Alex waited for Laney to respond. But he wouldn’t wait all day, and his face looked ruthlessly cold.
Laney remembered back to when Erik explained the bracelet, what it symbolized and the requirements it would force on her. She’d been shocked at first and reluctant. But at the same time dreadfully aroused, once she understood what the bracelet implied. Her relationship with Erik would be changed forever; she’d no longer be just the wife of a successful businessman, herself an accomplished attorney. Never again would she be the same forthright, independent woman she’d been for thirty-one years. She wouldn’t be independent at all when the rules of the bracelet were enforced. No longer would she own her own body, or have the right to determine her own fate. At any time, she could be ordered to sexually submit to men other than her husband. She couldn’t imagine what her life might look like if she accepted those terms, but her concerns seemed secondary to taking this daring plunge into an unknown but very seductive future. She remembered her hands shaking, every nerve engaged as she watched in awe with eyes glued to the bracelet when her husband slipped the small platinum band around her wrist. The invisible lock was set, sealing her fate by making the bracelet impossible to remove unless it was cut off. Her body trembled in fear, just as she was trembling now, standing accused by Alex Greenwood. The moment was of her own creation; straight from that inexplicable repository of erotic yearning she had yet to truly grasp. Ever since the vacation on Marquis Island, she’d been filled with crazed desires for submission and the need to express herself as a complying sexual being. Her need was no different now, and Alex Greenwood saw that. She felt stripped, naked before the man’s piercing eyes. It seemed silly to cloak herself further when it was obvious that she’d been found out.
Her fingers ran along the smooth surface of the band as they had so many times before. When she allowed herself to come under its influence, it had the power to subdue her; and it was subduing her now, driving her normally assertive spirit away, and leaving her in a state of acquiescence that was curiously instinctive to her nature. “You’re right. Those are the rules, and I have no good excuse for ignoring them now. Ultimately, I belong to the Marquis and wearing his bracelet signifies that fact. The rules were meant to instill a submissive and consenting attitude that puts the Marquis foremost in my thoughts. I’m obliged to be ready in body and spirit should I be called on to serve him. However, without him actually being present in my life, Erik took his place. But without the Marquis and without Erik …”
“You have no master to serve.”
“Exactly.”
“And with no master in charge, Ms. Priestly, you become fair game for any man who wears the mark.” His smirk looked particularly suggestive. “I suppose you could stumble on some good soul like your husband Erik, or you could find yourself in the clutches of a despicable despot. Either way, you’d be obliged to serve the man as you would serve a god, because that’s what this Marquis is in your world.”
Laney gulped visibly. He seemed to fling his words like arrows.
“Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, I suppose that’s right.”
“And that’s exactly why I suggested that what you’re doing is dangerous. A man like me who knows the meaning of that bracelet could make formidable claims on you, which you would be forced to submit to. Do you get that?”
“Yes, I do…” Her entire body trembled, frightened and aroused.
“And you take that chance?”
“I’m taking that chance right now, aren’t I?”
He raised his brows in amusement. “You certainly are. But maybe you want the challenge of facing a strange master? Is that what it is? Maybe you want the punishment that comes from violating the rules.”
Hearing that word—punishment—Laney seized up again, silent and stunned. She could feel her whole body tremble with pain; not true pain, not the feeling of floggers, paddles and whips on her skin, or the pain of bondage that cut into her flesh, or the pain of humiliation that made her burn with shame. She could feel the lies and the defiance of the rules like some terrible sin. But to speak to a stranger about such intimate matters was difficult. To speak with a stranger about punishment left her open and vulnerable. She had no idea what this fisherman had in mind as he persisted in this discussion, but she dared not fight him. She knew this much. Her body responded, tingling in anticipation of the cruelty she knew she could expect from a stinging lash, or a painful wooden paddle. Is that what she really wanted?
