“Sleep now, sweetheart,” he murmured.
“Stay with me,” she said sleepily.
He didn’t answer, and a moment later, she heard the door open and close, followed by the click of his boot heels down the hall.
* * *
The next morning, Anna hoped that Vere would send for her again, but he didn’t. She was somewhat grateful that he let her sleep. She had been truly exhausted after the intense night they’d shared. She finally roused herself from bed well into the afternoon. The only indication that he remembered her at all was the food sitting on the table by the window. Next to the tray lay the book she’d been reading the previous day and a single red rose.
As she shuffled toward the table, she felt a twinge of pain and winced. Lifting up the hem of her nightgown, she saw a collage of brightly colored bruises across her thighs. Inspecting further, she noted that her stomach and breasts equally mottled, peppered with bluish purple marks where he had bitten and struck her. Her back probably looked much worse, as it had born the brunt of Vere’s whip.
She closed her eyes and savored the dull throb, mentally reliving her latest experiences, cataloguing her emotions. She relished the ache, was grateful for it as it provided her with a constant reminder of her experiences. She shuddered, the phantom memory of his hands and mouth on her skin so vivid that it almost seemed real. Almost.
It was impossible to analyze her situation with any sort of objectivity. Perhaps the most curious piece of the puzzle was that she was, technically, still a virgin. How much things had changed in the matter of just a few short days. The innocent debutant that she had been seemed a distant memory. All the things that she once found important seemed so trivial now. She could hardly be called an innocent any longer, but for reasons unbeknownst to her, Vere left that portion of her sexual initiation untouched, so far, anyway. She certainly didn’t feel like a virgin. She wondered when he would take their relationship to that final step.
I hope it’s soon .
With a sigh, Anna sat down, opened the book, and flipped to the page where she’d left off reading. As she did so, a slip of paper fluttered to the table beside her. Opening it, she saw a single word scrawled in an elegant, but clearly masculine script.
“Tonight.”
* * *
Just before sunset, the maid arrived with a bath for her, a new gown, and an invitation to dine with the earl that evening. The bath Anna had been looking forward to. The dinner invitation took her completely off guard. The deep purple gown possessed a high empire waist and scooped neckline, trimmed in silver. However, she had no idea what formal dinner with Vere might entail; knowing him, it could be anything.
Descending the staircase at the required time, she felt elegant and ladylike; shards of her former life poked back through her newly awakened psyche. Her lord waited at the base of the stairs for her, his dress equally refined and, as always, impeccable. Her memories flashed back to what seemed like a lifetime ago, at some now unimportant gathering of the Ton, when she had caught her first glimpse of the infamous Earl of Westmorland. She had been descending the stairs into the garden; her arm locked with her aunt’s, and had seen him at the base of the stairs waiting patiently for…someone. Their gazes had locked, and for a brief moment, she had thought him waiting for her, but Aunt Elizabeth had tugged at her arm and she’d been whisked away. Vere couldn’t possibly remember that meeting. Or could he? Her heart countered.
He offered her his elbow with a bow. “Shall we dine, my lady?”
Anna nodded demurely and slipped her hand through his arm. “I’d be honored, milord,” she replied, peering at him through lowered lashes. What sort of game was he playing now?
She allowed him to lead her into the dining room, unsure if he would have her sit at the table, or at his feet. He released her to pull out a chair to the left of the table’s head and motion her into it. Once he took his own seat, the staff appeared on cue, bearing trays of food so lavish her mouth watered at the savory aromas.
At first, sitting with him in such a civilized manner felt awkward, almost unnatural. She had the clear impression that he was testing her yet again, observing her clinically as she gripped her silverware and sipped her wine. What did he care about the refinement of her table manners? Yet, it seemed he did.
“I still find it curious,” Vere said finally, grasping his wine glass with elegant fingers, “that a woman so clearly schooled in refined mannerisms is under the employ of Madame Girou.”
“In times of crisis, a person often makes decisions that are not wise, milord. It is then that most fail the crucial test of survival.”
“Only those who deserve to fail do so,” Vere countered. “On the contrary, the truly strong ones choose correctly when faced with such tests. It’s that which defines them and makes them even stronger, sets them free.”
“I find my current situation to be the unfortunate repercussion of another’s decision, and I must live with it,” said Anna with a shrug. “The decisions which affect us aren’t often left in our own hands.”
“I disagree. We all have choices to make, we need only recognize them.”
She considered his words in silence. What choices had she been given? Or did he refer to a choice yet to come?
“Never let anyone tell you that you are weak, darling. You’re far from it.”
“My family is dead,” she said quietly. “I am alone.”
“No, not alone.” He shook his head and stood. “Come, let us retire,” he told her, extending his hand.
Anna also stood, slipping her fingers into his. She felt a tremor of excitement at his expression, hungry and impatient. Vere ushered her upstairs and into her bedchamber and bolted the door. She stood in the center of the room and waited for his instruction.
