The Erotic Light

by Nina Lane

  When his fingers moved up to the crease of her leg and hip, she shuddered. At least she was wearing stockings, so he couldn’t delve too deeply. He appeared deep in conversation with the gentleman seated on his other side. Lydia adjusted her linen napkin to cover his hand as he pushed it between her thighs. A hot flush rose to her face. She reached for her wineglass and took a long swallow.

  Oh no. No…

  She tensed when she felt his fingers grip the nylon fabric and pull hard. A gasp caught in her throat as the nylon ripped, leaving her satin panties the only barrier between her sex and Preston’s plundering touch.

  “Are you all right, dear?” Mrs. Broussard blinked curiously at Lydia, who tried to smile.

  “Yes, just… a bit too much pepper.” She grabbed her wineglass again as Preston’s fingers eased beneath the elastic of her panties to stroke her labia. Lydia was horrified to feel an unmistakable dampness collecting in her intimate folds.

  Her mother—her mother—was speaking to her from across the table, something about a town hall meeting she was supposed to attend the following week.

  “Er, yes… yes, I have a speech prepared,” Lydia stammered as Preston squeezed the damp lips of her labia and rubbed his adept finger around her clit. Blood pulsed through Lydia’s veins, her arousal mounting in spite of herself.

  She let out her breath, tried to focus on her food. Her thighs parted almost involuntarily to allow Preston easier access to her sensitive flesh.

  A chuckle rumbled through his chest. He moved closer to her, still speaking with the man on his other side as if nothing untoward were happening. As if he weren’t masturbating his captive in the middle of a dinner party.

  Holy mother of god. Lydia winced when his forefinger slipped down to tickle the opening of her body. Perspiration broke out on her forehead. The sound of her blood pounding rushed into her ears, the lights from the chandelier dancing before her eyes like sparks.

  Mrs. Broussard was still talking. Something about the best time to plant tulips. Lydia tried to nod politely, as if she were actually listening.

  Preston turned toward her, his eyes filled with a heat that only Lydia would recognize. He tilted his head closer to her ear and then unleashed a barrage of obscene commentary that had its desired effect of embarrassing Lydia while at the same time intensifying her need to the breaking point.

  “Such a sweet, hot cunt you have, my dear,” Preston whispered, his voice hoarse with lust and the gleeful pleasure of knowing exactly what he was doing. “You like my finger inside you, don’t you? What would everyone here say if they knew the proper daughter of Edward Worthington was sitting here creaming all over my hand, that she can’t control her salacious urges, that if she could, she would beg for my cock? Ah, yes, that feels good, doesn’t it, the pressure on your hungry little clit… move your hips for me, my dear, that’s it… work yourself on my finger…”

  Lydia smothered a groan. Her skin was hot, flushed. Now her father, for the love of God, was asking her a question, and she felt the eyes of his campaign manager from the other end of the table.

  She clamped her thighs together hard to trap Preston’s hand and stop his furtive manipulation of her sex. She tossed her hair, forced a smile, and looked directly at her father.

  “Yes, that’s correct,” she said, her voice remarkably composed. “Fifteen mortgage servicers were accused of illegal foreclosure. The bill was intended to make settlement deals public so the regulatory agencies can be held accountable.”

  Edward Worthington nodded, turning back to his campaign manager at the exact instant that Preston’s finger tickled her clit again.

  Lydia’s breath burned in her chest. She swallowed another mouthful of wine, feeling the alcohol go straight to her head. That damned Mrs. Broussard was talking again, but this time Lydia blocked out her words because Preston was rubbing her pussy, her throbbing clit, and she pushed her hips forward to impale herself on his finger because she no longer cared what anyone might think if they looked at her, not if she could attain that shattering bliss of heat and release…

  Preston hadn’t given her permission. Though Lydia was aware of this fact, again she didn’t care, not that she could have stopped it even if she’d tried. One more hard caress of Preston’s finger on her clit, and an orgasm ripped through her body with a force that almost made her cry out with pleasure. She clamped her napkin to her mouth and rode the wave, clenching her thighs together as heat pulsed through her.

