An Introduction to Pleasure: Mistress Matchmaker, Book 1

by Jess Michaels

  Her lips thinned and he saw a flash of both sadness and unexpected anger in her stare.

  Her voice was faraway when she said, “No. This is the only way for me.”

  “That cannot be true,” he insisted with a sigh. “There are other ways.”

  She glared at him and her chin lifted stubbornly. “And what would you know about it, my lord? You have lived a life of privilege since the day you first drew breath. You have never seen your family’s money vanish, you’ve never been forced to become a servant in someone’s home only to have them want more from you…demand more.”

  She flinched and the words of rebuttal on Andrew’s lips evaporated. He stared at her.

  “That is what happened to you?”

  She nodded, just once. “I worked for a very influential man in Society and I thought, I hoped, that it would be a way for me to support myself and those I loved. But when he demanded I service more than the house…” She shivered. “I-I refused him.”

  “But isn’t that what you are doing by becoming a mistress?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. If I become the mistress of a man, it will be by my choice. And there are benefits that come along with that title, aren’t there? Ones far better than to be a maid whom the master toffs behind his wife’s back. I can already see that in this arrangement, I would have some control…some power.”

  Andrew swallowed. Staring at her, her curves only barely covered by the bed pillow, her face flushed as she spoke of wielding her own kind of sensual power…his cock began to ease to attention. Fuck if she wasn’t right. She had the power. At least some of it.

  “This man who I served, he was enraged when I said no. He put me on the street that very day and refused to give me a good reference. In fact, he went beyond that. His poisonous words have guaranteed I’ll never work in a good house again. And for a servant, that is the death of a career.”

  “I see,” Andrew said softly.

  He so rarely considered those in his service. He treated them well, he offered them money and a home, as well as help if they required it. He sometimes forgot that others did not treat their staff as well. And he never reflected on the consequences of what might happen to those put out on the street.

  “I’m not certain you do see,” she continued. “If you won’t teach me how to be a mistress, I’ll simply be forced to go about this another way. With another man if need be.” She shivered at the thought. “I’ll be on the street if I don’t and so will—”

  She cut herself off and shook her head as if she hadn’t meant to say so much. Andrew stared at her.

  “So will who?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not asking for your pity. Just your assistance.”

  “Who?” he asked again, his voice low and even.

  She swallowed. “My mother,” she admitted.

  He drew back in surprise. “Your mother?”

  She flinched and then dropped off the bed to snatch at her gown. “Yes. I have one you know. Those in the class below yours are still human, my lord.”

  He reached for her as she fumbled with her gown. When he touched her, her skin burned his, stoking the fire he had extinguished when he discovered her secret.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you, Lysandra,” he said softly. “Whatever you think of me or my ‘class’, I do understand about family responsibility. My own family is…complicated.”

  She stopped trying to pull away from him and instead looked up at him. “If you understand, then does it follow that you will help me, despite your misgivings?”

  “You will truly continue down this course if I don’t?” he asked.

  He wasn’t certain what answer he wished for as he asked the question. The idea of her being with another man…well, that was torture. He wanted a taste first. A moment. And he wanted to be certain she would be “trained” by someone who would understand her drive and be gentle in his instruction.

  “I will,” she said without hesitation. “I must.”

  “Then I’ll help you,” he whispered.

  She almost buckled and he could see it was from relief. For the first time, he saw her desperation and it frightened him a little. He caught her elbow and pulled her closer.

  “But you must understand that if I do this, I will do it all the way. I will teach you what a man desires…everything a man desires. It may be too intense for you.”

  She swallowed, and he could see that his warning both frightened and titillated her. Once again, he was rock hard with just a nibble of her lip and the light of curiosity in her eyes.

  “It would be best for me to know every aspect of a man’s desire,” she finally said. “So I welcome anything you can teach me.”

  “We’ll see,” he whispered and then surrendered to the desire that had begun to course through him again. He dropped his mouth to hers, driving his tongue between her lips as he molded her still-naked curves to his body.

  The dress in her hands fell away, and she let out a tiny moan into his lips as she tangled her fingers into his hair and lifted herself closer.

  Andrew gasped for breath as she stole it. She might be an innocent, but she was utterly responsive and fantastically erotic. With just a touch, she arched and moaned, and she had come so fast and hard the first time he touched her that it had only added to his belief that she was experienced in some way with sex.

  But now she would be his to tutor. To please. To train. And he intended to enjoy every moment of it, even as he taught her to do the same.

  He didn’t have to think about the fact that she would take those erotic lessons to a relationship with another man, a more permanent protector. Those were thoughts for another day.

  Today was just about this.

  He maneuvered her back toward the bed and immediately they were back where they’d left off before he discovered the truth. She perched on the edge of the bed, panting as she looked at him.

  “Did you like how this felt before…” He hesitated and pushed at the guilt. “Before the pain?”

  She nodded. “I-I did.”

  “The pain is temporary,” he explained as he laid her back. “Something that happens the first time a man breaches you, but never again with him or any other man. Had I known you were a virgin, I would have been gentler, more careful. I would have treated that taking as the gift it is.” He smoothed a lock of chestnut hair away from her face. “But now that I know…well, I promise you that I will make this first time a memorable one for you.”

