Jaded (21 page)

Once the sweet waves of her orgasm had passed, her fingers caught on Alek’s shirt, tugging it off. She wanted both of them naked. Alek unbuttoned his shirt and she rose up onto her knees, running her hands over his chest, into his hair and kissing him. Byron came to her side and she switched to him, her fingers finding and undoing his pants.

“Please,” she whispered against Byron’s lips. “You’ve both made me insane with need.”

Soon their clothes were a forgotten heap and their bodies moved skin against skin, Lilya in the middle. She felt incoherent, drunk on lust. Moving between them, she kissed them each in turn, her fingers finding and stroking their cocks as their hands moved restlessly over her body, across her breasts, stomach, and between her thighs.

Leaning down, she took Alek’s cock between her lips, taking him deep into her mouth and stroking him with her tongue the way she knew men liked to be stroked. He groaned, his hands tangling in her hair and his back arching.

After giving Alek several minutes of pleasure, she moved to Byron and did the same, made him groan her name, his voice rumbling through him and into her. Back and forth, she moved between them, giving them each strokes with her mouth and tongue, while caressing the other with her hand.

Soon both men were harder than iron and practically growling with need. Byron forced her up, slanting his mouth over hers and kissing her deeply, murmuring how much he wanted her between hungry stabs of his tongue.

“So, take me. I’m yours,” she murmured. How true it was.

He forced her down on all fours, her rear toward him. Knowing what he wanted, she slanted her hips up to give him better access.

He took in the sight of her, making a low, needful sound in his throat. “Is that not the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen in your life, Alek?”

“It is, and if you don’t take what she’s offering soon, my friend, I will.”

Byron’s fingers raked over her swollen, needful sex, making her moan, then delved deep inside her. All she could do was hold on as he thrust, her fingers digging into the carpet, while he took her that way for several minutes.

Alek moved to her front and she slid him into her mouth, working him with her tongue, while Byron replaced fingers with cock, pushing the crown deep within her. She was wet and very willing and he worked it back and forth easily until he was seated base-deep. She gasped around Alek’s cock at the sensation of being so spread and possessed.

Soon Byron began to thrust and all their movements fumbled. It took all three of them a moment to find a rhythm—Byron deep inside her sex and Alek within her mouth. Then they began to move together, each one part of a whole. Every inward thrust that Byron made carried her forward into a mouth stroke on Alek. Together they found a cadence of pleasure that allowed all of them to give and receive, Lilya as the centerpiece.

Alek’s cock jerked in her mouth and a hot rush poured down her throat while he groaned out her name. Once he’d moved to the side, Byron eased her to the carpet onto her back, spread her thighs, and entered her once again. His gaze fastened on hers with such intensity it made her breath catch as he pushed inside her root-deep. Closing her eyes as her body adjusted once more to accommodate his girth, her teeth sank into her lower lip. Alek watched them with dark eyes from his resting place near the fire.

Reaching up, Byron caught her hands and pressed them to either side of her head as he moved slowly in and out of her. In this position and at this deliberate pace, she imagined she could feel every bump and vein of his cock as he thrust. Every movement he made drove her closer to her climax. Her breathing quickened and her body tensed.

“Come for me, Lilya,” Byron murmured. “I want to hear you climax again. I want to feel your body as you come undone.”

Her body tensed and ecstasy rolled over her. Her body convulsed in pleasure, her inner muscles milking his thrusting cock. A hoarse moan ripped from her throat and she arched her back, toes curling, as it rolled through her. Her orgasm triggered his. Bodies straining together, they came at the same time, each of them sighing the other’s name.

When it was over, the men settled in on either side of her, cuddling against her, their hands moving restlessly over her body as though neither of them could get enough of the feel of her skin. They touched her breasts, delved between her thighs, sometimes both at the same time, one stroking inside her and the other caressing her climax-sensitive clit.

All at once another orgasm stuttered to brilliant, startling life, making her buck and moan out her pleasure between them on the floor.

Completely spent and exhausted, she eventually fell asleep cradled in their arms, waking up only once, briefly, when Byron carried her up the stairs and put her into his bed and then curled up beside her.

 

 

Lilya woke between two very large, naked men. She blinked, orienting herself, then remembered what they’d done together the evening before. Her body still tingled from it.

She shifted, noting that Alek’s arm was thrown over her waist and his leg was inserted between her calves.

In his sleep, Byron reached out and dragged her close, nuzzling her hair with his nose. She smiled happily, allowing herself a moment to imagine how it would be to wake up like this beside him every day.

Or, better yet, waking up with
both
of them like this every morning. It was a nice fantasy.

Alek cuddled closer to her back, his pelvis finding and cupping her rear. He mumbled something in his sleep and brushed his lips against her nape, making her shiver. His body was warm and strong. He made her feel safe.

A smile curving her mouth, she settled in against Byron and let sleep take her once more.

L
ilya trailed her fingers in her hot, scented bathwater, closed her eyes, and sighed. Running heated water from a spigot right into the bathtub was a luxury she never passed up. The Temple of Dreams still didn’t have pipes, nor did the home Byron had given her. She’d soon have the wonders installed in there, though. Joshui bless the Tinkers’ Guild.

The water eased away the pleasant ache in her body left over from the night before. It had not been the first time she’d been with two men at the same time, but it had never been like that, so intense . . . never when she’d been so emotionally invested. It had made the experience exceptionally pleasurable.

