He reached forward and grasped her knees, then shoved them apart until she was sprawled across the couch in a most revealing position.
“Now place your hands on yourself and think of what has given you pleasure,” he continued, though his voice was becoming rougher and rougher with each order.
“Andrew,” she whispered, mostly because she was afraid.
Afraid of what fully surrendering to this life would entail, and worse, how it might change her. Already, she longed for his touch, for more of him, did that not make her a wanton?
“Stop thinking about everything that frightens you and do this,” Andrew said, breaking into her thoughts like he had a window into her tormented soul.
“How do you know what I was thinking?” she asked.
He laughed. “You have an expressive face, Lysandra. Now stop dallying and do as I say.”
Lysandra lifted her hand from her side. It trembled as she placed it flat on her belly and let it rest there. Her fingers had never felt so heavy or so hot to her before. She stared down at them, almost as if they belonged to some unwelcomed stranger.
“Slide upward and touch your breasts,” he said, staring at her hand as intently as she was.
Lysandra sucked in a breath and slowly, unsteadily, glided her hand up the apex of her body until her right palm covered her right breast lightly. Once again, she was struck by how foreign the sensation was. Of course she had touched herself innocently before, in the bath or while getting dressed…but this was something else. Now she noticed just how heavy and soft her breast was. How hard her nipple felt as her palm brushed it and how just that grazing touch could make a little frisson of pleasure jolt through her.
She gasped and jerked her hand away.
“No,” he urged, so soft and seductive. “Don’t stop.”
She shivered and then rested her fingers back against her flesh. They were beginning to feel less foreign now, which allowed her to revel in the brush of her skin, the heat that increased as she first rested her hand back in its original position and then began to gently knead the flesh there.
She thought of Andrew and what he had done to her both times he touched her this way. She thumbed at her own nipple and gasped when the pleasure her grazing touch had caused doubled, tripled.
“You see how much more aware you become of your body when you surrender to its desires?” Andrew asked.
His voice was so low and seductive that it seemed to dance along her spine and through her nerves to tingle at the tips of her breasts and in the area between her legs that she hadn’t even begun to explore.
“Tell me how it feels,” he encouraged her.
“Hot,” she admitted in panting breaths. “Tingling.”
“Good, that is exactly how your pleasure should feel. Now lower. Move your hand between your legs and touch yourself there.”
She was too mesmerized by her own actions now to refuse his request. She glided her hand down her body, noting how the touch felt, how her body reacted. Finally, she hesitated just above the triangle of hair that marked the beginning of her mound.
“Think of how good it felt when I was tasting you,” he said, sliding closer. “And when I was inside you. Wouldn’t you like to have that kind of pleasure at your own command, whenever you would like it?”
She shut her eyes. He was like a seductive devil, daring her to be more than she was. And she had no resistance to him. She covered her sex with her hand and caught her breath.
“I don’t know how to…to touch myself here,” she admitted.
He leaned along the bottom of the settee until his face was mere inches from her sex. He parted her fingers to reveal her to him and smiled. Then he covered her fingers with his own, spreading her lower lips gently and gliding her fingers against the wetness they concealed.
“Feel how you are already aroused?” he asked, stroking her hand up and down the length of her entrance. The tingles she had felt when she touched her breasts returned with even greater intensity.
She swallowed hard. “The wetness, you mean?”
“Yes. It is how your body readies itself for a lover’s intrusion. And it is most pleasurable to feel that heated wetness around my cock, I assure you.” He removed his fingers and Lysandra continued the work he had started, rubbing the outside of her own sex in a rhythmic, repetitive fashion.
“Now press a finger inside your sheath,” he said. “As if it were my cock inside of you.”
She whimpered, but did as he ordered. Her index finger slipped inside with no resistance and she felt the wet walls flex around her hard.
“Oh God,” she whispered, tensing against the building wave of passion. “And then?”
He reached out and flicked at her clitoris with his finger. “Do you remember when I told you about this nub? When I licked it and made you come the first time?”
She jerked out a nod. “Yes.”
“Touch it like I am.”
She pressed her thumb to the bundle of nerves and began to grind against it. Her body lifted and her hips turned in time to this new wicked pleasure, almost as if it knew what to do, even if she didn’t. She cried out, pushing harder, driver her finger deeper into her sheath and the wall of release burst suddenly and powerfully.
She cried out as she came, shaking and lifting her hips, trembling as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over her, carrying her away until she was spent on the fainting couch and panting.
Before she could catch her breath or say a word, he rose up like a god, stripped off the trousers and shirt he had put back on when he called for her bath and stared down at her. Her eyes went wide as she stared at him. He was utterly beautiful and now his hard cock, jutting up against his belly, no longer worried her. She ached for it.
He obliged without her asking. He lowered himself over her and took advantage of her already spread legs. In an easy thrust he was buried inside her to the hilt. She gasped at the feeling, still shocked by how full and womanly and utterly wild his taking could make her feel.
