“You like being scared.”
Charlie didn’t answer. Kingsley took her by the chin again, this time gently. He caressed her bottom lip with his thumb. “You like being scared,” he repeated. “You don’t have to be afraid of your fear, Charlie. You’re allowed to be afraid and like it.”
“Normal people aren’t supposed to like this stuff. Normal people aren’t supposed to enjoy being thrown down, tied up and practically raped.”
“My beautiful Charlie.” Kingsley kissed her slowly. “Perhaps it’s time to admit you aren’t normal people.”
* * *
Charlotte woke early the next morning. She put on the black bathrobe and found his bedroom door ajar but no King seemed to be in residence.
After eating breakfast in his opulent kitchen, she wandered back upstairs to shower and dress. When she stepped out of the shower, she found Kingsley standing there waiting with a towel.
“You’re trying to kill me,” she said as she snatched the towel out of his hands. “Give me a little warning, please, if you’re going to shower-stalk me.”
“You must learn to stay on your toes. Come here, Charlie. Let’s see the damage, shall we?”
Charlotte stepped out of the shower. Kingsley stood in front of her and unwrapped her towel. Even though they’d had the most intense sex of her life last night, he hadn’t actually seen her completely naked. Just standing there in front of him was embarrassing and awkward. He, of course, seemed slightly aroused and amused as always.
“How bad is it?”
“Terrible. I barely left a mark on you. We’ll have to rectify that.”
“What do you call these?”
She pointed to the bruises on her chest and shoulders.
“Just nibbles.” Kingsley bit her wet neck.
“This isn’t fair, you know.” She wrapped her arms over her bare breasts. “I haven’t gotten to see you naked yet.”
“Women tend to fall in love with me when I take my clothes off.”
“You’re a narcissist. Come on—just a peek?”
Kingsley arched an eyebrow at her. “Very well. If you insist.”
He strode from the bathroom. Grabbing her towel, Charlotte followed him into his bedroom.
She stood in the center of his room while he started to undress. Today’s look was more Edwardian than Victorian. His jacket had five buttons and she watched with eager anticipation as he brusquely undid all of them. Tossing the jacket aside, he unknotted his tie and pulled his white shirt from his trousers. She gasped when he shed the shirt and stood bare-chested in front of her.
“Oh, my God.” Charlotte covered her mouth in shock.
“You were warned.”
She reached out and tentatively touched his chest. His body was what she imagined—lean and muscled and tan. But she never imagined this.
“How?” She looked up at his eyes.
“I was in the French Foreign Legion in my early twenties. Bullet wounds.”
“You were shot?”
“Four times. Thankfully all were small-caliber and missed vital organs. Especially my favorite vital organ.”
“Thank God.” Charlotte tried to laugh but it wasn’t easy staring at the four small holes that riddled Kingsley’s stomach and chest. “Was this from a battle?”
“Two are from a skirmish. The other two are friendly fire.”
“Friendly fire?”
Kingsley grinned at her. “Not terribly friendly, really. My CO found me with his wife.”
Now Charlotte did laugh. “Then you deserved it.”
“Hardly. That poor woman was begging to be tied up and defiled. Literally—she begged me.”
“You’ve always been this bad?” she asked as she ran her hand up and down his bare chest.
“Au contraire. I’ve always been this good.”
Kingsley took her by the wrists and led her to his bed. He opened the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a length of rope.
“Have you ever been hit by a man, Charlie?” Kingsley asked as he pulled the towel off her and threw it aside.
“No. Dad yelled but he never hit.”
“And your boyfriends? Never even spanked?”
She shook her head as her heart started racing. Was he going to actually hit her?
“Your lovers have been vanilla,” Kingsley said. “That’s a tragedy. Did you even enjoy fucking them?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “They were nice. I had orgasms. It wasn’t terrible. Just—”
“Boring? Unfulfilling? Bourgeois?”
