Sarina walked up the stairs, smiling and so completely happy she thought she’d burst from it. Today had been utterly perfect.
Even her cousins’ continued, though mild, censure could not dampen her joy at this day. Their offense over Sarina’s decision not to marry Oliver was only one part, one she easily deflected. However, their annoyance at her insistence they move into Henrietta’s townhouse seemed to have taken a firmer hold in them.
Sarina had very firmly and very clearly told her cousins they needed to move out. They’d both been shocked, but Sarina held firm, and after all, they’d had a month after Sarina’s announcement to do so. Plenty of time for them to open Henrietta’s townhouse and move their things across town.
And, no, they could not have her servants. They needed to hire their own.
Sarina had wondered if she’d have felt the same if she’d married Oliver, if it would’ve mattered whether or not her cousins lived in this townhouse or if she and Oliver would’ve spent all their time in Hawksmoor.
But it didn’t matter. None of that did.
Because this morning she’d married Prescott.
Even now a thrill of pleasure, passion, and need and the intimacy she’d craved between the three of them had her nerves dancing. Sarina had enjoyed their day, the small party they’d had to celebrate the nuptials between her and Prescott, the sly glances from Liam and whispered promises of love from him.
It had been difficult not to include Liam, a newly “damaged” Liam supposedly recovering from a terrible dock accident. Almost impossible for her gaze not to stray to him during the ceremony or afterward as she’d accepted congratulations from the guests. But they had a special ceremony planned for later, just the three of them, where Sarina didn’t have to pretend she didn’t love both men.
With dusk falling, all she wanted now was time with her men.
She’d gone for far too long without them. That had been her choice; she’d insisted the three of them wait the four weeks between announcing their marriage and the wedding before they all made love again. That time had also allowed them to implement their elaborate scheme to fool the ton into thinking Liam had been so severely injured, he couldn’t be on his own once she and Prescott married.
An injury, thanks to a well-paid and circumspect doctor, that meant Liam couldn’t father children. And a story which spread like wildfire amongst the ton and had effectively taken him off the marriage market.
Liam was all hers. Sarina was a jealous enough woman not to want to share her lover. Added to that, she was a woman in love and refused to share him.
A thrill of need spread through her. She wanted them—oh, how she wanted them. Wanted to feel them in her, their hardness thrusting so intimately in her. Their hands on her soft and loving, firm and arousing. Their mouths kissing her as they whispered words of love and forever.
Want and lust, yes, but deeper than that. The bottomless well of love, the completion both Liam and Prescott gave to her. The three of them—to have all of them in bed together, to wake with her lovers the next day and not worry about discovery. To sleep with them, not merely to have sex with them.
This was it. The beginning. Their beginning.
Sarina opened her door, where Lydia awaited with a bright, happy grin. Loyal Lydia who hadn’t batted an eyelash when Sarina informed her that Liam was moving into the bedroom on the opposite side of hers. Or when Sarina had asked her to consult with McGann over the servants, their discretion, and which ones tended to gossip and needed to be replaced.
It didn’t take a genius to know that Sarina’s bedroom was now bracketed by her lovers. However, neither McGann nor Lydia seemed concerned with such a scandalous prospect.
The raise she’d given each of them probably hadn’t hurt, either.
Money well spent.
Lydia helped her out of her dress and into a chemise, fancier and lacier than those she wore beneath her gowns. She felt graceful and just slightly shameless in it, as if the lace and ribbons added to the elegance of the setting.
As if she wasn’t about to make love to two men.
Sarina pushed that aside. She felt no shame—she loved them and they both loved her. Looking back now, she realized she’d have been unhappy if she had chosen only one man. Maybe she wasn’t a woman who could only love one but needed two men, two extraordinary men in her life and in her bed.
It also helped that they were already the best of friends.
“Thank you, Lydia,” Sarina said, and her lady’s maid gave another broad grin and hastily left.
Sarina didn’t have to wait long before her husband entered. Right behind him, Liam strode in. In her head, and more importantly in her heart, both men were her husband. She’d need to school herself so as not to slip in public, but it was enough both men knew the truth of her heart.
“The wedding this morning,” Sarina began as she sat on the bed in her lacy white chemise. “It was for those outside this household. It was to create the mask of propriety. But now…this is different.”
She licked her lips and watched her lovers. Undressed down to their robes, they moved across the room with a sensuality that made her ache. Now that she had them again, she’d never let them go.
“Yes, it is,” Liam agreed. He held out his hand for her and pulled her gently into his arms. Turning her around so she stood between them, he held one hand while Prescott took the other. “This is the truth for us.”
