Their Wicked Ways

by Julia Keaton

  “It’ll be a while before she sees England again. I was half tempted to go up for a last look myself,” Darcy said.

  Turning, Bronte saw that Darcy, in a similar state of dishabille, was propped against the bulkhead, his long legs stretched out before him on the wide bed that took up much of the room.

  “Darcy?”

  He grinned, sliding off the bunk and starting toward her.

  “You didn’t really think we were going to let you slip through our fingers again, did you?” Nick drawled, dropping his feet to the floor and closing in on her from the other direction.

  “I don’t understand,” Bronte managed to get out as they stopped on either side of her.

  Nick placed a finger beneath her chin. Tipping her face up, he smiled down at her. “You are a very difficult woman, Bronte, but the only woman in this world for me. If you won’t choose, you’ll have to take us both.”

  Bronte’s eyes widened. She glanced from Nick to Darcy and back again. “But you said that I had to choose between you.”

  “I was hoping you would, darlin’, but you didn’t.”

  “So … you’re both--how did you get here before me?” she asked suddenly.

  Nick caught her arms and pulled her toward him. She looked up at him in surprise, and then over her shoulder as she felt a tug at the lacings of her dress. Darcy, in the process of unlacing her gown, winked at her.

  Bronte’s stomach curled into a heated knot of anticipation. Her mouth went dry.

  She looked at Nick again. He was smiling faintly. “I paid your servants. You’ll have to tell me what the coachman did to get you here precisely at the specified time. I only suggested that he use his imagination.”

  Bronte frowned, struggling with the comments. “You bribed my servants? How? When?”

  His brows drew together thoughtfully. “Let me see … two months ago?”

  He was looking at Darcy questioningly and Bronte glanced at Darcy. “Sounds about right. Maybe two and half. It was right after the Sheffield’s shindig.”

  “But … you’re not serious?”

  Nick’s dark brows rose. “Why would you think I am not perfectly serious?”

  “But … that was right after … that was …. I had scarcely even arrived in London then.”

  “But,” Nick said pensively, “you were thoughtful enough to tell Darcy your plans and you’d already reminded us of how quickly you could retreat if things seemed to be getting out hand.” He shrugged. “We thought it best to hedge our bets,” he added, frowning in concentration as he pulled her gown from her shoulders. “Up or down?”

  “What?”

  “The gown. You remove it over the head? Or push it down?”

  “Up,” Bronte responded instinctively.

  He caught hold of the skirt, separated it from the underskirt, and tugged it off over her head. It caught on her bonnet. He disentangled the dress from the bonnet and tossed it aside. “This is a bit more complicated than I’d anticipated. We shall have to practice. Remember, Darcy. Bonnet first.”

  A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Bronte bit her lip.

  Responsive amusement gleamed in his eyes. “We thought it best not to bring the maid, but don’t concern yourself. We’ll get the hang of it.”

  Bronte frowned, trying to pick up the thread of the conversation of before as Nick looked her over and found the ties of her underskirts, loosening the ties and allowing them to drop around her ankles. “How did you know what ship I’d be sailing on? I didn’t even know that myself until I had booked passage.”

  “It’s our ship,” Darcy said absently.

  Bronte glanced at him. He was frowning in concentration as he worked at the lacings of her corset. “Our?”

  “One of mine and Nick’s. We have four now.”

  Bronte was stunned. “Four? But, still, how could you know I would book passage on one of yours?”

  Nick stroked her cheek affectionately, his eyes gleaming with mirth. “We didn’t have to, sweetheart. I paid your coachman to bring you to this ship.”

  “Oh.” She looked down as Darcy tugged her corset down her hips, taking her pantaloons with it, and discovered that she was down to shoes, stockings and chemise.

  Nick caught the bottom of the chemise and tugged it up. She lifted her arms, allowing him to pull it over her head. She felt the heat of Darcy’s body as he moved closer, skating his hands down her back to her buttocks and a shiver of sensation went through her.

  Nick stepped closer, grasping a breast in each hand and kneading them. Leaning down, he plucked at first one nipple and then the other, until they were both standing rigidly erect. He covered the engorged peaks one at the time, sucking on them in an unhurried fashion that made her knees go weak, made her breath catch in her throat.

  Behind her, she felt Darcy’s faintly abrasive cheeks as he nuzzled his face over her buttocks, kneading them as Nick had her breasts, placing nibbling kisses over the tender surfaces.

  After a moment, they ceased to tease her, led her to the bed and urged her to sit. Kneeling, each of them took one foot and lifted it to remove the shoe. Bronte placed her hands behind her, propping herself on her arms, watching them as they massaged her feet briefly and their gazes, almost as one, moved along her legs to the apex of her thighs. Her belly clenched. After a long moment, Nick reached for a garter and removed it. Darcy slid his hand down her leg to her mound, carefully smoothing the damp tangle of curls back, parting her nether lips.

