Lord Savage

by Mia Gabriel

  I sighed uneasily. “You know I haven’t.”

  “Then why should it change now between us?” he reasoned wryly. That was exactly how he presented it, too, pure male logic against my fluttery female fear of the unknown. “Why would I suddenly do anything you did not like?”

  I didn’t answer, my mind—or was it my conscience?—struggling to convince myself one way or the other. I’d already done so many things with him, things that would have appalled me in New York, and I didn’t regret any of them. I’d trusted him this far. Why couldn’t I trust him in this, too?

  “Trust me, Eve,” he said as if reading my mind. He was so powerfully, achingly handsome, standing there looking at me as if I were the only woman in the world. He held his hand out to me, to help me climb from the bed and join him. “Trust me as your Protector to do what is best for you.”

  This was what I’d come for—not just for amusement, but for him. For him. I wasn’t going to be a coward and not play the Game to the end.

  I took a deep breath, then another.

  Then I turned away from him and with an excited little whoop I hopped from the bed, and raced to the bedroom door. This time I was able to throw it open in an instant, and I ran down the short hall, past the bathroom and Savage’s dressing room and a mildly bewildered Barry, and into the sitting room.

  I didn’t want to waste the seconds it would cost me to look around, but I knew he was behind me, and with each step drawing closer. I could hear his footsteps, his breathing, and I forced myself to run faster still.

  If I headed straight across the room toward the next door, he’d catch me. But if instead I ran first around the oversize desk and through the narrow space between the desk and the wall, where there wouldn’t be room for him to follow easily, then I might be able to reach it before he caught me.

  That was my only goal, to reach the door. I’d figure out the rest afterward.

  At the last moment, I cut around the leather-covered armchair and darted around the desk, squeezing myself through the space. Breathless and laughing, I felt clever and lithe, and exhilarated, too, to have eluded him this far. The door to the next room was just before me, the polished gilt doorknob almost within my reach.

  Except that Savage had gotten there first.

  He hadn’t followed me around the desk as I’d expected. Instead, he’d gone straight to the door and cut me off. He was standing there now, his back to the door to block my way. His smile was confident, even smug, and he wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “You did better than I expected, Eve,” he said, “but I told you before you couldn’t win.”

  I felt decidedly less clever, but I wasn’t going to give up yet.

  “You haven’t won,” I said, tossing my hair back over my shoulders.

  His gaze flicked down to the desk between us. “You have to come out from behind there at some point.”

  “Perhaps I do,” I said, raising my chin. “Perhaps I don’t.”

  His eyes gleamed at the challenge. “And perhaps I’ll come haul you out.”

  He took one step toward me, then another, his hand outstretched to me. “Or you could surrender, Eve. You know it’s inevitable.”

  I shook my head, poised with my hands on the desk before me. “I know nothing of the sort.”

  “Oh, Eve.” He inched closer, beckoning. “You’re forgetting I’m your master. What kind of Innocent forgets that?”

  “Apparently a very wicked one, Master,” I said, teasing, almost taunting him. If I could only get him to come closer and commit to one side of the desk, then I’d have a chance of breaking free. “I can’t begin to imagine how much punishment I’ll need after this.”

  “I can,” he said, and the knowing way he smiled made me shiver with anticipation. “Now come, Eve, enough of this. Out from behind that desk.”

  I edged slowly to one side, letting him think I was heading that way. He did. His smile widened with satisfaction as he stepped forward, his hand reaching out to me. My heart racing, I smiled in return to encourage him further, and then fled in the opposite direction.

  I’d several glorious seconds of thinking I’d escaped again, and then his arm closed around my waist like an iron band. I struggled to break free one last time, my nails raking down across his arm. He swore, but held me fast, and finally I stopped fighting.

  I twisted around to face him, my breasts crushed against his chest. I was breathing hard, almost panting, and so was he, his heart beating fast against mine. Only the silk of his robe separated us, a luxurious barrier that seemed to accentuate the heat of his skin, and how his leanly muscled chest pressed into mine.

