by Leia Rice
When they walked in, the crowd of people reminded Mariette of the meetings in the basement. Of course, these people would not dare go to such a meeting, seeing as their wealth and deeds were connected to the king. Somehow, they managed to prosper while the rest of France suffered in poverty. A tinge of anger colored her cheeks, and for the first time she felt as Sebastian probably felt, making her mission even that much more important.
“Your name?”
“Hmm?” She rused as she studied all the coiffured wigs, the painted faces, the fancy gowns and suits. Men wore clothes that looked more elaborate than some of the dresses. Past the greeting hall, the ballroom contained blurred, dancing figures cradled within a warm glow, surrounded by laughter and gossip. Mariette’s anger faded as excitement took over.
“Your name, mademoiselle.”
“Oh. Um. Mariette. Mariette Le Fleur.”
The usher cracked another smile, lifting her hand to his lips to kiss it politely. “Of course, you are le fleur indeed.”
Mariette smiled gently, and after he announced her arrival, the man dropped her hand and nodded his head. “Enjoy yourself, Lady Mariette.”
Remembering her lessons in etiquette from many years ago, when her mother cared about such things, and she lived under a respectable roof, Mariette curtsied and wandered off toward the ballroom. The nearer she got, the louder the noise became as it seeped out the doors and into the lobby. Others approached as she did, moving toward the grand, gold-painted doors, which were pulled open and hooked in place by chains on the wall. Every detail drew Mariette’s attention, even the simple click of her heels on the Italian-marble floors. She had become accustomed to dirt, cobblestone and rugged wooden planks.
When she found herself in the midst of the throng of guests, Mariette reminded herself of her goal. Lifting her mask to her face, she concealed her identity, along with everyone else in the room. She looked for a particular mask, one of royal-blue color and golden trim. This would be Lord Lefey, the man she would have to seduce—the owner of the manor.
The orchestra switched to a slower tune, and guests paired to dance the complex steps of cocky, noble dances. These, Mariette knew nothing of, and so she quietly slipped off to the side of the room and continued her search.
He stood on the other side of the room, next to a table of laughing men and women holding cards and chips in their hands. They pushed the chips back and forth, in the middle, to the side, then to the middle again. Though Lefey did not play, he loomed beside the table, watching the bets merrily, swinging his mask around every now and then as he laughed boisterously and conversed with the others.
Lefey. Mariette started in that direction, only to be caught around the waist by a man’s arm. She paused and squeaked, “Monsieur.”
“I know you, don’t I?”
“Do you?” She peeked out from behind her mask, pulling it away from her face so the man could regard her well.
A ribbon tied his mask around his head, a different style than her own mask, which was attached to a thin handle wrapped in black ribbon. “It is my Mariette.”
“Your Mariette?” She quickly replaced her mask, unsettled.
“You do not recognize me?”
Mariette squinted with a tilt of her head. His beautiful, blond hair triggered a memory, and a flutter tickled the inside of her stomach. “Rene.” She reached out and hugged him, pressing her form to his. “Are you on a mission too?”
“A mission, my dear?”
“Yes? For Sebastian?”
Rene shook his head and guided Mariette toward the dance floor. “Well…not really. But I cannot share all things with you, ma chérie. I am sure you understand.”
She nodded and understood well enough. Sebastian had many fingers reaching in many directions, and each one never knew what the other fingers did. Mariette realized that Rene slowly dragged her toward the dance floor and dug her heels into the ground. The marble ground. It did nothing. She slid toward him instead, and he wrapped her up in his arms.
“Just dance, Mariette. For once, just dance.” Rene cooed the words into her ear as he rested his forehead against her own. His large hands laced with hers, and they intimately danced with each other like that for what seemed like forever.
Mariette forgot about her dingy apartment, her recent foray into whoring, her dues, her rent, her piss-poor wages made at the tavern. She felt beautiful and safe in Rene’s arms, surrounded by dozens of swirling women and men in colors pulled from everything and everywhere.
