Absolute Surrender

by LeBlanc, Jenn

  “Amelia, I shouldn’t—” Her hand reached up and covered Charles’s mouth, stopping his words. She knew he was attempting to distance himself because he believed she should be with Hugh…or something like that. But she refused to hear it. Right now, right here, they were together, and she’d never had this full peace, this whole self, this completeness.

  While she’d always been safe with Hugh, there had always been part of her in want of Charles, and this was like the missing piece of her puzzle. Right now, right here, she had all her pieces come together, slide into place. Amelia wanted to hold on to that for just a while longer. And then they would face reality, difficulty…pain—undoubtedly—and the future. She realized she’d merely thought all these words and wished she’d actually voiced them. She tried to force them from her lips, to explain to these men, but couldn’t.

  “Please just…touch me. That’s what I want,” she whispered. “For the moment, leave tomorrow for another day.”

  Hugh moved first, pulling the sheet down her chest as he lowered his mouth to one nipple, ministered to it, swirled his tongue and gently drew on that nipple, and from there her world exploded. She could never get enough of how their hands worked in tandem, how they were everywhere at once, how they never collided or overlapped, but instead moved as if choreographed perfectly, covering the expanse of her skin with lightning speed, igniting her blood within. The sheer improperness of the situation once again attempted to sway her, but she locked the thought away, took her own request, and left tomorrow for another day. Doing that was easier at the moment, because she’d already suffered severely today. It would take longer to wind her up again. She had some time, and she meant to use it.

  Charles’s hand slipped from her waist, pulling the sheet farther down her figure, then the bare skin of his fingers skated across her abdomen until his hand cupped her quim, the heel pressing just at the crest where she wanted his touch most. Charles wasn’t going to wait for another invitation, it seemed.

  Thank God for that, she thought.

  Amelia arched against him, her hips pushing back into his, her breasts pushing against Hugh, who seemed perfectly happy to be drowning in her soft flesh.

  Her hands moved down the ridges and valleys of Hugh’s chest, then curled around the waistband of his trousers and held on. He froze as if cold water had been thrown on him, his hands covering hers, and she looked at his face.

  “Is this not…is this not part of what you intended to show me?” Amelia asked quietly. She could feel the hard ridge of Charles’s arousal cradled by her bottom, the tip of Hugh’s erection just under her thumb beneath the fall of the fabric she held on to. She ran a thumb over Hugh’s erection, and he tensed, groaned. He sounded pained, and she was suddenly more concerned than upset by his change in demeanor.

  “Amelia, we hadn’t intended to—”

  She swept her thumb across his hardness again, and a stiff groan cut across his words.

  “I want to see what passion looks like in you—and in Charles,” she said. “I believe that only fair.”

  The heel of Charles’s hand pushed into her, and her breath caught. “Don’t—” She closed her eyes and concentrated. “Don’t you dare try to distract me, Charles,” she finished. Charles smiled against the back of her neck, and she looked up to the ceiling. “I…I find myself quite curious.”

  “As you please,” Charles said. “Since Hugh seems to be in a convenient position…”

  She clenched her eyes.

  “Oh, thank you very much, Charles,” Hugh said, his voice strained and breaking across the words. Hugh didn’t seem to be happy about this turn, and she was confused. Then she felt his hardness wane.

  “I don’t understand. I enjoyed very much what happened, and from what I know…neither of you were brought to that same enjoyment. Before.” Amelia knew her speech was halted and difficult.

  “No, that we did not…we…honestly, we didn’t think that far ahead…or perhaps we thought that part would not be necessary,” Hugh said breathlessly.

  “So you discussed it?” she asked.

  “We discussed your passion, Amelia,” Charles said. “We did determine that it may be difficult for either of us to come off with another man in attendance and never quite reconciled that,” Charles finished simply.

  “To…come off,” Amelia said. She had come, and they had not, and she felt terribly selfish in that knowledge, regardless, she realized, that that had been their intention. “I see.” She thought for a moment. She could wait, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to know what passion looked like on them. She believed being a witness to passion an integral part of the process, in fact. She swept her thumb across the front of Hugh’s trousers again, and his size bloomed beneath it.

