by Chloe Cox
“What did you think of the Severille festivities?” he asked.
She jolted. Her eyes flew wide open, and her hands clutched at her skirt, bunching the fabric in her small hands. The scent of sex—of her—grew heavier, and the blush crept up her neck.
He felt an answering growl rise in his throat.
“You liked them.” It was a statement. She nodded. He rose, every fiber tense and ready. Her chest fluttered with every step he took towards her.
“Lucia,” he said, reaching out a hand to trace the line of her jaw, down her neck, to that delicious hollow at its base, “Lucia, you are intelligent. You know that you are my captive.”
She had closed her eyes at his touch. Again she bit her lip, her brow furrowing. “Yes.”
“You are mine to do with as I will.”
He felt her pulse beat a mad rhythm in that beautiful, smooth neck, and the heat coming off her in waves, and all but lost himself.
“If I were a different sort of prince,” he continued, “we both know how this would end. But that is not all I want, Lucia. I want more than just your body, and I will make you an offer for it.”
His finger danced lightly upon her skin, down into the warm valley between her breasts, slick with sweat. He could smell her pussy now, hot and hungry. Every second in which he did not rip her dress to shreds and plunge into her was an effort. Every effort coiled the spring tighter.
He pushed aside the material of her dress and released her breast, his mouth watering at the sight of her pink, pebbled nipple. Her knees dipped slightly.
“Submit to me for Bacchanal,” he whispered, his fingers playing with her so casually, “submit to me completely, and I will help you.”
He leaned his forehead down to hers, his hand mercilessly working her soft breast, and silently begged. He no longer cared, truthfully, if this was the best strategy. He needed her to submit. He knew it would take more than one night; he knew someone with that steel in her would not, could not, give all of herself on a whim. He would make her offer everything to him, willingly. It was the only hope—for both of them—even if she learned to despise him in the process.
He would have her submission. And he had to pray that he did not lose control of the beast in the process.
“Lucia,” he growled. “Answer me.”
~ ~ ~
Lucia tried to speak, and found that she couldn’t. It wasn’t that the words wouldn’t come; it was that too many conflicting words all fought to find their way to the surface at once.
What did ‘completely’ mean? No, she could guess: it was that old nightmare, the way formerly brilliant and lively women ended up as miserable, trained pets. It would mean letting her guard down, as her grandmother had told her never to do. It would mean he would see her for what she was, and what man would want that? A headstrong, ambitious, ornery woman? Would he help her if he really knew her, or would he let her father rot in the Basiglia?
And yet her body craved him. Not just him: she craved his commands. His ownership. His body, so close to hers; the scars on his chest, just visible at the top of his loose, white shirt; the smell of his sweat, the feel of his hair has it fell down around her head…
He left a trail of sparkling joy along the surface of her skin wherever he touched her. She had never imagined anything like this. Of course she hadn’t; it was nothing like it was in the books she had read. There was nothing innocent, or pure, or even gentle about it. Her desire for him was violent. Was necessary. She needed him inside her like she needed air in her lungs.
And she needed his help. Her family needed his help. And she very much needed him not to find the stolen bottle of the Duke’s Blend that she’d hid in the crevice.
So he could have her body. But she would keep her mind. She would remember her grandmother’s warnings, and keep her promise.
“Yes,” she said.
She opened her eyes, and looked up, into his rugged, scarred face. He blinked, his hand still on her breast, his black eyes opening wide.
“You know of my…tastes?” he asked, his voice strained.
“I’ve heard only rumors,” she said. “Gossip.”
“You must have a safeword,” he said. “It is part of the covenant of the Severille.”
Lucia found it difficult to think. All of her being was centered around her breasts, where his body made contact with hers. Gradually, a word rose to the surface.
She said, “Valsace.”
Lord Cesare stared at her for what seemed like a long time. Evaluating. Judging. She knew she should be frightened. She knew that. She was. But she could hardly hear the fear over the rising hum of want.
Lord Cesare took a long, controlled breath, and tore her dress from her body.
Lucia stumbled, shocked, naked, more vulnerable than she’d ever felt in her life. Lord Cesare caught her. The fine silk of his shirt was smooth against her skin, his hands calloused and rough on her flesh. Being naked against his clothed body, powerless, defenseless in his arms…she shuddered, and moisture leaked from between her thighs.
“I didn’t tell you to move.”
She snapped back into place, her back straight, her breasts out, her eyes on him. He didn’t say she couldn’t look, after all. And he was a sight. He prowled around her, as he had at the Dance. Like an animal, stalking its prey. Claiming its mate. Again, she shuddered.
“Your nipples are erect,” he said. His words had an odd, stilted rhythm, as though they required extra effort to say. She wanted to scream for him to take her then, there, immediately, no longer caring about whether he would know she was a virgin, whether she would be bad at it. She didn’t understand why he hadn’t. Why he wasn’t even touching her. What was wrong?
“Yes,” she finally answered.
“You are aroused.”
She swallowed. Somehow she still retained the capacity for embarrassment. “Yes.”
“Prove it.”
