There was a hesitant knock at the door behind them and Darrius made a desperate sound low in his chest. Then he took a long step away and the contact was broken. For a brief second they just stared at each other, the tension between them never higher. Then Darrius stepped away and went to the door.
It was Vanessa, not that Benedict had expected anything different. He’d known she would come. From the first moment he’d seen her watching Merritt with her men, he’d known she would open herself to them.
And he couldn’t wait.
She stepped into the room and looked up at Darrius, her brown eyes dilated with desire. They swept over him from head to toe, just as Benedict had looked at him a moment before. And then she swallowed hard.
“Oh. Your arms,” she whispered.
Benedict choked on a laugh as he came over to her. “Aren’t they beautiful?” he asked, tucking a loose lock of her hair behind her ear. “He is extraordinarily beautiful.”
Darrius’s cheeks flamed slightly. “Benedict.”
“He isn’t wrong,” Vanessa whispered, and her hand fluttered at her side like she wanted to touch him. “I’ve always thought you…well, I had wrong thoughts about you when you were going to be my brother-in-law.”
Darrius seemed surprised by that admission, but not bothered. Oh no, that was something else that glinted in the brightness of the blue. A heat that could burn them all to the ground before they were done, and they would all celebrate it.
Benedict reached back and shut the door firmly, then turned the key in the lock. “I think we’ve waited long enough, haven’t we? If we’re going to try this, to give in to what we all clearly want, then let us begin. Through that door.” He pointed toward the door that led to the bedchamber. “In his bed.”
CHAPTER 8
Vanessa
In the parlor hours before, Vanessa had been taken aback by Benedict and Darrius’s shocking offer of pleasure with both of them. She’d been swept away by a fantasy that had taken root and become impossible to walk away from. But in the hours since Benedict had held her on the settee while Darrius made her entire body shake with unbelievable pleasure, she’d had plenty of time to think. To ponder. To weigh options.
And that made this moment when she followed Darrius into his bedchamber, Benedict behind her, his warm hand resting on her back, even more powerful. This was a choice, not a whim. This was reality, not a filmy dream that would fade.
Darrius stepped aside and she looked around her. It was a fine room, likely the one he’d grown up in during his time in the country as a young man. But it fit him now, with its muted colors, stark white linens and big bed. Lord, that was a big bed. It would easily fit them all.
As if it had been made to do so.
Darrius turned and his gaze moved over her in one long sweep. Then he cleared his throat. “You said that you had wrong thoughts about me when you were going to be my sister-in-law. But before we begin, you need to know that I shared those…forbidden desires.” His eyes flitted to Benedict for the briefest of moments and her body clenched. He continued, “I know I said it before, but I meant it.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” Benedict asked, his tone low and seductive. “Because she isn’t going to be your brother’s wife anymore.”
Darrius swallowed hard. “I’ve tasted you, Vanessa. The sweetest, most glorious taste of any woman I’ve experienced. And I want more of that. I want everything. I want to bury myself so deep inside of you that we don’t know where we are separate beings. I want to watch you ride him…” He motioned to Benedict. “…until you are weak. I want you to use me like I was built for nothing but your pleasure.”
“Bloody hell,” Benedict whispered—whimpered, actually. It was a whimper, filled with longing and need that mirrored her own.
She nodded. “I want all of that. With both of you. And I know a little, thanks to Merritt’s…education. But I may need guidance. So tell me where you wish for me to begin.”
Darrius reached out and closed lean fingers around her shoulder. He turned her gently to face Benedict and said, “Have her. I want to watch you have her.”
This was real and she trembled with anticipation and the power of what would come. With the power of the way Benedict stepped up to her. He slid his fingers into her hair and tilted her mouth to his, then took it.
In the hallway the previous night his kiss had started gentle and then turned hungry, but it was always controlled. This wasn’t. His mouth was hard and harsh on her from the start, devouring her like he was starving. She lifted against him with a ragged cry, gripping his lapels with her fists, arching against him without any way to stop it.
“Yes,” Darrius whispered, and she felt his fingers on the buttons along the back of her gown. He unfastened them one by one, his fingers dipping in to brush the flesh beneath her silky chemise. The gown fully parted at last and Benedict broke the kiss.
She turned her face toward Darrius without being told to do so and now he kissed her, deep and slow and drugging. All the while Benedict tugged her gown, helping her pull it from her arms and then down and over the swell of her hips.
When it pooled at her feet, she kicked it away. Darrius stepped back and the two men stood together, staring at her in her chemise and stockings and slippers. She was embarrassed by being so exposed. She hadn’t been so in a very long time and her memories of those encounters were spoiled by the abandonment that had followed.
But when they looked at her, when Darrius licked his lips like she was a sweet he wanted to devour, some of the self-consciousness faded. This was her fantasy, wasn’t it? She wasn’t going to ruin a moment of it with worry or fear or self-recrimination.
She straightened her spine, arching just a touch before she lifted a hand and lowered the chemise strap from her arm. Then the other. She let it fall away around her feet and she was naked before them.
“Do I please?” she asked, voice trembling.
