Cover Copy
One master, one woman who craves surrender, and a sky that will challenge them both.
At a time when airplanes are as new-fangled and sensational as the telephone, Faith dares to fly. The one territory she has not explored is her own sexuality. In Leonhardt she discovers the man who can teach her how a woman surrenders her body and her mind. However, Leonhardt has a shadowed past and his own learning to do. He doesn’t have the right to keep Faith from flying, even if he thinks airplanes are flimsy death-traps made of canvas, timber and their inventor’s prayers.
Faith has her limits, Leonhardt has his flaws, and sometimes the nicest people get murdered by unscrupulous bastards. Even if Leonhardt can save the woman he loves, the battle for Faith’s heart will be the hardest one of all.
Warning: BDSM, anal sex, orgasms galore, and a Dom who likes to claim his property with pen, ink and bondage.
Teaser
“You lied before. Of course.” Leonhardt took an unhurried stride forward, brought up his arms and braced them either side of her head.
Hell.
“If it weren’t for that adorable tongue of yours, I’d have let you go. Now, I’m going to see what you taste like.” He lowered his head.
Faith strained away, the back of her skull smacking lightly into the timber.
“Don’t move.” Those two words were like nails driving her into place. He covered her lips with his and she gave a muffled groan as his tongue slid into her mouth alongside hers.
All resistance vaporized. She fought to stay aware and upright though her legs threatened to collapse and her logical brain had disintegrated into a swirl of lustful thoughts. Nothing mattered except the feel of him inside her. His lips pressed and slid, his teeth caught her flesh here, there...his breath merged with hers. This was a man who knew how to take.
His body moved in, squeezing her between timber and man. If she needed to breathe, she must accept what he gave her. If he didn’t hold her there, she’d fall. The world shifted on its axis.
Sweet Jesus, she loved it.
Rough Surrender
By Cari Silverwood
Rough Surrender
9781616503666
Copyright © 2012, Cari Silverwood
Edited by Nerine Dorman
Book design by Lyrical Press, Inc.
Cover Art by Renee Rocco
First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: July, 2012
Lyrical Press, Incorporated
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
Published in the United States of America by Lyrical Press, Incorporated
Dedication
May this book inspire those who seek adventure to reach out and grab it with both hands. Though make sure you research your adventures first–wear asbestos gloves, use tongs, talk to people in the know, or whatever helps to float your boat safely. Enough with the mixed metaphors! Go read. Have fun. Live life.
Acknowledgements
May those who helped me spank this book into shape by pointing out the glaring and not-so-glaring errors have full and wonderful lives–Bianca Sommerland, Nerine Dorman, Cherise Sinclair, Bookaddict, Fiona Archer, Wendy Adams, and SD Grady. Thank you all.
Chapter 1
The last three lashes of the whip striped across her naked back. Molly jerked only a little, moaning softly, hanging limp in the rope tying her hands to the top of the post. Red lines crisscrossed her buttocks and a few places higher up. Waves of her glossy brunet hair clung to her shoulders, shimmering in the yellow light of the electric chandelier dangling from the high ceiling. Her white cotton drawers were pulled to ankle level and long silk ties trailed over her feet.
No blood showed–he’d judged it right. Hard to do sometimes with the whips Smythe provided at his brothel when right was as delicate a matter as painting a butterfly’s wing. Leonhardt smiled. Molly had a love of the whip, and it seemed he’d taken her to exactly the place she wanted to go. Her inner thighs glistened with moisture.
“Molly?” He dropped the whip, stepped up to her and ran his hand down her back, feeling her ribcage move with each pant, tracing the raised lines where he’d laid the leather. Sweat slicked under his hand. She whimpered and flinched at the press of his fingers.
“There, there. Shh.” He kissed her neck and caressed the lines, watching her mouth, the rhythm of her breathing and the other tiny signs that spoke of arousal. When her squeaks changed into soft sighs, the familiar electricity zapped him into higher awareness. He never grew tired of seeing how far he could take a woman.
His cock pressed into his trousers. Every response of her body–every moan and movement, every mark on her skin, made him wish he could record it somehow, a symphony of the whip with her beautiful pain and pleasure written for him to treasure.
He might have asked her if she wanted to come but the mere act of not asking thrilled him more. Making her come, whether she wanted it or not was far better. The slickness between her legs let him glide two fingers into her, exactly as his cock might enter her. The clench of her hot flesh and her little shudder made him smile. He inhaled her scent while slowly increasing the pumping tempo–in and out, a little faster, a little rougher, a little farther when he pushed hard.
“That’s it Molly. My fingers are inside you. Let me see your pleasure. I can do what I like to you, can’t I?”
“Yes. Yes. Sir. Oh. Sir!” Her words came out harsh and staccato between her squeaks. Her hands twisted in the ropes. “Mmm!”She spread her legs, gasping in time with each moist thrust.
“Yes.” He kissed her neck again while letting his thumb slide in where his fingers had been. Still coated with her juices his fingers made a V either side of her clit, squeezing, slicking to and fro, squeezing again as his thumb took over the pumping rhythm. Screamers were nice but Molly’s ascending high-pitched sounds were more delightful than the loudest of wails.
