Indiscretions (6 page)

This was going to be far worse than he’d thought. It always was when it started with a kiss.

Vaughan pushed his way between Lucerne and the desk, and tugged Lucerne’s coat off his shoulders and down around the top of his arms so that it restricted his movement. “I don’t take kindly be being walked out on. Where were you? Where did you go?”

“I expect you know already. I dare say you could even describe what I was doing and with whom.”

Word travelled fast among the ton.

“Perhaps,” Vaughan agreed. “It’s possible that I’ve heard a whisper or two, but I want to hear it from your lips.”

To anyone else, Vaughan’s words would have sounded even. Lucerne knew him better than that. The slight tick in his jaw and the cold glitter in his violet eyes gave him away. He was genuinely hurt beneath this show of restrained anger.

It’s your own fault
, Lucerne wanted to say, even as another part of him shrank at the thought of causing his lover pain. Why did it always have to be so difficult to get across the truth of things to one another? Why couldn’t they admit that it wasn’t sharing their love with Bella that made this difficult, but the inability of the three of them to properly communicate?

Vaughan couldn’t relinquish control. He refused to see her as an equal or admit that he loved her every bit as much as he loved Lucerne.

Bella was Vaughan’s opposite in more ways than she’d ever care to admit.

And him—he was stuck in the middle playing mediator, when all he really wanted to do was love them both without being accused of favouritism.

Vaughan’s fingers closed tight around his nipple and squeezed, causing Lucerne’s breath to hitch. “I want to hear it all, Lucerne. Every breath, every caress of your little infidelity, and you’d best amuse me, or I think I might be very cruel.” He leaned close so that his words brushed Lucerne’s skin raising the tiny hairs. “You know how cruel I can be, now, don’t you?” A sharp fingernail scored down the side of Lucerne’s neck. He jerked upwards in pain, but Vaughan’s weight across his lap kept him pinned within the seat.

“Now,” Vaughan whispered as he forced their mouths together again. “Tell me all.”

Lucerne breathed hard through his nose. “Very well. If you so desire.”

“I do desire, but you may omit the names. Those I don’t require.” Vaughan’s lips stretched into a thin seductive smile that brought a thread of humour to his face. “Skip the foreplay too. I can live without the tedious social banter.”

“We kissed,” Lucerne began, only for Vaughan to shake his head. He paused then started over. “She got down on her knees and sucked me.”

The admission prompted a nod, or rather a closing and then an opening of Vaughan’s eyes. “How were you? Standing, sitting, lying upon a bed?”

“Sitting.”

“As we are now, then? On a chair with your legs spread?”

“Close enough.” The words seemed to take on extra weight as they left his lungs. Lucerne watched with butterflies playing merry hell in his stomach as Vaughan slid backwards off his lap and onto his knees upon the floor. Warm palms encompassed his thighs, pushing them apart. His cock responded immediately, rising to attention as Vaughan’s dark head bowed to meet it.

“Do continue.”

Lucerne gripped the edge of the desk as Vaughan released the frontfall of his breeches and pushed aside the layers of linen beneath. He scissored his fingers apart and ran them either side of Lucerne’s shaft all the way to the tip, where his lips met the glans for the briefest, sweetest of moments. “I’m waiting, Lucerne.”

He didn’t want to continue the tale. Hell, he wasn’t exactly proud of what he’d done. Yet in so many ways it had been borne of necessity. He’d needed the release, the escape into a fantasy land where nothing else mattered besides his own content. However, slowly, slowly, as his desperation for Vaughan’s touch increased he began again, tripping over the first few words until his heart rate steadied.

“She sucked me, using her tongue on the underside and on the eye, until I was…” His breaths shortened into faltering gasps as Vaughan’s mouth encompassed the head of his cock and the tip of his tongue teased mercilessly at the sensitive eye. Vaughan’s mouth was soft and warm, the trace of his tongue like a taste of heaven. The women whose bed he’d briefly shared hadn’t been half so skilful. Truthfully, while he sat prone like this he questioned his own need to seek out anybody else. Vaughan knew just how to make this perfect. He moved with the roll of Lucerne’s hips, knew to use his hands to stroke the underside of Lucerne’s cobs as he sucked. He understood when to move fast and when to move slow.

