"You will now," he interrupted her roughly. "You will do everything that I command you to do. Or I will take a whip to your naked ass, instead of a leisurely belt, and I will not stop this time."
"No! Dios," she cried, trying to turn her body away from him. But he did not allow it, holding her shivering nakedness tight against his body.
"Are you afraid to be whipped, Orelan?" he ruthlessly asked.
"Yes, you beast!" she cried.
"And you know that I will do it?" he asked relentlessly.
"Yes," she hissed with frustrated and frightened tears in her eyes.
"Then, show me how obedient you will become with the threat of a whip to your tender flesh," Wyndham said mercilessly. "Go now and supplicate yourself over the stool."
Orelan sucked in an emotional breath, trying furiously to fight her frightened and heaving emotions. A part of her believed that Wyndham would never truly hurt her. Yet, she needed to believe that he would do just that, so she could fight her unruly emotions. Emotions that would get her into such trouble beneath Alexei's power. She thought it was possibly a good thing that she was so irrational at the moment or she would never have been able to do as her golden puma commanded.
Yet, the fear inside her was sweeping as she rose with Wyndham's intense purple eyes watching her. Then she lowered her nakedness over the stool in an exposed defenseless position. The tears that would not come before pooled beneath her clenched eyelids as she supplicated herself to Wyndham's greater power. What would he do to her, her mind cried as she listened to him rising behind her? Her body trembled terribly as she heard him draw nearer to her. Yet it was working, as much as she wanted to turn and spit fire at him, she could not dare herself to.
"Will you need the whip, Orelan?" he asked harshly behind her.
"No, I..." she choked, looking over her shoulder at him.
"Then, say it!" he commanded roughly.
"I am your slut! I will obey you!" she cried, and then she nearly screamed, when she unexpectedly felt one of Wyndham's hands touch the flesh of her shuddering buttocks. But it was cream! He was putting a cooling salve on her shaking bottom. Not punishing her more fully into his power. Then she did cry. Hot silent tears of shame, and then determination. She would not let her golden puma down, and she would not allow him to be killed or harmed because of her foolish prides. And this she would do, not because she was frightened, but because she loved him and because of this love for him, she would willingly give herself over to Wyndham's power.
Chapter Six
The gown had arrived an hour earlier with a command from Alexei that Orelan should wear it that evening. Wyndham finished the task of wrapping his knee with a supporting bandage. From the glimpse he'd gotten of the gown, he knew it was scandalous attire. Still, when he looked up to see Orelan standing in the entrance to the bathing chamber, he had to use an incredible amount of willpower to keep his features impassive. Debase, intoxicating, and carnal were the words that sprang to his mind.
The gown, if one could call it that, was composed of lavender lace widely embroidered, and so loosely that each movement of the shapely body beneath showed glimpses of peach-tinted flesh. Flashing glimpses of the under curve of one breast, the top of one pink nipple, or the dark shadow of an inner thigh, and there he stopped looking, instead glancing down at the bandage on his knee. Orelan was naked beneath the sheath of lace, he knew she had to be, and that was the point of Alexei sending the gown. He also knew that if Orelan were to turn about, it would be as though viewing her tantalizingly naked buttocks, while seen through a sheer embroidered silk screen. He dared not look closely enough to see if she had managed to cover her mons. A place he coveted as his alone.
Yet what disturbed him more than the scanty attire barely draping Orelan's lovely body was the thick jeweled choker around her slender neck. It was nothing less than a perverted collar with a long hanging jeweled leash. The end of which, Orelan had wrapped around her delicate wrist. This collaring and leash were what disturbed her most, making her appear anxious and flushed.
Steeling himself, Wyndham raised his gaze taking in Orelan's rouged lips, the exotic line of kohl over her eyes, and the luxuriousness of her thick hair piled in a tumble on top of her head. Exquisite. Femininity at its fullest and choicest. He lifted his hand to her, steadily, dropping his gaze to the end of her jeweled leash. She understood of course and chose for the moment obedience. He only prayed that it lasted, beneath his coarse threats to whip her. How perverted was that, and how unexpectedly heady was her submission to him? He could not answer his conflicting emotions . . . not now.
