Claimed by the Commander

by Sassa Daniels

  “I see, and how is that stimulating?”

  “Well, it sort of presses on my front.”

  She looked up as Rossingham barked out a laugh.

  “Your front, Caroline? From what I hear, you like to read naughty books, so is that the best you can do?”

  Caroline huffed. Yes, she read books and she spoke about sex all the time with her friends from the Hyde Ladies’ Circle. In fact, the conversations had been known to get fairly raunchy but she had never dreamed of discussing such things with a man.

  “My pussy,” she said quietly.

  “Sorry, what was that, little one?”

  Her jaw clenched as she knew full well he had heard.

  “My pussy,” she said louder. “It presses forward and makes my pussy tingle. Are you satisfied?”

  “Not particularly,” Rossingham teased. “And I doubt you will be with that damned chastity belt in the way, but I’d like to know if it’s making you wet.”

  “It is.”

  “Hmm,” he mused. “And does it make you think about what it would be like to have your pussy stuffed full of my cock?”

  “Yes, Commander,” she said in a forthright manner that hid the hint of shame she felt as she acknowledged the moisture pooling at the apex of her thighs amid her growing desire to be claimed physically by this man. “It does.”

  “It is a pity we can do nothing to relieve your agonies right now.” Rossingham’s voice sounded regretful. “But in two days’ time I shall introduce you to the pleasures a man and woman might enjoy in each other’s arms.”

  Caroline bit her lip as she realized that the prospect of finding out what it was like to be touched by a man like Rossingham was less scary to her now than it had been even a few hours ago.

  “Would you like that, Caroline?”

  “Yes, Commander,” she replied in a small voice that betrayed her embarrassment at desiring a virtual stranger.

  “We’re going to be married so I think it will be okay if you call me Andrew.” There was a teasing note in his words.

  “Andrew,” Caroline repeated obediently, liking the way the name sounded as she spoke it out loud.

  “Good girl.”

  As his hand rubbed over the warm flesh of her buttocks, she flinched, more from shock at being caressed in such a tender manner than from pain as he touched the places where the belt had struck her.

  “There are some red marks here but they will fade quickly,” Andrew assured her. “You took that punishment well but I must warn you, Caroline, it was but a taste of what you will experience if you fail to obey me in all things. Today I went easy on you because of all you had suffered but in future I will not hold back if you require correction.”

  Caroline gulped. Throughout the spanking she’d suspected that he was not striking her with as much force as he might but the belt had still stung horribly and she knew she would not sit comfortably for the rest of the day.

  “When I punish you and it is just between the two of us, it will be very different, Caroline, much more intimate,” he continued. “It will be intense and personal. You will cry and I will comfort you but you will know that I have been displeased with your behavior. Do you understand, little one?”

  She nodded silently and Andrew tutted loudly.

  “Words, please, Caroline.”

  “Yes, Commander… Andrew, I understand.”

  “Good girl,” Andrew praised as he stroked her hair. “We will be at the house in twenty minutes. Try to rest until then.”

  “Yes, Andrew.”

  Caroline closed her eyes and let the rocking of the mechanical carriage soothe her. Life as she had known it was over but, for the first time, as Andrew continued to stroke her affectionately, she wondered if that might not be so bad after all.

  Chapter Five

  The house had been completely torn apart. As they stepped through the front door, Caroline shrieked in horror as her eyes took in the devastation before her. It was almost as though a tornado had ripped through the place. Nothing seemed to have been left untouched. She wandered along the hallway and stopped at the door to the library that had once been her beloved grandfather’s sanctuary. Clearly, the High Council’s security forces had been through every inch of it, no doubt looking for evidence of her supposed treachery.

  Pages ripped from her precious books lay strewn about the floor, pictures had been pulled from the walls and smashed, and the little ornaments that she and her sister had collected ever since they were children, lay shattered. Caroline just hoped that Elizabeth had possessed enough sense not to come back here. Seeing such devastation would surely break her heart.

  Looking at the terrible mess, Caroline felt numb. Despite all that had happened to her after her arrest, this desecration of her personal possessions, some of which had been in her family for several generations, felt like the greatest violation of all. As she moved from the library into the sitting room where she and her friends had met regularly to discuss their political views and shared what they’d learned from their reading, she felt Andrew’s arm wrapping around her shoulders. Although she realized it was meant as a gesture of reassurance, she shrugged him off, not wanting anyone close as she wandered through the debris.

  No matter what rules she had broken, there could be no excuse for this wanton vandalism. Even the cushions from the armchairs had been slashed, the stuffing ripped from them. Caroline shook her head despairingly at the pointlessness of it all. What they had been searching for, she kept stored in her head and, despite their best efforts, they had failed to retrieve it from there. No strong-arm tactics would ever persuade her to betray her friends.

  Feeling stunned by the mess she encountered every way she turned, she moved toward the double doors leading into the conservatory and stopped dead as she found a strange man standing amidst the chaos. She almost cried out but then she recognized him as Andrew’s other comrade from the town hall, the one she had not seen again after Bryn escorted her to the examination room. In his big, meaty fist, he held the broken pieces of her favorite little mechanical bird, a gift given to her by her grandfather when she was just a child.