Lucia looked at him in open-mouthed surprise, and then shame. The weight of her inexperience felt heavier than ever. She had no idea how to do that. He waited for a response, and then narrowed his eyes.
“Come here and put your hands flat on the table,” he commanded. He picked the heavy wooden chair up and tossed it aside, sending it skidding across the hard stone floor, into the shadows. His strength was frightening.
Lucia took a step towards the table, her hands instinctively moving to cover her breasts as they bounced gently with her gait. Lord Cesare only glared, and shook his head slightly. Her hands came down. She was glad to have somewhere to put them when she reached the table.
He had spared no expense in the settings. She still had no idea why.
“Bend over, with your forearms flat on the cloth.”
Lucia managed to suppress a small gasp. She couldn’t have explained why this felt so depraved, like she was just a piece of merchandise, a mere commodity to be inspected. That humiliating thought only aroused her more, and she hung her head to hide the blush spreading to her cheeks, only to let that gasp escape when her nipples brushed up against the chilled metal of the dinner plate.
And then she waited. In agony, she waited.
She heard him move behind her, just to the side. And yet he did not speak, did not move, for what seemed like an eternity. With every passing second she grew more aware of his presence, more conscious of her vulnerability, and, to her confused shame, more swollen and hungry for his touch. For his cock.
She’d never known what that was like, and yet all she could think about it was how it would feel to have him inside her.
Instead, she felt his soft boot between her ankles, and, without warning, he pushed her legs apart.
“Keep them spread,” he said.
Dumbly, she nodded. She tried to understand what she was feeling, and was surprised to discover that she wanted to please him. Not just for him to have her, not just for the hard hand of the Severille. She wanted to please him while he took her. The tiny part of her mind that still cared about
pride at that moment screamed and shouted its defiance.
Before she could rebel against her body, his hand was on her inner thigh. His touch sent an immediate pulse through out her long, prone limbs, and burned through the rest of her thoughts.
Lucia sighed deeply, and as she exhaled the last of her resistance left her. She no longer cared about anything else. Her back arched her hips towards him all on its own.
“Let’s see,” he said, slowly running his hand up her thigh, toward her soaking wet slit. A shiver ran through her. Slowly he let his fingers feel their way along the delicate crease of her leg and her vulva, and brush lightly against her outer lips. She was already so wet that her juices had spread, and his fingers were slick, sliding along her skin.
She dropped her head to the table, her flesh quivering. Lord Cesare chuckled.
“You are ready, aren’t you?” he murmured, and slipped a finger inside her.
She tensed, her back arched, and let loose a small cry. He only teased her around the sensitive rim of her entrance, round and round, testing, probing. That mere contact, after so long, after wondering for so long, was enough to startle her into sputtering little spasms, her legs shaking, her stomach contracting. Not enough to sate her; no, Lucia needed more, was suddenly desperate for simply more. She bucked back against his hand and looked over her shoulder helplessly.
He put his giant hand flat on her back.
“Stop,” he said. She groaned. He moved his finger around inside her, in and out, around and around, and she dropped her head, panting. Even his finger felt large.
“Have you ever known a man?”
She closed her eyes. Why was this so difficult to admit? Because she prided herself on her competence, on her confidence? Because she was far too old to be a virgin in a city like J’Amel, to have never fully celebrated the Bacchanal? She didn’t want to explain all the years she had spent helping her father in the distillery, she didn’t want to try to explain that she was not really a pariah, not really frigid, just wary of the demands that men made after sex. She didn’t want to explain her grandmother’s warnings. She’d never told anyone about that.
She didn’t want to have to explain her life. She didn’t want to have to think about it. If she did, the fear might return. This isolated room, deep below the heart of J’Amel, with this man who was larger than life—this was what she wanted, right now.
“Please,” she said. Her voice was deep and hoarse. She closed her muscles around his finger, and willed him farther in. Instead, he pulled it partially out.
“Tell me,” he ordered.
She started to stand upright, pushing herself up from the table—with what wild, angry intent, she didn’t know—but his hand on her back slammed her back down onto the table, her breasts pressed against the cold metal plate, her chin inches from the bottle of amberwine.
“I did not say you could get up,” he said. His tone was hard. “Tell me, Lucia. This is our agreement.”
She wriggled under him, furious and frustrated. His finger still burned in her, still made conscious, rational thought difficult. She clung to the feeling that it was important to keep the private things about her private, but he didn’t just ask for her physical vulnerability; he wanted all of her to be vulnerable. He wanted everything.
Complete submission.
Even as the thought repelled her, it attracted her, too. For the first time she considered what it might be like for someone to know those secret parts of her—her ambition, her pride, her intelligence, her strangeness—and love her for them.
“Lucia,” Lord Cesare growled. And then he began to move his finger, and rational thought became impossible.
He fucked her with his finger in short, rapid strokes, moving in ever widening circles, stretching her out. He grabbed her hip, and braced his leg against hers.
“You will tell me.”
Her mind dissolved into swirls of sensation, following the swirls of his finger. She bit her lip, sure that she drew blood, and felt the tension begin to build, felt everything in her being tighten around the pulsing point where he penetrated her.
