throat.

  It was the last time he didn’t pay enough attention to Alain.

  They’d forged the deepest of bonds, the pair of them matched so well physically there were none who could stand against them. They fought hard for the king, and they made merry with equal fierceness…for themselves.

  Alain had long known his cock rose without hesitation at both the curved softness of women and the hard, muscled planes of men. Physical love between men wasn’t forbidden in the King’s Guard, where it might be weeks before a man could find a woman, but it wasn’t exactly encouraged, either. Alain, who felt no shame at his proclivities, also felt no need to fight to defend them. He’d surely kill anyone who came up against him, and while his blade had tasted the blood of many of the King’s enemies, he had no desire to spill that of his comrades.

  Gerard had never shown signs of liking cock, and Alain had never made a move to push their friendship into that place. They fought, they wrestled, they shared a room and a bath. They often visited the brothels together or sampled some of the same tavern wenches. Gerard had a heavier hand with his women than Alain, who had no desire to bind or beat his bedmates. When Alain sought the company of men, he did it discreetly, and without Gerard. It was the one thing they didn’t share.

  Until the night Alain came home from an encounter with one of his favorite male partners to find Gerard waiting for him.

  “Where do you go?” Gerard had asked in a deceptively gentle voice that didn’t fool Alain.

  “I didn’t know I owed you an accounting of my time,” Alain had replied mildly.

  Gerard had drawn his brows. “You stink of fucking.”

  “I’ll wash.”

  Gerard’s hand had flown out to grab Alain’s wrist as he’d passed. “I don’t smell a woman’s sweetness on you, Alain.”

  Alain had looked down at Gerard’s fingers gripping his wrist but made no move to pull away. “No.”

  They had trained together so often Gerard’s move shouldn’t have surprised him, but then perhaps Alain had chosen to be surprised. Gerard had turned him and pressed him forward, both hands tight on his wrists, in the time it took to draw a breath. Alain hadn’t struggled. Against his back, he’d felt the familiar breadth and width of Gerard’s body.

  Gerard had pushed Alain toward the room’s rough-hewn table and pinned his hands to the splintered wood. He’d kicked his legs apart and pressed harder against his back. Alain had closed his eyes, breathing hard, making no offer.

  “You like it this way?” Gerard had breathed in Alain’s ear. The touch of Gerard’s hot breath had sent a shudder down Alain’s spine and still he said nothing, made no move to get away, though he easily could have.

  Gerard’s hand had let go of one of Alain’s and moved around to cup Alain’s hardening cock. “Your prick is hard, my friend.”

  Gerard hadn’t fumbled with the ties of Alain’s trousers, nor had his touch hesitated when he took Alain’s hard length into his palm. He’d stroked, hard, in the way only men knew how to do, until at last Alain had pumped his hips forward with a cry.

  “Yes,” he’d said. “Yes, Gerard, I like that.”

  He’d groaned when the bluntness of Gerard’s thick cock nudged at the passage of his ass, and cried aloud when Gerard had eased his way inside. Gerard had fucked him fast and hard, jerking Alain’s prick at the same time, until they’d both exploded into pleasure.

  “You can share everything with me,” Gerard had said then, and until the dark fairy came along, they had.

  Alain’s cock had risen at the memories and now pressed uncomfortably against the front of his breeches. He turned at the soft noise behind him to see Mira, her lovely skin flushed and that marvelous hair hanging in tangled curls around her face.

  “He sent me to fetch him some ale.” Her voice was scratchy, hoarse.

  “My lady,” Alain said kindly, for he knew well enough how Gerard’s touch could leave one shaken. “Would you sit?”

  He pulled out a chair for her, and she sank into it as though her legs had been about to collapse. He brought her mulled wine and a hunk of bread from the sideboard, but she neither drank nor ate.

  “My lady,” said Alain gently and waited until she looked at his face. “What do you need?”

  “I don’t need wine and bread,” she snapped suddenly, her intriguingly mismatched eyes flashing. “I need fulfillment!”

  He’d been certain she’d find it with Gerard, and yet the moment she said the words Alain knew she spoke the truth. A smile tugged at his lips. Now it was his turn to try.

  Mira’s buttocks still held the heat left behind by Gerard’s hand, but she refused to squirm on the hard seat of her chair. The humiliation of what he’d done—and without lifting the curse!—brought heat to her face equal to that in her bottom. She scowled at the dark-haired man in front of her.

  “Bring me a dipper of cold water from the well,” she demanded and pointed out the window to the garden. “That’s what I want.”

  She felt certain he’d balk at her imperious tone, perhaps even take her in hand the way Gerard had, but Alain only ducked his head and strode to the doorway on his long, long legs. The well of which she spoke hadn’t been used for a long time because the winch used to lift the bucket from its depths had rusted. Even so, the water drawn from it was the sweetest she’d ever tasted, and she wanted it now.

  More than that, she thought as she watched him disappear through the door, she wanted to make someone suffer, even the tiniest bit, to make up for the way she had suffered upstairs.

