Infernal Devices (All Steamed Up)

by Abigail Barnette

  “How did you imagine it?” she hadn’t had a spare chance to imagine anything since she’d arrived at the club, she’d been so overloaded with sensation.

  “Exactly like I described it to you. I will make you come over and over again, until you beg me to fuck you.” He paused. “Real begging. Not a calculated declaration.”

  He moved toward her, the device already humming in his hands. “Shall we begin?”

  Chapter Five

  Permilia gripped the chains above her, bracing herself for the touch of the device. The cool brass sent shivers over her skin as it came in contact with her heated, swollen flesh. The intense vibration of the machine sent zings of lighting through her. It was too much after her first orgasm, and she stood on her toes to try and escape it. The stranger would have none of it, gripping her shoulder and pressing her down. This time, her release hit her as a surprise. With none of the slow build from before, her toes curled as her entire body spasmed in torturous ecstasy. She writhed, overstimulated, but he did not remove the device.

  “You know how to end this,” he purred in her ear. “Simply…beg me to fuck you.”

  “Fuck me!” she panted.

  He moved the device in lazy circles, sparking new awareness in her tender flesh. “No, you have to make me believe it.”

  The next climax came over her after mere seconds, and the pleasure was so intense that it sent painful shocks racing to her toes. She bit her lip hard, thought she might have tasted blood, as another followed on the heels of the last. “Please,” she begged, tears of desperation welling in her eyes. “Please fuck me.”

  He tossed the device aside and gripped her hips, pulling one of her legs up to hook around his waist. Still shivering from her climax, she wrapped the other one around him, too, and found herself suddenly suspended between the anchor of his body and the chains on the wall. The smooth silver ring touched her, and she cried out, suddenly coming to her senses. “Please, I’ve never—”

  “Better to get it over with quickly, like jumping into cold water,” he said, and guided himself in. Her flesh stretched and burned, and she held her breath as he pushed forward, hard. A gush of wetness and a searing brand of pain, and it was finished. He slid deep inside of her and stayed, unmoving. “There, not so bad, was it?”

  She nodded, though she wasn’t entirely sure she agreed. He was so large and so hard, she felt fairly certain she would be bruised there in the morning. If this was what everyone found so bloody fascinating, she certainly didn’t know why.

  Gripping her hips, he began to move, withdrawing an increment, then pressing forward again, his strokes growing longer and more aggressive with each one. He was not careful with her, and she wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or insulted. She had thought her virtuous state would have given him course to be gentle. Of course, the fact that he was at the Two Aces at all didn’t speak highly of his appreciation for virtue. On the other hand, it said the same thing about her. She bucked her hips, trying to get more comfortable, and only succeeded in driving him deeper. She gasped, tears springing to her eyes.

  The stranger stopped immediately. “Are you all right?”

  “No.” She squeezed her eyes shut to hide her tears. “Music box.”

  He withdrew from her body and set her feet on the floor with more gentleness than he’d shown her before. Very quickly, he unclasped the shackles at her wrists, taking great care not to touch her as he did so. Then he turned and pulled the male shield from his still erect shaft, and cursed. “You really were a virgin?”

  She looked up from rubbing her sore wrist to see the blood on his hands, which he quickly wiped away on the handkerchief lying in his discarded clothing. Her cheeks burned. “I told you I was!”

  “I thought you were playing a game.” He hastily donned his trousers. “It’s not as though many virgins find their way here. What the devil were you thinking?”

  Now, the tears wouldn’t stop, no matter how hard she blinked them away. She crossed her arms over her breasts, feeling far too small and naked and foolish in front of this stranger. “I told you! I explained it all when I came in. I told you that I was curious, and I—”

  “I thought you were joking!” he interrupted, one hand coming up to furrow through his dark hair. He let out a deep sigh behind his mask. “Please, forgive me. I’ve made a very—insensitive mistake.”

