Three Kings, page 8
“Did you mash the potatoes?” Ethan asked.
Nico blinked away from Peter and nodded. “The chicken’s ’bout ready. I’ve almost got the salad done. Just needs cheese and croutons.”
“We’ve still got a bit of peppered goat cheese left, don’t we? That’d be nice with the spinach,” Peter said.
Ethan smiled. Go with it. Make the best of this. “Yeah, it would. Let’s do that, then.”
While Peter got the cheese out of the fridge, Nico pulled the hot chicken from the oven. The lighthouse reeked of rosemary, thyme, butter, and cooked bird, and the dishes clanked when Ethan set the table. Once the potatoes were mashed and the chicken was cut, they sat and dressed their plates. Peter fixed them each another cocktail, and Ethan insisted on crostini instead of croutons.
That night, before he touched his food, Nico bowed his head and mouthed the words to a silent prayer. The selkie kissed the center of his palm and lifted his face, clearing his throat the moment Ethan met his gaze.
“Let’s eat,” Nico said.
“Thank you for cooking.” Peter stabbed a thick piece of chicken and brought the whole thing to his mouth. “Where’d you learn how to move around the kitchen like that?”
“My mother taught me.”
“I didn’t know you were a man of faith,” Ethan said. He kept his attention on his food, slicing chicken breast, drizzling pumpkin vinaigrette over his salad. He hadn’t meant to ask about religion at the dinner table. How crass. “Sorry, that was—”
“Raised Catholic,” Nico said, shrugging. He stuffed his mouth, chewed, swallowed. “I wouldn’t call myself a man of faith, but I pray here and there. I go to mass on Christmas and Easter. I take communion when I can. It’s a part of my life, I guess.” He paused, salting his potatoes. “A comfort.”
“I have a lot of religious family.” Peter sipped his drink and shot Ethan a narrow-eyed glance. “I’m not close with many of them, but…” He tipped his head, mulling. “Sometimes, they reach out, persuade me to go to church. They worry, you know. Estoy con un brujo.”
“Oh, so it’s my fault you’re a heretic,” Ethan teased.
“Gossip travels far and fast. My sister heard about Katia, told our mother; Mama told Abuela. They assumed, I’m sure.”
Nico nodded. “Assumed you turned away from God?”
“Being magicked back to life by the town alchemist tends to have that effect, yes.” Peter adjusted his glasses, offering a crooked smile. “Marrying him gave my family a heart attack to begin with. They thought I’d been hexed.” He stroked Ethan’s wrist.
“Still a possibility.” Ethan turned his hand over, allowing Peter to touch his palm. He waved his fork between Peter and Nico. “I could have you both under a spell, truthfully.”
“Is that right?” Peter scoffed. He jutted his chin toward Nico. “How ’bout you, bein’ fae-blooded and all? Would it even be possible for my husband to put you under a spell?”
“If you’d asked me that two days ago, I would’ve said no,” Nico admitted.
Ethan blushed. “And now?”
Nico busied himself with his dinner, ignoring the question until Ethan cleared his throat. Nico shifted his jaw. “I’d say you’ve enchanted me.” He swallowed a mouthful of whiskey. “I’d call you both wizards. Claim you’ve spelled me, somehow.”
“Wizards,” Peter exclaimed, barking through a laugh. His wide, white grin was contagious.
Ethan tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t temper his smile. “Wizardry, then. I guess that’s what we’ll tell the town.” He clanked his glass against Peter’s, chuckling. “We’ve accidentally wrangled ourselves a selkie who can cook and spelled him into liking us.”
Peter snorted, cheeks reddened from liquor and laughter. “Good for us, darling. Praise be.”
A reluctant smile curved Nico’s mouth. His shoulders loosened, and he relaxed in his seat, raising a tapered brow. “You think you’ve wrangled me?”
“Haven’t we?” Ethan asked, and at the same time, Peter nodded and said, “Looks that way.”
Ethan met Nico’s gaze. His dark eyes glinted gold in the candlelight, more animal than man, and Ethan remembered earlier that day, the knife pressed to his throat, then knocking Nico to the floor and sending magic pulsing through the air. Tension thickened, constricted unbearably, and left him hungry for answers to questions he was afraid to ask, curious about a man who’d crashed into their life—into his marriage.
