‘I’m getting cold,’ she said at last and shivered.
Nadine ignored her comment, but seemed pleased to see her suffering.
‘You do not mix professional considerations with pleasure. Never!’ barked Nadine. She swung a silver-headed cane against her side as she spoke. ‘Do I make myself clear?’
Penny bit her lip, her eyes still studying the ground, before she got up the courage to answer. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think a little lovemaking in a wood would affect my performance. After all, I had finished my round. I know I’ve got a place, but the presentation isn’t until four . . . ’
‘Then you’d better get dressed.’
Penny lifted one leg to pull on her breeches.
‘But first,’ said Nadine suddenly, her hand gripping Penny’s shoulder, ‘you deserve a little punishment. Just a little tingling to remind you as you ride in the jump-off that you must concentrate. I think that would be a good idea. Don’t you?’
Nadine’s smile was full of teeth and stiffly held.
Penny trembled beneath Nadine’s cold gaze. A rope seemed to knot in her stomach and a tingling centred in a warm spot between her legs. She knew she had no choice but to accept this punishment. Both Nadine and Penny’s own yearnings required it.
Still shivering, she let her clothes drop to the ground and trembled like a flower beneath Nadine’s gaze as her eyes strayed to the tangle of rich, dark pubic hair that graced the top of Penny’s thighs. Nadine sucked in her breath between her teeth. She tilted her head to one side as her eyes travelled up to Penny’s face then back to the clutch of curls.
‘What a pretty pussy!’ she said in a light and sing-song voice that hardly seemed to belong to her. ‘In fact, I think it is quite the prettiest one I have ever seen.’ Her eyes were half-shaded by the broad brim of her hat, but Penny knew they were devouring each nipple before sliding with intimate familiarity over each curve.
Penny glanced briefly at her own soft silky pubes gently blowing with the breeze. She didn’t say anything, but a chill excitement was sending shivers of apprehension down her spine and over her skin. Nadine had power over her, and Nadine would chastise. To her own surprise, her body was responding. It was almost as though it were no longer hers, but was floating along on some never-ending stream in dreamlike fantasy. Nadine was in charge of most things at Beaumont Place. For the first time since her arrival, Penny realised that Nadine was also in charge of her.
‘Lovely!’ Nadine exclaimed with a sigh. ‘But ripe for punishment.’ With her silver-topped riding cane, Nadine pointed at the fallen tree trunk.
Adopting meekness, head bowed and her arms still wrapped around her chest, Penny walked to the tree trunk and placed her hands on the rough bark, bottom in the air, just as she had with Stephen. Her sex was tingling, her heart racing.
‘No,’ said Nadine sternly. ‘Full-length along the log.’
‘But it’s rough,’ Penny protested, looking up at Nadine as though she truly disbelieved what she was telling her. But Nadine was smiling; she knew it was rough. She would take pleasure from knowing that Penny’s softness was lying on that coarse trunk. And Penny would take pleasure from it, too, enjoying the favour that was disguised as punishment; the pain that could so easily be pleasure.
Nadine’s smile was faint and her eyes glittered. She said nothing. Again she pointed at the log. Her mouth returned to the hard line it had been before.
Penny eyed the hard, dry bark before she obeyed and lay herself full-length along the trunk. Just as she had supposed, the bark was rough against her breasts and belly. There was a knot of wood where a small branch had once been. Nadine manhandled her body as though she were made of rags, until the protruding knot of wood was pressing pleasurably between Penny’s legs.
‘Legs astride,’ ordered Nadine in a clear, dictatorial voice.
Penny’s breathing quickened as Nadine’s cane tapped at each leg then pushed in between them so they divided and fell either side of the log. Now the knot of wood was pressing a very familiar spot and that spot was reacting in a very familiar way. Penny held her breath and swallowed the moan of pleasure. A pleasurable response was something she would need to hold on to, to store and use to counteract the stinging burn she knew was to come.
Peering through her tangle of flying hair, Penny could see Nadine gloating with pleasure as her eyes and her silver-topped cane ran over her naked back and trembling buttocks. The breeze now blew unabated around her open cleft, which Nadine appeared to be studying with avid interest, prodding the cane against the soft lips and open portal. The cane tapped each buttock. Penny tensed. Then it tapped against her open portal, which was already moist with a new yearning.