  But she hadn’t suffered, really, had she? Even now, thinking of the way Gerard had ordered her to hold tight to the bedpost while he plundered her body from behind caused Mira’s nipples to tighten and her pulse to throb harder between her legs.

  As the beloved only child of doting parents, Mira had never been spanked in her life. No one had ever even raised their voice to her. Yet, she mused, her thighs slipping apart enough to dimplet the fabric of her gown between them, there had been nothing parental about Gerard’s treatment of her.

  The other men had fucked her in all manner of ways, but none had commanded her so. Thinking of it now sent a shiver through her. Her sex, still wet with her own slickness, clenched hard enough to force a small moan from her lips.

  “My lady.”

  At the sound of Alain’s reverent voice, Mira’s eyes flew open. She’d arched back in the chair, her hips lifting at the memory of Gerard’s touch, but having Alain witness her reaction to those thoughts didn’t quench her arousal. She studied him, the pail from the well brimming with water.

  “I brought your water.”

  She didn’t know what made her do it, except that all at once she lost all grasp of the difference between memory and reality. Gerard had commanded her but now she would command Alain; all o
f it seemed to make sense the way light will suddenly shine through the one clean spot in an otherwise filthy window.

  She kicked the bucket of water from his hands. It hit the floor with a thump and split into several pieces. The cold, clear water, sweet as honey, splattered Alain’s boots and breeches. Frigid droplets hit her bare toes and calves, but her gasp wasn’t from their small sting. It came when Alain went at once to his knees, his head bowed.

  “My lady, I have displeased you.”

  Mira had been protected and indulged her entire life, but just as Gerard’s treatment of her didn’t echo anything parental, neither did this new desire sweeping her have anything to with her previous experiences. She had always taken her clean clothes and prepared food as a fact of her existence and considered the servants who’d provided them a part of her family, like her parents. She’d never demanded anything from them.

  The sight of Alain on his knees sent waves of pleasure through her so strong her head spun. Her legs parted further and she inched her skirt to her knees. Her fingers fisted in the fabric and she imagined how it would feel to bury them in the thickness of his dark hair.

  “Tell me how I might serve you, lady,” Alain murmured, “and I shall do my utmost to please you.”

  “I would have your face between my legs.” The words rose to her lips as haughtily as any queen might have said them, and emboldened by her own tone, she added, “Pleasure my cunt with your tongue.”

  The dark fairy’s gift had stolen any shyness from Mira, but even so it was the first time she’d ever said such a thing aloud. Her heart pounded. She’d begged Gerard to touch her a mere hour before and now she ordered his comrade to do the same. Opposite ends of experience, yet both had made her heart trip faster in her breast.

  “If it would please my lady to do so,” Alain said without hesitation, “then it will be my pleasure to serve her.”

  His strong hands, only slightly smaller than Gerard’s but with the same delightful calluses, slid up her thighs and pushed her skirt to her hips. She was bare beneath. She’d washed upstairs, but her sex glistened anew with her arousal. The smooth bead of her clitoris protruded sweetly from its hood of flesh and her soft curls.

  Alain used his thumbs to stroke along her folds and brought them together, one on each side of her clitoris. Mira hissed out a gasp and her hips rocked forward again.

  “Your mouth,” she ordered.

  He obeyed at once, dipping his head to press his lips to her flesh. His tongue, hot and wet, stroked her folds and anchored itself on her clitoris. He worked her flesh with his lips and tongue, and her desire coursed through her like flames consuming paper.

  She fisted her hands in his hair and held him tight as his mouth moved. His tongue flickered, fast, then moved in slow, deliberate circles that had her writhing.

  “Fuck me with your fingers,” Mira gasped when Alain’s tongue alone wasn’t enough to send her over the edge.

  Alain did as she ordered. His fingers were longer but not so thick as Gerard’s, and in her ecstatic delirium Mira wondered if their cocks would be as disparate. He pushed two fingers deep inside her, curving them slightly upward as his tongue kept its steady pace. Bright sparks of fresh pleasure shot through her, and again when he pressed deeper and his knuckles provided additional pressure on her back passage.

  She moaned his name, and again, louder. She closed her eyes and threw back her head to allow the ecstasy to take her over entirely.

  “I want you to fuck me,” she gasped. “Fuck me, Alain!”

  Her climax shook her, the pleasure so intense she went briefly blind. Her toes pointed, her thighs fell open, her hands clutched at nothing. The words spewed from her mouth, yet she knew what she said and meant it.

  “Be careful, lady,” said a familiar male voice, dipping low with amusement. “For if you command it, Alain will feel compelled to obey.”

  Mira opened her eyes as the vestiges of ecstasy seeped out of her. Alain still knelt before her, his mouth glistening and his eyes hot with desire, but it was to Gerard she gave her full attention. Her heart still pounded from her climax but now the pitter-pat stepped up at the sight of the man who’d so recently mastered her. What would he do to her? To both of them?

