Her Husband’s Lover

by Madelynne Ellis

  Lyle gave a meagre nod. ‘She’s frightfully charming.’

  Dear God, his wife was anything but that, but she certainly knew how to act.

  ‘What happened this morning, Rob? I don’t mean with your wife. I mean with mine. Emma said …’ Lyle choked back the rest of the phrase as if he couldn’t bear to utter it. Doubts swam in the depths of his dark eyes, and he appeared momentarily gaunt. ‘I mean, how far did it go?’

  Darleston held his tongue. He ought to have anticipated this moment. Not Lucy’s arrival and the trouble she caused, but Lyle’s reaction to the growing intimacy between him and Emma.

  Jealousy, doubt – they were always difficult emotions to weather.

  He reached out and curled his fingers around Lyle’s shoulder. ‘How detailed would you like me to be?’

  Lyle placed his hand over the top of Darleston’s and removed it from his shoulder. He held on to it, though, turned their palms and laced their fingers together. ‘I don’t need to know any details. I just wanted to be certain of what has passed. Emma wasn’t particularly explicit, and she’s not exactly experienced.’

  ‘She’s no longer a virgin,’ Darleston offered as clarification.

  Damn, this ought to have been a pleasant moment, not a cause of this tension between them. Lyle ought to have been there when in happened. Instead, he seemed entranced by something on the grass and refused to hold Darleston’s gaze.

  Darleston squeezed his hand. ‘It doesn’t change anything between us.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Yes – I’m sure. Lord damn it, Lyle!’ He shook off Lyle’s hold and grasped him around the waist instead. Fist tightened around the fabric of Lyle’s coat, he tugged him forward, meaning to embrace him, show him what he felt through the fever of his kiss. But, instead of sailing into his arms, Lyle stumbled. His shoulder hit Darleston square in the chest, winding him. His knees buckled under the unexpected weight and they both dropped like stones.

  In dazed silence, Darleston stared at the dim stars. Cold seeped out of the earth beneath him. It penetrated his clothing, setting a chill in his bones. Overhead the purple haze of twilight had now melted into the black of night.

  Lyle’s shadowy form reared over him, blocking out the light of the waning crescent moon. ‘I don’t know how I feel about it, Rob. It makes me uncomfortable. She’s my wife. I don’t desire her in that sense, but it feels damned wrong condoning what she’s doing with you.’

  ‘Doesn’t she deserve the same freedoms as you?’

  The wag of Lyle’s head was wholly indecisive. ‘I want her to be happy, but –’ he caught the edge of his lip between his teeth ‘– I just wish it wasn’t you she’d fixated upon.’

  ‘It’s what we wanted, Lyle. It’s what we planned.’

  ‘It’s what you planned. I know I agreed, but agreeing to it and experiencing it are two very different things. I’m torn. I’m –’

  ‘– frightened,’ Darleston supplied. It was easy to forget that Lyle’s experience of relationships amounted to a platonic, touch-free arrangement with his wife and spur-of-the-moment encounters with men who sought swift satisfaction and nothing else. This was his one experience of anything deeper; hardly surprising he was terrified of losing it.

  ‘You’re worried that I’ll love her more than you. That you’ll get left out. It won’t happen, Lyle.’ He wanted them both equally. More than that, he needed them. ‘Lyle …’

  They stared at one another, locked in wordless conversation. Somehow that made it easier than actually spitting out all the things that needed to be said.

  Lyle touched Darleston’s face, brushing aside the red strands of his hair. Darleston’s lips tingled as Lyle’s caress became a slow sweep of his thumbs around his open lips. Lyle dipped down and kissed him. The moment their mouths met, heat ripped through him, relaxing everything apart from his cock, which woke with the appetite of a hungry wolf.

  Only one thing was going to appease it and, thank God, Lyle seemed set upon delivering it.

  Darleston squirmed, the tight front of his breeches making for an unwelcome pressure on his erection. He needed freedom to breathe and a firm five-fingered grip around him. Only suddenly Lyle didn’t seem to be in any hurry to oblige. His touch was tender, exploring rather than demanding. The same remained true of his kiss. Their tongues danced, but in slow tremulous circles rather than a lively gavotte. Yet Lyle had to be aware of the reaction he’d triggered. Their hips were stacked one above the other so that their loins were pressed tight together.

