by Robin Gideon
He turned and walked back into the tent. There was a lightness to his step that hadn’t been there earlier. Estelle felt like she had once again been punched in the solar plexus by Horace. When she turned and headed back to where her sisters were waiting, she noticed that several women had obviously witnessed Horace taking the money out of her purse. She tried to not make eye contact with anyone, and cursed the day that she’d ever allowed her parents to arrange a marriage to the fallen brute named Prince Horace Moreland.
* * * *
Alek and Julian had changed into black tuxedoes with swallowtail coats for the dance after the charity fundraiser. As Alek stood at the edge of the dance floor while the orchestra played a waltz, it seemed to him that virtually everyone who had attended the fundraiser was also in attendance at the ball afterward. The hall was packed to the rafters with London’s wealthiest and most distinguished citizens enjoying the free, icy cold champagne. The hostess clearly understood that there was nothing quite like free-flowing alcohol to bring out the generosity among the haut monde.
Alek, with a glass of schnapps in hand, took a sip, enjoyed the smooth burn of the liquor as it went down his throat, then looked to his left just in time to see Ellie Anne Bailer, an attractive brunette debutante, making her way through the crowd, headed directly toward him.
“Damn,” he said out of the corner of his mouth to Julian. “Here comes Ellie Anne again. What am I going to do?”
“Don’t let her get you alone is the only advice I can give,” Julian replied, the tone in his voice suggesting he found the attractive young woman’s amorous interest in his friend highly amusing.
Ellie Anne had changed into a ball gown of cream velvet that was off the shoulder and put her small but attractive bosom on display. Her chestnut hair was pinned up, and a slender strand of small pearls was woven into the tresses. She was smiling as she approached the men. Alek made a point of looking her directly in the eyes and not looking down at the modest yet decidedly appealing cleavage she was showing.
“I had hoped I’d see you again this evening,” Ellie Anne said. She tugged one elbow-length white glove slightly higher. The move drew Alek’s gaze downward, and he looked at her bosom. He knew then that she was a lot more practiced at the art of seduction than most virgins. “My God, tuxedoes really do you two men justice. I can’t say with any certainty which of you looks more handsome this evening.” Then she looked straight up into Julian’s eyes and said, “I’m feeling a bit parched. Would you mind getting me a punch? I see the count’s glass is nearly empty. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind bringing back whatever he’s drinking.”
“I wouldn’t mind that at all,” Julian said with a smile, avoiding the furious look Alek was giving him.
Comparatively alone now with Alek in the crowded ballroom, Ellie Anne’s sweet smile turned to one of marginally disguised amorous hunger.
“Can’t you be sweet to me?” she asked, just above a whisper. “Juliet Nicholson is my dear, dear friend, and she said you were heaven itself in bed. And she was a virgin when you seduced her, so you can’t use my virginity as an excuse for avoiding me.”
“Ellie Anne, your offer is most—”
“Oh, don’t condescend to me,” she snapped. “My mother’s going to announce my engagement to Luther Tooley sometime next month, and once I’m married to that fool my life will be boring beyond words.”
“Boring, perhaps. But Luther’s made a fortune several times over in the sugar business. You will be rich. Much richer than your parents.”
“Yes, I’ll be rich and I’ll be bored and I won’t be a virgin because Luther’s already made it very clear that he wants an heir, and because he’s already nearly forty years old, he wants to turn me into a baby factory starting on our wedding night.” She looked around to make sure she wasn’t being overheard. “Juliet said she climaxed again and again because of you. And you can’t say you don’t find me attractive because I know otherwise.” Her slender eyebrows lifted, and her eyes took on a mischievous glint. “Juliet said she sucked your cock. Do you want me to do that? I will, you know.”
Involuntarily, a low groan rumbled out of Alek’s barrel chest. He remembered his single night of lovemaking with Juliet Nicholson, and the memories of his were warming his blood. And with Ellie Anne now volunteering to perform fellatio, his cock was beginning to grow down the leg of his black tuxedo trousers.
