Captivated

by Bertrice Small

  Your beloved, Gerard

  He read it slowly; he read it again. Three phrases jumped out:everything we did, everything we were to each other… Send your lover…

  He felt like smashing something. To his credit, he thought, he did nothing. He just sat there, still as a statue, contemplating the cramped writing on the page.

  …everything we did…

  … everything we were to each other…

  … send your lover…

  The lying bastard, he thought violently; the evidence was irrefutable that Lenoir had never been her lover. He felt murderous. Uncontrollable. He wanted to teach the son of a bitch a lesson, to keep his hands, his filthy words, away from hiswife.

  But he couldn't get aroundeverything they did… Hehad to know. And he didn't want to know. He wanted to kill Lenoir so that one memory ofeverything they did would be obliterated forever.

  And he could only think of one sure way to efface it from hers: he was going to pound her body to oblivion and back so that the one thing, the only thing she would remember inside her washim.

  He would never let her go, never; what was his belonged tohim, forever. But he had to know.

  So now, yes, he would take her so she would never forget to whom she belonged, and because of this betrayal, he would test her.

  But he didn't know what he would do if he didn't win.

  chapter 6

  She lay on the bed, luxuriating after her bath without the confining collar and straps. Evie was off somewhere else in the house, and there was no sound anywhere but the soft swoosh of the palm fan wielded by Evie's daughter.

  She didn't want to think; she tried to make her mind a blank so she didn't have to feel, didn't have to remember the bone-melting excitement of what he had done to her, or her body's sense of still being confined by the straps and collar.

  How odd it was, as if that were something so erotic that her senses had derived some pleasure from it even if she had felt as if she were bound and displayed solely for his titillation.

  Or had she?

  Could she have secretly loved the way those straps defined and outlined her sex and thrust her breasts forward?

  No, how could she? This was not an affectionate game between lovers; he had made it a situation of domination and control whereby he meant to teach her fully and completely that she had no control.

  So why did she feel as if somehow she secretly wielded some power?

  Because he was in a constant state of arousal every time he was around her; that had to mean his sex was responding toher. Even if it only meant he wanted to copulate with her, stillhe wantedher. Her body. Her sex. Her heat.

  But so much so, he wouldn't allow himself to have her?

  It seemed strange to her. The easiest thing would have been for him to take her. He surely wasn't denyingher anything. Why would he deny himself?

  For control. Always control. To make her give up control.

  And hadn't she? She couldn't fight him. She couldn't stop him. He owned her. He hadn't forced himself on her. Not to take her, not really.

  All he had done was shatter her resolve and melt her determination.

  He had made her forget Gerard and he had made her want to experience that frenzied swamping pleasure again.

  Control. He could control her merely by giving her that.

  She wondered what it would take to makehim finally lose control.

  Wouldn't that be something to savor? Court Summerville in the throes of mindless passion. Court, helpless in her hands, the way she had been in his.

  She squirmed, visualizing it, and a dart of pleasure pierced her straight to her vitals.

  No! NO!

  What was she thinking?! There could be nothing between her and Court. He had married her to seed a dynasty, nothing more, nothing less.

  Why couldn't she remember that? Why did he have to play with her, like a cat with a mouse?

  Control.

  Always back to that. Control. Power.

  She rolled over onto her belly.She wanted some of that power.

  Back to that. Back to the games.

  How could she make him give in to her?

  She turned over again as the rough texture of the mattress ticking irritated her breasts.

  What would make Court Summerville capitulate to her…?

  "Mistress…" Evie's soft voice from the door.

  She levered herself up on her elbows as Evie entered the room.

  "It is growing late, mistress. Perhaps you did not notice. Master send this for you to wear, and he say you come when you have dressed yourself."

  She held out a small porcelain box. "This is for you, mistress."

  Drue took it reluctantly.More games. More control. She bit her lip as she lifted the gold-rimmed lid.

  Inside were two whisper-thin gold loops, the ends of which supported two tiny dangling gold ovals.

  She looked up at Evie.

  Evie's face was impassive. "Master say you wear his gift."

  "Let him put it on me," she muttered, snapping the lid closed.More games. Her hands were shaking at the thought of where this gift was meant to be worn.

  "I will put," Evie said, taking a step toward her.

  She recoiled. "No!"

  "You must do." Evie's tone was adamant.

  And what could Evie do? She was at Court's mercy as well.

  She looked down at her breasts, at her taut nipples that almost seemed to be begging for his gift.

  She opened the box again, and lifted one loop and slipped it over the tight peak of her right breast. Her breath caught as she felt it settle, and then, she could barely feel it at all. What she felt was theknowledge it was there, encircling, confining, defining,exciting her, her body, her imagination, just as he intended, damn himher nipples hard and tight and dressed inhis gift of gold…

  "Yes." Evie nodded. "Mistress is quite beautiful. Just how Master intended. You come now."

  Drue swung her legs off the bed. She didn't want to go anywhere, but Evie waited. And Court.

