The Lady Submits

by Chloe Cox

  He’d thought himself so clever when he planned that. Always keep a prisoner off balance during an interrogation. Pain, and then comfort; enemy, then friend. Disorient them enough, show them just a bit of human kindness, and eventually they want to confess. Everyone wants to confess, in the end. It’s human nature.

  He smiled bitterly at that thought. Human nature, indeed. He envied them their confessions. It was a luxury he would likely never have again.

  This interrogation demanded that he be in complete control of himself, and he knew already that this was not possible. He had to have her. Over and over again, he had to have her, or he’d lose what was left of his mind, right here in this cold underground cavern. The one woman he’d ever found that he genuinely needed, and now he had to discover if she was a traitor who hoped to kill him. He turned his rage to the stone and raked his hand across its rough edges, leaving four long marks, a growl rising unbidden in his throat, and stepped into the torchlight.

  She stumbled a few frightened steps backwards.

  “Do you recognize me?” he asked, stepping fully into the light.

  He could see her mind working furiously behind those beautiful green eyes. Of course she recognized him; the entire city knew what he looked like. She was trying to figure out why he was there.

  “I think possibly I’m hallucinating,” she finally said.

  “You are not hallucinating.”

  “That really seems like the most likely explanation,” she said. He noticed her breathing had become quite shallow. There was sweat glistening between her breasts, and the slight smell of sex. He took a deep breath that he felt all the way to his feet. It did not help.

  “Remove the mask,” he ordered.

  She did.

  “I recognize you, Lucia Lyselle. You refused to tell me your name.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice was so slight. He stepped towards her and saw how his every motion registered in her body. It wasn’t fear, not of him. It was confusion, and struggle, and…something else. She danced with him, even if she didn’t know it. He gripped the back of one chair and felt the wood give beneath his hands.

  She was calling the beast forth.

  “Why did you come here tonight?” he asked.

  “Paolo Ramora asked me to.”

  Lucia’s face darkened at this, her mouth tightened. Someone less familiar with the act of containment, of self-control, of hiding in plain sight, might not have noticed. Cesare did.

  “The boy from the Dance of Seasons.”

  “Yes.”

  “The one who —”

  “Yes.”

  It had been a long time since anyone had cut Lord Cesare Lupin off in conversation, longer still since anyone had used such a tone to do it. He couldn’t help but marvel at her. So unlike any woman he had ever met. The sight of her determination, and the smell, now, the unmistakable smell of desire, was overpowering. His cock was growing, waking like a hungry animal.

  “May I sit down?” she asked, and began to pull out the heavy chair opposite him. She asked. The suggestion of her obedience to him, wrapped around the steel she so clearly carried within herself, was irresistible. He gave an order just to see it obeyed.

  “No.”

  She froze. He licked his lips.

  “I want to see you. Stand where you are, and face me.” Her chest heaved rapidly up and down, up and down, and a red flush had begun to spread out from her bosom, but she did as she was told.

  “Do not move unless I order it.”

  He walked out from behind the chair, and watched as her eyes fell to his groin. She bit her lip, and the thing inside him howled for a taste of her. He paused for a moment, knocked back by the image of her on her back, legs spread, arching those beautiful breasts towards him. It was all he could do to remember to breathe.

  She stood motionless, waiting. Breathing. He could hear her breathing.

  Slowly he tested one foot, then the other. He was able to move without giving in. He must remember: she could be a traitor. She might make a fool of him. She might be tricking him right now. It would be the tragedy of his life, but it wouldn’t surprise him. It would only fit with everything he had ever been taught about himself.

  He had to find a way to get at the truth. This was always something he’d been able to do, to play the pliant minds of enemies until they sang for him, until they willingly gave up their secrets. He could always find a way in.

  He could always make them submit, in some way.

  “Why listen to Paolo Ramora, after they way he treated you? Did you want to go with him?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t…I don’t particularly like him. No.”

  “Then why follow him?”

  “Because I need his help.”

  Cesare walked slowly around, studying her from every angle. If she were lying…well, this wouldn’t even have to be a lie, would it, if she were part of the plot. She would have needed help. He darted towards her, stopping inches away. She closed her eyes, and sighed, and Cesare looked down to find her nipples poking through her thin dress.

  It was incredible. Everything he felt for her — the way he felt his need for her in his very blood, the way she focused him into a fine, single, clear edge, the way her smell brought him back to himself, the way she was simultaneously maddening and calming — it was all reflected back to him, in her. She felt it too. He was sure of it.

  But the body and heart need not be one, he reminded himself.

  “Why do you need his help?” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “My father,” and here he saw her swallow, had to remind himself again that it might all be a ruse, that he could not simply take her in his arms, “my father is in trouble. He has been arrested.”

  “Why? What has he done?”

  Cesare saw a tendril of her copper hair fall across her face as she nodded forward, in grief or deception, he no longer cared, and without thinking he reached out to tuck it back behind her ear.

  She leaned into his touch.

  He nearly took her right there.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  He forced himself away from her and stalked back to his chair, falling into it with something akin to relief. She still hadn’t moved. She had remembered his order. That she might be so complimentary to his own extreme tastes made it all the worse. His mind buzzed with an animal awareness that she was his, and he, hers. No matter what had come before, no matter what women he had known, there would be no others for him, after her. Even the memories of his many conquests were obliterated when he thought of her. He never expected to feel this way, and felt grateful for the chance to feel it now, even once. He would even accept her hatred, as he expected he would have to do.

  But he had to know. For both their sakes.

  “No one is arrested without cause in J’Amel,” he said slowly.

  “It’s something to do with the Vintner’s Guild,” she blurted out. She sounded angry; she was not one to cry easily, then. “The soldiers came after his still, asking about his vintages. And that’s why I came here with Paolo, his father is the Guild’s banker, and I thought he might know, maybe he would help if I agreed…”

  One of Cesare’s skills as an interrogator was knowing when to stay silent. He did so now, but Lucia seemed unable to finish that thought.

  “My father is not good with figures and records, and with…paperwork,” she continued at last, the anger draining away, leaving only sadness. “Taxes, and import duties, and…I help him, with things like that. It’s possible…”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s possible that I made a mistake,” she said quietly. Cesare watched the horror of that possibility play out on her face, as though it were occurring to her for the first time. If she were innocent, he was a monster, to do this to her. To the woman he inexplicably knew owned his damaged heart.

  If she were not…well, they were both doomed, in that case.

  Of course she could never care for you, a voice inside his
head sneered, a voice he remembered well. Of course she would rather see you dead. How could she care for a monster like you?

  Even if she were innocent — the voice inside his head laughed — even if she were innocent, he’d still have to prove it, or watch her hang with her father.

  “Why am I here?” she asked him directly, and there was that flash of steel again. Of intelligence, and resistance. And yet he was certain he’d felt the desire to yield in her. The beast in him had delighted at her quick obedience; had felt the thrill run up her spine. The two traits, opposed and yet twinned, putting her at war with herself: that, he understood. He wished to tell her that he understood. He wished to show her.

  And suddenly he thought he saw the way in.

  “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 come off her in waves, and he 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 popped her breast out, 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.”

  You can find the rest of The Wolf’s Captive here

  License Notes and Disclaimer

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment, and may not be resold. If you liked it so much that you want to share with a friend, well, go ahead and do that. You can find more of the author’s work at all the major retailers.

  All characters and situations described in this work are fictional and entirely the product of the author’s overactive imagination. Any similarity to persons living or dead is entirely accidental, and really quite incredible, considering.

  Copyright 2012 Chloe Cox, all rights reserved, and all that. Enjoy!