Both Vivien’s eyebrows lifted delicately. “My dear, a good mistress must know of men of rank and power. But never mind, it will all be part of your tutelage. I will be certain to send you a copy of Debrett’s once you are settled.”
“Tutelage?” Lysandra repeated weakly.
“Yes. You see, what a man expects from his mistress is beyond, I think, what you may be ready for.” Vivien smiled at her kindly to soften the words. “But this man, the viscount, is a man of vast experience in pleasure. And he has agreed to tutor you for a month and ready you for a more permanent protector. You are to meet with him in his home tomorrow.”
Lysandra gripped the armrests of her chair with both hands, hard enough that her knuckles whitened and pain shot up to her elbows.
“Oh.”
Vivien tilted her head. “Is this not what you wanted?”
Lysandra swallowed hard. “It is, of course. As I said, I have no alternatives.”
Vivien leaned forward and covered Lysandra’s hand with hers. “Please don’t worry yourself. This man will take care of you as a man would his mistress. You will not have to worry about money or a place to stay or clothing while you are under his care. And he will be gentle with you.”
Lysandra nodded. The idea of having the burden of her financial woes lifted from her was comforting, at least. The rest…well, it was what she had asked for.
“And,” Vivien continued, “you will be helping him, as well.”
Lysandra stared at her. She could not have understood that statement correctly. “Helping him? How?”
Vivien’s expression softened with sadness. “The viscount has a sad history. He may not realize it, but he needs you as much as you need him.”
Lysandra pursed her lips. “I’m not certain I understand.”
“You will. Someday. Now, why don’t we share in some tea and I will see if one of my gowns might be a good fit for you for tomorrow.”
Lysandra smiled as Vivien bustled out of the room to call for tea and make other arrangements. She wasn’t certain she believed Vivien when she said Lysandra would one day understand. But the idea that she might help someone else during this trying time actually helped her.
And she was so nervous that she needed all the assistance she could get.
Chapter Four
Lysandra’s hands shook as she followed the expensively liveried butler to a parlor that was far bigger than the entire set of rooms she let at present. And dear God, the furnishings! She was almost afraid to sit on them, for they clearly cost a fortune and were meant for important guests, not utterly common women attempting to become mistresses.
“May I offer you any kind of refreshment?” the butler asked her, his tone cool but polite and not revealing any of his thoughts about her being in a place she so clearly did not belong.
“N-no, thank you.” Lysandra shook her head.
In truth she wasn’t certain she could keep down anything she ate at present. Her nerves had kept her from taking a bite for most of the day.
“Very good. Lord Callis will be with you shortly.”
With that, the servant left her. Lysandra paced the beautiful room, trying very hard not to look at all the expensive items around her. The sale of one could probably help pay for both her mother’s rent and her own for half a year.
Not that she had sunk so far to consider theft as a possible solution to her problem. Humiliating herself, of course, but theft…no.
Behind her, the door opened and Lysandra spun to face her temporary protector. What she saw had her catching her breath and stepping backward until she almost tumbled into the fire.
He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Blond and tall like Adonis from the Greek myths her father had told her as a child, with a chiseled, hard and rather tanned face, despite the fact that he was titled and probably never saw the sun but for a few visits to the countryside each year. And then there were his eyes.
They were the brightest green she had ever seen and they were focused on her, running up and down her body, though they reflected no answer as to what he thought of her.
But what could he think? She was a woman far below him, dressed in the gown of a fallen woman that she had been forced to borrow and she was here to beg him to take sex in trade for money and training. There was little good to come from those facts.
“Lysandra Keates, I presume?” he said, and his rough voice seemed to weave its way into her chest. She felt peculiar as she stared at him, hot and odd and out of sorts, but none of the sensations were unpleasant, just unexpected.
He tilted his head when she didn’t answer right away. “I assume you can speak.”
Hot blood rushed to Lysandra’s cheeks and she nodded swiftly. “Oh yes, I’m sorry. A-are you Lord Callis?”
His lips thinned, once again drawing her attention to the line of them. Assuming he didn’t kick her out of his parlor out of sheer disappointment in her appearance, he was going to kiss her with that mouth. She found it rather thrilled her to wonder when and how he would do so.
“Andrew,” he said softly. “Under our rather unusual circumstances, I believe it would be better to limit formality. In public, a mistress would address her protector by his title, of course, but in private his given name or an agreed upon nickname would be proper.”
Lysandra nodded. Ah yes, so this was to be the training Vivien had promised she would receive from this man. At least, part of it.
“Andrew, then,” she said softly.
He reached back to close the door behind himself and then took a long step closer.
“You don’t belong here,” he said, almost on a whisper.
Lysandra squeezed her eyes shut. So it was obvious and now there would be the inevitable rejection.
“Please don’t turn me away,” she said, humiliated to have to beg as her voice cracked with high emotion.
When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to find that Andrew had moved closer again. Now only a sliver of distance separated them. She could smell the warm, woodsy scent of his skin, feel his body heat as it reached out for her and made her want to move closer.
