Chapter 85
I returned to the vanity and pulled forth a set of jewels. Simple and elegant, the color of freshly spilled wine. A red necklace with matching earrings. The moment they touched the light, I thought of Millicent. Next, I retrieved another set, violet. The same hue as my right eye.
Perfect.
Millicent stepped out, draped in the scandalous dress I had so thoughtfully selected for her. The neckline plunged with poetic intent, the bodice clinging where it ought, though the fabric hung looser. She had grown slimmer but it mattered not. She wore it as though she were born of silk and sin.
I brightened at the sight of her.
Yes. Let her be glorious. Let the world look upon her with envy and wonder, and know she is mine. Let them tremble at the audacity of her beauty, and despair that they shall never possess what I do.
Then, as fate would have it, my eye drifted downward, to the soft plane of her lower garments. Flat. Utterly flat. Still, even now, it baffled me to no end. And then I looked back up, to find her watching me with that wretchedly smug expression. That insufferable smirk that curled her lips.
"Pray tell, where, exactly, was your eye wandering?"
In years past, such a question might have summoned heat to my cheeks and left me scrambling like a debutante caught in scandal. But not now. Nuh-uh. Come at me!
"To that which lies between your thighs," I said coolly.
"And what, precisely, do you perceive lies there?"
She began to move toward me, slowly. My entire body reacted in kind, betraying me as it always did when she looked at me like that. Curse her.
"I merely find it astonishing," I muttered, attempting to refocus my gaze on the jewelry in my hands, a futile defense against my spiraling thoughts. "That when you are not aroused, there is not the faintest indication. Not even the softest rise beneath the fabric. No bump. Nothing."
I could feel the heat rising in my face. My thoughts were already descending into indecency, tumbling into memories far too vivid for a morning that had yet to include tea.
She stepped behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist, her chuckle low and devastating near my ear.
"Well," she murmured, "you were the one who declared me a defect within a defect. I simply live up to your poetic insults."
"That was years ago," I snapped, flustered. My mismatched violet eyes clashed with her piercing red ones in the mirror. "You are very capable. Exceptionally so. Vincent is the living embodiment of that fact."
She smiled against my cheek, "our perfect little duke."
I turned toward her sharply, fixing her with a stare. "Perfect? Millicent, the first time I encountered him, he was utterly wild. He stole my bread, for heaven's sake, and bolted like a street urchin. Then, when next I laid eyes on him, he was scavenging through refuse. Is this your idea of refinement? How did you manage to raise him thus? And more pressingly, how did you lose him in the first place?"
She smiled as though I had complimented her embroidery rather than questioned her maternal aptitude.
"Ah, yes," she said with maddening calm. "Those two instances occurred whilst he was under the supervision of a newly appointed personal maid. He is exceptionally cunning, you see."
I blinked at her, aghast. "He is a child, Millicent. How does a child outwit a grown woman entrusted with his care?"
"Fear not. She is no longer employed under the Vaneeri name. I have since appointed two maids and two guards to watch over him without rest. However, upon further reflection, I believe I ought to seek her out and bestow upon her a handsome sum of coin."
I stared at her, utterly confounded. "Reward her? For negligence?"
Her eyes softened. "Because of her failure, Vincent found you. He found his mother. And because I searched for him, I found you as well."
Her words struck me with such tenderness I felt myself unravel. I seized her lips with mine. What I intended as a fleeting kiss bloomed into something far more consuming. Our tongues danced, coaxed, tangled, a wordless conversation of yearning. Her warm and rapid breath mingled with mine, stoking the fire already smoldering within me.
The jewelry I had chosen fell from my hands, clattering forgotten onto the floor. I pressed her against the vanity, and she yielded. The image of her, regal, aroused, was nearly enough to undo me entirely.
I lower myself. Her half-lidded and burning eyes met mine as she gathered the fabric of her gown to her chest, revealing herself to me. She wore nothing beneath her corset. No drawers, not even garter and stockings. Her cock stood aroused, flushed, the tip already wet. It twitched as I stared, as though beckoning me forward. A sharp and hot thrill ran through me.
I took her in both hands. My lips met her length with reverence and hunger. Licking, kissing, tasting her, coaxing her to greater need. I sucked at the tip, teasing the sensitive flesh as my hands worked in rapid strokes.
She moaned, soft and broken, a sound that made my spine tremble. "Ah… Florence…"
I swirled my tongue slowly around the crown of her cock, drawing forth a soft gasp from her lips. Her hips began to move, restrained at first, but unmistakably needy. A gentle, pleading rhythm, as though her body ached to surrender to the pleasure I gave yet feared overwhelming me with too much of herself.
She bit down on her lower lip, a vision of agony and delight, her composure trembling at the edges. Her movements grew more desperate, yet still she held back. That face, so regal and precise, now twisted in restraint, made my insides tighten with heat.