‘A very pretty pussy.’ Nadine said the words as though she were purring them, delighting in pushing the cane close up against her vulva and between the cheeks of her bottom. ‘But it won’t get you off,’ Nadine suddenly added sternly. ‘You deserve punishment for fouling that jump, and punishment is what you will get. And I’m the one to give it to you. Am I right?’
Penny’s own hair blew across her face. Her hands gripped the log.
‘Yes,’ she murmured, lacing her words with fear and impatience rather than the longing she really felt.
‘Say it louder, pretty pussy,’ said Nadine in a mocking voice, her cane tapping an arousing rhythm against Penny’s damp sex.
‘Yes!’ Penny cried.
‘Good,’ said Nadine slowly. ‘Good.’ And the cane tapped her sex again before Nadine raised it and placed a stinging blow across Penny’s buttocks.
Penny gasped. Her fingers gripped clawlike at the rough bark; almost as if someone had pressed a button, her nipples swelled against the rough, dry wood.
Her bottom stung and burned with the kiss of the cane. Her pelvis had pushed down with the blow. Her mons had pressed harder against the knot of wood just as Nadine had reckoned. In turn, her hidden bud had burst into bloom, sensing that another orgasm could be had.
‘That was just a test,’ Nadine said suddenly. ‘I will give you six. You will count them. Are you ready?’
‘Yes,’ answered Penny, a glow of tingling delight spreading upwards from her willing thighs, though her voice trembled, ‘I’m ready.’
‘Good,’ Nadine purred. ‘Then we shall begin.’
The air swished as the cane fell.
‘One!’ cried Penny as her buttocks clenched and stung beneath the blow. The knot of wood firmly kissed her secret rosebud, and her rosebud responded.
‘One,’ repeated Nadine.
The air swished again. Penny gasped again. Her bottom began to glow. The rough bark beneath her scratched her naked flesh.
‘Two!’ she cried. The smooth knot of wood delved more deeply against her brazen clitoris.
‘Two,’ Nadine repeated.
Again the cane flew threw the air. Now she was almost wishing for its stinging caress and for the pelvic movement that accompanied it. She pressed herself more firmly against the protruding knot of the tree-trunk.
Just as she had wished, it came again. Her buttocks quivered, warmed beneath the burning touch.
‘Three!’ she exclaimed, and felt the fires of orgasm spreading through her loins and homing in on that very sensitive spot that was pressed so tightly to the tree knot.
‘Three,’ Nadine repeated, then ran the coldness of her long fingers over the burning flesh of Penny’s reddening bottom. ‘How hot your bottom is, my pretty pussy. How pink it is, and how it will tingle when you ride in the ring again. How it will remind you to concentrate. But I will take care of you. I will finish this punishment, then I will punish you again later. And then I will soothe your burning flesh. I will rub cream into you, soothe your aching muscles and ease your tired limbs.’
The cool hand patted each buttock as if it were a pet animal, twin pink lap-dogs that quivered at the coldness of her fingers and her voice.
Penny had held her rising need in suspension and swallowed her deep murmurs of pleasure as Nad
ine’s hands fondled her buttocks. Now, as she heard the swish of the cane again, she let it go.
‘Four!’ she cried with accompanying groans. The bark of the tree held her breasts like scaly hands. The knot of wood pushed its hard, smooth head firmly against her clitoris. Her climax was rising and not far off. Her bottom quivered; it was redder and warmer now, tingling as much from sexual longing as from Nadine’s cane.
But Nadine had not finished. The cane fell again through the air, and Penny moaned again.
‘Five.’ Her voice was shaking as the first waves started, quivering through her parted labia and causing her empty vulva to shed its moist fluid so it dripped down and on to the log.
The final blow of the cane would come now. She craved it, longed for its burning kiss on her behind so her pelvis would thrust one more time – just once more – before the flood of orgasm washed over her.
It came.
