I hear him come near to me, then the sound of a drawer opening and closing.
‘Something simple to start with,’ he says. A wisp of soft and slippery fabric drifts down onto my face, and the next moment, he’s pulled it tight across my eyes and is lifting my head so he can fasten it. The world becomes very black, and I feel a small stab of panic. I can’t see. I didn’t choose this!
‘Relax. This is all for you,’ he murmurs as if reading my mind. ‘You’re safe, you’ll see.’
One of my wrists is lifted and I feel a soft woven fabric bind it to one of the iron bars of the bedstead. Then the other is tied too. The bonds are not tight or uncomfortable but the feeling of being restrained is very odd. I pull lightly on the bonds and find I can move my wrists only a centimetre or two.
‘Trust me,’ he breathes. ‘This is for your pleasure, I promise. Now. Open your legs.’
I feel uncertain now I cannot see him, vulnerable opening my legs to expose my most private self without any sense of where he is or what he is doing. But every sensation is heightened with my sight gone. I’m more aware even of the air in the room as my hot sex is opened to it. The room goes quiet but I sense him moving around. I hear the snap of a match being lit and smell the faint cordite smell of its hot flame. A moment later, I smell a heady incense sweetness of jasmine and cedar.
So that’s it. He’s lighting a scented candle. That’s okay, that’s nice.
So far I’ve liked everything about this experience: the luxurious room, the beautiful fabrics, and now the delicious aroma. But I’m also puzzled. This lull in proceedings is making my arousal falter a little. I’m coming back to myself, and that lost-in-the-feeling mind-set is easing off.
Then, suddenly he’s beside me again. The bed moves as he climbs on to it and kneels in the space between my open legs.
‘Are you ready?’ he asks in a low voice.
‘Yes, I’m ready,’ I say. The minute I say that, I’m buzzing again, my blood pounding round my body. I’m lost in darkness, vulnerable and open. My hands are bound.
‘Good.’
A pause, and then a strange sensation. A drip of heat on my breast that instantly becomes a pleasant warmth. Then another on my other breast. Another hits my belly and then another. What is it?
His fingers scroll over my breast and begin to slide easily over the warm place. I understand. He’s dropped some kind of oil on me, and is now beginning to rub it in. The feeling is luscious, voluptuous, as his fingers work on my skin, spreading the oil over me, making me smooth and slippery. He draws the oil over my nipples, tweaking them with his fingertips. The oil makes the traction harder to achieve, so he rubs them harder, pinching them and squeezing them, making desire pull hard in my belly.
Why are nipples directly attached to the groin? I wonder hazily as I begin to writhe with the intensity of the feeling. He’s squeezing harder and harder and I can feel that my nipples have swollen and become hard as bullets. The harder they get, the wetter and more slippery I become.
‘Stay still,’ he says, and I try to stop moving, but I’m panting hard and it’s difficult not to respond to the intensity of the sensations he’s giving me. He begins to massage my breasts, cupping them, smoothing them, returning to the nipples, then leaving them to caress the soft mounds. Then he works his way down my belly, rubbing the oil into my skin, making me so smooth and lubricated.
‘You’re very beautiful, Beth,’ he says as his large, powerful hands rub my belly, getting ever closer to the place that’s dying for his touch. ‘I love to see you stretched out like this, just for me. Your whole sweet body surrendered to me.’
I shiver at his words but I can’t speak. All I can concentrate on is his fingers, rubbing, swirling, approaching my open legs, where the ache for him is building hard and strong. I want those fingers plunged back into me again. More than that, I want his cock, I want to feel that hard shaft pushing deep inside me now.
‘Please,’ I moan. ‘Dominic, I can’t bear it.’
‘You’re going to have to learn some endurance,’ he says, sounding amused.
To my tingling frustration, he bypasses my groin altogether and instead hot oil drops upon my thighs and legs. Slowly and painstakingly, he massages the oil into my skin, working his way down my legs and right to my feet. He concentrates on first one, then the other, rubbing each toe and the balls of the feet, and massaging the instep. It’s beautifully stimulating. I never knew my feet had such hidden possibilities, but just as I’m relaxing into the pleasure of the foot massage he returns swiftly and smoothly up my legs to my hips.
