Pleasure and Purpose Page 14

  "You haven't yet told me what you'd like me to call you." Honesty dusted her hands from the slight bit of soot on the palms, then moved to the wall to yank the bell cord. "And you might tell me what you'd like for your morning meal, so I can tell the maid when she comes."

  None of this was going how he'd imagined, and anger swelled up from his gut, strangling him to silence. She looked at him again, curious, and her mouth thinned for so brief a moment he was sure he'd mistaken the sight.

  "I could tell the maid myself," he said coldly. "But when I've laid out the cost of Handmaiden, I expect more than having to make it so."

  At this, Honesty let her gaze roam him up and down, and once again Cillian had the odd and distinctly uncomfortable feeling she was judging him. "Did you send for me to be your maid? Or perhaps you sent for me to be your whore? I might imagine you'd have both aplenty, for half the cost, though I'm certain you can well afford it." The cost didn't matter to him. Firth had coffers overflowing with riches, and his father had granted him a more than generous allowance. His mother had left him lands and estates that brought him income of his own, too.

  "It's not the cost." If the chit thought it was the cost of her keeping that was slicing at his nerves, she was stupid.

  She moved toward him with that same look of assessment. "So what is it then? If I'm to be your maid or your whore, I still need to know what it is you like before I can grant it. And you have to give me the tools to provide it."

  He loosed the knot at his waist and opened the robe, then flung it off so he stood naked before her. His cock, already half hard as was usual upon rising, thickened under her gaze. Cillian swept his hands down his body.

  "Here's the tool you can use if you're to act as my whore."

  "Very nice," Honesty murmured.

  Her response took the steam from his engine. When she undid the row of buttons at her throat to her waist with quick, practiced fingers and shrugged out of her gown and shift to stand naked before him, his mouth dried. He'd paid little thought to what she would look like, his imaginary Handmaiden, only of what she would do for him. Forced now to look upon her full, rounded breasts, her luscious curving backside, he had to admit she was perfection.

  "Do you like what you see?" Her words oozed over him as low and liquid as molten sugar.

  "No. I don't."

  She dared to grin at him as she sank to her knees. She untied the cord holding the end of her braid and finger-combed her hair until it fell over her shoulders, those creamy, pink-tipped breasts, and down her back to tickle the underside of her sweetly curving ass.

  "Now?"

  Muscles clenched deep in his groin as heat surged in his gut. She slid her knees apart a little, enough to show him a hint of her pink slit beneath her dark pubic curls. Her nipples, Void take her, had gone tight and begged for his mouth on them.

  "I want you to go," he managed, but his cock betrayed him by rising. "Get out."

  "You don't want me to go," Honesty said.

  Then she took him into her mouth, and Cillian was lost.

  What had she learned thus far but that he was a man consumed with fury? A man whose position granted him whatever he pleased and whenever it pleased him, and yet the smallest balk could send him into a rage. Leading him to solace would be like putting a recalcitrant horse into harness. It would take a great deal of effort and mayhap a long time.

  Honesty had suffered long assignments in the past, but now . . . now things had changed for her, and all she could think of was how fast she could bring this cranky man to some semblance of peace, no matter how brief, so that she might return to the Motherhouse. The Order taught them every patron was unique, but Honesty had dealt with men like Cillian before. They could be assuaged with submission, soothed with pleasure. Sometimes, it was the only way to distract them from their greater anger. But that wasn't why she put his cock into her mouth. Honesty had a simpler reason than that. She wanted to taste him. She wanted to hear him cry out, feel his thighs tremble, feel his hands tangle in her hair as he jetted his pleasure into her mouth. She wanted to prove to him she was not a thing, she was a person. Women we begin and women we shall end was the Order's fifth principle, and just then, Honesty was all woman.

  He groaned when she sank his cock so deep it nudged the back of her throat. She hummed as she withdrew, pausing at the head of his prick to suck and lick before sliding down again. The thick carpet under her knees cradled them so she could do this for an hour, should he last that long.

