Page 54 of A Gentleman's Wager
Bella contented herself with watching from that point on, and muttering hexes beneath her breath to disrupt Vaughan’s game. To her joy and his disgust, Lucerne reached three hundred points first.
“What shall I claim as my prize?” he mused, as the two men joined her by the fireplace. Lucerne’s blue eyes were merry and alert as they met hers, full of impish good humour. “A kiss?”
Bella purposefully put her glass aside, thrilled and delighted that he’d ask such a thing. She remembered Vaughan’s warning about staying away from Lucerne and felt her pulse quicken at the chance to defy him while he watched. To her astonishment, Lucerne turned to kiss not her but Vaughan. He caught the other man completely off-guard and stole a deep passionate kiss right off his lips.
Never in all her days…
Her mouth fell open. Two men kissing—astonishing—but a warming prickle in her cunny told her she wholeheartedly approved. Heavens, if it wasn’t the most sensual, inspirational thing she’d ever witnessed. They were like dark and light, a devil and an angel. Was this behind Vaughan’s motive in warning her off? Were they embroiled in a romantic liaison? She’d heard vague murmurings of such things, men who masqueraded as women and courted other men, but had never paid them any heed. This was different though, there was no womanly affectations involved. She recalled the blond hair in the locket she’d found stowed beneath Vaughan’s pillow. Could it be… was it Lucerne’s? The colour matched – that buttery gold.
The two men parted.
Vaughan’s lips were reddened from the passion of it. It’d been no sweet or jovial peck.
“Cat got your tongue?” Vaughan sniped. He bristled in a way that made her think he hadn’t wanted her to witness such intimacy. He drank deeply for several seconds, while he re-established his typical hauteur. The cat had indeed got her tongue. She had no words for him that could appropriately express all that was running through her head at that moment, nor the sensation of prickling arousal chafing her skin.
“I think you may have untethered her mind, Lucerne. I don’t know if Rushdale will congratulate or curse you for it. Look, the poor creature is quite thoroughly dumbstruck.”
“I’m… I’m perfectly fine,” Bella croaked. But she wasn’t. Not really. Her mind had been opened in an altogether unexpected way. She could not gaze upon them and unsee what she’d witnessed. Her disconcertedness seemed to magnify the wickedness of Vaughan’s grin.
He grasped her about the waist, pulling her close. “You’re not so innocent as to be this perturbed by witnessing a kiss. Now, receiving one, on the other hand…” She ought to have resisted him, but the instant his lips touched hers, she was aroused and ready for him. He seemed to breathe carnal fire into her veins that cranked her already enflamed passions even higher. Bella groaned, opening her mouth and allowing him to possess her with his tongue. She groaned again, then near spontaneously combusted when Lucerne’s lips simultaneously brushed the side of her throat.
“I think it’s your bedtime,” Lucerne whispered into her ear.
For a moment, she imagined herself a game-piece between the two men as they pressed into her from the front and behind, both pleasuring her at once. Between them they’d raise her to a zenith she’d never achieve with only one man. She’d heard talk of rakehells and how they behaved. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine them sharing her. She sighed, ready to surrender herself to such bliss, only to then realise there’d been no trace of innuendo in Lucerne’s voice. He meant precisely what he’d said. That it was her bedtime. And hers alone.
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Lucerne
Lucerne watched Bella retreat while imagining plucking the pins from her dress and binding her hands with that broad claret-coloured sash. He wasn’t sure why he’d kissed Vaughan, perhaps unconsciously to gauge her reaction, perhaps to put a more acceptable spin on what seemed inevitable. When he’d capitulated to Vaughan’s advances earlier, he’d known more would follow, but that didn’t mean he was ready for it. Nor did he understand why the other man hadn’t yet pounced. Instead, they were dancing around one another in a way that only made the butterflies in his gullet increasingly pronounced.
Part of him wanted to call Bella back. He took a step in that direction, only to recall his promise to her brother.
He felt Vaughan’s gaze upon him, fathomless and disconcerting. Did he discern what lay in Lucerne’s thoughts, his apprehension, excitement, his torment? Why did he not act?
“Another game?” Vaughan enquired.
Lucerne dismissed the notion with a wave. He could not envisage another turn at the table with Bella now gone, but nor did he know or have the courage to push things along in a different direction. Dammit, they needed to converse; all this prevaricating was tying him in knots.
“You never did explain to me what the nonsense with Louisa was about on the night of the ball,” he said. He’d often wondered, and there’d never been the opportunity to ask while Freddy had been present. Now, it was a straw to cling to while he dithered.
Vaughan peered at him curiously. “I might equally ask what you did to make him leave. Not that I’m protesting his departure.”
That was different. “Nothing.”
“Then there’s your answer.”
“No. You can’t expect me to believe that Freddy called you out over nothing. Something you did must have upset him.”
“If you recall, I found you and Captain Wakefield at the bottom of the stairs beating the hell out of one another. Isn’t that a strange sort of nothing too?”
Lucerne shifted uncomfortably. The details of the fight were rather fuzzy. He recalled carrying Louisa in his arms, but to where, and why he couldn’t say? He thought she’d been upset, but also, he’d been deep in his cups, barely able to walk without the support of the wainscoting. He’d a vague notion of soft lips and a squeak of surprise, and of a petite form gripping him in a tight embrace. “Freddy was already sore over that prank,” he said. “And then, I think he may have seen me kissing her.”
Vaughan cocked his head. “And whyever were you doing that?”
Why indeed?
After a further moment’s rumination, it seemed clear enough. “Because you had me in knots. I was terrified you were going to leave, and equally terrified that you’d stay. Brandy seemed the obvious answer.”