“All of that, I guess. Simon told me I was crazy to keep dumping such great guys. He said he’d take them if I didn’t want them.”
Kingsley took Charlotte’s wrists and tied them high to the bedpost. Water from her shower ran down her back and her legs all the way to her ankles. The water droplets itched and tickled but she couldn’t reach down to wipe them off.
“You would have been crazy to stay with men who didn’t understand you. Compromise is one thing. Denying your true self is another. Now...” He stood behind her. “I’m going to do something to you that is neither boring nor bourgeois. I’m going to flog you for five minutes. And if you make it through those five minutes without saying your safe word, I’ll give you an orgasm. And then I will flog you for eight minutes. And then I will give you another orgasm. And so on and so on. I’ll add three minutes to each beating. And the game only ends when you safe out.”
“What if I don’t safe out?”
“Then we’ll be here for a very long time,” he whispered into her ear. “Because there’s nothing in the world I enjoy more than beating a beautiful woman and then bringing her to climax. Now where did I put that cat?”
“Cat? You have a cat?”
“Cat of nine tails, Charlie. Now be a good girl and just stay put while I find a few things.”
Charlotte was fairly certain Kingsley knew exactly where everything was. He just wanted to leave her tied up naked and waiting, letting the anticipation scare her. She heard what sounded like a trunk opening and then she felt him standing behind her again. Something landed on the bed. It was brown leather with a six-inch handle and nine leather thongs. It didn’t look terrifying. But it didn’t look fun, either. Something else landed on the bed—a tube of lubricant. One more thud—a rather impressive-looking vibrator. She blinked as Kingsley brought his hand around and waved a stopwatch in front of her face.
“Five minutes.” He set the alarm. “Ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re trying to get me to fuck you by calling me ‘sir,’ aren’t you? It will work. But not yet.”
Before she could say anything else, the flogger was off the bed and he’d landed the first blow on her back. She flinched at the sudden burning pain. It was shockingly sharp, but not unbearable. She breathed through her nose in short desperate bursts. She was determined to not to say her safe word. It wasn’t so much that she wanted the orgasm. She wanted to prove to Kingsley she wasn’t boring.
When she heard the chiming of the stopwatch alarm she sagged with relief. Kingsley pressed his bare chest into her burning back. The flogger landed on his bed again.
“Did you enjoy that, Charlie?”
“No,” she said, still panting.
“Good. I hate beating masochists. They take the fun out of it by actually enjoying the pain.”
“I’m letting you do this to me,” she said between breaths. “I’m not a masochist?”
“Oh, no, Charlie. You’re not a masochist. You’re a slut.”
“I am not—”
He hushed her before she could finish her angry protest.
“Charlie, in this house, the word slut is the highest compliment I can give. It means you are a person who owns her sexuality and is unafraid to experiment and open her mind and body to new experiences. I’m a slut, too.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Now that you’ve had your pain, I suppose you’ll be wanting your pleasure.”
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Kingsley reached out for the lubricant and opened the tube. He slid his hand between her legs and applied a generous dose to her labia. She shivered from the cold and the wet, but relished the pleasure his dexterous fingers were giving her.
“I know I was a little rough on you last night. But I can be merciful.”
He took the vibrator and turned it on. He moved Charlotte’s legs apart and slid it slowly into her. She inhaled as it went deep inside her. Her body slowly stretched to take it all in.
“This is merciful?” she asked.
“It’s not as big as I am.”
He moved it in and out of her slowly as his fingers found her clitoris and teased it. The vibrator did its work quickly. She cried out as her body spasmed around it and against Kingsley’s hand. He pulled it out of her and laid it on the bed again.
“I’ll give you another one in eight minutes,” he whispered into her ear. Again he set the alarm on the stopwatch. Her body was still twitching with pleasure when the flogger struck her sore back. She concentrated on her waning pleasure and tried to ignore the growing pain.
