by Monica Burns
Her reaction was that of a woman uncertain of her charms, and Mystère had never given any sign that she was unsure of herself. If anything her response held a stark vulnerability that reminded him strongly of Jane. He rejected the idea. Jane was too forthright not to have revealed herself to him the moment they were alone.
Tobias suppressed the rumble of self-disgust fighting to break past his lips. Was he so certain of Jane’s inability to lie to him? Mystère exhaled a sharp breath of what he was certain was disappointment, and he was again reminded of Jane.
“Might I remind you that just a few short moments ago, you said you never run from a challenge.” The accusation was razor-edged in its intensity. “You can’t even recognize a lie, let alone the truth.”
Tobias remained silent, and Mystère walked around him and pulled up the slack in the ropes until he was once again on the balls of his feet. There was just a hint of discomfort in his side. If Hopkins had hit him any harder, he was certain he wouldn’t be able to tolerate his current position.
Tobias jumped at the gentle caress of her fingertips gliding down his arm then wrapping around his chest before stopping just above where his erection touched his stomach. His cock strained upward, almost painfully, as it stretched itself in hopes of having her fingers brush over the tip of him.
To his frustration, she ignored his aching member. Instead, her hand slid along his inner thigh until she gently cupped his leather-bound sacs in the palm of her hand. The pleasure was instantaneous and acute. He inhaled a quick hiss of breath at the touch, and he could see the drop of cum clinging tenaciously to the tip of his cock. A groan formed in the back of his throat as she tortured him again with her fingers.
“Do you like this Tobias?” Her breath was a sultry breeze against his shoulder.
“Yes, my Lady” he rasped. He didn’t just like it, he was ready to go to hell and back for her if he could come inside her this very moment.
“I’m glad.” The smile in her voice made him stiffen. Christ Jesus was he so far gone that Mystère had become Jane in his mind. His tension rose as his fingers teased his skin. “Is your leather ring uncomfortable?”
“Only a little, my Lady,” Tobias choked on his response, relieved she’d not asked something more dangerous. “But not enough for me to ask that it be removed.”
“Good,” she whispered in his ear as her teeth captured his ear lobe and tugged on it gently. “I would not wish to cause you discomfort in any way.”
She grasped him at the base of his erection and moved upward. Eyes downcast, he watched her hand make its way up to the mushroom cap of his cock. She drew out the stroke at an agonizingly slow speed, and her fingers grew tighter around him until her thumb edged its way over the tip of him. Unable to control his response, he uttered a sound that emphasized a need that was already obliterating his ability to form clear, conscious thoughts. With methodical precision, she smeared the white drop of cum over the top of his iron hard length with her thumb. The familiar sensation of his balls retracting upward against the leather strips binding them tugged another grunt out of him.
“Would you like to come now, Tobias?” Her question made the vise around his chest tighten.
“Only if I can do so inside you, my Lady.”
“That does sound rather pleasant, doesn’t it?” The smile in her voice sent a jolt of expectation pounding through him.
As she came around to face him once more, Tobias breathed in the soft, sweet scent of jasmine. He’d not erred in selecting the flower tonight. He’d simply underestimated the extent of her power over him. She lightly ran her fingers over his mouth, and pure instinct made him suck her forefinger into his mouth. She didn’t protest, she simply grew still as his tongue swirled around her finger. Without a word, she pulled her finger from his mouth and stepped back.
“There is a price to pay of course,” she said softly.
“I’ve no doubt the price you ask will be worth the pleasure of sharing your bed, my Lady.”
“Even if that price demands you confess your soul, Tobias?”
Tobias jerked against the ropes stretching his body taut. She didn’t realize what she was asking. She might have the strength and power to care for him here, but he knew she would tremble in the face of his terrible past. Any woman would. His mouth went dry as he acknowledged the truth he’d done his best to ignore and hide from for years.
