Chance of a Lifetime Read online

  Chance of a Lifetime

  Portia da Costa

  Contents

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  Rain. Perpetual rain. I’m certainly not going to miss the British weather. I’ll miss a lot of other things, but not this, not this.

  I stare out of the window, down the gravel drive and out across the park of Blaystock Manor. I’m here filling in with some temp work, while I wait to take up my dream job, my chance of a lifetime working in the Caribbean at a luxury resort as a junior manager. This gig is just cleaning and helping with renovations, donkey work really, but it’s all extra money to pay for my new tropical wardrobe.

  Actually, it’s a free day today. The marquis is pretty good about that. We get plenty of time off, plenty of breaks and other perks, and despite the fact he’s strapped for cash and putting everything into this project, we’re pretty well paid for our labors. Everyone else has gone off in a minibus to visit a local monastery where they brew apple brandy and make luxury biscuits and stuff, but me, I’ve got my own diversions here.

  I’m alone in the house. Even the marquis drove off a short while ago in his decrepit gray Jag. And I’m free to indulge my wicked secret vice.

  I discovered this little sitting room a couple days ago, when I was a bit lost and searching for the Blue Salon, where I was supposed to be polishing the floor. I stumbled in here and found a room that was homely and pretty lived in, and sort of cozy. And, being irredeemably nosy, when I saw an old VCR and a bunch of tapes, I had to investigate.

  Boy oh boy oh boy! What a shock I got.

  And now, while the house is empty, I slip another tape into the machine and settle down in a battered old leather armchair to watch it.

  It’s a home movie. Filmed, I think, in this very room. And it stars my latest crush, the marquis himself, and a woman who must have been his girlfriend at the time. Obviously it was taped many years ago, because His Lordship had short hair then, and now it’s long, down to his shoulders.

  Here he is, possibly sitting in this very chair. His knees are set wide apart and his girlfriend is facedown across them.

  He’s spanking her.

  He’s really laying it on with his long, powerful hand, and she’s squirming and patently loving it!

  And I’m loving it too, and I don’t really know why. Okay, I knew people played spanking games for sexual kicks, and I’d sort of hinted to various boyfriends that I’d like to try it. But it’s never happened and I’ve never really worried about that.

  But now. Now I’ve seen it. I bloody well want it!

  I’m so turned on now I can barely see straight. And I certainly can’t stay still in my chair. I’m sweating and my skin feels like it’s already been spanked, all over. And between my legs, I’m drenched, my panties sopping with intense, almost inexplicable arousal. My sex is aching, tight and hungry, as if I want to be fucked right now, but at the same time have my bottom thrashed, just like the woman in the video.

  The marquis really seems to be enjoying her pleasure, even though his cool, handsome face is exquisitely impassive. It’s an old, well-worn tape, but I can still see the mask of stern, beautiful composure that he affects…and the wicked dark twinkle in his eyes.

  It’s no good, I’ve got to play with myself. I can’t help it and I can’t bear it if I don’t. My sex is so heavy and so tense, I’ve just got to do it.

  As the woman on the screen writhes and wriggles and shrieks as His Lordship’s hand comes down, I unzip my jeans and shuffle them down to my knees, dragging my soggy panties with them. There’s something wickedly lewd about sitting here with my clothes at half-mast like this, and the forbidden exposure only excites me more and makes my need to touch my body ever more urgent.

  “Oh God…” I murmur vaguely as I slip my fingers between my legs and find my clit. It’s swollen and ready for my touch like a throbbing button. I flick it lightly and my vagina flutters dangerously. On the screen, the spanked girl tries to touch her own sex, wriggling her hand beneath her belly as she squirms and cries, but the marquis pauses mid-spank and gently remonstrates with her.

  “Come, come, Sylvia, you know you mustn’t do that. No pleasure until you’ve been a good girl and taken your punishment.”

  His voice is soft, even, but shot through with sweet steel and authority. It pushes me closer to coming just as powerfully as the spanking show does. I suddenly wish I could get to know him better, and make this all real.