So instead, he took the end of the gilded leash that she offered him as he straightened his injured leg so that his trouser leg slid down over the bandage concealing its tenuous support. His evening shoe settled on the marbled floor as he wound the leash around his wrist drawing Orelan closer to him.
Her gaze was stark and filled with a kaleidoscope of emotion, as she whispered anxiously, "What will happen to us, Wyndham?"
He pursed his lips grimly. They would not arrive at the end of this unscathed. It was a deadly game of cat and mouse that he played for Orelan's life, and ultimately his own. Unfortunately, Alexei was a master of such perversions. "Nothing we cannot survive," he answered, praying it was true, yet knowing there could be worse things than death. He had nearly been there once and it frightened him now, how close he was again.
It was Sodom and Gomorrah, Orelan thought. An orgy of flesh and opulence everywhere she gazed. This was what she had been terrified at seeing each evening that she'd hidden in her chambers, since Alexei had kidnapped her. She had wondered then, why he'd not forced her to come to his regular evening parties.
She still did not know, and she also keenly felt that she was missing something. Something more than just Alexei's need for vengeance upon her. Something still which she and Wyndham did not understand. But perhaps Wyndham did, she thought glancing up at his chiseled and masculine features. Then, she shivered, frightened even more than before.
Wyndham was too manly. So handsome and much too compelling with his collar length blond hair streaked with yellow highlights and his vivid purple-sapphire eyes. His jawline was square-boned and his build was powerful. All of the barely dressed and undressed women in the rooms that she and Wyndham passed through gazed at her Wyndham avidly. But so did Alexei and that was perhaps disturbing her the most.
Hastily, Orelan turned her shocked gaze from one man ardently kissing another man to collide with the view of a naked man coupling a naked woman from behind, while the woman took another man's pene into her mouth. The naked threesome was on top of a raised dais in the center of the last room that she and Wyndham had just entered. These three people were on display, she finally realized. They were performing, and it seemed the crowd surrounding them was giving them instructions on what to do next.
"Dios," she whispered, not consciously realizing that she'd stopped to gape.
But then, there was a strong masculine arm angled across her back and a sturdy shoulder to lay her cheek upon. Wyndham's heat and strength enveloped her as he lifted her chin with his knuckles, until she gazed upward into his eyes. They did nothing more than gaze at each other, yet Wyndham's nearly black irises spoke to her. Calming her. This was not for her innocent eyes, yet she must endure.
"Fuck her in the ass!" the crowd shouted behind them and Orelan flinched, clutching the lapel of Wyndham's black evening jacket. She would not panic, Orelan told herself fearfully. Yet what would happen to her now, her mind cried as Wyndham's arm tightened around her.
"Ah! Lord Hawkenge, and his, pretty Latin whore," Alexei exclaimed from somewhere behind them and the sound of his voice, those words, made Orelan whimper in anxiousness. She could not do this, she thought angrily. But just then, Wyndham grasped her chin, forcefully lifting her skittering gaze to his. The force of his will as seen through his blackening sapphire eyes was uncompromising.
"If you believe, Orelan, that I will not fo
rce you to my will in this public place," he uttered, "You are mistaken." Wyndham brought her up onto her toes roughly, by his hands now clasping her bare shoulders. "What would you do to stay alive?" he hissed lowly. "Would you fuck me? Here in public, if it meant a sharp knife would not slit your graceful neck?" Agonized, Orelan tried to turn her face from Wyndham's sneer, yet he would not allow it. He shook her. "Answer me," he uttered with barely controlled intensity.
"Yes!" she cried, glaring at him. "I would fuck you as the lowliest puta to stay alive," she whispered fiercely with hot tears gathering in her eyes. Then suddenly, Wyndham used his hands on her shoulders to turn her away from him, yet at the same moment he tugged her spine back against his chest. His right arm crossed over her with his palm settling across her upper left breast. The heat of his calloused palm made her gasp as he fondled her indecently, and her gaze darted upward to collide with Alexei.
Alexei had nearly reached them as he moved through the crowd. Yet Wyndham with his voice growling into her ear, while he continued to palm her breast, said, "You will obey my every command, or pay my price."
