by Nia Farrell
“Fiddle,” Edward answered for him, as if he too felt the need to buffer Daniel from them. “He plays the fiddle.”
Sydney looked crestfallen, but only for a moment. Once she’d swallowed her next bite, she was off and running again.
We returned to our rooms to undress and get ready for the next session. I freshened up in the water closet and was reaching for my robe when the unthinkable happened. My monthly visitor. Here. Today. Ruining the rest of the weekend, as far as posing was concerned. It was a crushing disappointment. Worse yet, I should have known my time was close and had Sydney come next week, when I would not be so encumbered.
Edward knocked on my bedroom door, thinking to fetch me, only to find me in the water closet, stuffing rags between my legs. I looked at him, my face streaked with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m bleeding. We’ll have to postpone this until next week, if she can come.”
“Shh.” Padding over to me on his beautiful, bare feet, he cupped my face and dried my tears with his thumbs. “She can come. She cleared a month’s worth of weekends, not knowing what you would need from her. I daresay, she will be delighted to spend the rest of the day and tomorrow making prints from the plates that she has taken thus far.”
She would, too. She’d made no secret of it at lunch. She couldn’t wait to show us her work. Of course, she’d been looking at Daniel when she’d said it.
“And how did she know that he was a musician?”
Edward angled his head. “She didn’t. It’s…” He blew out softly. “Outside of the clubs, it’s a coded question asked to determine one’s proclivities. Sydney has experience in these things. She recognized your bruises the same way that she recognizes Daniel’s submissive nature and was asking if Daniel was like you. Someone who derives pleasure from pain, the way that others enjoy giving it.”
“Oh? Oh! Yes. Well. You’re right. Daniel does play the fiddle.”
And Sydney frequented clubs where people “played” different instruments and did God knew what else.
I released the lip I’d been chewing. “Warn them away, will you? From the staff, too. Not that I’m judging, mind you, but I’ve seen the way that Mary Margaret looks at Lucy and I won’t risk losing her.”
“Yes, well, Sydney may be the one disappointed. She does like to bring a third party to their bed. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve already taken the liberty to decline on your behalf. ‘Warned her away,’ if you will. Still, she harbors hope. More so, now that she’s seen you naked.”
His turquoise gaze dropped to my breasts. My nipples hardened, tightening to pebbled points. “Hmm. I think you like being admired,” he rumbled. “I know that you like being watched. You and Daniel are stunning together. Your passionate youth. His lust unleashed upon your tender flesh until he erupts like Vesuvius, streams of a size I have never seen. Surely you have wondered what it would be like, to have him finish inside you. Now that your menses is here, you will finally get to feel him come. Fill your princess parts to overflowing while he keeps pounding and pouring into you.”
He exhaled hotly, nostrils flaring, the look on his face stealing my breath.
It would be messy. Not likely something that Daniel had ever considered, let alone done, but I agreed with Edward: it was the one time of the month that he could finish inside me without consequences, and I wanted that. I wanted that. I wanted to feel Daniel’s seed filling me, flooding me, running down my legs when I stood up. I wanted to feel his body shudder, his hips buck, his magnificent cock jerk as he surged into me and found his release.
I trembled just to think of it.
“Wait here. I will be back.”
My nipples were still hard when the door to Edward’s room opened and Daniel stepped inside. He was dressed in his robe. Likely he’d been upstairs waiting for us, a lone target in Sydney’s sights until Edward had charged in, intent on bringing him to me, like a sacrifice, only the blood was mine this time.
He stared at me, a silent question in his eyes.
“He told you.” The lift in my voice made it sound like a query.
“Aye,” he grated, his cheeks tinged with pink.
“I won’t force you. I’d never force you. I’ll understand if you say no.”
The lambent heat in Daniel’s eyes seared through me, setting off a maelstrom in the deepest part of me. He kept his gaze pinned on mine as he shrugged off his robe and came to where I stood, his gate slightly off.
“Your leg,” I whispered against his mouth when he cupped my face and leaned down to kiss me.
