by Robin Gideon
“I’d never raise a hand to Estelle. Never. Ever.”
“I know that. But it wouldn’t altogether surprise me if you took your frustration out on someone other than her.”
“I’m not going to knock out some guy just because Estelle thinks I was flirting with another woman.”
For the dance, Estelle had chosen a green evening gown, so it was difficult for Alek to see her sitting in the deeper shadows of the gazebo. He felt his heart quicken when he realized she was there waiting. Her curves were put on dramatic display by the Empire-fashion dress, the fullness of her bosom artfully enhanced.
When she heard the approaching footsteps, Estelle rose to her feet and turned toward the men. She folded her arms together beneath her breasts, and as Alek stepped up into the gazebo, he wondered whether the move was meant to put her bosom on display just to torment him. If that was her intent, it worked brilliantly. Beneath the roof of the gazebo, she was shielded from the moonlight, but in the shadows and light, her beauty was ethereal, and it grabbed Alek by the throat.
“You’re not still angry, are you?” His tone suggested his previous behavior really didn’t warrant anger. The words were out of Alek’s mouth before he could stop them. And if they were words meant to mollify a prickly feminine temper, all six words were a supreme and abject failure. “I said that badly,” Alek added quickly, but he could see that the damage had already been done. “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Let’s not argue.”
“No, we won’t argue,” Estelle said silkily. Alek felt his stomach tighten. He didn’t like her tone.
“Good,” he said after a moment.
“We won’t argue because we’re not talking.” She smiled briefly at him, then turned her attention to Julian. She moved her arms a little, lifting her breasts noticeably. In the moonlight, her eyes glittered. “I must say, you’re looking more delicious than ever. Your body was made for a tuxedo.”
She walked closer, her steps slow and deliberate. Alek got the impression that complimenting Julian on his looks was simultaneously a criticism of his own looks. He was certain she was only teasing, taunting him because of her anger, but he felt the sting of her words just the same.
“You might just as well ask anything you like of Alek right now,” Julian said when Estelle stepped up to him. “He’s ready, willing, and able to grovel and genuflect at your feet.”
Estelle shook her head, looking up into Julian’s eyes. She looked only at Julian, and Alek knew that not looking at him was one more way she intended to punish him.
“I don’t need him on his knees.” Estelle put a hand out, placing her palm flat on Julian’s chest, her fingers sliding beneath the lapel of his jacket. “But if you wanted, I’d gladly get down on my knees for you.” Her hand trailed down his shirtfront very slowly. “Would you like to see me on my knees?” She was looking into his eyes when her hand slipped below Julian’s belt. Alek heard his sharp intake of breath when she cupped his crotch in her palm and squeezed. “Yes, I think you would like that very much. At least your cock would like that very much.”
Laughter from the party drew Alek’s attention briefly. He saw the red, glowing embers of lit cigars in the distance, and the shadowy figures of several men clumped together in small groups closer to the ballroom. By the time he turned his attention back to Estelle, she had unbuttoned Julian’s fly and had tugged his burgeoning cock out. The shaft was pale against the black fabric of his trousers.
“Perhaps this gazebo isn’t the best place to pleasure you,” Estelle said conversationally. “Come. The shadows are darker over there, so perhaps we won’t be disturbed. After all, it wouldn’t do at all to be caught with your cock in my mouth. Think of the scandal that would cause.”
“If all this salacious talk is meant to cause me distress,” Alek said, keeping his voice low, “your success, my dear, is guaranteed.”
He watched as her gloved fingers curled around the shaft of his best friend’s cock before she turned and walked out of the gazebo, tugging Julian along behind her, a thoroughly wicked smile curling her full-lipped mouth.
Alek waited where he was for a moment, then followed Estelle off the gazebo and toward some towering silver maple trees. When he caught up with them, he felt his cock growing, responding to Estelle’s lewd behavior. Alek was certain his response, and the frustration that went along with it, was exactly what Estelle had hoped for.
