Cadence of My Heart (14 page)

“Really?” Cadence grins.

“Yes, sweetheart.” Marlee smiles. “I love the way you kiss me.”

That’s actually an understatement. Not only does it feel amazing, but it’s probably the best oral sex she’s ever received. How is that even possible? This is Cadence’s first time, and yet she’s moving her mouth so confidently, about to deliver another stunning orgasm.

And there’s more.

Without warning, Cadence slips a finger back inside, causing Marlee to utter a series of impassioned expletives. The young teen is about to learn that penetration plus oral makes for a very swift climax, and Marlee’s about to learn that the sight of Cadence’s head bobbing between her thighs is more than she can withstand.

As she looks down, her climax hits, the world spinning out of control.

It’s with no small amount of sadness that Marlee and Cadence pack up and leave Lymington. Oh, for just one more day. One more night. One more glorious night.

They hold hands in the chauffeur driven car, but nothing more. They steal kisses when they retreat to their rooms to unpack, and enjoy a quick, frantic grope before dinner, leaving Marlee just enough time to change back into suitable nanny attire: high heels, flowing skirt, push-up bra, and a satin blouse that was recently added to her wardrobe by Mister Ashlock. As with many of her other blouses, the buttons stop at the bust, but this one feels tighter. He probably had it made especially for her. Ugh.

Always a needlessly formal affair, dinner typically consists of Missus Ashlock asking inane questions simply for the sake of asking them, while Mister Ashlock eats in silence, glancing at Marlee’s cleavage between mouthfuls. Marlee and Cadence will invariably hold up much of the table talk, sticking to topics of school, world affairs, and new music which Cadence claims Marlee will surely like if she gives it a proper chance. However, tonight’s dinner is destined to take a very different turn.

“Did you have fun?” Missus Ashlock asks her daughter, enquiring about their vacation in her usual tone of not caring. “Did you try lots of new things?”

Marlee lets out an almost inaudible little squeak. Snorting as she tries to take a sip of water from her glass, she inadvertently sucks some of the liquid into her windpipe, triggering a bout of hearty, rasping coughing.

Everyone’s looking at her, Cadence smirking.

“Are you quite all right?” Missus Ashlock sounds more annoyed than concerned.

“Mm-hmm.” Marlee wipes tears from her eyes, composing herself. “How was your business trip?” she deflects, thinking the less their vacation is spoken of, the better.

Happy to discuss that instead, Missus Ashlock returns her gaze to her dinner. “Negotiations went well,” she says offhandedly. “Contracts were signed.”

Marlee doesn’t like the sound of that. “Contracts, milady?”

“Cadence’s marriage contract,” Missus Ashlock explains casually. “Despite her rather hideous behavior at her debutante party, one of the gentlemen put in a generous offer to pair her with his son.” She pauses to munch a broccoli floret. “The family will be staying with us next summer so that the children can meet one another, and their engagement will be announced at Cadence’s seventeenth birthday party. They’ll be married the following spring.”

That all sounds painfully matter-of-fact, and entirely unemotional.

“I don’t want to,” Cadence protests.

“But you’re going to.” Missus Ashlock won’t hear a word against it. “He’s a lovely young man, and only a few years older than you. He speaks seven languages fluently, and is just finishing up his first bachelor’s degree. You’re a very lucky girl.”

Lucky? Surely lucky would be getting to marry the person you’re in love with?

“I’m not marrying him,” Cadence insists.

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

This little back and forth argument continues for a while, emotions escalating, until Cadence blurts out something that should be game changing.

“I’m gay.”

Dead silence.

Marlee chokes on a bite of her food and reaches for her glass of water to wash it down. In her periphery, she can see that Mister and Missus Ashlock aren’t looking at their daughter—they’re looking at
her
. Dear god, is she going to be blamed? What are they waiting for her to say? What
can
she say? Her cheeks flush.

Eventually, Missus Ashlock turns to her daughter and dismisses the declaration completely. “No, you’re not.” She resumes eating.

Outraged that her coming out should be so easily disregarded, Cadence slams her cutlery down on her plate. “Yes, I am!”

