by Hawke, Jessa
Arabella arched against the feel of his fingers on her, and in doing so, the robe fell open to reveal the delicate black lace panties that concealed nothing of her glory, so sheer were they. She could feel James’s breath hitch as he took in the black against the pure ivory of her skin, and knew what she looked like to him—the strict and proper madam, stripped nearly at the waist, luxuriating in the hands of the lowly stable hand being on her, offering him a glimpse of paradise that by all rights should never be his.
Arabella moaned a little as she felt James’s lips on her inner thigh. She opened her eyes and the full evidence of his arousal was now pressing against his pants, eager for release. The game had reached just the point that she wanted.
“What do you think you’re doing, boy?” she asked, pushing aside his head. “Do you have any idea what my husband would do to you, a servant, if he caught you trying to even look at his wife?” she queried, snapping the robe shut and standing quickly from the chair. One quick slap and James had fallen back onto his wrists. Arabella walked over to her mirror and bent a little at the waist to examine herself. The skin of her chest was a little mottled; she blushed easily when aroused. James knew this.
“And you were trying to peek up my skirt, no doubt,” she continued, patting a little pressed powder to hide the evidence, so to speak.
“I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful as you, miss,” he said to her from the floor, where he had once again ducked his head and was standing on his knees.
Arabella pretended to be a little contrite. “Well, I suppose you haven’t,” she said, and slipped off her robe to reveal her costume to him, pretending she had forgotten he was even there. She had just begun to rearrange her hair when she felt James’s manly form press against her from behind. She could feel the broad expanse of him, and the brutish suggestion of his erection nestled in the crack of her ass brought up that stark image from earlier back into her head. He grasped her hips gently as he leaned over her; she caught sight of his dimpled, contented smile in the mirror as he pressed the long, hard line of his body against her. Those cheerful blue eyes, pupils dilated in arousal, were looking directly into hers in their reflection in the mirror.
“Thanks,” he whispered, and gave her a quick, warm kiss on the cheek that took her totally and utterly by surprise. It was almost as if she had had a very intimate encounter with a close, personal friend. One who liked her to treat him in a way that he felt only she could understand. She looked back at him, felt her green eyes lock on his, and then he looked at her mouth. Before she knew what was happening, their lips had met, and they were sharing a long, steamy kiss.
The check that arrived in her mailbox exactly two days later included an extremely generous tip.
Arabella tapped the white edge of the envelope against her bottom lip thoughtfully as she walked up the stairs into her apartment. James truly was a very kind soul; it did not hurt at all, either, that he was quite willing to pay for any extra services. That kiss had been extra, no doubt, but now Arabella found herself wondering if James would be one of those few clients she wanted to explore more with. He had, after all, quite the charming sense of humor. She did not know many men interested in the Victorian era as much as she was.
Except for David, of course.
Arabella had a completely different costume that she needed to prepare for this particular client, and she found herself getting very excited. David could not have been more different from James in his fantasy and the role he played in their appointments together, but the two men shared a passion for the same era and its ideals for both gender norms. And they liked to mess with those norms, an idea that appealed to the Victorian-era novel lover slash dominatrix very much.
The gown Arabella donned for that afternoon was white chiffon and long to her ankles. It had little cap sleeves that fluttered gently over her plump, bare arms, and the neckline, while low, barely revealed any more than a rather decorous amount of her bosom. She brushed through her fire-engine red hair methodically, making sure that each strand was lustrous and shining, and kept her makeup very simple—just a little mascara to help her look wide-eyed.
She glanced up at the clock; almost four. David was very methodical in when he scheduled his appointments. He was one of her most wealthy clients, and a self-made man. He had started from the bottom of a startup company whose business had simply exploded ten years ago, when he was in his mid-twenties. Every bit of money that he made he had earned himself, and was very proud of it. He also liked to indulge his creative side by painting stills and portraits in the styles of old masters, and therefore was very aware of how light affected the way that things looked. Four in the afternoon during this season was the best light for anything and anyone, he told her upon their initial interview. She had asked about the time, finding that most of her clients liked to come to her under the cover of darkness, when fewer people in her neighborhood were curious. But David was different; he carried himself with a self-assurance that did not hold court to anyone else’s opinion. If he wanted four o’clock because that is the light both he and she looked best in, then four o’clock it would be. The time worked for Arabella either way—she had just the right amount of hours to indulge in her own little passion—cooking, and take a long, luxurious bath in his favorite scent—lavender.
Her phone trilled; David always texted her to give her a little heads-up on when he was nearby. Their game began the moment he knocked on her door, so it did well for her to be prepared. Knowing how masterful David was in arranging his business matters, it did not surprise Arabella at all at how exact and careful he was with everything else. The point of their play was very different from all other things that David had to do in his life—in the boardroom, on conference calls, he had to be the master, powerful, and in command. He was the master in the Guest Room, as well, but the goal of his orders had a far more tender hue to it.