She forgot about these things right up until she saw Lefey retreating into another room, away from the dancing. Her breath caught in her throat. She’d lose him if she didn’t keep up. She would lose him, the money, her rent, her apartment…the worries all mounted on top of each other until she panicked and broke away from Rene.
“Mariette?”
Ignoring his questioning call, she gently nudged through the crowd, toward the closed, ornate doors where Lefey had disappeared just moments before. She looked over her shoulder to see if anyone watched her. If Rene followed her. No one watched, and she could not spot Rene anywhere. A light push cracked the doors open and Mariette slipped inside.
Chapter Four
Shadows enveloped the room along with the strong smell of old cigar smoke and alcohol. Mariette slipped her tiny form into the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. She felt alone in here. Alone and small. Her lips pressed together in a concerned line, and after clearing her throat, she quietly inquired, “Monsieur Lefey?”
“Yes?” A dot of orange glowed bright then faded. When he inhaled audibly, the glow intensified again before dying down into a light amber hue. He stepped out of the shadows, lowering the cigar from his mouth as he approached her. “You are…?”
“Mademoiselle Le Fleur.” Mariette curtsied before him, pairing the motion with a respectful bow of her head. “Mariette.”
Lefey’s eyes were black, so much so that it looked as if the center of his eyes were hollow and melded with the darkness of the rest of the room. He stood tall, arms thick, chin well defined and square. He personified nobility. He was nobility. “What can I do for you, Lady Mariette? This is a private room.”
“Yes. Forgive me. I…” She lost all rational thought. What was she doing anyway? How did Sebastian ever expect her to seduce a stranger? Her side work didn’t involve seduction. All it took was an eager man and a proposition. She didn’t search for it. It came to her.
She’d have to figure it out quickly, since her mouth gaped as though she was a simple woman, and she’d surely begun to look ridiculous. “I am sorry. I might have had a touch too much to drink.” With a forced, though smooth, childish giggle, Mariette put a hand on his forearm as she passed where he stood and walked farther into the room to examine it. It was a brave move for such a nervous woman.
Lefey turned, as Mariette could hear the rustle of his costume. She looked back at him and gestured toward…a painting. Yes, a painting. Her haphazard gesture just so happened to be directed at a nice painting of blue roses in a golden tureen. “Um. Who painted this?”
“A local artist. Mademoiselle, I’ll ask again why you have come back here.”
Lifting her mask up to her face, Mariette turned in a circle, brushing a palm over her dress. “To be honest, monsieur…” She remembered what Helene taught her about being blunt and forward with men. They like being told what they want, Mariette. They like women who know what they want too. Mariette hoped that what Helene said was true. “My husband has been away in the New World for a few years now, having left to help with that silly war.”
“Oh?” Lefey sounded interested now.
“Yes. And, well. Now I am in here, with you and a little too much champagne in my belly… So, perhaps…” Mariette went back to where her victim stood and cupped her palm over the relaxed bulge of his pants. “You could set a lonely girl straight?”
In the dim lantern light, Mariette saw him smile a delicious smile. A rush of energy surged t
hrough her body with her proposition. She did not know what she was doing, but she did know that it worked by the way Lefey’s shaft jerked under her hand.
He put his hand over hers and clutched it tighter, so she could no longer deny his growing hardness. “I do hate to have lonely girls at my parties. They bring everyone else down.”
“We do, don’t we, my lord? And I would hate so much to ruin your masquerade.”
“Since you so rudely decided to make yourself at home and go into whatever room you wished without permission, you can start by getting on your knees and convincing me that I should ease your loneliness.”
Mariette’s hands immediately went to work as she unlaced his breeches and struggled to get his cock free. When it bounced out, it nearly arched back toward his stomach, so hard and erect. She lowered herself in front of him, happy now that her dress was made of so much fabric; it padded her knees as she knelt, making her work easier.
Placing her mask on the floor, Mariette leaned forward, breathing onto the swollen, purple head. Taunting him by being so close, but doing nothing at all. He grunted somewhere above her, then pushed his hips forward, smushing the root of his prick against her mouth impatiently. “Come on, girl. Don’t play games with me.” He puffed another drag from his cigar, then blew the smoke out over his head.
