“I’m sure… he’s fine…” I gasped.
Right there… please… keep going…
Cynthia lifted the edge of the tablecloth. Morrie pulled away, scrambling out from under the table with his fork in his hand. My whole body shuddered with need. Damn you, I was right there…
My fingers itched to slide between my legs and finish the job. All it would take was a single touch and I’d be over the edge. I squeezed my legs together, but that only made me more desperate.
“Your hair is all rumpled,” Lydia scolded Morrie. “Really now, you should let the servants run after stray forks.”
I wanted to correct her on the use of servants, but my body buzzed too much. I knew if I opened my mouth, I might scream with frustration. Across the table, Morrie grinned at me and raised his glass.
You wanker. You did this on purpose.
I scoffed my dinner as fast as I could, drowned three glasses of wine in quick succession, and waited with my nails digging into my palms for an appropriate time to leave the table. On either side of me, neither Heathcliff nor Morrie seemed fazed by the fact dinner was dragging on for seven centuries. By the time Cynthia stood up to give a rundown of the events for the following day. I was close to swooning.
“I’m feeling a little faint,” I managed to choke out, as the wait staff emerged with platters of cakes and slowly moved around the room. “I think it was all that vigorous dancing today. Thank you for your company tonight, everyone, but I think I’ll go up to my room and lie down.”
“Please, Mina, you should stay,” Cynthia cooed. “After dessert, some of the graduate students will be giving an amateur production of a story from the Juvenilia.”
Lydia frowned. “What’s the Juvenilia?”
“It’s a collection of stories, scenes, and novel fragments Jane Austen wrote between the ages of eleven and seventeen,” explained David. “They’re a unique glimpse into Jane’s literary origins and her unpredictable, snarky humor. When they lived at the Rectory, Jane and her family loved to perform plays and poems for the delight of their neighbors. Our resident expert, Professor Hathaway, is certain that similar dramatics would have been performed by the family and guests while Jane stayed at Baddesley Hall—”
“There’s no record of that,” Professor Carmichael cut in from the table behind us.
David continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “—therefore, it’s only fitting that we Janeites continue the tradition.”
“Sounds delightful.” Lydia accepted a second plate of dessert. “I shall most definitely attend. Goodnight, Mina. I hope you a feeling more up to dancing tomorrow, for you have a lot of practice to attend to.”
“Thanks, Lydia.” I waved goodbye to everyone at the table, and practically sprinted across the room.
As I climbed the staircase, Heathcliff and Morrie appeared at my sides. “Are you certain you don’t want to watch the amateur dramatics, gorgeous?”
“Not even remotely,” I replied, linking my arms in theirs. “How have you disentangled yourself from Lydia?”
“David is escorting her. I figure she can’t say anything too outrageous to that drip, although I heard a rumor that one of her other suitors intends to steal her away.”
We passed Gerald coming down the stairs, deep in discussion with Fishnet Girl. She glanced up as we went past, her eyes trailing after Heathcliff. Her tongue reached out to lick her scarlet lips. I almost expected it to be forked.
We ascended the grand staircase as quickly as was possible in my dress. Morrie flung open the door to their room and shoved me inside. Quoth already lounged on the bed, flipping through the TV channels, a bowl of blueberries beside him.
“Don’t you have an amateur dramatic performance to attend?” Quoth arched a perfect eyebrow.
I threw myself down on the bed, turned Quoth’s face toward mine, and devoured his lips. His tongue tasted tart, like the berries. My body ached with the need to be touched by him.
The bed creaked as the other two guys climbed on. Heathcliff’s strong arms stole around my middle, unlacing the delicate gown with deft strokes. Morrie pressed his chest to my back, his hands falling over my shoulders and under the neckline to cup my bare breasts.
“When you didn’t speak of this again, I thought…” Quoth’s words died away under my kisses.
“Don’t think,” I whispered back, kicking off my Docs and allowing Heathcliff to tug off my skeleton socks. “I’m not.”
I closed my eyes, surrendering myself to Quoth’s lips and to the urgent kisses and caresses of Heathcliff and Morrie. My mind whirred with questions. Should we do this? Was this what I really wanted? Would this bring us closer together? Would it break down Morrie’s walls and burst Heathcliff wide open and make Quoth see how beautiful he really was? Or would it be the end of the special thing we have?
