Free Rituals of Passion by Lacey Alexander Page B

the paste around Maven’s ankle,  then lifting her gaze. “Don’t look so sour—you’re honored  to have this special concoction.  It’s very expensive and only the  very wealthy can afford it. Until recently, only the royal used it, but I suspect a man as rich as your Dane will buy a supply of it for you as well. It’s certainly a luxury   I   have never known.”
    Dane—ugh! Why did everyone have to keep  reminding her of him? All day today, everywhere she’d gone, her sisters, her mother, even the servants, had been saying   Dane  this, Dane that —the man’s name seemed to be on everyone’s lips. And, well, she   knew   why, of course—tomorrow the ruffian would take her away to Rawley—but as the time for the Giving Ceremony grew near, it seemed  more and more like a long nightmare.  She only hoped she would wake from it soon.
    She let out a heavy sigh, uncertain, while her maid  began applying the thick  substance to her other leg, covering the whole area with a thin layer. “How does  it  work?”
    “In a few minutes, we will wipe it off with  a wet cloth and you shall be smooth as a
    baby’s bottom.”
    For Dane.   Her stomach wrenched.
    “Lift your arms,” Lavonia said when she’d finished covering Maven’s legs.
    Maven complied, watching as the maid smeared the goo over her armpits. “Here
    too?”
    “Here, too,” Lavonia replied. “And not only that,” she said, finishing the two small  areas and dipping her fingers back into the  paste, “but here as well.” With that, she swiped the blue cream between Maven’s legs, making her balk again. “Hold still,” she  said, the same as if she were fitting Maven for a dress and she’d squirmed.
    Maven pulled in her breath and tried not to  fidget as her maid wiped another swath  of blue paste over the top of her cunt, covering all the hair. She bit her lip, looking  down. “He’ll want my pussy smooth, too?”
    Lavonia lifted her gaze. “He’ll wish to look  at it, and this will give him a much
    clearer view.”
    Her chest tightened, although she couldn’t  quite determine if she was repulsed or
    aroused.
    Repulsed , she decided.   Definitely . This was not Donnell they were talking about, afterall. If it were, she suspected it would be   excitement   running through her  veins.  But when she thought of Dane of Rawley, it was all she could do not to grimace.
    A few minutes later, Lavonia instructed her  to step into a knee-deep wooden tub of water. Using a warm cloth, she began to wipe  the blue paste from Maven’s legs, rinsing the cloth in the shallow tub below.  She could see that her legs were indeed bare and, when she reached down, smooth to the touch.
    Lavonia continued removing the  paste—from  under Maven’s arms and finally from her cunt. When she walked to  the viewing glass and looked  down at her bare mound,

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Lacey Alexander

    she felt like a shorn sheep. “Ares , ” she murmured, stunned by the appearance of her  naked pussy and the sensations now swirling within it.
    “Lovely,” Lavonia said with a smile, approaching from behind to place her hands  on Maven’s shoulders. “Dane will be pleased. Now into the bathing tub with you, before the water cools.”
    Still feeling more naked than ever in her  life, she strode to the antique tub and stepped carefully in, sinking into the warm  water that steamed with the scent of mint leaves, which Lavonia  had dropped in the bottom before filling.
    She waited as Lavonia unbound her long, heavy braid, leaning her hair back in thewater to wet it, and tried to relax as her maid began to wash her tresses.
    “Now,” Lavonia said, her voice uncharacteristically soft, “tell me  what questions you have about the things you’ve learned these past two nights.”
    Maven barely knew where to begin, but she started by inquiring about the strangewhite fluid that had shot from  the boys’  cocks. “You said you’d tell me