The clanging china makes Marlee wince, expecting that it probably heralds the commencement of war. Still, though, Mister and Missus Ashlock appear wholly unmoved.

“Didn’t I tell you this would happen?” Missus Ashlock carps at her husband. “If you expose a girl to things, she starts to get ideas.”

Mister Ashlock, keeping well out of this, as he usually does in family disagreements, focuses solely on his food and makes no comment.

“Don’t blame Marlee!” Cadence raises her voice, her bunched up napkin following her cutlery onto the plate.

“Cadence …” Marlee tries to call her off before any damage can be done, but it’s to no avail—Cadence wants her voice heard.

“I’m gay!” She stands up so dramatically her chair tips over. “I’m not going to marry a boy! I want to be with Marlee!”

At that moment, Marlee’s fairly certain her heart ceases to beat. It swells and explodes, every bit of it atomized inside her chest. Is she still breathing? She’s not sure. She feels lightheaded, the world starting to tilt. Nope, she’s definitely not breathing. She can’t: there’s no oxygen in the room. She’s going to be fired. She’s going to be arrested! Oh, god. She’s going to go to prison!

Nope.

Yet again, Missus Ashlock surprises her.

“Of course you want to be with Marlee.” She doesn’t even look up from her dinner plate. “You’ve been clinging to her like gum on an old boot since she first set foot in this house, and being away from her is going to be awful for you, I’m sure.” She shrugs. “But that’s life.”

“No!” Cadence starts to yell. “You’re not listening!”

“I
am
listening, Cadence.” The beastly woman finally looks up at her daughter. “And you know what I hear? A little girl who’s having a temper tantrum because she’s afraid to grow up.”

Marlee’s already incensed on Cadence’s behalf, but Missus Ashlock isn’t done hurling insults yet—there’s much more to follow.

“I’m not going to let you wither away into a wretched old spinster just because you enjoy being babied by your nanny,” she goes on.

Oh, how wrong she is! It’s almost funny.

“Even if you did have feelings”—she sneers that word out—“for her, do you really think I’d allow you to throw away your whole future for some poverty stricken old dyke?”

Now Marlee’s incensed on her own behalf, but Cadence is fighting back for both of them.

“Don’t speak about Marlee like that! I love Marlee!”

Observing quietly, Marlee wonders how it’s possible for a proclamation of love to feel so wonderful and yet so damn terrifying at the same time. She needn’t worry, though: Missus Ashlock gives little credence to it.

“I’m certain you do.” She returns to her food. “The same way you love Bobo, and that strange little furry creature you kept in your bedroom when you were nine.”

For Cadence, the insinuation that she loves Marlee like a pet is the final straw.

“You cunt,” she growls, glaring defiantly at her mother.

The vile woman snaps like a tightly wound E string. “Go to your room!”

Cadence is already halfway toward the door, which she slams on her way out.

“Impetuous little girl,” Missus Ashlock mutters.

In the silence that follows, Marlee sets her knife and fork aside, rests her napkin on her plate, and politely excuses herself. “I’m sorry. I’m really not hungry anymore.”

Without bothering to curtsey, she gets up from the table and leaves, deliberately avoiding eye contact with her employers. How dare Missus Ashlock speak to Cadence like that! How dare she speak about
her
like that! And to do so with such a callous disregard for either of their feelings. What a repugnant human being!

Marlee’s had enough. From now on, the only thing that matters is loving Cadence.

To hell with everything else.

On her way up the main staircase, Marlee makes a swift decision about what to do next: she’s going to make love to Cadence. Fuck the Ashlocks. She and Cadence are going to have sex in their house, while they’re home, and she’s not going to feel guilty about it in the least.

Battling tears of anger, she goes straight to Cadence’s bedroom and knocks on the door.

There’s no answer.

She enters anyway, checking to see if Cadence is anywhere inside, but she’s not.

Damn.

Perhaps she’s in the games room crying, and perhaps that’s for the best.

Marlee inhales deeply and gathers herself. Shagging while the Ashlocks are in such close range would be needlessly risky, so she convinces herself it was nothing more than a ridiculously hotheaded thought that’s probably best forgotten.