  She nodded and sniffed, then went to collect her ruined combination. She pulled on the drawers and tucked the torn upper half around her hips, praying the garment would stay in place until she returned home. Sheepishly, she picked up her corset and said, “I need help.”

  “Of course.” He’d pulled on his shirt, but it hung unbuttoned. With efficiency that would have impressed her maid, he laced her up, then went to the bell pull beside the door. “Someone should bring your clothes.”

  “Thank you.” She fiddled with the lace on her corset, smoothed her hands over her stomach and waist, but there was no reason to check for anything out of place. She glanced up at him furtively, watched as he buttoned his shirt and cuffs and donned his vest and coat. “I’m sorry.”

  “You needn’t be,” he said quickly. “It was my mistake.”

  Silence lapsed between them again, and Permilia wished the floor would open up and swallow her.

  A sharp knock visibly startled the stranger, and he opened the door to reveal a man in a similar costume outside. Goggles, bandit’s mask, long leather coat, but in his arms he held a stack of neatly folded clothing. The stranger took the clothes and said, “Enjoy your evening,” before closing the door.

  He brought the clothes to Permilia. “Once you are dressed, I’ll return you home in my carriage.”

  “No, that won’t be necessary.” It was one thing to go into a notorious house of ill repute with a strange man in a disguise. She was not open to the kind of adventures that could occur when one ran about town in a strange man’s carriage.

  “It’s late, you shouldn’t go alone,” he argued.

  “I found my way here without incident, I feel rather confident that I won’t have any problems finding my way back to the house I’ve lived in all my life.” She jammed her sleeves into her gown rather angrily. “Can you help with the buttons?”

  He didn’t argue further, and once Permilia was respectably dressed, she headed for the door.

  “Wait,” the stranger called, halting her in her tracks. He stepped close, so that he leaned over her. Her skin tingled with awareness. His hands had been on her body. His…cock had been inside of her. She’d been naked and chained before him, spread out and screaming with release.

  He lifted his hand, once again gloved in leather, and stroked it down the column of her throat. Would he kiss her? Her heart pumped wildly at the thought. She wished she had never said “music box”. She wished she’d never even heard of a music box. She would banish them all from her sight, forever.

  There was a brief click, and suddenly her throat felt very naked.

  “Couldn’t have you leaving with this,” he nearly whispered. “But it will be here for you, if you ever need it again.”

  She shivered at the sight of the collar in his hands.

  He stood aside, so she could exit the room, but for a moment she could not make her feet work. When she was able to, she couldn’t find the proper courtesy to convey to him upon her leaving. Finally, she settled on, “Thank you for a lovely evening,” then quickly hurried down the hall, into the club proper, then finally into the lift and onto the street.

  All the way home, she looked over her shoulder for a stranger in a mask and goggles.

  * * * *

  Wallace “Cold Fish” Sterling, known amongst the clientele of The Two Aces as the Ace of Spades, pulled off his mask and goggles and tossed them onto his brother’s work bench. Hunched over his latest invention with magnifying lenses of varying sizes and intensities covering his eyes, the youngest Sterling did not even look up. “Bad night?”

  “The worst.” Wallace leaned his h
ip against the table. “What is that you’re working on?”

  Richard glanced up, his green eyes huge behind the lenses, and disturbingly, as though there were seven of them. “You’re not going to tell me about it?”

  “What do I know about it? You’re the one building it,” Wallace evaded his brother’s question smoothly.

  With a sigh, Richard held up the bundle of brass tubes and pistons he currently tinkered with. “It doesn’t have a name yet. But the general idea is that you put your cock in here, and these pistons fire, pumping the internal chamber to replicate the feeling of a mouth.”

  “You could give me a house in Kensington and I wouldn’t stick my cock in that, mate,” he said with a grin, and slapped his brother’s boney shoulder.

  Richard pulled his magnifying contraption off his head, smearing grease down his cheek as he did so. With a heavy sigh, he pushed his wheelchair back and swung around to face his older brother. “My god, have I found the one thing in all of England that you won’t stick your cock in? Quick, write the Times!”

