by Julia Talbot
The twins were there, resplendent in brocade and velvet. Their masks weren't on yet, and Jacob didn't see them anywhere, so he had no idea what they were going to be. They exclaimed over him, though, which made him smile. Giovanni wore black, with black embroidery. He had on the short tunic and hose, which few men could pull off, and an exaggerated codpiece decorated with jet beads. The mask hanging from his arm was a perfect picture of modesty, carved eyes demurely loaded and childlike lips firmly closed along the breathing slit. Several other members of the family were there, as well as Teresa, who wore a deep purple gown with elaborate sleeves and a stiff paneled waist. Her mask represented Pride, or vanity. The arch of the eyebrow and the self-conscious curve of lips was suggestive without being overdone. The silver mirror hanging from her wrist completed the costume.
Cecilia and Marco chose that moment to make their entrance, and Jacob felt the sight of Cecilia like a slap in the face. His heart speeded up, and he couldn't move. She was gorgeous. Her gown was a deep green, covered in a brocaded robe of rich blue-green. Her hair was pulled back from her face and confined in a delicate gold net. Curls were artfully arranged along the net at her ears and cheeks. She wore a profusion of jewelry, chains and pearls and rings. One heavy ornament took the place of honor on the swell of her breasts, though. The pendant was a heavy thing, made of roughly polished emeralds forming the tail and baroque pearls and gold forming the body and head. The eyes were rubies and the teeth were tiny pieces of carved ivory. The wings a mixture of mother-of-pearl and enamel. The Rossi sea lion. Except for the mask of “Patience” held on a stick by her side, she was the lady of his Venetti portrait come to life.
Her husband was next to her, clad in a green so dark it was almost black, but Jacob hardly noticed him. His ears buzzed and he felt dizzy. Heat flooded him, staining his face and ears, pooling in his rapidly hardening cock. His knees went to jelly, and he must have swayed, because one of the twins was there, murmuring with concern. He couldn't tell which one. The next thing he knew he was on a settee, and someone was pushing his head down between his knees. Someone was patting his wrists, then the back of his neck with a wet cloth, and when he looked up it was Cecilia on her knees in front of him, skirts spread around her in a puddle, looking at him with worried eyes. He almost fell over. He wanted to throw up. Someone pressed a glass of ginger ale into his hand and he drank it, and tried to gather his scattered wits before he made even more of a fool of himself.
“Are you unwell Jacob?” Cecilia asked. “Do you need to rest?”
“No. No, I'm fine. I was just a bit dizzy there for a minute. Just ... over stimulated I think.” He knew he was hardly convincing. As a matter of fact he was trying hard not to laugh hysterically. Over stimulated indeed. He could barely walk. And not just because of the weak knees. The disorientation was actually worse though. For a minute he had seen another place, a palazzo that smelled of damp and a room that smelled of sex, and a woman half-dressed in that very same gown laughing at him as she struggled back into her clothes. It was gone as quickly as it came, but it made his head spin and his stomach roll. “I'm fine. Really.”
“Are you certain?” Warm and soft, her hands rested against his skin, the dripping cold cloth falling to the floor. There was another blinding flash of disorientation, because Cecelia's lips parted, and a bright flush came to her cheeks, and the only thing that kept him from leaning to kiss her was the sound of Marco clearing his throat. Loudly.
Jacob jumped. “Yes. I am certain. I will be fine.”
They all looked at him dubiously, but left him alone to recover when he asked them to. He sat there for the next half-hour, searching for calm and finding at last a small measure of it. He wanted to enjoy the evening and he certainly wouldn't do that with his mind running in circles all night. Feeling better, Jacob got up and prepared to rejoin the others. By that time the rest of the family was there. Alessio and Darius, looking like Lords of the Nightwatch in their midnight blue doublets and sapphire jewelry, their wives decked out in fine style. Jacob felt dowdy in comparison, and in a strange way that relieved him.
Once the guests started to arrive, none of them had time to catch their breath for hours. Food and drink flowed copiously, and people flooded the main rooms of the house. The dining room, salon and ballroom were packed, and the music and laughter created a full time buzz of sound that rang in his ears. The decorations were perfect. The music was period. The food was flawless. It was the most decadent party Jacob had ever attended. With some surprise, Jacob realized he was having a fantastic time.
