Chapter Fourteen

Revenge

On the word ‘payback' his hand reached the increasingly heated juncture of my thighs. My whole body stiffened and I pressed my lips together to suppress the involuntary sounds forcing their way out of me. My food sat cold and forgotten before me, my mouth was dry, and my cheeks increasingly warm. I clamped my thighs together on the intruding hand but Nicolo simply pushed them apart again.

"Don't deny me, Charlotte," he leaned in to whisper.

So, I opened my legs to him and he responded by immediately seeking out the hot and moist flesh between them. No man had ever touched me here before—in my most private of places. There had been lessons I'd learned, of course, lessons regarding where a man might enjoy touching a woman. And later I'd practiced those lessons on myself, but touching myself couldn't compete with how it felt to be touched by someone else, by a man… by Nicolo.

On the one hand, I was thrilled it was Nicolo who was the first to touch me in such a way, with such firm, easy confidence, but why did it have to be here, now, in public and with the whole damn court around us?

The answer became quite clear: because this wasn't foreplay, it was punishment. Nicolo would use pleasure to teach me a lesson, to get his own back. And I didn't know whether to be happy or sad about it. In fact, at the present, my emotions weren't mine to control, I was in Nicolo's hands.

Literally in fact.

He continued his firm but gentle manipulations as I fought to regulate my breathing, fought not to grip the side of the table, fought to keep the sounds rising up from my throat to myself. Meanwhile, the maids cleared away the first course, the table hiding, more or less, what was going on. If I'd ever doubted the sexual credentials of Nicolo, or his experience; if I'd ever wondered why the ladies of the court and the maids in the dormitory were simultaneously afraid of him yet also panting for his attention, I no longer doubted nor wondered.

Nicolo's fingers played me like an instrument, and the master was a maestro. He knew precisely where and how to touch me, whether to linger or pay a brief visit, where to be firm and where to be feather-light. My body was his to command, it did as he told it, and I experienced the sensations he inflicted with wicked pleasure and consummate skill.

"Your glass is empty."

I gasped as his fingers left me to beckon over the steward, who might have glanced twice at my heated cheeks, short breaths and rapidly rising and lowering chest as he poured the wine. I, meanwhile, huffed and puffed as if I was relearning how to breathe.

"Ah, the second course," Nicolo smiled as trays were carried in. "A true gourmet enjoys each more than the last." Then he turned to face me and held up his goblet, as though to cheers me. "The first is just a warm-up."

The double meaning was not that subtle and as the food was left before us, his hand returned beneath the table again. His fingers were back at my knees and I wondered if we were starting all over again, but then I felt him bunching and tugging, pulling my skirt up to my waist, so only the table cloth prevented the people on the lower tables from seeing me bared before them.

"That's better, that was very much in the way," smiled Nicolo, as if talking to himself.

"Master…" I began.

"There is nothing you can say to change what's about to happen." His cool fingers brushed the warm flesh of my right thigh. "Although I suppose you could get up and leave."

Presumably I could have, but I didn't. And that was telling—to us both.

Nicolo chuckled as his fingers moved faster this time, tracing the same path up my inner thigh with only one destination in mind and I bit my lip when he reached it. The second course seemed to be dedicated to stroking, light, fingertip strokes, as if my nether regions were a nervous mare that needed to be calmed before she was mounted. Increasing my frustration, Nicolo barely touched the heated center of my arousal, working his way with unctuous slowness around the outskirts, only occasionally touching that one spot where I most needed his touch.

He stilled his right hand between my legs as he began to tell a joke to those seated nearby, as the second course was swept away and the third brought out.

"… and the lady then says, ‘No, but the donkey can stay.'."

The gales of laughter that greeted the punchline conveniently covered my sudden gasp as Nicolo pressed his index finger inside me.

"Do you know how many courses there are?" asked Nicolo, conversationally, as he turned back to face me.

"No, Master." I barely heard what he said or understood my own answer. My whole world was focused on that single digit, sunk inside me up to the knuckle, which now began to explore and test the elastic confines of its surroundings.

"I believe its seven," said Nicolo, smugly.

"Seven?"

His wicked smile grew even more so. "Each more delectable than the last." He chuckled as my breath hitched. "You might want to try to relax."

The courses came and went, and Nicolo's fingers went about their deft business between my thighs with a combination of skill, determination and playful whimsy, all delivered with the ruthlessness of a torturer.

Mistress Aurore had once told us that pleasure could be a weapon; I'd never really thought about the reality of that, but Nicolo understood it very well, and wielded that weapon with luxurious cruelty.

How was it possible for something to feel so good that it hurt? How was it possible to simultaneously want something to stop and for it to last forever? How was it possible for pleasure to acquire a physical weight so it felt as if it was pinning me to my chair? How was it possible for this man to have such total control over me, body and mind?