Would it give me the strength to face all the things I was running from? Or was losing myself in them just another way of running?
No. Don’t think. I focused on my breath heaving in my chest, on Morrie’s teeth scraping against my collarbone, on Heathcliff sliding the dress over my head, his lips closing around a nipple, rolling it and sucking it until I moaned and all thoughts and doubts fled my mind.
“How do you feel, gorgeous?” Morrie’s breath caressed my earlobe.
“I feel fucking amazing now that I’m out of the dress,” I whispered back, my words fading into a moan as Quoth’s lips took my other nipple.
“You’re not the only one desperate to get out of these ridiculous clothes,” Heathcliff muttered. After some considerable fumbling and cursing, both Heathcliff and Morrie tossed their topcoats and breeches on the floor, and Quoth rid himself of his silk boxers. I lay back on the pillow. Heathcliff leaned over me, his mouth claiming mine in one of his breathless, passionate kisses. Morrie’s hands snaked up my bare legs, kissing a trail of fire along the inside of my thighs.
“Let’s give those Jane Austen erotica writers downstairs some inspiration,” he murmured as he plunged his face between my legs.
Stoked by what he had done to me at the dinner table, my clit hummed and throbbed beneath Morrie’s lips. Each slight touch from him sent a new shudder of delight through me. I moaned against Heathcliff’s relentless lips as Morrie drove me close to the edge.
Quoth sat back, his legs crossed, his eyes locked with mine. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, the words catching in his throat.
I reached out to Quoth and took his hand in mine, placing it on my breast, above my heart. Morrie plunged his tongue inside me, teasing the ache that begged for more, before he battered against my desperate, throbbing clit. I squeezed Quoth’s fingers as an orgasm shuddered through me.
My back arched. My core exploded with warm shivers that spread down my limbs to touch my fingers and toes. The world blurred and blackened, and a streak of bright blue neon color arced across my vision. My own personal fireworks display, courtesy of my men.
As quickly as the blue light appeared, it flicked off, and I could see again. Morrie sat back, flashing me with his wicked grin. Heathcliff continued to kiss me, as though no one else was in the room. Quoth just watched, his eyes ablaze with things he desperately wanted to say and do.
I wish… I wish he could feel as free around Morrie and Heathcliff as he does when it’s just the two of us… maybe there’s some way I can draw the real Quoth to the surface…
When I’d recovered enough to move again, I flopped forward and wrapped my arms around Quoth’s shoulders, pulling him down with me. I leaned him against the pillows, meeting his lips with mine, tangling my hands in his luxurious hair as we fed on each other.
When Quoth kissed me, a well of emotion bubbled up in my stomach, rising through my chest to flow through my mouth, along my tongue. I fed him all the dark thoughts that hid inside me, and he gave me his. I tasted him – not his physical self but his soul. All the emotion he usually poured into his artwork flowed into me – dark and broken and terrifying. But I wasn’t afraid
of him. How could I be, when he cared so much and so deeply?
This was Quoth, my caged bird, slowly, slowly learning to be free.
I knelt back on my knees and wrapped my hands around his shaft. Quoth’s lips parted. His black lashes tangled together as he watched me through heavy-lidded eyes. I leaned forward and took Quoth into my mouth, tasting the sweetness of him, running my tongue around the tip of his cock. He sighed, the sound so full of bliss it cracked my heart.
I kept my eyes locked on his, demanding he watch me, knowing that he knew I watched him take his pleasure in me. I wanted Quoth to know that I would find a way to make him as happy as he made me. That he was worth caring about.
Rocking back and forth on my feet, I took more of Quoth inside me, relishing the stretch of my lips around him, the way his cock strained and jerked against my tongue. He tasted amazing, like wind and butter, like the softness of falling into a pile of autumn leaves.
“Mina,” Quoth’s voice shuddered. His hands clawed at the sheets. I moved with the same sedate pace Morrie adopted, drawing Quoth deep into my throat before releasing him in a long, slow stroke. Each time his cock slid inside my mouth, I imagined myself drawing all his darkness inside me, leaving him only with the bright, shining light of his heart.