Lucerne’s head fell back against the chair. “I couldn’t come like that,” he was forced to admit. “I might have, but her jaw ached.” She didn’t have jaws of steel like Vaughan, nor Bella’s forthright determination.

“And no doubt she wanted her own pleasure addressing.” Vaughan raised his head to briefly look up at Lucerne, although he kept his hand curled possessively around Lucerne’s cock.

Lucerne couldn’t hold his gaze. It wasn’t the truth that made his cheeks burn with shame, but rather the recognition of the futility of his actions. He hadn’t escaped, not truly. Nor had he gained nearly the same pleasure he would have if he’d come home.

“Continue.”

“Why?”

“Because I desire you to.”

Even though doing so seemed like overkill. They both knew what had followed. Leastways he knew, and Vaughan could fathom it out without hearing every word.

Lucerne closed his eyes. She’d been a waif-like little thing beneath the simple gown. Hot, wet and easy. Vocal too in expressing her joy as he’d slid inside her. What’s more, it had been easy. There’d been no stress involved in being with her. He’d lain against her bosom and listened to her mewls of content and known peace for once.

“Lucerne,” Vaughan growled into the golden hairs that grew in a thin line down from Lucerne’s navel.

“I took her in the quaint. Is that not obvious enough?”

Vaughan rose onto his haunches. His thumb continued to work back and forth over the sensitive eye of Lucerne’s cock. “Well I didn’t suppose you’d bought her tea and an ice.” The sweet caress ceased. Vaughan wriggled a hand under Lucerne’s bottom instead. “I think you know what comes next.” One finger traced the whorl of Lucerne’s anus. Immediately, the muscles in his stomach clenched He really ought to have anticipated that Vaughan would switch their roles so that he was taking the lead. The brief moment of his submission—if indeed it had been that—had long passed. Now they were back to normal with Vaughan dictating the terms. Though in truth, when had he ever stopped doing that?

Lucerne groaned as Vaughan’s wetted fingers teased his opening. One digit soon wormed its way inside, possessing him, even as it coaxed him to further surrender. His mouth fell open releasing a cry as the tight muscles of his rear passage relaxed. God, it did feel good. It always felt good, far too good, and all the more so for being deeply, incredibly wrong.

No matter how many times they did this, there remained a part of Lucerne that identified the act as a sin and as a crime. Every time he allowed Vaughan to fuck him, it was like signing his name on a death warrant. Stupidly, that added a thrill to the act, rather than inspiring a sensible response like dread.

Vaughan dragged him off the chair and onto the Persian rug. For the space of several thundering heartbeats their gazes locked. Lucerne lay on his back gazing up at Vaughan leaning over him.
Facing! Oh, Lord
, he realised, he’s going to do it while looking me in the eye. That meant no escape, no pretending that this was anything other than what it was—two men fucking one another.

He’d lost count of the nights they’d spent together now and of all the times Vaughan had claimed him, but he could count on his fingers the number of times they’d done it facing one another.

It wasn’t that he was ashamed of what they shared. Rather he was frightened by the intensity of the love he saw blazing in Vaughan’s eyes. Loving Vaughan, being loved by Vaughan was not for the faint-hearted. That ferocity scared him to death because he didn’t know if he had the capacity to return it.

“You’re so pretty when you blush.” Vaughan ran a finger over the scarlet heat in Lucerne’s cheeks. “Now, details, Lucerne. Let’s not forget why we’re here. How did you enter her? Fast, slow? All at once, or an inch at a time? Were you a gentleman about it, or a beast?”

Shivers of anticipatory joy ran through Lucerne’s limbs. The tip of Vaughan’s cock lay poised ready to enter him, while his own staff stood to attention in Vaughan’s palm. “A beast,” he sobbed, not truly recalling the original act. Lilac sparks flickered across Vaughan’s irises. What had made the moment good last night was how illicit it had seemed to bed a perfectly ordinary woman instead of cavorting with his two aristocratic lovers. Oh, he’d bedded whores before, but in the past he’d been free to do as he pleased. He’d never before been in a relationship like the one he shared with Vaughan and Bella.

The girl had been soft, her skin and scent so very different from Vaughan’s and Bella’s that for a few hours he’d completely escaped the weight of their crushing obsession. He’d needed that respite. Had cared for nothing else.

“I ground myself into her, filled her, until she left scratches on my back and we both came.”

