“Good boy,” Graeme said. He moved off to Conall’s left and watched him with a little grin. “Don’t move except to help Avril get your clothes off when she needs help.” Conall nodded and had the satisfaction of watching Graeme smile widely in approval.
Avril wasted no time crossing the room and lifting his sash off over his head. She removed his sword and carefully laid it aside, and made short work of his mess until he was down to his kilt, hose and boots. Beside him Graeme had been undressing at the same time. “Stop,” he told Avril at that point. He stepped in front of Conall, right behind Avril. Conall saw her shiver at Graeme’s nearness as her eyes closed. He knew how she felt.
Graeme silently removed the rest of his clothes until he stood naked in front of Conall. His cock was flushed, hard and rising against his stomach with a wicked curve. He just stood there and ran his hands over his broad, hairy chest and down his stomach until he grabbed his cock with one hand and cupped his balls with the other. He stroked that length that Conall had sucked and fisted and desired.
“Continue,” Graeme said, taunting Conall with his body as Avril unwrapped his kilt and carefully laid it over the rest of his clothes on one of her chairs. She knelt at his feet and took off his spats and boots and hose while he balanced with a hand on her shoulder. When he was nude, Avril looked up at Graeme from where she knelt. Conall didn’t think she realized what a tempting picture she made there. As for himself, Conall stood where he was. He knew what Graeme wanted tonight. He wanted complete obedience, and he’d get it. From both of them. Graeme had led them down too many pleasure-filled paths for either of them to balk now.
Graeme took a step toward Avril. “Suck me and get yourself wet, Avril.”
She bit her lip and then blurted out, “I’m already wet. I’m fair to dying waiting to watch.”
“Good,” Graeme said with a chuckle. “Ease yourself.”
She looked at him, puzzled. “What?”
“Touch yourself,” Graeme told her. “Suck me while you touch yourself. I want you to make yourself come.”
“Oh,” she said, her eyes wide. Tentatively she reached down between her legs. They hadn’t done this before. She’d never pleasured herself in front of them. Her breath hiccupped as her hand slid back and forth. Graeme tapped the end of his cock against her mouth and she opened wide, taking him in with a deep pull that made her cheeks hollow. Conall couldn’t hold in a slight groan at the sight. Graeme practically dared him with his expression to speak. Conall kept quiet and again Graeme smiled at him approvingly.
Avril sucked and licked Graeme until she whimpered and her head dropped back, clearly in the throes of orgasm. Both he and Graeme watched her until her shoulders relaxed and she was panting in the aftermath.
“Stand, hands on the bed,” Graeme told her. She pushed herself up with trembling arms and Conall reached down to help her, glaring at Graeme defiantly. Graeme just stared back. Avril put her hands on the cot, bent over at the waist, and without another word Graeme stepped up and thrust into her. Conall nearly cried out in denial, his need so great for what Graeme was giving Avril. But he couldn’t deny her this, knowing how much she loved it. Graeme took her roughly, driving into her hard while holding her shoulders to keep her in place. In minutes she was crying out with another orgasm. Graeme’s face remained hard and set and Conall could tell he was doing his damnedest not to come. When Avril’s arms collapsed Graeme carefully pulled out of her, his cock still red and hard and now gleaming in the firelight with Avril’s cream.
“Now you,” he told Conall. “Hands on the bed.”
Conall obeyed, his heart skipping a beat or two. He heard Avril cry out weakly and looked over to see Graeme’s hand between her legs. “I need a little of this, my sweet,” he told her, kissing her shoulder. “Conall doesn’t have it.”
Now Conall understood. Graeme had used Avril to smooth his way. He tried not to flinch as Graeme’s finger circled his entrance and then dipped inside. They’d done this before and Conall had liked it very much. He relaxed and let Graeme in, and a cry escaped as Graeme worked his finger in and then pulled it halfway out to slam it in again. Conall’s excitement remained at a fever pitch. On the cot in front of him, Avril rolled over to her side and watched them avidly. There was so much he wanted to say to both of them, but the silence cocooned them and their actions made speech unnecessary.
