Enthrall

by Z. L. Arkadie

  I read through the rest of lunch, even when the servers came and carted out the dirty dishes and uneaten food. Then I asked if they could serve me dinner in my room. Once again, I told them I’d have what Mr. Christmas was having.

  “He won’t be dining in tonight,” the server said.

  I smiled gently, masking my disappointment. “That’s fine. Then tell the chef to be creative. I’ll eat whatever’s put before me.”

  The server bowed his head.

  “One more thing,” I said, raising my finger. “Could I get a bottle of red wine?”

  “Yes, Jada.”

  The staff even had a formal way of saying, “Jada.” It would have sounded natural for the server to just refer to me as Miss Forte, but it was too late to quack about it. I probably shouldn’t have complained about what the house staff called me in the first place. It was totally a Patricia Forte move—trying to make people feel I was down to earth and having no concept that the very act of getting them to call me what was more comfortable to me was entitled behavior.

  When he was gone, I moved from the armchair to lie across the bed and read on. First of all, I learned the lineage of the Christmases. They went way back to some of the oldest American money. They’d been lucky enough to come to the United States with a chest that would allow them a leg up on others who arrived in the 1800s. The book went into all the industries they invested in as well as the marriages and children.

  Luther Peter Christmas had three daughters and four sons, but he spent most of his waking hours working and his nights at brothels. He would only come home to knock up his wife Rosemary Louise Christmas, who was very depressed and was eventually diagnosed with hysteria. Rosemary had spent her final years in an insane asylum. Upon her deathbed, she said that her years in captivity had been the happiest of her life.

  The doorbell rang, drawing my attention out of the pages, and the server brought in my bottle of wine along with a long-stemmed glass. I thanked him for fulfilling my request, and once he was gone, I poured myself a glass, undressed, put on my spaghetti-strapped night dress, and started reading again.

  Randolph Wesley Christmas, Spencer’s father, was Luther’s great-grandson. Randolph’s father, James Randolph Bartholomew Christmas, had seven wives, all more than twenty years younger than he was. Three of them died of the flu, and the other three, who never bore him any children, simply walked out on him and took nothing with them. He was said to have been a severe, unloving man. The stepmothers and mothers behaved as if the children never existed.

  I was at the part where Randolph met Amelia at an event held in honor of her father. And then the story began to unfold.

  “Holy fuck,” I said after reading halfway through.

  I had to pour myself another glass of wine and read it again. Yes, I’d read it right. Amelia had been thirteen years old and Randolph Christmas pushing fifty. What the book recounted next made my jaw hit the floor.

  I was seriously deep into some messed-up shit when the doorbell rang and the servers brought dinner and another bottle of wine. I couldn’t pull my nose out of the pages as they set up.

  “Would you like me to tell you what’s being served tonight?” the server asked.

  I forced my eyes away from a haunting description of the construction of the Christmas manor. I smiled impatiently. “No, thank you.”

  “All right, then,” he said with a nod. “We’ll collect the dishes when you call.”

  “Thank you.” I went right back to reading. I didn’t even wait until he’d left.

  The construction of the Christmas mansion was fascinating, to say the least. And Holly Henderson sure as hell knew how to make a mundane topic exciting. She talked about the blueprints and how Mr. Christmas had carefully designed every inch of the property. She explained the rooms—the feel of each and the supposed intention behind it. Then she progressed into the secret hallways and how they connected throughout the mansion. I felt as if I was trapped in a crypt with the Christmases.

