A Legacy Divided

by Holley Trent

  “I don’t know if that’s completely true,” Keith said drolly. “There are plenty of situations in which self-service isn’t as satisfying as having assistance. I was trying to get Asher to assist me with one of those things, but he insists that you wouldn’t want to share your treasure.”

  “I didn’t insist,” Asher said. “I only said that—”

  Keith’s goading laugh cut Asher’s words short. He was always so good at that—making him say too much and make a fool out of himself when silence would have served him fine.

  Keith had moved to the bedside and maneuvered himself to the edge. He sat, feet dangling, smirking at them both as his towel lay open beneath his hips.

  The sight of Keith’s cock was hardly a novel thing. Asher had seen it more times than he could count. He couldn’t ever recall seeing it erect, though.

  Shamefully, he’d thought Keith had lost the capacity.

  Keith leaned back against his pillow and twined his fingers behind his head. He looked like a powerful Viking awaiting a feast, but Asher wasn’t sure whether he was the feast or if they were.

  He snuck a peek at Mallory.

  She was drumming her fingertips against the sides of her arms and looking dispassionately at Keith.

  “Don’t give me that,” Keith drawled. “You came up here because you wanted to. You could have told me no.”

  “Perhaps I came because Asher is here.”

  Keith shrugged. “So fuck Asher.”

  “You think you’re funny.”

  “I’m not renowned for my sense of humor, sweetheart. In fact, Jody would tell you I don’t have one.”

  That wasn’t true. Asher remembered every single self-deprecating joke Keith had uttered in that rock. They’d made his heart hurt even as laughter escaped him. He’d wanted to put his arms around the man every time and tell him, “Come, now, I’m here. I’m taking care of you.”

  Asher didn’t like that glint in Mallory’s eyes. It held a challenge, and Asher didn’t like when people with magic had competition on the brain. He was woefully outclassed with the two of them.

  She turned to Asher. “I could certainly understand if you’d feel uncomfortable having an audience.”

  “What?” He had no idea what she was getting at.

  She pulled his shirttails free of his pants and tugged the buttons open. The corners of her lips quirked upward as her heated gaze rose to his face. There was no doubt in his mind that she wanted him, and at that moment, he didn’t care if she was only touching him to frustrate Keith.

  Keith deserved it for being so cruel.

  “Well, let me help you.” Asher shrugged out of his shirt and toed off his boots while Mallory unfastened his trousers. “I’m a fairy,” he reminded her. “I don’t care if people watch.”

  The evidence of that was in her hand, being stroked from root to tip so firmly that Asher’s air all fell out in a whoosh. He leaned his weight forward and pressed his hands to her shoulders.

  “I see,” she whispered.

  “You may as well come closer,” Keith said. He was working his hand along his erection with an unsurprising lack of candor. “I’m not going to promise not to touch. Don’t hold your breath waiting.”

  Asher kicked his pants from around his ankles. “Maybe I don’t want you to touch. Maybe I want you to suffer.”

  “Sit on my face and try telling me that again.”

  Once more, Asher’s breathing went faulty.

  “You let him get under your skin too much,” Mallory said.

  “You can sit on my face, too, sweetheart. Play nice. Take turns.” The tip of Keith’s tongue peeked out from between his teeth, and he waggled it salaciously at her.

  Asher couldn’t be entirely sure, but he thought he noticed Mallory having a bit of a breathing problem of her own.

  “I only came here to be sure you weren’t bothering Asher,” she recovered.

  “He’s obviously bothered. I could probably hang a coat on that erection.”

  Asher put his hands over it and growled.

  “You know, I could shave my pubes, too, if you want me to.” He gestured to the ruddy nest at the base of his erection. “Do you have a preference?”

  Mallory didn’t respond. She was too busy folding the shirt she’d removed. Asher hadn’t even noticed. He’d been paying too much attention to the spread of Keith’s legs and the way his fingertips skipped over the stretch of skin beneath his heavy balls.

