Free Parlor Games by Leda Swann

cut her off. “I know. You won’t fuck me on the sofa in the corner. Believe it or not, I wasn’t going to ask you.”
    A wave of what almost felt like disappointment swept over her. “What were you going to ask for?”
    “Your company and your conversation. Is that too much to expect?”
    “No.”
    “Good. Then stop scowling and try to look as if you are enjoying yourself.”
    If Mrs. Erskine had not been watching her suspiciously, she would have stamped her foot. “I am not scowling.”
    “Far be it from me to contradict a lady. You must simply have a particular way of smiling that I mistook for a scowl.” He dragged her to the closest sofa and pulled her down next to him. “Come sit down on my lap and whisper sweet nothings in my ear. I guarantee that will wipe the scowl off your face.”
    Though she would rather have bitten him, she had little choice but to obey.
    To her surprise, the evening passed quickly in Tom’s company. Although he kept her anchored on his lap, he did not press her to get more intimate with him than that. Content to sit and talk with each other, they passed the evening in remarkably good cheer, paying little attention to the rest of the room. Though Sarah could not help but notice that the games of blindman’s buff got increasingly rowdy and debauched as the evening wore on, Tom’s attention remained on her alone and their corner remained quiet.
    The salon had all but emptied when Tom suddenly whispered an invitation in her ear. “Walk with me.”
    Sarah looked up at him in astonishment. It was well after midnight, and the streets would be as black as ink. “What did you say?”
    “Walk with me,” he repeated.
    “Surely you do not want to go for a walk at this hour of the night?” The streets of London, even lit up as they were with gas lamps, were no place for a midnight stroll. There were too many ruffians abroad at that hour, and too many dark alleys where danger lurked. Besides, she was far too warm and comfortable sitting on his lap to want to move.
    As if he could read her mind, he hugged her tighter to his chest. “Not now, you goose. Walk with me tomorrow to the park.”
    She did not know quite what to read into his demand. While working at the milliner’s, she had been asked many a time by the butcher’s boy in the next street to take a walk with him in the park. The leer with which he’d asked had left her in no doubt as to his intentions. She had not liked his loud voice and his casual cruelty to the young apprentices in the street, whom he lorded over as if he were a king, and had always refused him.
    Did Tom mean to court her? He had been so abrupt and unloverlike in his demand that she could not credit it. “Why do you want to walk with me? Do you have something you wish to talk about?”
    His hands were wandering across her bodice, but for once she did not slap them away. There was something so comforting about being held like this.
    His hands brushed her breasts with tantalizing gentleness. “I don’t particularly. I’d far rather that you took me to your bed.”
    “Will you stop asking me that,” she said with some irritation, knowing how desperately close she was to giving in to him. Just the feel of his arms around her as she sat on his lap and the touch of his hand on her breast were enough to make her nipples harden to an uncomfortable tightness and her pussy to weep anew.
    After all the games they had played and watched this evening, she was desperate to take him upstairs to her bedroom, to let him undress her and to welcome his thrusting cock into her burning pussy, but she would not do so. Taking him into her bed would be as good as a confession that she was no better than a whore. However much she desired him, however much she melted at his touch, she would not humble herself so far. “You know I will not agree.”
    A great sigh escaped him. “I know. Which is why I have hit on the notion of walking with you instead. I am at the sorry stage