His body convulsed as if he’d been struck by lightning. The sharp pain of it traveled from the tips of his fingers straight down to his feet. Mystère’s hand immediately stroked its way across his cheek in a consoling gesture. It made him believe she recognized the heavy weight of guilt and pain locked inside him. She’d brought him to the brink, and yet he still couldn’t bring himself to yield. The thought that she could see so deep into him made him flinch.
Her intrinsic ability to reach his troubled soul was far greater than he’d realized. He closed his eyes. Other Ladies at La Maison des Plaisirs Sombres had bound and confined him physically, but not one of them had ever made him feel so vulnerable or exposed as this woman did. The revelation twisted his gut.
His entire body ached for a release, but not just for a physical one. Ever so slowly, and with an inherent skill, she was pushing him to surrender. It was as if she understood his needs before he even understood them himself.
“Yielding to me doesn’t make you weak, Tobias. It takes a strong, courageous man to give way to a woman’s touch.” Her voice was a soft, comforting salve to his spirit. She circled him to kneel at his feet. “It’s like a ship after a storm. Your strength remains intact, but you take comfort in the harbor that welcomes you back to shore.”
Unable to avert his gaze, Tobias watched as she leaned forward to blow a long, steady breath of air across his ridged length. A second later, her tongue flicked out to probe the slit in the top of his cock. Tobias drew in a sharp hiss of air and his entire body shuddered with an ache that made him tug at the ropes holding him hostage.
As Mystère tipped her head back and stared up at him, the mask she wore revealed little of her emotions, but in her sapphire eyes, he caught the flare of desire. A passion he’d seen in Jane last night. He didn’t bother to suppress a groan as he struggled with the reasons why he wanted Mystère to be Jane. Her voice was as sultry as a siren’s.
“I love the way you taste, Tobias.”
She licked her lips in a delicate, sensual movement, and if possible his body grew even harder. The need in his cock had finally engulfed the rest of his body. Sweet Jesus. She wasn’t just using her instincts to make him yield. She was using his body against him as well.
“Would you like me to pleasure you with my mouth, Tobias? You have only to ask.”
The image her question conjured up made Tobias’ cock expand even further. It brought with it a spasm of pain and pleasure as the leather ring around his aching erection prevented him from spilling his seed. For the briefest of moments, he allowed the pleasure to outweigh his discomfort.
“I wish only to please you, my Lady.”
A grunt rumbled out of his chest as he suppressed the desire to ask her to wrap her lips around his cock. The moment he shook his head in refusal, she cupped his balls then pressed her finger against the spot directly beneath his sacs.
“Fuck.” The air left his lungs as he went up on his toes in a futile effort to evade her mind-blowing touch.
“That wasn’t an answer, Tobias.”
“Tell me what you want of me,” he said hoarsely as his heart pounded a violent rhythm in his head. His gaze met hers as she tilted her head to look up at him while maintaining pressure on the point just behind his balls. Her gaze narrowed as she looked at him.
“I want you to ask.” Her fingers stroked his sacs gently, and he cried out again at the intense sensation of pleasure swelling through his groin. “It’s that simple, Tobias. Just ask.”
The determination in her voice made his stomach twist into knots. Christ Jesus, as much as he wanted her to
take him into her mouth, he couldn’t form the words. He released a quiet groan. The dark sound filled his ears as she skimmed the rim of his cock with her tongue. He tried to arch away from her, but her hand gripped the back of his thigh and held him in place. Again her tongue laced its way across his highly sensitized skin.
“Ask, Tobias.”
Steel layered the soft command, and his body cried out for relief from the pleasure that was now bordering on the fine edge of pain it was so intense. He shook his head as he fought back the urge to do as she ordered. Her pleasure was what mattered, not his. He didn’t deserve her care, any more than he deserved relief from his guilt. The pressure she applied to the spot beneath his balls argued differently. It urged him to beg for her mouth on his cock. His body jerked as he felt the beginnings of an orgasm.
“I can’t my Lady, I’m not worthy of your attention,” he choked out in a raw voice.
“You think yourself underserving of my attention?”
