The Dukedom: Royal Intimacies: Book Four

by Dagny Aldan

  Isabel tilted her head thoughtfully.

  “I am in the moments, when I stop thinking. It happens when I’m at work too.”

  “What are you working at?” asked Hans. Isabel ignored the question,

  “I’m in therapy, trying to dig out all the hooks people put in my brain. They even have me on anti-anxiety medication.” She gestured at the white box on the table.

  “Does it help?” asked Hans.

  “Seems to, I haven’t had a panic attack since I started them. Came close once or twice when I went to the Bondage place, but they were really good about it.”

  Hans nodded, studying her face, drinking it in. Isabel’s eyes drifted away and then back to him, sharpening once more.

  “I’m not coming back with you.”

  “I’m not going to ask you to.”

  “I’m staying here until I get myself in order. I need to deal with my shit, before I even start thinking about coming home and taking up a role in government.”

  “So you will come back?” asked Hans promptly. Isabel inhaled slowly, then nodded.

  “Yes, I will come back. I joined the military to be good enough to look after my country. I joined the Dukedom for the same reason. I am, at heart, a dutiful heir. Probably too dutiful considering the shit I’ve done to try and be worthy.”

  Hans shrugged his shoulders, not wanting to contradict her. They were quiet for a while, then Isabel said,

  “I think I did love you. Properly love you, you know?”

  Hans lifted his head, staring at her with an ache in his chest. Isabel looked sad, watching her thumb rub along the side of the gun.

  “The therapist helped me figure it out. I wasn’t sure if I’d just been dependent or not, but he said that I seem to have actually loved you, but I had to recognise that what you did to me at the start was not ok. He said it was up to me if I wanted to be with you again, because what you and I had wasn’t the same as what I had with Ahmed, which was just… fucked up.”

  “He did? Seriously?”

  Isabel gave him a sharp look,

  “He can only go on what I say, and I said that you weren’t the same as Ahmed. Ahmed tried to take over my thoughts. You… what you did was shitty, but… was it Lena’s idea?”

  Hans sighed, dropping his head again,

  “Yeah, she was the one who told me to… take you in hand. I was the one who did it though.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Isabel said curtly. “But I can see you regret that. I bet you wish you’d made a different approach.”

  “Yeah… I wish I had just… told you how I felt.”

  “I probably wouldn’t have listened,” said Isabel. “I’m not absolving you, I don’t even know if I’ll forgive you. You’re lower on the list than Lena and Ahmed, but you still… anyway, the therapist said if I chose to pursue a relationship with you he would help me with it. Trusting you and making sure I set my own boundaries. Safe words, and the like, and that’s if I feel ok with having that sort of relationship with you again.”

  “What did he say about Ahmed?” asked Hans, curious.

  “He said that if I feel that impulse, I’m to call him immediately so he can knock some sense into me.” Isabel smiled crookedly. “I like that he doesn’t bullshit me.”

  Hans felt some measure of relief, at least he wasn’t being viewed the same way as Ahmed or Lena.

  “So… do you think-” he started tentatively, but Isabel cut across him,

  “Way too fucking soon Hans.”

  “Sorry.”

  Silence fell again, then Isabel said,

  “Unless there’s something else, I want you to leave.”

  Hans stood up at once, standing at his ease as he said,

  “I will tell your parents you’re safe and well, and I will stress to them that you will come back home when you’re ready. I promise I’ll try to keep them from looking for you. I owe you that much at least.”

  “I don’t particularly want you to owe me anything, it’s a connection between us I’d rather sever. So if you do this, consider us finished. When I return, maybe we can try again, but that will be my decision, and I will contact you. Do you understand?”

  Hans nodded, secretly impressed at the authority in her voice. She seemed to have found the balance between submission in her private life and confidence in her own needs. He could only hope that whatever she was doing, it was helping her be who she wanted to be. She had come so far, and Hans’ chest ached now with pride. He didn’t say so, she would not want that, but he smiled at her, hoping she read his feelings in his eyes.

  Isabel did not smile, but she put the gun away and walked him to the door.

  “Goodbye Isabel,” said Hans.

  “Goodbye Hans.”

  Hans bowed at the waist to her, knowing in his heart it would be the last intimate conversation they would ever have.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine –Isabel

  Isabel only took her sunglasses off when she was inside the Bonobo Hideout, smiling a little at the receptionist, who beamed at her in greeting.

  “Welcome back Lisa!”

  “Thanks Greta, is he ready for me?”

  “He’ll be right out, he’s just setting up the room,” said Greta, already pouring her a cup of lemon water. Isabel sat down and waited for a minute or two before the door that led from the reception to the suites of the Bonobo Hideout opened and Vito came striding out. Isabel smiled as she stood up, shaking his hand as he greeted her. Tall, dark and slender, he was nothing like any man who had come before.

