Lucy's Liberation [Elk Creek 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (15 page)

“I need to get back to—”

“Were you helping with the cooking?”

Ethan’s chin lifted defiantly and Ki had to force himself not to reach up to caress his smooth jaw. “I like to cook. It’s one of many things I do well.”

“And you look so fetching in that apron.”

“You need to get out of my way now.” Ethan tried to push by him, but Ki caught his wrist and gently pushed him back toward the wall. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“We didn’t have a lot of time to talk last night. Maybe we should take this opportunity to get know each other a little better since you’re my wife’s childhood friend.”

“Hey, man, I don’t swing that way.”

That was an odd way to put things, Ki thought, odd, but incredibly fitting. Ethan had such a unique style with words, another aspect of his charms.

Ki reached down with his free hand and lightly caressed Ethan between the legs.

Ethan hissed, his breath catching in his chest as he gaped at Ki.

He looked so adorably outraged, Ki wanted to kiss the shock right off of the younger man’s face. He wanted to just kiss him, but settled for lightly squeezing the growing bulge behind Ethan’s buttons. “This tells me that you do ‘swing that way.’”

Ethan cursed and tried to step back but came up short against the wall.

Ki bent his head, tilted it to the side, his mouth suspended a hairbreadth away from Ethan’s parted lips. He wanted to kiss the younger man so bad, his cock ached. He hadn’t felt this heated and near the edge of his control since he’d been in the library with Lucy.

How was it that two totally different people, two different sexes, could incite his desires so utterly and in the same way?

“Ki.”

He recognized the voice immediately and didn’t know whether or not to be relieved that it wasn’t Lucy.

Ki slowly turned from Ethan, forcing himself not to twitch as if he had been caught in the act of wrongdoing. Once he turned to see the enigmatic expression on Maia’s face, it was difficult convincing himself not to feel guilty.

“Can I speak with you in private?”

“Of course, Maia.” Ki figured there was no need to back off, even with Maia present. He committed himself, trusted his instincts and leaned close. He allowed his lips to just brush the shell of Ethan’s ear. “We’ll finish this later.”

Ki heard the younger man’s exhalation of breath as he turned to follow Maia out of the kitchen and down the hall to the den. It was the only other room in the house that wasn’t overrun with partygoers.

Ki stood across the room, leaned one elbow on the mantle over the fireplace, and watched as Maia closed the door behind her and turned the lock. He lifted his eyebrow as she turned to him with a grim smile on her face and crossed the floor.

Ki caught himself standing straighter and taking a deep breath. He felt like he was back in the dean’s office at school, not that he’d had many occasions to visit the dean’s office, but there had been a couple. Okay, maybe more than a couple.

Maia stopped a foot in front of him, tilting back her head to study him. She stared at him so long without saying a word, he started to feel like an ant under a magnifying glass in the sun.

After a lingering moment she finally smiled, a real smile that reached her eyes.

“Did I just pass some kind of test?” he asked, almost afraid to hear her answer.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“I said I would never hurt Lucy and I meant it.”

“I know you did, but things happen, sometimes not in our control.”

“Yet you still trust me.”

“I saw you and Ethan.”

Ki sighed and nodded, but said nothing. He didn’t know what to say. Better to let Maia lead the conversation and see where she was going.

“Do you love him?”

He had not been expecting
that
question. “I don’t even know him,” Ki said.

“Not in the biblical sense, at least not yet.”

“Yet?” Maia had said it as if his and Ethan having sexual relations was a foregone conclusion. He wished this were so. Maybe then he wouldn’t have to torture himself over the desired outcome.

“You want to get to know him though, don’t you?”

“You saw us. What do you think?”

Maia grinned. “I think you’re avoiding the question.”

“I have feelings for him, Maia, the same feelings I have for Lucy. I want them both.” There, he’d said it and it was out in the open. She could make with it what she would.

Maia nodded like she had been expecting his answer yet her expression remained thoughtful as if she was trying to digest everything he’d said. She didn’t, however, look horrified or disapproving—a plus.

“You want them, but do you love them?”

“Honestly, I don’t know yet. I…I enjoy Lucy’s company. She excites me like no other woman I’ve ever met. I don’t know Ethan as well, but during the brief time I’ve spent in his company…there’s something alive between us. Whether any of that equates to love, I don’t know.” God, why had he felt compelled to tell her all that? Was it just because she’d asked nicely or had she hit the right spot inside him to make him sing like a bird? Maybe he had just needed someone to talk to about everything that was going on inside him. He wasn’t Catholic and he’d never needed a confessor before, but something about Maia elicited his confidence and made him want to trust her with his thoughts.

Maia was nodding and smiling again. “You love them.”

It wasn’t a question.

Ki frowned.

“So, I wanted to give you your wedding present for Lucy.” Maia turned, walked back across the room and removed the canvas that was leaning against the wall behind the door. She walked back over to Ki and handed him the painting. “It’s kind of a companion piece to your other sketch, what you would have painted had you the ability.”

Ki took the painting in both hands and held it up to get a better look then gasped once he got a clear glimpse of the erotic, nude image of Lucy before his eyes.

Was it really Lucy? When had she posed for this?
Would
she pose for something like this? Ki couldn’t imagine it, not even for a female painter, but Maia had proved to possess a strong-willed and persuasive personality, almost as persuasive as him.

He didn’t know what awed him the most—Lucy’s undeniably sensuous creamy-peach figure silhouetted against a midnight blue background—or the talent of Maia who had captured every nuance of Lucy’s undulating russet hair that appeared burnished copper beneath the light of the room and seemed to have a life all its own.“This is amazing.”

