“And he left then?” Vivien pressed.
“No.” Lysandra turned away. “We talked and then he made love to me. And again. And again.”
Vivien’s eyebrows shot up and a small smile tilted her lips. “I see. But if he made love to you three times—”
“Four,” Lysandra choked.
The other woman blinked. “Four times even after he discovered your secret, why do you believe you did something wrong?”
Lysandra shifted. “He is clearly very experienced. I am obviously not. The fact that he hasn’t returned or even sent me word makes me think that he has lost interest in me.”
Vivien shook her head. “Or that he is just as surprised by his reaction to you as you were.”
“His reaction?” Lysandra repeated.
Vivien laughed. “Of course, clearly he did have one.”
Lysandra worried her lip. She had been so wrapped up in her own emotions, the sensations he awoke in her and her reactions that she hadn’t actually thought much about his.
“Occasionally I felt I had some little amount of power,” she admitted. “But otherwise, I am not experienced enough to know what his reaction to me could be.”
Vivien leaned back in her seat with a soft sigh. “Being a mistress means more than just using your body as an instrument for pleasure,” she began. “Over time, the best mistresses begin to know things about people. They are told things. And I have been told something about Callis that you should understand.”
Lysandra leaned forward. “Yes?”
“Do you know his wife died?”
She nodded. “He told me.”
Both Vivien’s eyebrows lifted. “That in itself is very interesting. You see, he does not speak of that to very many people. Likewise, the time he spends in London is limited. He normally hides away on his estate in the countryside, Rutholm Park. The rumor is that he has not had a lover since the death of his wife, or if he has it has been a one-night affair that did not bear repeating.”
Lysandra blinked. He had said his wife died three years before. It was hard to picture such a sensual man as celibate for that long.
“But if he prefers to keep himself away from others, why did he agree to- to—”
Vivien shrugged. “To enter into this affair with you? I have no idea. Except that when I brought him here, when I showed you to him while you walked in the gardens, there was something that lit up in his eyes. He was attracted to you from the start, and I think the intensity of that attraction must be worrisome to him. It reminds him of the man he once was and everyone knows he shies away from that with all his might.”
“What he once was?” Lysandra asked.
“A libertine, my dear. Filled with frivolity and lust.” Vivien grinned. “He was a great deal of fun back then, though he was never my lover. We did run in the same wild circles, though, and I watched him play the role of rake to the hilt. The fact that he would make love to you four times in one passionate night makes me think perhaps you reawaken some of that rake in him.”
Lysandra swallowed hard. She wasn’t certain if these things Vivien was saying were compliments or damnations.
“But if he doesn’t want that part of him to live again…” she began.
Vivien waved off her concern with one elegant hand. “Posh. One cannot deny what he is, no matter how he tries. His problem was that he didn’t believe he could be a decent man and a man of pleasures. If you could show him that he could be both, then you will help him.”
“And how do I do that?” Lysandra asked with a shake of her head.
“Force him to surrender to those desires he fights so hard.” Vivien smiled. “Drag him headlong into pleasure.”
“I don’t think I could force that man to do anything,” Lysandra muttered as she thought of Andrew’s bold personality and strong will.
“You’d be surprised,” Vivien said. “You already said you feel you have some power over him, do you not? Minor or brief as it is, you can build on it. But you must develop some faith in your own powers as a woman.”
“How?” Lysandra asked as she got to her feet. “That is why I came here. To determine what I could have done wrong and get answers on how to proceed.”
Vivien tilted her head as she looked at Lysandra long and hard. “I wonder if you are ready…but how does one become ready?”
She was talking to herself, clearly, but Lysandra couldn’t allow such an intriguing statement to pass unanswered.
“Ready? For what?”
“I believe the best way to learn any new skill is by observation…and practice,” Vivien said as she got to her feet and motioned Lysandra to join her. “So I am going to take you somewhere that you can do the first. The second will be up to you.”
