Cinderella Unmasked, page 3
She laughed, delighted at his recognizing the quality in all women and managing to compliment her at the same time. “You’re right. Everyone has duties to perform from chimney sweep to a lawyer, and I think we could do without the latter more than the former. What is your trade, sir?”
“Stonemason. Repair work on chimneys and such mostly, but I’ve recently returned to the area after working on the Briarwood Cathedral.”
“Really? I’ve heard the building is beautiful, but I haven’t been to Briarwood in several years. I can’t seem to find the time.”
“I should imagine not with all of those cows to milk and butter to churn.” A little smile twisted his lips, and behind his black mask, his eyes sparkled.
“That’s right. A milkmaid’s time is not her own.”
Another waltz began and the big man offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
She took it and he led her onto the dance floor. He was light on his feet for his size. He clasped her hand and slid his other hand around her waist. His body remained a respectful distance from hers, but she burned at the two points of contact. He swung her into the waltz and they glided around the floor in unison as if they were made to fit together.
“What’s your name?” Ella asked as they whirled past the gawking faces of the onlookers.
“Tonight? Joseph. And you?”
“Marie Christine.” Ella smiled at her choice. When she was a child, long before Euphemia and Hortense had entered her life, she used to play with an imaginary friend by that name. Later she’d always chosen it for her name when playing princess with school friends. Tonight Marie Christine might have adventures Ella had never envisioned as a little girl.
Her dance partner bent his head close and murmured low, “A lovely name.” The quality of his voice, so deep and rich, sent tickling shivers through her. Her skin felt flushed as if she had a fever, and between her legs, her pussy clenched.
“Thank you, Joseph.” She looked at him from under lowered lashes, deliberately flirting in a way she’d not practiced for many years. Flirting was hardly in her nature, but it seemed to come naturally to her tonight.
She noticed his quick glance at her chest, the scoop of her neckline revealing a little of the top swell of each breast. “Are you enjoying the ball, Marie? Is it everything you’d hoped it would be?”
He twirled her around and brought her back into his embrace before she could answer.
“It’s lovely, but I’ll admit I had hoped for something more.”
“What do you wish for, little Marie Christine? What would make you happy?”
“Tonight?” She echoed his word. “Take me out to the garden and I’ll tell you.”
The garden was as cool and quiet as heaven after the heat and noise of the ballroom, but it was hardly the private haven Ella had fantasized. There were many strolling, hand-holding and kissing couples along the winding paths. From behind bushes and thick tree trunks came sounds that suggested much more than kissing and fondling. The grunts and gasps that drifted through the night air made her nipples tighten and her breathing grow ragged.
From behind a high hedge a woman whined like a bitch in heat. Ella glanced at the handsome man walking beside her not even trying to take her hand. Would he do things to her to make her whimper like that? Would he drag her off the path and rip her bodice in his hurry to suckle her breasts? Would he bend her over the nearest stone bench and flip up her skirts to take her from behind? Or would he, like the man in her imagination, push her up against a tree trunk, tell her to wrap her arms around it, then fuck her hard and fast. Her body ached and itched all over just from imagining it and her pussy felt as slippery as warmed butter.
“So what is it that would please a dairymaid queen?” Joseph asked as they strolled along the walkway. The gravel crunched underfoot and the breeze lifted the curls around Ella’s face, cooling her heated cheeks.
“I’m ashamed to ask it, sir. You’ll think me forward and unseemly.” She adopted a false demure tone as she cast another sideways glance at the tall stranger. And then suddenly she wasn’t playing a role as she realized what kind of fire she was prepared to singe her fingers with. To take a strange man as a lover was one thing in a fantasy, quite another in reality. She might be a queen, but that didn’t mean she could do as she liked. On the contrary, her movements were far more scrutinized than a milkmaid’s might be.
“Honestly, I’m not sure what I’d like,” she admitted. “I thought I wanted to make love under the stars like a wild bohemian, but now that we’re out here I’ll confess I’m a little nervous.”
