Their Wicked Ways (20 page)

She moved across the room to
warm her hands at the fire.  When she turned, she saw she had their full
attention.

Nick dragged his gaze up her
length with an effort.  “Why?” he asked a little hoarsely.

Bronte lifted her brows
questioningly.

“Why did you summon us here?”
Darcy asked.

Bronte smiled.  “It seems to
me that you’ve figured it out.”

“Nevertheless, I’d like to
hear it,” Nick said.

She shrugged.  “I can hardly
be expected to judge which of you is England’s greatest lover when I have not
had the opportunity to discover it for myself.”

Nick paled.  “I feared as
much.”

Darcy flushed.  “It wasn’t
like that, darlin’,” he said quickly.  “I swear on my mother’s soul it wasn’t!”

Bronte bit her lip, trying
not to smile.  “Your mother is still living, is she not?”

Darcy grinned sheepishly. 
“Yes, but … just the same.”

Since her backside had grown
uncomfortably warm, Bronte turned to warm her hands once more.  “What was it
like?” she asked, staring into the fire.

“Moreland proposed a wager on
it, but neither of us ever accepted, never even considered it.  It was just
that … well we didn’t know you’d come back until he mentioned it, so we went
straight away to see you.”

“And that was all there was
to it?”

“Not entirely.”

Bronte turned to look at Nick
when he spoke.

“He seemed to be laboring
under the impression that you would not be at all receptive to either of us.  I
wanted to know why.  I’d still like to know.”

“It was because of Isaac,
wasn’t it?” Darcy put in.  “I swear to you, we tried our best to save him,
Bronte.  We were damned near killed ourselves, but he was dead by the time we
got to him.”

Bronte felt the blood leave
her face.  “You tried--you were hurt?”

“I caught a bullet in the
shoulder.  Nick was hit twice.  I had to haul him out of there.”

“Shut up, Darcy!”

Bronte stared at them in horror,
realizing finally that that was why she hadn’t seen them after Isaac was
killed.  That was why they hadn’t even come home for the funeral.  They’d both
been battling for their own lives.

Swallowing her fear and
horror with an effort, Bronte crossed the room toward Nick, stopping when she
was barely a foot away from him.  “Where?” she whispered.

He shook his head
fractionally.  “It doesn’t matter.  It was a long time ago.  I survived.”

“It does matter.  It matters
to me.”

“I’ll show you mine,” Darcy
volunteered.

Bronte turned to smile at
him.  “Yes, you will … in a little bit.”

“This is insane, Bronte,”
Nick said tightly.

She lifted her brows.  “Why? 
You two have shared before.  Even I remember that.”

“This is different.”

She moved a little closer,
lifting her hand to trace a rounded scar on his chest almost hidden beneath the
dark hair that covered it.  “Why?”

He jerked at her touch,
sucking in a sharp breath.  “Because … I love you,” he said harshly.

Darcy got up from the couch
and left the main room abruptly, climbing the stairs to the second floor.  A
pang smote Bronte, but she could only deal with one thing at the time.  She
would soothe his hurt, she promised herself, later.

Leaning down, she brushed her
lips across the scar.  “I love you, too.”

He caught her upper arms in a
tight grip.  “Tell me why then. Why did you behave as if you hated me?”

“I thought I did.  But it
wasn’t because you didn’t save Isaac.  It was because you didn’t save me from
Isaac.  I thought you both had abandoned me when I needed you the most.”

His face twisted with pain. 
“I didn’t have a choice.”

Bronte skated her hands up
his chest and looped her arms around his shoulders.  “I know that now.  I wish
I’d known then.  It would’ve … made it easier to bear.”

Nick slipped his arms around
her, pulling her lightly against him.  “You don’t have to do this, sweetheart,”
he murmured against her throat.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the
world.”

Chapter Twenty

Nick caught her face between
his palms.  “Good, because it is either this, or you will have to shoot me to
put me out of my misery,” he murmured, closing the distance that separated them
and capturing her mouth with a hunger that detonated an explosion of heated
desire inside of her.

Heady with the sensations
pouring through her, her mind fogged with a heated haze of rapture that focused
her entire being on his touch.  The feel of him pressing against her and imagining
him delving inside of her, his heat, his strength were enough to reduce her to
a savage with longstanding need.

Bronte returned his kiss with
an urgency that matched his. Uttering a sound of longing, she closed her mouth
tightly around his tongue as he caressed hers and then began a rhythmic thrust
and retreat that emulated the mating of their bodies.

Having him like this, to
herself, made her body weak all over.  She’d thought she’d been prepared after
all the sensual torments he’d inflicted upon her, but knowing they would soon
be put out of their misery was quickly overwhelming her.

