the other until now.
“Alain,” Gerard said in the voice that made Mira shudder anew with fresh longing. “Have you pleased our lady?”
Alain withdrew his fingers from Mira’s center and slid them along his lips. “I think so, Gerard. But only just once, so far.”
Gerard’s lips skinned back from his teeth in a grin so feral and frightening Mira let out a startled squeak. “We’ll have to remedy that, won’t we?”
They meant to take her at the same time, she saw, and her heart threatened to fly entirely out of her chest, so fiercely did it pound. She’d experienced every intimacy a woman and man could share with both men in front of her, but the thought of them both taking her, both touching her…both fucking her! She shook at the thought.
“What do you suggest?” Alain asked and pinned her with his gaze.
Gerard came up behind him and cupped the back of Alain’s neck in a gesture so intimate Mira’s breath lodged in her throat. She’d known the men were close, and had oft wondered at their friendship, but the way Gerard touched Alain gave proof to what had only been a thought. They were lovers, too.
She’d heard of men who preferred the company of their own sex, yet she knew both of these men to be fervent and skilled lovers. Gerard’s smile grew broader at what must have been a puzzled look upon her face. Alain reached to stroke her cheek, perhaps in reassurance.
“We only want to please you,” Alain said.
Gerard nodded and crooked his finger to her. So accustomed to obeying him had she become, Mira stepped at once toward him. Gerard kissed her as skillfully but with less tenderness than Alain. When he probed without warning between her thighs, she cried out. Her knees sagged a little, but Alain caught her.
“We will take care of you, my lady,” he said. “Don’t fear.”
“I’m not afraid.” Mira wet her lips. Something kindled deep within her. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
“Take off your gown,” Gerard ordered.
Mira didn’t hesitate, though the garden was bright with sunshine and would provide no shadow to hide her nakedness from the eyes of anyone passing. Gerard had commanded it, and so she did it, her nipples already peaked and throbbing and her sex dewed. She tugged open the laces of her gown and dropped the material to the ground, then stepped out of it.
“She is so beautiful, Gerard.”
“She is, indeed, brother of my heart. She is indeed. I want you to get on your knees for her and pleasure her with your tongue.”
Alain ducked his head in acquiescence and Mira parted her legs to allow him access. His tongue, hot and sleek, dove straight to her center and licked and swirled on her until her hips began to rock. She kept her balance with one hand on Alain’s shoulder, but the other drifted from breast to breast, pinching her nipples as Gerard watched, his eyes gleaming.
The front of his breeches tented and he pulled the laces free to push them down over his strong, muscled thighs. His shirt came off over his head until he stood as naked as she. The sun was kind to him, casting him in glittering rays of gold, as if he’d been covered in gilt.
Alain still knelt between her legs, his midnight-black hair streaming over his shoulders. Mira climaxed under his tongue as Gerard watched. Alain kissed her and drew back as Gerard came forward to claim her mouth. When he pulled away, Alain had stripped as well.
Side by side, their differences only proved how well-matched they were. Dark and light.
“Key and lock,” Mira said aloud. “Both of you.”
“And you the door that makes us worth our function,” Alain said as though teasing, but the instant he spoke the words Mira knew them as truth.
“Get on that bench,” Gerard told her. “Alain is going to make love to you now.”
“Oh, yes,” she breathed and settled herself at once onto the carved wooden bench overlooking her favorite flowerbed. Far from being too hard or uncomfortable against her bare skin, the smooth, sun-warmed wood caressed her as she lay back and opened her legs for Alain.
He slid inside her with ease, both of them groaning when he sank to the hilt. He paused before thrusting, but when he began his motions were slow and steady. The bench was high enough off the ground that he could stand, knees slightly bent, to press into her. His hands gripped her hips as he thrust, and when Mira cried out one of them left her curves to stroke her clitoris in time to his thrusts.
The pleasure swept over her in waves so strong they brought tears to her eyes. Alain moved inside her as Mira blinked away the blur and murmured words of encouragement…and love.
It was love, she realized with a wonder even the mind-fuzzing pleasure couldn’t conceal. She loved Alain for his tenderness and gallantry, and her orgasm swept over her as she cried the words over and over.
Alain shouted out his reply as his hips rocked inside her and slowed. They stared into each other’s eyes, smiling, and Mira only looked away when she saw Gerard appear over Alain’s shoulder.
“I love you, too, Gerard,” she said and gave a low cry as Alain’s thrust began another surge of climax building inside her. She loved Gerard for his command and discipline of her.
Each of them gave her something different, something she’d craved without knowing it. She loved them both, and at last understood how to break the curse.
Gerard and Alain seemed to have come to the same realization as Mira, for Gerard again cupped the back of Alain’s neck with one large hand. Watching the men kiss sent a thrill through Mira unlike any other she’d experienced. It would have been easy to fear their fondness for each other, to worry she’d have no place with them, but Alain had said she was the door and now, more than ever, Mira felt it.
Gerard kissed Alain but briefly, for Alain still thrust ever so slowly in and out of Mira. Gerard moved behind Alain. His hands gripped Alain’s hips, and in a moment Mira felt the added pressure of Gerard’s thrust inside Alain. The two men moved in perfect tandem, in and out. Alain cried out, his fingers on Mira’s clit pausing their circling, and it was the hesitation in the stimulation that sent her over the edge once more.
Together, the three of them fucked. Together, they made love. And when Gerard cried out first her name and then Alain’s, and Alain shuddered and grunted with his climax, Mira tipped once again into a spiral of ecstasy so great all she could do was let it sweep her away nearly to oblivion.
When they had untangled themselves from her and from each other, Mira kissed and embraced the two men who’d come through her garden gate and changed her life forever. One fair, the other dark. Gilt and midnight, her own dual nature split into two lovers, each providing the final piece of what she needed to love.
More than that.
Each what she needed to be complete.
CHAPTER ONE
HE WAS STARING AT HER. THOUGH SHE DIDN’T look—why ruin the game so soon—she felt the heat of his dark chocolate gaze cruising down her neck to her partially bare breasts and beyond, taking in every detail of her new dress and the body that lay beneath it. She’d thought of him when she’d chosen the red silk. Imagined his expression the first time he saw her in it and the unbelievable pleasure she would feel as he slowly peeled her out of it.
He shifted in his seat and a shiver of pure liquid lust shot through her at the simple movement, though she caught it only out of the corner of her eye. She shouldn’t be this attuned to him—it just wasn’t normal, no matter what wicked, wonderful things she’d let him do to her body for the last three months. And, she admitted, she’d let him do a lot. She’d given him everything he asked for and more; so much more that it disturbed her sometimes.
She didn’t know how to deal with this…obsession. Annalise cringed at the word, but could