Holding the base of his root, Mariette parted her lips and took him into her mouth. She could taste the salt of his precum as her tongue swirled around the tiny slit, then across the pronounced crease of the head. He thrust himself into her until she could barely breathe. The tip of his cock touched the back of her throat, and she moaned—no—hummed.
Lefey grunted and sucked another drag from his cigar. His other hand rested on his hip. He reminded her of paintings of sailors, standing on the bow of a ship, one foot propped up, a hand on the hip, a scope to the eye. Except he was not sailing now. He was puffing a cigar and getting a blow job from a pretty stranger with a wandering husband. Or so she made him think.
Mariette pulled her head back just enough so that she could breathe through her nose again, then started a moderate pumping rhythm, sliding her lips up and down his shaft, holding it between them with a slight pressure, as Helene taught her to do since it “reminded them of pussy.” Lefey must have liked it, because he pumped back into her mouth, countering the rhythm.
When his hips slid backward, she hummed around his dick, sending vibrations through the shaft, down to his balls. Lifting a hand, Mariette cupped Lefey’s testicles and massaged them carefully, extending her pointer finger so that it brushed the sensitive skin between there and his anus. This light touch made Lefey tense, and his balls pulled up tightly to his body. She could tell he was willing himself not to finish too early, and while the power over him made her wetter, she too did not want it to end now.
She withdrew her hand and put it on his thigh instead. Lefey now rocked her whole body as he fucked her mouth; Mariette no longer had to do any of the work. Before she knew it, he calmly put his cigar down on the nearby ashtray and grabbed the back of Mariette’s head, forcing her to take his whole shaft.
The tip of his head nudged the back of her throat, and then she felt it. The warm, liquid blast of his seed draining into her stomach. She gagged on it and pushed against his legs to try to pull away, but Lefey held her firmly in place. “Stay, you little whore.”
Normally, Mariette would be insulted, but the way he growled out the words made her pussy wetter. She plunged her hand down between her legs to touch herself, jamming her fingers into the warm folds of her cunt. She moaned around his cock as she used her juices to lubricate her clit, which she pinched at tauntingly.
Lefey slipped out of her mouth, grabbing her face with one of his hands to keep it still. His come still pooled in her mouth, and as he lifted her chin, some dribbled out and over her lips. He smiled raunchily and nodded. “Swallow.”
Mariette swallowed.
It was then that Lefey saw what she was doing to herself. He frowned, smile immediately disappearing. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer. She did not know how to answer that. She was obviously fucking herself, since he was busy fucking himself in her mouth. Before he could force her to answer, the door to the room flung open and a man stepped in, boasting loudly. “Ah, this party has turned out for the best, don’t you think? I even heard that the mess of revolutionaries might be paying us a visit.”
When he finally came into view, Mariette immediately noticed that it was Rene. She dropped her hands from between her legs, and Lefey let go of her hair.
“Let them come here. They’ve been doing things wrong all along. I might not agree with the Royalists, but they give their coffers up easily when they are drunk and gambling.” Lefey spoke as if nothing was wrong with the situation that Rene had just interrupted.
“Is that my Mariette you have?”
Lefey blinked and looked back to where Mariette still kneeled. “Mariette? Ah…yes, I believe that is her name. Lady Mariette.”
“Lady Mariette?” Rene’s hard-soled shoes sounded against the marble floor, silencing only when he walked over the bearskin rug that had been thrown down in front of the desk. “Ah, Lord Lefey, it seems our lady here has duped you.”
Mariette swallowed again, though this time she had nothing in her mouth. Lefey’s gaze flickered angrily as he directed a narrow-eyed gaze at his concubine. “Oh?”
“Why, yes. She is no lady. Mariette works at Le Fleur Tavern. She’s one of Sebastian’s pretty dolls.” Rene stopped when he reached Mariette’s side. When he stood in front of her, the bulge of his codpiece stood prominently in front of her face. “Mon Dieu, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“She has a nice mouth to fuck, too.”