Estelle was stroking Julian when he bent low to kiss her mouth. Estelle’s moan, Alek thought, was more than just an unconscious sound made by a passionate woman. It was a bit too theatrical for that, which meant it was one more of her methods of taunting him.
The seconds ticked by, and the kiss grew more heated. Alek tried to look away, tried to divorce himself from the excitement that Estelle was eliciting, but he couldn’t. He watched her small hand stroking the shaft of his friend’s cock, and the urge to unbutton his own fly to extract his own rapidly swelling member grew fiercer.
“My God, you can kiss,” Estelle said, a bit breathlessly.
“Your lips were made for kissing,” Julian replied.
“That’s not all they were made for,” Estelle purred as she bent at the waist.
* * * *
Estelle felt Alek’s unblinking gaze upon her as she planted a smacking kiss on the crown of Julian’s erection. Slowly, luridly, she licked the head, then pushed her lips over it until they were a snug ring around the shaft. She moaned softly, the sound of her pleasure mingling with Julian’s, in contrast to the anguished groan that came from Alek.
She put her hands on Julian’s lean hips to help keep her balance, and leaned forward, her lips sliding along the shaft until the plump crown was wedged firmly against the opening of her throat. She nibbled softly on the solid shaft with her lips, moaning softly as she rotated her face around the throbbing flesh that filled her mouth.
It was difficult to pleasure Julian while remaining standing, so Estelle bent her knees and slowly sank to the grass, her skirt pooling around her in waves of emerald-green cloth. As she began bobbing slowly back and forth, she thought of removing her gloves to provide more closeness to Julian, but then discarded the notion. There really was no telling how much time she’d have with her men before they might get disturbed, and she thought it highly doubtful that this entirely unplanned encounter would reach a climactic conclusion in the shadows near the gazebo. All she had wanted to do was tease Alek a little, to show him that she didn’t appreciate his flirting with anyone but her.
Tilting her head back, she looked up at Julian. He had tipped his top hat back on his head, and put his hands on his hips. Though half of his face was in shadow, Estelle could see the look of sensual strain on his features. She knew he loved it whenever she pleasured him with her lips and tongue, and tonight, with the added excitement of the potential of getting caught in flagrante delicto, his erection was solid as oak.
“Estelle, you’re doing this just to torture me,” Alek whispered. Estelle could hear the anger in his tone, and the frustration. “Damn it, I’m sorry. Right now I’m the sorriest son of a bitch London’s ever seen.”
Estelle leaned away from Julian, sitting on the backs of her heels. She brought her gloved hand to and fro over the length of his erection, staring at the crown. Then, very slowly, she turned her gaze up to Alek.
“I’m not doing this just to punish you,” she said softly. She looked up at her lover, conscious of how lurid she must appear, kneeling in the grass in her lovely green gown with the daring décolletage. “Being with Julian is reason enough for me to want to be on my knees.” And then, because she knew the effect it would have on Alek, she leaned toward Julian and for several seconds lewdly lavished the crown of his cock with swipes of her tongue. “However, the fact that I can simultaneously please Julian and torment you is, really, quite an accomplishment, even if I do have to say so myself.”
Alek put his face in his hands and groaned, a man of action unable to respond to the calling of his ins
tincts. Estelle rose to her feet, a smile on her lips, and reached out with her free hand to place it on Alek’s shoulder.
“I suppose this little charade of pique has gone on long enough, my darling.” Alek moved his hands from his face, and Estelle winked saucily. “We haven’t much time, but I think you should know that I put the Dutch cap in prior to coming to the ball. I thought the two of you might want me, and I wanted to be prepared. I didn’t want to disa—”
She would have said more, but Alek was growling low in his throat as he unbuttoned the fly of his trousers with one hand. He hooked his other hand around the back of her neck. His cock, massively swollen, came out of his fly at almost the same time that he was forcing Estelle to bend once again at the waist.
As Estelle captured the knob of his erection in the warm, wet confines of her mouth, she heard Alek groan his approval and issue a soft, hissing sigh of, “Oh, fuck!”
