A Deal to Be Done

by Lucy Leven

  She reached out and drew Willeme’s face close, so that he might see the Beast’s might just as closely, and smell it. So that he might taste it. “Lick him,” she whispered. “Taste your master.”

  Gently, obediently, a soft press of lips to the side of the shaft, a tempting, hesitant flutter of tongue. The Beast growled anew, a low, primal sound. Nicolette took him in her mouth again, groaned her pleasure around him as she sucked and suckled, then pulled away, left the Beast even hotter and wetter than when she had begun. She angled the head of him towards Willeme’s tipped-open mouth.

  “There,” she said. “Now you must suck upon him, and tell me how well he tastes.”

  Willeme’s eyes had gone awfully dark, the paleness given way to black, a haze of such heavy pleasure. He did as he was bid, clumsy with his inexperience and his excitement both, but eager. Distantly, under the haze of her own pleasure, Nicolette found thought to think how wonderfully pink his lips looked wrapped around the tip of the Beast’s prick.

  And when at last he pulled away from that prick, after sucking and suckling and lapping for an age, Willeme’s voice was rough with pleasure. “He tastes well.” He licked his lips a time or two. Looked from Nicolette to the Beast, and then back again. “My master tastes well indeed.”

  Nicolette kissed him. She could hardly help herself. She did not wish to help herself. All she wished to do was kiss Willeme again, and so she did: the hot press of their tongues, the nip of her teeth upon those pink lips.

  But then—

  She pulled away. A strange noise from above. Low and vibrato. A magical thing, the ages in it.

  The Beast was growling — a growl that seemed to live in the back of his throat, a constant, tortured sound, a buzz of want and of denial.

  Nicolette looked up at him, stretched there, grip tight once more to the bedstead. She put her hands to his thighs and found the muscles there corded tighter still. He held himself at the edge of pleasure with an extraordinary force of will. And suddenly, contrarily, Nicolette wished to break that resolve. She wished to glimpse the true spirit of the beast within the Beast.

  So she reached for the bottle the Beast had discarded, made her hands all slick with oil, put those hands to him again, and slid and stroked and twisted and teased.

  When she had the Beast as hard as steel, she urged Willeme back to his station, set his soft lips to work, then urged him upwards, where their mouths met at the head of the Beast, and there they sucked and lapped, their tongues all a tangle — a tangle Nicolette intended to madden and harken in equal measure.

  And so it did, for after not so very long at their cruel teasing, Nicolette felt that familiar tightening in the Beast, felt it warm and living under her hands and under her tongue.

  With a coy grin she pulled away and let the Beast spill hot and long across her delicate collarbones and the bountiful curves of her breasts. But Willeme — sweet Willeme — had not read the signs as she had, and so the Beast spilled upon Willeme’s face, upon his crooked nose and his thin mouth, across his ruddy cheeks.

  The Beast heaved a ragged breath. Another. Then, “What a mess you are, lad.”

  He took Willeme by the chin and pulled him upwards, right onto the very tips of his toes, bent so that he might lick him clean, kiss him, taste him, taste himself on Willeme’s tongue.

  But poor, poor, Willeme — he had not yet spent his pleasure, and Nicolette was sure she could yet find hers again. So she pushed him down onto the Beast’s grand bed, arranged him to her liking amidst the furs and the silks, and there she rode him, free and unbidden, as wild as she wished.

  “You are worth having, Willeme,” she told him then. Gripped his face and would not let him look away. “You are worth more than my gold and my jewels. Do you understand?”

  Still she did not look away. Nor did Willeme. And that was why she saw the moment belief bloomed in his pale eyes. Saw when he nodded but a little, his breath hitching and wracked.

  “Good. Believe it then. And believe it always.”

  She kissed Willeme, and he kissed her. The Beast kissed the both of them, all tangled as one.

  And it was the Beast who came to kneel behind her, warmth and strength.

  It was the Beast there to reach around her, as she herself had done to Willeme, to tease at her bud, a slick, sliding touch, wet with her endless pleasure; it was the Beast there to gentle Willeme through his hauling, ragged breaths as he came to his release across the softness of Nicolette’s stomach.