  She found herself holding her body straighter, tauter, as she followed Evie into the hall, her back arched to balance the delicate loops on her nipples. She could feel the dangle of the ovals as she walked, saw the flickering candlelight glint off the thin, fragile gold. Understood that those loops bound her as surely and tightly as had the thrall collar.

  For one heart-stopping moment, she considered bolting down the steps, naked as she was, to freedom. But then she saw Louisa in the shadows, a step or two below, waiting, watching, her keeper in this house of sensual secrets.

  Everywhere, control.

  She had to get some control.

  Evie knocked on the door of the bedroom next to the one she had been occupying.

  "Come." His voice was rough, so rough, as if he couldn't contain himself at the thought of her wearing his gift.

  Good.

  Now shehad it.

  Power. Control.

  Come…

  "Don't move." There was raw note in the timbre of his voice.

  The door closed behind her, the ever-efficient Evie sending her to her fate.

  It was in his dark, flaming gaze, and in the heat and emotion that suffused the room. He burned with it, the telling part of his body, clothed as it always was, already erect and stiff as a poker.

  She couldn't take her eyes off him. He radiated animal musk and pure male desire. He meant to have her tonight. No more games. No more denial. For whatever reason, he had decided, and with his gift, he had made clear his determination.

  And if she hadn't understood by that erotic gesture, she perceived it clearly the moment she entered the room: suspended from the ceiling was an apparatus that was obviously meant to facilitate his full-bore possession of her.

  No pretty flourishes. No gentle words. No caresses.

  Just a harness suspended from an iron bar from the ceiling: two padded leather nooses joined by a narrow strip that would support her bottom when she thrust her legs through
the openings and presented herself to him, open and ready for anything he wanted to do.

  As he had been schooling her.

  Asshe'd been begging him.

  But not like this notlike this…

  Still, there was something about the idea of it that was subversively arousing. As if there were a way here for her to exert control. That if she climbed into that apparatus and allowed herself to be displayed and penetrated, she would force him to prostrate himself to hersex.

  Because then he would not refuse her.

  And he could not deny himself.

  Power.

  Yesssssss…

  The lamplight shimmered on the golden loops as she straightened her shoulders. What wouldn't a woman do to gain power? His glittering eyes were transfixed by the loops, and the way they dangled so enticingly from her nipples.

  Good.

  Power.

  She was beginning to understanda little. His male part flexed insistently.Yes. That, too

  She wondered… She turned so that her breasts were outlined against the lamplight, and the hard points of her nipples were fully defined. She heard the sharp hiss of his breath. Felt the heat and desire rolling through the room in waves. Felt him restraining himself. Pacing himself, in spite of his savage need. In spite of his ferocious desire.

  Felt her body responding to every sensual impulse to use his carnal need to make him crawl to her. No matter what she had to do.

  She cupped her breasts as she walked toward him. "Do you like them?" she whispered.

  "I can't keep my eyes away from them."

  "Whichyour gift or my nipples?" she murmured.

  "Your nipples."

  She felt the shift then, in the hoarseness of his voice and the intensity of his gaze, and she knew instinctively that if she made the first move, he would surrender.

  Was she fearless enough? Did she want it enough?

  She stopped at the apparatus. There was a bed-step just below it, positioned perfectly for her.

  As bold an invitation as anything he had done yet.

  And she had to want to do it as badly as he wanted her to.

  Did she?

  Power. Yesss…

  She held his glittering gaze as she stepped up and mounted the harness, holding it tightly as she slipped first one leg and then the other into each of the padded nooses, and then shimmied her bottom against the thin leather strip to position herself comfortably; the harness forced her legs apart and her back to arch so that her most erotic self was displayed for him.

  And he gave himself up to the pleasure of watching her as she squirmed and writhed, and then, her eyes hot with knowledge that had never been there before, waited for him.

  And he deliberately made her wait. Every impulse in him roared to slam himself into her. He couldn't get enough of just looking at her, and lusting for her, and that new, aware look in her eyes that told him she was starting to understand what it meant to wield her sexual power.

  But not yet. Not until he had penetrated her and stuffed himself as deep as he could go. Slowly, he stripped away his clothing so that he was finally revealed to her, naked, pulsing, and still in control.

  He could tell by her eyes that while she had willingly spread her legs for him, she was not prepared for the size of him, and breadth of him, naked.

  He was huge, his rock-hard manhood emerging from a thick thatch of wiry hair between his legs. He was long, lean, and strong, and from the look in his eyes, determined to have her tonight.

  He kicked away the stair-step and poised himself just at her moist center. The sight of her naked and splayed for him, wearing his golden gift on her nipples, was almost too much. Too much for any man.

  But not for him. Oh, no, very soon, his waywardwife would understand that all the power rested with him, in him, in his sinew and muscle and his ability to conquer her naked body without surrendering his own.

  So, even though he was ready to burst, even though just touching her lush, wet flesh could incite his climax, he ruthlessly reined himself in, and just pushed against her, so the very tip of him was kissed by her feminine folds.