“I am not turning you away,” he said and his hand reached out to curl around her shoulder. “I only meant that you are too beautiful to be here. You should be protected, but not the way Vivien arranges. What in the world would make you turn to this?”
Lysandra stared up at him, shocked that he would ask such a thing, that he would care about those details of her rather small life.
“A great many complicated things have brought me to your parlor,” she answered.
She would tell him more if he pressed, but she was hesitant to do so. There was a heated spell being woven in the room, shrinking the world down to just the two of them. If she told him all the sad details of her life, she feared that bewitching enchantment would be broken and she would never see where it might lead.
And to her surprise, her curiosity had nothing to do with the duties and desperation that brought her here. It was born from her own forbidden thoughts.
His hand slid down from her shoulder to her collarbone. Lysandra shifted. He was not wearing gloves, and the neckline of the dress she had borrowed from Vivien was shockingly low, at least for her. His bare skin seemed too hot against hers, yet her back arched ever so slightly and her breath expelled in a sigh.
Andrew’s gaze flitted to her face and for the first time emotion existed in those captivating green eyes. Something heated and dark and passionate that she couldn’t name, mostly because she had never seen such an expression before.
“You are very responsive,” he said quietly. “That will serve you well.”
“Responsive?” Lysandra repeated, focusing on the training he was meant to be giving her so that she wouldn’t be dizzied by her own body.
He nodded before his hand glided lower and he cupped her breast.
Lysandra’s knees nearly buckled at the intimate touch. Her whole body ached, but it was anything but an unpleasant sens
ation. She felt on fire, alive, and she wanted more. More of what, she couldn’t have expressed.
“Your nipple is already hard,” he explained further and strummed his thumb over that same nipple as he spoke.
Lysandra’s eyes shut again, this time not out of embarrassment, but from utter pleasure. There had never been any kind of sensation like this before. This feeling of being hot and shivery at once, of being so out of control over her body that she arched her back and moaned softly without meaning to do either.
“I think your tutelage will be smooth,” he said and took a step closer, forcing Lysandra back up a step in response.
She bumped against the settee and staggered into a seated position. He dropped down next to her.
“But testing that is my duty,” he continued, his rough voice as seductive as his hands were.
Lysandra couldn’t formulate words. She couldn’t even think of any words as she watched those hands, those magical hands, return to her body. He cupped both breasts now, lifting and massaging her with exquisite gentleness.
Lightning bursts of pleasure and desire struck her, and she shivered with the sensations this man was awakening in her. She had always pictured this arrangement in its most unpleasant aspects, but this…this was heavenly.
She watched, her lips parted, as he removed one warm hand from her breast and glided it lower, down to the apex of her body. Her heart rate was doubled, for she knew that he was moving toward the most secret places on her body. Her most private treasures that she had always been taught were forbidden except to a husband.
But despite being trained to reject these kinds of caresses, especially from a near stranger, Lysandra felt no fear, but only giddy anticipation. An emotion that only intensified when Andrew bunched a handful of skirt into his fist and began gliding the entire skirt of her gown upward. The hem crested over her knee and halfway up her thigh before he slipped one hand beneath.
“Andrew,” she gasped as his hot flesh met her equally hot flesh. She wouldn’t have been surprised to look later and find he had branded her with his hand, marking her as his forever.
More surprising was that she did not dread that concept. To be his. To be marked. To surrender fully to what this affair, what this decision to be a mistress entailed.
And then all thoughts fled because he slipped his hand higher until his fingers met the spot where her legs met.
“Wet,” he whispered, almost more to himself than to her. “Ready already.”
Lysandra rested her head back on the armrest of the settee and gripped at the closest pillow with her fist as he stroked her through the thin fabric of her drawers. He was right that she was wet, a fact that both titillated and embarrassed her. She wanted to ask him if that was normal, but she didn’t want to reveal too much about her inexperience in these matters. She just wanted more from him.
And he gave it. Without warning, he pulled her drawers open at the slit and his fingers moved inside to touch her in the most intimate way possible.
Lysandra couldn’t hold back her cry of surprise and pleasure as his fingertips stroked the folds of her womanly center, coaxing her to open her legs wider and surrender to his wicked ministrations.
And she did. She spread her legs shamelessly and shut her eyes as he explored her. He was so gentle in his examination, just barely skimming his hands over the outer regions of her core, but every touch inspired lightning bursts of heavenly sensation. She found herself lifting and straining toward him, aching for more, though she still had no clear idea of what that more entailed.
“I want to see you come,” he murmured.
Her eyes flew open, and she whispered, “Come?”
He stared at her for a long moment and then said, “No one has ever made you come?”
Slowly, she shook her head.
“You have never touched yourself and brought on that reaction?” he asked.
A heated blush flooded her cheeks. “N-no.”
He gave her a slow smile. “Then it will be my pleasure to give you this first experience. Lie back and relax, Lysandra. Let me pleasure you in this way.”