  “You’re terribly clever tonight,” Wallace snapped. “As it so happens, Permilia came here this evening.”

  “Here?” Richard fumbled for his spectacles. The normal ones, without ten different magnifying options. He pushed them and ran his fingers through his curly auburn hair. “Did she discover your identity?”

  “No, she did not,” Wallace replied, then, in case his brother had missed the meaning behind the sentence, “She came here to have ‘marital relations’ with an anonymous stranger.”

  Richard grinned broadly. “And here you thought she wouldn’t fit into the family.”

  “Be serious, brother.” Wallace turned away, his black mood turning darker the more he reflected on his situation. He had known that Permilia would seek out the club, because only a fool would have missed her clumsy attempts at extracting the information from London society. He’d even planted the information himself, so that it would find its way into her empty headed friend’s hands. But he had assumed, incorrectly, that this was a sign that Permilia was adventurous and well-schooled in the erotic arts. He’d even fooled himself into believing that she had uncovered his double life. “She wasn’t here to see me. She was here to avoid me.”

  A wrinkle of confusion creased Richard’s smooth brow. “Come again?”

  As humiliating as it was to admit, Wallace could think of no other reasonable explanation for her presence. “She was here because she wanted to experience passion before being married away to a ‘cold fish’.”

  “Oh dear,” was all Richard said in reply.

  “Oh, it gets worse. So, so much worse.” Wallace motioned to the shelves over his brother’s work table, the ones laden down with scraps of wire and greasy bolts. Also, a grimy metal flask. “May I?”

  He waited for Richard to nod, then took the flask down and took a long drink. “She was a virgin. And I didn’t realize it.”

  Richard spread his hands. “If she didn’t tell you—”

  “She did.” Wallace screwed the top back on the flask, grimacing at the taste. “I didn’t believe her.”

  “Why the devil not?” Richard grabbed the flask from his brother’s hand.

  Yes, why the devil hadn’t he? “I thought she was…playacting. Playing a role, joking with me. It made sense at the time!”

  “It made sense because all your blood had fled your brain for parts southern.” Richard raised the flask to his lips, pausing to say, “What are you going to do now?”

  “I have no idea. It isn’t as though she’ll come here again.” He cursed. “And it isn’t as though she won’t think it odd to find her husband has the exact same tattoo of a spade on his hip.”

  “Sloppy work, brother,” Richard scolded. “Still going to marry her?”

  “I would have liked to. She’s beautiful, and her father is well-connected. That’s all a man could want in a wife. Now, she’s going to either hate the Ace of Spades so much that marriage to Wallace Sterling is unthinkable, or she’ll fall for the Ace of Spades and want to be with him instead of me.” He slammed his palm down on the table, a dangerous feat considering how many sharp metal shavings littered it. “Damn, I’ve gone and bungled this.”

  “Yes, well,” Richard began, taking another sip from the flask. “I believe you’re overlooking a key element to this plot, and that is... both Wallace and the Ace of Spades are the same person.”

  Wallace shook his head slowly. “No, they most definitely are not.”

  “That, I can’t help you with.” Richard wheeled back into his position at the table and turned a gleaming brass crank set into the tabletop. The shelves above shuddered and lowered on the chains that held them aloft, until Richard could easily reach to hide his flask once more. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”

  “I will leave you to it.” Wallace was almost to the door when he turned back to say, “If you get stuck in it, for god’s sake don’t tug. It will only make the situation worse.”

  He ducked out the door in time to narrowly avoid being hit by a handful of bolts.

  Chapter Six

  To say that Permilia had become obsessed with the baser desires of the human animal would have been an understatement. When she’d finally arrived home after her excursion to The Two Aces, she’d climbed into bed certain that she would sleep for ages. Her body had ached all over and she’d barely been able to summon the strength to undress herself and hide her ruined combination. But once she’d lain down, a restlessness had stirred in her secret parts, and she’d tentatively reached down to stroke her tender bud until it had been appeased.