Manipulating my body was easy for a man of his experience. He knew where to touch me so precisely, it was as if he had a guide; touch here to make her toes curl; stroke here to make her head twitch. He could have produced a tune in the squeaks and gasps I blurted out uncontrollably.

I was a puppet he controlled from beneath the table, at first with one finger which was soon joined by a second, adding another string to his bow so he could play me still more effectively. When his thumb located my sensitive nub, I thought the top of my head would come off. But, as good as he was at making me feel intense desire, he was even better at denying me. The sweet release of climax was always there, just on the edge of sensation, beckoning and begging me to grasp it, but Nicolo forbade it. Which was just as well, because my screams would have drawn attention.

But what was more disturbing, was the way in which he controlled my mind. Or seemed to. I could have gotten up—I could have simply walked away. But I did not, and only part of the reason was because I was enjoying his ministrations. Mostly, though, I didn't escape because if I walked away from him, then maybe there was no coming back. And the truth of the matter was that I wanted this man. I also wanted him to want me. I wanted to be his puppet, his plaything, I wanted to be at his mercy.

And that was a realization that scared the hell out of me. Because somewhere along the line the hunter had become the hunted. It was a situation the Guild hadn't prepared me for. There had never been any lessons on what to do if the tables were turned—if the target was able to play the executioner as easily as a pianist plays the pianoforte. I was in unchartered territory now and it was up to me to find my way out.

As dessert arrived, I hoped the moment had come. The final course, surely this was my moment—the point when he would allow me to claim my orgasm.

"Ah, dessert." Nicolo removed his hand and tugged my dress back down over my thighs. "This has been one of the most enjoyable meals I can remember." He turned to face me then and there was victory in his gaze. "I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have."

It felt as if there was a gaping void between my thighs. The pleasure had stopped, but the unfulfilled need throbbed like a white, cold fire.

"Master."

"What?" smiled Nicolo.

"Master, please," I whispered. I needed his touch. I needed him to finish me and damn the consequences.

"Please what?"

"I need…"

"To leave?" he answered on a broad grin. "But of course, Charlotte. You are excused for the evening. I shall stay for the dancing." He smiled and waved at a beautiful woman among the court. "Ah, Lady Satine," he said in greeting as she immediately started towards him, just as he'd known she would. He turned back to face me and his eyes were narrowed and hard. "Now there is a woman who knows not to keep a man waiting. I can't abide a cock-tease."

And that was that.

This was my punishment for our night in bed together.

Trying not to move too quickly, I got up from the table, and edged my way out of the banqueting hall.

***

Some philosopher once said, ‘ What you don't have you don't miss '.

What an idiot.

I guarantee he wasn't talking about sex. Just because my actual experience was limited, didn't mean I didn't feel sexual frustration, and the fact that the Assassins' Guild taught us so comprehensively about what we weren't allowed to experience didn't help. Some days the teaching felt more like taunting; here are all these things you can't touch, you can't do and can't have done to you.

Some of the other girls made ‘arrangements' among themselves, but that never appealed to me and so I was just left frustrated.

But right now, I would have paid money to be that frustrated. That sense of frustration was nothing compared to how I now felt; like one big nerve, raw to the touch; like a firework about to go off but unable to do so. And that was my physical self—regarding the humiliation I'd suffered, that was a whole other topic.

As to my physical unrest… of course, there were options; the Guild had very decently taught us to take care of ourselves but that wasn't what I needed right now. There was one thing I needed, one man who could provide it, and he was currently dancing with half the ladies of the court, smiling to himself about the state he'd left me in.

I stamped back to my room in a petulant fury and threw myself down on the bed. My whole body seemed to tremble with the pent-up need for release. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to go for a run, or a swim or go punch something. I wanted a cold bath (although the water would probably boil as soon as I got in), or just to sit quietly and read until this awful need passed through me.

Except none of that was what I wanted . Not even close.

On the bright side, I'd never felt more like killing Nicolo. At that moment when he denied me satisfaction and then turned his sights elsewhere, I could have killed him quite happily. Yes, Nicolo had been playing a game with me and he'd bested his opponent.

And I had only myself to blame.

You got too caught up, I thought. You didn't rely on your training, on your own sense of cold detachment. You let emotions sprout and grow and now you're suffering for having done so. This is all your fault, Charlotte.

I couldn't be sure how long I lay on my little bed, staring at the ceiling and berating myself for all my inadequacies. In the distance, I could hear the strains of music from the Great Hall as the festivities continued, the rhythm of the music seeming to match the one that pulsed inside me. Eventually the music faded, but the beat within me continued, insistent, unstoppable, desperate. It throbbed with my desire.

If the music had stopped, then the party had concluded and the courtiers would be heading for their beds (or for other people's).