“The one you saved, the other one, or the other one?” he murmured against my lips. “The third’s like wood, if ye couldn’t tell.”
Of course I could tell. How could I not, when it rose like a battering ram between us?
“Do you want me on top?” I asked.
He slanted his head to the perfect angle and kissed me, a dance of teeth and lips and tongue that sent my senses reeling. “I’m going to fuck ye proper,” he whispered. “Show him how it’s done. As long as he keeps his pecker away from my arse, we’ll be fine.”
Holy mother of pearl.
Daniel took me then. Possessed me. Fucked me like a sailor come from the sea after months and months of abstinence. My body slickened his way. The air resonated with the liquid sounds of sex, the pounding of flesh, the groans and whimpers of partners locked in a desperate joining. My first orgasm hit me with the force of a trebuchet.
Daniel kept going, changing his angle of penetration, taking me to another new height, and another, pushing me over the edge time and again but refusing to follow until finally, finally, he broke, moaning my name as he exploded inside me, biting my neck and pouring himself into me, filling me with his essence.
The force of it…the feel of it…even if I were coherent, I’d need the gift of poetry to do it justice. If Daniel’s cock was magnificent, his releases were supreme.
He was loathe to leave me. Braced on his forearms, he kept most of his weight off of me. Sweat dripped from his face and chest, sliding down my neck and ribs and dampening the sheet below. He nudged my cheek with his nose and grunted as he lifted free. Placing his left knee outside of mine, he rolled onto his side.
I could feel his seed leaking from me and turned onto my stomach, lifting my hips, reluctant to let it go. Daniel stroked the line of my back, ending with his hand palming my buttocks, his strong, calloused fingers flexing in a grip that was firm but not bruising. He shook his arm, jiggling my ass, as if he still couldn’t believe it—that I was Lanie, not Lane. Female, not male.
That I could be his lover as well as his friend.
“Mmm.” I hummed my delight. “That was nice.”
“Nice?” Daniel shot me a look. “Nice?”
He sounded like a boy in first blush, seeking praise for his performance.
I managed to not grin at him.
“All right. It was…wonderful. Exquisite. Mind-boggling. Toe-curling….”
“Perfect.” This, from Edward, who stood in the doorway, his gaze hooded, his whole body vibrating with need. With the erection he was sporting, he looked ready to ravage me.
“Perfect,” I agreed.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sydney Blevins was a genius.
As much as I did not care for her personally, professionally she was nearly unassailable. Her images were stunning. Her eye was flawless.
Viewing the prints that she’d made Saturday afternoon and those done on Sunday, I could see that she’d not only managed to share my vision, she had successfully captured it—or part of it, anyway. With our session cut short, she would be returning next weekend to hopefully complete her commission, the vignette captured from every angle, yielding photographs that I could use to render it in stone.
If I was impressed, the men were equally awed and aroused. Nude portraits and a temporary permit to finish inside me made for a heady combination. Because Daniel stubbornly preferred the two of us to three, I found myself playing musical bedrooms, s
pending alone time with each of them and alternately entertaining them in my room.
Here, Daniel had the advantage, with the freedom of choice that Edward might never have with the demands on his time, between teaching and writing. My Irishman spent at least part of every workday at the abbey, resting his leg as needed in the chair that we’d sent over, returning with the latest news, and dutifully reporting it. With the floor swept clean and scaffolding in place, the inspection had revealed not one but two damaged beams. It was greatly disappointing but not surprising, given the age and condition of the building. The hunt was on for their replacements.
At least the holes in the roof were fixed and the pigeons evicted.
Meanwhile, I worked on Young Frank’s portrait, laying down the sepia lines before I added color. If I’d used oils, I’d have been done in a fraction of the time, but the meticulous ink detailing and the watercolors that my muse demanded would add days to a project that I would then have to copy.
The frames that Daniel made lay close at hand, providing extra incentive. Expertly crafted from figured wood and finished with the perfect blend of stains, they were simple yet beautiful pieces.
Beautiful enough that, upon seeing them Friday afternoon, Sydney wanted Daniel to make frames for her, too.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t the time. It wasn’t that he couldn’t use the extra money—because Heaven knew when his next pay from me would come. But sharing him with Sydney?
