A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man (12 page)

He had gone quite still under my hesitant exploration. I put a palm over his chest to feel the thud of his heart, like a horse galloping on a hard road.
He wants me.

My sense of power grew. I stepped closer to him and slid my hands to the front of his waistcoat. I teased at the top button with my fingertips. “I will wait to be asked,” I informed him.

“I will not ask,” he replied, his whispered tone harsh. He was not angry. He was inflamed. All I had to do was glance down at the front of his trousers to know that. I might be an innocent—although perhaps not so innocent any longer!—but everyone saw animals mating. I knew what would happen, in a general sort of way. The Swan had tried to explain more explicitly, but I had scarcely listened in my excitement. However, my ignorance did not dismay me. I was incredibly willing to learn.

So, without his permission, I began to strip my masked lover. I began by undoing each waistcoat button slowly to reveal the linen shirt beneath. When the dark brocade vest hung open, I pushed it from his shoulders, taking his surcoat with it. As the softly scratchy wool slid away, I gave it a last caress, for I confess I would miss the feel of it against my sensitized flesh.

More by feel than by sight in the dimness, I began to untie his cravat. This did not go well for several moments. Then I gained the gist of the knot and soon swept the untied length from around his neck and slung it triumphantly around my own.

“A souvenir,” I murmured.

“Yes, it may come in handy later.” His whisper was nearly a growl.

My knees went just the tiniest bit weak at the images that provoked, but I soldiered on. His shirt now lay open halfway down the front and I found myself fascinated by the triangle of exposed male flesh before my eyes. His chest was as tan as his face and hands, again like a laborer in a field who worked bare to the waist. Would he leave my side in the morning to go plant a cornfield? Or perhaps—and this thought made it very difficult to stand—perhaps he regularly made love outside? I had a brief mental flash of him naked and sweating over a female form splayed in the high grass. This female form had dark hair and a generous bosom, of course.

Then I remembered that I didn’t need to fantasize when I had the real thing before me. I pulled his shirt from his trousers and ripped it over his head. Well, I tried but I am rather impaired in the height department, so all I accomplished was to pop a few threads and make him stagger a bit.

“Allow me,” he murmured graciously. He bent forward so that I might pull his shirt off.

I was not embarrassed by my gaffe for his half-naked body was far too distractingly beautiful. The linen fell from my fingers as I stared at his magnificent chest and shoulders. And his stomach! I had no idea a man’s body could ripple so! The breadth of his shoulders was even more impressive now that I truly saw the thick muscles roping over them, winding down his powerful arms, strapping over his ribs, plating his belly with iron. I reached to touch him again, following the same path as before. He stood still for me as I moved around him, almost as he had circled me earlier. However, I had come to worship, not taunt. I slid my fingertips up the bones of his spine, then spread my hands wide over his shoulder blades like wings on his back. So tall … so wide …

So perfect.

No wonder he was in great demand by the ladies of Society! I would hire him simply to look at him.

Well, perhaps not
only
to look at him.

It was not until I had smoothed my hands over his entire upper body, a process that left both of us breathless, that I dared the untried territory of a man’s breeches. I lightly traced my fingertips over the thick ridge that bulged within those breeches.

A sound escaped him, something between a growl and a moan. I could feel the caged power of that beast pulsate beneath my touch.

Oh dear.

Cowardice won and I knelt before him to remove his boots. He loomed above me, dark and powerful, as I knelt naked at his feet. I shuddered with a sudden bolt of desire. His black boots took the brunt of my tension, for I fairly ripped them from his feet, taking his stockings off as well.

I licked my lips and gazed at the obstacle bulging before my eyes. Only the breeches were left. He waited silently but the air was thick with unexpressed lust, the only signs of it the throbbing pulse in his neck and the faint sheen of sweat on his muscled chest. I could feel his black eyes hot upon me, twin points of dark fire roaming my naked skin.

Buttons. You can do buttons. You’ve been managing those for years.

Yet my hands shook as I reached up and undid the two rows of buttons that lay each just inside his hipbones. The heat of his bare skin teased at my knuckles as I fumbled the job. When I inadvertently brushed my hand over the rigid rod swelling beneath the taut fabric, he drew in a breath that did fascinating things to the rippling muscled belly before my eyes.

