Captivated
Page 28
And Gerard had been so enraged, he probably would have done anything to dishonor Courtifshe had been willing.
Willing. The key, the prime word. Willing. There had never been a woman so willing as she, once she comprehended the depths of her body as an instrument of pleasure.
The real point was, Court had readboth of Gerard's notes. Court had been in the arbor, listening, watching. Assuming.
"And that beast did try to kiss you" Victor added somewhat righteously.
And then getting her father to do his dirty work. "So you tried to killhim thus the code of honor has been satisfied," Drue finished caustically. "And it doesn't give you one moment of pain that you allowed Gerard to get such a hold over you?"
"Oh, no… never think that. I was in absolute turmoil before Court agreed to marry you. It was the most humiliating thing, the deepest secret. And I let Gerard believe until the very last that a deal for Oak Bluffs was possible. I thought that was clever, actually. That way, Gerard had good reason not to expose my depravity. And after it was over, he still didn't want to lose you. Of course, down the line, he might well have used the fact that he had held my notes to hurt you and Court, but to what harm, after he had been paid off? The marriage was irrevocable, and the best he could hope for was that you still loved him and might consider running away. But I never thought you'd do that. Too much was at stake. So it was just a matter of time until it was completely over, and it happened sooner than I ever thought, I'll tell you."
He was as smooth as glass, her father: everything slipped off him. Gerard was right, she thought. The cardswould get him again, and nothing, not even the possible loss of Oak Bluffs, would stop him because he had the ability to slough off what was distasteful, and focus on the pleasurable.
And what was more pleasurable than seeing his daughter married, a dynasty created, his enemy vanquished, his coffers full of money and his plantation out of debt?
For the moment.
"So you see, my dear, everything worked out just fine," he said, as he took his leave of her.
For you, she thought.Always for him. Even when he lost, he won. And he always had someone to clean up after him.
Her. Court.
But what had Court gained? A reluctant wife whom he'd taken on at the cost of doing business with her father, even knowing that her heart belonged to another man.
And who believed it still, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. He might never again come to her, and she felt the thought of that as keenly as the cut of a blade.
No. She wasn't going to let that happen.
How did her father do it?Even when he lost, he won.
Was she not her father's daughter?
She hadn't lost yetshe was going to be married to Court forever.
She had all the time in the world.
But Court didn't make it easy. He spent all of the succeeding week at Oak Bluffs, and the nights at the St. Faubonne planter's hotel, and she knew immediately that winning him was going to take some drastic measures.
Besides, she was getting more than a little annoyed that he was avoiding her.
She needed a plan. She couldn't just continue to walk around Wildwood naked when he was already exercising that monumental control of his to shut her out.
Her nudity would not seduce him now. He was too angry to allow himself to want her.
She had to conquerhim.
And she liked that idea. It all came down to the power and control that seesawed between them.
But she was going to win now. She was going to go after him aggressively. She would be mysterious and elusiveforget all that business about his conditions and his rules. She wasn't going to do anything he wanted her to do.
Irresistible.
Scary.
What if?But she wouldn't think about that.
Very soon he would start spending his nights at home, and then the games could begin…
Slowly, at first…
He didn't give an inch.
One had to have the patience of a saint
Until the night, five days later, she heard him climbing wearily up the steps.
It was late, late, late, surely well past midnight. The heat was, as usual, oppressive, the darkness formidable.
She had been waiting so long. She had prepared so well. But she had to be sure he was sound asleep.
She waited. A half hour later, dressed in a thin muslin nightgown and carrying a candlestick, she slipped into the hallway and listened at his bedroom door.
No sound. No motion.
She eased open the door and, shielding the candle, she crept inside.
He lay sprawled on the massive bed, as if he had just dropped his clothes and fell onto the mattress naked. His breathing was deep, regular, the sleep of someone who was exhausted.
The heavy sleep of someone who might have an involuntary erotic dream. Especially someone who didn't hesitate to employ a sexual apparatus that was still suspended in the shadows.
That was a good sign, that he hadn't yet taken it down.
She set the candlestick down in the fireplace cavity so that its glow was muted, and approached the bed, unsure just yet what she would do.
She wanted to touch him everywhere. His body was so smooth in some places, and yet so rough with hair elsewhere, she just wanted to slide her hands all over him and feel the heat and texture of him.
She wanted to wake him, and mount the harness, and entice him to copulate with her. Her body swelled with anticipation. She wondered how she could wait.
She had worn a satin sash around her nightgown. She untied it and wound it around her hand. Theresix inches of silk to stimulate his insensate body. Beginning at his feet, working her way up his thighs, his tight buttocks, the intriguing crease, across his narrow waist, up his spine, tantalizing his neck, his ear, his mouth; watching him writhe as his body responded, shifting slightly to get away from the insistent tickling movement of the silk.
Lovely, lovely to have him in her control, to see his hips press mightily into the mattress as he began to become aroused.