Taking a moment to calm herself, she slips through the open cheater door into her own room, prepared instead to lie on her bed and stare aimlessly at the ceiling, or weep, but …

Cadence is lying naked on the bed, the duvet discarded on the floor. She’s on her stomach, legs bent at the knees, ankles crossed, long chestnut hair spilling over her bare back and shoulders, cascading onto the bed.

“Oh, heavens.” Marlee clutches her chest, her exclamation of happy surprise immediately followed by a reflexive chastisement that carries no emotion whatsoever. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

“It’s too late to try and nanny me now, Marlee.” Cadence smirks, feet wiggling gleefully.

She’s right. Marlee has absolutely no hope of commanding her to do anything ever again; the authority she had over this child is long gone. The best she can hope for now is that Cadence will have the maturity to behave properly without being prompted, or will simply comply with her requests out of love, not necessity.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that was the only reason she was ever so well behaved in the first place: to please her nanny. Perhaps the authority was merely an illusion from the outset. Perhaps it was love’s influence all along.

“I think it’s about time I issued
you
some orders for a change,” Cadence continues, tapping her index finger against her lower lip, feigning deep thought on the matter. “Now get over here and touch me.” She beckons to Marlee with the same ‘come hither’ fingers she used to bring on her climax yesterday.

Smiling, arousal returning, Marlee obeys willingly. “You were very brave this evening, darling,” she says, sitting on the edge of the bed and slipping out of her heels. “It took a lot of courage to tell your parents how you feel about me.”

“They didn’t listen.” Cadence sulks, picking at a split end in her hair.

“That’s not so important right now.” Marlee hitches up her skirt and moves closer. “What matters is that you said it. You told the truth, whether they want to believe it or not.”

“But what good does it do if they won’t pay any attention to me?”

She has a point.

Still, Marlee doesn’t want her to waste precious time worrying about something that’s completely out of their control.

“Sshhh. Let’s not talk about this anymore. Not tonight.” She kisses Cadence’s head. “If your parents won’t reconsider your match, I’ll have to think of something.”

“You will?” Cadence sounds mostly hopeful, only mildly skeptical.

Marlee moves Cadence’s tresses off her shoulders and back, baring her skin for kisses. “I won’t let them marry you off to someone else without a fight.”

Waving goodbye to any concerns still lingering in the back of her mind about being caught diddling the Ashlocks’ daughter, Marlee settles herself behind Cadence, stroking and kissing her bare back and rump. The curve of her spine is so wonderfully sensual, ending with two little dimples just above her bum.

Mmm, her naked bum.

Marlee can’t resist. She brings a flat palm down against one of Cadence’s butt cheeks.

Slap!

Cadence squeals.

Marlee grabs her muscular ass. “You have such an incredible bum.”

“Spank me again.” Cadence angles her butt upwards.

Complying willingly, Marlee brings a palm down on her cheek again, slightly harder this time, leaving behind a pink handprint.

“That stings.” Cadence pretends to be upset, looking at Marlee over her shoulder. “Now you have to kiss it better.”

Marlee leans forward, kisses her, then bites her, eliciting another squeal.

“I love you, Marlee.” Cadence waggles her bum, encouraging more kisses and caresses, her spirits lifted. “I don’t ever want this to end.”

“Me neither, sweetheart.”

Though she wants to ignore it, Cadence detects a hint of sorrow in Marlee’s voice, as if the end, however unwanted, is sadly inevitable and unavoidable. Is she capitulating before the fight even begins? Resigning herself to failure?

“I have an idea,” she volunteers cautiously. “What if
you
marry me? They can’t marry me off if I’m already wedded to someone else.”

Marlee’s ministrations stop abruptly, her breath caught in her throat.

After a while, “What’s the matter, Marlee?” Cadence turns her attention back to the split end, her mood subdued by Marlee’s apparent reticence. “You don’t want to?”

Marlee leans forward, pressing her cheek to Cadence’s back, holding the young teen. Closing her eyes, she squeezes a handful of tears loose, the salty droplets forming a narrow rivulet from Cadence’s shoulder blades, puddling at the small of her back.

