“Then let us do that for you, too,” Benedict said before he leaned up and kissed Darrius.
It had been a lifetime since they’d kissed. Perhaps it was actually only a few days, but it felt like a lifetime. How had he gone so long before he allowed it? He didn’t recall. In that moment, he just wanted to sink into him. While they kissed, Benedict reached for Vanessa and drew her to them. All three of their mouths moved together then, with heat and love and passion and support and everything in the world that mattered.
Darrius knew he couldn’t refuse them. Not in this moment where he needed them to feel alive. Not after when they would wear his defenses down. So he surrendered. With a sigh, he broke away from them and walked across the room, feeling them track him, feeling their tension and worry.
When he locked the door, all that faded away. He turned back and leaned on the door. “Vanessa, you asked me not so long ago…or perhaps it was a lifetime ago, why I had denied myself my desire for Benedict all those years. Why I hardened myself to everything.”
Her lips parted and she nodded. “Yes.”
He shifted, trying to find the words he had always feared to say. Knowing they would hurt and heal in equal measure. “I suppose I told myself that it was another way to avoid being the scandal that the rest of my family was. But…but that wasn’t why.”
Benedict stepped toward him. “Then why?”
Darrius drank him in from his head to his toes, this man who he had loved for so long, he couldn’t even remember when he had fallen. “Once I opened a door to you, Benedict, to wanting you, to loving you…I’d never be able to shut it. And it would endanger us both. Because…because Arthur knew about us. About my feelings for you. He held it over my head, even in his letter when he fled the country with Vanessa’s maid.”
Benedict was pale. “That was why you wouldn’t show us the second page.” Darrius nodded and then bent his head. Benedict’s voice was hard when he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want you to be harmed,” Darrius whispered and glanced up at him. “I did it to protect you.” He felt the tears stinging his eyes, especially when Benedict’s expression softened, forgave. “I mourn my brother. And I also felt the surge of freedom that he could never harm me again, harm you. Harm her.”
“Oh, my love,” Vanessa said softly. “My two loves. I’m so sorry. Sorry for all the time you lost together. But please, Darrius, tell me that you won’t give even more time away now. Please.”
Darrius swallowed hard. This was the hardest thing he would ever do. And the best. And the brightest. “I need you both, so very much. Now. And if you can bear what will happen next…forever.”
Vanessa made a soft sound of joy and Benedict seemed as though his knees buckled a little. But then they were moving toward each other, the kisses deeper and faster and harder and more driven. The troubles of the last few days faded, his grief faded, his worries about the future faded. They gave him that gift as Benedict shifted Vanessa between them so they could rock against her together.
Darrius stared down into her upturned face, so lovely and wonderful and somehow his. “I want us both to have you. Are you ready for that?”
She nodded. “I am. I can’t wait.”
“Good,” he said and they backed toward the settee before the fire.
Benedict pushed him to sit and he did so, sprawling a little to create a place for Vanessa to settle herself. She did, pulling up her skirt to straddle his lap as she leaned down and kissed him with all the fire and warmth that he needed so desperately. He dug a hand into her hair, angling her mouth for better access and devouring her lips. God, he loved kissing her. Tasting her.
He opened his eyes and looked past her. Benedict was watching, but when their eyes met, he smiled. Darrius couldn’t help but return the expression and it was the first time he’d done so since he’d received the news about his brother. But these two…they made him hope for a future.
He beckoned for him and Benedict moved forward. He pressed against Vanessa’s back and she broke the kiss, leaning her head against Benedict’s hip, her gaze unfocused as she cupped Darrius’s cheek.
Benedict leaned in and tangled his fingers in hers. He kissed Darrius, deep and slow and Darrius moaned with the pleasure of it. “I love you,” Benedict whispered against his lips, and Darrius drew back with a shuddering sigh.
Benedict moved to his knees behind Vanessa, lifting up into her, unfastening her as she went back to kissing Darrius. The heat between them rising, she began to grind against him with increasing little gasps and moans. His cock was rapidly hardening and he was lost. Lost in her, lost in them, lost in pleasure and love and hopes like he hadn’t allowed himself in years, decades.
Her dress fell forward and Darrius tugged it down around her waist, along with her chemise. He bent his head and sucked her nipple, feeling the shivering reaction race through her body as Benedict chuckled, his lips against the back of her neck.
“Stand up,” Darrius said. “Take the rest off. All of us need to take everything off right now.”
She didn’t hesitate. Benedict got to his feet and helped her as Darrius rose. He moved toward them, and together they all stripped each other, hands roving as they did so. When Darrius tugged his shirt over his head, Benedict stepped into him, kissing him as his hands glided along Darrius’s ribcage. They groped lower and he unfastened the fall front of Darrius’s trousers. When Benedict took his cock in hand and move over him in long, smooth strokes, Darrius’s legs went weak.
“I love watching her with you,” Benedict whispered. “I can’t wait to feel you inside of her.”
Darrius pulled back, staring into the dark eyes of this man he had loved and tried to distance himself from for so long. And now he never wanted to lose him. Never wanted to do anything but share his life.
“Let’s not wait,” he said, kissing him again before he stripped his trousers away. He returned to his seat on the settee and caught her hand. They returned to their original positions, only this time there was nothing separating their bodies. When she ground against him he felt the hint of her slick heat, saw the flush of her pleasure.
“I want you,” she murmured as she shifted to align them. She kissed him as she took him into her body in a slow, steady slide. She gripped him and he lost his breath, watching her moan and writhe. She was his. Better yet, he was hers.
She settled herself fully on his lap and then looked back over her shoulder at Benedict. There was wickedness in her gaze, in her faint smile. “Hurry.”
Benedict drew a small bottle from the pocket of his discarded jacket and returned to his position behind her. As Vanessa began to grind over Darrius, Benedict began to gently work at her arse, readying her for him. Darrius grunted as he felt the pressure of the other man’s fingers through her sheath and shivered as he pictured how much more powerful it would be when it was Benedict’s cock.
