by Ashe Barker
DARK MELODIES
Ashe Barker
Book One in the Black Combe Doms Series
Copyright © 2020 Ashe Barker
All Rights Reserved
Published by Ashe Barker Books
www.ashebarker.com
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If you want to read more about the Black Combe Doms you can download the rest of the series from Amazon. And all are FREE on Kindle Unlimited.
· Black Combe Doms Book 2 : Sure Mastery
· Black Combe Doms Book 3 : Hard Limits
· Black Combe Doms Book 4 : Laid Bare
Who knows where pain ends, and pleasure begins?
The chance of a new life out in the wilds of the Yorkshire moors sounds too good to be true to shy musician Eva Byrne. Stifled and smothered within the cocoon of her brilliant academic career, Eva yearns for something different. Something real and exciting. Something she can feel.
Excitement. Passion. Pleasure. She finds that sexy, enigmatic Nathan Darke can provide all these and more when she moves into his home as violin tutor to his young daughter. But Eva’s sensual encounters with her demanding, domineering new employer quickly evoke her deepest fears, as he introduces her to the trauma of submission and marks her with his particularly dark brand of love.
But will Eva’s natural curiosity and thirst for new experiences be enough to withstand the sting of Nathan Darke’s exquisite touch? Will simple surrender be enough as he challenges her every inhibition, taking her on an erotic journey of self-discovery and liberation?
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers.
This novel was previously released as three separate books, Darkening, Darker and Darkest, in the series The Dark Side.
In this volume the three books in The Dark Side trilogy are published as one combined novel, under a new title, Dark Melodies with new cover art, no cliffhangers and a HEA.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Ashe Barker
Prologue
“Red. Red. Enough. Stop now, please!”
Shit! Not again…
Nathan didn’t voice his frustration out loud—with some considerable effort—but he knew the rules and honored the safe word immediately. Taking a deep breath, and with a last rueful glance at the naked, quivering and only very slightly pink buttocks of his latest she-said-she-was-oh-so-willing partner, he placed the barely used spanking paddle on a side table behind him. Reaching around with his left hand, he loosened the straps restraining the cringing blonde, who had now started to sob prettily. Using his right arm, he supported her around the waist to prevent her imminent descent to the floor as he freed first her wrists, then her ankles.
Taking her weight, Nathan lifted the girl from the dark brown leather sofa, across the back of which he’d strapped her so carefully only minutes earlier. He carried her across the room to deposit her face down on his large bed, remarkably gently given his darkening mood. He dumped a box of tissues beside her.
“Dry your eyes, Susanna. We’re finished.”
Sniff, sniff, whimper, whimper. Christ!
He had deliberately softened his voice. No point taking his frustration out on Susanna. She tried her best—probably. Possibly.
“You can get dressed. Unless you want to take a shower first. Then I’ll phone you a taxi.”
He congratulated himself on managing to keep a lid on his mounting frustration, inwardly cringing at the tears and sniffling. He was not entirely convinced by the display of grief and shock—the lovely Susanna was not above a spot of scheming and manipulation to get her own way, he was quite sure of that—but still, he wasn’t in the business of making women cry. Not really. Cry out… Now, that was different.
He might be a dab hand with a cane, he definitely liked to hear them scream, but all this sobbing? No. He liked his subs to look back rather more fondly on his attentions than he suspected Susanna was going to. He preferred them to be more appreciative of the pain he could inflict, and the pleasure, and to leave his apartment humming.
But hey, what do you know? The lovely Susanna was already beginning to rally. In fact, her sudden, rapid and pretty much total recovery before his very eyes seemed little short of miraculous, given the quivering mess that had been draped across his sofa just moments before. She had started to sniff daintily and was now obligingly rolling over onto her back, her arms flung up onto the pillow to show off her curvy little pink-tipped breasts to best advantage.
Sitting alongside her on the edge of the bed, and still fully dressed apart from his black, soft leather jacket and navy tie, which he had discarded within moments of entering the apartment, Nathan signaled with a flick of his finger that she should stay face down. The view from the front was definitely not without its attractions, but, in truth, his interest in her breasts—or indeed any other part of her anatomy—was at an irrevocable end.
He reached into a drawer beside the bed for the large tub of Savlon he always kept there. Unscrewing the lid, he took a generous scoop of the soothing cream onto his fingers and started to spread it across her backside. As gently as he was able in his current frustrated state, he worked the cream into her buttocks. They had just been beginning to glow nicely, in his view, and could have used a couple of dozen more strokes to bring her sweet little arse to full tenderness, ready for a good, hard, satisfying fuck.