This morning it frightened her to the center of all she was. These men were changing her, changing her life. She’d spent so long clawing her way back from her attack to create the life she had now that it was scary to see it transforming into something else. It was a loss of control she did not enjoy.

During the night the winter storm had intensified, drifting snow up against all the doors outside and making it impossible for carriages or even horses to travel the streets. The crossball game had been rescheduled and they were stuck in the house for the day, something Lilya hardly minded despite her edge of uneasiness. Not with these two men.

Her head told her she should run screaming from both of them, blizzard or no blizzard, before she got hurt. Yet her heart wouldn’t let her budge.

Her eyes opened when she heard the door open. Byron entered the room and crossed to her, his face grim. She watched him move, appreciating his body under his clothes. He pulled a chair up next to the bathtub and sank down into it. He searched her eyes.

“What’s wrong, Byron?”

He let out a slow breath. “Are you all right? I never planned for that last night. It just happened.”

She looked away, down into the bathwater. He meant the actual sexual act, she was certain. He could not guess the turmoil of her emotions the morning after. “Of course. You saw clearly that I was fine with it.” She glanced at his face and offered a smile. “It was exquisite. A little unexpected, I’ll admit.”

“It was unexpected for me too.” He looked away from her, running a hand over his face. “I care deeply for you and I would never want to put you in situation in which were uncomfortable or that brought bad memories or feelings.”

Oh
.

She caught his gaze. “Byron, I was fragile for a time, long ago, when you first met me. I’m not fragile like that anymore. I’m not a doll you have to fear might break. Believe me, if I’m not comfortable with something, I’ll tell you.”

He nodded. “Good. And I know you’re strong.”

She dropped her gaze to the water again and played in the soap bubbles with her fingertips. “I’ll admit I am a little confused, however. After you found me and Alek on the divan and deduced that we’d made love, you seemed jealous. You seemed as if you didn’t want him touching me anymore, then last night . . .”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I did feel that way, Lilya.” He met her eyes. “I still do.”

“Then why share me?”

“Because I care for you both. I see clearly that Alek is falling for you just as I predicted he would. I also see caring on your face when you look at him. I brought this situation on us all and I have no right to impose my will on it. It’s out of my control and it’s my own fault.” He pressed his lips together, apparently deep in thought. “Despite the feelings of possessiveness I have where you are concerned, what happened last evening felt right.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and wagered a guess that had been lurking in the back of her mind. “That wasn’t the first time you and Alek have shared a woman, was it?”

“No. We’ve been doing it since we were teenagers. We lost our virginity that way, with one of the maids in his house.” He chuckled. “We’ve shared many women, even—” He broke off.

“Evianna?”

He nodded. “Threesomes aren’t uncommon in Milzyrian universities. We shared her in the beginning, but early on it became clear that Alek and Evianna shared feelings that went beyond adventuresome sex. A deeper relationship was blooming. The fun was over and I bowed out.”

“I wondered. You both seemed to know what you were doing.” She grinned. “The chorography, I mean.”

“I never intended for it to happen, but it feels natural with him. I saw you, I wanted you, you seemed to want me back, so I took you. I knew that Alek wouldn’t object.”

She nodded and met his eyes. “And neither did I, all right? Not on any level.” She wouldn’t talk about the confusing tangle of emotion that clogged her chest.

“Sharing you seemed less painful than knowing you might be with Alek alone. It was somewhat selfish of me.”

She made a frustrated sound and studied the soap bubbles fiercely. “You say those things and you confuse me again. I do care for Alek and am coming to care for him more every day. You brought me here to enter into some kind of relationship with him and then you—”

He reached out, gently cupped her chin, and guided her gaze to his. “You are free to do as you want with him. I have no hold over you, and I would never wish to put one on you. You control your body and the decisions you make.”

She pressed her lips together, her eyes pricking with tears. The woman she’d been before Byron had reentered her life would have welcomed those words, but the woman who feared she was in love with Byron wanted a different set of sentences. She wanted him to say.
I love you. You are mine and no one else’s.

Sweet Joshui, she was a stupid, naive woman. She would never hear that from him and she needed to get used to it.

She dragged in an uneven breath and moved her chin, breaking his hold on her. “We’ll see what happens between Alek and I.”

“Whatever happens, I will accept.”

His gaze drifted to her breasts, just barely covered by the top of the soapy water. She smiled at how dark his eyes had gone and raised an eyebrow. “Want to come in here with me?”

“I want to be wherever you are.”

Her smile faded and her heart squeezed. He sounded so honest when he said that. She reached out, caught his hand, and yanked. Of course, he was too big for her to truly pull into the bath, but he came anyway, clothes and all. They laughed, water splashing over the rim of the bathtub and sloshing onto the floor around it.

His wet clothes rasped her bare skin as he sat up and caught her face between his hands, kissing her. “I’m glad to have you here, Lilya.”

She smiled against his lips. Yes, and having to leave was going to slice her through, she could feel it already. This man had a power over her she couldn’t deny. One minute it made her want to hold him close and never let go. The next minute she wanted to run as fast as she could away from him.

The latter reaction was the healthiest and most intelligent. Apparently she neither cared about her health nor was she all that smart.

 

 

The snow reflected the cold winter sunlight into her painting room and lit up her work area. It had been a long time since she’d put paint to canvas and even when she’d been younger, she’d had very little formal instruction. It had taken her two days to work up enough nerve to dip her brush into the paint, a day more to actually set it against the canvas.