Warm hands stroked my bare legs. Heathcliff. I recognized his unrestrained touch, the way he clung to me as though I was the only thing holding him upright. A condom wrapper tore, and then Heathcliff wrapped an arm around my chest, and his cock rubbed between my legs, seeking the entrance.
“Yes,” Morrie said, from somewhere to the right. “This is hot.”
“Wait your turn,” Heathcliff growled, his deep voice reverberating through my whole body. As I took Quoth in, I shifted my legs further apart to give Heathcliff better access. My whole body ached with need of him, of them.
Heathcliff held my torso rigid and entered me in a single deep stroke. I gasped against Quoth’s cock as my body accepted him.
I had two of them inside me.
Wow.
This is glorious.
With an animalistic growl, Heathcliff moved, drawing himself out and plunging deep again, tearing my body and heart open in all the best ways. His darkness twisted through mine, finding a melancholy partner in Quoth and in me. I was cracking them open, exposing the hidden things they didn’t want anyone else to see. But I saw them, because they reflected my own fears and my own strength back on me.
Quoth’s hand on my shoulder steadied me, and the orange fire in his eyes burned through every regret I’d ever had, turning them all to ashes. Heathcliff’s body on mine was hot, slick, drenched with sweat and pain and instinct. Unlike Morrie, he relished his lack of control, giving himself over completely to the animal side of him, to the dark aspects that made some call him a brute, a cruel and twisted thing.
But not me. I called him only Heathcliff.
I called him myself.
“I don’t mean to break up the party,” Morrie pouted. “But I’d like to point out that one of us is feeling a little left out.”
“She’s got one mouth and one cunt, and we’re currently occupying both of them,” Heathcliff growled. “Unless you have another suggestion, wait your turn.”
“Oh Heathcliff, Heathcliff. How sheltered you are.” Morrie held up a tube of lube. It took me a moment to realize what he wanted to use it for.
My lips slid off Quoth’s cock as a ripple of unease slid through me. “Do you carry that around everywhere with you, just in case an opportunity presents itself?” I asked.
“Of course.” Morrie twirled the bottle around, his eyes dancing. “What do you say, gorgeous?”
You’re not getting anywhere near my arse, James Moriarty, until you give me the piece of yourself that you’ve been holding back.
But I wasn’t going to give him that answer now. Morrie deserved to sweat a little longer. I bent my head back to Quoth, taking him in deep and slow. Quoth’s eyes widened, and his fingers clamped on my shoulder. “Mina, I think…”
I gripped him tighter, pumping with my hand while I swirled my tongue around the tip of his cock. His body stiffened, muscles clenching as he came, hard, in my mouth. I swallowed down the taste of him, taking everything he would give me as if it were a gift I’d been hoping and praying for. In many ways, it was. Quoth was a gift, one I hoped to unwrap every single day.
“Now that you’re done with the bird, focus on me.” Morrie shoved a slumped Quoth aside and waved the bottle in my face. His easy smile tightened with desire. “What do you say? Yes?”
I shook my head. “Not this time.”
Morrie lifted an eyebrow. “But perhaps next time?”
I laughed as I kissed him. Your cock isn’t the only thing I want. I demand nothing less than your whole heart, James Moriarty. And I’ll get it, one day.
Morrie wrapped his arms around me. He sighed. “Fine. But if I’m not inside you by the end of the night, I’m going to be very upset.”
In response, I rocked my hips against Heathcliff. “We can’t have that.”
“So… what are we going to do about it?”
“Do you ever shut up?” I rose up on my knees and grabbed his shoulder, yanking him against me and stoppering his protests between my lips. Morrie clung to me, his body pressed against mine even as Heathcliff drove deeper.
Pressed between their bodies, their hands and flesh all over me, a fire blazed inside me. Stoked by their raw, primal need, I became Sekhmet, protector of the sun, warrior goddess of fire, healer of wounds, because this fire… it was healing fire. Over my shoulder, Heathcliff and Morrie locked eyes, and the look that passed between them was something otherworldly. It seemed that the fire touched them, too.