He looked at her and the whites of his eyes gleamed in the moonlight. His teeth did, too, as he spoke. “Perhaps you’d like someone to take control, rescue you from having to make yet another decision in a life that’s too full of decision-making.”
Ella smiled, her pulse leaping yet again at the suggestion. “Perhaps I would.”
He stopped walking then and turned to face her, taking her by the shoulders and looking down into her eyes. “Then that is what I’ll give you, Madam, a night free of choice. Your only responsibility will be to obey my commands. Does that sound possible to you?”
“It sounds absolutely refreshing,” she sighed.
Chapter Four
“Do you trust me?”
The words hung heavily in the air between them. Perhaps it was the darkness of night that gave them a sinister quality. Ella glimpsed one of her bodyguards at a distance, trying unsuccessfully to blend into the shadows of a tree. Someone was only a cry away if the situation got out of hand. She looked into Joseph’s eyes, shadowed by the mask that surrounded them and nodded.
“Yes, I trust you.”
He glanced at the guard then back at her and smiled. “Maybe not completely, but that’s all right.”
For a moment they stayed locked together with his hands on her shoulders, their gazes meshed. He stared at her mouth, and Ella’s lips trembled with the need to be kissed. Slowly he inclined his head. She rose up on her toes and leaned into him. His warm breath touched her face. It smelled like mint and chocolate. Would his tongue taste the same?
His face filled her vision, and she closed her eyes as his mouth descended toward hers. Then he kissed her cheek, a light brush of his warm lips near the corner of her mouth before he pulled away.
Ella’s eyes flew open. She stared at him with her eyebrows raised.
“I won’t kiss your mouth, Marie. Kissing is for those in love. We’re only temporary lovers.”
“Oh.” Her disappointment was keen, but she’d agreed to play the game his way, to let him direct the course of their evening. She could hardly complain because he didn’t intend to kiss her.
Joseph let go of her shoulders and took her by the hand. “Come.”
Ella walked quickly to keep up with his longer strides. He led her from the gardens near the ballroom, away from the light spilling through the windows and the sweet sorrow of violin music that floated behind them.
“Where are we—”
“No questions,” he commanded. “Blind obedience tonight. I promise I won’t do anything you don’t enjoy.”
They’d crossed the lawn and were approaching the tall hedge of the walking maze, so Ella’s question about destination was answered. But what Joseph would do to her in the dark avenues and blind alleys of the labyrinth remained to be answered.
He stopped before the entrance of the maze and drew a handkerchief from his trouser pocket. He dangled it before her, and Ella understood he was about to blindfold her.
“You don’t know me, but this game won’t be enjoyable unless you trust me. So I ask again—do you trust me?”
He was right, she didn’t know him, and how foolish was she to trust a complete stranger with her body? And yet, despite the fact that his face, physique and voice were foreign to her, there was a quality of familiarity about Joseph. On some deeply elemental level she did trust him. Completely.
Ella took off her violet-colored mask, glad to feel her face uncovered for the first time all evening. She turned her back to him, indicating her readiness to be blindfolded.
A moment later, her eyes were enveloped in darkness as Joseph tied the handkerchief around them. He stood behind her, gripping her shoulders again, and spoke softly near her ear. “I want you to be aware of all your senses. Listen to the night sounds. Breathe in the scents all around you. Feel the air on your skin or the scratch of the hedge against your arm as you pass. I want you to experience everything more deeply than you ever have before, and when we reach the center of the maze…”
He stopped, and Ella held her breath, waiting for him to tell her what would happen there. Instead, his heavy hands left her shoulders as he stepped away from her. She was floating in darkness, alone, without an anchor.
What did he want her to do, fumble along blindly through the maze? Or was she supposed to wait for his direction? She held very still, listening for his breathing. She couldn’t hear it, but did hear the steady chirp of a cricket, the trill of a chorus of frogs and the soft soughing of the breeze through the dense branches of the hedge shrubbery.
