Domination Inc.

  ‘Concentrate on the pleasure,’ she crooned, motioning to Joe, who had already worked out where the other end of the double dildo was going, and was more than happy to drag Louisa Lawson over until she was kneeling directly behind her husband. ‘That way, you’ll barely notice the pain.’

  Joe had taken hold of the dildo where it jutted out of Louisa’s crotch, and pressed it to Lawson’s anal opening. Then he gave Louisa a sharp smack on her rump. She squealed and pitched forward slightly, the dildo forcing its way deep into her husband’s rectum. Warren sprang the catch on Louisa’s handcuffs, and together he and Cindy worked quickly to tie the Lawsons up, so that Clive was tethered to the legs of the table, still kneeling. Louisa’s hands were fastened around his waist and secured at the wrists, and their legs were tied together, Louisa’s outside her husband’s.

  Joe reached for the phone extension and dialled rapidly. ‘Hello, police? Yes, I’m calling from Garside Hall. There’s been a break-in. Could you send someone over to us? Okay, brilliant, we’ll see you then.’

  He put the receiver down and smiled at the Lawsons, who were wriggling in their bonds. ‘You might be able to free yourselves before the police turn up. I hope you do, for your sakes. I mean, you might be able to find a convincing reason for why you’re naked and tied up, but I’d love to see you both explain away that little toy of Louisa’s.’ He turned to Cindy. ‘Get dressed,’ he said, gesturing to the discarded pile of clothes on the floor, ‘and make your way down to the jeep. We’ve got to be away from here before the police arrive, but first of all Warren and I are going to find out what’s happened to Laurel.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the master bedroom, Laurel was secured to the bed, spread-eagled, waiting for whatever Roger might choose to do to her. He had not tied her up himself, having left that task to the skilful fingers of Louisa Lawson. Louisa had used silken ropes and left Laurel with enough purchase in her bonds that she could wriggle slightly, but had no chance of freeing herself.

  It seemed like a lifetime since she had spoken to Joe, though it could only have been a matter of hours. In that time, Clive had strapped Laurel’s backside for the first time in her life, as she had been held fast over his wife’s knee; she could still remember the feel of the heavy leather strap as it landed on her soft flesh, causing her to cry out and buck in Louisa’s surprisingly strong grasp. She had only taken five strokes from the strap, but each had burned like fire, and when she was laid on the bed by Clive, even the smooth satin counterpane had chafed painfully against her sore skin. The sensation had gradually faded to a dull ache as Roger sat in a corner of the bedroom, watching her and waiting for Joe to arrive.

  She had half-hoped that Joe would refuse to hand the deeds to the agency over, but when the choice was the business or the safety of herself and Cindy, it was a refusal he could never have made. At least, she supposed, it proved he still cared about her...

  Laurel’s mind was still in turmoil over Nina’s mocking words. The thought that Joe had fallen in love with her stepsister had hurt more than any blow from Clive Lawson’s strap. Why had she never told him she loved him herself? Why had her stupid pride prevented her from getting involved with him? It was too late now: Nina had claimed him, as she had claimed anything Laurel had ever really cared about.

  She forced her mind back to her present situation. Roger had risen from his seated position, and was busying himself with something on the dressing table. As Laurel watched him she realised he had lit one of the thick wax candles which were used as decoration throughout the room. He walked towards the bed, holding it and smiling.

  ‘Relax, Laurel,’ he said. ‘It’ll soon be over, but we still have time for one more game.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Laurel asked, her eyes widening in fear as Roger took the candle out of its solid brass candlestick. He stared at the flame with almost manic intensity.

  ‘Nina was easy,’ he said. ‘She gave herself to me willingly. She’s a good and obedient slave, and she’ll do anything I ask of her. But you, Laurel, you’re a challenge. I know I haven’t broken you. Whatever we’ve done to you, part of you is still resisting. I haven’t heard you beg for mercy, and I want that so much...’

  ‘Never,’ Laurel said, her gaze riveted to the fat bead of wax that was forming as the candle burned steadily.

  Roger moved so that he was standing directly beside her. He held the candle above her supine, bound body, and began to tilt it. ‘You only have to say the words.’

