Jeweled (26 page)

Anatol gritted his teeth. He fought the desire to lash out at Gregorio from a place of jealousy, but doing that would only cause him to lose Evangeline. He needed to come to terms with this truth. “All right. That sounds great.”

“How are you going to find the time, Gregorio?” Evangeline asked. “You work so much.”

Anatol watched Gregorio glance at her lingeringly while her head was down as she sipped her tea. “I have reason to take some time off.”

Evangeline froze, blinked, and then took a quick sip of tea as if to cover her reaction to his words.

“Anyway,” Gregorio continued, “the Council is going to have to start pulling its weight as a uniform body of governance. That won’t start until I take a step back from it.”

“Well, good. I think it’s wonderful that you’ve decided to back away a little.” Evangeline stood and set her empty cup on the table. “I think I’ll go up and have a bath before dinner.” She walked over and gave Gregorio a kiss on the cheek. Closing her eyes and touching his sleeve, she lingered. “Thank you for a most incredible day.”

“It’s only the first of many wonders I would like to show you, Evangeline.”

She smiled in response. Then she turned from Gregorio, kissed Anatol on the cheek, and left the room.

Gregorio watched her leave the room. “She’s wonderful. Like no other woman I’ve ever met.”

“Or will meet. Evangeline is unique. I always knew she was, even at Belai, even when she was in the grip of her gift’s backlash, with all those walls built up around her.”

Gregorio turned. “But she needed those walls. I see fear in her now; she feels too much, too strongly. She doesn’t know how to deal with it all. Those walls, no matter that they made her into a cold person who had no empathy for others, protected her. Now it’s like—”

“Like she’s walking around with her heart on the outside, just waiting for someone to stab it.”

Gregorio turned back to the mantel and let out a breath. “Yes.”

“Those walls were never any good for her. I hope they never come back. She needs to find a better way to deal with her gift.” Anatol drew a breath. “I think I know how we can do that.”

“We?”

“You have feelings for Evangeline.” It wasn’t a question since he already knew the answer.

Gregorio said nothing for a long moment, keeping his back turned to Anatol. “I’ve never felt this way about another person in my life.” He sounded defeated. “You love her, too. I know I need to back away.”

“No, you don’t.”

Gregorio turned to face him.

Anatol smiled. “I told you I see into the truth of people. You don’t just want to
fuck her
. There’s love there, too. You appreciate her, care about her, want to protect her. She needs all of that. She’s like a dry sponge. Fill her up. And I will, too. We’ll work together to make Evangeline bloom.”

Gregorio shook his head. “If you love her, how can you want to share her?”

“It’s
because
I love her that I’m
willing
to share her. She’s too damaged for one man alone. She needs both of us to balance her. If she doesn’t get that balance and stability, she’ll run away from me. Be my partner, Gregorio.”

Gregorio turned his back on him. “You’re insane.”

“Maybe.” Anatol paused. “Think about it.”

Gregorio turned to him, one hand resting on the mantel. “I don’t need to think about it. I want her. I don’t care about your reasons for wanting to share her.” He rubbed his hand over his mouth, considering him. “But I don’t understand your motivations. You could tell me to fuck off right now and I would. You’d have her to yourself.”

Anatol paused, considering best how to explain things. “I will lose Evangeline eventually if I can’t make her completely open up to love. I need your help to do that. If I want to keep her in my life, I need to add you to my life as well. I love Evangeline and I want what’s best for her. What’s best for her is you and me,
together
. The gift of my magick has shown me this is true.”

“So you want us to enter into a three-way relationship—you, me, and Evangeline.”

“Yes.”

Gregorio’s gaze flicked to him. “I’m not into men.”

“I’m not either. I’m not proposing anything directly sexual between the two of us. I propose that she is the woman we both want and need, and we are the men she needs. I propose that our relationship holds her in the middle, that she is its focus.”

“And you think she wants that, too?”

“I think she
needs
that. She needs us both. She just doesn’t understand it yet. I’m not saying that it will be easy, not with a woman as hurt as Evangeline.”

“You know her better than I do.”

Anatol took a moment to answer. “Growing with up her, I always knew there was a jewel beneath the ice. That ice has thawed and we’re lucky enough to be in the presence of the sapphire.”

“Sapphire? Is that what you see her as?”

“Deep blue, emotional, vibrant, beautiful. I think they chose well when they selected the sapphire to represent her jewel.”

“She’s a strong woman and kind.”

“She wasn’t always. Ah, well, she was always strong. The kindness is only a recent thing. She’s becoming more the woman she would have been if she hadn’t grown up at Belai.”

Gregorio sighed, glancing into the fire. “Do you think she would like to meet her family? She seems unsure.”

“I don’t know. I think she wants to find them, but she’s frightened she’ll be rejected by them. I don’t see a rational basis for that fear, but I understand it.”

“I have access to the records at Belai. I think I could track down their location.” Gregorio rubbed his chin. “Do you think I should?”

Anatol gritted his teeth for a moment. If Gregorio found her family, she might favor Gregorio over him. He gave his head a sharp shake. Damn it.
Jealousy.
If this was going to work he needed to defeat that emotion. He’d known it would be difficult. “Do it. She should at least be given the choice.”

Gregorio said nothing for several moments. The clock in the room ticked off the seconds as the large man leaned on the mantel. “And in this new relationship, what about jealousy?”

Joshui, it was like Gregorio had magickal empathy of his own. “It will be present. We’ll have to deal with it.”