Prescott kissed her temple and took her other hand. “Tonight begins our future.”
Her heart skipped and she grinned. Sarina took a deep breath, the scent of both men strong and comforting against her. She squeezed their hands, her fingers twined with theirs.
“Liam, Prescott,” Sarina started, looking at both men in turn. “I vow to you both my love and devotion. I take you as my husbands, equal in my heart. I know—” Her voice caught and she stopped.
Happiness filled her and she blinked back tears. One slipped down her face and Prescott caught it, his fingers infinitely gentle. The fingers of Liam’s other hand rested against the side of her throat, and she used their touch to steady herself.
“I know it could not have been an easy thing to realize I could not choose,” she continued in a steadier voice. After all, this was exactly what she’d wanted. “Or that you both had feelings for me…”
“It was not,” Liam offered in the silence that followed. “But somehow Prescott and I both knew that this, tonight, could be a reality for all of us.”
“Our friendship,” Prescott added with a nod to Liam. “It enabled our relationship to happen and I give you both my vow of honor, love, and devotion.”
“As do I.” Liam took the ring from the side table, one that came in three equal parts, and placed it on Sarina’s finger. “My wife.”
She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. “My husband.” Turning to Prescott, she pressed her lips to his, her legal husband, and smiled. “My husband.”
Prescott deepened the kiss, soft and gentle, and restrained. She tasted the love in his touch and the pent-up need that he’d kept in check for these last weeks. Harder and deeper, his lips moved over hers and his tongue swept across hers, tasting her as if he’d never get enough.
Sarina felt Liam’s mouth press firm kisses along the back of her shoulders, his teeth nipping the sensitive skin. She arched against him, wound her arms around Prescott and tangled her fingers in his hair.
Hands slipped beneath her chemise, cool on her heated flesh, and Sarina shuddered. Already her body ached to feel them inside her, so wound with tension she thought she’d scream. A hand found her breast, a brush over her nipple, and Sarina did gasp, tore her mouth from Prescott’s and whimpered.
She pushed at the heavy robe Prescott wore, uncaring where it dropped to the floor, suddenly desperate to feel skin against skin. Turning, Sarina did the same to Liam, ran her fingers over his strong arms, his chest. Prescott tugged her chemise over her head and tossed it out of their way.
One of them lifted her to the bed—it didn’t matter who. They were both hers. She wanted to taste each man in turn and reacquainted herself with the way Prescott’s hand tangled in her hair as she kissed over his cock. Or the way Liam’s words turned into a harsh moan of her name as she did the same to him. Sarina wanted to take her time, wanted to draw out this night, their first as husbands and wife; she craved them.
Liam’s hands settled on her hips and spread her to his mouth. Prescott’s teeth closed over her nipple. But she was already so close, her arousal so close to tipping her over.
“Now,” she begged. “I can’t wait any longer. I need you both now.”
Hands caressed her, over her belly, her hips, her thighs. Caressed and aroused even further. She loved them both, individually, but with the three of them like this, wrapped around each other, it was a love she couldn’t describe, and she felt whole and limitless at the same time.
Liam stretched behind her, and she heard the faint sounds of him reaching to the night table. The scent of lemon oil filled the room and Sarina shuddered. Her body clenched in anticipation and yes, oh yes, she wanted this.
She lifted her leg over Prescott’s, her mouth back on his in a frenzied clash of tongue and teeth. Wrapping her fingers around his cock, she guided him into her.
“Sarina.” His jaw clenched and he stilled the instant he filled her.
“Close,” she panted, not entirely certain she said it aloud. “Prescott.” Turning her head she saw Liam, his blue eyes stormy and dark as he watched her, his slippery fingers on her rear entrance, circling her, teasing her.
“Liam,” she begged, arching back. “Please. Please. Please.”
He filled her with one hard thrust, and Sarina’s world went white. Her orgasm crashed over her like a storm, dangerous and wild and oh so perfect. She cried their names, thought she did, met each of their thrusts, that rhythm only the three of them shared.
She heard her name fall from Liam’s mouth, his teeth sinking into her shoulder as he found his release, and she welcomed the pain, the grip of his fingers on her hip. Close, there again her orgasm tightened and tightened around her and hands—Liam’s or Prescott’s, she didn’t know—found her nub.
With one final hard thrust, Prescott shouted her name as he climaxed and she cried out again, keeping her men in her as she rode through the climax.
Exhausted, she felt them slip from her body only to return to her in seconds. They wrapped their arms around her, fingers soft on her skin as they lay there, utterly sated. When she could move again, Sarina kept her eyes closed and kissed first one, then the other. Held them both closer.
“I love you. Both of you. So very much.”