  “Surrender?” he demanded, his arms tightening around my waist.

  For a long moment I simply looked up at his face, so close to mine. I couldn’t look enough at his pale blue eyes with their thick dark lashes, his stubbled jaw, his sensuously curved mouth, with the only sound between us our own ragged breathing.

  Then abruptly he kissed me, his mouth crushing down on mine as if he’d devour me. I parted my lips for him at once and took his tongue deep, the way I craved. I’d no doubt this was a Protector’s kiss, and I loved the forceful possession of it.

  I’d guessed right: the chase through his rooms added even more fire to our morning. He was kissing me with a feverish new intensity, and I could not get enough of it, or of him.

  I circled my hands around the back of his neck to support myself, my hands slipping into the black silk of his hair. I arched against him to press my breasts to his chest, rubbing my sensitized nipples against the silk of his robe.

  He made a growling sound of satisfaction that reverberated between our joined mouths. I could taste the heat of his desire, the power of it. He tipped me back into the crook of his arm, and as I felt my balance wobble, I clung to his shoulders to keep from falling backward.

  “You’re safe, Eve,” he whispered, sliding a hand down the curving sweep of my hip. “I will never let you fall. Not now, not ever.”

  As if to prove it, he leaned me back farther and scooped his other arm beneath my knees to gather me from my feet. I was not a small woman, and I’d never had a man literally sweep me away like this, as if I weighed no more than thistledown. I gasped and fluttered at the delicious novelty of it as he carried me back to the bedroom.

  He didn’t make a great show of his strength; it was simply there, one more thing about him that made me feel safe and protected and womanly and beautiful, all at once. But most of all he made me feel desired and treasured, and for now that mattered more than anything else in the world.

  I stretched myself luxuriantly on the sheets, letting my hair fan around me on the pillow as I gazed up at him. I loved how he was looking at me, raw hunger in his eyes, and when he climbed over me to find my mouth again, I arched up toward him in welcome.

  “I’ve never wanted any other woman like I do you, Eve,” he said, his voice rough with it. His expression was dark, his eyes heavy-lidded and full of unspoken promise of what he wished to do with me. “No other has ever come close.”

  “Then show me, Master,” I begged, blindly reaching between us to try to untie the sash on his robe. I was weary of all the toying and teasing that had occupied our morning. I was ready for his cock, and shamelessly sought it. “Fuck me. I’ve waited long enough for this fine prize of yours.”

  He brushed my hand away, shifting just far enough aside that his cock was out of my reach.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I’ll say when, Eve, not you.”

  “But I wish it now,” I said with a breathless little pout. “Let me become your perfect Innocent.”

  “Then trust me, Eve,” he said, kissing me hard, “and you will.”

  He ran his hands slowly up my sides and over my ribs, his thumbs grazing the undersides of my breasts as he continued up to stretch my arms over my head. He held me that way, his body covering mine as we kissed. He let one hand go and I curled it around his hips, delighting in the flex of his muscles beneath my
fingers as he moved over me.

  I felt something silken loop around my wrist and tighten, and by the time I turned my head, it was too late. A thick cord of black silk circled my wrist, and the more I struggled to pull free, the tighter the knot became. The other end of the rope was secured to one of the turnings in the massive bedstead, and no matter how I tugged, it would not budge.

  “What is the meaning of this, Savage?” I demanded, panicking. The cords were nearly the same color as the dark wood of the bed, but how had I not noticed them before? “What are you doing to me?”

  He still held me trapped beneath his body, and as I struggled, he gently raised my other wrist over my head. He slipped a second loop of cord around that wrist, too, and pulled it tight.

  “I told you there’d be consequences, Eve,” he said, sitting up to straddle me with one muscular thigh on either side of my hips. “It’s for your own good, you see. Even the most cherished of Innocents must endure punishment.”

  I fought against the cords, but the harder I tugged, the more the cords tightened like little nooses and made the silk dig into my skin. “But please, Savage, not like this!”