When Conall was beside himself and shaking his head over and over, moaning, Graeme removed his finger. Graeme looked at Avril. “May I?” he asked, looking between her legs. She spread them eagerly and Graeme pulled her hips up and slid his cock into her. She sucked in a deep breath and gripped the blanket next to either side of her head. Graeme pumped a time or two and then slid out and stepped behind Conall.
“It’s now,” Graeme said. Conall spread his legs a little more, a silent invitation, too overwrought with his desire to answer him. Graeme stepped up and pressed his cock to Conall and slid in. Conall cried out, the burn of it making his arousal flag.
“It will get easier,” Graeme growled. “Give it a moment.”
He rocked gently behind Conall, his cock moving just a slight bit, a gentle pull and push that massaged his passage and made him gasp as sensation flared from his buttocks to his cock. At that point Graeme pushed in deeper. And so it went until at last Graeme was fully seated inside, his balls brushing against Conall’s. Conall was panting, his fingers rhythmically opening and closing in the blanket. Avril watched silently, her eyes nearly black with her own arousal.
Graeme began to move, to fuck him, and Conall gasped and cried out at the wonder of it. “You’re inside me,” he choked out.
“I’m fucking you,” Graeme told him. “This is fucking.”
Avril laughed in front of him, and Conall’s gaze jerked to meet hers. “Isn’t it grand?” she asked him as if they were sharing secrets.
Graeme chose that moment to slam into him and pleasure crashed through him. “Yes,” he cried out, not sure if it was an answer to her question or the pleasure Graeme was giving him.
Avril slid farther up the bed and raised herself up on one arm. She cupped his jaw and kissed him as he was rocked forward and back by Graeme’s thrusts. Conall thought they’d gone as far as men and women could go together, that they had been as depraved and uninhibited as they could be, but he’d been so wrong. This was it, this was the ultimate fuck. Graeme kept hitting a spot inside that made him shiver, ecstasy hovering just outside of his reach, and Avril ate his whimpers, his cries, his passion. Graeme reached around his hip and fisted his cock, and after a few pumps Conall was done. He couldn’t hold out against such an assault. One moment Conall was shivering, reaching for the heights, and the next he was shouting as he came harder than he’d ever come before. In the midst of his orgasm, Avril so close she was breathing his air and his shouts, Graeme came with a grunt and a curse, pressing deep inside Conall until Conall could feel the pulse of Graeme’s cock releasing his seed. It made him cry out again with a shudder, his body gripping Graeme tight.
The two men stood there, sweating, joined, shivering, their woman lying beneath them, watching it all. Conall felt wrung out, used and complete. “I love you,” he said breathlessly, and at that moment he realized he was speaking to both of them. He was in love with Avril and Graeme.
Chapter Fifteen
Avril lay tucked up in close to Conall, who was sleeping with his chest at her back, warming her inside and out as she watched Graeme sleep on the cot next to them. He had it pulled up so close it was almost the same as being in the same bed. They’d slept this way since she moved in here. She didn’t even feel the cold of this godforsaken Crimean winter between them like this. The rhythmic sound of their breathing soothed her. Graeme looked younger when he slept, the lines of worry on his face smoothing out. He looked good in his dark beard, though he’d been a handsome devil without it too.
She knew she had to tell them about the colonel’s visit. The sun was barely lighting her hut, but she knew it
would be up and shining soon. Lord knew she didn’t want to tell them. They weren’t going to like it. They’d probably like the idea of her leaving even less. But they’d always known she would. She’d told them time and again this was temporary, what they had here. It just turned out it was more temporary than she’d wanted.
Across from her Graeme gave a soft sigh and his eyelids fluttered open. He smiled slowly at her, still sleepy and only half-awake. He was so soft and sweet and lovely like this, hers in a way he was no one else’s. Conall stirred at her back as if he sensed Graeme’s waking and she had to amend her thoughts. Graeme was Conall’s now too, in the same way he was hers. It was a relief, really. She needn’t shoulder all their worries and all their love, and when she left they’d still have each other. Tears burned her eyes and she blinked them back. Conall had settled back against her and his breathing was still deep and even. But Graeme saw her tears and frowned, his eyes clear now.