The only fly in his ointment was his relentless reaction to Cecilia. Every time she took his arm to introduce him to someone, every time he smelled her scent, jasmine and lemons and musk, his body tightened. He spent at least half the night half hard. Unused to being so out of control, Jacob was both amazed and annoyed. His mask of lust fit him all too well tonight, and the knowledge made him squirm.
During the third or fourth hour of the ball, when almost everyone else was in the dining room, Jacob made a break for it. He needed to get out, somewhere where there were no people, just for a minute. He went out into the courtyard, bypassing the life sized chess game and heading for the temporary maze Cecilia had set up. He still shook his head at how she hadn't even blinked an eye at the cost of the potted shrubs they had imported to create it. In the center of the maze, Jacob knew, there was a long bench, padded with Turkish style cushions. A trysting bench. He had suggested it himself, in keeping with the historical theme. Since he had helped set up the maze it shouldn't be hard to find. Maybe he could stretch out for a few minutes.
Putting his right hand to the wall and making only left hand turns, Jacob made his way through the maze with relative ease, reaching the center in a few short minutes. Only to find that someone was there before him. Two someones actually, and Jacob was about to stage a tactical retreat when the two broke off their clinch and jumped apart, staring at him guiltily. Damien and Gianni, the twins. They were mussed, their lips kiss swollen, and they looked so worried like they were afraid of what he would do. They just sat there in a miserable silence and waited for him to say something.
Only he couldn't. He knew he should leave. He knew about this. It was no real surprise this time. What did surprise him was his own reaction. There was none of the confusion he had felt last time. None of the agonizing. Just the desperate, needy lust. Jacob's whole body was one giant, throbbing ache. His cock, which had risen and fallen all night filled and hardened completely. His nipples went tight, and his breathing shortened. Jacob took off his mask and looked at the twins, and they must have read it in his face. This time when one of them held out a hand, he stepped forward and took it, and let himself be drawn in.
It was Damien who touched him first, a hand on his hand. Warm and hard and callused, so unlike the soft touch of the twins’ sister, that hand pulled him forward until he stood before and between them as they sat on the bench, close enough to smell them, mint and sandalwood and sweat. Gianni took his dangling mask from his other hand and dropped it onto the Persian carpet at his feet. It hit with a thud, rolling to the flat side, so that lust stared up at them with a licentious grin. Jacob ignored it, because Gianni's fingers were twining with those of his free hand, and both twins tugged at him, pulling him down to rest between their warm bodies so that he felt the bulk of them on either side, surrounding him. It should have made him claustrophobic because was so unused to this kind of touch. Instead it made him feel oddly safe. Half on the bench, half reclining across Gianni's lap, and Damien stroking a hand down his chest, leaning in so close that Jacob felt warm, wine laden breath on his face. Damien kissed him, softly, and it was like saying a Rosary. Comforting. Damien's lips moved on his, little nibbling motions that he copied until they were moving together in a little dance.
Moving more firmly into the cradle of Gianni's thighs, Jacob sighed. Damien pushed his tongue along the crease of Jacob's lips, and he opened them, letting Damien's soft touch into his mou
th. The strokes of Damien's tongue were light, tentative, accompanied by Gianni stroking his hands up and down Jacob's arms as if gentling him. Jacob understood. They were afraid he would come to his senses and run. But he didn't want to. And he didn't really want gentle.
Surprising them both, Jacob braced his hands on Gianni's legs and pushed up into Damien's mouth. Damien grunted, then plunged his hands into Jacob's floppy hair and kissed him hard. Demanding. Jacob met it with his own fury, tilting his head to get full contact, untutored but oh so eager. Gianni slid his arms under Jacob's armpits and across his chest, wrapping around him. Gianni pressed against his back, pushing him until he was flush against Damien in the front, and it was delicious. Gianni's mouth was at his ear, nipping at the skin just below. They were all breathing hard now, rubbing against each other in subtle little jerks.
