At Your Service
Page 12
At Lise’s insistence, Luke began to share meals at his master’s table.
When he first began to join them, Charles glared sullenly throughout the dinner, not deigning to join in on the often entertaining discussions Lise had with their overseer, but then, almost reluctantly, he started adding a word or two, then a sentence or more, until the mealtimes felt natural and even friendly.
During the rest of the day, Lise did not slack. She frequently visited the office where the two men worked, interrupting them with a titbit of gossip or a fascinating story from the town newspaper. Again, it took some time, but lately she hadn’t felt that cold ice in the room, which only prolonged silence could create, but instead a comradely feeling.
When she entered the office one day, bearing a tray of Cook’s delicious biscuits and stepping lightly to avoid upsetting the dishes, she surprised the two men in a close embrace. As she watched, stock still, Luke’s mouth sought out Charles’, but her husband resisted, dealing Luke a strong blow to his chest. Undeterred, Luke tried again, subduing Charles with his larger frame and pinning him against the desk, which allowed their mouths to finally meet in a violent kiss.
A welcoming groan was wrung from Charles’ throat as Holden kissed him deeply, bringing his hand up to hold his chin. Charles moved his hand up to stroke Luke’s cheek and neck. Their kiss gentled as Lise watched their mouths open to one another, their tongues flickering wetly between their parted lips as they tasted each other completely.
Lise backed out of the room, the tray still in her hand, only to put it down in the hallway and shut the office door.
The scene she’d witnessed was one of poignant emotion, one she was reluctant to disrupt.
Selfishly, she wanted to be caught in the middle of that tight embrace, to feel both men’s mouths on hers and to watch them devour each other. But this was private moment between them. Her fingers would have to suffice for tonight.
* * * *
Over supper that evening, she saw with joy the smiles the two men exchanged over their plates and she was happy to take part in a fascinating conversation about the merits of respective novel writers, a topic she would have imagined Charles was woefully ignorant of, yet he offered informed opinions on most of the authors they proposed. And Luke, in his turn, could speak intelligently about the agricultural schemes Charles had investigated and offered thoughtful opinions on which would best suit the Hessell properties.
For once, the two men’s tastes and opinions, instead of being diametrically opposed to one another, seemed to form a complete whole. So when Charles spoke of his plans for the cultivation of additional farm lands during the next planting season, Lise could not repress an eager question.
“Will you be here next year, Mr Holden, to oversee these exciting changes?”
Charles’ mouth suddenly clamped shut in the middle of a remark and Luke found his empty crystal goblet momentarily absorbing.
“That is an important question,” her husband said slowly, stalling for time. “It all depends on Luke, doesn’t it?”
Luke! No more Mr Holden or even, on occasion, ‘that man’.
“No, Charles,” said Holden firmly, “it depends on you, as my employer and my lord and master. Have I given satisfaction during my weeks here?”
Lise held her breath, knowing that much depended on the next response.
A glitter entered Charles’ once dull blue eyes. “You know you have,” he said in a low voice.
Luke pressed on. “And what about the other matter we discussed, Charles?”
His meaning was a secret to her.
Charles looked across at Lise and their eyes met and held for a long moment. What she saw in there gave her hope. Stripped aside like a moulting skin was the gruffness, the distance he had always maintained between them, a reserve that extended to everyone he knew. What shone in those light eyes was hope and warmth and…love?
The feeling was lost as the maidservant brought out their dessert of syllabub and went around filling their coffee cups. It seemed an interminable time until she exited, leaving the three of them alone again.
Charles took a deep draught of his coffee before he began to speak. “Before you came here, Lise, before I even met you, I was contemplating matrimony with another woman. You don’t know her and it is extremely unlikely that you will ever meet, but her history is relevant to us here.”
Lise waited, her very nerves trembling, but she took heart in the heated look Luke gave her.
“You see, before any woman ever entered my life,” her husband went on, “I was in love. With Luke.”
Here, he reached out to grasp Holden’s hand, which held his and pressed it warmly. The loving look the two men exchanged made Lise shiver pleasurably and her heart swelled with emotion for both of them. Seeing them together just made her realise how well they matched each other, with Luke’s smooth ways a foil for Charles’ rougher temperament.
“And I was in love with Charles,” Luke said, “but a terrible experiment tore us apart.”
“The woman,” Lise guessed.
Charles nodded. “The woman.”
“You see”—Luke took up the tale—“Charles and I always knew that our arrangement wanted—nay, needed—a third partner. A lady who could encompass both of us in her affections. We tried a mistress but it proved disastrous. Then we lighted upon Alexandra—Lexa, as she was called. She pretended to understand our love and even to share it but in actual fact, she did her best to destroy it. She didn’t understand two men loving each other as Charles and I did and she was disgusted by it, though she pretended not to be.”
“Her aim,” Charles added, “was to marry me and therefore gain access to my wealth, then threaten to expose us if I did not keep her happy in every possible way.”
“Which meant money,” Lise finished.
