“All right,” Simon said. He pulled his hands away and Robert did as well, and then Simon helped her turn around so she was facing Robert.
“I’m going to enter you first, then Robert,” Simon told her. “If it hurts at any time, I want you to say so, or if you want us to stop. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some people need time to adjust to it and can’t do it until the third or fourth or fifth try, and some never like it, and that’s fine. All right?”
“All right.” Christy was nervous, but she wasn’t going to tell them that. She did want to do this. She liked the idea of all them being together like this. Of being the one that brought them together. Would Simon and Robert be together if it weren’t for Christy? Maybe. Maybe not. But here, now, in this special way, she gave them something extraordinary, just as they gave her.
Simon pushed her down gently, until her head rested on Robert’s chest, her bottom sticking up in the air. “I feel very exposed,” she complained only half-jokingly.
“That’s because you are,” Simon said. “But you trust me, don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” she replied without hesitation. “Do your worst.”
“I’d rather it be his best,” Robert said, stroking her hair across chest as he liked to do.
“Oh!” Christy couldn’t stop the little exclamation of surprise when Simon slipped a finger inside her bottom again.
“Just a little more of this salve,” he said. “And just so you know, I may not last very long. Like I said, I was sitting there thinking about this for several hours. I’m ready to burst. You two are so bloody gorgeous and—”
He stopped and just gripped Christy’s hip so tightly she knew she’d be bruised, and she didn’t care. She loved it. Loved seeing that someone wanted her, someone cared for her, she belonged to someone.
“Yours,” she said, understanding dawning. “You were going to say yours.”
“Yes,” Simon said, his voice choked up. “Mine.”
“We are, you know,” Robert said, tucking loose strands of Christy’s hair behind her ear. “I didn’t realize it back when I first met you both, but I think even then I knew this day would come. We have always been destined to be together.”
“Do you think so?” Simon said. He ran his free hand up and down Christy’s back. “I certainly fought it hard enough this last year. But I think you’re right.”
His finger disappeared and suddenly his cock was there, seeking entry. She did the same thing she’d done when it was their fingers—she pushed back against it and the tip slipped in, like a key in a lock. Christy gasped at the sting, and Robert hushed her and smoothed his hand over her hair.
“I’ll wait,” Simon said breathlessly. “I’ll let you adjust a minute.”
Robert came up one elbow. “Robert,” Simon said warningly.
“Be quiet,” he said. “I want to kiss my wife while you fuck her bottom.” Just hearing those words ignited the pleasure she’d been waiting for. She had them both, Robert and Simon, in her bed, loving her, fucking her. Robert’s mouth found hers, and all she could think was, mine, mine, mine.
He kissed her with exquisite slowness and attention to detail, outlining her lips with his tongue, tickling the corners so she opened wider, delving inside and tasting every inch, licking and sucking her mouth like a confection, like he’d done to her cunt last night with Simon.
Was this what her life would be like from now on? Decadent, pleasure filled nights, her every wanton fantasy fulfilled by the two men she loved more than words could express? Two men who loved her equally, who loved her enough to love each other.
She moaned into Robert’s mouth as Simon pushed deeper into her waiting, wanting passage. She needed him to fill her. Needed them both so badly now.
Simon was moving in her now, fucking her, actually fucking her, in her bottom, and she laughed breathlessly against Robert’s mouth. It ended in a moan of pleasure.
“It feels good?” Robert asked, nuzzling her temple. He fondled her breast, pinched her nipple, and she gasped as a bolt of sensation traveled between her breast and her cunt and her bottom. She felt her muscles contract.
“So good I might come if you do that again,” she told him, panting.
“I felt that,” Simon said, as out of breath as she was. “Hurry, Robert, fuck her. Let’s try to come together this first time.”
Robert lay back down and gripped his erect cock. “Help her take me,” he told Simon gruffly. Simon wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her, pulling her torso up, changing the angle of his cock inside her and she trembled, trying not to come.
