‘Fuck the Dark Prince and fuck you, peasant. How dare you kiss me!’
His hand smacks down on my hip and he yanks me around on to my side. ‘It seemed the best way to shut you up,’ he hisses into my ear. ‘Besides –’ he pulls back, makes sure he has my full attention ‘– I have licence to do more than that.’
A warning flare shoots from solar plexus to groin.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Lie back down, Princess. I’m going to clean you up. And don’t argue – I’ll gag you if you swear at me again. Consider your rank and station, for heaven’s sake.’
I nearly laugh out loud at his tone of schoolmasterly disappointment. He’s got so good at this lately, not that he was ever bad.
‘That’s exactly what I am doing,’ I grumble, watching him retrieve a bottle of soapy water from a backpack and pour it into a mess tin. ‘That’s why I object to your … familiarity.’
‘The familiarity’s only going to get more … familiar,’ he warns me. He’s looking in the backpack again. This time he draws out an odd thing, a small round sponge attached to the end of a wooden handle. ‘I’m instructed to clean you up.’
‘What?’ I try to lift my spine, but the best I can manage is a tilt of the neck.
He dips the sponge in the soapy water. I hope to goodness it’s warm.
‘Don’t say you don’t need it,’ he says teasingly. ‘You’re tattered and torn to pieces and covered in bits of leaf and thorn. Here.’
My dress is low-cut and he begins by dabbing the sponge over my collarbone then along the square-necked edges of my décolletage. The water is not completely cold, but I shiver all the same as the suds slide along my skin, sinking in while the tiny bubbles burst.
‘Forgive me, Princess,’ he says gruffly, and then he unlaces my bodice so that the sponge can glide underneath the material, wetting my breasts, circling my nipples until they are hard, soaked little bullets dimpling the damp cloth.
‘Surely I’m not dirty there,’ I protest, but it’s a gasp, almost a yelp, and I can see my chest rise and fall in front of me, faster and faster with each breath.
His voice is almost a whisper. ‘Oh yes you are.’ He sucks air through gritted teeth. A steam cloud of lust takes its form in the space between us.
He removes the sponge from my bodice and runs a palm over the peaked mounds, his face down low, his breath warming the goose-pimpled flesh.
‘Mmm,’ he says. ‘Now spread your legs for me, Princess. I’m going to lift your skirts.’
‘Oh,’ I whimper, the resistance draining fast. ‘Why? Why must you …?’ But I spread them and raise my knees as well.
‘Because the Dark Prince wants you clean there, runaway Princess. Among other things.’
He pushes up the layers of skirts until they lie heavy on my stomach. Underneath, no knickers. Apparently they were a Victorian innovation. I’m not sure what time period we’re in, but it’s a draughty one.
I watch with thrilled dread as my captor loads his sponge with soapy water once more then carries it, dripping on to my breasts and stomach, down to my split thighs, drenching them so that rivers of liquid run down to my open sex.
Not that it needs to be any wetter.
‘Oh fuck,’ I say, having lost control of my voluntary reactions at the first brush of sponge on clit.
‘Nice and clean,’ he croons, sweeping it between my pussy lips and over my pulsing vagina, letting soapy suds impart their mild sting to the crack of my arse. He increases the pressure when the sponge returns to my clitoris, pushing it against the swollen bead, rotating it very slowly until I arch my back and voice an inarticulate plea.
Before I can come, he removes it. I feel its loss, my entire lower body seeming to collapse in on itself in an effort to suck it back.
The tips of his fingers flutter and waft around my cunt.
Use them.
‘The King suspects,’ he whispers, never quite letting them close enough to touch while I moan and strain towards them, ‘you may have conspired with a lover. He has asked me to gain proof of your virginity.’
‘Oh God.’ My hips tremble.
‘Lie very still, Princess. Don’t move a muscle.’
One finger sheaths itself and my cunt seems to sigh with relief.
‘Mmm,’ he says, adding another, then another, until I am stretched and feeling the invasion. His thumb lands on my clit, lightly, tenderly, but enough to bring every nerve ending to rapt attention.
‘Hmm, still intact,’ he lies. ‘I’ve done the King’s bidding. Shall we prepare for the journey back to the palace?’
‘Oh.’ I want to cry with the pitch of my need. He is holding me on that edge, skimming it so expertly, keeping me in piteous thrall. ‘No. Please.’
‘No? Wilful spoilt princess is lying on her back with her legs spread and a peasant’s fingers up inside her and she doesn’t want him to stop? Is that right?’
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘She wants him to make her come?’
‘God, yes.’
‘Then she’d better tell him so, because humble serfs need royal permission to finger the royal cunt, don’t they? Not to mention fiddling with the royal clit.’
‘Jesus, Lloyd …’
‘Nuh uh.’ His fingers slide halfway out and I clamp my thighs, trying to catch them. He smacks the accessible part of my bum and tuts at me. ‘None of that, missy. We’re finishing this in character. Come on. Do as you’re told.’
‘Please, peasant, make me come. Please, please, now, please.’
He presses down; the fingers reinsert themselves.
I come, thrashing and snarling, twisting into his hand.
‘How about that?’ He sounds so smug I’d slap him if I weren’t both bound and sapped by the force of my orgasm. ‘Princesses come just the same as wenches. You’re just a wench underneath it all, aren’t you?’
‘Insolent,’ I pant, but I can’t finish the thought. I don’t have it in me.
‘That’s me.’ He stretches himself out at my side, watching me so hard that I have to turn my face away. ‘Oh, are you shy now? Now you’ve begged me to finger you. Bit late for that.’ He chuckles. ‘What a pisser about the Dark Prince and his insistence on you being virgo intacta. I’d love to show you how a man can make you feel.’ His fingers are gentle on my waist, running up and down its slopes until I can’t turn my back on him any more.
My eyes meet his.
‘What would the Dark Prince do if I were no longer a virgin?’
My captor doesn’t understand me at first, frowning in vague bemusement.
‘I mean,’ I expand, ‘would he still want me for his bride?’
‘He would shame you before the populace and send you home.’
‘Send me home. And the marriage would be dissolved?’
‘Most certainly it would. And your father would vow to kill the man who had touched you first. So if you’re thinking …’
‘I would lie. Tell some story of a band of brigands in the forest.’
‘Who would be sought. Then some innocent man would be arrested and killed. Your father wouldn’t rest until he had somebody to hold accountable.’