  “‘Master,’” he said evenly. “I’m your master, Eve. You’ve been willful enough today without forgetting that as well.”

  “But this isn’t—”

  “Hush,” he said, placing a single finger across my lips to silence me. I smelled the honey-sweet scent of my own arousal on his hands, a pointed reminder of what he was withholding from me now.

  “I’ll admit that you were wise to question the manacles,” he continued. “Cold metal is not appropriate for you. The silk restraints are far more suitable, and the contrast against your skin is quite charming. Black silk against pale ivory flesh. Or are you the color of white damask-rose petals? I told you I was a romantic, didn’t I?”

  I could still move my head and I did, jerking away from his finger. “Being trussed like a roasting hen is not romantic, not in the least!”

  He frowned down at me, more with disappointment than displeasure, and somehow very, very English.

  “You’re only making it worse for yourself, Eve,” he said. “You need to learn the virtue of patience and selflessness. Both are most necessary parts of any true pleasure.”

  “How?” I practically spat the single word, my initial fear melding into anger.

  “Because waiting and denial make the final reward all the sweeter,” he explained. “Most learn that simple lesson in the schoolroom, but then you are not like them, are you?”

  He was almost lecturing me, shifting his role as my master to one of a tutor—if any tutor would dare look at a student with such unabashed and blatant desire.

  “Don’t lecture me, Savage,” I said sharply. “Untie me instead.”

  “I could,” he said, “but then you wouldn’t learn anything, would you? I suspect a woman like you has always had whatever she wished. Nothing must be beyond your purse. What is it again that you New Yorkers call yourselves—millionaires?”

  “You’re no better, Savage,” I said furiously. I was glad now to see how my nails had earlier left long red welts down his arm, glad that I’d hurt him. “You’re every bit as wealthy as I am, and you’re an aristocrat whose family has had their way for—for centuries! How dare you preach to me?”

  “Because I’m your master, Eve,” he said. “And you are my Innocent.”

  With an athlete’s easiness he climbed from the bed, releasing my legs. At once I struggled to push myself upright to sit, twisting and kicking against the bed and the cords around my wrists.

  But my partial freedom was short-lived. Savage pulled two more lengths of the same silk cord from the drawer that had also held the manacles. Returning to the bed, he grabbed each of my ankles in turn. Although I fought and tried to kick him, he soon tied my ankles as he had my wrists, and secured them to the other bedposts.

  When he’d carried me earlier, I’d found comfort in his strength, but now when he used it to subdue me like this, I felt only resentment. I was spread and bound, and though the cords did not really hurt unless I pulled on them, the position wasn’t comfortable, and already I felt the strain on my muscles.

  But perhaps worst of all was the humiliating indignity of it, of having my legs spread wide for him to see every intimate detail of my quim. Of course he’d seen it before, but then I had shared myself willingly, not like—like this.

  “There,” he said, gazing down at me with satisfaction. “That should put you in a suitable position for a bit of repentance.”

  “What could I possibly have to repent?” I asked, incredulous. “What have I done to merit this treatment from you?”

  “I told you, Eve,” he said. “You’ve been impatient, willful, and stubborn. You forget who I am, and the respect a proper Innocent must show her Protector.”

  His robe had slipped open as he’d bound me, and now he undid the sash to lap the edges over and retie it. His cock was still as hard as when he’d pushed me away earlier, the shaft sleek and stiff, the head blunt—powerful proof that he wasn’t nearly as unmoved by the sight of my widespread legs as he wished me to think.

  “It doesn’t matter how much you want this, Eve,” he said harshly, catching me looking. “You don’t deserve it, not now.”

  To reinforce the message, he closed his fingers firmly around his cock and began to slide his hand up and down, his balls tightening visibly. The shaft pressed up toward his belly, and the head grew purple, glistening at the tip. His face flushed and his nostrils flared as he worked his hand. His gaze never left mine, intent on watching his effect upon me.

