“Sir, I am so….”
He cut her off. “Hush, Jolie!”
His grip tightened, and the forceful handhold became more fixed, as if Patrick’s whole being cast a net of chains around her and she was truly, completely at his mercy. He lifted her by the hair, making her sit back on her heels. Her eyes glistened with tears as she gazed into an imperious face willed with determination and something dreadful coming from that cold black place inside the man. He still held her at the neck, not for a second loosening his grasp.
“Why are you here?” he finally asked.
“To make amends, sir.”
“To make amends? You want back into my household?”
“I beg for mercy, sir. I should never have run away. I had this thought that freedom was the only true gift I could give myself. I was wrong. I know that I belong with you, sir. I love you so.” She spoke to him as a stream of tears flooded down her flushed cheeks. She was afraid to stop her passionate plea until she’d said the whole of it, and yet, when she reached the final piece of her confession and she had no more to say, it seemed as though she’d not said enough. The man sat passively in his seat and stared critically into her face. His expression was grim. “Sir, if you only knew what was in my heart… I swear…”
“Swear nothing to me, Jolie. You’ve said enough. Go to the tower and wait for me. And if you wish to impress me with the seriousness of your desire, I’d suggest you find some way to demonstrate your sincerity.”
Jolie waited for more, for just a second wondering if there was something more she could say to the man she loved. Something that would move him beyond the cold, ruthless expression he offered her now. She searched his face during that long second, realizing as she did that there was nothing to do but obey him. Her body was on fire with need, for any small bit of affection, any simple touch to cheek or hand, but Patrick remained fixed. Knowing that the impasse would not last without him throwing her out the door, she scrambled to her feet and hastily made her way to the tower stairs where her mutiny had begun weeks before.
Her climb was brisk, and on reaching the top of the stairs she bolted through the door. Her mind was frazzled with concern. Where her love for him had eluded her during the last months—she was certain of it now. What could she do to prove herself to him? What act would make him believe in her? Her heart thumped wildly in her chest as she searched the miserable room—the walls, the bed, the table with its many straps, finally the cabinet with its outrageous trinkets.
She wanted him—now more than she ever had. But was this just desperation? Was it fear of Dufay and the others like him who preyed on the villages for women too weak to defend themselves? Were her feelings honest? Or just another accommodation in a long line of concessions she’d made with her fate in order to stay alive? She’d fought so long and hard that she didn’t know what it would be like not to fight and connive and hope for something more. Was Patrick Dunleavy really what she needed?
Then again, would it have matter if he weren’t? Her alternatives were few.
She brooded for a time, vacillating back and forth, unsure of her feelings and her motives.
Yet, when she thought of love again she felt its power gain momentum.
What could she do to demonstrate her sincerity? She had no answer.
Jolie closed the tower door. She strolled the room one more time and then finally sat down in her familiar bed of straw and waited.
There was something hard and uncomfortable tucked inside the mattress. Fishing through the straw, her hand struck iron. The manacles.
She’d worn them days on end… so her wrists were callused and the hair rubbed off. Without the locks they wouldn’t stay on now. Though placing them around her wrists the memories of the months before appeared in a stream as wide and deep as a great river. Answers were popping into her brain, pictures of Patrick, images of herself bowed at his feet… memories… punishments… the ship… the mast… the first time they had sex when they made love and love was sweet…
Weary, Jolie fell back on the straw with the manacles still ringing her wrists. She drifted into dreams beyond her waking daydreams where the images were vivid and very real… to times when sex was so fresh that she could taste and smell it as much as feel it quicken her sleeping body. In the end her dreams played tricks with her… Patrick was angry, sending her away from him, ordering her gone… she was lifeless, on the street calling his name and he wouldn’t come. She saw his face ahead of her, the face inside the fancy clothes, poised on the dock speaking with a woman bound for indentured service—flirting with this docile pink-skinned beauty the way he once flirted with a despondent but untamed redhead.
“No! No! No!” she was screaming. “No, Patrick please,” she wailed… not just in her dreams but out loud.
The sound of her own cries awakened her.
Patrick was there, his arm around her, comforting her out of the dangerous panic.
“You’ve had a nightmare, little one,” he said. His one hand cradled her shoulders, the other stroked her face.
“That I have, sir… you’d thrown me out,” she said, still feeling that her heart was ripped to shreds.
“You think I would do that, Jolie?”
“I have no idea what you’d do.” She was in tears as she gazed into his face. “But I can’t think of any way to demonstrate my adoration for you, except to tell you… and show you with one day after another of loyal service.”
She looked into his eyes for suggestions of his present mood. There was much written there. They glimmered darkly with purpose, even more so with compassion.
“Well, my prodigal child, you have no need to fear I’ll throw you out. I consider this little rebellion on your part a diversion that will be forgotten as long as I have your pledge of loyalty.”
What was he saying? This seemed too easy. As if he expected this would happen—both her escape and her return.
“That is all?” she wondered.
“You’re coming back tells me a great deal about you.”
