For Love and Country (Brothers in Arms Book 13)

by Samantha Kane

  “Goodness,” she said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been kissed like that.” She looked at Barnabas. “Or that.”

  “Well?” he asked, curious if she would want to go any further.

  “Is there more?” she asked eagerly.

  “Of course,” Barnabas assured her. “We have not satisfied you yet.”

  “Truly?” she asked with wonder. “I’ve never felt this delicious tingle inside before. That isn’t it?”

  Ambrose chuckled. “No, it isn’t. Not if a woman’s pleasure is anything like a man’s.”

  “It is,” Barnabas said, teasing them with a singsong tone. “Wouldn’t you like to see it? And feel it?”

  “You are a seducer,” Mel said, clapping her hands with a grin. “How delightful! I thought it was just with Ambrose. But you have seduced before, haven’t you?”

  Barnabas looked over at Ambrose, but he wasn’t blushing in mortification. He was grinning. “Oh, no, old man,” he said, sitting down beside Mel. “You’ll have to field that one on your own.”

  “Once or twice,” Barnabas replied vaguely. “Enough to know what I’m doing.” He cleared his throat at the gross understatement. In the last few years the sheer number of people who wanted to dance with the devil in his bed had exhausted him. But until Ambrose he’d not bedded anyone for almost a year.

  “Show me,” Mel said, sitting next to Ambrose. “Seduce me.”

  “How often do you get that invitation?” Ambrose asked. “I must warn you, Mel, he is very good at it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” she said, linking her arm with Ambrose’s. “After all, he managed to seduce you and you are the most perfect, pure gentleman I ever met.”

  “Not anymore, I’m afraid,” Ambrose said ruefully. “I now wallow in the pleasures of the flesh, like mortal men.”

  “He fucks like a god,” Barnabas said baldly. “I’ve never known someone to take it to it so fast.”

  “Barnabas,” Ambrose said in a warning voice, glaring at him.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t expect any less,” Mel said. “He is after all, beautiful, and he’s so sensitive and lovely. And he’s so good at everything.”

  “You make me sound like a very boring paragon,” Ambrose complained. “I am not good at everything.”

  “Yes you are,” Barnabas said, agreeing with Mel. “Don’t worry. It makes you an alluring conquest.”

  “What about conqueror?” Ambrose asked. He grabbed Mel around the waist and nuzzled her neck with a growl, which sent her into peals of laughter. “Can I conquer you, Mel?” he asked seriously. She was panting and she blinked rapidly. Then she cupped his cheeks and ran her thumbs along the edges of his beard.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I rather think you can.”

  She pulled him down for a kiss, and Ambrose lowered her to the floor with his mouth on hers, and then stretched out beside her. This kiss was more tender than the last, but no less carnal. Ambrose taught Mel how to kiss as Barnabas watched. She imitated what he did in a give-and-take exchange that had Barnabas growing overheated and aroused. He stood and took off his dressing gown and laid it on the floor beside them.

  “Lay her on it,” he told Ambrose. Ambrose stopped kissing her and looked over at the robe, then up at Barnabas, who stood there naked. The gleam in Ambrose’s eyes was very appreciative.

  “Oh my God,” Mel squeaked, squeezing her eyes shut, “you’re naked!”

  “Is that a problem?” Barnabas asked with a frown.

  Ambrose covered her eyes with his hand. “He just wanted to give you something soft to lay on,” he told her. “Look, he put his dressing gown on the floor beside you.” She lifted his hand and peeked over.

  “Let me get something else to cover myself with,” Barnabas said. He looked around and saw a shawl tossed on the settee. He went to get it and wrapped it around his waist like a kilt. “There,” he said. “Better?”

  Mel had to lean her head backwards to look at him upside down. “I can see up it,” she said, biting back a grin.

  “Nothing is foolproof,” he said with a shrug. “Do you want the dressing gown?”

  Immediately she squirmed out from under Ambrose and slid on top of his robe. “Yes,” she said, rubbing it between her fingers.

  Ambrose laughed. “It is nice. May I join you?”

  “Yes.” She gave Barnabas a shy look. “You may, too.”

  “I was going to,” he said. “It’s my dressing gown.” She laughed, like he’d hoped she would. She seemed to like him just the way he was—abrupt and straightforward. Not many women appreciated those attributes like she did.