  Mrs. Broussard was eyeing her curiously. So was her mother.

  “Excuse me.” Lydia hastily pushed her skirt back down and eased away from the table. “I’m… I need to use the ladies’ room.”

  Preston smiled at her, cool and beautiful.

  Another series of shivers racked Lydia’s body as she walked away, the friction between her legs still eliciting delicious throbs. She managed to get to the restroom and dampen a few tissues to press against her hot face. Though shame rose in her, she lifted her skirt again and masturbated to work the last of the sensations through her body.

  Once she had herself under control, she returned to the table for the dessert course, a fluffy chocolate soufflé dusted with powdered sugar. Lydia had to restrain herself from gobbling it down like a pig, as her hunger was roused anew despite the copious meal.

  “Did you touch yourself?” Preston whispered, his blue eyes gleaming.

  Lydia shook her head, her flush painting her cheeks pink.

  “Liar,” Preston chided softly, giving her thigh a hard little pinch. “You’ll pay, you know.”

  She knew. Oh, how she knew.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE ARRANGEMENT BEGAN again, with Preston dictating the terms of their meetings and Lydia beholden to his debauched wishes. She first struggled anew to reconcile the naked, submissive Lydia of the Whiskey Street hovel with the proper Jane Worthington of her parents’ house, but after a time, her days became routine.

  Though she continued to teeter on the edge of uncertainty, and perhaps a bit of insanity, she learned to separate her two lives so that she didn’t go completely off the deep end. There was the Jane of her normal—if stifled—life who had her formal duties and responsibilities. And there was the Lydia of her depraved, carnal life who had duties and responsibilities of an entirely different ilk.

  She supposed that, in some twisted way, her two lives were far more similar than she’d initially realized. Oddly enough, that discovery made the entire situation easier to bear than it had been the first time around.

  No matter where she was, Lydia always had expectations and commands to obey, requirements for what to wear or not to wear, rules for how to conduct herself. She was given certain foods to eat—at the Worthington house, lean cuts of meat and steamed vegetables prepared by the family cook, and in Preston’s hovel, piles of rich, spicy fried foods and decadent desserts delivered by the staff of various restaurants.

  Her mother ensured she visit the salon once a week for manicures and pedicures, highlights, and occasional waxing and chemical peels. Preston merely had to order her to strip to ensure that she kept herself properly shaved, though sometimes he told her not to so he could enjoy the pleasure of barbering her himself.

  Under her mother’s instruction, she worked herself on the treadmill and elliptical machines at the gym. Under Preston’s instruction, she positioned herself on the bed or on the floor and worked her body in a whole other manner. And the physical pleasure, when Preston allowed it, was an explosive release that bolted through her like lightning. There were even days when she craved it, hoping he’d contact her just so she could feel the obliterating sensation of an orgasm again.

  Lydia slept like a log, whether at her parents’ house or in Preston’s room, exhausted by the efforts of keeping her worlds separate and trying to obey all orders. That was when thoughts of Gabriel slipped into her mind, though when she woke again she was plagued by the nagging sense that she’d missed the opportunity to claim some vital bit of information fro
m him. And yet she had no idea what that might be.

  Preston was powerful, yes, but he was not infallible. Surely Gabriel or Kruin had some resources, some bit of information about Preston that they could use against him and on Lydia’s behalf.

  The problem, however, was that Preston still knew far too much about their own transgressions.

  One hot, muggy night, Lydia lay on the bed and watched Preston as he fiddled with his cell phone. He sat at the table, which was littered with paper containers and plates containing the remnants of their dinner of crawfish etouffee, cornbread, catfish fingers, and red beans and rice. Lydia’s belly was pleasantly full, and a languid, sleepy feeling swept through her.

