Simply Wicked

6

“Is that you, Miss Marguerite? Are you looking for your mother?”

“Good evening, Judd.”

Marguerite smiled at her mother’s butler as he gestured for her to come farther into the warm homely kitchen of the pleasure house. In truth, her mother was the last person she wanted to see. Helene had a gift for knowing exactly what Marguerite most wanted to hide, and she had plenty to conceal at the moment.

“Madame is away at her other house tonight. Do you want me to send her a message?”

“No, don’t disturb her. I just came to see my sister.”

Her mother rarely left her business to spend time at the townhouse with her husband, Lord Philip Knowles, the twins’ father. The last thing Marguerite wanted to do was interrupt their evening together. Although Philip was involved in the establishment, she knew he was often frustrated by Helene’s insistence that they keep their marriage secret. And if she sent a message, Marguerite knew her mother would always come.

“Miss Lisette was in the main salon with Captain David Gray. Do you wish to go up to the pleasure house or shall I ask your sister to come down to the kitchen?”

Marguerite swallowed hard. “No, I’ll go and find her.” She hesitated by the door. “I don’t suppose you have a mask I could borrow, do you?”

“Of course, my lady. I’ll go and find you one. Do you have any preference as to color?”

By the time Marguerite was masked and following Judd up the stairs, her heart was pounding. One never quite knew what one might encounter at the pleasure house, and she had become such a prude. To her relief, the main salon seemed relatively quiet, the guests more inclined to relax and eat than partake in an orgy.

She saw Lisette’s blond head at one of the tables and headed in her direction. Her sister wore an impeccably cut cream satin gown that emphasized her slenderness and displayed her bosom to advantage. The man sitting next to Lisette immediately rose to his feet and bowed. Marguerite gave him a distracted smile and wondered why Lisette was spending her valuable time with him. He seemed far too ordinary to warrant her sister’s capricious attention, and rather old. She judged him to be in his early thirties, if not more.

“Lisette.”

“Marguerite, what on earth are you doing here?”

Marguerite frowned and glanced pointedly at her male companion. Lisette shrugged. “It’s all right. This is my friend, Captain David Gray. He’s known Maman forever and is completely trustworthy.”

“Ma’am.” Captain Gray bowed and then turned to Lisette. “Perhaps I should go and mingle for a while.”

“All right, but don’t forget to come back and talk to me later.”

“Of course, Miss Delornay.”

Marguerite watched him walk away and then turned to Lisette who was still smiling. “He seems like a nice man.”

“He is. Why do you make it sound like a criticism?”

Marguerite sat opposite Lisette in the chair David had vacated. “He just seems a little old for you.”

“Old for me to what?”

“You know what I mean.”

Lisette wrinkled her nose. “Marguerite you are such a prude. David is my friend, not my lover. I think he prefers men actually, but it is difficult to say.” She touched Marguerite’s hand. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I wanted to ask your advice.”

“Mine? Are you feeling quite the thing?”

Marguerite scowled and lowered her voice. “If you are going to laugh at me, I’ll go.”

Lisette made a presentable attempt to straighten her face. “No, I promise I’ll listen. How can I help?”

“I need to see how a woman pleasures a man.”

Lisette’s mouth dropped open. “I beg your pardon?”

“Lisette!” Marguerite hissed. “I need you to show me a room where I can watch a woman making love to a man, and you mustn’t breathe a word of this to Maman.”

“As if I would.” Lisette frowned. “Are you sure about this?”

“Of course I am. You and Christian were the ones who told me to get out more!”

“Yes, but . . . you seem to have progressed rather more quickly than we anticipated.” Lisette elbowed Marguerite in the ribs. “Anthony Sokorvsky must be some kind of fertility god.”

“Oh, be quiet. Can you help me or not?”

“Of course I can.” Lisette got to her feet, bringing Marguerite with her. “I know the perfect room. Come on.”

Anthony slipped into the main salon of the pleasure house and looked cautiously around. To his relief there was no sign of Madame Helene, Lord Minshom or his brother. At least he might be able to conduct his business with a modicum of decorum. If such a thing was possible. He groaned inwardly.

