Agony/Ecstasy: Original Stories of Agonizing Pleasure/Exquisite Pain

by Litte, Jane

  And yet.

  For good or ill, she had his full, undivided attention. No man had ever looked at her this way, as if she were a feast and he a starving man.

  “I’ll scream.”

  His lips twisted. “You do that well, loud enough to wake the living dead such as myself. But Harry’s wife has placed us in the abbey’s unused wing for privacy. I doubt anyone would hear. Or care. A man may do as he pleases with his wife.”

  Maida knew this was true. One did not reach her advanced age without hearing some of the horrors of the marriage bed. Her own mother had told her to lie still and submit to whatever depravity Ransford asked of her, but Maida had never expected the golden viscount to be quite so depraved.

  “I won’t enjoy this,” she finally ground out.

  Ransford lifted a gilt eyebrow. “Does that matter to me? I’m afraid not.”

  “You are abominable!”

  “Yes. I am. And now you are stuck with me. You didn’t anticipate the consequences of your actions, Maida. I never planned to marry, to spare a good woman the indignities that seem to be so necessary to me. But you are not a good woman.”

  She felt her cheeks grow warm. “How dare you? I am so!”

  “Come now. You lied and schemed to get into this bed. Admit it.”

  Maida swallowed. The devil was right.

  “Ah. No argument, I see. Perhaps we can deal together once you know what I require.”

  “I don’t care about pleasing you! We can have the marriage annulled. I’ll go back home”—the words burned her but she continued—“and we can pretend this never happened.”

  “As if I’d let you go now that I’ve seen you. And you have seen what I’m capable of.”

  He shook his head, a loose lock of fair hair casting a shadow on his temple. “No, as I said, we’re stuck with each other.” He untied his robe and pulled the belt from its loops. “I don’t care to be judged by you, Maida. Perhaps if you’re blinded—”

  She gasped, but he merely chuckled. “Such a literal girl. I’m going to cover your eyes. I rather like the idea of you guessing what comes next.”

  In a trice her eyes were wrapped beneath midnight blue brocade. The last she saw was a slice of his burnished body—nicked and scarred—between the open folds of his robe.

  What had happened to him? Something dreadful. Something that had destroyed more than the smoothness of his skin.

  Maida fought back her mounting panic. She was helpless—there was nothing she could do but scream, but she didn’t dare to. What if someone actually came to her rescue and discovered her in such a vulnerable position? Ransford could simply say it was all a game. He was a viscount. She was nothing more than the daughter of a country squire.

  And a lying adventuress who was getting much more of an adventure than she had bargained for.

  Ha. She was a viscountess now, although no previous foray into the ton had prepared her for this particular aspect of her rise to the Upper Ten Thousand.

  Her mother had told her not to move, but she had no choice about it. Nervous, she licked her lips and listened hard, sorry that the wrapping covered her ears as well as her eyes. She sensed Ransford moving about the room, although he may as well have been a cat, so quiet was he. At last she heard the squeak of a trunk’s hinges, and then the thud as the lid dropped.

  “Wh-What are you doing?”

  She felt him cup her cheek, his hand quite cold. “Disciplining you. I’ll have no more deceit, Maida. You’ve played me for a fool just the once. Never again. You may hate me tonight, but you will learn not to cross me.”

  “I didn’t know who you were,” she whispered.

  He sighed. “No, you did not. I imagine you had your reasons to trap me. Tell me, are you pregnant with another man’s child?”

  Her mouth fell open. “No, of course not!” She may have been foolish, but she had some honor, not that he’d ever believe her.

  “Good. That will make things easier for me. But not for you.”

  She heard the air split and felt the first lash on her thighs. Maida stifled her urge to scream—she deserved his wrath. She had indeed been very bad—and doomed them both. Licks of pain darted across her skin. In truth, it was not so bad she couldn’t bear it. He struck her twice more, with less force each time, then tossed the crop to the floor.

