by Nia Farrell
After the open house, we would rearrange the walls to create a center aisle. When we were working, it would make it easier to see who was at the door when the bell that Daniel installed announced their entrance.
“It is that,” he agreed, thumping his fist on the balcony railing.
I studied his profile and thought how very lucky I was that he’d stayed, once my secret was revealed, and again, when Edward made his desires known. Not that Daniel was there yet, but he let both of us kiss him goodnight now.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” I told him. “Not in Chicago, and not here. I hope you understand that, and know how grateful I am.”
Daniel turned to look at me. Just that quickly, the energy shifted from friendly camaraderie to healthy lust. “Ye know,” he drawled, trailing a finger up my arm. “We’ve yet to test that bed of yers. Try that new-fangled mattress. See what it’s like to sleep at a fancy hotel.”
“Sleep?” I dropped my gaze to the changing fit of his brown wool pants. “Pardon me if I’m skeptical.”
“Nearly guaranteed, once I’ve worn ye out.” He waggled his eyebrows in a salacious parody and circled his hips in an exaggerated bump and grind. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
“Come on, Lanie,” he wheedled, teasing me, tempting me. “Come to bed, darlin’ girl. We’ve worked hard and earned our reward, haven’t we now?” He slipped a hand behind my back and pulled me against him, nomming on my neck, trying to find my ticklish spot.
“Stop!” I swatted his biceps, grown hard and round as a cannonball from all the building he’d done these past weeks. Pulled tight against him as I was, he felt hard everywhere, and as randy as a stag in season. Just thoughts of that cock of his and what he could do with it were enough to make me wet.
His kisses turned serious, tasting, probing, teeth and tongue grazing the column of my neck. “Do ye want me to stop?” he murmured against my ear, catching my lobe between his teeth and tugging on it.
“No,” I breathed. “No. Don’t stop. Take me to bed. I’ve dreamt of you often enough there.”
He exhaled sharply and kissed me, all traces of levity gone, vanished in an instant. Suddenly serious, he possessed my mouth the way that he would make love to my body, thoroughly, hungrily, tasting everything, leaving nothing unexplored. He touched me everywhere, stripping off my dress and underpinnings until I wore only my chemise and corset. He worshipped every inch of me that was revealed, making me feel adored and beautiful, desired and loved.
He ripped back the covers and laid me on the bed, rucking up the front of my chemise to my waist, exposing me to his gaze. I still had rags tucked between my legs, just in case, but there’d been next to nothing to show for it all day. My monthly cycle had been blessedly short this time, probably from all the stress that we’d been under. Not that it would have mattered. After years of unrequited dreams, this was happening. At last.
Climbing onto the bed, Daniel settled himself between my opened thighs. He remained fully clothed, and I wanted him naked…until I realized that we had not locked up.
“Paddy.” I whispered, despite the fact that we were alone. “The door. What if someone comes?”
The risk seemed to make him swell harder yet. He undid his belt and fly and shoved his pants just past the perfect curve of his buttocks. “Ye’ll have to stay quiet enough to hear the bell, then.”
I was still shaved whereas he and Edward had let their manly hair grow back. There was nothing to hide how swollen, how ready I was for him. He tapped his cock on my clitoris and slid it south, wetting his head with my cream. “Grab the headboard and hold on, Lanie. Let’s see if we can make those dreams of yers come true.”
No sooner than I had my fingers wrapped around the iron spindles, he snapped his hips and shoved into me, stretching me as he claimed me in a single, solid thrust that more than filled me, connecting us on levels beyond the mere joining of our flesh, balancing my darkness with his light. Where Edward was older, cool and controlled, Daniel was hot and young and wild and mostly mine. He had not given himself to Edward, not yet. I allowed myself to be greedy, taking everything that he offered, holding nothing back in return.
I twisted and turned beneath him as he drove into me, setting a pace that was so intense, it bordered on brutal. He pounded into me, wringing one orgasm after another from me, until the sheets beneath us were soaked and my flesh felt bruised.
“Please,” I begged him. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“What’s yer word, love?” he growled in my ear, fisting my hair.
