Josie Dennis (7 page)

James came up and drove his cock high within her. Pumping furiously, he felt her tighten around his shaft as another climax loomed. “God, yes!”

He held himself still at last, deep in her cunt as he came in hot spurts. When he finally found the strength to pull back, he saw she was flushed and rosy. Frederick was grinning like a fool, an expression he’d never before seen on the man’s face. It was Isabella. That was it. She took everything from them and gave just as much in return. God knew she turned him upside down.

They released her from the bonds, each kissing her wrists and ankles in turn. “What are your feelings on control now, Isabella?” he asked.

She nodded drowsily, a smile curving her full lips. “Oh, I daresay I enjoyed giving over to you both tonight.”

Tonight.
There was something in her tone on that last word that sent a shiver of unease through him. Did she believe this was just for tonight? That they wouldn’t love her in this manner forever?

He fell silent as she and Frederick shared some pillow talk.
He
wanted her forever. He was in love with her now but couldn’t see a way to make this work, not from his limited experience. He would speak to Frederick about it. If he was truthful about his growing feelings for Isabella, he would think of a way to keep them together.

For it was as stark a realization as any he’d ever made. He wanted to love her with Frederick forever.

Isabella reveled in the comfort of both her men holding her in the dark, seductive chamber. She’d been tied to the bed, for goodness sake! She’d let them do so, had taken unbelievable pleasure in everything they did. Oh, but she wanted to do it again.

“Your mouth was amazing, love,” Frederick said.

“Your…cock, Frederick. I never imagined such a thing.”

“Did you like doing that for me?”

She licked her lips, still tasting his salty flavor. “Yes.”

“I daresay I cannot wait for you to favor me with such attentions,” James said as he lifted himself on one elbow.

She looked over and found him staring at them, an intriguing expression on his face. There was clear affection in his blue eyes, which caused her belly to tighten. And her pussy to swell, if she were honest with herself. Her heart fluttered and she sought to quiet it. She told herself to focus on the physical.

“Do you wish for me to suck you, James?”

A look of pure lust crossed his features. “My God, can you see how much?”

Glancing down at his shaft she saw he was hard again. “How can you want me so soon after you…”

“Came?” He shrugged. “From the moment I met you I’ve been half-hard for you.”

She marveled at that. “Truly?” Frederick’s wonderfully hard body brushed against her and she saw he was engorged again as well. “And you?”

“I told you I wanted to fuck you that first night at the abbey, Isabella.”

She’d wielded power over men before, making them vow to give her anything in return for a kiss she ultimately refused to bestow. She’d tried the same tactics with these two men to no avail, and now she knew why. She didn’t want to control them. No, she wanted to surrender everything. There was no reason she could fathom to hold anything back.

“Take me again, Frederick. I want to taste James this time.”

“Are you certain?” James asked.

She nodded and came up on her elbows, loving the way they both eyed her body. Her nipples begged for their mouths, her pussy begged for their cocks. “I want you both, and I want you now.”

Frederick let out a growl and pulled her to him. He plundered her mouth then moved to capture one breast. Pleasure shot through her as she held on to his shoulders. She let out a gasp as he flipped her over on her belly.

“Frederick!”

He laughed low in her ear, flicking his tongue over her neck. “You want my cock inside you, don’t you?”

She did. “Oh, yes,” she admitted on a whisper.

He shifted her until she was on her knees, her hands holding her up. James reached around to cup her breasts as Frederick moved his hands over her bottom. Every brush of their fingers, every kiss they dropped on her back and thighs, made her pulse race and her breath catch.

“Your pussy is so wet,” Frederick said, plunging two fingers inside her. “I have to get inside.”

She looked over her shoulder. “Then shouldn’t I be on my back?”

He just gave her that crooked smile and moved to push his cock inside her. Gripping her hips, he thrust slowly in and out of her until she trembled.

“Her mouth, James,” he bit out. “Get in front of her.”

