Dark Desires (Dark Romance Boxed Set)

by Cerys du Lys

  She felt hands under her arms and she was lifted to her feet, but she remained limp, and kept her eyes closed. Dimly she heard Hugh’s rough voice, impatient, far away. He had lost his smooth gentlemanly patter. He spoke like a man in charge. “Come on!”

  She was shaken and as she opened her eyes, she realized she was being half-walked, half-carried, to a small office room in the corner of the warehouse, with walls of timber within the larger stone building.

  “You men! Back to work! She is mine - at least for now.”

  Alone, perhaps she could fight him off! Some energy burst out of her, some courage she never knew she had, and she began to squirm and twist in his arms.

  But he was strong, and determined, and he threw her bodily through the half-open door and she landed in a sprawl on the office floor. Her knees and hands were bruised from the previous fall she had suffered, and she was beginning to ache and bleed. Still, she tried to get to her feet to rush past him, but she was barely crouching when he struck her forcibly across the jaw and sent her, breathless and winded, so that her back collided with the long wooden desk.

  For a moment she was dazed, and she leaned back on the desk, her legs out in front of her. She stared at him, almost stupefied. Brokenly, she tried to speak. “Sir… I beg of you, if you have any Christian feelings, as I am sure you must have…”

  Hugh came to crouch down by her, facing her, and he rested his hand on her shoulder. The weight of his palm was oddly comforting. In a kindly tone, reverting to his polite voice once more which was completely at odds with his words, he said, “Oh, dear girl. God is not here. He left me - and the Craythorne family - long ago.”

  Surely he was joking, though it was a cruel and sinful thing to joke about. Even as she blinked back the tears, he let his hand drop, sliding over her shoulder and down to her breasts. She recoiled, trying to get away, but the desk was heavy and did not shift an inch; she was trapped.

  And she knew there was no point in even calling for help.

  “This can be pleasurable,” he told her, his voice still conversational. She would have preferred that he shouted, or threatened her. His placid calm seemed to hold her still, as if he were whispering to a frightened horse.

  “No,” she hissed. “It can never be pleasurable.”

  “Let me show you.”

  His hand closed over her breast, squeezing quite gently at first, but his fingers tightened on her nipple and she felt a wave of sweat break over her skin. Then he tugged at the ribbon that wound about her waist, holding her billowing skirts up high, in the Classical Grecian fashion. As soon as it was loose, he pulled her dress apart, revealed her tailored undergarments. She had full and heavy breasts, and he pulled the shoulder straps down, so that her fleshy globes broke free. She closed her eyes. She could not bear to know that a man was looking at her sacred, secret womanly body. This was for her future husband - though that would be Stapleton Jones, and she did not relish the thought. He had long looked at her with a leering manner that had made her uncomfortable. Much like this man was doing, now, in fact. But at least Stapleton had rarely tried to touch her, and she had always been able to slide away from his questing hands.

  She felt a tear trickle silently down her nose and she struggled to keep her breathing quiet; she did not want to give him the satisfaction of hearing her cry. Not now. She knew what was to happen - she had once been passed a novel by a male cousin who had wished to shock her.

  And she knew that this would not kill her.

  “Open your eyes!” Hugh commanded. “Up, up onto your feet.”

  She stood up unsteadily, dashing her wrist across her face to rub away her tears. Then everything happened at once; in a way, it was a blessing that she had no time to think. Hugh pushed her onto her back on the desk, scattering pens and crumpling up paper. She could only stare at the yellowed ceiling. He grabbed the hem of her skirts and thrust them up to bunch about her waist, and with a sharp tug, he pulled her bloomers clear away. She wrapped her arms over her body, hugging her waist, trying to focus her attention anywhere but what was happening between her legs.

  The cool air touched the lips of her secret place - her pussy, as she knew it was called from the sinful book. There were other words, too, but pussy was the nicest. She thought of cats, and stroking, and how she had sometimes stroked herself there and it had indeed been most pleasurable. But the waves of pleasure had scared her in their intensity and she had pushed her night-time actions from her mind.

