by Bella Grace
Behind her, a fire crackled in hearth at the far end of the large parlor bedroom and the crisp scent of his soap rose up from his skin. Olivia circled to his back again and leaned forward to scratch her fingernails lightly over his chest. Her dress dipped low, revealing modest cleavage and the delicate rise of her small breasts.
He turned his head so that his cheek lay on her bosom, skin to skin, and closed his eyes. “Your breasts torment me. I could barely walk the streets with you tonight knowing what lay beneath your coat.”
“You want to give me more of your kisses, don’t you?” She pushed her hands down to his abdomen, letting her fingers scratch the crisp cotton of his shirt and feel the masculine steel of his body beneath the fabric. She drew her hands up again slowly as he nodded and craned his neck to kiss the top of her breasts. She stood up quickly.
“What makes you think a naughty boy like you would be allowed such a treat?”
“I’ll be good.” His voice was full of breath and promise, but a wicked flame leapt in his eyes.
She leaned close again and lowered her voice seductively. “I will be better.”
He reached back and clasped her head in his hands. He drew her open mouth squarely to his lips. His tongue found hers in a long stroke of delicious friction, and she responded automatically. His kiss drained every ounce of tension from her muscles and lit a slow burning fire in her womb. She started around to the front of the chair, ready to fall into his lap and spend the rest of the night pleasing him again and again. But she caught herself and pushed up to her full height.
“You will have to be punished for that, Mr. Lambert.” She moved around in front of him and stood so close her legs were between his open knees. Her skirts swallowed the lower half of his legs. She reached between his thighs and grasped the tented fabric of his trousers in her hand. His thick penis throbbed against her palm, and her mouth watered, remembering the feel of its silky skin beneath her tongue. She squeezed once, wrenching a heavy breath from his lungs. “You want my kisses, too, don’t you?”
He nodded and reached for her.
She caught his broad forearms and pushed them down onto his thighs. Reaching back, she slipped the large, decorative button at the top of her dress loose and eased the fabric low on her shoulders. “I have a surprise for you,” she whispered. She slid her fingertips beneath the low scooped neckline of her dress and lowered the fabric slowly. Beneath the navy silk, she wore a low corset and no chemise, something that had given her tremors of anticipation when she dressed for the evening.
“It seems I’ve been a bit naughty today, too, and I fear I will only become naughtier.” She edged the corset down enough to give him a peek at her nipples.
His eyes widened, and he reached for her again, but she caught his hands and pushed them back to his thighs.
“Watch closely, my love.” She gave the bottom of her corset a firm jerk and let her breasts sit atop the boning, displayed in full view for Aaron’s hungry eyes.
He sucked in a staggered breath and licked his lips. “You are the most seductive woman I’ve ever met.”
Only days ago, such flattery would have sounded like a lie to her ears, but she had come to believe how much Aaron and Jack admired her and that she was sensual and not remotely plain in their eyes. She leaned forward, her palms holding his forearms firmly in place. “If you promise to be very, very good, you may have a taste.”
“Tell me what I must do to hold you in my arms, my sweet Olivia.” He slumped against the back of the chair as if he were completely and helplessly at her mercy.
Olivia’s heart pounded. She relished the control, but she knew she was quickly coming to the point where she would give him free rein. Soon she would back down and let him exert the strength and tension coiled within the muscles he was working hard to contain. She leaned close and dragged a rosy nipple across his bottom lip. Aaron waited until she reached the corner of his mouth and started back again before he broke free of her grip and grabbed her hips. He held her to him as he covered one breast with his palm and sucked the other into his mouth.
“Oh!” He had flipped the game so completely she could do nothing but succumb to him.
Just as she screamed, the door flew open. Jack froze in the threshold. A broad smile stretched slowly across his face. “My timing could not have been better.”
