The Devil's Masquerade (Royal Pains Book 3)

by Nina Mason

  With a deep breath to bolster his mettle, Robert opened the door. There, as he’d expected, stood the widowed apothecary. He had not, however, anticipated her being dressed quite so provocatively or looking half so enchanting. Perhaps the planned entertainments would not prove so great a hardship after all.

  He drank her in like an aperitif. His gaze flowed to her décolletage, where alabaster breasts bulged from the draped dark-blue silk of her mantua. The pink half-moons of her nipples peeking over the top winked at him enticingly.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Crosse.” He bowed deeply. “How ravishing you look.”

  “You look rather appetizing yourself, My Lord,” came her reply.

  Whilst he’d been imbibing her beauty, she’d been devouring his banyan-clad physique with hungry eyes.

  Stepping back from the door, he swept his arm in welcome toward the apartment’s interior. “Do come in and have a seat. Would you care for some refreshments? I can offer wine, brandy, or whisky.”

  “Brandy, please.” She brushed past him on a rustling cloud of silk and herbed bread.

  The apothecary, looking remarkably at ease, claimed one of the chairs facing the settee. Robert remained standing, fingers fidgeting, as Maggie brought a tray with three glasses of brandy, which she set upon the table betwixt the upholstered pieces of furniture.

  He waited until his wife took her seat on the settee before claiming the spot beside her. In the awkward silence that followed, they each picked up a glass and took several sips.

  “This is very good brandy,” Mrs. Crosse remarked, breaking the ice, which had grown into a veritable glacier. “Is it French?”

  “Aye,” Robert replied, grateful for the chance to make small talk. “From the private reserve the king brought with him when he returned to England from his exile.”

  “That’s right.” The apothecary shifted her gaze to Maggie. “The former Duke of York is your father, is he not?”

  “Yes, he is.” As Maggie sipped her brandy, she set her free hand atop Robert’s thigh in what he took to be a demonstration of ownership. “My mother, one of his mistresses, died shortly after giving birth to me, whereupon I was delivered to a convent by her cuckolded husband. My father tried to find me, but failed in the effort. And I did not learn who he was until after Robert and I were wed.”

  “I see.” Mrs. Crosse leaned forward in an attitude suggesting genuine interest. “And the king has more than one mistress, despite being married—and Catholic?”

  Robert waited for Maggie to respond. When she did not, he said, “He has several, though not as many as did his brother Charles, may God rest his soul, who converted to our faith upon his deathbed.”

  “Yes, my father said as much,” the lady remarked. “And what about you, My Lord Dunwoody? Do you, too, keep a harem of mistresses to amuse yourself?”

  Despite his clear conscience, Robert felt a stitch of guilt. It in no way helped that Maggie turned her gaze on him as if expecting an answer different from the one he’d already given her. He sipped his brandy and cleared his throat, which suddenly felt congested.

  “I do not, Mrs. Crosse. Nor have I once broken my marriage vows.”

  “Until now,” the apothecary returned with a triumphant smile.

  Robert took a breath and placed his hand over Maggie’s, which still rested on his thigh. “Indeed, Mrs. Crosse. And touché.”

  “I find it admirable that you have remained faithful to your wife.” Holding his gaze with hypnotic intensity, the widow added, as if Maggie were not in the room, “I hope she knows how fortunate she is to have a husband so handsome and devoted. And whilst I know your reasons for breaking your vows with me have little to do with my charms, I shall allow myself to feel flattered all the same.”

  “To my eyes, your charms are considerable, Mrs. Crosse,” he said. “But my heart is and always will be spoken for.”

  The apothecary rose from the chair, set her glass on the tray, and came round to the settee. Perching herself on the edge of the cushion, she took his right hand betwixt hers and leaned in until her mouth was a breath away from his. “I wanted you fiercely five years ago.” Her eyes smoldered and her voice was low and seductive. “And want you still. Just as desperately. On whatever terms you are willing to offer.”

