by Zoe Blake
Like a shadow swallowing sunlight, something dark and primal rose in his breast. A need. A need to own. To corrupt. To defile. A fascination to turn such a delicate vessel of virtue into a submissive devotee of vice. It had been whispered deep in family lore, there were previous dukes who had treated their brides as childlike dolls. A possession to dress, train and use for their own pleasure. Perhaps it was the blood of his ancestors which rose in response to this simple maiden. A call to the old ways. To take. To own. To possess.
Acquiring the maiden had been of no consequence. He was a powerful and wealthy duke. What he wanted, he purchased. If it could not be purchased, he took it anyway. The difficulty was with what he had planned. He had Mrs. Conan hire new, more discreet domestic staff and was delighted when she agreed to become his little one’s nanny. Carpenters were needed to furnish the nursery to his specific needs. His affairs had to be arranged so as to discourage visitors.
Lucian smiled with the memory. Life had taken on a rather monotonous tone at the time. Ton balls, horse races, gambling, soiled doves and the occasional widow were his entertainment. Each year resembled the last. This represented something new. A challenge. Something done for his own pure pleasure.
Leaving the maiden to her song, he had pulled on his horse’s reins, directing him west toward the old abbey. He had planned to speak to the Mother Superior assuming she would know the village girl’s name.
Luck was with him that day…and not with the fair maiden…for her fate had been sealed.
He had been forced to wait two damnable years, but it only increased his anticipation. All that preparation and she was finally prone before him, in his bed chamber…at his mercy.
Slowly lowering the lid, he said nothing. He wanted to see her reaction to the riding crop. Wanted to watch those wonderfully expressive eyes of hers widen with confusion and trepidation.
He was not disappointed.
Placing the leather tongue of the crop against her shaved cunny, he said, “Are you ready for your punishment, child?”
Her small elfin-like face crumpled as tears flowed from the corner of her eyes to wet the tendrils framing her face. “Please, Papa. I don’t want to be punished. I will be good. I promise. Just please don’t punish me with that!”
Lucian made a chuckling sound with his mouth as he caressed her cunny with the end of the crop. “That is not the proper response, pet.”
Corinne choked back a sob before whispering, “Papa, may I have my punishment?”
Subtly raising just his wrist, Lucian flicked the crop down. The leather tongue connected with her soft flesh.
Corinne howled as she closed her knees and rocked to the side.
“Back into position,” he growled.
Corinne rolled onto her back, her knees still closed.
“Open your knees.”
“Please. Please. It hurts! Please don’t do it again,” she begged.
“Open your knees,” he repeated, his brow lowered.
With another sob, her knees opened.
Lucian laid one large hand on her right knee, pressing down till her leg fell open even wider. Raising his arm higher, he brought the crop down on her cunny, harder this time. He immediately pressed the shaft of the crop against her left thigh, forcing her to keep her legs spread. He watched as the pale skin blossomed into a bright, cherry red. He brought the crop down a third time.
Corinne wailed and sobbed as her tiny fists gripped the coverlet. “It burns! Oh, please! Stop! Stop!”
In response, he lashed her skin in brutally quick succession. One. Two. Three.
Her body rocked from side to side. Desperately, she tried to close her knees, to protect herself. He would not allow it. He could have secured her ankles to the bedposts but watching her struggle with the pain was so much more enjoyable.
“It hurts!” she screamed.
Lucian discarded the crop and placed the flat of his hand over her cunny. He could feel the heat radiating off her punished skin. Pressing slightly against her now swollen flesh, he could feel the pulse of her blood as it rushed to that delicate area between her thighs. Easing his middle finger down the gentle seam, he felt her arousal. Pain brings the most decadently curious response from the female body, he thought.
Unbuttoning his trouser flap, he freed his thick shaft. No female, since the moment he had laid eyes on his little one, had brought him true relief. It had been years since he felt deep satisfaction from a woman’s body.
Now. Now he would find his all-consuming release.
Sliding both hands down her trim thighs, he pushed upwards, forcing her bent legs higher and wider. Her cunny opened for him, exposing the delicate dark pink of her hidden passage.
Pushing his hips forward, the swollen tip of his cock brushed against her slick arousal. He took a step closer. The head pressed into her folds.
His black eyes dark with determination, Lucian said through clenched teeth. “Now I make you mine.”
With one powerful thrust forward, he breached whatever feeble resistance her body may have offered and sunk his cock deep into her tight body. The press of her maidenhead against the sensitive tip only heightened his pleasure as he forced his flesh to tear through it. The inner walls of her body trembled and clenched around his shaft. He could feel the warmth of her crop-spanked cunny against his stomach as he leaned into her.
Pulling back his hips, he thrust forward again and again, savoring the grasping, clutching feel of her body.
Beating with the rhythm of his thrusts was the simple cadence. Mine. Mine. Mine.
Corinne could no longer think. Only feel.
