At Your Service Read online

  “Take your silly little novel and go somewhere else if my presence here offends you.” He bent over to pick up the book that had fallen to her feet. He straightened and his dark eyes flashed fire. “Where did you get this?”

  “It’s my cousin Harry’s,” she replied.

  “I know it’s Harry’s,” he said. “I want to know how you got it.”

  “Harry lent it to me.” The implications of what he said struck her. “How do you know it belongs to Harry—and how dare you call him Harry? He is Viscount Selton.”

  “I call him Harry because he’s my friend, and I know it’s his book because he lent it to me, too.”

  “He lent it to you?” Mary gasped. “You’ve read this book?”

  “I read all of Harry’s books,” he replied. “Don’t look so surprised. I can read.”

  “That’s not… How do you know…? Who are you?”

  “I’m Drake, the head gardener,” he said briefly and dismissively, his attention on the book. “Harry shouldn’t have lent this to you,” he said, thumbing through the pages. “It’s not…”

  “Suitable for a lady,” she finished for him. “Now who’s making assumptions? I can read anything I want and not be shocked by it.”

  He looked down at her, an arrested expression in his dark eyes. “Oh really,” he said and flipped to the middle. He read, his voice deep and fluent, never stumbling over the words even when the images they described made her face flame. She wanted to sink into the cushions of the daybed and never reappear but she’d boasted that she would not be shocked. She squirmed on the seat, her body stirred by new and unsettling feelings.

  He got to the end of the poem, closed the book and looked at her. “You’re blushing. Perhaps you were not aware that the classical Greeks wrote poetry celebrating the love between men?”

  “Harry told me what to expect,” she lied. Her breasts seemed to have grown heavier, her bodice tighter. Harry had told her what the poetry was about. He hadn’t told her what she’d feel when a dark-voiced stranger read it to her. The thudding of her heart and the heat in her cheeks and the private place between her thighs couldn’t be blamed on the slanting, late-afternoon sunshine.

  “Was it too strong for your refined aristocratic tastes?” He made a brushing gesture with his hand “Scurry off back to your nice, safe room and forget all about what you just heard.” He reached up and put the book on a shelf beside several other volumes.

  “I’m not shocked,” she said, then added, “Well not as much shocked as I am curious. Do people, men, really do that?”

  “Are you certain you want to know?” he asked.

  “Yes, I want to know everything.”

  The way he spoke, the way he moved echoed with confidence that could only come from a thorough knowledge of himself and the world.

  He laughed and suddenly he didn’t seem quite so intimidating. “That’s a lot of information. I don’t think anyone knows everything.”

  “Well, I want to at least know about sex,” Mary said, the glow of the afternoon and the isolation giving this whole interlude a sense of unreality. It was a moment out of time with a man she had never seen before and whom she would make certain she never saw again.

  She wanted to know so much but she was too embarrassed to ask Harry and she would never ask her younger brothers or her married sisters.

  He rubbed his chin. “What do you want to know? Not that I’m guaranteeing to satisfy your curiosity.”

  “Well.” Mary thought. She really didn’t know anything. She might as well ask. “How do men and women make babies together?”

  “You don’t even know that?” A smile flickered across his face.

  “Don’t you laugh at me,” she said. “It’s not my fault. Nobody ever tells girls anything.”

  “All right then.” He drew a hand down over his face but he didn’t make sound, so Mary let it pass.

  “A man sticks his cock—his John Thomas—into a lady’s private place.”

  Mary thought about it for a minute. “The place where we…make water from?”

  “No,” he said. “The other place.”

  “Our bottom?” Mary squeaked in outrage. “That’s…”

  “No, the other place. The hole in between.”

  Perplexed, she asked, “What hole?”

  “God! Don’t you know? Your cunt.” His eyes narrowed.

  “Cunt?” The way his eyes darkened when she said the word made her breath hitch. “I don’t know what it is.”

  “How can you not know your own body?” he asked, astonishment clear in his voice. “What happens when it’s your time of the month?”

