Her hips seemed to move independently as he pushed his fingers deep inside. She clenched around him, urging him deeper, begging him with her body for more. When he manipulated her cervix she whimpered softly at the strange sensation but she didn’t want him to stop. To her surprise she realised that she wanted even more. She wanted him to penetrate her so roughly and deeply that she would feel it for days. She wanted the ropes so tight her hands went numb.
It was almost impossible to believe she was here like this, burning with hunger for this dark stranger. It wasn’t like her at all. She had never been a particularly passionate lover; nor was she what anyone would call reckless. But this man had awakened something in her. Something lustful and primal and yet shockingly submissive.
An image sprang into her mind then. She saw herself kneeling naked at his feet, her face resting lovingly against his polished black boot, her back scored with welts from a lash, her hip branded with his initials. His slave. His plaything. His property to do with however he saw fit. The strange fantasy startled her as much as it excited her and she moaned hungrily as she pushed her hips forward, a wordless plea for him to take her, fuck her. She had never felt so aroused in her life.
At last he withdrew his fingers and positioned himself above her. She met his eyes and her breath caught in her throat. It was finally going to happen. Without prompting she murmured a single word and felt his cock harden even more against her sex.
‘Master.’
She expected him to enter her in a single violent thrust but he surprised her again by taking his time. His eyes gleamed with sensuous cruelty as he made her wait, teasing her by putting himself in a bit at a time, inch by slow inch.
Alice had never known such overwhelming desire, had never even known it was possible. Without the ropes she would have been clutching him, driving him deeper inside her, demanding that he fuck her harder. But he was the one in control and it was more intoxicating than anything she had ever experienced.
After what seemed an eternity of teasing he finally buried himself inside her, slamming into her and making her cry out with complete abandon. His powerful thrusts awakened every nerve in her body and she thrashed in her bonds, further stimulated by the knowledge that she couldn’t escape. She hooked her legs around his, pressing herself as tightly into him as she could while he filled her, engulfed her, transported her.
Soon she was screaming, with no thought about who might hear her. Nothing mattered but this moment and the incredible pleasure she had never dreamed possible. She yanked at the ropes to heighten the sensation of helplessness as she drowned in the waves of a devastating climax.
His own followed soon after and he growled her name as he stiffened and quivered and emptied himself into her.
Afterwards they both slept, but he did not untie the ropes.
* * *
Her bondage became a ritual. Days passed and she found she couldn’t sleep without being tied. If she needed the toilet in the night she had to wake him so he could untie her. As soon as she was done he restrained her again.
Sometimes he woke her in the night to fuck her and sometimes she would lie awake hoping he would. She would turn onto her side and angle her bottom against him, writhing against his cock until she felt it harden. Sometimes he indulged her, sometimes not.
She never dared to ask his name. He was only ‘Master’. And each night she gave herself to him, completely and utterly.
* * *
Alice blinks herself awake as the spray of the shower draws her reluctantly out of her memories. She feels his absence like a wound, one that only heals while he is with her and reopens each time he leaves. The hot water burns where her skin has been bruised or scratched and she imagines that he is here, washing her clean so that he may dirty her again. Her body is his canvas.
Her soapy hands stray down between her legs, but her fingers can never make her feel the way his do. His seem capable of tearing her apart.
She is reminded of the night he piled the pillows up in the middle of the bed and draped a towel over them. He had tied her arms in front and spread her buttocks. She moaned with the delicious sense of shame as he lubricated the tight opening of her arse and then took her. A virgin there, Alice had bled. Afterwards she felt reborn. She was sore for days but the pain had been a comfort to her while he was away, a reminder of his touch, of his complete ownership of her.
She has no idea where he goes during the day or what he does. He leaves her each morning with instructions not to go anywhere. She is allowed to sit in the hotel lobby while the maid makes up the room but she must return once it is done. She is not to watch the news or read the paper.
Time has lost its meaning for her. There is only the night, when she is alive, and the awful aching yearning during the day when he is gone.
Occasionally it occurs to her to wonder at his secrecy. He might be a criminal for all she knows. A gangster or a serial killer. But the thought is strangely abstract, something so far removed from the bliss of her cloistered existence that it has no relevance to her at all.