  She blinked up at him. “I think I can safely say that has already been done.”

  He chuckled. “That seems like a challenge.”

  He didn’t wait for her to reply, but dropped his mouth to hers. Her words died on his lips and he kissed her, tasted and exploring her mouth until she was relaxed on the bed. Then he began to move lower. He nuzzled her neck, sucking her flesh there with little nips and scrapes of his teeth. She arched beneath them, gripping at his shoulders as her breath rasped in and out of her lungs in a broken, heavy rhythm.

  A rhythm that all but stopped when he sucked one hard nipple between his lips.

  “God!” she cried out, and her hips jerked upward.

  He sucked harder in response and she whimpered, clutching at him, begging him for something he knew she didn’t fully understand. But he was going to show her. Right now.

  He eased her backward on the bed and positioned himself over her. Since he had broken her hymen, the worst of her pain was over now, but she likely remained tender. He opened her legs as he continued to suckle and tease her nipple, then pressed his cock to her.

  He swelled at the feel of her nether lips welcoming him, hot and slick, into her waiting pussy. He glanced at her face and she had her eyes closed, groaning and whimpering at the feel of his tongue against her nipple. He could take her now, quick and hot, so that she would have no time to tense and make the sensation unpleasant.

  He glided inside to the hilt and her eyes came open in shoc
k at the sensation, though she didn’t recoil or cry out with pain this time. For a long moment he held still inside of her, even though the tight, hot pulsing of her pussy walls made him want to slam inside of her with little finesse or thought.

  “Are you all right?” he panted.

  She nodded. “Yes. The pain is minimal,” she said.

  “I want to take it away,” he growled. “I want to make you come. To make you feel as good as I did when I licked you.”

  She shivered, and her body flexed, probably without her even knowing it. It was too much. Andrew stroked into her with one long thrust and grunted with the pleasure of it.

  “God, you are like heaven,” he moaned against her neck. “Hold tight to me, Lysandra.”

  She did as he asked, clutching her hands around his back as he rotated his hips a second time. He flexed and drove, fighting to remain steady, calm, gentle, but his long-neglected cock wanted more. More of her weeping slit. He hadn’t lost himself for so long.

  “It feels…” she gasped from beneath him and he tensed.

  If she said painful, he would stop, though he had no idea how he would do such a thing now. Not when he was on the edge.

  “…good,” she moaned. “So good.”

  Those words shot him over the edge he’d been balanced on, and Andrew lost control. He drove into her, taking, claiming, stroking until he felt nothing but the oblivion of pleasure.

  And just as he thought he could no longer control himself, Lysandra tensed beneath him, her face contorting in a mask of wonder and pleasure and she shuddered with release, crying out his name as she held him tighter.

  He exploded, barely able to withdraw from her hot body to milk his seed against the sheets instead of deep inside her. Then he collapsed back onto the pillows and dragged her against his chest.

  It was done. She was his in a way she would never be another man’s. And though the idea had originally given him pause, now he felt triumphant in the thought that he would be the only one to first take her, first give her pleasure.

  Whatever else happened, that fact would always belong to him. And she would always remember it. As would he.

  Chapter Eight

  Lysandra hadn’t bathed in front of another person in years. And she’d never bathed in front of a man. But now she was seated in a big tub in the middle of her new bedroom and Andrew sat beside it, watching her soak. The only protection for her naked flesh was the soapy water, and that was small coverage, indeed.

  A fact Andrew seemed to be enjoying. He had positioned himself so that he could look down at her, watch her. She wasn’t certain whether to squirm with embarrassment or blush with the surprising and intense desire he inspired. She couldn’t help but think of the passion they had shared just an hour before and she dropped her gaze.

  “Don’t look away from me,” he said softly.

  She gave him a questioning glance. “I beg your pardon?”

  “This is your training.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “Was our…our…”

  “Fucking?” he finished for her.

  She had never heard that term before, but she knew instinctively that it wasn’t a proper or appropriate term to use in mixed company.

  When she flinched, he said, “Or you could call it making love if the other term is too vulgar.”

  She bit her lip. Making love seemed too intimate a label for what they had done. Love was not part of this equation in any sense. In truth, she hardly knew this man, let alone had any feelings for him. But when she had to choose between the two terms…

  “Was our making love not part of my training?” she asked.

  He nodded slowly. “Oh yes. A most pleasurable part that will be a cornerstone of everything we share from this moment until we part. But now that you are no longer a virgin, we must move on to more strenuous lessons about expectations, desires and the future you insist you must have.”

  Lysandra’s eyes narrowed. Was he trying to frighten her in order to force her to alter her course? He had so passionately argued against her decision to be a mistress before he finished…making love to her that she couldn’t be mistaken about his feelings on the subject.

  But she wouldn’t be deterred. So she lifted her chin and looked him straight in the eye. “Why shouldn’t I look away?”