The conversation ebbed, and they went back to their dinner, scooping potatoes, nibbling chicken, stuffing their mouths with spinach and bread. Once they’d finished, Nico settled atop a quilt in front of the hearth, and Peter sat in the recliner. Ethan plopped on the floor between Peter’s calves, leaning against the leather chair. His eyes curtained as the fire popped. Peter traced the shell of his ear and played absently with his hair, and flames sent shadows across Nico’s long, pretty features.
“How’d you get me here?” Nico asked, his brows furrowed, and he turned to face them, glancing from Ethan to Peter. “I’m not dainty in either skin.”
“I rolled you here on a fishery palette. I tried to carry you—almost succeeded—but hauling you uphill wasn’t in the cards,” Peter said. “I put a towel over your face like they do in those veterinarian shows though.”
Nico laughed in his throat. “What’d your crew think?”
“That I’d lost my mind.”
“What’d you think?” Nico asked, flicking his gaze to Ethan.
Ethan sipped his drink. Liquor burned his throat. “I thought you were a lot more than a sad, lifeless seal, and I was right. My husband bringing you home was no surprise though. You should see him in spring, making nurseries for abandoned birds and putting leftovers out for raccoons.”
“I’m shocked you don’t have a dog,” Nico said. “Or a cat. A pet of some sort.”
“Our focus has been elsewhere.” Peter ran his finger along Ethan’s jaw. “A dog might be nice though. Bring some pawprints to the lighthouse. What do you think?”
Ethan nodded—not yes, not no—but acknowledgement. “Something of our own,” he murmured before realizing he’d spoken aloud. He heaved a sigh to try to distract from his solemn statement. “Is your aunt aware that you’re here?” he asked Nico. He finished the rest of his drink. His mind was delightfully slow, thoughts moving like molasses. “Did you have a phone or…or, I don’t know, belongings anywhere?”
Nico blinked, taken aback. He tilted his head and searched the floor, the fire, then the ceiling. “Yeah,” he said, laughing softly. “Yeah, I do. I hadn’t thought about…any of that, actually. Except my wallet, but… But I was staying at the Casper Inn. I’m sure they’ve… Well, I’m sure they’ve thrown my shit out by now—”
“Like I said at the market, a little post-spell amnesia isn’t uncommon. Especially postmortem,” Ethan assured.
“I forgot my middle names for a while after,” Peter said. “Took a minute to get those back.”
Nico nodded. He looked adorably confused, cheeks reddened by whiskey, lips pursed, eyes squinted.
“We can call the inn if you want.” Ethan fished his phone out of his pocket. “Or you can call. How long was your reservation for?”
“I was supposed to check out on November seventh. What’s the date?” Nico asked, laughing again. He swiped his hand through his hair, leaning backward to brace on his palm.
“It’s only the sixth.” Ethan held out his phone. “Go on. Call.”
Nico took the phone and made for the front door.
Peter yawned and stretched. His ankles cracked. “I should clean the kitchen and get to bed,” he said, curling his knees inward to squeeze Ethan’s upper arms. “Come with me?”
Ethan watched a shadow cross the bottom of the door. He could’ve slept; he could’ve stayed awake. Could’ve journaled or taken a bath, could’ve fallen asleep in the recliner or curled up next to the fire. But Peter’s thumb grazed the place where Ethan’s neck hinged, throat to jaw, and he knew the intention in a touch like that. The question. He pushed to his feet and got to work clearing the table, leaning into Peter’s hands drifting across his waist as they moved around the kitchen, filling containers with leftover potatoes and washing dishes in soapy water.
“He’s calmed down a bit,” Peter said.
Ethan nodded. “You have too.”
“Have I?” Heat sparked, popping like a wick.
He shot Peter a questioning look. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but from where I’m standing, yes.”
Nico opened the door just as Ethan was toweling his hands.
“I can pick up my things tomorrow.” Nico gripped his wrist, hands clutched nervously at his beltline. “The manager said they’d hold my room too. Extend my stay if I need a soft place to land while I recoup.”
“Is that what you’d like to do, then?” Peter asked. He took off his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt. He clucked his tongue, staring at Nico with fond, curious eyes. “Or would you rather stay here?”
Ethan parted his lips, struggling with excuses. I’ll need to check your bandages and it’s best you’re close while you heal and don’t go and not yet.