  The room was silent save for Ransford’s rasping breaths. She herself was speechless with shock and something else—something ink dark that bloomed at the pit of her stomach. Maida wished she could see his face—was he triumphant? Repelled? She waited for his next move.

  And then flinched as his fingers traced the welts. Flinched again as she felt his weight on the mattress. His lips replaced his fingers, his warm tongue sweeping across her left thigh. A wave of gooseflesh spread across her chest, tightening her nipples. She opened her mouth to protest but was struck dumb by where his tongue went next.

  This certainly was not normal, was it? Lucien Ransford was between her thighs, parting her private seam, licking her. Nibbling, really. How—How unsanitary. Maida dug her heels into the bed in an attempt to buck him away, and would have been successful had he not chosen just that moment to encapsulate a morsel of her flesh in his mouth. His wicked tongue swirled unceasingly and a long finger slipped inside her, the two appendages working in tandem until she could truly not bear the sensation a minute longer.

  This was worse torture than the binding. Something odd was happening—a sharp, sweet longing overtook her reason and she groaned aloud. Ransford’s—Lucien’s—intensity increased at her response and he suckled more thoroughly, another finger spreading her passage open.

  She was shamefully wet below and hot everywhere despite the damp chill of the room. Hot inside and out, her skin slicking as Lucien tormented her. This was lust, pure and simple, transcending sense and transforming her in a way she could not understand. Words spun just out of reach, but “stop” was nowhere to be found.

  Maida lay in her dark world as the stranger who was her husband pressed his mouth to her center and splintered her apart.

  Three

  The lying little witch tasted sweet and clean. Some maid had prepared her for tonight with an herb-filled bath, and Lucien’s nose, buried in Maida’s mink brown curls, detected rosemary and lavender. He felt her pulse around his tongue and smiled inwardly.

  He’d said he didn’t care if she enjoyed herself this night, which was not entirely true. There were still some vestiges of gentlemanly behavior in him—not many, to be sure. No gentleman tied up his lady wife without her permission, and Maida Clement had made it clear from the scratches on his forearms she had been opposed to his methods.

  But not right now. She sighed and cried and moved as much as she was able. Her completion burst forth on his tongue and his cock jerked in response.

  He disengaged reluctantly and gazed at the pink stripes on her legs, nearly the color of her inner folds. He was a wretch to abuse her no matter what she had done to him, but he was forced to. There was no stimulation for him without complete mastery—he’d come home and tried to be good, but he was useless. When he discovered the cords and the cane solved his little problem, he had found satisfaction for the first time in years.

  But he’d not meant to marry. Ever. And what he was to do with Maida Clement for the rest of his life, short as it would be, he had no idea.

  No point to looking into the future. Lucien need only concern himself with the next fifteen minutes or so. Possibly much less, much to his shame. He needed relief. Release. Respite from the dreams that would surely come into the night. He’d have to leave his bride—after untying her, of course—and seek another bed somewhere in this vast unoccupied wing. Lucien didn’t care if he choked and died on dust—he did not want a witness to what might happen when his night terrors came.

  But now—what to do? Her mouth, her cunt, or her pretty white bum? He glanced up at her rosy lips, still open in dazed surprise. Was that her first orgasm? She was rather old for such in
nocence, but perhaps she was not experienced, even by her own hand.

  “You said you would not enjoy it, my dear,” he drawled.

  Her mouth snapped shut. A bright coal popped from the fire to the carpet, and Lucien left her bedside to sweep it back into the hearth, repositioning the screen. They could have burned the abbey down if they’d been truly engaged with each other, but Lucien never lost his wariness now.

  When he turned, she had arranged her face so there was no trace of the earlier bliss.

  “Are we done?” she asked in a bored tone.

  “My, but you are a selfish chit. I’m afraid I’m an adherent of the proverb ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ I’m ready to play. We have yet to relieve you of your virginity. If you have it.”

