A Certain Latitude

by Janet Mullany

  “Do you seek to drown me?” March raised a trembling hand to push his hair back from his face.

  “I don’t know. It might be simpler.” Their mouths collided again with clumsy force. Allen tasted blood—or maybe it was not so, only the taste of seawater.

  March’s hand cupped his head, adjusting the angle so their tongues slowed to a lazy underwater dance. He groaned into Allen’s mouth, as his hand—was it hand or Allen’s own?—closed on his cock.

  He withdrew his mouth from Allen’s, but with his lips still against his. “I have dreamed of this.”

  “And I have tried not to.”

  “May I?” March’s hand slid and grasped. Up and down. Knowing the rhythm, the pressure, strong and sure.

  Allen made no answer but clasped his own hand around March’s cock. So strange, to have this part that was like, and unlike himself to handle, to stroke, while the sea lapped around them in a gentle caress. They drifted together linked by the touch of hand and tongue, while a pressure built, as inexorable as the tide that pushed them back to the shore and the woman who waited there for them.

  Now he withdrew his mouth from March’s. “I’m going to come,” he muttered, embarrassed and thrilled. His arousal was fast enough to shame him, or would have been so with a woman, but March’s skilful touch urged him to climax soon, very soon. There was no need for extended play here, not with a partner equally frantic to climax—he detected between his own fingers the texture of March’s own excitement.

  “Come then,” March said. “Now, damn you.”

  And he did—saltwater stinging slightly on the sensitive head of his cock as he spurted in March’s hand and his own salty fluid flowed into the sea.

  March groaned, thrust against Allen’s hand and released warm and slippery, silk on his fingers. His head drooped briefly onto Allen’s shoulder, his mouth warm against the skin as he took a deep breath and laughed softly.

  “You took me entirely by surprise, Pendale.”

  “I took myself by surprise.” He felt warm, relaxed. Safe. What an extraordinary thing for a grown man to feel, and after an unnatural act. He dropped his arm around March’s shoulders.

  “I still like women,” he added, just in case March thought …Well, he wasn’t quite sure what March thought.

  “As do I.” March laughed. “Come, I’ll race you back.” He plunged away from Allen, his body slicing through the water, while Allen followed with his less stylish, powerful stroke.

  Clarissa was quite grateful she was drunk. Sober, she might have been shocked or appalled at what she heard, or imagined, or wanted to imagine. The men’s voices carried quite clearly over the water, over the gentle break of the surf.

  So she was not mistaken. But Allen? A man who was so very, well, masculine? A man she thought she knew. March was no surprise, not after that helpless, lost way he’d stared at Allen earlier.

  A dreadful pang of jealousy made her fists clench. Look at me like that, damn you. I’m your mistress! You’re meant to love me!

  And then she giggled at her own absurdity. There was nothing in that contract about love, and while you could persuade someone to bed, you could not persuade their heart; or your own, for that matter.

  March emerged from the sea first, wading naked through the surf, handsome enough to break her heart. He was doing that, certainly.

  “Oh,” she said. “I know how those silly girls in antiquity felt when a god visited them.” She stepped forward to remove a slick of seaweed from his dripping chest, letting her fingers slide downward. “You’re so beautiful, March. It really isn’t fair.”

  He laughed and caught her in his arms. His genitals stirred against her damp skirts. “May I strip you here and now, Miss Onslowe?”

  “If you wish.” She placed her palms on his damp back. “How do you intend to dry yourself?”

  “Please, do not let me interrupt anything of import.” Allen, strong and dark—a wave of nostalgia washed through her—wandered over to his pile of clothes, and shook his head like a dog. Drops of seawater gleamed like quicksilver.

  March grinned. “We’ll dry off eventually. Meanwhile you should avert your eyes, my dear.”

  “Whatever for?” Didn’t he know Allen had been her lover? No matter.

  She broke their embrace and took March’s hand in hers, reaching for Allen’s with the other. “We must talk, sirs.” She giggled a little at the formality she naturally assumed, particularly with what she was about to announce.

