Behind the Courtesan’s Mask by Marguerite Kaye Read Free Book Online Page A

kindling the embers of the fire in her belly that had not quite died. “She had a fuller figure than I,” she said distractedly. “Her gowns are a little loose on me.”
    â€œYour figure is perfect,” Troy replied, his own breathing a trifle ragged. He allowed his hand to drift round to the soft skin at her nape, his thumb to stroke the pulse at her throat. “Such perfect breasts,” he said, trailing his fingers along the fluttering fichu at her neck. He could feel them rising and falling rapidly. “It is as if they were made for my touch,” he said, cupping their fullness. He should not be doing this, but he could not seem to stop.
    â€œYou would not believe the amount of clothes my sister owned,” Constance said, breaking away, throwing the door of the dressing room wide. “I have no idea what to do with them all.”
    She pulled open a drawer, taking out the neatly folded tippets and gloves, scarves and stockings, casting them into the air. “I could never wear such fripperies.”
    The silk and lace and kid and gauze fluttered to her feet. She picked up another handful, throwing it up into the air. “Look at it, some of it is shocking. Red stockings. Black stockings.”
    â€œYou wore black stockings the other day.” Troy picked one up from where it had landed on a claw-foot stool.
    â€œYes. I did.” She couldn’t think straight, not when he looked at her like that, in a sort of smoldering way. She tugged at the fichu on her bosom, pulling it free from her gown in an effort to cool herself. “Today, though, I am wearing white,” she said, though why she said it she had no idea.
    â€œBlack for Annalisa, white for Constance,” Troy said softly, letting the black silk stocking trail over the golden skin of her bosom. “I think I prefer white.”
    â€œDo you?”
    The stocking fluttered to the floor. Troy pulled open the bottom drawer of the chest. “What have we here?”
    Constance gasped in surprise. “Good grief, what on earth?” she exclaimed as a row of masks were revealed, some simple silk sashes with eye slits, some leather, some porcelain, a few taking the forms of various fantastic and devilish creatures. Behind them, lined up in a row, a series of whips. A birch. A rod. A cat-o’-nine tails. And another, with a gilt handle, the black thongs like fringes. “Good heavens.”
    Troy picked up a silk mask trimmed with jewels and feathers and fitted it over her face, turning her to the mirror. A wicked creature gazed back at Constance, eyes glinting mysteriously.
    â€œLike a black cat,” Troy said, his solid form hard against her back as he tugged the pins from her hair. It tumbled down in a heavy fall. He ran his fingers through it, curling it round her face. The curls made her look abandoned. He bent over to kiss her shoulder, pushing her gown aside. In the mirror she watched him, his dark skin making hers seem alabaster by comparison.
    He took a fringed whip from the drawer and trailed its ends over her skin, causing a delicious tickling sensation. “This is to chasten you, should you scratch me with your claws,” he whispered. “You have no idea how much I would like to feel them raking down my back as I take you.”
    Constance shivered.
    Troy unlaced her gown, and pulled it over her shoulders, trailing the fringes of the whip along the exposed flesh. “Constance.”
    Her name on his lips sounded dark as molasses, sweet and sinful. She closed her eyes and leaned back into his heat, relishing the way her bottom nestled into the hard length of him, relishing the knowledge that she had roused him.
    â€œConstance, I cannot deceive myself a second time,” Troy murmured, his tongue tracing the shell of her ear. “If you do not tell me to stop, I will not be able to.”
    In the mirror, her eyes glittered behind the mask. A rosy flush colored her breasts. Heat