by Jaide Fox
Unhurriedly, she moved to a bench near the fire and began to comb her hair. When she'd delayed as long as she dared, she rose and moved to the door, took a deep, sustaining breath and opened it.
Nick was standing by a window, staring out at the night. His hair was still damp, and hung loosely about his shoulders. He was wearing nothing more than his breeches and shirt which, she saw when he turned, was loose to the waist.
Darcy, in a similar state of half dress, his damp hair already beginning to curl, was sprawled on the couch, idly shuffling the deck of cards in his hands.
She moved across the room to warm her hands at the fire. When she turned, she saw she had their full attention.
Nick dragged his gaze up her length with an effort. “Why?” he asked a little hoarsely.
Bronte lifted her brows questioningly.
"Why did you summon us here?” Darcy asked.
Bronte smiled. “It seems to me that you've figured it out."
"Nevertheless, I'd like to hear it,” Nick said.
She shrugged. “I can hardly be expected to judge which of you is England's greatest lover when I have not had the opportunity to discover it for myself."
Nick paled. “I feared as much."
Darcy flushed. “It wasn't like that, darlin',” he said quickly. “I swear on my mother's soul it wasn't!"
Bronte bit her lip, trying not to smile. “Your mother is still living, is she not?"
Darcy grinned sheepishly. “Yes, but ... just the same."
Since her backside had grown uncomfortably warm, Bronte turned to warm her hands once more. “What was it like?” she asked, staring into the fire.
"Moreland proposed a wager on it, but neither of us ever accepted, never even considered it. It was just that ... well we didn't know you'd come back until he mentioned it, so we went straight away to see you."
"And that was all there was to it?"
"Not entirely."
Bronte turned to look at Nick when he spoke.
"He seemed to be laboring under the impression that you would not be at all receptive to either of us. I wanted to know why. I'd still like to know."
"It was because of Isaac, wasn't it?” Darcy put in. “I swear to you, we tried our best to save him, Bronte. We were damned near killed ourselves, but he was dead by the time we got to him."
Bronte felt the blood leave her face. “You tried—you were hurt?"
"I caught a bullet in the shoulder. Nick was hit twice. I had to haul him out of there."
"Shut up, Darcy!"
Bronte stared at them in horror, realizing finally that that was why she hadn't seen them after Isaac was killed. That was why they hadn't even come home for the funeral. They'd both been battling for their own lives. Swallowing her fear and horror with an effort, Bronte crossed the room toward Nick, stopping when she was barely a foot away from him. “Where?” she whispered.
He shook his head fractionally. “It doesn't matter. It was a long time ago. I survived."
"It does matter. It matters to me."
"I'll show you mine,” Darcy volunteered.
Bronte turned to smile at him. “Yes, you will ... in a little bit."
"This is insane, Bronte,” Nick said tightly.
She lifted her brows. “Why? You two have shared before. Even I remember that."
"This is different."
She moved a little closer, lifting her hand to trace a rounded scar on his chest almost hidden beneath the dark hair that covered it. “Why?"
He jerked at her touch, sucking in a sharp breath. “Because ... I love you,” he said harshly.
Darcy got up from the couch and left the main room abruptly, climbing the stairs to the second floor. A pang smote Bronte, but she could only deal with one thing at the time. She would soothe his hurt, she promised herself, later.
Leaning down, she brushed her lips across the scar. “I love you, too."
He caught her upper arms in a tight grip. “Tell me why then. Why did you behave as if you hated me?"
"I thought I did. But it wasn't because you didn't save Isaac. It was because you didn't save me from Isaac. I thought you had abandoned me when I needed you the most."
His face twisted with pain. “I didn't have a choice."
Bronte skated her hands up his chest and looped her arms around his shoulders. “I know that now. I wish I'd known then. It would've ... made it easier to bear."
Nick slipped his arms around her, pulling her lightly against him. “You don't have to do this, sweetheart,” he murmured against her throat.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world."
