A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man

by Celeste Bradley

  Or demon.

  I truly didn’t care which. Perhaps a demon made for a better companion down a path of sin.

  Then his hot hands fell softly onto my bare shoulders and I gasped. He moved slowly, circling me clockwise, never letting his hands leave my skin, sliding them over me, over my shoulder and neck and breastbone. Down my arm and up my inner arm. Around my waist and down over my hip. His hot palms left trails of fire on my flesh, burning memories of sensation. I almost expected them to glow in the dimness.

  No one had ever touched me thus. I had never had a nanny or a governess. My mother had expected independence at a young age, so no one had even seen me in the bath since I was ten. I had washed and dressed and tended myself—so my skin was as virgin as the rest of me.

  He despoiled my skin. He raided me as thoroughly as any Viking horde. He touched me everywhere, slipping his palms and fingers down over my belly, circling the globes of my buttocks, lifting and cupping my tight, tingling breasts, ravaging my innocent flesh with his hot, gentle stroking hands. Around and around me he moved, teasing, touching, smoothing. My body, my face, he even ran his fingers through my hair. My skin awoke as it had never before.

  And it woke hungry. Like a caged creature too long unfed, it wanted more and yet more.

  I was merely the prisoner inside the aroused vessel. I trembled, trapped in his web of teasing, taunting pleasure. His hands slipped between my thighs, but didn’t reach my dampened nethers.

  Cunte. My dampened cunte.

  The words mattered, I realized now. I would beg him eventually and it was important that my fevered mind find the right words to satisfy my starving flesh.

  When his hot hands slid past the undefended parting of my buttocks, I closed my eyes. Yes. At last.

  He teased at the lips of my cunte. His fingers stroked up and down the slippery parting but did not enter, though I admit I did try to press back into his touch. He found a small, sensitive area just behind that that even I had never explored. The tip of his index finger, slippery from the exploration of the lips of my cunte, dipped swiftly into my anus, making me gasp and shudder with surprising pleasure, then moved on, up and over me once more.

  Nothing was sacred. No inch of me was left pure. His touch invaded. It invited. It provoked and offended and aroused. I was dizzy with it, drunk on it, shaking and raw and stripped more naked than naked by it.

  Then it grew less gentle. Not painful, but rougher, more demanding. He pushed, he squeezed, he pinched, he tweaked. My nipples grew hard and pointed under his taunting touch, my buttocks pink, my scalp tingled from his fingers fisting in my hair as he pulled my head back to thrust his slick fingers into my mouth, making me taste myself.

  Salt. Cream.

  I wanted him to thrust his fingers into my cunte in just that way. I was soaked with desire. He read my thoughts and ran a rough, hot hand down my belly to cup my cunte firmly. I quivered and closed my eyes. “Yes,” I whispered through dry lips. “Please.”

  Abruptly, he took my upper arm in his other hand and spun me to press against him, my back to his front. My tingling skin adored the scratch of his weskit buttons against my back. My sensitized buttocks recognized the giant bulge in his trousers as belonging to me and nestled against it confidently.

  “What do you want, sweet Ophelia?”

  I gasped and squirmed. His hand rubbed at my cunte roughly but did not pass the slick gates.

  “Say the words, Ophelia.”

  I moaned and writhed against him, fore and back, but he was relentless. “Say it.”

  “Touch me,” I begged. “Please touch me.”

  “I am touching you,” he said, hoarse and hot in my ear.

  I whimpered in frustration. “No! Touch me inside!”

  “That’s not what we call it, is it?”

  “Fuck me!” I howled. “Fuck my cunte with your fingers!”

  When his long, rough fingers slipped between the slippery folds of my cunte, I nearly screamed aloud from the relief. I bucked and squirmed against him until he had to pin me tight to his body with his other arm around my waist. Despite his earlier roughness, he penetrated me slowly, almost reverently. I could not move. I could only lean my head back against his shoulder and pant as he slid a single long finger deeply into me, all the way to the last knuckle. A long animal moan rose from my throat.

  “The First Sin, my delicious Ophelia…” His breath was hot and moist against my ear, his voice rasping and deep.

