by Louisa Trent
A devastating sense of loss fell over me. What had I done?
And how could I undo the damage so as not to lose out on the six additional days of decadence that was coming to me?
By telling him what he wanted to hear and by projecting an attitude of repentance, of course.
I bowed my head. “You are right, sir. I reneged on our agreement, one I had freely given you. I am a two-timer of the worst variety. I was sowing my wild oats, sir. That was why I broke my promise to you. Despite all my previous carnal experience,” I lied, “I had never before had two attractive men vying for my attention at the same time. Your simultaneous interest in my cunt went straight to my…head.”
I looked up at him, a demure glance from under my lashes. Would he buy my trumped-up excuse for bad behavior?
He did, with a nod. “Very well. We begin again, Miss Malone. Clean slate…after you are properly chastened.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said with the best pretense of humility I could produce. “As I explained, I am there already. Properly chastened. That is me.”
His tight hold on me never let up. It continued when he helped me up into his carriage, waiting outside under a street post…with a newly broken lantern.
I pointed. “You did that! Make me no denial. Broken lamplights are your modus operandi.”
“A pitched rock. Only to save your good name. Neighborhood busybodies would have seen my arrival otherwise.”
For the first time, I noticed his entirely black ensemble. My cloak, borrowed from him, was also dark. The fine wool enveloped me from head to foot and had hidden my nakedness earlier. Now, of course, it covered the pretty new ensemble I had worn to receive Mr. Osborn.
Had the conman expected to go after me, had expected my return, thus his and my head-to-toe black?
I was well past the age to say this to a man, but lost youth or not, I muttered, “I hate you!”
Ours was a silent return to the city proper. Upon arriving at the Red-light District, he stopped his carriage under the out-of-order street lamp situated outside his tenement.
“Broken lights follow you wherever you go,” I said petulantly, while thinking:
Broken hearts must follow him the same.
While I waited, he passed the reins of the buggy to a stable lad at the ready – the boy had to have been instructed to wait there for him.
He assisted my descent onto the dark street, his hand remaining under my elbow until we were once again back inside the basement kitchen of his thief’s lair.
“Strip off,” he immediately ordered me.
I looked around, taking in the neat but utilitarian surroundings, ambience hardly conducive to what I had in mind. “Here, sir?”
“A directive necessary due to your willful disobedience, Miss Malone.”
“Disobedience? I have not said a word until just now.”
“I instructed you to remain nude under your cape for the entirety of what you said was an appointment, and which turned out to be some sort of romantic dalliance.”
I dismissed his recollection with a tssk. “All in the past, sir. Merely a distant memory now. We move forward from here. A new leaf,” I said, using the same wording he had used when describing his own transgressions. “What is good for the goose is good for the gander.”
“I have spent a fair amount of time trying to right my past. I still work at it daily. It is not as easy as you seem to believe.”
No, it was not. Not that I would tell him so. We were about arse-baring, not soul-baring.
“Oh, very well. Have it your way.” I lowered my eyes to the spotless floor. Resigned to my undignified fate, I disrobed before him.
Chapter Sixteen
Did my undignified submission meet with his approval? Was I now properly chastened? If not, what on earth would my earning his forgiveness take?
Not much more, I prayed. My neck had been rounded for so long, my double-chin might remain a permanent fixture, especially at my advanced age.
He skimmed a finger over my too-small breasts. “You enthrall me.”
I did?
I absolutely did! I could see the truth in his demeanor, in his words.
Both had me panting. There was no way I could hide his effect on me. Conversely, now that I understand the signs of his masculine awareness, there was no way he could his arousal from me either. Ours was a joint descent into the fire.
Next, he palmed my belly, slid that same hand between my legs.
“Wet,” he pronounced.
An understatement.
“But for whom are you wet?” he asked, his speech labored.
Him. I was dripping wet for him. The cad! Asking me such a question.
“No ejaculate that I can detect,” he said, pushing a long and thick finger inside my natural passage. “And you had more than ample time to bed him.”
Him, being Mr. Osborn.
“It was just a kiss, sir. A brief peck on the lips. A rooster would have tarried more while nipping at feed scattered on the ground. Mr. Osborn greatly respects me, too much to defile me with unsanctioned passion.”
“Passion requires no sanctification, no reason for its existence. Passion either is there or it is not. Turn about,” he ordered. “I mean to check your arse for cum.”
This man desired me, but respect was another matter.
My breasts shifting with the speed of my obedience, the nipples extended a prodigious degree with carnal hunger, I stood there as quietly as was humanly possible as he separated my too-round buttocks.
The most unrefined area of my person.
A little less generosity there would have suited me better. Probably, the reporter too. Mr. Osborn was a gentleman.
“Bend, Miss Malone.”
Oh, Lord. Here we go again.
I was not a prude about nudity. Never had been squeamish about my body, save that I found it undeserving of attention when seen from the front and bordering on the obscene when observed from the rear. The positioning he proposed showed me in an unfavorable light. No lady wishes to be seen from an unpleasing perspective.