My whole being screamed that it was wrong, but the voice of a Higher Consciousness (which sounded remarkably like Edward’s) urged that it should be left for Daniel to decide. But when should I ask? Too soon and I risked making Daniel uncomfortable—possibly to the point of ruining any future session. Delay too long, and he’d rightly wonder why I had not told him. I was torn save for one thing. I should discuss it with Edward first, and I told Sydney as much.
Fortunately, she agreed with me. Being acquainted with Edward and having some knowledge of our private natures, she understood the basic dynamics of our relationship. Edward was lord and master here. I was his, but Daniel was mine, and we both came under his care.
She had covered about half the full-length exposures last weekend, before my monthly courses had appeared and shut things down. This weekend, she wanted to finish the full length images and take a series of increasingly closer portraits, ending with just our faces and upper torsos in the frame. If time allowed, she’d like to do a few from below the neck—faceless images, with oiled chests and naked breasts in stark relief, focused on the beauty of the human form.
Yes, Sydney Blevins was brilliant.
Dinner with our two guests went off without a hitch. After dessert, Sydney offered to share her cigars with the men. Edward and Daniel both graciously declined. Neither was overly fond of tobacco, smoked or chewed, although they did enjoy their whiskey. As it turned out, Miss Blevins did too. One drink turned to two, then four, then Daniel’s fiddle came into the mix and soon we had servants dancing in the hall and eventually Sydney trying to tempt me off the couch when Mary Margaret’s size eleven feet grew tired.
I had no interest in dancing with Miss Blevins, let alone being the third party in her and Mary Margaret’s bed. I edged closer to Edward, seeking his protection from the predatory gleam in Sydney’s eyes.
He put a proprietary hand upon my leg and suggested that Sydney try the forty-year-old single malt that he’d just opened. About that time I yawned, widely and loudly. Unfortunately, everyone heard. Daniel’s fiddle had just fallen silent between songs, and the only other sound was from the short case clock on the mantle, religiously marking the minutes. “Sorry,” I said, covering my mouth to hide the next yawn. “I’m afraid that lack of sleep has caught up with me.”
Edward was more than aware that I’d had a week of late nights and passionate joinings. He squeezed my knee and called to Daniel. “One more tune, please, to end the night. Breakfast is at half past six.”
Daniel waved his bow in my direction. “Lanie, come sing with me.”
That made me bolt awake. “I don’t think….”
Edward murmured in my ear. “Sing,” he said. “For me.”
My voice was naturally low, a contralto that well matched men’s tenor voices in campfire sing-a-longs. I rose from the davenport, crossed to where Daniel sat, smiled sweetly, and whispered in his ear. “Bastard.”
He grinned unabashedly. “I’ll walk ye up,” he offered as recompense.
Walk me up. As in take me to my bedroom and tuck me in—with him beside me, for a round or two of perfect sex. Edward must have read his lips, or his looks, because when I glanced at him, he was nodding his consent.
I turned my back on the room to keep at least my part of our exchange private. “I see a diversionary tactic for Sydney on the prowl,” I whispered.
“There’s that too,” he said, raising his fiddle to his chin, bow poised above the strings. “Now what shall it be, darlin’?”
Darlin’. Another thing started this week. I was Edward’s pet. Occasionally his princess. But now I was my Irishman’s darlin’ as well. Drawled in his thickest brogue, it dripped with innuendo.
I considered the Irish lullaby that I’d sung to Daniel at Fredericksburg, learned from my mother, who’d heard it from her Irish grandmother, but I wasn’t certain that I could perform it without crying. Steering clear of martial songs, maudlin pieces, and Daniel’s favorites (particularly those concerning English injustices to his race), I chose a Scottish tune instead. Nervous, I wet my lips and turned my gaze to the top shelves of a bookcase, keeping my focus there until the last note faded.
Then, applause, from the room and from the hall.
“Brava!” Sydney exclaimed. “She sings like an angel. Edward, I had no idea.”