She found that if she opened her back instead of clenching her muscles, the agony was flatter, less acute. Her head fell back. She stared up at the ceiling. After a few minutes she barely felt anything at all.
A chiming sound jarred her from her trance.
Kingsley picked up the vibrator again and pressed the tip against her clitoris. She gasped from the shock of pleasure. She’d never been with a man who understood how to manipulate a woman’s body so well. The pressure on her clitoris was perfect. His fingers inside her found all her sensitive spots. He seemed far more concerned with her orgasms than his. She couldn’t believe what she thinking. She was tied to a bedpost for a flogging and all she could think about was how good he made her feel.
Charlotte’s orgasm spiked into her stomach and she almost wrenched her shoulder from how hard she flinched.
“If you can take eleven minutes of beating, then I’ll fuck you again,” Kingsley whispered into her ear. “How does that sound?”
“Very good.”
Kingsley slapped her hard on her right thigh.
“I mean, very good, sir.”
By now Charlotte knew how to handle this. She closed her eyes and let the pain roll over her and off her. In her mind she was somewhere else. In her mind she was untied and on her back with Kingsley on top of her and deep inside her and before she knew it, she heard the beeping of the stopwatch alarm again.
“Thank God,” she said. Another minute and she would have given in.
“You’re welcome.”
Kingsley threw the flogger on the bed. Standing behind her he ran his hands up and down the front of her body. He stopped at her breasts. He teased her nipples until they were hard and sore. He kissed her neck and shoulder.
“Tell me the truth, Charlie. Have you ever been taken here?” He ran his hand over her bottom.
“You mean anal?” she asked. “Once.”
“Did you like it?”
“Undecided.”
“That’s because you’ve never had it with me. Let’s rectify that, shall we?”
She wasn’t sure she wanted this, but she knew she didn’t want to stop him, either. Her heart fluttered in fear. But she remembered Kingsley’s admonitions and didn’t let the fear stop her.
He took the lubricant again and applied it to her. She sighed at how good the cold wet liquid felt going into her. Kingsley took his time preparing her body. She tried to relax. As big as he was she would have to be very relaxed to take him inside her.
King pressed close to her. She closed her eyes when she felt him start to push into her. He grabbed her thigh and lifted it. She rested her knee on top of the bed. Slowly he entered her inch by inch. Last night he’d been shockingly brutal with her. Now he was nothing but careful. She shivered at how strangely good it felt to have him inside her this way. Kingsley moved in and out of her with gentle, careful thrusts.
With her eyes still closed she didn’t notice that Kingsley had picked up the vibrator again. But when he started to push it inside her she opened her eyes in shock.
“Breathe, Charlie. You can take both.”
He pushed the vibrator all the way into her as he continued his slow thrusts from behind.
“You’ve never been penetrated anally and vaginally at the same time before?” Kingsley asked.
“No...never.”
“My poor girl. You were practically a virgin.” She heard his smug laugh at her ear.
He continued to thrust into her. Charlotte moved her hips in rhythm with Kingsley’s. She climaxed quickly around the vibrator. The sensations were so intense they were almost painful. After her second orgasm he finally pulled the vibrator out.
Kingsley gripped her by the hips and thrust faster. She was nearly insensate from the two intense orgasms he’d given her. She simply hung from her bonds as he fucked her.
She winced as his fingers tightened their hold. He pushed hard into her and came with a ragged breath.
He pulled out slowly. A minute later he came back to the bed. Charlie saw him reach for the flogger.
“Dragon,” she said and he dropped it again.
He reached up and untied her and she collapsed back into his arms. He picked her up and laid her down. Kneeling on the floor next to the bed, he ran a hand through her still wet hair.
“Too much pain, ma chérie?” He didn’t seem the least upset with her that she’d stopped him.
“No.” She shook her head and smiled tiredly at him. The muscles inside her still fluttered. “Too much pleasure.”