  His bluntness shocked her again. Women barely talked of such stuff. How could she survive discussing it with this man? “I’ve been told my whole life not to touch down there,” she whispered. “When it is that time I put a folded rag in my…in my drawers. That’s all I know.”

  “Lift your skirts, stick your hand in your drawers and feel around.”

  The air left her lungs in a rush. “I can’t do that.”

  “You can.”

  “I…” She was about to argue but he was right. How could she claim to want to know anything about sex if she couldn’t even do this?

  She lifted her skirts then hesitated.

  “Do it,” he ordered.

  Obediently, she slid her fingers into the slit in her drawers.

  “Tell me what you feel.”

  “I j-just f-feel h-hair,” she stammered.

  “Push through it. Feel where the folds of skin are, follow the line.”

  “I can’t,” she muttered, pulling her hand out. “I don’t know what I’m looking for and it all feels strange. This is wrong.”

  “It’s what you wanted.” He marched towards her. “Are you afraid?”

  She gave a tiny shake of her head. He loomed over her, making her feel small and vulnerable. She scrambled to her feet and placed her hands on her hips defiantly, so close her breasts brushed up against his chest. Instead of backing away, he gripped her by the shoulders and pushed her backwards. She tumbled onto the daybed, skirts falling around her. Drake knelt beside her, gathering up the swathes of heavy cotton and bunching them around her waist. He pulled her drawers down then tossed them aside.

  She closed her eyes tightly. What she couldn’t see might be endured.

  “Do you want this?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Then tell me.”

  “I want this.”

  “Want what?”

  “I don’t know,” she snapped, suddenly defiant. “I’ve never done this before. How can I know what I want?”

  He slapped the side of her bare hip, not hard, but enough so the tingle sizzled across her skin.

  “Politely, my lady, or you’ll get nothing. Do you want me to show you or not?”

  “Yes.” The word was little more than a sigh, but he heard her. He stroked his finger, rough-skinned and firm, down a line in her middle.

  “Feel here, this is where you piss,” he said. “This”—he pushed harder and she felt part of herself yield. “This is the opening to your cunt.” His voice was smoky, his accent less refined, more earthy than it had been before. “You’re wet. You like this.”

  A shiver shook her skin as he slipped his finger back and forth. She clenched her fists by her side to keep from pushing him away or grabbing him closer, she didn’t know which. Then he touched a spot that made her arch her back and moan.

  “Aye, that’s a nice bit isn’t it?” He touched her again. “That’s your bean, that is. You’d like it even more if I were to…” He stopped and stood. “Never mind. I’ve done what I promised. Taught you what happens. Now when I say a man’s cock goes in your cunt you’ll know exactly what I mean.”

  Shaken but fighting for control, Mary sat up. She felt empty and achy, as if he had stirred something in her that she couldn’t name or understand. If he thought he’d told her all she wanted to know, he was wrong. She started this a
nd she wasn’t prepared to stop yet.

  “I want to see your cock.”

  His mouth flattened. “You don’t know what you’re doing. If you want to leave here a virgin we’d better stop right now.”

  Refusing to be cowed by his grim expression, she got to her feet. “I’ve never seen a man’s parts. That’s all I want to do, just look,” she said. “Please?”

  He glared at her, but he unbuttoned his pants and shoved them down his legs. His cock lay there, thick but soft.

  “That’s goes in my cunt?” she asked. Without thinking she reached out and gave it a gentle squeeze. To her astonishment, it stirred and twitched in her hands. “Oh my God, it’s growing!”

  She pulled her hand back a little, forgetting to let go, and the thing grew even more, hardening and thickening and beginning to stretch upwards towards his flat stomach.

  What had seemed small and unthreatening a moment ago now assumed the girth and rigidity of a pick handle. “Does that hurt?”

  “Oh fuck yes,” he replied through gritted teeth. She snatched her hand away, and took a step back.

  “I’m sorry. Is there something I can do to make the swelling go down?”

