The Revolutionary Mistress. Leia Rice
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Dirt covered faces and hands, holes spotted across their shirts and pants. Some looked as if they had not eaten in days, which started to become common across the plebeian population. Helene pulled Mariette through the throng of testosterone and angst until they broke through the barrier and reached the clearing where a raised podium stood.
Mariette didn’t see Sebastian, but she knew he lurked somewhere. Somehow, he had risen up as a leader of the hotel revolutionaries, a celebrity amongst failure. “I should have stayed in my bath.”
Helene continued to hold Mariette’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “There’s no turning back now, Mariette. He has his eyes set on you, and everyone here is well aware of it.”
Self-consciously, Mariette looked over her shoulder. Dozens of sparkling, shadowed gazes fell on her, and immediately she turned back to face the front, uncomfortable. “Surely they are not. I do not belong to anyone.”
A man approached the podium and wrapped his gritty fingers around its edges. Looking over the group, he called them to order, voice rising above the others. “Attention, s’il vous plaît.”
Mariette’s conversation with Helene quieted, as did the rest of the room. She watched the man as he started what was going to be a long-winded speech about taking France back. The same speech as last month’s, just in different words. As the crowd(and Helene) began to cheer, Mariette felt a tug on her sleeve, which turned into a yank. She stumbled toward a shadowed side of the basement that led to the coal room.
“My beautiful revolutionary.” The husky voice brushed against her neck, heavy and thick.
“Sebastian.” Mariette turned to face him, her eyes level with the dark curls that peeked out the top of his shirt. She tipped her head back, looking up past his square jaw and slightly pointed nose to those unsettling, black eyes.
He wrapped a hand around her waist and jerked her toward him. Already, his cock grew hard and pushed against the thin fabric of her dress, brushing against her thigh. “Where have you been, mon amie? I expected to see you between meetings.”
Uncomfortable, Mariette checked around to see if anyone paid any attention to them, but all eyes were directed at the podium, and the crowd closed in tightly, packing the two of them closer together. “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy?” He dragged her dress up, bunching it slowly around her hips, walking his fingers down until the tops of her legs were exposed. “Too busy for me? I find that hard to believe.” When he said “hard,” he jutted his waist forward, accentuating the obvious fact that his prick pushed against the front of his trousers.
“Sebastian…”
He leaned forward, brushing his lips just under her earlobe. “I’ve missed you. And you do remember our agreement?”
As much as she grew mad at herself, she could feel her clit pulsating between her legs. When Sebastian’s thumb slid around the curve of her thigh and into the slick folds of her cunt, she gasped for breath. “Yes, I remember.”
A finger slid into her, thumb pressed against her swollen button. Mariette sucked in another breath and stepped closer to him. Without missing a beat, Sebastian pulled his hand away, lifting her leg slightly. With his other hand, he freed his cock from his breeches, and with some practiced manipulation, pushed himself into her.
Still, no one paid attention to them, half protected by the shadows and the general tendency to be blind and deaf to anything that didn’t have to do with the revolution. Sebastian did not try to make it something pretty. He grunted a few times, thrusting his hips forward, forward, forward, filling her completely.
Too quickly, Mariette whimpered a cry, pleasure boiling over to a shattering, delicious orgasm. Her pussy contracted around his hard member, and almost immediately after she came, Sebastian grunted one last time, shooting his seed into her.
“I would like to now introduce our champion…”
Stepping back, Sebastian tucked his cock back into his pants, pulling the ties too tightly to keep his erection bound. He left Mariette where she stood, his black eyes showing no hint of pleasure or satisfaction. She hated that the most. How he could make her want him, and then make her hate him right after. But he felt so good.
And he paid her well.
She felt the warmth of his load slide down the inside of her legs as she turned and smoothed down the front of her dress. She spotted Helene jumping up and down, trying to see over the heads of the crowd. With a wave, Mariette pushed back through the people and toward Helene, just as everyone roared and clapped for Sebastian, who now stood behind the podium.
In her hand, she clutched a velvet bag of coins, enough to get them through the month.
Chapter Two
Mariette spent the next morning in the market. With enough extra money to purchase food, she couldn’t pass up the chance to get her hands on something good. Her stomach growled at the very thought. “Good” meant “unspoiled” now, as everything rotted and molded quickly. The French people received the dregs of the trade markets while the nobility bit into crisp fruits and chewed tender cuts of meat.
In the crowds of dirty Parisians, she spotted a man who didn’t quite fit in with the others. Though his clothes were ragged and the hem of his pants covered in mud (just like Mariette’s hem), his blond hair was washed and combed back too neatly. His cheeks radiated a clean glow, free of the usual grime that came along with the city streets.
Intrigued, Mariette half hid behind a bread maker’s stall, peeking out from behind the wooden beam that held up a shoddy roof. She could smell the pungent mold that grew on the loaves, which were highly priced. But from here, she could watch this enigma of a man safely, without him noticing her.
He browsed lazily, touching fabrics as he passed a tailor’s stall, picking up an apple and squeezing it at the fruit stall. His hand enclosed around the whole apple. Mariette imagined his hand holding her breast, her hands in his well-kept hair. He didn’t look rough and heartless as Sebastian did. Maybe he would even pay her better.
Breaking out of her daydream, Mariette realized that the man no longer stood at the fruit stand. She looked up and down the cobblestone street, but she could not find him anywhere. With a disheartened sigh, Mariette reprimanded herself for coming up with silly child’s fantasies. He could not be her knight in shining armor. There weren’t any of those in France anymore. With only an hour to buy what she had to buy and then get herself to the tavern, Mariette kept herself on task the best she could with the delicious and mysterious man on her mind.
“Jean, you have to believe me,” she said later at the bar. “He looked like an angel.”
“An angel? In all of this shit?” Jean dragged a damp rag over the top of the bar, wiping away the rings of water from glass mugs that once rested there. “I find it hard to believe.”
Mariette laughed at Jean. She tiptoed and pulled herself up to sit on the ledge, watching the door for patrons. “Yes, Jean. An angel. His hair, his hands…”
“His hands?”
Before Mariette could talk any more about this man of her dreams, the chimes above the door sung as it opened. Without paying much attention to who came in, she slid back down off the bar, grabbing her tray.
“Like him?” Jean nodded his head toward the door. Standing there, the very same man glanced about, and when his kind eyes found Mariette, he smiled charmingly.
Mariette’s breath escaped her. She imagined one of those new hot-air balloons she heard about falling to the ground, deflated and limp—this is how she felt. Or did she feel like a balloon rising and rising?
“Pardon, but are you open for business?” Even though the question was meant for Jean, the man kept his eyes on Mariette.
Jean’s brow lifted. He tucked the towel away under the bar and cleared his throat. “For a drink?”
A blush crept