  “Oh, my lord…” I whisper this time, closing my eyes and turning on an inner video. This time it’s me across those strong thighs. Me who’s writhing and moaning, with my bottom flaming.

  Oh, the picture is so clear. And it’s the marquis of today who’s doing the business, not the one in the video.

  He’s wearing his usual outfit of black jeans and black shirt, and his beautiful hair his loose on his shoulders like sheets of silk. There’s a sly, slight smile on his pale, chiseled face, and his long, cultured hand comes down with metronomic regularity.

  I’m rubbing myself hard now, beating at my clit, but not stroking the very apex of it. I daren’t; I’m so excited and I don’t want to come yet. In my fantasy, he allows me to touch myself while he’s smacking me.

  I writhe and wriggle, both fighting the pleasure and savoring its gathering at the same time. I throw my thighs wide, rubbing my bottom against the seat of the creaky old armchair. The sensation of the smooth surface against my skin is even more pervy. I press down harder, squashing my anus against the leather. I imagine him spanking me there, and even though I’ve no idea what it would really feel like, I groan, wanting it more and more and more.

  “Oh my lord…do it…do it…” I burble, eyes tightly closed and half out of my mind with desire and longing.

  “Actually, my dear, I think you’re ‘doing it’ quite well enough on your own. Do continue.”

  What?

  It’s like I’m falling, dropping through reality into a parallel universe. I know what’s happened but somehow I can’t stop rubbing myself.

  My eyes fly open though, and here he is.

  The marquis.

  Somehow he’s walked into the room without me realizing it, moving softly on the rubber soles of his black running shoes.

  In a few split seconds, I take in his glorious appearance.

  So tall, so male, so mysterious. Long dark hair, pale smiling face, long fit body. Dressed in his customary black shirt and jeans, his elegant hands flexing as if preparing to copy the actions of his image on the screen.

  I snatch my hand from my crotch and make as if to struggle back into my jeans. My face is scarlet, puce, flaming…. I’m almost peeing myself.

  “No, please…continue.”

  His voice is low and quiet, almost humming with amusement and intense interest. It’s impossible to disobey him. Despite the fact that I think the aristocracy is an outdated nonsense, he’s nobility to his fingertips and I’m just a pleb, bound to obey.

  Unable to tear my eyes away from him, I watch as he settles his long frame down into the other chair, across from mine. He gives me a little nod, making his black hair sway, and then turns his attention to the images on the screen.

  So do I, but with reluctance.

  But I do as he wishes and begin to stroke my clit again.

  Oh God, the woman on the screen is really protesting now. Oh God, in my mind, that woman is me, and I’m laid across the marquis’s magnificent thighs with my bottom all pink and sizzling and my crotch wetting his jeans with seeping arousal.

  I imagine the blows I’ve never experienced, and just the dream of them makes my clit flutter wildly and my vagina clench and pulse. I seem to see the carpet as I writhe and wiggle and moan, and at the same time his beautiful face, rathe
r grave, but secretly smiling.

  As his eyes twinkle, in my imagination, I come.

  It’s a hard, wrenching orgasm. Shocking and intense. I’ve never come like that before in my life. It goes on and on, so extreme it’s almost pain, and afterward I feel tears fill my eyes.

  Talk about le petit mort and post-coital tristesse. I’ve got tristesse by the bucketful, but without any coitus.

  My face as crimson as the buttocks of the spanked woman in the video, I drag my panties and jeans back into place and lie gasping in the chair. I scrabble for a tissue. I’m going to cry properly now, not just a few teardrops, and I know I should just run from the room, but somehow I just can’t seem to move.

  Something soft and folded is put gently into my hand, and as I steal a glance at it, I discover it’s the marquis’s immaculately laundered handkerchief. Still gulping and sniffing, I rub my face with it, breathing in the faint, mouthwatering fragrance of his cologne.

  Shit, I fancy this man something rotten, and I’ve been fantasizing about him fancying me back, and falling for me, and now this has happened. I’m so embarrassed, I wish I could burrow into the leather upholstery and disappear out of sight.