Estelle reached up to grab Alek by the hips. As neglected as he was, now that she had put an end to the torture and a beginning to the pleasuring, his big hand stayed at the back of her neck to hold her securely as he began pumping his hips, driving his throbbing flesh deep into her mouth.
I’m the woman he wants. I’m the woman they both want. Estelle felt confident and desired as she felt Julian hurriedly lifting her skirts from behind.
“No drawers?” Julian murmured, clearly pleased there was no barrier between himself and his goal.
“I thought you might want me,” Estelle explained before Alek’s throbbing flesh made speaking impossible.
She felt drunk, though she hadn’t had so much as a single glass of the icy champagne that was so freely distributed to the men in the ballroom. But that’s how Julian and Alek made her feel. With them, she had no inhibitions, she felt no shame. They made her light-headed. They made her skin tingle. They were her favorite drug, the one of which she couldn’t get enough.
They went at her lustily, but with very little tenderness. Under the circumstances, that’s precisely how Estelle wanted them to behave toward her. She felt Julian’s hands, powerful and commanding, take her by the hips. A moment later he entered her, his crown spreading the lips of her pussy while the unyielding shaft powered the column deeper and deeper into her tight channel. When she was pushed forward, she had no choice but to take Alek’s rigid flesh to the back of her mouth. His low, throaty groan of pleasure told her everything she needed to know about his state of mind.
Alek pushed his fingers into Estelle’s pinned-up coiffure, and she quickly reached up and caught his wrist. What possible excuse could she have for a completely ruined coiffure? It would be difficult enough as it was to explain away her absence from the party. She squeezed his wrist a second time, and he just groaned and moved his hand from her hair to her shoulder. Estelle moaned softly as he pumped his hips to fill her mouth.
Behind her, Julian’s breathing was growing louder, faster. The sound of his cloth-covered pelvis colliding with the naked cheeks of her ass muffled in the darkness. Estelle was particularly pleased with herself for having the forethought to go to the ball without drawers, and to have put in the Dutch cap. Though their orgasmic discipline was exemplary, she preferred their ultimate release happen inside her instead of upon.
Julian’s charging thrust grew greater in strength and speed. Estelle spread her slippered feet a little wider apart on the grass to better keep her balance, and her gloved hands tightened on Alek’s undulating hips. Estelle sensed as much as felt their urgency, their intense desire, their animal hunger for her. She had taunted Alek emotionally as much as she had physically, and now he was taking his earlier frustration out on her, just as Estelle had hoped he would.
She felt the movement of her breasts as she rocked to and fro, her nipples rubbing against the fabric of her camisole and tingling delightfully, her body pummeled and penetrated fore and aft. The ravenous hunger Julian and Alek felt for Estelle had stripped them of their vaunted savoir faire, of their polished charm and that dégagé aloofness that had always separated their hearts from their genitals, and had therefore kept them safe and protected.
Julian plunged full-length into Estelle and let out a choked sound as his fingers buried into the flesh of Estelle’s hips. Only a few seconds later, Alek uttered a single “uh!” as his climax began.
Estelle had not climaxed, but she was not dissatisfied with either her performance, the performance of her men, or how the evening had progressed. She had wanted Alek and Julian to want her desperately, and they had proven their desire for her beyond measure.
Hardly had Estelle straightened, smoothing her skirts back down her legs, when she heard the sound of male laughter. Several men, cigars glowing in one hand and brandy snifters reflecting the moonlight in the other, were making their way through the dark to the gazebo.
“I’ll see you both inside.” She tugged one glove a little higher up her arm. “Now if you’ll please distract those gentlemen, I’ll keep to the shadows and return to the ball without tarnishing my reputation.” She sighed. “You two were especially wonderful tonight.”
* * * *
“My word, whatever did you do to your hair?” Estelle’s sister, Faye, asked upon seeing her come back to the ballroom through the south entrance.
