The Erotic Secrets of a French Maid (13 page)

The kiss deepened, mouths opening, and she sucked on his tongue, sliding her own along it, reveling in the texture and the memory of what that tongue had done to her before. She felt his hand in her hair, holding her to him as if he would devour her. The strength of his arm around her waist felt better than anything else, the power of his lust and of his male body, so much larger than hers, making her feel deliciously small and desirable. She'd brought him to this state of arousal, and now she wanted him to set her free of control. She wanted to be taken.

Which reminded her. "We still have
crostata
to eat," she breathed, breaking the kiss.

"Forget the
crostata?

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She found purchase on the floor for her feet and lifted her weight off his lap. After a moment his arms around her loosened and she climbed off him, going back to her place at the table. She picked up her flatware as if to resume eating.

"Crostata?"

he said in disbelief.

She looked at him and smiled with satisfaction. His shirt and hair were rumpled and he looked like someone had just woken him from a dream. "I worked very hard on it. I also worked hard on my preparations for the other things we're going to do tonight."

"Flexibility in the face of changing circumstances is very good for creativity," he said earnestly.

She laughed. "Maybe. But you still have to wait."

Emma cut herself another bite of duck and felt a quiver of doubt. Maybe it wasn't so wise to stop now.

Maybe it would be better to go for it while the mood was upon them, instead of trying to make the evening fit her carefully planned script.

But after all that planning and practicing and debating and buying the right music, she couldn't bring herself to alter her plan.

She ate the last of her duck, which had turned out better than any duckly improvisation she could have made. Maybe Russ was right, and she shouldn't expect herself, with her limited experience, to be able to innovate.

But then where did that leave her chances with designing the train station? Maybe she was reaching beyond her grasp.

The small voice of her soul rebelled against the thought, just as it had always rebelled—quietly, often unobserved— when she felt that someone expected less of her than she expected of herself. She never wanted to be mediocre or settle for "good enough." It was the curse of being a perfectionist.

There must have been a hard-driven perfectionist inside of Russ, as well, to have achieved what he had.

How else was a young person going to make it in this world?

"These are your instructions."

Russ took the typed sheet that Emma handed him. "Instructions?"

"For our 'entertainment' tonight."

Instructions. Great. He scanned the sheet, his attention catching at the script in the middle. "You want me to say that?" he asked in disbelief.

She nodded, her face serious. "Please."

He scanned the rest of the sheet, growing alarmed. "You're sure about this?"

She nodded.

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"I don't want you to get hurt."

"I won't. And look, see there?" She reached over the top of the paper and pointed to one short sentence. "That's our 'safe' word:
apple.
If I say
apple,
then we stop."

Hell's bells. He'd never engaged in sexual activities that required a safe word. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her to forget this crazy plan and just have good, plain, old-fashioned sex. But then he met her eyes and saw the uncertain, hopeful expectation there, and he remembered that she'd worked so hard on her plans for this evening. "Okay, let's give this a go."

She smiled and turned him toward her bedroom, giving him a small shove. "You go lounge on the bed while I get ready. And there's something there for you to put on."

Oh Lord. He could hardly wait to see.

The bedroom was again lit softly with candles, and this time the bed had been turned into the divan of a pasha. Jewel-toned fabrics with gold prints covered the mattress, the pillows, and lumps that were probably heaped blankets serving as the arms and back of the exotic love nest. In the center of a swath of royal blue fabric sat a red satin turban, complete with fake diamond in the front, a small gold feather sticking straight up from behind it. It looked like the turban that Johnny Carson wore whenever he played Kar-nak the Magnificent.

Russ sighed and glanced again at his instruction sheet:

You are the sultan of a small country on the Mediterranean, and have bought a young English
noblewoman from pirates. Your other concubines have been training her for your service, and
tonight is the first night you will have her. When the eunuchs deliver her to your room, follow the
script below.

He lifted the turban and went to the mirror, where he settled the turban onto his head. It was heavy, straining his neck with the effort of keeping his head up when there was the least hint of imbalance.

He looked like a clown. She couldn't possibly find this sexy.

With a shake of his head he went to the bed/divan and tried to make himself comfortable, spreading his arms out over the "back" and stretching his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.

The turban pulled his head back, and he let it go until a pillow bumped up against the back, shoving it forward and down lower over his brows, but also helping to support it.

He just knew that self-consciousness was going to prevent him from performing sexually. There was no way he could get aroused while dressed like this, speaking those words on the paper.

He closed his eyes and tried to ignore his surroundings, picturing how Emma had looked when she opened the door to him this evening, her hair done up loosely with tendrils hanging down, her tight light green T-shirt showing the outline of her bra and clinging faithfully to her shape. She was wearing a short pleated skirt that had offered no resistance when she straddled him during dinner.

He felt a faint tingle of life in his loins.

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A strain of music drifted to him from the living room, and he almost recognized it. A few bars later he had it: "The Young Prince and Princess" from Rimsky-Korsakov's
Scheherazade.

The tingle of life died away, as he was reminded of this harem scene in which he had to play his ridiculous role.

"Unhand me, you filthy cad!" Emma shrieked in a fake English accent that sounded more like Cockney Eliza Doolittle than a gently bred young lady.

He opened his eyes just as she threw herself into the bedroom, landing on all fours in front of the bed.

For a moment he thought she had dumped a basket of laundry over herself, but then she raised her head and he saw that she had a scarf covering her face except for her eyes, her dark hair spilling in disarray around her shoulders. The rest of her getup came into focus: a dark pink bra-and-panty set with a dozen silk scarves attached all around, both top and bottom.

She turned and looked back over her shoulder, addressing her imaginary captors. "Ye brutes! When me faither gits ahold o'ye, ye'll be paying with yer hides! Ye'll not fergit that it was Lord Oakley's daughter that ye did this to."