  To her utter surprise he laughed. Odd, for a man who claimed to be in pain.

  “If it hurts you should see a doctor.” Perhaps she should offer to have the doctor’s bill sent to her. She seemed to be responsible for his condition and she really had no idea whether his wages would cover the expense.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” he said. And he did sound more amused than in pain. “And a doctor couldn’t fix it.”

  The thing showed no sign of subsiding and she worried that if the condition continued it might have a bad effect on his health. “How long do you expect…?” She didn’t get a chance to finish her question.

  His laughter grew louder, drowning her out. He managed to gasp, “About eight inches.”

  Mary stared at him in confusion. “I meant how long until…” She felt the heat pour into her face as she realised his meaning. His thing, his cock, was about eight inches long now.

  She braced herself. “We’ll obviously have to wait until it goes down again because it’s not possible that it would fit in my cunt in that condition.”

  “It’s precisely in that condition that it fits. It won’t go in when it’s soft.”

  His humour had subsided and the heat in his gaze called an answering tickle in her breasts. “Touch it again,” he growled his voice raspy.

  “It won’t hurt you?” she asked timidly.

  “It will feel good,” he said. “Just like when I touched you.”

  She wanted to, she realised. Once the shock and surprise had passed, the sight of his cock—rigid and proudly upthrust—made her clench her legs together and the parts he had stroked turned hot and wet again, tingling with a strange sensation, part ache, part emptiness.

  She reached out again and he took her hand, guiding it, showing her how to wrap her fingers around it and to slide them up and down the shaft.

  “Harder,” he urged. “It won’t break.”

  A little pearl of moisture winked at the tip and she lifted her thumb to cover the slit where it trembled. A hiss escaped his lips. Something hot and thrumming coiled inside her, winding tighter. Her tongue slipped out to moisten her suddenly dry lips. Her breath rushed in and out and her pulse raced.

  “How can this go inside me?” she asked.

  He raised his other hand and stroked her private place, her bean, once more. She shivered in delight and he pulled his hand away, holding his fingers up. “See,” he rasped. “You’re hot and wet. You’re ready. If we fucked, my cock would slide in.” He dropped his hands onto her shoulders and pulled her in closer, so that her hand, still wrapped around his cock, was trapped between their bodies. “It would hurt a little but only the first time, and only for a little while.” His breath washed over her ear, warming it and firing sparks that blazed a phosphorescent path down to her cunt. The sparks burned hotter when she even thought the word. They sizzled when she imagined his cock inside her.

  “I want to do it,” she said. Fluttery pressure stirred and grew. Deep instinct told her what was about to happen would change her in ways she couldn’t yet predict.

  “What if you get pregnant?” he asked. “You do know this is how babies get inside you?”

  Any other young woman of her status and time might find herself ruined by the actions she contemplated. Mary’s lineage and her share of her father’s fortune gave her choices. There were impoverished nobles who would gladly overlook a trifle like her missing virginity. If they needed the money enough, a quick marriage could be arranged. “I know what I’m doing.”

  His shoulders squared and he seemed suddenly taller and more forceful. “Take off your dress.” It was a command. One she hastened to obey, but the row of buttons up her back defeated her. She’d never had to remove her clothes without the assistance of a maid.

  He spread his wide hands across her back and slipped the buttons from their holes, quickly and efficiently.

  He stripped the gown from her shoulders and eased her hips up, stripping off the garment before she had time to object or become nervous. His assessing gaze made her skin heat. Warmth flared to flame as he bent his head and sucked at one nipple, then the other through the fine cotton of her chemise.

  He held her so close she could smell the fresh, grassy scent rising from his skin, feel the rasp of his whiskers, see the blue gloss of his silky hair, hear the soft sounds his lips made as they nuzzled at her breast.

  She gasped and he sucked harder. Suddenly he lifted his head, took the edge of her chemise in his hands and ripped it apart. He pushed the torn halves aside, leaving her standing naked before him.