Lysandra wrinkled her brow as she followed Vivien from the room and toward the hallway.
“I’m not certain I understand,” she said as she trailed after the other woman, heart rate increasing with every step.
“You will.” Vivien took her upstairs and withdrew a key ring from her pelisse pocket. She unlocked a chamber and motioned Lysandra inside.
It was a small room with just a few chairs scattered about. She wouldn’t even describe it as a parlor, really, for there didn’t seem to be any purpose to the room. The chairs all faced one wall, for one thing, and weren’t tilted toward each other for talk.
“Sit down,” Vivien said softly.
As Lysandra did so, the other woman approached the wall. As Lysandra stared, Vivien removed a portrait hanging there and revealed a hole in the wall that allowed a person in one room to see into the other.
“What—?” Lysandra began, but before she could continue, the door in the opposite chamber opened. A woman came through first, dressed in an utterly revealing dress that swooped down over the curves of her breasts and had a slit to reveal the length of her leg. Behind her a gentleman followed. He had a pronounced limp and a scar across his face that was still red and sore, as if it was from a recent injury.
Vivien leaned closer. “This is a friend of mine, Annalisa. She was a very popular courtesan, but she has taken her money and no longer indulges in that lifestyle. The man she is with is Major Gabriel Crook. He was injured in the war last year. They met here at one of my parties and they enjoy revisiting the room where they first…met.”
As Lysandra stared, the Major reached back to shut the chamber door. Annalisa sashayed forward and leaned against him, pressing her mouth to his with passionate fervor as they fell against the door together.
Lysandra turned away. “What is this?”
“By making love to him, she is helping him heal. Reminding him a little about how good life can be.” Vivien smiled. “They are utterly passionate…and they don’t mind being watched. You are going to watch them.”
Chapter Ten
Lysandra’s mouth dropped open. Watch these people as they made love? But before she could protest, Vivien called out, “Annalisa, Major, we are in the next chamber.”
The two, who had continued to kiss wildly, stopped, and Annalisa turned toward the chamber. Lysandra stepped back, blushing as the other woman sought her out like a teacher seeking a naughty schoolgirl.
“Oh, most excellent,” she said, her accent Spanish. She was utterly beautiful, with bright, dark eyes and a full, red mouth. “Major, we are to have an audience.”
He grinned, and Lysandra was surprised that although he was scarred, he was also still very handsome. And as he wrapped his arms around Annalisa from behind and began gently kneading her breasts through the miniscule fabric of her gown, there was no denying he was a sensual man.
“Does this person wish to join us?” Annalisa asked, her breath short as her nipples began to harden at the Major’s ministrations.
Lysandra stared at Vivien in horror. “No!” she burst out. “I must go, I cannot—”
Vivien turned on her. “My dear, trust me, there are no two people more passionate than these two. Watching them will help you learn the answers to many
of the questions you asked me today. Annalisa is bold where you are timid. Watch her. Watch the way she pleases this man and how intense and moving an experience that can be for them both. Do it and take what you see back to Andrew. You won’t regret it.”
She turned away from Lysandra and called out, “This little mouse isn’t quite ready to play with the cats, Annalisa. But do put on a good show for her. She is trying to learn.”
Lysandra stared through the window between the two chambers, shocked as the Major began to kiss Annalisa’s neck. She laughed and said something Lysandra couldn’t hear. There was no denying that watching them was mesmerizing. Their passion was so effortless.
“I’ll step away,” Vivien said softly. “To allow you your privacy in your reactions. Come find me when you’re finished. I would greatly like to hear your thoughts on what you see.”
Lysandra swallowed hard and tried to squeak out one final protest, but Vivien ignored her and stepped from the room, closing the chamber door behind her with a click that rang in Lysandra’s ears with finality.
She shifted her focus back to the couple in the opposite chamber. They knew she was here, watching them, yet it didn’t seem to slow their passion even a fraction. Annalisa turned back toward him, rubbing her body and up and down his as she kissed him with fervor and increasing passion.
