The Erotic Dark

by Nina Lane

  Lydia’s hand trembled as she picked up her fork. As they continued with dinner, she looked at each of the men in turn. Three men, all of whom had more control over her than anyone ever had in her entire life, all of whom had proven their ability to evoke infinite levels of both sensation and emotion in her physical body and spiritual soul.

  There was Preston, who had agreed to provide her with a sanctuary in exchange for his domination over her. His authority was edged with vindictiveness and a hint of cruelty, yet his need for revenge was tempered by his evident desire and affection for her.

  Although Preston continued to unnerve Lydia with his barbaric streak, she recognized it was the very unpredictability of his nature that was beginning to intrigue her. She never knew what to expect from him, and although she could be reasonably certain that some form of pain and humiliation would be involved, Preston’s intense desire for her balanced his discipline. He needed her, just as she needed him.

  Lydia’s gaze shifted to Kruin. Solid as a rock, hard as nails, as enigmatic as a puzzle. He would brook no argument or defiance from her, yet he too would never allow anyone to hurt her. She still feared him and the hard edge of his punishment, but he also made her feel entirely safe.

  And she knew he would never punish her unless she truly deserved it, which made his character all the more admirable. Lydia wanted to continue to earn his approval more than she had ever wanted anyone’s approval.

  She looked at Gabriel. He was the one whose company she most enjoyed, the man with whom she wanted to spend long hours talking, laughing, and riding their horses. He aroused her with easy authority, making her want to pleasure him with the same intensity that she experienced at his hands. He was a beautiful man—gentle and kind, but with a distinct edge of power that she found highly captivating.

  Lydia let out her breath slowly, wondering how long it might take before she began to truly understand each man in turn and her relationship with him on all levels.

  She sliced a forkful of creamy, lemon tart and slipped the mouthful between her lips. The flavor melted sour and sweet against her tongue. She pushed her plate away and leaned her head against the back of her chair.

  She closed her eyes, wondering at the utter feeling of satisfaction and calmness that had begun to invade her blood. She was beginning to feel as if she belonged here, as if her entire life beyond the plantation had absolutely ceased to exist. She didn’t even know what she would do anymore or what would happen if she were to walk out the doors of La Nouvelle Vie.

  Nor did she ever want to find out.

  Lydia opened her eyes and pushed her chair away from the table. The three men looked up from their plates questioningly.

  Her heart began to hammer in her chest as she went around the table to Kruin’s side. His mouth compressed with a hint of annoyance, his fork clattering to his plate.

  Lydia placed a tentative hand on his broad shoulder. Her legs suddenly felt shaky.

  “I wanted to ask…” She paused and cleared her throat, aware they were all watching her. “I want to ask if you would spank me.”

  Silence fell. The men all appeared rather shocked at the entirely unexpected request. A crimson blush covered Lydia’s cheeks, but she didn’t move, keeping her gaze on Kruin’s black eyes.

  “I want it now,” she whispered hoarsely. “I want you to do it.”

  Preston gave a shout of laughter that broke through the heavy silence.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said with genuine amusement. “You actually—”

  His words died unspoken when Kruin held up a large hand. The big man didn’t take his eyes from Lydia’s face, just as she didn’t take her hand from his shoulder.

  “Why do you want this?” he asked.

  “Because I want to please you,” Lydia answered truthfully.

  “Just now you’ve come to that realization?”

  “No. I’ve wanted your approval…the approval of all three of you…since I first arrived. I suppose I just didn’t realize it until now.”

  Kruin reached for his napkin. With slow deliberation, he wiped a crumb from his lip and placed the napkin beside his plate. He appeared to be turning her request over in his mind.

  Lydia felt both Gabriel and Preston still looking at her silently. She watched Kruin with increasing nervousness, wondering if he would be displeased by her boldness.

  “And how do you feel about your punishments?” Kruin asked.

  “I don’t like them,” Lydia admitted.

  “But you never fail to become aroused,” Kruin remarked, taking a sip of wine. “Especially considering how you fail to control your orgasms.”