She steps out of the shower and dries herself, gingerly patting her small injuries, the little cuts and bruises that prove to her she isn’t dreaming. She cherishes each one. When she is dry she puts on the fluffy hotel robe and makes herself a cup of tea. Each sip reminds her how he first tasted her blood on the train. Her sex pulses in response as she curls up in the chair by the window.
Outside are the vibrant, noisy streets of London. She sees the endless stream of traffic. People, taxis, big red buses. Everyone has somewhere to go, somewhere to be. Destinations, appointments, assignations. But the bustle may as well be on another planet for all it affects Alice. Her world is here, in this room. When her master is here, she is his. And when he is gone, she waits. That is all she knows, all she wants to know.
Shattered (#ulink_5910c661-db3e-50e9-9cd3-5160b3fa8289)
Sommer Marsden (#ulink_5910c661-db3e-50e9-9cd3-5160b3fa8289)
I stared at it, trying not to feel discouraged. The fixer-upper I had bought and proceeded to gut was coming along much, much slower than I’d thought. My tiny deck outside the small kitchen was a mess. It was only about eight by six. Built as an offshoot where a backdoor should have been, it stood on what must have been twenty-foot stilts, suspending the deck above the yard below.
‘Not what I was hoping for,’ I sighed. I’d stopped in to check on the work. Oddly, of the entire house I’d bought, it was this tiny odd little porch I was most excited about.
‘We’ll get it there.’
I jumped about a foot, clutching my heart and making an ungodly noise. Anger rushed through me in a red wave at being startled and embarrassed.
‘What. The. Hell?’ I ground out.
Then I was face to face with him and he grinned. ‘Sorry. I thought you’d hear me clumping in here in these clodhoppers.’ He pointed to his thick and dusty work boots. Steel-toed, no doubt.
‘I didn’t.’ Now I was ashamed of my temper. ‘I was lost in the world of dream home makeovers.’
He laughed. My stomach tumbled at realising it was him. The one and only worker on my disastrous and constantly shifting home project that I had noticed. More than once I’d felt the tickle of energy on my skin and turned to see him staring at me. More than once I had found myself staring at him and then been caught red-handed when he’d turned and spotted me.
And we’d smile and look away. Me with a blush. Him barking orders at men.
‘We’re getting there. Don’t worry.’
‘Not as fast as I hoped.’ I stopped looking at him because it was starting to get hot in the kitchen even with the door to the deck open.
‘These things never go as fast as we hope,’ he said.
I turned fast and didn’t stop myself. ‘What’s your name? Mine is Maggie. I know you know that but I don’t know … yours.’
‘John. John Frost.’
I nodded. ‘Nice to –’
He took two big steps toward me. The motion both comforting and aggressive – a looming, sexy oxymoron.
‘– meet you,’ I gasped.
When he reached out to touch me, I never questioned it. When he turned me back to face the porch, his large body crowding mine but not actually touching me, I never complained. ‘What will it be, Maggie?’ he asked me.
His breath was hot in my ear and I could barely hear his words because my head was full of the sound of my almost violent heartbeat. My top lip beaded with a fine cool sweat and I could feel my hands shaking, so I clenched them into fists. ‘A bed, mostly.’
Laughter rumbled out of him and shook his body, which in turn shook me. ‘A bed?’
I nodded, smiling. ‘A bed,’ I echoed. All of my effort was focused on not focusing on the fact that my body felt tingly and electric where he was touching me.
He leaned in closer. His bulk almost but not quite touching mine. His fingers curled more firmly to my shoulders and my nipples peaked as easy as you please. I wondered if John Frost could see over my shoulder and make out the shamefully plain evidence of what he was doing to me.
‘I want it to be new hardwood and a bed that rests up against the back wall. Layers and layers of colourful fabric. Like gypsy fabric, but a big fat tall bed fit for a princess. Like a daybed on steroids.’
‘A gypsy princess?’ he asked. When his lips came down on the back of my neck a small strangled cry slipped out of me. His fingers bit into my shoulder again and I held my breath until spots appeared.