She resisted until he began to twist a knuckle inside her, and then stopped.
“Yes!” she screamed, banging a fist on the ruined table. “I am a virgin! Please…”
He was stretching her out in preparation. She could hardly wait so long. It burned, it stung, when he stretched her, and she wanted it even more. She wanted to feel completely full of him.
“Why?” he asked, and slipped another finger in. She would need to answer his questions if she wanted to be rewarded. It was torture.
“I didn’t want anyone…that I…could have…”
“Keep going.”
“I wanted…Severille…”
Lucia couldn’t believe she’d admitted that, that she’d said it out loud, but then she felt his erection hard and huge against her own leg, even through his trousers, and knew she would admit much more for the chance to feel it inside her. She would debase herself, if he asked, she would throw herself at his feet. She raged against her body, and it was useless.
“Please…”
“Who did you want?”
He was merciless. The hand that had been holding her hip slid around her front and deftly slipped between her legs. He thrust a third finger inside her and rubbed her bud with gentle pressure at the same time.
“Tell me.”
As soon as she could form words, she did:
“You. You. At the Dance…I wished I were Summer…”
Lucia managed to look over her shoulder for just a moment, and there she saw the surprise, naked on his face. She would never know where she got the courage to say, “Take me the way you took Summer.”
His fingers left her body abruptly, leaving a gaping absence. She would have cried out in protest if it weren’t for the quick sound of laces, of leather, and the sudden feel of something hot and huge pressing against her folds. She felt his hand on her buttock, his thumb spreading her open, wide open, as wide as she would go, and then suddenly there was the tip pressing into her. She was still so tight, and her body resisted. He paused, and Lucia could tell he was about to speak, about to caution her, about to give her a moment’s doubt, and she could not bear it any longer.
“Please,” she whispered. “I want it to hurt.”
She didn’t know the truth of that until she’d said it, but there was no time to think before he was pushing the hard length of himself into her.
It did hurt, to be stretched so far, so fast; it tore at the edges of her, of all of her, inside and out, but then he was in. He was in, and she was overcome by it, by him. She was so full of him that there was no room for anything else.
It was the first time she’d ever felt bliss.
He began to move inside her, slowly at first, then faster, harder. The swirling sensations began to gather around her core, a tightness growing there, heightened by the pain of fullness. A begging noise simmered up from somewhere deep in her chest until it escaped as a long, slow wail, while her hips bucked backwards, all on their own, and her head dropped to the table, looking for any leverage to drive him in farther, as far as she could take him.
He smacked against her mound as he buried himself inside her, his strokes getting longer, harder, more demanding. He grabbed her hips and slammed into her and touched something deep inside her, obliterating all thought in a fuzzy shower of fizzling sparks that washed down the length of her body. Her muscles convulsed in spasms around him, triggering another roiling wave of pleasure, and he managed to catch her as her legs gave way beneath her.
Lucia’s mind simply shut down after that.
When she finally came back to herself, her lips prickling and her right leg twitching beneath her, she somehow managed to remember to feel embarrassed. She lifted her head from the table, and tried to move, but he was still hard inside her.
She didn’t know what to do. No one had ever seen her act like that, no one had ever seen her so desperate, so
like an animal, and she was still impaled on his cock, imprisoned by strong hands on her hip and back.
“Lord Cesare,” she rasped.
“You can speak again,” he grunted. “Good.”
He grabbed her by the hips and pushed her farther up onto the table, his cock driving inside her, pulling out only enough to roll her over onto her back, and then plunging back into her. He planted strong arms on either side of her spread legs, knocking overturned cups and silverware to the ground, and leaned over her.
“Look at me,” he commanded, and thrust into her a little deeper, taking her chin in his hand and turning her face toward his. “Look.”
She did. She didn’t have the right words for what she saw there. Lord Cesare’s brow was furrowed, and his dark eyes glowed with a fervent light, his lips set in a grim line. Something struggled inside him. She could have been watching a mirror image of her own struggle, except for the power that radiated from him, the great capacity for violence bound up in his muscles, the animal need in his eyes. His jaw twitched. Bound up in all that strength and power, she suddenly thought she saw…fear? Not in spite of him—he was asking her to look at it. Asking her to see.
She touched his face with one hesitant hand, and he kissed her.
This time when he moved inside her it wasn’t just her own sensation that overwhelmed her; it was also his. They built what came next together, rocking each other slowly, softly, layering each touch, each stroke, one on top of the other, until they each overflowed with the other. Lucia came screaming, her arms around his shoulders, her teeth in his neck.
Lord Cesare slumped on top of her for a long time. She took his weight, glad for it at first, because it felt like she might float up to the ceiling otherwise.
But as she came down from her high, all the old fears returned, made stronger by her new circumstances. Never show yourself. Keep yourself to yourself. Always be attractive.
She had shown him her deepest, darkest desires. What was wrong with her, that she wanted to be hurt? That her body could betray her mind so fully? This time her humiliation brought none of the thrill it had before. What must he think of her now? What must she now think of herself? What would happen to her?