Arabella took in the plump cheeks and hugeness of her eyes in the gilded mirror. She walked over to the faded bureau and laid out a few items—some silken white scarves and feather teasers. She had just laid them out with almost surgical precision—the way that both she and David liked it, on the nightstand by the bed when she heard three knocks downstairs at her door.
Arabella tossed her long hair over one shoulder and felt the dress billow around her as she floated down the steps, customary blindfold clutched in one hand. She took a deep breath and opened the door. And proceeded to look up, up, up.
Damn. She always forgot how tall David was, and how warm his honey-hazel eyes were. Also, how enticingly his light brown hair curled against his face. But there was no time to falter, because the look on David’s austere face indicated that he was ready to begin.
“David! You’re home!” she cried, and lifted a corner of the chiffon gown to curtsy slightly at him, offering him a glimpse of her gently rounded breasts above the shift. “Come up, come up!” she said as she stood on her tiptoes to slide the blindfold onto him. It worked to the advantage of their game that he was so much taller than she; how innocent she must appear having to reach up to his face.
He followed her patiently up to the Guest Room, but tossed off his blindfold as soon as they had stepped inside the door.
“Enough of this, Arabella. I am done with our formality,” he told her in even tones. She had walked over to the bed and was sitting on its edge, smoothing out the duvet.
“Our…formality?”
“We have been married over a week, and still, you deny me my spousal rights. What do you think the other men make of me? I am nobody’s fool, Arabella.”
“Oh, but David, I am just scared.”
David’s expression softened and he strode over to the bed to sit beside her. With one large hand, he lifted her chin to look him in the eye. “My dear, what can you possibly fear from me?”
Her eyes quietly and shyly swept his long, lean form. He was elegantly muscled and wiry, not a scrap of anything extra anywhere on him. She looked into his demanding eyes, answ
ering his question without words. Her lashes fluttered down until she was looking at his other hand, knowing that her lashes were making dark shadows across the planes of her cheekbones.
“Look at me, Arabella.”
She looked at him, making her eyes wide.
“I would never hurt you. I would, however,” he continued, the fingers containing her chin beginning to stroke her face, “want to tease you, just a bit.”
His fingers were gently dancing along the curve of her face and slipping down to the top of her neck, an area ripe with sensitivity. “Tease me?” she asked, unable to resist nuzzling into his hand a little.
His gaze hard warmed a bit and he had slipped his other hand into her hair; now he held her face in both hands, and Arabella had nowhere to turn. Not that she wanted to. David lowered his lips to her chin and softly kissed her there; he moved to her eyes, her forehead, and then her ear.
“Teasing, sweetheart, is half the fun,” he whispered, and tiny jolts of electricity raced down her spine.
He pushed her down onto the great aqua pillows of raw silk on the bed and watched as her bright hair spread all over them. There was something lovely about her face, a look in her eyes that showed her excitement was real. He traced a finger in between her breasts and down the line of the vertical opening in the shift to reveal the folds of the gown below, and Arabella shivered.
“Are you teasing me now, husband?” she whispered timidly, hands reaching up to caress his face shyly. He grabbed her wrists in his much stronger ones and said, “Don’t touch me. Not yet. That will come later. Right now, it’s about you, my sweet, and preparing you for our union.”
He reached over her, filling her nostrils with the light essence of his masculine cologne, to reach for one of the white silken scarves, made extra-large for this especial purpose. Looking her tenderly in the eyes, he tied each one of her wrists to the vintage headboard behind them.
Arabella lay exposed, more naked than she could have been just standing in front of him with no clothes on. That was part of the magic of their game, she knew—utter vulnerability in its most direct form. She could not touch him until he released her, and she would submit, as she had before, to what she knew were very skilled and knowledgeable ministrations at David’s hands. And lips. And tongue. Arabella shivered, again, adrenaline puckering her nipples and making them stand out against the sheer fabric of her white gown.
David stroked either side of her face gently with his finger, eyes tracing the outline of her straight nose and full, curved lips. The finger traced a path across the tops of her pectoral muscles, right above the gentle heave of her concealed cleavage. Lazily, almost accidentally—although of course, it was no accident—he peppered tiny kisses across her clavicle, immeasurably hot kisses that she could not believe came from another human being. Arabella let out a small, almost inaudible moan, and David drank it in, as he did the unconscious arch of her body upward towards his mouth.
Lying on his side beside her, one large hand working as an agent almost independent of his body, David touched her. Arabella knew he was watching her face; one of their rules was that she would not hide her natural reactions from him, because this to him was the most erotic charge of all. His fingers danced a cadence over the folds of her ample belly, found the groove between there and her thighs, and sang along their sinuous curve as if he was a traveler who had found home. Arabella groaned; her body was alive.
He reached for the small bow that tied the outer shell of her dressing gown together and pulled it apart. Reaching down, he pulled the innermost layer back until her ankles, thighs, and simple cotton underpants were visible to him. He pushed down the straps of the shift to reveal creamy rounded shoulders; he was preparing her most responsive parts for the next part of their game.