“I don’t think I’m going to last,” she said. “It’s so good. It’s so good to have you inside me again.”
She reached over her shoulder to cup his head and feel his gorgeous hair, and he put his mouth on her shoulder and bit her just this side of too hard and she gasped and her orgasm receded just enough. Simon cupped her breasts in his palms while she arched her back, holding onto a fistful of his hair, his cock in her bottom, while Robert pushed his into her tight cunt.
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “It feels so full down there, so tight. He’s so big.”
“With both of us in there, it’s going to be tight,” Simon told her. “Is it too much?”
She shook her head. “Never. I like it. It hurts, but I like it.”
“I think you like it when it hurts a little,” Robert murmured. He’d been going slow, pushing into her, but he was almost all the way in. He shoved in the last inch and she gasped at the sharp sting of it, and immediately felt her orgasm coming.
“Oh, God,” she gasped. “I’m going to come.”
“So am I,” Robert ground out between clenched teeth. “I can feel him. I can feel his cock against mine inside you, Christy.”
Robert put his hands over Simon’s on her breasts and squeezed, and then he moved just a bit, his cock pulling back and pushing in just an inch or so, but it was enough. Something inside her felt so good where his cock was rubbing, and she pressed down on him, twisted and rolled her hips, reached back and held Simon inside her with a hand on his thigh, and the pleasure broke inside her so hard, like an explosion.
She cried out as colors burst behind her closed eyelids into stars in the night sky. When she heard them both moan, heard Robert saying Simon’s name, and felt the heat of their release inside her it ignited another wave of pleasure so intense she couldn’t even hold herself up anymore and Simon had to wrap his arms around her.
Robert found her knot of pleasure between her legs and pressed on it, rolling it, his cock still semi-hard inside her, and she had a smaller orgasm that made her moan and smile and stretch and throw both arms back and around Simon’s head. Robert cupped her breasts again, and pinched her nipples while she rocked on both cocks until they softened and they all sat or lay there, breathless and sated.
There was so much Christy wanted to say, so many things she needed to tell them, but as Simon gently laid her down beside Robert, sleep overtook her and she drifted off to the gentle ministrations of her men, and their murmured words of love.
Chapter 38
“Mmm,” Christy said, waking slowly to the warmth of a strong, naked male body curved around her back. There was a kiss on her neck. Robert. Funny how she could tell them apart even with her eyes closed.
She reached out for Simon but found only empty sheets. She rolled over and put her arm around Robert, kissing whatever was in front of her lips, eyes still closed. It felt like his chest.
“Where’s Simon?” she asked sleepily. She stretched and instantly regretted it. “Ow,” she said. She laughed ruefully and opened her eyes to see Robert watching her with a very serious face. “I’m all right. Just a little stiff and sore. I’ll be right as rain by tomorrow, I’m sure.” She eyed him warily. “Regrets?”
“None.” His words and his tone of voice said one thing, but his facial expression said another.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Simon’s gone.”
It was the defeat in his voice more than the words that got through to her. She scrambled out of bed. “What do you mean, Simon’s gone?”
Robert slowly climbed out of bed. Bruises surrounded both of his bandages. “I mean he left before cock’s crow and he took Hastings with him.”
“But why? More Home Office business?”
“No.” Robert sounded tired. “His note said he had something personal to take care of.”
Christy searched the floor for her shift, and yanked it on. She found Robert’s shirt, but it was a bloody mess. “I hope you’re going to get a clothing stipend for this new job of yours,” she snapped.
Robert smiled weakly. “I really don’t know why he left. Last night…”
“I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation,” Christy told him, praying she was right. She opened up the wardrobe and pulled out something to wear. “Get dressed. I’m going to go bathe, and then we are going to track the blackguard down. If he thinks we’re letting him run off again, he is very much mistaken.”
“Maybe we should just let him go,” Robert said sadly. She looked over and he was just sitting on the bed looking out the window. “If he’s that determined to run, we should let him run. Maybe he just doesn’t want us, Christy.”
