“You know what I mean. Babysitting your feelings isn’t what I pay you for.”
I made an indignant sound that was silenced when he pulled me back against him. The magic fingers began again on my nape. I shivered and cuddled closer. I could feel my body unwind. A moment later his fingers left my neck and his arms wrapped around me tight.
“Listen,” he said against my ear. “Let’s just keep things simple. Let’s just remember I pay you to do as I ask. You obey. If you have a need, a pressing, human need, you let me know. But if you start to obsess over stupid shit and get emotional like you’re my girlfriend, then I’m going to let you go. I can’t deal with it. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said, and truly, I understood every word he spoke. What I didn’t understand was the why behind it.
“I mean, I thought things were going pretty well,” he said. “I thought you were happy.”
“You pay me to be happy, don’t you? So I am.” I felt him go tense under me. I wished I could have taken the words back. I sat up and looked in his eyes.
“Are you happy, Jeremy?”
He glanced away, then back at me. “Tonight? I’m a little stressed.”
“Why are you stressed?” I took his hand in mine, stroking the soft tufts of hair on the back of it with my fingertips.
He shook his head. “I told you. It’s not your concern.” He took a deep breath and held my hand tighter. “Relax me. Tell me a story. Not a story from Eden. One of the stories from those books you always have your nose buried in.”
I laughed. “You must really want me to stop whining, to subject yourself to that.”
“There must be something to them, if you like them so much. Tell me a story. Explain humanity to me.”
I thought for a moment, mentally sorting through the hundreds of tales I loved and remembered.
“Do you know the story of Rhiannon?”
He rolled his eyes. “What do you think?”
I smiled and lay back on his shoulder. “Rhiannon was a Celtic goddess. She didn’t want to wed the god her parents picked out for her, so instead she married a mortal. A king.”
Jeremy snorted. “She still made out pretty good, then, I guess, for marrying a mortal.”
“Yeah. She had a happy marriage. She and the king had a son and lived for a year in harmony and love. But then the son went missing. The nurses who’d been charged with caring for the son laid the blame for his disappearance on Rhiannon. To back up their claim, the nurses slaughtered a young animal and spread its carcass and bones around and made it look as if Rhiannon murdered and ate her own son.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“What’s disgusting is that everyone believed it. Because Rhiannon was different, a goddess and not a mortal. They all turned on her and believed the nurses. The king turned his back on his wife and left her trial and punishment to the people. They decreed that she must wear a horse collar and live outside the grounds as a slave, carrying guests back and forth from the gates to the castle.”
“Kinky,” said Jeremy.
“You’re a perv. Anyway, Rhiannon didn’t fight back or mourn the unfairness of her punishment. She accepted it with the grace of a true queen.”
“Or submissive.”
“Listen, this isn’t about BDSM, if you can pull your mind out of the gutter for just a few more minutes.”
Jeremy smiled. “Okay, I’ll try, but it won’t be easy with you in my lap.”
I sighed as he pulled me closer. I could feel his hard-on rising against my hip. “Through scorching summers and bitterly cold winters, she wore the collar, swearing to anyone who would listen that one day her love and dedication would bring her son home. The same people who condemned her eventually were moved by Rhiannon’s courage and dignity, and word of her plight began to spread beyond the castle grounds to the outlying lands.
“One day a nobleman came to the gate holding the hand of a small boy. Rhiannon graciously offered to carry them to the keep. Instead the nobleman placed the boy’s hand in hers and said, ‘Brave Queen, your son is home.’ It turned out the careless nurses had left the son in a field, and the nobleman found him, considered him abandoned, and raised him as his own. The tales of Rhiannon’s predicament made him realize whom the boy belonged to. Everyone rejoiced, and Rhiannon was freed from her slavery at last.”
“Are you jealous?” Jeremy asked as I paused. “You’d like to be freed too, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, Jeremy. This story’s not about me. The point of Rhiannon’s myth is that when she returned to the castle, to her husband and everyone who’d wrongly condemned her, she forgave them all. Forgave every one of them and told her husband she still loved him. She endured the terrible hardships of life with courage and dignity. She’s the goddess of being strong.”