“I’ve never had a cock to play with before. Wouldn’t it be fun if it was yours?”
Alek closed his eyes for a moment, thinking that he was quite likely about to lose his mind. The temptation that Ellie Anne represented would have been precisely the way he enjoyed spending his evenings—if not for having fallen quite thoroughly and completely in love with Estelle Moreland, a titled woman of wealth who now suffered from an arranged marriage to a monster.
“You’ll have to instruct me, of course,” Ellie Anne continued, her voice hushed, her eyes glistening with burgeoning desire as she took a half step closer to the big Austrian. “Juliet said you kissed her pussy and made her climax. Will you do that to me, too? Please?”
The click of heels against the polished floor signaled Julian’s return. Alek looked at his friend, holding one glass of whiskey, one of schnapps, and a cup of punch, and said, “Thank God you’re back.”
He polished off the schnapps in his glass, then took the cocktail Julian had brought him and took a hefty swallow of it.
“Oh, you!” Ellie Anne pouted, looking up at Alek with an expression of utter astonishment. All her life she’d always gotten everything she’d ever wanted, accomplished everything she’d ever set her mind to. Alek’s thwarting her sexual education before her marriage was clearly a source of great annoyance. “If I wasn’t a lady, I’d kick you right in the balls.”
Julian chuckled and said, “It seems like I came back just in time to stop an outbreak of violence.”
“Ellie Anne isn’t going to kick me in the balls, or anywhere else,” Alek said in a placating manner. “She’s the loveliest debutante out this season. Everyone says so. And lovely debutantes don’t go around kicking men in the balls.” He watched her expression soften. Flattery was every debutante’s weakness. “It seems her mother’s about to announce her engagement to Luther Tooley, and lovely Ellie Anne would like to experience desire before being shackled to Luther’s bed.”
“Sounds like someone’s been talking,” Julian said, his gaze going slowly up and down over Ellie Anne.
“Juliet Nicholson told me all about her night with Alek,” the young woman said. “But Lena Hawkins told me about you, and she said you were wicked, but that she climaxed harder than ever before in her life. Did you really have her that first time right there on the dining room table?”
Alek was surprised. He hadn’t known that his friend had bedded—or in this case, tabled—Lena Hawkins.
“Can’t you ladies keep any bedroom secrets?” Julian asked.
Alek watched as Ellie Anne’s gaze went slowly down toward Julian’s crotch, as though appraising him. In a low voice, looking at his crotch, she whispered, “Lena said your cock is as big as a stallion’s.”
“Lena Hawkins exaggerates.”
“You’d have to be very careful. I’ve never had a cock inside me.”
Alek breathed a sigh of relief at having been discarded by Ellie Anne in favor of Julian introducing her to the world of sensual ecstasy.
“The offer is enticing, but I’m afraid I must decline,” Julian said.
Ellie Anne’s mouth opened then closed, as though words were suddenly impossible. Her gaze darted from Alek to Julian and back again. “You can’t mean that? I’m offering you my virginity and you’re actually turning me down?”
Before Alek could reply, Estelle stepped up to the trio, cup of punch in hand, and said to Ellie Anne, “Dear, your mother is looking for you. She’s in the art room looking at Lady Sarah’s newest additions to her collection. You know how our hostess likes to show off her artwork.” Estelle leaned
closer and her voice dipped a bit. “Luther Tooley’s waiting for you with your mother.”
Ellie Anne gave one last look at the two men who had infuriated her, then walked hurriedly off in a rustle of expensive fabric. Estelle’s smile vanished.
“I was standing almost right behind you,” she said to Alek. “You really must be more discreet when silly virgins ask you to get fucked.” Her tone was brittle, and in her eyes was an accusation that Alek didn’t want to think about. “With your back to me I couldn’t hear your responses, but I could halfway hear what she was saying, and halfway read her lips, so I pretty much got the gist of the conversation. Did Juliet Nicholson suck your cock better than I?”