Now I wish I could see his face but I forget all about that in the next moment, because he’s smoothing oil down over my pubic hair. He spreads his fingers over my hips and uses his thumbs to roll down gently, ever closer to where my clitoris is hungry with need. It feels as large and hard as one of my nipples and I’m intensely aware of it throbbing as I anticipate his touch. I want to move, to gyrate my hips and arch my back, but I remember Dominic asked me to stay still and I want to try my best to obey.
Then, when I don’t think I can stay still a second longer, the pad of his thumb strums over the top of my clitoris, making me cry out and buck without meaning to.
‘The rules aren’t strict today,’ he says throatily. I can hear in his voice how turned on he is by my strong arousal. ‘So you can move now if you want to.’
Then he begins to stroke my bud harder and harder, sending out shudders of pleasure. The feelings are building more intensely in my pitch-black world and as I move on the bed, I feel the restraints tugging my wrists and it heightens my excitement. I can’t do anything. I need him to do all of it. Without him, I can’t get myself to that peak of ecstasy that I now need desperately.
Then he pulls away. ‘There was more,’ he says, ‘but I can’t wait any longer myself.’
I sense him rising up. God, I wish I could see that magnificent cock! Then he’s between my legs, holding his length at my entrance, making it play in the oily, slippery depths.
I buck against him, trying to urge him in, but he lingers there for a moment longer.
‘You’re so ready,’ he murmurs. Then, with a huge thrust, he rams into me.
I cry out. God yes, yes.
It feels deeper than it has before. He pulls out slowly then pushes again, hard, fast, deep. A slow retreat and then that same gorgeous, slamming advance. He begins to find his rhythm, a solid, delicious thrusting, meeting my pubic bone with every inward thrust and giving my clitoris the grinding pressure it wants so much.
‘I want you to come, right now,’ he growls. Then his mouth is on mine and our tongues meet in a wanton delicious kiss.
I’m making a sound I don’t recognise as anything like I’ve made before; this is the most intense feeling I’ve ever had. As his penis hits secret spots deep within me, I’m lost in the velvet darkness of the blindfold and the extraordinary climax that’s whirling up to grab me.
‘Come,’ he commands.
It takes me and crashes me down in a huge wave of blissful euphoria, moving me with its deep force for what feels like minutes, and then I feel Dominic tense, pause deep in his thrust, push hard again as his penis swells even larger, then his orgasm floods out of him with exquisite force. Without seeing it, I can feel it all the more intensely and I love the sensation of him throbbing within me. Then he is lying beside me on the bed, panting.
I’m still fighting for breath myself, still astonished by the force of what happened to me, as Dominic unties me from the bedstead and removes my blindfold.
He is smiling as he takes it away, then kisses my lips. ‘So,’ he says tenderly, ‘how was the first lesson?’
‘Earth-shattering,’ I say with a satisfied sigh. ‘Truly . . . mind-blowing.’
‘It sounded it and felt it. You gripped me very tightly during your orgasm. It was amazing.’ He drops another kiss, this time on the end of my nose. ‘I think we can consider the bed well and truly christened.’
‘Mmm,’ I wiggle happily. ‘It’s lovely.’
‘I’m glad you like it. It’s all for you. This place is ours to do what we like in.’ He fixes me with a searching look. ‘And tomorrow, we’ll begin in earnest.
Chapter Sixteen
The next day, I’m still euphoric. James doesn’t ask me outright but he takes to calling me Puss. ‘Because you look like the cat that’s got the cream,’ he says with a knowing smile.
It’s true, I’m practically purring all day. Everything about my experience the night before was enjoyable. I’m beginning to wonder what I’ve been missing all this time.
But it’s only because it was Dominic.
We’re going out tonight, I know. He told me last night that before we could go any further, there were things to be discussed. It sounded ominous and he must have seen the expression of worry on my face because he said it was all very straightforward and nothing to be concerned about.