“Is she? Is that why you like her so much?”
“I don’t like her,” I said. “I actually never would have put up with the crap she did.”
“I could get you a collar, if you like.”
“That was your favorite part of the story, wasn’t it?” I sighed. “The only part you actually heard.”
“Yes. Rhiannon, goddess of pony play and enslavement. What other BDSM myths do you know?”
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help laughing. He grinned back, then stood and threw me over his shoulder. I shrieked and clung to him as he carried me into his room and tossed me on the bed. His libido, his perversity, God, it was ridiculous, but at least I knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
*
Our time in Turkey flew by. I would have liked to stay longer. Turkey was a land steeped in cultural history and mythology. I told Jeremy stories from Turkish and Ottoman mythology every night, Anatolian myths, Nart sagas, all the local mythology I studied and loved.
In return he threw me a huge surprise toga party for my birthday. While he may have missed the bull’s-eye, he hit the target just fine. The endearingly fake Greek decor, the “David” waiters, the entire cast and crew of his movie getting wasted in bedsheets. I took it for what it was: a magnanimous gesture of affection and fun. He beamed at me from across the room, looking like a true Greek god in his toga, and more David-like than any of the half-dressed waiters roaming around.
“Having fun?” Jessamine Jackson’s deep, sultry voice sounded right beside my ear.
I turned to her with a smile. I’d talked to her on several occasions by now, running into her on the set and so forth, but she was still larger-than-life to me, even in a toga and nothing else. Especially in a toga and nothing else.
“Look at Jeremy.” She snorted, waving at him across the restaurant. “He’s so proud of himself.”
Jeremy leaned on a balustrade, watching both of us with a meditative smile.
“He just wanted to find a party theme where everyone could wear the least amount of clothing possible,” I laughed.
“That’s our Jeremy.”
Our Jeremy? It didn’t surprise me to hear her say that, but it made me jealous. Maybe she only meant it in a friendly sense, but knowing Jeremy as I did…
I looked over at Jessamine again, this time as a rival.
It was hopeless. She was so much more beautiful than me, elegant, confident, strong, graceful. If Jeremy looked at us side by side, it didn’t take much intelligence to figure out where I would end up in that comparison. But Jessamine was married. Her husband, Mason Cooke, was a bigger star than Jeremy, and every bit as sexy and hot. She wasn’t competition, but I suddenly disliked her all the same.
“I hope you’re having a happy birthday,” she said, leaning closer with a smile.
“Yes, I am.”
“And how are you enjoying the movie-star life?”
“It’s…interesting.”
Jessamine laughed, a beautiful, feminine sound. “You can tell me the truth, Nell. I’m in on the game.”
The game? What game was she talking about? I slid a look at Jeremy.
“Honey, it’s okay. I know,” she said. �
�But I’ll never tell. Jeremy and I go way back.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, we do. I can tell you whatever you want to know about him too.”
“Really?” My eyes opened wide, considering the possibilities. Jess laughed.
“I know, where to begin with the questions? He’s complicated, yes, but there’s something you should know. He has a heart of gold, deep down under all that black perversion. He really does. He’ll take care of you.”
He’ll take care of you. When he lets you go and gets another girl. When he pays you off and moves on with his life.
“I have to say,” she said, leaning in, “I like you much more than his last girl. I met her a few times. She was awful. He’s so lucky to have found you.”
“I… Yeah…we have good times together.”
“And having you along on these long shoots, it’s great for him. You know, I’ll be damned if you haven’t changed him. He’s happier than I’ve known him to be in a long time.”
I wanted to seize on her words and save them forever. Happier? Changed? I didn’t know how he was before.
“Do you think he likes me?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I was immediately embarrassed. “I mean…not like…you know—”
“Does he like you?” Jessamine turned my head to where he still watched us with a drunk, happy smile. “He hasn’t taken his eyes off you the whole evening. And this thing with your stalker… He’s beside himself. I’m sure he doesn’t show you how much he worries over it—”
“What? What stalker?” I looked back at her in alarm.