  Releasing his hand, she grasped him by the back of the neck and pulled his mouth against hers. He fought to keep the kiss chaste, but she evidently had other ideas. Lips parted as they met his, she drove her tongue into the seam betwixt his lips, coaxing them apart. As her tongue stormed his mouth like an invading marauder, she tangled her fingers in the sensitive hairs on his nape and angled her head for greater depth. The pain of the hair-pulling coupled with the wet heat of her probing tongue ignited his passions, even as he worried how his wife might react to their guest’s brazen instigation.

  Lest Maggie take umbrage at being excluded, he guided the hand under his toward his crotch. Rather than resist, as he feared she might, she stroked and squeezed his half-hard sex into a state of acute arousal. With the other hand, she pulled down the back of his robe, baring his shoulders, which she nibbled and kissed.

  Mrs. Crosse, mouth still locked with his, had taken his right nipple betwixt her fingers and was pulling and pinching in a way he found equal parts pleasing and uncomfortable.

  The two ladies serving him in tandem—a heaping plate of pleasure with a side of pain—proved a satisfying banquet. He cupped the apothecary’s breasts through her boned bodice and moaned into her mouth. The sound of his pleasure must have provoked Maggie’s jealousy, because she simultaneously sank her teeth into his shoulder and squeezed his cods hard enough to make him jump.

  Freeing himself from his seducer’s grip, he reclined across his wife’s lap and looked into her shimmering blue eyes, unable to read the emotion there. “Remember what I told you, Rosebud,” he whispered, stroking her face. “You have no cause to feel threatened.”

  Lowering his hand, he pulled open her robe, giving himself access to her milk-laden breasts. As he took a hard nipple betwixt his lips, the moist heat of the widow’s mouth enveloped his erection. Spurred by a surge of intense enjoyment, he flexed his hips to partake more fully of her succor. As her hummingbird tongue flitted around the head of his cock, his similarly teased Maggie’s teat, tasting sweet milk.

  Hands stroked his chest, but he knew not whose they were. Nor did he care. He was in heaven, drifting along on a rolling cloud of bliss—a thunderhead gathering pressure before unleashing a perfect storm of ecstasy. He could feel his balls drawing up and the blood throbbing in the veins of his cock. If Mrs. Crosse went on paying her addresses in this fashion, he was sure to come off too soon, satisfying not even himself.

  As much as he enjoyed oral stimulation, he enjoyed swiving considerably more. He wanted to sheath his blade in one of their snug, succulent cunnies, or, better yet, both of them. One after the other until he brought both women to a shattering finish. For he meant to give Mrs. Crosse the night of passion he’d denied her five years prior, as well as to make the most of the opportunity to sample another woman’s wares with his wife’s full consent—and blessed participation.

  “Ladies,” he rasped, freeing his mouth, “as much as I enjoy your ministrations, this evening’s pleasures should not be for me alone.”

  Mrs. Crosse released his phallus with a pop and sat up, licking her lips as she met his gaze. “Shall we remove into your bedchamber then?”

  “Aye,” he returned with a devilish grin, “for we have some new toys we’re eager to try out.”

  “Goodness me.” A smile stole across Mrs. Crosse’s mouth as a blush tinted her cheeks. “This just gets better and better.”

  She was game, which pleased him—and also gave him an idea. “What would you say to being tied to the bed and blindfolded?”

  That way, she would be hard pressed to distinguish which of them was penetrating her.

  “I’d say I am willing…providing you promise not to try anything too untoward.�
��

  With a sinister grin, he replied, “Define ‘too untoward’.”

  “Anything that causes pain or discomfort,” she said, all at once looking leery. “I’ve come here for a night of passion, not abuse, and I am already pushing the envelope by permitting your wife’s participation.”

  Robert, suppressing his amusement, arched an eyebrow. “Am I to deduce from your statement that you wish not to be spanked—even if the spanking affords greater raptures than you’ve ever dreamed possible?”

  “Well, I…” Leaving the incomplete thought to dangle, Mrs. Crosse looked at Maggie. “Does he spank you, My Lady Dunwoody?”

  “He does.”

  The widow’s eyes opened wider. “And does it drive you to raptures, as he claims?”

  “My husband does not make idle promises,” Maggie returned with the sweet, serene smile of a Leonardo da Vinci Madonna. “And ’tis my sincerest hope the same can be said of yourself.”