  “Please,” she whispered. She looked to Hugh, caught his deep gaze, pleaded with him with her eyes. She saw a stiff nod, and she moved her hands to the buttons that kept him from her. He lay still beneath her hands, save that one spot that grew again—slowly—as his breath stilled.

  Six buttons. That’s all that lay between her and him. Amelia’s gaze moved to her hands, and she concentrated. She loosed the first button, then stilled. Charles. “Charles, is this—”

  “Carry on.” Charles’s voice was gruff against her ear as his fingers began again to do amazing things to her.

  “As a lamb to slaughter,” Hugh grumbled. “I cannot believe it. We were to work together, and you have effectively thrown me under the carriage wheels, the sacrificial son.”

  “You’re mixing your metaphors, Hugh,” Charles said quietly, and she shivered against his hot breath on her shoulder.

  “Damn you,” Hugh whispered as the third button slipped free. He flung his head back against the pillow. “I can’t watch this.”

  I can, she thought. I most certainly—the sixth button slid free, and the fall of his trousers was loose—can.

  She brought her hands to her mouth as she chewed on her lower lip, deep in thought. Charles had moved a hand to her breast and was doing something incredible to her nipple, making it quite difficult for her to concentrate.

  She saw Hugh move his gaze from the ceiling to the contact between Charles’s hand and her breast, and as her gaze shifted back to the fall of his trousers, he grew. She saw his hardness expand, the fabric of his drawers pulling tight across his…maypole. She shook her head. Penis. It’s a penis, Amelia thought. At least, she thought she thought it. But perhaps she hadn’t, because Charles smiled and laughed against her shoulder blade, and Hugh…

  “Dear God!” Hugh exclaimed.

  She reached for it. With her right hand. She kept her left hand at her mouth to attempt to contain any further inappropriate words that might escape. She watched as her fingers undid the top button of his drawers, and she could see the skin pulled tight around the appendage, like a sleeve. She ran a finger across the very edge of that overskin, felt the wetness it held back, and heard a string of curses the likes of which she’d never—not ever, not even on his worst day—heard from Hugh.

  Charles’s arms tightened around her, holding her together in a miraculous way, one hand still at her breast, the other returning to her nethers.

  She loosed the last button. She’d been wrong—there were eight buttons, the six of his trousers and the two of his drawers—but she couldn’t have known this until now, obviously, because—

  “Ahhhh…Amelia. For fuck’s sake, you’re killing me,” Hugh groaned.

  She reached out, but her bravado faltered, and her hand stopped just there, within a breath of his manhood. “I don’t know what—”

  Charles cut her off. “Take him in hand, Amelia. Wrap your fingers around him.”

  Amelia’s fingertips grazed the silky skin as they passed, reaching around his shaft, then meeting at his abdomen. It was…like a steel pipe, wrapped in skin—no, not just skin—the softest, most supple skin she’d ever felt, like the skin of her lips, or her nipples. She moved her other hand to one breast and slid a finger around
her nipple in a circle. His skin was not like the peak of her nipples, mind, but just around it. She smiled at the thought, then grew serious to her task once again.

  “Now what?” she whispered.

  “Whatever you wish,” Charles groaned.

  She slid her hand gently up, toward that opening of flesh. The very end of his penis was round, and it was softer there, more pliant, and wet, almost as though it cried for her. Drops of moisture slicked her thumb as she ran it across the tip.

  Charles groaned again, against her back. She could feel his nose on her spine as he looked away, and she wasn’t sure he looked away because he was upset to see her touching another man or—

  He can’t become hard when upset.

  She remembered that. So she pushed her hips back into his and felt his hardness. She knew he was aroused, and the knowledge shot straight to the point where his hand connected with her quim. Earlier, Hugh had gotten aroused watching Charles’s hand on her breast. Yet they’d both been concerned about being able to come in the other’s presence.

  They liked what they saw.