  I’d finished my second big glass of Bordeaux red and was on my third. I’d never drunk that much in my life, but the wine was good, and so was the book. Before long, the book took an even darker turn. It started with the life of Jasper Walker Christmas, the oldest. Terrible and harsh things had happened to the boy, all in the name of grooming him to take over the empire. He’d been exposed to a lot of lasciviousness—he watched women and men provide pleasures to businessmen his father wanted to coerce. Then there was the torture. My heart could hardly take the acts visited upon the young Jasper Christmas. That part was written so graphically that I couldn’t keep myself from feeling all the pain visited upon him. However, I also experienced the young man’s determination to get through it. I felt his mother, Amelia Christmas, who was a very complex individual, strengthen him both physically and mentally. The strange thing was that I also felt that she was more than a mother to him in many ways—she was his lover without the sex. It was weird, gross, and necessary all at the same time—the way she would steal into his room in the middle of the night and watch him sleep and the way he would do the same with her. The book didn’t say what Amelia was thinking as she watched her son in the dark, but it showed her as being very different from the prostitutes her husband dragged through the tunnels and into his sex den on the third floor of the mansion.

  The next chapter was about Spencer Hunter Christmas, and by then, I could hardly keep my eyes open, even though there was no way I could close them either. If I hadn’t been so tired, I might have managed to sweep through the entire 453-page book in fewer than twenty-four hours. No wonder it was still on the best-seller list after being in print for five years. I wondered how I had just discovered it.

  I started the pages about Spencer, reading about how lonely he’d been as a little boy and how he used to get in trouble, hoping his father would punish him the way he did Jasper. But it never worked. He might as well have not existed as far as Randolph Christmas was concerned. When Spencer tried to draw Amelia’s attention, she didn’t ignore him, but she wasn’t much of a mother either. She wasn’t mean to him, but he wished she would be. Spencer would try to rattle Amelia to get her to hit him, kick him, or tell him to get the hell away from her. He went to college when he was seventeen, and when he returned, she finally showed him the attention he’d longed for.

  My heart had sunk to the depths of my belly when the account ended, promising to pick up later in the book. I wanted to know more about what had happened between Spencer and Amelia, but first, I had to read about the twins, Asher and Bronwyn. I really wanted to skip that part and get right to Spencer, but I also wanted to savor the entire book in its proper order.

  Either way, I couldn’t go on. I rubbed my eyes. My brain was spent and my sight blurry from focusing on the screen for far too long. I checked the time before pressing the button on the side of my device. It was after two o’clock in the morning. I wondered if Spencer had returned from wherever he’d gone for dinner. I found myself wishing he would come check in on me. I also wanted to ask if, when he came home from college, Amelia Christmas had given him the attention he’d always sought. But I didn’t want to let him know I’d been reading the book. He hadn’t wanted me to read it, and maybe he’d fire me if he knew I was gripped by its pages.

  I pressed the button on the side of my device, and the screen went black. I got up to lift the silver covers from over the porcelain plates and inspect dinner. The crab cakes were huge, and the seafood salad contained succulent shrimp, crab, and fish meat. I put my finger on top of a crab cake to test the temperature of it—there was hardly anything more awful than eating a cold one. It was still warm, so I dug in, and before I knew it, all the food on my dinner and salad plates—including dessert—was gone. I was hungrier than I’d realized, and I couldn’t ignore the spinning in my head. I was tipsy. My inhibitions were crushed, and I wondered if I should go on a search for Spencer’s room. As I took steps toward the door, I could barely walk, so instead, I turned off the light
and kept walking until I collapsed on the bed.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Jada?” There was a pause. “Jada?”

  I felt myself being shaken, and slowly, I began to wake from a dream I’d already forgotten. Darkness surrounded me. The man said my name again, and then I perceived that I wasn’t alone in my bedroom. Fright took hold of me, and I scrambled to sit up against the massive headboard.

  “It’s me,” he said. His voice was quiet and tempered by a hint of vulnerability.

  I pressed my hand over my beating chest as I continued blinking to better my focus. In the dark, and standing beside my bed, was the tall and fit frame of Spencer Christmas. He was shirtless, and his bare chest glistened in the moonlight that flooded in through the windows.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him standing in my room, clearly uninvited, while I was sleeping.

  “Should I leave?”

  I frowned, contemplating his question. Suddenly, I became self-aware, wondering how I looked. I’d drunk a lot of wine before falling asleep, and my mind was still loopy. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even sure that what seemed to be happening was actually happening.