Nicolo would be back in his room.

And you would have your chance to end this charade once and for all.

I jumped off the bed and practically ran out the door. It was undoubtedly a stupid idea, and certainly not the sort of decision I should be making when I was in this condition, my mind fizzing with desperate need. But I could feel the cold weight of my knife strapped to my thigh and I suddenly knew what I had to do—I had to take out the target and then I needed to get the hell out of Woodfall Gath. I needed to return to the Guild where I could lick my wounds in privacy and study all the ways I'd gone wrong.

The stairs echoed under my feet as I strode the familiar path towards the Prince's Tower.

There was no guarantee he would be alone.

In fact, knowing Nicolo, he wouldn't be. But that mattered as little as every other practical objection.

I was done waiting. It no longer felt as if I had a choice in the matter, in fact, it felt as if I were being drawn to Nicolo's room by some invisible force that wouldn't release me. I genuinely didn't know if I was really going to kill him, but I kept telling myself that was exactly what I was going to do.

The final flight of stairs that led to Nicolo's isolated room had never felt longer. My breathing was more like panting by the time I reached the top, but my breathing had been more like panting for most of the damn evening.

No guards…

That was unusual.

Even when he had company, Nicolo always had guards stationed outside his door, though none of them had the key that opened it. Was something wrong? Had he been attacked?

Or…

I hardly dared to hope as I knocked.

"Come in."

He didn't even ask who it was. Was he expecting someone?

"Charlotte…"

He was standing by the bed, looking straight at me with a face full of confidence and eyes full of lust. From the way he said my name, I knew he'd been expecting someone, and that someone was me. The guards were gone because mating your squire wasn't something that was supposed to happen.

As soon as I walked into the room and threw the door closed behind me, all of the anger, the pain and the humiliation from earlier burst within me until an incendiary started up, burning from the depths of my soul, the flames growing hotter and stronger the more I looked at him.

"Why did you come, Charlotte?" he asked, but by the smile on his face, he knew why I'd come. Or, actually, he thought he knew.

Fueled by the flames of my own incensed anger, I flew across the room. And when I reached Nicolo, his lips split into a broad and knowing grin. And that was when something inside me burst. Without even realizing what I was doing, I pulled my arm back and released my hand, slapping him hard against the face.

"That's for humiliating me!" I screamed at him.

The sound of the slap was almost deafening in the room and when he turned his head back to face me, his eyes were narrowed. But the anger within me was now a raging conflagration and though I knew I could be killed for raising a hand against him, I suddenly didn't care. I pulled my arm back and took another swing at him, this time intending to slam my fist into the other side of his face but his arm came up in an instant.

Before I knew what was happening, he had my arm in his vice-like grip and then he had my arm behind me as he thrust me backwards and into the wall. I yelped when it connected with the back of my head but the slight pain was nothing compared to the frenzy in his eyes.

"I hate you," I whispered on a cry as tears began to well up in my eyes and I furiously beat them back. I was more than sure I was now a dead woman walking but I still didn't care. I'd failed my duty, I'd screwed up beyond repentance and I didn't care.

I waited for him to speak, to say something, to hit me, to beat me, to rain curses down on me but he said nothing. He just stood there, staring at me.

Until he didn't.

Suddenly he was on me, his mouth on my mouth, his fingers in my hair, grabbing my face, holding my cheeks as his tongue invaded my mouth. And my hands sprung to life on their own, raking his back, pulling him closer, my tongue in his mouth, whimpers and moans already escaping my lips.

To feel those strong arms folded around me, holding me close, was a thrill, to taste his lips on mine was a delight, but perhaps what was best of all was how very natural it all felt. Hot, desperate, lust-fueled and achingly urgent, but also natural, as if this was just another night between two people who did this sort of thing all the time.

With muscular ease he swept me off my feet, throwing me to the bed and following on top of me in a way that managed to be both aggressive and gentle.

"Master…" I breathed.

"No," he insisted.

"Nicolo…"

"Not another word, Charlotte."

And his kiss consumed me. I could feel him against me, as ready as I was, and his hands were already reaching for buttons, clasps, ties and whatever else stood between him and my body. Swift to follow, I unbuckled his belt. Idly I wondered where his sword was—how close to the bed. But that didn't matter right now—now all that mattered was the two of us—was him inside me, in any and all ways possible.

The door swung open without preamble, interrupting us, and there was only one person who would dare enter the master's rooms in such a way.

"Ha!" Balduin exclaimed happily as Nicolo sprang off the bed and I struggled to put my disordered gown into something approaching decency. "I knew you were fucking that little rabbit. Don't know why you felt the need to lie about it all this time."

Was I cursed never to be alone with Nicolo? Was this the price I paid for teasing him? Or for plotting to kill him? The Great God certainly had it in for me for some reason.