  A rush of embarrassment went through Lydia. “It’s not easy. I’m trying, though. I’ll continue to try. I promise.”

  “And you’ll prove that now?” Kruin asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I said…I want to please you.”

  “Why else?” Kruin asked. “What have you learned in the time you’ve been here?”

  For a moment, Lydia couldn’t even respond. She struggled through her whirlwind of emotions, trying to fathom the motives of her dark triad in desiring control of her. Perhaps it was because they had withdrawn so thoroughly from the outside world that they wanted authority over everything in their present clandestine life.

  How freeing it all was, Lydia thought suddenly. How utterly delicious not to have to worry about anything beyond the boundaries of the plantation. To allow these three men to do with her as they wished, secure in the knowledge that they were her ultimate guardians and protectors.

  How delightfully liberating to live each day without care of the mundane aspects of life. Indeed, to live richly within life’s most exquisite offerings, those of sensual delights, savory foods, physical attraction, the pleasures of gardens, flowers, massive oak trees, sleeping in the warm sunlight, horseback riding, endless hours in which to read, and, yes, even of carnal pain.

  Lydia had never known such a vivid existence, one in which pain mingled so abundantly with ethereal pleasure. She had never been so aware of her own body and soul.

  She felt every blade of grass that tickled her feet as she walked barefoot across the grounds, every spark of happiness at the sight of a colorful bird or the blooming of her flowers. She felt the breeze slipping mischievously underneath her skirt, the glossiness of her sex when she became aroused, the beating of her heart at each flicker of emotion, the burn of every punishing strike.

  And she felt her bond to these three men growing more intense and unbreakable with each passing day.

  The answer to Kruin’s question rose inside her like a butterfly bursting from a cocoon. Tears sprang into her eyes.

  “I’ve learned to live,” she whispered.

  Kruin’s dark eyes filled with something indefinable. He didn’t move from his chair, but Preston rose and approached Lydia from behind.

  Without a word, he grasped her hips in his hands, sliding them up to cup her unfettered breasts. He bent his head, pushing aside a swath of her hair to press his lips against the back of her neck. He took her skirt in his fists and drew it over her hips.

  Lydia closed her eyes as she felt the thrust of his pelvis against her buttocks. The caning welts had healed, leaving only the barest traces of pink embellishing her pearly cheeks.

  “You delicious woman,” Preston whispered in her ear, his teeth closing gently on her earlobe. With one movement, he swept her dress over her head, leaving her naked. “Lie over Kruin’s lap. You have no idea how savory you look with your lovely bottom all rounded and naked, just waiting for the sting of his hand.”

  Lydia drew in her breath as Kruin pushed away from the table. She settled over his thighs with a strange feeling of contentment, as if this were one of the places she belonged.

  Her heart thudded with anticipation, her nerves already humming from the feeling of Kruin’s muscular thighs underneath her belly, the growing pressure of his erection. Anxiety also came to
life within her, for she knew well of the pain she was about to receive, but more powerful was the desire to please all three men, to prove to them she meant what she said.

  Kruin’s broad, callused hand stroked over her plump bottom, evoking a shiver of warmth clear up her spine. She rested her hands against the plush carpet, letting her head fall forward as she absorbed the heat of his palm.

  He stroked her slowly in a wide, circular pattern that Lydia knew was a display of affection. She parted her legs as he wanted, exposing the increasingly moist cleft of her sex and the shadowy furrow of her buttocks.

  A mutter of approval came from Kruin, which sent a thrill gliding through Lydia’s blood. He lifted his hand and brought it down hard on the crest of her bottom, eliciting a prickly, little bite. A gasp caught in Lydia’s throat as her skin and blood absorbed the sensation.

  Kruin bestowed another spank on her before smoothing his hand over her cheeks again. He dipped the tips of his fingers into the fissure between her legs before he began an easy and utterly delicious tattoo upon her bottom.

  “Is that what you want?” Kruin murmured, his voice laced with both amusement and a husky note of lust.