“Maybe that is what I want,” she ventured, thoughtfully, “I mean, I expected someone would contact me after my husband’s death. But so far…you’re the first person who has recognized the bracelet for what it is. Oddly enough, I sought you out.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
Her desiring body seemed to ooze toward him, although she hadn’t taken a step. The erotic power of the island, and the book still resting on the shelf, and the lust that surfaced between them raw and savage seemed almost cataclysmic now.
“I really wasn’t trying to hide anything…” she stopped, realizing how silly that sounded.
“Hide? You weren’t trying to hide yourself?” he chuckled to himself.
Laney felt as if her head was spinning, and her tongue was tied in knots—this was not like her. She took a cleansing breath, renewing her resolve. “Yes, of course, I was being evasive, Mr. Greenwood,” she blurted out. “But wouldn’t it be more prudent not to divulge my true intent for this trip to a total stranger? I would think my lack of candor would be protecting myself. I had no idea that you knew anything about these secret matters. I had no way of knowing what kind of man you were; in fact, you’re still a mystery to me.”
He smiled ruefully, “So true.” He was silent for a time, the two still eyeing each other carefully as if engaged in a game of strategy, then as if something in the air simply shifted, the tension between them seemed to fall away. He suddenly sighed and smiled. Standing up, he looked her straight in the eye. “Well, given what your goal is, Ms. Priestly, I can’t see any reason to stay here any longer. You’re not going to find the Marquis inside these walls. Maybe we need to be heading back to St. Martina.”
This was the very last thing Laney expected him to say. “Oh, but is that really necessary? I mean so soon?” she jumped in anxiously. “I really would like to stay long enough to get some answers…” she cocked her head, her eyes revealing her deep longing, “unless you can help me find what I’m looking for. I mean there has to be some clue, something in this house. Am I wrong?”
“You want to find the Marquis?”
“Yes.”
“Then what exactly are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not above exploring the place. Unless there’s something you can tell me that will lead me to him,” she beseeched him almost begging now.
“I never said I was one of the Marquis’ confidants. All I know of his whereabouts is the Paris post office address. You’d need more than that to find him.”
“Then would it hurt to look around here?”
“No, I suppose not.”
The air between them bristled. Laney’s desperation fueled her emotions, which were raw and even frightening. But there was something coming from Alex too that added to the chaotic feeling swirling around her. She waited, afraid to budge until he made the first move.
Suddenly, Alex had made up the distance between them and was inside her space. She shuddered visibly and looked away, embarrassed. When he reached in and pulled his fingers through her hair, she closed her eyes while her body seemed to vibrate with Alex Greenwood’s. Lust came at her in huge waves of desire. It had been so long, too long since she’d felt a man so close, so real, so determinedly in her space and attempting to conquer her hesitation with a firm grasp on his own sexual intentions. She wanted most for him to kiss her, to press his lips against hers, and open his mouth on hers, devouringly. But satisfying her need was not that easy. Alex Greenwood was not an easy man; so she’d learn
.
“You are hungering for sex, aren’t you?” His deeply resonant voice went straight to her loins, so starved for eroticism of any sort.
She opened her eyes and looked deeply into his. “I suppose I am.” Though difficult, she forcefully willed herself to remain composed.
“Suppose?” He held back his laugh. “You’re like a powder keg.”
“That could be true,” she held her ground, even though she felt as if she were clinging to the edge of a dangerous precipice with her fingers grasping nothing but sand.
“And very shrewd. You want to have it the way you want it. That’s not at all like the Marquis’ property, is it?”
“And you would know?”
“I can guess. I certainly know dominant from submissive.” His fingers continued playing with her hair as if he were in awe of it, in awe of her. “Oh, but I bet you had your moments as the Marquis’ slave girl. Did your husband give you away?”
“Yes. Twice.” She couldn’t believe she’d actually admitted that.
“So what’s that like—a woman like you, who’s used to being proper and correct, a pretty sane and decent woman in her regular life—what is it like shedding her inhibitions, giving herself to strangers? How does that even work?”
“You want me to tell you about when Erik gave me away?”
“Yeah, I’m intrigued.”
