Rough Surrender

by Cari Silverwood

  “While you ask me questions, perhaps I could do the jewels in your hair? Pardon me for sayin’ but the time is getting late.”

  “Of course.” She went and stood before the mirror again. At least now Helen didn’t look as if she’d swallowed a lemon.

  “He and Mr. Henleyson came out together about a year ago.” Helen waved a gold hairpin in emphasis. “You’re well shot of him.”

  Who? “Mr. Henleyson? Mr. Jeremy Henleyson? I don’t understand.”

  “Yes. Him. Mr. Meisner brought him out here to get him away from the whores. Wouldn’t think it would you to look at him?” At that Helen blushed. “Oops, sorry. You caught me there. I should not have said that. My lips are sealed.”

  Jeremy was addicted to whores? Well, she’d never have imagined that. The revelation only made her more determined to make Mr. Meisner see sense. Marriage was not something she could contemplate just for form’s sake. Let the other women fall at men’s feet in a rush to be tied to them for life, not her.

  She had found freedom in her everyday life and would die a spinster if no one precisely right came along. No matter how much she craved seduction at Mr. Meisner’s hands...and, oh, just the thought made her shiver...no matter, she’d not marry him purely because he wanted her to.

  “And pardon me again, Miss, but you make sure you stick close to Mr. Meisner tonight, what with that murder near here. Can’t be too careful and the lass was whisked away when she’d only left the house for a stroll in the garden. Awful thing that.”

  “Yes. It was. I’ll make sure I stay close. Thank you for your concern.”

  “It was nothing, miss. Nothing ’t all.”

  After that, Helen stayed silent, but what she had said was enough to keep Faith’s mind whirling.

  * * * *

  She found Mr. Meisner waiting downstairs in the hotel’s grand reception area. In silver-gray greatcoat, hat, gloves and black leather shoes, his large frame seemed heavier and squarer. She hesitated ever so slightly before walking to where he stood near the concierge.

  “Good evening, Miss Evard,” Mr. Meisner said softly, as he bowed his head slightly. “You are beautiful, as always. Our carriage awaits.”

  At the assault of his familiar scent and the way his tongue trundled out words, as if even the English language should wait for him, her awareness elevated. She was beautiful? She could have looked at him all night.

  He didn’t offer to kiss her hand as he had the first time they had met. If he had, she would have felt compelled to bring his hand to her nose and inhale, to drag it across her cheek. She wanted to feel his calluses scraping her skin.

  “Come.” He gestured at the entrance and lowered his voice. “You’re staring, Faith.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Your automobile...ah, of course.”

  Outside, Mawson stood to attention beside the Thomas Flyer. The green paintwork shone in the hotel’s lights spilling through the high keyhole-shaped arch behind them. “Sir. Miss.” He opened the rear door and Faith slid inside.

  Whatever was wrong with her? She’d stood like a statue in the middle of the hotel. This was hopeless. This was just the start of the evening and she was already falling apart. This recital would have many of Cairo’s most influential men and women attending it.

  By the time she’d stilled her scampering thoughts, the vehicle had grumbled to a halt. Outside was only swirling dust. Ahead a straight track was revealed by the twin headlights.

  Leonhardt lifted his hands from the wheel and turned to her, his arm along the back of his seat. He smoothed his other hand over his bare head. Mawson shoved down his door’s handle and got out to stand in the darkness with an unlit lantern in hand. After a clink and the striking of a match, the lantern flared to life.

  “Why have we stopped here, Mr. Meisner?”

  “Your challenge, Faith.”

  He’d remembered. Sweat prickled at the neckline of her silk dress despite the gusts swirling more dust through the car.

  “Ah. I see.” Well. What was she afraid of? A competition? She was a veteran of those. Her brothers had never let her win because she was a girl–running races, horse-back rides, playing war with their lead soldiers had all been fierce battles. “Very well. What do you propose?”

  “Mawson times this. Here is a street that’s yet to be built on. Straight. No one to hit. We start up there where there’s a pile of lumber. Understand? Now, come up here. Sit with me.”

