Evernight Publishing ®
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2014 Raven McAllan
ISBN: 978-1-77233-150-9
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Jessica Ruth
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
To Paul
A DOM FOR CHRISTMAS
A Dom for All Seasons, 1
Raven McAllan
Copyright © 2014
Chapter One
“You’re not putting that thing on the tree, surely?” The patronizing tone of her ex-boyfriend’s words set Angie’s teeth on edge. She should have told him to bugger off when he came to the door and said they needed to talk. But, she’d reasoned, her significant other—oh how she loved saying that—would be home any minute, and then Stuart would leave.
“Yes.” She didn’t ask why. Instead she leaned on the stepladder she’d put next to her as yet unadorned tree and contemplated where each precious-memory-filled ornament should go.
“Rubbish. It’s junk. Give it here, and I’ll dispose of it for you.” He held out his hand.
Why hadn’t she realized before how pale and effete his fingers were? And that he always looked shifty.
“No thank you, it’s mine. I think it’s time you left.” She had no idea why he’d turned up, anyway. She’d told him in no uncertain terms it was over, when she’d shown him the door. Anyone would think he didn’t believe her.
“Angie. What’s wrong with proper decorations, not some dirty, battered old bit of wood decorated so tawdrily. This tree will have about as much taste as that awful fish soup you’re so fond of.”
Angie didn’t answer him. She liked the fish soup. As for taste? Thank goodness he didn’t know how she’d decorated the tree in the other room. Shibari rope instead of tinsel, handcuffs, and nipple clamps decorated with ribbons and bows would give Stuart all the ideas she didn’t want him to have. They were for her and her Dom, no one else. Her nipples tightened and her pussy spasmed as she thought of just what he’d demanded and received as each item was lovingly used on her, before it was put onto their special and private tree.
Not only that, there were several boxes under the tree, and she’d love to know what they contained. Plus there were some very interesting wrapped ones on the tree itself. As she wasn’t much interested in sewing, she’d bet the one that looked like a darning mushroom was a butt plug.
If Sir hadn’t warned her about shaking them, she’d have had enough practice to be proficient with maracas by now.
“Put it down and come and sit next to me.” Stuart leered at her and stretched out his arm once more. Angie took a step back. How on earth had she ever seen anything in him?
“Why do you wear such awful clothes?” He glanced at her skirt disparagingly. “Show your legs and stop being so fuddy-duddy.”
She gave up a prayer of thanks that she was in a long, opaque skirt and baggy jumper. Now that she saw Stuart again, she remembered one of his less pleasant traits—of which he had many—was ogling. As well as leering, and heavy breathing. Not to forget inappropriate comments.
What did I see in him?
The scent of pine teased her nostrils and she inhaled deeply to let it fill her senses. She loved everything to do with Christmas. Her lovely Sir had given her carte blanche to decorate the house as she wanted, and each day she added something new. Today was to be the start of decorating the big, anyone-can-see tree.
Stuart snorted. He sounded like a demented hyena. No wonder they’d only lasted a few months together. Angie ignored him and studied the tree carefully. Then she reached up to a branch that she reckoned was perfect to place her decoration on.
“Sweetlips, you can’t. It’s old and ugly.” He sat down on her sofa and crossed his legs. “Honestly, I thought I’d taught you better.”
The assumption that he was welcome, and had taught her anything, irritated Angie as much as his attitude. All he’d shown her was how boring vanilla was without any extras to add some spice.
You watch me, matey. You taught me F-all that was useful, except how not to fall for an asshole again. And for fuck’s sake? Sweetlips? What film has he been watching?
“Come out for a drink.” His tone was sugar, saccharine and all-out wheedling. “Let bygones be bygones. I’ll forget how silly you’ve been. Roddy and Serena were asking where you were.”
Now they were getting somewhere. His parents, who he always called by their first names, had mentioned to Angie how pleased they were that their son had met her. Calmed him down. Steadied him. A good influence on him. Evidently her absence had been noted and queried. Well tough, she’d moved on. Months ago.
“Angie, did you hear me? Stop this nonsense. I gave you a year to get over your snit. Grow up and accept I am who I am, and what we’re going to be. We’ll go to the Caribbean and start a new life together. I’m well established there now. A man of substance.” He puffed out his pigeon chest as best he could. It was a pitiful effort.
She knew fine what he was all right, and she was having no more to do with him. At least now she understood why he’d been conspicuous in his absence. As for her accompanying him to the Caribbean? What planet was he from? Angie was so angry she wouldn’t have been surprised to see smoke coming out of her ears. She dug her fingers into her palms to stop herself from forming a fist and using it. Only the thought that she was going to be in big trouble with Sir already, without adding GBH to it, stopped her.
Sir had already given her one punishment for opening the door without the chain on. As he said, chains had many uses. She’d discovered another one that night. Angie flexed her wrists as she remembered just how the chain held her whilst said punishment had been administered. The fact the punishment was earned, and the make up sex was more than interesting, still didn’t stop her from wanting to rub her ass. Her Sir was very inventive.
