Absolute Surrender (39 page)

“More.” Amelia hoped that was audible. She hoped they
’
d heard her. She waited for the evidence of it, then tightened her hands on both of them. “More,” she said louder.

She hoped she wasn
’
t pulling hair from their scalps.

Charles’s hands moved then, smoothing up her sides, still
quite
restrained. Charles’s hands met with Hugh
’
s, and their fingertips intertwined momentarily until Hugh retreated easily, his hands and mouth coming back to pay homage to her neck and lips. It felt like a beautiful dance across her flesh, and Amelia reveled in it.

She felt Hugh shift, her head coming to rest on his shoulder as he held her. Her breasts weren
’
t bereft for long as Charles’s
warmth moved over her, pulling her legs around his waist, his hands tilting and shifting and adjusting as he moved above her.

Charles was bringing himself to her.

OhGodOhGodOhGod.

This was to be it.

Already?

She
’
d thought she had more time, more time to…more time to what, exactly?

What time do I need? To what effect? This is the time, right here, right now, this man
is
to breech
me
…in the most intimate of ways. Perhaps not the most intimate, as the mind may well be more intimate.
And she wanted him there as well, in her mind. She wanted him to have that complete understanding.

Charles did, to some extent. She knew he understood a bit about what it was to live inside her brain.

But that
’
s not what I mean. I want him inside my mind
while I
’
m there
,
with me present, the three of us.

The three of us.

There are three of us...

What a beautiful dance.

“Amelia,” Charles said as he licked and nibbled his way between her breasts, then up the sharp edge of her chin.

They were both there. Charles and Hugh. She opened her mouth to take in as much air as she could as Charles kissed one side of her mouth and Hugh the other.

She stared up at the ceiling, concentrating on the hands, the tongues, the forms shifting in and out of her field of vision. She was married, wedded to Charles, and he was set to take her maidenhead, and it would be done.

Final.

Forever.

She
’
d always thought she was caught between her friend and forever. And now she truly was.

Wedged, as it were.

But friend was no longer the right word for Hugh.

Another shudder coursed her body, and she sucked in a deep breath, forcing her chest up into Charles’s.

“Amelia mine,” Charles said as he wrapped his arms around her and held tight to the entirety of her. “Amelia…
Our Amelia,
” he corrected.

She was surrounded in every way. Head to toe, covered in man. Amelia was so warm—then one of them would kiss her, and the air would catch the moisture and sweep it away, sending a chill through her skin, rushing her veins, pinging some very deep spot, which then sent out a million smaller signals to the far reaches of her soul.

One of Charles’s hands smoothed between her legs, his fingers teasing between her folds, circling her entrance, and she felt the maypole that would rend her, and she tensed anew.

Hugh lifted from her a bit, kissed her eyes and whispered, “Sweet Amelia, stay with us.”

“I
’
m with you, I
’
m with you, I promise I
’
m with you, please feel me, make me feel. I want you to feel, Charles, feel.” She took his eyes with hers as she watched the edges fade.

She let go of Charles’s hair and reached between them, skimming the reality of him all the way to his cock, and he tensed at that touch, even gentle as it was, letting out a deeply pained and powerful noise that filled his chest then saturated the air around them.

“It truly is painful?” she asked, feeling that incredible hardness, wanting to experience it but afraid at his reaction.

Charles looked in her eyes and nodded stiffly. “Yes, Amelia, it
’
s quite painful. But we shall remedy that together, and in future, neither of us will be rent with pain from the act of it.”

The meaning of his words sank in, and she looked back up to the ceiling, willing the fade to recede as she felt Hugh nudge her ear with his nose. Skimming her hand up Charles’s abdomen, across his chest, up his neck and to his face, her hand rested momentarily as Charles turned his head into her palm and kissed her.

“Amelia?” Charles groaned, and she flicked her eyes to his, then closed them, nodding her head in acquiescence.

Then: “Yes.” She breathed it, and felt the air come back to descend warmly across her face.

“Look on us,”
Charles said
as he leaned into her, whispering. “Hugh…”

“I
’
m here,” Hugh responded. “Are you ready, my darling? We
’
re here, stay with us.” Hugh breathed against her neck.

Amelia opened her eyes and concentrated on the ceiling for another moment. She was here, and as it happened, so were they. Hugh held her, grounded her as he did, while Charles was everywhere—certainly between her legs—but surrounding her in the most powerful way above her, whispering precious words in her ear.

“Amelia, sweet Amelia, my duchess, my wife.”

She looked at him then, saw so very much in his eyes—the emotions difficult for her to discern, but
they were there.
She felt them in her bones. That was what she
’
d hoped for, wished for, wanted so very desperately that she felt it in her toes. Then she saw Hugh, like a halo of safety holding her, supporting her, mirroring Charles from above.

There is no judgment here.

Stay with us.

Look on us.

She relaxed. Her mouth fell open on a breath, and they both raised above her, into her field of vision, with nothing but their warmth surrounding her, nothing but safety, nothing but strength. “I marry you. Charles, I marry you. Hugh, I marry you…I marry you…I marry you,” Amelia chanted.

