“You are a promising pupil,” he whispered, then brushed his mouth over her lower lip before drawing back. “But you still have not followed my instructions.”
The guazy robe had parted further, another tie pulling open. The soft golden hair on her mound brushed his clothing, and each curl became a spark of awareness pricking at her core. She bit her lip, wanting nothing more than to grind herself against him, shocked at the thought. She hadn’t even been properly kissed yet!
He still watched her, waiting, and before he could become impatient, she released his cravat and reached for the ribbon over her breasts. She fumbled, and he caught her hands in his. For the first time she noticed how very large his hands were compared to hers, and a shiver ran down her spine.
“Slowly,” he instructed, brushing aside her trembling fingers. “It isn’t the nakedness that entices, but the promise of it.”
She held her breath and watched, entranced, as the ribbon slowly slipped its silken knot under his elegant fingers. The sheer fabric parted, revealing her breasts to his gaze with no impediment. She exhaled and quickly gulped another breath, her breasts hitching higher with the motion. He chuckled, a warm, rich tone that flowed over her like wine. It relaxed her like wine, too, and she giggled. Emboldened, she reached for the last remaining tie and pulled it slowly open. With only the slightest hesitation, she shrugged the garment from her shoulders, baring her body to a man’s eyes for the first time. Her heart thundered against her ribs. What did he think? Was he disappointed? How did she compare to the scores of other women he’d certainly bedded?
“Beautiful,” he murmured, dragging one finger between her breasts, down to her navel. His progress stopped there, though Joséphine silently willed him to continue. “Now wasn’t that so much more exciting than having your clothes ripped off?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said sullenly. “I haven’t had anything like that happen to me.”
He placed one fingertip on her lower lip and gave it a push. “Pouting is not the aphrodisiac that ladies at court seem to think it is. Now, I believe there was a second part of your task that you are neglecting.”
Untying a ribbon was one thing, untying a cravat was something altogether different. While the sensation of pressing her nude body against Julien’s clothed one was intoxicating, the prospect of being naked while he was also naked seemed too…final.
“I…” she swallowed the lump in her throat and tears sprang to her eyes. “I cannot do this!”
Grabbing up the robe to cover herself, she stood and raced to the bed, where she pulled the coverlet over her head. She must have made a ridiculous picture, but she didn’t care. She wished she had never come with Julien. She wished her father had just sent her to her horrible cousins in the north and had done with it.
She waited for a scolding. Surely he would order her from the bed to continue their lesson. She waited and waited, until finally she forced herself to emerge from beneath the blankets. The room was empty.
With a cry of frustration, she covered her head once more.
Chapter Six
As soon as he was alone in his room, Julien leaned against the closed door to collect his wits. Leaving her had been the most difficult thing he’d done in his entire life. If he didn’t get himself under control, he would walk right back in and climb into that bed with her. She would change her mind about her silly virtue once he got his face between those plump thighs.
His cock throbbed painfully at the thought of all that warm, moist flesh lying untended down the hallway. Perhaps it isn’t untended. At just the suggestion that she might touch herself, he nearly spilled in his trousers. He quickly unfastened them and reach inside, freeing his tortured shaft. His own hand was nothing compared to what the tight, wet grip of her would be, but for the moment it was all he had. He imagined her lying beneath the coverlet in her room, whimpering in frustration, wishing he would return to her and grant her release.
Of course, he would not. Seducing her was not the purpose of this exercise, and no matter how enticing he found her innocence, the prince would not. That was where they differed quite sharply on the matter of women. The thought of being the first to bring a woman pleasure, to initiate her into the mysteries of physical love, that was a rare treat that Julien savored. Prince Philipe did not care for the gentle handling that was required with virgins.