  “Oh God,” she whispered. This was so…something. She couldn’t take her eyes from that part of Hugh.

  Hugh grumbled unintelligible words, and Charles’s hips pressed hard against her backside as Charles spoke. “Move your hand slowly, up and down the length of him,” he commanded, and she did.

  “Hugh, I’m not…can you please help me?”

  Hugh moved slowly, his muscles jerking. His hand wrapped around hers, skimming it up and down his hardness, then he held her tighter around him than she would have done and repeated the motion. The skin slid along his length below their joined hands. She pulled her eyes away for a moment to look on Hugh’s face. He looked pained.

  She looked back to where Hugh worked her hand, and Charles slipped a finger between her legs. Charles moved between her slick folds in an identical rhythm to her hand on Hugh—and she knew he was watching. Charles’s hips moved against her in the same rhythm as well, and she pushed back, caught the rhythm set by Hugh, and held on.

  Charles’s breath was heavy on her neck, Hugh’s chest heaved as his hand moved with hers, his strokes becoming faster, and her breath stilled. Hugh bucked, and Charles’s mouth opened on her back. Hugh leaned up, his abdomen tensing and folding in on itself, then he stretched out and thrust into her hand. At the same moment, Charles pushed one long finger into her tight wetness and closed his teeth gently on the skin between her shoulder blades.

  She screamed and held on to Hugh as the crisis coursed her spine, rested in her womb, then sent the shocks outward, her vagina clenching around Charles’s finger as white jets streamed from Hugh, landing on his belly.

  Hugh held on to her, she held on to Hugh, Charles held on to her…they were all together.

  The first thing Hugh perceived—after a time of simply lying in the bed with his eyes closed, trying to regain his breath—was her fingers on his belly, slipping through his seed. Amelia was so curious. His cock twitched yet again at the thought of her sweet innocence, and he groaned.

  Her head shifted on the bed, her face turning up to him. “That was quite beautiful,” she said.

  Beautiful. She’d called this beautiful. The mess of him on his belly. Beautiful. She was madly, truly, deeply…incredible.

  Hugh let out a breath, wondered how Charles had fared, but was simply thankful that he hadn’t noticed much of Charles during the whole…beauty of it.

  “This…is the seed you plant in me. This is what makes a babe,” she said quietly as she swirled her fingers through it.

  Amazing, Hugh thought. A true innocent. He’d always coveted that innocence, and this was most likely the reason he’d treated Charles so badly, saw the worst in him. Hugh should have been more wary of that particular commandment.

  If anyone knew how innocent she truly was, it was Hugh, for he knew her better than anyone. He looked down at her hand, watched her—here, she was an explorer. And that did make sense, because she’d always been overly curious. Yet even the most curious of women were shy of his mettle if ever they saw it, and here, she thought his seed beautiful. Discussion-worthy even. He saw his cock twitch in the distance and laid his head back to the pillow to concentrate on…not twitching. He smiled, the realization that she was so familiar with that particular want coming across him.

  The bed shifted, and Hugh knew Charles stood, so Hugh followed suit to break the moment, perhaps to attempt to regain his composure, certainly to prevent himself from rising once again. Hugh grabbed his ruined shirt from the floor and wiped himself clean before replacing the fall of his trousers. He turned to find Charles pacing, stiffly. Charles was yet the only one of them without release to this point.

  Serves him right, let his bollocks twist a bit, Hugh thought. Tossing me in front of a moving train like that. As it happens, I can come in the presence of another man.

  Hugh looked on Amelia, who studied her hand. Her brows were drawn together in confusion, but she’d never looked more beautiful than at this moment in her flushed, mussed state. He loved her. Truly.

  Hugh stood, looking on her, and the realization that this was far from friendship hit him like waves on the shore, each one breaking across him larger and harder than the last until he knew he stood there aghast, arms akimbo, his fall buttoned crookedly, his jaw hanging open like a child’s.

  He’d always known he loved her, but he’d never allowed himself to accept it. Crash. To truly feel it. Crash. He loved his best friend. Crash. He had to let her go. Crash.