“Anthony?”

He turned and found Peter Howard smiling at him.

“Good evening, Peter.” Anthony gestured to the quietest corner of the room. “Thank you for coming.”

Peter settled himself in a chair and studied Anthony for a long moment. “You sound very formal. Is something wrong?”

Anthony stared at his brother’s best friend, a man he respected immensely. A man who had suffered the worst life could throw at him, and yet had not only survived, but found love.

“I need your help.”

Peter’s blue eyes narrowed. “Of course, anything.”

Anthony looked desperately around the crowded room. “Is there somewhere else we can talk?”

Peter got instantly to his feet. “Let’s go upstairs.”

He led Anthony into one of the more private rooms on the second level and shut the door.

“Now what is it? Are you in trouble?”

Anthony leaned back against the door. “Not the kind of trouble you might think, but I do need some advice.”

Peter’s charming smile reappeared. “And before you ask, I promise I won’t tell Val anything.”

“Or Madame Helene.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“Just promise.”

Peter shrugged. “Of course. Now how can I help?”

As he struggled to find the right words, Anthony started to pace the room. “I want to seduce a woman.”

“So?”

“I want to do it properly.”

Peter looked puzzled. “Then find an experienced woman here at the pleasure house and perfect your skills.”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“What do you mean?”

Anthony stopped walking, his back to Peter, and closed his eyes. “I’ve never bedded a woman.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Anthony swung around to glare at Peter. “I’ve never had sex with a woman. How the hell am I supposed to make sure she enjoys it, when I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing?”

Peter’s stunned expression made Anthony want to run and hide.

“But you’re twenty-five.”

“And I was raped by a man when I was barely twenty.”

“God, Anthony . . .”

He tried to smile, to laugh it off. “I’ve fucked a lot of men though, or should I say, they’ve fucked me, so I do have some experience.”

“Excuse me for asking this, but is there a particular reason for your sudden desire for a woman?”

Anthony scowled. “My reasons are my own, but why shouldn’t I have sex with anyone I want to?”

Peter hesitated, his calm gaze on Anthony’s. “You know there is no shame in admitting you prefer men. You don’t have to bed a woman to prove something to Val, your family or, most important, to yourself.”

“Why does everyone assume I prefer men? When have I ever expressed a preference?”

Peter examined his fingernails. “People assume things, and the fact that you’ve never been seen with a woman perhaps explains it.” He looked up. “And the fact that you’re twenty-five and have only fucked men.”

Anthony stared helplessly at Peter, his hands fisted at his sides, his heart racing along with his thoughts. How much could he reveal about the change in his feelings, about his doubts about everything he’d once believed true about himself?

“Recently I realized that I no longer enjoyed being sexually humiliated.”

“By Minshom?”

“By anyone. I realized that I wanted to try to find out what I want, not what I am told I should like or forced to participate in.”

“There’s nothing wrong in that.”

“Thank you. It’s taken me long enough to work that out. But I have now, and I intend to try to find out for myself.”

“You do know you might not like what you discover?”

Anthony looked up, saw the understanding on Peter’s face and shrugged. “You mean I might realize that I do need pain to enjoy sex and really prefer men?”

“That is a distinct possibility. Some might say that your choices so far have actually been the right ones and that you are simply fighting your true nature.”

“Would you say that?”

“No, I’d tell you to go out and experiment, to find out what you truly desire and embrace it, whatever it may be.”

Anthony swallowed hard. “Thank you, Peter.”

Peter nodded slowly, his face once more calm and thoughtful. “Then we need to find you an experienced and discreet woman.”

“Yes, that would be helpful.”

Peter got up. “Will you stay here while I go and inquire if the lady I’m thinking about is available this evening?”

“Of course.”

After Peter left, Anthony sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. That had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. He hadn’t told Peter that he tended to avoid women, afraid that they’d laugh at his inexperience or, worse, that he’d somehow hurt them with his perverted lusts. Marguerite was different somehow. Her gentleness combined with her acerbic French pragmatism intrigued him.