* * *
The next few weeks at Chez Kingsley, as he called his home, passed in a haze of sex and pain and more sex. Kingsley was a near limitless font of alternative sexual knowledge and experience. He’d introduced her to something new every day. One day it was nipple clamps. The next day spanking. He taught her to beg for his cock. Taught her to crawl for him. One day he dressed in leather pants and whipped her. The next day he put her in lingerie, tied her to his bed with silk scarves and violated her every orifice. Last weekend he’d even videotaped them having sex and made her watch it. Then he’d given her the only copy of the tape and let her decide what to do with it. Her first instinct was to destroy it.
She hadn’t.
And every few days when she least suspected it, when she was certain he was out of the house or in a meeting, he would sneak up on her, grab her, throw her against the wall or push her onto the floor or the bed and ravish her brutally. No matter how many times he did it, it always terrified her. No matter how many times he did, she always loved it.
Charlotte wasn’t sure what he was doing to her tonight. He’d ordered her to wait naked in his bedroom in his huge chaise longue armchair. She leaned back into the plush fabric and closed her eyes. The chair was nearly the size of a love seat. He’d taken her a few times on it already. The chair arms were the perfect place for her legs to drape over as he thrust into her. She only had one more week here with Kingsley before she met the client he’d been training her for. She didn’t think she’d be able to run off with this guy no matter how rich and “not unattractive” he was. Still...she also couldn’t imagine leaving this place and returning entirely to her old life. Kingsley had marked her and not just with the bruises on her body.
She did miss work, however, and would be glad to go back to it. She’d cut everyone’s hair in Kingsley’s household except for Kingsley himself. He told her no one but his barber in France was allowed near his hair. She called him a coward and he’d punished her in wicked ways for the insult.
“You’ve got a lovely smile on your lips, Charlie. I’d love to know if I put it there.”
Opening her eyes, she found Kingsley standing above her.
“I was thinking about what I’d do to your hair if you let me cut it. Your hot mess is very dashing, but I could make it even better.”
“You come near me with your scissors, and I’l
l make sure you wake up with significantly less hair in the morning.”
Charlotte laughed. He’d shaved her in the bath last night. If he had no compunction about removing her most private hair, she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to cut any other hair off.
“Fine. I’ll leave your hair alone. But you keep telling me I have to trust you. When are you going to start trusting me a little?”
“I trust you quite a bit. Just not with my hair. But I’m glad you mention trust.”
He held up a black scarf.
“Blindfold?” she guessed.
“Très bien, ma chérie.”
Everything Kingsley had done to her, he’d done with her eyes open. The blindfold made her nervous; she could tell from the smile on his face that he was enjoying that fact.
He tied it around her eyes and the room went completely dark.
She started when Kingsley took her ankles and pushed her legs wide open and draped them over the arms of the chair. She heard him pull the ottoman close. She knew he was sitting on it in front of her exposed body. A month ago she would have been terrified and mortified. She was still a little terrified but Kingsley had taught her to be shameless. She was enjoying shameless. She hadn’t even gone out drinking or clubbing since she met Kingsley. He was all the decadence she needed.
“Let’s play a guessing game, Charlie. You guess all five right and you can do anything you want to me when the game is over.”
“Anything?”
“Anything that isn’t illegal. Or at least anything we won’t get caught doing.”
“What am I guessing?”
“You’re guessing what object I’m putting inside you.”
All her self-congratulatory anti-shame thoughts went out the window.
“You are going to stick stuff in me, and I have to guess what it is?”
“I think I just said that. Ready?”
“No,” she said but didn’t safe out. She’d quickly learned with Kingsley that “no” meant anything but “no” to him. Until she said “dragon” she was in.
She felt Kingsley’s fingertips opening her up. And then something slightly flat pushed slowly into her. It had a round base that narrowed. She tried to imagine what it was. She felt something on it tickle her outer lips. Something soft like a bristles.
10 Shades of Seduction Page 4