  He held her gaze evenly. “As a mistress, you mustn’t simper or play coy. A gentleman encounters enough of that in ballrooms and parlors as he pursues women to be his wife. A mistress must offer something different. Something exciting and new to brighten a gentleman’s drab life.”

  Lysandra shifted in the water. Could she do such a thing? Be exciting and new to men who had far more power and experience than she did?

  “But all men do not want the same thing, do they?” she asked.

  He arched a brow. “In some ways they do. All men want the sweetness of your body. But in some ways, no. They all have different desires.”

  “Then perhaps I shall end up mistress to a man with a harridan of a lady in his wife.” She shrugged. “Perhaps he would prefer a demure mistress.”

  Andrew stared at her for a long moment and then he began to laugh. It was a pleasant sound, though a bit rough, almost as if he hadn’t used it in a long time.

  “My dear, if you can use that wit with whatever man you end up with, you will find it serves you as well as your body,” he said when he could again speak.

  Lysandra blushed with pleasure. She had not been complimented on her wit since her eighteenth year. Her father had been dead a year then, and she and her mother had clung to the hopes that she would find a proper husband to save them from their mounting troubles. She had briefly made a foray into the middle class Society in London. The gentlemen had all claimed to enjoy her company, but ended up marrying dull girls with large dowries.

  And perhaps that was the point Andrew was trying to make.

  “So you are saying that men are often forced into matches that they would not choose if they didn’t have to breed proper heirs for their titles or fill their coffers with the dowries of their wives. When they seek a mistress, they look for someone quite different from the woman they have at home or the woman they know they must court down the road,” she said with wonder.

  He nodded. “Exactly.”

  “How sad for all of them,” Lysandra said with a shake of her head. “How sad for the men to marry someone they could never love and how sad for the women who cannot ever be good enough to keep the attention of their husbands.”

  Andrew pursed his lips. “It isn’t all so bleak. There are love marriages amongst the ton, as I’m sure there are in the middle class. They are simply rarer.”

  He turned his face away, and Lysandra stared. There had been a brief moment of pain on his face that was unmistakable. She recalled Vivien had said something about his “sad history”, but could it have something to do with a marriage? Dear God, she didn’t even know if he was married. She had assumed not when he took her into his home, but she could be utterly wrong.

  “Do you have a wife?” she blurted out.

  He jerked his gaze to her and held it there a long moment. Then he slowly shook his head. “No. My wife died three years ago.”

  Lysandra swallowed hard. At least she wouldn’t be the “other woman” aiding in the painful deterioration of a marriage, but she could feel no glee about the reason. A death of a spouse, she knew how that had broken her poor mother.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  He rose to his feet. “This is exactly what I’m speaking of, Lysandra. Your duty is to keep these painful thoughts, these proofs of reality, away from your protector’s mind. Create a world of fantasy and pleasure, nothing more. That is what he will desire.”

  She stared at him. He was angry. Angry with her or angry with himself, she wasn’t certain. But before she could ask him, he spun on her.

  “Stand up,” he ordered.

  She flinched at the rough tone but did as he asked, shoving to her feet from the stea
ming water. She still felt a desire to cover herself, but it was beginning to fade. Andrew had already seen her in every intimate way, after all.

  “Have you ever touched yourself?” he asked.

  “Touched myself?” she repeated.

  He stared at her. “As I touched you. Touched yourself intimately.”

  She drew a few long breaths before she answered, so he wouldn’t hear the tremble in her voice.

  “No,” she admitted.

  He frowned. “Never? Not even in the dark of your room?”

  She bit her lip. “No.”

  “Hmmm, well then, your first lesson shall be one you carry with you the rest of your life. Know your body.” He smiled, but it was wicked. “To create pleasure in others, you must experience it yourself. Take the towel from the table beside the tub, dry off and lay down on the divan.”

  Lysandra shivered, but she did as she had been told. Once she was dry, she moved to the divan, a fainting couch that was positioned in front of the blazing fire. Once she was lying across it, staring at him with anticipation heating her blood, he moved to kneel at the end of the couch.

  “Open your legs, Lysandra and touch yourself.”

  She sat up a fraction and stared at him. “Touch myself with you watching?”

  He growled out his answer, “Normally, I would simply tell you to do so in the privacy of your chamber, but our time together is limited. I will be your guide in helping you find ways to give yourself release and then you must do this every night, whether I visit you or not. Keep your body at the ready and you will more enjoy your duties as my mistress.” He stopped and shook his head. “A mistress.”

  Lysandra bit her lip. She had no idea how to proceed in touching herself intimately. But as Andrew tilted his head in encouragement, she realized that he wasn’t about to release her from his order.

  She crooked her knees and spread her legs a fraction. He shook his head.

  “No. All the way.”

  “Splay myself out in an entirely unladylike fashion?” Lysandra burst out in horror.

  He smiled. “You may be a lady in the parlor all you like—in fact, that is what you should do, no matter what your position in life ends up being. But in the bedroom, in private or with your lover, you must be willing to go further. To forget conventions which tell you not to look, not to touch, not to feel. Otherwise you will have very short and unsatisfying affairs, indeed.”