Duchess of Seduction (Hearts in Hiding 3)

“I offer myself up to your pleasure,” whispered the red-haired siren, and she moved forward and up the stairs, kneeling to kiss his feet, her hands twining up the thick muscles of his legs.

Cressida remained rooted to the spot in shocked fascination. What was happening? The man was kissing Ariane while the other beauty was kissing his feet. No! Shock galvanized Cressida. This must be a dream. A lust-crazed dream for—Good God!—the haze was clearing, and for the first time, Cressida saw that this man was completely naked, and that while he was kissing Ariane, Persephone was kissing his feet, his ankles, the backs of his knees.

Gently the man placed Ariane upon the mattress before him, rising in tandem with Persephone, locked in a swaying embrace as she twined her arms about his neck, nuzzling his earlobe while Ariane began her own slow progress of pleasuring her husband from his feet upward.

Cressida glanced at the door. She should not be here, witnessing such a sight. The fog in her brain was clearing, highlighting the wrongness of being in the midst of a scene of such a sexual nature.

Venturing out of her hiding place, she turned at Ariane’s gasp; then gasped herself to see that this magnificent creature, wearing not a stitch of clothing, was no longer like the several sculptures of naked men with which she was familiar.

No, while Ariane swept her hands all over him in a manner beyond Cressida’s imaginings, her expert tongue flicking against the backs of his knees, his body was behaving in a way which Cressida had never observed with her own eyes, though she’d been aware of the changes in her own husband during the prelude to their coupling.

Shocked and fascinated, she stared at his swollen member, which had seemingly a life o

f its own as Persephone kissed his mouth and Ariane rose to her knees, kissing higher...

And higher...

The pleasure haze dissipated further. Cressida could not move, fascinated and horrified in equal measure as she watched Ariane gently cup the pouches beneath her husband’s rampant manhood.

No, she’d never seen a man naked. Not in eight years of marriage. She’d been gently pleasured in Justin’s warm, secure embrace, but always in darkness. She’d never seen her husband clad in less than his nightshirt or banyan.

The pupils of the magnificent creature in the middle of the bed dilated, and he threw back his head as Ariane, with calculated care, put her mouth to his engorged member and slowly circled it with her tongue.

So apparent was his rapture that Cressida felt her own body pulse with sensation, despite her shock.

She put her hands to her face to cover her shame.

No one seemed to register her. All eyes were on the scene in the center of the bed—eyes greedy, lascivious, wanting...

Cressida blindly took a few steps, her terror growing, yet drawn again to the stage by the sounds of rapture. This was not a sight for a gently reared woman like herself. She had to escape.

In the gloom, she thought she recognized the door through which she’d come and stumbled toward it, turning as the man groaned his pleasure.

A final glance at his glazed eyes made plain that he was enslaved by this extraordinary act. Was he a normal man? Of course not, so why should she be so fascinated, her mind returning to her husband’s body and what he might think of such a thing.

There. The door was before her at last. Turning the brass knob, Cressida staggered into the corridor, gasping for air. She had spied on two women kissing. She’d been unable to tear her eyes away from a naked man in the throes of passion. What had she done? Her recent fascination now seemed nothing more than wicked prurience.

She was going to be ill, she knew it. And if not, that was the reaction she ought to have. Panting, sweating, she sought desperately for the privy, which, to her relief, was pointed out to her by a motherly looking woman dressed in cerulean silk.

When Cressida returned weakly to the passage a few minutes later, her savior was waiting for her, a look of sympathetic concern upon her face.

“My dear, let me take you somewhere private where you can compose yourself.”

The kindness of the woman’s expression, and her thoughtfulness—so different from what she’d expected to find in a place like this—made Cressida want to burst into tears.

With a grateful nod, she allowed herself to be led into a small, private sitting room at the back of the house, where she was gently pushed down onto an Egyptian sofa. When she looked up, a handkerchief scented with Cressida’s favorite lavender water was being waved in front of her face.

“My dear, I think you are out of your depth,” murmured the woman as Cressida cooled her forehead and dabbed the corners of her trembling mouth. “Shall I order a carriage to take you home?”

Go home? Cressida shook her head. How could she go home in this state? She was shaking like a leaf, her mind roiling with images of the naked man she’d just seen and the ecstasy he’d clearly experienced at the hands of... What was Ariane? A woman of the night? Yet she claimed she was this man’s wife. Did that mean that what they shared was sanctioned by the church? Surely not? Ariane had said she was ‘just like her’. Like Cressida, hinting they both were married women sharing a private sadness. No, Cressida had nothing in common with Ariane, and the sooner she was out of this place the better.

There was something ordinary and soothing about the comfortably decorated sitting room.

“Take a few deep breaths and close your eyes for a moment,” said the woman. “It will make you feel much better. Now, look at me.” Her smile took years off her age, her twinkling brown eyes suggesting a surprising depth of insight and intelligence for a woman who lived in such a depraved setting as this.

Cressida her lip and sank against the cushions of the sofa as images of beautiful maidens kissing each other and magnificently muscled men with rampant members chased around her brain.

Her remembered excitement made her curl up inside with guilt.