Lord & Master (15 page)

“That is low,” I gasped. “Trying to manipulate me with pity.”

“Perhaps it is low,” he admitted. “It’s also the simple truth.”

He kissed me, his tongue probing and caressing enticingly. My fingers tightened on the taut muscles of his flanks as my head began to spin. How I loved the feel and taste of him! My vertebrae loosened as the kiss shifted angles and drew out. His hands slid down to my bottom, firmly pulling me to him. He didn’t grind against me, just held me snug to the front of him. A noise of longing broke in my throat. He’d claimed his prick would explode if he waited much longer. I expect this was an exaggeration, but his erection was quite robust.

I wanted it inside me more than any decent woman should.

I especially wanted it when his pelvis began to roll. His undulations mimicked lovemaking, teasing me with the pleasure his cock could give. When he broke free, I gasped for air.

“Give in,” he murmured against my ear. “Give us both what we’re desperate for.”

I moaned with that desperation, though I refused to acknowledge it in words. Seeking to strengthen his advantage, Damien gripped the halves of my derriere, kneading them through the silk of my frilly drawers.

My cheeks were sensitized from his spanking, a reminder of past excitement I didn’t need right then. I shivered as his fingertips found the spot where the silk was damp. Damien’s breath came quicker. He moved one arm to my front, to cup my pubis more easily. His smooth nails stroked my swollen folds, his thumb glancing the tip of my clitoris.

Sparks streaked outward from the place. He was a devil, alternately tempting and soothing me. I gripped his shoulders and clenched my teeth, praying I could resist rocking into his light touches.

As I fought my urges, my awareness that the stable master watched wasn’t far from my consciousness. Jake certainly wasn’t jealous. He leaned casually on the wall near the door, arms crossed, one finger rubbing—or perhaps caressing—his slyly curving mouth. My husband’s eyes were shut. Probably I should close mine. Maybe then I’d stop obsessing about his lover. I shut my lids, but my memory betrayed me.

A vivid picture of Jake’s erection formed in my mind. His cock was as fine and strong as Damien’s. I’d had both now and savored them.

How thoroughly might they sate my hunger if I let them both take me?

“Give in,” Damien repeated seductively.

“Only to you,” I pleaded.

He groaned as if I’d hurt him.

“Jake can stay,” I negotiated. “If you truly think he must.”

He pulled back and stared at me. “You’d willingly allow that.”

“If you promise he won’t touch me.”

He thought. “He won’t touch you unless you ask him to.”

I saw the pitfall there.
I won’t ask
, I told myself. “Agreed,” I conceded.

Damien grinned like the devil I’d called him in my head. “Good,” he said. “I’ll keep his hands all for me.”

Jake’s laugh was low and sexy.

“Wait,” I said, suddenly convinced I’d made a fool’s bargain.

“No take backs,” Damien teased. “Honor requires you to keep your word.”

I liked seeing his face lit with laughter, despite my suspicions.

“I’ll keep my word,” Jake pledged. “In fact, I’ll offer you another trade.”

Another trade
appealed to me too much. I felt as if I were being led step by step down a road on which there’d be no returning.

“What trade?” I asked warily.

“I’ll bind his wrists together behind his back.”

“That is a favor for yourself. You like tying people up.”

Jake’s white teeth flashed. “You’ll like it as well, when you have him at your mercy.”

The hot shudder that gripped my tailbone told me I was intrigued. The idea that Jake’s particular interest would be activated intrigued me too. With an effort, I pushed the reaction from my forebrain.

“Very well,” I said. “Restrain him for me.”

“Might I borrow your chemise?” he asked.

This would necessitate me baring my breasts to him. “I’m sure there’s another item in this room you could use to tie him.”

“Your chemise is soft, Lady Call. Your husband has a tendency to struggle when I bind him.”

“The bruise,” I exclaimed without thinking. Jake lifted one eyebrow. “I noticed it inside his wrist that first day when he poured tea. You and he must have—” I stopped speaking.

“Yes,” Jake said in a voice like smoke. “He and I had a busy night before your arrival. Damien wasn’t certain if developments between you and him would curtail our ability to play with the freedom we’re used to. Like yourself, he has a strong libido.”

His words’ effect was nefarious. My tongue refused to function, my fluster overwhelming it. I couldn’t even argue his claim concerning my sexual drives.

