Burning for Love by Evangeline Anderson
22
“Is there something wrong with your Chastity Wire, girl? Why is it not hissing and crackling as it usually does?” Lady Mildew demanded, as she pointed the remote at the silver wire around Rissa’s waist.
Rissa bit her lip. Though James had been able to re-lock the Chastity Wire around her waist for appearances sake, he had been unable to make it work again. In his haste to get it off her earlier, his robot hand had shorted it out completely and now it was little more than a bit of jewelry with no functional value.
But she couldn’t let Lady Mildew know that.
“It is hissing and crackling, Lady Mildew,” she said quickly. She winced and jerked her hips, as she always did when the wire shocked her. “Ow! Maybe you simply cannot hear it because you are going deaf,” she suggested sweetly.
“I’m not going deaf, girl!” Lady Mildew snapped. “I know what I hear and what I don’t hear!”
“Lady Mildew, could you please hurry and take the wire off?” James interrupted. “I fear that the Princess is overheating and you would not wish to be close to her if she suddenly combusted.”
Lady Mildew’s eyes widened and she gave a brief, jerking nod of her head.
“All right then—true enough,” she muttered. She pointed the remote at the Chastity Wire again and it unlocked.
Rissa shed the wire gratefully and quickly climbed into the tub filled with icy water. She might have been pretending about the Chastity Wire still being functional, but she was deadly serious about needing to get cooled down. James hadn’t been lying when he’d said she was overheating.
It was having to sit beside that awful Duke Grabbington at dinner and then dance with him all night, she thought resentfully, as she settled into the icy water and watched the steam rise from her heated skin. Now that she was more aware of the link her emotions had to her Heat Cycle, she knew where to place the blame for her current rise in temperature.
I shouldn’t have let him get to me, she thought, as James scrubbed her all over with the long-handled brush. I should not have allowed him to make me so upset that my Cycle went into ‘overdrive,’ as James puts it.
Yet, the Duke and his nasty comments had been almost impossible to ignore. The whole night through, Rissa had been speaking as little as possible to him. But her near-silent treatment seemed only to encourage the disgusting Duke in his disparaging and offensive remarks.
“How I shall enjoy slaking your Heat, my dear,” he’d said to Rissa as they danced while he—holding her much too tightly—breathed in her face with his disgusting Port and wet cigarillos reek. “I shall strip you naked and do whatever I like to your lovely little body!”
“You are mistaken, Sir,” Rissa had replied coldly. “Such disgusting things as you describe will never happen. I will never take you for my husband.”
“But I shall take you for my wife,” the Duke had declared. “Why, my dear Princess—you appear to be overheating,” he had added, doubtless taking in her flushed cheeks and panting breath. “How long before your Heat Cycle overcomes you and you come begging to my door?”
Indeed, she had been overheating, Rissa acknowledged ruefully. For no matter how she tried to let his nasty remarks roll of her back, she couldn’t seem to ignore him completely. The verbal picture he painted of their supposed upcoming marriage was so very upsetting, she could feel her emotions and her heat rising at the same time.
She had looked desperately for James as the Duke described how he would take the upper hand in their marriage, forcing her to wait until she was nearly burned to death and begging him on her knees before he helped to slake her heat.
“I shall hold the upper hand in our marriage, dear Princess,” he had been saying confidently, his mustaches twitching like eager tails at either corner of his mouth. “You might think to rule the planet, but I shall rule you—all by virtue of that troublesome Heat Cycle of yours!”
James had been standing on the side of the dance floor, glaring at the Duke and watching carefully for any lapses in decorum. But though Duke Grabbington held her too tightly and whispered dirty, disgusting things in her ear, he did not actually take any liberties that would allow the big Kindred to come charging in to rescue her. So there was nothing Rissa could do but keep dancing, even as she felt herself getting more and more upset and overheated.
He will never rule me—never own me like he thinks he will, she told herself angrily, as she submerged her soapy limbs in the water as James instructed. How dare he think he can say such horrid things to me and get away with it?