I did it again, just to see.

His torso tightened and his hands fisted at his sides. “You should not tease the caged beast, sweet Ophelia.”

I scowled at my clumsy fingers. “I’m trying to free the damned beast, Sir.”

Large swift hands took over briefly. I pulled my own hands away and watched in fascination as he stripped his breeches away and the trapped creature was set free. He wore no drawers. Impatient fellow.

Released, his thick organ—his
cock
—jutted forward. I, who had been shy of the candlelight before, was now glad of it. It was a beautiful thing, his cock. I reached my hand to take it in my fist like a club, for it jutted both fore and aft of my grip. For a moment I feared such size within me, but the Swan had promised his skill and care and in that moment I chose to believe in the coming pleasure. Fear had no place in this night of delicious awakening.

He inhaled as I tightened my fingers slowly, gently, thinking I should like to tug him a bit closer. It thickened in my hand at once, turning from hard flesh to iron. I could see the silken skin of it darken as well. The rounded head of it swelled before my eyes and I saw a tiny shimmering bead appear in the small slit at the tip.

He dampens as well, I thought, and the knowledge made my cunte throb in response.

“Stand.” His husky tone was a gravelly command I willingly obeyed.

Fascinating events lay before me and I had no wish to delay. My empty fist closed about the lingering sensation of his silk-and-iron cock in my palm, unwilling to lose the feeling of him. I need not have worried.

Sir stood naked but for his mask. I stood naked but for my hair. I could feel the very heat of him radiating upon my awakened skin. I wanted him to touch me again, to pull me close to his heat, his hardness. My knees trembled with the power of my wanting. I could see by the gleam in his shadowed eyes that he knew it.

I lifted my chin. “I will not ask.”

Those beautiful lips twitched in amusement. He stepped closer, moving his large body into mine as if he had never lived anywhere else. His jutting cock dug into my belly for an instant, then he slid his hand down to lift it between us until it pointed upward along the swell of my stomach, as if to lay claim to its right to the inside of me as well.

Then his hard chest pressed into my soft breasts and his rigid thighs aligned with my plump ones. I tipped my head back to meet that onyx gaze. My breath came so fast it dizzied me and my hands came up to rest upon the rounded steel of his biceps. My lust, so new to me, so achingly delicious, spun my mind sideways until I scarcely knew my own name.

“Ask.”

I tried to, but my dry throat stopped me.

He dropped his large, hot hands to my waist and pulled me close into him, spreading my softness into every hill and valley of his hardness.
“Ask.”

As I gazed up at him, at his blazing eyes behind the mask, at his magnificent mouth below it, I knew what he wanted me to say.
Fuck my cunte with your cock.

I licked my dry lips. “Kiss me,” I whispered.

His eyes widened in surprise, and then something flared in his gaze, something like wonder or awe. I forgot that notion in the next moment, however, for his wonderful mouth came down upon mine for my very first kiss.

I think he meant it to be somewhat gentle and warm, but the touch of his lips upon mine set the smoldering coal of my lust to instant flame. With a small cry I went up on my toes even as I slid my hands about his neck to pull him closer. My parted lips clung to his as I pressed myself to him with all my might. In response, his arms came about me, one big hand on the small of my back, the other deep in my hair, cupping my head. He groaned into my mouth even as I felt his thick cock pulse against my belly.

Then he lifted me right from my feet and within a few steps had tumbled us both onto the richly appointed bed. The cool silk beneath my hot skin made me gasp, but then his warm weight covered me as he smoothed my wild hair from my face and kissed me again and again.
“Ophelia…”

I had no name for him. “Sir…”

He pulled his mouth from mine and dropped his forehead upon my collarbone for a moment. I could feel his breath hot upon my breast as I panted as well. Then he lifted his head. Dark eyes focused on me and I swallowed at the intensity in his gaze.

He took my hand in his and placed it above my head, then did the same with my other hand. I lay willing and passive, waiting for him to cover me again, to penetrate me with his rigid cock, to teach me what it was to be fucked hard and well.