  Suddenly something inside of her just snapped. All the pain and despair of the last couple of days came rushing to the surface and, with an ear-splitting shriek that sounded like some primitive war cry, she flew across the room. Launching herself at the large Taar-Breckian warrior, she knocked the pieces of the bird from his hand and began to pound furiously on his broad, muscular chest. That he just stood and looked down at her with an expression of bewilderment on his face as she poured out all her anger and frustration only intensified her rage.

  “Don’t touch my things!” she screamed. “Just leave my things alone, you big brute!”

  “Brute?” The alien giant had the temerity to look amused.

  As Caroline continued to lash out, Andrew seized her from behind and lifted her off her feet, swinging her away from his second lieutenant. Kicking out wildly, she cursed and swore as she struggled to free herself. As she somehow managed to wriggle out of Andrew’s hold, she dropped to the floor and began to scrabble around to gather up the pieces of the broken bird. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she wailed loudly, unconcerned that her emotional outburst had attracted a few of Andrew’s men, who had been at work securing the property, into the room.

  “Caroline.” Andrew’s tone was kind rather than reprimanding. “You must stop this now.”

  “Or what?” Caroline challenged, all sense of reason fleeing her mind as emotion threatened to swallow her whole. “You’ll beat me again? Well, go ahead, you… you fucking animal!”

  “I am not going to spank you, Caroline,” Andrew said with infuriating calm. “Not tonight anyway. Although you’ve certainly earned yourself a good thrashing with this behavior, you’ve been through enough for one day.”

  “Good!” Caroline spat, pouring as much venom as she could into that single word. “Then you can get out. All
of you, get out of my house!”

  “Not going to happen, sweetheart.”

  Andrew gave a signal for his men, who’d been drawn into the room to find the cause of the commotion, to return to their posts. More than one of the battle-hardened warriors shot the distraught young woman a look of sympathy before turning and walking from the room. As Andrew reached for Caroline, she scooted back, a wild, panicked look in her eye.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “I can’t do that, little one,” Andrew said. “If you carry on like this, you’re going to make yourself ill.”

  “I don’t care!” Caroline wailed. In the last day and a half, she had been forcibly removed from her home, interrogated for hours on end, made to stand trial before a corrupt council, and put through a humiliating examination, as well as being claimed by a virtual stranger who’d punished her in front of a huge crowd who hated her without knowing a single thing about who she really was. Then she’d been brought back here to find everything in ruins and, to top it all off, there was a huge object invading her bottom that she felt rubbing against her inner walls every time she moved. Given all that, she thought it remarkable that she’d managed to hold herself together as long as she had. But she was through with being stoic. “I don’t care if I die.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.”

  It was the look of compassion and understanding on his face that struck the final blow against her defenses. Caroline collapsed to the floor, sobbing as though her heart was breaking. As Andrew gathered her into his arms, she made a weak show of fighting him off but, as he tightened his grip on her, she slowly settled. For the longest time, they stayed there on the floor and she drew comfort from his incredible strength and compassion as he rocked her quietly back and forth until her sobs finally abated and she slumped against him, utterly exhausted.

  She offered no resistance as Andrew lifted her and carried her upstairs to the first available bedroom, which just happened to be hers anyway. He placed her on the bed with great care and sat down next to her.

  “Do you want me to wait with you until you fall asleep?” he asked.

  “Actually, I’d like to have a shower first,” Caroline said. “I feel absolutely filthy and I would really like to put on one of my own nightgowns.” She bit her lip and looked up at him with enormous green eyes. “If that’s okay?”

  “Of course it is, sweetheart,” Andrew replied. “You wait here and I’ll go and start the shower for you.”

  Caroline nodded as he went into the bathroom. As she looked around at her things scattered on the floor, she noticed the shredded remains of her favorite novel lying there. She thought about its main characters, Sebastian and Lucinda, and the spankings he had given her in almost every chapter. Although Caroline had not derived any pleasure from the punishment she had endured in the town square, probably because of her underlying fear of what the mob might do, she was starting to see how being taken in hand by a dominant male might be appealing in real life. There was a time when she might have been upset about the destruction of her book but she had a feeling her future husband shared one or two traits with Sebastian that would make her reading redundant. It was at once a tantalizing and terrifying prospect.

  As she pondered the future, she heard the door of the shower slide back and the water coming on. A moment later, Andrew reappeared. She stood and waited, awkwardness radiating out from her. Although she would not rebuff him if he chose to join her in the shower, she would prefer to have a little privacy after a day when every part of her had been stripped bare. Seeming to understand the reason for her hesitation, Andrew reached out and took her hand.

  “I know that now is not the time for intimacy between us, sweetheart,” he said with what she took to be regret. “Go and have a nice shower. I’ll be here when you’re finished.”

