An Introduction to Pleasure (24 page)

Lysandra stayed silent as Andrew moved toward her. He took his time, looking up at each portrait as he passed. He seemed to be in no hurry to reach Lysandra, to discuss what had been said.

She stared at him and finally stepped forward where he would not.

“Andrew,” she whispered. “A child?”

He stopped moving, though he continued staring at a picture of a man who was probably his father. Slowly, he turned his steady, emotionless gaze on her.

“I want to make this very clear to you, Lysandra,” he said softly. “I brought you here to escape this very type of intrusion. My wife and…”

He stopped and for a moment his entire face transformed with a grief so powerful that it broke Lysandra’s heart. In that fraction of a moment she saw all his loss, all his anguish, all his guilt, and then it was gone. Replaced by his normal calm and cool expression.

“The subject is closed,” he said quietly. Then he reached out and took her hand. “Please.”

She stood still, pondering her options as she looked at their intertwined fingers. She could push him, but what right did she have? She was a lover, not a love. Doing so would likely only result in her being sent home. Or she could let the subject rest, as he asked. That answer was uncomfortable and unpleasant, but wasn’t it his right to keep his secrets from his mistress?

“Very well,” she finally said.

“Now—” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I have finished with my work for the evening and I find myself very tired after this long day. You have two choices. You can retire to your own chamber or…”

He drew a breath like what he was about to say was difficult.

“You could join me in my bedroom. For the remainder of your stay.”

Lysandra stared at him. Though he had come to her bed and stayed for hours before, he had never spent a night with her. The idea of waking in his arms was a bewitching one.

She stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Your bed sounds warmer and more comfortable.” She kissed him. “If I am welcome there, that is my choice.”

“Then follow me,” he said against her lips. “We have much training still to be done.”

Andrew felt many things as he stepped into his bedchamber with Lysandra at his side. There was excitement since he had not shared this bed for many years. There was guilt because the last woman who had slept here had been his wife. But the overwhelming feeling he experienced was a lack of control.

Lysandra and the questions she had posed to Hester had unearthed memories and feelings he had long squashed. Thoughts of his wife and unborn child that he kept buried deep inside. He hadn’t wanted Lysandra to know about them. Except he had brought her here, which almost guaranteed she would find out about his past.

He shook his head as she looked around the chamber. He wanted control back. And he knew one way to get it that could also be called “training”.

She turned on him with a smile. “It is lovely. Your whole house is a thing of beauty. I can see why you don’t like to leave.”

He forced his own smile in return. The fact that he loved his home was only a very small part of why he locked himself away here. But he wasn’t going to tell her that.

Even if he ached for confession in a way he’d never felt before.

“Did you know that some men like to exert control over their lovers?” he asked.

She glanced at him, still distracted by her explorations of the room. “All men control their lovers,” she said with a light laugh.

He frowned. “I suppose that is somewhat true. But this is different.”

She lifted her brows. “How so?”

“Undress,” he ordered without answering her question.

She hesitated and there was a nervousness to her expression he hadn’t seen since the first time he touched her.

He smiled. “Please.”

That additional word seemed to help. She nodded and lifted trembling fingers to the buttons along the front of her gown. He forced himself to look away from the show of her removal of clothing and instead moved into his dressing chamber. He opened a long-neglected, almost forgotten lower drawer of his bureau and withdrew a pair of velvet restraints.

He stared at them. He hadn’t used these since a lover he’d had many years ago, one who liked her sexual encounters to be rough and overpowering. It had thrilled him to be utterly in control, to watch her squirm. But the moment he was finished touching her, he inevitably forgot about her until their next encounter.

With Lysandra it would be different.

It always was.

He moved back into the room and stopped in the doorway between the two connected chambers. Lysandra stood waiting for him, utterly naked. Her back was to the fire, and the light outlined her form to perfection. Her breasts were trembling, nipples already hard, and with her hands clenched at her stomach, they made a perfect arrow to the soft triangle of curls that covered her sex.

He resisted the urge to throw aside the restraints and simple fuck her hard and fast against the nearest wall, but only barely. Instead, he moved toward her.

“You should remain naked the entire time you’re here,” he said with a soft chuckle. “At my utter command and for my pleasure.”

She laughed, though the way her cheeks darkened and she shifted, he could see the suggestion aroused her.

“What would the servants say, my lord?” she teased.

He arched a brow. “They could watch for all I care.”

She shivered and he smiled. Oh yes, he had guessed her little voyeuristic secret. Whatever she had seen while at Vivien’s had made her long to watch and be watched. He rather liked that very wicked streak in an otherwise upstanding young woman.

He was about to introduce her to another.

“Lie down,” he encouraged.

She smiled and took a place on his bed, propped up on his pillows so she could watch him as he moved around the room. He moved toward the bed and leaned over her, pressed a hard and fast kiss to her lips.

She jolted in surprise at the forceful embrace but melted into him. Her hand fluttered as she began to lift it to cup the back of his head, but Andrew didn’t allow that. Instead he slipped the restraint first around her wrist and then around the subtle hidden hooks built into his bed.

Lysandra yanked her head back and stared, first at him, then at her bound wrist.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice a little shrill with surprise. She reached to remove the bind with her free hand, but he caught it.

“
This
is what I mean by control,” he said, massaging her palm gently. “And you may want to learn how to accept being dominated, for your lover may wish to do so.”

Her eyes went wide, clear with fear.

