Slave Wife
Page 17
She glanced up at Ward, who hadn’t taken his smiling eyes off her. Would they really let her release Karen if that was her decision? A devastating spasm of guilt took her. Suddenly she knew how intensely she wanted her job, wanted this career path and the new world it promised to a hapless Midwestern farm girl. If she did choose Karen’s freedom would it all end?
Delia needed more information and there was only one way to get it. She removed her jacket and laid it on a delicate antique chair, tangentially aware of Ward’s very masculine interest in her skimpy covering. Under other circumstances she would have put his interest to good use. But not at this moment. Slowly, with ambivalence that felt bottomless, she lifted the flogger, ignominiously ignoring Ward’s gaze. Head down, she mumbled into her breasts, “This is not a decision.”
The implement drew her to it, entranced her, once it lay in her hand. It was actually a cat o’ nine tails and beautifully crafted. Made by Heartwood, she was certain. She hefted the handle with its intricate weave in lustrous shades of brown. “Yes,” she thought, while at the same time wondering how she knew, “Ward would prefer brown’s deep tonalities.”
Her arm swept the air once, twice, three times in graceful figure eights as she watched the supple movement of the nine braided tails tipped with tiny forked leather tongues. Inadvertently she smiled to herself in enjoyment, wishing, for a moment, that Anna was restrained before her. The thought jolted her back to the present and her smile vanished. She sighed, looking down at Karen’s vulnerable bare back … and with one integrated backhanded motion caused the vicious tongues to strike flesh.
The girl jerked and a tremor ran through her but she made no sound. Delia struck again … and again. She couldn’t deny it. The splendid cat connecting with the flawless skin felt rhapsodic. Even the slight metallic ping when a tail struck metal was enjoyable. She evaluated her own response. Her instincts, which she invariably trusted, were propelling her to hurt the girl – strong evidence of submission for a skilled Dominant. But not enough.
After half a dozen blows, which raised satisfying bright pink stripes on the white skin, small pathetic whimpers penetrated the luxurious stillness. Delia circled and looked into the parts of Karen’s face left unobstructed by her long hair. The girl’s face was wet with tears. Even in the dimness, even with Karen’s lowered head and eyes, Delia could see resignation, perhaps acceptance, but none of Anna’s sensual pleasure. Indeed misery, evanescent but still, Delia sensed, real, seemed to rise from the girl.
Delia’s uncertainty was so compelling she wanted to scream. She still didn’t know! Or was it simply the remnants of her fanatical quest blocking her vision? Was the answer truly obvious?
She struck again and, as she felt the cat connect, caught motion in the deep shadows behind the massive gilded desk. She spun on her heel in time to see Michael step toward her. A silent scream rose within her as she looked into his beautiful opaque eyes.
He smiled and his smile was like looking into hell’s blackness. But far worse, when he spoke, his voice astonishingly hard and droll simultaneously, she felt her world crash around her. “Hello, Delia.”
Questions – questions she’d stupidly ignored in her ferment – exploded in white-hot shards into her brain. Had he been the initiator of this little interchange? How did he know who she was? And how long had he known of her plans? When his company had hired her? Or more shocking, had he somehow intuited or learned of them when he’d first taken Karen? All this time had he been watching and waiting?
Her perplexity was interrupted by turmoil at her feet. Karen had collapsed onto the floor and was straining her neck against the chain’s resistance to look upwards. In a voice so weak, plaintive and overflowing with hopelessness it plunged a knife into Delia’s heart, she moaned, “Delia? Delia?”
Also by Frances Gaines Bennett…
The Milk Bitch Trilogy
Available from Pink Flamingo Publications in paperback and ebook
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