But even though she couldn’t hear Joseph, she sensed him nearby and knew he was watching her. The knowledge was incredibly erotic. She wanted to be naked as he gazed on her—naked, blindfolded and vulnerable. Her nipples poked hard against the bodice of her blouse and her skin felt too sensitive against her clothing.
“Walk straight forward.” A low, commanding voice moved her feet. She took a few careful steps, testing the ground, feeling for something that might trip her.
“Take small steps, but take them with confidence,” he ordered.
Ella resisted the urge to put up her hands and feel for obstacles in front of her as she walked several paces forward. Even though her arms didn’t brush against it, she felt the hedge rise on either side of her as she entered the maze. She became aware of how much farther her body’s perceptions extended without sight to identify the world around her.
“Turn left.”
Walking blind, she turned sharply and continued forward again. She thought she was walking straight, but soon felt twigs and leaves scratching her left arm. Remembering that the maze was circular, she adjusted her course from a straight line to a slightly curved one.
The voice came from immediately behind her. “Good. Stop. Turn right then immediately left.”
She felt his warm presence heating her backside even though he didn’t touch her, and she obeyed his directions, moving farther into the maze. The narrow pathways were shadowed and mysterious during the day so it must be pitch black tonight even for Joseph, who was not wearing a blindfold. Yet he gave one command after the other as if he knew the maze intimately. She didn’t feel like they were becoming hopelessly lost.
Although it was a cool evening, in the shelter of the yew hedges Ella’s flesh began to heat from exertion and in anticipation of what would happen next. The sounds of their footsteps on the grass, the snap of an occasional twig, the distant, mournful hooting of an owl, were all magnified by the darkness. The pungent smell of the yews filled her nose, and her body felt more aware, more alive, than it had in a long time.
She continued to walk as Joseph directed her to. His tone wasn’t overbearing, but calmly assertive, and she found the deep rumble of his voice unbearably attractive.
“Stop!” he ordered at last.
Ella felt a wider space around her. She could no longer sense the shrub walls closing in, and to check she extended her arms, feeling for the thicket. Joseph’s footsteps approached. His hot body was right behind hers again. Her heart pounded and she swallowed past the dryness in her throat.
When his hand touched her head, she started, but relaxed as he stroked the length of her hair, which she’d left down and undressed for her role as a milkmaid. She tensed again when he slipped his hands around her neck, but he only caressed her throat before slipping one hand down to the scooped neckline of her blouse. The heat of his palm felt imprinted on her chest.
Joseph reached for the hem of her blouse and lifted it. Ella raised her arms, and he pulled it off her. She was left wearing only a camisole, having rejected a corset for this evening. His mouth touched her bare shoulder and she shivered. The tiny hairs on her forearms rose as he pressed soft, damp kisses down the length of her arm. As he’d promised, every touch felt more intense with the blindfold on. Ella held as still as a doll and let him do what he would with her.
He moved in front of her and stripped off her camisole, leaving her bare-breasted, nipples peaked like pebbles. The caress of the air on her skin was like a thousand tickling fingers. When Joseph cupped one breast and drew the other nipple into his mouth, her pussy clenched in rhythmic spasms. Ella felt she might come simply from the pleasure of his mouth and hand on her breasts. It had been so long—over five years without a man’s hands on her body. Charming had stopped coming to her bed long before he’d left the palace.
The man before her groaned softly, and Ella moaned an equally quiet response. Far away, the owl hooted—little, intimate, natural sounds that filled her senses and seemed profound.
Joseph switched his mouth to her other breast and suckled it while he plucked and twisted her nipple. She gasped in pleasure and thrust her chest toward him.
Suddenly his mouth and hand were gone. She moaned at the loss, her breasts still jutting forward, begging for his touch. He left her alone for several moments, allowing her curiosity and anticipation to build before he made his next move. Then his hands were at her waist, unfastening her skirt and sliding it and her petticoat down her legs to pool around her feet. He took her hand and helped her step out of the circle of fabric. Now she wore only her shoes and the thick, peasant stockings that attached to her pantalets with garters.
