Ménage Material [La Belle sans la Bete Ménages] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (22 page)

Belonging.

Devvy Nelson had found the place she belonged.

Her doubts of an hour ago seemed foolish now. Her fear that they were taking her down a path to what her mother would class slatternly behavior held merit, but she didn’t give a damn.

This was her place.

Seeing them together and realizing how magical they were as a pair made her feel all the more cherished. She couldn’t understand why, when they were so perfect a match, they needed her. Yet, they’d brought her into this. They’d asked her to become a part of this magic. And a part she would become.

Bastien forced his eyes to stay open. Even as pleasure battered him, he continued to stare at her. Alex’s lips were slack, quivering as she fucked his tongue with her own, and Devvy only had a few seconds to enjoy the two at their most vulnerable before both men, seconds apart, screamed their pleasure.

After a few days of emotional highs and lows, the stress of watching porn—who knew it could have such adverse effects?—the aftermath of watching her two lovers together was rather anti-climactic.

They didn’t spin her over onto the mattress and make her see stars of her own.

They didn’t clutch her in their embrace.

Or, if they did, Devvy wasn’t awake to notice any of it.

Like switching off the light, Devvy had fallen asleep.

She awoke in Sebastien’s arms under the covers. Minutes or hours later.

At first, she thought they were in their own bedroom. A part of her wondered if she’d dreamed the entire thing. Then, she smelled the starch in the sheets and recognized the scent as coming from Alex’s bed linens.

He was the only man she knew who preferred to have crisp cotton beneath him as he slept.

And this wasn’t just a little starch. The sheets were like cardboard. On the verge of being uncomfortable. Especially in comparison to the bed linen Devvy herself preferred.

When she’d married Sebastien, she’d had no choice but to switch to luxury thread counts. Sheets that cost a small fortune. As a singleton, she’d had old bedclothes, because in her opinion they were the best. The ones with the nubby balls from overuse and over-washing. She’d found they were the softest and the best for snuggling. As such, waking up with her face pressed against sheets like paper, she instantly recognized where she was.

Her eyes popped open to the semi-darkness of the room. Half of it was in shadow, half was illuminated by the caramel-colored glow from the streetlamps. She wasn’t sure what time it was, but either way, sounds of life could be heard from the streets below.

It was amazing how sound traveled. While Alex was relatively far away, distance wise, from the road, there were still some pedestrian and traffic noises that slipped through the soundproofing. As it was, she could hear a gaggle of French women. Just like the geese she’d likened them to, they spat, hissed, and shouted at one another.

It was only as she’d visited France, then gone on to Spain and Italy for her honeymoon, that she’d realized how the Romance languages all sounded so beautifully aggressive. It was amazing how two people could be having a regular conversation, and yet they all sounded like they wanted to kill one another.

Sebastien spoke French, Italian, Spanish, English, German, and some Mandarin. She’d used his skills as a translator to eavesdrop as she people-watched on their honeymoon. She could easily remember a couple who had looked on the brink of throttling one another discussing who had turned the dishwasher on that evening.

As the gaggle of women disappeared, a jet sounded overhead, soaring from Charles de Gaulle to some far-flung place, and as a planeload of people left the capital, a car tooted its horn. Brakes squealed in reply, there was another burst of angry French, and then there was silence. From that alone, she reckoned it to be early morning. Paris was rarely silent. It was too alive. Silence was death in a city like this, where noise and activity were the lifeblood coursing through the city’s veins.

It seemed incredible she’d slept for so long, but the last few days had been pretty tense. It was a tension of her own making but that hadn’t made her feel any better. She’d caused that argument with Alex, forcing him to think about their future in more than just a transitory way. Then had come the telephone conversation with her mother, as well as the click onto the porn site where she’d petrified herself. As it was, even though the situation needed resolving with Alex, and the gossip on the other side of the Atlantic needed addressing with Sebastien, Devvy felt a hell of a lot better.

It was also lovely to awaken in Bastien’s arms. He’d never really been a cuddler. In fact, he’d never been all that affectionate. She hadn’t minded, simply because she wasn’t used to affection anyway. Growing up in an emotionally distant household did that to a girl, so entering another one upon her marriage hadn’t disturbed her overly, even if she had wished things were different.

But now, to have awoken in Bastien’s embrace, one of his hands proprietarily resting on her belly, the other on her boob, was a great feeling.

That belief from before, that she’d found the place she belonged, Bastien at one side, in Alex’s bed, even if the man himself wasn’t here, returned.

She wriggled out of Bastien’s grip. Still jet lagged, he merely grumbled, mumbled something in low French, and then flung himself onto his back before sinking back into sleep.

She rolled out of the bed, inelegantly as always, and managed to stop herself from falling over the side. Standing up, carefully trying not to rock the mattress, she realized they’d taken off her sneakers and jeans, and left her in her too-large shirt.

She padded barefoot out of the bedroom, using the lights from the street to guide her. In the hallway, she saw the glare coming from Alex’s lab and walked toward the glowing doorway. She opened it, blinked at the bright light in comparison to the pitch black of the corridor and, rubbing her eyes, started trying to focus on the large room. In truth, it was more than large. It was huge.

Her own lab at
Les Fenêtres
wasn’t exactly tiny, but this was an average person’s bedroom times three. So big was it, that on first glance, she couldn’t actually see him and she had to step deeper into the room in an effort to find her wayward lover.

The equipment and machinery she passed made her whistle at the cost. All of it brand-new and gleaming, she’d seen it before, but it still reiterated Alex’s importance. The sheer quality of his instruments told her without words the miracle he was reaping here.

