“Get it nice and wet for her,” Leary said as he stroked Ren’s hair.

  Emilie climbed onto the bed behind him and pressed her lips to the bend between his shoulder and neck. “I don’t really need any help with that.” She licked up the masculine column, pressing her tight nipples against his back and sliding her hands down his chest.

  “Mmm, can never be too careful.” He turned his head and found her lips. He kissed her for real, not like the cautious pecks out in the pasture, but a searching, soulful, here I am kiss that made her core tighten even more and her wetness surge.

  Ren let Leary fall from his mouth and stood with his guidance. Leary eased away from Emilie only to scoop her up and lay her on her back. No buildup. He nudged her knees apart with his own and settled between her, his cock prodding her thigh insistently. “Kiss me some more,” he said. “Gotta make up for lost time.”

  “I imagine you were getting kissed plenty in the past seventeen years.”

  “Not by you. You owe me.”

  “Oh, I owe you?”

  “Mmhmm. Didn’t even give me a goodbye kiss.”

  She hooked her legs around his back and drew him closer. “Given the circumstances, I should be forgiven.”

  “I forgive you. I just want you to make it up to me.”

  She pulled him down and gave him the kiss he desired, tapping the mattress beside her to get Ren’s attention. Crooking her finger, she motioned him over and indicated the space on the bed beside her.

  He climbed on and knelt at her side, clearly waiting for further instructions.

  She beckoned him down, and when Leary gave her back her lips she whispered, “Want a taste?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She guided his head and brought his lips to hers. He parted his lips to let her in, waited for her to take the lead. She wouldn’t always want it. Sometimes, she was content with having her man take point, but only when she trusted him to not push her boundaries. Ren didn’t know them yet, so he was smart to be cautious, and she’d need to tell him that—reinforce that he was doing the right thing and that he pleased her. They both pleased her, in different ways.

  Leary pushed his cock against her entrance, and with the urging clench of her legs around his trunk, he breached her in increments, his wind leaving him as he sank in ever more. After so many years, he was still the only man who could undo her with a mere touch.

  She continued her teasing of Ren’s lips as Leary stroked into her, keeping him close and engaged, ensuring he was ready for whatever happened next. For once, she didn’t try to think ahead to figure out what that was. She held on to the sensation and accepted her feelings as what they were. Content. Happy. Safe.

  “Don’t want you to come.” Leary increased the speed of his thrusts, and slipped a hand under her hip to improve his entry angle. “Don’t want you to come yet. You’ve got one more person to take care of.”

  She understood the logic of the request, but given Leary’s enthusiastic movements, didn’t see how she would last. He had to know what he was doing to her—that the sensations he was intensifying in himself would correlate directly to her own pleasure.

  She pulled back from Ren’s lips, gasping. “If you don’t want me to come, stop doing that.”

  “You’re not going to come.”

  Faster. Deeper. He captured her lips now in a possessive remember me kiss that removed all motive for her to disobey. She breathed away the inciting tremors building in her core and kept her gaze locked on the ceiling as he pulled his lips away. Not those soulful eyes or the intensity of his features. Not the sculpted shoulders or muscular chest she hadn’t yet had time to properly examine. Just the plain, white ceiling.

  Finally, Leary pulled out of her with a gasp, letting his seed pool onto her clean sheets, but like hell if she cared at the moment.

  “Pick her up,” he said on a ragged exhalation. “Chest to chest. She’s going to fuck you standing.”

  I’m going to do what?

  She may have needed a moment to parse it, but Ren didn’t hesitate. He scooped her up and wrapped her limbs around his neck and waist.

  Barely recovered, judging by the flush of his face and slight stagger, Leary walked over and knelt in front of Ren. A moment later, Ren’s cock was in her and Leary stood and met his lover’s gaze. “You do nothing but hold onto her. You take what she gives you, and nothing more. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” Ren spread his legs a bit, probably for balance.

  Emilie held on tighter as Leary backed away, and leaned in to whisper, “This won’t take long, Mr. Ardent.”

