Hers To Keep: THE QUINTESSENCE COLLECTION I

by Akeroyd, Serena

  “How could that be a bad thing?

  “And yet, to average people, who can’t understand anything outside of the pigeonhole of their boring worlds, what we have is wrong. Alien. Not to be allowed.” He pursed his lips and rocked back in his more modern ergonomic monster of a chair. “How can that be right?”

  When he put it like that, what could she say but, “It isn’t.”

  He nodded. Apparently satisfied by her concession. “Allow yourself to be happy with us, Sascha. Don’t worry about the outside world. The others did,” he said with a grunt. “I tried to talk to them. Make them see what society wanted wasn’t important, that that wouldn’t keep them warm at night. They didn’t listen.” He pressed his head back against the rest. “Why do you want to be a part of our family?”

  She stared at him, astonished by his wisdom when he was more like the Rain Man sometimes than a living, breathing man with a heart and soul. That probably sounded cold, but Mr. Calculator was capable of a clinicalness that was quite astonishing.

  “I like how you interact.”

  “Explain.”

  “Your dynamic, it suits me.” When he cocked a brow, she knew he wasn’t going to let this drop. “I get bored, Devon. It’s a nasty fact, but I do.”

  “Bored about what?”

  “Just… everything. I’m quite smart,” she confessed. “Nothing like you.”

  “That’s relative,” he immediately countered. “Intelligence is a bottomless pool. I’m capable of making millions but paying the electricity bill? It’s beyond me.”

  “True,” she conceded, liking and appreciating his instant defense of her. Protecting her from herself… it warmed her. “Housekeeping doesn’t really excite me, but it keeps me with a roof over my head and puts food in my belly.”

  “That’s enough?”

  “There’s not much of a challenge.”

  “Do you want a challenge?”

  “Sometimes.” She pursed her lips as she put the pizza box on the floor, trying not to stain anything too important with grease from the oily base. “I’m lazy. I don’t know what I want.”

  “Maybe it’s enough for you to be… domestic.”

  With anyone else, she’d probably have bristled at that, but he didn’t mean it offensively. Well, he never did. But in this, it was a simple suggestion. “I think sometimes it is, but then, when I check Facebook and see my friends are all achieving so much? I feel badly.”

  “Don’t compare yourself to them. You’re living in London, one of the world’s most expensive and most beautiful cities. You’ve already achieved more than they ever can. Living in foreign countries broadens the mind in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.”

  “You sound like you’ve lived elsewhere?”

  His eyes shuttered a little, a realization that interested her because she’d never seen that before. Never seen him physically react to anything she said. “When I was a child, I lived in Germany for a few years. My father was in the army, and we have bases there. I also lived in Italy for a time.”

  “Wow, that’s awesome.”

  “Not really. But I remember, and my time there changed me.”

  “For the good?”

  “Not necessarily, but not for the bad either.”

  “Why do I feel like you’re talking in riddles?”

  He just looked at her. “I don’t know. Why do you?”

  Realizing she was facing a verbal wall, she filed that information away, knowing she’d ask one of the others about this topic of conversation. It was unlike Devon to filter himself. But he was. Without question.

  When silence fell between them, she was uncertain of what to say. He was studying her, and she wriggled uneasily in her seat until he asked, “Would you like to go back to school?”

  Her brow puckered. “To study what?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever you want. Pottery. Archery. Fencing?”

  She blinked. “Why would I want to?”

  “Challenges don’t have to be career-oriented. It’s just this crazy world that makes it seem like that. We’re all rats in the race,” he informed her sadly. “But you don’t have to be one.”

  “You’re not a rat,” she scoffed. “None of you. As far as I can tell, you all work for the fun of it. For the challenge,” she accepted with a nod of her head.

  “To some extent. We’re all passionate about what we do that’s for sure. I don’t have a choice, and because I don’t have a choice, Sawyer usually bustles along with me.” Sadness seemed to line his features for a second before it flashed out of existence. “If it would make you happy, then feel free to look at courses or classes.”

  “That’s not fair,” she said softly. “I didn’t decide to start this so I could take advantage of you.”

  “I never imagined you did. But you have, and things will change as a result. You’re no longer just an employee, Sascha, and we’re no longer employers. Surely you can see that?”

  She blinked at him, realizing he was right. She’d inadvertently tipped the balance, and though it wasn’t something she’d ever regret, she hoped they could work together to restore equilibrium because the last thing she wanted was for their dynamic to change.

  Sascha wanted to merge into their world. Not alter it.

  That realization was probably more confusing than anything else that had happened that day, and she didn’t even know why.

  Six

  “I’m surprised.”

  “At what?”

  As one of his favorite songs—Muse’s Feeling Good—played on the radio, Sean watched as Sascha pulled a fancy U-turn in the tight parking lot, then made a few more moves as she parallel parked in a space he wouldn’t have tried to get in with a Mini. She did it with an ease that bemused him.

  “Most men don’t like it when women drive them.”

