Asteria In Love with the Prince by Tanya Korval

this ensemble that night.
    The only problem was, I didn’t have anything to wear it with , unless he intended me to wear it under one of the suits. The dress I’d worn to the casino was far too form-fitting: it would show every line of the corset. I pondered, and re-read the letter.
    You will not require any of the other treaties.
    Oh, great. He wanted me to wear the lingerie and nothing else. I was meant to meet him in town: how was I supposed to reach him, dressed like that?
    Jagor, I was learning, was all about the details. He must have a plan.
    On instinct, I went to the wardrobe. Hanging up next to the suits was a new addition: a raincoat.
    I tried to imagine travelling in one of the black SUVs to meet him with only the coat over the lingerie. Could I refuse: say it was ridiculous; that it was summer? But a glance out of the window revealed that the heat and mugginess of yesterday had finally built into a storm: dark clouds were gathering over the ocean, rolling in towards us. It would rain by this evening, or at least it would be likely enough that a coat wouldn’t be suspicious.
    I imagined Jagor checking the weather forecast a few days ago. Telling his dresser, quite innocently, to make sure a raincoat was in my wardrobe. Ordering the lingerie via his friend in Asteria. The man’s ability to engineer things was incredible: all so he could have me trembling on a knife edge of trepidation and desire. I genuinely had no idea what he was going to do next, which made it all the hotter.
    For the rest of the day I pored over the legal texts. At lunchtime I sat out on the balcony with a salad and an iced tea from room service, and watched the clouds breed.
    At six, Villik came to tell me that Jagor had chosen a meeting place for us.
    “The bar is actually only around the corner,” he told me. “A few minute’s walk.” He looked doubtfully out of the window. “Do you have a coat?”
    “Oh yes,” I said weakly.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
     
    And so, at ten to nine I was standing outside the hotel entrance, an umbrella over my head and a raincoat over my mostly naked body. I’d both buttoned and belted the coat, and it covered me from neck to mid-thigh: there was nothing to suggest that I was in lingerie underneath. That did precisely nothing to comfort me.
    It wasn’t a long walk to the bar, but with every step I could feel my bare thighs rubbing against the thin fabric of the coat; my sex feeling exposed and incredibly sensitive under its thin covering of silk. The storm had unleashed its full force now, the rain not so much falling as smacking violently into the flagstones and bouncing up. I’d worn a pair of the shining, five-inch heels and stalking along the slippery, uneven sidewalk was...interesting. I would have gone sideways a few times if it weren’t for sheer mental will: I knew that if I fell, I’d likely expose my entire lower body as the coat flapped up.
    Then there was the corset. Standing in front of a mirror, I’d worked the thing tighter and tighter, gasping as it cinched my waist in. Even under the coat, my hourglass figure was obvious and the feeling of the thing was impossible to ignore. I felt like I was being squeezed by a lover, my breathing soft and short. I felt powerless, too: I could no longer bend at the waist. If I wanted to pick something up, I had to bend from the hips, thrusting my ass in the air, or squat right down. I could see why men loved them.
    I was scared...yet every step increased my arousal. The feeling of being near-naked in public; the fact that I was having this experience scant feet from oblivious passers-by. Even in the raincoat, the combination of stockinged legs and towering heels meant I attracted quite a few glances from men sheltering in doorways: they didn’t know what I was wearing underneath, but it felt like they did and that made me even hotter.
    The walk must have only taken minutes, but it felt like an hour: by the end of