  Friction. He needed friction. Only one thing was going to satisfy him. He lifted his hips. Lyle met him, roll for roll.

  ‘Will you do to me what you did to Emma?’ Lyle breathed the husky whisper straight into his ear. It was far more than a request, rather a plea dredged up out of Lyle’s gullet and spoken through clenched teeth. The notion that he’d somehow missed out and been replaced dangled like a lodestone around his neck. His kiss took on a note of aggression, became far more insistent. ‘How did you do it? No one ever cracks her core.’

  Darleston tasted his kisses and matched his fervour. ‘It’s not about what I’ve done. I’ve simply made it easy for her to take what she already wanted.’ He clasped his hands over Lyle’s arse and pulled him closer so that their loins were squashed together with no space between. ‘You know as well as I that attraction isn’t something you can predict or pretend to understand. For some reason she sees something in me that makes her want to break down the barriers she’s created. I don’t know what that is or why. I’m just grateful for it. Regardless –’ he looked Lyle straight in the eyes ‘– none of that changes how I feel about you.’

  Lyle reared up onto his knees and went straight for Darleston’s frontfall. ‘She can give you things that I can’t,’ he said, but the statement lacked the power of his earlier assertions.

  Darleston knocked Lyle’s hands aside and dealt with his own fastenings. ‘The reverse is also true.’ His thoughts ran to all manner of crudities as he spoke the reassurance. Things he would never ask Emma to do, even if they were physically possible. Some things were best left between men. Some aspects of his psyche he never wanted exposed to a woman. Leastways, not one he actually liked.

  Having finally freed his erection, Darleston stared up at Lyle expectantly. His cock jerked, leaving sticky dots behind on his stomach as the night wind blew its cool caresses over its surface. Yet despite the hunger that turned up the edges of Lyle’s mouth, Lyle didn’t reach out to stroke him.

  ‘What does your wife want?’ Lyle asked instead.

  ‘The same things she always wants – money, social clout, dominion over me.’ Darleston covered his shaft with his own palm, took up the stroking Lyle had failed to provide. He needed relief. The day had been one long trauma. Tomorrow might well be worse. ‘Lyle,’ he gave a tormented plea, while his fist took up a faster pace of slip and slide.

  Lyle dipped forward a little, but still made only passing contact. He tilted his head to one side. ‘If I just sit here are you going to stroke yourself to eruption?’

  ‘Shit!’ What in God’s name was this torment about?

  Lyle released his own breeches, which fell open around his hips. The blunt head of his cock reared beneath his shirt, tenting the cambric. ‘What if I just stay here and rub until I spend too? Are we simply being sordid or are we actually together?’

  ‘Deliberately vexatious is what it’d make you.’ He didn’t trouble himself with thoughts of what it made him. Desperate, most likely.

  ‘Did Emma stroke you? Is the taste of her still on your cock?’

  Why the hell did it matter? ‘Why don’t you lick it and find out?’

  Lyle stuck his tongue out, but nevertheless he bent and troubled the slitted eye with the very tip of his tongue. He followed that up by gently sucking the head, which rapidly had Darleston trying to count stars in the heavens just to hold onto some focus. No denying that Lyle had learnt a trick or two since their yout
h. Darleston’s hips bucked involuntarily, driving his cock deeper into the warmth of Lyle’s heavenly mouth. Hell! Lyle just swallowed it down too, as if it was effortless. That’s why it came as so much of a shock when Lyle abruptly released him. He got right up close to Darleston’s face. ‘I’ve got something for you. Think you can lie still and take it?’

  ‘Lying still ain’t a great favourite.’

  ‘Yeah – I’ve heard you’re rather good at it.’

  ‘Lyle.’ Darleston lifted his arm to push his hand into his lover’s thick golden curls, only for Lyle to brush him off. ‘A-aah! You don’t get to touch.’

  ‘What, you expect me to lie in the open with my cock hanging out and accept whatever it is you’ve got planned? Why are you doing this?’ Couldn’t the silly fool see that different was good? He didn’t want the same thing from Lyle as he did from Emma. Hell, all the restraint he had to employ when dealing with Emma would likely give him a hernia if it carried on much longer. Yes, they’d done the dreaded deed – and didn’t that notion make him smile – but he was under no illusions about that being anything other than the first hurdle in a long, long steeplechase. That, more than anything, was why he didn’t need to be duplicating the experience with Lyle.

