Their Wicked Ways (18 page)

Nick sent him a narrow eyed
glare.  “Precisely because of that.  How am I to tell how much is for me?”

The comment roused Bronte
from her stupor sufficiently that she frowned, trying to decide what they were
arguing about.

Nick smiled at her faintly. 
“Do I have your attention now?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl,” he murmured,
lowering his head to brush his lips lightly across hers.

Bronte sucked in a gasping
breath, pulling his heated breath, his taste, his scent inside of her where it
curled around her vitals, making her heart hammer erratically and forcing her
lungs to labor with the effort to drag in enough air.  Heat suffused her in a
heady, fiery rush.  “Nick,” she murmured.

He covered her mouth with his
then, thrusting his tongue past her parted lips and exploring the sensitive
inner surfaces of her mouth before he stroked his tongue along hers in a
possessive caress.  A shock wave of fire hit her, melting the strength from
bone and tissue until she felt as limp as a rag doll.  She lifted her arms,
wrapping them around his neck to hold herself upright, pressing her achingly
sensitive breasts tightly against his hard chest.  His arms tightened.  His
kiss became more demanding, devastating her senses.

When he broke the kiss at
last, she leaned weakly against him, struggling to lock her knees to hold
herself upright.  He steadied her and finally released her, stepping back.

Bronte swayed, looked around
vaguely and finally leaned back against the back wall of the box, fanning
herself.  “I feel a little warm.  Is it warm in here?” she asked vaguely of no
one in particular.

After a few moments, she
noticed that Darcy and Nick were studying her with frowns on their faces.

She returned their frowns,
patting her cheeks with her gloved hands in an attempt to cool down from their
exchanges.  “What?”

The two men exchanged a look.

“Hard to tell,” Darcy
muttered, shaking his head.  “Let me try again.”

Nick sent him a cool look. 
“Second round, I’m first.”

Bronte glanced from one man
to the other, but before she’d entirely digested the gist of their
conversation, Nick caught her shoulders, pinning her body between the wall and
his own as he lowered his mouth to capture hers once more.  She uttered a sound
that was half protest, half pure delight as his essence consumed her senses in
fiery delight once more.  She slipped her arms around his waist, stroking his
back.

He arched his hips against
hers, digging his erection into her soft belly.  Bronte moaned with equal parts
pleasure and frustration as the pressure teased but missed the one point that
needed it most, feeling heated desire flood her woman’s passage with the
dampness of need.

When he drew away from her at
last, they were both gasping hoarsely.  Bronte opened her eyes with a strenuous
effort and looked up at him reproachfully.  For a moment, she thought that he
would take her into his arms once more.  He stiffened, but even as he reached
for her Darcy grasped her around the waist, dragging her toward him and
crushing her against his length.

Her entire body seemed to
clench as she felt his hard body press tightly against her, felt the heated
length of his cock digging into her mound.  She shifted restlessly, trying to
assuage the ache by rocking her hips against his.  Groaning, he slipped a hand
down to her buttocks, lifting her against him.

The grip of his hand on her
backside served only to increase her desire.  He ground against her, eliciting
shivers of pleasure to course through her veins.

Just as she felt her body
beginning to struggle toward her peak, he withdrew abruptly.  Bronte staggered
back a step when he let go of her, bumped against the wall.  Her knees wobbled,
gave out and she slid ungracefully to the floor in a heap.

Nick and Darcy knelt in front
of her, studying her face as she looked up at them in utter confusion.

Nick shook his head.  “I
still can’t tell,” he said hoarsely.

“Can’t tell what?” Bronte
gasped weakly.

Darcy dragged in a deep,
shuddering breath. “Me either,” Darcy managed to gasp out finally.  “Here,
darlin’.  Let me help you up.”

Grasping her beneath her
arms, Darcy hauled her to her feet once more.  Bronte swayed against him
dizzily as he slipped one arm around her.  Slipping his other hand inside her
bodice, he bent her back over the arm he was using to support her, popped one
breast from the confines of the gown, and covered it with his mouth.  The
moment his mouth closed over her achingly sensitive nipple, a groan was torn
from her.

