It shivered over her, her nipples peaking, as if he’d touched her with more than his honeyed voice.
“Kill the light, my love.”
Of course. The beam winked out and she set the now useless object on the floor.
“Place your hands on the door, please.”
In a daze of rising desire, she did, unsure of why it rocked her so to do such a simple thing. Her palms pressed against the gritty surface, which felt carved from some soft stone. Silk whispered against her face, a blindfold sliding into place, then tied tightly. She whimpered a little, her control slipping away, and gloved fingers brushed her cheek.
“Shh. Trust me. You’ve come to me for this, yes?”
She nodded. He waited.
“Yes,” she finally answered aloud.
“Then come.” He took her hand.
The opening door barely made a sound. The sensitive acoustics, though, picked it up and murmured back the echo of stone scraping in protest. He led her back the way they’d come two nights before and, though she tried to memorize the twists and turns, counted the stairs, she soon lost track.
Alice falling down the rabbit hole. But of her own free will.
She knew when they entered his domain, though no sound alerted her to their entry. Once he removed the blindfold, she blinked at the unchanged room, lit by candles, the chaise Hally had somehow known to paint sitting in the center. In front of the fire, a table set for two waited, white tapers in a silver candelabra gracing the center.
“Are you hungry?”
His hand brushed the small of her back and she looked up at him now, the carved lips under the black half mask, blue eyes bright with excitement behind it.
“I don’t know if I should.”
His eyes dimmed a little, shadowed with disappointment. “Why did you come to me if you don’t trust me to care for you?”
“It’s not that.” So much. “It’s more that I feel as if I’ve crossed into another world and that if I eat or drink anything here . . .” She trailed off, feeling foolish.
“That, like Persephone, you’ll be trapped with the lord of the underworld.”
She nodded. “Too much theater, I guess.”
“Understandable.” He gazed around the room. “I am king of all I survey here, yet I am a prisoner of it also. You perceive more than you realize.”
“I do?”
“Yes. Here.” He laid a gloved hand over her heart, nearly cupping her breast, and her nipples rose inside her bra. But he didn’t trespass further. Instead he took her hands in both of his and raised them, kissing each in turn. “I swear to you, Christine, that you may always pass back and forth between the worlds. Though I may be trapped in certain ways, you are not. You enjoy a freedom I do not. I shall always be your willing companion, as long as you’ll have me.”
“Oh.” Warmth bloomed through her at the declaration. It all seemed impossibly romantic, in a way she’d always wanted to believe in. A way the hard lessons of the world wouldn’t let her. This, however, was another place.
“Would you care to change for dinner?” He gazed into her face, asking more than that.
“Um, sure. Do you have something for me to change into?”
He gestured to a screen in one corner, one of those old-fashioned kind, with lacy panels tied with pink ribbons to the wooden frame. Stepping behind it, she found a rack of costumes—some from operas she could name, others from a different imagination. Ball gowns, negligees, a slave girl costume, something made of bands of black leather. It was Cinderella mashed-up with Story of O.
“What should I put on?” she called through the screen.
He chuckled. “You choose. From that I’ll know your mood and we can work from there. Take your time.”
Okay. Not the black leather or slave girl outfit then. Not yet, a titillated part of her whispered. She sorted through the gowns, something to match the fairy-tale feel, and found one in emerald satin, with a draped neckline, a corset bodice, and a belled skirt. High matching heels sat beneath it.
She shucked out of her pants and sweatshirt, hanging them on a hook, then added her bra, because the off-the-shoulder gown wouldn’t allow for it. The bodice wasn’t easy to manage, but she laced it up as best she could. The stays clasped her ribs securely, lifting her breasts with demi cups. The tight sleeves went to her shoulders and a sweep of demure satin covered most of her naked breasts. Her cleavage, however, rose higher than she’d ever seen it, the silver spiral pendant nestled just so. In the oak-framed, full-length mirror, she looked lush and womanly.
Stepping into the shoes, she felt aware of her bare legs beneath the hoop of the skirt. The Master turned when she came out, his gaze sweeping her with warm desire.
“A fine choice.”
The bodice slipped a little, and she pressed the cloth to her breasts. “I’m not sure I laced it right.”
“Allow me.”
She gave him her back and he loosened the laces, the gown sagging a bit so she held the fabric clutched to her breasts. Then, working from the bottom, he tightened the corset around her waist, the constriction rising through her chest. By the time he finished, her nipples throbbed from the strangely arousing intimacy of him lacing her into the gown. Laces she surely could not undo herself.
“I can’t breathe,” she protested.
His hot lips grazed the nape of her neck and his gloved hands drifted over her collarbone, feathering over the upper curves of her breast, displayed more than ever. She knew he must be looking down her cleavage, which made her even more flushed and breathless.
“Yes you can,” he murmured, his mouth traveling to her ear. “Don’t fight the gown. Give in to it and relax.”
While she concentrated on that, he led her to the table and held her chair. She perched on the edge, the skirt billowing around her so she had to tuck it down. Corsets don’t allow one to slouch, she discovered, so she sat straight, her breasts outthrust like an offering. From the way her dinner companion watched her, the view wasn’t lost on him.
