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“What is necessary, exactly?” he asked.

Jean-Claude licked his lips. “This is magic, not science. In truth I am not sure. We could do the fourth mark, that I know how to do, but what happened at the club last night was not the fourth mark. It was as if ma petite slipped into me. We were joined as never before, and it made us unbelievably powerful.”

“How did it work?”

“We touched.”

“We were in the middle of a crisis of police proportions,” I said.

“Oui, but I think it will work with touching. We are of Belle’s line, and most of her magic can be reached through physical closeness.”

“Physical closeness,” Richard said, and he shook his head. “Define physical closeness.”

Jean-Claude smiled. “Tell me what you would have of me, Richard. What rules and restrictions would make you feel safe?”

“If I said, don’t touch me?”

“Then I say we are wasting our time. Ma petite and I were touching when it happened, not intimately, but the contact was important. Physical contact makes most of my powers easier.”

“Define not intimate.”

“I think he was holding my hand,” I said.

Richard smiled, a quick flash in his tanned face, “Hand-holding I can manage.”

Jean-Claude smiled, and it was nice to see them smiling at each other for once. “I would ask that if I need to touch you for balance that that be allowed.”

Richard narrowed his eyes a little. “Depends on where you’re touching me, but okay.”

Jean-Claude shook his head. “That is not Richard’s look, that is your look, ma petite. Your look from our Richard’s face.”

“Well, you know what they say, couples start looking like each other after awhile.”

Richard looked at me. “Couple?”

I shrugged. “If I’m going to be lupa to your Ulfric, then yeah. That’s how your pack will see it.”

He nodded, then smiled again. “Just like that, you agree to it all.”

I reached out my hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, he took it. There was no flash of munin or Raina, it was just his hand so warm in mine. “We’ll try it, see if it works, depends on what I have to do as your lupa. I just want you to know that you can walk out the door right now, and I’ll still try to play lupanar with you.”

He squeezed my hand. “You won’t force me?”

“Not my kick.”

“Nor mine,” Jean-Claude said. “I have been victim too many times over the centuries. It has given me no taste for it.”

Richard took in a big breath, which moved his chest and shoulders, and raised his stomach up and down, as if he’d drawn air all the way down to his toes. He let it out slowly, then nodded. “Let’s try. If I can’t do it, then I can’t do it, but I’ll try.”

I kept my hand in Jean-Claude’s, but stepped away from him, until I was standing in front of Richard. I went up on tiptoes, and he bent down so I could kiss him, gently, on the mouth. “Have I told you recently that I think you are very brave?”

His eyes filled with something warm and good. “Never.”

“Then I’m saying it now.”

“Thank you,” he said, and his arm slid around my waist, the warmth of his skin pulsing even through the silk. No, not his warmth, his power.

Jean-Claude stood up, and I drew him into the back of my body. Richard tensed when Jean-Claude’s body pinned his arm, but he fought it. Fought to relax. He wasn’t entirely successful, but he tried. A for effort.

“Now, let’s get naked,” I said.

I actually made them both choke and laugh at the same time. “Ma petite, what has made you so bold?”

“It takes the three of us forever to do anything. We discuss it, we argue it, we fight, we make up, we fight. I don’t want to discuss anymore. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it.”

“Just like that,” Richard said, “off with the clothes, no sweet talk first.”

I leaned into the circle of his arm, and the weight of Jean-Claude behind my back. I looked up Richard’s face, and said, “I want to see if I can deep throat you.”

He blinked at me, then started to laugh, then stopped, and finally said in a strained voice, “You couldn’t before. It was great, but you never quite—”

“I’ve been practicing,” I said. I smiled up at