by Enslaved
But as the days slipped away, doubts began to chip away at his bliss. In his weaker moments, he knew a keen and poisonous jealousy, an irrational hatred of everyone and anyone she’d been with before him, Freddie especially. When one evening he came home from the Garrick to find her waiting for him dressed only in black stockings, garters, and one of his silk cravats loosely knotted about her bare throat, his first thought was, “She’s done this before for someone else.” When she slid down the length of him and took him inside her mouth and deep into her throat, bringing him to the brink of climax and then back again, prolonging his pleasure until he thought he’d either explode or pass out, later he couldn’t turn off his thoughts from wondering how many times she must have used that very same trick to pleasure other men. How else could she get it so completely, perfectly right?
For him nearly everything they did together was a marvel, a first, a minor miracle of sorts.
“I don’t deserve you,” she said one evening when they were alone in her room. She sat at her dressing table, brushing out her hair. ‘I’m not half good enough for you.”
His eyes met hers in the mirror. “That’s rubbish and you know it.”
“Do I?” She set the brush down and turned to look at him. “I’ve been with a lot of men, you know. Not legion but a good many. I suppose you would say a lot.”
There it was, out at last, the elephant in the room, the heretofore unspoken and unacknowledged barrier between them. “Why are you bringing this up now?” Hypocrite! As if her sexual history wasn’t the instrument of his self-torture, the uppermost topic in his mind.
She shrugged. “One of us needs to. You’ve been punishing me for weeks now. Why not make it official?” She held up a palm, cutting off his protest. “Don’t put yourself to the trouble of denying it. I’ve seen it in your eyes, a coldness that creeps in when you look at me after … after we’ve made love.”
He blew out a breath. It was late, coming on eleven o’clock. The weekly dinner with his grandfather had been the usual tense inquisition. He was in no mood. “I know what this is about. You’re worrying over your opening and now you’re overwrought, imagining things.” He didn’t know who he was working hardest to convince, her or himself.
She rose from the cushioned bench. “Am I, Gavin? You take me to your bed, you enjoy the things we do there, you enjoy them very much, but afterward you can’t keep from asking yourself how it is I came to be so bloody good at it. ‘She’s like a whore, my private whore,’ you think to yourself, and then you hate yourself for thinking that, but you hate me more because you know it’s more than half true.”
He shook his head, feeling drained. “What … what is it you want me to say?”
“Why not the truth? Yes, let’s have a good dose of that precious honesty you hold so dear.”
“Very well, I hate it that you’ve been with other men, be it one other man or legion. There, happy now?”
She folded her arms over her breasts. “And?”
She was goading him but suddenly Gavin was past caring. He stalked over to her. “Sometimes I lie awake at night and play a game with myself, do a reckoning in my mind. ‘She admits she’s been with a lot of men. What does she mean by a lot?’ I ask myself. Five? Ten? Dozens? I imagine you doing the same things you do with me to them. But by far the worst is when I imagine them touching you, making you moan and shift your hips and come just as you do for me, and it’s then that I think perhaps, just perhaps, I’ll go raving. Satisfied now you’ve made me say what you set out to hear?”
She shook her head. “No, Gavin, not satisfied. Relieved, perhaps. I’ll leave now, of course.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and hauled her up against his chest. “No, I don’t want you to go.”
“I’m not your prisoner, Gavin. You can’t keep me here against my will. If I stay, the anger and resentment will only fester and grow into something worse. You’ll end in hating me, hating us, and I don’t think I could bear that. Better I go while there’s still some beauty left to hold on to.”
“I don’t want memories, I want you.”
She settled her gaze on his. “Punish me then.”
“Sorry?”
“I said I want you to punish me. That way it will be over, done with, and we can both move on.”
He dropped his hands to his sides. The very thought of hitting her made him feel sick. “I would never strike you. I would never strike any woman, but least of all you.” He almost said “the woman I love” but stopped himself in time.