James apparently caught his meaning before she did, for he came to the head of the bed and knelt before her. His cock was straining toward her, that first drop of pearly liquid on its head like Frederick’s had boasted earlier. Her mouth watered for a taste of him.

“Give me your cock, James,” she said, eager for him.

He held his shaft as he neared her, and she closed her mouth over him. He groaned and began to move as Frederick finally increased the tempo of his thrusts.

Her body was completely overwhelmed, the sensations crashing through her as astounding as they were arousing. She moved in accord with Frederick, licking and sucking James’s cock with the same rhythm. He let out a moan, arching as she swallowed his incredible cream.

She briefly registered the look of satisfaction on his face with some pride before she was caught in her own orgasm. Crying out, she shuddered in Frederick’s firm hold as he thoroughly fucked her. She came with a rush, pleased to her curling toes as he poured his seed deep within her.

He kissed her back as James stroked her face, and she felt more than sexual attraction among them. No, there was a connection she’d never imagined she could want. There was no question of control. She had none and at this moment, she didn’t care.

She had the rest of her life to consider all the mistakes she’d made in the game of love. This time, with two men so different yet so right for her, she was throwing all of her restraint to the four winds.

* * * *

“Are you serious?” James asked Frederick.

“As serious as a march behind enemy lines,” he answered.

He was grateful that they were secreted in his rooms, far from the other guests and his blasted father. He regarded the other man, taking in his obvious incredulity. James was apparently still reeling from everything they’d shared with Isabella in that blessed chamber two days earlier. “Can you truly envision giving her up?”

James shook his head. “You cannot mean to marry her.”

“I would keep you as part of our union, James.”

The words surprised him as much as they did his companion.

“Why?”

Frederick thought of the many reasons he wanted to keep the man close. “I like you, James. But more than that, you please our Isabella. I can’t see her wanting to spend her life with only my blighted self for company.”

“I enjoy all we do together, too.”

Taking a page from his father’s book, he poured them each a brandy. He kept a bottle in his sitting room, at the ready. Usually he drank alone, more’s the pity. Even after rutting on a maid he’d needed the drink to find solace. To find sleep. Memories of the battlefield would intrude, and he couldn’t have that. As he thought of it now, he realized that since bedding Isabella he hadn’t drunk a drop of liquor in his rooms.

“I have discovered something about Isabella, James.” He chuckled. “And about myself, actually. She speaks to a part of me I’ve stifled for so long.”

James sat in one of the chairs flanking the fireplace, staring into his glass. “I’ve never wanted a woman more. I was truthful when I admitted that to her.”

“Are you ever less than truthful?”

He lifted his head. “No. And I feel I must say something to you now.”

Frederick braced himself. Would he demand he give Isabella up? Never. “Say what you will.”

“If you marry her, how will you ever keep her from the general?”

That very question had plagued him since his disastrous discussion with his father the other evening. His father had no respect for marriage, not when he was with his and Henry’s mother and not now as he urged Frederick to take Isabella to wife. Marriage was required for legal heirs and generous dowries. Faithfulness did not enter into the union, let alone love.

“I would never let him touch her.”

“How could you prevent it?” James took a breath, evidently choosing his words. “I know of your liaisons with him. He would expect you to share your wife with him as if she was any other woman.”

“She is not,” Frederick snapped. When James raised his brows, he held up a hand. “Forgive me. I would never share her with anyone she didn’t love.”

James pulled back. “You mean me?”

“She loves you, James. She might not be aware of it yet, but I’ve seen the tender expression on her face after her release.”

“I’ve never seen such openness in her before, that’s true.”

“It’s because in that moment of physical bliss she lets go of her blasted control.”

James sipped his drink, that contemplative expression on his face again. Frederick found himself eager to hear what he would say. He’d never listened to any of his contemporaries, never taken advice from his brother or any of his friends at school. He’d taken orders well, rose through the ranks to Captain. This, however, was outside his realm of experience.