He wanted to touch her intimately, to see her body convulse in the throes of passion, to strip away the artifice and understand what made a woman’s love different from a man’s. His cock stirred at the thought, and he glanced at the door, wondering whether Peter would actually come back after all or just leave him to stew.

The door opened and he shot to his feet, smoothed back his disordered hair. Peter was smiling.

“I’ve found the perfect woman. She’ll make you wear some kind of leather mask to conceal your identity.” He shrugged. “She doesn’t like to know whom she’s fucking, and she loves to play the dominant role. I didn’t think that would bother you at all.”

Peter’s matter-of-fact explanation made Anthony want to groan. Apparently his sexual tastes were known to more people than he realized.

“That sounds perfectly acceptable, Peter. Thanks for your help.” He swallowed hard. “Shall we go?”

“Stop crowding me!”

“I’m not.”

Marguerite glared at Lisette, who walked ahead of her in the narrow viewing passageway between the rooms on the second floor.

“Why couldn’t we just go into one of the public rooms off the main salon and sit down? Why does it have to be here?”

Lisette turned to face Marguerite. “Because what you need to see is far more intimate than that, and there is a woman on this floor who specializes in training men to perform at their sexual peak.”

Marguerite sighed and followed her sister to the next viewing station. She had to assume Lisette knew what she was doing, but she still felt apprehensive.

“Of course,” Lisette whispered, “if you want to try it for yourself, I’m sure I could persuade David to lie down and let you crawl all over him. It might be fun.”

“No, this is fine, thank you.”

Lisette nudged her. “Coward.”

Of course she was a coward; who could doubt it?

Marguerite leaned against the wall and peered through the small mirror right into the room. A woman dressed in a black lace corset, stockings and high polished riding boots paced the room. She carried a thin whip that she constantly slapped against her thigh. Although not in her first bloom of youth, she was a magnificent creature. Auburn hair piled high on her head, milk-white skin and a lush bosom to drive men wild.

Marguerite looked down at her own average breasts. Not only was the woman beautiful, but she radiated confidence, something Marguerite had lost and desperately needed to rediscover if she wanted to get anywhere with Anthony. And she did want Anthony—his lack of aggression and innate honesty appealed to her. He offered her a chance to make up for the mistakes of the past, to rediscover the sexual being she was meant to be after the distortion of her marriage.

“Look,” Lisette whispered. “Here he comes . . .”

Rather like horse blinkers, the leather headgear which covered the top half of Anthony’s face and his hair also constricted his side vision. Anthony focused on the woman in front of him, which wasn’t a hardship since she was a vision of formidable female beauty. A lush redhead clad in leather and lace, a whip in her hand and a frown on her face.

She pointed the whip at him. “You may call me mistress. Strip off and don’t speak unless I tell you to.”

Anthony nodded and slowly removed his clothes, aware of her circling him as he undressed, her gaze flicking over his body as if she were judging horseflesh. To his surprise, she reminded him of many of the men he’d been with—supremely confident, supremely dominant and quite capable of making him do whatever she wanted him to. Peter had chosen well. He’d almost found a female version of Lord Minshom. Somehow the thought calmed Anthony’s nerves.

“Hurry up.”

The whip grazed his buttock and he jumped. When he was naked, he straightened and faced her again. She nodded slowly.

“Very nice. Now get down on your knees.”

Anthony obliged and waited as she came to stand close to him.

“The first thing you need to learn is that women have needs, they are not simply to be fucked for breeding purposes. They are to be made love to.” She used the whip to raise his chin. “You are going to learn to put your selfish desires aside and please your woman.”

She walked back toward an ornate gilt chair and sat down. “Come here.”

Anthony wasn’t sure if he was supposed to crawl or get up and walk. He decided to stand, aware that every time she barked out a command, his cock hardened even more. She didn’t look pleased at his decision, but allowed him to kneel back in front of her without comment or applying the whip.

“Put your hands behind your back and keep them there. Now pay attention.”

She opened her legs to display her shaved sex, and Anthony inhaled the scent of her arousal. He shivered as she rubbed the tip of the whip over a small knot of protruding flesh right at the top of the curved mouthlike interior.

