Kane, Samantha - Brothers In Arms 3 (7 page)

“I thought you wanted my answer,” Leah said in confusion.

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Kurt’s fingers had moved from her cheek to her neck and were now smoothly brushing back and forth along her collarbone, which was exposed by the fashionably low square neckline of her pale violet gown. Leah’s breath hitched in her throat.

“Tell us your answer,” Kurt encouraged her, his voice a low seductive purr.

Leah cleared her throat delicately, almost overwhelmed by the desire to take Kurt’s hand and press it firmly against her breast, against the hard aching nipple there, tingling with the feel of Kurt’s soft caress. She looked over at Valentine, unsure of how to progress. If she was to marry Valentine, shouldn’t he be the one touching her first?

He was sitting back in his chair, the very picture of wealthy, self-satisfied complacence.

The description made Leah smile, and Valentine tilted his head inquiringly. Leah answered before he could ask the question.

“I was thinking how self-satisfied you look, very opulent and indulgent.” Valentine looked momentarily taken aback and then his laugh joined Kurt’s deep chuckle.

“I look that way because that’s how I feel.” Valentine leaned forward, bracing both elbows on the table, and held her gaze, his face serious. Gone was the stammering lover of yesterday. “I love watching Kurt’s hands on you, watching you respond to his touch.

I can see your breathing getting just a little ragged, your pulse quickening in your throat, and it makes me want you both.”

Leah became conscious of the things Valentine described, her breathing and her heartbeat, and both increased as his words sank in and Kurt’s caresses became bolder.

His fingers were now running lightly over the soft swells of her breasts above her neckline. Shivers raced across her sensitized skin at the feather light brush of his fingers.

“You haven’t answered us, Leah. Tell us, will you marry us?” Kurt’s tone was casual, almost disinterested, but one look in his eyes dispelled that notion. His gaze was intense, pinning her to her seat.

Leah made sure to make eye contact with each man as she gave her answer. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

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For a moment Kurt’s hand stopped caressing her and he held it tightly in a fist before relaxing it again and resuming his gentle torment. Valentine leaned back in his chair with a relieved smile.

“Thank God,” Valentine said with a shaky laugh. “We weren’t sure, we couldn’t be sure, and the uncertainty has been killing us.”

“Really?” Leah asked, proud of how calm she sounded. Inside she was a bundle of nerves over the realization that she had just committed herself to these two men for life, and she knew so little about them. “By my being here I thought you’d have figured out my answer.” She glanced at Kurt and smiled. “In spite of what you might think, I don’t generally let men fondle me at the dinner table.”

Both men laughed, but the atmosphere had changed subtly. Kurt suddenly ran his fingers down over her breast and her tight nipple, and Leah couldn’t stop a little gasp from escaping.

“You say yes without knowing what we’ll ask of you.” Kurt’s eyes rose from her breast to meet hers. “Perhaps you should wait until you’ve sampled our lovemaking before making a final decision.”

The thought had Leah’s heart racing and her eyes went wide. “Now?” she squeaked, and winced at how panicked her voice sounded. “I mean, here?”

“Kurt—” Valentine began, but Kurt cut him off.

“Yes now, although not necessarily here in the dining room.” He cut his gaze to Valentine. “It’s best to find out now if she likes it, Valentine, rather than after the wedding, when it will be too late if she finds it’s not to her taste.”

Leah’s eyes were darting back and forth between them, her mind a blank as to what she should say. If she said no, they might think she was not willing to share a bed with them both, and their offer may be rescinded. If she said yes, she was committing herself to this marriage of three, a relationship that flew in the face of everything society dictated was right and proper. For God’s sake, her
husbands
would be each other’s lovers, were lovers now. A day ago the idea was inconceivable. Now it was her future.

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And even more surprising was that the idea didn’t scare her as much as it ought. In fact, it didn’t scare her at all.

She’d had a marriage condoned by society, a good marriage by their standards, and it had been only tolerable at the best of times and a nightmare when Thomas had been gambling and Horatio had stepped into the void with his cruelty and possessiveness.

She knew in her heart these two men were nothing like her dead husband and his brother. They would never be cruel and hurtful or neglectful.