  “Oh, yes,” Lydia breathed, squirming her hips enticingly over his lap. “Hurt me.”

  She pressed her hands flat against the floor as the force of Kruin’s hand increased, spreading a pleasant warmth over her large globes. Her eyes drifted halfway closed as the swelling burn of his hand mixed with the revived, mild sting of her welts. A hot, delicious pain began to radiate over her bottom and into her very blood.

  Her moistened lips parted on a moan as the blows became stronger, as Kruin’s prick pushed lecherously against her soft belly, as her secret pleats dampened with copious feminine liquids. Her body jerked with each inflexible blow, her breasts bouncing in time to the rhythm of Kruin’s spanks. Sensations swam through her mind and body, filling her world with the delectably blurred lines between pain and pleasure.

  In the depths of Lydia’s fogged mind, she recognized the pain had a whole new level for her now. Granted to her by request, by this complex man whom she would never fully understand, the pain became a part of her, sank into her bones, filled her mind and soul with a synthesis of sensations. Kruin dispensed the pain and Lydia accepted it in a harmonious symphony of rapprochement.

  She curled her fingers into the carpet, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as his iron hand beat a pattern of scarlet heat on her flesh. As the pain began scorching her, a sob of pain broke from her throat and tears spilled down her cheeks. Perspiration dripped between her breasts as she struggled to control her urge to try and escape Kruin’s inflexible grip.

  His hand moved down to smack firmly against the lower curves of her buttocks and the tops of her thighs, burnishing her with the proof of his control and authority. Lydia squeezed her eyes shut to try and staunch her flood of tears, although broken cries tore from her throat with each hard spank. She began writhing involuntarily, her hips twisting and turning in an attempt to evade the pattern of inevitable strikes.

  Then beat of Kruin’s hand began to slow. Lydia’s body went limp with relief as she felt the spanking ease. Kruin’s fingers slipped once again into the glossy crevices of her nether regions. Lydia groaned, pushing her hips backward in invitation as his forefinger slid with tantalizing slowness between her bottom cheeks, pausing at the puckered hole.

  Lydia’s breath caught in her chest when she felt him deliberately begin to invade the tender area. Tingles of pleasure rained through her nerves as Kruin’s forefinger eased into her. Her body sheathed his finger with greed, as if hungry for more intense sensations. Before she could thrust her hips toward him again, Kruin withdrew his finger and grasped her waist.

  “Stand up,” he commanded, his eyes dark and hot.

  Lydia did, holding the back of the chair to keep her shaky legs steady. She looked toward Gabriel and nearly moaned aloud at the expression of raw lust on his face.

  Her sex pulsed with the rhythm of her heartbeat, urgency spreading through her blood. She looked down at the prominent bulge in his trousers, longing to release his stiff, gorgeous flesh from its confinement.

  “Lydia.” Kruin’s voice was thick with arousal.

  She turned to him, her hand tightening on the chair as she saw Kruin stretched on the floor, his trousers pushed to his knees and his massive member jutting temptingly from his groin.

  Without needing to ask or be told, Lydia walked toward him, quaking with anticipation and not a little apprehension. She straddled his hips, grasped the thick stalk of his penis, and began to guide him slowly into her. His hard knob stretched her inner flesh wide, creating a delicious sting that made her gasp.

  In the past, Lydia had despised it when Preston ordered her to assume this particular position, but now her arousal knew no bounds. Kruin was watching her, his gaze skimming over her pale, sweat-kissed skin, the globes of her breasts capped by tight crests, the curve of her waist, and the smooth juncture of her legs.

  Lydia’s spanked bottom burned at the contact with Kruin’s large thighs, but she welcomed the pain as if it were the utmost honor. Indeed, she even found herself wriggling the crimson mounds against his hair-roughened thighs as if to both prolong and intensify the discomfort.

  When she had enveloped his shaft in her body, she began writhing up and down in the way she knew both he and Preston liked, letting his flesh slide into her body. Her swollen clitoris rubbed against him with exquisitely torturous friction, but Lydia refused to allow herself to succumb to the need that had been building inside her since the moment she stretched across Kruin’s lap.