  Preston frowned at his phone. A sliver of moonlight glinted off his blond hair and illuminated his sharp, handsome features. His shirt was unbuttoned and open, revealing the slopes of his chest and abdomen. His trousers were on, but unfastened, and he rested one foot on the windowsill in a casual, almost boyish position.

  He glanced up and found her staring at him. Lydia’s heart jolted, as it always did whenever he penetrated her with his blue gaze. She didn’t know why she had such a reaction to him, a strong combination of trepidation and excitement that unnerved her almost as much as the man himself did.

  “How did you do it?” she asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Escape.” Lydia rolled onto her stomach and propped herself onto her elbows. “I know what kind of life you had, the way you grew up—”

  She stopped at the scathing, blade-like glare Preston shot her.

  “You don’t know anything,” he said coldly.

  “Your mother—”

  “My mother was an evil bitch.”

  Lydia blinked, somewhat startled. She remembered Preston’s mother as an anomaly—an incredibly beautiful woman who’d never been able to pull herself or her son from the wretched abyss of poverty in which they were mired. Preston had eventually pulled himself from it all, but left his mother behind.

  “Why do you say that?” Lydia asked.

  “She used weak men and threw them away like garbage,” Preston snapped. “She was wicked and corrupted by her own sense of power. She wanted to control me, rein me in when she thought I was getting out of hand, but she knew she never could. She knew I would always escape her clutches. And because of that, I have the distinct honor of being my mother’s one great failure.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “I haven’t seen her in twenty years,” Preston replied shortly. “The only good that came out of my life with her was the fact that I got out and she didn’t. For all I know, she’s still living in the filthy gutter where she belongs.”

  “But how did you do it?” Lydia asked. “Escape all of that?”

  A sharp smile curved his mouth. “Sheer ingenuity, my dear Lydia.”

  He tossed the phone aside and approached her, a predatory edge infusing his body. Lydia’s trepidation eased a bit, as it always did when he came to her with that look on his face, because she knew what she had to do, what was expected of her. There was no need—indeed, no reason—to think or make decisions. And that fact alone, strange as it sounded, was surprisingly freeing.

  At his instruction, she moved forward on the bed and tugged his trousers around his thighs. He’d taken her already that night, but Preston was nothing if not easily aroused, and the moment Lydia took his flaccid phallus into her mouth she felt him begin to harden. He dug his fingers into her scalp, murmuring salacious things above her. She slackened her throat muscles and let him thrust.

  Unlike with Kruin or even Gabriel, both of whom were far more well-endowed than Preston—though Lydia would never make such a comparison aloud—she was able to take the full force of Preston’s plunges into her mouth. Her body quivered in response, her own arousal mounting as Preston moved his hands to her breasts and pinched the rosy peaks of her nipples.

  He knew exactly how to elicit her sensual response, and Lydia had long ago stopped fighting her inevitable reaction. She let him slide out of her mouth, his erection slick and pulsing, the taste of his semen mingling with the spicy Cajun flavors still lingering upon her tongue. She heaved in a breath, her skin growing hot as she lay back and spread her legs.

  He gave her one of his beautiful smiles, grasping his stiff penis. He placed his other hand on the tender skin of Lydia’s inner thigh, pressing her legs farther apart before rubbing the tip of his erection against her damp pussy. Lydia twitched and moaned, the friction against her clit ratcheting her urgency higher. Preston loved rubbing his shaft against her like this, knowing the stimulation was almost more than she could bear, waiting for her to start begging him to penetrate her.

  Lydia closed her eyes, trying to prevent the inevitable arch of her hips toward him, the silent plea for more. She let the thought drift away, allowing herself to sink into the sensations coursing through her body, the smooth glide of Preston’s penis against her most intimate folds.

  She knew, of course, that he would not give her what she craved. Not yet. So she grasped the thin threads of her self-control and wondered what it would be like if she were still living at the plantation. As Preston began pushing inside her and she felt the smooth, veined shaft sliding against her inner walls, her thoughts drifted to the other two men, Kruin in particular, the stoic, muscular man whom she both feared and wished to please in equal measure.