  Could what Hugh was about to do to her be pleasurable?

  No, no, no, surely not.

  And then she screamed as her whole body seemed to be torn open by the stabbing of his male member deep into her. Her resolution to stay quiet and not fight was completely overturned as he drove into her, again and again, and she bucked and kicked and tried to grab his hair with her hands. He slammed her wrists onto the desk and pinned her with his pelvis, grinding into her as sweat dripped from his hair and his face screwed up into a strange contorted agony.

  Suddenly, it was over. He jerked, slammed into her, and stayed still, buried to his hilt. Then he shuddered, and dragged himself out, and her bruised, sore hole seemed - what, empty? Now she had been opened, she realized, she had a place that would always want to be filled.

  And she was still alive.

  What is it about a woman that makes men want to do this? Her thoughts came to her from far away, floating through the air, detached from her body. Hugh was pulling her upright, stripping all the clothes from her, but Anna was in a different place, wrapped in a soft cloud of protection as she pondered the mysteries of the world.

  What have I got that he wants? He is become as an animal; he is almost out of control with the need to do this. Are all men like this?

  And then - how can I use this knowledge?

  She was slapped on the cheek, hard, and blinked to see Hugh’s face close to hers, frowning. “Don’t you pass out on me. Not yet. We’ve only just started.”

  Distantly, she heard her voice, as if something else was speaking through her. “Why are you so angry?”

  He hissed, and said, “You will all be as Beatrice was, in the end.” He pulled away the last remaining remnants of her clothing, and stepped back, to look at her naked body.

  Anna glanced down. Her knees were red and sore, and her skin pale. She crossed her arms over her breasts, but he grabbed her hands and forced them to her sides. “We must all see your… beauty,” he spat. He gestured to the door of the office, and with a hand in the center of her back, began to propel her forwards.

  Something wet and warm ran down her inner thigh. His seed, she realized. Good. I don’t want that stuff within me. She flexed herself, trying to expel it even more quickly. The floor beneath her bare feet was rough carpet in the office but as soon as she stepped through the door, she was on hard-packed earth. Her satin slippers were abandoned behind in the office with the rest of her clothes.

  Some of the men had returned to work, moving boxes and barrels around, though the majority were sitting and smoking. All looked at her as she walked, naked, into the warehouse. The ceiling was high and dust hovered in clouds far above her head, where the soft sunlight streaked through skylights and windows. Here on the ground, though, it was darker. Perhaps the light preferred to stay up high, she thought, and did not wish to descend to this pit of sin and torture.

  And then they looked to Hugh, who was still standing close by her shoulder. She could feel his breath tickle her skin and it made her flesh creep. “She was nice and tight, gentlemen, nice and tight. Did you hear how she screamed?”

  “Aye, sir, we did that. Virgin, eh?”

  “She was, Danny. She was. But she has so much to learn! Shall we teach her?”

  “Aye, it would be only right,” the tousle-haired Danny said, advancing upon her, not a hint of mercy in his face.

  Anna looked from man to man, but they wore the masks of animals upon their expressions. “Have you no wives, no daughters?” she pleaded despe
rately.

  “I have a wife,” Danny said, shrugging. He waved at another man, who passed him a thick coil of rope. “And I keep her safe at home where she cannot fall into trouble. No one must care for you, pretty miss, else they would not have let you out of their sight. But it’s to our gain, aye!”

  His words hit too close to Anna’s heart. Did her mother really care? It was hard to say. After all, her brutal father ruled the household and had regularly beaten her mother into a quivering mess, as was his right and duty. Her mother, then, took the same treatment and meted it to her daughter, albeit with words rather than blows these days. Her mother had a wall around her, and no feeling was ever allowed to escape.