  "By the Arrow, your mouth is a delight," he said in a low, strained voice. Honesty gripped his cock at the base and stroked upward along his hot flesh, slick from her mouth. His chair was close, and he might need it. "Sit, and I'll do even better." He sat and she knelt between his legs to take him in her mouth again. Cillian thrust upward as his hands gripped the chair. His harsh, panting breaths were music to her, as was the creak of leather and wood as the chair moved under him when he moved to meet every suck and lick she provided.

  This was for him, but oh, by the Arrow, it was for her, too, and Honesty let herself fall into the sweet oblivion of giving pleasure. It had been so long she feared she might have forgotten how, but just as her hand crept unerringly to her lap to twist and stroke, so did her mouth recall just how to move.

  Cillian cried out, hoarse. His prick pulsed against her tongue. Honesty, circling with a fingertip, shuddered on the cusp of her own climax as she eased off from granting his. Cillian muttered a curse and thrust harder, but Honesty used her free hand to grip and hold him still.

  Panting, Cillian glared down at her as she fought to catch her breath. "Don't stop!"

  "I would make this last," she said. Her finger slowed against her flesh and she dipped it inside her well to withdraw it, glistening.

  She painted his cock with the evidence of her arousal, and Cillian gave a low, short groan at the sight.

  His hands dented the soft leather arms of the chair, and he cursed again. She made a tunnel of her fist for him to fuck into while she laved his sensitive balls and used her other hand to bring herself to the edge over and over without giving in to sweet orgasm. Taking him once more into her mouth, she juggled their individual pleasures until at last she could no longer keep herself from tipping into a climax so fierce it shook her entire body.

  Cillian came in silence. He flooded her with his ecstasy, and the chair fair shook to pieces with the force of their rocking, but he climaxed without a sound. Still shaken from her own orgasm, Honesty could only be a bit disappointed she hadn't moved him to a shout. She sat back, well satisfied with his taste clinging to her tongue. Cillian had thrown back his head, eyes closed. He opened them to look at her.

  Honesty stood and took no small enjoyment in the way his gaze traveled over her body before focusing on her face. Naked, she went to the table and poured them both cups of cool water and pressed one into his hand before drinking her own. Cillian drained his and let the cup drop to the floor, where it bounced on the thick rug. He swiped his lips with the back of his hand and straightened in the chair.

  He didn't look angry anymore.

  "You're smiling," he said. "Is that because you've pleased me, or because you pleased yourself?"

  Honesty finished her water and set down the cup, then retrieved her shift and tugged it over her head. She braided her hair as she answered him. "Both." She bent to grab up his robe and handed it to him. "I'll draw you a bath." She felt him watching her as she left the room, and another smile tugged her lips. She was learning him, but he would need to learn her, as well. She filled the tub with hot, clear water and gathered the soap, soft cloth, and rinsing bucket from their places in one of the cabinets. By the time she'd finished, Cillian stood in the doorway.

  "You'll wash me?" He sounded wary.

  "Would you like me to?"

  "I have to tell you?"

  She studied him, knowing what he'd expected and what she would be able to grant him would likely be quite different. "Only once. Because after that,
I'll know."

  "And if you forget?" He dropped the robe, careless of where it went, and sat on the low bathing stool over the drain.

  Honesty dipped the cloth into the water and rubbed the soap to lather. "I'm fair certain I won't forget."

  "But if you do," he said in a low voice as she moved the cloth over his body with smooth unhesitating strokes, "might I punish you?"

  She thought of the playroom, and her hand stopped its journey along his body for the time it took to blink. "Would it please you to punish me?"

  "It might."

  She moved the cloth lower, over his legs and down to his feet. She lifted one, then the other, and washed them. His foot jerked in her hand, and she bit back a smile. Ticklish.

  "You find that amusing?"

  She looked up to see his brow once more creased in irritation and sent up a prayer. Invisible Mother. I know true patience is its own reward, but I could surely use some help with this one.

  "Certainly I do not."

  His hand on her wrist arrested her, and she sat back on her heels to stare up at him.

  "You don't speak to me as I thought you would."