Time to call a halt, he acknowledged ruefully. Susanna just isn’t going to cut it as a submissive. Pity, but there you are…
Snatching a couple of tissues from the box on the bed, he wiped his hands. He stood, gazing down from his height of six-two at the undoubtedly lovely blonde stretched out on his bed…and realised he just wanted her out of his apartment. Now.
Tunneling his fingers through his over-long dark hair—he usually pulled it back into a sleek ponytail, but he preferred to let it hang loose to his shoulders when he was in Dom mode—he pondered the myster
ies of women. And, in particular, what had brought Susanna, decked out in a very fetching black and red leather corset and thong, along to The Manor House, that exclusive BDSM club in leafy, suburban north Leeds. There, she had paraded around in front of him until he eventually beckoned her over and treated her to the spanking she was obviously looking for.
That went well enough—she seemed to appreciate his efforts and he certainly saw promise there. She obligingly agreed to meet him the following week. They had coffee together at Starbucks in City Square, discussed his requirements—his exact requirements—and she agreed to join in his ‘games’.
He was always very explicit regarding what he had in mind. Over the years he had found it best to avoid any misunderstanding up front. Susanna was no exception. His submissives needed to agree, willingly, to do what he asked of them. Indeed, it was always something of a surprise to him that some even offered more. Again, Susanna was a case in point, having suggested that a nice bit of age regression could offer an interesting twist to their bondage and discipline play.
Not to Nathan, it wouldn’t—not his idea of fun at all. He turned her down politely but very firmly. But if she was so keen on gymslips and canes, why had she wimped out at the first sight—well, seventh stroke, actually, in this evening’s case—of a very unassuming spanking paddle?
He had had a lot more than that planned for her over the coming few weeks. She was absolutely gorgeous, just his favorite type of submissive. Not that he had a particular physical preference. He didn’t especially care whether they were blonde, brunette, with blue eyes, green or brown, tall or petite, slender or curvy. Well, if he was honest he did have a fondness for willowy redheads, probably because they tended to be fair-skinned so their buttocks could be relied upon to go a beautiful, delicate shade of pink without too much effort on his part. Although he was flexible regarding physical appearance, Nathan did go for a particular demeanor. Privately, he called it his ‘librarian look’. He liked submissives who presented themselves as meek and modest, unassuming, studious, quiet, shy. They could be plain—but preferably not too plain—dress as if they are going to a funeral, wear bottle-bottom glasses—you could always remove glasses, after all, if they get in the way of a blindfold—and not say boo to a goose. The fun came from peeling back those layers to reveal the sexy, demanding, responsive little temptress underneath, the slut under the prim and proper outer shell. He loved to transform his subs from demure Sunday School teachers to panting sex goddesses in a matter of minutes. Female orgasms were absolutely the biggest turn-on Nathan Darke could ever imagine— and he was definitely not lacking in imagination. He loved it when they came.
He particularly loved how women sounded when caught up in ecstasy—their soft, breathy moans, groans, panting. And screaming. He particularly liked to hear a woman scream, so he didn’t use gags that often. And he loved the writhing and stretching as a woman spread herself out under him or in front of him, even when she was bound and blindfolded, completely open to his touch and reveling in all he had to offer her. And that sublime moment when they reached the point where they would be begging him to fuck them—hard and fast and often. He aimed to please, and as far as he was aware no woman has ever left his bed disappointed.
Until now.
Susanna was definitely not happy, and distinctly disappointed. To be fair, he was pretty disappointed in her too—he had had such high hopes for her. By way of celebration once she agreed to join in his ‘games’, and perhaps in partial compensation for his intransigence over the gymslip, he invested in a new set of canes to add to his already extensive collection, as well as two neon-coloured butt plugs, all with her delicious little arse particularly in mind.
But she had safe worded—again. This was her third visit to his apartment and each time she’d cut their games short. Well short.
He glanced back at the bed. It was obvious that the cream had been absorbed into Susanna’s peachy little butt-cheeks and done its work. The crying, wincing, wittering and sniffling had all stopped, and Susanna now seemed perfectly calm and collected. She obviously enjoyed his ministrations, if her stretching and sighing was anything to go by. In fact, she’d become really rather perky and was apparently keen to regroup.
Such amazing powers of recovery!
Nathan smiled wryly. Manipulative? Yes, probably.
Rolling onto her back to make sure he could properly appreciate her pale, slender body and full breasts, and opening her legs wide to make sure he could be under no illusions about how wet and ready she was, Susanna smiled and ran her tongue slowly over her bottom lip.