Jeremy started toward us. Jessamine looked over at him.
“I…um…not stalker. Just something Jeremy and I were joking about. You know, those photogs in Thailand. Ha, that picture—your face. Jeremy!” Jessamine exclaimed as he joined us. “Little Nell here is just so adorable in her toga!”
Jeremy smiled down at me. “Yeah. She’s going to wear it later while we have some Greek sex.”
I blushed. I don’t know why. If Jessamine knew Jeremy as well as she seemed to, his decidedly perverse tastes would be no surprise to her. She winked at him.
“Bless her heart, then, Jeremy. You know Greek’s never been my thing.”
Jeremy laughed, then dragged me over to the cake before I could ask him about her stalker comment. After a drunken, rousing round of “Happy Birthday” from my party guests, I blew out the twenty-nine candles on my cake. Jeremy cut me a big piece and eyeballed me as I ate it. His pale blue eyes traveled up and down my curves, barely concealed by the toga I wore.
“I want to smear that icing all over your fucking body and lick it off.”
“Because I’m so sweet, yes?”
He chuckled. “Very sweet. You melt when it rains, sugar.”
“Mmm,” I said, tracing his golden forearm with one soft fingertip. “I’m actually feeling a little wet right now. A little meltish.”
I loved his face when I made him horny. Intent eyes, tense lips. He leaned close to me. “I think you have a birthday spanking coming. Twenty-nine licks, isn’t it?”
“Twenty-nine licks?” I pulled a small pout. “I don’t know. That sounds so…sadistic.” I looked right into his eyes. “If they were hard ones, I might not even be able to sit down afterward.”
He drew in a breath. His chin jutted out as his jaw tensed. I wanted to lick it, bite it between my teeth.
“Teasing is a very, very naughty habit. Little girls who tease sometimes live with regret.”
I barely held him off until we got to the hotel room. If our surly taxi driver looked in the rearview mirror, he probably got a glimpse of ass cheek and groped boobs. Jeremy lifted me in his arms in the elevator. He pulled my legs up to encircle his waist and dug his hand into my slit.
“Jeremy, someone’s going to see us!” I was sopping wet, and his fingers were already making me throb. “Jeremy, stop!”
“Jeremy, stop is a contractually forbidden phrase.”
“I’m serious, if someone gets on this elevator—”
My voice cut off as he closed his mouth over my lips. He kissed me, then sucked on my tongue. He set fire to my pussy with his fingers until I completely forgot where we were. If anyone did get on the elevator, I was too far gone to know it. When the hotel room door closed behind us, I began to grind against his hips. His erection stuck obscenely out of his toga. He’d decreed earlier that I could not wear panties, and apparently he’d decided to forgo underwear too.
I was wild for him. I craved his cock. I wanted to taste it, wanted to feel it in my mouth. I wanted to feel it slide deep in my throat. I knelt, took it in my hands.
“Well,” he said. “Forward little slut, aren’t you? Birthday or not, you don’t get to help yourself to whatever you want. Do you, girl?”
My gaze flew to his. How had I gotten so carried away?
“I’m sorry, Jeremy.”
“I’m happy to hear you’re sorry, but does sorry take punishments away?”
“No, Jeremy.”
“No, it doesn’t, does it?”
I shuddered at his feet, but when I looked up from under my lashes, I saw a glimmer of humor in his eyes. He wasn’t really angry. But would he capitalize on my fuckup? I had no doubt. His face took on an imperious expression, and he looked down his nose at me.
“Naughty little slave girl. Abase yourself. On the floor. Show your master how sorry you are.”
I drew in my breath. Ohhhh. Best birthday present ever. He knew it was my biggest fantasy. I’d told him during one of our long talks. My pussy flooded, and my heart burst with gratitude. I peered up at him, and he stared back at me in full slavemaster mode. Playing scenes with actors was a complete rush. He never broke character. I tried to hold up my end, sinking to the floor with a forlorn look. I knelt and then bent forward, legs spread, ass out. I made no motion to draw the toga back over the parts of my body that were exposed.