“And you don’t suspect my motives false?”
“Why would they be when you know that you’ll be soundly punished for the crime.”
Punished. She was surprised she hadn’t heard the word before.
“You returned to what you truly loved.”
“I can’t be so sure, sir. My fate was miserable.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You know?” This seemed odd.
“Did you believe I didn’t know where you were?”
“I thought that possible.”
“Perhaps, but not likely. This is my island—all of it. I may live in my fortress, but I consider every square inch of this place mine. There is not a soul who does not know me, or know of me—including Dufay.”
“You know Dufay?”
“Yes. And you couldn’t have picked a more surly fellow to be with. The little weasel despises me, and was only too happy to pluck you off the street and play his revenge for me on you.”
“You knew I was living with him?”
“From the day he snagged you.”
“And you weren’t afraid for me?”
“Of all women I know, I figured you’d be one who could take care of yourself with that brute.”
“He almost killed me!”
“But he did not.”
“It was only luck, sir!”
“Then I’m glad you’re lucky and that you’re back here now, where I can properly protect you.”
“Then you’re not angry, sir?”
“Angry with you for running away?” He looked so jovial she almost believed he would answer no. “No, I’m not angry, I’m furious with you.” His visage darkened as the stern words appeared. “You will pay for this one for some time, trust me. But trust me, too, by the time you’re finished with the reparations, you will adore me as I said so many months ago.”
“I adore you now, I swear.”
“And you’ll adore the punishment as well.” He snic
kered very happily. And as Jolie’s eyes met his devilish ones, hers lighted with recognition.
“You had this planned, didn’t you? You left me means of escape, just to see if I would leave. You knew I’d go… and you knew I wouldn’t get off the island. You probably even knew that Dufay would offer me shelter.”
“And how would I now all of that?” he fended off the barrage of revelations with the innocent retort, and rising from her bed of straw he pulled her with him to her feet.
“Because there’s a scheming sort of man behind that straightforward disposition,” she said.
“Is there now?” he said smugly.
“I’m sure of it.”
“Well, then,” he continued in the same lighthearted vein, “I’d better get on with my schemes to punish you, Jolie.”
Patrick quickly locked the wrists cuffs in place and manacled her feet to the wall—much as she’d been restrained before. And without another word, he left the young woman just slightly aghast, there to consider her fate in his tower one more time.
Chapter Thirteen
Storms marched across an angry sky, pouring rain in sheets of streaked gray. The light inside the house was grey as well, all but the air in the master’s quarters and that was luminescent and humidly warm.
Jolie entered—not stealthily this time. This time she was expected.
She was, nonetheless, petrified of the night’s outcome. It would be Patrick punishing her, not the guards who’d been attending her in the mornings and then just before she went to sleep at night. She was reminded morning and night that she was serving penance for her most recent crime—flogged and caned until her ass was terribly sore.
She had not seen Patrick for the entire two weeks she was confined to the tower. She hadn’t even heard the sound of his voice in her dreams. It was as if he’d disappeared from his fortress, leaving her to wonder if he had boarded his vessel and sailed out to sea.
Now, being summoned to his quarters, her heart took flying flights into romantic fantasy… all would be forgiven, the prodigal servant would at last have paid for her less than horrific trespass. She wanted this last of her trials to be finished, so that she could practice loving her master.
When Marise summoned her to their master’s room, Jolie’s body instantly flushed with excitement and terrible dread. Her cheeks, her forehead and her chest warmed, even as a cold chill of fright raced down her spine and tickled her ass.
“Come now, Jolie,” the lovely woman took her hand. Manacles and ankle restraints were still in place, but they did not hamper her swift pilgrimage to Patrick’s quarters.
“Sir,” she whispered as she waited just inside the doorway. She hesitated for a second then dropped to her knees and bowed her head to the floor in an act more honestly gracious and submissive than any she’d extended in the past. The gesture was heartfelt—and by this time so filled with arousal, surely Patrick Dunleavy could feel how her body burned for him, eroticism billowing freely toward him.
“Come here,” he turned around. He’d been staring from his window at the pouring rain. Wearing only a pair of leather britches, she could see the firm, flexed muscles of his upper body—what power they exuded. How they gleamed by candlelight with their rich warm brown looking like satin to her eyes. Below, his ample pouch of manly riches was enough to tent his leather pants reminding her of the power residing there.
Following her master’s command, Jolie moved gracefully out of her submissive posture and into a supplicant one at Patrick’s feet. She kissed the floor and then his boots, then sat back on her heels and looked up at him. For the first time since she’d come to this colorful tropical island she was appropriately dressed and looking like a part of the beautiful landscape. Like Marise, Lilia, Anna and Moira, she wore a brightly colored skirt dyed in shades of green, which tied at her waist and, a simple yellow scarf tied around her breasts. Her red curls were left long and flowing over her shoulders in a brilliant ribbon of color, which made the sensuous beauty look like a bird of paradise.
