Page 68 of Audacity

I hastily remove the rest of my clothing and jump up onto the bed so I can crouch over her, revelling in the sight of her laid out on this rich damask coverlet. With my hands on her knees, I push her legs further apart and stare at that patch of flesh, rose-coloured and unctuous and forbidden.

Flesh that will soon belong to another man but tonight belongs to me to enjoy.

To do with as I please.

I slide my fingertips inwards from her knees, and she shivers. The skin of her inner thighs is as impossibly soft as the surface of a freshly plucked rose petal, and as unblemished.

‘Your husband won’t do this to you,’ I observe aloud, using my index fingers to hold her so carefully open. The act reminds me of tugging apart a ripe fig and admiring its rich terrain before burying my face in its luscious flesh. ‘He’ll take one look at younaked and probably come in his breeches like a juvenile. Or if he lasts long enough to notch himself inside you, it will be fast and desperate and lacking in finesse.’

I use my thumb to trace her wetness through from that exposed button to her entrance, and her moan is gratifyingly pained. ‘And it’s a shame, because your body is a beautiful instrument which, when played by a master musician with the right kind of finesse, can make truly exquisite music.’ I allow myself the luxury of sliding my thumb inside her body, just for a moment. Just to remind myself of the pleasures that await me.

She pushes against me, her body sucking me in greedily, and I tut.

‘You’re an innocent maiden, Athena, not a greedy little lightskirt. Act like it. Do you know what your duties are to your husband?’

I keep my thumb precisely where it is, tearing my gaze away from her sweet cunt and up to her face. She’s breathing heavily.

‘To obey him, sir, and to allow him to… take liberties.’

I hum my approval. ‘Indeed. But tonight, your duties are to yield every inch of your skin and every hole in your body to me in every single filthy way I choose, whether I’m using my fingers,’—I slide my thumb out and back in—‘or my prick, or my mouth.’

She stares up at me, eyes wide, lips parted, skin flawless, this lovely, lovely creature arranged in my bedchamber for my delight with furled nipples and tight cunt, and I can wait no longer to feast on her.

‘Do not move an inch.Understand?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she manages.

I push myself onto my stomach and reach up to take one nipple firmly in my grip as I bury my face in her glorious wetness and kiss that clit as ardently as I kissed her mouth earlier, laving it with my tongue, lavishing it with attention.

She practically shoots off the bed.

‘This is pleasure, Athena,’ I say against her flesh. ‘This is pure, godless, pleasure of the flesh, and you’ll almost certainly never experience it again in your marriage, so lie back and surrender to the pleasure that only your lord can give you. Sayyes, my lordif you understand.’

‘God, yes my lord.’ She pants the words out.

‘That’s it.’ I release her nipple and drag my hand down her body, splaying it over her stomach so I can hold her down. I replace the thumb inside her with two fingers and begin to fuck her hard with them as I lick her with masterful, relentless strokes. Every peasant in my realm can copulate like the farm animals in my endless fields, butthisis what will give this maiden an experience as unforgettable as it is unique.

The young woman before me may not understand this for some time, but by taking my fill, my ownership, of her pleasure, I have prevailed upon her far more thoroughly, more indelibly, than if I had overruled or terrorised her.

Her utter capitulation is my sweetest victory.

CHAPTER 34

Athena

His fingers are savage, his tongue a wicked instrument of the hellfire whose flames are licking at my very core. He isfeastingupon me as he might feast upon capon or boar or partridge—ravenously. Unabashedly, with carnal, male noises that flood me with shame and heat until I do not know which way is north.

Even the way he has me arranged—pinned down and spread open like a butterfly—is all-consuming. It’s all for him—he has made that very clear—but in commanding me so fully he has turned my world upside down. If his words are true and I am never to experience this pleasure again, if this lordly, entitled way he’s overpowering me is never to be repeated, then I may as well die tonight.

The heat builds. My head spins. At my sides, my hands grapple uselessly against this fine fabric. My body is a whirlwind of confusion and delight, the sounds I seem to be making quite as mysterious as the sensations that prompt them.

I need more.

My brain doesn’t understand this, but my body does, and it pushes against his dangerous tongue and skilful fingers until he’s laughing cruelly and getting to his knees.

He’s a dark, lordly figure before me, his muscles lean and his hair black and his skin as sweat-slicked as a farmer’s is in a field, and he’s holding that huge thing that I took in my mouth, and it’s as angry and powerful as it was earlier. I watch with fascinated misgiving as he rolls something onto it and ranges his hulking form over me.

His body is the result of centuries of noble bloodlines, and it is a thing of great, masculine beauty and fearsome power. My mother warned me only that it would hurt the first time.

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