  “The First Sin is Lust.”

  Eight

  My entire body was aflame. I had never felt anything like this intense, wicked awakening. I was a mad creature, begging a masked stranger to do things to me that I had never dared imagine only a few short weeks before.

  He stood behind me, still fully clothed against my bareness, having done nothing but touch me with his hands. How could such a simple thing as touch bring me to this state of wild abandon?

  His long finger slid into me and then withdrew over and over while I quivered and whimpered in his grasp. My knees could scarcely keep me upright. If I fell to the carpet would he fall with me? Would he cover me with his large, warm body? Would he violate me on the floor while I begged for more?

  Such dangerous thoughts were mere wisps of consciousness amid the tumult in my mind. For the most part, my awareness consisted of craving, aching, throbbing need. His rough horseman’s hands set me afire. His slippery finger thrust into me again and again, sliding up and down against the sensitive flesh of that secret little knob I had no name for. I became nothing but that small knob, or perhaps it grew to become me, for nothing existed in the world but that callused finger sweeping over me, thrusting into me, sending tremors through me. I felt a pull toward something I had never known before. I wanted something … something more …

  That finger slowed, then stopped. I gasped and moaned in protest as it withdrew from my body inch by slippery inch. I felt raw and empty and unfulfilled. What madness was this?

  “Not yet, sweet wanton,” that dark voice whispered in my ear.

  When his enveloping arm released me I staggered, my shaking knees unable to sustain my weight. He carefully propped me against the bedpost, my bare back to the cool, carved wood. I put my hands behind me to hold on and let my head drop, hiding behind the fall of my hair while I tried to cling to that feeling. Where was I trying to go? I didn’t know, but I realized that it was not a place I knew how to find on my own. My body felt chilled and alone without his touch, without his solid presence, without his hot breath in my ear.

  I needed this stranger, this “Sir.”

  It should have been an alarming, even terrifying realization. I, who fought for my freedom, gave myself so willingly into the power of this unknown man. Yet I was not afraid. There was power in this discovery. There was freedom in my response to his large, wicked hands. Somehow I knew that if I could last the night, I would learn to fly.

  I felt his big hands smooth my hair. He cupped my jaw in his palms and lifted my face. I gazed up at him, panting and shivering and quite unselfconscious in my nakedness.

  “Say ‘fuck.’”

  I drew a breath. “Fuck.” The wicked word came easily from my lips, for had I not screamed it a short while before? This obedient murmur was nothing in comparison.

  “Naked and profane.” Those beautiful lips quirked. “And yet still so ladylike. I applaud you.”

  It was ridiculous to feel proud of myself, like a child getting good marks, but I did. Yet were these not barriers to my goals that must be surmounted? I should be proud.

  I have perhaps mentioned before that I am an exceptional student.

  He still gazed down at me, his eyes entirely shadowed by the mask. What did he see? I had been so involved in my own experience that I had no thought of his needs.

  That could not be the mark of a great courtesan.

  So I lifted my hands and tentatively smoothed them over his chest, sliding my palms over his waistcoat, up under his surcoat and down agai
n over his flat, hard stomach. His body was so firm beneath the fine clothing. I had never touched a man before but I had imagined something softer from a gentleman. Sir had the body of a laborer, the hands of a groom, and the clothing and manners of a lord.

  Perhaps that was what was required of a hired lover. The Swan had emphasized that fitness and grace were most important to a courtesan’s career. A hired lover would be prized for his strength and power, would he not?

  I suddenly longed to see that strength and power for myself.

  “Would you not like to remove your clothing now, Sir?”

  He had gone quite still under my hesitant exploration. I put a palm over his chest to feel the thud of his heart, like a horse galloping on a hard road. He wants me.

  My sense of power grew. I stepped closer to him and slid my hands to the front of his waistcoat. I teased at the top button with my fingertips. “I will wait to be asked,” I informed him.

  “I will not ask,” he replied, his whispered tone harsh. He was not angry. He was inflamed. All I had to do was glance down at the front of his trousers to know that. I might be an innocent—although perhaps not so innocent any longer!—but everyone saw animals mating. I knew what would happen, in a general sort of way. The Swan had tried to explain more explicitly, but I had scarcely listened in my excitement. However, my ignorance did not dismay me. I was incredibly willing to learn.

