Saving Grace (Fair Cyprians of London 1)

She gasped aloud. Lies! All of them! Well, except for her being pregnant.

She reined in her emotions. Nothing she said or did would change a thing. It was some comfort David hadn’t stopped loving her, though she forced herself to subdue the ray of hope that breached her hardened heart. Hope always had a bitter lining. In this case it was that the truth of what she’d become was worse than the fiction his mother had created.

If Grace told David his mother had lied, then what?

She’d only have to tell him that she’d descended to vice far greater than he could ever imagine.

No, Grace was not the girl he remembered. He loved the pure, idealistic Grace, full of hope for the future. Not the debased, ground-down whore before him who bartered herself, body and soul, to stop from starving. She might despise what she’d been reduced to but the fact was she was a whore.

Oh God, a whore who did this with strangers for a living when all she’d ever wanted was to marry David and have his children.

“Forget the past.” Grace forced the suggestive, sympathetic tone into her voice as she inveigled herself back into his embrace. “And enjoy the present. I can take your mind off your sorrows.”

She might not have David beyond this evening but for the next hour he would be the lover she might have had if things had been different. It would be a bright memory to mitigate the miserable future which stretched before her.

Slipping her hands beneath his shirt she ran them up his smooth chest. No longer the chest of the sapling she remembered. Gently she rubbed his nipples, ridiculously gratified by his shivers of reaction. He was putty in her hands and his fascination for her and what she could do for him was growing. What would he think if she tried to entice him further down?

Dare she?

The Grace he’d known would never have been so bold and brazen but she was a woman who played on men’s fantasies for a living. A whore who’d never experienced desire in the course of her work. Now, with the young, healthy body of the only man she’d loved showing increasing willingness, she was desperately conscious of her own lustful urges. They frightened her. How little time she had to revel in the intimacies she’d once hoped to enjoy for a lifetime.

He was highly aroused by the time she slid her hand into the opening of his trousers, his sudden hardening echoing her own need as she felt the rush of warm liquid pooling in her lower belly.

“Oh God, what are you doing?” he gasped, gripping her shoulders as she knelt in front of him and gently circled the end of his cock with her tongue. Clearly he was caught between pushing her away and keeping her prisoner.

“I shall disgrace myself!” he warned as she trailed her tongue the length of his shaft before taking him deeply into her mouth, but she ignored him, caught up by her own responses to his growing excitement. She could feel her desire roaring in her ears. His breathing was coming fast and even, his body was tense and his hands clenched in her hair as she moved him deeper into the cavern of her mouth, flicking her tongue over the ridges of his swollen cock, squeezing gently, pushing him back and forth.

“Oh God!” he cried, convulsing as he came. He could barely speak through his shame. “I’m sorry.”

Exultant, Grace slithered upright and held him tightly, as if to comfort him, her heart pounding at the simple fact she’d elicited such powerful reactions. That she was responsible for giving her beloved David such pleasure. “A virgin does not have to apologise for the brevity of his first time,” she murmured, her mind whirling, every sense on high alert as she kissed his earlobe, revelling in the intimacy, though he seemed caught up in confusion, not knowing where to put his hands.

She raised them to her breasts. Again, so brazen. The Grace he’d known would never have done such a thing. The David she’d known would have been repulsed by such behaviour.

“You can undo me, if you like.” She wriggled invitingly in his embrace and he seemed to gain confidence, his exploring hands fumbling with the row of tiny buttons down the front of her tight-fitting cuirass. Touching her lips to his right ear, she whispered, “There, I’ll help you.”

The fabric fell away and she quickly divested herself of the outer layer, pushing him down upon the chair and settling herself on his lap so he could feel he

r bare arms and the swell of her breasts above her corset.

At first tentative but with increasing surety he ran his hands over her skin, myriad responses reflected in his rapt expression. Grace closed her eyes and offered herself to him, her heart engaged like it had never been since she and David had been close.

“Is this how it’s done?”

“Seduction?” she murmured as she snuggled against him and toyed with his nipples.

“Whoring.”

Deflated, she froze. Whoring. Yes, that’s all it was to him. She was a stranger. A woman off the streets sent to service him for an afternoon.

“Don’t leave. I’m sorry.” He pulled her back. “I didn’t mean to offend you. You’re very good and I need tutoring.” Unseeing, he groped for her breasts, at first ashamed, then obviously enjoying their size and feel, for he weighed them in his hands as if committing them to memory.

“Tutoring?” She heard the dullness in her voice. “I thought I was here to indulge you. Your job is easy.”

He freed her breasts from their confines and the insistent pressure on her nipples as he rolled them gently between his thumb and forefinger sent a rush of feeling to her groin. He paused, his look questioning, as he asked, “Is there only pleasure on the man’s side? You hate this work because a woman cannot enjoy sexual relations?”

In one fluid movement Grace rose and unclasped her skirt. It festooned to the floor and she kicked it aside. A shabby way to treat a garment which cost her what she’d have to earn through servicing more than two dozen clients.

“A woman can enjoy sexual pleasure immeasurably if her heart is engaged.” Her voice caught in her throat as she returned to his lap, dressed in only corset and chemise. She draped herself over him. “You are to be married. Do you wish to please your wife?”