  “Thank God.”

  Under different circumstances, she might have corrected him for any response other than yes, ma’am, or thank you, but she knew if he was feeling anywhere near as strung out as she was, he likely couldn’t think straight.

  She clamped her thighs against him and rode him in small movements. She didn’t need much. The friction against her clit and his perfectly positioned head against her G-spot were giving her all she needed. He’d need a little more, but she had to attend to her own needs first.

  She tipped her head back as the first wave of sparks formed in her channel and whispered, “So good.”

  “You gonna miss us?” Leary said from somewhere below.

  She gasped at the finger he slipped inside her alongside Ren’s cock. Double-penetration wasn’t one of her kinks by a long shot, but a finger was fine, especially as he’d removed it and rubbed her slickness along her slit to her perineum, adding a brand-new sensation to her already heady mix.

  Ren’s fingers dug tighter into the meat of her ass and he pulled his lips back into a grimace.

  Leary’s hair tickling the underside of Emilie’s leg made her look down, and she could just barely make out him drawing Ren’s sac into his mouth.

  Of all the things Emilie was, she wasn’t cruel. She tightened her muscles around Ren’s cock and pulled more of him into her. Up and down, up and down.

  “Do you want to come, Mr. Ardent?”

  “God—yes. Yes, ma’am.”

  “Go ahead.” She balanced where his cock head met her G-spot and let her own orgasm go when his shaft pulsed inside her and Leary slipped a finger into her ass.

  “Fuck,” Ren whispered, setting his sweaty forehead on her shoulder. His shaking arms prompted her to let down one leg, and then the other as Leary gripped her waist.

  They flopped onto the bed, cautiously avoiding the wet spot, and in increments reconnected. Emilie’s hand on Ren’s cheek. Leary’s arm slung across her waist so he could hold Ren’s hand.

  No one said anything. Not that there wasn’t anything worth being said, but more likely because there was nothing they could say at moment worth potentially spoiling the few minutes they had left. As much as she wanted to state her concerns, to quell her mounting separation anxiety, doing so wasn’t worth shattering their little perfect bubble at the moment. She had some work to do with herself. Would for a long time, and she needed to start it right at that moment. The first step: not question happiness. It didn’t always come with booby traps.

  EPILOGUE

  Emilie flinched at Leary’s little nudge to her back.

  He whispered, “Go ahead, she’s not going to yell at you.”

  Emilie didn’t buy it. Mrs. Marshall had likely been saving up seventeen years of biting insults crafted especially for Emilie, but everyone from her therapist to Ceria to Leary were right—Emilie had to get the confrontation over with. If it ended up being a bad day, she’d do some self-care and isolate for a while to recover, but the ongoing dread had a far sharper bite than the actual event would. Facing the woman, just as she’d faced Leary, would be a healing endeavor.

  She wrapped her fingers around the gallery’s door handle and took one more bracing breath. “Tell me again it’s okay.”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. If she were going to yell at you, she wouldn’t do it in front of Alison.”

  “Well, that’s just too logical.”

  Emilie pulled open the door and recoiled at the unexpectedly loud chimes.

  “It’s okay,” Leary whispered. “Go on, unless you want me to carry you.”

  “Pretty sure that’d lend an even worse impression.”

  Mrs. Marshall stuck her head out into the hallway at the back of the gallery and waved. “Hold on! We’re on the computer Skipping.”

  Leary sighed. “It’s Skyping, Mom, and who are you talking to?”

  “Your sister.”

  “Oh, God,” Leary muttered, and gave Emilie another gentle push.

  Mrs. Marshall pulled her head into the office only to stick it right back out. “Where’s Ren?”

  “Had to do a community thing with the team this weekend. Wallace said one of us had to be there. He’s trying to keep it hushed that we’re leaving at the end of the season.”

  “Well, poop.” Into the office again.

  Emilie looked at Leary. “She’s ignoring me.”

  Mrs. Marshall poked her head out again. “Emilie, Debra wants to chat with you but I told her no.”

