Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BASTIEN
Ilight a cigarette, reminding myself I quit years ago.
Luc has been asleep for an hour. I extracted his pencil, turned off his lamp, and told myself I'd follow his example.
Instead I'm sitting in the dark, smoking out the cracked window, thinking about her.
The retreat has been exactly what I expected. Three fathers circling each other. Three children oblivious. And Madeline at the center, holding it together through sheer force of will while we all watch her and want her and pretend we're not coming apart.
I stub out the cigarette and step into the hall. For water. Or air. Or whatever excuse gets me out of this room.
Raphael's door is open. His room dark. Empty.
Farther down the hall, Madeline's door. Light visible through the gap.
I stop. Listen.
A man's voice, murmuring. Then hers, breathless, broken.
I know that sound. I've caused that sound.
I should turn around. Go back to my room. That's what a reasonable man would do.
I have never been accused of being reasonable.
The door opens silently beneath my hand.
Raphael is positioned above her, shirtless, the muscles of his back shifting in the lamplight. His mouth at her throat, one hand cradling her face while the other works between her thighs. Madeline's camisole pushed up past her breasts, her shorts gone, her legs wrapped around his hips.
What strikes me isn't the sex. It's the tenderness. The way his thumb strokes her cheekbone while his fingers move inside her. The way she holds his wrist, not guiding him, just holding on. Like he's the only solid thing in the room.
He touches her differently than I do. I take her apart to understand her. He holds her together while she falls.
I could watch this for hours.
"Don't stop on my account," I hear myself say. The corner of my mouth lifts.
Raphael freezes. Madeline's head turns toward me, eyes hazy before they sharpen into focus.
For one unguarded second, before she remembers to be startled, I see it—not panic, not embarrassment.
Want. Raw and unfiltered, her eyes darting over me in the doorway the way they do when she thinks I'm not paying attention.
I'm always paying attention.
Nobody moves.
Then Raphael shifts. Not off her. Just enough to look at me over his shoulder. His hand stays where it is.
"The door was open," I say, stepping inside. The latch clicks behind me.
"Bastien—" My name in her wrecked voice settles low in my stomach.
"What do you want?" Raphael asks. Direct. No pretense.
"The same thing you want."
Raphael looks at me. I look back. Twenty years in that look. He gives me the smallest nod. Then turns back to her, his hand moving to her face.
"We can stop," he says quietly. "Or we don't have to."
She looks at him, watchful. Then past him, at me. Her chest rising and falling, lips parted, eyes moving between us like she's trying to decide if she's allowed to want what she wants.
"Don't stop." She swallows. "I just—is this okay? For both of you?" Her eyes move between us. "I don't know how this works."
"Neither do we," Raphael says honestly. His thumb traces slow circles on her thigh. "But… I know what I want. I want you to feel good. That's it."
She turns to me.
"Spoiled," I say. I sit on the edge of the bed. I reach out, brush a strand of damp hair from her forehead, and let my fingers trail down her cheek, her jaw, the racing pulse in her throat. "Taken care of."
She shivers.
Raphael watches my hand on her skin. I wait for the territorial flare. It doesn't come. An unspoken negotiation passes between us. Not friendship. Not forgiveness for the years of silence. Just this: for her, tonight, we can share the same space.
"Raphael," she whispers, turning to him. Asking something with her eyes.
He answers by kissing her. Deep and slow, the kind of kiss that makes her moan into his mouth. While she's lost in him, I let my hand drift lower. Down her throat, over her collarbone, across the swell of her breast.
She gasps against his lips.
I push her camisole up and off. She lifts her arms without breaking the kiss. I cup her breast in my palm, testing its weight, and she arches into my hand with a whimper.
Raphael pulls back to look. His breathing is ragged.
"Beautiful," he says huskily. "Isn't she?"
"Exquisite." I let my thumb graze her nipple. "So responsive."
I lower my mouth to her breast and suck, and she cries out. Raphael's hand comes up to stroke her hair, grounding her while I take her higher.
"Quiet," he murmurs against her ear. "The walls aren't thick. Can you do that for us?"
She nods frantically, and he soothes her with his mouth while I kiss down the curve of her breast, her stomach, the jut of her hipbone. She's trembling, Raphael's mouth at her throat, my lips dragging lower with no intention of stopping.