The spanking she had endured from his hand over the altar did not prepare her for the searing burning pain of the riding crop. She was still thrumming with awareness from the sensations his touch had wrung out of her when the first strike of the crop hit her exposed flesh. The shock was almost as bad as the pain. The sharp strike of the leather against her skin felt like a thousand pinches. With the next strike, her skin became hot and swollen. Each strike afterward only increased the burning agony. Yet, with the warm pulsing of her body came another sensation. It was as if all her body’s energy became focused on that one scandalous area. The heat. The pulsing heat.
Then he had entered her.
Pain. Sharp and biting.
His body was inside her own. Corinne hadn’t known such a thing was even possible. Her stomach twisted as her body struggled to accommodate his own. Reaching up, her small hands pressed against the weight and brawn of his chest.
“Please. It’s killing me! You have to stop!”
This was unnatural. Surely God never intended for a man to push his own body into a woman?
“No,” came Lucian’s breathless reply as he braced his arms on either side of her head and continued to push himself inside her.
The dark hairs of his chest, tickled as they brushed her nipples. The push of his hips pressed against the sensitized area he had taken advantage of earlier. The twisting, cramping discomfort of her body stretching and expanding to accept his girth suddenly shifted and changed. A pleasant warmth from the friction began to blossom and spread. His weight, once oppressive, now felt…different.
Corinne’s mind began to spin. She stretched her arms wide on either side. Tilting her head and arching her back, she gave in to the feeling.
Spinning. Spinning. Spinning.
For the second time that evening, the world tilted.
Deep in the distance of her conscious mind she could hear the guttural roar of a beast. The thrusting stopped. She was barely aware when his body left her own.
Corinne wrinkled her nose.
Something still tickled it.
She wrinkled her nose again.
Again, a tickle.
Finally, she swatted her hand in front of her face.
There was a deep chuckle.
“Wake up, little one. Your nanny will be returning soon, and I still need to take your photograph.”
Liquid
emerald eyes framed with thick black lashes slowly opened. It took her a moment to focus on the sharply handsome face leaning over her. Strong jaw. Chiseled cheekbones. Black Eyes. Papa.
“What happened?” she asked. Her tongue felt thick as she rubbed her eyes with her fists.
“I believe you were overcome after finding your pleasure,” he quipped as he stroked the bridge of her nose again.
Evidently sensing her confusion, he clarified, “You fell asleep after finding your release, my little doll.”
Before she could respond, he was lifting her into his strong arms. His skin felt warm and smelled of sandalwood. The candles in the alcove burned lower but still cast a bright glow. Lucian placed her feet on the pedestal. The polished wood felt cold and hard by comparison.
She watched with still sleep dazed eyes as he picked up the strange black box.
“Look at me, little one. That is it. Stand very still. Papa wants to capture this moment. The moment of lost innocence, of awareness. No, don’t cover your cunny.”
Corinne shamefully dropped her hands to her sides. Tears glistened in her eyes as her skin chilled. She could only imagine what this magical painting would look like. Her hair was a tangled mess of crushed curls and unfurled ribbons. Her body bore several red marks both from his hand and the crop, her cheeks aflame with humiliation at being on display so.
The strange black box. What did Papa call it? A camera? Clicked.
The next moment there was a discreet knock on the door.
“Enter,” called out Lucian, obviously, uncaring that Corinne was naked and exposed.
Nanny entered.
“Your Grace,” she said with a quick curtsy.
“I am finished, Mrs. Canon. You may take her back to the nursery.” Lucian turned to pour himself another drink.
Nanny rushed across the room, a soft robe already in her hand, as if she knew what state her charge would be in. Wrapping the robe around Corinne’s shoulders, Nanny ushered her out of the bed chamber. Corinne hazarded a quick glance over her shoulder. Lucian was staring at her retreating form. His expression unreadable.
Chapter 5
The thundering sound of the sea awoke Corinne. The rhythmic echo of the dark water breakers as they crashed violently against the rocky cliff only to recede in a rush of white foam brought back illicit memories of the night before. The violence of his thrusts. The feeling of being overwhelmed, caught up in some primitive rite of nature. The confusion of how the mysterious man she married was at once affectionate and aloof. His demands of her and her body scandalously wrong and yet…they had felt…right. As if the years she had spent cloistered away at the abbey, restlessly wandering the moors, always anxious the gnawing ache for something more would never be answered had suddenly fallen away. But would the price for such excitement be too dear?
“Good morning, dearie!” said Nanny cheerily.
Corinne started to rise from her crib.
“Oh no, dear! You mustn’t ever rise out of your crib without permission.”
Corinne had already fallen back to the pillows. As she cast aside the bed coverlet, she realized she was completely unclothed under the covers. Horrified, she pulled the blankets high.
“Let’s not start the day with such silly shyness,” admonished Nanny. “I need you to roll over onto your belly.”
Nanny lowered the rail and tossed aside the blankets as she gave her instructions. With a cry, Corinne flipped onto her stomach, thankful to at least cover her front.
“Now I want you to reach back and part your bottom cheeks for me. I need to take your temperature.”
“Why?” asked Corinne, her cheeks flaming. “I do not feel the least bit ill.”
“It is not your position to question, little girl. You had a very trying evening with his grace. Your body needs to become accustomed to his vigorous love making, and until then, we need to monitor your health.”
