She took the arm he offered. Just being near to him sent heat racing to her core.
“I hope you like duck. My game master’s assistant shot several this afternoon. He’s a young man, about your age, his name is Sebastian. I thought you might meet him tomorrow for your morning lesson.”
Morning lesson? “Am I to have hunting lessons?”
“No, don’t be absurd. Hunting fell out of favor with the ladies of the court before I ever set foot in the palace.” He paused in his step. “No, I was thinking of allowing you to learn with him, like you did today with Marie. If he doesn’t object, of course, and if you find him pleasing.”
“Oh.” Joséphine’s heart sunk. Did Julien not find her pleasing? He’d said she was beautiful…had that just been flattery to put her at ease.
“If you find the idea objectionable, we can ask Marie back,” he told her, misinterpreting the reason for her dismay.
“No,” she stated firmly. How strange, that she could enjoy intimate pleasures with the woman while being so completely jealous of her. “I would rather you teach me. Privately.”
He started them walking again, arm in arm down the corridor. “Are you certain? Sebastian and Marie are younger than me, Sebastian can’t be more than a year older than you.”
“I am not concerned about your age.” If anything it lent him something exciting, in Joséphine’s eyes. He seemed so sure of himself, so confident. Surely a man her age wouldn’t be able to match the self-assurance that came with age and experience.
He ruminated on this point for a moment, letting them walk on in silence. “How did you come to this conclusion, may I ask? I don’t wish for you to turn down my offer because you are afraid of displeasing me, or worried that you must repay me somehow to display your gratitude.”
“Not at all.” She wondered if there were any delicate way to put her desires into words, then remembered the morning they had spent together and decided that any prettily vague sentiments she expressed would be useless. “I have not been to court, but my stepsisters have. They have talked about your reputation. People call you the best lover in the kingdom, the worst and most disgraceful rake ever to have seduced a woman.”
“And you’re not afraid of a disgraceful rake robbing you of your virtue?” He lifted one eyebrow.
She considered her answer. “I only said it was your reputation. I never said that I believed it.”
He laughed as they turned the corner to the great hall. The table was set the same as it had been the night before, and best of all, there was no sign of Madame Brujon. Joséphine sighed in relief.
“Were you expecting someone?” Julien teased as he pulled out her chair for her.
She folded her napkin over her lap. “I am not a great admirer of being rapped on the knuckles for selecting the wrong fork.”
They chatted comfortably while they ate. For all the old woman’s unpleasantness, Madame Brujon ran a kitchen with the utmost effectiveness. Joséphine doubted she would eat anything as delicious, even at court. After their plates were scraped bare of the last little morsel, Joséphine and Julien lingered over their wine. It was strangely comfortable, she realized, to sit and talk with him. Oh, he still made her a bit nervous, but since this morning, she had been nervous in an exciting way. Nervous about what would come next in their lessons, what new and fantastic pleasure he would teach her.
As if reading her mind, he turned the conversation in precisely that direction. “How did you enjoy this morning, with Marie?”
Her cunt—that was what he had called it, and the coarseness of the word thrilled her—ached just from remembering. “I enjoyed it very much.”
“You did very well.” He took a sip from his wine. “Truthfully, I expected a bit more reluctance from you.”
A hot blush rose to her cheeks. “You think I’m wanton.”
“Yes, I do. That is not an insult, Joséphine, though some would make it one. You trust your desire, and you act on it. It’s quite beautiful to watch.”
She flushed even more.
“Put yourself in the prince’s position,” he continued, stroking a finger around the rim of his wine glass. “Would you rather undertake the tiresome task of coaxing a maiden to let go of her inhibitions and enjoy the physical act of love, or would you rather have a woman who wishes to explore every possibility?”
She considered this for a moment. “Yes, I see where the latter would be much preferred.”
“Don’t think of it as wantonness, but unfettered curiosity.” He pushed his chair back. “And it is with that spirit that we approach our next lesson.”
Chapter Nine
Joséphine gazed back at him with innocent, clear eyes, and Julien reminded himself to go slowly. Though she understood him in theory, in practice it would be much harder to dispel her old attitudes. It would be better to let her lead the discovery. “Tonight, you choose the lesson. I will be your willing tutor.”
For a moment, she was at a loss for words, or so it seemed. When she spoke, it became clear that she’d had no difficulty imagining a subject, but quite a bit of difficulty expressing her desire to do it. “You must promise not to laugh at me.”
So, it was embarrassment she feared, above all else. “Why would I laugh? We’re two grown people, about to engage in intimate activity. It’s only natural to talk about it openly, without judgment. In fact, I’m very anxious to hear what you come up with. I’m delighted at the progress you’ve made already.”
She chewed nervously at her lip, and would not meet his gaze. “I thought I would like to learn what Marie did to you this morning. When she took you in her mouth.”
It took almost Herculean effort not display a physical reaction to her suggestion. “You want to learn to do that?”