“This is my love bud, my hard nub, my pearl, my clit—you may call it what you will, but you will learn to pay it the same amount of obsessive attention that you pay your cock. Think of it as a minicock, the source of extreme pleasure and ultimate bliss for a woman, and for you, if you tend to it carefully.”

She took the whip away. “I want you to lick it, suck it, play with it until I tell you to stop.”

Anthony forced himself not to close his eyes as he leaned forward between her widespread white thighs. Her hand encircled the back of his leather-clad head and pushed him closer.

“Do it.”

He obliged, his tongue sliding over the surprisingly slippery flesh until it met the harder knot of nerves and he was able to explore. His curiosity grew as she pressed closer, urging him on as he sucked and licked and used his teeth on the increasingly swollen bud. He forgot about time, about breathing, about anything other than pleasuring that small piece of her that seemed to bring so much joy.

His body joined the rhythm, his erect shaft bumping against the wood and brocade of the chair until he wanted to groan. He jerked as she slid the whip between his legs and tapped his cock.

“Move back; this is not for you. Slide your mouth downward, lick my folds and use your tongue like a cock to slide inside me.”

Anthony gulped in some much needed air and moved lower, fascinated by the plump mounds of her flesh, the softer lips within and the wet warm hole at her very center. He pointed his tongue and pushed inside her, felt her muscles contract around him and repeated the action until his jaw began to ache.

Her hand tightened on his head, holding him still, his tongue deep inside her.

“Give me your hand.”

He blindly raised his arm, and she gripped his wrist, settling his fingers over the swell of her breast and the lace of her corset.

“Touch my breast, squeeze my nipple, make me come.”

God, he was on fire, so eager to please her, so consumed by her enjoyment that he would’ve done anything she told him to at that point.

“That’s nice, keep it up, slide your fingers inside me alongside your tongue.”

He managed to get two fingers in with his working mouth, pumped them back and forth like a real cock as she pressed down on him. Would Marguerite like this dual penetration of tongue and fingers? Would she call his name as she came?

“Ah . . .” Her cry set off a series of clenching and tightening of her internal muscles. He was amazed at how strong the grip on his fingers became before she released him with a flood of cream. He turned his face into her thigh and fought to breathe, his cock so hard now he could feel every pulse of his heartbeat in his aroused flesh.

“Very good. Now get up and come over to the bed.”

He waited until she positioned herself on the red silk covers and then climbed up beside her. Her smile wasn’t pleasant.

“You haven’t finished yet. Unlike men, women can come more than once. Remember that.” She patted her stomach. “Straddle me but be careful not to crush me.”

Anthony was also careful not to allow his cock to brush against her hip as he swung one leg over her body and settled over her, his weight balanced on his hands and knees. His balls rested against the scratchy black lace of her corset and his shaft rose like some hideous purple stalk against his belly.

“Kiss my breasts.”

He leaned forward and did as he was told, enjoyed the softness of her skin against his mouth, the hard thrust of her nipple between his teeth. As he moved over her, his trapped cock grew exquisitely sensitive, but his training by Lord Minshom stood him in good stead, and he was able to stave off the craving to come.

Her hands drifted over his body, caressed his buttocks, the underside of his balls, his back, in an endless stream of sensation. He continued to suckle her until she was moaning with every tug of his mouth on her tight nipple.

“Stop now and sit up.”

He drew back, stared down at her, his breathing as hectic as her own. She touched his dripping shaft with one finger.

“I’m impressed that you haven’t come yet.”

He managed a shaky smile, remembering just in time not to speak.

“Perhaps I should reward you.” She considered him, her finger making torturous patterns on his throbbing wet cock. “Turn around.”

Anthony stared at her until she made an impatient noise. “Turn around until your head is over my sex and your arse is near my face. Now make me come again.”

He obliged, dipped his head and tasted her, used his tongue and teeth and fingers to make her slick and wet again. He almost choked as he felt her swallow his shaft and start to suck, matched his rhythm to hers, forgot about everything but the instinctive need to make her come before he did.

