All for One (12 page)

“I don’t need anyone’s help to top you,” Léandre asserted, springing forward and letting his weight knock Perrin off balance. Moving swiftly, he caught one wrist before the dark musketeer could react, but the second eluded him. The ensuing struggle saw them both rolling across the wide and fortunately sturdy bed, first one and then the other ascendant as Léandre wrestled off Perrin’s remaining clothing, the contact of bare skin and flexing muscle enhancing both men’s arousal.

Nor was the man watching the tussle from the doorway insensate of its effect. Part of Aristide’s mind was still with Benoît, but he would have to be made of stone not to be affected by the contrast of light and dark limbs tangling on the rumpled bedding. Shrugging out of his own tunic, he draped it over the back of the bedroom chair before sinking into it, pulling off his tall boots and stretching his legs out before him as his partners’ struggles continued.

Perrin could feel his arousal growing with each roll of their bodies, each brush of their skin. He wasn’t honestly interested in winning, only in making sure Léandre didn’t take his agreement for granted. When both of them were hard and leaking, he collapsed onto the bed. “I yield,” he gasped, arms limp on the bedding in submission. When Léandre eased up on the pressure, he rolled to his stomach, offering his arse.

Retrieving the belt that had fallen to the mattress during their struggles, Léandre drew the leather teasingly over the tempting globes. “Since you yielded, I’ll spare you the belt,” he conceded, though he’d not planned to use it for more than effect in any case. Looping it around Perrin’s wrists, he tightened it just enough to hold them together, then ran a palm up the strong arms, glistening with a light coat of sweat. Léandre pressed Perrin’s shoulders to the bed with one hand, the other coasting down the arched back until it reached the first swell of his buttocks. “How many blows, Aristide?”

“A dozen should suffice,” Aristide answered. “It took longer than usual for him to lose his temper this time.” Perrin had turned his head to meet the older musketeer’s gaze, the hazel eyes darkening with passion at the considered sentence. Léandre nodded his agreement and raised his arm, delivering the first swat with a resounding crack of palm against flesh.

Perrin’s body jerked forward at the blow, a deep moan escaping his throat, but no one, seeing his face, could mistake it for anything but a sound of pleasure. He spread his knees slightly to keep his balance and braced himself for the next one. By the time Léandre was done, they would hurt, but the first few smacks always left him tingling in anticipation.

At the second swat, Perrin’s hips bucked upward, meeting Léandre’s palm and wordlessly begging for more. The blond complied, not holding back as his blows turned the honeyed skin pink, then red. The throaty moans Perrin let out with each strike soon had Léandre’s cock rock-hard and dripping, anticipating burying his length deep between those heated cheeks.

“Twelve,” Aristide announced. His own shaft had hardened uncomfortably beneath his breeches, jumping with each contact of Léandre’s hand to Perrin’s arse. “Enough, Léandre. Have you learned your lesson, Perrin?”

“Yes,” Perrin moaned wantonly, shimmying on the bed in search of friction for his throbbing cock. Léandre’s hands stilled his hips, though, forcing him to wait on his lovers’ mercy. “Please,” he begged, “fuck me. Both of you.”

“Greedy boy,” Léandre chuckled, rubbing his stinging hand. “This was supposed to be a punishment.” His own hungry gaze shifted from the dark head bent before him to the bronzed head leaning against the chair back, watching them with slowly kindling eyes. “Since I did all the work, you won’t object if I take him first?”

“Less talking, more fucking,” Perrin growled, not caring which order they took him in as long as he got one of their cocks inside him.
Now.

Reaching into the armoire beside him, Aristide tossed a flask of lamp oil toward Léandre, who caught it handily. “Stretch him well for me—after fighting that Spaniard, I’ve no mind to fight Perrin’s arse too.”

“When he’s in this mood, Aristide, you could take him dry, and he’d just beg for more,” Léandre said with a laugh, rough fingers spearing Perrin’s entrance.

Perrin might have protested, except Léandre spoke the truth. He twisted on the sheets, trying to get the blond’s fingers deeper inside him. Between the adrenaline from the swordfight and the rush from the spanking, he was desperate to come.

Perrin’s writhing on his fingers made Léandre ache to pull them out and plunge inside, but he bit his lip and added a third finger instead, bending them to just brush at the younger man’s most sensitive spot. The spanking was all the pain he intended to deal Perrin tonight. What came next would be pure pleasure for them both.

Aristide’s cock throbbed at the wanton moan Léandre’s pivoting fingers wrung from Perrin. Loosening his breeches, he slid a hand inside, trying not to imagine another’s hand stroking him. With a muttered curse, he closed his thoughts to anything but the men sharing his life and his bed.