At seven on the dot, my taxi draws up to the restaurant where Dominic told me to meet him. I don’t know this part of London but I recognise the Tower of London and Tower Bridge as the taxi goes past. I must be out to the easterly side of the city.
The restaurant is by the Thames, in a converted warehouse with magnificent views up and down the river, and over to the South Bank.
The maître d’ stands and bows as I explain that I’ve come to meet Mr Stone. As I say it, I realise that I don’t even know if this is Dominic’s surname or not. It is simply the name he told me to ask for.
‘Very good, madam. This way please.’ The maître d’ leads me through the crowded ground floor to a lift that takes us up several flights to the airy, glass-fronted extension on the warehouse roof. Here the view is even more astounding, as it reaches up over the diners’ heads.
‘Mr Stone is on the private terrace,’ the maître d’ says, and a moment later he is leading me out onto a pretty area, open to the evening sky but enclosed on either side by its own glass walls which are further insulated with a lining of green hedge set in granite planters. A cool breeze ruffles the hedge tops, and the briny scent of the river is strong.
Dominic is sitting at the table, a glass of white wine on the table before him. He gets up as I approach, a smile twitching his lips. He looks more gorgeous than ever in his dark navy suit, this time with a pale blue shirt and a silver silk tie.
‘Miss Villiers. What a pleasure.’
‘Mr Stone. How nice to see you.’
As the maître d’ pulls out my chair and waits for me to take my place, we kiss politely on either cheek.
‘I’m so pleased you could make it,’ Dominic says.
The maître d’ gently pushes my chair in as I sit. He fills my glass from the bottle of white wine in the ice bucket by the table, then bows and leaves us.
As soon as he’s gone, Dominic leans forward, his eyes dark and glittering, and says, ‘I’ve been tasting you on my fingers all day.’
I giggle at the contrast between our polite selves and our dirty, sexy selves. ‘You had a shower this morning, I expect,’ I said, ‘so that statement is wildly untrue.’
‘I must be dreaming it then,’ he says. He raises his glass. ‘Here’s to our new discoveries.’
I lift my glass as well. ‘New discoveries,’ I say happily, and we both drink. I look about at the darkening summer evening, enjoying the view as the lights come on. Further up, I can see the illuminated bridges over the Thames, and all the bustle of the riverside. The world is humming and moving all around us, but as far as I’m concerned, the universe is here on this terrace. All I want and need is here. Dominic has everything I could dream of in a man: he’s clever, educated, witty, and gorgeous. He’s kind and loving, and takes me to a plane of bliss I didn’t even suspect existed. The rapturous feeling that fills me whenever I think about him is surely falling in love. It’s deeper and more exciting than what I felt with Adam. That now seems like a sweet but superficial teenage romance, understandable at the time but now just a shadow of what was waiting for me further down the line.
‘I’ve ordered for us,’ Dominic says.
‘Okay.’ I’m slightly surprised. He’s never done anything like that before.
But I’ve taken the first step, remember? And this must be part of all that.
Fine, I think, shaking off my mild annoyance. I trust Dominic. It’s not as though I have any allergies or anything – not that he asked, anyway – the main thing is, he’s a source of education for me. Whatever he orders will be worth having.
He’s staring at me, his eyes slightly hooded. I wonder if he’s remembering last night and our frenzied encounter. I hope so. Small ripples of pleasure race through me at the memory.
‘So,’ he says. ‘We need to discuss our ground rules.’
‘Ground rules?’
He nods. ‘You can’t embark on a path like ours without them.’
I remember what Vanessa said: Safety and consent is key to everything that happens in this house, Beth. Once you understand that, you’ll feel more secure about the road you’re travelling on.
‘All right,’ I say slowly. ‘But I don’t know if we need them. I trust you.’
A smile twitches Dominic’s lips. ‘Words a man like me thrills to hear. However, ground rules are necessary. Only the most extreme of relationships function without them, and I’m not drawn to those. I may be dominant but I’m not an out-and-out sadist.’
‘I’m glad to hear you say there’s a difference,’ I say. I’m still grasping all these terms, but of course I’ve heard of sadism. A student at college had a party trick of reading out the writings of the Marquis de Sade at parties and it usually only took a few minutes before I was so sick to my stomach that I had to leave.