She bucked against his fingers, raised her hips to shove against his face. No finesse now, only the play of body on body in a race for completion and a release he wanted more than anything. She spasmed against his three thrusting fingers, and he couldn’t hold on any longer, letting his cum spill down her throat in hot urgent pulses.

When she released his cock, he rolled away onto his back and stared up at the white-painted ceiling. Interesting that in the final throes of passion, women acted much like men, so greedy for completion that it all became about the pursuit of the purely physical.

“You did well, young man. You have excellent stamina. Any woman should be glad to have you in her bed.”

Anthony opened his eyes and regarded the redheaded woman. His lips twitched at the thought of her giving him a certificate of approval for him to display on his bedroom wall to impress his future wife.

“Thank you. I enjoyed it.”

Her smile was warmer now.

“I’m delighted to hear it.” She waved her fingers at him. “Now off you go, I have another man to train in half an hour.”

Marguerite pressed her fingers to her lips as she watched the man pleasure the red-haired woman with his mouth and fingers. Would she have the courage to demand such delicious things from a man? More to the point, would Anthony let her tell him what to do like that?

Lisette elbowed her in the ribs. “He’s rather nice, isn’t he? I wonder what his name is.”

“Ssh.”

Marguerite was curious herself, but she had no intention of letting Lisette know that. The man’s body was muscled, his buttocks tight and high, his chest lightly furred. And his cock . . . She refused to think about how big and hard he looked, how wet and ready to slip inside a woman’s most secret place and give her what she needed.

She licked her lips as the woman lay back on the bed and invited the man to straddle her. In the candlelight, she noticed thin diagonal white lines marred the smooth surface of the man’s back. At the base of his spine it looked as if someone had tried to carve their initials into his skin. Even through her arousal, her stomach tightened. Who could’ve done that to this man?

“Lisette?” she whispered. “He appears to be scarred.”

Lisette shrugged. “A lot of Englishmen look like that; it’s a legacy of their public school education.” She patted Marguerite’s arm. “I promised to meet David; come and find me when you’ve finished watching.”

Marguerite waved a distracted good-bye and returned her attention to the room. How barbaric the English upper class were, sending their boys away from home at such a young age and leaving them to the tender mercies of men who often didn’t have their best interests at heart.

She watched the man suckle the woman’s breasts, wondered how he managed to stay so erect for so long. In her limited experience, men came far too quickly. A deep longing stirred inside her, and her womb clenched, releasing its own cream as the man reversed his position and settled to lick and finger the woman’s sex again.

She wanted that feeling so badly. With a furtive look up and down the narrow passageway, she slipped her hand through the pocket opening of her dress, pushed her petticoat out of the way and settled her fingers over her mound. Oh, God, she was so wet, so ready to be taken . . . Her body easily yielded to allow two of her fingers inside.

Could she treat Anthony like this? Tell him what she wanted, make him go down to his knees and service her? The last time she’d tried to be sexually adventurous had proved a disaster. Memories of Justin and his friend Sir Harry Jones assailed her, the terrible complexities of unrequited love. Was she brave enough to try again?

The red-haired woman started to come, her cries filling the room. Marguerite climaxed too, closing her eyes against the ecstasy in the woman’s face as she sucked the man’s cock to completion. There was power in this for a woman, but was she prepared to wield it again?

When she found the courage to look back into the room again, the man had gone, leaving the woman on the bed. Her satisfied smile made Marguerite jealous. Trying to pretend that her intimate life had died with Justin hadn’t worked at all. She had to come to terms with her needs and find what she wanted.

Marguerite brought her fingers to her lips and inhaled her own scent. She wanted to make a man beg for her, but she wanted to be made to beg even more. The salacious thought shocked her to the core. Was she more like her mother than she had ever imagined? Did she still crave the forbidden, the sinful, the unknown?

With a moan, Marguerite ripped off her mask and stumbled along the passageway, her hand on the wall to aid her flight. She pushed open the door that led back into the main hallway and collided with a hard male body.

“I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Marguerite?”

She looked up into Anthony’s surprised face and wanted to cry. Of all the people to meet at this embarrassing moment of self-revelation, why did it have to be him?