  And it was the Beast there to fetch a cloth to bathe them both clean, to hold them close as they came to rest against the warm, solid expanse of his chest, his arms wrapped sure and safe around them.

  In the heady heat, the sweet scent of the oil lingered in the air, twining with the musk of their pleasure. Nicolette drew her men more tightly to her, made a tangle of them, of their warmth and their strength and their gentleness. And in that tangle, pleasured exhaustion overtook her, and Nicolette slept.

  She slept long, and she slept well.

  A Morning Ride

  When Nicolette awoke, pleasantly sore and wonderfully warm, the light beyond the chamber’s high window was caught in indecision over whether day had yet begun.

  The Beast, already awake, met her eyes over Willeme’s bent head. For Willeme slept yet, his back curled against the Beast’s broad chest, his head tucked under Nicolette’s chin, his cheek lying, bristled but a little, against the upper curve of her soft, plump breasts.

  Nicolette lay with her neck atop the Beast’s arm, stretched as it was under she and Willeme both. The Beast was busy playing, as he often did, with the hair at her nape, twining the curls there, twisting them to a tighter curl.

  “Good morning,” she whispered.

  A smile, so sly and familiar. “Dawn has not yet broken, lass.”

  Nicolette did nothing to hide the rolling of her eyes. “Then it is near enough morning,” she said, and then — as the thought took and would not let go, “and I wish a morning ride.”

  “A morning ride?” the Beast echoed, his brow curving in amusement. He nodded to Willeme. “Then, shall we wake your steed?”

  It was Nicolette’s turn to raise a brow. “Is he not already awoken?”

  The Beast reached out to tweak, once, mischievous, at her tightening nipple. To brush a thumb against her full lower lip. “Can a lady have too many fine steeds, I wonder?”

  “Too many…” Nicolette began, but her breath stuttered in surprise as understanding dawned and hot excitement broke above her horizon. “Oh,” she whispered, already half-gone from just the thought alone. “Oh, Beast. Please.”

  The Beast only smiled at her, no slyness in it, and took back his hand — swept it instead across the furred, firm stretch of Willeme’s chest and stomach, a gently rousing touch.

  Willeme moaned a little with that rousing, coming softly awake, his eyes still heavy with sleep as he crooked back his head and smiled at her.

  Nicolette returned his smile as she took in the lovely sight before her. Willeme’s fine prick was plump and thickening. He had well enjoyed his dreams, that was clear. And he was well enjoying his wakening.

  For Willeme moaned again and arched back into the Beast’s touch, unconsciously pressing his arse to where the Beast’s prick lay — and where Nicolette knew it lay plumping and thickening just the same. Her mouth watered at the thought.

  “Good lad,” the Beast rumbled, setting a kiss amidst Willeme’s dishevelled hair. Then from amidst that tumble, he looked to Nicolette, a mischievous flash of gold in the russet. “A ride, you said, my lady? But now the choice is before you: upon which steed?”

  Nicolette reached down and trailed her fingers along the length of Willeme’s prick. She waited until his wrecked little moan had died away. Watched as his prick strengthened all the more. Then, “But why must I choose, Beast? Why might I not have both?”

  The Beast’s brow ticked again, his amusement clear, his confusion manufactured for Willeme’s benefit and N
icolette’s entertainment. “Both?”

  “Both,” Nicolette said. “Both at once. Do you deny me my pleasure?”

  The gentle, lazy amusement on the Beast’s handsome face softened, and the fondness that replaced it made Nicolette flame anew. “I would never be so cruel, lass.”

  “And that I know.”

  For what she knew was this: that for all the Beast was no man, nor born of the world of man, he was still the kindest man she had ever known.

  And that beast of a man reached across Willeme and pulled her to him, one strong arm around her soft waist, her bottom tucked in his lap, pressed soft atop his hard, leaking prick, her thighs spread wide across his broad and muscled thighs.

  “Both at once,” he whispered in her ear, a shiver of sensation. “Like this?” he asked, a shadow of a jape in his voice.

  And Nicolette knew it, for she spun herself and straddled him instead, so that her breasts pressed fast and plump to his chest, heaving upward. And it was her turn to whisper in his ear when she said, amused, “That is not a prick to ride below the crupper, Beast.”