  “How are you today Lisa?” asked Vito, leading her back to his own suite.

  “Ok, I ran into… an ex you could say.”

  “One of the bad ones?” asked Vito, looking her over in concern.

  “Not the worst, definitely not the worst. He didn’t really rattle me, but I would like a good workover.”

  “Hmm…” Vito closed the door behind them and regarded Isabel thoughtfully. “What’s the reasoning?”

  This was why Isabel stuck with Vito. He asked her why she wanted something before he would give it. Vito had pegged her very quickly as someone who didn’t really know her own limits, and so he asserted them loudly and often. Making Isabel admit her thought processes could be excruciating but it definitely heightened the experience.

  “It just stirred up a lot of old feelings, stuff I’m still working through. I’d like to forget for a while, just be in the moment, please.”

  “Did you have a bondage relationship with him too?”

  “Yeah, but we never actually discussed it. No safewords or anything, and I never… I never really gave my consent to it. It just kind of happened.”

  Vito frowned, but he nodded,

  “Ok, we’ll start slow, I don’t want to trigger anything, so we’ll use the basic traffic light system. What are they?”

  “Green for Good, Yellow for a pause or a break, red to stop,” she recited quickly.

  “Good, now strip.”

  Isabel pulled her top over her head and undid her trousers, her heart rate already picking up. Vito was testing the flogger against his hand. Isabel could not stop the noise she made. Vito looked up at her studiously.

  “No?” he asked.

  “It –it’s up to you,” said Isabel quickly.

  “I give you what you need, Isabel. I’d like you to tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I… don’t want distance,” she said clumsily. Vito nodded and set down the flogger, reaching out and hooking his hand behind her neck, pulling her closer.

  “Like this?” he asked. Isabel’s breath caught and she nodded.

  “Green,” she whispered, relieved that the impulse to add ‘sir’ was not as strong as it had been the first time she had done a scene with Vito, when she had bit her lip to bleeding to get the impulse down. Vito had halted the scene and made her talk about it, and had helped her conclude that calling any Dom “sir” was something that had to be earned. Isabel might not ever find another person she
wanted to call “sir” again, and that was OK. “Sir” was her gift to give, not for others to take.

  Vito walked her backwards to the long bench, sat down and pulled her over his lap. Isabel tucked her arms under her head, shivering as Vito ran his hand over her ass, squeezing and rubbing her skin to warm it up.

  “You didn’t finish undressing,” he said thoughtfully. Isabel started, then groaned and dropped her head back onto her arms. “Let’s start with that.” He brought his hand down and Isabel yelped, then grinned. She closed her eyes and let the pain and the heat wash over her, blotting out everything that had been on her mind since Hans’ visit. When her ass was burning, Vito paused and said,

  “What colour?”

  “Green! Green!” Isabel gasped, squirming against his lap, moaning when Vito ran his hand over her heated skin. Vito chuckled, a dark, liquid sound that made Isabel arch her back with a delicious shiver. He undid her bra, reaching under her to pull it away, then dragged her underwear down. Slipping his fingers between her thighs, Vito spread her open and dipped one finger inside her.

  Isabel’s breath hitched and she remembered being in this same situation with Hans, the first night and she gasped,

  “Yellow!”

  Vito withdrew his finger and gripped the back of her neck, grounding her. Isabel caught her breath and looked at him over her shoulder.

  “Please, not from behind like that,” she whispered. Vito nodded and rolled her over on his lap, pulling her into a sitting stance. He stroked her face gently,

  “Good girl, you did the right thing,” he said, and that reassurance helped Isabel to pull herself back into the moment. She wrapped her arms around Vito’s shoulders, and nodded her head,

  “Green.”

  Vito did not go straight for her pussy again, instead he played with her nipples, sucking and tugging them until they were hard and getting sore. Isabel squirmed in his lap, her sore ass rubbing against his jean so nicely she thought she might hump his leg in a minute. The fact that he had listened, and she had asserted her own submission, was an additional heady combination.

  If Isabel had learned nothing else since leaving the Dukedom, it was that she could say no and it would not disappoint her partner. She did not need to put her body on the line, to try to be the most masochistic sub in the world, if she did not want to. If she wanted to, well, that was up to her, and some days she did need deep, hard pain, but she knew she could stop it by saying Red, and she did not need to fear her partner’s rejection.

  Between her therapist and Vito, she was learning to believe all these things too.

  Vito traced his fingers down her belly, dipping in and touching her clit. Isabel moaned and dropped her head back.