  Allen dropped the shirt he was about to pull over his head and took her hand.

  Miss Clarissa Onslowe, once an almost respectable housekeeper, then a briefly respectable governess, held the hands of two naked men by the light of the full moon. She glanced at them both: March, lean and muscled like a greyhound, or some other thoroughbred animal: and Allen, stocky and powerful; each beautiful in their own way. They could represent air and earth, and she the fire that would ignite them, here, with water as witness.

  “We three are shackled together like your slaves. I to you, March, Allen to me, and you to Allen. It is such a pity we are each in love with the one who cannot reciprocate.”

  March stared at her. “Clarissa, I—”

  “Do not you dare to feel pity for me, March!”

  He shook his head. “I was about to say you are the bravest woman I know, to openly state such a thing.”

  She laughed with a note of hysteria that she did her best to suppress. “Well, it’s a pity I don’t have a cock, March.”

  “I’m quite glad you don’t,” Allen said. His own stirred, very gently as he smiled at her. “And I can only agree with March.” Very slowly, he reached out his hand to March, who, with the slightest hesitation, closed his own hand around it.

  “So,” Allen said. “I’m sorry, March.”

  “Ah, don’t be maudlin. We are all three of us sorry, and what I have to suggest may make us sorrier yet, but I see no alternative.” Clarissa smiled at them both. “I think we should all go to bed together.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Absolutely not!” Allen broke his hands free, backed away, and reached for his clothes. His stride, as he walked away, approximated a drunken attempt to retreat with dignity on uneven sand.

  “He has such a lovely arse,” Clarissa commented, too much claret and brandy making her feel quite tragic at his retreat.

  March cleared his throat. “Indeed. Well, I’m afraid your idea, although extraordinarily arousing, has fallen on deaf ears.”

  “Possibly we can persuade him otherwise.” She stroked her hand down his chest and belly.

  March’s cock, eager as he might be for another man, lifted slightly.

  “Ah…the sand…” So this wasn’t the first time he’d fornicated on a beach.

  “We’ll use my gown and petticoat.”

  “You’re so practical, my dear.” He unbuttoned her gown as he spoke, bending his head to kiss her. He whispered into her mouth, “Can you see him?”

  “He’s stopped. I think he thinks we can’t see him. He’s in the shadows.”

  They made short work of her petticoat, stays, and shift, spreading the cotton garments onto the sand, but remained standing.

  She cupped March’s cock in the palm of her hand. “He’s watching.”

  “Capital.” He weighed her breasts in his hands, his thumbs chafing her swollen nipples. He raised his voice slightly. “If there were another man present, Clarissa, what would you like him to do?”

  “I think I’d like him to lick me while you do that.”

  “Anything else?” He nipped her ear, whispering, “Is he still there?”

  “Yes. His cock is hard now.”

  “And…?”

  “He looks a little…exasperated. He’s scratching his ballocks.”

  “Turn so I can see.” He raised his voice. “So, as I touch you here…you would like it to be another man’s tongue? You’re exceedingly wet. I think you’d drench his face.”

  She gave a lustful gro
an that was not entirely feigned, her hand sliding on March’s cock. He had hardened considerably. With her free hand, she took March’s hand and slid his fingers, one by one, into her mouth.

  From the shadows she heard a muffled curse.

  “Oh, very well.” A spray of sand announced Allen’s arrival. He flung his clothes onto the sand and scowled at them both.

  “A little enthusiasm might be in order,” Clarissa commented. “March, please stop laughing. It is not helping.”

  “Don’t think you’ll get up my arse,” Allen said.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m not even sure how I’d do it.” She tried to look shocked at his suggestion.

  “Not you, you ninny. March.” With the expression of a man about to face his execution, he dropped to his knees and moaned. “Open your quim, for the love of God. I want to taste you.”

  It was March who held her open, whose hand dropped to Allen’s head in a brief caress.

  Allen’s tongue flicked right where she wanted him, causing her to moan aloud and clutch at March’s arms for support. March smiled as he stroked and kneaded her breasts, her legs quivering.