What was she doing now? Julien’s strokes quickened as he imagined her sliding timid fingers over her soft stomach, down to the gold curls that shielded what was no doubt a beautiful cunt. Her breath would hitch, perhaps she would gasp in surprise as she rolled her fingers over the hard nub nestled in the puffy flesh there. In his mind, she moaned and clutched the pillow above her head. Her legs rubbed against each other restlessly, finally opening so she could slip a fingertip inside her aching channel. She groaned his name as her crisis took her, a flood of wetness covering her hand.
His own climax took him by surprise. He spilled over his hand like a randy youth, panting with the exertion. Immediately, guilt assailed him. Joséphine wasn’t in his home for his pleasure. She was here to learn how to please Philipe, so that she could have a better life than she would have at the hands of her incompetent father and horrid stepmother.
Cursing under his breath, he went to the pitcher and bowl beside the bed and washed himself. He undressed, kicking his clothing aside, and was about to go to his books for comfort when he caught sight of himself in his looking glass. When had the years robbed him of his youth? It must have been a gradual process, so why did it catch him by surprise now? He wasn’t fat, like Henrí had become, or bony with his skin hanging like wet paper over his frame like a truly old man. But where was the hard muscle he had earned from hours of hunting and sport? Now, his broad shoulders seemed a bit weary, his stomach a bit less tight than it had been in days past. He was no longer the man who inspired desire in women the very moment he threw aside his shirt.
What would Jospehine have thought, faced with such a man? Her fantasies weren’t filled with men old enough to have fathered her, pathetically unaware of how truly old they had become. She deserved some rock-hard, vigorously rutting youth. Like Philipe.
Though he’d never been jealous of another man a day in his life, Julien hated his friend now. “He should bestow another castle on me, the bastard.”
The problem he faced now was somehow banishing that innocence that he found so charming, remove it from Joséphine’s demeanor entirely. She needed to be a master seductress. And he needed the strength to mold her into that role.
The first task he would have to undertake was training her out of her shyness. The slow, timid way she had revealed herself to him tonight had been the most sensuous torture he’d ever endured. Philipe would have been bored in a minute.
In the morning, the seamstress would come to tailor the new dresses. Marie was a better seamstress than one could hope to find at court, and just as talented with those nimble hands in the bedroom as she was with a needle. Julien had learned that from experience in the backroom of her little shop a few years prior, when he’d gone to have a new coat made. The memory of her bold sensuality made him smile, but his interest now lay elsewhere—down the corridor, to be exact.
Marie would help him. All he had to do was say the word, and he fully intended to.
* * * *
True to her nature, Marie was enthusiastic about the role Julien asked her to play. He gave the seamstress her instructions and sent her off to work on the dresses, and after an hour he strode into Joséphine’s room.
Joséphine gasped and held a hand to her bosom, though she was fully clothed in a green silk dress that practically drown her form in a sea of ruffles.
“Good morning,” he responded pleasantly. “Did you sleep well?”
Outrage painted cherry red circles on her face, and she snapped, “I slept well enough!”
Marie stepped from behind the towering pile of silk. Slender as a reed, with an olive complexion and dark hair piled messil
y atop her head, she looked more like a mermaid than a seamstress. “Off,” she ordered, and when Joséphine was reluctant to disrobe she admonished, “I can’t sew with it on your body.”
“Of course,” Joséphine said, flushing further. “Julien, privacy, please.”
“It is nothing Julien has not seen before,” Marie scolded.
With an outraged look at Julien, Joséphine slipped the dress from her body. It took all the control Julien had amassed over years of court debauchery not to let his reaction show on his face. Beneath the dress, she wore only her corset and stockings that tied above her knees with little pink bows. The triangle of blonde curls between her legs showed beneath the edge of the corset, and her ripe breasts were barely contained, the hint of a rosy nipple peeking above an edge of lace.
“I slept very well, myself,” Julien continued, seating himself in the same chair he’d been in the night before, when Joséphine had crawled into his lap all warm and aroused. “Of course, I was forced to relieve my own desires after I left you. Did you do the same?”
Joséphine’s lip quivered. “No. I do not have a…a harem of men to please me, as you have of women apparently.”