  So, without his permission, I began to strip my masked lover. I began by undoing each waistcoat button slowly to reveal the linen shirt beneath. When the dark brocade vest hung open, I pushed it from his shoulders, taking his surcoat with it. As the softly scratchy wool slid away, I gave it a last caress, for I confess I would miss the feel of it against my sensitized flesh.

  More by feel than by sight in the dimness, I began to untie his cravat. This did not go well for several moments. Then I gained the gist of the knot and soon swept the untied length from around his neck and slung it triumphantly around my own.

  “A souvenir,” I murmured.

  “Yes, it may come in handy later.” His whisper was nearly a growl.

  My knees went just the tiniest bit weak at the images that provoked, but I soldiered on. His shirt now lay open halfway down the front and I found myself fascinated by the triangle of exposed male flesh before my eyes. His chest was as tan as his face and hands, again like a laborer in a field who worked bare to the waist. Would he leave my side in the morning to go plant a cornfield? Or perhaps—and this thought made it very difficult to stand—perhaps he regularly made love outside? I had a brief mental flash of him naked and sweating over a female form splayed in the high grass. This female form had dark hair and a generous bosom, of course.

  Then I remembered that I didn’t need to fantasize when I had the real thing before me. I pulled his shirt from his trousers and ripped it over his head. Well, I tried but I am rather impaired in the height department, so all I accomplished was to pop a few threads and make him stagger a bit.

  “Allow me,” he murmured graciously. He bent forward so that I might pull his shirt off.

  I was not embarrassed by my gaffe for his half-naked body was far too distractingly beautiful. The linen fell from my fingers as I stared at his magnificent chest and shoulders. And his stomach! I had no idea a man’s body could ripple so! The breadth of his shoulders was even more impressive now that I truly saw the thick muscles roping over them, winding down his powerful arms, strapping over his ribs, plating his belly with iron. I reached to touch him again, following the same path as before. He stood still for me as I moved around him, almost as he had circled me earlier. However, I had come to worship, not taunt. I slid my fingertips up the bones of his spine, then spread my hands wide over his shoulder blades like wings on his back. So tall … so wide …

  So perfect.

  No wonder he was in great demand by the ladies of Society! I would hire him simply to look at him.

  Well, perhaps not only to look at him.

  It was not until I had smoothed my hands over his entire upper body, a process that left both of us breathless, that I dared the untried territory of a man’s breeches. I lightly traced my fingertips over the thick ridge that bulged within those breeches.

  A sound escaped him, something between a growl and a moan. I could feel the caged power of that beast pulsate beneath my touch.

  Oh dear.

  Cowardice won and I knelt before him to remove his boots. He loomed above me, dark and powerful, as I knelt naked at his feet. I shuddered with a sudden bolt of desire. His black boots took the brunt of my tension, for I fairly ripped them from his feet, taking his stockings off as well.

  I licked my lips and gazed at the obstacle bulging before my eyes. Only the breeches were left. He waited silently but the air was thick with unexpressed lust, the only signs of it the throbbing pulse in his neck and the faint sheen of sweat on his muscled chest. I could feel his black eyes hot upon me, twin points of dark fire roaming my naked skin.

  Buttons. You can do buttons. You’ve been managing those for years.

  Yet my hands shook as I reached up and undid the two rows of buttons that lay each just inside his hipbones. The heat of his bare skin teased at my knuckles as I fumbled the job. When I inadvertently brushed my hand over the rigid rod swelling beneath the taut fabric, he drew in a breath that did fascinating things to the rippling muscled belly before my eyes.

  I did it again, just to see.

  His torso tightened and his hands fisted at his sides. “You should not tease the caged beast, sweet Ophelia.”

  I scowled at my clumsy fingers. “I’m trying to free the damned beast, Sir.”

  Large swift hands took over briefly. I pulled my own hands away and watched in fascination as he stripped his breeches away and the trapped creature was set free. He wore no drawers. Impatient fellow.