  The next morning had found her in easily as discomfited spirits. After an uncomfortable breakfast during which her mother had scrutinized her as though she’d known, Permilia had begged off her riding lesson by declaring she had women’s troubles. Posting wouldn’t have been possible without great discomfort.

  She whiled away the afternoon in her room, alternately thinking about the stranger and scolding herself for doing so. There was absolutely no power on earth that could move her to return to The Two Aces.

  Except for that demon, Ophelia, who’d come viciously alive at the club. It truly had been as if some other creature had taken up residence in her, forcing her to do things that she very much had wanted to do, but most definitely should not have done.

  “Miss, a package has arrived for you,” a voice whispered at her door.

  Despite her ruse of languishing with feminine frailty, Permilia shot from her bed and dove across the room, opening the door. She did so love receiving presents, and since she had not ordered anything from any of the shops, that must be what awaited her on the other side of the door. She opened it to admit Molly, a funny girl about Permilia’s own age who had served with their family for five years. Permilia had often wished that she had more courage to befriend the girl, but her mother’s disapproval was palpable even when Mrs. Deering was not in the room.

  “Bring it in, bring it in!” Permilia said, clapping her hands at the sight of the very large package wrapped in brown paper. Her smile faded when the maid set the box down on the bed and Permilia caught sight of the card.

  A creme-colored envelope, sealed with wax in the shape of a black spade.

  “Are you going to open it?” Molly asked, then clapped her hands over her mouth.

  Permilia’s blood beat so loudly in her ears, she didn’t bother to scold the maid for her impertinence. “Molly close the door.”

  While the girl did as she was told, Permilia hurried to her writing desk and clasped her pen knife, then brought it to the twine that wrapped the package. She nicked her finger as she sawed through the binding, and the maid moved in to take over. Permilia grasped Molly’s wrist. “Whatever you see inside this box, you must breathe a word of it to no one.”

  Molly’s green eyes glittered above her freckled nose. “Is it from Mr. Sterling, then?”

  “Hush!” Permilia hadn’t thought of her lackluster suitor
all day, and she wasn’t about to start now. She watched, breath held tightly in her chest, as Molly cut the last of the twine, then Permilia practically shoved her out of the way to get at the paper wrapping. When it all fell away, inside was a large, glossy black box with no imprinting. She lifted the lid slowly, as though something might jump out at her.

  “Oh my,” Molly breathed at the sight that greeted them.

  Her throat suddenly constricting, Permilia reached into the box and lifted out a corset, made of soft black leather, with brass clasps down the front. Flipping the garment over, she saw the leather ties that cinched up the back, and a preposterously wide bow fashioned of leather with long tails that would reach nearly to the floor. A pair of boots, ridiculous boots, matched the scandalous piece in her hands.

  She dropped it as though it were on fire.

  “Who would send you such a thing?” Molly whispered, her expression caught somewhere between fear and amusement.

  Permilia stooped to pick up the card that had fallen to the floor. Straightening, she patted her hair into place before getting up the courage to open the envelope. Inside, in elegant script, someone had written:

  Please accept this gift as a token of my extreme apology for our misunderstanding last night. I would very much like to see you again, in person, to make further amends.

  It was signed with a perfectly drawn spade.

  “Miss, you didn’t go to The Two Aces, did you?” Molly asked, scandalized.

  Permilia was about to snap at her that it was none of her business, and how dare she ask, when she realized how foolish that would be. As soon as someone saw this ridiculous underwear, they would know she was up to something. “Molly, you have to promise you won’t tell.”

  The maid hastily drew her finger in an x across her left breast. “Cross my heart, Miss.”

  Permilia chewed her lip. “What am I to do?”

  She hadn’t meant to ask the question aloud. It had been more for her own private rumination. But the damage had been done, and Molly whispered, “Are you going to go back?”