“Why are you crying, lass?” he asked softly. He reached up and brushed a strand of hair off her cheek and then cupped her jaw, his thumb tracing along her cheekbone. She shook her head silently, but he was persistent. “Tell me,” he told her, and it was compelling, his voice and his manner, and she wanted to obey him, wanted to do anything he asked of her. That was Graeme’s appeal, his secret weapon. She’d seen Conall react the same way. Conall compelled with sweetness and a smile, a twinkle in his eyes and a kiss on his lips. But Graeme demanded with unflinching control.
“The colonel came to see me yesterday,” she told him in a whisper.
Graeme didn’t move, but she could feel him go still, feel the tension in him. “Why?” he asked, not revealing anything outright to her, but she knew him too well.
“I’ve become a bit of a distraction in camp, apparently,” she said, trying to make light of it. “He doesn’t want to throw me out, though, which is good. He’s worried about me if I have to leave camp and fend for myself, and worried about certain people being unhappy with it if he does, including his daughter.”
“Thank God for Miss McMillan,” Graeme said calmly, “and Brodie for bringing her.”
Avril looked away and picked at the plaid wrapped around her and Conall. “He wasn’t sure what to do with me, though. I told him I’d have enough money for passage home in a month or two.”
Behind her Conall stiffened and the arm he had wrapped around her hip tightened. “What did he say?” he growled, his voice rough from sleep and something else.
“He said he’d leave me be for two months. But if I’m not gone by then, he’ll have to send me out of camp.”
Conall cursed and sat up, dragging her into his arms, holding her fiercely. “I won’t let him.”
“You’ll have no choice,” she told him, turning in his hold and hugging him back. “And truly, Conall, it’s not a terrible thing. You knew I was saving to go home. You knew I was going to leave eventually.”
“Do you want to go?” Graeme asked, his voice still calm and unemotional. He must be very upset indeed to sound that way.
She buried her face in Conall’s neck and breathed in the scent of him, musky and warm and so delicious. She licked his skin and he shivered.
“Answer me, Avril,” Graeme demanded.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly with a sigh. “I’ve been working towards it since my husband died, haven’t I? I told you I was going. I guess I do, but then I don’t want to leave you two, that’s for sure. But it isn’t unexpected.”
“Damn it,” Conall said angrily, holding her so tightly she protested with a murmur. He didn’t relent. “You won’t have to go if you marry me, Avril. Hell, marry Graeme, I don’t care. Marry one of us! Why are you being so stubborn?”
She was shaking her head before he was finishing speaking. “No. We’ve been over this. I’m fine for here to warm your bed, in the cold Crimean winter, at war. But back home—and eventually we’ll be back home—I’m not good enough, Conall. Your father is a laird. Graeme’s is a professor. I’m no better than a servant, with very little education, no family, no money, no connections. What would either of your families say? And now, having been with both of you? They’ll find out and think me worse than a whore and you know it.”
Conall let her go so fast she fell back and Graeme had to catch her. Conall climbed from the cot, throwing the plaid at her. He stood in the cold morning naked as could be, and despite their argument Avril’s heart skipped. He was gorgeous. Muscular thighs and chest and arms, a thick cover of red hair on his chest, his cock still sleep-hard. She remembered how he’d looked fucking Graeme the night before and she shivered, her blood hot, her skin flushing. His blue eyes glared at her and she was brought back to the present.
“You’re being stubborn,” he said again. “You don’t know my family.”
“Yes, I do,” she said.
He looked startled for a moment. “That’s right, yes, you do. Some of them, anyway. Have they ever treated you like less than a lady? Ever treated you as or called you whore? No. That’s all in your head, Avril.”
“No, it isn’t,” Graeme said, and Avril felt justified even as she went cold with disappointment. “Perhaps about your family and mine, Conall, but the rest of world will see her that way if circumstances are known. You know that as well as I do. What we have here is not conventional, nor accepted. If people were to find out about you and me, that we are intimate, we would be shunned as well. This is not an easy decision. Surely you see that?”