I met his hot emerald gaze and blinked, barely recognizing him, he looked so feral.
He yanked my hair. “Yer. Word.”
“Delphi,” I croaked, incredibly feeling the swell of another orgasm building.
Shoving my legs apart, Daniel hooked his arms beneath my knees and bent my legs to my chest, opening me and changing the angle of penetration. He pummeled into me, a savage rut that ripped the tide from me. I ejaculated, my body tightening around his erection, milking his length. I dug my fingernails into his cheeks, urging him to finish.
He slowed his pace and deepened his strokes, holding at the end, grinding against me, once, twice, thrice before he came, shuddering, his body wracked with the force of his ejaculation, a white tide that filled me to overflowing. Running down my seam, it wet my crack and dripped onto the back of my chemise, soaking through to the sheet.
“Jaysus,” he croaked when he could speak again. Lifting himself, he rolled to one side, anchoring himself to me so that he didn’t topple off my narrow bed. I released my grip on the headboard and lowered my hands to the swell of my corset-laced bosom, wishing I were naked, that I could give and he would obey a command to suckle my aching breasts.
He nuzzled my hair and kissed my cheek. “Did we do it justice?” he asked at last, stroking my face with the backs of two fingers, seeking confirmation.
“Mmm.” I stretched languorously, feeling decadent and deliciously sore. “Yes. And then some. My dreams were quite tame by comparison. This was different. You were different.” Rougher than normal. Almost…almost masterful. “I quite liked it, but I don’t know if I can walk. You may have to send a cab for me.”
He chuckled, full of himself.
“I’m not joking.”
His chest seized. His head snapped. Panic shaped his features as his searching gaze met mine.
“Well, maybe a little,” I admitted. “I am decidedly sore, but I’m tough. I’ll make it, even if it takes three times longer than it should.”
“Thank God.” He blew out a breath and flopped back onto the pillow that we were sharing. “The leg’s better, but I don’t know if I’m up to carrying ye that far after the workout it’s had.”
We’d been at it long enough, the light filtering in the leaded glass windows was waning, soon to be lost. I turned on my side and tapped the center of his chin. “I hate to say it, but we need to leave. Edward expects punctuality, and my poor flesh won’t tolerate punishment tonight.”
Launching himself off the bed, Daniel hiked up his pants, gathered my clothes and helped me dress posthaste. We locked up and hobbled home, arriving with half an hour to spare.
Both of us were in need of a bath. Sharing one ensured that we had enough hot water and allowed us to have a little more time together, before the two of us became three.
We were dressed and in the study when Edward came home, newspapers tucked under his arm, his small custom-made Louis Vuitton trunk in hand. Sturdier and more capacious than a briefcase, it was built for transporting books like the ones that he’d been hauling back and forth, research for his text on Troy, working between classes when he wasn’t grading papers.
He kissed us each on the forehead, settled in his favorite chair, and asked Daniel about our day.
I listened while the men talked. Understanding something of the way Edward’s mind worked, I remained a silent witness to their exchange. Edward was slowly but surely wooing Daniel, a
nd engaging him in conversation only forwarded his agenda.
When Benson knocked to announce that dinner was served, I rose with some effort, having stiffened in the time that I’d been sitting. Edward noticed but said nothing, darting a sharp glance at Daniel before escorting me to the dining room, adjusting his stride to keep pace with my feeble steps.
After dessert, we retired to the study, and there, the gloves came off.
Chapter Forty-Four
“Explain,” Edward said, his voice curt as he paced before his favorite chair, too tense to sit.
“I overdid it.” I said simply.
Edward arched an eyebrow, daring me to repeat it.
“Fine. We overdid it. Caught up in the excitement of finishing, we were a little too zealous and now I’m the worse for wear.” When Edward’s lips parted, I held up my hand to indicate that I wasn’t finished. “Let me just say that Daniel asked for my word. He would have stopped, had I used it, but it was…it was too…too…” Good Lord, I could feel myself blushing. “Well, it felt too good to stop, even when it hurt.”