He shook his head. “I won’t hurt you. I promise you that this will feel very good. For a very long time.”

She shivered, but shook her head. “And how do I know whoever is my permanent protector will not take advantage of me in this position?”

He flinched. He hated to think of any future protector in Lysandra’s life.

“I-I’m certain Vivien will think of someone who would never be anything but mindful of your pleasure. No matter how he obtains it.”

A series of heated images bombarded Andrew. Of Lysandra spread out for another man, some libertine who would tap into her secret pool of wickedness. Of that man tasting her, taking her, tying her, feeding her desires and introducing her to new ones. The pictures in his head were both troubling and utterly arousing.

She stared at him. “You have a very dark look in your eyes.”

He smiled as he restrained her opposite wrist. “I have very dark intentions.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lysandra opened her mouth, unsure of how to respond. The idea of being at this man’s utter mercy was a highly arousing one. And terrifying. In truth, she had been at his mercy from the first moment she saw him. But this…

This would take that control to its very end. What if she lost herself entirely? What if she broke every rule she was meant to keep?

“You will do as I ask,” he said, interrupting her thoughts with equally disconcerting words. “You will not argue. You will put all of your faith in me. And I will offer, in exchange, pleasure.”

She swallowed. She was tied now. There was no going back. And he was right that another man might demand this. At least she trusted Andrew to take her to this place without taking advantage of her weakness.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He grinned and for a moment she had a flash of the rake he claimed he had once been. What a specimen he must have been then. Any woman would have begged to take her place.

But
she
was here and that gave her a bit more confidence than she had felt a moment before.

“I’m going to pleasure you,” he explained as he moved over her. “And you are going to say nothing. The moment you speak, I stop. The moment you moan, I stop. The moment you cry out, I stop. Do you understand? Your pleasure is mine and I will tell you when it’s time to release it.”

She bit her lip and opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a hand. “Starting now.”

She snapped her jaw shut and glared at him. Then she nodded, wordless.

He climbed onto the bed and straddled her, trapping her in with a hand on either side of her head. He was still dressed as he loomed over her, emphasizing his control in this situation and her decided lack of the same.

He leaned over her with another heated smile. She arched as far as the binds would allow, leaning up to accept his kiss, but he dodged her.

“Tsk, tsk,” he purred against her ear. “You are not in control. Just surrender, Lysandra. Surrender and let this happen in its own way.”

She stared at him. He couldn’t understand what the idea of “surrender” fully meant to her. There was more at stake for her than her body. Her heart was involved in this relationship now. Her mother was right. She was in love with this man. And surrender meant fully accepting that and all its consequences, as well as his body.

And yet she said nothing as he nuzzled her neck, nibbling her skin gently as he moved toward her ear. He nipped there, a touch harder and a mix of pleasure-pain whooshed through her body, settling between her legs to make her clit throb and her pussy wet. She gasped and he pulled back.

“No sound, Lysandra.”

She bit her lip as the truth of what he wanted to do settled in. This was to be torture by pleasure. And she shivered at the very idea.

He moved down her body inch by slow inch as he tasted every part of her. He sucked her neck once again until the burn of pleasure bordered pain, but this time she only arched slightly. She managed to swallow back her cry of pleasure.

He smiled against her skin. “You’re learning. Very good.”

When she didn’t respond, his smile turned to a chuckle as he traced her collarbone with his tongue. She tensed again. Had she always been so sensitive there? There was no answer to the question, though. Andrew was already dragging his mouth lower, lower until he positioned himself between her breasts.

He licked her there and her sex squeezed in response, almost like his tongue had found a home between her legs instead.

He took his time at her breasts, teasing a trail along the swell of one but not quite sucking the nipple, and then retreating to repeat the action on the opposite breast. She squeezed her eyes shut as she fought not to beg him to do more. That would only result in punishment. Withdrawal of his mouth entirely. And at this point, that seemed akin to much greater pain.

He leaned up to look at her.

“You so desperately want to moan, don’t you?” he whispered. “For me to suck your nipples.”

She nodded as a response to both questions.

“None of the first,” he reminded her. “And for being such a good mistress…”

He trailed off and drew one hard nipple between his lips. She shuddered in relief and pleasure as he sucked, sucked harder. Sucked hard enough that her hips bucked and the shadow tremors of an orgasm rippled through her pussy.

Her eyes flew open and she couldn’t help her gasp at the sensation. How could she be so close to coming from just his mouth on her breast?

He lifted his head and met her eyes. “So responsive, Lysandra. And normally I like that so much about you. I like hearing you purr and moan. Beg and gasp. When I slide inside of you, there is nothing better than the way you exhale in such pleasure.”

She arched toward his words, so sensual. So revealing. She never thought much of her reaction while they made love, but now that she had to temper it, she was fully aware of how often she wanted to cry out, to gasp her breath, to moan with pleasure. She was fully aware of what he did to her that made her do those things.

Now that the power had been taken from her, she wanted it all the more.

He lowered his mouth back to her breast, and her mind emptied. She shut her eyes and simply thrilled at the way he licked her, swirled his tongue around and around her taut nipple, sucked her with pressure meant to tease and please in equal measure.

Then, just as suddenly as he had tasted her, he removed his mouth and glided lower. He licked a trail down her belly, dipping the tip of his tongue into her navel as if it were her slit. She felt him nuzzle her thigh and tensed as she waited for him to taste her pussy.