There was a gentle note in her voice that pulled him toward the abyss he wasn’t certain he could resist much longer. An image of Jane crashed through his brain, but it was a fleeting one as he struggled to maintain his focus and not tumble off the cliff Mystère was leading him toward.
“I am here to give you pleasure, my lady. My needs are unimportant.” It was the harsh breath of a man fighting a lost cause, and he knew it.
“But your needs are my needs,” she whispered with a tenderness that scraped across his heart. It was no longer Mystère’s voice he heard but Jane’s. “Here, with me, you can let go of your demons and know you will be cared for and your wounds washed clean.”
“I have no demons to slay,” he snarled. Silence filled the space between them for a long moment before her hand caressed his thigh.
“What would you do if someone tried to hurt me, Tobias?”
“I would find them, and I would tear them apart, limb from limb.” There was no hesitation in his reply and the flat, deadly note in his voice, emphasized how brutal his retribution would be.
“And is that what you did as a boy? Did you save someone from your father?”
The load roar of an unknown beast filled Tobias’ ears, and he experienced pity for the tormented creature. He knew all too well that the animal was completely ensnared in the hunter’s net. Another savage cry of desperation rent the air until he wanted to shut the sound out. But he couldn’t because the wild howls of pain were coming from him.
Overhead, he could feel his hands clawing at the ropes holding him place. It was a futile effort to remove the cuffs. Images from the past flooded his senses, as he blindly tried to find a way to free himself. A voice called to him, but he ignored it and threw himself forward to latch onto his father’s leg to sink his teeth in his sire’s calf. Retribution was swift and vicious.
One moment Tobias was clinging to his father’s leg, and the next he was flying across the floor like a rag doll. Stunned, he lay still for a moment until the fierce sting of a leather strap cut through his shirt and into his back. He tried to scramble out of reach, but his father’s heavy booted foot pushed down on his shoulder to hold him in place.
From where he lay, he could see his mother curled up in a ball, her eyes glazed with pain as she met his gaze. The hopeless expression on her face frightened him. They would both die today. He stretched out his hand in her direction and in a whisper called out to her. She moved her lips but no words came out. As the lash hit his back with ever increasing fury, Tobias watched the life begin to fade from his mother’s eyes.
“Think you can fucking beat me, boy? That day won’t happen. You’re nothing more than a sniveling little brat. You’ll never be a man, boy. I’ll see to that.”
The sight of his mother slowly dying in front of him filled Tobias with horror. This was his father’s sin. A crime that deserved punishment. The cruel, brutish note in his father’s voice continued to echo in his ears as a wave of fury crashed through Tobias. With a howl of rage, he rolled free of his father’s foothold and launched himself at his sire once more.
“Tobias.” Soft and soothing his name echoed in his ear. “Tobias, it’s all right.”
Slowly, the past faded, and he became aware of his surroundings. He was on his knees, head bent. The leather cuffs no longer restrained his hands, and the gentle caress of Mystère’s hand was achingly comforting. The icy finger of foreboding swept through him. Christ Jesus, what had he said? He’d been so deep in the past he couldn’t remember anything from the last few minutes.
With a low growl of fear, he roughly pushed her away from him and staggered to his feet. He swayed slightly then stumbled backward to put distance between them. The hard curvature of the bedpost pressed into his back. The memory of his father’s lashes was still vivid, and he flinched as his scars reacted almost painfully to the wood post.
Weak at the knees, he lurched around the corner of the bed and sank down onto the mattress. Head in his hands, he tried to remember if he’d said something incriminating. Tobias shuddered at the memory of the black iron in his hand and the rage that had made an eight-year-old boy tremble like a leaf in the wind.
“Tobias.” Soft hands captured his and stroked them. With gentle strokes, she brushed across the scraped skin of his wrists and bent her head to kiss his palm. “Forgive me.”
The remorse in her voice snagged at him and reached down into the depths of his soul. She wasn’t the guilty party. He was. He was the murderer, not her. He dragged in a deep, ragged breath and shook his head.