  She gasped as she felt his fingers slip in the moisture along her cleft, her eyes slid closed, but he removed his hand after only a moment. Pulling her leg wider, he removed the other garter and began rolling the stocking down as Nick removed her other stocking from her foot, massaged it briefly, and leaned down to suck her toes. Her belly clenched, jumped with delighted shock.

  After a moment, he lowered her leg and stood up, shrugging out of his shirt. When Darcy released her other leg and stood, she scooted back on the bed, watching them as they undressed, marveling at how absolutely magnificent their bodies were.

  When Nick had stepped out of his breeches, he climbed onto the bed beside her, skating a hand over her body from the thatch of curls that covered her mound to her breasts. Leaning down, he covered the tip of one breast with his mouth, massaging her other breast and teasing the nipple with his fingers.

  Bronte uttered a sound of pleasure as the heat of his mouth covered the achingly sensitive bud. She felt Darcy’s hands on her thighs. Pushing them apart, he worked a trail of love bites along the inside of one thigh, nuzzled his face against her mound and then parted her nether lips with one hand and dragged his tongue along her cleft to her clit. She lost her breath as his tongue moved over her it teasingly, building the moisture that seeped from her lips until she could feel it slip in a tickling trail down her cleft to her buttocks.

  Wrapping one arm around Nick, she reached blindly for Darcy, stroking his shoulder as he stroked her clit with his tongue, sucked it, sending keen jolts of pleasure through her to join the fiery waves of pleasure coursing through her at Nick’s attentive caresses. Within moments, she felt her body racing toward climax. She fought it, trying to hold on to the pleasurable sensations a little longer.

  She found she could not hold it at bay. The muscles along her passage began to quake and spasm, spreading a tide of hot ecstasy through her body and dragging cries of release from her. She went perfectly limp when the echoes began to die away, hardly even aware of Darcy as he moved up the bed to lie beside her.

  She tasted herself on his lips as he kissed her, felt her belly tighten in response, already warming, wanting more.

  He released her after a moment, moving down her body to her breasts and teasing them as Nick had. She roused herself when Nick leaned down to kiss her, realizing that she’d taken pleasure but not given it, kissing him back even as she reached down and began to caress Darcy with her hands.

  When Darcy moved away, she broke the kiss and turned to him. Coming up
on her hands and knees, she kissed his throat, dragging a trail of kisses downward, over his male breasts, down his belly, until she reached his cock. Grasping it, she studied it a moment and placed her mouth over the rounded tip, tasting him experimentally. He jerked, tensed, groaned as she sucked the head and, realizing that it gave him as much pleasure as it did her, she took him into her mouth.

  Nick’s hand skated down her back and over her buttocks. He tugged at her legs, urging her to part them and she shifted to accommodate him. Her belly tightened, spasmed with pleasure as his mouth covered her nether lips and he began to tease her, plunging his tongue into her passage in a curling, twisting rhythm that made her pulse pound madly.

  Renewed desire filled her like flash fire and, as it rapidly escalated, she caressed Darcy’s cock with more hunger, sucking on him harder, thrusting his cock in and out of her mouth more quickly until he began to move restlessly beneath her, clutching and releasing her head, as if he couldn’t decide whether to push her away or hold her tightly to him.

  The tease of Nick’s mouth and tongue brought her body rapidly to the crest once more. Still, her culmination caught her unaware. She gasped, groaned around Darcy’s cock even as she thrust her hips back toward Nick, arching her back in entreaty.

  Before the last echoes had died, Nick positioned himself behind her, caught her hips and thrust inside, burying himself deeply in her wetness. She hesitated in her ministrations. Catching the rhythm he set as he pumped into her, she began to move Darcy’s cock in and out of her mouth in the same rhythm.

  Darcy tensed suddenly, letting out a harsh gasp, gripping her head and trying to push her away. Bronte was beyond anything by that point, however, but focusing upon her own gathering passions as her body instantly began to climb toward culmination again.

  Mindless with her own impending release, she held him tightly in her mouth, resisting his efforts to push her away, sucking him harder, undulating her tongue against him faster and faster. Abruptly, his cock jerked in her mouth and his hot seed shot down her throat. It surprised her, but before she could decide whether to release him or not, her body seized in a hard climax.

  She groaned, sucking him harder until his cock ceased to spasm. Nick uttered a harsh growl, caught her hips as she released her hold on Darcy at last and slammed into her in quick, hard thrusts as he found his own surcease.

  Weak in the aftermath, the three of them collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs on the bed, gasping for breath.

  “That was one of the most wonderfully decadent experiences I’ve ever had in my life,” Bronte murmured finally, skating a hand down the chests on either side of her and toying with the nest of hair that surrounded their cocks.

  Nick rolled on his side, facing her. “I think, if we put our minds to it, we can probably come up with something equal, or surpassing it in wickedness. What do you think, Darcy?”

  “Don’t ask me to think right now,” Darcy said with an effort.

  Bronte chuckled and rolled over to look at him. “I did it right?” she asked tentatively.