Chapter Twenty
Nick caught her face between his palms. “Good, because it is either this, or you will have to shoot me to put me out of my misery,” he murmured, closing the distance that separated them and capturing her mouth with a hunger that detonated an explosion of heated desire inside of her.
Heady with the sensations pouring through her, fogging her mind with a heated haze of rapture that focused her entire being on his touch, the feel of him pressing against her and delving inside of her, his heat, his strength, Bronte returned his kiss with an urgency that matched his. Uttering a sound of longing, she closed her mouth tightly around his tongue as he caressed hers and then began a rhythmic thrust and retreat that emulated the mating of their bodies. Within moments the intimate dance had enflamed them both to a state trembling perilously near their peak.
He pulled away abruptly, caught her up against his chest and strode toward her room. Bronte tightened her arms around his neck when he scooped her off her feet, kissing his neck, tugging at his ear lobe with the edge of her teeth. He almost dropped her when she stuck her tongue into his ear, tracing the swirls with the tip.
"For God's sake, Bronte,” he muttered hoarsely, wrestling with the latch of her door. “If you keep that up I'll disgrace myself before we get to the bed and I'll be no use to you at all."
Smiling, Bronte ceased to tease his ear and sucked a row of love bites along the side of his neck instead as he stepped back and kicked the door open, having tired of trying to juggle her and wrestle with the latch at the same time.
Shouldering his way into the room, he kicked the door closed behind them and strode toward the bed. Collapsing upon it with her, he covered her mouth in another fiery kiss as he came down on top of her.
Impatient to feel his skin, Bronte pushed his shirt from his shoulders, stoking his back and shoulders and arms with her palms as she removed it.
Breaking the kiss, Nick pulled away, dragging his shirt from his breeches, then shrugging out of it and tossing it aside. Bronte's hands were already working at the fastening of his breeches. He chuckled shakily, placing his hands over hers to still her movements. “Slowly, sweetheart. I have waited far too long to rush."
Bronte looked up at him, lifting a hand to stroke his cheek. “I have wanted you to have your way with me since long before I even knew what it was that passed between a man and woman. I want to feel you so deeply inside of me you feel like a part of me. I have waited too long to wish to wait any longer."
His face hardened. Taking several shuddering breaths, he looked down at her as he stroked his hand along her body and caught her gown, dragging it upward. Leaning over her, he kissed the flesh he revealed, along her thigh and hip and belly. He covered one breast with his mouth when he had thrust the gown to her shoulders, catching her other breast in his hand and massaging it until the nipple puckered with painful pleasure.
Bronte gasped at the heat of his mouth and tongue. With an effort, she disentangled her arms from the gown, dragged it over her head, and grasped his shoulders, holding him to her. When he lifted his head at last, she was panting for breath, writhing with fevered need. She parted her legs in invitation, in desperate need, reaching down to cup the rigid heat of his cock through his breeches, massaging him. Groaning, he unfastened his breeches and thrust them down his hips as he settled between her legs and leaned down to kiss her deeply.
She arched upward, pressing her mound against his engorged cock, feeling him part the flesh of her sex and glide along her moist cleft. Frustration filled her. It felt so good, so nearly what she wanted and yet not nearly enough to satisfy her. She struggled to reach him, to grasp his cock and guide his flesh inside of her. He released her lips, lifted his head, pushing his upper body up on his locked arms as he thrust his hips forward.
She gasped in pleasure as she guided his cockhead to the mouth of her sex and arched to meet him. Feeling his body lock with hers, begin to press into her flesh, she released his cock and grasped his hips, pulling him to her, moaning with both pleasure and impatience as her flesh resisted.
He lowered himself slowly until his chest was resting against her breasts. Burying his face against her neck, he slipped his arms beneath her shoulders, holding her tightly against him as he pressed deeper inside of her.