  “Many have taken it so.”

  “Then many are fools,” Nicolette said. She kissed him, a dry press of smiling lips. “Or have been made fools by their hunger for that outrageous prick of yours.”

  “And you are no fool, lass,” he said on his sly, slow smile.

  She returned that smile. “Not fool enough, Beast. I shall have you this way, and Willeme that way.” She looked over her shoulder and found Willeme watching them, his eyes stormy with lust and wide with confusion.

  “I do not understand—” he began.

  But Nicolette stopped him, her hand to his strong chest, her nails the slightest, grounding nip, though her voice was low and honied. “Have you never partaken in the thrilling act of buggery, my dear, gentle Willeme?”

  Willeme’s eyes widened further, gone white at the edges, and his gaze fixed, suddenly, to the pale plumpness of her bottom. “You do not mean…”

  “Oh,” the Beast said, his warm laugh a thrilling breath against Nicolette’s fever-hot skin, “but she does, lad. She does.”

  He reached for the oil bottle then, uncorked it with sure fingers that he oiled just the same. And with Willeme’s eyes upon them, and with Nicolette’s eyes upon Willeme, the Beast reached around, reached down, and made her slippery and wanting, within and without.

  “Oh, the gods,” Willeme whispered, his eyes so very wide, so entirely unblinking, the black in them blown huge and shining. “Oh, the gods in the heavens.”

  “This is no time to speak of gods,” Nicolette told him, trying and failing to fight the fond smile that stole across her lips. She took him by the hand and pulled him across the bed to her. “Both of you,” she commanded, “inside of me. As one.”

  A thrumming heartbeat later, and the Beast obliged her, the press of him and the stretch of him overwhelming and intimate both as one.

  Nicolette stilled for a moment but to breathe around the sensation of him filling her, so full and so well and so wonderfully familiar. But yet, the unfamiliar she craved too. So, “Willeme,” she said, drawing him closer still. She pushed back against him, arched back, so that she was open and ready for him. The Beast, sheathed deep, swelled pleasure within her and growled it against the soft skin of her neck. But Nicolette wanted more. She wanted so much more. “Take me, Willeme,” she whispered, her voice breaking around a ragged little moan. “Please,” she begged. “I want you inside of me, sweet Willeme. Please. Oh, please.”

  But Willeme did not oblige her in the same easy manner as the Beast. Instead, he seemed frozen, staring down at his achingly hard prick, at her pale bottom, at where the Beast and Nicolette became one, the hot, wet clutch of it. “But I might hurt you,” he said. “It is too much, surely.”

  Nicolette shook her head. Turned a little more. Tangled her hand in his hair, pulled him close and kissed him deep. “You will not hurt me,” she said, her lips brushing his. “You would never hurt me, Willeme.”

  “No,” Willeme said — immediately, reverently. “I would never. Never, my lady. Nicolette, never.”

  And there was so much truth to his words that they made Nicolette shiver almost as much as the Beast’s hot, all-encompassing touch. But her own words were gone from her. She wanted Willeme so badly, and she had no words to tell him such. So she looked to the Beast, pleading in her gaze, and the Beast, as always, obliged.

  He reached out, replaced her hand with his own and ran a soft, quieting touch through Willeme’s dark hair. “All you need do is be gentle, lad,” he said. “Gentle in your coming and slow at your work.”

  So gentle Willeme was, that coming into her then a hesitant, careful press, and slow he was too, a maddening, seemingly never-ending slide that sparked sensation upon Nicolette’s every nerve.

  When he sheathed himself fully, his groin pressed tight to her bottom, a feeling of such overcoming fullness came over her, so full she could hardly think. And so Nicolette did not. For a moment and a moment more she simply revelled in her pleasure, and in the heat of the two men she took that pleasure from.

  Then — the Beast moved. Slow at first, careful of her comfort, but soon with more vigour when he knew she had that comfort. “You take this well, lass,” he told her, his voice a thrilling rumble, a whisper across her ear. “You take us both so well.”