  Closing her eyes, she increased the pace of her movements, feeling her bottom slap with renewed pain against his thighs. The acute thrusts of Kruin’s hardness combined with the stinging discomfort of her buttocks sent Lydia into a tornado of sensations. She panted with need, bracing her hands against his expansive chest, her fingers curling against his flesh, unable to take her eyes from his.

  His big hands reached back to grasp her burnt globes, stimulating her pain all the more acutely. His member filled her beyond what she thought was possible, throbbing against her interior walls and sending heat directly into her nerves.

  Kruin pushed upward into her, increasing the pace of his movements as he spiraled toward the apex of his pleasure. She felt his muscles tense, felt the intense shuddering of his body as he surrendered to his climax with a deep groan. Lydia tightened her flesh around him, milking the vibrations from him.

  Her eyes glazed and her chest heaving, she turned her gaze on Preston. He was struggling to divest himself of the painful confines of his trousers. His erection sprang free, and he was on Lydia in one movement, pulling her from Kruin. He reached from behind to grip the curves of her hips as the head of his penis sought out the fissure between her legs.

  Before Lydia could register his intent, he pulled her buttocks toward him and plunged his penis into the tight, sopping opening of her body. Lydia gasped, her hands clawing at the carpet with a mixture of shock and pleasure as she took the full force of his thrust into her.

  The planes of his flat, hard belly slammed against the scorching cushions of her buttocks, eliciting a moan of pleasure from him as he stilled momentarily to savor the sensation of her hot flesh.

  Lydia let out a low moan when he began to thrust inside her, the heavy pouch of his testicles slapping against her sex as he drove in and out of the elastic channel that gripped and squeezed his shaft. His hands slid underneath Lydia’s body, his palms stroking upward over the expanse of her perspiration-slick torso to her breasts, which he cupped in his hands, his thumbs flickering over her stiff nipples.

  Lydia twisted her head to look at him over her shoulder, her eyes glazed with longing and need.

  “Preston,” she gasped. “Please…”

  Without breaking the rhythm of his repeated plunges into her orifice, Preston slid one hand down to the front of Lydia’s sex, his fingers searching for the
knot of her clitoris within the succulent lips of her shorn labia.

  Two fingers splayed around the small bundle of nerves, causing Lydia to groan with frustration, for she wanted him to rub her hard, and then, as if sensing the urgency of her need, Preston began to massage the bud directly with firm strokes.

  “Come for us, Lydia,” he commanded harshly.

  Ecstasy washed over Lydia in waves, blocking out the world around her as she cried out her pleasure and became immersed in convulsions and shudders.

  Preston’s fingers did not cease in their relentless manipulation of her until the last of the waves had coursed through her body, and then he clenched the bouncing mounds of her buttocks in his hands and began driving toward his own climax. His fingers painted her creamy flesh with the fluids of her own arousal, his stalk filling her beyond belief until finally, finally, the warm, wet spurts splashed into her.

  Lydia sank onto the carpet as she struggled to catch her breath, her bottom aching from the friction of Kruin’s thighs and Preston’s grip. Through the swirling of her mind, she almost felt a sense of awe, for she was just beginning to recognize the extent to which these men wanted her to become her subordination.

  Gabriel had told her several times that she had control here, a statement Lydia had refused to believe until now. She had more control at La Nouvelle Vie than she ever had in the outside world.

  Although she had to obey certain dictates, she alone determined her responses to those dictates. She alone could resolve to revel in her submission to these three men, to discover the extent of her limits, to pleasure the men as they wanted to be pleasured, even to control the responses of her own body.

  And yes, she could always simply walk away, a choice she knew she would never make.

  “Lydia.”

  Lydia opened her eyes, wincing as she rolled onto her back. All three men stood above her, their gazes directed with unerring precision to her naked, perspiring body.

  She looked at Gabriel, wondering if he would finally now take her in the manner for which she had longed, but he didn’t move. Instead, he nodded toward her splayed sex.