  “I—I—can’t…” She wanted to say that she could stand no more, that her impending orgasm robbed her of all strength elsewhere, but March scooped her into his arms.

  “Now,” he said. He laid her on the pile of crumpled linen, spreading her legs wide, and knelt before her. His cock hovered, rubbed against her, pushed inside her and she clenched on him, hard.

  “Take me in your mouth.” Allen, his voice rough with lust, knelt over her, facing March. His hands pinched and stroked her nipples.

  She took him, choking a little at his eagerness, the avidity with which he invaded her mouth, his sheer girth and weight, salty from the sea. Wiry hair tickled her nose, his belly close to her face. She wanted to see more; she wanted more of everything, the plunge of March inside her, the urgent thrusts and fierce caresses of both men.

  With an effort she disengaged her mouth from Allen. “Kneel beside me,” she gasped. “I want to see what you do.”

  He obliged, swaying gently on his knees as he stroked his cock into her mouth.

  March moved forward, kissing her breasts, her shoulders. “I’ll take him.”

  Allen groaned as his cock slid from her mouth and into March’s. Both men’s bellies were taut, poised, both of them groaning deep in their throats—and she joined them as she came, clenching again and again on March’s cock, helpless, drowning.

  The two men subsided; they must have come, too. How disappointing that she’d missed the moment, too caught up in her own.

  March lay with his head on Allen’s belly. She lifted a languid hand to touch her finger to March’s mouth where a smear of semen clung, silver in the moonlight, and touched it to her tongue.

  “It’s …” Allen reached a hand out to Clarissa to help her up the steep slope crowded with trees. How they had negotiated it earlier in pitch darkness and drunkenness he had no idea. Her face glowed pale beneath him. “It’s … March. And here. This place. I don’t usually …”

  “Don’t be a fool, Pendale,” March said from behind Clarissa. “Am I the only one with sand in their arse? We should bathe.”

  Out of breath, they stepped onto the oyster shell path that led back to the house. Allen hoped he did not look quite so debauched as March and Clarissa—in the dim light before dawn they appeared tired and bedraggled, hair hanging loose, clothes disordered.

  Clarissa’s petticoat dragged damp beneath her gown and she clutched her stockings in one hand. She yawned. “I would love a cup of tea. And my bed.”

  “Not mine?” March slid his arms into the sleeves of his coat and retrieved his neck-cloth from a pocket.

  “If you wish.” She attempted to straighten the collar of his coat. “Finch will be most upset with you.”

  They seemed less like a man and his mistress than a married couple, sharing the same sort of comfortable intimacy she and Allen had once had. Or so he had thought. He turned away, struck with sudden weariness, and continued to the house.

  March, he had to admit, had superb sangfroid. Arriving in his house, with his mistress and another man, debauched, sticky with seawater and sand, stinking of fornication, he quelled his slaves’ curious glances and ordered the plunge bath be made ready and fresh clothes prepared.

  For all three.

  In an English household, Allen knew the servants, after barely-hidden amusement, would gather to hoot and cackle at the goings-on upstairs. Here, he wasn’t quite sure whether the slaves’ impassive silence hid secret contempt, or merely represented a complete lack of interest. Yawning, he watched as dark figures flitted in and out of March’s luxurious Turkish bathroom, bearing towels, soap, tea for Clarissa, coffee for the two men, armfuls of clothes.

  Nerissa knelt at the fireplace, building a fire with quick, deft movements

  March and Allen, both in their shirtsleeves, shared the same mirror as they shaved. March chatted with Finch about house and estate business, his elbow occasionally brushing Allen’s. Clarissa, seated in a nearby chair, yawned as Nerissa brushed her hair, frequently stopping to tug out tangles.

  The whole scene reminded him of the levee of an absolute monarch where private, insignificant acts became public ritual. All they needed were some groveling courtiers.