“For God’s sake, Gavin, I’m not asking you to bloody my nose. Only take me across your lap and … spank me.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
“Trust me, Gavin, you want to. Afterward we’ll both feel the better for it.”
“Somehow I doubt that very much.”
She turned, and after a moment’s pause he followed her to the bed. “Shall I sit on the edge, then? You’ve obviously more experience at this sort of thing than I, but then that’s hardly news.” The sharpness in his voice surprised him.
She winced, and it occurred to him that perhaps she was right. He’d been lashing out at her, punishing her with his words and his coldness for weeks now. Even when they made love, he was careful to hold a part of himself back. At least this, distasteful as it was to him, would be honest.
“You should sit wherever you like, if you like. If you’d prefer it, I could just bend over.”
“No, no, if we’re to do it, then let’s do it properly. I’ll sit,” he answered, telling himself he was only humoring her.
He sat on the side of the bed and waited, his gaze following her as she moved about the room. She had been undressing when he’d come in earlier. She wore her black silk robe and her corset beneath. It occurred to him she’d probably already slipped off her knickers, and he felt himself harden.
“We were rehearsing earlier,” she called over her shoulder in the process of checking the contents of a dresser drawer. “One of the props is a paddle. That should serve nicely, I think.”
He looked at her, horrified. How desperate she must be for forgiveness, absolution, peace. “The flat of my hand is as far as I’m willing to go. Take it or leave it.”
Without speaking, she walked over to him and climbed onto his lap, then arranged herself so she was stretched out face down across his thighs, and against his will he felt his cock coming to life. “You wanted to know how many men I’ve been with before you. Ask me now.”
Distracted, he drew his gaze away from her buttocks pointing upward. “Sorry?”
She turned her head to the side and looked back at him. “If you ask me now, I’ll have to tell you, won’t I?”
Ah, now he saw how this game was to be played—one strike meted out for each transgression, measured violence to erase salacious sin, forgiveness purchased with pain.
“Very well, how many?”
Silence. Was she goading him?
“Five?” he suggested, aware his heartbeats had quickened.
“No, not five.” Her coy tone grated on him. She might be lying prone beneath him and yet, once again, she was the one in control.
“Very well, then, more?”
He landed his hand on her bottom, a carefully controlled smack. She wasn’t wearing panties, which of course meant she had staged this in advance just as she staged each and every intimate moment between them. She was playing another of her damned roles, playing him, and he felt a surge of raw anger even as she must feel his penis hardening beneath her.
“Is it ten, then?” His hand came down, this time hard enough for the sting to penetrate the silk of her robe. It felt good, he realized, but not quite good enough.
He threw up the robe, bunching the back of it in his hand. Firm, moon-pale buttocks stared back at him as if begging to be on the receiving end of his hand.
She flinched. “No.”
“No more or no fewer?” He waited, hand raised.
“Fewer … I think.”
>
“You think?“ Could it be that taking a man into her body was of such little consequence she hadn’t bothered to keep count? If so, then damn her, damn them both.
And then Gavin did what before he’d done only in his deepest, darkest fantasies. He cracked his palm down onto her left buttock and the aftershock quivered up to his elbow.
“Ouch!” She squirmed in his lap. Hands on the mattress, she tried to push herself up and off, but he would have none of it. The friction, along with the sounds of her quickened breathing and the rosy bloom of his handprint were having an unexpected, powerful effect. Later he would feel guilt if not outright self-loathing, but what he felt at the moment was fully, powerfully aroused.
He brought his hand down once, twice, thrice in rapid succession, savoring the sound of flesh slapping, the residual sting singing across his palm.
“Eight,” she gasped, bracing herself on her elbows and arching her back. “It was eight. Nine, counting you.”
He heard the catch in her voice and this time when he brought his hand down, it landed lightly, almost a pat. “So I count, do I?”
She twisted her head around to look at him, eyes tear-bright. “You know you do.”