"Uhm… haa… ha… ngh," she moaned, breathless.
But then a sudden, violent knock shattered the air.
"Ann, my love!" Kyle's voice boomed from beyond the door.
Both of us froze.
"Master Kyle, you mustn't-!" came the flustered voice of one of the servant boys.
"Let go of me! I'm goin' to my wife!" Kyle barked.
Millicent's expression darkened. In one swift, possessive motion, she withdrew herself from my mouth, taking me by the wrist and pulling me to the door. Her gown slid down, concealing her magnificence as she turned the lock with an audible click.
Then she turned me, pressing my front to the door, and with a lift of my skirts, she bared me completely.
"Millicent-"
There was no time.
Her hardened cock entered me with an overwhelming thrust.
"Ah!" I cried out, eyes wide, body jolted. The stretch was immense, too sudden, too full. Though I had been soaked with desire, nothing could prepare me for the weight of her.
Kyle's voice rang louder, more desperate. "Ann! Love, are you okay?! I hear ya! Let me help you! Open this door!"
But I could barely hear him. Millicent leaned in and not a moment later her teeth bit into the side of my neck sharply.
"Argh!" A yelped escaped me at the sting.
She moved deeper within me, slowly. I whimpered, a pitiful, broken sound. Pain flaring with every push as I tried to adjust to her size. My vision blurred.
"Breathe," she whispered against my skin. "Let me in, fully."
"Ann! What's happenin'?" Kyle's voice cracked from the other side of the door.
But I could not speak.
Millicent drove herself deep within me with a final thrust. I gasped as she filled me completely. I could feel her inside, every pulsing inch, the pressure unmistakable, the weight of her presence enough to steal the air from my lungs. I did not need to glance downward to know there was a visible swell on my stomach.
She reached in front with one hand, and placed two fingers upon my clitoris. She moved in slow circles, and my body trembled.
"Uhmm… haa…" I moaned aloud, unable to suppress the cry as lightning flared from her touch.
"Ann? My love?" Kyle's voice faltered.
But his words were distant. Irrelevant. I was already slipping into something far deeper.
Millicent began to move. A slow, torturous rhythm, matching the motion of her fingers. The pain from earlier dulled beneath waves of mounting pleasure.
Outside, Kyle's voice cracked. "Please… no…"
Inside, it was only us.
"Does it please you, Florence?" Her voice burned through me like fire beneath the skin.
It was wrong, dreadfully, shamelessly wrong. But I was far beyond the reach of guilt. My moans came louder now, uncontrolled, one after another, tangled with hers. She moved faster, more possessive, more commanding.
"No!" came a broken cry from behind the locked door.
My knees gave way beneath the weight of it all. I collapsed, and she came down with me, still joined. Like a creature overtaken by heat, I steady myself on my hands and knees and I spread my legs further, welcoming her deeper still.
She continued.
Hard. Fast. Ruthless. Rutting inside me.
No sound escaped. I opened my mouth but nothing came. Each thrust stole the air from my lungs. My mouth hung open. I could feel the saliva slip from my lips, dripping helplessly onto the floor below.
I felt it building, that maddeningly familiar sensation that crept slowly. I could feel my own essence running down my thighs, thick and obscene, each warm rivulet stoking the fire within me further. My tears slipped freely from the sheer, unbearable magnitude of sensation. I was unraveling at the seams, and I had never felt so terribly alive.
And then-release.
The world dissolved into white.
My body convulsed violently, a tidal wave surging through my limbs. I felt the sudden surge, the rush of release bursting from my womanhood in long, uncontrollable streams. It was as though my body had relinquished all restraint, and yet the sensation was far from shameful. It was exquisite. Maddening. A delirious kind of pleasure that left me trembling. I had no need to glance at the floor to know it was drenched beneath me, the ecstasy she had drawn from the very core of me.
But Millicent did not stop.
She held my hips with firm hands and continued to move within me, each thrust only deepening the throes of my climax. I whimpered, yet it was interrupted by the more urgent need to simply breathe.
There was noise beyond the door. Shouting, footsteps, the panic of the outside world. But it was meaningless. All that existed were the slick sounds of our union, our ragged breathing, and Millicent's voice. Her glorious, wicked voice behind me.
She moved with increasing desperation, her control slipping, her rhythm faltering only as her end drew near. I felt her strength tremble, as mine did.
Then she drove herself deep once more, a final push.
Her body stilled, and I felt the rush of warmth within, a flood that made me gasp and arch, my entire frame seized by a pleasure so violent, so perfect, I could no longer see.
My vision turned white. My body convulsed again.
When my vision at last returned to clarity, I caught the faintest smirk tug at Millicent's lips. It was directed with chilling elegance toward the door.