A smell of O-Zone pervaded her nostrils, making them twitch, and a dryness in the air appeared, the closer to the center of the lab she walked. Devvy found him working with some distilling equipment. She didn’t even bother to question why he’d decided to work on a night such as this one. She just tapped her knuckles against the counter to warn him she was there.

His head shot up, his fierce frown of concentration slipped away, and was replaced by a warm, gentle smile that worked wonders on her heart.

“Devvy,” he murmured and her name had never sounded so beautiful. Each letter was imbued with his own language in a rumbling purr that set her nerves alight.

Not with lust or need. But with a gentle heat.

It would be so easy to love this man, and for the first time, she wondered if she was already there, like he insisted they both were. Regardless of the length of time they’d known each other.

He looked tired, his eyes drawn, and her own dropped down to his lab-coat-covered shoulders that he wore over a naked torso and a pair of boxers.

“I guess a regular lab wouldn’t accept that for a uniform,” she teased.

“We both know there are many advantages to working from home.”

Devvy smiled and nodded. “The grounds at
Les Fenêtres
are large enough for a lab of your own. You needn’t share with me, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

His frown soon returned, and she was saddened to see it. She hadn’t meant to cause him upset. The thought had popped into her head and she’d seen no harm in saying it when it was the truth. There was plenty of land to spare and if it made Alex happy to have his own working environment then she and Bastien would do whatever necessary to make sure that happened.

Subconsciously, Devvy realized she was being pugnacious, stubborn, and maybe a little premature, considering how long they’d actually known each other. But something inside her knew this subject needed addressing. She hadn’t mentioned it in the three or four calls that had passed between the two of them ever since she’d left his apartment. And now really wasn’t appropriate but these things couldn’t always be planned.

“I am happy where I am, Devvy,” he told her gently.

“Would you prefer us all to move in here?” she asked, taking a step closer to the counter he was working on and perching her panty-clad butt on a stool.

His eyes widened in horror and she chuckled.

“This penthouse is large enough for a family of twenty, Alex. It’s huge! People rarely have so much room. You’re fortunate.”

“I like my space, Devvy.”

“I know you do. I may not have known you long…”

Before she could continue, he butted in, “You may not have known me long, ma petite, but you know
me!”
He imbued the last word with a lot of meaning.

As silly as it seemed, he spoke the truth. She did know him. Just like he knew her.

Maybe it was the scientist in them, the genius. The fast-tracked kids who had always been too smart for their peers. They connected in so many ways and those ways still had a habit of shocking her.

She thought he’d continue to shock her for the rest of their lives together and if anything, rather than frightening her, the thought pleased her.

She knew there was no such thing as a guarantee in this world. Things could happen. Things could change. Love could die and hope could be lost, but she saw no reason to be a pessimist in such a matter.

At heart, she was a realist. With her feet planted firmly on the ground. It was why she’d always been so filled with doom and gloom where Sebastien was concerned, because she knew the score of things. But now, the status quo had changed. Tilting everything on its head. Making her see the world through different eyes.

What the three of them had, while in its infancy, was unique.

And special.

She could feel it, deep down. She tried not to think too far ahead in the future, but it was so easy to see herself settling down. A blonde little girl on one hip and a dark-haired little boy clutching at her fingers as they wandered through the gardens at
Les Fenêtres
. She imagined Sebastien watching them from his office, a contented smile on his face, a smile that came from his love in his family. She saw Alex, lines of strain at his eyes, as he escaped the lab, only to follow her and their children through the gardens. She imagined her son squealing as one of his fathers chased him around the garden, and then the soothing sounds Alex clucked from under his tongue after that little boy had tripped and grazed his knee.

She was not the sentimental sort, had always been far too analytical for that. Where these two were concerned, she felt every single one of her X chromosomes come to life.

She didn’t care that she’d probably be an outcast in her family.

She didn’t care that having two children with two different sets of coloring would declare to the world the type of relationship she had with the two men she shared a house with…

She intended to grab every second of happiness she was lucky enough to be given, and if that meant prodding Alex up his ass, she’d do it. And being prodded up the ass was something he obviously enjoyed if Sebastien’s earlier demonstration was anything to go by. She smirked at the thought and he glared at her.

“What are you laughing at?”

“I’m laughing at you.” She sighed. “I’m not going to give up, you know. You like this apartment, fine. But you are going to live with Sebastien and me. I don’t care if we have to leave
Les Fenêtres
and find somewhere else in the city. Somewhere that suits you.”

“Why are we even talking about this? We’ve only known each other a month.”

She snorted, unoffended. “It’s amazing how we’ve only known each other a month when it comes to talking about this kind of commitment. But when you want me to remember the connection between us, time is irrelevant.” His lips pursed. “Look, you can be just as weird there as you are here!”

At her earnestness, even though the topic obviously irritated him, he laughed. “Oh Devvy, only you could use that to try to persuade me.”

She shook her head, refusing to be disarmed. “No, it’s the truth. Sebastien is really flexible, you know. He is with me, when I get up in the middle of the night to go and work on something. He won’t make any demands on you. You can live exactly as you choose, how you please. You don’t have to share a bedroom with us. If you need your own space, there’s plenty of it at
Les Fenêtres
.”

“Why is this so important to you?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I’m not asking you to do this now. Not even in six months’ time. I want this to be the future. I want us all to be together. It’s the one normal thing we can do. Share a roof. Otherwise…” She sighed. “You can’t be happy feeling like the other person in a marriage. An extra cog in the works, when you’re an integral part. Why feel disjointed when you don’t have to be?