He was so inside her that she could barely breathe, and the threatening suffocation forced her to pull away. She didn’t want to talk about Erik, or those two men who used her…she never had wanted to talk about them. She hadn’t even discussed them with Sandra and Elise. They were best forgotten. What she wanted now was a quickie fuck in a room upstairs maybe, or over the back of a library chair, or even bound with rope, naked in one of the vestibules in the living room. Anything. Anything. Anything to sweep away the resilient fire of need that urgently grabbed at her cunt. She was a madwoman in this state. And Alex Greenwood was demanding more talk, more explanations.
“What, you’re too shy to tell me?”
“No, I’m not shy, but I’m not used to divulging private matters with strangers. I’ve already admitted more than I wanted to.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’d think you’d want to get your sins off your chest,” he goaded her, grinning.
“Sins?”
“Isn’t that how you perceive them?”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because something is troubling you. You’re one pent-up broad, like a volcano that’s ready to explode. Anyone with half a mind can see that. I can feel that rumbling energy. You’re not right with the Marquis, or that bracelet, or the husband that gave it to you. That’s why you’re here. You’re a pretty gutsy woman coming all the way to this island to get to the bottom of this mystery. I respect that. Me? I’m just curious. I could fuck you; that’s what you want. But, I want more than that, Laney. I want to know why I’m fucking you. And if I’m going to give you what you want, I want to know how much I can take for me.”
Laney’s mind was in a stew—anger, frustration and lust surfacing as fast as her desire. The nerve of the man to think he knew her. But still she wanted him and worse was the fact that he knew she did. She should have him take her back to St. Martina. She’d paid him for the trip, and owed him nothing else. Even so, her lust ragged on her, and she wanted what he could give her: the hard, furious, fucking sex. His smoldering ferocity was exactly what she’d been thirsting for in her erotic wasteland. There’d be no strings, just a rough screwing. He could even beat her if he wanted to. She’d take it all to rid herself of the oppressive need this island aroused in her deprived body.
He must be one of the Marquis’ circle. How else would he know so much? She suspected something diabolical was at work here, but that didn’t matter to her now.
“So, what’s it going to be? You tell me the whole story and the two of us get it on, or we give up and leave?”
“No. I don’t want to leave.” Her aching foot felt as though it had swelled to the size of a basketball. The physical, sexual ache was even worse. Too weary to fight with herself anymore, she made her way to the nearest chair and sat, putting her foot up on the stool that Alex pushed her way. She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, sensing Alex sit down nearby. It had been months since she dared to think about the tawdry incidents of her submission, but they came back clearly now. Maybe it was the island, maybe Alex’s cocky insistence, maybe just her bottled-up psyche anxious to confess. Maybe it was simply the right time. Yes, she wanted to stay and she wanted to tell him everything.
“Erik and I were on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. A man approached us while we were sunbathing on the deck. I’d seen him before, although I hadn’t seen him staring at the bracelet. I’d had it just a week and was still feeling exposed wearing the thing. Erik assured me that the Marquis’ circle included just a few men and that it would be nearly impossible to find one on this vacation and I had nothing to fear. I probed Erik for answers about his intentions, his real intentions as one of the Marquis’ masters, and his expectations of me—not the fantasy, but what he’d actually require I do. Would he demand I submit to other men? Would he watch? Would he direct the scenes? Would he leave me with strangers? I was excited, but very nervous; I had no idea how things played out and Erik refused to give me any satisfactory answers. He said that it would be good for me not to know, I’d be even more excited if it were a surprise. He said I could learn humility and surrender—which was his way of saying that I had a ways to go on that account. While the mystery that surrounded my enforced submission was titillating, I hated the fact that he thought I needed to learn anything. I knew I wasn’t particularly submissive in my working life. But what happened to me while I was here affected me so profoundly that I had to take this as far as I could. I’ve never been a woman to settle easy, or half-way.”
Laney stared at the fisherman’s face, feeling his energy invade her more deeply than ever. Taking a deep breath she continued.