Of course, Edward found the thought of Daniel fucking me that hard, or that long, incredibly arousing. “I see,” he rumbled, his turquoise gaze dancing as he studied us. “Then I suppose that I must perform tonight’s massage, hmm?”
Oh, dear.
“Um.” I darted a glance at Daniel. “Yes, please. If you don’t mind.”
“No, I don’t mind. Not at all. But you shall watch,” he said, in that authoritative tone of his that always made me want to drop to the floor and worship his phallus. I suppose it harkened back to our earliest days together, when he asserted his domination and made use of my mouth yet denied himself the other pleasures of my body.
“As you wish,” I answered, my voice a throaty whisper. The air was thick with sexual tension, as charged with electricity as a summer storm barreling across Lake Michigan, tossing up whitecaps that would capsize smaller boats.
Edward would not let us drown, but he seemed determined to make us swim.
The three of us went to Daniel’s room, little used save for giving massages and dressing for the day. We slept in Edward’s bed, the three of us spooning like messmates, with me hugging Daniel’s back and Edward claiming mine. Awake, well, we were anywhere and everywhere with a modicum of privacy. If a room had a door that could be closed, chances were that I’d been claimed in it by one man or the other or both.
Edward shed his frockcoat and waistcoat and began rolling up his sleeves, exposing the strength of his forearms. All he was missing was a belt, and I’d have been begging for his attention next. He put more coal into the modernized fireplace, adding an influx of heat to the room.
“Strip,” he told Daniel. Of course, that’s what Daniel routinely did for me, but the look on my Irishman’s face made me wonder if he rigged a loincloth or girded his hips with Edward.
“And you,” Edward rumbled.
What?
When I failed to move swiftly enough for his liking, he swiveled his head and looked at me, a wordless threat teeming with unpleasant consequences. My clothes flew off until I stood naked, awaiting instruction.
“Chair. Sit.” Just that quickly, he was back to Professor Wainwright, issuing monosyllabic commands.
I perched on the edge and clasped my fingers in my lap. Daniel was on his stomach, nude except for my St. Michael’s medal, using his crossed arms as a pillow, his face buried between them. Edward opened the oil, poured a penny’s worth into one palm, and rubbed his hands together to warm it.
“It has been a while since you watched me,” he said. “I think you will appreciate the improvement in my technique. Won’t she, my boy? Now, what is your word?”
Daniel’s head stayed down. “Posy.”
“Yes,” Edward hummed. “And when will you use it?”
“If I need ye to stop.”
“Very good. Let’s begin.”
Edward smoothed oil on Daniel’s back from shoulder to heel, adding more to his hands as needed, warming it between them before rubbing it on. Daniel’s body gleamed in the gaslight, casting sunshine and shadows in the peaks and valleys of his form. The perfect round curve of his buttocks rose like twin moons that I’d carved on Patroclus, the object of Briseis’s love and Achilles’ lust.
Briseis had served to balance and buffer them, in much the same way that Edward helped to balance us, but he was always in such command of his body, of his desires. He maintained his own buffer, concrete and impenetrable…until tonight.
Tonight, I saw glimpses of the beast that he kept leashed.
It started with small things. A thumb pressed too hard. A touch gone astray. Soothing sounds that one would use to tame a wild horse and break him to a saddle. Only there was no horse. There was Daniel and the man who clearly wanted to ride him.
“How many fingers are you up to?”
I swallowed, hard, wondering how he knew. “Three.”
“Hmm.”
Edward finished Daniel’s back side and had him roll over. His body had reacted to Edward’s touch. His erection rose rampant against his stomach.
“Show me.”
I slid off the chair and padded over to the bed, acutely aware of two set of eyes on me. Offering Daniel a soft smile of reassurance, I took the bottle of oil from Edward and lubricated my hand. More oil went onto him, into him, as I worked in the first finger and the second.
“What about his cock?” Edward quizzed. “Do you suck it? Do you stroke it? Does he?”
“Um. Yes. It depends.”
“Pump your hand. How does it feel, Daniel? Having her fingers inside you? Pushing, reaching, finding the spot that makes you want to come right then and there?”
Poor Paddy. His face was flushed pink. He looked as if he wished there were a rock to crawl under, but there was no hiding from Edward. Not tonight.