He poured golden wine in their glasses, then held his up in a toast. “To new journeys.”
She murmured agreement and clinked glasses with him, aware that he watched her sip from hers, that he relaxed fractionally when she did.
“You are a beautiful woman, Christine. Thank you for coming to me.”
The compliment both pleased and unsettled her. No one had ever called her beautiful—except for Roman in his toasts, and that seemed different—and she felt sure it wasn’t true. Pretty or attractive, maybe. But never beautiful. Still, the way he said it made her believe that he, at least, meant it in all sincerity.
She toyed with the salad on her plate. “Where does the food come from, if you never leave the opera house?”
“There are more realities than you know. They intersect in many ways.”
“Does that even make sense?”
He lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “It does to me. You will understand in time.”
“I don’t know about that—I’m still not sure why I’m here.”
“Aren’t you? Isn’t it because I asked it of you?”
“I don’t do everything everyone asks of me.”
“Not everyone. Me.” His ice-blue eyes darkened with intent. “I want you to do what I ask of you.”
She ate some salad to distract herself from the way her panties dampened at the thought. The corset clamped her tightly and her head swam.
“I don’t think I understand.”
“I think you do. But tell me your reasons for being here with me, if not because I asked it of you.”
“Curiosity. I want to know more about you.”
“Give yourself over to me and you will.”
“Exactly what does that mean?”
“It’s the ultimate expression of trust. When we are together, you do what I ask. Anything I ask.”
“What if I don’t like it?”
“You will.
“How can you possibly know that?
”
“I know you, Christine. I feel your heart and what dark pleasures will thrill you most. Trust me in this.”
“I’m trusting you with everything already.”
“Yes. I need that from you.”
“I don’t know if I can.” Her salad was gone, so she laid down her fork.
He rose, took her salad plate, and set it on a nearby buffet, then stood behind her.
“Clasp your hands in your lap.”
Heart accelerating, she did.
His gloved hands settled on her bare shoulders, easing her back in the chair. With calming caresses he smoothed the skin of her throat. She sighed, closing her eyes. The touches, soothing and arousing, dropped lower. Her breasts, already full and tight, seemed to swell in anticipation. Would he draw the satin down and bare them?
Both afraid and hopeful that he would, she waited. The soft leather covering his hands traced the full curves above her nipples, the fine cloth just hanging off of them. She moaned, dropping her head back against the chair, and felt the cooler air as the fabric fell away.
“So very beautiful,” he whispered. “I want you to stay this way while we finish our dinner, so I can gaze on your loveliness and you can find out how it feels to do what I ask of you. Will you do that?”
She opened her eyes to find his, sparking blue above her.
“All right.”
“I want you to say, ‘Yes, Master.’ ”
She blinked, uncertain. He caressed her cheek with a smile. “When you are ready, then.”
He went to the buffet and arranged food on plates. Feeling odd sitting there with her breasts naked above the green gown that otherwise bound her so tightly, she sipped her wine. Her thoughts and emotions seemed to dance out of reach, beyond analysis. The desire, though, stayed as real and true as the heartbeat pounding in her chest.
“Why can’t I call you by your name?”
“That is my name.”
“That’s a title, not a name.”
“What are names but the way we are defined? I am called by what I am.”
Setting a plate before her, he took his back to his place and sat.
“Now what?” she asked.
He smiled and might have raised an eyebrow under the mask. “We eat. It’s very good.”
The chicken smelled heavenly indeed and melted in her mouth when she tried it. The sight of her thrusting, pink nipples distracted her, though. So strange to be having dinner while on sexual display. Thrilling, too.
“I meant, what happens after this?”
“I knew what you meant. And that’s one of the rules. I decide what happens. You don’t get to know. You only do what I ask.”
“So, this is a sex game.”
“Oh, no. More than that, Christine.” He stilled, drawing intensity to him like a building storm system. “Will you try—just a taste—at least for tonight?”
“Everything you ask?”
“Yes.”
“And if I refuse?
“Then it all comes to an end.”
“Promise?”
“More than that. I swear it upon my life.”
5
“I have a rule, while we’re negotiating,” she said.
“Is that what this is?” The static charge of his excitement hadn’t diminished but continued to build, a thundercloud rumbling down the valley. The thread of amusement in his voice was like the trill of the last bird singing before the storm arrived.
“Everything is a negotiation—most people don’t pay enough attention to know it.” She didn’t much want to think about her father’s advice at this erotically charged moment, but his specter haunted her anyway. “I’ll only be completely naked in the dark. If it’s light, my belly is always covered.”
“You don’t have to hide your scars from me, Christine.”
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” She flung out the challenge, and it lay on the table between them. A safe bet, there.
He inclined his head gravely, the waves of desire coming off him somewhat diminished. She was sorry for that.
“And we should talk about the detail stuff. I’m on the pill, so I won’t get pregnant.”
He raised a bland eyebrow at her, and she wondered again what manner of creature he was.
“But what about STDs—do you have condoms?”
“I cannot give you a disease, if that’s what you’re asking. My . . . afflictions are of another sort entirely.”
