Page 6 of Her Beast

Because you’re a whore like your mother!a voice in her mind shrieked. A voice that sounded remarkably like her stepmother, Nadine.

Julia shrugged off the voice—she’d had lots of practice.

“Is something wrong?” Solomon asked.

“No, nothing.” Julia’s smile became less brittle when she met Solomon’s concerned blue gaze. He was so sweet that she couldn’t stay annoyed with him.

“Did it hurt?” he asked again.

“Only for a moment.” That was something of a lie; it had barely hurt at all, but she could hardly tell Solomon that he hadn’t been her first.

Matthew—Nadine’s personal footman—had been the one who’d relieved Julia of her bothersome virginity almost three years ago, after she’d been sent home in disgrace from school.

It had been her best friend Lily who’d told Julia all about the joys of sexual intercourse. Lily had also been the reason Julia had been ejected from school.

Although they were the same age, Lily always seemed to know everything, at least when it came to things like men and sex. Her friend had orchestrated her own deflowering with one of her father’s grooms when she’d been fifteen. She’d then methodically worked her way through the rest of his servants over the next three years.

Unfortunately for Julia, her father’s servants were far too terrified of his wrath to bed his daughter, no matter how much Julia had wheedled and manipulated.

She’d barely been home a week—confined to the house and forced to dine on bread and water—when Matthew came to work for Nadine.

Matthew had been different.

Oh, how very, very different.

Julia had discovered justhowdifferent when she’d pried into her stepmother’s private sitting room and had discovered Nadine seated in a wingchair with her gown over her thighs and Matthew busily at work between his mistress’s spread knees.

Julia had been stunned—mainly because her moralizing stepmother had always appeared devoted to Julia's father. But perhaps her Papa didn’t mind sharing his wife with the servants?

In any case, it was fortunate that Nadine had been facing the other direction and it had been Matthew who’d looked up and spotted Julia. He’d winked, smirked—his lips and chin slick and flushed—and then resumed his labors.

She’d decided on the spot that Matthew would be her first.

First, she had written a letter to Lily to ask her advice on the matter. Although Julia’s father had forbidden contact between them after the debacle at school, she’d found a way around his ban by sending letters through her old nanny.

Lily had written back immediately with detailed instructions. “Drink a glass of sherry beforehand. It will hurt no matter what you do, but this will mitigate the discomfort. Most importantly, make sure that he gets you wetbeforehe puts himself inside you as it will make penetration bearable. Lastly, insist that you do it somewhere with enough light toseeeverything, because it is most educational.”

The idea of demanding advance stimulation from the handsome footman had been daunting, too say the least. Instead, Julia had taken care ofthatpart herself, giving herself not one, but two climaxes, prior to summoning him to the sitting room.

It hadn’t taken much to convince Matthew—who was very pretty, very vain, but not very smart—to risk his job and take his employer’s daughter’s maidenhood.

Unfortunately, neither her earlier climaxes nor the sherry had been enough to mask the sharp stab of pain when Matthew had shoved his thick tool inside her. He’d felt as big as a wine bottle and the entire ordeal—which had lasted less than a minute—had been agonizing.

Not only that, but she hadn’t seen a thing, even though it had been the middle of the day.

When Julia had suggested removing their clothing, Matthew had gawked at her as if she were mad.

“I’ve got five minutes before that old rooster Dowling comes hunting me—he hates me, Miss Julia—so there’s no time to be shucking our kit.”

Julia had to admit that Dowling, her father’s butler, did seem to bear an excessive grudge against the attractive footman.

And so Matthew had lifted her skirts and mounted her against the sitting room door.

The most disappointing part hadn’t been the pain, but the fact that Julia hadn’t experienced an orgasm—a wicked word that Lily had taught her.

Her friend hadn’t just taught her the word; she’d also been the one who’d showed Julia how to give herself an orgasm whenever she wanted. “A woman doesn’t need a man to do it; she can do it for herself.”

It had been Lily’s scandalous aunt—a woman who lived openly with her female lover—who’d shared that interesting information with her. “They believe in the demystification of sexual intercourse and argue that women should be mistresses of their own pleasure.”

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