When I reach the inside of her thighs, I pause and look up.
She's watching me over Raphael's shoulder, eyes glazed and desperate.
"Please," she breathes.
"Please what?"
"Please. I need your mouth."
I spread her open and lick a long, slow stripe through her pussy. She's soaked already, slick against my tongue, and the taste of her makes me press closer before I've decided to.
Her whole body jerks. Raphael swallows her moan with a kiss, one hand stroking her hair while I work her with my tongue.
I take my time. Long, lazy strokes from her entrance to her clit, learning the exact spot that makes her hips buck, the pressure that makes her thighs shake, the rhythm that has her grinding against my face without realizing she's doing it.
She's getting wetter with every stroke, and I feel it everywhere, against my lips, my chin, my fingers when I slide two inside her and feel her clench immediately.
She gasps, loud, and Raphael catches it with his mouth.
When she tries to grind harder I pull back just enough to make her whine. I grip her inner thigh and push it wider. Then I slide my hand up her stomach, her sternum, and wrap my fingers around her throat.
She goes completely still. Then melts.
She's trying to be quiet. Failing. Every time I change the angle, a new sound escapes, and Raphael catches each one with his mouth.
His hand moves to her breast, thumb circling her nipple, and when I glance up, she's arched between us like a bow, his mouth at her throat and mine between her thighs, and the image is so perfect I almost stop just to look.
I don't stop.
I find her clit and circle it slowly, teasing, pulling back every time she gets close, until she's writhing against Raphael's hold and making sounds that are closer to sobs than moans.
"Bastien—" Her voice breaks. "Oh god, please, stop teasing—"
"Ask nicely."
"Please. I'm begging you. Please."
I give her what she's begging for. Seal my mouth over her clit and suck while two fingers slide inside her, curling to find the spot that makes her back arch off the bed. She's tight and hot and clenching around me.
Raphael is watching my hand between her thighs. Not with jealousy. With fascination. With hunger. Like he's seeing something he's imagined but never let himself want.
"Make her come," he says quietly.
I add a third finger and increase my pace. Her thighs start to shake. Raphael holds her steady, one arm across her hips, his mouth at her ear, and whatever he's saying pushes her the rest of the way.
She shatters, her thighs clamping around my head, a broken cry spilling from her lips that Raphael catches with his mouth. I work her through it, gentling but not stopping, until she's trembling and pushing weakly at my head.
"Too much—" she gasps.
I take her wrists and pin them to the bed above her. "One more." I hold her gaze. "You're going to give me one more and then you can rest. Can you do that?"
She whimpers. Nods. Her whole body already trembling.
I press my tongue flat against her clit and she comes again, harder. "That's it," I murmur against her. "You needed someone who knew what he was doing, didn't you?"
She can't answer. Just shakes.
"We know," Raphael says against her hair. Low. Certain. "We've got you."
I stroke her through every wave until she's boneless.
When I pull back, she's staring at the ceiling, chest heaving.
"I can't feel my legs," she manages.
"Good." I wipe my mouth. "That means we're doing our job."
Raphael shifts, shedding the rest of his clothes. He's hard, straining, and he positions himself between her thighs with a gentleness that would be almost comical given what we've just done, except it's entirely sincere. That's Raphael. Even now, even desperate, he shows care.
"Yes," she says before he can ask. "Please."
He pushes inside her slowly, and I watch her face as he does.
The way her mouth falls open in a silent oh.
The way her eyes lose focus as he sinks deeper, her whole body adjusting, her thighs spreading wider to take more of him.
When he's fully seated inside her she exhales like something has finally been resolved.
He moves and she gasps on every thrust, her breasts shifting with the rhythm, her stomach tensing.
I can see exactly where they're joined, how wet she is around him, and at one point Raphael grips her hips and drives harder than his usual rhythm and she yelps, surprised, and he does it again because he felt what it did to her.
She wraps tighter around him, pulling him closer, deeper, and he buries his face against her neck. His hands cradle her face. He watches her while he fucks her. Not performing. Just present.
I move up the bed to kneel beside her. She turns toward me, her gaze dropping, and her hand reaches for me.
"Can I—"
"Whatever you want," I tell her, stroking her hair back. "Tonight is yours."
I gather her hair in my fist, twist it once, and guide her down onto my cock. She moans around me and takes more.