“He’ll be safe to ride after he’s restrained,” Jake continued. “In addition to which, I promise to keep him from bucking.”

The image he created lashed fresh currents through my nerves.
Damn it
, I thought as my pussy pulsed. My husband was not a horse!

“Sit him on the side of the bed,” I said, determined to have a say in how this unfolded. “You may kneel behind him, away from me.”

Damien’s eyebrows rose at my tone. “I’d like to undress,” he said. “If my hands aren’t free to caress you, I think the rest of me should be.”

“As you please,” I said recklessly.

He removed the clothes he hadn’t taken off already. My view of his nakedness on our wedding night hadn’t inured me to his beauty. The power and grace of him dried my mouth. Those arms . . . that chest . . . those thighs with their muscles like carved marble . . . Damien was Atlas to Jake’s Apollo, or maybe Priapus. His cock stood out thick and hard from his groin, the throb of his arousal causing it to bounce.

By the time my husband finished stripping, Jake waited on the bed. “Sit,” he ordered Damien.

Damien shivered and obeyed. Jake extended his arm to me. “Chemise,” he demanded.

My shiver echoed Damien’s. Was this what those young men at Oxford felt? The inescapable allure of a natural dominant? I felt I shouldn’t let Jake take charge but peeled my chemise off anyway. My daring drew my nipples tighter, my consciousness that I was exposed. I tossed the garment to the stable master.

He caught it even as his gaze focused on my breasts.

“Very pretty,” he said huskily.

His approval pleased me too deeply.

“Tie him,” I said, hoping to remind him he was here on my sufferance.

I’d succeeded in amusing him. He pulled Damien’s arms smoothly behind him, smiling as he wrapped my discarded garment around his wrists. Damien tested the bonds and seemed satisfied. His big wrestler’s shoulders rolled, his feet planted firmly on the floor. The spread of his thighs was ideal for flaunting his erection.

The hollowing of his diaphragm caused my breath to come faster.

“All right,” he said. “I’m ready to be ridden.”

I had to take off my drawers to do it. My hands hesitated, but I’d come this far. I saw no point losing my nerve now. With a mental curse I was too ladylike to utter, I undid the tapes and shoved them down my legs.

Both men smiled in unison. It wasn’t a stretch to say their expressions were wolfish.

“You’ve seen naked women before,” I huffed.

“None who called to me like you,” Damien said.

That mollified me—though who knew if he meant it? He might be flattering me to get his way. I approached him cautiously. How exactly to . . . mount him was a conundrum. That I’d be awkward seemed likely.

“Put your hands on his shoulders,” Jake suggested, instructing me as he had with Bulrush. “Once you’re balanced, you can swing your knees up.”

I stepped between Damien’s thighs. He lifted his face to me when my palms dropped onto his skin. His eyes were hot, his sensual mouth relaxed.

The latter might have been thanks to Jake. The stable master’s hands roved Damien’s naked back, their passage across his muscles slow and soothing. For all Jake’s talk of Damien having a tendency to struggle, my husband seemed perfectly at ease between the pair of us.

“I’m all yours, love,” he said to me.

He made me blush, but I got my shins up onto the bed. I blushed harder as I glanced down to check our respective positions. I didn’t think we were quite aligned.

“Jake could steady me for you,” Damien offered as soft as smoke.

I could do it. Maybe. Doing it badly might be embarrassing. Damien would probably like it if Jake helped. Mrs. Sweets’ words came back to me. She’d told me to look inside myself, to decide on my own what I wanted. Damien had spoken of throwing off the shackles of society’s expectations, yet here he was, submitting to bondage to gratify his friend. Was it bondage, though? The vibration of his body, as if longing were a plucked cello string, told me the choice suited his preferences.

Could one be selfish and selfless at the same time?

Though I didn’t know the answer, I knew what my nature tended to. I liked to please, if it was possible.

“Yes,” I admitted. “I’d welcome his assistance.”

Damien’s eyes fired with approval. I watched them lose a bit of focus as his friend grasped him.

I couldn’t deny I liked that.

“Lower yourself,” Jake said. “I’ll guide him into you.”

By necessity, his fingers brushed me.
His
eyes fired then, but aside from that, he kept the spirit of his promise.

