“Your gift, my lady,” he said.
“Mygift?” she repeated, outrage replacing the regret in her tone. “What the bloody hell does that mean?”
He moved to her and she stepped back. Oh, she was angry, his spitfire of a wife. It had been a long time since he’d seen such a spark in her eyes. It excited him, though. Her passion in upset always led to an explosive reunion in the end. He very much looked forward to it.
“Have I not always given you what you wanted, Merritt?” he asked softly, slowly. “Did you think I limited that to objects? This is a very important birthday. Why not give you something…someonewho has always been out of your reach?”
Her expression twisted and he saw that she was beginning to understand why he’d asked Reid here. What he expected to happen. What hewantedto happen, though that part she might not fully grasp yet. That this was a gift for him as much as for her.
“You bastard,” she whispered. “How dare you go behind my back? How dare you manipulate a situation that you cannot begin to understand? How dare you?”
She didn’t wait for his response, but turned on her heel and stalked from the room. He heard their door slam upstairs a moment later and sighed as he turned to Reid with a shake of his head. “She will come around.”
Reid stepped forward. “Come around to what, my lord? What exactly did you demand I come here to do?”
Elliot arched a brow toward him and folded his arms. “Come now, Reid. You and I have known each other for many years and this has been an open secret between us for just as long, yes?”
Peter shifted, a little color entering those astonishing high cheekbones of his. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Elliot snorted and walked to the sideboard to pour himself a drink. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out that you were her first love? The love torn from her by her wretched father? The love that changed her and helped mold her into everything she is today?” He pivoted and held Peter’s stare. “Please don’t treat me like a fool.”
Once again Peter shifted. “I…I thought you might know, yes. A man like you would know everything.”
Arrogant pride filled Elliot at that. “I do try. And at first I will admit that my reaction was one of…well, it wasn’t a pretty feeling.” He swallowed hard because the memory made him taste the unpleasant tang of jealousy instead of the whisky in his glass. “But the years since my discovery of this truth have softened me. And so here we are.”
“Here we are doing what, exactly?” Peter asked.
Elliot took another sip of his drink and then handed it to Peter. The other man hesitated a moment before he took it and finished the drink. Elliot couldn’t help but mark that Peter placed his lips exactly where his own had been. He couldn’t deny the little flare of hunger that fact caused, too.
And tamped it down because there was no place for it.
“As I said to her before she stormed off to pace around our bedroom in an aroused rage, I want Merritt to have what she desires. Especially for her birthday.”
“And that’s me,” Peter said carefully.
Elliot inclined his head. “I think, in truth, it isus.”
There was a pause that seemed to last forever before Peter whispered, “Us.”
Elliot nodded. “She is not the innocent girl she was when last you were with her. Over the years together, she has honed appetites that I’ve encouraged. Desires that…” He licked his lips. “Good God, when she gives over to them, it is something to behold.”
Peter’s breath caught, just a fraction. But enough for Elliot to know that his words were hitting the mark he wanted.
“One of the things she likes to read about, to watch, to fantasize about…is two men with a woman. With that woman being the center of their attention and care. She’s never asked for it. We’ve never indulged in bringing another to our bed. But now seems as good a time as any. And you are the perfect pick since it seems you are business that was left unfinished in her past. And I know you to be a discreet gentleman with a reputation for keeping your lovers…satisfied.”
Peter’s hand clenched at his side. His pupils were dilated with desire he didn’t seem entirely ready to come around to. He nodded toward the door. “A very pretty image to play in my mind, my lord. But your wife doesn’t seem as keen on the idea.”
“But you are,” Elliot asked. “If you had the chance to have her, to share her, you would wish to do so?”
There was a beat, then two, that passed between the question and his answer. “Yes,” Peter said softly, at last. “I would very much want that.”
“Excellent,” Elliot said, relief and desire merging in his blood in that charged moment. “Then leave the rest to me.”
* * *
Merritt
Merritt couldn’t stop shaking as she paced her way around the chamber. Her mind raced with the unbelievable events that had just transpired. Seeing Peter again after all these years apart? Having Elliot be the orchestrator of that reunion? And then her husband wanting her to…to what, exactly? Make love to Peter?