  He cupped her thighs and wrapped her legs around his hips before he lowered her onto the daybed and stepped back.

  “Put your hands where my mouth was,” he said. “Squeeze your nipples. Play with them. Feel them.”

  She looked down at the hard pink nubs, wet from his mouth. She rubbed the tips of her fingers across them, shivering at the power over her own body his orders gave her.

  He nodded his approval then put his hands on her knees, exerting outward pressure. “I want to see all of you.”

  She tensed but his hands and his will were strong. Her knees fell open, exposing her to his gaze.

  “Don’t stop me,” he growled.

  He kissed his way down her throat, pausing once again at her breasts, this time twirling his tongue around her nipples through the cage of her fingers. With every moist touch on her flesh, the flames of excitement grew more intense. She couldn’t lie still. Her back arched and her legs shifted restlessly. She longed for relief but at the same time she wanted these wild new sensations to go on forever. When he slid even further down, she tensed and tried to push his head away. “You can’t kiss there,” she squeaked. “It’s not decent.”

  He took her hands in his and held them at her sides. “Don’t stop me,” he repeated.

  He bent his head once more and parted the lips of her sex with his tongue, licking across the places that she hadn’t even known existed, searching through the folds of flesh until he came to the little whorl that he’d touched before. He drew it into his mouth and suckled on it, flicking it with his tongue, the rhythm growing faster and faster. A wave of feeling surged up and washed over her, obliterating her senses and leaving her gasping in a black velvet haze.

  Somewhere in the fog she became aware of the thick head of his cock nudging at her opening. Before she had time to tense, he pushed fully inside. A brief tearing pain snapped her out of her stupor, but the little waves of pleasure that still danced in her veins soon overcame it. Her muscles stretched but the fullness felt right, and when he began to move slowly in and out, the tightness and friction built the pleasure again.

  His thrusts drove all thought from her brain. She became a creature of sensation. She felt. And that was all there was.

  The feelings
built and built into a surging, swirling wall of pleasure. His lean hips pounded into her. She kept her eyes on him, loving the hard line of his mouth as his breath rushed in and out, his lungs heaving. His pupils dilated until his brown eyes looked black. His pace changed and the head of his cock pushed against some new spot inside her and the coil spiralled tighter and tighter until it shattered and once again she fell into the velvet darkness.

  She thought she might have screamed, but a second later she knew the sound she heard came not from her, but from someone else.

  Above her, her lover stiffened and groaned. Mary felt something hot splash inside her.

  “What the fuck is happening here?” an angry male voice shouted.

  Even though the walls of her cunt were still pulsing with the last remnants of that extraordinary experience, Mary’s heart plummeted. She knew that voice. Her cousin Harry!

  “Hello, Harry.” Her lover’s voice sounded cool and unconcerned next to her ear.

  “You know I don’t care how many women you fuck,” Harry snapped. “Just don’t bring them here.”

  “Giving me orders, Harry?” Drake asked, and rolled off her to stand and face Harry. “Besides, think you’ll find she has as much right to be here as you do.”

  “Mary!” Harry’s face was frozen into a blank mask.

  Heat of a different kind flooded her face. Panic sent her scrambling onto the floor to grab her dress and hold it against her chest.

  Harry took a step towards her but before he could get close, Drake planted himself in front of her, his hand on Harry’s chest, apparently unconcerned by his nakedness.

  “Leave her alone,” Drake ordered. “This is between us.”

  Mary’s jaw dropped open. Harry was a viscount, nephew of an earl and this man was neither, yet he spoke to Harry with authority, as if they were equals.

  “You know what Mary is to me!” Harry shouted. “And yet you…you…”

  Mary wanted to speak, to say that she had lured Drake into it, but shame stilled her tongue.

  Tension snapped and crackled like lightning between the two men until Harry reached out a hand and shoved Drake hard in the chest. Drake swayed back but his feet didn’t move an inch. His arm swung up from his side, his fist hurtling towards Harry. Mary cringed, waiting for the sound of the blow.