An Introduction to Pleasure (7 page)

He stared at her, but finally nodded. “You are welcome, but I would say that you shouldn’t be overly grateful when you take on a protector. You want them to pursue you, to be driven to give you more.”

Lysandra stared at him. “But if I’m provided for, that should be all I require. I wouldn’t be able to demand something from a person as you suggest. Why would I?”

“The chase, my dear,” Andrew said softly as he took another step toward her. “You must provide these men with a chase, otherwise they will lose interest. And since the chase will not involve the pleasures of your body, it must involve something else. Your comfort. Your company. Your approval.”

Lysandra shook her head. “I understand what you’re saying, but I have a hard time picturing being so demanding.”

One corner of Andrew’s lip lifted in a half-smile. “Then there will be much to teach. But first…”

He trailed off and moved closer, closer, close enough that Lysandra could smell the masculine fragrance of his skin and feel its heat. Close enough that when he reached out he could take her hand. Slowly, he drew her toward him and then against him.

Lysandra shivered as her mind flashed to the intimate kisses he had rained down on her quivering body just a few days before. The body that continued to react with both his touch and the memories, tingling as the area between her thighs grew wet and hot in anticipation.

“I didn’t kiss you the last time we met,” he said and his rough voice was even rougher. “At least, not this way.”

He gave her a wicked glance and then his mouth lowered to hers.

Lysandra stood stock-still in shock as his lips pressed against her own. She had been kissed before, but they had been clumsy and often highly unpleasant attempts at the activity. Andrew’s mouth, however, was firm and warm on hers. She relaxed at the pressure of his lips, the way they fit so perfectly against her own.

And then he parted them and traced the crease of her mouth with his tongue, rather in the same way he had done with her womanly lips the last time they met. Her mouth opened with the sensation, and he let his tongue touch hers.

She moaned against his lips as she lifted her arms around his neck and returned the kiss out of pure instinct. Their tongues collided and danced, stroking and tasting as Andrew pulled her closer, closer, closer with every touch. His hands drifted down her back and he cupped her backside, lifting her against him.

Lysandra gasped, first at the intimacy and passion of the touch and then at the feel of something hard and hot against her belly when he smashed her against him.

“The servants assured me that your rooms would be ready for us,” Andrew whispered as he pulled away and stared down at her with a heated, heavy expression. “Let’s go there now.”

Lysandra swallowed as he took her hand. She allowed him to lead her up to the second floor of the home. There were a few shut doors, but she couldn’t be curious about them. Not when she was being taken to a bedroom with a huge, pillared bed against the wall. It was a gorgeous room, fit for the princess she had earlier compared herself to, but she couldn’t look at it or enjoy it.

Because Andrew shut the door behind them and promptly pressed her against the hard surface of it, lifting her against him once more as he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her into dizzy submission. She clung to him, helpless in the face of the storm, unable and unwilling to pull away and break the spell he weaved with his hot touch.

His fingers caught the buttons along the front of her gown and he tore at them, popping them free even as he sent two of them skittering free across the floor thanks to their cheap thread. He didn’t seem to notice, though. He stopped kissing her long enough to part her gown in the front.

Her chemise was just as cheap as her gown, with no decoration, just scratchy cotton fabric against her bare skin. He slipped his hands beneath the shoulders of her gown and the thin straps of the undergarment beneath and shoved them both down her arms, baring her from the waist up.

Lysandra shook with need and lifted her hands to cover herself out of pure instinct. Andrew touched her hands and lowered them as he finally looked at her face.

“In the past, perhaps this was a humiliation for you,” he whispered, his tone hypnotic in the quiet room. “It will never be again. Enjoy the fact that when I look at you, it makes me mad with desire. When
any
man looks at you in this way, you could have anything you wish for.
That
will be the power you wield as a mistress.”

Lysandra blinked. She felt anything but powerful at this moment. She was weak with desire, mixed with a heavy dose of anxiety for what she knew was about to happen and embarrassment at her current state of undress. And yet the idea that she could drive a sophisticated and experienced man like Andrew wild with just a glimpse of her naked breasts…it was a heady thought.

“And now I am going to remove the rest of your gown,” he said, even as he hooked his fingers into the fabric and began to tug it over her hips. “Don’t turn away. Don’t cover yourself.”

She shut her eyes as the gown fell away, but even then she could feel his stare burning into her almost as hot as a touch on her flesh. The touch that came next. He reached his hands out and gently cupped each breast, massaging the flesh there with the perfect amount of pressure.

“Andrew,” she gasped and he smiled.

“Crying out my name already? We’ve only just begun.”

She couldn’t find the breath to respond, but it didn’t seem to matter. He guided her backward across the room until her backside hit the bed. There he lifted her and set her on the edge of the high mattress. He pushed her legs open, splaying her naked body just as it had been when he had licked her to completion a few days before, and stepped into the space between them.

He kissed her again and all thoughts, all embarrassment, all anxiety fled as he tasted her, stroked her tongue with his, seduced her senses with his mouth.

He caught her hands as he kissed her, and she yanked away as he lowered them to the buttons that fastened his trousers.

They stared at each other for a long moment, her panting breaths echoing in the quiet room.

“Open them,” he ordered.

Her fingers trembled as she hesitated, staring at him in entreaty. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the words, but she was so overwhelmed by everything happening that she couldn’t seem to move.

“Lysandra,” he said and held her gaze evenly. “Open them.”