  "You expected a bowed head?" Honesty watched his face for signs she was correct. "A bent back?"

  She reached for the rinse bucket and emptied it over all the parts she'd soaped. Now she stood while he sat, looking up. She poured warm water over his skin and sluiced away the soap, then stood back to allow him to get into the tub.

  She thought of the girl tied to the cross and the flogger that had been in his hand. The Mother-in-Service who'd told her of this assignment had said nothing about the prince's proclivities. Honesty thought of the documents, unread, in her hand-trunk. "If I felt it was to provide you with solace, I would offer my back to you. But I know for a fact you have a bevy of women better suited than I to such a task."

  "So you won't allow me to bind your wrists? To beat you?" He shifted on the stool but made no motion to hide his nakedness.

  "I'm here to lead you to absolute solace. Not to serve as your whipping boy." Honesty knew some of her Sisters served in such a manner, but she'd never been assigned to any patron who required it. She'd never expected to be.

  This didn't please him. "My friend Edward was granted a Handmaiden who suffers his every whim, and tidies his quarters, besides!"

  Petulance was one of Honesty's least favorite expressions. "I'm not your friend Edward's Handmaiden, I'm yours. We're not all cast from the same mold. And I'm not some genie from a bottle. Nor a member of your hareem."

  Cillian didn't move. "Then what was that out there? You seemed happy enough with my cock down your throat while you frigged yourself. You seemed to like being on your knees."

  Ah, so many had made the same assumptions, and so many times Honesty had bitten her tongue and forced a smile to appease.

  It should have been no great hardship to do it again, but for the fact she'd grown weary of placating. Sinder's Quiver be damned, she thought as she watched the spoiled prince pout in front of her. Let someone else fill it.

  "Just because I choose to get on my knees for you doesn't mean you own me," she told him. "It doesn't work that way, no matter what you've been told." Cillian still hadn't shifted from his place on the stool, though the water in the tub had ceased to steam. "When I applied at the Order, they told me you would grant me what I needed. This is not what I want. Not at all!"

  Honesty sighed, not caring about his bloodline or how much money was in his treasury or how rich his attire. Just now he was a naked man on a stool, like all the other naked men she had ever served. Disgruntled when they didn't get their way.

  "What you needed, aye," she said coolly, with lifted chin and raised brow. "But what you seem not to understand is that I'm not here to be your plaything or your nursemaid. I'm here to give you what you need. It might not be the same as what you want." And with that piece of advice she knew he still wouldn't understand if she wrote it out for him on parchment or tattooed it into his skin with ink, Honesty swept out of the room and left him to take his own bath.

  Chapter 11

  "So, old man, you're looking well taken in hand." Alaric reached to flick the fall of lace at Cillian's throat.

  Cillian knocked his hand away. It had been four days since he'd seen his friend, and that long since his Handmaiden had arrived to disappoint him. He'd been in a fever of a bad mood ever since, one not even nightly visits to his playroom had been able to ease.

  "Well, how is she?" Alaric was too full of sunshine to suit Cillian, but at least with Alaric, Cillian could be himself without fear his friend would run with tales to his father or his father's ministers.

  "She is . . ." Cillian paused on the string of words he might use to describe Honesty, but settled on one. "Honest."

  "Honest? That sounds good."

  Cillian shook his head. "No. I wanted what Edward has. Honesty is not what Edward has."

  Alaric settled into the couch and propped his feet up on the low table. The library was empty, as it usually was, for Cillian's were not the only lords who preferred billiards to books. His father's retinue

  had little use for this room, which was what made it the perfect spot for Cillian to smoke a bowl of herb with Alaric and not have to worry about any of them showing up.

  "She is too honest," he said as Alaric lit the match to start the bowl smoking. "She tells me exactly what she feels I need to hear. Not what I want to hear," he added. "What I need to hear."

  Alaric made a face. "I can imagine you don't take to that very well." Cillian paused in drawing a lungful of smoke to frown. "No need for you to add your insult to this situation."

  "Your mercy, my prince," Alaric said with only the slightest trace of mockery. "Pray, tell me more."

