by P. J. Fox
“I want you to unbutton my shirt.”
She tensed again. “But what if I don’t want to?”
“We’ll wait until you do.” His hands were still on her, but his touch was gentle.
“Well,” she said, trying to sound more defiant than she felt, “we’ll be waiting for a very long time.”
He fixed her with that gaze of his, the one that made her wilt. “Belle,” he said seriously, “this is going to happen.”
She dropped her eyes, on the verge of tears.
He caressed her cheek. “It will be alright,” he repeated softly.
She could almost believe that he was telling her the truth.
Her fingers found the first button. Her sense of unreality was now complete; she hadn’t just passed through the portal, she’d fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole into a world where nothing made sense. She didn’t know how to make anything make sense; all of her frameworks were gone. Here in the middle of nowhere, she was in Ash’s kingdom; he made the rules. Everyone here accepted that she was his—what? Concubine? Forced confidante? And they accepted her, and treated her far more politely than she was used to. They didn’t judge her. To them, this—all of it—was normal.
She was feeling, increasingly, like the king who drank from the poisoned well just so he could understand his subjects.
She fumbled at the button with tentative fingers. And then came the second button. The third.
His chest was smooth, under the clean white cotton. Muscular. He’d seen her naked when he bid on her at auction, but she’d only imagined what he might look like under his layers of expensive fabric.
Taking one of her hands, he placed it over his heart.
She stood like that for a moment, frozen. And then without thinking, before she could stop herself, she trailed her hand down over his stomach to the flat, mysterious part just above his belt buckle. Realizing what she’d done, she snatched her hand back like she’d been burned.
He laughed. A small laugh, but genuine. She glanced up at him, and he smiled. It was an oddly endearing expression. Feeling embarrassed, and stupid, and frightened, she smiled back. She didn’t know why she was smiling; surely there was nothing to smile about? If Charlotte were here, she’d have called it a reflex action; she’d claimed, in the past, that Belle was always smiling at inappropriate things. Trying to make other people feel better, when doing so wasn’t her responsibility. Belle called it being a nice person.
But Charlotte’s opinions seemed strangely irrelevant, now.
“I don’t bite,” Ash said. “Well, I do,” he amended. “But I won’t, tonight.”
She slid his shirt off over his shoulders. He smelled woody, spicy and fresh…a blend of things she couldn’t name. All she knew was that his chest, his neck, his lips were too close to her. “It’s called Ambre Topkapi,” he said in a low voice, his hands moving to her back. “Bergamot, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and grapefruit are the top notes.”
She blushed. Was she that obvious? And why—why did she care?
“Each bottle is blended by hand in Paris, by a man named Pierre Bourdon.”
“Everything you have is expensive,” she murmured. Including her. He pulled her to him, his lips brushing her ear. She felt like she’d been drinking, even though she knew she hadn’t.
“And so few things,” he murmured in response, “are worth the price.”
“I’ve never met a man who knew what was in his cologne before,” she said. She sounded so inane. Anything to keep the conversation from getting dangerous, to keep things light and not, not…how they were going. He slid the other strap down over her shoulder and then, unzipping her dress, eased it down over her scant curves. The expensive fabric pooled on the floor, leaving her exposed before him.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, his lips against her ear.
“Did you pick this out?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “The dress, and what’s underneath it.” His hand brushed lightly over her breast, a touch almost too light to be felt. She was wearing nothing, except her shoes, silk stockings, and panties so sheer they didn’t even deserve the title. The tiny bit of lace had been, she was certain, very expensive. Probably hand-stitched. He kissed the side of her neck. Once, and again. “And,” he added, between kisses, “I’m interested in smells. I’m interested in all pleasures of the flesh.”
“For the men I know,” she breathed, “toothpaste is a cosmetic product.”
“And now,” he said, “I’m the only man you know.”
She didn’t respond. There had been a definite possessiveness to his words, and in that possessiveness a threat. He seemed horrified by the suggestion of other men, even though he openly had other women. But she didn’t think about that now, even though she probably should. She found it, increasingly, hard to think about anything. Try as she might to keep an even keel, her thoughts kept fragmenting every time she grouped them together.
Into a thousand pieces.
“I’m going to kiss you again,” he told her, “and this time, you’re going to kiss me back.”
His lips were on hers, his hands all over her. His touch was gentle but his kiss was insistent. She felt his tongue, first toy with her, and then probe inside of her, opening her to him. She stiffened against him instinctively, and then softened. She’d never been kissed like that. But although she no longer resisted, she couldn’t bring herself to kiss him back.
His hands explored everywhere, never touching anywhere important. Her arms, her shoulders, her back, the curve of her hip. Her flank. The barest edge of her breast. The suspense was murderous. He guided her hand to his belt buckle. She did nothing for a long time; it felt too much like consent. And she was confused. She was here, wasn’t she? She hadn’t resisted. She’d joked with him. She hadn’t said no.
“My reluctant bride,” he murmured into her ear. “My reluctant virgin bride.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “You’re still not kissing me back,” he added, slightly reproachfully.
“I don’t—I don’t know how,” she whispered.