  Her pants came next. Easy enough, as they were made of some sort of stretchy, body-hugging fabric that folded into practically nothing.

  She stood there in front of Keith’s dresser in a lace bra and flesh-tone thong looking like one of those iced coffee drinks she was always having with too damned much sugar and milk. The white ruffles trimming the bra cups alluded to whipped topping. He’d always thought whipped cream was silly on top of the cold beverage, but apparently, his mind was easily changed.

  Mallory turned slowly to Keith, eyes narrowed, hands at her hips. “Take a look, Viking. Have your fill.”

  “I’m looking,” came his calm murmur as his gaze raked down her body from across the room. “Come closer.”

  “Fine.” She strode toward him and Asher followed like some kind of well-trained sheepdog. “Close your eyes if you’d prefer to sear the less mangled version of me to memory. Up close, I look exactly like I’ve had three children.”

  Keith didn’t even blink. He opened his arms to her.

  She climbed onto the bed, just out of his reach.

  “Take a good look, Keith. I’m nobody’s model princess.”

  “Good. Neither am I.” He gestured her forward.

  She didn’t move. She crossed her arms aggressively over her chest and narrowed her gaze.

  “What difference does it make to me?” Keith asked. “You’ll get pregnant again and it won’t matter.”

  Mallory scoffed.

  Asher didn’t see what was funny, but he opted to hold his tongue. As nice as the view of her bare backside was, he climbed onto the wide bed and settled with his legs crossed on the opposite edge.

  “I think we’d have beautiful children,” Keith said, “but obviously, I’m biased.”

  “And vain.”

  Keith shrugged.

  “Who said anything about children, anyway?”

  Keith studied his nails. They were a ragged, gnawed-off mess and had always made Asher shudder with revulsion, but Keith hadn’t wanted him to assist. “That’s generally the way things work, witch. You lay with a man. He leaves behind his seed, and then your belly swells. I hear that eventually, a baby comes out of it, but as I’ve not had the opportunity to witness such, that may be an urban legend.” He looked up from his mangled nails. “Care to experiment?”

  Mallory finally cracked a smile. She cut her gaze to Asher. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was serious.”

  Asher shrugged. “Don’t look to a fairy for guidance about offspring. He’s always going to tell you to have more.”

  “Plenty of room here,” Keith said, taking Mallory by the waist and urging her closer to him. “Or we could have our own little compound. Fewer people in your business that way.”

  Mallory smirked and put a hand to either side of Keith’s head against the headboard. “Well, aren’t you suddenly ambitious?”

  “There’s nothing sudden about it,” Asher said. He cupped the bottom of the perfectly round globe of her ass and exhaled a sigh. “He’s not even going to be here. Muriel’s sending him off to college.”

  “Well, let’s not be rash,” Keith said.

  “You’re going to college?” Mallory asked, creasing her brow.

  “It was just an idea, and I didn’t exactly say no. With my physical situation being what it is, I can’t do for Tess what my uncle did for my mother. I can’t get around as quickly. I’m never going to be able to troubleshoot the dangerous stuff at the speed that other people could, even if I do recover a little more. But there are other t
hings I can be a part of.” Keith guided her on her knees even closer and pressed his nose against Mallory’s quivering belly. “If I’m going to have a clearance level as high as I do, I might as well get some training to know what to do with it, hmm?”

  “That may be the smartest thing I’ve heard you say in weeks.”

  “I’ll try not to be offended by how little regard you have of me. Now, if you’d just hold still for a bit, I made a promise to show you what my tongue does. I’d like to follow through.”

  “Quit talking and do it, then.”

  “Fine.” Keith pinched up the lacy sides of her panties and snapped them loose.

  “Hey!”

  He smoothed his hands up her inner thighs, letting his thumbs linger at the tender niches beside her sex and blew.

  She gulped.

  Asher was about to shift to some other place on the bed and find something productive to do, but there was a flesh-colored flash in his periphery and a tug on his hair a split second later.