Arabella opened her eyes and watched him as he reached for one of the feathery contraptions on the bedside table - her favorite part.
“Darling, wh-what is that?” she asked, adding a lilting note to her voice.
David smiled at her expression, and she knew she had pulled off the innocent act perfectly.
“I want to see how you respond to me,” he told her, twirling one end of the teaser between his fingers, the business end gently tickling the top of the valley between her breasts. Arabella let out a little gasp as the skin there prickled with excitement.
“Respond to you?” she asked, biting on her bottom lip a little as the feather dancing over the more exposed slopes of her breasts.
David caught the micro expression and his smile widened. “Yes,” he told her, the feathers continuing their journey until they were making circles around every part of either breast without touching her nipples, the heart. “I want to see your face change as I touch you everywhere except the places where you want it the most, until you beg me to put my hands on you, and then my mouth.”
His words kicked her hormones into high gear. She was helpless, tied to the bed as he brushed the softness of the feathers over her shoulders, neck and stomach. He moved down to thigh level, and traced her there until she was twisting sheets below her, mindless and senseless, lifting her hips to send him the most direct signals possible of where this was driving her crazy the most.
“David,” she whispered hoarsely, closing her eyes tight, concentrating on the incredible swirl of sensations coursing through her body. “Please.”
Suddenly, his face was right by the side of her ear. “Please, what, dear?” he asked her, and she could sense his smile on the side of her face. He pressed his lips into the tender, soft skin there, and nuzzled her neck, so gently and sensuously that her entire body was wracked with desire.
“Please touch me.”
He opened his mouth to let his tongue, wet and strong, touch the skin of her neck in slow, small circles, sucking gently. He nibbled his way down her collarbone until he was over her body, holding each of her substantial breasts in his hands, lavishing them with kisses, kneading them with his fingers, again, everywhere but the one part she wanted most.
“Open your eyes, Arabella,” he told her, firmly and in a low voice.
She opened her eyes. When he was sure they were on his face, with incredible slowness, he dipped his head towards her breast and traced the areola with his tongue, eliciting an expectant little whimper from her lips. And then, looking her directly in the eyes, he took her raised nipple directly into his mouth and sucked.
Every suck, every nibble, every light graze with his teeth was pleasure and torment together. He paid attention to the rest of her body, as well, lavishing it with the touch of his lips and hands until she was lost in a mindless whirl, her ragged moans a lazy purple plume of smoke in the air.
David was between her thighs. He pulled down her underpants until she was bare to him, and she thought that perhaps this would be the place to stop. It was further than she let other clients go, certainly, but the sight of David’s warm hazel eyes peeking up at her from her most intimate place pushed her past the edge of professional reason. She wanted to experience this.
He breathed softly into her, warming her, tingling her nerves awake. He ran his lips gently over her nether ones and she lifted her hips at the first warm flick of his tongue against her. He rubbed her with his mouth, the edge of his nose, and the idea of him breathing her in, the feel of the wet circles he was making on her clit caused her to strain against the silken ropes, to grab onto her restraints with her hands and hoist herself deeper into his probing mouth.
He split her open with his tongue, and if she could have, she would have reached down and grabbed his head to push him deeper in. He licks and sucks her, worrying her peritoneum gently with one finger, and the fact that she cannot touch him, and is lost in the agony of her own building orgasm spurred him on. Arabella twisted and moaned, and felt like she was going to pull the headboard crashing down on both their heads, but David relentlessly pushed forth, dipping his fingers into her, into the deep ink of her body, drawing her out. She built, faster and faster, bucking again
st him like a woman on the verge, until quite suddenly, she was no longer on the knife’s edge, but gushed out onto him, the juices of her excitement no longer contained in her young body, free and beautiful and convulsing onto his lips and tongue and fingers and mouth.
She felt him smile against her, breathe her in, and kiss his way from between her legs, up her stomach, and to her mouth. She tasted herself on him, and it was almost enough to bring her back to the brink again, but she clamped her legs shut. It would have been too much. He untied her, and her arms, aching, fell at her side while she shuddered, still rocking from the strength of her orgasm.
“Next time, you’ll be ready to receive me fully, little one,” he told her after the shaking had subsided. She smiled, glad to know they were still playing on.
“Receive you how?” she queried, green eyes large again, although she could see how flushed her skin was in her reflection in his eyes.
He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “You’ll see,” he winked, eyes twinkling.
The letter she received in the mail a few days later gave her some pause. Along with the generous check David had sent, there was a bonus request. The next time he saw her, he wanted a third to join in. He wanted to build on their story by consummating their “marriage”—which, besides the addition of another person to the duo was what weighed heavily on Arabella’s mind. David was one of the few clients she was considering actually partaking in the full monty with, but where would she find another client to join in on the fun?