“I know.” Rene ran his hand down the back of Mariette’s curled hair, which had now begun to frizz. It sent shivers down her body and the area between her legs became slick with her honey once more.
Lefey laughed. Mariette loved his laugh. She could not say anything; she did not want to say anything. But her attention split between both men, watching each one in turn. She followed Rene as he crouched down and cradled a hand between her legs, licking up her slit with a fingertip to feel the heat himself.
“Have you let her come yet?” Rene asked the question casually, as if they’d been partner to this sort of encounter before.
“We haven’t gotten there yet.” Lefey spit in his hand, wrapped it around his cock and started to work at it to get hard again. “You have a knack for interrupting me. I think you don’t want me to have them on my own.” He adjusted his stance so his legs were slightly apart. “Purely selfish.”
Unbuckling his belt, Rene let it drop to the ground. He reached into his pants and pulled his member out and it thickened immediately with little to no effort at all. “Well, then, we better do something about it, don’t you think?”
Lefey grunted, busy with his own work.
Mariette watched Rene and wondered what she had walked herself into. He crooked a finger at her, beckoning her to crawl toward him. “Why don’t you remind me how good your mouth is.”
Hungry for more, Mariette tilted forward and whispered an obedient “Yes, my lord.”
The tip of his cock nudged her lips open, then pressed into her mouth, filling it all at once. Though her jaw still ached from Lefey’s fucking, she opened for Rene willingly, savoring the taste of his skin and the few drops of passion that she smeared around his shaft with her tongue. She adjusted the way she sat, kneeling forward more since the hoops of her dress were becoming a bother with all the kneeling she’d been doing.
“God, she looks beautiful even when my cock isn’t in her mouth.” Lefey started across the room, his erect member bouncing heavily as he walked. He stepped behind Mariette, then one of his hands dipped down between her legs to her downy pubis mound. A finger slipped in between her swollen folds, brushing over her needy clit. “She’s even beautiful from behind.”
Mariette pushed her
hips back against Lefey’s finger, moaning around Rene’s prick. She wanted him to fill her so badly. She wanted to feel completely possessed. Owned. So when Lefey used his hands to gently tilt her hips upward, she didn’t complain—not that she could with her mouth full. The cool air against the sensitive skin of her pussy made her shiver. She looked over her shoulder, turning her head away from Rene, and watched as Lefey plunged himself into her, balls slapping against her ass. She squealed and Rene’s cock fell from her mouth.
“Now, now, let’s not be sloppy, Lady Mariette.” Rene nodded down at his erection. “You make me come and he’ll make you come. Isn’t that the deal?”
“Fuck, yes.” Lefey withdrew from her moist hole, only to refill it with another pleasured grunt. “That’s the deal.”
Mariette moaned her assent, pushing her hips back against Lefey until her ass cheeks pressed against his thighs. He pulled her up by her arms, entering her anew from a new angle. The feeling of him being so deeply sheathed inside her tickled Mariette. She grabbed Rene’s shaft again and devoured it needfully.
Rene snaked his fingers into Mariette’s once-beautiful barrel curls, yanking her face closer to him so that she could smell the musk of his coarse patch of hair. The euphoria of it drove her mad; she started to bounce desperately on Lefey’s cock, her breasts jumping up and down with her every movement.
Lefey effortlessly held both her arms with just one of his hands. The other brushed around her front, down the low, dipping neckline of her dress and pinched at one of her pink, taut nipples. Mariette moaned louder and her pussy shuddered and tightened around the cock inside her. She kept herself from coming, though it quickly turned into a battle that she was sure to lose. “Feisty little thing, isn’t she?”
Rene couldn’t answer. His buttocks locked together as he spilled his hot load down Mariette’s throat. He pulled out, still spasming, and came the rest of the way, letting his seed paint Mariette’s face.
She closed her eyes and ground back on Lefey, licking the salty come off her lips. Rene rewarded her blow job by moving closer to her and slipping a hand down to her hungry twat. Mariette groaned again, falling forward to half lean on Rene’s chest as pleasure racked her body.