CHAPTER FOUR
THE RIVAL’S WIFE
Helena kissed me first.
No mask.
No wind on a battlement.
No husband hidden behind a screen.
Her mouth met mine in our library while Marcus and Nathan watched from opposite chairs.
The kiss began controlled.
That lasted three seconds.
I pulled her closer by the silk at her waist. She opened her mouth and gave me the taste of wine, whisky, and the small cut I had reopened in Scotland. Her tongue moved against mine with the same intelligence she used when questioning ministers on television.
Testing.
Adjusting.
Finding the place where control stopped being useful.
I found hers when I bit her lower lip.
She made a sound into my mouth.
Marcus’s glass touched the table.
Nathan’s hand closed over the arm of his chair.
Helena smiled against me.
“They hate not directing.”
“Good.”
I kissed her again.
My hand moved beneath her black blouse. No bra. Her breast filled my palm, warm and firm, nipple already hard. I pinched it.
Her head tilted back.
Marcus stood.
“Sit,” Helena said.
He stopped.
The word did not need volume.
She looked at her husband while I held her breast.
“Wrong weapon, remember?”
His jaw tightened.
Then he sat.
Nathan watched the exchange with an expression I knew too well.
Jealousy.
Respect.
Arousal.
The collection that had become our real luxury.
I opened Helena’s blouse one button at a time.
“Did you come here for me?” I asked.
“Partly.”
“More.”
“I came because Marcus wanted the network badly enough to become stupid.”
I kissed the top of her breast.
“More.”
“I came because you made me come under a mask and then looked at me over breakfast like you could buy the truth.”
My mouth closed over her nipple.
She inhaled sharply.
Marcus’s hand moved once over the front of his trousers.
I saw.
So did Nathan.
“More,” I said against her skin.
Helena put both hands in my hair.
“I came because I wanted to know whether your husband would look at me the way he looks at you after another man has touched you.”
The sentence cut deeper than a physical comparison.
I lifted my face.
“He will not.”
“I know.”
Her answer saved the moment.
Not because it made me less jealous.
Because she understood the center was not transferable.
I kissed her hard enough to push her back against the sofa.
She pulled my dress higher. Her hand reached my bare thigh.
“No underwear,” she said.
“No staff.”
“Efficient.”
Her fingers found my wet cunt.
Nathan’s breath changed across the room.
Marcus watched his wife’s hand disappear beneath my dress.
“Tell them,” Helena whispered.
I looked at the men.
“Your rival’s wife has two fingers inside me.”
Nathan’s eyes dropped to the movement beneath the fabric.
Marcus looked at Helena.
“How does she feel?”
Helena curled her fingers.
My hips lifted.
“Tight,” she said. “Wet enough that the threat never frightened her as much as she pretended.”
“It frightened me,” I said.
“And made you wet.”
“Both.”
Nathan stood.
This time I stopped him.
“Sit.”
He looked at me.
The order was not our usual geometry.
That was why it mattered.
He sat.
I pushed Helena’s trousers down her hips.
She lifted enough to help.
No underwear.
Her cunt shone beneath the library light.
Marcus saw his wife open beneath my hand.
The calm face cracked.
Jealousy made him more handsome.
I knelt between Helena’s legs.
Her fingers remained inside me as I leaned forward.
“Victoria,” Nathan said.
I looked at him.
“Still here?”
“Always.”
Then I put my mouth on Helena.
Her body jerked.
The first taste was clean, warm, and unmistakably hers. No mask. No uncertainty. I licked slowly, making her feel every movement while her fingers worked inside me.
We pleasured each other in front of our husbands without allowing either man to touch.
That was the first contest.
Helena’s heel pressed into the sofa.
“Harder.”
I looked up.
“Ask better.”
She laughed once.
Then my tongue entered her.
The laugh broke.
“Please.”
“More.”
“Make me come while Marcus watches.”
Marcus’s cock was fully hard beneath his trousers now.
Nathan had opened his belt but kept both hands visible on the chair.
The discipline excited me more than disobedience would have.
I sucked Helena’s clit.
She cried out and pushed three fingers into me.
My moan vibrated against her cunt.
“Tell Nathan,” she said.
I lifted my mouth long enough to speak.
“She is fingering your wife while my tongue is inside her.”
Nathan’s hand closed around his cock through the open trousers.
“Do not stop.”
I lowered my mouth again.
Helena moved her fingers faster.
The room filled with wet sounds and controlled breathing. Fire in the grate. Rain against distant windows. Two husbands watching rival wives learn each other’s bodies with no anonymous architecture to make it easier.
Helena came first.
Her cunt tightened against my tongue. Her fingers stopped inside me as the orgasm took her. She held my head against her and said my name without hiding behind a title.
Marcus stood again.
No one told him to sit.
He came closer and looked down at his wife shaking beneath my mouth.
I kept licking until Helena pulled me up by the hair.
She kissed me with her own taste on my lips.
Then she pushed me back against the sofa and went to her knees.
Nathan leaned forward.
Helena looked at him before spreading my thighs.
“Your wife is next.”
“I know.”
She put her mouth on my cunt.
The first lick made my back arch.
Marcus stood beside her.
Nathan stood opposite him.
The husbands had earned the room.
Not the bodies yet.
Only proximity.
Helena ate me while both men watched my face.
When the orgasm arrived, I looked at Nathan.
Not Marcus.
Not the fire.
My husband.
“Still here?” he asked.
I came with Helena’s tongue on my clit and the answer breaking from my mouth.
“Always.”
The rivalry had not reduced the marriage.
It had given it witnesses.