“Which meant money,” Charles agreed. “That is one trait I have always respected about you, my dear. You are not avaricious. You are content with our wealth without being overbearing or demanding about it. And you treat our servants with care and respect, just as a true lady does. So I hope you will be able to treat this particular servant with the same.”
Luke grinned at her, that bright smile that always made her heart race.
“This particular servant is a favourite of mine,” Lise pronounced. “And he attracted me very much ever since he showed up at our door. But tell me, how did you two part? And why ever did you come to despise one another?”
It was Luke who replied. “Alexandra, before she left, sowed the seeds of discord. She played upon our weaknesses. She told Charles that I was simply angling for a share of his wealth, which I was sure to get if he persisted in the unholy union we had formed. And she made me believe that Charles would never truly accept me as an equal in our relationship, when he was so high above my station and I had to work for my living. I was vulnerable, newly in love, and foolishly, I took everything to heart.”
“As did I,” Charles averred. “It is true, we were foolish. But we were also young. We weren’t ready for the test to our love that Lexa represented.”
“And now?” Lise asked breathlessly.
“We have lived together for many weeks,” Charles pointed out, reaching for her hand. His grasp was warm and hard. “We know each other pretty well by now. I have loved you for a long time, Lise, but I felt as if my secret hankering for a man in my life was something you could never accept. Alexandra taught me that lesson. So I kept my emotions hidden. But I cannot tell you how pleased I was when you showed an interest in employing a third person in our bedchamber. I thought, if you could be so generous in that way, that you might accept another into your heart, as I have done with you.”
Tears came to her eyes as she heard her husband’s speech and she could not resist getting up and going to him. He rose to embrace her fully and their lips met in a long passionate kiss that seared her to the core.
A moment later, she felt Luke’s strong arms around them both and Charles’ head tu
rned so that the two men could kiss, long and lingeringly. Watching them was so beautiful, so perfect, that a tear slipped down her cheek to stain the bosom of her gown.
Her heart gave a bound as they slowly disengaged, then Luke’s head lowered to hers and she felt his kiss for the first time. His lips were agile and persuasive, drawing out a long sigh from her throat as he pushed his tongue into the wet heat of her mouth and learnt her taste.
“Let us forsake dessert and find our own sweetness above stairs,” Charles murmured.
They tripped up the stairs together, trying to maintain some semblance of decorum in case they passed any of the servants.
In Charles’ darkly upholstered bedchamber, the curtains were drawn to block out the straggling sunset and candles were lit throughout the room, giving it a strange, mysterious appearance. It was a new world, Lise realised. No matter how many times she’d walked the hallways of Hessell House and lived within its walls, this was the real home she’d always wanted—with these two men she loved.
But, as of yet, Luke had spoken nothing of his feelings. He loved Charles deeply, but did his love allow any space for Lise?
She tried to stifle her inner fears as the two men stood on either side of her, alternately demanding her lips and sometimes making her wait as they devoured each other’s mouths. Charles undressed her partway, running his mouth down her neck and throat until he had revealed her breasts, high and round, the dark-pink nipples stiffly distended. Then he bid her to sit just as her knees weakened from the pleasurable play.
Both men made approving sounds as they knelt before the bed where she sat, their heads lowering to allow each to take an aching nipple into his mouth. Their two brown heads, one light and one darker, seemed to belong together. As she watched, their hands went to each other’s trousers and each soon had the other’s cock in his grasp. Just as Lise had imagined, Luke’s cock was beautiful—long and hard and faintly violet-coloured. Simply beautiful.
The two men stroked each other’s dick as they sucked on her nipples, making her cry out with urgent need. Her pussy was wet and hungry for a good fuck.
As if in answer to her silent plea, Luke slipped his hand under her skirts to touch her soaked cunt, he delicately traced her wet labia with his long fingers before he thrust two fingers deep inside her. She cried out with the pleasure of it and just as quickly, her screams were silenced by Charles’ mouth, as eager and loving as she’d read men were in novels. Lise returned his kiss enthusiastically, revelling in his openness. It was as if now, with Luke beside him, he could finally be free to express his feelings fully.
As husband and wife devoured each other’s mouths, Luke stripped to his skin then assisted Charles to struggle out of his own formal attire. When they were naked, Luke knelt before his master’s straining thighs and began to lick and suck his dick’s massive head, making Charles interrupt his kisses with sharp moans. His entire body jerked and bucked as Luke swallowed his thick cock, until Lise thought he might be having a fit.
“I need you inside me!” Charles finally cried out, echoing the words that were silently filling Lise’s head.
She wanted Luke’s straining dick, swaying gently with his exertions over his master, but she didn’t know how they could all work together. She’d only seen such things in pictures.
The two men solved the dilemma for her.
Abandoning Charles’ dick before it exploded, Luke picked Lise up and stripped the beautiful gown from her, until she stood naked before the two men. Her loose blonde curls cascaded down her shoulders, over her breasts, stopping just above her curly mound. Luke kissed her as he fingered her cunt again, bringing her back up to fever pitch.
“I need your cock,” Charles almost whimpered, kissing Luke’s neck.