With his other hand he grabbed the cheek of her bottom and glided his thumb across a raised whip mark on her hot skin.
“Ah, ah, ah. Nooo!” Molly stiffened and shoved her groin into his fingers then shuddered quietly as her orgasm swamped her.
Her head fell back against his shoulder.
Holding her while she calmed was as much a reward as making her come. He loved the curves of an exhausted woman’s body tucked into his.
“Happy?” He held her around the waist and untied the leather strap around her wrists.
“Oh yes, Mr. Meisner.” Freed at last, Molly turned in his arms and pressed her face into his shirt. “I’d do this for you any day, sir. Wouldna be no need ta pay me, sir.”
“Hmph.” He toyed with her hair. “I’m afraid your employer might have other ideas, miss.”
On the way out he stopped at the desk to pay the sovereign Sydney Smythe required. The man himself was there. Though Smythe barely came to chin height he had a commanding air and was attired in the most elegant fashion–silver frock coat over an immaculate white silk shirt and dark trousers. His facial features were neat, and Leo
nhardt guessed some ladies would see him as handsome. Even his backward-combed, gray-streaked hair had parallel lines in it. Yet the steady flatness of his gaze and the marionette way he reacted made everything he did seem emotionless and dull. But then what brothel owner could afford openness?
“Thank you, Leonhardt.” Smythe stretched his mouth into a tight smile. “For your patronage. The girls do seem to like you.”
Leonhardt nodded and let the coin slip onto the leather of the desk. “I try to keep them happy.”
“Don’t we all?” Smythe’s eyes were dark and fathomless, despite his comment. “Please do return when the urge strikes you.”
A scream sounded. The foyer where Leonhardt stood had five doors exiting from it, interspersed by the lush red curtains. The scream, he was sure, came from the door behind Smythe.
The door opened and a young woman in lacy pink drawers and corset sneaked out though the gap.
“Mr. Smythe.” She bowed her head and clasped her hands between her thighs. The black glossy bun of her hair bobbed. “Sir. The duke is flogging Mary and... Sir, I fear he is hurting her more than she can bear.”
Leonhardt frowned. It wasn’t polite to interfere. Smythe ran a brothel, not a young ladies’ college of learning or some such gentle institution. Still...he waited for Smythe to say something to acknowledge concern.
“Truly?” Smythe frowned then smiled at Leonhardt as if to say, I have this in hand. “I’m sure the duke knows what he is doing.” He glanced at the woman. “Go back inside, now, Betty.”
Betty ducked her head again. “Uh. Yes, sir. I’m so sorry to disturb you.”
“Perfectly understandable. I’ll be in there in a moment. Please ask the duke to wait until I can check the matter.”
Betty shrank back through the door then closed it with a quiet snick.
A duke was involved? “Would you like me to come with you, Smythe?” He tried not to seem rude.
“No.”
A flat, unmovable, no. Leonhardt stared.
“If, Mr. Meisner, you go through that door, you will meet up with the duke’s three very formidable guards. They would not be happy. I assure you, I will handle this. Though Mary has a bad habit of screaming when she does not wish assistance.” Smythe widened his smile.
He could barge in that door and, from what Smythe had said, make a fool of himself, or he could go. No further screams came forth. Smythe’s smile was like frosting on a cake–smooth and sweet. Maybe too sweet?
No. He might not like the man but he was imagining problems. This was Smythe’s business. He seemed keen on taking care of his girls. Leonhardt turned on his heel and left.
* * * *
The river the next morning was delightful.
Leonhardt crouched over the oar of the coxless pair he and Jeremy had been rowing. A few ducks cruised past. The oar pressed forward into his arms as he cradled it. The wash of the hull and the trail of the oar tip a few yards out made pleasant shushing sounds. He sucked in a few more big lungfuls, watching Jeremy’s back and the heave of the man’s chest as he too recovered from the sprint. Jeremy looked white as any ghost and as weak as a newborn chick but he rowed mean.
“Not bad, Jeremy.” He grinned though his friend couldn’t see it, and wiped away sweat from his temple. Cool day but rowing brought out sweat better than anything.
“Yes, good time too. Say, were you at Smythe’s last night? Because a friend of a friend at Scotland Yard told me they found a woman dead in an alley this morning. Been hushed up due to someone top drawer bringing down the curtain on it. You heard anything ’bout that?”
Stunned, Leonhardt only gripped the handle of the oar tightly.
“He says it was murder–been bashed and whipped hard but the body’s gone, spirited away where no one will find it. Mary, he reckons was her name. Damn bad doings, hey? Gosh. To think he knows all this... Do you think Smythe knows? It was a girl of his, apparently? Leonhardt?” Jeremy flicked back his disorderly black curls and turned on the seat. “Leonhardt? You okay?”
Dismay, disgust and horror were vying for first place in his mind. “Yes, I heard you Jeremy.” He dragged his hand over his face. Damn, what am I becoming? Am I a man like that? I did nothing last night! Except to whip a woman in the same way...one mistake, that’s all it would take. One.