  Back into the office again.

  “See,” Leary said. “She doesn’t hate you. If she hated you, she’d make you talk to Deb. You know how Deb is. Once she starts talking, you’ll never get a word in edgewise and all you can do is grin and bear it.”

  “She’s just friendly.” Emilie and Debra had done cotillion together.

  “There’s only so much of that a person can take.”

  Emilie bobbed her eyebrows in acknowledgement and drifted away from Leary’s side to examine a sofa-sized painting of a jazz quartet. Nice. Wouldn’t fit in well with her odds-and-ends decor back at the ranch, but she could appreciate good art when she saw it. In fact, art was the reason she’d agreed to visit New Orleans at all.

  Henri had bribed her with a couple of paintings that had been in her bedroom before she moved to Texas. They weren’t particularly valuable, except for sentiment. They were amongst the few things she’d been allowed to pick out for herself, and even those, she’d butted heads with her stepmother about. Crystal had called them common, but Emilie had wanted them, not only because the artist who’d had them lined up on the sidewalk along Jackson Square had obviously needed the money, but because they’d made her feel something. She wanted Alison to have them. It was a dirty trick on Henri’s part, but Emilie had to concede that if Alison wanted to begin meeting Beaudelaires, her big brother was the logical gateway. He annoyed the shit out of Emilie, but he usually made good decisions. She hoped his discretion concerning his niece would be equally impeccable.

  She turned her wrist over and looked down at her watch face. Henri was the punctual sort, never early or late. He’d walk in right on the hour. She knew that for sure. She didn’t need to fret and jump every time the door opened, because chances were good that whoever walked in wouldn’t be him if it wasn’t exactly one o’clock.

  Ceria stepped out of the office with Eleanor Wayne on her heels, and both wore grins.

  Eleanor slung her arm over Emilie’s shoulders and whispered, “I’m so tickled by that little girl.”

  “What’d she do?”

  “She’s a blue-ribbon bullshitter, just like her daddy.”

  “Which daddy?”

  “Rick. Why, is Leary a bullshitter, too?”

  “I can hear you, you know,” he muttered. “You’ve got to admit it’s a useful skill, though. I certainly don’t have it.”

  “Neither do I,” Emilie said. “I don’t generally think fast enough to bullshit. I’m too busy using my brain power to jump to false conclusions.”

  “It’s like you said. Sometimes, nurture wins over nature,” Eleanor said.

  Leary chuckled. “You did a damned good job with the nurturing.”

  Eleanor fluffed her hair and beamed. “I know I did. And you’re welcome.”

  Leary gave the round woman a big hug and she swatted at him. “Oh, g’wan somewhere with that.”

  “Why?” He rocked her a few times. He chuckled, evidently at her ineffectual wriggling.

  “Might make Emilie jealous. I know I’m a lot of woman. Not everyone can be as queenly as me.”

  Emilie rolled her eyes, but let the laugh out. Felt good to laugh. And she laughed along with the rest of them until the gallery’s door chimes pealed.

  Oh God.

  One o’clock.

  She turned. Henri stepped into the shop and tucked the arm of his sunglasses behind the pocket square of his linen suit’s jacket.

  “Henri Beaudelaire, you’re looking more and more like your daddy with each passing day,” Mrs. Marshall called from the hallway.

  “Do I owe you thanks for that observation or should I just nod politely?”

  “It’s a compliment, so yes, you should thank me. Thank me with favors rather than words, though. I’ve got some guests coming into town for Labor Day who need to be put up.”

  “Mom…” Leary warned.

  “What?” She nudged her bifocals down her nose and stared at Leary over the tops of them.

  “I’m certain I can find rooms for them,” Henri said.

  “See, Leary, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Be with y’all in a minute. Need to get Deb off the Skip.”

  “Skype, Mom.”

  She waved him off.

  Henri moved into the room with the grace of a panther in a five-hundred-dollar suit, and stood several feet in front of Emilie. He met her gaze unflinchingly, though she couldn’t say the same for herself. “So we meet twice in one year,” he said. “I would buy a lottery ticket if I were a gambling man.”