“Don’t you see that’s what he expects us to do?” Christy told him. Robert looked at her quizzically. “No one has ever gone after him before,” she explained. “It took me a while to figure that out, but he’s let us in the past week, Robert. I think he’s told us more about himself than he’s told anyone, possibly even Daniel. He may not have said it in so many words, but if you think about what he did say, you can piece together what he didn’t. You’re a detective, aren’t you? Then put the puzzle together.
“He’s never had a real relationship since Giselle. He only takes people to bed who won’t expect a commitment, only teaches people his erotic little lessons and walks away. And they let him. Where are his friends, Robert? Off with their own families and their own loves now. He’s alone. Everyone has always let him walk away. And he thinks we are going to do the same. Didn’t we say last night that we have never done these things together”—she gestured at the bed—“never been this physically intimate before he came back into our lives?”
“We said other things as well,” Robert reminded her. “We told him we cared about him. That the three of us were destined to be together from the beginning.”
“Words,” Christy said. “Nothing but words. Easily spoken, and easily forgotten. He deserves deeds, too, don’t you think? I think he’s worth going after. Do you?”
Robert stood up. “Yes, I do. I think…I think this is his way of giving us a chance to change our minds if we want without making it awkward for us.” He shook his head. “Damn.”
She looked at him, wide eyed. Robert rarely if ever cursed.
He smiled ruefully. “He’s a tangle, but yes, I think he’s worth it for all those reasons and more. He makes me feel alive just like you do, and when I’m with him, that doesn’t feel strange or wrong.”
Christy ran across the room to hug him. “Exactly. I couldn’t have said it better.” She looked up at him. “You know I love you, don’t you? Just as much as I love Simon? I fell in love with you both at almost the same time. I won’t lie, I thought I wanted Simon, and when he didn’t offer for me, I accepted you. But I’m so glad I did now because you were what I needed. I think in my heart I knew that, or I never would have accepted you. I didn’t have to. Harry had already told me he was more than happy to stay married to me. But I wanted someone of my own and I chose you, just as you chose me. Don’t ever doubt my love for you.”
“I don’t. I won’t lie either. I did doubt you, especially when Simon came back, but I didn’t blame you. I always knew you and Simon were meant to be together. It just took me a while to figure out that the puzzle had three pieces.” He kissed her, and it was sweet and tender. “Now let’s go find that idiot,” he said softly.
“I’m going to kill him,” Christy vowed. “But yes, let’s go find him.”
“Where do we start?”
“Where else? Daniel’s.”
“Of course he was here, my dear,” Daniel said, turning his cheek up to be kissed by Christy and making room beside him for Christian. He was holding court in his bedroom, his leg elevated on a stack of pillows. “He came by to see how I was, the rotten little baggage. Hasn’t been here since I saved his hide in Africa. Look at me! I nearly died for him, and he couldn’t be bothered to come and see how I was doing.”
“You sent him to help me solve a murder which turned into treason and assassination and Sir Barnabas James,” Robert reminded him drily. “How did you expect him to come and see you as well?”
“Priorities,” Daniel said without remorse. “And so you’ve lost him again, I see.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what has happened between you, but I can guess. What are you planning to do once you find him?” Robert could tell this was more of an interrogation than idle conversation.
“I don’t see as that’s any of your business,” Christy replied tartly. “The very nerve, sending Simon to help Robert with a case when the man wasn’t recovered from being tortured in Africa! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Daniel Steinberg. Don’t think I don’t know what you were up to. No, don’t even try to deny it again.”
“Simon was tortured in Africa?” Mrs. Tarrant asked in horror. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She reached over from her chair near Daniel’s bedside and slapped him in the arm. Daniel shot a look at Christy.
“Yes, Daniel, why didn’t you tell Mrs. Tarrant?” Christy asked.
“Very,” Mrs. Tarrant insisted. “You must call me Very.” Both women stared daggers at Daniel.