Nick caught her jaw.  “They’ll
hear you, sweetheart,” he murmured, covering her mouth with his and catching
her little whimpering cries as Darcy fondled her breast with his mouth and
tongue unmercifully.

Darkness began to swarm
around the fringes of her consciousness.  Bronte gripped … someone’s arm
frantically as she felt her body soaring upward, felt the tension inside of her
winding tighter and tighter until she began to think that she would faint, or
die, if she didn’t find surcease from their sensual torments.

Almost as if he’d read her
mind, Darcy ceased to tease her.  Cool air brushed her skin as he lifted his
head, making her nipple pucker more tightly still, throbbing almost painfully. 
Nick broke the kiss, lifting his head to study her face, she knew.  With an
effort, she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

“How do you feel?”

Bronte blinked at him.  “I …
uh … a little faint, actually.”

Darcy frowned.  “A little? 
Or a lot?”

She felt as if her eye balls
were rolling around in her head drunkenly.  “Very,” she managed after a few
moment’s thought.  “I feel quite drunk from you two.”

“Close,” Darcy said with a
touch of triumph.

Nick gave him a look.  “She
didn’t faint, though.”

“Am I supposed to faint?”
Bronte asked, thoroughly confused.  “Why am I supposed to faint?”

Instead of replying, Nick
scooped her other breast from the neck of her gown.  Cupping the trembling
globe in his hand, he bent his head and covered the tip with his mouth.

Bronte gasped, feeling her
head swim, moaning mindlessly at the pleasurable sensations until she
remembered Nick had said she must be quiet.  She was no longer entirely certain
why she was supposed to be quiet, but she bit her lip, trying her best to
contain the urge to cry out.

She thought at first when she
felt the wafting of cool air across her heated flesh that it was the flash of
chill that presaged a full-fledged faint, which was probably why the two palms
that skated up her bare thighs and around her hips to cup her buttocks sent a
jolt of surprise through her.

She shuddered as she felt
heated breath against her mound.  When his tongue found the opening in her
pantaloons and parted her cleft, teasing her clit, she could no longer contain
herself.  She felt like she was suffocating from a lack of air and began to
pant a little desperately, trying to drag air into her laboring lungs.

Having discovered the
swollen, achy bud nestled there, however, he caught it beneath his mouth,
sucking it and dragging a ragged cry from her.  Nick released her breast
abruptly, lifting his head to assess the situation, and Bronte opened her eyes,
clutching at him as she felt her body beginning to quake with release.

He dipped his head, covering
her mouth with his and capturing her cries as her release swept over her with a
force that completed her descent into oblivion.

Chapter Eighteen

Bronte was not fully aware of
her surroundings again until she felt herself being lowered to a firm surface. 
Blackness surrounded her when she opened her eyes, but after a few disoriented
moments, she realized that the hood of her cloak was over her face.  Lifting
her hand with an effort, she pushed it back as she felt the seat beneath her
dip.

Darcy settled in the seat
across from her.  After a moment, Nick climbed into the carriage.

“What are we doing here?”
Bronte asked in confusion.

“You fainted,” Nick said
tightly, settling beside her and slipping his arm around her.

She settled against him
gratefully, leaning her head on his shoulder.  “I did?”

Darcy grinned at her.

Nick glared at him.

Darcy flushed, looking at
Bronte a little sheepishly.  “I got a little carried away.”

Bronte reddened, remembering
abruptly what had happened just before she’d blacked out.  She covered her face
with her hand.  “Oh my god!  We were in the theater.”

“I’m sure nobody’s any the
wiser,” Darcy said soothingly.  “Nick brought you out the back after you … uh …
fainted.  And he covered your mouth to keep you from crying out when you … ah …
well, you know.”

Bronte bit her lip, trying to
decide whether she was more outraged, embarrassed, or just plain stunned by
what they’d done.

“I didn’t have a great deal
of choice,” Nick said tightly.  “Someone would’ve summoned the watch.”

Bronte lowered her hand and
sat back.  “Where are you taking me?”

“Home.”

Nick was clearly furious. 
Bronte wracked her brain to think of something that would ease the tension
between the two of them and came up empty.  “I swear if you two fight over this
… insane thing … I’ll never speak to either one of you again.”