“Then tell me so. Tell me I count, that I matter, and say it as though you mean it.”
“I do … I do mean it. You’ve always mattered to me, Gavin, and you always will. You’re my best friend in the world and … and so much more.”
At her admission, Gavin felt his own breathing calming, his heart settling to a more placid rhythm. He smoothed a palm over her bottom, rosy red and hot with his handprints. He’d marked her, but it was he who was marked, branded, forever changed.
He pulled down her robe and lifted her to sit upright in his lap. Cradling her in the crook of his arm, he pressed his lips to her damp forehead. “Say it again, once more, so I can look into your eyes and know you mean it.”
She reached for him, trembling fingers trailing the side of his face. “I’ve never had a lover who’s meant half as much to me as you do.”
“You might have just told me rather than put us both through … this.”
She cast him a skeptical look. “Would you have believed me?”
He hesitated and then shook his head. Against all odds, he found himself smiling. “No, I suppose not. In that case, stay with me, not only to see the week out but for always.”
“I can’t.” She looked up at him, tears clumping her lashes.
Gavin swallowed hard. How he would bear letting her go again he couldn’t begin to say. “Then be with me now.” Gently, very gently, he lifted her off his lap and laid her down upon the bed.
Daisy had contrived the spanking scenario not because she was fond of pain but because she’d seen enough of the shadow side of human nature to know a physical remedy was the surest way to force Gavin to confront his conflicted feelings. What she hadn’t counted on was her own powerful reaction. The episode had released something deep inside her, freeing her from guilt, freeing her to feel, really feel, for the first time in years. After years of living in a state of self-imposed numbness, the rush of emotion was a heady release.
“Let me love you, Daisy.” Straddling her, Gavin looked up from kissing her between her tented legs.
She shifted her hips, the sheets a cool balm to her stinging bottom, the contrast between it and the wet silk of his tongue laving her labia almost more pleasure than she could bear. And then he surprised her with a light, purposive flick over just the right spot, sending her spiraling over the edge. She cried out her pleasure and instead of stopping he tongued her more.
She raised herself up on her elbows, her higher purpose drowned by the rush of physical sensation. “Gavin, please, no more. I can’t bear it.”
He stared up at her, eyes unrelenting, jaw set. “Oh, there’s going to be more, Daisy, a great deal more whether you want it or not.”
He flipped her over onto her stomach. There were no welts as there would have been had he used a cane or birch rod, just a great deal of warm, pink flesh.
“How pretty you are there,” he said, and before she could answer he bent down and soothed the sensitized flesh with his lips, small soft kisses that raised gooseflesh and brought her clitoris to new swelling.
On her knees, she looked back at him over one creamy shoulder, her face the same pink flush as her bottom. “Gavin?”
He slid a hand to the front of her. Leaning in, he whispered, “I’m going to make you come again, Daisy. I’m going to make you come again and again, and no matter how you beg me, I’m not going to stop until you’ve given in.”
The next morning Daisy sat alone at the breakfast table. Shifting on her tender bottom, she pretended to rehearse her lines, but it was no use. Pushing the dog-eared script aside along with her plate of cold buttered toast, she admitted she couldn’t get Gavin out of her mind. She thought if they made love enough, sooner or later she’d be sated and ready to move on. Unfortunately, the very opposite was proving to be true. She couldn’t seem to get enough of him and she was beginning to worry that if she stayed with him much longer, she might not find the will to leave when the week was out.
Jamison interrupted her musings, carrying in the post. “A telegram came for you, miss.”
“Thank you.” Heart pounding, Daisy took the telegram and read,
Arrived Victoria Station. Stop. Can’t wait to see you. Stop. Lake in St. James’s Park today at noon? Stop. Freddie sends love. Stop. FL. Stop.