  ‘Go to hell,’ Laurel retorted. Seconds later she felt a brief burning sensation as the droplet of wax splashed on her stomach. Despite herself, she gave a sharp cry.

  ‘Where shall it be next?’ Roger asked. ‘Those beautiful breasts of yours?’

  As he spoke he let another drop of candle wax fall. His aim was accurate, and it landed squarely on her right breast, a fraction away from her pale, puckered aureole. Another blob followed, crowning her left breast. She bit her lip, forcing herself not to make another sound. She would not give him the pleasure of seeing how frightened and vulnerable she was.

  His crotch was close to her face as he leaned over her, the material of his dark trousers pushed out sharply by the strength of his erection.

  ‘I’ll stop now, on the condition that you suck my cock,’ he told her. ‘And while you’re sucking it, I want you to frig yourself with this candle. I can just see how it will look, sliding in and out of your beautiful cunt…’

  ‘And what if I won’t do it?’ she asked, having absolutely no desire to fellate her erstwhile business partner.

  ‘Then just imagine how it will feel to have hot wax falling on that pretty little pussy of yours.’

  Securely bound and with her legs widely splayed, Laurel was utterly vulnerable to Roger’s whims. She fought a rising tide of revulsion as he gently stroked her hair away from her face. How could she ever have believed this man to be her friend, her equal?

  He passed the candle over her lower body, so close that she could feel the heat from the flame against her sensitive sex-flesh, before pulling it away and letting wax spatter her inner thighs. Still, she would not give him what he craved, and she knew it was only a matter of time before droplets of wax were daubing her crinkled pussy lips.

  As she closed her eyes and prepared for the worst, the door to the bedroom burst open. She looked up to see Warren, dressed, of all things, as a policeman, doing his best to wrestle the guttering candle out of Roger’s clutches.

  ‘Put it down, man,’ Warren snarled, ‘or I’ll have you done for resisting arrest.’

  ‘I told that stupid friend of yours not to get the police involved!’ Roger snapped at Laurel. His voice took on a new, wheedling tone. ‘Look, officer, I can explain everything. You see, this is a private party…’

  His words tailed off as Joe appeared in the doorway. Laurel was stunned to see that Joe, too, was wearing a police uniform.

  ‘Private fucking party, indeed,’ Joe began, moving towards the bed and beginning to untie Laurel as Roger, the extinguished candle falling from his grip, struggled in Warren’s arms with renewed purpose.

  ‘You’re not the police,’ Roger said, realisation dawning. ‘Clive! Louisa! Come and help me deal with these idiots.’

  Warren grinned. ‘I’m sorry, but your friends are tied up with other things at the moment.’

  ‘Well, they may be, but I’m not.’

  Warren and Joe’s heads turned at the sound of the voice behind them. Nina was standing there, brandishing the brass candlestick from the dressing table with every intention of using it as an offensive weapon.

  ‘Fucking hell, is this turning into Cluedo or what?’ Warren observed. ‘It’s Devon Rylance, in the bedroom, with the candlestick.’

  This was the moment when Laurel, her left wrist now free, expected things to turn in Roger’s favour. Joe had stopped unfastening the ropes that held he
r, and was staring at Nina as though stunned. Roger had almost broken free of Warren’s grasp, and if he managed to do that it could only be a matter of time before his roster of captives rose to four. Somehow, in all the confusion she found her voice.

  ‘It’s not Devon,’ she croaked. ‘It’s my stepsister, Nina. She’s the one who betrayed us all. She’s in league with Roger because she thinks if she sides with him she’ll get my stake in the agency. Well, don’t believe it, Nina. Join with him, and if anything goes wrong he’ll dump you in it, just like he did with me.’

  ‘You bitch…’ Joe flung himself at Nina, pushing her against the doorframe. He prised the candlestick out of her clenched fist and thrust her arm up behind her, so high that it must have been painful.

  ‘Get off me,’ Nina cried, attempting to kick Joe in the shins, but she must have sensed that the balance of power was no longer in her favour, for she soon gave up.