Aaron sucked deeply and teased her nipple with his teeth before drawing back and looking up at her. He spoke to Jack without turning around. “Our dear, sweet Olivia has been absolutely scandalous this evening, running about town half-naked beneath her dress. What do you think we should do about that?”
Olivia’s heart pounded, and her mouth went dry as Jack crossed the room toward them, tossing his overcoat and hat onto one of the wingback chairs near the door. “I know exactly what must be done. And she’s going to love every minute of it.”
* * * *
“Who will you give it to?” Jack’s knees sank into the mattress next to Olivia’s hip. Aaron waited for her answer on the other side of her.
Her blue eyes were nearly black with lust and flitted from him to Aaron like butterflies that didn’t know where to land. She’d worn her hair up like he’d asked, but several ringlets had come loose in their foreplay. Several ebony locks clung to the fair skin of her neck and her rosy cheeks. She lay as bare as the day she was born, her head propped on pillows, her chest still heaving from the orgasm she’d had on his tongue.
Jack had been fantasizing about this very scene all day. He’d planned to spend the evening in Seattle visiting with an old friend after he attended to business, but with Olivia on his mind, he’d caught the first ship crossing Bachelor Bay. He reached behind him and retrieved the silk sash he’d taken from her dress.
He flattened his hand on her soft belly. Her warm skin trembled beneath his touch, and her hips came up slightly off the bed. She needed more, and he was certain she wasn’t even sure what it was she ached for.
“Would you like to find out what it’s like to truly make love? Would you like to see what it is we haven’t shown you yet?”
Her teeth grazed her bottom lip, and she nodded before her eyes moved over to Aaron again. A thin line creased her brow, and Jack wanted to kiss it away, to ease her mind of whatever it was that troubled her.
Aaron stroked her arm and looked over at Jack. “We should let her choose now.”
Jack lifted Olivia’s hand. Her delicate fingers curled around his palm and the floral scent of her perfume sang in his nose. The trust in her eyes and the rosy blush that colored her fair skin undid something deep inside him. He swallowed the flood of emotion that welled in his chest. She was the woman he had searched for on both American coasts and abroad. She was intelligent, honest even when it may not have served her, fully trained in the social graces, and lovely in a way that took his breath away. She kept her sensual nature tucked away from prying eyes, but behind closed doors, she wasn’t afraid to give or receive pleasure. She was eager to learn the secrets of her body and theirs, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life making those discoveries with her.
“Who would you like to be the first to make love to you?” Jack squeezed her hand, hoping she would answer the way he wanted her to, but knowing she wouldn’t have an easy time answering at all.
Her perfect pink lips opened then closed again. For three long breaths there was only silence in the room, and then she began to rock her head slowly from side to side. Unshed tears pooled in her eyes, and a frown skewed her features.
“How could I ever choose? I want you both.” She looked from him to Aaron and then back again. “Equally. I don’t know how to separate one from the other.”
Jack drew in a breath of relief and drew the sash from behind his back. “That’s exactly what I had hoped you’d say. I have a solution.”
* * * *
“Everything is more sensual in the dark.” Olivia could almost taste the sexual tension between them on her tongue as she lay in the huge bed between Jack a
nd Aaron. Their skin felt smoother beneath her hands, their kisses wetter and hotter against her neck, her mouth, her breasts. The silk that covered her eyes heightened her hearing and her sense of smell. The low rumble of ragged breath and yearning drew her own breath out faster. The mattress shifted beneath her as the men moved. Hands covered her body, making every place they touched intimate. This was the fantasy she had dreamed for years. Hands and bodies moving together. She didn’t know who was touching her where or whose teeth nipped at her shoulder or whose cock was in her hand or between her lips. And she’d never enjoyed anything more in her life.
The hands held on tighter. The strokes against her skin became more urgent. Restrained strength tensed already hard, masculine muscles. Two cocks throbbed and strained beneath her touch. Breaths came faster and harder. A knee pushed her thighs apart. A rigid belly pressed against the softer skin of hers, and then the silkiest of heated skin slid over her clitoris and lower, spreading the folds of her most intimate place. The wide head hovered at the entrance to her pussy, pressing gently.