“And before you ask, no she didn’t pose for the painting. I just…have a good eye.”

Ki looked up from the picture to stare at her. He suspected she had a lot more than a good eye and that her gifts didn’t stop with her art. He had heard murmurings in the town about her fey qualities and thought had she been born in an earlier time in history, she might have been charged with being a witch and burned at the stake. Luckily for him, Maia had been born in the time that she had and Ki had had the privilege of meeting her, witch or not.

He felt her gaze upon him like a touch, tangible and solid as if she were trying to get inside his skin, access his thoughts. He’d had the same peculiar feeling earlier when Thayne had acted as his best man and had handed him the ring. The brief brush of Thayne’s skin against his had sent a little shockwave of encouragement through Ki. It was almost as if he had heard someone whispering in his ear
“You can do this. Everything is going to be fine”
right before he slid the ring onto Lucy’s ring finger.

Ki looked at the picture again, liking and hating the fact that he could not see Lucy’s color-change eyes behind her tumble of hair. As he examined the painting more closely, he noticed two other images in the painting, smaller, almost indistinct shadows in the distance.

Was that supposed to be him and…Ethan?

Ki glanced at Maia who smiled at him with a knowing gleam in her eyes. “This is so…much. I feel like I should pay you for it.”

“You try and I will be very insulted.”

Ki laughed. “Well, I certainly don’t want to insult you.”

“Good man.” She patted his arm then glided her hand up to squeeze his shoulder. “Take a little advice from me, Ki?”

“Of course.”

“Tell Lucy, the sooner the better.” Maia gave his shoulder one more squeeze before turning to leave.

Ki stared after Maia, knowing she was right but not how he was going to tell Lucy about his desires for Ethan without losing his new wife altogether.

Lucy sat in a corner of the parlor, watching the festivities, wondering where her husband had gotten to, and plagued by uncertainty.

Why should her wedding day be any different than any other day in her life since her mother’s death? Why should things be any better since Rance’s death?

She was busy staring at the engagement ring and wedding band Ki had slipped onto her finger when Maia pressed a chilled glass of wine into her other hand.

“You look like you could use it,” Maia said.

“I really should keep my head clear.”

“Why? It’s your wedding day. You’re allowed to act a little silly and wild.” Maia smiled.

Lucy remembered silly and wild at ten, but that was when her mother had still been alive and Lucy had yet to break out of her carefree tomboy ways. Silly and wild at twenty-three and a newly married woman was just plain irresponsible as far as she was concerned.

Maia sat down next to her and bumped her shoulder against Lucy’s. “Lighten up, kiddo. You’re a new bride with a gorgeous husband and your whole life ahead of you.”

When Maia put things that way, Lucy thought she should be feeling so much more optimistic, but she knew better than anyone that nothing was ever as it should be and the hills were always greener far away. Someone looking in from the outside would probably think she was leading a blissful life in paradise—newly married to a handsome, rich husband—what bride could ask for anything more?

She was about to ask Maia if she’d seen Ki around anywhere when she looked up and noticed him in the center of the room dancing with Rebel.

They looked like the perfect couple—tall, light-hued, and beautiful, confidence surrounding them like a golden halo as they laughed, exchanged pleasantries and floated across the dance floor like they didn’t have a care in the world.

Lucy wanted to be jealous, but she couldn’t fault Ki and Rebel for being the way they were. That would be like faulting a lion for stalking and killing a deer. It was in a lion’s nature to hunt and kill his prey just as it was in Ki and Rebel’s natures to look stunning and draw the attentions of everyone in the room.

She wished she could be as bold as Rebel and just march across the room to ask her own husband for a dance, but she didn’t have it in her. Besides, the more distance she kept between herself and Ki, the better. If he continued to think she didn’t like him, it would make their living arrangements much easier. It would make saying good-bye in several months simpler.

“You two haven’t had a dance yet. I think it’s past time you went over there to claim your husband and stop Rebel from monopolizing all his time.”

Lucy shrugged, drained the glass of wine before handing it back to Maia and standing. She smoothed her hands down the front of her gown and said, “I need some air.”

It took everything in her to leave the room, heading through the house and out the front door like it didn’t hurt to see Ki in the arms of another woman, even if it was just in a dance.

Lucy felt everyone’s eyes on her, but didn’t let it stop her from leaving and closing the door behind her. Once she got out on the wraparound porch she took a deep breath, her first one since she had said “I do” a couple of hours ago.

She leaned her hands on the porch railing, closed her eyes, and aimed her face at the blue, cloudless sky. The warm spring sun washed over her face as she listened to the birds twittering in the nearby trees. She couldn’t have had a more idyllic day for her wedding—a perfect day to go with her perfect husband and their perfectly pretend life.

Lucy sighed, opened her eyes, and lowered her head. She caught sight of movement several yards away in the gazebo that Rance had, in a rare moment of indulgence, allowed her to build in their garden.

Lucy stepped down from the porch and crossed the flower-lined path toward the gazebo, realized that it was Ethan—make that Prentice—inside, pacing around the octagonal floor like a caged animal.

As she got closer, she realized that he was talking to himself. She would have worried for his sanity except she remembered some days when she had behaved the same way herself. It’s what came of a troubled, overactive mind.

What could have possibly been troubling Prentice aside from the fact that someone had shot and killed Ethan Crawford, the man whose body Prentice now occupied?

Prentice paused mid-pace and glanced up to catch her approach.

Lucy felt like she had been caught with her hand in the till, his clear eyes warming her with their brandy fire. She forced herself to move forward, putting one foot in front of the other until she reached the gazebo, one of her few sanctuaries when Rance had been alive.