As good as the fingers inside him felt, Perrin keenly felt Aristide’s absence from the bed. The older musketeer never participated in the actual spanking when Perrin’s temper got the better of him, but usually, Aristide was all over him just like Léandre was the moment it was done. He scowled even as he groaned, sure he knew what preoccupied Aristide’s mind. If he thought the blacksmith returned Aristide’s regard, that would be a different matter entirely, but it bothered him to see his friend and lover tied in knots over someone too blind to recognize his worth. “If you come over here and untie my hands, I can do that for you,” he purred, determined to take Aristide’s mind off everything—and everyone—not currently in this room.

A twinge of guilt plagued Aristide at neglecting his lovers for an unattainable dream. Determined to give them the attention they deserved, he moved to the edge of the bed, kneeling before Perrin. Releasing the belt from his wrists, he lifted Perrin’s chin and bent his head for a kiss, groaning when Perrin sucked his tongue into his mouth.

Hands free, Perrin used one to push up into the kiss, the other reaching for Aristide’s hip, stroking over smooth skin in welcome. He nipped gently at the invading tongue, determined to rouse the tawny-haired musketeer to the same fever pitch he was currently experiencing.

Watching Aristide claim Perrin’s mouth stole the tenuous control Léandre had been struggling to retain. Pulling his fingers free, he rubbed the oil that clung to them over his cock, catching his breath when Perrin pushed his arse back demandingly. Seizing the lean hips, he thrust inside, exhaling in a long hiss at the fierce, hot pressure. “Ah, fuck, Perrin, you’re still so tight.”

Léandre’s exclamation and Perrin’s answering groan against his lips drew Aristide’s attention to his second lover. With a final nip at Perrin’s mouth, he knelt up, catching Léandre’s head between his hands and taking him in an equally passionate kiss.

Perrin might have protested losing Aristide’s mouth if it weren’t for the heavenly, weeping cockhead that appeared right in front of his mouth. He licked the tip eagerly, purring at the salty taste that exploded on his tongue. Rocking forward with each heavy thrust of Léandre’s hips, he let the momentum of the blond’s fucking control the speed and depth of his sucking, reveling in the sensation of being caught between his two lovers, filled from both ends.

Dueling with Aristide’s tongue as fiercely as he had parried the Englishman’s blade, Léandre grasped the older man’s shoulder, steadying them as his thrusts jolted Perrin and Aristide both. He could feel tremors shaking the hard muscle beneath his palm, proof of the lascivious attentions Perrin was bestowing on their third lover. Nor was Perrin neglecting Léandre either, squeezing around him each time he drew back in a sensuous massage that sent flares of pleasure licking up his spine. The growing tightness in his groin warning him he would not be able to hold back much longer, Léandre dragged his palm down Aristide’s chest, twisting a peaked nipple and winning a deep groan in response.

Between Léandre’s mouth sucking the breath from his lungs and Perrin’s tongue lashing his cock, all thought was banished from Aristide’s mind, overwhelmed by the insistent demands of his body—for more friction, more contact, for release. His back arched without his volition, driving deeper into Perrin’s willing mouth, his own seeking more of Léandre’s taste as his hands blindly roved the blond’s back.

Perrin increased the pressure of his suckling, at the same time clenching his arse as tightly as he could around Léandre’s cock. He was glutted with pleasure, so high with adrenaline and lust that he felt like he was floating, tightly wound to the point he wasn’t sure he could hold out any longer and yet feeling like he’d never be able to come. He groaned as his lovers increased their pace, their own imminent releases driving them deeper, harder into him.

The vibration of Perrin’s moan against the saliva-slick skin of his cock was Aristide’s undoing. Fingers digging into the resilient flesh of Léandre’s arse, he stiffened and groaned, filling Perrin’s mouth with his sudden release. Panting, he clung to Léandre, his head thrown back as Perrin continued to suckle, wringing shock after shock from his quivering frame.

Léandre had found the perfect rhythm, each long, hard stroke dragging the head of his cock from the clenching ring of Perrin’s entrance to the spot deep inside that made him tighten each time Léandre brushed over it. The unexpected grip of Aristide’s hands on his cheeks pushed him even deeper inside, slapping his swollen balls against Perrin’s arse. With a strangled cry he climaxed, the shock waves of sensation expanding through his body until he fell forward onto Perrin’s back, shuddering.