She worried her lip with her teeth for a brief moment and then settled back once more. She didn’t know what he meant, but found herself wildly curious.
A feeling that fled when he settled himself away from the settee and onto his knees on the floor before her. He caught her hips and dragged her forward, until she was positioned just before him. Lysandra stared down. He was eye-level with her half-naked body and the pleasure she felt earlier was muted by utter humiliation at this new position.
She shifted, but he held her steady with a hand on her thighs.
“Don’t. Don’t,” he said. “This is part of your tutelage. You have nothing to be embarrassed by.”
“You shouldn’t be…seeing me this way,” she protested, though her voice was weakened by the touch of his hands on her skin.
He smiled up at her. “If I am to be your lover, this is exactly how I should be seeing you. This is a gift you will give me, something you won’t share with anyone else, at least while we are together. Give yourself over to me and let me give you something in return.”
She was silent, unable to speak, unable to think of how to respond, but that didn’t seem to bother Andrew. He continued to look her in the eyes, but lowered his head, closer and closer to her. Then, to her utter shock, he pressed his mouth to the apex of her thighs.
She cried out in surprise, but also in pleasure. His mouth was even hotter than his hands.
“Shh,” he whispered as those same hands massaged her open thighs in a soothing rhythm.
She flopped back on the settee and stared up at the ceiling as he continued to nuzzle and kiss her nether lips. His hands moved and she gasped again as he delicately spread her open to reveal the slick opening to her sex.
He made a rumbling sound of pleasure deep in his throat and then returned his mouth to her. But this time he was less gentle, more insistent. He licked her like she was a sweet treat, and her back arched with an explosion of sensation she had never even imagined.
Her reaction didn’t slow him, if anything, his tongue became more insistent, his mouth more demanding. He tongued her opening, tasting every inch of her exposed flesh from the rosette of her bottom to the top of her slit.
And there he hesitated.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked, looking up at her as he pressed his thumb against her.
She cried out, for the pressure of his touch sent an electric shock of intense pleasure through her.
“N-no,” she gasped.
He smiled. “Your clitoris, Lysandra. And it is the key to your pleasure. I’m going to touch it, to suck it, until you scream my name.”
Her eyes widened, but he gave her no chance to reply, only lowered his mouth back to her. True to his word, he sucked the hidden bundle of nerves between his lips and began to work it with his wicked tongue. He stroked, he sucked, he scraped her gently with his teeth. And Lysandra soon realized that she had begun to lift her hips in time to his touch.
Then, without warning, the pleasure she had been experiencing multiplied out of control. Her hips jerked as wondrous, amazing feelings mobbed her, taking her away from all her worries, from all her fears and leaving her weightless and quivering as she did exactly as Andrew had predicted:
She screamed out his name in the quiet parlor.
She had no idea how long she lay sprawled across Andrew’s settee, spent and satiated, but slowly she began to realize he was no longer positioned between her legs. At some point, he had stood and moved to the fireplace where he watched her with a hooded, unreadable expression.
She moved to smooth her dress back over her exposed body but found he had already done so. With a heated blush, she struggled into a seated position and stared at him.
He smiled, but the expression held no warmth or genuine happiness. Instead, it was tight and false.
“I think that is enough tutelage for today,” he said,
his voice strained.
Lysandra blinked. That was all? All that passion had built to a crescendo, yes, but he had not taken her, claimed her, in the ultimate way. In fact, she realized now, he hadn’t even kissed her… at least not properly on the mouth.
“I—” she began, but then stopped.
What was she going to say? Beg for something she couldn’t properly express? Demand he take this strange, erotic afternoon to its expected end? She was not daring enough to do so.
“I shall arrange for a place for us to meet. You will stay there throughout the course of our…training,” he said.
His voice was cool and distant, as if he were arranging a luncheon meeting, not a tryst.
She blinked as she looked around the parlor. “We will not meet here?”
He jerked his eyes to her in surprise. “No.”
Lysandra turned away. What a foolish notion. Of course a gentleman didn’t keep his mistress in his main house. She must look like an idiot of the highest order.
With a shake of her head, she said, “Well, then I will leave my direction with your servant at the door so you may reach me with the address and when you would like me to move there.”
“No, my driver will take you to your current address, then he can deliver my message to you,” he said.
She shook her head. “Oh no, I wouldn’t trouble your servant. I can take a hack.”
His lips thinned. “If I am to be your protector, for however short a time, you must allow me to protect you, Lysandra. No more hacks. You will allow my driver to be at your service today and I’ll arrange for one of your own as soon as possible.”
She opened her mouth, but he arched a brow and silenced her with just that pointed look. She nodded.
“Very well. Thank you for the…er, protection.”
From the way he shifted, she could see he felt as awkward in this exchange as she did. Had she done something wrong? Was her passion too muted? Too powerful? Or was a man with experience and power like this simply unmoved by a girl of her ilk?
Whatever the reason for his sudden coolness, it could not bode well.
An Introduction to Pleasure: Mistress Matchmaker, Book 1 Page 3