“You are not to blame.”
“Yes, I pushed you too hard,” she whispered with regret.
“No, I simply lost control of my senses,” he snarled as he tugged his hands out of her grasp.
“Oh, Tobias.” The soft sigh brushed across his finely honed senses like a silken scarf. “Please don’t torture yourself any longer. You were a child.”
“A child who in a fit of blind rage murdered his own father.”
The cold, lifeless note in his statement reflected the darkness he’d kept hidden for so long. The sudden stillness in her took him by surprise. It was a tangible sensation. She didn’t make a sound. She simply became motionless as if startled by a predator. Tobias lifted his gaze and met her horrified one. Silence, threatening and deadly, stretched between them.
All too quickly, he realized he’d not confessed his darkest sin while blindly battling his demons. Instead, he’d blundered mere seconds ago and reveal everything. Her fingers suddenly dug into his thighs as she leaned forward to press her brow against his. The edge of her mask was a gentle scrape against the bridge of his nose. It was a fleeting reminder that she’d hidden herself from him and had yet to trust him with the secret of who she was.
“You. Are. Not. To blame.” Like a lioness, Mystère’s words were fierce and filled with vehemence. “You defended yourself and your mother. No one could fault you for that.”
“I allowed them to think she killed him.”
“It’s what she would have wanted you to do,” she said with firm conviction. “If I had been her, I would have wanted you to live free of guilt for doing what was necessary.”
The confidence in her voice was like a salve on the open wounds of his soul. It didn’t take the pain or the horror away, but it softened the roar of agony thundering its way along every vein in his body.
“Lie down,” she ordered quietly.
Tobias didn’t think, he simply did as she commanded. He was too tired to challenge her at the moment. Eyes closed, he heard her move away from him. A moment later she returned and pressed a cool, damp cloth against his brow. She pulled the rag away from him, and he heard the sound of water swishing in a bowl. Droplets rained back into the bowl as she wrung out the cloth then patted it against his brow and face again. As she continued her tender ministrations, he shuddered.
An icy chill settled over his skin, and his tremor was followed by another and then another. In the distance, he heard her make a quiet sound of concern befo
re he curled up in a ball and tried to warm himself. A sheet fluttered over him, and somewhere in his hazed state, he heard other rustling sounds as well.
Warmth engulfed him as her body pressed into his back, and her bare skin connected with his. His initial reaction was to jerk away from her, but he was too exhausted to move. Although he continued to tremble, her heat seeped its way into him and lessened the tremors wracking his body. Her body curled and molded itself to his, and despite the danger she posed, Tobias took comfort from her closeness and her heat.
§ § §
Tobias opened his eyes and fought his way out of a deep sleep. The room slowly came into focus. Disoriented, he surveyed his surroundings for a brief moment as he tried to remember where he was. La Maison des Plaisirs Sombres. He was still at the club. A soft, warm body was tightly knitted against his backside, and he drew in a sharp breath. He remained motionless as he stared at the candle on the small table adjacent to the bed. From the height of the taper, he’d been asleep for at least two, maybe three hours.
Tobias swallowed hard as the memories crested like a wave in his head. The moments after he’d lost control were little more than hazy snippets. Less foggy was his bedside confession as he’d sat on the edge of the bed trying to steady himself and regain his senses. In those few seconds, he’d revealed his darkest secret.
The vivid images of his past tried to push their way to the surface, but he crushed them. He had no need or desire to relive the past. There was nothing he could do to change it or himself. The weight of the sin he carried on his shoulders could never be lifted. His efforts to keep his mother safe from harm had been for nothing. She’d died in his arms moments after he’d slain his father.
The memory of Mystère’s voice pulling him out of the past into his present reality filled his head. With the inherent skill only a truly exceptional Lady commanded, she’d ripped away the barriers shielding him from the horrors of the past. She’d exposed his soul, and he’d lost a protective layer he wasn’t sure he could replace. A soft arm wrapped itself around his waist, and he stiffened. She immediately laid her hand over his heart.