Leah pulled her mind back to the conversation and suddenly realized Valentine was stammering in his endearing way again. Apparently he’d taken her silence as a denial. Kurt had retreated into himself, his face unreadable. Already Leah knew this was how they both responded to adversity. It was amazing how much she did know about them already, after knowing them only a day. How had she become so comfortable around them, so attuned to their feelings and desires? A sudden irrational thought brought her up short. Perhaps she’d always known. Perhaps she’d been made for these men, for this life, and she’d only been waiting for them to find her. She smiled at such a fanciful thought.

“Valentine,” she said quietly, “the answer is yes, to the marriage proposal and to Kurt’s suggestion. He’s right, we need to find out if we are all comfortable with the arrangement before we make it permanent.”

Her statement silenced both men, Valentine in shock and Kurt in assessment. “Are you always so practical?” Kurt asked her.

She had to smile. “About most things, yes, although it would seem there is very little of the practical about what you ask of me.”

Valentine cleared his throat and stood. “Well then, I guess, would you like to go upstairs?”

Before Leah could answer him Kurt spoke. “I think it would be best if we went into the drawing room. The servants will talk already, but we should not give them more ammunition.”

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“Of course, of course,” Valentine said abruptly, shaking his head at his own poor suggestion. “Not the bedroom. Of course.”

Leah placed a hand on his arm. The heat and hardness of his muscled forearm beneath her palm had her sex clenching in anticipation, and Leah felt her mouth tilt in that age-old secret woman’s smile. “Valentine, it’s all right, relax. I’m nervous enough for us all.” She took a deep breath and jumped off the precipice. “You see, I have absolutely no idea what…or…or how…” She trailed off, embarrassed again. “I know I want to, I think, but I’m not sure what I want to do.” She scrunched her nose, a habit left over from a shy youth. “Does that make sense?”

At her admission Valentine’s nervousness disappeared. He got up and pulled out her chair, lending a hand to help her rise. “In that case, let us go so we can show you.”

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The walk to the drawing room was as excruciating as it was exciting. Valentine held her hand on his arm, his thumb stroking over her skin like a kiss. Kurt followed behind, a hot, imposing presence stalking them. Leah’s skin felt overly sensitive, as if she could feel their eyes and their breath caressing her. It was her vivid imagination, she knew, but it was thrilling just the same. She’d never been so aroused in her life, and they’d hardly even touched her yet.

Kurt gently closed the door behind them and Leah heard the lock snick into place.

She waited for the fear to come, but all she felt was excitement and arousal like a buzz in her head. Valentine brought her over to the settee. He turned her to face him, still standing, and kissed her on the cheek. The kiss spoke more of carnality than camaraderie. “What do you wish to know?” he asked her, his nose trailing softly over her hair and then down to her neck where he buried it in the curve of her shoulder.

Leah felt a soft hot swipe of his tongue on her tendon there, and froze for a moment before heat sizzled along her nerve endings, straight to her sex where a dull insistent throbbing commenced.

Kurt walked over and took his place behind Leah, only this time he pressed close against her, touching from his chest against her back to the hard ridge of his cock along the top curve of her bottom. He leaned over her free shoulder and whispered in her ear.

“What do you want to learn first, Leah love? How to fuck two men at once? Or how men make love? Would you like to watch Valentine and me fuck each other?”

Leah moaned, she couldn’t help it. She had never heard such talk before in her life, and definitely not directed at her. Vague, unbidden images of what he described flashed in her mind, and her body temperature rose until she felt flushed and out of breath.

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“Fuck?” she whispered. “Is that what it’s called?” Valentine’s hands slid down from her waist and around to gently squeeze her buttocks, and Leah’s legs became weak. She sagged slightly between them, and Valentine’s hands tightened while Kurt’s hands gripped her waist high, nearly touching the bottom curve of her breasts. She found herself wishing fervently that he would touch them, fondle them. She suddenly realized her acquiescence had little to do with practicality and everything to do with a primal kind of desire she had never felt before. She wanted them, really wanted them.

“I can see we’ll have to teach you the vocabulary of love, my dear,” Valentine told her in between placing light kisses on her neck and shoulders, making her tremble in pleasure. “Making love is also called fucking, although not in polite company.” The last was said with more than a trace of amusement. “Did your husband never use words on you?”