Well, neither had he.
I bit my lip and risked a glance. He looked…mesmerized, like someone under the spell of a siren’s song.
“Yes.” Edward blinked and cleared his throat. “Yes, she does.”
Suddenly, I wanted both men to walk me up. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about last Friday night, the red velvet chaise longue, surrounded by mirrors, how they’d taken me, filled me, possessed me. Edward was right. I could nearly bring myself to orgasm just thinking about it.
I turned to Daniel and reminded him that we needed to shave again.
All of us.
“Like last time,” I said, “except in my room, yes?”
While Daniel packed his fiddle and bow, I looked at Edward until I had his full attention before drawing the back of my bent index finger down my cheek, twice, so there would be no mistaking my meaning.
Edward’s eyes blazed. He bid Sydney and Mary Margaret a hasty good night. “Six-thirty,” he reminded them of Saturday’s early breakfast time. The staff must have heard, too. There was a flurry in the hall like a covey of quail being flushed, as servants flew downstairs to their individual roosts.
Shaving a week’s worth of growth went much faster than the initial denuding. What followed was a variation on a theme. I shaved the men, Edward lounging like a lion king, Daniel pinned with his hands above his head, Edward’s half-hard cock pointed at his chin like a compass needle finds north while Daniel was in his full glory.
Edward shaved me. Cleaned and inspected me, with his hands, with his eyes. Bending down, he traced my seam with his tongue and fucked me with his fingers, making certain I was sopping wet before he thrust his full length inside me. He drove into me, bent on possessing me while Daniel watched, making certain that he knew what it felt like, to not be invited in.
I was wet enough, he flipped me on my stomach and took me from behind like hound takes a bitch, or a stallion takes a mare, pounding into me, deep and hard and fast.
“Oil,” he growled at Daniel, who fetched the vial and held it out. “Pour it on her,” he ordered, maintaining the rhythm he’d set.
I felt the cool tickle of oil run down my crack. Edward smeared my hole, slid his thumb in my ass, and held it
there while he fucked me. The next time that he had Daniel add oil, it was to the length of the erection he had pressed against my most private place. Slickening himself, he squeezed inside, hissing as my body yielded and he sank into my depths.
“Do you trust me?” he said as he pistoned into me.
“Yes,” I moaned, relishing the feel of his possession.
The next thing I knew, he’d flipped us again so that he was lying on his back with me impaled on top of him, my front exposed, breasts bouncing when he bucked his hips. Wedging his knees between mine, he hooked my legs and spread them wide, digging his heels into the bed for better traction.
“Do you know what it has been like, watching you?” Edward bit my ear and worried it with his teeth. “Watching his back bow and flex as he drives into you? Watching you climax and fall apart? Only he cannot stop. He just keeps going, like a racehorse pounding the track. Will he fuck you if I ask it? Will he obey me, if I tell him that I want to feel the two of you together? That I want to feel him come inside you? It is day six. Safe enough.”
Was it?
Edward drove deep, and I gasped.
“Tell him what you want,” he grated, reaching around to find my pearl and pinching it between his fingers while Daniel stood by the bed, hands clenched his sides, the tip of his beautiful cock shining with dew.
“Fuck,” I hissed. “Fuck me. Please. Have mercy, Edward! Daniel!” God help me, I wanted them both. “I want to feel your cocks, filling me again and again. I want to feel you climax together. Don’t make me beg, Daniel. Come here. Take me. Make me fly.”
Daniel crawled between our legs and climbed on top, wet his crown on my juices, and pushed himself into me, stretching me as he went. He barely gave my body time to adjust before he forged in deeper yet, until he was nearly seated to his root. The feel of them was incredible. Edward was right. There was nothing to compare to the sensation of two men inside you, taking you. And they did. Oh, yes. They did. Daniel ignored how his perfectly shaved testicles slapped against my taint and the base of Edward’s cock and concentrated on fucking my pussy while Edward claimed my ass. Daniel’s position on top let him take me, hard and fast. Edward groaned, feeling some of what I felt every time that Daniel and I made love.