The dual flood of his lovers’ release washed over Perrin. He whined deep in his throat as the other two men collapsed in satiation, his own cock still throbbing demandingly. “You weren’t supposed to come in my mouth,” he scolded Aristide, reaching for his erection. “You were supposed to fuck me too.”

“Then you shouldn’t have sucked me so well,
chipie
,” Aristide answered, swatting at Perrin’s still-pink cheeks while his other hand curled around the younger man’s leaking cock.

“Complaining again?
Merde
, there’s no satisfying you, is there?” Léandre added, pushing up on an elbow to lap at the still-hard balls before sucking them into his mouth.

With a strangled shout, Perrin climaxed hard, all the pent-up fury from the aborted fight, tension from the confrontation with the Cardinal’s guards and passion from the attentions of his lovers suddenly releasing in one seemingly endless surge. He sank to the sheets, gasping as the force of his orgasm nearly stole his consciousness, too replete even to respond to the other men’s teasing words.

The night’s exertions had their predictable effect on the two younger musketeers, and before long both Léandre and Perrin were sprawled across the bed, snoring softly. Aristide lay watching them for a few moments before standing, still too on edge to sleep. After cleaning himself with his discarded undergarment, he pulled on his breeches and padded into the darkened living area. Sinking into a chair to wait for Benoît’s return, he wondered if it was he who could never be satisfied.

Chapter 10

B
ENOÎT
crept into the house on silent feet, not wanting to disturb the musketeers if they were already asleep, if only because he didn’t want them awake for another round of loud, boisterous sex. After his unsettling conversation with the young Spaniard, he’d have enough trouble sleeping as it was. Adding the sounds of the other men’s—who was he fooling? Aristide’s—passions would make drifting off impossible.

“Lock the door behind you,” Aristide said softly from the shadows at the other side of the room. The moonlight filtering through the window gave just enough light for his dark-adjusted eyes to see Benoît startle and hesitate, his head turning toward the closed bedroom door and back. “They’re asleep; after today’s exertions you could have brought the entire tavern back with you and it wouldn’t wake them.”

“You’re awake,” Benoît pointed out, keeping his voice as low as Aristide’s. “Didn’t you join them?” As soon as the words were out, he regretted them. Whatever the answer, the question itself and the bitter tone of his voice were far too revealing of his current turmoil.

Interpreting the harsh tone in the blacksmith’s voice as disgust, Aristide sighed. “What does it matter to you if I joined them or not? As I told you, I would force nothing on you unwilling, and you have seen I have no lack of willing companionship.” And, he insisted to himself, it was not his companions’ fault he had come to long for a commitment, a devotion to one love alone that his two lovers had no interest in.

Aristide had indeed been as good as his word, not touching Benoît in any but the most fraternal of ways, and then only when he was checking his injury, since the night they’d shared a bed in the tiny inn; and Benoît had indeed seen how willing the musketeer’s companions were, a fact that tore at him because he could also see how much of a game it was to them. Aristide was different, though. More reserved, more serious, for all that he could give as good as he got in their verbal duels. Benoît suspected the same would be true for their more physical activities. Certainly, his prowess with a sword could not be questioned after the duel today. Benoît could hardly claim to be an expert, but he’d seen the way Aristide and the Spaniard—Ciéza de Vivar—moved, and the other four men had not shown the same overwhelming grace or harnessed power that had marked the movements of the two older swordsmen. “What if it does matter?” he whispered.

Aristide’s heart leapt at the plaintive note he imagined he heard, but he forced himself to face the truth. Benoît had made it plain time and again that he found Aristide’s preference for men repulsive. The blacksmith was likely complaining at the added disgust of finding his taste extended to multiple partners, and at being forced to endure residing under the same roof as such ungodly practices. “I will take care we do not disturb you with our activities again,” he vowed in a restrained voice. He could not expect Léandre and Perrin to forego their pleasures in their own home, but he could ensure that he found some pretext to keep Benoît out when needed, to allow them the privacy which was their right. As for himself, he could survive a lack of physical release for as long as Benoît remained with them. He had come to understand that it was more than mere physical release he longed for; and in any case the blacksmith could offer him neither.

Their activities disturbed Benoît, that much was certain, but the blacksmith was quite sure Aristide had no idea of the real reason why. The musketeer had turned his world upside down in the past week, with his kindness, his nobility, and his preferences. Benoît didn’t want to be attracted to the musketeer, but his cock didn’t seem to be listening to his head. And Perrin’s comment from the first night in Paris still rankled. They were obviously good friends, but they equally obviously didn’t feel the need to make their relationship exclusive or Perrin wouldn’t have asked if they could fuck him. “You deserve better,” he said before he could stop himself, the wine he’d shared with Esteban lowering his inhibitions and his self-control.