  And with poor Lucy dead, and her future husband a dread prospect to her, Danny’s words were true: no one must care for her.

  She tipped her head back and looked him in the eye. “I care for me.” As if saying it made it true.

  He laughed, dismissing her bravado with a nonchalance that inflamed her. An hour or so ago, she had been panicking and distressed in a refined ladies’ salon - now she was fighting for her life though her honor was lost!

  I am stronger than I thought I was. Well, then.

  Danny took her wrists. She stayed passive, reminding herself to endure. He bound some rope about each one, and then threw the ropes up high, so that they slithered over the beams above and hissed back down to the ground. Danny and another man hauled on the ropes, bringing her hands up into the air, so that she was not quite on tip-toe but she was stretched out, in a Y-shape.

  She could not cover herself and she could not move or fight. The men encircled her, almost hesitantly, as if each one did not want to be the first to touch her.

  She saw hunger and need on their faces as their eyes travelled from her long, soft hair, over her swinging breasts, across her flat belly, to where the hair thatched in a little bump between her legs, and then down still further, along her thighs, round her buttocks - every inch of her was scrutinized, as if for secrets. As if for mysteries.

  I am the object - I am the captive prey. What secrets and mysteries do I hold?

  Danny was the first to unhook his breeches, fumbling to withdraw his cock. It was thick, and dark, and he pulled at it as he came close enough to her that she could smell his tobacco and sweat odor. “Shame you’re strung up, now I think of it. I would have liked to have felt your pretty mouth around this. Perhaps I should stick it somewhere else.”

  She kept her face blank. She was not sure if it could get any worse. She had survived so far.

  Oh, but it could get worse. He passed behind her and pressed his cock between her arse cheeks, and she clenched them tight as she realized his intention. It was impossible, surely! Yet he seemed intent on forcing a way in to the tiny, tight hole.

  “Oh, give over, Danny, you’ll not get in with her tied up like that! Not yet, anyway. Work at her with your fingers, man.”

  And then they were all around her, their manhoods in their hands, pressing against her, leaving sticky trails of the juice that seeped from their bulbous cocks. Fingers pulled her nipples, hands probed her pussy and her buttocks, pulling the fleshy cheeks apart.

  She closed her eyes briefly but then steeled herself, and opened them, forcing herself to not just look at the men but look them in the eye. They did not seem to like that; they averted their gaze, snarled, stared instead at her body, not her eyes.

  She filed the information away.

  To her left side, a man was frantically rubbing his hand up and down his cock, his face twisted like Hugh’s had been and she realized his own fist was performing the office of a pussy as he stroked and gripped himself. Suddenly he grunted and a thick jet of white liquid hit her skin, and he pulled at himself a few more times, while three more spurts oozed down her thigh. She felt her own lip curl in a sneer and he caught her expression, and his face was red and his eyes angry. He turned away from her. She did not think it was in shame, but something like deep fury.

  Then a finger was being pushed into her arsehole and she bit her lip as her tight ring closed to fight the intrusion. No, no, no! Another hand was between her legs from the front, pushing into her pussy. Hands grabbed her breasts.

  She had to close her eyes. It was overwhelming. She was losing her grip on herself.

  “What in the devil’s name is going on here? Hugh! Hugh, you sniveling little bastard - Danny, step away. Jake, put your shriveled prick away. Good God! Who is this?” Everyone froze as they were when the voice bellowed out.

  “Just some whore, Tristan.” Hugh sounded annoyed.

  Anna did not dare to hope she might be about to be rescued but she opened her eyes and tried to twist around to see who had entered the warehouse. The wooden door slammed shut behind him, and she heard footsteps coming towards her, but he was behind her and she could not see him.

  “Back to work, the lot of you!”

  The men around her all melted away, stepping back heavily and unwillingly, tucking their clothing back in and returning to their tasks. They didn’t sit around and smoke idly, as they had been doing before. She had thought Hugh was in charge, but clearly he was subservient to another.