She held her breath. A broad hand caressed her breast. Lips moved against hers. A tongue dipped into her mouth at the same time the pressure between her legs turned into a sting, and then the most glorious of sensations as a cock slid deep into her. A strangled groan filled her ears and rang out across the room. She had no idea which one of them had entered her, but she could feel both of them close. Sensations like none she could have ever imagined radiated from within her body, and her hips moved. She wrapped her leg around a thick thigh, and the coarse hair rubbed against her skin. She fed on the tongue in her mouth. The cock inside of her slowly began to withdraw. Aching to be filled again, she locked her leg tight around the big thigh and lifted her hips higher. She dug her nails into two muscled arms.
The rhythm that followed left her breathless. Every movement took her higher on a plane of bliss than she’d ever gone before. She turned her head away from the kiss, gasping for breath. The physical sensations reached fevered proportions, and she felt as if she’d left her body. At one point, she saw the white-capped waves on the bay beyond the window beneath her as if she were soaring above the water.
“Don’t stop!” Something stronger than anything she’d ever felt had begun to build deep within her, and she was terrified of losing it. “Please, don’t stop.”
She was filled again and again with deep, long strokes that brought her closer and closer to the dark unknown lurking just beyond reach. And then with one stroke, the darkness was unleashed. It bubbled up, growing and expanding until it burst into a thousand blinding suns. The aftershocks rolled through her body in waves, leaving her spent and limp and unable to move even her tongue to soothe the dryness of her lips.
* * * *
“I think we should call the doctor.” Amelia removed her hand from Olivia’s forehead and stared over Olivia’s head at her reflection in the mirror on the small dressing table. She pressed the back of her hand to Olivia’s cheek. “You’re positively afire!”
“I’m fine.” Olivia pushed her sister’s hand away and continued to twist her hair into her usual bedtime braid. She couldn’t meet her own eyes in the mirror, and she avoided Amelia’s reflected stare.
Amelia propped one hand on her hip and leaned forward to whisper in Olivia’s ear. “Tell me all about it!”
Olivia dropped the hair in her hands and opened her mouth to lie but couldn’t find the words on her tongue. She held back the wide grin that threatened to spread across her face and pressed both hands to her heart. “It is simply the most amazing occurrence a person can experience.” She shook her head slowly and slumped against Amelia’s hip. “There aren’t words that could possibly do it justice.”
“So you’ve decided then? You’ll marry Mr. Lambert?” Amelia’s eyes sparkled. “I can’t imagine Mr. Bartlett’s ego will take that decision lightly.”
Olivia wrinkled her brow in confusion. A long moment passed before Amelia’s assumption made sense. Aaron had escorted her out for the evening. Amelia had no way of knowing Jack had been with them, and she couldn’t possibly have imagined what had occurred. She began to confirm Amelia’s assumption but again could not bring herself to lie.
Amelia covered her mouth with her hand and her eyes widened. “Liv, you wouldn’t…”
Heat crept up Olivia’s face. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I will choose between them.”
“How perfectly scandalous!” Amelia tugged Olivia’s hand and led her over to sit on the bench at the end of the bed. She sat down herself, but clung to Olivia with a bruising grip as she dug into her skirt pocket.
Olivia braced herself for Amelia’s onslaught of inappropriate questions.
Instead, Amelia sighed and focused her gaze on the far wall. “I had so hoped for some good news tonight. Today has been absolutely dreadful.” She pressed a thick, folded paper into Olivia’s palm. “Hattie gave this to me. She found it on the floor in the inn after Uncle Robert and Miles Petty met with Constance in the parlor.”
Olivia unfolded the paper, but before she began to read the neatly penned script, her eyes hovered on the signature of Jules D. Murdock at the bottom. The name seemed familiar, but she couldn’t recall why.