Estelle felt a warm flush of embarrassment go through her. Though she didn’t like telling lies, particularly to her sisters, she certainly couldn’t tell the truth.
“I decided to go for a little walk, but in the dark I walked right into a low-hanging tree branch. I’m afraid it caught my hair.” She sighed theatrically. “Do I look all a mess?”
“Not to worry, dear,” Celeste said. She was Estelle’s other sister, and the eldest of the trio. She had always kept an almost maternal eye on her younger sister, especially when it became abundantly clear that the man she had married wasn’t going to be anything but a burden. “I’m sure I can put everything aright with just a minute or two of attention.”
Estelle smiled, wishing she could be honest about her new love life with her sisters, but knowing with absolute certainty that they would never understand her falling in love simultaneously with two of the most notorious rakes in all of London.
Chapter Eight
“I’ve already given you your money for the month,” Estelle said to her husband. “What did you do with it all?” She issued a short, bitter laugh. “As if I didn’t know! You’ve spent it on whores and gin and gambling, just like always.”
Estelle had been sitting at her desk, going through her ledger regarding expenses and income from her various land holdings and the two textile mills, when he barged into her bedroom. It was nearly two thirty, and he had just now dragged himself out of bed. Wearing a heavy robe of royal blue, he looked even more haggard than usual. Estelle wondered what debauchery he had indulged in the previous evening. She was short tempered. It had been several days since Julian and Alek had made love to her.
“I need money, Estelle, and you’re going to give it to me.” He put his hands on the desktop, bending over to glare hatefully at his wife. “I need four thousand pounds, and I need it now.”
“Four thousand?” Estelle exclaimed. “That’s nonsense! That’s three times what I give you every month!”
Horace looked down at Estelle’s open ledger, and she quickly closed it. She had no intention of ever letting him know just how much money she was worth, what her typical monthly income was, or what foreign investments she had made with her inherited wealth. Estelle had maintained legal control of the properties she had inherited from her parents. Though it was against custom for a woman to retain property after marrying, the use of several highly paid lawyers had allowed Estelle to keep control of her lands and the income generated from them. Horace had simply assumed that once Estelle was his wife, he would then have complete access to her savings as well as income. Though he fumed and raged after their marriage, Estelle refused to let Horace take control of her properties. All Horace had brought to the marriage was an inherited tit
le.
Lowering his voice, Horace said, “Listen, you tight-fisted bitch, I need four thousand pounds sterling, and I need it right now.”
His eyes were more bloodshot than usual, Estelle noted. And there was a desperation to him that she’d not seen before. On the few occasions that Horace had become physically violent with her, he had always been drinking. He wasn’t drinking now, but Estelle felt a stab of fear go through her exactly as she had three months earlier, an instant before he slapped her with an open hand. He struck her so hard that time that she fell to her knees.
“I can’t give you that much,” Estelle said, her tone significantly more deferential to her husband now that she was frightened of him. “I’d have to get permission from Mr. Morton at the bank, and from my solicitor.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the way my finances are set up. Any withdrawals over a certain amount must be approved and signed for by myself, my banker, and my solicitor.”
“I never should have let you get away with that bullshit when we got married. I’m your husband, goddamn it! I should be the one running the estates.” He straightened up, his red-rimmed eyes filled with hatred as he looked at the young and pretty wife he loathed with every fiber of his being. “What you did isn’t right, Estelle. Not at all. And the day is going to come when I’m going to make it right. Do you hear me? The day will come.”
“I’ll get you some money,” Estelle said quietly. She put her hands in her lap so that he wouldn’t see they were trembling. She knew from experience that he pounced on any sign of weakness. “It’ll take a few days though.”
“A few days?” he repeated quietly. “You don’t have that much time.”
Horace’s brow furrowed, and his lips pulled back to reveal his teeth. He slowly walked around the big, rectangular mahogany desk. Estelle rose to her feet, though it did little to prevent her from feeling intimidated by the man who was her husband in name only.