  He lowered himself down to lay on her other side. She looked up at he and Ambrose flanking her, both men leaning on their elbows above her. Barnabas was about to suggest they try some other position when she surprised him.

  “Should I be naked, too?” she asked. “I know the other gentlemen all wanted me naked.”

  “Not unless, and until, you want to be naked,” Ambrose told her. He ran the back of his forefinger beneath her chin. “You must be this soft all over.”

  “I am,” she teased.

  Barnabas picked up one of her hands and began to kiss the tips of her fingers. He nibbled on one and she gasped. “And you must taste delicious,” he said.

  “That I don’t know,” she said, a little breathless. “You tell me.”

  “I mean between your legs,” Barnabas told her.

  She wouldn’t meet his gaze suddenly. “A few of the men licked and bit me there,” she said. “I didn’t like it. It hurt.”

  “Nothing we do will hurt you,” Ambrose said. “We will never let anyone hurt you that way again.” It was the right thing to say. She turned shining eyes up to him.

  “I believe you,” she whispered. “The truth is, when I think of you or Barnabas doing it, it excites me. I feel like I used to, when I was younger and went out in the gardens with a man. But then they’d paw at me and the feeling faded.”

  “Mel, may we touch you?” Barnabas asked. He wanted to desperately. He wanted to erase the memories of every hand that had ever touched her that wasn’t theirs. Ambrose had been right. He cared too much.

  Chapter 21

  When she nodded Ambrose immediately reached for her breast. He couldn’t stop himself. He’d never touched a woman’s breast in a sexual way before in his life. It was firm and plump, warm under her nightclothes. She bit her lip and arched her back, pushing it into his hand, and he felt her nipple pressing against his palm. She gasped and Ambrose looked down to see Barnabas’s hand on her thigh, gently caressing it, her nightgown sliding up her leg a little with each pass of his hand.

  “Pinch her nipple,” Barnabas told him. Ambrose looked up and Barnabas was watching him.

  “No,” Mel said. “I don’t like it when it hurts.”

  “Do it gently,” Barnabas said. He reached out and turned Mel’s face to him with a hand on her chin. “It doesn’t have to hurt. It will feel good if he does it gently.”

  “Barnabas has done it to me,” Ambrose admitted with a blush. “It does feel good.”

  “I do it harder to you than you should do it to her,” Barnabas told him. Experimentally Ambrose did as instructed. When Mel took a deep, stuttering breath, her eyes wide with wonder, he stopped and held it for a moment. Then he rolled it, as Barnabas had done to him. Mel slapped a hand over his and he let go immediately.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, worried he’d hurt her.

  “Do it again,” she said in that delightfully breathless voice she had when she was aroused. Ambrose loved her voice like that, loved being the cause of it. “It was just too much sensation. But I’m fine now. Again.” She moved her hand off his and nudged her breast against his fingers.

  He grinned. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He repeated the caress and she writhed between them.

  “Between my legs,” she panted, “I can feel my heartbeat.”

  “Here?” Barnabas said, cupping the juncture there. She moaned and
her hips moved against his hand.

  “Yes,” she said. “It feels good. It feels better with your hand there.”

  “Good,” he said, his voice throaty. “Keep telling us what feels good, Mel. So we know how to please you.” Ambrose knew that voice. He looked down and he could see the bump of Barnabas’s hard cock under the shawl. If Mel didn’t fuck him then, Ambrose would. He was shocked at his own thoughts.

  “Will it feel better with nothing between us?” she asked.

  Ambrose held his breath. He wanted to touch her soft skin everywhere.

  “Ambrose?” Barnabas asked. “Does it feel better skin on skin?”

  “Yes,” he managed to say. “So much better.”

  Mel reached up and undid the buttons on her high-necked gown. They ran all the way down to her stomach, and Ambrose watched in fascination as she worked her way down the row. When they were all undone she parted the nightgown.

  “Your breasts are beautiful,” he breathed. They were small and pert, heavier on the bottom, with dark pink nipples standing at attention. Her skin was so delicate there he could see the track of veins running through them, and he wanted to trace them with his tongue.

  Mel reached for his hand and placed it back over her bare breast. They both moaned. “It feels so good when you touch me,” she said.

