She bent her head. “You think me an innocent?”
“Are…are you not? Did my brother do even worse than—”
“Not your brother,” she hastened to say, and looked from one of them to the other. “You are saying I must know what I’m getting into with your offers, so I suppose it is only fair for you to know the same.”
Benedict’s expression gentled. “Very well. Tell us.”
“Before, years ago, when I was engaged to the Earl of Avebury…” She struggled to continue.
“You don’t have to tell us,” Darrius said with a sharp look for Benedict.
She pushed her shoulders back. “If we are discussing a potential future, whatever that might entail, I think I do. Everyone knows that Avebury broke our contract. But he also…he…he convinced me that we didn’t have to wait. That since we would be married, we could give in to whatever desire was between us.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Like a fool, I allowed it. And then he found a daughter of a duchess who would raise his fortunes and reputation even higher and walked away from me as if I were nothing.”
Darrius’s face twisted in disgust. “I have always despised that man, but never more than now.”
She blinked at the passion of that statement. It reminded her of when he had come to her defense with her parents. It made her feel a little safer. So she had to tell them the rest. Let them know exactly what kind of woman she was so that she could truly understand what they were offering.
“In addition,” she said, “Merritt has been sneaking me the most erotic books for almost a year.”
Darrius’s eyes went wide. “I-I see.”
“They are very descriptive,” she admitted with what she knew was a fierce blush. “And some have illustrations. So I am not so innocent. But somehow I still cannot comprehend what you two are offering me? Are you saying you would share me? Like Merritt is shared between Peter and Egerton?”
Benedict nodded. “If you would like that, yes, that is what I’m suggesting. That we would worship you, Vanessa. Pleasure you. Give you relief from the pain that has been caused by Arthur. While we were at it, you could get to know us better. As lovers and as people. When it was all over, this fantasy separate from reality, you could choose which man you would take as husband, thus protecting you from at least some of the censure Arthur’s behavior will cause.” He glanced at Darrius. “Isn’t that right?”
Darrius looked at him now, with as much focus and heat as when he looked at her. She realized in that startling moment, that just like Egerton and Peter…Darrius and Benedict seemed to want each other, as well. What was even more surprising was that the idea of it was as titillating as the thought of their hands running over her, making her weak with pleasure.
This offer was outrageous and if she didn’t feel so entirely awake and aware, she might have thought she was still dreaming. But these two men were here, they were suggesting this. She pinched herself to verify it.
“We have shocked you,” Benedict said.
She nodded. “Surprised, I suppose, is a better word for it. I couldn’t have thought that when I began this morning that this would happen.”
“But do you want it?” Benedict asked. “Because that is the only thing that matters. Forgetting about potential marriages in the future, forgetting about everything else…do you want this?”
“And you don’t have to have an answer yet,” Darrius said, sending a hard glance at Benedict.
She worried her hands before her. “I appreciate it that Mr…Darrius. But I-I do have an answer. Last night after what we saw, I will admit that I pictured myself in the same position as my friend. Only it was…I was…you two were the men I imagined touching me.” She bent her head, feeling her cheeks burn with the confession. “I want something wanton and wild and purely of sensation. I want something that is about pleasure, not pain. There has been too much pain as of late. So yes, I want this.”
“Very good,” Benedict said, his voice a little shaky as he moved to the window and closed the curtains. She watched him as he walked to the door and locked it. “Darrius, kiss her.”
Darrius looked back over his shoulder at him, a glint in his blue eyes. But he didn’t argue, he merely took Vanessa’s hand and drew her closer. “May I?”
She nodded, unable to get enough air to speak, and for the second time in as many days, she watched a man’s lips lower toward her own. She closed her eyes and then he was kissing her. But it wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t chaste. It wasn’t exploratory. Darrius Warwick kissed her like he was hungry and she was a feast spread before him. Like he couldn’t survive without her.
Like she was already his.
His big hands gripped at her back, his tongue warred with hers, and he made a deep, rumbling sound of pleasure from deep in his throat that made her entire body tingle with sensation. This was happening and she was undone by the power of him, of them, of the anticipation of pleasures like nothing she’d felt before.
CHAPTER 6
Benedict
There were many things about Darrius that Benedict had found arousing over the years and yet none of them were as powerful as watching him kiss Vanessa. He did so with gusto, abandon that he normally didn’t allow and she returned that desperate heat with her own. They were well matched and beautiful, and Benedict wanted to touch them both until there was nothing left in the world but this.
He moved toward them slowly, dragging his fingertips along her forearm when he reached them. She let out a gasping moan against Darrius’s lips, partially breaking the kiss. Darrius fully broke it and gently turned her toward Benedict, an offering of a goddess. She fell into him, lifting to him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
In this moment, it was. He slid a hand into her hair, partially drawing it down as he tilted her head and kissed her. Was that Darrius’s taste on her tongue? He wouldn’t know. He’d never been allowed the pleasure. Any encounter between them, in secret or not, hadn’t involved kissing, at least not on the lips.