He grunted and sighed as he drove his tongue between her lips and cupped her backside to keep her firmly against him. They parted, and Annalisa smiled at him, wicked and knowing.
She drew back a fraction and began to undress her lover. His hands flexed at his sides, like he wanted to participate in the act, but he allowed her to take control. She stripped his jacket away, then his shirt.
Lysandra gasped. The scar on his face was mirrored by a series of them on his body. He had been through hell, for certain. And yet there was something about his rough damaged body, being stroked and loved by this beautiful woman, that was utterly arousing. Even though she didn’t want it to happen, Lysandra’s own breasts began to tingle with pleasure, her sex grew wet and she wanted, quite desperately, to touch herself.
She leaned closer on the chair instead and watched as Annalisa stripped away her lover’s trousers. Lysandra couldn’t help but whimper. She had spent her entire life being sheltered from the vision of a naked, aroused man. Now she had seen two in less than a week. She preferred Andrew’s thick thrust, but the major was a specimen in his own right.
Annalisa smiled. “Oh, your cock. I have been dreaming of it for days, Gabriel.”
He rubbed against her, stroking himself against her leg as he kissed her again. “And I’ve been dreaming of all the wicked things you do to that cock, my love.”
“Then allow me to bring those dreams to life,” Annalisa said softly. She kissed him one last time as she cupped his member and began to stroke.
Lysandra’s suddenly dry lips parted. The other woman was mimicking a rhythm of sex in her slow, even strokes and the Major’s head dipped back over his shoulders as he hissed out a low, “Yesssss.”
But that wasn’t enough for Annalisa. She dragged her mouth down his throat, his chest, his stomach and finally dropped to her knees before him. Lysandra had a perfect view as Annalisa looked up at him, eyes sparkling. He stared as she darted out her tongue and slowly licked the head of his cock.
Lysandra jolted. This was like those pictures hidden in Vivien’s wallpaper in her parlor. Annalisa traced her lover’s cock with her tongue, then wrapped her lips around him and drew him deeply into her mouth.
He tangled his fingers in her hair with a garbled cry and drove his hips forward even farther, thrusting like he was taking her body. But Annalisa didn’t seem to be bothered by this. She moaned low in her throat and stroked her free hand up and down the side of his thigh as she began to take him with long, wet strokes of her mouth and tongue.
Lysandra hadn’t known how to feel about the act when she thought of it or saw the wallpaper images, but now her body reacted to the passionate way Annalisa gave to her lover and the way he groaned and strained in turn. This was pure pleasure for him and her mind couldn’t help but stray to Andrew and what he would do if she took him into her mouth the same way. She shivered at the thought of his hot, velvety member between her lips, of tasting him.
She jolted as she realized she had begun to touch her own leg, massaging and stroking her thigh. No, she wasn’t going to do that, not with two other people just feet away, knowing she was there.
She refocused on them. Annalisa was driving with her mouth now, taking and taking with increased speed. The major cried out and suddenly he lifted her away.
“Inside of you,” he gasped and pulled at her gown. The fabric tugged open with little encouragement and he threw it aside. She was naked beneath and arched her back almost like she was proud of what he was seeing.
Lysandra bit her lip. This was the mark of an experienced woman, wasn’t it? She didn’t simper or try to cover herself. She enjoyed it when her lover looked at her. She enjoyed everything about this.
And truth be told, once the initial confusion and pain had faded…so did Lysandra. She quivered every time she thought of Andrew’s body on her, in her, his mouth tasting her.
Once again her fingers moved, this time to the area between her thighs. And she didn’t stop herself. Absently, she stroked there as she continued to watch the couple in the other room.
The Major spun Annalisa around so that they were both facing the window between the rooms. He smiled, and Lysandra jolted. Could he see her in the shadows? That question should have made her yank her hand away from herself, but instead her fingers quickened. The touch was dulled through her dress, but still she felt pleasure building in her.