  Keith pulled his gaze away from Mallory’s parted thighs and murmured to Asher, “Stay. Right. There.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Mallory

  Hiccups weren’t sexy, and Mallory was mindful of that as she tried to regulate her breathing.

  In, out, in, out, damn it, keep a rhythm.

  Every time she settled back into a pattern that was anything close to normal, Keith’s tongue flicked against a sensitive fold and his thumb danced over her lower lips, and she held her breath.

  She’d known Keith to be a man of bluster and constant threats, but for whatever reason, she didn’t think he’d be one who could necessarily deliver on them all. That was why she’d climbed onto that bed. She’d assumed she’d be the one in control—she’d assumed he’d reveal he’d been bluffing all along.

  She should have known better.

  His fingers delved into her with merciless precision, hitting every single hot button, stretching her to comfortable fullness again and again as his tongue fluttered over her clit.

  Her head was already going to that drifty, swimmy place when she vaguely registered him scooting down and then her placement atop his face.

  As promised.

  Gods.

  Gasping, she slapped her palms against the headboard and braced herself for the ride. She didn’t know if he was moving his greedy mouth beneath her, if she were rocking her hips to center that powerful tongue of his against her opening, or if she were experiencing some combination of the two.

  She got the tiniest respite when Keith lifted her a bit and murmured to Asher, “Be a productive citizen.” He made some motion Mallory couldn’t see.

  Asher was frozen in place and Mallory was going to look to see why, but at the same time he started to move, so did Keith again. He was spreading her lips wide and spearing his wet tongue repeatedly into her channel, and her teeth started to chatter.

  How had a man who’d been living in a rock for so many of his prime sexual years gotten so good at that?

  She didn’t like the jealous growl that came out through her clenched teeth. She’d lived in the mansion for months and seen to his care, but she hadn’t witnessed everything—she didn’t know everyone who’d gone in and out of his room.

  She reached down and gave his shoulder a hard pinch.

  He didn’t stop licking her, just projected, “If you’re going to try to hurt me, don’t do it when Asher is trying to figure out how to keep his teeth off me.”

  Stunned, Mallory tried to turn to look, but Keith reached up and gripped her chin tight.

  His quiet groan heated her clit and her eyelids fluttered. “He’s so bad at it, but he’s enthusiastic, at least.”

  “You should be bad at this,” she responded. Against her body’s urges, she tried to lift her pussy from his mouth but his grip around her haunches was too secure.

  “You’re complaining that I’m not bad at it?” He scoffed, and then his mouth closed around her clit and gave it a teasing twist that made a keening sound creak from her chest.

  “Yes, I’m complaining. This is a small community. Which of my peers will I walk past tomorrow who’ve also had the honor of sitting on this particular throne?”

  He chuckled.

  She didn’t see what was funny, and she always thought turnabout was fair play, so she reached down and tugged his hair.

  He laughed.

  “Who?” she asked aloud.

  Asher shifted behind her. “What?”

  Keith groaned again. “Well, if you’re going to stop for air, Asher, here’s a pro tip. Don’t ignore the jewels. Lick them, suck them, fondle them. See if you can manage that and my cock at the same time. You’re a fairy. You should be an expert at multitasking.”

  Mallory managed to look over her shoulder without interruption from Keith then. She was concerned for Asher, wondering if Keith had hurt his feelings. Hers weren’t so hard to bruise, usually, but Asher was far more tender.

  Surprisingly, he didn’t look upset at all, but more confused.

  He lay on his belly between Keith’s legs. Lips swollen and pink, chin wet. Face flushed from hairline down to his neck. Hand working industriously over the slick, wet head of Keith’s cock. “I—” He started to push up onto his forearms, but Mallory gave her head a quelling shake. She certainly couldn’t fault him for doing exactly the same as her. Keith had a particular sort of charm, and apparently, neither of them was immune to it.

  “Don’t let him boss you around,” she told Asher, and then knit her brows. “I mean, unless you want him to.”

  Asher’s gaze went unfocused. If he had an opinion one way or another, he didn’t speak it. He resumed his indulgent exploration of Keith’s cock, taking the lesson to heart. Lips. Tongue. Fingers. All working in symphony to pleasure every inch.