  She gasped faintly as she felt him there and she looked down from his compelling gaze to see the long hard throbbing length of him just barely enfolded between her legs.

  There was so much of him, and he just stood there with the barest nudge of his sex inserted in hers that she instantly felt the surging power of him that he held severely in check.

  He wanted her to be utterly aware of him as he claimed her. He wanted her to feel him possess her inch by long, hard inch, and he wanted her to watch as he eased himself purposefully inside her.

  He pushed again and breeched her further; she opened wider to take him, and enfold him. He paused there, for several long, breathless minutes, to let her feel the heat of him, the heaviness, the hardness. To let her see how a woman accommodated a man's sex.

  And then he pushed again, another throbbing bone-hard inch, and she moaned because there was still so much of him yet to take, and her body felt hot and her nipples were hard, and he he… he was the focus of her world suddenly, and the center from which she could never escape.

  She writhed against the inexorable thrust of him, enticing him to come further within her moist heat, examining the rising excitement of feeling his hard heat undulating between her legs, and the sight of them not quite fully joined.

  He felt himself pearling up, at the sight, every instinct gathering for the final blasting thrust into her. He had to have her. She was so tight, so wet, so open, sothere… one strokehe reared backone tight, high thrust… he grasped her thighs, just once… he rammed himself into her

  She cried out as he took her with that piercing final lunge and then he was in, in, in, deep, deep, deeper still, in to the hilt, and finally home.

  They were hip to hip now, and she held herself tight against the ebbing pain. She had known it was necessary, but thisoh, thisotherness at one with herand this unfamiliar feeling of something invading her most secret selfshe felt a frenzied urgency to escape.

  Who could have known it was so all-encompassing, that she would feel so lost, vanquished, ill-prepared?

  "I have to get away, I have to get away…" Her voice was a frantic whisper against his hands, which held her immobile.

  "You'll never get away, my fawn. I own you now. What is between your legs ismine never forget it. I'm the one who will make you insensate with desire for what only I can do to you…"

  "Nono… go away…"

  "You'll beg for it…" He rocked against her.

  "Never," she spat.

  "You'll crave it."

  "Ever…"

  "You'll be on your knees, my fawn"

  "Thendo it," she hissed.

  "Thank you so much for giving me permission. But you never had a say in whether I would do it or not…" He ground his hips against her. "Feel that,wife." He pulled back and swooped inside her with a long, hard stroke. "And that" Pushing deeper into her. "And that…" Moving then almost involuntarily into a staccato rhythm because he couldn't take any more "And… tha-a-t" Because his body demanded that he spend himself now that she was positioned to service him. "Andthat… "

  She couldn't say a word. She felt as if everything in her were focused onhis movement, his demands, his need.

  He moved like a piston in her; her body stretched to welcome him, to receive him, to feel every hard, surging stroke, to wring from him the sensations that she was feeling, in spite of everything she had said, in spite of herself.

  This wasn't supposed to happenthese feelings, this urgency. It was as if it were ordained; his long strong body matched to hers; his hard hot penis rubbing and stroking her in that perfect place where her body craved it, and where nothing mattered but the shattering drive to pleasure.

  She felt his fingers dig into her buttocks, pulling her closer, pushing him deeper. She felt his muscles quivering at the effort to contain himself, because if he surrendered control, he surrendered everyth
ing.

  But even he couldn't outlast his rigidly contained lust. It was too much then even for him; he pounded himself blindly into her, using her as a vessel until his straining body could take it no longer, and then, in one telling thrust, he rammed himself tightly against her, and spent himself convulsively in a long spuming aching release.

  "We've barely begun, my fawn," he whispered against her ear and into the silence; he was still hot and hard inside her, his cream thick and seeping around them. And he still wanted her. Was still hot and raring to pin her to whatever surface was handy. "Just barely." He braced his arms around her bottom and lifted her from the harness, somehow still keeping himself joined to her.

  "Did you feel me there,wife? I swear to God you will never get away from me…" He got her on the bed somehow; he laid her down and followed her down, deep down into her where he had shot his seed. "Never…"

  …never…

  He was so hard and so hot and all of his weight was over her now; she had never felt sonaked and fragile, so much at someone else's mercy. His lust to possess her burned her whole body as he aligned himself against her.

  "Just you wait, little fawn. Now that I've slaked my hunger, now that you've gotten a taste…"

  "A taste of whatyour power over me? Isn't that understood?" she muttered.

  "I hope so," he growled, and thrust himself more tightly into her. It was as if all the sexual heat had dissipated. She was too cold and he had to stoke her up somehow.

  He rocked against her, pushing himself deeper.

  She made an incoherent sound in the back of her throat.

  "Get used to it, my fawn. I don't know why I waited to have you. I'm going to stuff myself into you every waking moment."

  She moaned.

  "Just like this: on your back, spreading your legs…"

  She felt herself sinking, sinking into his scenario of sensual depravity, wondering what there was in it for her. Her feeling of vulnerability intensified. All he had ever made her feel was overpowered, and with his big body and his huge penis deep inside her, she felt even more helpless.