Corinne opened her mouth in shock at Nanny’s frank appraisal of the intimate evening she had just spent with Papa.
“Now reach back and open your bottom cheeks.” Nanny stood over her waving a long glass thermometer impatiently.
“Could you not take my temperature in my mouth? That is how Mother Superior always did it.”
“No. Now are you going to do as I ask or earn a black bead?”
Corinne buried her face in her soft pillow as she reluctantly reached back to part her bottom cheeks.
“Wider.”
Corinne pulled them open wider, feeling the chill from the room on her intimate warm skin.
“I see your bottom hole is not inflamed from your cleansing yesterday. That is very good, since we must cleanse you again.”
Corinne groaned into her pillow. She felt the ice cold tip of the thermometer as it pressed against her tiny hole. Without thought, she instinctively clenched. Her back arched when the unexpected sting of Nanny’s flat palm hit her left bottom cheek.
“Do not clench.”
The sound of Corinne’s sob was swallowed in the soft, feathered depths of the pillow. She forced her body to relax. The hard glass rod slid inside. It felt embarrassing and uncomfortable, but did not hurt.
“There. You will stay like that for several minutes until I get an accurate reading.”
Corinne listened to the sounds of Nanny bustling about the room. Her mortification at having her bare bottomed exposed in such a degrading fashion growing. After what felt like an eternity, Nanny returned to her bedside to remove the thermometer. The glass rod slid out, leaving Corinne relieved.
“A very satisfactory temperature. Very good. Now up you go. I want you prone on the cleansing table immediately. You must be bathed and cleansed before you break your fast.”
“Must I?” whined Corinne.
“Just for that, I am going to make you wear a nappy for the rest of the afternoon. Apparently you need to learn what your place is.”
“A nappy?” repeated Corinne, too horrified to hold her tongue.
“Yes. Now scurry that bottom to the cleansing table before you also earn a black bead.”
Corinne hurried to obey. The memory of her last black bead punishment still fresh.
Over the next hour she endured another humiliating cleansing and being bathed like a child. When she was clean and dry, Nanny told her to get back onto the cleansing table. Knowing better than to argue, she did as she was told. She watched as Nanny folded a large white cloth in half at the points.
“Now raise your bottom so that I can put on your nappy.”
Corinne’s face crumpled. Speaking past her trembling lip, she begged, “Please. Please don’t make me wear that. It is too much. Please! I was good during my cleansing! Please, Nanny.”
“Absolutely not. His grace was very clear on my instructions. If at any point you question a part of your routine, you are to be placed in a nappy to remind you that you are not in charge.”
Corinne squeezed her eyes shut as she lifted her hips. She could feel the soft fabric being placed under her bottom and between her legs. Nanny then pinned it in place. As Corinne was handed off the table, she hazarded a glimpse. The cloth rode low on her flat tummy, mainly covering her cunny and a little higher. It felt odd to have the thick fabric between her thighs.
Nanny dressed her in a light blue muslin dress with small yellow flowers embroidered across the scalloped collar. She was then placed in a white pinafore which tied in the back with a big bow. Like the night before, this dress ended at mid-thigh. White lade-edged stockings and small black slippers completed the childish ensemble.
Nanny was brushing her hair into two pigtails when there was a discreet knock on the nursery door.
“Enter,” called out Nanny.
Corinne cringed when two liveried footmen walked into the room. It was mortifying enough being treated like a child in front of Nanny and Papa, but to have other strangers witness it was too much.
Each young man carried a gold frame with a black cloth covering the image.
“
Very good,” said Nanny. “You have been expected. You may hang them both on that wall next to the crib.”
Corinne could not help but be curious. The walls up to this point had been completely bare. After some loud hammering, both frames were hung side by side and the footmen departed. Neither had spared even a glance in Corinne’s direction.
Nanny walked over to the prints and removed the black cloths. “A very good likeness I should say. My! These modern gadgets are a wonder!”
Corinne had to wait till Nanny stepped out of the way to see what the frames contained. The moment she got a clear look, Corinne cried out in alarm. Rushing over to the prints, she covered the second with her hands.
“Oh no, Nanny! No!”
The prints were about half an arm’s length high with a grayish tone with hints of yellow. One was of her in Papa’s chamber, standing on the pedestal in her childish dress. The other was of her completely nude taken after he had stripped her of her clothes and maidenhead. This is what Papa’s strange black box had produced.
“Don’t be foolish, child. Your papa had these framed just for you. He plans on filling the whole nursery with such prints. A little girl should think herself lucky to have a papa willing to bestow such a unique gift on her!”
“But, it isn’t decent! I am not clothed!” complained Corinne.
“As if such things matter for a child! Now come, it is time for you to eat.”
Corinne was placed in a chair facing the two frames. Staring in dismay, she was astounded at how life-like the strange prints were. Unlike a painting which exhibited only the idea with colorful paints and dim lines, these prints were raw in their truth. The lines crisp. Nothing left for interpretation. In the first, there was the tight set of her shoulders and a look of fear in her eye. The other was even more devastating. There was a glint of awareness in her sleepy gaze. Her body looked soft…sated.