“So you would leave me as well?” Conall asked, aghast. “Am I the only one who thinks what we have is worth keeping? That I’m worth keeping?”
“Conall, that’s not what we’re saying at all,” Avril argued, reaching for him.
He grabbed his kilt and began wrapping it around himself. “Yes, it is. When you boil it down it is. Well, I think you’re both wrong. I think this is worth keeping and worth fighting for. I think I am, and you too, Avril, and you Graeme. And by God, I will fight for it. But I’m so bloody mad at the two of you right now I can’t even look at you.” He threw on his jacket and buttoned just enough buttons to keep it on. Then he sat to pull on his hose and boots and spats.
“Running away is not the answer,” Graeme said calmly. “Talking about it is. Don’t you think Avril has the right to voice her concerns? To hesitate to change her life so drastically?”
Conall grabbed his sash and his sword. “Change her life drastically? And how is that a bad thing? You heard her. She’s poor, no family, no connections, nothing. Marriage to either of us would be a fine thing for her, and you know it. It’s better that anything she could have hoped for.”
Avril gasped at his hurtful and rude words. “Oh it is, is it?” she spat out. “And you’re such a prize?” she asked. “Always running away when you don’t get your way, like a child with no care for anything but your own wants and needs. And what prospects have you got? Fourth son”—she shook her head—“or fifth, or whatever you and Brodie are, and a career in the army? I’ve already lost one husband to a Russian bullet. Do you think I’m in a hurry to lose another? Or both of you? Did you ever stop to consider that?”
Conall pointed at her with the hand that held his sword in its scabbard. “You can tell yourself those lies if it pleases you, but you know damn well you’re just scared. Scared to try to better yourself and your situation by marrying me or Graeme. Afraid you won’t measure up. Well, I’m telling you that you measure up. I wouldn’t have asked you if you didn’t. I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone else says about you, me or us.” He gestured between the three of them. “I love you both and I want to be with you, and I’m willing to make whatever sacrifices necessary to make that happen. You two are the ones who refuse to take a chance.” He stalked toward the door and then spun around to face them. “And you think I’m a child, do you? Well, I suppose I haven’t proved myself to you yet, then. But I’m getting damn tired of being the one who always has to prove himself and the only one who’s fighting to keep us together.”
He turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him.
Avril was suddenly overcome with tears, a sob escaping as she buried her face in her hands. He’d left. Again. No matter what he said, he’d left. And in her heart she knew it was for the best and that he should stay away, but it hurt.
“Ah, Avril,” Graeme said and hauled her back into his arms, resting his chin on the top of her head. “He’s young and hotheaded. He’ll come to his senses.” He kissed her temple. “But he’s right, you know. This is a chance, a big one. I’ll understand if you decide not to take it. I won’t like it, but I’ll respect it.” He pushed her away and stared into her eyes. Tears were still running down her cheeks and she sniffed inelegantly, making Graeme give her a little lopsided grin. “I think you’re worth fighting for,” he told her, “and Conall too. But I’ve learned fighting for something doesn’t always mean you win the fight.”
Chapter Sixteen
Graeme turned at the sound of fast-approaching horses. He was on Cathcart’s Hill, watching the Russians through a lens again. He’d been here almost every day for the past two months. Bored out of his skull with the waiting and wondering, and yet hoping against hope the Russians stayed just where they were and didn’t cause a fuss. He wasn’t ready to face another charge, dodge a hail of bullets and a wall of bayonets. Love took the fight out of a man, he supposed.
Brodie and Douglas climbed down off their horses at Graeme’s side, their faces grim. Graeme felt a cold seep into his bones, the sort of cold that never went away. “Tell me,” he said simply, bracing for the blow.
“He’s gone,” Douglas said. “With the Zouaves.”
“The Zouaves?” Graeme asked in confusion. “What is he doing with the French?”
“Those damn crazy Frenchmen are storming the Russian works again,” Douglas spat out, throwing his cap on the ground in disgust. “Conall got wind of it and he’s going with them.”
Conall: The 93rd Highlanders, Book Two Page 11