They were both gasping for breath and slick with the moisture of exertion by the time he was fully imbedded inside of her. He paused, struggling for control. Bronte held herself still, barely breathing, enthralled by the feel his flesh inside of her, feeling her muscles quake around his hard length as if clutching at him. She stroked his buttocks and back, glorying to have him like this, inside her, on top of her. She felt immersed in his essence, dizzy with his spicy scent mingled with the rose oil. “Nick,” she whispered, yielding to the need to taste his name on her tongue.
He lifted his head. “Am I hurting you?"
Bronte opened her eyes with an effort and found him gazing down at her in concern. “It feels ... more wonderful even than I imagined to feel you inside of me."
A tremor went through him. He dipped his head to kiss her lips briefly, her cheek and then her neck as he began to move his hips, withdrawing and plunging deeply again, murmuring her name almost feverishly as he quickly built the rhythm of his thrusts.
Bronte moaned as she felt the tension in her body winding tighter and tighter with each stroke of his cock along her sensitive core. Within moments she felt her body surging toward completion, began to utter little gasping cries of delight as ecstasy peaked inside of her, exploded, washed through her in a heated wave that made her entire body quiver with rapture.
Nick thrust harder, faster, went perfectly still as his culmination caught him, groaned in an agony of ecstasy as it rolled over him, shaking as his body convulsed in the throes of the ‘little death’ that bathed her insides with a hot liquid rush.
Contentment filled Bronte as he collapsed weakly against her, gasping for breath. She nuzzled his neck, kissed him, stroking his back. After a few moments, he dragged in a deep, shaky breath and rolled to his side, kissed her on the lips briefly and then released her, rolling onto his back.
He sighed gustily.
Bronte lay half drowsing beside him, skating her hand lightly over his broad chest. He shivered as she plucked at the dark hair, covering her hand, and she smiled.
"Did you mean what you said?” he asked almost lazily.
She rose up on her side and leaned down to tease his nearest nipple with her tongue. “Mmm,” she murmured. “Yes. I love the feel of you inside of me."
He swallowed thickly. Grasping her, he dragged her across his chest. “Not half as much as I love being inside of you, I'll warrant. I meant before that."
Bronte wrinkled her brow, thinking back, and finally smiled. “Yes. That too."
He grinned at her. “Just how old were you when you wanted me to ‘have my way’ with you?"
Bronte chuckled. “I haven't a clue. Very young. It was after I caught you and Darcy and Isaac ‘playing’ with the girl from the village in the barn."
"Good God!” Nick said, surging upward and dumping her on the bed beside him. “You knew about that? You couldn't have been old enough to think such things."
"Darcy didn't tell you?"
"He didn't."
"I was very outdone that I wasn't allowed to play, too. Isaac told me later that you were having your way with the girl. He told me in great detail what you'd been doing. I suppose he thought it would horrify me, or disgust me. I don't know, except all I could think about was that she'd sounded like she was enjoying it and I wasn't horrified or disgusted. I was angry that you'd done it with her instead of me and threatened to tell. That was when he beat me up."
Nick's arms tightened around her. “You couldn't have been more than ten. If I'd known what he'd been telling you, I would've beat the living hell out of him."
Bronte chuckled. “You did beat the living hell out of him."
"Twice, I mean."
Bronte sighed, propping on his chest once more. “Then, when I was about thirteen or fourteen, I asked you to kiss me like you kissed the other girls. You said you couldn't, because then you would want to have your way with me. I was very disappointed that I couldn't convince you to try it because I still remembered what Isaac had told me and I wanted you to."
Nick closed his eyes. He looked pained. “I said that to you? My God! It's a very good thing for me that you weren't prone to carrying tales. Your father would've killed me ... and I needed it."
Bronte shook her head. “You were only teasing me."
"I shouldn't have been teasing you like that."
"No, you shouldn't. You should have kissed me and had your way with me,” Bronte said with a chuckle, nibbling a path across his chest to his neck.
"For both our sakes, I'm glad I had enough sense, and sense of decency, not to."