It seemed her lord was too impatient even to give her orders because he crossed the room in two lengthy strides and, grasping the neckline of her dress with both fists, he rent the fabric in two. The gown tore with an unceremonious rip and fell from her shoulders to the floor. Her undergarments soon followed, and before she could even feign protest, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. Vere stripped off his own clothes with equal carelessness and joined her, stretching his lean body next to hers, his impressive erection pressing insistently against her thigh.
“I was too rough with you last night,” he commented, tracing a finger across the bruises on her thighs.
“It’s not bad, milord,” she protested.
“If I use the whip on you tonight, I’ll break the skin. You’ll have scars from it,” he shook his head.
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“The crop?” she pressed.
“No, sweetheart. Not tonight.” He pulled her closer and brushed his lips against hers. “Don’t worry, I’m not leaving.”
That declaration did put her at ease somewhat, and she relaxed, melting against him. His strong, needy kiss overwhelmed her, tongue delving into her mouth with an insistent, steady rhythm. Not used to being unrestrained, she found herself unsure what to do with her hands, but finally settled on lacing them through his hair, tugging it free so that it fell forward and brushed against her cheeks. His hands roamed over her, pausing to tweak a nipple, slipping down to stroke her thigh, whispering, “What would you like me to do?” across the plane of her stomach.
“Whatever you want to do, milord,” Anna gasped, clinging to him.
He grinned. “Ordinarily the perfect answer. But this time I do want to know what you would like.”
She was at a loss. Being asked to voice her own wishes was so foreign to her by now that she didn’t have a clue as to what she wanted. She was used to him being the decision maker, and she realized that there was comfort in it. She bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she admitted finally, somewhat ashamed by her indecision. How had she lost her own voice so quickly?
“Yes, you do,” he pressed.
She tried a different approach. What did he want? Hi
s hands continued their leisurely exploration, one slipping between her legs before ghosting away again. “I want you to take me,” she said finally.
“Do you? How would I do that, darling? Don’t be shy. And don’t be vague, either.”
Anna let out a frustrated moan. She thought back to what Lily had told her, the words the other woman had used. “Put your cock in my pussy,” she whispered. Heat raced to her cheeks in time with her pounding heart.
Her answer seemed to please him, and he rewarded her candor by sliding his hand back up her thigh. His fingers glided teasingly over her sex and paused, hovering just out of reach. “Is that really what you want, or what you think I want?”
“Both.”
“That’s my girl.”
He rolled her beneath him, settling his weight between her spread thighs. She sighed and ran her hands across his strong shoulders, tracing the corded muscles of his neck and the defined planes of his chest. Anna loved the sight of him above her: strong, domineering, commanding.
“If you give this to me, it’s forever, darling. Your innocence will always belong to me.”
“It’s already yours, milord,” she replied. As am I. His cock nudged against her folds, a wicked glide of flesh through moist, velvety flesh, and she moaned.
His breath felt like an inferno against her damp cheek. “Another thing we’ll do differently, just this once. When you come, darling, I want you to scream my name. Sing it to the heavens, loud as you can. Do you understand?”
“Yes, milord.”
“But not,” he added casually, “until you’ve been given permission to do so.”
She was panting, clutching his shoulders. He’d already managed to work her into a frenzy with only the lightest of contact, his mere presence enough to have her half out of her mind with lust. Vere seemed perfectly content to watch her gyrate beneath him. His eyes flashed and his look shifted from amused to ravenous.
“I think you realize it’s not in my nature to be gentle, sweet Rose,” he told her, positioning himself at her entrance. “And quite honestly, I’m not in the mood to try.” With that, he surged forward, destroying her maidenhead in one savage motion, burying himself fully within her tight passage.
She choked on a sob, the pain so intense that for a moment, she worried he’d torn her in half.
“You feel so hot and wet and tight, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Like satin wrapped around my cock.”
His words soothed some of the hurt away, and she felt a rush of satisfaction at the knowledge that she pleased him, his enjoyment fueling her own. She felt wonderfully filled, complete in ways she hadn’t known existed before, but she needed something more. She needed him to… “Move,” she whispered aloud.
“What did you say?” Vere asked.
“Please move, milord.”
“Move where?” he teased. “To the corner?”
“Inside me.”
“As the lady wishes.” He gave her what she wanted, pulling out of her tight heat and surging forward, the delicious friction of his cock sliding in and out, sent her racing towards climax with startling speed.
“Are you close, darling?”
“Yes!” she shrieked, leaving off his requisite title. “Oh God, please!”
“Please what?” he ground against her, circling his hips, filling her to capacity. She couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Please let me come!”
“Yes, now. Now!” he roared.
“Vere!” She dug her nails into his back, bucking beneath him. She climaxed hard, and as he surged forward one final time, he went still, flooding her womb with his seed. They clung to one another, trembling, riding out the tide together.
He withdrew and took her with him, gathering her into his arms. Exhausted and satisfied, Anna settled in against his side.
“Milord?” she ventured. If she didn’t tell him now, while she drifted to sleep, she would lose her nerve and never say it. And she wanted to say it. She wanted him to know.