The twins tangled their fingers together when they reached for the hooks on his cassock, and they broke off kissing him to laugh at each other. It was a joyful sound, and he grinned with them. Then he reached for Damien's doublet. The complexity of the fastenings defeated him, and he yanked at it with a frustrated sound. Two sets of hands abandoned Jacob's clothes to accommodate him, and soon Damien's chest was bare. Jacob reached out to touch his skin, feeling the rasp of Damien's chest hair and the thumping of his heart. Gianni covered Jacob's hand with one of his own, and pushed it down to cover Damien's nipple. It peaked, pushing into his palm, and Damien's eyes slid closed, a deep noise coming from his throat. Jacob wanted to hear that sound again, so he ran his other hand down to the other nipple, pinching it lightly between his fingers. Damien arched like a cat and moaned, and Jacob's cock surged.
Suddenly Jacob had to know if Gianni was the same, if he looked the same, had the same reactions. He twisted away from Gianni's confining embrace, trying to turn to face him. They all got tangled, falling off the bench in a flurry of limbs and cushions and curses. Jacob wouldn't be denied though, and he ended up on top of Gianni somehow, pushing and pulling on that damned doublet that had the same unreasonable amount of hooks as Damien's. Jacob was straddling Gianni's hips, and the other man was breathless from the fall and Damien was laughing behind him. He glared over his shoulder and said, “Well, help me, damn it.”
For a long moment, Damien just stared at him, as if Jacob speaking was a shock. Maybe it was. It was more real, somehow, what he was doing if he acknowledged it out loud. At the moment he found it hard to care. Then Damien moved forward and helped him, and Gianni was identical darn it. Except that he was ticklish where Damien wasn't and brushing Gianni's nipples resulted in serious giggle fits.
It wasn't long before they turned on him. Damien pulled and Gianni pushed and Jacob was on his knees with Damien behind him this time, and Gianni kissing him hard. Gianni was more aggressive, his lips more firm. They worked him together until Jacob's cassock melted away, and his chest was bare. He didn't have time to feel self-conscious, because Damien was tracing his sternum down to his belly, pulling lightly at the trail of hair there. Gianni was mouthing his neck and sucking at his nipples and he quite simply expected to explode any minute. He'd never felt anything like it. The few sticky high school experiences he'd had before seminary hadn't prepared him for this kind of pleasure. His furtive jerking in the dark of his room never made him feel like this, like his cock was made of hot steel and his belly had lead weights in it.
Heat in front of him, heat behind him, searing him. Damien pressed against him, rubbing and panting. Gianni was leaving marks, tiny love bites that left lurid little bruises. Jacob's muscles jumped under his skin, and he heard a strange keening come from his chest. Damien grabbed his arms, as if restraining him, but he wasn't afraid. It was more like the twins were afraid, like they had to hold him down to do what they wanted to do next, like they were afraid he would run. He wasn't about to. Gianni moved back to his mouth and sucked him into a drugging kiss, and Gianni's clever fingers opened his trousers to free his cock.
The air felt cool on his heated skin, then Gianni closed a hand around him, and Jacob almost came right then and there. His body bucked, and Damien chuckled, tickling his neck. Jacob let his head loll back onto Damien's shoulder as Gianni broke the kiss. Damien took his lips then, and the twins tasted like one person. Jacob wanted, oh he wanted everything and he whispered “please” over and over. The twins shared a look, and Gianni nodded, and the world spun as they moved him. Jacob was on his back, laid out on the Turkish cushions, and they skimmed his pants down his legs. His shoes and pants were flung away, and Jacob was naked, the twins were sitting at his feet, staring at him with hot, hot eyes.
They turned to each other briefly and shared a deep-throated kiss, and Jacob whimpered at the sight. They struggled out of their hose. Then Damien was crawling forward to straddle him, pressing down into him, his thighs on either side of Jacob's. He leaned down to kiss Jacob, and it was devouring, all consuming. Jacob arched up, and his cock rubbed against Damien's, and Damien whispered, “Dio!” It was perfect and Jacob echoed him with a, “Jesus,” of his own. Damien looked at him, so close that Jacob could count each spiky black eyelash, each beard whisker. Damien smiled, and his eyes crinkled and Jacob smiled back. It was perfect.