Orelan realized at that moment she was more afraid of her Wyndham than any threat to her life. Yet, crazily she trusted him . . . even as she fought him. Why did she have to be so foolish, she wondered, as she watched Alexei's icy blue eyes roaming over the near nakedness of her body in the gown she was forced to wear? It was shameful and so embarrassing, yet she could not stop watching Alexei as his gaze settled on the v between her thighs.
"The gown is even more decadent than I imagined," Alexei jeered as he reached them. Wyndham watched Alexei over the top of Orelan's head as Alexei snapped his fingers at a passing bare-chested waiter. "Champagne," Alexei ordered.
When three fluted glasses of champagne appeared, Wyndham did not release his lewd fondling of Orelan's nimble breast. Nor, did he drink the champagne beneath Alexei's irritated sneer. He declined the champagne, yet he bade Orelan to take a glass. The effects could loosen her to whatever was about to transpire, he thought, watching Alexei's every cocksure and aristocratically graceful movement.
"The gaiety of my party. To have you, my favorite gentleman, Wyndham, here once again with me," Alexei said, tipping his glass in a salute. "Inspires me, Khrisinan."
"To what?" Wyndham asked, slowly raising his hand from Orelan's breast to the column of her throat, which he clasped lightly over the jeweled collar she wore.
"To a game, my lovelies," Alexei replied, slyly. "A game of chance, Khrisinan. Will you play with me?"
Wyndham gritted his teeth, holding snugly to Orelan's throat to keep her in place as he felt her pulse beating wildly against his fingertips. It had begun, he thought, as he uttered, "If the price is right."
Alexei laughed, too sharply. He was inebriated and excited, a dangerous combination. "Of course, Khrisinan, I would never cheat you. Shall we say one marker is earned, of the six you owe me, if you play with me? And the game we shall play is cards. Monte. I know it is one of your favorites."
Alexei twirled the champagne in his glass arrogantly as Wyndham stared at him. "And the currency?" he asked tersely
"Ha!" Alexei exclaimed. "We will start out slowly this evening, Khrisinan. The seduction is everything. We will play for voyeurism. I wish to see what you covet. Tits, cunt, an ass. But you will not wish to show me your puta's charms . . . or show them to all of these people." Alexei's hand swept the room around him. "They will be as excited to watch as I will, Khrisinan."
"And you," Wyndham growled.
"The same for my chosen lover of this evening, of course." Alexei pursed his lips with his light blue eyes languid in a serpentine way. "But of course, I will not mind as much as you, to show my lover's nudity."
Wyndham felt Orelan turned her head slowly to rest her temple on his chin. "Make it two markers, my puma, if I am to do this," she whispered fiercely for his ears only.
Wyndham nearly grinned at her audacity, but the tension was too high and the cost too much. Orelan thought herself the prisoner, yet at this moment he knew that he was imprisoned as much as she was. It was not within his soul to allow his woman to be displayed nude for all to see. Yet, that was impractical . . . emotional, and he tossed it aside. He had learned very well at Drummond and Ravenscar's side how to be ruthless or at least how to maintain the disguise of it. And since Orelan's plans were his own, he responded tightly. "Two markers, Alexei, or I will take my woman back to my suite and fuck her privately."
Alexei's laughter barked as though he could not contain it. "So crude for my noble gentleman, Khrisinan. You make me jealous when you speak the fuck word so masculinely. Alas though, this I cannot allow." Alexei paused with his hand resting on the hilt of the ceremonial sword he wore belted to his left side. Wyndham had already noticed Alexei's guards gathering. Two approaching from the left and three from the right.
"But!" Alexei exclaimed, snapping the tension between them. "I will accept this outrageous price for you, Khrisinan. Because, I am so pleased to have you with me once again." Alexei paused, and then he dramatically drew his sword, to flourish once at his side, before he pointed the tip to the floor. "That is of course why I set your markers so high to begin with, Lord Hawkenge. I realized to say no to you is so hard for me."
Orelan felt the flinching tremor in Wyndham's arm across her breasts as his fingers tightened around her throat. She was shocked to realize something that had completely eluded her before. Alexei desired Wyndham. Yet, she knew Alexei had women lovers . . . many of them. He had even said that he would bed her, willing or not, once the Arab was finished with her. But this? Of course she knew men might desire other men. But both? Women and men? This was shocking. A sexual discovery that she had never realized. And for such a man as Wyndham it must be disturbing, disgusting . . . frightening? She did not know, and she could not imagine, but the tension in Wyndham's muscular body spoke to her. Was this the eventual price for her freedom? No, oh no!
