Total pages in book: 207
Estimated words: 196971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 985(@200wpm)___ 788(@250wpm)___ 657(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 985(@200wpm)___ 788(@250wpm)___ 657(@300wpm)
"I...suppose?" Rhapsody was caught off guard by the sudden switch in her therapist's questions.
"And do you think if Bethany let you call her mother, would it have also made you feel normal?"
"Yes, I believe so."
"If Bethany had done all those things, would you have loved her?"
"It would have been natural for me to do so, I think."
"So now that it's the marquis doing those things..."
Rhapsody shook her head emphatically when she realized where the therapist's words were leading. "You're trying to trick me," she accused.
Aurora rolled her eyes. "What would I gain from tricking you?"
Rhapsody's lips pursed. Indeed, her therapist had a point, but that couldn't mean Lady Aurora had it right.
Right?
"It can't be," Rhapsody heard herself say. "Maybe this is merely heartkeeping—-"
"You know better than that," Aurora reminded her patient. Heartkeeping could lead to romantic feelings, but not the other way around. Love was neither a prerequisite nor an inevitable consequence of heartkeeping, and there were ancient texts to prove this.
"But for it to be what I think it is..." Rhapsody couldn't wrap her head around it.
"Consider all the signs, Rhapsody. You yourself realized that you felt jealousy over the possibility of something happening between the marquis and another girl."
"I know, milady, but—-"
"One does not feel jealous just for anyone," Aurora emphasized.
"But this emotion that you think I'm feeling...it is too volatile and excessive," Rhapsody described uneasily. Wasn't such an emotion impossible for someone like her to experience?
"To be fair," Aurora conceded, "I am not absolutely saying it is that. It's also possible that what you're feeling may soon turn out to be nothing but infatuation or even merely sexual attraction."
"Yes, that may just be it," Rhapsody said with a sigh of relief. "How do I confirm this, milady?"
"Confirm what?"
"That it is indeed merely infatuation or sexual attraction. I wish to ascertain that it is not the other thing—-"
"Just wait, I suppose?"
Rhapsody blinked. Wait? Had she heard her therapist right? She was to simply...wait?
"These things are a leap of faith, milady," Aurora said with a shrug, seeing Rhapsody's disbelief. "There is no formula in the world to determine the existence of such feelings."
"But there has to be something," Rhapsody couldn't help insisting.
Stubborn as expected, Aurora thought with an inner sigh. "I can think of at least one way," she said finally, "but you probably won't like it."
Rhapsody quickly sat up, feeling like she was about to hear A Most Important Truth.
And so she did.
Rhapsody was still in a bit of a daze when she came out of the house. Darkness had already fallen, and the skies only made bright by the silvery sheen of moonlight. She stepped inside the marquis' carriage, and soon after the coachman had the horses galloping back to the school. A glance at her pocket watch told her it was a few minutes past six, and she sighed in relief. She had told her Master she would be back in time to have supper with him, and it was still early enough for her not to break her word.
Outside her carriage window, she heard wolves howling, the menacing sound serving as the Marquis of Lunare's serenade to his heartkeeper...as well as a promise of a violent demise under razor-sharp canines and claws to any one foolish enough to mean his marchioness harm.
The story of how Lord Ilie and Lady Soleil had fallen in love was the stuff of legends now. She wished them well, truly, but to imagine something similar would happen between her and the Marquis of Sangre no less...
Impossible, Rhapsody thought.
But despite this, her therapist's words echoed in her mind.
If your heart breaks, and the pain is so tremendous that you realize it cannot be anything else but love...that is the only way to gain the answer you seek. But knowing this, would you still hope for such a moment?
Chapter Twelve
Mihail woke up the next day to another version of heaven, this time of his pet rubbing her bare and moist pussy over his already engorged cock while running her tongue around his nipple.
Seeing her Master awake, Rhapsody asked uncertainly, "This is alright...isn't it? That I am the first to—-"
"It's more than alright," he said thickly. "In fact, you can do it as often as you like, wherever and whenever you want to."
"May I continue then?"
"Please."
And that was how their morning went, with the marquis nearly losing his mind as his pet took her time exploring his body, sucking for the longest time on his nipples and then licking and kissing her way down. When she had raked her fingernails over his legs, the electrifying sensation that shot through his body had him damn near bucking off the bed, and when her lips finally closed around his erection...
He had lasted only a few thrusts when his balls had started to tighten, and not wanting to cum on his own, he had pulled out abruptly and had his pet crying out as he changed their positions: she was on her fours, facing the vanity mirror across the bed, and he was on his knees, poised behind her.