  “Are you…?” I started and then gained a better focus on him. Instead of pinching myself, I rubbed my arm, and the feeling on my skin proved that the moment was real.

  “I couldn’t sleep without…”

  I watched him with tired eyes, waiting for him to finish. Then, without warning, Spencer Christmas’s face was moving toward mine until our lips touched. A whimper escaped me as he slid his tongue into my mouth. I closed my eyes to inhale his scent. His mouth tasted strongly of wine and mint. Spencer Christmas had prepared for this kiss. The deeper our tongues explored each other and our lips caressed, the more I felt as if I was having an out-of-body experience.

  “Jada,” he whispered as his hand slid up the middle of my thighs, parting my legs as it traveled to my drenched pussy. “Umm,” he moaned, sinking his fingers inside me.

  I thrust my head back onto the pillow. I’d had guys finger-fuck me before, but Spencer was rubbing me in spots that had never been stimulated.

  “You like how that feels,” he whispered.

  I clung tightly to his strong forearm, squeezing the life out of it as he continued rubbing me there. What in the hell is he doing?

  “Ooh, Jada,” he whispered.

  Oh shit. I squeezed my eyes shut as the sensation gathered steam.

  “Jada,” he called louder and with authority.

  I wanted to answer, but all I could do was whimper. If only he would stop, take a break. Then I would be able to say, “Yes, Spencer.” But he remained unrelenting.

  I heard myself scream. I felt my body wriggle, and the strongest orgasm ever pulsed through my pussy. The pleasure lasted longer than usual. Spencer’s warm mouth was now down there. I could feel his breath cooling my wetness and his tongue inside me. With that erotic sensation, the buildup began again.

  “Spencer,” I said with a sigh, struggling to lift my head and see what he was doing. But the orgasmic feeling was overpowering my desire to see. I screamed again as more pleasure spread through my pussy like a flower opening its petals under the sun.

  Spencer slid on top above me, straddling me as he wrapped his long fingers around my delicate wrists and held them to the bed. He watched me firmly, swallowing hard, and then his lips parted. I had a strong desire to erase the distance between our mouths and bodies. But he remained where he was, watching. I could tell he was thinking I was too far away. Fear, longing, and surrender tempered my very being.

  “Can I have you?” he said, his voice promising joyous passion.

  I could feel my heart beating at the back of my throat. I nodded, swallowing nervously. This was it. This was how it was going to happen.

  Spencer Christmas raised his eyebrows. “Yes or no?”

  A force stronger than me wanted to take over my mouth and shout the answer, but instead, I breathily said, “Yes.”

  “This is your first time?”

  I nodded again.

  “I’m going to make it pleasurable for you, Jada.”

  My lips parted, and instead of speaking, I sucked air as my body recalled exactly what he’d just done to it. I wondered how he could make it more pleasurable than that.

  “Do you want your first time to be enjoyable, baby?”

  The lust in his expression was driving me crazy. Still unable to speak, I nodded enthusiastically.

  “Say yes,” he commanded.

  My body stiffened, pussy weeping for him. “Yes,” I said with a sigh, my body twisting with longing.

  Suddenly, Spencer stood and walked away from me.

  I propped myself up on my forearms. “Where are you going?” I prayed he wasn’t playing power games, getting me all hot and bothered and then abandoning me. That was certainly his style.

  “Stay there, and lie down,” he ordered.

  His voice was forceful. Normally, I would have wanted to rebel against anyone who took that tone with me, but I quickly pinched my head against my pillow, turned on in the extreme.

  I could hear him fiddling around at the table. When he walked back to me, he was holding something. I watched him step out of his sweatpants and underwear. When he stood again, his erection shot out like a missile. The sheer size and girth of his engorged cock made my eyes expand. Holy shit. Is he planning on putting that thing in me?

  Fear overcame me, but I didn’t want to call it off. He said it wouldn’t hurt, but I doubted that. However, as long as my first lover was Spencer Christmas, I was ready for the pain.

  “Spread your legs,” he ordered.