  He huffed. “I’m not most men.” He craned his neck, watching as she effortlessly straightened the large Caddy, then with a flourish, shut off the engine and put on the handbrake. “You did that like a pro.” Hell, she drove better than he did.

  She beamed at him. “This baby handles like a dream. She drives me.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “This space is tiny. I wouldn’t have dared.”

  “You’re a wuss,” she teased as she started to climb out of the car, but he grabbed her arm, and stopped her.

  “Are you okay?”

  She blinked at him. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Her gaze softened, and she stunned him by reaching up and cupping his cheek. Her thumb caressed the bridge of his cheekbone, and he tried not to melt at the simple, affectionate touch. “I’m very sure.”

  “I still think this is all starting far too quickly,” he said, annoyed by his fretting tone, but accepting it nonetheless…he was fretting, and he didn’t care if that made him a pansy to admit to that or not.

  She didn’t know it, but she had the ability to destroy their ordered world.

  The fall out of her leaving would have repercussions she’d never foresee, never imagine. Why would she? She didn’t know how delicate Devon’s mental health was. How Kurt’s was just as precarious.

  They were men, and it seemed the world thought they were infallible because they had a dick.

  No one was infallible. It was folly to think otherwise.

  Even dicks hurt.

  “It didn’t start quickly enough for me,” she confessed softly. “I wanted you from the start.”

  “You think I didn’t?” He shook his head. “I wish things were simpler,” he told her softly, tilting his head a little so he could press a kiss to the base of her hand.

  “Things are never simple. Haven’t you realized that?” she whispered, and he saw she’d closed her eyes at his gentle kiss.

  “Did you spend the night with Devon?”

  She smiled and nodded, all with her eyes shut. “He’s a bed hog.”

  He chuckled. “Comes as no surprise. He’s a spoiled brat.”

&n
bsp; “Hardly.” She winked at him. “He’s just unique.”

  “For unique read brat,” he huffed. “Did he sleep?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’ll probably hog you too if you can help him sleep better.” His lips twitched. “Although, considering we’re usually worried about him not sleeping enough, that will take a weight off our minds.”

  She smiled a little. “You see? How can I not be charmed by this world of yours? You care. I feel like…” A shake of her head told him she was finding it hard to put the words together. “Well, like nobody cares anymore. I can stay close with my friends in the US, but do you know how few people I know here? Even after so many years here?”

  “You’re lonely?”

  “I-I guess. The way you live, it’s like a dream. You all care for one another. I love that. It’s how I want to be. Where I want to be.”

  “You don’t know all the facts,” he said softly. “They might change how you feel.”

  “Tell me them, and let me decide for myself.”

  “They’re not my secrets to tell, and they’re deep, Sascha. Not facts I can just lay down in black and white. They need to be entrusted to you.”

  “Well, isn’t that how relationships work? You don’t just blurt out your deepest darkest secrets to people you don’t know.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “There’s no supposing about it,” she teased. “Can’t we just let this go with the flow, Mr. Micromanager?”

  He grinned. “I am, aren’t I?”

  “You’re trying to,” she asserted, “but there’s no point. This has to form naturally. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll all be sad I’m sure, but if we don’t try, then there’s nothing to work with, no?”

  “Does that mean you’ll let me zip up your dresses in the changing rooms?”

  Her laughter warmed his heart. “Didn’t realize you were like Kurt.”

  Sean’s grin turned sheepish. “I still can’t believe he did that.”

  “What? Watched me climax with another man?” Her laughter morphed into a hoot. “It surprised me more, let me tell you. Still made me come though. Hard, too. It was hot as hell.” She peered at him through her lashes. “He does that often?”

  “From time to time.”

  She reached forward, stunning the hell out of him by pressing a kiss to his nose. Before he could do more than process the ease with which she touched him affectionately, she was out of the car. Ducking down to stare at him through the driver’s door, she chided, “Come on, then. I have dresses I need you to help me into.”

  Though he laughed, his cock stirred not only at the notion but at her tits, which—in her tight V-neck blousy dress, a first for her as he usually saw her in skirts—were dangerously close to falling free from the neckline.

  “My eyes are up here, Sean,” she teased, then she grabbed both of them and squeezed. “I’ll let you play later.”

  The heat in her eyes matched the heat in his body. He chuckled. Somehow feeling a thousand pounds lighter because of her jovial ease as he climbed out of the car and studied her parking job while her swaying hips attached to that fine ass of hers headed to the parking meter.

  Upon her return, he admitted, “You did a damn fine job.”

  She curtsied, pulling out her skirts then letting them flutter around her calves. “I always was good at the maneuvers,” she told him conversationally. “I just couldn’t stop crashing into things.”

  His eyes widened as she displayed the ticket on the dash, and then locked up the car, stacking the keys in her purse which she tucked under her arm.

  “What are you gawking at?” she asked, brows high.

  “You. You crashed into things? In a moving vehicle?”

  “Well, I’m not a genius but without motion, there is no crash.” She blinked prettily up at him. “Now who’s the smarty-pants?”

  He grunted. “How many times did you crash?”