"Your Highness?" Nicolo recovered his composure with impressive speed. His breeches were still on but that was it. I wasn't so lucky.

And Balduin was not so easily distracted. He walked further into the room, shutting the door behind him and stared at me all the while.

"What I can't understand is why you'd go with the rabbit when you had your pick of the court tonight. Lady Satine was climbing your leg like a monkey and that woman is an animal."

"Not everyone is attracted to monkeys." Nicolo tried to defuse the subject with humor but failed. Anyone could have seen the concern in his eyes and that concern troubled me because I didn't understand why it was there.

"And Lady Klaris bites like a terrier but fucks like a tiger," Balduin went on, smiling congenially at us both, as if we weren't both in various states of undress.

"I think I'm not as aroused by the animal kingdom as you are," suggested Nicolo.

"And, yet, you went with the rabbit." Balduin's eyes returned to me. Suddenly my gown didn't feel thick enough to shield me from his gaze, even though I'd managed to get it mostly back into place. "Must be something special about her besides her obvious beauty. Perhaps it is that enticing scent of hers."

I couldn't help smiling. However crudely Prince Balduin might phrase it, he was right; Nicolo had picked me over offers from the wealthy and sophisticated women of the court, who used these occasions to throw themselves at him for ‘no strings' nights of passion.

Balduin looked at his friend and I could see the nervousness in Nicolo's eyes. He saw something in this situation I didn't.

"Something special eh?" Balduin mused. "A rabbit on the outside, but what happens when you get that cotton-tail up in the air?" His eyes flicked to me then back to Nicolo. "I want to find out," he continued as he reached out and ran his fingers down my face.

"Balduin, I'm surprised you haven't tethered yourself to more than one lady this evening?" Nicolo said. "Weren't you telling me you fancied two women at the same time?"

"I did say that, didn't I?" Balduin answered, his gaze never leaving my face.

"You did."

"And now I find… I find I fancy just one woman." I swallowed hard. "This woman." Then Balduin turned to face his closest friend. "I will take her for the night, Nicolo, I hope you don't mind."

The shock of his casual words blanched the blood from my cheeks.

"Highness…" Nicolo stuttered, more ill-at-ease now than I'd ever seen him, all his confidence gone. "She's a squire. It's hardly done for…"

"Ladies, maids, whores and everything in between, that was the pledge we made when we were younger. Did we not?" Balduin interrupted on an intoxicated chuckle as he waved his hand through the air as if to say ‘what is the difference?'. "I'd say we've both lived up to that promise, eh Nicolo? Whatever the rabbit is, maid or squire, she is certainly a bit of novelty and I must admit, I have wanted to savor that body of hers for quite a while."

"But Highness…"

And Balduin's smile immediately fell off his face. "Are you denying me, Nicolo? Me? The prince?"

I hadn't previously seen the prince genuinely turn his authority on his friend, and seeing it now, it wasn't a pretty sight. What was worse, though, was the way in which Nicolo backed down. Even if he had to.

"Of course not, Highness."

"She's just a woman," Balduin shrugged.

"She is my squire," Nicolo corrected. "And she… she's a maid, Balduin."

Balduin looked at me then with renewed interest, his eyebrows reaching for the ceiling. "Is she? I admit, I'm surprised." Then he turned to face Nicolo. "And, yet, her being a maid changes nothing. If anything, I'm excited to know she's never known another man!"

"Balduin," Nicolo started but Balduin shook his head.

"I am not an unreasonable man, Nicolo," he started, that smile still in place. "So it is that we shall share her," Balduin finished with a shrug as if this were a commonplace conversation and he couldn't understand Nicolo's reservations.

"I would prefer… we didn't," Nicolo said and I could tell by his words and the expression on his face that this was the first time he'd ever denied his prince anything.

"And why is that?" Balduin frowned at him. "It's not as if we haven't shared a woman before. What makes her different?"

The words sounded as if he was joking, but his face was a challenge; don't forget who's the prince here .

"I worry that you knowing her intimately might perhaps… interfere with her duties as my squire," Nicolo answered. He was now grasping for straws.

Balduin threw his head back and laughed. "Then replace her with the next little minx who crosses your path."

As if it were so easy to find a female squire who knew how to fight.

"Your Highness," Nicolo started but Balduin stopped laughing and turned an angry expression on his friend.

"Nicolo, you forget your place."

Nicolo took a deep breath and then nodded as he expelled it and turned to face me. "Charlotte, you will go with the prince."

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to tell Nicolo to behave like a man and stand up to his so-called friend but his so-called friend was the prince and if Nicolo did stand up to him, who knew what might happen?

Not only that, but I was just a squire.

I saw the frustration in Nicolo's face as I left with the prince, but that was nothing to the fear, shock and horror I was feeling.