Captive Heart (11 page)

He left off stroking Lyn’s thigh, and for a moment I believed he would turn into my arms and let me recall the taste of his lips. Instead, his too-bold hand found the swell of Lyn’s full breast.

My breath caught again at the bold move, and the wolf within stirred in warning. What was Gareth doing? Had he not seen me, felt me claim them both?

Yet there his hand rested, cupped about her breast, waiting for rebuke or permission to stay. Getting no rebuke, his thumb began to rub back and forth over the thin fabric at the peak of the mound he held. Her breath shuddered softly.

Focused on Gareth’s brazenness, I missed the moment Lyn raised her hand from her lap. Smaller, softer and cooler than Gareth’s, it settled over mine in mirror to his.

My heart swelled and the wolf gloated. Despite Gareth’s clumsy attempt to woo her, she had chosen.

As though my touch had given her courage, the hand at Gareth’s knee crept upward. His leggings twitched at her approach, and, with an impish look, she covered his cloth-bound staff.

My wolf howled its frustration even as Lyn caught at Gareth’s lips and claimed them for her own. The echo of the howl choked in my throat as I fought the beast down.

Their hands gripped in mine, I leaned in close, my strong arms circling their shoulders in an intimate embrace. Nuzzling between them, I touched first Gareth’s nose, then Lyn’s, with mine.

The scent of their desire sharpened, crisp and strong now. Gareth tilted his head and captured my lips, his kiss rough. My wolf approved, my own lips grating and insistent. I thought to part his lips with my tongue, but he pulled away, leaving my lips wet, stunned and abandoned.

Then another pair of lips took their place. Soft and tentative, unsure and inexperienced, waiting to be taught. I shifted Lyn around to a more comfortable angle, acutely aware that Gareth’s hand never left her breast. He folded his free arm tight about me, drawing the three of us breath close, watching intently as I instructed Lyn’s perfect mouth in the subtleties of a perfect kiss.

When I withdrew my tongue and paused for breath, Gareth moved in. Only it was Lyn’s lips he took this time, not mine. Growling, I bit into his neck, savoring the salty taste of his skin as I sucked it the way I suddenly, desperately wanted—needed—to suck the rest of him.

I pulled him away from Lyn.

“Strip,” I begged him.

Gareth shook his head. “This night is for Lyn.”

The wildness in Marrok’s eyes frightened me. Maybe Gareth didn’t know what he was capable of, how he restrained himself—his wolf—but I did.

Their lips on mine, Gareth’s hands on me, touching me in ways I’d not been touched before—my body knew what it wanted this night.
Night?
When had evening fallen? The light was almost flown. But was I ready yet?

Gareth wanted me. Marrok wanted him. What did
I
want?

Immediately, for Marrok to be tamed. Enabling though that might be, the wolf wasn’t to be trifled away. If it were maddened by jealousy, it would not be Gareth it attacked.

Interestingly, I would have thought the danger would have dampened my ardor, but my desire flamed at the nearness of Marrok as his own passions shook through him and his wolf sought its escape. As Gareth calmly defied the beast and angered it more.

And then I knew. I wanted them both. The wild impetuosity of Marrok and his wolf. The calm assertiveness of Gareth, the caretaker of the two.

There was no choosing.

“No,” I said. “This night is for
us
.”

I stepped in front of Gareth, trusting he who had obeyed me in all else before this would obey me now. Gripping the hem of his tunic I rolled it slowly, deliberately over his head, exposing every hard ripple of muscle not just to
my
eager eyes but to Marrok’s as well.

“Yes,” Marrok breathed. “Go on.”

Emboldened, I traced a nail down Gareth’s chest, across his navel and into the line of hair that disappeared into the bulge of his leggings below, his skin flinching in its wake.

I tugged at the knot and the bulge twitched.

I hesitated then. I had seen men undressed before, of course, just never…aroused. Dogs and horses I
had
seen, so I had a fair idea of the mechanics of it. And while my vision of the two of them had left little to my imagination, the vision was still not the thing I was about to unveil.

Gareth’s eyes were on me. “Go on,” he encouraged. “If I have no shame of the man I am, then why should you?”

I blushed. The shame was mine, not his. He—all of him—was in God’s image. My shame was Eve’s, as I understood it—in the wanting.

He tilted his head close. “Or are you afraid I’ll disappoint?”

“I can assure you there’s nothing there that will shame or disappoint.” Marrok’s breath was warm in my ear. I hadn’t heard him step closer, but the bulk of him against my back and the hands that wrapped my waist tight with anticipation gave me courage.

I tugged again at the knot. The freed leggings would have fallen easily down Gareth’s hard, slim hips but for one thing. I helped the waistband over, and all of God’s image sprang free.

A sharp ache swept through me centered just below Marrok’s hand. My stomach clenched and I knew Marrok could feel the anticipation in my belly as acutely as I.

But I had only a moment to admire Gareth’s splendid naked form before he closed the small distance between us, kicking aside the fabric that pooled at his feet. He bent his head and I thought he would kiss me again, but his lips settled on the swell of my breast just above where the gown’s trim cut over it. Then he was lifting my breast up, kneading, rubbing, kissing, worshiping.