  “I totaled a couple of cars,” she admitted, no shame to her tone, mind. Which had Sean’s heart clutching with terror. “My dad kept getting mad, especially at the insurance premiums so he bought me the Caddy. He knew I loved vintage cars as much as I loved everything else vintage. He figured, and he was right, I’d learn to be more careful in a ride like that.”

  “That was a lot of faith he had in you,” Sean said cautiously as she tucked her arm through his and they stepped off the side road where they’d parked, and headed for Regent’s Street, which was barely a street away. They were approaching from Langham Place, and just around the corner, the delight that was Regent’s Park was near to hand.

  Though Regent’s Street was probably where she usually shopped, he knew he’d have to direct her to Mayfair. The event Andrei was going to attend was… well, it called for a gown from one of London’s most expensive districts.

  As they headed onto the curving road with its tall and looming Victorian architecture, he grimaced at the sight of the crowds. Even this early in the morning, there were heaps of people.

  Tourists, residents, workers alike.

  They all bustled to and fro, adding to the mania of the moment. The busy streets teamed with cars, and bright red double decker buses were an incongruous sight as they married modern city living with history. Black cabs darted in and out of traffic, and bells from bicycles rang and hooted as people darted across the street without looking both ways first.

  All in all, it wasn’t hard to remember why he tended to buy things in bulk from his tailor on Savile Row. Shopping wasn’t, and never had been, a fun pastime for him. Not so for Sascha, he could see though.

  The teeming humanity had distracted him. Enough to realize he was waiting on a response from her. She jolted him from his thoughts as he tried to maneuver around an old man in a disability scooter who was intent on crashing into their ankles.

  “Dad always believed in me,” she murmured softly, tone just sorrowful enough to have him flashing a concerned glance at her. To be honest, he’d thought she wasn’t going to reply, had mistaken her silence for avoidance. “He just didn’t believe in me enough to allow our relationship to grow after my mother died.”

  Hearing her sadness at that, a sadness he felt for her, he murmured, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” She tightened her hold on his arm and straightened her back. “Thank you though. What about you? Your family? Devon mentioned something last night, and it made me wonder…”

  “What did he say?” Sean asked, bewildered at the notion of Devon even mentioning anything to do with his kin. He loathed his father, and Sean couldn’t blame him.

  “He told me that he was basically an army brat. That he lived in Italy and Germany. But he also said that you were all so close because, and I quote, ‘everyone leaves.’”

  He grimaced. “Devon takes things too literally sometimes.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that,” she pshawed. “I was just wondering what he meant.”

  “They all believe we’re gay and living in some kind of London-gay-Big Love household. Kurt’s mother gets pissy about his living here, they consider it a kind of defection.”

  “Jesus. What year is it? 1958?”

  He snorted. “They’re old fashioned. And, to be honest, old. He was a late baby. It’s sad though. He wants to visit from time to time, but they won’t see him.” Not since Kurt had divorced, at any rate.

  Her grip on his arm tightened. “That’s sad.”

  “It’s how they want it.”

  “Does he get upset about it?”

  “Not that you’d know.” Sean shrugged. “You’ll find that we’ll share different things with you that we won’t tell the others.”

  She turned her head up to look at him. “What are you trying to say?”

  “That most information is issued in confidence. Just because we’re a unit, doesn’t mean the individual’s needs are any less important.”

  “You mean don’t tell Sawyer about something Andrei said, jus
t in case he tells me something he’s never shared with him before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Makes sense,” she remarked, her attention turning to the gleaming shopfronts as they finally headed onto one of London’s biggest and brightest shopping hotspots. “I’ll only discuss something another one of you said if I’m concerned. Like, what Devon told me, concerned me. I know something is going on, but I can see you’re not going to tell me.”

  “He’ll have to,” was his immediate retort.

  She sighed. “I knew something major had happened to him.”

  “There’s a reason he’s the way he is,” was all Sean said.

  “And what about you? What makes you tick?”

  He grinned. “Me? I’m a simple man, Ms. Dubois.”

  “I doubt that,” she chuckled.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he chided. “All this? The money, and the name… it means very little in the long run.” And he wasn’t lying. Over the years, he’d come to realize it was all bullshit.

  The five of them were in very different spheres, and yet, the same bullshit came at them all. People were the problem, he’d come to realize. It was why, outside of their collective, they led solitary lives.

  The fewer people they had around, the less aggravation there was in the long run.

  They’d had many lessons over the years. Janna hadn’t been the first, but she was the biggest reminder they’d had about being cautious with the women they shared. Kurt’s mom’s meltdown over his being gay had been another. Then, there were the rest of the parents. None of them really understood why they all lived together, with his own mother dismissing it as a ‘bizarre kind of fraternity’.

  With that kind of background, sharing anything of importance wasn’t easy. Trusting someone not to judge, to just be a willing ear was difficult. After all, if one couldn’t trust family, who could one trust?

  And friends? They were transient, save for the four back at home.

  They were family by choice, he knew. Kin, he’d discovered when he was young, and had no intention of leaving.