Within moments the intimate
dance of their tongues had enflamed them both to a state trembling perilously
near their peak.

He pulled away abruptly,
caught her up against his chest and strode toward her room.  Bronte tightened
her arms around his neck when he scooped her off her feet, kissing his neck,
tugging at his ear lobe with the edge of her teeth.  He almost dropped her when
she stuck her tongue into his ear, tracing the swirls with the tip.

“For God’s sake, Bronte,” he
muttered hoarsely, wrestling with the latch of her door.  “If you keep that up
I’ll disgrace myself before we get to the bed and I’ll be no use to you at
all.”

“I don’t believe that,” she
said, amusement in her voice.

Smiling, Bronte ceased to
tease his ear and sucked a row of love bites along the side of his neck instead
as he stepped back and kicked the door open, having tired of trying to juggle
her and wrestle with the latch at the same time.

Shouldering his way into the
room, he kicked the door closed behind them and strode toward the bed. 
Collapsing upon it with her, he covered her mouth in another fiery kiss as he
came down on top of her and thrilled her with the weight of his body.

Impatient to feel his skin,
Bronte pushed his shirt from his shoulders, stoking his back and shoulders and
arms with her palms as she removed it.  She reveled in the silken steel of his
body, the hard muscles that reacted from her soft touch.

Breaking the kiss, Nick
pulled away, dragging his shirt from his breeches, then shrugging out of it and
tossing it aside.  Bronte’s hands were already working at the fastening of his
breeches.  He chuckled shakily, placing his hands over hers to still her
movements.  “Slowly, sweetheart.  I have waited far too long to rush.”

Bronte looked up at him,
lifting a hand to stroke his cheek.  “I have wanted you to have your way with
me since long before I even knew what it was that passed between a man and
woman.  I want to feel you so deeply inside of me you feel like a part of me. 
I have waited too long to wish to wait any longer.”

His face hardened. Taking
several shuddering breaths, he looked down at her as he stroked his hand along
her body and caught her gown, dragging it upward.

Leaning over her, he kissed
the flesh he revealed, along her thigh and hip and belly.  He covered one
breast with his mouth when he had thrust the gown to her shoulders, catching
her other breast in his hand and massaging it until the nipple puckered with
painful pleasure.

Bronte gasped at the heat of
his mouth and tongue.  With an effort, she disentangled her arms from the gown,
dragged it over her head, and grasped his shoulders, holding him to her.  When
he lifted his head at last, she was panting for breath, writhing with fevered
need.

She parted her legs in
invitation.  In desperate need, she reached down to cup the rigid heat of his
cock through his breeches, massaging him.  Groaning, he unfastened his breeches
and thrust them down his hips as he settled between her legs and leaned down to
kiss her deeply.

She arched upward, pressing
her mound against his engorged cock, feeling him part the flesh of her sex and
glide along her moist cleft.  Frustration filled her.  It felt so good, so
nearly what she wanted and yet not nearly enough to satisfy her.  She struggled
to reach him, to grasp his cock and guide his flesh inside of her.  He released
her lips, lifted his head, pushing his upper body up on his locked arms as he
thrust his hips forward.

She gasped in pleasure as she
guided his cockhead to the mouth of her sex.  It was tight.  As much as she wanted
him, she couldn’t seem to produce enough moisture to make it easy for him to
enter her tight hole.  She moaned as the tender edges stretched with the press
of his thick, mushroomed head.  The stretch became a burn, and she arched to
meet him, loving the painful pleasure of his invasion.

Feeling his body lock with hers,
begin to press into her flesh, she released his cock and grasped his hips,
pulling him to her, moaning with both pleasure and impatience as her flesh
resisted to every inch he gained within her.

“Hell you are tight,” he said
with a grimace.

He lowered himself slowly
until his chest was resting against her breasts.  Burying his face against her
neck, he slipped his arms beneath her shoulders, holding her tightly against
him as he pressed deeper inside of her.

They were both gasping for
breath and slick with the moisture of exertion by the time he was fully
imbedded inside of her.  He paused, struggling for control.

Bronte held herself still,
barely breathing, enthralled by the feel of his flesh inside of her, feeling
her muscles quake around his hard length as if clutching at him.  She stroked
his buttocks and back, glorying to have him like this, inside her, on top of
her.  She felt immersed in his essence, dizzy with his spicy scent mingled with
the rose oil.

“Nick,” she whispered,
yielding to the need to taste his name on her tongue.

He lifted his head.  “Am I
hurting you?”

Bronte opened her eyes with
an effort and found him gazing down at her in concern.  “It feels … more
wonderful even than I imagined to feel you inside of me.”

A tremor went through him. 
He dipped his head to kiss her lips briefly, her cheek and then her neck as he
began to move his hips, withdrawing and plunging deeply again, murmuring her
name almost feverishly as he quickly built the rhythm of his thrusts.