  ‘I’m doing it,’ Lyle laughed, ‘because it excites me. Now keep still, Robert. Be good, or else I’ll have to tie you up.’

  * * *

  Tie him up. Tie him up. Lord damn it, if he had some rope he’d have done it. As it was, he just had to make do with ordering Darleston to lie still. If he could manage it for Emma, he could damn well attempt it for him. Although Lyle conceded that he intended to be far more taxing with him than Emma would ever be. Unlike his wife, he had no time for tentative caresses, but then he wasn’t expecting to be bitten at any moment, or rather the prospect of being bitten didn’t frighten him. Rather, he was excited by the possibility of pushing Robert past his boundaries so that he threw Lyle down and reversed their positions. If he were fastened securely enough, blindfolded perhaps – he wondered if even Emma’s touch might be enough to bring him off.

  No – he wasn’t going to think of her right now. Lyle banished her to the recesses of his brain. He intended this moment to be entirely about the here and now. Situations were changing. There were no certainties about tomorrow, about their future with Emma or the outcome of whatever trouble Lady Darleston intended to cause, but for this moment Darleston belonged entirely to him. He wanted to remember that and he intended to make it a memory worth remembering.

  After arranging Robert’s hands on either side of his head, and squeezing his wrists tight enough that the sensation of restraints surely lingered, Lyle sat back on his haunches. ‘Remember, you’re not to move.’

  Darleston eyed him cagily, but did as instructed. That is, all of him apart from his cock, which nodded enthusiastically.

  Lyle palmed the eager length and started rhythmically stroking. He played particular attention to the underside of the rose-hued helm, which he knew Darleston found particularly sensitive.

  As his lover’s breathing quickened, his features scrunched into an ever more impressive frown. Judging by the stiffness of his cock, it wasn’t from lack of pleasure, rather the war presumably raging in Darleston’s head. His stomach muscles rippled and clenched with the strain of holding himself still. His hips dipped, ready to roll with the motion of Lyle’s fist, only to abruptly lock still.

  ‘Fuck!’ Darleston’s explosive gasp punctuated the balmy night air like a thunderclap. ‘How long do you expect me to keep this up? I’ve a wife back at the house intent upon my torture. You don’t have to best her in order to win my affections.’

  ‘Your wife’s presence never crossed my mind. I know exactly what you think of her. And you’ll keep this up until I say otherwise.’ Lyle palmed his own cock and worked the pair of them in tandem. He had this all planned out in his head. It’s all he’d thought of since Emma’s absentminded confession. He knew what came next, and exactly how damn good it would feel.

  Lord, he didn’t want to share Robert with Emma, but he’d do it. It was for the best of reasons, although knowing that did little to ease his apprehensions.

  It’d been easy while Emma’s no-touch policy had remained in place, but now that things had progressed way beyond that … Oh, hell, he didn’t know. He only knew that he had to prove something to himself with this, but what that was …

  He concentrated his focus back upon Darleston’s body. Beads of his dew hung like silvery pearls from the tip of his cock. Lyle caught them upon his thumb and swirled them around Darleston’s glans. He pushed both their pricks together and worked them as one, until finally, when he knew Darleston was almost ready to throw off his invisible bonds, Lyle turned around so that he perched over Darleston’s cock, facing his toes.

  Somehow he envisaged this as how Emma had imagined taking his lover, squatting over him and slowly lowering herself down onto his upright prick, probably while he was restrained or, more likely, sleeping. Although he defied any man to sleep through someone toying with his cock. And he didn’t mean to think of Emma.

  Lyle slowly lowered himself over Darleston’s cock. He guided the helm into place against his arse, and then slowly sank down. Slowly – yes! Because Emma would take things slowly until her maidenhead was torn asunder and she was able to take her lover properly to the root.

  Slowly, slowly, he took more of Darleston’s prick. It whitened his knuckles to keep the pace so slow, but … ‘Ah, yes!’ Finally, he hilted. Beneath him, Darleston gave an appreciative jerk, accompanied by a blissful sigh, but he otherwise kept still. He didn’t roll his hips. He didn’t clasp Lyle’s waist and hammer him back home when he lifted.