Joseph knelt before her. He leaned close and kissed her stomach, a sprinkling of little kisses all around her navel and down her abdomen that made her skin twitch. Her pussy tightened as his mouth went lower, kissing her mound through the fabric of her undergarment. Meanwhile, his hands busily unfastened garters. He slid her stockings down and pressed his face between her legs to kiss her inner thighs.
Ella groaned and opened her legs wider in encouragement. But he only gave her a few kisses and licks before pulling away. He untied her shoes and removed them and her stockings as she lifted first one foot then the other.
At last she was totally nude, standing naked under the open sky, on display for a strange man to examine. Her heart pounded and the blood rushed in her ears as if she might faint. Her skin tingled all over and there was a heaviness in her pussy and her tender breasts. She’d never felt more vulnerable, more free or more desirable. Here in the dark in the midst of nature she felt like a strange goddess, the primal element of woman.
She swore she could feel the heat of Joseph’s gaze upon her as he remained quiet, not touching, merely studying her. Sweat prickled her upper lip and the throbbing between her legs grew almost unbearable.
“Please,” she begged at last. “Touch me, please…sir.”
As if that was the signal he’d been waiting for, he grasped her ankles lightly then skimmed his hands up the length of her legs. He separated the folds of her sex, and Ella caught her breath as he leaned in to press his mouth there.
It was exquisite. The sensation of his sinuous, wet tongue stroking her was a million times better than her circling finger on her clitoris. Charming had only deigned to pleasure her that way a few times during the course of their marriage. He’d found it distasteful and thought she should be happy with an occasional, graceless ramming of his cock.
When she’d felt him losing interest in her, after those first heady months of their marriage, Ella had tried everything she could think of to please and attract him. In the palace library she’d found a section of scandalous books—with illustrations—that demonstrated many positions for copulation and described techniques to enhance pleasure. Armed with her new knowledge, Ella had redoubled her efforts to satisfy both herself and Charming. But soon it became apparent he simply had no interest in her in the bedroom and their relationship had devolved into miserable cohabitation.
Now, maybe for the first time ever, her body felt completely aroused and saturated with feeling. Joseph gripped her hips and dug his fingers into her buttocks as he lapped over her clit until her legs trembled. Just as she felt her body climbing the final peak toward climax, he backed off and turned his attention lower. He tongued her opening, tasting her juices and providing a milder delight than the exquisite torture of her sensitive bud.
Once more he abandoned her, leaving her thrusting her hips against the air. She whimpered in distress when his clever tongue didn’t return after several seconds.
Joseph chuckled, a deep, warm vibration that seemed strangely familiar. Something flickered on the edge of her mind, a thought or memory she couldn’t quite place, but then his fingers replaced his tongue in gently exploring her channel and the almost-memory evaporated.
His plunging fingers were coupled with a renewed lapping of her clit, and the combination was amazing. Tendrils of delight unfurled like new shoots of grass which suddenly exploded into a verdant green meadow. Lights flashed behind her closed eyelids and pleasure rocked her body. She moaned and writhed against Joseph’s hand and mouth, gripping his strong shoulders while wave after wave coursed through her.
She heard herself making soft little gasps as the ecstasy slowly subsided. When her climax was finished, the man before her rose and took her into his arms, holding her close to his big body. Funny, he didn’t feel quite as tall as he looked. Her face rested against his chest without her having to rise up on her toes. She pressed her face into the coarse homespun of his shirt and wished he weren’t wearing anything. She wanted to feel his bare skin against hers from cheek to feet.
“Thank you.” She’d wrapped her arms around his back and now gave him a hard squeeze. “That was wonderful.”
“And not over yet.” His voice purred against her ear. The bulge of his erection, covered by his trousers, pressed into her crotch. He thrust against her, and her sensitized bud contracted in near pain at the contact.