Another weight settled across Jacob's legs as Gianni moved in behind Damien, and Damien closed his eyes, hissing with pleasure. Jacob raised a hand to Damien's hips, curling it around one buttock, and he could feel Gianni's cock there, rubbing into the crease between Damien's cheeks. He groaned and pushed his cock up into Damien's and they both gasped. Gianni was cursing, fumbling in their pile of mixed up clothing, and when Jacob realized what he must be looking for he actually blushed, which was ridiculous if he thought about it. Damien obviously found it endearing, because he rubbed his cheek against Jacob's and laughed.
Then Damien was pushing against him with a cry and Jacob realized that Gianni must have found something. Jacob's fumbling fingers found Gianni's cock, still completely separate from Damien, so it must be a finger he'd shoved into his brother's body. The thought excited Jacob unbearably, and he humped against Damien, their movements becoming frantic. Gianni pushed Damien down hard, stilling them for a little while and murmuring soothing words in Italian. He got two growling complaints for his trouble, but it did back them up from the edge.
When Damien threw back his head and shouted, Jacob knew that Gianni was inside finally. He searched for the joining with his fingers and found it, caressing the place where the twins came together and they all moaned. Then Gianni was moving, pounding into Damien, setting a hard rhythm that pushed Damien down on to Jacob. His cock was on fire, the friction more than he could bear. Damien's chest hair scraped his nipples and their hips ground together as Gianni pummeled his brother's uptilted ass. Jacob wanted to scream his pleasure to the night, but he couldn't make any sound come out of his throat except harsh, groaning breath. Damien kissed him until spots swam in front of his eyes. Jacob saw Gianni's face over Damien's shoulder, twisted as if in pain, sweat dripping from his hair.
It was too much. Too much and Jacob felt his orgasm squeeze his spine until he thought his head would pop off. He arched into a taut arc, actually lifting Damien's hips, which pushed the other man back into his twin. Jacob's cock spasmed, and he came in hard spurts, biting his lip and tasting blood. Damien followed within seconds, adding his hot seed to the sticky mess between their bodies. Gianni was the last by several moments, shoving his cock into Damien's convulsing body hard and fast until he came with a muffled wail. The three of them collapsed in a pile of flesh and sweat and come, and Jacob spared only a passing thought for how much noise they might have made. The only sounds on the maze now were their labored breathing and the chirping of crickets.
Which made the voice that cut into their silence all the more shocking. They all jumped when they heard Cecilia's words, the tone harsh..
“Well, that was interesting.”
Chapter 6
The silence stretched until Jacob was afraid they would all simply sit there and
stare forever. He broke first and made a convulsive move toward his clothes, but Gianni caught him and rolled protectively on top of him, shielding him from Cecilia. Damien glared at his sister and told her to leave them alone so they could dress. She nodded, and turned to go. She looked back over her shoulder and said, “I will see you all in an hour. In the green room.” Then she was gone.
He struggled, and Gianni moved off him, helping him to his feet. They dressed without speaking, but Jacob could feel their eyes on him, asking questions. Too bad he had no answers. He wasn't sure what to do or how to feel. He knew what he had done was wrong. Catastrophically so. He knew that as it stood, his soul was in mortal danger, as were his vows as a priest. But he didn't feel the panic he thought he would. He was numb to that. All he could feel was Damien's come sliding down his belly and the twinge of pain in his back from being pressed to the ground. He moved slowly, like an old man.
Finally dressed, Jacob cast about for his mask, and found that it had rolled under the garden bench. The nose and tongue had broken off where they protruded form the face. Jacob stared at it for several moments, and started when Gianni put a hand on his shoulder. He looked at them, these two that had made him give up the promises of a lifetime of service to God, and he couldn't bring himself to be angry. Not at them, and not at him. He was just numb.
The trip back to the house was just as quiet. Damien and Gianni kept touching each other, and Jacob had become used to their private language, for he knew it was reassurance. They were waiting for the explosion. That really wouldn't be fair. Jacob could've left. He could have resisted the lure of the flesh. Their flesh. He was the weak one, the one to blame, not them. A sound, like a sob, burst from his throat and they were there, holding him, surrounding him with their warmth and the smell of their sex. He wanted to just rest there, to stay, so he didn't have to worry about facing up to his actions. But he couldn't, and he stepped away. Jacob patted them both on the arms and shook his head. “Don't worry about it,” was the message he tried to convey, but couldn't actually get the words out.