FL—Flora Lake. Her dear ones had arrived a week earlier than expected. Daisy held in a sigh, torn between happiness that she would see her parents and Freddie in a few short hours and sadness that their coming meant she would be saying goodbye to Gavin sooner than she planned. Ah, well, all things good and bad must end sooner or later, or so the old adage went. Rising, she shoved the telegram into her robe pocket and got up to dress, never realizing she missed her pocket, the paper hitting the floor instead.
Gavin was halfway to the office when he realized he left his legal brief lying on the breakfast table. Circling back home, he found it on his chair. He was on his way out when he caught sight of Mia batting something small and round about the floor.
“Let’s see what you’ve brought me, you little huntress.” He bent to take the dead mouse away from her and discovered it wasn’t a mouse at all but a balled up piece of paper.
Straightening, he set the brief down and unfurled the telegram. He came to the name, Freddie, and a cold, glacial rage took possession of him. He shoved the message in his pocket and headed for Daisy’s room. They met in the hallway.
Stepping back, she said, “Gavin, this is a surprise.”
“Indeed.” He ran his gaze over her. She looked very stylish in a canary yellow carriage dress with lego’mutton sleeves and a felt hat trimmed with just the right number of ostrich feathers.
“I was just going out for a bit,” she said and he noted how her guilty gaze slid away.
“Fancy some company?” he asked, knowing already what her answer would be.
She hesitated. “I have a bit of shopping to do and then I’ve promised to have lunch with an old friend.”
He stared at her, marveling at how glibly the lies rolled off her tongue. “I didn’t know you had any old friends here in London beyond Rourke and Hadrian and surely you don’t mean them?”
“Did I say an old friend? Rather I meant to say a new friend, one of the actresses from the company. We thought it might be fun to have a bite and a chat outside the theater. It’s always so hectic once we’re there.”
“Ah, I see.” The hell of it was he truly did. “In that case, have a good day. I’ll see you tonight?”
Again she gave a hint of hesitation that had his heart lurching. “Yes, tonight.”
Heart drumming, he silently counted to ten and then followed her out onto the busy street.
Keeping his distance, Gavin followed Daisy to a confectionary in Piccadilly, a linen draper’s in Pall Mall, and finally to St.
James’s Park. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have minded. It was a perfect spring day, the sky a near cloudless canopy the color of cornflowers, the air a perfume of blooming shrubs and freshly mown grass, the sunshine of such a pure golden light you might be tempted to take off your clothes and bask in it. Hiding behind bushes and ducking behind buildings, Gavin felt as if the fine weather were mocking him. Instead of blue skies and golden sunlight, it should be dark, gray- clouded, and better yet, stormy—a mirror for his mood. Who would have ever thought Gavin Carmichael, top barrister and stellar citizen, would sink so low as stalking?
Daisy came to a bench within eyeshot of the Ornithological Society lodge overlooking the eastern portion of the lake. She looked from the left to the right and then sat down to wait. Toes tapping, she was either very impatient or very nervous or both, Gavin suspected. Suddenly she popped up from the bench seat, arm swinging back and forth in a wild wave as though hailing someone from the other side of the water. The lover, Freddie, must have arrived. Holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, Gavin strained to get a good look at the cad.
The couple waving back and walking toward her looked to be in their sixties, perhaps older. A little dark-haired girl of seven or perhaps eight skipped along. Skirting the embankment, they each held one of her small hands though it was obvious she was impatient with their pace. The man walked stiffly, and then stopped as if to catch his breath. The woman broke hands with the little girl to wrap her arm about his thin shoulders. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to cover his mouth. All at once, the little girl let out a squeal and sped forward.
“Maman. Maman!”
“Freddie!”
Freddie? Gavin swung his head back to Daisy. Skirts hiked high, she ran toward the child. Reaching her, she dropped to her knees on the path, and the little girl flew into her open arms.
“Oh, Freddie, darling, it’s been an eternity. Have you been a good girl?” Not waiting for an answer, she rained kisses on the child’s rosy cheeks and ran loving fingers through her head of shining dark curls.