  Hugh may have whimpered then.

  He turned to Charles, who was watching him. “You understand now,” Charles said.

  Hugh felt his head shake, more than he felt that he’d caused it to do so.

  Charles nodded in response.

  Amelia watched them both carefully, pulled herself to sitting, curled up in the sheet against the head of the bed.

  Charles turned and paced again. “I should go. I should let the two of you…do what it is you will do. I need to go,” Charles said as he looked around the small cabin, most likely for his clothes.

  “You’re not leaving her,” Hugh said as he turned on Charles.

  “We discussed this,” Charles said. “She needs you.”

  “She needs you as well! You’re not thinking straight because your bollocks are in a bind!” Hugh yelled. The windows shook at the force of his voice, and Charles turned the full height of himself on Hugh, who drew himself up as well as they faced off. Charles lowered his chin as Hugh went on, “You cannot do this to her. If you wish the very best for her…that’s you. I should be the one to go.”

  They were fighting about who was to leave her. Good Lord, had it truly come to this? A complete turnabout? The tension in the Cliff House soared, and Amelia wasn’t going to sit by and listen to them discuss her, yet again.

  Charles shook his head. “I’m leaving.”

  Hugh moved closer to him. “If you go, I go. If you stay, I stay.” The statement sounded like a threat but that the last of it Hugh said quietly.

  Amelia wasn’t entirely sure of the silent message that passed between them, but could feel that they were communicating beyond words in the way they stared at each other.

  Charles looked at Hugh then, more silence passing between them. Was she going to be required to get used to this? This silent intercourse? As if the communication they had about her, around her, wasn’t bad enough, they managed to communicate without her even when she was present.

  “Listen, you both need to stop this pointed staring. You’re unnerving me,” Amelia said.

  They both looked to her, and she shrank. That wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind.

  “Perhaps some tea?” she said quietly.

  Hugh turned to Charles. “Have faith,” Hugh said, practically begged, then he rested his hand on Charles’s shoulder and held it for a moment before he turned to the kettle. Hugh moved the kettle over the grate, stoked what was left of the fire fr
om earlier in the day and stood.

  “I need to get some more firewood,” Hugh said. “I trust you’ll both be here when I return. The woodpile is just behind the house, after all.” He seemed to be attempting to break the mood with idle chatter. He put his hands on his hips when no one responded, shook his head, then turned to the door and walked out.

  Amelia looked at Charles then. He was staring at the door, and his intensity served to unnerve her further. “Charles.” She said his name quietly, tightened her grasp on the blanket she held to her chest. “I…want to be frank with you, but I’m frightened.”

  Charles turned to her, appeared to consider something, then pulled up a chair and sat. She relaxed a bit as his large frame melted into the chair, his presence much less overpowering to her.

  Charles looked at her as though to tell her to continue. He seemed frustrated with her, and she thought she understood why. “I know this is all very…difficult,” she said.

  Charles nodded but said nothing.

  “I believe, in my heart, that if you learn the things that Hugh knows, that I could be the duchess you need.”

  Charles didn’t move.

  “I think, at this point, Hugh believes the same. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be helping you…helping us.”

  “I understand that…now. I believe I understand more of the issues at hand, having been witness to them…finally,” Charles said, and Amelia nodded.

  She knew that her mother had kept this a secret from him as much as possible out of the fear he would not take her to wife if Charles knew the truth. Amelia realized, by his tenor, that he was frustrated at having been kept away.

  Charles continued. “I don’t necessarily believe that what you have with him will transfer to me…that what he does can be learned. Amelia, the only happiness I remember as a child was the time I spent at Pembroke-by-the-Sea. You know my life has been one of discord, difficulty, but I don’t think you realize the level of joy I gained from simply seeing joy in you. I did not know how to be happy, and I believed that I could learn joy from you because it came to you so naturally. I was always told to ignore my feelings, to learn outwardly, not inwardly. So I thought to learn to be happy by watching you. Even if I couldn’t learn…I wished to bask in the glory of your happiness, because it was so freely given.”