  Laurel was working on her remaining bonds, picking at the knots with her fingernails. Warren had taken the rope which had previously bound Laurel’s left arm and was using it to tie Roger’s hands behind his back. When a second rope was available, Joe wrapped it round Nina’s wrists and fastened it securely.

  ‘Shall we leave them here?’ he asked Warren. ‘I mean, the police are going to be here soon enough.’

  Warren shook his head. ‘I’ve got something better in mind for these two,’ he said. ‘Come with me. Laurel, bring the rest of the rope with you; we’re going to need it.’

  He led Roger out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Joe followed, frog-marching Nina, and Laurel brought up the rear.

  ‘Where’s Cindy?’ she asked Joe anxiously.

  ‘She’s safe. She helped us inflict a suitable revenge on the Lawsons,’ he replied.

  They paused in the hallway. ‘Stunning as you look when you’re naked,’ Warren said to Laurel, ‘you’re going to need some clothes.’

  ‘My coat’s hanging up over there,’ Laurel said. ‘Will that do?’

  She retrieved it, along with her handbag, which was still underneath the coat stand, where she had left it. Belting the coat over her nakedness, she followed the others outside, wincing at the feel of cold sharp gravel beneath her bare feet.

  ‘Car keys, please,’ Warren said. He took them from Laurel and unlocked the rear doors of her Peugeot, depositing Roger and Nina roughly in the back of the car. Joe got in beside the two prisoners.

  ‘Okay, you and Joe take them to the bottom of the drive and wait for me.’

  He set off down the drive at a jog. Laurel slipped her feet into the scuffed but comfortable driving shoes she always kept in the footwell. She turned the key in the ignition, and heard the engine catch first time. Executing a neat turn in front of the house, she made her way to where Warren’s four-wheel drive was waiting. Cindy was sitting in the passenger seat, buffing her nails with the pad of her thumb.

  ‘What’ve you brought those two for?’ she asked, as Warren caught up with them, barely out of breath from his run.

  ‘We’re taking them on a little adventure,’ he replied. He hunted in the four-wheel drive’s glove compartment and found an old torn envelope and a pen. Scrawling the words, ‘Look in the copse and all will be revealed,’ on the back, he tucked the envelope prominently into the wrought ironwork of the gate.

  ‘Okay, let’s go,’ he said. Laurel followed Warren as he drove the five hundred yards or so down the road to a copse of twisted ash trees. Between the four of them they helped Roger and Nina out of the car, and led them into the centre of the little wood.

  ‘This should do it,’ Warren said. He untied Roger, and motioned to Joe to do the same to Nina. Laurel and Cindy looked on, wondering exactly what he had in mind. His next order gave them some indication. ‘Right, you two, strip down to your underwear. And don’t forget you’re outnumbered two to one, so don’t try to do anything smart.’

  Glancing nervously at each other, Roger and Nina began to do as they had been told. Soon their clothes were in an untidy pile at their feet, and Roger stood shivering in a pair of clinging white underpants with a designer name featured prominently on the waistband, while Nina folded her arms in front of her breasts, which were cradled in a lacy red bra.

  ‘That as well, I think,’ Warren said, gesturing to Nina’s bra.

  ‘Is all this strictly necessary?’ Laurel asked, unable to conceal the thrill of pleasure she felt at seeing her stepsister humiliated in this way.

  ‘Nah, not really,’ Warren replied, ‘but it’s fun.’

  Nina had removed her bra and dropped it on top of the other clothes. Her nipples stood out prominently in the cold evening air, and Laurel found herself trying to ignore the jealous thought that Joe had already seen those nipples in a far more intimate context.

  ‘Now go and stand against that tree trunk.’ Warren gestured to a particularly gnarled old ash. Roger and Nina obeyed him, their backs pressing uncomfortably against the rough bark, and it was mere seconds before he and Joe were fastening them both to the tree with the assorted lengths of rope they had brought with them.

  ‘Well, hopefully once the police have sorted out your friends and their little diversion, they should come looking for you,’ Warren said. ‘Failing that, shout loudly and I’m sure someone will hear you eventually. I’d like to say it’s been nice meeting you, Roger, but my mammy told me never to lie.’