She turned to him and narrowed her eyes, slowly rising from the floor until she stood before him, her chin raised in defiance. "Ye'll not be taming me, sirrah!"

He gaped at her.

She scowled and nodded strangely with her head. "Sirrah! Ye'll not be taming me!"

"Oh! Oh, sorry!" He grabbed the paper and scanned down to the script. "You'll part your thighs for me, wench, and you'll like it," he read stiffly.

"Never! Ye shall never sully the rose o'me virginity, ye scurvy dog!" She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. "Put some emotion into it, Russ!"

He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "Your rose is mine to pluck, saucy wench."

She put her hand on her hip and tossed her head. "It'll be me thorns yer tastin', not me precious petals."

"You're mine now, and the sooner you submit to me, the happier you'll be."

"Never! I'll die first!"

There was a line of stage direction. He paused to read it, then declared, "First, you'll dance!" He clapped his hands in the air. "Dance for me, wench, as my concubines have trained you!" He clapped again. "Dance!"

"I will not!"

"Dance, or I'll give you a taste of the bastinado. You'll not like to have the soles of your feet beaten, my comely wench. Dance! Or feel my wrath."

"You would beat me?"

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"Disobey me once more, and you will feel the cruelty of my anger. Dance!"

She put her hands over her veiled face and pretended to sob.

"And call me 'Master,' " Russ threw in for the hell of it.

She peeped over her fingers, a questioning look in her eyes.

"Why do you stand there, wench?" he ad-libbed, abandoning sanity and going with the absurd drama Emma seemed so determined to play out. "Dance!"

"Yes, Master" she said, and dropped her hands, her gaze fixing on the floor as if in shameful submission.

The Rimsky-Korsakov piece had just started to repeat itself. Emma swayed gently to it, the scarves—veils, he supposed she meant them to be—following her movements and reminding him of the floppy rags that shook themselves over your vehicle while going through a car wash.

She lifted her arms and rose up onto her toes, still swaying, and started to move around the room in some perversion of ballet moves, from the looks of it. His momentary amusement began to fade and a faint embarrassment crept in. She wasn't a particularly graceful dancer, nor an erotic one, and his imagination simply couldn't transform her panty set and scarves into a harem girl's sultry silks.

She pranced in a circle, then stopped in front of him and seesawed her hips up and down. She snaked her arms in the air and moved her torso in an undulation that looked like nothing so much as a boa constrictor swallowing a large animal. Good God, had she made this up herself, or had she paid someone to teach her to do this?

He was gathering courage to tell her that Master wanted something different, when she plucked the first scarf off her costume and let it flutter to the floor. It revealed one cup of the bra—which had slits down the center of the cups, allowing the nipple to poke through.

His gaze attached to that revealed nipple, pinched in the slit of dark pink fabric, and he forgot about asking her to stop.

Another veil fell to the floor, revealing a length of thigh. A curve of back appeared. A buttock. She danced between each revelation, her movements seeming saucy taunts now, teasing him, prolonging the unveiling of her lithe body. Soon she was wearing nothing but her undergarments, the veil over her face, and one scarf tucked into the top of her panties, hanging down over her loins. His gaze flitted back and forth between her nipples and that last piece of filmy fabric, unable to decide which was more enticing.

At last she plucked the final veil from her panties and let it fall to the floor. There was a tiny bow down low on her mound, and he realized that they were split-crotch panties. One tug on the end of the bow and they would open wide. Her hand brushed down over her panties and he held his breath, waiting for her to untie them.

Her hand moved away, leaving the bow still tied.

He was hard and ready, and the bow was now a fixation. He wanted her to untie it. Wanted her to part the lacy fabric and straddle him, lowering herself onto him and riding for all she was worth. He wanted to suck on her nipples, lapping at them through their slits, and have her arch her back and moan.

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Instead, her dancing slowly stopped and her hands fell to her sides. She looked at the floor." 'Tis all I know, Master."

She couldn't stop
nowl
"Untie the bow. Now."

She slowly reached for it, grasping one end. She began to pull, the loop of bow shrinking. When it was almost at the point of release she stopped, her hand falling away. She turned her hips slightly away from him, as if in modesty. "I cannot! I will not shame meself!"

What was he supposed to do now? He snatched up the script and scanned down. Where were they?

Ah, here it was. He read through the remainder of her instructions and just as when he'd first read the script, doubt assailed him.

He looked up and met her eyes. She was watching him, waiting. He raised his brows in question. Barely perceptible nodding was her answer, and he thought he saw the shadow of a smile beneath the veil over her face.

It wasn't his type of thing, but for her sake he'd go through the motions. He was going to feel like a fool, and already felt his excitement dying.

He put the paper aside and cleared his throat. "I told you, wench, that you'll not disobey me. Untie that bow!"

"No, sirrah!"

"That's 'Master' to you, wench."

"You'll never be my master!"

Oh, Lord. He really wasn't enjoying this. "Come here."

She inched closer to him, standing a foot away.

"Closer."

She took a small step forward.

He reached out and tugged at the end of the bow. She stood motionless, letting him. It came undone and he pulled the ribbon completely free of the lace. He dropped it and brushed his fingertips lightly over her lace-clad mound. He could feel the damp heat of her exertions. He brushed over her again, feeling for the edges of the lace.

He glanced up at her. "Part your thighs."

She hesitated, then moved her feet apart a few scant inches, just enough so that he could slide two upturned fingers between her legs. She rocked forward against his hand, her breath catching. He found the center of her heat and gently pressed upward, teasing his fingertips back and forth to part the lace. It opened and one fingertip slipped in, stroking against her entrance, the pad of his finger barely parting her.