To Disappear

by Natasha Rostova

  When Gabriel eventually rolled away he gave Lydia a slow, satisfied smile.

  ‘Well?’ she murmured dreamily. ‘Do you want to stop now?’

  He chuckled. ‘I don’t intend to, no.’

  Lydia smiled and tucked her body against his. When she first arrived at the plantation, she had never imagined she would ever feel this way. She hadn’t thought she was even capable of such intense layers of emotions.

  ‘You’re lovely,’ Gabriel said. ‘And I’m glad you’re here to stay, Jane.’

  Lydia smiled again and lifted her head to look at him. She brushed a disheveled swath of hair away from her brow and bent to give him a lingering kiss.

  ‘Lydia,’ she whispered. ‘My name is Lydia.’

  Epilogue

  ‘Delicious.’ Preston patted Lydia’s bottom affectionately and folded her skirt back down off her hips.

  Lydia pushed herself up from bending over the arm of the sofa, her sex throbbing deliciously from Preston’s masculine plundering. She was learning to appreciate each man’s unique sexual style, even Preston’s frequently coarse and aggressive manner.

  He fastened his trousers and gave her a satisfied smile. ‘See how wonderful our little arrangement is turning out to be?’ he said. ‘All you had to do was truly submit to your circumstances.’

  Lydia looked at him for a moment; the sharp planes of his face, the malicious glint in his blue eyes.

  ‘I’ve never thanked you,’ she finally said.

  ‘Thanked me for what?’ he asked.

  ‘For what you did,’ she explained. ‘Your offer came with a heavy price, but if it wasn’t for you…’

  Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged before concluding, ‘You gave me a whole new life.’

  A slow smile spread across Preston’s face, and he cupped her face and affectionately pressed his lips to hers in a languid kiss.

  ‘And you have fulfilled my fantasies of you,’ he replied. ‘And believe me, Lydia, there are many more to come yet.’

  She blushed. ‘I don’t doubt it,’ she smiled coyly.

  He gave her a wicked grin and left the room, and Lydia quickly went upstairs to her room and collected together her riding clothes, realizing she was already late for a riding date with Gabriel. She hurried back downstairs and outside, pausing when she saw Kruin sitting on the verandah.

  His attention was fixed on a newspaper, but he looked up when she approached. His dark eyes skimmed over her, assessing the curves of her breasts and hips underneath her dress.

  ‘Let me see what Preston did yesterday,’ he commanded abruptly, so placing her riding clothes on the nearby table, she turned her back to him and lifted her skirt. The crimson ridges of a crop swept across her white buttocks, but rather than the usual embarrassment she felt a glimmer of pride over the punishment she had borne and its visual evidence.

  ‘Quite nice.’ Kruin’s fingers pressed against the welts, making her wince. ‘Perhaps I will try that soon, too.’

  Lydia turned back to face him, strangely gratified by his approval. She suspected she would never grow tired of Kruin’s endorsement, just as she would never stop seeking it. Although they had reached an unspoken level of respect and understanding in their relationship, his degree of power over her remained as stronger – if not stronger – than ever.

  ‘You’re an interesting man, Kruin,’ she remarked.

  His eyebrows rose. ‘Am I?’

  She almost smiled. ‘You don’t know that?’

  Kruin lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug and picked up the newspaper he’d been reading.

  ‘I… I’ll be grateful for anything you want to do to me,’ she confessed rather shyly, and then silently admonished her foolish comment when for a moment he didn’t respond, or even appear to hear her.

  But then he said, ‘You’d better go to the stables; I believe Gabriel is waiting for you there.’

  Lydia nodded, then picked up her riding clothes and started to leave the verandah, his voice stopping her just as she reached the steps.

  ‘Lydia.’

  She turned back to him. ‘Yes, Kruin?’

  He continued looking at a newspaper article. ‘You look very pretty in that dress.’

  She stared at him for a moment, her heart swelling at the compliment as if he had granted her benediction. ‘Thank you,’ she said humbly, and knowing she would wear this particular dress more often now, she skipped down the verandah steps and headed for the stables.

  The sun fell warm and comfortingly upon her bare arms, and corresponding warmth filled her heart, the latter elicited in part by Preston’s sustained control over her and the variability of his malicious streak. She was beginning to find a deep, sensual excitement in his sheer unpredictability.

  Her warmth was also evoked by Kruin’s enigmatic yet affectionate power and by Gabriel’s gentle authority and tenderness. Her relationship with her dark triad was beginning to acquire a strangely natural rhythm, as if she had always belonged with them.

  As she continued walking, her blood flowed with the anticipation of an exhilarating gallop that would agitate her welts into a rich, delicious discomfort, and numerous other possible scenarios, the mere thought of which thrilled and unsettled her, would follow the ride.

  She saw Gabriel waiting for her by an oak tree, leaning languidly against the stout trunk. Quickening her pace, she felt the wind whipping through her hair, the ground firm beneath her feet, the lingering soreness of her bottom, and her soul soared like a bird on the breeze.

  Yes, she had learned to fully live at La Lierre et le Chêne, even to stretch the boundaries of what she had once thought living really was. This was no longer about her arousal; it was about becoming the role that had been assigned to her. It was about finally realizing that she was – that she had always been – Lydia.

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