“I’d prefer to stay here until I can swim again. If you’ll have me—or, I mean—if that’s all right.” Nico flashed a shy smile. “You’ve already wrangled me, so.”
“True.” Peter gave a curt nod and disappeared into the bedroom, tossing a casual, “See you in the morning,” over his shoulder as he went.
Ethan met Nico’s eyes. They stayed like that, watching each other until a dresser drawer noisily opened and closed.
“Pleasant dreams, Nico,” Ethan said and eased the bedroom door halfway closed, waiting.
Nico turned toward the hearth. “Good night.”
Rusted hinges wheezed and creaked, and Ethan shut the bedroom door with a faint click, memorizing the shape of Nico bathed in firelight, standing in the middle of the lighthouse.
Chapter Seven
The night had gone unexpectedly.
Once Ethan had locked their bedroom, Peter had pawed at him, manhandling him against the wall, the closet door, the dresser. Ethan hadn’t anticipated that—Peter’s lips scorching a path down his throat, being hoisted onto the dresser and fiercely kissed. He’d clutched to Peter, whimpered and spread his legs, overcome with suddenness, aggression, heat.
“What’s gotten into you?” Ethan had tried and failed to calm his thundering heart. “First you hate him, and then you’re jealous of him. Tonight, you’re his best fuckin’ pal, and now you’re acting like a damn lion. I’m not a gazelle, Peter. You don’t have to mark your territory.”
Peter tugged him, turned him, and forced his palms against the top of the dresser. He yanked impatiently at his pants. “Tell me to stop, then,” he purred, nuzzling Ethan’s nape.
“He has ears like a dog—he’ll hear us,” Ethan snapped, whispering furiously. He quivered, pants and underwear bunched at his ankles, hopelessly wet and aching to be touched. He’d been horribly, painfully embarrassed when Peter reached between his legs and grazed his slit, and he’d hardly contained a pitiful whine.
“Don’t you want him to hear us?” Peter teased, his voice a harsh rasp against Ethan’s ear. “I think you do. You want him to hear everything, querido. Want him to imagine what’s goin’ on in here—want to make him sweat. Tell me I’m lying.”
“I… It’s… Fuck, are you punishing me? Is this a…a test?” Ethan whimpered, bracing on the furniture as the rake of a zipper came and went.
“I’m indulging us,” Peter said, breathing hard, grip bruise-tight on Ethan’s hips. “I see the way you look at him.”
“I see the way you look at him,” Ethan snapped back. Stubble scraped his neck, and Peter seized his chin, pulling him into another messy kiss.
“Then we’ve come to an understanding, no?”
By the time Ethan had opened his mouth to speak, Peter had filled him on a single, fluid thrust. Every thought emptied. He grasped at the frayed edges of something impossible—that Peter wanted Nico, that Peter wanted him to want Nico—and endured the fast, relentless sex he’d silently begged for. The rough hold on his body, the sound of their skin meeting, the soft, pathetic sounds he couldn’t keep at bay. Ethan hadn’t prepared for that. For Peter Vásquez to become ravenous, for their shared secrecy to come alive inside their bedroom, put on display and welcomed. Yes, he wanted Nico. Of course, he wanted Nico. They both did. The thought crashed around inside him.
“I do,” Ethan confessed, whispering in the dark. “I want him to hear us.”
They’d fucked like that, with Ethan bent over the dresser, half-clothed and trembling, knowing Nico could hear his small cries, his shaken whimpers, his gasps and wobbly pleas. The whiskey had dulled his inhibitions, made him eager and messy and malleable. When Peter plunged two fingers past his lips, he gagged and moaned, and when his husband forced his jaw to slacken, his mouth to stay open, allowing those rough, throaty noises to escape, Ethan gushed around his cock. Loved it. Clenched and spasmed and came because of it.
In the moments after, shame churned in Ethan’s gut. After Peter cleaned him with a towel from the hamper, kissed him sweetly, and guided him to bed, he’d tossed and turned, thinking of Nico in the living quarters, listening.
In the morning, Peter got ready for work. He pecked Ethan on the lips, brushed his cheek with calloused knuckles, and said, “I love you.”