Nick slid a narrow eyed
glance at her.  “The insanity was his idea, but you’re right.  I could not have
been in my right mind to agree with it.”

“It proved my point,” Darcy
said angrily.

“Do you think so?” Nick asked
coldly.  He turned to Bronte.  “What do you think?”

Bronte blinked at him.  “I’m
not sure,” she said cautiously.  “What was the point supposed to be?”

“Do we have a clear winner,
or not?” Darcy demanded impatiently.

Bronte clapped a hand to her
mouth to stifle the insane urge to giggle.  “That was … that was … like a
duel?”

Nick reddened, but his lips
twitched.  “I suppose you could call it that.”

Darcy didn’t look terribly
amused.  “Nick said you couldn’t make up your mind.  I figured … well, you kept
harping about taking a lover, damn it!”

Bronte covered her face with
her hands, her shoulders shaking with the effort to keep from laughing.

“Now look what you’ve done,”
Darcy said irritably.

“I?” Nick demanded
indignantly.

Bronte fought the hysterical
urge to giggle to a standstill and peered at them through her fingers. 
Realizing they were once more on the point of coming to blows, and that Nick
was feeling particularly misused, she moved onto his lap, looping her arms
around his shoulders and burying her face against his neck.  As she’d hoped, he
subsided, rubbing her back soothingly.

“I’m sorry as hell I upset
you,” Darcy said after several minutes of absolute silence reigned in the
carriage except for the clop of the horses’ hooves over the cobblestones.

It was almost enough to set
her off again.  “It’s all right, Darcy,” Bronte managed to say in a choked
voice.  “Really.”

By the time they’d turned onto
her street, Bronte had sobered enough to realize that Nick’s foul temper might
have a cause other than irritation with Darcy’s tactics.  Apparently convinced
that she was in a state of extreme distress, he made no attempt to release her
or to return her to the seat beside him, but he shifted uncomfortably from time
to time and the rock hard ridge digging into the side of her hip didn’t
mysteriously disappear.  She’d shifted against it several times before it
dawned upon her what it was.

She stilled when she finally
did realize that he was still in a good deal of distress himself, feeling a
mixture of renewed desire and more than a little sympathy for his plight.  No
doubt Darcy was in no better condition, which probably had a good deal to do
with their short fuses.

Even if she’d wanted to, and
she wasn’t absolutely certain she did after the stunt they’d pulled, there was
certainly nothing she could do about it at this point.  As they had pointed out
themselves, her mother was a light sleeper.  She was also prone to get up and
wander about the house at all hours. It was nothing short of a miracle that
she’d managed to get Darcy out of the house without her mother discovering him
and throwing a dying duck fit that would’ve roused the entire household if not
the whole neighborhood.

In any case, they had behaved
abominably.  It had felt wonderful.  She wasn’t going to deny that, to herself
at least, but scandalously wicked, nonetheless, and about as indiscreetly as
humanly possible short of making love to her on the stage itself.

They didn’t deserve a reward
for it, and if they were suffering, then they certainly deserved to.

Composing herself finally,
she moved back to the seat beside Nick as they neared their destination.

Nick and Darcy were still
glaring daggers at one another.  She strongly suspected the possibility that
violence would erupt the moment she was no longer between them to act as a
buffer, but there seemed to be nothing that she could do to diffuse the
situation.

The two of them escorted her
to the door and politely declined her equally polite offer to come in.  She
stopped them as they turned to leave.  “I’m … I was just wondering.”

Nick and Darcy both stopped
and turned to look at her.

She bit her lip.  “If I said
it was a draw, would you feel compelled to try again?”

Nick and Darcy exchanged a
look.

She smiled at them when they
turned to her once more.  “Goodnight Nick.  Goodnight Darcy.  I had … an
extraordinary time.”

“Lord Sheffield didn’t care
to come in?” Lady Millford called from the front parlor as Bronte closed the
door and started toward the stairs.

As tempted as she was to
fling a comment at her mother and head for the stairs, Bronte stopped and
altered direction.

Lady Millford looked her over
as she reached door of the parlor and Bronte realized belatedly that she must
be in a shocking state of dishabille.  She reddened at the knowing look in her
mother’s eyes.