So, she was hurt by the idea of him with another woman. That was an interesting thought, one that Julien set aside for another time. “No, my dear. I did not entertain another young lady in my bed last night. I gave myself pleasure, as I am sure you sometimes give yourself pleasure.”
“I do not,” she snapped back quickly. The vehemence of her reply, the way she averted her eyes spoke to the truth of her words. “I don’t have any need to.”
He stood and approached her, slowly, so she had time to realize how very exposed she was. Her hands went to her breasts, and he moved them aside gently. “None at all?”
With one finger, he coaxed her nipple free from the stiff corset and drew a lazy circle around the rosy peak. She gasped, her eyes widening. “Julien, the seamstress…”
“Is here as a part of your lesson this morning,” he said, dropping his hand. He nodded to Marie, who set aside the tools of her trade and began to efficiently disrobe. “One cannot learn to give pleasure if they cannot receive it themselves.”
Joséphine’s eyes widened as Marie wiggled out of her dress. “I don’t…”
Julien smoothly interrupted her. “Marie has agreed to help me in this. She is a very competent lover. Today, she is tasked with teaching you how to give yourself pleasure. You must learn what you like to feel, how you like to be touched. This will tell you more than anything else what the prince will enjoy.
“Don’t be afraid,” Marie said, taking Joséphine’s hand. The seamstress wore only her stockings and shoes now, the rest of her lean body bare. “Come here, to the bed.”
Joséphine’s obedience surprised Julien. He had expected her to protest further, to reject the idea of letting another woman touch her body. Perhaps a restless night of unfulfilled desire had lessened her inhibitions. Or perhaps she was willing to pay any price to earn her prince.
Unwilling to let such thoughts sour the moment, Julien returned to his chair and made himself comfortable as Marie lay against the pillows on the bed and coaxed Joséphine into a similar position between her spread legs. Stiff and unsure of herself, Joséphine did not relax against the other woman’s flesh immediately. Marie cast a critical eye over her, then said, “Have you ever been kissed, Joséphine?”
A wide-eyed shake of the head was all the response Joséphine gave. The seamstress turned Joséphine’s head gently back and leaned forward to brush their lips together. Then, bold as a minx, Marie’s tongue snaked out to trace along Joséphine’s bottom lip.
A startled “Oh,” escaped Joséphine, but she leaned into the other woman’s mouth, her lips parting to welcome her inside.
Julien shifted his hardening cock into a more comfortable position. The view was torture, two startlingly different, wholly feminine bodies meshed together in an ardent embrace. Joséphine relaxed, looping one arm up to Marie’s neck while Marie stroked her graceful hands down Joséphine’s sides. The motion of lifting her arm freed Joséphine’s other breast, and the seamstress rolled both nipples between her thumbs and forefingers as she devoured the younger woman’s mouth.
“Beautiful,” Julien gave his approval, and at the sound of his voice, Joséphine tensed once more.
“Don’t worry about him,” Marie murmured against Joséphine’s lips. “Don’t worry about anything but what you feel. Do you like the way I touch you now?”
“Oh, yes,” Joséphine whispered in awe. Her hips writhed against the coverlet, and her hands covered Marie’s where they held her breasts.
“Have you ever touched yourself before?” the seamstress asked, still kneading the nipples between her fingers. Pulling, rolling, brushing her thumbs over the hard tips.
Through heavy breathing, as though she had run a mile, Joséphine admitted, “Once.”
“And did you experience pleasure from it? Did you come?” Marie punctuated her sentence with a long, slow lick around the shell of Joséphine’s ear, eliciting a gasp.
“I don’t know,” Joséphine whimpered feebly.
“Would you like to know?” Marie slid one hand down, over the stiff brocade corset, to those beautiful golden curls. “Would you like me to show you?”
Joséphine moaned, nodding her head, her lip caught between her teeth.