“I love you too.” What else was there to say? It was an unchallenged truth, even then, even after last night. “Are we okay, Peter? Don’t indulge me; tell me the truth. Are we?”
Peter’s eyes softened in the new morning light. “We do this together, or we don’t do it at all. Sí?”
“What is ‘this’?” he asked, exasperated.
“Opening our marriage,” Peter said and kissed his forehead. “It happens together, or it doesn’t happen.”
Ethan didn’t know what to say. He blew out a breath, searching Peter’s face.
“Right?” Peter asked.
“Right, yes,” Ethan blurted, flabbergasted. “Of course.”
Peter pinched his chin and slipped out of their bedroom. “Morning, patrón,” he said to Nico, then slung on his coat and shut the front door quietly behind him.
What…? Ethan sat cross-legged on their bed and bundled the sleeves of his nightshirt into his palms. The blue hour lit the tower varying shades of navy, seafoam, and black. The sound of the sink running broke the quiet. Kettle bottom met iron on the stovetop, and Nico’s socked feet shuffled over the tile. Ethan’s mind was liquor-whipped and cottony, clinging to sleep the same way mist clung to Casper. He massaged his temples. Rallying bravery, he stepped into a pair of sweats and tightened the drawstring around his waist.
Peter’s voice rang through him. Opening our marriage. Each word landed like a mule kick to Ethan’s chest. Opening our marriage. As if they’d locked something away when they’d taken their vows. Opening our marriage. Like Nico had blown open an urge they’d ignored for a decade. Opening our marriage. They’d never talked about it, never been given an opportunity to entertain the idea.
Forty-eight hours with a handsome stranger had changed everything.
Ethan tried to calm the anxious knot in his stomach, fought against the heat filling his cheeks, and stepped into the living quarters.
Nico tipped the steaming kettle over a mug. “Did you rest well?”
“Yes,” he lied, nodding. “And you?”
Nico lifted a brow. “Had trouble falling asleep.” He gave a coy snort. “You didn’t happen to hear an overzealous couple going at it like porn stars, did you? I could’ve sworn—”
“Listen, I…” Ethan set his teeth hard. Embarrassment flared. Caused his head to spin. He exhaled sharply, staring at the counter and then the ground. “I wasn’t clearheaded last night, and I’m sorry. I don’t…I don’t know what’s going on with me, or Peter—with us—but that was rude and—”
Nico placed a bent knuckle beneath Ethan’s chin and lifted his face. “What happens in your bedroom is none of my business,” Nico murmured, pressing his thumb to Ethan’s bottom lip. “What happens between you and your husband is none of my business, and what you’re going through as a couple is certainly none of my business.” The very same words Ethan had used, the same rhythm, the same cadence. Nico snarled a smile, his breath coasting Ethan’s slack mouth. “Right?”
Heat pooled in Ethan’s groin. He snapped his teeth around Nico’s thumb, a fast, petty bite. Nico hissed and jerked away, snaring him in a fierce glare.
“You’re a menace,” Ethan hissed.
“And you’re a coward.”
“How dare you—”
It was then that Nico kissed him.
The selkie moved with purpose, cupped Ethan’s jaw, and brought their mouths together. Ethan warmed under the weight of his lips. Arched toward him like the tide, pulled inward, gravitating toward something solid and constant and new. Harder, he thought, and tipped his head. Nico’s teeth knocked his own. Then he heard Peter’s voice again—it happens together, or it doesn’t happen—and opened his eyes.
He eased away, shivering at the sound of their lips parting. Nico watched him carefully, pupils blown, eyes half-curtained, and closed the space between them, kissing him again. This time, Ethan welcomed the warm, wet pass of Nico’s tongue behind his teeth before he set his palms on Nico’s chest and pushed. Nico pulled away, and Ethan pushed him again, putting an arm’s length between them. He swallowed, feverish, shaken, and confused. His fingers twitched, extended toward Nico, keeping a wild thing at bay.
“Not without my husband,” Ethan rasped. Magic coursed through him, tilting the air, causing everything to thicken and buzz. “We can’t do this without Peter.”
Strange, kissing someone who wasn’t the person he’d kissed as a teen, as a young man, as who he was at twenty-nine. Nico tasted like black tea and kelp, kissed like someone who had kissed many different mouths, looked at him with wide, dangerous eyes. He gave a tense nod.