  Her savior?

  No. She was right to not hope. The man who stepped around to look at her had Hugh’s face and high cheekbones, but with more angles that the indolent fleshiness of Hugh. He had flashing dark eyes and the same strong nose. His eyes were just as cruel, and his mouth did not smile as he looked her up and down. “You have good taste, brother. But what on earth are you doing? You could have taken her to your own rooms, and indulged your pleasures there. The men ought to be working, not sporting with a whore.”

  “I am no whore, sir!” she said, her voice hoarse and cracking with strain. “I am Anna Rossington, daughter of Jasper and Horatia Rossington, and I was kidnapped, sir, brought her against my will, and then my…. my…. I have been undone, sir. Please. You must let me go.”

  He stared. Something flickered across his face that she could not read. He didn’t deign to reply to her. Instead, he turned to Hugh, who was standing, unrepentant and smug, to one side.

  “Hugh - you idiot. What have you done now?”

  Chapter Three

  Tristan glared at his younger brother. Hugh’s self-satisfied face never failed to rile him, and none more so than now. Hugh seemed to feel that he was untouchable and he was taking more and more liberties. At this rate, Tristan thought that Hugh would completely ruin the whole operation.

  His younger brother had ever been a thorn in his side. That death-bed promise to their father was wearing very thin. Were it not for their joint memory of Beatrice and all that she represented to the brothers, he would have cut his ties with the arrogant yet cowardly Hugh many years before.

  But here they were, still having to work together even after the events that had almost torn them apart, in an uneasy familial business alliance.

  Hugh was getting more erratic of late and Tristan knew he could not allow anything to jeopardize their business interests and strong London influence - not even his own flesh and blood. He had a sense of foreboding that reminded him of how it had all gone wrong with Beatrice, that damned and loved woman.

  Tristan shook his head, trying to concentrate on the task before him, and found his hand had strayed to the locket that hung hidden beneath his shirt. He dropped his hand and cleared his throat.

  “The daughter of the Rossingtons! Did you hear, Hugh?” Tristan ignored the dangling woman as she swung gently, still suspended, and stepped towards Hugh. Tristan was half a head taller, and somewhat broader than his brother; he had a few more years on him, and had been a keen amateur prize fighter. Even now, with both of them grown men, he could intimidate Hugh with only his presence.

  Strangely, the way Hugh would cower away from him only made Tristan angrier.

  But Hugh had been getting more confident lately, and today he was standing his ground. “For God’s sake, Tristan, don’t get your frilly panties in a twist. She was
wandering along, hatless and unchaperoned, so I brought her here. She was fair game and anyone would agree with that. Even the girl herself! And anyway, maybe old Rossington would pay for her release.”

  “Christ, Hugh, do you want to bring the wrath of London down upon us?”

  “Us? The Craythornes are as established a family as the Rossingtons. We have our connections - it’s just that you don’t choose to use them. If we made more of our influence, we could-”

  “Enough!” Tristan was in no mood for talking. His brother made up for his lesser strength by trying to bamboozle Tristan with words and arguments, and Tristan was having none of it. Without any further warning, he swung a roundhouse blow to Hugh’s head and laid the younger man straight out onto the floor.

  He hit the ground with a thump that sent a wave of satisfaction deep into Tristan’s belly, and the startled faces of the watching men made him feel even better. He stood over his fallen brother and flexed his fist, easing his knuckles, waiting for Hugh to come back to his senses and stand up again.

  Hugh groaned, and rolled onto his side, and eventually sat up awkwardly. He stared at the floor, not at Tristan, and Tristan knew he wasn’t going to continue the fight. A coward, as always.

  So he left Hugh in the dust, where the worm belonged, and went to the wench who was still supported only by the ropes around her wrists, and her rapidly weakening tip-toes.

  She was comely, he realized as he looked at her properly. No, more than comely, and when her gaze met his, her flash of defiance shot straight to his cock.