  Caroline smiled gratefully and headed for the bathroom, picking up one of her nightgowns from the floor where it had been thrown on her way. She closed the door but decided against locking it in case Andrew was offended by what he may well see as a sign that she didn’t trust him to leave her alone. She stripped off the white gown and dropped it into the wastebasket, wishing she could burn it to rid herself of the memories of today. At least she was able to get rid of it, unlike the damned chastity belt that had adhered to her skin somehow, and the anal dilator that was hard at work stretching her tight channel. It was not an entirely unpleasant feeling but it was damned distracting.

  As she stepped under the steady stream of piping hot water, she gave a sigh of pleasure, amazed by how quickly she started to feel less grubby. Closing her eyes, she let the water cascade over her. When she felt thoroughly cleansed, in body if not in mind, she quickly dried off and looked at herself in the mirror, wincing at how tired she looked with her pale skin and bruised eyes. Her beautiful hair was gone and although she knew it would grow back, she took a few moments to mourn its loss. As she slipped the diaphanous nightgown on over her head, she realized the fabric was a little more sheer than she’d thought and that Andrew would see the outline of her body beneath it.

  She almost laughed at her sudden notions of modesty. Andrew had already seen every inch of her body but, somehow, within the confines of her own bedroom, showing herself to him felt more intimate and she was suddenly shy about him seeing her this way. As she opened the bathroom door, she was surprised to find that Andrew had straightened up the bedroom. She would never have marked him down as the domestic type but it was a gesture she appreciated. At least now she would not be reminded that, only hours earlier, the secret police had been pawing through her things.

  Flashing Andrew a grateful smile, she hurried past him feeling as though she was waddling inelegantly because of the damned thing lodged in her bottom. How she was supposed to sleep with it prodding her, she did not know. Slipping into bed, she allowed Andrew to pull the covers up over her and she realized that nobody had tucked her in since she was a child and her grandfather had done it.

  “Better now, sweetheart?”

  The term of endearment gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Andrew pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat down. Caroline did not flinch when he reached out and took her hand, his thumb gently caressing the smooth skin of her wrist. For the first time today, she felt genuinely safe.

  “I am sorry, Andrew,” she said. “I shouldn’t have made such a fuss over a little toy.”

  They both knew she had been upset about more than that, but Andrew said nothing to try to get her to talk about her run-in with the secret police and the Council and she was grateful for his tact.

  “The bird meant something special to you?”

  “Yes. My grandfather gave it to me on my eleventh birthday. He used to tell me stories about birds.” She breathed deeply to keep the sorrow that was threatening to take hold of her again at bay. “Anyway, I overreacted and it was not your lieutenant’s fault. Will you let him know I am sorry?”

  “I doubt Taryn will hold a grudge but you can speak to him yourself in the morning,” Andrew replied. “But now I think you need to get some sleep.”

  Caroline nodded and lay back on the pillows. Although it was only early evening, she was finding it difficult to keep her eyelids from drooping and she knew that after all she’d been through, she would probably sleep through the night. Her eyes closed and then opened again, fixing firmly on Andrew’s concerned face.

  “What is it, sweetheart?”

  “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”

  “Of course,” he assured her as she closed her eyes once again and immediately succumbed to the sweet oblivion of sleep.

  * * *

  Andrew sat by the bed and watched over Caroline as she sank deeper into sleep. Her breathing slowed and the crinkle that marked her brow smoothed itself out. In repose, she looked so much younger than her almost twenty-one years and so incredibly vulnerable that his heart went out to her. He wanted nothing
more than to keep the evils of the world from touching her. It would be so much better for her when they returned to his home on Taar-Breck, far from the reach of the Council he did not trust. If he had his way, they would have left Earth immediately but he suspected if they’d tried to take off before the marriage was made legal, the Council would have used that as an excuse to create problems for him. For now, he was going to have to play things their way even if he didn’t like dancing to someone else’s tune.

  Scrubbing a hand over his eyes, he got up from his chair and moved toward the door. He froze as Caroline shifted slightly. She made a funny little grunting sound but she settled quickly, so he slipped from the room.

  He walked downstairs and into the conservatory to retrieve the pieces of the little mechanical bird whose destruction had triggered such a strong emotional response from Caroline.

  Gathering all of it up, he took it through to the kitchen and placed the parts on the table. As he looked in the cupboards for something to drink, Bryn and Taryn joined him.

  “I am sorry, Andrew,” Taryn said, addressing his commanding officer in a less formal manner now that they were in a private setting. “I wanted to make things right before you brought Lady Caroline to the house but there was just so much mess. We barely had time to fix the doors and windows to make the place secure.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Andrew said wearily as he poured himself a glass of the most incredibly foul-tasting synthetic orange juice and took a seat at the table. “You did what you could.”

  “What do you think they were looking for?” Bryn asked.

  “Evidence of treason.” Andrew picked up a bird’s wing crafted from the finest bronzed metal and then put it back down on the table. “The names of her friends, I suppose.”

  “Do you think they found them?” Taryn was the one to voice the question.

  “I hope not.”

  Andrew hated the thought that there were other young women out there at risk of harm from the pernicious High Council. He didn’t know who they were but had a suspicion that Caroline’s younger sister, Elizabeth, was one.