Damien made a noise as the tip of his organ slipped inside me. For a moment, all of us touched. Then Jake returned his caresses to Damien’s back. I might have regretted the loss a bit.

Shaking that off, I focused on the challenge in front of me.

“I just . . . sink down?” I asked.

“That’s the usual procedure,” Jake confirmed.

I tried it and Damien made the sound again.

“All the way,” he urged. “And you could push harder at the end.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’ll let you know if you do.”

It was strange to have control: nerve wracking, initially. As I rose and fell, the pleasured sounds Damien made lent me confidence. My own excitement climbed. He felt so good, so hard. I could work my inner walls against him exactly where I wished. Damien’s hips began to push up at me from the bed, lifted by the clenching of his buttocks. That thrilled me too. He liked what I was doing too much to remain still.

“Shall I hold him down?” Jake offered.

I shook my head. “I like the way he moves.”

I was riding him, and it was a bit like being in the saddle. I tried to roll against him as gracefully as he’d rolled against me. My whole body moved with my hips’ undulations, my breasts swaying brazenly.

Damien let out a frustrated growl.

“Untie my wrists,” he threw over his shoulder. “I want to touch her now.”

“I don’t think so,” Jake countered. “She’s having fun being in control.”

Damien tried addressing me. “Order him to let me go.”

I dropped my head and kissed him the way the men kissed me, deep and bold, with my tongue battling his. When I broke off, he was panting. “Are you certain that’s what you want?”

He glared at me, his prick throbbing crazily inside me.

“I only asked if you’re certain,” I said. “If you are, I’ll tell him to free you.”

His shoulders bunched, his skin and face glittering with sweat. He was straining against the ties just as Jake warned he would. I did wonder if he’d hurt himself. When I glanced at Jake, his eyes nearly stopped my heart. Their sapphire shade was molten, impossibly intense.

He shook his head slightly. “He can take more. If you want to give it.”

“I can trust you to protect him?” It almost wasn’t a question.

“You can,” he said. “In this, I am your ally.”

This suggested he might not be my ally in other things. He smiled as my eyes narrowed.

“You should touch him,” he advised. “Rub your body more closely against him. That will ease his struggle, I believe.”

I shifted my gaze to Damien. Already, he seemed calmer.

“Yes,” he said. “Please do that.”

Jake’s caresses had claimed his back. I explored his front—with my hands at first, but then with more of my skin. I rubbed my breasts across him, and my belly, and nuzzled into him with my face. Everywhere I touched twitched and warmed, every part of him strong and responsive. Though he rocked harder into me, my motions on him steadied. Both changes affected my arousal. My sense of imminence built. His too, to go by his amplified movements. I felt him trying to breathe more slowly, to hold off coming too quickly.

“Christ,” he swore brokenly. “Both of you feel so good.”

I kissed his throat and jaw, a desire to be sweet to him welling up powerfully. I wanted to be his friend and lover, his wife and his protector.

“Mia,” he said as I brushed my lips over his. “Mia, please love me.”

I’d clasped his ribs. The softness of his voice didn’t match the wild thudding of his heart. I felt like I was falling into his eyes.

“I am loving you,” I said.

His gaze searched mine. I meant I loved him, though I didn’t have the nerve to say so flat out. What if desire clouded my emotions? What if he failed me and broke my heart?

I don’t know if he understood my hesitation, but his expression changed.

“Finish me,” he said, hard as iron. “Finish both of us.”

I wanted that as much as he did. I rose up and down faster.

“Yes,” he groaned. “Hard like that. That’s what I need. That’s . . .
God
—”

His head flung back, his eyes screwing shut with bliss. My longing concentrated, hard and tight. He groaned, and his hips jerked forcefully into me. He was coming, but he didn’t stop moving. I met his force unabashedly. I had to fling my arms around him, had to grind my pelvis around his cock. My greed pushed me through the barrier. I came clinging like a vine, so sweetly I moaned with it. Cloth ripped and his arms came around me too. He held me, rocked me, until finally I settled.

The peace I experienced was extraordinary. I felt—against all logic—as if I’d found a home at last.

I couldn’t even care that he’d torn my nice chemise.

“Stay where you are,” Damien mumbled into my neck. He had no cause. I’d merely wriggled to get closer. My cheek was on his shoulder, my palms and forearms pressed flat against his back.