  A strong arm settles around my shoulders, and the great chair creaks as he sits down on the arm beside me.

  “Hey, there’s no harm done,” the marquis says softly. “Now we both know each other’s dirty little secrets.” He squeezes my shoulders. “I get off spanking girls’ bottoms and having them wriggling on my lap. And you get off watching videos of it and playing with yourself.” He pauses, and I sense him smiling that slow, wicked smile again. “And quite beautifully, I must admit. Quite exquisitely….”

  I beg your pardon?

  Hell, I must have looked awful. Crude. Ungainly. Like a complete slapper.

  I try to wriggle free, but he holds me. He even puts up a hand to gently stroke my hair. I still can’t look at him, even though part of me really wants to.

  “I’m so embarrassed. I’m so sorry. I had no business coming in here and prying into your private things.”

  One long finger strokes down the side of my face, slips under my chin and gently lifts it. Nervously, I open my eyes and look into his. They’re large and dark and brown and merry, and I feel as if I’m drowning, but suddenly that’s a good thing.

  All the embarrassment and mortification disappears, just as if it were the rain puddles outside evaporating in the sun. Indeed, beyond the window, the sky outside is brightening.

  Suddenly I see mischief and sex and a sense of adventure in those fabulous eyes, and I feel turned on again, and somehow scared, but not in a way that has anything to do with an awkward situation with my employer. It’s a new feeling, and it’s erotic, but so much more.

  “Indeed you didn’t. That was rather naughty of you.” His face is perfectly impassive, almost stern, but those eyes, oh those eyes—they’re mad with dangerous fun. “Do you think we should do something about that?”

  I feel as if I’m about to cross a line. Jump off a cliff. Ford some peculiar kind of Rubicon. This is the chance of a lifetime, and I’m a perfect novice in the world portrayed in his video, but I understand him completely without any further hint or education.

  “Um…yes, my lord.”

  Should I stand? Then kneel? Or curtsy or something? He’s still sitting on the arm of the chair, a huge masculine presence because he’s tall and broad-shouldered. Everything a man and a master should be.

  I’m just about to stand, and I feel him just about to reach for me, when suddenly and shockingly his mobile rings, and he lets out a lurid curse.

  “Ack, I must take this. Money stuff,” he growls, and nods to me to mute the television as he flips open his phone.

  I make as if to leave, but he catches me by the arm and makes me stand in front of him. With almost serpentine grace, he slides into the armchair and pulls me across his lap. Then, as he has a terse conversation that I don’t think he’s enjoying much, he explores the shape of my bottom through my jeans.

  He doesn’t slap or smack or hit. He just cruises his fingertips over the denim-clad surface, assessing my contours and the resilience of my flesh.

  Slowly, slowly, as he gets slightly cross with someone on the other end of the line, he examines my cheeks, my thighs and then, without warning, squeezes my crotch. I let out a little yelp, and that’s when he does hit!

  It’s just the softest warning tap…but it’s electrifying. I almost come on the spot and I have to bite down on my lip to stifle my groans.

  I start to wriggle and he cups my sex harder, from behind, pressing with his fingers. Pleasure flares again as my jeans seam rubs my aching clit.

  I’m biting the upholstery, squirming and kicking my legs and grabbing at his legs and his muscular thighs through his jeans. He rides my unruliness, his hand firm between my legs as he owns my sex like the lord and master he truly is.

  Eventually his call is over, and I’m a wrung-out rag. He flings aside his phone and turns me over, then kisses me.

  I expect domineering hunger and passion, but it’s soft, light and sweet, almost a zephyr.

  He wants me. He’s hard, I can feel it beneath my bottom. But as if his own erection means nothing to him, he sets me on my feet then stands up beside me.