Olivia quickly read the agreement between Robert Prescott and Jules D. Murdock.
Upon the marriage of Amelia Prescott to Jules D. Murdock and the receipt of the deed to the Prescott residence at 354 Hilltop Lane, Boston, Massachusetts, all debts owed to Jules D. Murdock by Robert Prescott will be considered paid in full.
“Where have I heard of Jules D. Murdock?” Olivia searched her memory again. “Have you shown this to Lizzie?”
Amelia shook her head. “I fear she might use that fire poker.”
“He wants to exchange you and our house in Boston for repayment of his debts. The audacity! And why on earth would he call on Constance with Miles Petty?”
Chapter 7
Olivia’s Journal, January 5, 1865
Port Steele, Washington Territory
Last night, sleep was not to be. After hours of weighing our options, Amelia and I have decided we will not share our discovery of Uncle Robert’s scheme with Lizzie. I will discuss the legality of such an arrangement with Aaron and Jack. Our uncle cannot force Amelia to return to Boston, nor will he ever coerce Lizzie into handing him the deed to any of our properties. Despite the severity of our family situation, I cannot prevent my mind from drifting into realms of elation when I remember the feel of silk covering my eyes and…
* * * *
Olivia crossed her ankles and stretched like a cat in the chair by the warm hearth. Amelia had not yet emerged from her room, and Lizzie had gone out early with Logan and Gage. Olivia had nothing but time on her hands until Jack arrived to escort her to the library. Only the crackle of the fire and the soft patter of rain on the roof accompanied her thoughts. She couldn’t concentrate on the book in her lap. She could barely recall the title, for the story she imagined in her own mind was much more compelling than any she’d ever read. She spun chapter after chapter of travel and conversation and lovemaking, and the characters were as intimately familiar as three people could be. Her lips tingled from imagined kisses. Her heart was full with more love than she’d ever known, and even the dreary Washington Territory sky seemed brighter, rain and all.
The stomp of boots on the porch interrupted her reverie. She glanced at the clock above the mantel. Jack was nearly two hours early, but not a moment too soon! She hurried to the door and flung it open, realizing her mistake only after she stared directly into her uncle’s eyes. His thick, unruly eyebrows rose in pleasant surprise, and his flat lips spread into a self-satisfied smirk.
“Where’s your gatekeeper?” Robert Prescott pushed through the door like he owned the place.
Olivia looked back to the poker leaning next to the hearth and opened her mouth to speak.
“Don’t bother with your lies.” He moved closer. “I know she isn’t here. I came to speak to you
. Perhaps you will understand the gravity of the situation a little better than Elizabeth seems to.”
Olivia struggled with how much she should reveal about what they had learned. If he felt cornered, he may act with the desperation of a man who had nothing to lose. If she feigned ignorance, perhaps he would threaten her the way he had threatened Lizzie, and she would have time to figure out how to best be rid of him for good. She turned her head toward the rustle of skirts and gasped. Amelia stood in the hallway, the small revolver clasped between her two trembling hands.
“Go back to Boston, and leave us alone.” Amelia’s voice was full of steel, and her eyes flashed fire.
A strong, beefy hand wrapped around Olivia’s arm and Robert Prescott snatched her toward him. She stumbled to keep her balance and nearly gagged on the scent of stale whiskey and sweat that poisoned the air surrounding him. She struggled to free herself of his grasp, but the cold, hard rod of a gun pressed into her neck, and she froze.
The tremor in Amelia’s hands took over her arms, and tears sprang to her eyes as she stared down the uncle who had torn their family apart. Olivia silently willed Amelia to hold her tongue.
“Put down the gun, Amelia, or your passage back to Boston will be spent in mourning for your dear sister.”
Amelia kept her gun trained on him. Her arms shook so violently if she hit him, it would be purely by dumb luck.
“Do as he says. He just wants to speak with me for a moment.”