“Thanks for stopping. I just got a bit, well, nervous really. I don’t mind trying again in a minute as long as you don’t hit me too hard…”
By way of invitation, Susanna rose to her knees on the bed, rubbing her own backside with one hand and using her other to roll first her right nipple, then her left until both were swollen and hard, pink, juicy pebbles. She arched her back to better present her breasts for him to suckle, if he cared to. She slid her hand downwards, between her legs. She was all happy smiles, bobbing breasts, throbbing clit and simpering apologies—and much to Nathan’s astonishment, he wanted none of it.
No doubt picking up on his lack of interest, she was now trying to placate him, offering to let him tickle her dainty, delectable little butt with his spanking paddle if he absolutely must, or better still suck her nipples, in exchange for a good fuck. It was clear enough to Nathan what she wanted, and to be fair, she wasn’t being particularly unreasonable.
Good, hot vanilla sex, maybe spiced up a bit, wasn’t such a bad offer.
But that was pretty much all that Susanna was offering. He’d treated her to some fabulously explosive orgasms in their two previous encounters, and she obviously fancied a bit more of that, but on her terms.
Well, maybe he would have stood for that if they’d met in a bar, or at the gym. But not on his turf. It would be his terms that counted here.
If Susanna wanted vanilla she could have it—she was welcome to it—but she had simply come to the wrong place looking for it. To the wrong man. He needed a submissive, and one with a hell of a lot more staying power than Susanna has demonstrated up to now, one who would hand over her body and let him do what he wanted to it. A submissive who would explore his wants and fantasies with him, meeting his particular and sometimes brutal needs as well as her own.
And clearly Susanna was so not submissive. Submissives were exactly that, as far as he was concerned. They were partners who would agree to submit, to voluntarily give themselves and their bodies over to him to do as he wanted. They would do this because it was safe, they knew the deal, the parameters, and they trusted him to take care of them.
And because they fucking loved it, of course. Subs got off on it all, just as he did. The violence, the restraints, the beatings, the violation, the intimidation, the subjugation, the humiliation, submitting to his authority, the pretense of powerlessness…
Susanna liked the sex well enough, and had all the modesty of a panther in heat once her black skirt and crisp white blouse hit the floor—she worked as a solicitor’s clerk in one of the commercial developments close to his apartment.
Classic librarian.
As well as being very handy—she could show up within a few minutes of his call—she would orgasm on command, in any position, could play his cock like a musical instrument with her delicate little fingers and hot little mouth and she had the most receptive arse he could remember sinking his dick into in a long time. And she could keep going for hours. He definitely appreciated stamina.
The first time he brought Susanna here they went through exactly what he wanted from her, again. Susanna knew exactly what would be going on, her part in it, his very particular requirements. If a sub wanted to stop at any time she could use a safe word of her choosing and that would do it. No argument, no questions. The deal was that he would stop immediately. If she was getting close to her limit and felt she can’t take much mor
e she could ‘amber light’ and he would respect that, maybe let up a little, take how she’s feeling into account, help her to avoid having to safe word. There was absolutely no coercion. Never. He and Susanna talked it through, she didn’t seem to have any questions—well, she didn’t ask any when he offered her the chance—she didn’t ask for any practices to be taken off his list or limited, expressed no reservations at all, and she couldn’t get started fast enough.
Susanna was very enthusiastic and experienced, which had been a definite plus—regardless of his preference for the ‘librarian look’ he really couldn’t do with naïve little virgins for what he had in mind. But it seemed that despite all her ‘qualifications’ and feigned enthusiasm for spiced-up fucking, Susanna was really a vanilla at heart. She liked her sex straight and safe, minus the whistles and bells and with plenty of penetration. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just that he didn’t—well, apart from the penetration—so that was that.
Three strikes and you’re out, sweetheart. No pun intended…
But you can’t win ‘em all.
Philosophical, he decided it would be better to cut his losses with Susanna now. She was bloody lovely, truly she was, but not for him. He glanced ruefully back at her, still stretched temptingly on his bed. Maybe he could just…for old times’ sake?
But he squashed that notion fast. It would be a pity fuck at best. And, even more disturbing, he wasn’t entirely sure which of them would be on the receiving end.
“Do you want a shower, Susanna, or do you just want to get dressed?” he repeated, ingrained courtesy coming to the fore now, whatever the circumstances. “Are you hungry? A drink, maybe?” He was conscious that she had come to the apartment straight from work, probably hadn’t eaten. “I can fix you something if you like. Or I can just phone you a taxi?”