  Released, his thick organ—his cock—jutted forward. I, who had been shy of the candlelight before, was now glad of it. It was a beautiful thing, his cock. I reached my hand to take it in my fist like a club, for it jutted both fore and aft of my grip. For a moment I feared such size within me, but the Swan had promised his skill and care and in that moment I chose to believe in the coming pleasure. Fear had no place in this night of delicious awakening.

  He inhaled as I tightened my fingers slowly, gently, thinking I should like to tug him a bit closer. It thickened in my hand at once, turning from hard flesh to iron. I could see the silken skin of it darken as well. The rounded head of it swelled before my eyes and I saw a tiny shimmering bead appear in the small slit at the tip.

  He dampens as well, I thought, and the knowledge made my cunte throb in response.

  “Stand.” His husky tone was a gravelly command I willingly obeyed.

  Fascinating events lay before me and I had no wish to delay. My empty fist closed about the lingering sensation of his silk-and-iron cock in my palm, unwilling to lose the feeling of him. I need not have worried.

  Sir stood naked but for his mask. I stood naked but for my hair. I could feel the very heat of him radiating upon my awakened skin. I wanted him to touch me again, to pull me close to his heat, his hardness. My knees trembled with the power of my wanting. I could see by the gleam in his shadowed eyes that he knew it.

  I lifted my chin. “I will not ask.”

  Those beautiful lips twitched in amusement. He stepped closer, moving his large body into mine as if he had never lived anywhere else. His jutting cock dug into my belly for an instant, then he slid his hand down to lift it between us until it pointed upward along the swell of my stomach, as if to lay claim to its right to the inside of me as well.

  Then his hard chest pressed into my soft breasts and his rigid thighs aligned with my plump ones. I tipped my head back to meet that onyx gaze. My breath came so fast it dizzied me and my hands came up to rest upon the rounded steel of his biceps. My lust, so new to me, so achingly delicious, spun my mind sideways until I scarcely knew my own name.

  “Ask.”


  I tried to, but my dry throat stopped me.

  He dropped his large, hot hands to my waist and pulled me close into him, spreading my softness into every hill and valley of his hardness. “Ask.”

  As I gazed up at him, at his blazing eyes behind the mask, at his magnificent mouth below it, I knew what he wanted me to say. Fuck my cunte with your cock.

  I licked my dry lips. “Kiss me,” I whispered.

  His eyes widened in surprise, and then something flared in his gaze, something like wonder or awe. I forgot that notion in the next moment, however, for his wonderful mouth came down upon mine for my very first kiss.

  I think he meant it to be somewhat gentle and warm, but the touch of his lips upon mine set the smoldering coal of my lust to instant flame. With a small cry I went up on my toes even as I slid my hands about his neck to pull him closer. My parted lips clung to his as I pressed myself to him with all my might. In response, his arms came about me, one big hand on the small of my back, the other deep in my hair, cupping my head. He groaned into my mouth even as I felt his thick cock pulse against my belly.

  Then he lifted me right from my feet and within a few steps had tumbled us both onto the richly appointed bed. The cool silk beneath my hot skin made me gasp, but then his warm weight covered me as he smoothed my wild hair from my face and kissed me again and again. “Ophelia…”

  I had no name for him. “Sir…”

  He pulled his mouth from mine and dropped his forehead upon my collarbone for a moment. I could feel his breath hot upon my breast as I panted as well. Then he lifted his head. Dark eyes focused on me and I swallowed at the intensity in his gaze.

  He took my hand in his and placed it above my head, then did the same with my other hand. I lay willing and passive, waiting for him to cover me again, to penetrate me with his rigid cock, to teach me what it was to be fucked hard and well.

  He did none of that. Instead, he lay next to me and slid one large horseman’s hand over me, from my throat down between my aching breasts, over my trembling belly, until his hot palm cupped my cunte once more. I closed my eyes and quivered, waiting for him to slip a long finger into me. I felt a single callused fingertip dip inward to slowly caress that most sensitive point. Then I felt his mouth upon my breast, pulling my nipple between his lips, sucking as he teased with his tongue. Bright bolts of pleasure shot between those two points, my nipple and my cunte, lightning rods to my lust.