Dominic says, ‘I inflict pain but I have no desire for the gruesome torture of true sadism. Almost no one does.’
I don’t want to think about that, so I say a little impatiently, ‘Well, let’s agree the ground rules then, shall we?’
‘Very well.’ He leans towards me. ‘The first thing you have to understand is that the Dominic you meet in our lovemaking, or whatever you want to call it, will be the controlling master that you’ve agreed to obey. Outside that room, we function in reality where normal rules of behaviour are obeyed. Inside, things will be different. To signal that this scenario has begun, I’d like to you to wear a collar.’
‘Oh.’ I’m surprised. ‘Like bondage gear?’
He nods. ‘A collar is a very resonant symbol of submission.’
I think about it. He’s right. A collar signals possession. Animals wear collars. Slaves wear collars. It is a sign of being tamed. Is that what I want for myself? To be tamed?
‘I’ve never considered myself needing taming,’ I say aloud, almost without thinking.
Dominic looks instantly concerned. ‘You’re missing the point,’ he says, worry in his voice. ‘It isn’t about you in your real self. It’s about your fantasy self. I don’t want to break you, or tame you in the real world. But in our special world, you’ll agree to be submissive to me. Do you understand?’
I nod slowly. It makes sense. I can see suddenly that the things I do with Dominic in our sex life won’t necessarily reflect my real self. That makes me feel relieved, though I don’t quite know why.
‘So you agree to the collar?’ he presses.
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I have a beautiful one waiting for you at the flat.’
I remember the gorgeous flat he’s made for me and something melts inside. ‘I wish we were there right now,’ I say softly.
The wind ruffles his hair. He presses his fingertips together and looks thoughtful. ‘So do I,’ he murmurs. ‘But not before we’ve worked out these boundaries . . .’
At that moment, the door to the terrace opens and a waiter comes out with what looks like a large metal cake stand except that the tiers are full of seafood.
He places it on our table and says, ‘Your fruits de mer, sir.’
Another waite
r appears immediately, with finger bowls, tiny forks and what look like nutcrackers, as well a glass dish of mayonnaise, and another of purple liquid with chopped onion in it, lemon halves wrapped in muslin and a bottle of Tabasco.
When everything has been placed before us, one waiter tops up our glasses, and they both leave.
‘Oysters,’ Dominic says, raising one eyebrow at me. ‘Lots of selenium and zinc. Very healthy.’
But it isn’t just oysters. Each tier has a bed of ice on which lie a variety of seafood: langoustine, lobster claws, periwinkles and prawns.
Dominic sips his wine. ‘This Riesling is a perfect match for this course,’ he says, satisfied. ‘Now. I think we should begin.’
I follow his lead, using the little forks to spear out the winkles, and the crackers to snap the lobster claws, so that the sweet white meat can be pulled out with the fork and dipped in the thick mayonnaise. The shallot vinegar, sprinkled over the oysters, brings out their briny, metallic flavour as they slip down. I can understand why this is regarded as an erotic meal: the rituals of extraction and the enhancement of salty, tangy flavours, makes this a peculiarly arousing meal. I’ve never eaten oysters before, but I follow Dominic’s example and swallow down the slippery frilled ovals in their acidic bath of vinegar or lemon, or with the spicy heat of Tabasco. They’re strange – almost creamy – but delicious.
‘There’s more we need to discuss,’ Dominic says.
‘Is there?’ The pleasure of the food, the river air and the aura of luxurious indulgence has made me very relaxed – not to mention the effect of the bone-dry Riesling, which, I decide, is easily one of the nicest wines I’ve ever tasted.
‘Yes. First, I want you to understand that this is all about you. People seem to assume that this is all about the pleasure of the dom. That’s completely wrong. You will be the centre of my world when we are in it. You’ll be the focus of all my attention, and your reward will be an intensity of experience, a fulfilment of fantasy and . . .’ a smile twitches at the corner of his lips ‘. . . some very powerful orgasms.’
Fire After Dark Page 19