And how could she bear another whole month of such nastiness? Not to mention, how would she keep from overheating?
“Princess, I can tell you’re still upset about tonight but you must calm down in order to cool down,” James murmured in her ear, as he continued to scrub her with the long-handled brush.
“What’s that you’re saying?” Lady Mildew demanded, glaring at them both. “Mind you scrub betwixt her legs, now, Sir Robot,” she continued, glaring at James. “It is the dirtiest part of her and must be punished!”
“I would never presume to punish the Princess—and I wouldn’t think you would either, Lady Mildew,” James growled. “However, in the interest of cleanliness…” He looked at Rissa. “Your Highness, would you please spread your legs so that I can scrub you properly?”
Rissa bit her lip. She couldn’t help remembering the way Lady Mildew had scrubbed her so hard with the metal-tipped bristles of the other brush. Though she had only scrubbed the outside of Rissa’s mound, the area was still sensitive and hurt for hours afterwards.
But James seemed to understand what was bothering her. His blue eyes went soft and he murmured,
“Please don’t worry, Princess—you know I’ll be gentle. I would never hurt you.”
There was truth in his words that Rissa felt in her bones. Shyly, she ducked her head and murmured,
“All right, Sir James.”
Then she parted her thighs for him, just as he had asked.
True to his word, James used the soft-bristled brush very lightly on the top of her mound and her outer lips. Instead of the harsh scrubbing she was used to, Rissa felt a gentle tickling that was somehow…intriguing. She had never felt anything but pain from her forbidden area—both in the form of the sharp shocks the Chastity wire delivered and the abrasive rubbing of the metal tipped bristles against her sensitive flesh. So this was a new sensation indeed.
“Is this all right?” James murmured, looking into her eyes as he continued to use the long-handled scrub brush very lightly between her legs. “I’m not hurting you, am I, my Lady?”
“N-no.” For some reason, Rissa’s voice sounded breathless in her own ears as they locked gazes and he continued to wash her. “I…you are not hurting me, Sir James.”
“Good,” he growled softly. “Because I would never want to injure such a sensitive area.”
“No, no, no!” Lady Mildew exclaimed, breaking the moment that had somehow grown between them. “That is not the way to scrub that dirty girl at all! She must be punished, I tell you! She must be scrubbed within an inch of her life! Betwixt her legs is the dirtiest, filthiest part of her!”
“I do not agree with you, Lady Mildew,” James said coldly. “And I believe this bath time is over, since the Princess is clean and her heat has been cooled.”
Lady Mildew was still angry and spluttering as he got Rissa out of the tub and dried her off thoroughly with a large, fluffy towel. But since James continued to ignore her old chaperone, Rissa was determined to do the same.
“Have the goodness to reattach my Chastity wire, please, Lady Mildew,” she said coolly, stepped in front of her and holding open her towel. “I am most fatigued from tonight’s ball and I would like to get some sleep.”
The sour look on the other woman’s face would have curdled fresh milk, but she finally snapped the silver wire back in place and pointed the remote at it to turn it back on. Which of course, it failed to do since the device seemed to be permanently broken.
“Oh! Ouch!” Rissa gasped, pretending that the wire was shocking her. “I must still be damp from the bath—that’s hurts!”
A look of satisfaction came over Lady Mildew’s face.
“Serves you right, you dirty girl!” she snapped. “Now get to bed. And mind you don’t reach between your legs, as I’m sure you’ve a mind to!”
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to!” Rissa protested, forgetting for a moment that the Chastity Wire no longer prevented her. “Why do you always think the worst of me, Lady Mildew?” she demanded.
“Because you are the worst, dirtiest, filthiest girl I ever encountered in my whole long life!” her old chaperone snarled. “Now, I must go. Get to bed and try to keep your hands where they belong.”
Then she stumped out of Rissa’s rooms, leaving her feeling almost as bad as she had after dancing with the Duke.