Above him, Vaughan’s lips curled into a snarl and his grip on Lucerne tightened. He wouldn’t be gentle. He’d be hard. He wouldn’t demand an apology or offer Lucerne a chance of redemption; he’d simply take what he needed to satisfy his hurt. Vaughan jammed their bodies together. The sudden sensation of being stretched caused Lucerne to buck up off the floor. Tight. Oversensitive. His back passage felt so full he could hardly bare to breath because even that slight motion was almost too much stimulation for his fractious nerves.

He grunted, tried to catch his breath as Vaughan continued to use him, cried out as Vaughan lifted his arse up off the floor and on to his lap. “You understand, Lucerne. You understand what we’ve got. That there’s no room for anyone else. I can give you everything you need.”

He could too. In that moment Lucerne believed him absolutely. Vaughan filled him in a way that made him wish they could stay locked together permanently, and when he did this while allowing him to fuck Bella at the same time, that was more bliss than any one man deserved. Right now, Vaughan’s fist worked around his cock, stroking him to the rhythm of his thrusts.

Content of sorts settled over him. His mind drifted, thoughts subsumed by the physical as he began to climb the steep path towards orgasm. Quick. Brilliant. Explosive. There was only so much pleasure his body could take before his climax ripped through his knotted muscles and wrung his cock dry onto his stomach. That was normally enough to soothe Vaughan’s mither. After the intensity of the chase, Vaughan normally quietened. Today his hold on Lucerne remained steadfast. His hips rolled, taking what he needed without restraint until he, too, came with a shuddering jerk.

Only once they both lay sated, with their skin soiled in sweat and their clothes tangled about them did Vaughan demand another kiss. “I’m not done making my point yet,” he warned. “You deserve another punishment.”

Lucerne closed his eyes and held on to his lover. He wasn’t entirely certain what Vaughan’s intended point had been. He understood that he was angry, but yelling, or silence or the withdrawal of love might have got that across better than the desperate, heartbreakingly good fuck they’d just shared. Then again, maybe Vaughan’s point had been to show him what he would lose if he sought an alternate companion again.

Eventually, Vaughan extracted himself from the embrace. He pushed Lucerne to arms length and looked at him. “You’re right. I do know where you were and who you were with. I suggest you don’t repeat the offence or I might have to share that information. How do you think Bella will react if I divulge your little tryst? You’re the saint, remember. I’m the blackguard.

“Don’t tell her. What purpose would it serve?”

Vaughan grasped him by the chin and forced him to look him in the eye again. “Perhaps you’d like to think about that. What exactly am I set to lose if she leaves you? I never really wanted her here in the first place. I’m not the one in love with her, you are.” He released Lucerne’s chin with a shove, forcing him backwards. Then he stood and hitched his pantaloons. “Think on that one, Lucerne. Don’t test me again. You won’t like the outcome.” He swept out of the door.

Lucerne gave a weary sigh and propped himself up on his elbows. He shrugged off his dress coat and found a kerchief with which to clean his skin.

“You forgot to ask why I did it, Vaughan,” he called after him.

If Vaughan heard, he didn’t react.

Releasing a weary sigh, Lucerne rose to his feet. He rang for his valet. Best he got changed before Bella arrived to demand an explanation too. He didn’t want to face her smelling of semen.

She knocked on the door of his bedchamber just as Ivo had finished helping him dress and entered smiling. “Did he torture you?” she asked. “He did me. He thought we were in collusion and wouldn’t believe me when I said I was as nonplussed as he as to your whereabouts. Where were you, Lucerne?”

The sparkle in her eyes told him she’d enjoyed her night with Vaughan and whatever punishment he’d dished out, but then he’d noticed that Bella liked Vaughan best when he was riled. Perhaps because she could then provoke a reaction from him with the merest whisper, whereas typically he didn’t responded to her bait.

“Nowhere special,” he replied. “I fell in with the Darleston twins and went on with them. You and Vaughan clearly needed time to work on your differences.”

“We worked on something, but I’m not sure it was that,” she laughed. After a moment she clapped her hands. “You do know that we’re due at Darleston House tonight for dinner.”

“Are we? Maybe we could stay home for a change.” Last thing he needed was for her to go questioning the twins about his whereabouts the previous night.

“Stay home!” She perched upon his knee and threw her arms around his neck. “Is that actually allowed?” Their gazes met in the dressing table mirror.