  Gerard spoke in a voice that could never have been called kind but was at least not cruel. He put his hand on Alain’s head the way a man will touch his hound to prove his ownership and its loyalty to him. “It’s in his nature, you see.”

  Mira swallowed hard, though her mouth had gone dry at the flare of lust in Gerard’s blue eyes. In front of her, Alain remained on his knees, his head slightly bowed beneath the weight of Gerard’s hand. He didn’t look frightened. She watched as he licked his mouth of her sweetness.

  “How does she taste, Alain?”

  “Like sweet honey, Gerard.”

  Gerard’s smile sent a frisson from the base of Mira’s spine all the way to the sensitive flesh of the back of her neck. The curve of his lips affected another part of her as well, the soft and slick center between her thighs.

  “Alain made you come, lady?”

  She lifted her chin, almost defiant. “Yes.”

  Gerard’s hand stroked down Alain’s hair. “His tongue is most talented, is it not? And yet you screamed for his cock, too?”

  Even now, her body twitched and shivered at the thought. The dark fairy had blessed her with desire, and it had grown tenfold since Gerard and Alain had walked through her garden gate. She covered herself with her hand.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You are not yet complete,” said Alain.

  She shook her head. Alain got to his feet, shrugging off Gerard’s hand. “I can complete you, lady. Allow me to serve you.”

  “The lady seeks to serve,” Gerard said in a deceptively kind tone. “She is natural at it, Alain.”

  Alain turned to face the other man. “You didn’t complete her, Gerard. The weight of desire hangs heavy on her shoulders. Her burden has not yet been lifted, and nor has ours.”

  Gerard stared at Mira. “I haven’t yet had my full way with her, Alain. Once I have—”

  “Once I have,” Alain interrupted, “the curse will be lifted.”

  “You?” Gerard turned his face to Alain and laughed. “I know well how your mouth can service, Alain, but you’re not the one for this lady. I can feel it.”

  “I feel it,” Alain said in a low, dangerous voice, and while in the past he might have served Gerard the way he’d served Mira, it was clear to her that whatever rift had been torn between them had not yet healed.

  “Will you ask the lady to choose?” Gerard asked in a frightening voice.

  “I will not choose!” Mira cried so loudly the china in the cupboard rang. She got up from the chair, her skirts falling around her bare feet. “It is not for me to choose! It is for you to complete me!”

  She pointed at each of them. “It is not a contest of who is the manlier!”

  Alain ducked his head at her words and put his hand over his heart. “My lady—”

  Gerard, however, had drawn his sword with a growl. “It is a contest, lady, for just as you seek completion and the breaking of the fairy’s curse, so I seek it. Alain!”

  Alain had drawn no weapon but Mira, heart thudding again, had no illusions he was not as ready to wage battle as Gerard. “Yes, brother of my heart.”

  “Outside.”

  “Yes, Gerard.”

  Again, Alain inclined his head, but though it gave the appearance of him following Gerard’s command, Mira was not fooled. Alain was his own man. Her breath hitched faster in her chest when Alain followed Gerard out into the garden.

  When they fought over her.

  The room was not the best he’d ever been given, but it was clean and bright, and the bed was softer than any had ever been in the barracks of the King’s Guard. The basins, one filled with hot water and one with cold, were of finer porcelain, too, as were the cloths Gerard now used to wash the worst of his wounds. Alain’s bla
de had some time ago become nicked, and the cuts it gave were ragged. He hissed as he smoothed the water over his bleeding flesh.

  It gave him no small pleasure to hear the same pained noises coming from the room Alain had been given. Though the rooms were separated by a door, it hung open. Gerard could hear Alain’s measured pacing as he bathed and dressed his own wounds. He might have taken more pride had he known his comrade’s injuries to be worse than his own, but Gerard was no fonder of lies told to himself than he was of untruths told to him by another.

  Neither had held back in their fight to prove who was better suited to bring the lady Mira her completion, but, as in all else, they were so even in skill neither had been able to win. They were not a pair of matched ponies to draw a carriage, he mused as he watched Alain’s shadow lengthen and shorten in the doorway. Rather they were as firmly opposite as the sun and moon. Like a lock and a key, Alain and Gerard were fair to useless without one another.

  “Alain!”

  The shadow paused and in the next moment, Alain’s familiar form appeared in the open doorway. “Yes, Gerard.”

  “Come here.”

  Alain did at once, and though he refused to show sign of it upon his face, Gerard ached inside for the days before the dark fairy had come between them. No woman ever had, not even the prettiest. No man had, either. Yet the dark fairy, on a whim they’d never understood, had taken the core of their friendship and used it to tear them asunder.

  “I have missed you,” Alain said simply, and Gerard hated and admired him for his ability to put voice to his emotions. “It’s been overlong since we were able to practice together.”

  It was just like Alain, Gerard mused, to make it as though they’d been exercising rather than trying to kill one another. He wanted to keep from smiling but felt his mouth curve anyway. “Aye, brother of my heart, I have long regretted our distance as well.”