All the same to me, I bent as instructed.
“No tampering here, either,” he conceded, unsentimentally prodding my rear quarters.
His cynicism was too much. Eroticism was what I wanted to explore, not this cold clinical examination. Whatever happened to the heat of his dominance?
Whatever happened to my urge to know sexuality in all its many complicated forms, the downright ugly as well as the loftily divine?
Goodness, but I was wishy-washy. I had lost the ability to know my own mind!
Neither deeply moralistic nor unredeemably depraved, I had best slink away now lest he find me out as a fraud all the way around.
“On second thought, sir, this is not working out for me. I shall take your offer and leave. Please accept a substantial check for Will’s release from servitude to you, and allow him to go.” I straightened back up.
He urged me down, his conman’s palm an unrelenting command on my back, making me dizzy.
While my head spun, he said, “Your wealth is useless here. And Will is not my prisoner. He can go any time. As can you. You know what to say…”
Yes, I did. He had repeated the damn password too many times for me ever to forget it. Cease was practically branded on my brain.
This man would never understand the emotional ties that bound an orphan to a place he called home and to an adult he thought cared about his wellbeing...even when both those assumptions proved false.
“Miss Malone – my willingness to explain the pros and cons of an asylum placement to Will remains, regardless of your breaking our agreement. Our ridiculous contract was only a method I employed to convince you to stay without your feeling any unnecessary guilt.”
He thought too highly of me. I had felt little to no guilt about either.
But – by removing all contingencies, he had shifted the onus. To stay. To go. Our decisions to make alone, both Will’s and mine.
Bastard.
“It was only that I suddenly changed my mind,” I said trying to weasel out of encroaching adulthood. “Women do alter their points of view. All the time. In avoidance of impossible situations.”
“Now you insult your gender.” His palm lifted from my person. “I have known women whose firmness of resolve in the face of the unknown would put most men to shame. Those women have courage. They do what they need to do regardless of public sentiment, despite their own fear.”
I straightened, even stepped away. Shocked, I realized I aspired to be that woman.
I slanted him a look. “As a matter of curiosity only, what exactly would my chastening involve?”
“A locked chastity belt would not go amiss on those occasions when I am not here to watch over you.”
“How very medieval, sir.” And so incredibly arousing, my naked breasts peaked all over again, and in clear view of him. Could it be…was it possible…was the recovering conman jealous of my attraction to Mr. Osborn?
Hmm. That might explain his dictatorial posturing now and possibility put an entirely different slant on these proceedings.
“A plug in front and in back,” he added.
Ew.
Taking a step, he followed me to my position of cowardly retreat from grownup responsibility. “Allow me to demonstrate.”
After pulling two peculiar items from his pocket, he did.
Oh, my. Did he ever! A simultaneous insertion, that sent me up on my toes to escape the pressure.
“The plugs would be attached to the chastity belt. The friction is its own reward,” he said. “Or so I am told by women who have worn one. Climaxes with every step, guaranteed. Or so they confided to their master.”
“To you, I suppose. You were the master.”
“No. Sadly, I have never had the pleasure of installing a female in such a contraption.”
“But you have mastered a woman?”
“No. At least not to any serious extent. Mostly superficial games.”
“But you would like to seriously master a woman.”
“Yes,” he said solemnly. “But it would have to be the right candidate. A sexual partner with the courage of her convictions.”
“Convictions in regard to what, pray?” I questioned.
“The right to do as one pleases in the privacy of a relationship.”
I was an independent woman, used to coming and going as I wished, of not having to answer to anyone, of having the wherewithal to look down my nose at such a man as he.
“We are not in a relationship, sir,” I said in my usual snooty tone. “Ours is a temporary condition.”
“Just as well,” he answered with a careless shrug. “I am unsure of what you can tolerate, what with your privileged background and all. You have been spoiled, after all, protected from all of life’s harsh realities, used to getting your own way.” He removed the plugs from my orifices.
“I have grieved, sir. I have suffered in that grief.”
And now, I would like to truly live. For six days. But still I had questions.
“I am confused, sir. You spoke of courage…”
“To go to an unknown place within yourself. From me, you will get no external pressure. Say cease, and it ceases. Here, allow me help you make up your mind.”
“You mean – con me. Fill me with all manner persuasive arguments.”
“No. Words make ineffective arguments. I will simply give you a taste of what it would be like with me as your master. Provide you with information so you can make an informed decision.” He tilted up my chin. “Let down your hair, Miss Malone.”
No hesitation here. I had my mother’s fair hair, heavy and luxurious, and never exposed to a pair of scissors. I had always hated confining it. Had thought my husband would be the first to see its length hanging down low, a shield against my unsightly buttocks, a fan spread out against the too round cheeks, hiding my awful shame form view.
That romantic fantasy was gone now. The cad had already beaten out the reporter to the great honeymoon night reveal inside an anteroom.