“She loves you, Frederick,” James said at last. “She wanted you last year, or so you’ve said. I have no reason to doubt you. When I met her at Thorne Manor I could tell there was more to her behavior than games and flirts and holding on to control. Her heart was already engaged.”

Shame washed over Frederick. “I used her horribly. I took her up on her taunts until she succumbed.”

“But you didn’t take her.”

“No. For the first time in memory, I thought with my head instead of my cock.”

James nodded. “I snapped under her tender teases, I admit. Then I’d had the balls to insist she keep away from you.”

Frederick laughed, a big sound that loosened him up. “We are fools, the both of us.”

James joined him in laughter for several moments then sobered. “I would think long and hard about offering her forever, Frederick.”

“Why? I told you I would keep my father from her.”

“What of other women?”

Frederick opened his mouth to object then let out a breath. “I won’t deny I’ve been a randy bastard the whole of my adult life. Believe me when I tell you, I have never encountered the feelings Isabella arouses. Sexual or otherwise. I would wager there isn’t another woman in the world to tempt me from her.”

“And if one attempted to take you from her?”

Something shifted within him, a certainty of what he wanted so badly he would do anything to hold on to it.

“My God, I love her,” he said in a rush.

James grinned, a bright smile that made his eyes dance. “That is all the answer I need, friend.”

Frederick rubbed a hand over his face, groaning. “What am I to do, James? I’ve never been in love.”

“Nor have I.”

“But you went willingly. You have nothing to dissuade her from accepting you.”

“Except her feelings for you.”

The statement was given as fact, with no animosity. Frederick realized that their affair was yielding more than sexual satisfaction. He was coming to care for James, to take his counsel as he’d never taken poor Henry’s. Well, his brother’s threesome worked, for he wouldn’t let anyone convince him that Henry and John did not both sleep with Catherine. Perhaps he should talk to Henry. Get his advice and perhaps begin to heal the rift between them.

“I believe we should pay court to our girl, though discreetly,” he told James. “I can be quite charming.”

“You have that over me, then. I shall simply let her see my regard. I have no father watching my every move.”

“Yes, but do not rub that in my face.” Frederick poured more liquor in his glass, then in James’s. “To our future wife.”

James shook his head, doubt still evident in his eyes, but he raised his glass in answer. “To Isabella.”

“You have been most secretive, brother,” Catherine said. “That is not like you.”

James worked his expression into an affable smile for his sister. She’d hunted him down in the library, where he’d hoped to pass the afternoon with nothing more than Isabella on his mind. It was not to be. Catherine perched herself on a chair with a smug expression on her face. He would not betray anything to her, however. Not about himself and Isabella, nor about Frederick’s role in their liaison.

“I am an open book, Catherine. I’ve always been.”

She tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowed. “Not of late. One would think you have something to conceal.”

“Where are John and Henry?” he asked, hoping to divert her. “They weren’t in the breakfast room, though calling that enormous space such a name feels wrong.”

Catherine smiled. “They are about the estate, though I believe Henry goes to keep away from the general and John goes to help him keep his temper.”

This surprised James. “Henry has a temper? I’ve never seen evidence of it.”

A sad expression crossed her face. “Where his father is concerned, I doubt he’ll ever lose it.”

“Family can be complicated.”
Today more than most days, apparently.
This observation he kept to himself.

“Ours is not so, I’m happy to say,” she said. “Loud and intrusive, but not complicated.” She brightened now. “Tell me, James. Are we soon to add a member?”

The swift turn in topic almost ruffled him. Almost. He’d been prepared for this pointed question since he’d first come to Thorne Manor and made Isabella’s acquaintance. Catherine was never one to dissemble, and he’d read her hopes quite clearly from the start.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you? I’ve seen the looks, James. The lingering glances and heated expressions.”

He scoffed. “Have you been reading those novels of yours again? All that intrigue and passion causes you to see things that are not there.”