“They tell me your ass smarts,” her master said as he looked down to catch a spark of wonder in her emerald eyes.
“Yes, sir. My ass has been well worked morning and night. I presume by your command.”
“My command indeed—and something that’s likely to continued for some time.”
“Will I never pay for my mistake?” she wondered.
“I treat all my servants in kind, Jolie. Not one better than another. It’s common in this house for the women I love to be soundly flogged on my whim. You’ve seen that.”
“Yes, sir, I have.”
“But, as far as paying for a crime, I think it’s time to get beyond your crimes, for you to be at peace with my world—and so I with you.”
“I would be grateful for that,” she answered honestly.
“You will not leave here, Jolie.
“I understand that.”
“This is your home forever, you’ll have no more freedom than what you have here now.”
“I want no more than that.”
“You will not try to escape.”
“I wouldn’t want to.”
His smile was generous, even as his eyes darkened considerably. This troubled her, though Patrick didn’t give her long to wonder why the transformation. He held out his hand for her, which lifted her to her feet. And leading her to the side of the room, he sat himself down on an upholstered bench, Jolie in front of him.
“Take off your scarf,” he referred to the pale yellow one that covered her breasts.
Jolie reached around behind her, found the knot and pulled it free, letting the scarf float to the floor like angel hair.
“And your skirt,” he said in the same dispassionate monotone. He was neither kind nor severe, but of that place in-between that fed her lust for submission. As he stared at her breasts they ached for his touch, nipples rising large against their pink aureoles like tiny peaks rising from a sandy shore. She could feel the flesh quiver and chill from the damp, rainy air that gusted in from the open windows. Jolie’s throat tightened so she was hardly able to swallow, hardly able to move… and yet her fingers managed to obey Patrick’s command while her mind was elsewhere—too inebriated with desire to comprehend much of anything.
Unknotting the tie at her waist, her skirt drifted to the floor to join the yellow scarf. She stood naked now for her master’s inspection. The heat from his eyes seared her as flames of desire fanned the inferno in her limbs and loins. She wanted to reach forward and touch his tawny brown complexion, run her hand along the smooth surface, outline his lips with a finger. But no, it wasn’t time for that.
“Marie Jolie Gabrielle Antoinette,” he spit out her full name.
“You know it all,” she whispered amazed.
“I know more about you than you’ll ever realize,” he replied. He took her hand in his and slowly brought her to him, laying her out over his lap, her bottom high, her head drooped to the floor and her feet dangling from the other side.
Without saying another word, he began spanking her ass with the palm of his hand, in sharp and settled smacks that bit and stung and burned like the sun. He went right past the point where she could contain her desire to protest. He covered flesh from thighs to ass, then repeatedly returned to the hot centers where he focused the greater part of his strikes. She journeyed with him, mewling and cawing, though never outright demanding he stop. As she became more accustomed to the pain, Jolie wiggled against his resilient thighs, burrowing her crotch to the muscle and found her body soon leaping forward catching up with her erotic desire.
They seemed to work in tandem for a time. Her crying settled into delighted moans of pleasure, she wanted more now, not for him to stop. Any second, she expected his hand to drop between her thighs and bring her body to its climax… and yet, he continued with the relentless spanking.
Her sexual crescendo came regardless as the heat and this bizarre pain pressed on. Her throbbing clit was nearly at its finish.
“Yes, sir, yes more,” she hissed. And she got more. A hard firm strike, which she absorbed with all the others. Ah! Joyous abandon!
Letting go, shimmying with orgasm, her body lifted itself to her lover’s hand and asked for more. “Yessssssssss,” the sibilant sound repeated, “yesssssssssssssss…………. ah, yessssssssssss.”
Patrick spanked her through the climax; and only with the sensation starting to die away, his strikes turned soft and caressing… he would move on to more…
“What have you learned my dear Jolie?” he asked.
“That I should not fight you, sir,” she said.
“How much easier it would have been for us both if you had understood that months ago.”
“Yes, sir,” she agreed for the sake of agreeing—even as Jolie’s ingenious mind had other thoughts.
He stroked her kindly as their sexual appetite began to rise again. She could feel his cock, while he could sense the liquid warmth between her legs seeking more.
“Sir?” she voiced in a half cognizant moan.
“Yes?” he answered.
“I wonder, sir, if it would be as pleasurable now, if we’d not had those months of war?”
The master stopped his play, withdrawing his hand from fondling her spasming lovenest. Pulling her upright and into his lap, his dark arms and thick muscles cradled her. “War is not for lovers, Jolie.”
“But look what fire we have now?” she said.
“A fire that will not go out, that I promise,” his eyes narrowed as they spoke, “but not one you’ll feed. Let nature takes its course and lead, not your naughty and headstrong heart.”
“My heart’s all for you, sir,” she said with a flirty smile.
“Aye, I’m sure it is, love,” he replied looking at her suspiciously.
“You don’t believe me?” her green eyes twinkled as she leaned in to kiss his lips.
The Saga of a Naughty Lady Page 15