“Shhh,” Alek shushed. “And before you accuse me of being unfaithful to you, kindly take notice that I refused Ellie Anne’s offer.”
He could see that Estelle was only moderately mollified by his reply, even though his innocence with the debutante could hardly be denied.
“Perhaps we should continue this conversation outside.” Estelle checked the various doors leading in and out of the ballroom. “Wait a couple minutes, then follow me.” Her gaze narrowed on Alek. “That should give you just enough time to come up with a good excuse for talking about sex with that lovely little chit of a girl.”
Alek watched the woman he loved walk away, weaving her way through the crowd. He took another big sip of his schnapps, and said to his friend, “I can’t believe I turned down Ellie Anne, and it’s even harder to me to believe that I’m in trouble with Estelle even though I did what I was supposed to do. Damn, but that woman has a temper.”
Chapter Seven
I’m being completely unreasonable. Alek turned Ellie Anne down. I’ve no right to be angry with him for having sex with Juliet Nicholson before I fell in love with him.
But jealousy was bubbling and boiling inside her bosom, and it didn’t matter what reason and logic indicated. The green-eyed monster had invaded Estelle’s thoughts, and it wouldn’t leave anytime soon.
Like a self-torturous litany, she heard Ellie Anne asking in a low and sexy tone, “Juliet said you kissed her pussy and made her climax. Will you do that to me, too? Please?”
Estelle knew quite well what it felt like, what divine ecstasy a woman experienced, with Alek’s handsome face between her thighs, his tongue caressing a tingling clitoris and lust-swollen labia. The fact that Juliet Nicholson knew just how good the count’s oral skills were was enough to make Estelle scream.
Easy, Estelle. It isn’t like you thought Alek had been living the life of a holy man when you first fell under his spell. And you weren’t some silly debutante wanting to have some delicious fun before crawling unwillingly into her marriage bed.
When Estelle stepped through the wide, double side doors of the ballroom, a cool breeze drifted over her, and she paused a moment to inhale deeply. A small table had been strategically placed near the door, and she set her punch cup down on it. Off to her left, half hidden in shadows, a handful of men were smoking cigars they’d just lit. To her right appeared to be the stables, though Estelle wasn’t certain. Neither place seemed appropriate for the discussion she intended to have with Alek.
She went straight ahead, toward what looked like might be a gazebo. Her slippers were soundless on the thick grass, and as she walked, she was consciously aware of the scissoring movement of her thighs and the taut sway of her breasts above the half-cups of her corset. For the evening, Estelle had chosen an emerald-green silk gown cut in the Empire style with a low U-shaped neckline and a high waistline just beneath the bust.
For the evening she had deliberately chosen not to wear one particular article of clothing—drawers. Estelle had thought that her men might want her, and she didn’t want drawers to impede their desires. She knew fully well that drawers, whether they were cotton or silk, hand sewn by a skilled seamstress or mass produced in one of the new factories, were an insufficient barrier to thwart the desires of Count Alek and Prince Julian. She also knew what would happen when she told her lovers she had gone to the ball without drawers…for their benefit.
Estelle’s full-lipped mouth curled into the hint of a smile. It had taken some deception to get out of the house sans drawers without her maid knowing about it. A princess simply didn’t attend a formal ball without drawers, and with a Dutch cap carefully put into place.
Unless she wanted to get fucked.
Those men make me wicked. They didn’t have to ask me to not wear drawers. I did it because the instant I tell them I’m not wearing any, they’ll have to prove it for themselves.
The thought made her stride falter for a moment.
I want to get fucked. Seriously, thoroughly, completely fucked. By them. Tonight.
Her stride slowed. It wasn’t easy to keep furious, jealous thoughts brewing when simultaneously recreating in her mind the thrills she experienced in Alek’s arms. And his indefatigable cock was like a living animal with a life and soul all its own, separate from the rest of the man, perfectly designed to give her pleasure.