  “Of course I do, you horrible man. And I’d like to keep it, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Lucien experienced a surprising sting. “You’ll not be getting your annulment. I’m fully capable.” But perhaps an alternate route would suffice—there would be no possibility of a little Ransford.

  “Will you untie me now?”

  No, it couldn’t be done. He preferred his partners helpless. Perhaps he should reconsider gagging her, but he rather thought to kiss those scornful lips at some point. But the blindfold—he wanted to see her eyes, see if she looked at him with any appreciation. He’d given her pleasure, no matter what she said.

  She was a liar. A conniving wench who was now Lady Ransford, for his sins. But the eyes—they were windows to the soul, were they not?

  He bent and fumbled with the knot, disarranging her dark curly hair, and tugged away the fabric. Maida glared at him, faint creases from the blindfold high on her flushed cheeks.

  She sniffed in indignation. “I suppose you expect me to thank you.”

  “For what? The restoration of your sight or your orgasm?”

  Her brows knit. “My what?”

  Oh, dear Lord. Either she was a very good actress, or she was more ignorant than he imagined.

  “Le petit mort. All those delicious waves within. You came apart for me. Don’t deny it.” He tasted her come on his tongue even now, and acknowledged to himself he was aching to fuck her despite her trickery. His reaction to her bound body was more than he had hoped for—she was exquisite in the firelight.

  And his to do with what he wished. His wife.

  “Oh.” She blinked, her long eyelashes bent from their temporary prison. “I didn’t know what happened to me at the end. Is that a usual occurrence?”

  He smiled at the foolishness of this conversation. “If one is lucky.”

  “Did you tie me to make sure I stayed still for it?”

  His smile vanished. “No. I tied you because it suits me. It excites me.”

  Her storm-sea eyes dropped to his cock, which poked out rudely from the gap in his robe.

  “Oh,” she repeated. Her pink tongue darted out as she gave a nervous lick to her lips.

  That settled it.

  “You will do to me what I did to you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You will service me with your mouth.”

  “I—I have never—I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can. I’ll teach you. I’ll even untie you, more or less.”

  Lucien enjoyed the blatant shock on his wife’s face. Perhaps he was being an even bigger fool than he had been three nights ago, when he slept through her assault to his bachelorhood. She had teeth, after all, quite pretty ones, small, white, and even. But his need was great and he was anxious to take himself away as soon as possible. A moment in her mouth would be more effective than if he chose to rut in her.

  He untwisted the rope at the carved headboard and freed her arms, keeping the bonds around her wrists. She rubbed her hands before her, working plump fingers into the palms. “Will you not remove these bracelets, my lord?”

  “Not yet. Sit up.”

  Maida struggled, her long hair falling down her back in a torrent of deep chocolate. She swayed a bit and he put an arm around her. “Normally, I’d prefer to have you on your knees, but I think this will do.” Her legs were still wide and immobile, her cunt glistening, and he was aroused beyond measure.

  Lucien shucked the robe, kneeled on the bed, placing a hand on her neck. “Bend and suck me.”

  She raised her eyes to his face. She really was a little bit of a thing, lovely with her cloud of dark hair and fresh skin.

  “Will I still be a virgin?”

  “Yes. I won’t fuck you in the traditional way until we get to know each other a bit better.” That was a sufficient sop to his dishonest bride.

  “I am sorry, you know.” His cock tingled with each warm expelled breath from every word spoken. “I had no idea—”

  He gripped the back of her neck with more force. “That you married a monster?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think you are a monster.”

  “Never tell me you like being bound and beaten.”

  She flushed, a wave of color washing down her chest. “It wasn’t—It’s not—It’s not so bad.”

  Lucien lifted her chin. Her eyes were clear, no trace of tears or the stormy anger he’d seen earlier. His heart skipped.

  “I want to explain. You’ve met my mother. You’ve seen what she’s like.”

  He had indeed. A few minutes in Mrs. Clement’s presence and he’d thought about poisoning her tea. Lucien could not imagine living with the woman on a day-to-day basis. Maybe Maida was justified in thinking that he was a better alternative.