Aristide’s hackles rose at the implied insult to his friends—his comrades in arms—his lovers. He might not be
in love
with Léandre and Perrin, but he loved them both with a brotherly fellowship beyond any carnal pleasures they enjoyed together. There was no one he would rather have at his back in a fight, no one he would rather have at his side in a tavern, no one he would rather have in his bed—except for the man before him, who scorned them all. “My choices are none of your concern. You could search all France without finding an equal for Léandre or Perrin.”

“They act as if none of it matters, not you, not each other, not your relationship,” Benoît protested, his voice rising in frustration. “I can’t believe that’s all you really want out of your life. Don’t you want someone who loves you and you alone? Someone completely devoted to you? Why do you settle for them and their games when you could have so much more?”

The questions, so close to those he had lately asked himself, tore at Aristide’s heart. He thought he had found such devotion once, only to learn through public humiliation how mistaken he had been. For years since, he had lived for the moment, for the pleasures of the day and no more, and it had been enough. Until the day his path crossed Benoît’s, awakening longings he had thought smothered fifteen years before, longings as impossible to realize now as they had been then. He would not open himself up to such agony again. It had cost him his world once—he would not risk shattering the new world he had made for himself on another dream. “Again I ask: what business is it of yours? My choices are my own to make, as are yours. I have not tried to sway you from your beliefs; I ask the same respect for my own.”

“What if I want it to be my business?” Benoît asked softly, daring finally to admit some small portion of the turmoil wreaking havoc in his neatly ordered world. He didn’t know what he wanted, didn’t know what he could offer the handsome musketeer, but he knew he wanted more than to be a passing thought. Whatever happened in the days and years to come, he knew he’d never forget Aristide. The idea that the musketeer might forget him was unbearable.

Aristide’s eyes flew to Benoît’s dark ones, searching in the dim light for any sign of mockery. The blacksmith’s beauty had drawn his appreciation from the beginning; the stoic manner in which he endured hardships that would have broken lesser men won his approbation. The nascent feelings growing within him could ripen into love if he let them, he knew, but he would not allow that to happen again. Not unless, this time, he was sure…. “You made your feelings quite clear that night in the inn. Are you telling me now I misunderstood you? That you would welcome my touch as I undressed you? My lips against yours?” Knowing he was only driving a wedge further between them, Aristide could not resist describing all the dreams that had gnawed at him every night since. “Your back pressed against me as my hands explored you, learning every spot that makes you gasp and tremble against me? My mouth moving over your skin, tasting you? My fingers wrapping around your cock?” His voice wavered, his own arousal flaring as he closed his eyes at the intensity of the scene painting itself on his senses.

Aristide’s words, his deep, rasping voice wove a spell around Benoît that he was helpless to resist. His body swayed with the yearning he heard in the other man’s tone, the urge to seek that warmth, that seductive, welcoming warmth so strong he almost gave in. He could imagine what the musketeer was describing, could almost feel those callused palms on his skin. Aristide had touched him before, to tend his wound, so Benoît knew firsthand how hard, how strong his hands were. This time, though, the caresses he imagined were lover’s touches, intended to arouse, not to soothe, and his body reacted to the vivid imagery. Only the break in the musketeer’s voice brought him out of it, shattering the near-trance he’d been in, all the shock he’d felt at realizing the relationship the musketeers shared rushing back at him as his head took control again over his body. “I don’t know, all right?” he cried. “You can’t begin to imagine how you’ve turned my life upside down. You’re offering things every tenet I hold dear tells me I should abhor. I don’t know if I can ignore that. I just know I hate thinking about you with them, with anyone.”

“I understand exactly how unsettled you feel,” Aristide asserted. Benoît was not much older than he had been when he had come to accept that he felt desire only for other men—and for one man in particular. That the betrayal still had the power to hurt him so many years later was proof he could not lightly make himself so vulnerable again. “But neither can I turn my life upside down on a whim, because you have taken it into your head that you are curious about what it might be like. I will not be an experiment for you.”

Benoît sighed. “Then I suppose we’re at an impasse. I can’t brush aside the teachings of a lifetime in a matter of days to suit your fancy. I just know you’ve become important to me.” He bowed slightly. “I’ll leave you to your rest. I’m sure your friends will be glad to have you back with them.”