  I did it, watching him, feeling intoxicated with expectation.

  He inhaled sharply between his clenched teeth as he stared, dazed, at my pussy. “You’re so fucking wet,” he whispered.

  I moaned as he slipped fingers in and out of my moisture. The device in his other hand made a noise. Through my cloudy vision, I could see it was a vibrator. I faintly wondered if that was how he was planning on fucking me. I’d never slid my vibrator all the way inside my pussy. Maybe he was going to let the sex toy get me ready to receive his hefty cock. I didn’t ask if that was his intention as he tugged me by my thighs until my ass was at the edge of the bed.

  “Wrap your legs around me.”

  I did as I was told, wishing he’d turned on a light so I could see his face better. The vibrator was playing around my clit, going up and down, stimulating the same spot. The pleasure was so powerful that all I could do was surrender while forcing the back of my head into the mattress and allow whatever he was doing to happen.

  “I can’t wait to eat your tits,” he said, still playing with my pussy with the device.

  I wanted to say, “Me neither,” but instead, I whimpered and sighed as an orgasm expanded through my pussy.

  “Ha!” I cried, feeling pressure against the entrance of my vag. Shit, I could feel him still inside me. The sound of the vibrator slowed as he put it on the opposite side of my clit. I’d played with my vibrator many times and had never done anything like what he was doing. Holy shit! I gritted my teeth as the promise of a powerful orgasm pulsed through my pussy. Along with it came more pressure, intermixing pleasure with burning. I didn’t know whether to groan in discomfort or whimper because it felt so damn good.

  Spencer grunted. “Shit, you feel so good. I just want to slam my cock deep inside you, baby.”

  With the vibrator stimulating me, I wriggled and moaned as a new orgasm built. Soon, I screamed, climaxing. The burn was back, the two sensations intermingling again. My pussy felt stretched by Spencer’s fullness.

  “Take off your shirt,” he whispered and then tossed his head back, sucking air in through his teeth. “I can feel you, baby. Shit, I can feel you.”

  The vibrator was working another part of my clit as I slipped my nightshirt off over my head. Spencer looked tortured as he intently watched what he was doing wit
h my pussy.

  “Shit,” I said with a sigh as an orgasm was impending.

  Then the burning was in unison with my new orgasm. I felt pleasure and pain conspiring. Slowly, indulgently, he slid his big dick in and out of me as I breathed hard, feeling the minor burn of his fullness.

  Zzzz… blop. I heard the vibrator hit the bed. Spencer had two full hands on my ass and was jerking me slowly against his dick. “Fuck,” he kept repeating. “I can feel it. I can fucking feel it!”

  I could feel it, too, every single variation of his strokes. He rounded his hips, and his cock did circles in my pussy. I thought I would die of satisfaction as he shifted fast and then slower, pulling the tip of his dick to the rim of my pussy and stimulating the spots just around the entrance as he moved his thumb around my clit. He was like a masterful musician, playing my body like an instrument. I moaned and tried to twist my lower half away from his pleasurable assault to find at least a few seconds of reprieve, but Spencer’s grasp was too strong. He wouldn’t let me go. All I could do was moan and whimper until I cried out in ecstasy. Then he slammed his dick deep inside me again. My body jolted against the mattress as he grunted and cried out for the Almighty.

  I didn’t stop riding the mattress until he tilted his back and shouted, “Fuck!” as his body jerked and shivered from orgasm.

  We existed in a moment frozen in time. Spencer still had hold of my ass, and his cock was still inside me. Our gazes were glued to each other. I wanted to forever remember the afterglow of being deflowered and the sexy Adonis I’d given my virginity to.

  “How was your first time?” he asked, smirking, his eyes bright and glossy.

  “It was…” I searched for words better than the ones already in existence. “Perfect” was all I could come up with.

  He slowly pulled himself out of me. “It was the same for me.” Spencer took my thighs and carefully spun me until my legs were on the bed. He then pressed my knees together. “Don’t move,” he said then walked away.