* * * *
A year later: Cairo, 1910
The bow lanterns on the fleet of felucca boats reflected off the wide black waters of the Nile as if a city had submerged and waited for Faith to join those trapped below. She dismissed such dark thoughts. Someone had already joined the denizens of the river, though not willingly. One was more than enough. She didn’t intend to be the next victim.
The boat slid through the water like a greased knife. Above, the sleek triangular sail slapped at the air. Even here the smell of Cairo reached her–donkeys, unwashed flesh and something that reminded her of burned dung...and probably was exactly that.
Faith smiled grimly. A few hours off the steamer and this awaited her. Someone had been dragged in by the crocodiles. The alarm had gone up an hour ago and, though most of the steamer’s passengers had gone on to their hotels, she’d not been able to resist volunteering to help search. Jeremy, being a family friend, had felt obliged to accompany her onto the boat.
The barest touch at her elbow alerted her to Jeremy Henleyson’s presence. “How are you holding up, Faith? We can avoid this entirely if you wish?”
“Hmph. I’m perfectly all right.” She quirked an eyebrow. “We are not likely to find anything except a body, are we?”
“No. If that, Miss Evard.”
She smiled at the Miss Evard. Though they hadn’t seen each other for a few years, she and Jeremy were childhood playmates. No matter how formal he might seem, his voice brought back memories of playing tag and blindman’s bluff.
A black, flickering silhouette in the moon and lantern light, Jeremy shrugged then ran a hand through his curls. When the steamer docked that afternoon, she’d observed him from the deck of the steamer. From above, he’d been little more than a mop of black, unruly locks. The rest of him was properly restrained, of course–polite and oh so British. This was the man her stepfather, Henri, had hopes of her marrying.
She sighed. Like all men, he did little for her–fun, in his laidback way. But Jeremy–she’d rather marry a pot of custard. Well-meaning, nice and handsome to a degree yet darning a sock excited her more than he did. Still, without that, this trip to join the first gathering of aviators on the African continent would have been harder to arrange. Henri had almost choked on his croissant when she’d first suggested it. She’d have done it anyway, but keeping Henri happy made everything just...well, she never liked disappointing him.
That thought only reminded her, of how she ached, literally ached, to discover the whereabouts of her poor airplane.
Such a petty thought. Here she was worrying about a hunk of metal, timber and canvas when someone had died this night.
She leaned on the rail and resumed searching. The fabric of her dress brushed against her calves–caught by the southerly evening winds–light material, barely there, sensible for Cairo but sometimes the new French fashions bothered even her in their flimsiness.
A swirl in the surface diverted her. Something gleamed. Water gurgled past.
“Ah!” She pointed. The Egyptian captain of the felucca swiftly arrived with hooked stick in hand. He jabbered something to his crew, the sail kinked and the vessel slowed.
I have to learn the local lingo. Have to. And soon.
With Jeremy to one side and the captain to the other she pointed again. “There!”
“No.” The captain shook his head ruefully. “I see nothing.”
“I also, Faith.” Jeremy leaned over the rail. “What is it you...”
She grabbed the stick from the captain, lunged and hit something solid. The hook penetrated whatever it was and she hauled it in.
“Miss! Miss!” The captain repossessed his hook, pulled
the thing over the gunwale and aboard. Something soft thumped onto the deck.
“Oh. My. What have you found, Faith?” Jeremy sounded chagrined.
Faith stepped over to the find. “Tell them to bring the light.”
The light arrived faster than she’d thought possible. She glanced up and over her shoulder and her gaze locked with that of the other European aboard–the mysterious one who’d not bothered to introduce himself.
The glow from the lantern the man held sharpened edges and deepened hollows–accentuating the crease of his pale trousers and the shadows between the long fingers of his hand. Bald and six feet or more, perhaps... God take her for a dull-brained idiot but he seemed a charcoal drawing come to life–magnificent and meant for admiration.
If I touch him, maybe he’ll smudge. She almost smiled at that, until her imagination leaped farther. What would it be like to slide her hand between the opened buttons of his shirt? Her mouth turned desert dry and, for once, she regretted not ordering a few pairs of the newer underwear. The crotchless pair she wore suited her older dresses–ones that would never dare flip up in the breeze.
As if to emphasize her wanton thoughts, coolness teased between her legs.
Her judgment seemed cast awry by the lateness of the hour, the strange circumstances and, most of all, by the throbbing in her private parts that she really could have done without.
He bowed his head a trifle, lifted the light higher. “You’ve found him. I do believe.”
She looked down and gulped.
An arm. She’d found an arm. Raw, severed, the flesh was studded with bite marks and gouges and bloated as if it had been pumped full of air. A blue ring gleamed on a finger. Sickness welled up from her stomach, twisting a bitter flavor of bile into her mouth. She swayed.
“Hold on there.” Hands, arms held her still. Warm arms–the stranger’s she realized, but she cared not at all, instead concentrating on not bringing up the last of the jellied eel she’d eaten on the steamer.
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