  The door opened and Mawson held out his hand for her to take, a firm yet skeletal grasp. She wondered for a fleeting moment, what he looked like without his cap, as she’d never seen him without it.

  No underclothes on except her corset and stockings. Just the layers of her dress–and she was glad there were several in this Directoire-inspired dress. Sitting next to Mr. Meisner would be...interesting. She inhaled, and took Mawson’s hand.

  The front passenger seat was leather and hard under her bottom. Her pulse already seemed to pound as loud as the throttled back engine. Mr. Meisner drove along to the lumber pile then turned the car so it faced down the road toward Mawson and his light.

  “Goggles?” he asked her.

  “Thank you.” She took the leather-and-brass pair from Mr. Meisner and put them over her eyes, shuffling them about on her face. As she reached back for the buckle, her fingers met Mr. Meisner’s. She jumped. “I can do this... Sir.”

  “Ah.” He brushed aside her fingers. “I see you’ve at least remembered the sir.”

  “One always calls gentlemen that, just as you–”

  With only a rustle of cloth to warn her, his teeth met in the lobe of her ear, sending a spark into her middle. Like the melt of winter snow, she felt heat pool in her lower body. Her fingers curled against her collarbone where her hands still rested either side of her neck.

  “I’m not a gentleman, Faith.”

  Seated as she was, her dress reached to just above her ankles. Mr. Meisner placed his hand on her lap and began gathering it, grasping fabric and pulling. Soon the hem of the dress had reached her upper thighs. Through it all, she stayed where she was, her hands in the same place, reveling in it, in how he exposed her, in the casual way her skin was bared.

  Without asking, or speaking again, he slipped his hand under her dress and a finger into her cleft. She settled lower in the seat, hooded her eyelids and breathed out a moan.

  “Good, girl.” He kissed her cheek once and drew away.

  What? Lust still muddled her.

  The engine revved. “Hang on tight.” The car lurched forward with a small scream of metal.

  It took her a moment to recover. They were hurtling down the track. Her pussy was swollen and hotter than the engine powering this car. She prayed the dress wouldn’t show if her moisture dribbled on it. She bit her lip and glared across at the man through the goggle lenses. How dare he treat her like some sort of object to be pawed, except... She sighed, oh, she had liked it.

  Fast as an eyeblink, they shot past Mawson and his light. By the time, Leonhardt had driven the car around again to the starting place at the lumber pile, she’d rearranged her dress and her mind. She’d show him. If there was one thing she knew, it was racing automobiles.

  They switched places. She refused to look at him. The pedals were a little far so she inched forward in the driver’s seat and poised her feet.

  “Ready?” drawled Mr. Meisner.

  “Yes. Sir.”

  “Go!”

  Her shoe rammed down on the metal. The car took off like a rabbit with a fox in sight. Switch gears with the selective and stamp her foot again. Bumps in the road juddered her hands on the wheel but she kept her grip loose enough to steer straight without losing control. The roar of the motor reached a peak then flash they were past Mawson.

  “Well done! I can see you know how to drive.”

  Hmph. Though the praise made her feel like glowing. “Thank you. Shall we see what Mawson says of the time?”

  She steered around and back to the man, braking wi
th a little skid of dust and halting the car with Leonhardt’s door precisely opposite his servant. Dust washed in.

  Dash it, that had been good. If he’d meant to distract her with his little maneuver back there, it had not succeeded. She pulled off the goggles and strained her ears to hear Mawson’s reply. Twenty-five seconds for Mr. Meisner. Twenty-three seconds for her. Yes!

  “Thank you, Mawson. That is all I need you for.”

  Mr. Meisner climbed back in, clicked the door shut and shifted his body around to face her. “You have your win, Faith.” He added nothing more, just looked at her with that calm expression–patience and control personified. His gloved hand rested on his knee.

  The winner gets to command the other to do anything at all for the night. But what did she want him to do?

  “Mawson?” She tilted her head.

  “He’s walking home. It’s not far from here.”

  “I see. Um. Good.”

