“Quel dommage,” Matthieu murmured, stepping right up to Geoffrey as if, moments before, fire hadn’t been erupting from every orifice on Geoffrey’s face. He laid his hand on Geoffrey’s chest in a gesture that was nothing short of heroic. “So what you are saying is that he will not be able to determine where the sperm has come from.”
“I am not sleeping with you,” Geoffrey said much too quickly, his cheeks such a deep shade of crimson that Ian was worried the rest of his body might suffer from lack of blood flow. “I won’t. I am—”
Matthieu took his hand away, but he looked at Geoffrey as sweetly as ever. “You do not have to defend yourself,monsieur dragon—you may do as you wish. You are a dragon, after all. Are you not? And I, just an omega.” The tone of Matthieu’s voice bordered on saccharine, but beneath the syrupy sweetness lurked a refined flavor that suggested what he said wasn’t as superficial as he made it out to be. There was method to what he did—Ian was sure of it—but what the end result might be? Ian couldn’t tell. “As I told you before, it does not have to be so hard.”
Matthieu looked over Geoffrey’s shoulder at Ian, his eyes smoldering with intent.
“If both of you are to share me,” Matthieu said simply, speaking slowly in what seemed to be a bid to maximize auditory comprehension, “then there is no need to be jealous. You only need to do so once, so your father can see I have been bred. When my heat comes,monsieur améthystecan provide me with oral contraceptives—no one will think to monitor his comings and goings. Am I correct?”
Geoffrey glanced at Ian, his lips tight. Something lurked in his eyes that Ian rarely got a chance to see—uncertainty. “You are correct.”
“If he does so, in one short year, with no clutch produced, I will be discarded,” Matthieu continued. “When I am discarded,vous deuxcan resume your relations without worrying another will come between you. Is my proposed solution now clear?”
Ian shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. If you don’t produce a clutch within two heats, my father will find another omega for me to breed.”
Geoffrey went very still, his violet eyes burdened by the information, and Ian cursed himself for not breaking the news more gently. The omega also froze, but only for a second. Then he said, “Well, this will buy you a year’s time. Surely two dragons, given a year, can find a way past this obstacle,non?”
Geoffrey scrubbed at his face. Ian, who realized too late that he’d been digging his nails into his palms, released the tension in his hands and looked Matthieu over. It was clear he was missing a piece of the puzzle.
It seemed he wasn’t alone in his observation—when Matthieu had finished, Geoffrey spoke, his voice thin, verging on strained. “This is a plea bargain, isn’t it?”
“Veuillez m’excuser, monsieur dragon,” Matthieu apologized, his voice elevated a note or two, and his tone nearing farcical. “I do not understand the concept of this ‘plea bargain’ of which you speak.”
“You understand it and you know you do,” Geoffrey sniped. He shot Ian an irritated look, but all Ian could offer him was silent support. “You’re agreeing to your sentence in return for a concession. What is it? What do you stand to gain?”
“Ah.” Matthieu looked away prettily, his head tilted slightly downward, and his lashes lowered in imitation of innocence. Despite knowing that it was an act, a pang gripped Ian’s heart, and he felt himself soften toward the omega. “It is simple. In fact, I have already told you what I want.Ma liberté—my freedom. It is nothing more complicated than that.”
“I don’t believe you.”
But Ian, who saw through Matthieu’s act of innocence as clearly as he saw through cubic zirconia paraded as diamonds, did.
Whatever Matthieu was hiding, and whatever his motive, he had no desire to be a dragon’s mate.
“Whether you believe me or not,c'est la vérité, la seule vérité.” Matthieu stretched slowly, elongating his bare torso and exposing every angle and curve of his body. When he was done, he let his head roll back in a languid, indulgent way, then craned his neck to the side and made a noise that reminded Ian of a cat’s purr. If Matthieu had been up on a stage at some seedy strip club, it would have been raining singles. Ian had to look away. “I will not lie to you,mes dragons. To do so would be foolish and unnecessary. So, in the spirit of honesty, I will share another truth with you—if we are to all three of us get out of this arrangement, we must work together. You must learn to trust me.”
A shrug. Ian saw it from the corner of his eye. His cheeks were so hot that he was momentarily afraid Geoffrey had set fire to them when he wasn’t looking.
“I will help you if you will help me. How do you say it in English?” Matthieu clicked his tongue in mockery of reflection. The sound alone convinced Ian that he knew exactly how to say what he was about to say. It seemed to him that everything Matthieu said and did was carefully weighed and calculated—what was going on inside that head of his? “Tat for tit?”
“Tit for tat,” Geoffrey whispered, sounding unsettled, but nowhere near as upset as he’d been moments before. “You got it backwards.”
“Ah,oui.” Matthieu began to move for the doorway, the slightest swing in his step. The full, pale cheeks of his uncovered ass tempted Ian as he went, and he turned his head until they left his peripheral vision. “If you need me, you can find meentre les draps.”
Between the sheets.
Matthieu left the room.
“He wants us to sleep with him,” Geoffrey mumbled, crossing his arms uneasily over his chest. “Both of us. As if… as if that would fix anything.”
A thought, as invasive as it was devastatingly hot, flashed through Ian’s mind—an image of Geoffrey, his prickly Amethyst lover, rutting into Matthieu as Matthieu gripped the gold-plated rods of the guest room headboard and cried with delight.
“It wouldn’t fix anything,” Geoffrey said, but it was spoken as a near-question rather than a statement, like even he wasn’t sure. “The plan he proposed… it would be a temporary reprieve.”
“But it might work,” Ian admitted, shaking the thought aside, but barely. The image was gone, but the effects it had had on him warmed his groin and stirred his cock. “A whole year, Geoffrey. That’s a lot of time in which to plan.”
“You would have to sleep with him.” Geoffrey’s voice was neutral, but Ian could feel the underlying pain inherent in the words.
Ian shook his head. “No, my love. I would never sleep with him—wewould sleep with him. If we work together, the two of us and him, we can get out of this. It doesn’t have to be so bad. I’ll still have you and you’ll have me. Think of the omega as a distraction.”