He dropped his mouth down and began to take her with his tongue and his cock. Unlike the last time, there was no gentleness to his touch, he was demanding, driving into her hard and sucking her tongue, tasting her mouth with as much command. She surrendered to the domination without hesitating. She lifted her hips to meet his driving thrusts, arching and mewling as he claimed her hard and fast.
The pleasure she had experienced at her own hand was still tingling in her loins and within a few hard thrusts he stoked the fires inside of her anew. She pulled her mouth from his to cry out against his shoulder and he roared in response, then withdrew to spend away from her.
Lysandra collapsed against the settee once more, slick with sweat, the scent of sex in the air around her. But she had never been more satisfied in her entire life. And if this was what being a mistress would entail, she was beginning to think it might not be such a bad life after all.
Chapter Nine
Andrew sat on the same fainting couch where he had taken Lysandra not three hours before. She was curled up in the bed, sheets tangled around her waist, sleeping peacefully.
He hadn’t intended to take her after she pleasured herself. Nor had he intended to take her a third time after they shared a decadent supper in her chamber. Nor a fourth. He was no longer the libertine that could fuck a woman until they were both spent.
Except that was exactly what he had done tonight. Without thought, without hesitation.
Now, regret…well, that was another story entirely.
He stared at her. She wasn’t anything like his late wife, Rebecca. For that, he found he was glad. They didn’t even look alike. Rebecca had been fair and Lysandra was dark.
But there was something about Lysandra that drew him like a moth to her seductive flame. There was her beauty, of course, her sensuality that he was able to coax and demand because of the tutelage he was giving. But there was something more. A kind of sweet innocence that she maintained even as she opened her body to hi
m with increasing fervor.
And there was a sadness that lingered in her eyes that he wanted to…heal.
He jerked his head away and stood up.
Heal her? That was ridiculous. Not possible. This agreement between them was for sex and nothing more. He could either help her to become a valued mistress to a long-term protector or help her see that she wasn’t equipped for this life. But that was all. He had no intention of creating more between them than that.
He turned on his heel and stalked from the room silently. He said nothing to the servants as he walked to his waiting carriage and gave his driver the order to go to his father’s home. It was late, but not too late to see the old man, and it would set him to rights. Make him remember who he was and why he had come to London in the first place. And it wasn’t to begin an affair with Lysandra Keates.
He would do well to recall that fact.
After a long while of twisting through streets crowded with carriages heading for the theatre or soirees around town, his rig came to a stop before his father’s London home.
As he stepped down, he stared up at the large, imposing home, so different from the modest escape he had just slipped away from. He had never liked the brashness of this home or even his own homes here in London and in the country. But they came with the title and his wife had wanted them to be impressive, so he had done what was expected of him.
Still, there was something friendlier, more real about Lysandra’s new home.
The door opened and his father’s servant greeted him. He was shown immediately to his father’s office. As he opened the door, the earl looked up from his desk and his eyes widened. He got to his feet while Andrew closed the door behind himself.
“Callis, I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
Andrew flinched. His father always called him by his current title, Callis, just as his peers did. Never Andrew. It put a distance between them that had always stung him a fraction.
“Good evening, my lord,” he said, just as formal. “I’m sorry if I intruded upon your plans for the evening by not sending word of my arrival.”
“Of course not,” his father said as he sat down and grabbed for a cigar to offer Andrew. Andrew shook his head. He didn’t smoke, though his father never seemed to recall that. As he lit his own cigar, his father said, “What brings you here?”
Andrew blinked. He didn’t really know the answer to that question. “I-I was just driving by.”
His father’s brow wrinkled. “I see. Well, I’m pleased you made my home a stop on your way to wherever you were going. To a soiree?”
Andrew pursed his lips. His father had made it no secret that he thought Andrew should return to Society in full. Perhaps should even marry again so that he could create the heir the earl so desperately required, despite the fact that Andrew had a younger brother who could very well fulfill that role if Andrew didn’t.
“No.” He looked away. “Home. I was going home.”
“Hmph.” His father chewed on the cigar restlessly. “Have you seen your brother since your arrival in London?”
Andrew looked at him. “Sam? No.”
“He’s serious about some girl. Pretty thing, I think her name is Adela. Daughter of the Duke of Wimberly. They could marry this year. And when they breed a son, he could become the next in line if you refuse to do your duty.”
Andrew stared at his father. Here he had just dropped a huge bombshell that his younger brother could soon marry, and all his father could do was try to stoke some kind of competition to create an heir.
“What does Sam think of her?” he asked quietly.
His father shrugged. “Who knows? He goes on about her often enough; I suppose he thinks himself in love with her. She’s suitable, though. That’s what matters to me. If they married, it would link us to yet another important family.”
“Well, I haven’t seen him,” Andrew said with a slight sigh. “But I should go to him soon to offer him congratulations. If he is happy, I will be happy.”