“Use words on me?” Leah’s voice was low and halting as she felt Kurt’s hands begin a slow inexorable glide up to her breasts. He covered them, cupping and molding them in his big hands, and Leah gasped as her back arched. She’d never dreamed a man’s hands there could be so exciting.

“Words to arouse you,” Valentine explained. “Hearing the words can be almost as exciting as the act itself.” Valentine leaned back and watched Kurt caressing her breasts, and Leah became more aroused, the act more carnal just because Valentine watched. “I love watching Kurt touch you. You have beautiful breasts. I want to see them naked, I want to suck and lick them, and watch Kurt take your nipples in his mouth, nibble them and tongue them.”

“Oh dear God,” Leah groaned. Valentine’s words made her sex clench yet again and her breasts literally ache for what he described.

“Do you see?” Valentine whispered. “How the words can enhance your pleasure?

You like them, don’t you?” His voice was knowing, the question rhetorical. Leah’s pleasure was obvious to all of them, her mounting desire like a wave of heat surrounding them.

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Kurt’s clever fingers found Leah’s aching nipples and plucked them roughly, making her shudder as the sweet sting traveled directly from her breasts to her woman’s entrance. “You are too desirable not to fuck, Leah,” Kurt whispered from behind her, his breath hot and moist against her nape. “Your body is crying out to be taken, it wants a hard cock, doesn’t it? But we’ll do it your way, Leah. Whatever you want, tonight. Tell us what you want.”

Leah was swamped with want, she couldn’t make her mind grab onto any one thing. She had so little experience, and just a few minutes with these two incredible men had shown her there were pleasures out there she had no notion of. She leaned her head back in agitated surrender, and it lay on Kurt’s shoulder as Valentine took advantage and feasted with lips and tongue on her exposed neck.

“What do you want, Leah?” Kurt’s voice had become synonymous with temptation to Leah. He was the devil whispering of her fall from grace, and all she could do was follow him to her downfall.

“I don’t know,” she panted, her breath hitching on a sob as Valentine’s kisses went lower and he licked a path across the upper slopes of her breasts. “I don’t know!

Thomas…it was never like this, never. He came at night, in the dark, he put it in me and he left. What is this? What are you doing to me?”

“We’re making love to you, Leah, properly, the way a woman like you should have it. We’re worshiping your beautiful body, loving you with words and touches. We will fuck you properly too, in the light with hot, sweaty, naked bodies straining together and cries of ecstasy. This is what we offer you. Take it, take us. Love us, Leah, and let us love you.”

Kurt’s impassioned promises beat against all Leah’s fears, conquering them. They called to her most wicked fantasies, ones she hadn’t even known she had until yesterday. “Yes, yes, please,” she cried out, “that’s what I want, oh God, yes, please.”

At Leah’s reply, Kurt stepped back and she felt him loosen her dress. He pushed it down to her hips as Valentine stepped back to give him room. Once the men’s heat and 55

Samantha Kane

hardness was no longer pressing on her Leah was able to think a little more clearly. She allowed them to take her dress off, but then she stepped to the side, away from them.

“You,” she told them, her voice trembling, “I want to see you both. I’ve never seen a completely naked man. I want to see what I’m getting.”

Valentine was taken aback by Leah’s request. She’d seemed overwhelmed by their passionate lovemaking. He’d assumed she’d let them take the lead. He liked her courage, and her obvious desire for them pushed his own arousal higher, hotter. He didn’t want a meek bedmate, he wanted a woman who equaled him and Kurt in passion. She appeared to be a lady who, despite her lack of experience, knew what she wanted after all.

Valentine shrugged off his coat without even answering her. Her eyes widened and she licked her lips. The shine of the moisture on her lips made Valentine’s mouth water.

He unbuttoned his waistcoat quickly and threw it off, uncaring where it went. Leah’s breathing was ragged. Next came his neckcloth. He realized his own breathing was less than steady as he absorbed Leah enjoying his hasty undressing, her desire growing. He watched her eyes dart to Kurt and he followed her gaze.