  "She tidies the room but not even as neatly as a maid. She makes tea but only when she wishes also to drink it. She reads my books and offers them to me—"

  "Books? Sinder forbid," Alaric said.

  Cillian threw the pouch of herb at him. It bounced off Alaric's chest and hit the floor. Alaric looked at it, then at Cillian.

  "I'm sorry she's not to your liking. Maybe you should send her away." The thought had crossed his mind every day since her arrival, and yet. . . "She says she will go if I want her to."

  Alaric raised a brow. "So? If she doesn't please you, won't they send another, if you complain?"

  Cillian had spent hours filling out the application for the Order of Solace. A full medical history, essays on his childhood, questions on his tastes in food, drink. A complete sexual history. He'd stinted on nothing, lied about nothing. Held nothing back. He'd been ... honest.

  And they'd sent him this woman. Of all those in service to the Order, they'd chosen Honesty. If she couldn't bring him solace, Cillian was certain nobody ever could.

  "I can't send her away. She would go. And I don't want another."

  "By the Blood, Cillian, why not? If she doesn't make you happy?"

  "Maybe she isn't supposed to make me happy," Cillian muttered. Alaric had cotton in his ears when it suited, but he'd heard that. For once he made no jest, just clapped Cillian on the shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "She's not your only chance."

  Cillian shrugged off the touch and strode to the window to look out to the sunshine beyond. He'd learned to walk on that grass. As a child he'd played on those lawns. Run through the fountain naked and splashing, his nannies in tow. He'd lost his cherry to a kitchen maid out there in that grass one moonlit summer night.

  All of that seemed very long ago, and as though it had happened to someone else. Not the man he'd become. Cillian turned back to his friend.

  "How many chances does one person have, Alaric?"

  "You ask the wrong man. You know I don't believe in filling Sinder's Quiver. Frankly, my friend, I didn't think you did, either."

  Cillian had been anointed in the Temple at birth and not set foot inside since. "I don't suppose it matters. She'll still try?"

  "Of course she wil
l. It's her duty. But from how you make it sound, she's not very good at it."

  "Yet she's the one they sent me. What do you suppose that means?" Cillian went back to the table and snagged the bowl of herb, which had gone out. He relit and drew it in deep, holding it before letting the smoke seep in burning tendrils from his nostrils. Alaric looked impressed. "I always loved that trick."

  "Is that what I am? A trick?"

  He hadn't meant it to sound quite so harsh, but Alaric didn't seem to mind.

  "Of course not."

  It was how he felt, though. Like a puppet master making the life-size Prince Cillian dance without strings. Playing the part he'd been born for, but without a script to memorize. A show without direction.

  "Cillian. You know you can talk to me. About anything." Alaric paused. "I know I'm not Edward, but I am your friend as much as he ever was."

  Not like Edward. Edward had been Cillian's brother of the heart, and Alaric loved Edward as somewhat more than that; they had made a triangle with Edward their point in common. Alaric would ever be Cillian's friend, but it would never be the same for either of them with each other as it was with each of them and Edward.

  "I don't want to send her away if she'd not care," Cillian said. "I only wish to send her back if it would pain her to go."

  Alaric raised a brow but made no other comment. Cillian drew in another breath of herb, but it granted him no joy. It settled in his lungs until he coughed it out and then he set down the bowl.

  "Ah, Prince Cillian." The man in the doorway swept in on a cloud of perfume covering the underlying stench of body odor. His hair, pomaded to slick brilliance, hung in lank curls to his shoulders, and his skin gleamed with sweat. Several pox marks scored his lean face, and other blemishes sprouted along his hairline.

  Alaric turned his back and grimaced, then rolled his eyes at Cillian. "And I must be off. Lady Larissa is expecting me."

  That Alaric would abandon him to Lord Devain's blatherings didn't surprise Cillian, but he shot his friend a glare anyway. Alaric grinned and gave Cillian an entirely insincere half bow, turned on his heel and provided the same to Lord Devain, who ignored him. Devain had no time for the sons of merchant farmers, no matter how high they'd risen.