“The man who approached us was very well-dressed. I remember the pressed slacks and a silk shirt, and he spoke with an accent, Italian, maybe, I wasn’t sure. He was definitely Latin—Spanish, maybe French. There was a romance about him that intrigued me, a mystifying quality of a man accustomed to seducing women. ‘Your wife?’ he spoke to Erik not to me. Erik answered yes. ‘She wears the bracelet,’ he said and he nodded at my wrist. Erik looked a little surprised, but he smiled as if he was glad that the bracelet had been seen and he’d have an opportunity to give me away. Nothing else was said in front of me. The stranger pulled Erik aside and the two spoke privately, while I waited shuddering in a deck chair, feeling exactly like the property that I’d become. Property Erik could share with any man he chose to—whether they wore the Marquis’ mark or not. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. But I was very much aroused. And the stranger…” she blushed, “well, let’s just say, I was already seduced—not like that’s actually necessary but it certainly helped to quiet my nerves.”
Laney stopped talking, eyeing the fisherman as he rose to his feet and moved toward the far wall, not far from where the Marquis’ book lay in plain view on the bookcase. To Laney’s surprise, he opened a built-in cabinet underneath one of the bookcases and pulled out a leather strap, a spanking strap by the look of it, with a handle woven into a loop. He grasped it tightly, while Laney waited in jaw-dropping silence, the level of her arousal taking another sudden leap. Alex suddenly snapped the leather against the air, and it made an enormous crack, one not unlike the crack of a whip. Then with the leather still clutched tightly in his fist, he leaned forward, both hands pressed into the back of the old, frayed couch.
“What’s that for?” Laney asked.
“Does it scare you?”
“Yes, of course it does.”
“Almost as much as it excites you.”
She ventured a wan smile. Her voice had been stolen, the fierce-sounding leather a cunning thief.
“That cabinet is loaded with kinky finery for punishing women. And that’s really what goes on here, or what used to go on inside these rooms. It’s what all this Marquis business is about, sadism, and masochists. I bet you want to be beaten again, and fucked, and used, and made into a slavish sex toy. I bet you want it like it was when you were in this house. That’s why you’re so hot to find your Marquis.”
“You were here?” she guessed, aghast.
He shook his head. “No. I wasn’t here. Are you sorry about that?” He didn’t wait for an answer, “But I have a pretty good idea how your nights of debauchery played out. So, go on, I’m really liking the story.”
And she was liking him despite her fears and misgivings. As tantalizing as his touch, was the way this stranger wooed her with the leather, and the sound of the leather, and the sound of his voice. She felt her body surrendering all over again, with that magical place of perverted thrills coming back to her, that place where pain and pleasure exploded, where the physical extremes created unspeakable satisfaction, and where she languished blissfully afterwards. Was it possible that the magic would come to her now, here, with Alex Greenwood?
Laney bit her lip so hard she could taste the metallic taste of blood. Although she shuddered under its awesome weight, the blistering memories kept pouring into her brain; she’d tell him everything he wanted to know. “It was much later that day when Erik gave me the number of a stateroom where I was to present myself naked for the stranger. I tried to beg off the demand that I go their naked, as the man had ordered. Erik laughed at my fears, but he did allow me to wear a short robe to the man’s stateroom. When I got there, I was to remove the robe before I knocked. I managed that—thankfully there was no one in the hallway at that time, although it took several minutes and two knocks before the stranger finally answered. And then, he took his time before he allowed me to enter, and when he did, he ordered me to the floor. I couldn’t cross his doorstep unless I was on my hands and knees. When I finally crawled into the room, I found myself in an unusually large stateroom where there were a number of people mingling, drinking, I think…by that time, I was pretty much a basket case; everything was just a blur. The drink Erik fixed for me before I left him must have just kicked in. Once I was inside, the stranger led me to the center of the stateroom, and forced my head to the carpet with his boot holding me down at the neck.” Laney paused, breathing a little more heavily than usual. A sudden wave of arousal made her body shudder.
The Marquis' Book of Pleasure & Property of the Marquis Page 20