  “I want the paintings.”

  “I could have shipped them to you.”

  “Ceria said you said I had to pick them up in person.” She cut her gaze to her underhanded assistant, who studied her nails and shrugged.

  “I didn’t lie,” Ceria said. “I simply omitted information you didn’t need to know.”

  Leary gave up his hold on the zaftig goddess and took Emilie’s hand. Squeezing it, he said, “So I guess you’ve worked out the genealogy now.”

  Henri nodded. “If I don’t seem surprised, it’s merely because I’ve already had a few hours to process it.”

  “Who else did you tell?” Emilie asked.

  “No one. It’s not my business to tell, unless you’d like me to.”

  Pulling her lip between her teeth, she pondered that briefly. Did she even care anymore who knew? She no longer called New Orleans home, and neither did Leary. His parents still lived there, though. There was still potential for scandal, even if the deed had been done seventeen years ago.

  She looked at Leary, who looked at his approaching mother.

  “We’ll have to sit down and figure it out,” he said reasonably.

  Mrs. Marshall pulled Alison along behind her, beaming like the Cheshire cat. “Hope you’ll leave her with me for a couple of weeks so I can show her off.”

  “Well, that answers that,” Emilie whispered.

  “Mom—”

  Mrs. Marshall waved dismissively. “Don’t start. I don’t want to hear it. You think I don’t know what the gossip mill around here is like? Think I care?”

  “You should care. You have to make a living here.”

  “Well, let me tell you something. People have no business going around with their noses stuck up as if their own shit doesn’t stink. Everyone in the circle’s got secrets they don’t want getting out, and they do anyway, and those secrets haven’t ruined them. Know why?”

  “Why?” Emilie asked.

  “Because everyone benefits from the status quo. Isn’t that right, Henri?”

  Henri gave a slow, acquiescent nod. Of course he’d agree. The Den was one of New Orleans’ best-kept/worst-kept secrets, and the Beaudelaires hadn’t been run out of town yet because too many people enjoyed the events. They may have avoided scandal in public, but had no problem laying themselves bare behind closed doors.

  Alison leaned into the cluster and held out her hand to her uncle. “Hi.”

  He let out a breath.

  Henri? Flustered?

  Emilie cut her gaze to Leary, who bobbed his eyebrows.

  Henri took Alison’s hand in both of his. “You are quite singular, my dear.”

  “How so?”

  “I have no nephews, and you are my only niece.”

  “Write her a fat check,” Eleanor said. “Sprinkle lots of zeroes onto it. Zeroes show your love.”

  “Momma…” Alison said, and there was a hint of Leary in her scold that made Emilie nudge his ribs.

  “Nature,” he whispered.

  “Shall we go to lunch?” Henri hooked Alison’s arm around his. “I booked us a private dining room at a friend’s restaurant.”

  “Let me grab my keys and put up the Out to Lunch sign,” Mrs. Marshall said.

  They all started moving to the door with Emilie and Leary bringing up the rear.

  “It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart,” he said.

  “So, you forgive me?”

  “Yeah, I forgive you. And we don’t have to fix everything all at once. I know you fret, but the rest of us slouches just put out one fire at a time.”

  “I’m not good at that.”

  “Me and Ren will help you.”

  They stepped outside and let the group ahead put some distance between them.

  He pulled her against him, kissed the top of her head, and sighed. “One thing at a time, right?”

  “Things are going to get so much more complicated.”

  “They just seem that way. Hell, I bet us giving Alison a sibling might make things less complicated.”

  “Don’t blow smoke up my ass.”

  He chuckled. “I’m just eager to start trying. Can you really fault a guy?”

  She laughed, too. “No. I guess I can’t.”

  She had to admit things would be so much different the second time around. Namely, she’d be living life on her own terms and with a lot of people rooting for her. No more hiding.

  That was definitely something to look forward to.

 

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