  He turned to leave the copse, but Laurel halted him. ‘Hang on, we haven’t quite finished yet.’

  If they were expecting her to make some impassioned speech, denouncing her stepsister and her former partner as the duplicitous low-lifes they undoubtedly were, they would be disappointed. There were times when actions were much more effective than words, she thought, reaching down to pluck a handful of the dark, fuzzy-leaved plants she had recognised as stinging nettles the moment she had entered the copse.

  With a wicked smile she pulled the waistband of Roger’s pants away from his body and stuffed a small bunch of the leaves down the front. He grimaced as she rubbed his crotch through the cotton, pressing the nettles against the skin of his cock and balls.

  She took a second handful of nettles and advanced on her stepsister. The men had bound Nina so that her breasts emerged from coils of rope above and below. They were too visible and tempting a target to ignore. Laurel brushed the nettles across Nina’s breasts and nipples, watching the irritated skin flushing a mottled red. Then she deposited them in Nina’s lacy knickers, pushing them well in to make sure they rested snugly against the folds of Nina’s sex.

  ‘You wicked little minx,’ Warren said, with a smile of obvious approval, as they observed the agonised expressions on Roger and Nina’s faces.

  ‘Now we can go,’ Laurel announced.

  She kept the car window open, so she could hear the howls of frustration and annoyance fading into the distance as she drove away.

  ‘So, do you think that’s the last we’ll hear of the pair of them?’ Joe asked, as they sat in the living room of Laurel’s flat.

  ‘I’d like to think so,’ Laurel replied. ‘They’d be very foolish to try anything else, considering how we sent them both away with their tail between their legs.’

  ‘Well, something between their legs, anyway,’ Warren retorted. ‘God, but that was a piece of ingenuity on your part, so it was.’

  ‘I almost hope they freed themselves before the police turned up,’ Joe said, ‘if only so they could rub some dock leaves over their bits and pieces.’

  ‘Yeah, but Laurel should have seen what we did to the Lawsons,’ Cindy said. ‘I’d have loved to have seen the expressions on the police’s faces when they saw that snooty cow tied up and shafting her old man up the arse with a double-ended dildo.’

  Cindy drained the last drops from her glass. On arriving back in London, they had stopped at an all-night convenience shop close to Laurel’s flat and acquired a
bottle of champagne with which to toast their victory over Roger. While Laurel and Cindy had shared a long, leisurely bath, washing their hair and spending plenty of time soaping each other’s breasts and backs, Joe and Warren had busied themselves in the kitchen, cooking pasta and a rich tomato sauce to go with it. To Laurel’s surprise they had managed to do so without using every pan in the place and leaving the work surfaces looking like a building site. Now, the four of them sat discussing their success in keeping the agency out of Roger and Nina’s greedy hands.

  Cindy did her best to suppress a yawn, but Joe noticed her drooping eyelids.

  ‘I think it’s time someone was in bed,’ he said gently. ‘Come on, Cindy.’ He scooped her up off the settee. In the overlong night-shirt she had borrowed from Laurel, and with her petite frame, she looked like a doll in his arms. She clasped her hands round the back of his neck, and let him carry her into Laurel’s bedroom.

  ‘I suppose Joe and I should be leaving once he’s tucked Cindy in,’ Warren said. ‘You’ll be needing your rest, too.’

  Laurel shook her head. ‘I feel too wired to sleep,’ she admitted. ‘I’m still on a high from what’s happened.’ She reached out for her own glass, suddenly aware that, as she did so, the neck of her dressing gown was drooping open, affording Warren a perfect view of her breasts. Despite the fact that he’d seen her naked and tied to the Lawsons’ bed earlier in the day, the thought that she was displaying herself to him in this way caused a quick pulse of arousal to beat between her legs.

  He glanced up, making no secret of where his gaze had previously been directed. ‘Well, there are two things that are guaranteed to help you get off to sleep. One’s a hot milky drink, and the other’s masturbation.’

  She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. ‘And which of those do you recommend in my case?’ she whispered, aware of Joe and Cindy’s faint conversation in the adjoining room.