The length of Charles’s body tensed against her. The head of his cock slid past her folds, rocked there for what seemed the longest moment of her life, like the last vestige of her grip off the beautiful cliffs before she would fall, and then, “Amelia.”

Charles groaned, and the moment her eyes met his, he pushed into her with a primal growl, and she let go—and she fell.

Amelia arched against the pain in the rending, but the weight of him held her steady as his arms around her kept her together. Her eyes flitted to Hugh then back to Charles, and Charles kissed her.

She closed her eyes then and fell, fell, fell. She felt so many things whizzing past—hands, tongues, arms, fingers, and she searched for that repetitive motion against her that would signal her crisis. She
’
d come but twice in her lifetime, and already she craved for more. She shifted her hips, and Charles filled her further with another pained groan.

Charles had said this would be painful…for both of them, and she knew in the sounds he made against her that it was. Charles’s every muscle tensed like a massive steel cage slowly closing in…but the tightness comforted. She was contained in it, secured by it, and she relaxed into his hold as he flexed more, even as she thought calming impossible.

The falling, oh, the falling…

His cock reached for the very mouth of her womb, the touch sending a shock through her system and lighting in every limb, every fingertip, the nape of her neck, the tips of her ears, and the tip of her tongue.

“Amelia, are you—”

“Yes, Charles, yes. Don
’
t hold back. Please don
’
t hold back.”

She ran her tongue over her lip as though to feel the bit of current that coursed her system but was shocked when Charles sucked her tongue into his mouth, sending shudders through her muscles. He took her, with his hands, with his mouth, with his teeth, with his cock. He took and took, and Amelia gave everything, following him blindly.

Amelia
’
s hands released both of them then. She hadn
’
t even realized she still held them, her arms had been so pliable as they moved. Amelia wrapped her arms around Charles’s shoulders, crossed her ankles behind his hips, and held on as he pushed and pushed, stronger and harder. The rending subsided to a dull sting with echoes of something trailing behind it, and she trained her mind on that.

Charles’s teeth closed gently on her shoulder, and she pushed against him, wanting more of that burn. He obliged, and she knew he marked her, was inordinately pleased by it, and she turned toward Hugh at her other shoulder. Hugh kissed her, so soft, so sweet. The kiss sank through her, opened her up, and settled her in. She lay in that embrace, feeling that kiss as it traced all the different paths to her toes.

“Oh God, Amelia, you are so warm, so wonderful, so tight.” Charles slowed, his action more determined, as though he searched for something more…and she followed in the search. She concentrated on the contact deep inside, as if he attempted to strike a flint against her core. Charles loosened on her, lifted above her, and like a magnet, her eyes were drawn to him.

“Amelia—” Charles’s voice sounded so pained, and she smoothed her hands up his shoulders and held his face.

“Charles. I love you.”

“Amelia,” Charles ground out, and the reverberation against her sent shivers across her flesh. “Amelia.”

Her vision narrowed on him, and she stilled, unsure whether this tunnel was the moment or the darkness, and was momentarily afraid of both. Hugh
’
s arms came around her, shadowed her own arms, smoothed over her wrists so his hands caressed hers, even as she held on to Charles. His breath was hot on her shoulder.

Hot.

So very hot.

The heat of it.

“Slowly, Charles, slowly,” Hugh said, and Charles responded to Hugh
’
s direction, and the spark fired almost instantly against some secret part of her, pulling a scream from her lungs and racking her body in such a great shudder she thought she
’
d unravel through the bars of her muscled cage.

Charles’s lips met hers again, and her hands slid around his neck and tangled in his hair as she held on through the spasms, her womb kissing his cock, her body like a fist clenching around him.

She reveled in Charles’s pained groans against her mouth until he seemed to break, pistoned into her like a steam train, then with a single final thrust, Charles pushed, harder and deeper than she’d ever thought possible. It felt as though he crawled across the bed into her, pushing her deeper into Hugh
’
s embrace. Then Charles held against her there, his warmth, his mettle, that warm, white, life-bearing seed, flooding her as his own scream rent the air, cracked like thunder above her. And the last thing she knew—
she knew—
was that his crisis was as painful as he had said it would be.

Charles’s release was a strike of lightning, the flash blinding and the sound of blood rushing his veins deafening, as sheer pain coursed his system and found the outlet in his ears—as though his bollocks had been squeezed in the metal jaw of a vise and became so overburdened that the metal snapped and his seed flowed freely. But the mettle didn
’
t merely flow at that. His seed exploded from him, ricocheted within the constraints of his cock’s tight, warm sanctuary, until it saturated every nook and cranny and flooded back toward him.

The pain…
dear God, the pain,
like a rending, yet satisfying. The most pleasurable pain one can know, truly. Funny, that, as he considered what they
’d just done
—what he
’d just done.
He’d torn asunder the most delicate part of her. Claimed her maidenhead for his own—and he basked momentarily in that pure male triumph, that
knowing
beyond singular doubt that no man had trespassed here before.