She felt his hand on the curve of her breast, his thumb the barest pressure on her nipple. To her surprise, it was hard. At this new touch, she felt another plummeting sensation. The body has no control over its responses, came the whisper in the back of her mind. We’re all slaves to our own needs. A tingling sensation she’d never had before was spreading, like warm syrup, out to her fingertips.
With his guidance, she undid his belt buckle.
He lifted her up and, pulling back the covers, laid her down on the bed. And then he was on top of her, still kissing her. His hands were everywhere. The tingling became a lassitude; an inescapable urge to lie there and just feel. A need she didn’t understand had made her his prisoner. Even if she’d had the chance to get up and run at that moment, to be free of him forever, she didn’t think she could have.
She tried not to think about what that meant.
He trailed a finger down the side of her face. “You’re mine already,” he said, his tone knowing. “But I’m going to prove that to you.”
“Please I’m—I’m not ready.” She could barely form the words.
“You are ready.”
Sliding his hand under her, he lifted her slightly and then she felt—him. There was a stab of pain as she tensed. “Put your legs around me,” he murmured into her ear. She did and the feeling eased. She didn’t know how to describe what was happening, it was a completely new experience. She felt a strange—widening sensation, as if she were being pulled apart. Like an orange being peeled, some foreign thumb forcing itself between the segments. And then there was pressure in the very lowest part of her stomach, a pressure that built and built and built until it was unbearable and then there was a warm rush of something and pain.
Blood, she realized. That was blood. She tensed again. He was still stroking her, murmuring to her like he might a skittish horse. “You’re alright,” he reassured her in that same low voice. “Give y
ourself a minute to adjust.”
He was inside of her. Another human being was inside of her. She fought the urge to twist and scream and try to buck him off. She felt—she didn’t know. Almost, for lack of a better term, claustrophobic.
“Tell me,” he said.
And she did.
And then, somehow, she was kissing him. The covers were over them, and she had no memory of that happening. Only that now, she was in a warm tent hidden from the outside world and that strange sense of urgency had returned and was building. He felt—unpleasant and not unpleasant at the same time. And then, just when it had become almost unbearable—like before but an entirely different kind of unbearable—he began to move.
Later—ten minutes, a thousand years, she didn’t know—it came. The strangest, most overpowering experience of her life and one that was immediately addictive. There was pleasure that defied description but that built and built until it was almost pain. It was pain, pain coupled with a terrible pressure that grew and grew until it consumed her and then it burst.
Her eyes rolled up in her head and she went limp and she thought she might have passed out. She drifted, vaguely aware that something else was happening now. And then her captor, her lover, was holding her. She wanted to cry, to giggle, to do something to release the pent up emotions inside of her. In the end, she did both. Staring up at the ceiling giggling like an idiot as tears streamed down her cheeks. Of emotion, but pain, too. Her entire body felt like a raw nerve; the slightest touch, especially down there, was agony.
He brushed away her tear and then withdrew, sending a fresh bolt of pain through her. A pain so sharp she could almost taste it—how had she not noticed it before? He kissed her on the forehead, a strangely chaste gesture, and got up.
She didn’t move, only continued to stare at the ceiling.
What had just happened?
TWENTY-SEVEN
He returned a few minutes later, wearing a robe, a drink in hand. Arranging the pillows, he sat down next to her and leaned against the headboard. “A man who drinks or smokes,” he said meditatively, “wants to do so after he’s had sex. And if he doesn’t, no matter what he protests to the contrary, he hasn’t enjoyed himself.”
Belle digested this information in silence.
“What are you thinking about?”
She didn’t respond for a long time. “That I’m confused,” she said finally.
“About?”
“Everything.”
“Sit up,” he encouraged. “Have a drink.”
She did so, wincing. She wrapped herself in the bedspread. Now that the bizarre, unexpected pleasure of earlier had worn off she felt nauseous. And ashamed.
“Is it unbearable?”
He handed her a second glass, which she accepted. She sipped the contents; the brown liquid tasted like Pine-Sol and she didn’t care. She didn’t know why a simple question should seem so intrusive—why anything should, or could—after the experience they’d just shared. He’d put a part of himself inside her, and she was objecting to a few words?
“It hurts,” she said finally.
“What are you confused about?” He seemed interested. She didn’t know why.
“Well I….” She struggled to find the words. She couldn’t believe that she was telling him this. An irrational part of her worried that by drawing is attention to the problem, she’d somehow activate the apparently forgotten urge in his mind—like Pandora, unleashing another box upon the world. If he’d…forgotten, if that was even the right word, why was she reminding him?
“You don’t seem like a confirmed sadist,” she finished. “You were….” Almost kind, she wanted to say, but didn’t. Putting aside the rather major facts that he wasn’t her partner of choice and she hadn’t been married, like she’d always hoped, sharing this moment with the love of her life, as a first time it hadn’t been bad. Not that she had anything to compare it to, of course, but she’d heard stories: of gut-wrenching pain, heartache, and abandonment. And yet here he sat, talking to her as though they were—as though they were a couple. As though they were friends.