“You two.” His father waved his hand restlessly. “Too much like your mother. The woman had many admirable qualities, but she was a ridiculous romantic. Bred bad habits about marriage into you both. It is a business arrangement, my boy. Nothing to moon over for three years.”
Andrew flinched. “I realize you think I have mourned far past my rightful time. But it is my right to decide how my wife should be honored and for how long.”
His father stared at him and Andrew saw a brief flash of concern on his face. For all his bluster and ramblings about propriety and business mergers, Andrew knew the old man cared for him. Perhaps not with the obvious affection his late mother had shown to her sons, but their father loved them as much as he could love anyone.
And his gruffness and bluntness was often based as much on concern as it was on propriety or a desire for heirs or whatever else he said.
He shook his head. “Please, let us not rehash this same argument over and again. I know what your expectations are of me.”
His father puffed out a circle of smoke. “You ought not to lock yourself away, boy. It isn’t healthy.”
Andrew nodded. “Yes, I realize you believe that. But I do come here at your request, every time you request my presence. Don’t ask me for more.”
His father opened his mouth, but then shook his head as if he had thought better of it. Abruptly he changed the subject to the estate Andrew lorded over in Huntington. As the earl spoke, Andrew’s thoughts turned to Lysandra, asleep in the bed he had provided for her. More was what he had already unexpectedly gotten on this latest trip to London. And it was utterly confusing.
Lysandra stared out the window as the carriage rattled through London, but she hardly noticed the passing buildings and people. She couldn’t even appreciate the comfort of the vehicle, so different from the last time she’d made this trip.
No, the only thing she could focus on was Andrew. For the second day in a row, she had woken alone in the pretty little house he had given to her. There had been no word from him and she was too timid to send word of her own. She didn’t know if mistresses even did such a thing as contact a protector in his home.
Actually, that was only one of a thousand questions she didn’t know the answer to, which was why she was in her carriage. And why that carriage was stopping in front of Vivien Manning’s home.
Wilkes soon opened the door and helped her down. He smiled at her. “I’ll wait around the back, miss. Send for me when you are ready.”
Lysandra barely contained a nervous giggle. How different this trip was than her last to this place.
“Thank you, Wilkes,” she finally managed to say with some dignity.
He nodded and she swept up the stairs. The butler Nettle greeted her with much more warmth than he had during their first encounter and led her to the same parlor where she had waited for Vivien before. She paced the room, wringing her hands as she waited for her savior’s arrival.
But as she moved along the back wall of the chamber, something caught her eye. She hadn’t noticed the red wallpaper before, except to be aware of its bold color. But now she saw that hidden within the pattern were…
She gasped, and at the same moment, the door behind her opened and Vivien stepped in. Lysandra spun on her with a dark red blush and found the other woman smiling at her knowingly.
“Admiring my wallpaper?” Vivien said as she moved to stand next to Lysandra. “I designed it myself. It cost a fortune, but it is quite the conversation piece, is it not?”
They both stared. Lysandra could hardly breathe at the faint, artistic images of men driving into their partners from behind, women with their lover’s cocks between their lips, two men with one woman…her head spun.
“My favorite is this one,” Vivien said as she motioned to an image of a man and woman giving each other oral pleasure at the same time.
Lysandra’s eyes grew wide. She already knew the way Andrew’s mouth felt on her, but she hadn’t fully considered taki
ng his cock into her mouth. Especially at the same time that he pleasured her. Would he like such a thing?
She could add that to her questions, a list growing by the second.
“But I doubt you came here to examine my wallpaper,” Vivien said with a laugh. “Not that it couldn’t give you excellent ideas of how to give to and receive pleasure from a man. Is everything well?”
Lysandra forced herself to stop looking at the naughty wallpaper and return her attention to Vivien.
“I— Well…”
Vivien tilted her head when Lysandra struggled to continue. She kindly filled the awkward silence.
“My sources tell me that Andrew has given you a home to live in during your tutelage. I assume that means you have begun your affair.”
Lysandra blushed. “Yes. He came to me two nights ago and we…uh, m-made love for the first time. But he hasn’t returned since. I fear I must have done something wrong.”
Vivien stared at her. “I see. What was his mood when he left you?”
Lysandra shifted. He had been so angry with her when he uncovered her secret, but then that emotion had seemed to fade. They had shared her bed over and over again with no mention of his being upset.
“I wasn’t entirely honest with you or with him,” she explained slowly. “So he was, for a time, very angry at me that night.”
“Not entirely honest…what does that mean?” Vivien asked, her tone filled with caution.
“Before he came to me, I-I was an innocent,” Lysandra admitted with another hot blush. These were not topics she had ever thought to talk about so freely, but here she was, discussing them for a second time in as many days.
Vivien was on her feet in an instant, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh God. Andrew must have been furious.”
Lysandra nodded. “He was less than pleased to find out the truth.”
An Introduction to Pleasure: Mistress Matchmaker, Book 1 Page 7