  He cracked an eye and looked up at her. “Darlin’, I thought you were going to kill me.”

  “Oh. I didn’t do it right?”

  He lifted an arm with an effort and dragged her down for a kiss. “I’ve never felt anything more ‘right’ in my life.”

  Relieved, she lay down once more, wrapping an arm around him. Nick settled behind her, draping an arm and leg over her.

  Sighing contentedly, Bronte drifted to sleep.

  She woke when she felt them move away from her and sat up, watching them dress.

  Noticing her at last, Nick shoved his foot into his boot and strode toward her, leaning down to kiss her lightly on the lips. “Stay put. We’re going topside for a bit. I’ll have the cabin boy bring you a bath before dinner.”

  Subsiding, Bronte pulled the covers over herself and lay back, watching them contentedly until they departed.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  The cabin boy appeared just as Bronte was drifting to sleep once more, dragging a tub into the room. Groggily, she sat up, clutching the sheets to her. “Pardon me, Lady--” He stopped, obviously confused as well as disconcerted to find her lying in the bed. “Are you Mrs. Cain? Or Mrs. St. James?”

  “I’m Lady--” Bronte broke off, biting her lip. In truth, she wasn’t a ‘lady’ at all, not that she felt particularly mournful over it. She wasn’t even entitled to the title since she was no longer an English citizen. “You can call me Bronte.”

  He bobbed his head and left again. When he’d finished filling the tub, he bowed. “Will there be anything else, Lady Bronte?”

  She shook her head.

  “Cook said to tell you dinner would be ready in twenty minutes and he wasn’t taking responsibility for ruined food if you weren’t ready to eat.”

  Bronte chuckled. “I’ll be quick.”

  She was still in the tub when Nick and Darcy returned a few minutes later, tapped at the door and then entered. She jumped but relaxed when she saw it was them, settling back and watching as they brought in a table and chairs. When they’d ceased fanning the door and sprawled in the chairs to watch her, she climbed from the tub and took the linen toweling, ignoring them as she dried herself.

  She sent the two of them an irritated glance. “Are you going to help me dress for dinner?”

  Darcy grinned at her. “I was thinking you could wear that.”

  “The towel?”

  “No.”

  Bronte gaped at him in outrage. “Nothing?”

  Nick got to his feet and opened one of her trunks. Rummaging through it, he unearthed a robe and held it up. She looked at him doubtfully. “A robe?”

  A slow smile curled his lips. “There’s not much point in dressing when we’ll be taking it off again.”

  Heat curled in her belly. Shivering, Bronte slipped her arms into the robe, securing the belt at the waist. “You intend to keep me naked throughout the entire crossing?” she asked, torn between amusement and irritation.

  “We have a lot of lost time to make up for,” Darcy explained, mock serious.

  “And it will be a long, otherwise boring voyage,” Nick said pensively.

  Bronte uttered a disbelieving laugh. “And I’m supposed to be the entertainment?”

  Nick slipped his hands around her waist, pulling her close. “Mmm. We’ll entertain you, too.”

  * * * *

  When Bronte awoke, she discovered without a great deal of surprise that she was alone in the cabin. They had established a habit in the past week and a half since they’d been at sea of disappearing up on deck for much of the day and leaving her to her own devices.

  She didn’t particularly mind. They were attentive enough--more than attentive enough when they spent their evenings and nights with her. Between the two of them she’d been too sore even to consider leaving the cabin after the first few days. Truthfully, she’d been too exhausted to do much besides sleep.

  She’d grown accustomed, however, and even though she didn’t feel as if she required their constant attention, even though she was quite content to have time to herself, she wasn’t content to remain in the cabin.

  Rising, she dug through her trunks until she’d found something that looked simple enough that she could dress herself without assistance and moved to the washstand and bathed. The corset presented problems, but she tied it as snugly as she could and pulled the gown over her head. After struggling with the lacing down the back for a time, she ran her fingers over it, decided it was good enough and sat down on the bed to comb her hair and arrange it.

  There was no mirror in the room. She could do nothing more than check what she could see and feel, but she finally decided that she was dressed acceptably and left the cabin. The sun dazzled her as she reached the deck and she paused, shielding her eyes. When her vision had cleared, she saw Nick striding toward her. He stopped as he reached her, looked her over critically and grasped her arm, hauling her back down the stairs
and to the cabin without a word.

  Bronte was too surprised even to protest. She’d recovered, however, by the time Nick closed the door firmly behind them to glare at him. He grasped her jaw, giving her a quelling glance. “Unorthodox our relationship may be, my love, but make no mistake. You are mine and I will not have other men gaping at you. If you’d told me you wanted to go topside for a stroll, I would’ve helped you dress and escorted you.”

  Bronte was still gasping in surprise when he released his grasp on her cheeks, caught her shoulders and turned her away from him. Loosening her ties, he spread the gown and reworked the ties of her corset, binding it snugly. When he was satisfied, he adjusted her bodice and sleeves and tied her gown once more.