She shook her head in an effort to rid herself of romantic thoughts of Alek, her emotions tightening around the jealousy that had come to life within her. In her ears rang the sound of Ellie Anne’s voice, sounding so sweet and innocent while simultaneously asking if she could use Alek’s cock to learn to give fellatio. The little chit. Throwing herself at Alek like that. How dare she!
Yes, Estelle thought, I’ve got every right in the world to be furious with Alek. Even if he did turn her down, he was smiling, and I’m certain he was giving her offer a good long thinking through.
Now, in the moonlight, Estelle could see that the white structure she had faintly noticed before was, as she had suspected, a gazebo. It was white and about twenty feet from one side to the opposite, built in an octagon shape. The gazebo was just the right size for a husband and wife to sit with shade from the sun while they watched a couple of children playing nearby. Estelle stepped up into the gazebo, then sat on one of the long bench seats.
When she crossed her legs at the knee, she felt the sensual slide of silk stocking against silk stocking. She also felt the added pressure against the lips of her pussy, and the tingling in her clitoris. More and more, Estelle was finding it impossible to think about Julian and Alek without her blood becoming heated, and her senses becoming attuned to the potential for ecstasy. Even a fleeting thought of them made the feminine honey moisten her cunt, readying her for penetration.
Even if Alek did turn down Ellie Anne’s offer, he was enjoying himself a little too much. Now what is a suitable punishment for that?
* * * *
Alek stepped out into a welcoming evening breeze. It had been five minutes since Estelle had left him in a huff. If it had been any woman other than Estelle to have treated him like that, Alek had no doubt that he would have responded as he usually did in such matters, which was to consider the costs of being with a woman against the potential pleasures. In the past, he was vastly inclined to consider the costs too dear and the pleasures too transitory to spend time chasing the woman.
But Estelle was different from the other women who had shared his life and had partaken of his passion. She wasn’t simply an exception to the rule, she was every exception to every rule. Or so it seemed.
And Alek wasn’t particularly happy about it, but there didn’t seem to be a damned thing that he could do about it.
“Relax, would you?” Julian said, his good humor evident both in his tone and in his expression. “Estelle’s a reasonable woman.”
“You saw her eyes just the same as I did,” Alek replied quickly, though he kept his voice low. “She was livid. Livid as hell, and I didn’t do a damned thing wrong!”
“Keep your wits about you,” Julian said, patting his friend on the shoulder. “Play your cards right, and we’ll all be laughing about this evening years from now.”
Years? Alek had never thought that far ahead with any woman. Ever. Weeks were a long time to be with an individual lov
er. A couple days, much more common. Months were almost unheard of.
“I’ve got a good life,” Alek said, and even he could hear the uncertainty in his tone. “I don’t need Estelle upsetting my world.”
“Let’s find her first. Then you can figure out just how much groveling and genuflection is necessary to get back in her good graces.”
“What makes you think I’m going to take a knee for Estelle?”
Julian snickered softly, and a low growl of frustration worked its way out of Alek’s throat. He had always hated it whenever he wasn’t in complete and dictatorial control of himself or his surroundings, and from the first moment that he’d kissed Estelle and felt her respond, he had been finding himself sailing in waters that were uncharted and mysterious.
Alek headed out into the darkness. He saw several tuxedoed men smoking cigars. Alek had no idea where Estelle was, but considering her emotional state when she’d left him, with smoke coming out of her ears, he doubted she was interested in cooling off her heated temper with cigar-smoking men.
Straight ahead was a gazebo. He took long strides into the darkness, a strange mix of emotions going through him. Part of him felt confrontational. Alek was not a man who had taken a lot of guff from anyone his entire life. And when confronted, he tended to face the confrontation directly, and forcefully. But another part of him wanted conciliation with Estelle. Though Estelle was certainly deceived by the perceived facts at hand, perhaps she had a right to be angry with him.
“Keep your head, my friend,” Julian said as they crossed the lush lawn, moving away from the light and the music of the dance and into the darkness. “You’re grinding your teeth, and every time you do that, whoever caused the grinding ends up with a black eye or broken nose.”