  “You need have no fears on that score, Duchess. I gave my word I would see to your child, and I mean to keep that promise—as long as the two of you first honor your oath to me.”

  “By vouchsafing you a night of unbridled passion?” The smile Maggie wore as she said it was far more sinful that saintly.

  “Indeed. Though I did not count on bindings, spankings, blindfolds, and the like. Not that I am averse to their use, provided there is not excessive pain involved.”

  “Causing you pain is not the objective,” Robert assured Mrs. Crosse.

  “Then, what is the objective of tying someone to the bed whilst you flog them?”

  “Submission,” he replied. “When you give yourself over completely, you will let down your walls and enjoy the experience all the more.”

  Her gaze darted back to Maggie. “He does this to you?”

  With a glint in her eye he did not trust, Maggie said, “He does indeed.”

  Robert looked down the front of his body to where his cockstand, still glistening with the widow’s saliva, was beginning to wilt. All this chatter was dampening his desire.

  “Come,” he said, scrambling off the settee, “let us remove to my bedchamber and get on with the evening’s entertainments.”

  He led the way into his room, stopping before the fireplace, where he and Maggie stripped their guest down to her stockings and garters. Whilst the women took turns kissing one another, he fondled their breasts and teased their cunnies, both of which were already deliciously wet. Then, he took Mrs. Crosse by the wrist and led her to the bed.

  “Lie down in the middle with your arms above your head.”

  As the apothecary carried out his orders, Maggie left the room. Opening the bedside drawer, he withdrew the eyeless mask and silken rope before climbing onto the bed. After straddling the lady, he put the mask in place and secured her wrists to the headboard. He then kissed her deeply whilst rubbing the head of his cock along the humid crevice of her quim. God, how he longed to bury his blade to the hilt in that beckoning scabbard. To do so, however, would run the risk of upsetting the cart.

  If he only waited until Maggie returned with the false phalluses, which she kept in her own bedchamber, he could swive his wife to his heart’s content whilst Signor Dildo saw to Mrs. Crosse.

  Pushing up on all fours, he dragged his tongue down the salty column of the bound and blindfolded widow’s neck to her clavicle before kissing his way down her sternum. Upon reaching her breasts, which were impressive in shape and size, he sucked a nipple into his mouth and flicked it aggressively with the tip of his tongue. As she gasped and squirmed, he moved to the other nipple and repeated the assault.

  “Do you see how good it can be to surrender yourself fully to the experience?”

  “Yes-s-s-s,” she said in a breathless hiss.

  He moved lower, planting a row of kisses down her body until he reached the top of her pubic nest. There, he paused, for Maggie had come back into the room. Lifting his head, he studied his wife through the screen of his hair. She cut a breathtaking figure with her golden curls spilling over her pale shoulders. Amber light danced flickered across swell, curve, and ripple of her body. In each hand, she gripped her new godemichés in a way that brought to mind Hecate, the three-faced goddess of the night whose dual lanterns lit the way to the underworld.

  Alight with anticipation, he said in a domineering tenor, “Come join us, Rosebud.”

  She advanced toward him without delay and set the devices beside his knee before climbing atop the mattress. Sitting upon her haunches, she said, “What would you have me do first, Lord and Master?”

  Mrs. Crosse coughed. “Please tell me I did not just hear her call you Lord and Master—and that you have no expectation I do likewise.”

  “’Tis but a game we play,” he returned, mildly annoyed at her recalcitrance. “I am her master at times and she is mine at others. Our marriage is an equal partnership, Mrs. Crosse—a very rare and beautiful thing.” Turning to Maggie, he added, “Kiss her up top whilst I kiss her down below.”

  Without argument or hesitation, his ever-surprising wife threw a leg over their restrained guest and bent to kiss her mouth, offering him a glorious view of her feminine anatomy. For a moment, he simply stared with lust pulsing in his heart. The pink lips of her vulva were swollen with desire and already so wet they glistened in the candlelight.

  Taking his cock in hand, he leaned forward, desiring to service both of them at once, which he accomplished by rubbing the empurpled head against the apothecary’s clitoris whilst flicking his tongue over Maggie’s. The sweet duet of moans provoked by his efforts sent thrills swimming through his bloodstream.