“Hmm?”
“I think I love you.”
He sighed and pulled her closer, cradling her head against his chest. “I know.”
* * *
Anna’s consciousness crept from the protection of slumber slowly and regretfully. She sighed and tried to roll over, but found her movement restricted. Her eyes flew open in surprise. Vere still lay there with her, his strong arms locked around her waist, holding her against his chest possessively.
Anna felt him stir, and she nuzzled her cheek against his chest.
“Good morning, milord,” she murmured.
“Good morning, darling.”
She thought back to what she’d said to him the night before, before she’d drifted to sleep. The fact that he’d stayed in her bed all night must mean that he wasn’t angry, but she remained afraid to look at him, lest she find something she didn’t like in his expression.
“Look at me,” he instructed without harshness.
She shook her head and choked back a sob. She couldn’t look at him now; she just couldn’t.
“Anna, look at me.”
She did, eyes going wide with horror. “How long have you known?” she whispered. If he knew her first name, he knew her identity.
“Since the beginning. Since before that, actually. Your idiot brother owes me a considerable amount of money as well. When I paid him a visit to remind him of his debt, he lamented that he did not have another sister to trade away.” He paused, and his green eyes flashed.
“That’s how you knew my measurements for the seamstress,” she mused. “I wondered about that.”
“I remembered you. And I found the idea of some ridiculous fop robbing you of your innocence entirely repulsive. I took nothing from you that you did not freely give. Or will you try to say now that when I fucked you, you didn’t want me?”
He was right, of course. She had wanted him. Even now, after learning of his deceit, she wanted him still. She’d learned much in the days they’d spent together, and when she returned to the brothel she’d no longer be so naïve, or so...
The brothel. Anna shuddered. She wondered when she would have to return to that awful place. “How long have you…purchased me for?”
“I haven’t. The money I paid Madame Girou bought your freedom.” He said it so unceremoniously that it barely registered at first.
Anna gaped at him. “You mean I’m free to go?”
“Or to stay,” Vere countered. He took her hand in his and dropped something hard and jagged into her palm.
The key to her collar.
She stared at it for a moment; a myriad of sensations threatened to overwhelm her. This was her decision, the one he’d told her she would face. Taking a deep breath, she steeled her resolve…and made her choice.
Unwrapping Amy
by
Emily Ryan-Davis
A Rose of Any Color: MaleDom: A BDSM Anthology
Chapter One
“If you were mine, I’d beat your ass.” Wine glasses clinked together as punctuation.
Amy Corcoran, spaghetti noodles twirled around her fork and poised on the brink of a bite, gaped at her dinner companion. The tall, polished woman sitting opposite her speared a buttery, garlic-fragrant shrimp and popped it in her mouth. She arched her eyebrows, chewed, and asked, “What? Dishonesty by omission is still dishonesty. If you want him to take control, you have to give him a seed to nurture and grow.”
A slender red candle stood between them. Its flame danced a slow waltz, each dip marking off the seconds that slipped away while Amy scrambled for a response. Neither her brain nor her lungs cooperated, one failing to think and the other failing to process oxygen. She lowered her fork to the plate to buy time. A slow count to ten helped her fight off a panic attack.
“He doesn’t believe in submission,” she finally said, sucking breath through her nostrils, slow and deliberate. She despised the wimpy, weak quality of her voice.
Elizabeth Very, Amy’s closest friend and an unas
hamed dominatrix, pointed a stick of soft, warm bread at her. “Don’t get that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The one you get when you’ve made up your mind about something and you’re determined not to be influenced.”
“I can’t tell him.” Stomach tight, Amy pushed her plate away. Anxiety and tomato acid met together in battle, and she couldn’t eat anymore. She and her husband were already estranged. Their marriage wouldn’t survive the addition of moral and religious convictions to their problems. Elizabeth didn’t understand; her lovers were casual events, impromptu birthday parties, whereas Mac was Amy’s debutante ball, planned for and once-in-a-lifetime.
“I can’t,” she repeated. Her throat shrank and she focused on breathing. She hadn’t brought her asthma inhaler.
Elizabeth’s gaze burned into her forehead. Amy couldn’t meet her friend’s eyes. She stared at the wound-up noodles, glistening with tomato and olive oil, and imagined her life like that, all wrapped up around Mac and at risk of coming undone if the fork tilted at the wrong angle.
“Do you love him?” Elizabeth pressed. “Do you want to be with him?”
Amy nodded.
“Want him to stop sleeping on the couch?”
Failure threatened to suffocate her. Elizabeth emptied their shared bottle of cabernet into Amy’s glass.
“Drink that,” she instructed. “You look like you’re going to pass out. The maitre’d is giving us concerned glances.”
The first gulp of wine stung her throat, which was raw from fighting sobs. She slowed to steady sips and set a rhythm: sip, breathe, sip, breathe. Gradually the glass emptied. Alcohol warmed her ears. Elizabeth motioned for another bottle of wine.
A Rose of Any Color: MaleDom: A BDSM Anthology Page 13