"Calm down," Wyndham hissed into her ear as they approached the table, where both men would play their terrible games. Before she could think clearly, Wyndham sat pulling her downward to sit upon his lap. The leash to her collar, he tossed negligently onto the table, as though he did not need it to hold her captive to his power.
Alexei, dressed in a white military uniform with glittering medals on the shoulder, sat across the round table from them. Wyndham tapped his long fingers on the red velvet tabletop with his gaze never leaving Alexei. Orelan tried not to notice the crowd of revelers gathering around the table. She wanted very badly to lean into Wyndham, to smell the warm scent of him and to feel his strength around her, yet she forced herself to sit straight. Two markers, she fiercely made herself think. Two markers, if I do this. Oh, but she prayed her Wyndham would not lose too much, for she was trying too hard to be brave.
"Angelo!" Alexei snapped suddenly, and Orelan watched a tall darkly handsome European man walk to Alexei's side. Angelo's eyelashes were long and dark, his eyes brown, his skin a rich olive, and his build was slender. He wore evening clothes, a black jacket, pants, and a crisp linen shirt. His cravat was starched and folded into an intricate design. Orelan watched in surprise as Alexei took Angelo's hand, lifting it upward to kiss his knuckles. Was this . . .
"My current lover," Alexei sneered.
Wyndham's body tensed beneath her body as his fingers drew into a fist on top of the tabletop. He was as surprised as she was then.
"I enjoy women as much," Alexei drawled. "And Lilith or Rosalyn, my current female companions are about here somewhere tonight. But I thought, Lord Hawkenge, that this might be much more interesting for both of us."
Orelan turned her gaze away, looking up at the side of Wyndham's face. His strong features were etched in masculine starkness, his eyes vivid purple against the golden hue of his skin as he nodded his head slightly. Agreement. The game would begin, yet Wyndham had seen, as she had seen, that Angelo was as much an unwilling captive as she was to the games these powerful men would play
with their lives. Angelo was young. Too young. Perhaps twenty and his haunted dark eyes spoke of reluctance and acute embarrassment. Orelan wondered what hold Alexei had over the young man that he could be forced to do this thing or perhaps more. Be forced to be Alexei's lover.
"Monte," Alexei drawled. "I know how much you enjoy the game, Lord Hawkenge," Alexei sneered. Then, Alexei raised his voice purposefully for the gathering crowd around them. "And the bets shall be lovely body parts. Tits, ass . . . a cock . . . perhaps," He laughed, looking at Orelan now. "Or a cunt?"
The crowd around them murmured with excitement and Orelan gripped her hands together in her lap, gazing at Alexei with all the defiance she could muster, as her heartbeat fluttered wildly. This madness would happen and there was nothing she could do to stop it, and her worse fear was that she understood this was only the beginning.
Chapter Seven
Orelan did not understand the game of cards they played, but she knew when Wyndham lost the first round, by the sudden flexing of tension in his muscular body. "I will not lose another," he hissed beneath his breath, and she wondered crazily if her Wyndham meant that he purposely lost the hand so that...
"Her breasts!" Alexei sneered. "And we shall wager on the exact color of her nipples!" he shouted to the crowd of people gathered around them. "I will wager one hundred rubles that they are light pink and wickedly erect."
The crowd roared in laughter and the Arab, who Alexei had nearly sold her to, shouted. "Five hundred rubles that they are red and fat like cherries!"
Orelan did not know where to look, every inch of her skin was flinching with the demand to flee, and then Wyndham's hand was beneath her chin. Frantically, she grasped his wrist trying to halt its motion, and yet he only cupped her chin, lifting her gaze to his as her hands fell away. His irises were so dark purple they were nearly black as she searched them anxiously with her gaze. She could see determination and strength in his gaze, strength so powerful she clung to it. Then, she saw the barest hint of regret and it was her savior, because it calmed her as nothing else could have. She felt Wyndham's hands moving to her bodice and she clung to his gaze as even the rancorous bidding faded from her hearing.
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