She nodded, a jerking movement that brought her back to reality. The buttons were tight, and she discovered why as she opened a few of them. His member pushed against them, as hard as granite. When the fly was open, it sprung free, swiping her hand with its silken steel fire as she pulled away.

“Touch me,” he groaned.

She stared at the length of him and had no idea how to proceed.

“Have you never seen your lover’s cock before?” he asked when she made no move to touch him.

She shook her head. Slowly, he touched her chin and lifted her face to look at him.

“I’ll teach you.” Without another word, he caught her hand and closed her fingers around his length. With a groan, he stroked her palm down the length of him once, twice. When he released her, she continued the rhythmic stroking, mesmerized by how he flexed his hips toward her with each stoke, how his eyes rolled in the back of his head.

In that moment, she recognized that
this
was what he had meant when he told her she had power as a mistress. She quickened her pace and found that she was squeezing and relaxing the inner muscles of her body in time to her strokes. The feeling was quite pleasurable, and she sighed out her breath.

He stared at her.

“Enough,” he said, his voice rough as he snatched her hand away.

She flinched. “Have I done it wrong?”

“No, but any more and I shall spend. And I want to have you, Lysandra. To claim you.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but he didn’t allow that. He crushed his mouth to her, dragging her forward on the bed and cupping her lips. She felt the hard head of his…what had he called it? Cock. She felt his cock at her entrance and then he slid inside of her. The first few seconds were heavenly, a full stretching of her body that made her quake.

And then a raging burst of pain made her cry out.

Chapter Seven

Andrew froze as Lysandra cried out not in pleasure, but in pain. Her face contorted in surprise and agony as her fingertips dug into his shoulders.

With great effort, he pulled from her clinging, warm body and looked down to see the telltale streak of blood on his cock. Virgin’s blood.

With a roar of frustration and guilt, he flung himself away from her. He was on fire with desire, and it took everything in him to back three steps away. Despite what he now knew, he still wanted her. To finish what they’d started.

But he couldn’t.

For a long moment, they simply stared at each other. Lysandra was blinking, clearly trying to control her tears. And Andrew was too upset to formulate words in that moment.

“Wh-why did you stop?” she finally asked, her voice twisted with emotion.

“Are you truly asking me that ridiculous question?” he snapped. She flinched, and he shook his head. “Virgin’s blood, Lysandra? Virgin’s pain?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, but not before he saw a pain far deeper than her virgin’s pain. Slowly, she reached behind her, her hand sliding along the bed until she found a pillow. She covered her nakedness with it and shook her head.

“Of course not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Andrew took a step closer and lifted a trembling finger. “Don’t you lie to me, Lysandra. Whatever else you do, don’t lie.”

She struggled for a long moment, but then finally shrugged. “Very well. I won’t lie.”

He stared at her. “You are…
were
an innocent! How could you keep that from me? How could Vivien?”

She jerked her gaze to his. “Vivien didn’t know. I think she assumed I must have some experience when I showed up and asked her to find a protector for me. After all, what kind of virgin would be so bold? I didn’t correct that misconception, just as I didn’t correct yours.”

He ran a hand over his face. He could think of no words to express how angry and guilty he felt. Two emotions he didn’t want to associate with this kind of pleasurable endeavor. He had enough of both in his everyday life.

“God damn it, Lysandra!” he finally burst out.

She drew in a few long breaths to calm herself and then looked him in the face. He could see what a struggle it was for her to do so and how much she wanted to look away. But she remained calm and collected.

“Rail at me all you like, but now that the truth is out, I still need this training. Perhaps even more than ever. Will you not give it to me?” she asked, her voice as steady as her stare.

He blinked. “You cannot seriously expect me to carry on with you now that I know you are an innocent.”

She tilted her head. “As you said a moment ago, I
was
an innocent. I may not know much, but I am perfectly aware that I cannot give twice what you just took. So the problem of my virginity, as you seem to see it, is now gone. How is this any different than when you believed I had already been used and discarded?”

“It
is
different,” he insisted, but he could hardly think of any reasons why.

The woman was intelligent, he had to give her that. She could argue a good case. Not that he wasn’t biased. Even now, he still wanted to bury himself inside of her and finish what they started. Deflowering of virgins be damned.

“Why?”

He gripped his hands at his sides. “You are not some woman of the streets. You were clearly gently bred and educated. A woman like that, with nothing to mar her character, shouldn’t turn to a life of a mistress. There are other options.”

Her lips thinned and he saw a flash of both sadness and unexpected anger in her stare.

Her voice was faraway when she said, “No. This is the only way for me.”

“That cannot be true,” he insisted with a sigh. “There are other ways.”

She glared at him and her chin lifted stubbornly. “And what would you know about it,
my lord
? You have lived a life of privilege since the day you first drew breath. You have never seen your family’s money vanish, you’ve never been forced to become a servant in someone’s home only to have them want more from you…demand more.”

She flinched and the words of rebuttal on Andrew’s lips evaporated. He stared at her.

“That is what happened to you?”

She nodded, just once. “I worked for a very influential man in Society and I thought, I hoped, that it would be a way for me to support myself and those I loved. But when he demanded I service more than the house…” She shivered. “I-I refused him.”

“But isn’t that what you are doing by becoming a mistress?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. If I become the mistress of a man, it will be by my choice. And there are benefits that come along with that title, aren’t there? Ones far better than to be a maid whom the master toffs behind his wife’s back. I can already see that in this arrangement, I would have some control…some power.”