‘Six!’ she cried, and pressed herself tight against the wood knot, riding it in small sharp spurts until the last eruptions of her orgasm had melted away.
Laughing at her shameless exhibition, Nadine tapped rapidly at Penny’s jerking buttocks until she lay supine. The goose-bumps had gone. A light film of sweat covered her, and Penny’s hair covered her face.
The cool hands that had caressed her earlier now caressed her again. She moaned beneath their touch, welcoming the coolness spreading over her hot buttocks, and the gentleness in Nadine’s long, slim fingers.
‘You enjoyed that too much, my pretty,’ murmured Nadine between quick, sharp breaths. ‘Much too much. I can see I will have to deal with you again; use you to everyone else’s benefit so you know exactly what is expected of you. Don’t you agree?’
One of Penny’s tingling cheeks was gripped by long fingers and talonlike nails.
‘Yes, Nadine,’ said Penny.
‘Say it again,’ said Nadine in a cruel yet oddly affectionate way. ‘Say it again and mean it.’
‘Yes, Nadine. Whatever you say, Nadine. Whatever you want. I’m in your hands.’ Her buttocks clenched tightly in the strong hands. She almost wanted her to do it all over again, so she could enjoy once more the mix of pleasure and pain, the contrast of hot and cold, the smoothness of her own flesh against the scratching roughness of the tree bark. But the claws released her, and she let out her breath. The hand that had tortured now patted her bottom like it had before.
‘Yes, pretty pussy. That is just what I wanted to hear,’ Nadine purred, and she kissed one rounded buttock. ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,’ she repeated, then kissed the other, her lips soft and gently sucking on Penny’s warm flesh. ‘You are in my hands,’ she said before sucking at the other again. ‘You are most definitely in my hands.’
6
WHEN THE HORSEBOX returned to the stable yard at Beaumont Place, the sun was turning bright orange and the clouds were marbled with purple and gold.
In good-hearted mood, riders mucked in with stable-lads to get the horses groomed, fed and watered. Nadine supervised, barking her orders and aiming hefty whacks at the stable-lads if they gave her any backchat. Judging by their cheeky grins and laughing eyes, her actions were enjoyed rather than feared. They almost offered their bottoms for the slap of her long white hands, and rubbed up against her suggestively when she grabbed them by the drooping necks of their sweat-stained T-shirts. There seemed to be some sort of competition in progress as to who could goad her more, and who could get away it.
The stables were quiet once they’d all left.
‘Stay here, Penny!’ Nadine ordered in a harsh and demanding voice. ‘We have unfinished business if you remember rightly.’
Penny stopped in her tracks and turned to face this imperious woman who seemed to have the ability to command at will and to cajole, persuade and manipulate.
She was aware of a dark sensuality invading her body. And yet, in some strange way, she recognised it as if she had briefly touched it in the most erotic of dreams.
‘Yes, I remember,’ Penny said softly, her eyes meeting Nadine’s before she slid the bolt across the door to the grey mare’s stable. She glanced only briefly at Nadine’s face before looking down at the floor. Her cotton blouse now clung stained and damp to her bare breasts. She smelt of sex, and, if it hadn’t been for the savage yearnings rising in her body, she would be in her bath or on her bed, with Gregory running his soapy hands and sponge over her wet body or massaging her aching muscles. She sighed and shifted her weight from one curved hip to the other and waited for Nadine to make the first move as she knew she would.
Nadine grinned rather than smiled, her teeth chillingly white, and a cheroot clutched grimly in the corner of her mouth.
Despite being in a stable where combustible materials were used and stored, Nadine still smoked, ash flying and smoke curling up towards the dark wooden rafters where pigeons nested and vermin scurried. Languidly she leant one elbow against the stable divide, the blackness of her clothes strangely out of place among the earthy yellow ochre of the straw.
‘Y . . . es,’ said Nadine slowly to nothing in particular as she blew smoke in corkscrew spirals. ‘Y . . . es.’
A myriad nerve ends danced between Penny’s legs, yet her hands trembled as she attempted to put the grooming kit away where it belonged. If the episode on the log was anything to go by, she knew more or less what to expect, and how much the degree of discomfort was outweighed by the pleasure. For the first time she wondered whether Ariadne had gone through the same punishments. Inwardly she smiled. It was more than likely. She remembered her of old. Ariadne had started young, and had no boundaries when it came to experimentation.