“Do it,” Annalisa gasped as he positioned himself behind her. She gripped the back of a chair that was before her and braced herself there, face twisted with pleasure and tense with anticipation.
She didn’t have to ask twice. Without preamble, he drove into her. She buckled against the chair, her knuckles whitening as he drove into her, hard and fast, from behind.
Lysandra could see her release building on her face. It contorted with pleasure, with the peaking of sensation deep within her. At the same moment, Lysandra’s own body reacted much the same way. As she worked her hand, her fingers over her clit, there was a burst of pleasure, and she bit back a cry just as Annalisa screamed out her own.
A cry that merged with the Major’s. He drove harder, faster and then arched into her, calling out her name, clinging to her bare hips as he experienced release with her.
For a long moment, the only sounds in either room were pants of pleasure. The couple’s and the ones from Lysandra’s own lips. She blushed at the thought that she had taken such pleasure in another couple’s joining, but watching had done that.
And it had also taught her a great many things.
She stared as the couple sank down together onto the floor. They wrapped themselves into each other, embracing with an intimacy that rivaled the intensity of their coupling.
“I love you,” Annalisa whispered.
Lysandra flinched. Now she was intruding.
“I’m not a whole man,” he said in return, but he held her closer.
Lysandra got to her feet. They might have remembered she was in the room while having sex, but this exchange was not meant for a stranger. She slipped to the door just as she heard Annalisa say, “You have proven that isn’t true time and again. I only wish you believed it.”
She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, her breath coming short. What she had seen was an education…what she had heard…well, it was one too. It was too easy to allow emotions to merge with the physical aspects of an affair. They seemed to go hand in hand, didn’t they? Passion with love.
Only they couldn’t. Not for her.
She pushed away from the door and weaved her way unsteadily downstairs. Nettle stood there, almost as if he was waiting, but if he knew what she had been doing, he gave no indic
ation. He merely bowed slightly and said, “Miss Manning is in her study. The third door on the left. She said for you to see her before you depart.”
“Th-thank you,” she said, still too unsteady not to stammer. “Would you tell my driver to ready himself for our departure? I’ll be going once I finish talking to Miss Manning.”
He nodded and left her to find the study. She hesitated before she knocked and heard Vivien’s voice on the other side of the door.
“Come in, Lysandra.”
She opened the door and found Vivien at a large desk, much like the ones she’d seen in a man’s home. She was looking over a ledger but set it aside as Lysandra entered.
“Hello again. I trust this means it is over?”
Lysandra blushed. “Yes.”
“And did you take anything away from your voyeuristic activities?” Vivien smiled. “Aside from that flush to your cheeks that tells me you enjoyed what you saw?”
Lysandra lifted her hands to cover her face and looked away. “Is it so obvious?”
Vivien shrugged one shoulder. “It is to me, but why should you be embarrassed? Did you not see how much both Annalisa and her major enjoyed their joining? How much it gave them pleasure? And how active and willing she was?”
“Yes.” Lysandra sat down across from Vivien. “I could see how bold she was and how much he enjoyed that boldness. It is a lesson I must take with me as I continue my training with Andrew.”
Vivien nodded. “Good. And did you see how their passion could be restorative to them both. Healing?”
Lysandra hesitated. “Yes. I think it was…but I also saw another pitfall in this arrangement.”
Vivien tilted her head. “Pitfall?”
“Emotion,” Lysandra whispered. “There is something deeper between them than mere sex. And it is a source of pain and strife for them both. I could see how easy it would be to fall in love with a man who was a protector or lover.”
Vivien stood up and there was a moment where pain registered on her normally controlled and lovely face.
“Yes, what you say is true. Emotion is a great enemy of women in our position. Love is easy to grow, but hard to keep alive. And most men don’t want it from their mistresses, as it causes no end to inconvenience.”
An Introduction to Pleasure: Mistress Matchmaker, Book 1 Page 8