Bronte didn't agree. However young she'd been at the time, she would've far rather that Nick or Darcy had been her first than Isaac, but she didn't want to think about it and there was no sense in bringing it up. In any case, she was far more interested in provoking Nick to have his way with her again.
He proved to be far more receptive to her attempts at seduction than he had been those many years ago, making love to her with a slow thoroughness that satisfied her desires and yet was so poignant, it made her ache with her love for him.
Afterwards, they curled together and drifted to sleep.
When Bronte woke, the fire had died to little more than embers. She lay still for a while, listening to Nick's deep, even breaths, feeling herself grow tense as she contemplated what she had to do.
Finally, she rolled away from Nick and moved to the side of the bed to search for her discarded gown.
"You're going to him."
It wasn't a question. She stilled, listening to her heart thundering in her chest with dread. “Yes."
He said nothing else, and she bowed her head. “This is the part I never wanted to face. I wish that it was as simple as proving a silly wager. I love you both and I can no more bear to hurt Darcy than I can you. And, in the end, if you truly love me, I will hurt you both."
* * * *
The water was tepid, but Bronte bathed. She could not go to Darcy when she could smell Nick on her skin, taste him. It was bad enough that they both knew that she was going from the arms of one to the other. She had to make an effort to show Darcy that she loved him as much, desire him as much.
She was shivering when she climbed out and dried off, her stomach tied in knots, partly from anticipation, partly from dread. After a little thought, she tossed the nightgown aside, wrapped the cloth around herself and went up the stairs to Darcy's room.
He woke when she closed the door behind her. Sitting up, he stared at her a for several moments in surprise and finally fell back against the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
"You shouldn't be doing this,” he said.
Bronte moved to the side of the bed and sat down. “Why?"
He dropped an arm across his face, swallowing audibly. “Nick loves you, darlin'."
"But you don't? Not that way?” she asked tentatively, feeling sick inside at the thought.
He said nothing for so long that she thought he wouldn't answer. Finally, he let out a gasping breath as if he'd been holding it, sat up and pulled her into a tight embrace, squeezing her almost pai
nfully. “If I told you I didn't, you'd know I was lying,” he muttered.
Bronte smiled faintly, wrapping her arms around him, stroking his back. “It would be so much easier if I didn't love you, too."
He pulled her across the bed and lay her back against the mattress, leaning down to nuzzle his face against her neck. “You smell like roses."
Bronte smiled. “So do you."
He chuckled. “Next time I'll toss your rose water out. I wasn't in the mood to be drawing water for a bath."
"I cheated. I had the servants do it before I sent them away."
"Why didn't I think of that?” he murmured, brushing his lips lightly along her neck to her collar bone.
Bronte sighed, feeling desire burgeon inside of her. “Make love to me, Darcy."
He lifted his head, giving her a lopsided smile. “I'm working on it, darlin'."
Bronte chuckled, stroking his cheek lovingly. “I've missed the way you could always make me laugh ... even when I felt like crying."
He brushed his lips lightly across hers, plucking at the lower lip with his and then sucking it gently. “I've missed the sound of your laugh,” he murmured, covering her mouth with his own, and kissing her deeply, filling her with his warmth, his essence in a way that built both desire and a sense of homecoming, of belonging.
She moaned when he dragged his mouth from hers and traced a path of kisses along her jaw to her ear, traced the delicate shell with his tongue, and then blazed a fiery trail downward. With his fingers and palms, his mouth and tongue, he explored every inch of her, massaging her breasts, suckling until she began to writhe and moan beneath his touch and then exploring her belly, her thighs.
She gasped sharply when he pushed her thighs apart and kissed the exquisitely sensitive flesh of her inner thighs, her nether lips and then parted them with his tongue, raking it along her cleft to her clit. A jolt of heat went through her as he teased the nub with his tongue, suckled it. The blood pounded in her body, building to a crescendo that blocked all sound save the rapid tempo drumming her ears. She uttered a choked cry, caught his head at the nearly unbearable pleasure, of half a mind to hold him closer still, and half to push him away.