If sodding Stuart hadn’t been around she’d have gone into their room, turned on the video, and sent Sir a video of herself and her bullet. Sir was very good at orgasm denial unless… She dragged her pantie-dampening thoughts back to the here and now and the knotty problem of how to get shot of Stuart.
“Stuart, I know exactly who you are, and what we’re going to be. Watch my lips. You’re in the past. Well in the past. I’m not going anywhere. It’s over. We are finished. Done, dead and buried. You know your way out.” She turned her back on him, determined to ignore him.
His hiss of breath showed how annoyed he was. Okay, she should maybe try for a less aggressive approach, but his hide was so thick you needed heavy-hitting words to pierce it. She might be all-out submissive to her Sir, but never to Stuart. In their short-lived relationship, Angie had just about gone giddy trying to be all things at all times, especially doing her best not to show she was topping from the bottom.
“It’s over and you know it, Stuart. Now, I’m busy.” Should she mention the new and very important man in her life? She decided to keep him as the surprise tough measure. Instead she smoothed the hair on the small wooden angel she held to try and stop her hands from shaking. The wool was warm between her fingers and she held on to it like a lifeline. Angie hated confrontation of any sort, and this was not at all pleasant. She hoped she wouldn’t be by herself with Stuart much longer.
“Put that sodding or
nament down and look at me.”
Angie ignored him and prinked out the skirt on the old angel she was going to put on the tree. The glass beads around the bottom could do with a clean before Angel Dora graced the tree. Okay, Angel Dora had seen better days, and one of her wings was definitely skewed, but she was part of the family and was said to even be older than Angie’s gran. She was a family heirloom, tatty and battered or not.
“I said put it down.” Stuart’s tone was sharp. He leaned forward, grasped her arm, spun her round, and tried to pull the angel out of her hand. Angie held on for grim death.
“I ignored you. My house, my tree, my angel, my choice.” How dare he become the tyrant? “Time you left, Stuart.”
“You little bitch.” He stood up and pulled on her other arm as well as gripping the hand that held the angel so tight she’d have bruises.
Unfortunately, the wrong sort of bruises, she thought semi-hysterically now.
“I spent over three months pandering to you and your silly, old-fashioned ways. Now you won’t even look at me. That stupid ornament has more of your attention than me? No way.”
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. Angie knew just how her rag doll had felt when Bryan Balfour had pinched it and teased her by throwing the doll in the air.
Stuart pushed her away and she felt herself falling. The wall was way too close and her head wouldn’t miss it.
Angie hit the wall, and the angel almost fell out of her hands.
Almost…
****
“My Lady?” The voice was timid, and broke into Angie’s reverie. “My Lady, open your eyes.”
She moved her eyelids upward slowly and winced. Her head thumped worse than the one and only time she’d been drunk. Little—no, big—men with hammers were making horseshoes or something and using her skull for practice. “What happened?”
The young girl who stood in front of her in a long frock and what looked like a mobcap opened her eyes wide. “You doesn’t remember?” The soft voice and her unusual speech pattern sounded strange. “Not at all? Ohh er I needs to get His Lordship and the doctor.”
“Not yet.” Get who? “Tell me.”
The girl looked worried but bobbed her head in agreement. “Well, you hit your head, My Lady.” Now Angie realized her voice had an old-fashioned country burr to it that she couldn’t place. “All acos of some stranger trying to co…coerce you like.” She stumbled over her words. “We were about to go out, the master had agreed, acos he were sorting things for us going to the country tomorrer. Then that monster appeared. He took a hold of you on the pavement outside. Said you shouldn’t be here and to go with him. He grabbed you, and when you pulled away, you slipped and bashed your head on the bottom step. Luckily Mr. Perry saw what was going on and planted him one.”
“Pardon?” His Lordship? Mr. Perry? Who is she? Where am I? Even though she had the headache from hell, that stupid thought made Angie inwardly snigger. Then she really looked at the worried expression on the face of the young girl in front of her and blinked. Really, who is she and what the hell is she wearing? It looked like some sort of sack dress, low waisted and in a drab grey worsted wool. It was hideous. The sort of thing she’d seen in photos of her gran’s hippie days. So how can I remember gran and her hippieness and nothing else? Angie mulled over what the young girl had said.
“Mr. Perry did?” Thank you, Mr. P., whoever you are. How on earth do I find out what’s going on without them sending for the men in white coats to take me away?
“Yes, My Lady. He was about to close the door behind us when that, that nasty, horrid, ruffian of a man grabbed you. Well, you know Mr. Perry was a pugilist when he was younger, so that villain got it in the face and the ballocks. Begging your pardon, My Lady.”
I do? And what is it with this My Lady stuff?
“Ah, I’ll have to thank him,” Angie said cautiously. “Now, perhaps you should go and get His Lordship.” Or whoever you need to get. And let me sleep. She closed her eyes again. It could have been a minute or a second before she was slapped none too gently on the cheek.
“Angelina, wake up now.” The voice demanded obedience, and she didn’t want to obey. “Do it now. Remember what I am.”