He did none of that. Instead, he lay next to me and slid one large horseman’s hand over me, from my throat down between my aching breasts, over my trembling belly, until his hot palm cupped my cunte once more. I closed my eyes and quivered, waiting for him to slip a long finger into me. I felt a single callused fingertip dip inward to slowly caress that most sensitive point. Then I felt his mouth upon my breast, pulling my nipple between his lips, sucking as he teased with his tongue. Bright bolts of pleasure shot between those two points, my nipple and my cunte, lightning rods to my lust.

I began to writhe once more, raising my hips from the bed, straining toward his touch. His mouth moved to my other nipple while his unoccupied hand toyed with the already aroused one. My awareness shrank to those three points of exquisite sensation. I was clay in his big hands, a moaning, gasping creature of his making. He drove me upward, using his fingers, his lips and teeth, until I fought for more, crying out in my need for … fulfillment.

His hands stilled. His mouth left my nipple. The chill of the room hardened the sensitized tip to aching fullness. I protested, opening my eyes, trying to speak, reaching for him with my hands. “No…”

He took my hands and pressed them to the bed over my head again, keeping them there with the pressure of his own. When he rolled onto me to lie between my damp, trembling thighs, I nearly wept with gratitude.

I gazed up at him above me, dazedly admiring the glow of candlelight upon the rippling, perspiration-glossed perfection of his chest and shoulders. I was more than ready to receive him. Sighing, I rolled my hips upward, reaching for the satisfaction I knew his cock would give me. “Please,” I whispered. “Please fuck my cunte with your cock.”

His eyes locked with mine. I breathed deeply, my lips parted, so very ready. He tilted his hips until the bulky weight of his cock rolled into the slick crevice of my open thighs. My breath stopped as I waited. A tiny flash of fear in my mind must have shown in my expression, for his eyes narrowed. I hungered for him more than ever. I wanted this. I wanted to experience everything, to feel everything, to live, fully and unrepentantly, to suck the marrow out of every moment of freedom. I wanted to touch and be touched, to love and be loved, to fuck and be fucked.

It was only an instant of worry that he might not fit but that moment cost me greatly.

His jaw tightened. He began to move. Instead of entering me, his thick cock slid upward along my slit, parting the wet lips of me and stroking slowly against my swollen, sensitive bud. The pleasure of it made me roll my head on the coverlet. Then he drew back and the slow, drawing ecstasy increased as the hard ridge at the head of him tugged at me as it passed.

I was pinned beneath him like a butterfly, my arms above my head, my thighs pressed wide by his weight and by my own need. The only touch, the only caress was that long, torturous, wicked slip and pull of his cock sliding against me.

I lost my mind. I cried out, I begged, I bucked and convulsed in his grip, I wept from frustration and arousal. I pleaded against that sweet, endless, aching pleasure that nonetheless held me just short of that unnamable moment I needed so badly.

“Please!” I shouted. “Please fuck my cunte with your cock!”

At that instant, he released my hands and fell upon me. His strong arms enfolded me and he covered my mouth with his own as he at last allowed the large, blunt head of his jutting cock to press into me.

I was no true virgin and I was wet and so very ready, but I could not help but cling weakly to Sir as he entered me. He was careful but implacable. His thickness stretched me to aching. I shuddered in the grip of the pleasure/pain and even whimpered into his mouth but he neither slowed nor increased his merciless pace. I was to be impaled and nothing would stop him now. I fisted my hands in his dark hair and gave myself completely to his rule, melting into his hold, opening to his wicked invasion.

As he drove the last rigid inch of himself deep into me, I wrapped my arms about him and buried my face in his neck and shivered in sweet agony as I was opened nearly beyond bearing.

I felt a shudder go through his big body. Sir was not so in control of himself after all. I knew then that he desired me every bit as much as I wanted him.

He stayed deep inside for a moment longer as my body eased about him. Then he slowly withdrew, leaving behind him a glowing trail of delicious pleasure inside me. I gave a long, slow exhalation of ecstasy and eased my tight-fisted grip on his hair, stroking my hands down his long back. I could feel the flex and draw of his muscles as he began to thrust into me once more. I could feel my cunte grow slick as he filled me again and nearly laughed at my own worries of a few moments before.