“Time for three fingers, pet. He’s ready. Aren’t you, my boy?”
And he was. The third had never slipped in so easily. I gave his body a moment to adjust, then started fucking him with my fingers, pumping my hand in a slow, smooth slide, in and out.
“Daniel, cup your balls. I want you to fondle them, but don’t touch your cock.”
He shoved one hand between his legs, cupped his testicles, started playing with them, squeezing, rubbing, tugging, twisting, rougher than I would have been but not rough enough for Edward.
“Harder,” he said, addressing both of us. I shoved inside Daniel. Inhaling sharply, he twisted his balls and pulled them away from his body. Pre-cum glistened from his tip, clinging to the opening, not daring to break free.
Edward caught it on his finger, lifted it to his lips, and tasted it, his gaze locked on Daniel’s, refusing to let him look away.
Edward leaned down and kissed him. Kissed him and fisted him, wrapping his fingers around Daniel’s shaft, stroking him, squeezing and pulling, adding a twist at the end. He mouthed his breasts, tonguing his nipples.
Daniel moaned and arched into Edward’s caress, breath hissing when Edward caught a hard brown tip between his teeth and flicked it with his tongue. I pumped. Daniel pulled. Edward stroked, lowering his head, licking a line down Daniel’s chest from sternum to navel, until Daniel’s cock bumped his chin, bobbing.
Edward swallowed him. All of him. Just that quickly. Just that easily. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he could, but that he would? Well, it wasn’t what I was expecting, and neither was Daniel, but “posy” never passed his lips, not when Edward opened his mouth to welcome him in, not when he took him to the root, burying his nose in his groin, and not when Daniel climaxed with a guttural cry, exploding deep inside Edward’s throat, flooding it with his seed.
“Jaysus. Christ.”
I slipped my hand free and kissed Daniel’s raised knee. Borrowing his robe, I went across the hall to my room and returned with warm, wet cloths and towels enough for us all.
Edward, still dressed, was lying beside Daniel on the bed, stroking his hair
with one hand while his other lay over my Irishman’s heart.
Daniel’s face was a mask of confusion. Like me, he was trying to process what had just happened. Edward could have pressured him (and with his submissive nature, he likely would have yielded, they’d been hovering on the brink of this for so long), yet Edward had chosen to give Daniel pleasure instead of taking his own.
“Sir?” I offered Edward a wet washcloth. He smiled, pleased with me. With us.
“Thank you, pet.” Taking the cloth, he used it on Daniel, wiping his chest, his abdomen, his cock, his taint, taking extra care to clean the tender flesh where my fingers had been before handing it back to me.
“Thank you, Sir.” The words as I spoke them vibrated in the center of my being. If ever he’d deserved the honorific, it was now, with how he was handling Daniel, leading him gently into our fold.
Chapter Forty-Five
Edward insisted that I soak in Epsom salts the next morning. After having to extricate me from our bed, he drew a bath, helped me into it, and told me to take however long I needed. I lingered longer, adding hot water more than once, indulging myself. These days, bathing was purposeful, rarely alone, and ruled by the clock. To bathe by myself, independent of schedules, was a rare treat indeed.
I felt blissfully refreshed and nearly normal after the hot water worked its wonders. Daniel and I had planned to give Edward a tour of the studio, but by the time I dressed, as late as it was, I knew that it would not be this morning. Instead, we had an early lunch, then bundled against the December chill and walked the half mile down.
Immediately upon our arrival, Daniel stoked the stoves and got them going. Meanwhile, our breath misted the air, gradually disappearing as Edward physically and viscerally navigated the maze of walls, viewing landscapes and still lifes, portraits and scenes, each step bringing him closer to La Belle de la Rosa.
The walls opened up, and there she was, waiting for us like a queen for her court. Viewing her again, with Edward, threw me back to Chicago, the moment that I’d seen his gilded beauty and had known that I was lost. He’d been drawn to me as well, just from watching me stroke her cheek. His attraction had not faded upon learning who I was. He’d wanted me even when he believed that I was his stepbrother.