“Ah.” She’d pretty much expected as much, but a girl had to ask.
“Are you ready to begin?”
“We haven’t already?”
He smiled, and the tension rocketed up again. “Ah, my Christine, we’ve only tasted the edges. Say the word and I will show you how we cross the threshold.”
Her body throbbed, that smile of his a tangible caress across her skin. Anything was possible. Anything at all.
“I’m ready.” And with her words, it seemed the room revolved, then steadied, the colors brighter, deeper, more intense. She’d handed control of herself over to him. It felt like nothing else ever had.
“Come here.” He took a box from the sideboard and set it on the table, then turned his chair so she could stand in front of him. Sweat trickled from her armpits and she felt even more that she couldn’t catch her breath. Anything he asks. On unsteady legs, her thighs damp beneath the belled skirt, she rose and stood before him, breasts bare and swollen so hard they ached.
He opened the box. Inside, resting on royal blue velvet like expensive jewelry, lay a silver collar and four cuffs. She’d seen the collar before, carved into the plaster at the dead end of the hall. Taking up one of the smaller cuffs, he asked her to hold out her wrist. In a trance, she obeyed, letting him lock the smooth metal around her narrow wrist, where it fit as if made for her.
Perhaps it had been.
Once her wrists were both cuffed, he asked her to turn around. Drawing her wrists together at the small of her back, he linked them together. Her breath shuddered in and out, forced shallow by the corset dress so her breasts bounced obscenely. Each moment rattled her more, dissolving her rational thoughts and sending her into a whirl of sensation.
When he had her turn around again, he patted his thigh. “Put your foot here.”
He braced her waist, helping her balance when she set her heel on his knee. After locking a cuff around that ankle, his gloved hands smoothed up her calf, and she became aware of how very vulnerable she was under the skirt. His intent ice-blue gaze held her as firmly as his strong hands.
Then he released her and asked for the other foot. This time, once it was locked, his hands rose higher. She held still, a rabbit snared by longing.
“Are you wet, Christine?” he asked softly, one hand holding her calf in an iron grip, the other tracing up her inner thigh.
She nodded, pressing her lips together against a whimper. Why this aroused her so, she didn’t know, but her sex felt hot and swollen, open and ready.
“Set your foot down.” She did, but his hands remained under her skirt, hidden by the emerald bell of it. “Let’s take these off, shall we?”
The leather gloves roamed over her hips, hooking in her panties and pulling them down. Riveted by his gaze, she felt the soaked lace slide down her inner thighs to her knees and calves. At his urging, she stepped out of them and waited for what he’d demand next. Knowing full well what it would likely be.
“Kneel down.”
Ah yes.
It wasn’t as hard as she’d thought such a thing might be. Daylight Christy might have been horrified, but Christine, in the Master’s sensuous nighttime world, could sink to her knees between his spread thighs, her naked breasts displayed for his pleasure. Without waiting for instruction, she lifted her chin and let him lock the collar around her throat.
A shudder of unnamable emotion swept through her. Threshold crossed. Transformation complete.
“While you wear these, you are mine.” He intoned the words as if they
were a sacred ritual. “Now answer me properly. The way you know I need you to.”
“Yes . . . Master.”
A breath sighed out of him. Reverence and triumph.
He took something else from the nearby sideboard and held it in front of her. It took a moment for her eyes to make sense of it, for her arousal-soaked brain to understand. The other object from the door—a whip.
She searched his eyes behind the mask, wanting to ask questions, not sure if she was allowed to. He returned her gaze seriously, the unspoken conversation flowing between them.
“Are you frightened?” he asked.
“No,” she answered with complete honesty. She should be, but she wasn’t. Instead she soared on a hot hurricane wind, moisture surging between her naked thighs. If he asked it, she would give. That’s how this world worked.
“Kiss this, then, to show me you accept the pain along with the pleasure.”
She bent her head and pressed her lips to the braided leather, transported by how very far past any boundary she’d gone. He set the whip aside and cupped her face with those black-gloved hands, bending down to kiss her, first gently, then more fiercely. She didn’t resist, suspended in his grasp, as if she’d given over all her resistance.
She likely had.
Holding her, he stood, drawing her with him so her turgid nipples scratched against the soft linen of his white shirt, his mouth feasting on her upturned lips, steadying her against his powerful chest. She missed being able to touch him, but being helpless added another dimension. All of her focus centered on her mouth, breasts, and sex. A wild urge ran through her, to beg him to take her, to bend her over the dregs of supper and fuck her within an inch of her life.
But she didn’t. Because he didn’t ask it. There was a purity in that.
Instead he asked her to go over to the chaise and wait for him. Breasts aching as she walked, she went to the fainting couch Hally had painted, noticing for the first time that rings were embedded in it, at the head and foot.
“Hold still.” Silk whispered and the blindfold dropped over her eyes. He knotted it tightly, and the world went further into night. A breath of leather, of linen, and then his hands, bare of the gloves, settled onto her skin. She gasped out a breath at the shock that passed between them, skin to skin. He drew her back against him, her bound wrists between them, and filled his hands with her breasts.
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