“Sadism isn’t something you do, Belle. It’s something you are.” When he turned to her, his expression was satisfied but somehow also bleak. “I brought you here. I made you wait, dreading the future. And then I made you do something you didn’t want to do, and enjoy it. You’re confused now but, hours from now, you’ll lie awake and stare at the ceiling and castigate yourself for that. You’ll wonder if needing it, even for only a split second, meant you wanted it, and you’ll feel like you betrayed yourself.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “And that’s…how you want me to feel?”
“I want you to want to be here, with me,” he said obliquely. “I want to prove to myself that I can make you want to. But yes, I also want to want to hurt you.”
She shifted her weight, and winced. She wanted to clean herself up, to examine her wounds, and to be alone. To curl up in a ball somewhere where no one could find her and not think. Because she did hate herself, a little.
Raising her gaze from the coverlet, she glanced over at him. “Shouldn’t I—go?” she asked.
He seemed surprised. “Go where?”
“Back to my room.” So you can entertain other women, she almost added.
“I had planned,” he said, “on you sharing my rooms, here.”
“Oh, but—”
“It’s more convenient for me,” he added. “I gave you your own room for that first night because you were exhausted, and needed rest. You may keep it, if you wish, to use during the day. But at night, I expect you here.” He must have seen something in her face, because he smiled slightly. “It will be…just you. Of the various others I entertain, on occasion, none have seen my bedroom. It’s a private space, and one not to be shared with servants.”
“Servants?” she echoed. He saw them as servants? She bunched the comforter in her fists, until her knuckles turned white. How could she explain that she—had needs? And she couldn’t, couldn’t share a room with him. Not possibly. Somehow, that seemed far more intimate than what—they’d just done. Like her very identity was being stripped from her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I need to—use the bathroom,” she whispered. She felt the blush creep up to her hairline. This was awful.
“Then do so,” he suggested. “And then I’ll join you. I ran a bath.”
Five minutes later she found herself tiptoeing down into an enormous sunken bath that, apparently, kept the water at a steady temperature with some sort of radiant heating device. Which made sense, she supposed: with a tub that large, the water would be chilly before it was half filled. She’d cleaned herself up a little, but it still hurt to move. A sharp, stinging pain that came and went, like a thousand hangnails and paper cuts and knee scrapes. She winced. The water was almost too hot.
Her erstwhile lover lounged in the water, watching her. She hated being naked in front of him. She plunged down into the water, gasping. But after a minute or so, her body adjusted. And a minute or so after that, she felt the tension in her muscles begin to ease.
When she’d first crawled out of bed, she’d been horrified to see that the sheets were soaked with blood. Soaked. It looked like someone had died there. No wonder she felt faint. She’d thought—maybe a little blood, but that? And when she’d reached the toilet, she’d still been bleeding.
“Come here,” Ash said. “I’ll wash you.”
“What?”
“It’s called aftercare. And you’ll sleep better, and feel better tomorrow, if you’re clean.”
Reluctantly, she did as he requested.
He washed her with surprisingly gentle hands, freeing up the last of the dried-on blood and sweat and who knew what other gross excrescences with soap that smelled like sandalwood. In spite of herself, she found herself relaxing. He had her lean back and he washed her hair, strong fingers massaging her scalp. And then he massaged conditioner in.
; “It could have been much worse, you know.”
“Oh?” she asked.
“For hundreds of years, both my ancestors and yours made a practice of watching the first night. To ensure that, ah, things progressed as desired.” Her eyes were closed, but she could hear the amusement in his voice. “Various wits tried to come up with ways to make the process less upsetting. When I was at university, I visited a museum in the Netherlands where I saw a bed that had been specially made to hold a tiny chamber of sorts within the headboard. The watcher was secreted in there, I suppose on the theory of, out of sight, out of mind.
“But for the most part some old crone was installed in the corner who knitted and catcalled advice. Now that,” he added, “is sadism.”
“I’m amazed that anyone was able to, um, complete the task.”
“I’m sure some weren’t.”
When she was ready to get out, he gave her a towel and then a robe. She had only a few articles of clothing, although multiple sources had promised that this would be remedied. Ultimately, she decided to sleep in his shirt. It was long enough to cover almost everything; everything, if she didn’t move too quickly. She moisturized with one of the lotions in the cabinet, brushed her still-damp hair and braided it.
And then she followed him, reluctantly, into the bedroom. He’d left her to her own devices in the bathroom, for which she’d been grateful. Now, he was sitting up in bed drinking—water, this time—and reading something on a tablet while making notes. Belle was mortified to see that the sheets had been changed. Some mysterious hand had tidied the room, removing all traces of her earlier ordeal, while she’d been in the tub.
She blushed beet red again, knowing that someone had seen that. That everyone knew, now. Her most personal secrets. She felt as if someone had tacked a sign to her chest, announcing what she’d just done—and with a stranger! Which, she reasoned with herself, was ridiculous. No one thought she’d come here to play checkers with the man. And, however decent they seemed as individuals, no one here appeared to have even the slightest problem with his lifestyle. Which they wouldn’t, she supposed; a man like Ash would hardly hire, much less keep on, those who disapproved of him.