  Her imagination conjured up all sorts of things. Mr. Meisner serving her at a table or kneeling at her feet–no she couldn’t embarrass him like that. Wearing his jacket inside out. Silly ideas, all of them, some of them humiliating to a man of such composure.

  Maybe she could wait until they were alone and she could tie him up? The image that revealed made her stomach turn. She couldn’t... She didn’t want to see him like that. And anything else she thought of just seemed wrong. Besides, she’d wanted him to teach her, not the other way around.

  “What is your command?” he asked.

  Such a big man. The top of his head almost brushed the car’s fabric roof and his shoulders inside that great coat filled the gap between seat back and windshield. If he were any larger the car would burst. Her mouth dried. Her heart picked up pace, thumping at her chest, at her temples.

  Oh, hell and damnation. She met his eyes. She didn’t want anything from him except...him. This was appalling and yet exhilarating all at once. She let out a long, measured breath. How to say this?

  “My command is that...you have to...do whatever you want, tonight. In other words, I don’t want to command you.” She shrugged.

  “You don’t want me at your feet?” One corner of his mouth curved.

  “Ugh. No.”

  “But I might want you at mine.”

  Yes, her heart sang to her. Oh yes, please. It was an effort not to squeeze her thighs tightly, one against the other. How far did he mean to go? There was a limit to this.

  “I suppose I don’t...mind, but not in public, not in front of others.”

  “No? I am not foolish, Faith, despite my different tastes. You’ll find there are subtle variations of ‘not in front of others.’”

  Subtle variations? That sounded somehow ominous, how he’d said it.

  “And, I’m still not sure about sex.” She shrugged, as if it were some minor decision.

  He stretched out and clasped her chin in his hand, fingers along one side of her jaw, thumb along the other. “Who is in control here, tonight? Is it you?”

  The way he casually held her jaw...as if he’d pressed a switch, she lit up with heat.

  With only early moonlight and the reflections of the acetylene headlights to see by, this took on a bizarre feel. Tension strung the air. He wanted her to say this out loud yet she had no idea what he planned. It would be something odd, something to do with her body. She shivered and sucked her lower lip between her teeth. Something exciting. One night only.

  “Who is in control, Faith?” His thumb stroked her jaw.

  She let her lip loose from between her teeth, heaved in a breath. “You are.”

  “Good.” His voice lowered. “Turn off the lights then I want you to kneel on the seat here, in front of me.”

  The front seats were two adjoined bucket shapes with buttoned leather upholstery. She flicked off the lights with a trembling hand, leaving the engine puttering.

  His gaze never left her as she drew up her feet, pulled her dress out of the way, and kneeled before him.

  “I see Helen has put jewels in your hair. I have something for elsewhere. One of my leisure pursuits is jewelry making. The intricacies of it calm me.” When his hand reached into a pocket of the coat, metal jingled. “Pull your dress up so I can see your pussy.”

  Her pussy? God. What was this jewelry?

  Whatever he held caught glints of moonlight as it twirled. A long gold chain of some sort. She licked her lower lip, glanced at him. “Lift my dress? Here?”

  “No one will see. We’re alone. Already questioning orders? One punishment. Turn around and show me your bottom.”

  “What?” The word came out squeaky, almost sotto voce, but he heard it.

  “Two punishments.” Methodically, he pulled out and loosened the fingers on one glove, then tugged off the whole glove, baring his hand.

  Was he mad? Expecting her to allow him to smack her like a child? If she refused though, this would stop. She didn’t want it to, and then she understood the hold he had over her. No one else could draw from her what he could. Unsure yet unable to think of what else to do, she shut her eyes and shuffled around on her knees, set one hand on the door and used the other to hold up the back of her dress.

  This was another of his unnatural tastes. Waiting like this for punishment was... She opened her mouth, and realized...everything down there had zinged to a higher level of excitement. Seemed her body liked this even if her brain was still going, nooo.

  Her dress was lifted higher. Coolness. Mr. Meisner’s ungloved hand smoothed across the roundness of her buttock, a calloused yet gentle touch. She tensed.

  “The first,” he said. “Don’t scream.”