“Bully.” She was sure of that. “G’way. Tired. Headache. Want to sleep.”
“My Lady, you cannot.” That was a different voice. Less authoritarian, more kindly, but still with a hint of steel. “You must open your eyes and let us see how you are.”
If she had the energy she would have shaken her head. Instead Angie muttered under her breath and ignored them both. “Bullies. Men are tyrants.”
“Angelina, open your eyes this minute.” It was the bully once more. “If you do not, I will throw the angel away. And your disobedience will be added to our list.”
That penetrated through the fuzz of the head pains. List? The angel? What angel? She opened one eye. “Stupid bloody thing to say. What are you on?” Several people loomed over her and shimmered as she tried to focus. It reminded her of a kids TV program where different faces came and went. One formed first and stayed within her vision. Angie winced. Even though his outline was still somewhat blurred, and his features unclear, she could see he was tall, dark, and handsome. Strain was clearly etched on his face. If she had the energy she would have sniggered. Talk about stereotypical. Who was he? He reminded her of someone, but it was a faint resemblance. A relative of…
“Angelina, listen to me.” His stern voice broke her chain of thought, and she concentrated on him. “What do you remember?” Ah, the bully.
She narrowed her eyes and looked into his dark orbs. They gave nothing away.
“You’re a bully.”
He blinked and someone else smothered a laugh. Then he nodded.
“Just so, my dear. Therefore let me bully you further. Talk to me. Tell me what occurred.”
“My Lord, don’t push her, she…”
“Needs to tell us what she knows,” the bully said in an implacable tone. “How can I sort it all out without knowing the facts? I need to avenge this attack. I’ve had to wait far too long as it is. My wife was assaulted on our doorstep, in Grosvenor Square, in broad daylight and nothing has been done about it. The perpetrator, the criminal who did this, is scot-free, and my wife has been living inside herself for all these weeks. I have to see justice is done.” For one brief second his expression showed his despair. However, it was his words that penetrated into Angie’s mind and made her open both eyes.
“Wife?” She looked at her bare hands. “Weeks? How?” There was no way she’d forget her wedding, was there?
He smiled, although it didn’t reach his eyes, which were clouded with concern, and lifted one of her hands to his lips. “The usual way.”
If she knew what exactly the usual way was, it would help. As she didn’t, she changed the subject. “If you say so, whoever you are.” She remembered something she thought she’d heard when she was still in her fuzzy state. “Don’t just say His Lordship, or my husband or whatever. That’s as clear as mud.”
Another person moved into her line of blurry vision. This man was shorter, stouter, and undoubtedly older. His cravat was neat, his suit dark, and his air of authority was as marked as that of the man she dubbed the bully. But somehow it didn’t come across as so personal, or so absolute. Almost as if he deferred to the other man in some things, but not all. He didn’t look like anyone she knew, and his clothes were, well, weird was the only way she could describe them. Old-fashioned. Even the chain across his ample chest reminded her of a picture of her great-grandfather.
This man took hold of her wrist. “Hush one moment.”
She hushed.
“That’s good, My Lady. I don’t think I’ll need to cup you.”
Cup me? “Thank you, I think.” Vague thoughts of old-fashioned medical remedies began to filter into her mind and she mentally shuddered. If he was talking leeches, he’d better keep thinking there was no need. She’d only seen them once, and t
hat was one time too many. Did they want her to have hysterics as well as a headache?
He patted her hand in an avuncular fashion. “You’ll do. Now, stay in bed until I visit tomorrow. Light food, say a thin soup perhaps, and watered wine only.”
It sounded disgusting, but Angie kept her mouth shut. She guessed he was a doctor, and wasn’t the one she needed to argue with. He’d leave soon, and she intended to find out what the hell was going on. So she nodded in apparent agreement and watched the bully shake the other man’s hand. She needed to find out who the bully was. Maybe if she knew his name it might give her an idea what was happening, and really she couldn’t shout out “hey you, bully,” if she wanted his attention. It might sound about right, but it wasn’t very polite. Right now she felt as if she was watching a soap opera in a foreign language. One that was set a couple of hundred years ago.
“I’ll see she does as you say.”
The bully’s voice flowed over her, and into her, like liquid gold. Why on earth had she thought him cold and unfeeling? This was the voice of a sensualist. Warm, erotic, and encompassing.
“Thank you, Doctor. Let me show you out.”
Within a few moments the man—her alleged husband—had shaken hands with the doctor, ushered him out of the room, and returned to her bedside. It gave her the chance to really study him.
She’d been correct in her summing up of his features. He was tall, with dark hair and an aristocratic nose. She’d read that description somewhere, she realized, and knew it fit him perfectly. Grey eyes and dressed like… There her descriptive powers failed her. He had on a loose shirt and very tight trousers that left little to the imagination, the likes of which she could swear she’d never seen on a man before. They brought back to mind her earlier thoughts, and something she’d read in a book. If only her mind wasn’t full of jelly.
A Dom for Christmas Page 1