“All right, if you must know, because I was interfering. There, happy? Although I never expected you to fall victim to his charms, Robert. It was clear something needed to be done. The situation couldn’t go on as it was. At the very least you might have reached a truce and Simon would have found an occupation.” Christian chose that moment to climb into Daniel’s lap, and he used the baby as an excuse to evade their dirty looks.
“I tried to tell him…” Harry muttered from behind his paper in the corner.
“Well, I, for one, am very grateful,” Robert told Daniel. “I would not have solved that case and averted a horrible disaster and, ahem, found Simon, so to speak, had you not. But Christy is correct in saying that it is none of your business now. We’ll take it from here, thank you very much. Now, where is he?”
“Ah, Mr. Manderley,” Dr. McCain said, walking into the room. “Saving me the trouble of coming to you today, are you? For a man who was both stabbed and shot yesterday, you’re looking as fine as a fiddle.”
“What?” Daniel asked. “I thought you just got shot.”
“Stabbed, too,” Robert said, raising an eyebrow. “I guess some of us just have more stamina.” Daniel frowned while the rest of the room laughed.
“Let’s see those stitches,” Dr. McCain said. Robert began unbuttoning his jacket.
“Here?” Daniel asked in surprise. “Don’t you want more privacy?”
“We’re in your bedroom,” Robert said, frowning. “And I don’t trust you and Harry not to share secrets with Christy behind my back.”
“Robert Manderley,” Christy scolded. “You know I’d tell you as soon as we left.”
“Where have I heard that before?” he asked no one in general. He got his jacket and shirt off and let the doctor unwrapped his bandages.
“Do all constables look like him?” Very asked Daniel in a loud whisper. Robert looked over to see her staring at his bare torso with interest.
“No, they do not,” Christy said with pride. “Robert is by far the handsomest constable in London. In England, I’d wager.”
“I thought I said nothing too strenuous,” the doctor chided Robert as he poked at the stitches in his side. “You’ve gone and popped a few here.”
�
��Oh, God,” Daniel said. “Don’t even tell me.” Christy was blushing.
“This falls under the none-of-your-business category,” Robert said firmly. “Do you need to stitch me back up?”
“Just take a minute,” the doctor said, reaching for his bag. “The arm looks fine. I’ll put a new bandage on. After this, Mrs. Manderley, you should be able to handle it unless it starts to look infected, red, hot to the touch, puss, that sort of thing. Mr. Manderley, sit right there, if you would, please.”
Robert sat on the edge of the bed and Christian crawled over to him. He held onto Robert’s arm as he stood up, and Robert smiled at him. He got a smile back, with Christian’s two new front teeth just visible.
“Look at that,” Robert cooed at him. “Nice teeth, lad.”
“Pa,” Christian said.
Robert’s heart stopped. “Did he just say my name?” he asked in wonder. He looked at Christy. Her mouth was open in surprise, and then she grinned.
“I do believe he did,” she said. She came over and took Christian in her arms. “Who’s that?” she asked, pointing at Robert.
“Pa,” Christian said, clapping his hands.
“He’s brilliant,” Robert said matter-of-factly. “Wait until Simon hears him.”
“Yes, a right genius,” the doctor agreed. “Move your arm out of the way, please.”
“He’s on his way home,” Daniel said.
“To his apartment?” Robert asked. That wasn’t very far to run. And why take Hastings?
“No. His childhood home.” Daniel was watching he and Christy closely, so he must have seen that both knew the significance of this news.
“He never told us where that was,” Christy said carefully. “Just what happened there and that he’s never been back.”
“You are all talking in riddles and I don’t like it,” Very said. “What happened there?”
“If Simon wanted you to know, he would have told you, Very,” Christy said, not unkindly. “It was something that profoundly affected him and he has harbored the pain of it all these years. He would not take it kindly we were to share it without his permission. You will have to ask him when he returns, and you will have to respect his wishes if he refuses to tell you.”
Mission to Love Page 27