  A line of fire whipped vertically straight across one cheek of her bottom. She jerked, hissing through her teeth. A switch of some sort? Then nothing. The pain spread then settled to a burning pulse. His finger traced down the line, drifted across to her pussy and along her cleft. Stayed there, wandering up and down in the moisture so she had to split her attention. Pain. Pleasure. She clenched her hands on the leather.

  “Two.”

  “Uh!” as another streak of fire hit.

  He thrust his finger into her vagina. As if a signal had gone straight to her muscles, bypassing rational thought, she groaned and tilted up her bottom, collapsed with her forearms on the door. The burn and the thrust of his digit merged and she couldn’t tell which she wanted more.

  “Stay there.” He pulled out the finger sending it farther along, grazing against her clitoris, which was already standing to attention like some good little soldier. Her throat clogged as his finger stayed there, teasing her flesh.

  “Open your legs.” The metal of the chain tinkled.

  Oh, sweet Jesus. She shuffled her knees, parting her thighs. He skated his fingers on her juices and sank more than one into her, the intrusion thicker than before, sliding, filling her. How many, she didn’t care, only that they were there.

  “Oh.” Her eyes fluttered.

  He pulled out his fingers. “Faith. Eyes open.”

  How did he know she’d shut them? She pried her lids open, sure her eyes must be shining with fire, and felt his hand between her thighs. From the telltale sounds and movements, he was looping the chain around her corset at the waist, had fastened it there.

  “Do not. Move.” His other hand joined the first, finger and thumb grasping her tiny aching nub. Something clamped over her clitoris and held on tight. She gasped and squeaked.

  “Does that hurt?”

  She shook her head. “No.” And didn’t trust herself to say more. Whatever had he done?

  “I’ll loosen this a tad more. I want you to keep it on all night as long as nothing hurts or goes numb. If it comes off, the chain will stop it being lost. Tell me if it does and I’ll put it back on. Now, let’s be off to visit Baron Empain and listen to his recital.”

  With this on her? All night? Now she knew what he meant by subtle variations. She levered herself around to face the front of the car. Some tiny weight moved and
swung, tugging on her clitoris and something tinkled faintly. A bell? Surely not.

  “Don’t worry. No one will know. Besides, I have other far worse ideas you haven’t yet tried.”

  Lord. More ideas? Worse? Already her clit was throbbing like a little engine.

  Chapter 15

  As their automobile drew near Baron Empain’s palace, the delicate sounds of a violin concerto swelled over the coughing of the motor. Leonhardt slotted in to park beside a bright-red, open-top Daimler with moon-white tires. As he helped Faith alight from the car he noticed her mesmerized and slightly dazed expression. The clitoris clamp was working. Lovely.

  Just the thought of it gripping her down there made him hard. Now and then the bell tinkled but people would assume it was one of the silver and gold bracelets sliding on her wrists.

  Though the style of her gown was foreign to him, she wore it beautifully. A many-layered sheath-like dress with a high waist wrapped in red, each layer of it was a different bright color–burgundy, red gauze, red and gold velvet, with black at the very bottom near her ankles. The one thing missing was a necklace and he mused on the effect of a heavy gold collar locked around her white skin.

  Most of the guests seemed to have arrived already and he and Faith were alone in their walk up the several flights of wide stone steps and past the four stone-carved Hindu lions that guarded this grand entryway.

  “This is so unusual and impressive,” Faith said huskily.

  He bent his head toward her. “It is. The baron based it on the Angkor Wat temple in the Protectorate of Cambodia. There are all manner of erotic statues out in the gardens.” One more flight of steps and they’d reach the front doors. “How are you feeling?”

  The look she shot him bordered on a glare but, in the electric light flooding from the many levels of the palace above, he noted the marked pout of her lips, and the fever in her eyes before she dropped her gaze to feet level.

  “I’m feeling...good.”

  “And if I bent you over that stone balustrade behind you and kissed you?”

  A sigh heaved her shoulders. “I’d melt, I’m sure.” Now she did glare. “So don’t you dare, Mr. Meisner. Please. We must be late.”