He stood a long time and looked before he fetched the cuffs and knelt to secure my hands behind my back. Then he stood in my line of sight and kicked off his sandals. A pause. He moved his foot forward in a gesture I could hardly fail to understand. I swallowed and leaned forward on my knees. I kissed his foot, ran my tongue across the top and down to his toes. After a moment, he drew it back. Held it out again, just beyond my reach. I had to shuffle on my knees to reach it. I was being toyed with, and it made me white-hot. My tongue came out. I kissed the proffered foot again. I started lapping. I felt his shudder all the way down to his toes. His arousal fell down over me in waves of electric energy, or perhaps it was my own arousal I felt. The other foot came forward, thrust in front of my face. I worshipped it, licked it. I ran my tongue over the arch, around the ball of his foot. I poked it between his toes. With a soft breath, he pulled his foot away from me. I bowed my head back to the carpet. He walked away.
My pussy was so hot. I felt empty without his cock inside, especially when I felt like this. The musk of my own arousal permeated the air. A primal moan rose up inside me and I swallowed it down, not wanting to make so much as a sound without permission.
Jeremy returned. I heard his feet on the carpet beside me. He knelt next to me and unwrapped my loose toga. I quivered wherever his warm hands brushed against me. When I was nude, he ran his hand across my back and up to my shoulders. Then he ran it down the other way, slid it between my ass cheeks and down to my pussy. He thrust two fingers inside, and I grasped at them, keeping my hips perfectly still. Perfectly arched. I’m your slave. These touches for your pleasure, not mine. He took his fingers away, and I squeezed my eyes shut from the ache he left behind. Then he put a hand on my neck. I felt something rough against my skin. I smelled the tang of leather. I couldn’t contain my gasp as he drew up the circle and buckled it around my neck.
A collar. Emotion welled up inside me. For you, Nell. He didn’t say it, but I heard it plain as day.
“Come.” He pulled me up by a large ring on the front. “Bad slaves get punished.” He bro
ught out something else. A leash. God, help me. Could my pussy get any wetter? He clicked it onto the ring he held, then wrapped the long strap around his fist. He pulled me toward him so sharply that I stumbled. I stared into hard blue eyes. “Twenty-nine licks for a very bad slave girl.”
He picked up a whippy crop from the bed. He wrapped the leash tighter around his fist, so I was held close and fast by the strength of his arm. He brought the crop down with a whap on my left buttock.
“Ah!” I yelped.
Another crack came, and another. Stinging pain bloomed across my shifting hindquarters. He flicked first one cheek and then the other, so I danced at the end of my tether. I sought his muscular body, tried to press against him for shelter, but he only yanked me back into position and continued his assault on my ass. I was overcome with an almost painful lust, straining there on the end of his leash. My neck was chafed and scratched by the stiff leather, but it felt like heaven.
“Oh! Oh!” I cried. My body lurched. I shifted from one foot to the other. My ass sizzled as the crop fell again and again. The short, hard cracks seemed to fall on every inch of my thighs and ass. I grew quite certain he’d long since passed twenty-nine. “Please, please, Master!” I finally burst out.
His arm went still. My cuffed hands struggled to soothe my blazing ass cheeks. Again he yanked me to attention. His hot breath rasped against my ear.
“What? Don’t you enjoy being whipped, slave?”
“No, Master!”
“That’s a shame for you, isn’t it? Because I love to whip you.” He laid the crop across both cheeks with a fiery stroke.
I wailed, an incoherent, desperate sound. It spoke more of my horniness than my aversion to the crop.
“Hush,” he said, shaking me by my collar. I fell silent. I felt his tongue trace up my ear. I shuddered and whimpered.
“Well, girl,” he said. “There is something I enjoy every bit as much as whipping your ass.” His hands grasped my flesh and squeezed it. I struggled, tensing my buttocks and dancing away from him. He ignored my protests, drawing me in again and tracing across my welts with his fingernails. Then he gathered some of my pussy juice on his digits and pressed two thick fingers into my ass. I felt stretched open, defiled. My tight hole ached from the invasion. I pulled against the cuffs and threw my head back.
Make Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire Page 175