Elusive… She trailed the silk over his buttocks again, swirling it all around, and then down his legs and finally, regretfully, away as he began stirring, dousing the candle quickly, and slithering from the room, leaving him groggy, erect, and just barely aware of the faint scent of smoke and sin.
That was the first step. The second night was even trickier. She wore an old corset that she had refurbished. She had dyed it black and hand-sewn jet beads all over the bosom. It was cut just low enough so that she could bare her breasts if she wished, and it cinched her midriff so tightly it made her hips seem more rounded and voluptuous.
Not that she was planning for him tosee her.
No, her plans were bound up in something different. Like immobilizing him.
Tricky.
She waited until there was the deepest silence permeating the house. Until the clock in the parlor struck one-thirty.
Again, she took the candle and placed it in the fireplace so that the light was diffused.
He was stretched out naked, this time on his back.
Perfect. She spent a full five minutes just looking at him. God, he was beautiful, even in repose.
But she had no time to waste looking at him.
The next part was the tricky part: lifting each of his arms and placing a satin restraint under it; then lightly forming the knot on each; and finally, pulling one so that she could tie the ends around his bedpostat which point he would stir, which meant she had to be quick and clever to get to his other arm before he fully awakened.
She was so gentle. Her fingers were like a whisper against his skin. She pulled slowly and finely on his left arm with all the finesse she could manage, until she got it up over his head; and then she tied the satin bonds to the post.
And indeed, as she surmised, he started to stir; she darted to the other side of the bed and grabbed the second satin tie quickly and yanked it and his arm toward the bedpost and knotted it.
> "What the hell!" He pulled against the restraints, and then heaved his body upward in a massive effort to loosen the knots.
Drue stood at the foot of the bed, enjoying the sight of his bucking body. She wanted to ride those hips. She wanted to slide her hands around his secret places and explore them all.
She climbed onto the bed and straddled his legs.
Instantly he stiffenedall of him. Every inch of him as he felt her press her feminine pelt tightly against his thighs.
"Get off me."
She had decided beforehand that actions were more potent than words. His body was hers now to do with as she pleased, since he wasn't willing to take hers.
"Bitch."
She stroked his belly.
"Don'ttouch me" He bucked again, and she tumbled off him.
Maybe that was a good thing. There was a wealth of male secrets to be explored around his root and between his legs.
She inserted her fingers there purposefully, and he recoiled.
He liked that.
Good.
She probed further, and found a particularly interesting fleshy place beneath his scrotum; a dark, hiddenmale place. She stroked it purposefully and his body jerked involuntarily.
"Don't do that!"
She cupped the taut sacs in her palm and continued the rhythmic stroking of her fingers against that hairy, fleshy patch of skin. His penis rose majestically before her.
Some part of him just adored what she was doing.
"Shit…!!!" He pulled and twisted at his bonds, his body jolting again as she kept up her insistent examination of that most private place.
"Damn you, damn you, damn you"
"Ummm…" She pushed him onto his knees. This was an intractable man who needed to be shown who was his master.
She reached for his jutting penis with her free hand. Her breath caught: she had never touched him there before. Had never contained him with her hands. Had never felt the heat and length of him, never understood before that the power of him was pure flesh and blood and muscle.
"Just what I want," she growled, and surrounded him, and it seemed as natural as light for her to hold him, and instinctive as air that she begin to pump him firmly, tightly, purposefully.
"No. No. No… NO.'"
"Yessss," she breathed. He was amazing, all length and strength and heat and muscle and pure pounding erotic fury. He couldn't stop her; she knew he saw she was that determined, so he was going to use her. She could feel all that rage concentrated in her hand, could feel the moment he turned himself over to her and challenged her to wring him dry.
"Ahhh…"
That monstrous power of his willthat was his strength: that he would not give in to her easily. That she would have to work for her triumph, and his culmination, and from the most awkward position.
But she didn't care; she still held him in that hidden male place that drove him so wild, and now, in her hand, she held the focus of all that fulminating male power.
It was heady, luscious, erotic. He could only hold on for so long, and then she would have him utterly in her power and she would squeeze every drop of his cream from his body and revel in his torment.
She felt his every muscle flex and tense with his determination not to cave in.
But a man's penis could only take so much; this she was to learn. And that if she concentrated her efforts on the sensitive ridge, she could bring him to the edge. How far was it, then, to pull him over?
He resisted. She pushed harder; she wanted nothing less than Court's utter capitulation to her. And she would fracture herself trying.
She felt the very moment the power shifted into her hand; it was in the way his body tensed, shifted, bracedlittle subtle signsover and above something about the way he felt in her hand: stiff and pliant and ready to blow.
And then, with one involuntary heave of his hips, he erupted, spewing like a volcano, covering everything with the thick cream of his release until he collapsed mindlessly into her power, into her hand.
She held him. She watched him. He wouldn't look at her.
The hell with him. No one else could give him such an explosive completion. She knew it in her soul.
He had better stop ignoring her… orshe would keep him in restraints forever.