  Slip and slide. Up and down, Darleston’s cock filled him.

  It stung so much to find he’d tupped Emma.

  He’d known all along it would happen, but he’d really expected to be part of it. The anticipation, what the three of them had shared, had led him to expect it to happen while he was present. He’d sit back and watch Darleston swive his wife, after he’d helped to arouse him. He’d look Emma in the eyes as she took his lover into her body, accepting him in a way she’d never accept him or any other man.

  ‘Damn it, Lyle! I can’t take much more. Turn around, will you?’

  Momentarily ignoring Darleston’s plea, Lyle continued to take his pleasure at his own pace. Only when he felt the tremors running through Darleston’s tensed limbs did he turn around to face him.

  ‘Come here.’ Darleston’s silver eyes shone like the moonlight. ‘Kiss me. Take whatever it is you need.’

  He wasn’t really sure what he needed, or what he was trying to achieve, but he could no longer resist the satisfaction to be had from Darleston’s kiss. Their lips only just brushed at first, butterfly-light and full of promise. He couldn’t bear it to remain like this, so sweet it bordered on chaste. His need was already ramped up too high. Darleston’s prick filled his bottom to distraction. He needed more, but was reluctant to relinquish the control he’d usurped.

  ‘Let me move, Lyle. Give me the word and I’ll give you what you need. You know I can.’

  Maybe.

  Darleston’s lips were soft and smooth. Heat radiated from his body, taunted him with the promise of further warmth if only he’d give in. He held off though, maintained a ribbon of resistance, until his whole body throbbed from the strain. With a sigh of surrender he parted his lips to accept the press of Darleston’s tongue, which only proved how little the light mussing of their lips they’d previously shared resembled a true kiss. This explosive show of passion was a far bolder demonstration of their love. Kissing Darleston, he was lost in the tangling of tongues and the ache of his need, which in turn drove the rise and fall of his hips.

  Eventually he had to break away in order to catch his breath. Darleston’s mouth remained open, slack from their shared kisses. Lyle pushed his curled fingers into it, then changed his mind and fed him his thumb to suck instead. The quick p
ulls against his flesh felt like a direct assault on his cock.

  He couldn’t do this any longer. He needed more. ‘Move,’ he ordered Darleston.

  ‘Thank God!’ Darleston’s husky tones rumbled up his throat from deep in his chest. Lyle felt the vibration right through his body. It fired up his nerves and set his cock tingling with delight.

  Yes! Oh, yes! That was better. Sod the slow, one-sided burn he’d been intent upon. This was infinitely better. ‘Hell, Rob! Give it to me.’

  Darleston let out a brusque laugh. ‘Give it to you. I’ll give it to you all right.’ He flipped them over, so that Lyle found himself abruptly looking skywards, the cold earth against his back. Only for a moment though, then Darleston loomed over and filled him. Why he’d held off from doing this, he didn’t know. The throb of Rob’s cock in his arse filled him in a way that caressed him inside and out and drove him wild. Fever gripped him tight. He sobbed against Darleston’s shoulder, meeting his thrusts and welcoming the demanding pace. There were no thoughts to distract him, only the buzz of sensation in his brain. All that mattered was togetherness and his trajectory towards the stars.

  Darleston hooked Lyle’s legs up over his shoulders and changed the angle of his thrusts so that the blunt head of his cock hit a patch of raw nerves inside Lyle’s body, which in turn set him panting with shock. That pressure, that touch, was both too intense and impossible to resist.

  Inarticulate moans escaped his throat. He basked in the moment. The sensation tore through his body leaving him buzzing all over, while a blazing pulse throbbed inside his bottom. Darleston’s cock pierced him like a shaft of light that pushed right though his body and seemed to fill him right to the tip of his own erection.

  He was going to come, or have an apoplexy, or quite possibly both.

  A burst of light stole his vision, and then darkness surrounded him like a shroud. His seed jetted over his chest, soiling his clothing. Lyle didn’t care. Every cell in his body was screaming in ecstasy.

  ‘Rob!’ he gasped as the darkness peeled back. It was suddenly all too raw. He couldn’t take any more motion, though remnants of his seed continued to ooze from his tip.