  Keith’s satisfied “Mmm” spurred Asher on.

  Mallory wished she could get into his head the way she could Keith’s—wished they could privately confer so that she could be assured that he was perfectly content with the circumstances. All she had to go on was his actions, for the time being. She didn’t think he’d ever say no to Keith, and that wasn’t a good thing.

  She could say no, though, and had to.

  “Ride me,” Keith whispered into her thoughts as his tongue swirled, dipped, tasted.

  Her eyes closed, head fell back, and breath shuddered out.

  “Will you? Fuck me, Mallory. Sit on my cock and ride me like you hate me. Ride me like you want to break me. I promise, you won’t.”

  “You never answered my question.”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Because I matter.”

  His tongue stilled beneath her, fingers notched tighter in her haunches.

  Her shoulders fell. Warily, she opened her eyes and looked down at him.

  All at once, he was trying to keep his expression clear of the evident pleasure Asher bestowed on him and expressing concern for the serious timbre of the subject.

  “You’d be surprised at what some women ask for when they think your cock doesn’t work,” Keith projected.

  She wasn’t surprised—not at all. They’d probably considered him to be harmless and yet had wanted a piece of him anyway, with him being who he was. And because he was handsome and said scandalous things.

  They’d been bold, probably. Afótama women tended to be. They’d figured they’d shoot their shots and see what happened.

  Mallory wondered what Keith had gotten in exchange. She had never thought he was harmless. Not even in the days soon after his arrival when he’d been so resistant to care—when he’d hardly bothered to roll over because he hadn’t seen the point.

  “I…” she started, then swallowed down the words. Digging her fingers into his chest muscles, she took a breath, and projected, “I want to.”

  “So ask Asher kindly to move.”

  “But I can’t. I…can’t.” Not now. Not soon.

  “Why not?”

  “Have you fo
rgotten who my father is?”

  “To be quite honest, when you’re sitting on me with barely a scrap of fabric on, I couldn’t give a flying fuck about your father.”

  “But you need to. I’m not stupid, Keith. I know what happens to people like us when sex gets—”

  “Fuck!” Keith lifted Mallory a bit and looked around him at Asher, who’d apparently put his fingers in a place Keith hadn’t expected.

  “Sorry,” Asher said sheepishly. “I thought you’d like it. I’ve learned in the past few days that I do.”

  Keith let out another of those shuddering breaths. “Lay off for a second, Asher. Please.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “It’s not you.” Keith looked up at Mallory. “What happens to people like us, sweetheart?”

  “Things get muddled. And…people can tell.”

  His eyes narrowed. “And? You don’t want people to know I’ve tainted your pretty, clean aura?”

  “No, Keith, I don’t want people to know that I’ve contaminated yours.”

  Moving Mallory to his side, Keith sat up and said aloud, “What are you talking about?”

  “Have you really not thought this through?”

  Asher sat back on his haunches. “What have I missed?”

  “Don’t drag him into it,” Keith said.

  “No, I think he has the right to know,” Mallory retorted. “After all, he’s the one I agreed to be with. You’re the Kool-Aid man barging into the situation.”

  Keith wagged an angry finger at her. “No. I’m the Viking deciding to take what’s his, and I say you’re both mine.”

  She laughed at that, but didn’t really see the humor in it. He was only confirming what her silly dreams had told her. She was caught in a tangle of their magic. Her subconsciousness had sorted that out long before her higher logic did. Still, that didn’t mean she had to breathlessly shout “yes”—not when she knew there were still so many obstacles.

  “You can’t take what doesn’t belong to you,” she said. “You’re making a muddle of this.”

  “No, you are. You diverted things. Why can’t this just be easy?”

  “Because it’s not supposed to be. You’re a descendant of Ótama, and I’m one of the bastards belonging to the man you’re going to banish from the clan. After what you learned at the airstrip, you can’t even guess what all his dirty connections are yet, can you? Think this through.”