While I removed the pins, he said, “I have a special training room, designed for new employees. As I have given up that part of my work, I no longer need use it for orientations to the thieving life. The room remains empty. Rather than installing you in a chastity belt, I shall install you there.”
“I am not your employee, new or otherwise. I have no need of a training room,” I said in a renewed huff.
“Ah, but you do.”
“We both have agreed, sir, I would not act as your whore, correct?”
“Yes, Miss Malone.”
“So I think we can both also agree that by no stretch of the imagination do I require an employee orientation.”
“To the proud role of a submissive you do require orientation.”
I would never have used proud and submissive in the same breath. To my mind, those terms were as disparate as night and day. There was nothing prideful in being under a man’s full control. Exciting, yes. Prideful – no.
He gave me a little push. “Upstairs we go, Miss Malone.”
My hips naturally a-sway, I took to the treads with him following. Not a mannerly climb.
He would not leave my bottom alone! He cupped and smoothed and generally played with the source of my shame all the way up, driving me wild with need.
On the third floor, he shepherded me naked down a long corridor as he would an ewe gone astray. After opening the last door on the left, he ushered me inside.
“Should you decide to remain the specified period, you would stay here for the next six days.” From a small vanity table, he removed a set of padded bands and then walked back toward me.
When I saw what he was about to do, I made a run for the exit. So much for fortitude.
Despite my best effort, he brought up short after only a few steps. “None of that nonsense, Miss Malone. Even if I have to hogtie you, you will not return to the reporter, not for six more days. Unless you say, cease.”
There were other ways, without admitting defeat. Already, I was strategizing my next move. It would involve a bribe, of course. And no bondage.
I had to leave. How could I possibly commit to something so completely outside my realm of understanding? How could I reap the rewards of that commitment without actually owning the words:
I want this.
Thief, conman, cad…he was all those things. And still I lusted after him.
And then it happened. Something I denied would ever happen to me. An attack of dizziness befell. I swayed once, and then crumbled in a swoon to the floor at his feet.
Chapter Seventeen
I had no idea when next I recovered consciousness. An hour? Two, perhaps? Later?
My body leaden, my arms and legs unable to move, I came to slowly, rocking my head back and forth against something soft and giving, something that yielded under my growing dismay, as I did.
Was he still here?
I would not wish him to see me like this, so indecisive, so unable to admit the truth, I passed out in avoidance rather than confront who I was, too cowardly to tell him I wished to continue, that I would never tell him to cease.
Where was I, anyway?
Not the floor where I had collapsed. I reclined on something too soft and giving for hardwood. A mattress then? With a pillow under my head? Had he carried me to a bed?
He must have. God knows, I would not have been able to get there under my own locomotion. Even now, lifting a hand to help myself was out of the question.
Forcing down my lethargy, I opened my eyes, cracking my lids wide enough to survey my surroundings.
For the exhausting attempt, I met with total darkness.
“Where am I?” I muttered aloud.
“In the orientation room still. Feeling better?”
He was here! He had not run off and left me anymore than he had run off and left me after our anteroom session.
“No,” I grumbled, vexed at my
self for giving into whatever this was. Not a physical ailment I guessed. Something emotional.
“I never faint,” I said proudly. “Have never even carried smelling salts. My constitution is far from weak.”
“All of you,” he stressed, “is far from weak. I am as healthy as a horse, myself. But when I hit rock bottom a while back, all I wanted to do was sleep. I had a lot of thinking to do, and sleep was my way to avoid doing it. Hard work is thinking.”
Once again, I tried to move, tried to see him, and failed at both.
“Are you suggesting I am trying to run away from something, sir?” I asked defensively.
“I am suggesting that you are human. Go easy on yourself, Miss Malone.”
All very well and good for him to say. He was able to lift his damn hand, something that was giving me difficulty at the moment.
“Dark in here,” I said peevishly. “And I cannot seem to move. What is wrong with me?”
“Nothing. Your arms and legs are tied to the bed. And midnight is always dark,” he whispered.
“Tied. W-what?” I cried horrified. “Did you fear I might injure myself during my unconsciousness? Is that why you tied my limbs? To prevent me from scratching out my eyes?”
“No. Though you may want to scratch out my eyes when I get through with you.”
The air stirred. His breath, clean and sweet, neared. He pressed his mouth to mine, while his hands moved between my legs, inching up my very split thighs. And then, he broke that kiss, and he was there, his lips on my privates, licking the pubic lips as if he were ravenous.
I was splayed wide open, with just enough give to the ropes for me to do what I was presently doing, which was arching my back and crying, “Ohohoh,” when his tongue entered me, a rough rasp into my passage that I could hardly tolerate for its arousing effect on me .
I pulled on the restraints and panted, panted unconcerned for my audience, while I twisted as best I was able while immobilized.
“Go deeper,” I hollered. “Selfish cad! Why do you hold back?”
Now I understood the ropes served a purpose other than immobilizing me – they prevented me from retaliation. I would have pounded on his skull like a drum but, alas, the cushioned bonds around my wrists held me back from the attack.