He nodded. “I have nothing to lose in trying, but everything to gain in succeeding.”

Anatol nodded. “Good.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little high-handed, deciding what’s best for Evangeline without even asking her?”

Anatol shrugged. “It may be high-handed, but it’s for the best. I can see truths that she can’t. The danger is in making Evangeline realize this is for the best before she flees.”

Gregorio raised his eyebrows. “Flees?”

“If we manage to draw Evangeline into a relationship with us, she will discover that she’s deeply in love with both of us. It’s going to frighten her.”

“And you think she’ll leave us then?”

“I hope not.”

Gregorio let out a careful breath. “You just gave my fantasy to me on a platter and now you’re taking it away.”

“I see truth. I can’t predict the future.”

Gregorio looked at him, his gaze hard. “I want her.”

“Then take her.”

 

 

Evangeline reentered the study, seeing the two men staring at each other intently, as if they’d been discussing something of great importance. She immediately felt uncomfortable alone with the two of them—especially now that she’d had sex with Gregorio. She’d been with both of them. They both wanted her.

And she wanted both of them.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, forcing a smile.

“What else would we be talking about?” asked Anatol. “Or who else, I should say.”

Her cheeks heated. She hesitated in the doorway and almost left the room. She had a good book resting on her bedside table. But that would be too much like running away and she wasn’t doing that anymore.

She stepped into the room. “It’s not polite to talk about people when they’re not present,” she tried to say lightly. Wrapping her silk bathrobe closer around her, she walked over to sit at the fire, comb in her hand.

“All right, then we can talk about you while you’re here.” Anatol’s voice held a note of mischievousness. “Do you think she’s beautiful, Gregorio?” He asked from his place at the couch, amber liquid in his glass swirling as he examined it.

The emotion in the room surged—lust, love. Mostly lust, coming from Gregorio. It made her knees go weak. She clutched the comb until it hurt her hand. It was a good thing she was sitting down.

“Of course I do.” Gregorio’s voice came out clipped and a little harsh. “She knows I do.”

She gave Anatol a cold smile. “It’s also not polite to talk about someone who is in the room as if they’re
not
in the room.”

“Play the game, my love. You know you want to.” Anatol smiled down into his glass, but didn’t look up at her. “Evangeline finds both of us attractive, don’t you, Evangeline?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. “I do. I fail to see the merit to this line of conversation.”

“She has the most exquisite breasts; don’t you think so, Gregorio? They’re the perfect size and shape. A man could worship them for hours.”

Gregorio glanced at her and she colored. “Given a chance, I might try,” he answered with a twist to his lips.

“Anatol.” She’d meant his name to come out as a warning, but her voice sounded shaky and a little excited instead.

“And her sex. It’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I wouldn’t know,” answered Gregorio.

Anatol lifted his head. “You haven’t seen it?”

Evangeline’s mouth went dry. She knew what Anatol was doing and she wasn’t sure she was ready for it. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for it. At Belai she’d slept with two men at once, two women—once two men and another woman. But this was different. Oh, so much different.

This time she wanted it. This time she would enjoy it. This time there was emotion in it. These men were special.

This time it would mean something.

Gregorio looked at her with such a massive amount of sexual hunger on his face that it made her stomach do a backflip. “I took her up against a wall, skirts raised. I fucked her cunt, but I never had an opportunity to see it.”

Evangeline cleared her throat, half of her wanting to end the game and the other half wanting to see where it might go. Being with Anatol alone was mind-numbingly wonderful. Being with Gregorio had provided erotic delights she’d never before known. Both of them together would be an experience worthy of heaven. “I am, as you can both see, still very much in the room. Have you any awareness of your immediate surroundings?”

Anatol finally looked at her with lazy, heavy-lidded eyes. “Oh, I think we’re both very aware of our immediate surroundings. We’re both
very
aware of you right now, Evangeline. You are, by far, the most important person in this room to us both.”

“What are you doing, Anatol?”

“I’m simply asking Gregorio if he would like to see your sex. Would you like to show it to him, Evangeline? It’s a beautiful thing.”

She glanced at Gregorio, who was watching her like a hawk, his dark eyes bright under his hooded gaze. She licked her lips and felt herself flush harder.

“What emotions do you feel from us right now?”

Her answer came quick, since she was being bombarded with them. “Lust. Hunger. Yearning.” She paused, her breathing quickening. “Love.”

The first three things she knew what to do with, but not the fourth.

When she didn’t move, Anatol set his glass aside, rose, and walked over to her.Taking her hand, he helped her stand, then walked her over to a table. Sliding her robe off her shoulders, it dropped and pooled at her feet. He tilted her chin up to his face and kissed her long and tenderly. Then he slid the bodice of her nightgown down over her breasts. It gathered weight and fell into a puddle around her feet, leaving her in only her panties. Soon those were gone, too.

Now she was completely naked in a room with two fully clothed, very aroused men. Her body tingled, sparked. Two men who wanted her. Not just for her body, or for what she might be able to do for them at Court, or how she might look on their arm. They wanted her, the whole Evangeline.

Incredible flaws and all.

Anatol leaned in, nipped her lower lip and then laved the tiny hurt with his tongue. “Get onto the table and part your thighs.”

Trembling with desire, she slid onto the table and spread her legs. The chill air kissed her sex, but Gregorio’s gaze heated her.

He cleared his throat and fidgeted, almost like a schoolboy. It made a smile touch her lips. This was a large, imposing man, one of the most powerful in all the country—and she could make him nervous simply by spreading her thighs.