She nodded earnestly. “If you would rather—”
“No!” he interrupted her, then he quickly calmed himself. No easy feat, when her words had inspired a graphic picture of the act in his mind. “Not at all. I would be more than happy to instruct you.”
He felt a moment’s panic at the thought of Henrí, his oldest and dearest friend, clutching his chest at a sudden attack of anxiety, the cause of which he did not know from his crumbling manor many miles away.
He forced that grim imagining from his mind, and patted his knee. “Come here.”
She looked around the empty hall furtively. “Here?”
“Here is as good as anywhere.” He did not need to explain to her that he did not trust himself in a room with a bed. It had been all he could stand to watch her with Marie this morning, and if she’d shown the slightest inclination toward it, he would have gladly relieved her of her virtue then and there. Rake though he might be, he could not destroy her trust in him. He would take her when she wanted him to—and she would want him to—but she had to want it, and not in a moment of passion that she would later regret.
She rose from her chair and approached him timidly, still not at ease with her body. She would be, soon enough. By the time they arrived at court, she would think nothing of sitting down in a man’s lap. She would think nothing of lifting her skirts and straddling a man’s lap, sliding down his straining shaft to envelop him in hot, slick flesh—
He came to his senses, thankfully, and reached for her, pulling her down to sit on his knee. “If you learn this skill well, I dare say you could have anything you wanted from any man at court. There is little a man likes more than having his cock sucked.”
She blushed in response.
“Joséphine,” he began patiently, “you cannot be afraid of mere words.”
Frowning, she said, “I’m not afraid. It’s just so…coarse.”
“Then we shall amend our lesson slightly. How can you do something that you can’t bring yourself to say?” He lifted her chin, wanting nothing more than to cover her petal soft mouth with his and kiss her until her lips were swollen. “Now, tell me, in words that I would use…what do you want to do?”
She made a noise of frustration. “But isn’t it more polite to—”
He pressed one finger to those beautiful lips. “Politeness has its place, but not in the language of the bedroom.”
“We’re in the hall,” she replied with a sweet smirk.
With a growl, he tickled her sides until she became breathless with laughter, squirming on his knee and clutching the front of his coat. “Stop!” she cried, panting. “Stop! I’ll say it!”
He released her at once. “I’m waiting.”
“I want to—” she closed her eyes, a residual giggle escaping her. “I want to suck your cock.”
As if responding to its name like a faithful hound, the part in question leapt up. “Very good.” He touched a fingertip to her bottom lip, tracing the curve back and forth for a moment. “And you will. But we will learn theory, before we embark on practice.”
He dipped his finger into her mouth, wetting his fingertip with her saliva and stroking the same path along her lip. “It isn’t a matter of simply taking a cock into your mouth. There are some considerations to follow. The first and most important of which is what to do about your teeth.”
“My teeth?” she murmured, still pouting her lip for his attentions.
“It is an opinion almost universally held that teeth have no business near so sensitive an organ as a man’s cock. However, since we almost all wish to put ours into a mouth, it is important to learn how best to avoid causing discomfort.” He slipped his finger into her mouth, just to the first knuckle.
She leaned away, releasing him. “But you are so much larger than that.”
It gave him no small amount of satisfaction to know that she had noticed. “That is true. But this is good for practice.”
She nodded obediently and leaned forward, opening her mouth just a bit to draw in his finger. She sucked hard, covering her bottom teeth with her lip and using her tongue to draw him away from the top.
Julien nearly spilled in his breeches. He pulled his finger free with a strangled, “Well done.”
She dipped her head and smiled, clearly unused to being praised.
“The second thing you must remember,” he began, trying to keep his tone as scholarly as he could—which was damned hard with his cock straining to burst from his trousers—, “Is that your mouth is so desirable because of what it can do. It’s not enough to just open your mouth and let a man thrust into it. You must use your tongue, your lips, your throat, all of those parts in concert to bring your partner pleasure. Do you understand?”
“I think I do,” she replied. She took his hand in hers and brought it back to her mouth, sucking his fingertip between her lips. Her tongue swirled around as she sucked hard, then stopped a moment, then sucked again.
He hissed through his teeth, and she released him immediately, a look of concern wrinkling her smooth brow. “Was that wrong?”
“Not at all.” He took his hand from hers to disguise its trembling.
“I don’t understand.” She looked absolutely crestfallen. “If I’m doing it wrong, please tell me.”
How could she not understand that her every action was made ten times more seductive because of her innocent desire to please him? That if she’d been any other woman, he would have had her in his bed by now, and that temptation drove him mad?
It was that very innocence that kept her from understanding, and it frustrated him more than it pleased him. He gripped her hand and, before she could realize what he did, forced it into his lap. “Does it feel like I am displeased?”
A visible shiver passed over her. If she had made even a twitch towards pulling her hand away, he would have released her, but she did not. She stared for the space of two heartbeats at her hand, then, with agonizing slowness, curled her fingers around him through his breeches.