  “Much as it pains me to leave so much undone and unsaid at this moment, Rose, I have to go.” His eyes are dark. Is it lust? Regret? Something more complex? “I need to go to London, and I’m going to have to get a bloody taxi because I’ve just left my car at the garage.” He pauses, then leans down to kiss me on the lips again, a little harder this time. “But when I get back, we’ll reconvene. If that’s agreeable?” He tilts his head to one side as he looks down on me, and his exquisite hair slides sideways like silk.

  I nod and mutter something incomprehensible that doesn’t make sense even to me, and then he pats me on the bottom again and strides away across the room.

  At the door, he gives me a wink, his dark eyes twinkling with mischief.

  “Enjoy the rest of the video,” he says, then suddenly he’s gone.

  But I don’t watch it. After he’s gone, I just shoot off to my room, tucked up in the eyrie of the old servants’ quarters, feeling strange and weird and disoriented, as if I’ve been in a really vivid dream, and I’ve just woken up. Then I sort of snivel a bit, not sure of my emotions.

  The marquis is our boss, and up until now, he’s been a sort of admire/adore from afar type man. I’m not into all this hero worship or celebs and aristos for the sake of it, but he’s got genuine charisma and blue-blood charm. He’s also got some weird history. Apparently in the army at some time, then a dropout, and now getting his act together and sorting out the manor on behalf of his father, the duke. The whole family is strapped for cash, but Blaystock Manor is just the right size for a deluxe, high-end hotel or conference center, and the marquis has thrown just about every penny he possesses, and some he doesn’t, into restoring it and bringing it up to standard.

  And somewhere along the line in this convoluted story of his, he was married, but she died and now he’s alone. No doubt his dad is pressuring him for progeny, to continue the family line, but so far it seems he’s resisted, and there’s no marchioness.

  Some very silly thoughts drift into my mind as I get ready for bed and I push them smartly back out again. I’ve got my dream job waiting for me in the Caribbean. I won’t be here all that long.

  Although I would love to see what the manor looks like when it’s finished.

  I suppose all this pondering is to avoid thinking about the fact that the marquis has seen me masturbate, and almost, but not quite, spanked me.

  Do I really want to be spanked, though?

  In the video, he was doing it for real, and that woman—whoever she was, surely not his wife—was squealing and crying out. So obviously it hurt like hell. Lying in bed later, I tug down my pajama bottom and give myself a slap on the thigh. It’s a pretty halfhearted effort but it makes me squaw
k and rub the place to take the sting away.

  Immediately though, I’m drifting into fantasy.

  In my mind I’m back in the little sitting room, and this time the phone stays silent. And the marquis bares my bottom and starts to caress, caress, caress it, then lands a blow.

  I slap myself again, trying to recreate the feeling. It bloody hurts, but I do it again, moaning, “My lord…”

  I slap and slap and moan and moan, and suddenly I just have to play with my clitoris. I’m so turned on imagining him spanking me that my wet sex aches.

  Within a few seconds I come, softly crying his name, seeing his face.

  The next day, I worry. What’s going to happen? Is anything going to happen? Or has the marquis quite sensibly decided to dismiss our stolen interlude as an aberration. Something of no consequence. It must be bred in his blue English blood to dally with underlings for his pleasure without a second thought.

  I certainly don’t see him for the next couple of days, and the cleaning, dusting and polishing goes on without incident. I work cheerfully with the rest of the team, as if nothing has happened.

  But then, after a long day, when the others are all off to the pub, I slip back to my room to change, and find a little note upon my mat.

  I’m sorry we were so rudely interrupted, it says in a fine, almost copperplate handwriting. Would you care to join me in the small sitting room, at seven o’clock this evening? I feel that there’s much we could explore there in the furtherance of your education and the pursuit of mutual pleasure.

  It’s finished off with a single word.

  Christian.

  Christian? Who’s “Christian”?

  Then it dawns on me. Duh! The marquis is just like a normal person in that at least.

  He has a first name.

  I wonder if he’ll want me to call him “Christian”? Somehow it doesn’t seem right, or respectful. Especially in view of what we’re almost certain to be doing. It’ll definitely be “My lord” or “Your lordship,” or just sobs and moans of pain and pleasure in equal amounts.