  Finally, they were alone, free to strip off their remaining clothes and step into the luxuriously hot water. Allen dunked his head and rubbed his hands through his hair, stiff and gritty with saltwater and sand. Jittery from coffee, sated and physically exhausted from the night’s activities, Allen washed Clarissa’s hair, remembering how once she had done the same for him. She murmured her appreciation, then turned to lather his chest, exchanging a kiss over his head with March.

  Strange how he felt, again, like a beloved child in such indecent circumstances. But even though he could have sworn he would not suffer further attentions, when March soaped his back in slow, lazy circles, he found himself responding. He disentangled himself from them to sit on the tiled ledge that ran around the circumference of the bath and sluice water over his head and chest.

  He stole a glance at Clarissa. With her wet hair slicked back she had something of the facial appearance of a handsome boy—was that why March lusted after her? March leaned to whisper in Clarissa’s ear and plant a kiss on her shoulder. And on her breast, round and shiny with soap and water. And the other. No, he decided, there was little of the boy about Clarissa.

  They—or March, at least—had lured in him like this before on the sand. He wouldn’t rise to their bait this time—although, glancing down, he was certainly rising, his cock seeking the surface.

  March smiled at Clarissa. “I bathed here with Allen once before. He was most put out at my advances.”

  “I am hardly surprised. You probably did it only to tease him.” Clarissa, for all her amorous drowsiness, still retained a touch of her usual waspishness.

  He wanted her, then, quite sharply, and apart from his physical discomfort. His desire for Clarissa was absolute and distinct, quite different from the turbulent feelings, borne of lust and curiosity, he had for March. She may have betrayed him by becoming March’s mistress, but he felt he could trust her—indeed, as she knew what transpired between him and March, he had no choice but to trust her. And March?

  “What are you thinking of, Allen?” March laid his hand on Allen’s ankle, giving it a gentle shake.

  “To be honest, I think that I don’t trust you,” Allen said.

  For a brief moment, pain flashed over March’s face, before he covered it with an easy laugh. “You fear for your precious arse, you mean.” He toyed idly with Clarissa’s breast. “Tell him I am not a monster, my dear.”

  “No, he’s not a monster,” she said. “Prospero rather than Caliban, if you like.”

  So she shared with him his perception of March as the autocratic ruler of the island.

  “You’ll stay for a few days more, I trust, Allen
,” March said. “We can send word to your father, when he returns.”

  “Thank you. With the greatest of pleasure.”

  “Oh, I think we can promise you that.” March reached to touch Allen’s face, then slid his hand down, slowly and with great attention. He paused to circle a nipple, much as he did with Clarissa. Allen, although determined to show no reaction—idiotic, considering the state of his cock—found himself short of breath.

  “Why do you pretend indifference to me?” March’s whisper was sharp and urgent.

  “I’ve never claimed indifference to you,” Allen said. “I can’t give you what you want.”

  “I’d settle for less.” March looked bewildered, uncertain.

  “Forgive me for saying it, sir, but you hold a winning hand.”

  Clarissa, who lay in the water, eyes closed, sat bolt upright. “Pardon me, gentlemen, I am not a playing card.”

  “Not even the Queen of Hearts?” March teased.

  She frowned and stood, scattering drops of water, her nipples hardening. “I think I should dress.”

  “And leave us here, in this condition?” March gestured toward Allen.

  “I am sure neither of you will suffer for long.”

  “I assure you we shall not.” March hoisted himself onto the tiled seat opposite Allen, legs spread, one hand cupping his balls. “Take him, Clarissa.”

  She looked uncertain. “You mean I should…”

  “If you please.” March’s voice was neutral, almost bored. He might have been asking Clarissa to pour Allen more coffee. He added, “If we are to continue in this way, there will be various…arrangements, various roles for us to play. So far from home, from England and polite society, we do enjoy a certain latitude, but that means it is imperative we create our own rules. So I must ask you to obey me in this.”

  “And if I refuse?” Clarissa said.

  March smiled. “But of course you won’t. You’re my mistress. You serve my pleasure. And my pleasure at this moment is that you serve Allen.”