Heathcliff’s nails dug into me as his body tensed. He buried his face in my shoulder, teeth dragging against my skin. A shudder rolled through his body. Inside me, his cock quivered, driving deep as he released, the power of his final thrusts jerking me against Morrie, as though he drove his cock through both of us.
Heathcliff held me for a moment, leaning down to claim me with another breathtaking kiss. That moment and that kiss tell me everything I ever needed to know about him. He slid off me and flopped against the bed.
“My turn.” Morrie grabbed my hip and spun me around so that he too came at me from behind. I yelped as he plunged inside me with a deep thrust. Gone was his control, his casual indifference. Morrie unleashed the chaos inside him that he’d held back for so long. Nails dragged down my back. Teeth snagged my neck. He bucked against me like a man possessed, like he was fucking a demon from his own body.
I arched my back and rocked against every thrust, relinquishing myself to his abandon. If this was Morrie’s chaos, if this was what he was trying to protect me from, then he could forget it. I wanted this. I needed it, needed him. Whatever was going on in Morrie’s head right now, something had broken him. The floodgates had opened. About bloody time.
A hand snaked around my neck, the finger pressing against my lips. “Bite me, gorgeous,” Morrie murmured, quiet and far away, lost in his own inner turmoil. I sank my teeth into his skin as he plunged his hand between my legs, flicking my clit with the end of his finger. As he drove me to the edge with finger and cock and the orgasm swept over me, I bit down hard on his finger, tasting the tang of his blood on my tongue. Morrie’s body stiffened, and he finally released.
Does he need the pain that much?
As he slumped against the bed, I turned my face toward Morrie, meeting his eyes. “Mina,” he whispered. His face glazed over with a strange, faraway look, tinged with the kind of sadness Quoth usually carried with him.
I kissed him, long and slow, trying to draw out an answer. Something in Morrie felt different. Quieter, more vulnerable.
Wow.
Morrie drew away, his eyes widening.
“Morrie, what—”
He yanked his head back, turning away from me and sliding off the bed. I reached for him, but he jerked his arm away.
<
br /> No, Morrie, don’t do this. Don’t pull back when you were so close.
“Where’s the fire?” Heathcliff grunted. Morrie didn’t reply. He thrust his long legs into his breeches and hobbled toward the door.
I sat up, concern bubbling in my chest. “What’s wrong?”
“I just… I have to go.” Morrie threw a shirt over his shoulders and stumbled into the hall. The door slammed behind him.
Chapter Fourteen
“Morrie, wait!” I threw myself off the bed, scrambling around on the floor for my clothes. I grabbed my dress, then realized it would take far too long to fasten with any degree of propriety. My rucksack was in the other room, and we’d locked the door between the two in case Lydia decided she had to join us. I couldn’t risk opening it if she was on the other side, having her discover what was going on.
I swiped Heathcliff’s flouncy shirt off the floor and flung it over my head. He was so broad and tall that it came down nearly to my knees. It wasn’t exactly Regency appropriate, but it was at least somewhat decent.
“Mina, what are you doing?”
“I’m going after him.” I pulled on Heathcliff’s enormous topcoat and shoved my feet into my Docs.
“Why?” Heathcliff demanded. “He’s just being Morrie. He can’t handle it if he doesn’t get to be in charge.”
“I don’t think that’s it this time.” I yanked the door open and jogged into the hall. It was empty. At the top of the staircase, I paused, looking down over the edge. Couples milled around in the entranceway below, holding wine glasses and making chit chat. Piano music floated in from Uppercross. If Morrie was upset, he wouldn’t have gone downstairs. Where, then?
I remembered the covered balcony where we’d watched the fencing. At this time of night, it would be completely deserted. I raced across the upper landing, ducking down one hallway and then another until I found my way back to the small study that led to the balcony.
I didn’t want to turn any lights on and risk scaring Morrie off. I shuffled my way through the dark study, wincing as I smashed my hip against a large oak desk. Moonlight shone in from the windows outside, and a headache bloomed in my temples as my eyes focused on the squares of pale light, obliterating everything else within my narrowed field of vision.
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