  Nicolette’s words came back to her on a wave of overwhelming pleasure. They spilled out of her, unbidden and true. “Oh, but you feel so well. Both of you. Oh, both of you inside of me…”

  And it seemed that to hear herself speak those words was almost as striking as the sensation. Her thighs, stretched so wide, shook uncontrollably. She had never felt so — never so full, so enveloped, never so cared for and pleasured, never so overwhelmed in her pleasure and in sheer, unadulterated sensation. She moaned, sweet and broken.

  And at the sound of her first undoing, Willeme found his courage. He moved, a short stroke that sparked a firestorm of want through Nicolette’s being. He moved again, a stronger motion, in time for but a moment with the Beast’s own gentle thrust. The feel of that was startling and sparkling, and how Nicolette wanted more of it. She gasped through a broken moan, and Willeme’s own gasp, loud in her ear, made clear that he felt the same.

  Nicolette turned her head, so that she might bite at his jaw, nip stinging kisses across his thin, kind mouth.

  “Can you feel him, Willeme?” she asked, hearing how roughened with pleasure her voice sounded. “Can you feel him through me? The great—” She gasped as the Beast slid to sheath himself once more “—the great stretch and the press of him?”

  Willeme nodded against her neck, where his own breath caught and stuttered. It seemed that words had gone from him again, and Nicolette could blame him not. They would be gone from her soon too.

  But first.

  “You must move, Willeme. Find your pleasure. Take it, and give it to me. I want you to. Please,” she begged, and her voice broke around her plea.

  Willeme moved. Still hesitant in his motion, and so careful of her comfort, he moved. He reached for the oil and trickled more at the hot clutch of their joining, where they came together as one. He wished to make her ready, Nicolette thought.

  But she was already beyond all readiness. She did not need more oil, but she took pleasure in the slip and slide of it anyway, thrilled in the sharp slickness of Willeme’s grip at her hips as he held her steady and pushed up into her — slowly, carefully, hotly.

  The Beast and Willeme moved together, tentative at first, then with more certainty as they found their rhythm together again, and into her they thrust in perfect time.

  It was a sensation such as Nicolette had never known, to be so full and claimed and taken. For though she had known many men, she had never known them thus, two as one, full of gentleness and tenderness.

  Her own pleasure rose within her again, impossibly high. It tried to steal her words away, just as she knew it would. But she needed mor
e. She needed to see—

  “Kiss him,” Nicolette said. “Kiss your master, Willeme.”

  Her face was so close to Willeme’s and the Beast’s both that she heard the scratch of stubble as their mouths met. She saw the flash of their tangling tongues, heard Willeme’s hitching gasps as the Beast wound his fingers through his hair and tugged so that he might bite at Willeme’s jaw, just as Nicolette had, so that he might overlay the little biting kisses she had left behind.

  Willeme looked at her then, and his eyes were so wide and so black that their paleness was all-but conquered by his sheer, wild pleasure.

  She kissed him, kissed the Beast, kissed them both, so gone then in her own pleasure that she could not reckon where one of her men ended and the other began. She was awash with sensation. Lost in it. Aglow with it. Caught up in the flames of it.

  With a rending cry, those flames soared high, a plume of light and heat, around her and within her. She broke apart on it, so full of pleasure, so wracked with it, so sated. And Nicolette’s pleasure, rippling through her, harkened Willeme’s and the Beast’s both, spilling that pleasure and drawing it from them, filling her with it, kissing her with it as they kissed her, as their mouths tangled together anew, as if they were not three beings, but simply one — a creature formed of pleasures unknown.

  A Palace Awaits

  The Beast and Willeme both slept late into the day. Nicolette did not. A harkening had awakened in her, some strange yearning to explore the castle anew, to set it firm in her mind’s eye.

  For the call that Madame de La Roche had spoken of — that call of a world beyond the castle — had already begun. She could feel it in her marrow, feel her own world budding and blossoming, tilting up towards the sun.

  A whole world to see. A whole new world to know.

  Through the gardens she wandered, through the castle’s halls and passageways, to the baths and the kitchens, to the towers and the solars, the library and the long gallery, and in the ballroom she found what she had not known she was looking for.