Oh, the thought! The thought of making a life with Cadence is positively electrifying, but even if it were possible, the last thing Marlee wants is for Cadence to feel as though she’s evading one marriage only to be flung headfirst into another. Focusing on that, she cools the teen’s enthusiasm, softening the rejection with a healthy dose of reality.

“You need parental consent to marry before you’re eighteen, darling.”

“Not everywhere,” Cadence murmurs, her confidence knocked. “Not in Scotland. The age is sixteen there—I checked.” She rests her chin on her arms, not daring to roll over and look Marlee in the eye. “I thought we could go there next summer, for the last long weekend we’ll get to spend together. I’ll have finished school by then. There’ll be nothing holding me here.”

Shocked by Cadence’s unflinching devotion to her, Marlee hesitates to respond. Matrimony is one heck of a commitment for a sixteen-year-old to contemplate, never mind for a seventeen-year-old to undertake. But then, an arranged marriage is one hell of a burden for a girl of any age to be lumbered with.

Eventually, “You’re so young.” Marlee nuzzles her hair. “This is all terribly unfair on you.”

Cadence shakes her head. “I’ve been raised for marriage, Marlee. Like geese who grow up on a farm, only to be cooked for dinner. They’re born for the purpose of being eaten, and I was born just so I could be married and sent away.” Her voice cracks, but she doesn’t cry.

“Oh, darling.” Marlee kisses her head. “Your parents don’t deserve you.”

“They don’t want me.” Cadence arches her back, pushing her bum up against Marlee. “You’re the only person who’s ever wanted me.” She rests on her elbows, peering over her shoulder. “You do want me, don’t you, Marlee?”

“What do you think?” Marlee grabs Cadence’s hips and raises them, bringing her to her knees so that she can reach around and touch between her legs. “Do you want me to show you?”

She pushes a finger inside, seeking out that deep place, but finds it difficult to get at from this angle. She tries to edge a second finger in, but feels Cadence tense up so she stops.

It’s so hard not to give her more.

It’s so hard not to fuck her.

Cadence moves her body perfectly, adapting to Marlee’s rhythm, changing the angle of her hips to better enable deep penetration, or to make sure Marlee hits certain areas that feel good. How did she ever learn to be this sexy? How did she learn to move in such a way? Marlee suspects it’s to do with porn, although that’s not really of any importance. What matters is that she’s hungry for intimacy, eager to explore new sensations, and she wants to please as much as she wants to
be
pleased. She’s perfection.

It’s such a relief, too. In the past, Marlee’s been with some sexually experienced women who thought their part in lovemaking involved little more than lying on their backs with their legs open. She’s so glad Cadence isn’t a lazy or complacent lover—this bodes well for the future.
Their
future, which she’s ever more determined they’ll have.

She starts to thrust rhythmically inside her young lover. In her own vagina—used to the penetration of dildos and multiple fingers—she can barely register the movement of one finger slipping in and out, and gets little pleasure from it. That’s not the case for Cadence, though. In her tight body—the walls of her inner sex swollen with arousal, the muscles clamping down—the gentle plunge of one finger is definitely enough.

Cadence whimpers. “Do you like making love to me, Marlee?”

Marlee is overwhelmed. Cadence’s deliciously firm ass is raised, grinding against her, rocking back and forth. She’s leaning on her elbows, her chest angled down, cheek pressed against the pillow. Who saw this coming two weeks ago? Bending forward, Marlee presses her breasts against Cadence’s back, leaning over her, pushing deep inside her.

“Say my name again.”

“Mmmmarlee,” Cadence coos, drawing a murmur of pleasure into her name.

“Louder,” Marlee demands.

“Don’t we have to be quiet?”

“I don’t care.” Marlee finds Cadence’s g-spot.

“Oh!” Cadence cries out, grabbing a fistful of pillow. “Marlee!”

“I’m going to make you come the way you made me come last night.” Marlee targets the hidden button of skin relentlessly. “Do you want that?”

“Yessssssss!” Her muscles clench, gripping Marlee’s fingers like a vise. “Make me come! Oh, god, Marlee! Make me come!”

She does, and it’s loud.

If anyone happened to be walking by the bedroom, they’d easily hear. And Marlee’s long past caring.