“Actually, he … uh … no.  I’m
really tired, Mother.  I believe I’ll go up and get ready for bed.”

Lady Millford sniffed
disapprovingly.  “Well, I’m sure you’ll say it’s not my affair, for you are a
woman full grown, but my own dear mother used to say that you could not expect
a man to buy the well if you allowed him to take a drink whenever he pleased.”

Bronte bit her lip.  “But …
how are you to know you’ll like having him drink from your well if you don’t
allow him a sip first?” she retorted and turned and fled for the stairs before
her mother could recover sufficiently to offer a rebuttal.

* * * *

As blithely as Bronte had
dismissed the possibility of notoriety, the actuality of it was more difficult
to take than she’d expected.

She had her first inkling
that the little episode at the theater had spawned a great deal of speculation
two days later when she attended her first post theater dinner party.  She
didn’t actually notice the whispers and titters that followed her every move at
first.  She was accustomed to the oft times underlying maliciousness of society
and thought to begin with that they must be gossiping about someone else, or
that, perhaps, there was something about her toilet that was not up to their
rigid standards.

The frank stares of a number
of men who’d previously behaved very gentlemanly toward her began to hammer
home the fact that she had, virtually overnight, become fodder for the gossip
mills.

It angered her.  The plain
truth was that very few of them were virtuous enough to have any right
whatsoever to criticize her behavior, but then such was the human animal.  They
had only to catch the scent of blood and straight away they all turned upon the
hapless victim.

She ignored it, behaving as
if she had no idea what the whispers were about, but she couldn’t help but
wonder who had begun spreading the tale.  She had seen no more than a handful
of people at the theater that she even recognized, and of those she knew none
of them at all well.  She supposed it was possible that they had known her well
enough to have an interest, but it seemed rather strange that they would when
she barely even knew them by name and some of them not even that well.  She
also knew very well that no one had actually seen anything.

Perhaps it hadn’t been
necessary?  Perhaps being with Nick and Darcy was sufficient in itself?

Her brazen, unaffected behavior
worked after a fashion.  When she did not flee in disarray, there were many who
began to wonder just how much faith they could place in the rumors after all.

There were still the truly
malicious, those who were determined always to believe the worst of anyone at
any given time, but much of the whispering and snickering had begun to subside
after a time and Bronte began to relax and enjoy the evening with less grim
determination and more actual enjoyment.

She was just returning from
the dance floor, with no inkling that her entire world was about to fall apart,
when it did.

She’d just noticed Nick and
Darcy and started toward them when a former admirer of hers stopped to speak to
them.  Grinning maliciously, he looked directly at her before dividing a look
between Nick and Darcy.  “Well, which of you won the wager?”

Bronte halted as if she’d hit
a brick wall.

Darcy frowned, giving the man
an uncomprehending stare.  “What wager?”

William Moreland snickered. 
“I’ve heard tell that one of you succeeded in proving you were England’s
greatest lover by seducing the lovely Mrs. Bronte Dunmore.  I was only
wondering if I had a debt that needed to be paid. Or if my man had won after
all.”

Almost as if he felt her eyes
upon him, Nick turned.  For several painful heartbeats their gazes met. 
Slowly, the color completely left Nick’s face.  He swallowed with an obvious
effort and turned to look at William Moreland once more.  The smug expression
on Moreland’s face vanished even as Nick reached for him.

Darcy glanced toward her
then, studied her face for several moments and turned to Nick and Moreland. 
“For God’s sake, Nick!  Not here,” he muttered, grasping Nick’s arm and trying
to pry his hand loose from Moreland’s throat before he could choke the life out
of him.

Bronte turned away, staring
blindly at the sea of faces around her.  Without any conscious thought but
escape, she began to thread her way through the crowded room.  Her mother met
her at the door, grasping her arm.

Bronte looked at her without
recognition.

“You can’t run away like
this,” Elizabeth Millford hissed urgently.  “They’ll believe the rumors are
true.”

Bronte stared at her mother,
looked around at the people nearest them, who were trying very hard to pretend
they didn’t have their ears cocked to catch every word.  “I don’t care what
they believe, Mother.  I never did,” she said almost calmly.