  But he wasn’t.

  “If you were looking to escape, I’m afraid you’ve gone from the frying pan into the fire.”

  “P-Perhaps I have. But I was very unhappy at home, so unhappy that I did a terrible, deceitful thing when I came into your room. I thought we could just have a convenient marriage, like everyone else. Be polite strangers. But you’ve been unhappy, too.”

  An understatement if there ever was one. “You have no idea.”

  “No, I don’t,” she said in a small voice. “You could tell me.”

  “True confessions? No time for them, Maida. If you haven’t noticed, I’m randy as Pan.”

  Her lips turned up and her bound hands cupped his stones. “Oh, I noticed. You are rather noticeable, my lord. Quite beautiful.”

  It was Lucien’s turn to color. “What kind of virgin are you?”

  She stared into his eyes, a look of bemusement on her face. “A wicked one, I believe. I don’t know much, Lucien. But you could show me.”

  He could. He suddenly found he wanted to rather badly. “I thought you had no interest in pleasing me.”

  “I misspoke.”

  His hands came to her throat and he tugged at the silk cord, tightening it. “I won’t be kind. I can’t be. I’ve tried.”

  She nodded, swallowing beneath the splice of roping. “Do your worst.”

  What kind of a game was she playing? If she was truly agreeable to his stark needs, his life might change and he wouldn’t have to put a gun to his head in the near future. The thought of her plush white arse striped from the crop stiffened him into near-searing pain.

  “Open your mouth and take me in.”

  It was over in seconds. The sweet heat of her untried mouth was his undoing. His hands tangled into her curls as she consumed him, offering no objection to the emission of his seed. Her dark lashes had fluttered a bit at first but she didn’t pause, and for that alone he knew he had to keep her.

  Ridiculous. She had tricked him—had ruined his life.

  Or would she be the making of it?

  Four

  Extraordinary. Impossible. She, plain Maida Clement—well, Maida Ransford now—had power over this beautiful, tortured man. She wouldn’t fool herself to think she’d make him love her—that would be quite outside the boundaries of her capability—but he seemed inordinately attracted to her.

  As long as she was tied and helpless.

  And what was the harm in t
hat? It actually gave her a frisson of desire to be at his mercy. Her submission was a relief from constantly trying to think and plan and outwit. She need do nothing but receive.

  And in receiving, she gave him something—a sort of peace permeated him now. The lines on his face and the tension from his body had eased. Lucien had collapsed onto the bed and taken her with him, and she was now nestled in his arms, her bound hands still forbidden to stroke him as he stroked her.

  But he had not kissed her yet, and Maida very much wanted him to.

  He thought he was a monster. Oh, no, he was not that—he might be peculiar, but his peculiarity did not trouble her. She could bear his discipline, because she knew somehow he would never go too far. At heart—even if he didn’t think he had one—Lucien Ransford was a hero.

  She’d heard of his exploits. His imprisonment. Someday she might get him to talk about it, but tonight she wanted not words, but action.

  She cleared her throat, still tasting his essence. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “No annulment. We’ve gone too far,” he mumbled into the top of her head.

  “But not far enough. Will you . . . fuck me, Lucien?”

  He laughed, the first honest laugh she’d heard from him since this wretched house party began. “You overestimate me, my dear. Give me half an hour and you just may get your wish.”

  Half an hour seemed an eon. Her wet passage clenched as she imagined his shaft replacing his tongue.

  “Kiss me then.”

  He arched a dark gold brow. “Why?”

  “Because . . . you should.”

  “There are many things I should do. Convince me.” He flopped back onto the bed and she twisted toward him, her heavy breasts brushing against his side. She wished she could crawl atop him, but her legs were unfortunately still tethered.

  She sighed. “I’ve never been properly kissed.”

  “There’s nothing proper about me, Maida.”

  “Oh, do stop demonizing yourself! You are hardly the spawn of Satan. You are just . . . a bit unconventional.”