“And what about this lovely pussy?” Luke murmured, bringing his wet fingers to Charles’ mouth, watching with heavy-lidded eyes while her husband licked Lise’s cream from them. “Don’t you want to feel this velvet sheath? I know I do?”
“Start her off,” Charles bade, for an instant again the master and in command. But that changed as soon as Luke lay Lise down on the bedcovers, entering her as she wound her arms and legs around his hard muscled body. He entered her tenderly, letting her grow accustomed to the size and shape of his long penis before he began moving his hips in a primitive rhythm, pounding her clitoris with his pelvis. Meanwhile Charles knelt on the bed and plundered Luke’s arsehole with his fingers, playing with it impatiently.
“Leave my arse and give us your cock, my lord,” Luke demanded, a wicked smile that only Lise could see playing across his lips.
When Charles came to kneel by their heads, Luke licked his fat cock, running his tongue along the swollen head and down the wide shaft. With a gesture, he bid Lise to do the same and she started to lick and suck her husband’s cock as well. Sometimes their tongues met across his shaft and they smiled at each other, his blue eyes meeting hers with tender emotion, but as Charles began to pant his urgency, they could barely keep his trembling dick between them.
“Now,” Luke said in a low voice, withdrawing from Lise and pushing her husband between them. Now it was Charles’ cock spreading her pussy but with a new and strange urgency as Luke started to lubricate Charles’ arsehole with his tongue.
Lise felt as if she were feeling every flicker of Luke’s tongue on her own pussy as every time he touched Charles, her husband thrust urgently against her. Their rhythm became more intimately shared as she saw Luke start to enter Charles’ hole. Now every time Charles thrust, Luke would match it, so that their combined energy flowed straight into Lise’s throbbing pussy.
She was close now and judging from Charles’ painfully contorted features, so was he. Only their servant Luke seemed to be in complete control. That was, until he grasped Charles’ chin and turned his head for a long passionate kiss, before he lowered his mouth over Charles’ shoulder and shared another kiss with Lise.
“I can’t—I can’t hold on,” Charles shouted.
“There is no need,” Luke urged, as he slipped his hand between their bodies to squeeze Charles’ balls. “Come, my love. Come into your beloved wife.”
For the first time, Lise saw real love on Charles’ face as he pushed hard against her pussy and drained his sperm inside her. Her entire body was on fire and moments later, as his thrusts slowed, she could feel her pussy clench around his cock and an orgasm such as she had never felt before tore through her body, seeming to redouble in force and sensation for an entire minute or more.
Behind her husband’s shoulder, she watched Luke’s face twisted with the exquisite agony of his own culmination as he held Charles close to him and drained his cum into him.
Charles pushed the wet hair off Lise’s flushed face. “I love you, my dear. Now, more than ever.”
She smiled sleepily. “I love you, darling Charles.”
But she still hadn’t heard anything from Luke.
A few minutes later, they were lying together in the big bed, Lise in the middle of the two men. Already she could feel both cocks stirring back to life as Charles lightly caressed her sore nipples and Luke played with her wet nether curls.
“Beautiful,” Luke said, spreading out the golden curls with his fingertips. “Do you know,” he added lazily, “I think I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you? To think that you were Charles’ wife.”
“And now you belong to both of us,” said his master generously.
Lise, whose heart had skipped a beat at Luke’s low words, turned to see his face. His Celtic blue eyes were blazing with emotion.
“I have loved you ever since that day,” Lise told him. “Everything that I have done since then was to ensure that you made it under this roof, and into this bed. You are our mate, Charles and mine’s.”
Luke entwined his fingers with hers and reached with his other hand for Charles’. Lise took hold of her husband’s hand, completing the circle.
“And you are our lady,” Charles said gruffly. �
�From now on, we will all be master and servant to each other.”
Lise had to hide her face in his shoulder to blot her sudden joyous tears.
About the Author
Nan Comargue lives in Toronto, Canada and has been reading romance novels since she could read! She blogs about her writing journey and other interesting topics (zombies!).
Email: nancomargue@gmail.com
Nan loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.total-e-bound.com.
Also by Nan Comargue
Captive Angel
All Together Now: Country Hearts
IN SERVICE TO THE SENSES
Demelza Hart
Dedication
To M, for his patience and love
Chapter One
Yorkshire, August 1910
The kitchen of Foresham Hall, furnishings, pots and all, seemed itself to be drooping in the incessant heat. With preparations underway for lunch and the August sun shining in, even if only through the narrow windows, it was almost unbearable. Mrs Brodie, normally so in control of her kitchen, was in a state of considerable agitation about the jellies not setting, her dimpled arms glistening with sweat as she flapped about. The kitchen maid sat dejectedly, fanning herself madly with the London Illustrated News, the lettuce she was supposed to be washing left to wilt before her. Mr Brewer, butler, had given them no respite from their tasks, despite the torpor that pervaded their limbs in this weather. Even little Billy, bubbliest of them all, frowned with discomfort as he polished his boots.