  “Don’t you look sexy?” Vito crooned, “I should be making you put on a show.”

  “Do you want me to?” Isabel asked, grinding down on his fingers as he rubbed her clit in slow circles. It was a maddening touch, enough to heighten, but not enough to satisfy.

  “Go on, show me that sexy body,” Vito purred, scraping his teeth lightly over her shoulder. Isabel planted her feet on the floor between his feet, then leaned back on her hands, rolling her hips and pushing her breasts out. Vito sighed with satisfaction, and slid one finger inside her. Isabel bit her lip and grinned at the ceiling, seeing her own reflection in the mirrors. She had not liked the mirrors everywhere before, but when Vito told her how sexy and beautiful she was, and she could see herself enjoying herself, she found it surprisingly arousing.

  However Isabel was not able to look at herself for long, because Vito quickly ramped up the number and speed of his fingers. The pleasure was building so fast Isabel could hardly catch her breath, and she looked down between her legs, trying to keep her legs from shaking.

  “Vito, can I come, please can I come?” she begged, because it was building so fast she was sure it was going to crash over her any second.

  “No, hold it off Isabel,” Vito ordered. Isabel whimpered and scrunched her face up, fighting the building pressure, exhilarated by the battle, determined to obey for her own pride, not out of fear of his disappointment. Vito did not get disappointed with her, if she failed, he would discipline her and they would try again.

  After everything in her life feeling like life or death, regardless of its actual value, it was a relief to know that failure was OK. Vito would not throw her away or make her break down in tears. Not that that had not happened, but that had been at the start, when she was still sure that was how these things worked. Once Vito had spent an entire session just trying to coax Isabel out from under his bench where she had hidden like a child, overwhelmed by memories, anxiety and shame.

  Vito had laid down next to the bench and talked to her about his dog, his daughter, the weather, whatever came to mind until she had crawled out and curled up next to him.

  Vito stopped moving his fingers inside her and Isabel let out a strangled noise of protest.

  “You’re thinking too much,” said Vito, “I think you need some extra help.”

  He pulled his fingers out, earning another strangled moan and Isabel clenched around nothing, her orgasm receding just out of reach. Vito reached out and picked up a dildo, covered in a thin condom he would have only just put on before getting her. Isabel eyed it nervously, she knew Vito was up to something now.

  “Sit on my lap again, and pull your knees back.”

  Isabel balanced herself as instructed, her back to his chest, biting her lip again as she watched Vito bring the cock to her pussy and press inside. She groaned, clutching her thighs tight as she was stretched open. She couldn’t rock into it, Vito had all the movement, and he took full advantage, sliding the toy in and out of her with long, deep motions that she felt right to her toes. His free hand snaked around her waist and reached down,

  “Think you can hold off while I play with your clit too?” he wondered. Isabel let out a desperate noise, throwing her head back as he touched her clit.

  “Sh-shit!” she gasped, then yelped as Vito smacked her clit hard.

  “Language.”

  “S-sorry.”

  Just when Isabel thought she was going to climax no matter how hard she tried, Vito suddenly shifted her so she was straddling him, the dildo held steady, but –fuck –he turned on the vibrations. He grinned up at her, fondling her stinging ass with strong, deep pushes of his thumb.

  “You want to come Isabel?”

  “Yes Vito, please,” she gasped.

  “Work for it, ride the cock, go on!”

  Isabel braced herself on his shoulders and started to rise and fall, chasing the pressure inside her desperately. She needed to climax, she needed to reach that peak.

  “Faster! Move it,” Vito ordered, smacking her thigh. The sting mixed with the heat of her sore ass and Isabel had to dig her nails into him,

  “Can I please come Vito?” she begged.

  “Yes, do it Isabel, do it,” said Vito, and Isabel slammed herself down on the toy twice more and, finally, she came so hard that she lost all sense of time, place and fear. Looking straight up at her own orgasming reflection she smiled again.

  Someday she would return home and take up the mantel of Queen. Until then, she would enjoy everything life brought to her, regardless of what anyone else might think.

  The End

  Author Notes

  When I started this story I intended it to be short and sexy. That… did not happen. Instead I started to realise Isabel was far more complex and damaged than I originally intended. I didn’t decide to do that –I rarely just decide what my character is going to be like. It’s usually more of a dialogue between me and whatever part of my brain develops this stuff. I didn’t intend for it to go this dark at all, but again, as I kept coming back to Isabel, this was where she took me.

  I think there could be more from this series, but this is as far as I’ll take it for now. I want to move on to other characters for now –but if you want more send me a message! contact@dagnyaldantales.com or join m
y mailing list at dagnyaldantales.com.