  During her stay at the plantation, she had begun to find a welcoming comfort in Kruin’s silent presence, his unspoken demand for her obedience, the certainty of protection that radiated from his core. Lydia imagined walking past Kruin into the warmth of the solarium, of feeling his dark, enigmatic gaze on the movements of her body. She thought about him beckoning her closer and instructing her in his deep voice to position herself across his lap.

  And she would, of course, her heart hammering as she rested her belly against his muscular thighs, feeling his big hands sweep up the length of her bare legs, drawing up her flower-print skirt to expose the curves of her bare bottom. Trepidation and a hint of fear would rise to her throat, trembles coursing unbidden through her body.

  But none of that would truly disturb her, not while she lay across Kruin’s lap with the solid bulk of his abdomen pressed to her side, the hard length of his thighs beneath her, the growing ridge of his massive erection poking against her belly.

  She would lower her head, allowing her hair to fall across her face, curtaining her from the gazes of the two other men who would, invariably, be seated somewhere else in the room.

  But she didn’t care. Not anymore. Not when Kruin’s wide, warm palm began to stroke her naked thighs, his fingertips dipping into the succulent heat between them, the circular pattern of his hand causing a most delicious friction to prickle her skin.

  A haze would descend over Lydia, a strange feeling of undeniable warmth and safety even with the portent of pain looming before her. She’d let her eyes drift closed, her body tensing for the first inevitable strike even as she found comfort in the soothing strokes of his hand.

  And then there would be a pause, often no longer than two seconds, during which Lydia stopped breathing because she knew he was preparing for the first strike. When it came, the hard ridge of his palm stinging her tender flesh, Lydia would bite her lip and force the cry back down her throat. She would hold out as long as she could because she knew that Kruin approved of her stoicism, but inevitably there would come a point where she could bear it no longer and the cries of pain would break free.

  But first, she’d squeeze her eyes shut and absorb the impact of his punishing blows. His thighs were as rigid as boards beneath her supine body, his hand seeming to land on her entire bottom at once as he lifted it and brought it back down again and again. The resounding smack of flesh against flesh echoed through the room, filling Lydia’s ears, and then the sting of Kruin’s hand became too much and tears would spring to her eyes.

  She would begin to writhe, wriggling to escape the blows of his hand,
her flesh stinging and smarting anew with every spank. She’d part her lips to draw air into her lungs as tears streamed down her face, the biting pain sinking down to her very bones. Kruin’s arm would clamp like an iron band around her waist, keeping her still as he rained his hand down on her cheeks and burned them with a pattern of red and pink.

  Lydia grasped the rug beneath her hands, her legs kicking out wildly behind her as pleas began to stream from her throat. “Oh, Kruin, no… please, please… stop… how it hurts… oh!”

  Her pleas, she knew, would fall upon deaf ears. By then, Kruin’s erection was like a steel rod pressing into her belly, and Lydia would grow even more light-headed at the thought of his massive shaft penetrating her tight channel by degrees both exquisite and nerve-wracking.

  She’d squirm and moan, tears dripping down her cheeks and falling to the carpet, her whole body flushed with heat and prickles of pain. When Kruin paused in the rhythm of his brutal hand, Lydia would groan with dismay, for she knew what was coming next.

  And, indeed, Kruin would ease his blunt fingers into the furrow of her sex, where Lydia was damp and swollen with excitement. A grumble of something—approval? Annoyance?—echoed through Kruin’s wide chest before he plunged his fingers into her as if testing her readiness.

  And then, depending on the severity of whatever infraction Lydia had committed to earn herself the punishment of a spanking, Kruin would either grasp her around the waist and haul her upright, ordering her back to her room, or he would lower her to the floor, her dress still hiked up around her waist, and Lydia braced herself when he positioned himself behind her. As she knew he wanted, she would lower her upper body to the floor, a position that thrust her behind up even more enticingly.