Lovely idea…
She wriggled her fingers between his legs. Yes, he reacted, and tried to hide it as well.
"You don't understand, Court. This is my will, my game. You do what I want."
"Not a chance in hell."
"Well thenI guess we'll see," she purred. "The night is young. Your body's hot. I can go as long as you can."
"I'm going nowhere with you."
She smiled that knowing smile he was beginning to dislike. "I think your penis disagrees with you." She stroked it gently. "I think I'm going to tease it for a while. Make it hungry. Make it hard for me."
"It gets hard for any naked woman," he retorted.
"I think I'll tie it up and make it mine," she murmured, ignoring his nasty tone. She had come prepared for this too, concealing in the corset between her breasts both her golden loops and the satin sash.
She fished out the sash and pulled it meaningfully around and under his thighs and between his legs, and then she looped it purposefully around his scrotum and wound it back up around his penis.
"You wouldn't"
"Yes, I would…" She tied the ends together so that his scrotum was lightly bound against his root. "Oh, that's good. And look at how much you want it… you're stiff as a poker already."
And feisty as a boxer, wrestling with his bonds, cursing her under his breath, transfixed by the coil of satin she wound around him. The bigger he got, the tighter the sash pulled against his scrotum, and the hotter and more aroused he got.
"I like that," she sighed. "All tied up. All mine. Now. One more thing." She pulled out the golden loops as she eyed the nubs of his male nipples in their wiry nest of chest hair. Always hard, always there. The loops would fit over them perfectly, she thought.
Everything perfect: everything in her control.
Not that he liked the idea of it. He bucked and heaved as he realized her intention, and he tried hard to twist away from her as she bent over him and she stroked his nipples.
Another secret male place… lovelyjust… deliciously lovely…
"Hold still now," she murmured, and slipped the golden loops first over one nipple and then the other. "Made for you, Court."
"Goddamn it!" He felt trussed and tied and decked out like some top-over-tail turkey; but if he were uncomfortable, his penis wasn't: it poked up, a towering wall of granite flesh, waiting for her to humiliate and excite him still more, and he hated the fact that all her tender mercies could whip him up to such a peak of arousal.
"Bitch. When I get my hands on you…" he muttered, jerking his arms this way and that, his throbbing sex always in his line of sight, and the awareness of the whisper-soft loops surrounding his nipples ever present in his imagination. "Goddamn… goddamn… goddamn"
"No talking," she commanded, running her hands up his thighs, around his scrotum, and between his legs. "Oh, this is nice. Very nice… Why don't you just spread your legs…?"
"The hell I will"
"orI'll spread them for you," she finished sweetly. "You do understand… it'salways better to give me what I want. There" She caressed him. "And there… I like that spotand look… your scrotum is so tight"
He made a growling noise in the back of his throat.
"Oh, yes, I can see you're ready for me, Court. But I'm not nearly ready for you." But she knew she was; she knew her body was so wet for him that she could just sink herself onto his shaft and swallow him whole.
But the anticipation was sweet. And all the control in her hands. And his trussed-up body. And his bound-up penis begging for release. All hers, waiting on her need, her desire. Her time.
That was power.
The next thing she wanted to exact from him was the promise.
She quivered, remembering it, visualizing how he probed her and pushed her, slowly, carefully, inch by sensual inch.
What would it be like for a man to be splayed between those hoops?
She shuddered, an image of him positioned just so flashing through her mind. She wanted it. She wanted everything, and there was so much to be explored, so many answers she didn't yet know.
She turned back to him and caught him off guard, his gaze transfixed by the cushion of her bare buttocks.
He wasn't nearly that furious with her, she thought. Not nearly. He wanted what she wanted: the edgy arousal, the erotic games, and the explosive coupling of their naked bodies for the utmost pleasure.
And if it meant wearing his thrall collar, she was willing. If it meant complete submission to his whims, his desires, she was willing. If it meant living naked with him and spreading her legs for him at his demand, she was willing.
But only, only, only if she could have these luscious, powerful moments with him when she could be completely in command.
She started unhooking her corset as she walked slowly to the bed. She draped it over his penis as she climbed on top of him.
"I always wanted to do this," she sighed as she bent over him and brushed his hard right nipple with hers.
His reaction was swift and hardhe jammed himself up as sensation spiraled down toward his groin.
"Jesus…"
"Ummm." She rubbed his other nipple with hers, and she, too, felt it again, that curling sensation of pleasure that flowed like silk through her veins and precipitated that galvanic reaction in him.
He pulled frantically at his restraints. "Untie me, Drue."
"I don't think so. This is too much fun."
"I'll give you what you want."
"Ha." She brushed her nipples against his hairy chest, and moved downward and downward until she butted up against his satin-robed penis. "That's what you say today."
Carefully, she turned herself around so that she could envelop his penis with her breasts and all he could see of her was her rounded bottom.
But he could feel the heat and softness of her breasts surrounding his length even through the thin satin. Her nipples pressing into his thighs. Her hands, stroking him purposefully between his legs.