  When his mouth tired of the exercise, he picked up the leather dildol and pushed it into Maggie. As he worked the toy in and out of his wife, the urge to bury his cock in the cunny just inches from his cockhead burned in his cods like hellfire. Fighting the urge with everything he had, he sat back on his haunches and took a deep breath. God, this was agonizing. Exquisite in its slow-roasting eroticism, but still torture.

  He needed to put his cock in something, be it mouth, cunt, or arse. This minute. As he eyed his wife’s attributes with lascivious intent, raw animal lust coursed through him. Climbing up behind her, he buried his full measure in her hot, wet sleeve. The surge of pleasure attending the maneuver made his eyes roll back in his head. God’s flesh. The feeling was so sublime, ’twas all he could do not to unload. Biting his lower lip hard enough to hurt, he pulled back and hovered on the edge of withdrawal whilst waiting for the urge to subside. Several moments later, in control once more, he plunged into her heavenly heat with a rumbling groan of enjoyment. Maggie clenched her muscles and rotated around his buried length, shooting arrows of exquisite sensation down his shaft to his cods.

  If there was any felicity in the world superior to this, he could not imagine what it might be.

  It took everything he had to pull out of her and fall back on his haunches. He did not want to come off too quickly or to provoke their guest’s ire by neglecting her overlong. With one hand, he parted Mrs. Crosse’s nether lips and took a moment to study the folds of both women in the flickering candlelight. The apothecary’s were a dusky rose whilst Maggie’s were a brighter pink. Would their flavors also differ? As he tasted his wife, he pushed two fingers into the widow, pleased to find her lusciously lubricated.

  Moving his mouth to sample Mrs. Crosse, he flicked his tongue against her bud as he worked his fingers in and out. She tasted a tad more salty than his Rosebud, and smelled a bit riper, but not in a way he found offensive. Removing his fingers, he retrieved Signore Dildo and circled the head around her entrance a few times before plunging the leather phallus into her quim up to its testicles.

  The clarity of the moan she emitted told him the ladies had stopped kissing. His curious gaze landed on Maggie’s creamy buttocks. Reaching out with a cupped palm, he brought his hand down hard. The crack of the impact made both women jump.

  “Did he just spank you?” Mrs. Crosse as
ked with alarm.

  “He did indeed.”

  “It sounded painful. Was it?”

  “No,” said Maggie. “For he knows how to do it just so.”

  “But—why do it at all?”

  “Because it calls more blood to the region,” he chimed in, “which intensifies the orgasm.”

  “Has he ever struck you in anger?” the apothecary asked Maggie.

  “No,” his wife returned. “Never.”

  Robert gave Maggie another playful slap, again with a cupped hand, then bent to kiss the mark he’d imprinted upon her flesh. As he applied oral relief to the reddened spot, he continued working the dildol in and out of Mrs. Crosse, whose breathing had grown increasingly heavy and ragged. A picture came into his mind: two heart-shaped bottoms side-by-side as he took turns flogging them both.

  “Get off her, Maggie,” he commanded, withdrawing the godemiché from the widow. Crosse. “I want the two of you with your arses in the air.”

  “Yes, Lord and Master.” Maggie assumed the requested position.

  Taking hold of the blindfolded apothecary’s ankles, he flipped her over onto her belly. “Get your knees under you so I have access to your buttocks.”

  “Are you going to spank me?” She sounded anxious.

  “Aye. Among other things.”

  Climbing off the bed, he withdrew from the nightstand drawer a soft-tailed flogger and a bottle of hair oil. Removing the cork, he poured a puddle into his cupped palm and, as he proceeded to lubricate his erection, the biting floral scent of the oil permeated the room.

  “Is that lavender I smell?” asked Mrs. Crosse. “What are you doing?”

  “Greasing my cock,” he said simply.

  “Why?”

  “So I can occupy your lovely arse. Right after I stain its cheeks a fetching shade of rosy red.”

  “You mean to beat and bugger me?” she asked, her voice choked with distress.

  “I do indeed,” he said with a devilish gleam in his eye. “But only if you are amenable. Otherwise, I’ll just give you a few slaps before I let my wife pound your cunny good and hard with her tie-on dildol.”