Marie slid her middle finger into her mouth, swirling her tongue around it. For Julien’s benefit, he had no doubt, as she caught and held his gaze as she did. He smirked back at her and opened his trousers, freeing his straining erection. She turned her attention back to Joséphine and slid her moistened finger into the cleft between the younger woman’s legs. “You have such wonderful things to discover, my beauty.”
Chapter Seven
Joséphine cried out as lightning struck through her entire body. The seamstress still played at her breast, but it was the wicked finger that had pressed, slick and firm, onto her enflamed flesh that made her lose control of herself. It was exactly what she had felt before, the lone time she had dared to touch herself there, and that feeling had been too much, too terrifying. Now, it was just as frightening, but she trusted Julien and trusted this woman he had brought to teach her. She wanted too much, wanted more, in fact, than what she received. Marie did not move her finger from the spot she had pressed, the hard little pearl that had been so insistent as to be painful the night before. Now, that exquisite pain was unbearable, and she rolled her hips under the woman’s touch.
“Ah, you know the way,” the seamstress purred into her ear. She began to move her finger in slow circles, spreading the wetness around the bud, spreading the lightning all around it. Joséphine’s limbs trembled. She dug her heels into the bed beneath her, held onto the woman behind her with her arms above her head.
“Slowly now,” Marie admonished, still swirling her fingertip around and around. “You must remember how this feels. Julien is right, you know. If you do not know what feels good to you, you will not be able to please others.”
Joséphine’s eyes opened. She had nearly forgotten Julien. He still sat in the chair, but now he stroked his hand slowly up and down his rigid male organ. She had never seen a man in an aroused state before. He seemed so large, so long and thick. His gaze lifted from her spread thighs to her face.
“You are so beautiful, Joséphine,” he said reverently. “Your glistening cunt exposed, waiting for pleasure…you are learning so very well.”
His crude words did not seem so very terrible now. In fact, they drove her desire even higher, and she dropped her head against Marie’s shoulder.
“You might find that you like to touch yourself here, as well,” the seamstress purred. Another finger slipped between Joséphine’s legs and, shockingly, into the entrance of her body. Her channel clenched on the wiggling intruder, and she bucked her hips, instinct urging her to drive the finger deeper, impale herself further. Marie’s long, slender digit curled, pressing again
st some unseen, spongy place inside, and Joséphine shrieked, her entire body tensing as spasms of sheer delight shook her. Her toes curled painfully and her back arched, her thighs locking Marie’s hand firmly into place. She begged, she wept, and in a moment, the too intense feeling had passed, leaving her boneless and tingling against the other woman.
“Bravo,” Marie whispered against her ear as she carefully withdrew her hand. “Did you like it?”
Like it? Joséphine wasn’t sure if she would ever walk again, her legs trembled so. She sat up and turned at the waist, scrutinized the woman’s expression for any hint of mocking. If she were to be made fun of now, she would die. Simply die. But there was nothing but tenderness in the woman’s expression, so Joséphine leaned forward and kissed her, as passionately as she could ever imagine kissing anyone.
Marie moaned against her mouth, and Joséphine wondered if the woman felt as frustrated as she had the night before, when she had gone to sleep unsatisfied. Though at the time she hadn’t a clue what would have satisfied her, she thought she knew what the woman would like. “May I…may I touch you?”
With a content smile, Marie lay back, spreading her arms in invitation. Joséphine turned between her legs and found herself laying quite close to the woman’s bosom. Experimentally, she opened her mouth and touched the tip of one dark nipple with her tongue.
“Very good,” Marie murmured. “You can take the whole of it into your mouth, if you like.”
Joséphine closed her mouth over the dusky peak, still tapping it with her tongue. She thought of the motion of the seamstress’s finger between her legs, and swirled her tongue around and around. Marie gasped and lifted her hips beneath her. Joséphine smiled. Perhaps it was easier to please a woman than to please a man. Marie did not run from her, as Julien had.
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