Rising to his feet, Aristide caught Benoît by the shoulder, holding him still. “You have become important to me as well,” he admitted. For another moment he stood, battling with himself, and then almost against his will he leaned forward, his lips brushing lightly against the blacksmith’s narrow ones. The contact was gentle, undemanding, invested with as much of the emotion swelling in his heart as he dared to expose. He felt Benoît freeze beneath him and smothered the impulse to deepen the kiss, lifting his head but not releasing his grip.

The first touch of mouth to mouth was so unexpected, so tender that Benoît could not react. Then he felt the brush of Aristide’s thin moustache against his upper lip, and he reared back, his mind unable to cope with the reality of kissing another man. “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away. “I can’t do this.”

Aristide’s hands fell away, his hopes that what he was beginning to feel for Benoît could grow into anything more withering when the younger man drew back in distaste at the merest kiss. Despite himself, pain and anger flared, for hadn’t Benoît all but suggested he wanted to know what it would be like? Well, now he had his answer. “Do you think this is some sort of a game?” Aristide growled, frowning at the neediness revealed in his voice. Swallowing hard, he forced himself to continue more softly. “That I have the patience to wait while you blow hot and cold? Either you are willing, or you are not. Do not tease me if you mean only to turn me away.”

“I know it’s not a game,” Benoît replied slowly, “but I also know life doesn’t come with certain promises. Every relationship is a gamble. I didn’t know if my wife would have me until I asked. I also didn’t know we would have a scant two years together before she was taken from me. I’m not blowing hot and cold. I’m trying to make sense of the chaos you’ve brought into my life. Since you can’t seem to accept that, I’ll leave you alone until I can do it on my own.
Bonsoir, monsieur
.” He turned on his heel and stalked up the stairs.

Muttering a curse, Aristide sank back into the chair, his head dropping forward into his hands. He had driven the blacksmith away with only the briefest touch of his lips. It was clear that the younger man would never be able to accept what Aristide yearned to offer him. Despite the rebuff, the arousal his earlier words had kindled still gripped him, growing stronger as he imagined Benoît upstairs, disrobing as he slid into bed, imagined sliding onto the narrow mattress behind him. His cock leapt at the thought, his hand falling of its own volition to clasp it, squeezing through the fabric of his breeches as if he could somehow shut off the longing. The touch had the opposite effect, his shaft thickening beneath his fingers, pulsing with the growing pace of his heartbeat. His eyes flickered to the closed bedroom door before he cast them down again. He could rejoin Perrin and Léandre, awaken them and slake his arousal with their willing participation, but guilt held him back—not only at Benoît’s admission that he hated thinking of him with them, but at his own distracted thoughts when he was with his lovers. The two musketeers deserved to be appreciated for themselves, not used as a substitute for his hopeless longing for another.

His gaze strayed again, lingering on the narrow staircase climbing to the room where Benoît slept. Knowing he would never act on the fantasy, he let his eyes fall closed, imagining himself climbing the stairs, opening the door, stripping and climbing into the bed beside Benoît. His fingers worked his cock free of his breeches, sliding dryly over the heated flesh until its tip seeped enough liquid to ease his strokes. The blacksmith would be naked, the muscles resultant of his trade clearly delineating his smooth chest. Aristide would trace them with his palms, sculpting the tapering waistline, over the flat plane of Benoît’s stomach. A fine trail of hair led downward, Aristide knew, though he had never seen more than the first inch of it. He would follow it now, until it merged into the patch of coarser hairs encircling the blacksmith’s cock. A frisson of hunger shook him, the pace of his fist increasing as he imagined carding his fingers through those dark curls, slipping down to weigh the heavy bollocks, rolling them gently before finally taking the long, hard shaft in hand. Benoît would arch into him with a groan, thrusting into the channel of Aristide’s fist. Aristide would begin slowly at first, letting him become familiar with the touch, showing him the pleasure to be had even in such simple contact. When Benoît was rocking in time with his strokes, he would vary the motion, twisting with each pass over the defining ridge of his head, carefully easing down the foreskin, rubbing his thumb over the leaking slit, every touch demanding nothing but Benoît’s surrender to the pleasure, the love, he offered. Aristide’s strokes began to grow erratic, the heat and hunger and need swelling beyond his control. Balling his free hand, he bit into the muscle below his thumb, preventing himself from crying out Benoît’s name as he shuddered through his climax, pulsing wetly over his still shuttling fist, imagining coaxing the last tremors of bliss from Benoît’s sated frame. His head falling back against the chair’s padding with a groan, Aristide raised his hand to his lips, cleaning himself and wishing fervently it was really Benoît’s release on his tongue.