Between ragged breaths it dawned slowly upon me that I was free to return that worship. Sliding my hand around the hard jut of his hip, I roamed over the surprisingly soft skin of his firm flanks, running my fingers along the crease at his leg and daring to span the crevice between one hard-muscled flank and the other.

He gasped and the hard muscles became rock as he clenched suddenly and forcefully under my touch.

What had I—?

Then through the narrow slot between Gareth’s broad and muscled shoulder and the curve of my breast I saw. Marrok’s left hand had left my waist to wrap itself around Gareth’s long shaft. In fascination I watched the play of Marrok’s fist and fingers over it, memorizing the combinations that made it twitch and made Gareth groan.

Behind me, Marrok pressed close, and even through my heavy skirts I could feel him, hard as steel, against me. He brushed aside my hair with his cheek as he wrapped his arm tight around my stomach just below Gareth’s arm at my breast. He licked my ear, nuzzled my cheek. I turned my head but the angle wasn’t right for a kiss. He dropped his mouth to the tender skin between my neck and shoulder and began to suck. Another wave of desire burned through me.

Gareth moaned as Marrok squeezed him, and his head rolled back and forth on my chest.

“Bah!” Marrok grunted. In frustrated haste he pushed away from me, though his grip on Gareth didn’t falter. In a flash he discarded his leggings, giving us no time to admire his glory, save for the moment he took to spit in his hand and then slick himself.

Then he was behind Gareth, his spittled fingers spreading the flanks my hand still covered. I made to move it, but Marrok’s passion-strained, “Don’t,” stopped me.

He thrust, ripping a groan from Gareth’s throat.

Coarse hair ground the back of my hand, caught as it was between them. Then Gareth raised his head from my breast and captured my lips with his. He sucked them as he bucked between my hand and lips.

Marrok backed out, then thrust in again. A second time. Then a third. On the fourth, I ringed my thumb and first two fingers around him, squeezing hesitantly.

“God’s wound, woman,” Marrok growled. Stung by the curse my hand froze. Was I doing it wrong?

“Harder,” he groaned.

I obliged.

I’d heard of the joys of heaven, but how could it compare to this? Twice-full breasts within my hands, and soft lips between mine in front of me. Marrok behind touching a secret pleasure center that, before him, had lain buried deep and unknown inside me. And the sweet abuse of my shaft driving me to delirium.

Marrok’s thrusts behind were faster and shorter now, his panting heavy in my ear.

As fast now as I galloped to the peak, I wanted this ride to last forever.

Then Marrok pressed into me hard and deep, his seed pumping into me. His pleasured groan shivered through my bones, my very humors. Then it peaked into a snarl as he raked the back of my leg with one hand and the other shook my shaft so hard my stones slapped my thighs.

A rush of ecstasy speared through me, straight from the core where Marrok lay to the tip of my shaft that fountained in worship. Unable to hold a kiss, I cried out into Lyn’s mouth instead. A cry to her, to Marrok, to heaven itself.

What had I done to deserve such joy? I wondered as I collapsed between them, bringing them down, laughing, on top of me.

Marrok’s sweat-slickened skin, Lyn’s gown that still hid her curves beneath, and the corner of the moon peeking above the trees reminded me of my vow that this would be Lyn’s night. And she remained a virgin yet.

Virgin.
That gave me pause now as it had not during my swelling desire. A woman’s virtue was not like a man’s to be lightly given. Though mine had not been given lightly to Marrok. He had asked, not taken, and I had freely given, not because I followed the whims of my body, however strong and tempting those whims had been. But because I wanted Marrok to be my first, to hold me, to teach me, to show me heaven here on earth. He had been to me all that I wanted—and more. No disappointments. No regrets.

But would I disappoint Lyn? There was a responsibility here, I knew, that perhaps my own inexperience was not prepared for. Yet, if she were still determined to follow through tonight, if not me then Marrok would have her first. Marrok, who felt he now had claim to me—how would he respond if he alone knew her tonight and later I made advances?

It didn’t occur to me the choice might be out of my hands.

Lying between Gareth and Marrok I inhaled the miracle of them, delighted—sated even—by the intimacies they allowed me to be even so small a part of. Naked in moonlight they lay, recovering, regaining what strength each had lost to the other. Vulnerable yet allowing me to look my fill, capturing every detail from the hairs that glistened on their massive chests to the staffs that sprawled between their iron thighs like soldiers slain on the battlefield.

Could I breathe life back into those dead soldiers? The idle thought too soon became a fixation, my desire growing the longer I stared at the lean bodies in all their naked splendor beside me.

Lifting to my elbows, I curled over Gareth’s limp staff nestled on its bed of stones. I pursed my lips and blew gently over it. It twitched but did not rise. Gareth’s breath rattled shakily. On impulse, I stretched my tongue and licked its tip. Rewarded by another twitch and moan, I cupped it in my hands.