  Ambrose cupped and kneaded her breast, lightly pulling on her nipple, delighting in the little gasps that escaped her. He leaned over and kissed her, and she kissed him back, her clever tongue lapping at his mouth, tracing his lips. After a minute or two he trailed his mouth down over her chin to her neck with openmouthed kisses, tasting her. He licked along her collarbone and she twisted beneath him with a moan.

  “Suckle her breast,” Barnabas said. Ambrose looked up in confusion. “Not like a babe,” Barnabas said. “A man can give a woman pleasure with his mouth on her breast. Kiss it. Suck on it.”

  “Please don’t hurt me,” Mel said breathlessly. “They did it to hurt me.”

  Ambrose slid both hands along her bare sides beneath her gown. He could feel the goose bumps on her skin.

  “Never,” he vowed. “I will never hurt you.”

  He leaned over and flicked his tongue on her nipple, and she gasped again. She put her hand on the back of his head and grabbed a fistful of his hair. But she didn’t pull him away—she pressed him closer.

  Barnabas had done this to him. He’d thought only men enjoyed it, that for a woman it was a function to feed children, not a source of pleasure. Barnabas was still teaching him and Ambrose was grateful. He wanted so badly to please Mel like this. At her urging he kissed her breasts and traced the veins that had fascinated him moments before. When he took her nipple in his mouth and suckled softly, she moaned.

  “Ambrose,” she said, running her hand through his hair. “God. Ambrose.” Her voice broke and he stopped, but she shook her head and pressed his mouth back to her breast. “More,” she breathed.

  Ambrose wrapped both arms around her and lifted her breasts to his mouth. Her back arched and she ran her hands over his shoulders, scratching him. He moved from one breast to the other, laving them and suckling until she was moaning and undulating in his arms.

  “Please,” she gasped. “Between my legs.”

  Ambrose left her breasts to glance at Barnabas, who was kneeling at her feet. Barnabas met his eyes and then he put one hand on each leg and began to push her gown up. Ambrose held his breath. What would she look like there? Taste like? He knew instinctively that if he put his mouth on her there as he’d done on her breasts that it would bring her pleasure.

  “I want to taste you, Mel,” Barnabas said, giving voice to Ambrose’s desires. “We both do. You are glorious in your passion.”

  “I am, aren’t I?” she said with a reckless laugh. “Yes, please. I know you’ll make it feel good. Please.”

  “May we touch you with our hands as well?” Barnabas asked. “Put our fingers inside you?”

  “Oh, you wicked man,” she said with a groan. “Now I see how clever you are. You make me want it just by asking for it.”

  Barnabas smiled seductively. “It does seem to work that way.”

  “It worked that way for me, too,” Ambrose said. “I’m dying to taste you,” he admitted. “Will she taste like you, Barnabas, when you came in my mouth?”

  “He did?” Mel asked, looking at him with glazed eyes. “I want to see that.”

  “If he does it, I can’t fuck you,” Barnabas told her.

  “But Ambrose can, can’t he?” she asked. “Not that I’m sure that’s what I want yet.”

  Ambrose groaned. “The two of you are killing me.”

  “Will you take him in your mouth for me?” Mel asked him. “Show me how it feels and what it tastes like.”

  Barnabas pulled the shawl slowly from around his waist, revealing his rampant erection. Immediately Ambrose’s mouth began to water. “After I do, can I still taste you, too, Mel?” he asked, staring at Barnabas’s cock.

  “Yes. I think. Yes,” she said. “Show me first.”

  “Come to me,” Ambrose demanded. Barnabas raised his brow. “If you want me to suck you, then come to me.”

  “Please, Barnabas,” Mel pleaded.

  “Mel, you must know I am shocked at my own behavior,” Ambrose said breathlessly as Barnabas rose and walked over to him. “I cannot believe I am doing this in front of you.”

  “I can’t either,” she agreed with that breathless laugh. “But I’m oh so grateful.”

  “As am I,” Barnabas said. He stopped in front of Ambrose. “Here I am.”

  “Yes, here you are,” Ambrose said.

  He rose to his knees and slid his hands down Barnabas’s sides to rest on his hips. He was thrilled at the shiver that he felt on Barnabas’s skin, even though the man showed no outward signs of it. Ambrose was learning more about him each day. The sheer volume of things he hid from the rest of the world was maddening.