His pubic bone ground against
her swollen clit, ratcheting her pleasure higher and higher.

Tendrils of sensation crawled
through her body, tingling in her toes and making them curl into the sheets.

Her cunt spasmed to feel the
long strokes of him withdrawing and advancing.  She worked the muscles deep
inside, clutching him like a fist and enjoying the way he groaned when she did
so.

Bronte moaned as she felt the
tension in her body wind tighter and tighter with each stroke of his cock along
her sensitive core.  Within moments she felt her body surging toward
completion, began to utter little gasping cries of delight as ecstasy peaked
inside of her, exploded, washed through her in a heated wave that made her
entire body quiver with rapture.

Nick thrust harder, faster,
went perfectly still as his culmination caught him, groaned in an agony of
ecstasy as it rolled over him, shaking as his body convulsed in the throes of
the ‘little death’ that bathed her insides with a hot liquid rush.

Contentment filled Bronte as
he collapsed weakly against her, gasping for breath.  She nuzzled his neck,
kissed him, stroking his back.  After a few moments, he dragged in a deep,
shaky breath and rolled to his side, kissed her on the lips briefly and then
released her, rolling onto his back.

He sighed gustily.

Bronte lay half drowsing
beside him, skating her hand lightly over his broad chest.  He shivered as she
plucked at the dark hair covering her hand, and she smiled.

“Did you mean what you said?”
he asked almost lazily.

She rose up on her side and
leaned down to tease his nearest nipple with her tongue.  “Mmm,” she murmured. 
“Yes.  I love the feel of you inside of me.”

He swallowed thickly. 
Grasping her, he dragged her across his chest.  “Not half as much as I love
being inside of you, I’ll warrant.  I meant before that.”

Bronte wrinkled her brow,
thinking back, and finally smiled.  “Yes.  That too.”

He grinned at her.  “Just how
old were you when you wanted me to ‘have my way’ with you?”

Bronte chuckled.  “I haven’t
a clue.  Very young.  It was after I caught you and Darcy and Isaac ‘playing’
with the girl from the village in the barn.”

“Good God!” Nick said,
surging upward and dumping her on the bed beside him.  “You knew about that? 
You couldn’t have been old enough to think such things.”

“Darcy didn’t tell you?”

“He didn’t.”

“I was very outdone that I
wasn’t allowed to play, too.  Isaac told me later that you were having your way
with the girl.  He told me in great detail what you’d been doing.  I suppose he
thought it would horrify me, or disgust me.  I don’t know, except all I could
think about was that she’d sounded like she was enjoying it and I wasn’t
horrified or disgusted.  I was angry that you’d done it with her instead of me
and threatened to tell.  That was when he beat me up.”

Nick’s arms tightened around
her.  “You couldn’t have been more than ten.  If I’d known what he’d been
telling you, I would’ve beat the living hell out of him.”

Bronte chuckled.  “You did
beat the living hell out of him.”

“Twice, I mean.”

Bronte sighed, propping on
his chest once more.  “Then, when I was about thirteen or fourteen, I asked you
to kiss me like you kissed the other girls.  You said you couldn’t, because
then you would want to have your way with me.  I was very disappointed that I
couldn’t convince you to try it because I still remembered what Isaac had told
me and I wanted you to.”

Nick closed his eyes.  He
looked pained.  “I said that to you?  My God!  It’s a very good thing for me that
you weren’t prone to carrying tales.  Your father would’ve killed me … and I
needed it.”

Bronte shook her head.  “You
were only teasing me.”

“I shouldn’t have been
teasing you like that.”

“No, you shouldn’t.  You
should have kissed me and had your way with me,” Bronte said with a chuckle,
nibbling a path across his chest to his neck.

“For both our sakes, I’m glad
I had enough sense, and sense of decency, not to.”

Bronte didn’t agree.  However
young she’d been at the time, she would’ve far rather that Nick or Darcy had
been her first than Isaac, but she didn’t want to think about it and there was
no sense in bringing it up. In any case, she was far more interested in
provoking Nick to have his way with her again.

He proved to be far more
receptive to her attempts at seduction than he had been those many years ago,
making love to her with a slow thoroughness that satisfied her desires and yet
was so poignant, it made her ache with her love for him.

He kissed her slow and
tender, nibbling the edges of her lips as if she were a fine chocolate to be
devoured.  His fingers tangled in her hair, locking against the crown and
trapping her mouth to his sensual onslaught…not that she would have tried to
escape.

She’d thought herself
thoroughly sated, but there was no denying that she wanted him again.  Her body
reacted to him like a primed pump—her sex creaming and readying for his cock.