  I blushed, embarrassed not by his performance but by my own shamelessness. The sight of his erect cock made me imagine it nudging into me, pressing deep and filling my channel. I could almost feel it there now, and in response my nipples tightened into sharp points and I felt the now-familiar heat gathering low in my belly. I couldn’t help writhing uneasily against my bindings, my hips moving in a rhythm of yearning.

  Savage glanced down at my notch, doubtless seeing the moisture that surely must be visible on the dark curling hairs and full pink lips. I couldn’t help that, either, or stop the little moan of frustration that escaped my mouth.

  “Not now,” he said again, and pointedly pushed his cock back inside the robe, tying the sash into a tight knot. “You know why. You’ve only to remember what just occurred, how you leaped off this very bed to run away.”

  “You chased me!” I exclaimed, twisting against the cords. “And you were the one who suggested it, saying I shouldn’t judge the pleasures of others until I’d tried them. Admit it, Savage. You enjoyed that as much as I did!”

  He didn’t like that, his face shuttering against me in a way that made my heart sink.

  “I don’t have to admit anything, Eve,” he said curtly. “Not to you.”

  I let my head drop back and sighed with the very impatience he’d accused me of having. “Then how long do you intend to keep me like this?”

  “That’s for me to decide, Eve,” he said. “But I promise you that by the time I do, you’ll be thanking me for your education. It’s all part of the Game.”

  “The Game,” I said bitterly. “I don’t believe I care for your game any longer, Master.”

  His jaw was set and clenched, the muscles twitching around his mouth as if he was deciding whether to speak one last word or keep silent. Silence won. He turned on his heel and crossed the room, obviously heading for the door.

  “Wait, Savage, please!” I cried out, turning my head to watch him. “You can’t mean to leave me like this!”

  He paused, his hand on the doorknob. “I can, Eve, and I will. Please use the time alone for reflection, as an Innocent should.”

  “No, Savage, please, no!” I wailed.

  My only answer was the click of the door closing after him.

  I made a wordless cry of frustration, twisting hard against my bonds. I couldn’t believe he’d done this to me, and worse, tha
t he now intended to abandon me in this state.

  Hot tears welled up in my eyes and slid down my cheek, tears that I couldn’t wipe away because of my tied hands. Just when I’d thought things were going so well with Savage, he’d done this to me to prove they weren’t.

  God help me, I’d actually begun to believe that he might care more for me than as simply one more Innocent. I was so woefully ignorant of love that I wasn’t sure I’d recognize it if it finally came lurching my way in the handsome form of Savage.

  There were little signs, of course. He’d treated me with affection, even regard. He’d defended me from the others. Despite his role as my master, he’d always taken care that I found my climax before his in a way that was unexpectedly gentlemanly. When we were alone, he would often let the Game slip aside, and treat me like a woman instead of an Innocent—a woman that he obviously found fascinating in bed and out of it.

  In return, I’d dared to let my feelings for him grow. I hadn’t come here expecting anything more than an adventure, a dalliance, with him, and he’d given that to me in spades. I’d never imagined I’d truly feel this way with any man, and the passion we’d shared was worth ten times the voyage from New York.

  It was as if I’d been sleepwalking for the first twenty-five years of my life, going through my days in a genteel, empty haze. Like a prince in a fairy tale, Savage had kissed me and brought me to life. He’d made me aware of the joy to be found in my body, and the shimmering pleasures that had never been part of my lot before. All I wanted now was more: more pleasure, more adventure, more risk, more delight, and, of course, much more of Savage’s cock.

  All I wanted was … all.

  And the longer I thought of it, the more clear it became to me—albeit reluctantly, and with chagrin—that he’d been right about my being impatient. Horribly, dreadfully right.

  I did expect all the best things in life to be brought to me on a polished silver charger engraved with my monogram, exactly the same way as my butler delivered my mail to me each morning at breakfast at home. I never thought of the cost, or the inconvenience to others. I’d never had to. This was simply how it was for me.