  “Show us,” he said, looking up at Barnabas. “Let us see how much you like this.” He held Barnabas’s gaze as he leaned forward and wrapped is mouth around his cock. Barnabas’s hand flew to his shoulder and he squeezed it tightly as his jaw clenched.

  “I will take my pleasure as I see fit,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Mel rose to her knees and scooted over right next to Ambrose, mere inches from Barnabas’s cock in his mouth. Ambrose could feel her breath on his cheek. She didn’t say a word, just watched as Ambrose moved his mouth up and down. He took the base of Barnabas’s cock in his fist and pumped slowly in time with his mouth, and Barnabas threw his head back silently.

  Ambrose watched Mel tentatively put her hand on Barnabas’s thigh. Barnabas looked down and watched as she slid her hand along his skin to his hip and back down. She did it again, but veered to the back, sliding her hand down over his derriere, and Barnabas finally gasped. He reached out and grabbed Ambrose’s hair in a tight grip.

  “I can’t last,” he bit out. “Not if you both touch me.”

  “Good,” Mel said, not moving her gaze from his cock. “I want to see him take it. I could never take it.”

  Ambrose sucked deeply on Barnabas, trying to hasten his climax for Mel. Barnabas seemed to agree, fucking his cock in, pulling his hair. Ambrose closed his eyes, concentrating on the taste of him, the feel of his thick, hard cock, the lasciviousness of the act, the three of them together like this. He hadn’t known what it would be like, how much he would like it. How it would change him and the way he viewed the world. This was the gray area where so many lived, not the black and white world he’d been brought up in. It was glorious and sensuous and he felt brutally alive.

  Suddenly Barnabas gave a hoarse shout and his cock pulsed on Ambrose’s tongue right before he felt the hot wash of release fill his mouth. He swallowed it and begged for more with a deep pull on Barnabas’s cock that had the other man groaning.

  When Barnabas was done, he pulled out of Ambrose’s mouth with a curse. “You have unma
nned me,” he said breathlessly.

  “Kiss me,” Mel demanded, pulling Ambrose’s face to hers with a hand on his chin. “I want to taste him in your mouth. I want to see what had you so desperate for him.”

  Ambrose obliged her, diving into her mouth and tangling his tongue with hers even as he held on to Barnabas’s hips, holding him close to them. Mel grabbed the sides of his head and held on, keeping him on her mouth as she devoured him. Finally Ambrose had to break away, gasping for air.

  “I see it,” Mel said breathlessly. “It tastes so good in your mouth. So decadent. I never understood that it could be like that.” She turned sharply and took Barnabas’s still semi-hard cock into her mouth and he shouted, grabbing onto Ambrose’s shoulder again.

  “Careful,” he said tightly. “It’s damn sensitive after I’ve come like that.” He shuddered as Mel sucked on him, but he didn’t put his hands on her, didn’t pull her closer or push her away. He simply let her experiment. At last she let him slip from her mouth.

  “It’s different when they aren’t forcing it down your throat,” she said. “It’s actually rather fun and pleasant.”

  “Mel,” Ambrose said, choked up. “Whatever you want, darling, you can have from us. You know that.”

  “I know,” she said simply. She pulled her nightgown over her head, revealing her body. It was no longer thin and sickly, but young and healthy, strong, with slight curves to go with her small breasts. “I want you to taste me, too,” she told him, her eyes hot with desire. “I want you both to taste me now.”

  Chapter 22

  Mel lay down on the floor, determined not to balk at the two strong men on their knees above her. She knew that Ambrose and Barnabas would never do anything to hurt her or scare her. She trusted them when they said tonight was all about her pleasure and what she wanted. Perhaps it was foolish, but she desperately wanted to believe there were still some honorable men left in the world.

  Barnabas wasted no time in crawling between her legs. She let him arrange them as he saw fit, completely giving herself over to his experience and knowledge. She’d had men do this, men she hated, but she only had vague memories of it. She’d fought too hard to allow it before the opium. Everything after the opium was lost in a haze. She was grateful for it. Perhaps one day she’d thank Mrs. Tilley for it, whatever her motivation had been.