Yes. She knew what to expect from Nadine. She also knew to some extent what to expect from Alistair. Earlier she had discerned his look once she had left the long grass and the tree trunk behind her. With Nadine, she had returned to the box. He had been there. He’d stared at her, a wistful look in his eyes that was not entirely readable. Her eyes had met his; had sparkled enough to let him know that she’d guessed he’d watched both what she had done with Stephen and what Nadine and the tree trunk had done to her. She didn’t need a crystal ball to guess that. There was mud on his boots. There was no mud in the show field, but there was on the field side of the stile. Clods of mud clung to his boots. Alistair had indeed seen her punishment, her lying full-length on the log. For a moment she had thought he was going to ask her something, even to reach out and touch her. This could be the moment, she had thought. But nothing had happened; and, despite her initial elation, she had once again been disappointed.
A cloud of smoke circled Penny’s head, blown there deliberately by the tall female with the gaunt face. Nadine’s very wide mouth smiled and her face seemed suddenly to be full of teeth, all white and large, and flashing devilishly at her.
‘I’m a very fair person,’ Nadine said suddenly – as if for some reason she thought Penny might have doubted it. ‘I have to be strict, you see. My brother requires it of me. It’s very important that everything is done in a way to suit him. He has little time to spare in his life for pleasurable pastimes, so only the very best will do, and then, only when the need is at its strongest. Everything has to be perfect. It’s all a matter of self-discipline. My brother is a great believer in self-discipline.’ The voice was as languorous and decadent as her pose, and dripped with the shadow of Oscar Wilde.
‘I see,’ replied Penny. So, she told herself, Nadine influences Alistair’s life. For a moment, she wondered if there was something decidedly unhealthy in their relationship. If that was the case, then through Nadine she could actually win her wager with Ariadne. It could even be easy if those recently dormant and dark feelings that were racing through her body were anything to go by.
Nadine left where she had been leaning and came face to face with her. Penny was aware of the scent of rich tobacco as Nadine kissed her cheek.
‘My brother’s handsome, don’t you think?’
Eyes still downcast, Penny hesit
ated before she nodded.
Nadine’s fingers twisted in her hair, which now hung tangled and slightly damp.
‘He is a very rich man, you know – and a very powerful man. Yet even powerful men have their weaknesses. Did you know that?’
Penny, uncertain about what reply to give, shrugged her shoulders and ran her tongue across her lips, but was disinclined to raise her eyes from the floor.
Nadine laughed close to her ear. Penny’s submissive stance, her air of ignorance, seemed to please her no end.
‘I can give him to you – if you do exactly as I say. I can arrange everything so it will suit you and suit him. What say you, my pretty pussy? Would you like me to do that for you? Would you?’ Sharp fingernails traced leisurely lines over Penny’s cheek. Chill thrills of excitement coursed through her veins. Her cheeks flushed in spite of herself as though she were a virgin about to lose such a state of grace for ever.
‘Can you really do that?’ Penny muttered, the dark feelings from within muffling the words in her throat and half-drowning the last vestiges of thought she still entertained with regard to the wager.
Nadine smiled, and a low noise issued from her throat as though she were growling or even purring. She laughed and seemed for the moment loath to answer. There was intimidation in her towering height, an icy coldness in the whiteness of her skin. The Snow Queen, thought Penny, that beautiful creature from a fairy tale who was at one and the same time both irresistible and dangerous.
Nadine’s close proximity had a strangely unnerving effect. Nadine was not touching her, and yet Penny was aware that Nadine’s body was only a fraction away from her own, held there in suspension. Just when she thought Nadine would cross that narrow divide, the long fingers – white as snow and cold as ice – trailed provocatively over the mounds of her breasts, then slid delicately beneath the gaping front of her blouse. Fine fingertips and long fingernails played with her rising nubs and, just as she was expected to do, she groaned with pleasure but kept her eyes on the floor.
The Stallion Page 11
