by K D Grace
It was signed, Edward Darcy Ellison.
‘What are you doing here?’ Edward’s voice came from behind her, but before she could do more than jump, he commanded, ‘Don’t turn around. Stay put, and close your eyes.’
She did as he said. There was a click and the sound of the panel closing.
‘Sit down.’
She obeyed, not sure how much longer she could have stood anyway.
He approached her from behind and slipped a black silk handkerchief over her eyes, tying it securely against the back of her head. ‘I’m not masked,’ he said, ‘so you’ll have to be. It’ll be like old times.’
For a long moment there was silence, so much so that she wasn’t sure he was still in the room with her. Then at last he spoke with a heavy sigh. ‘It’s true then, you are planning to do an exposé, and this whole thing has all been about your story.’
Before she could make an excuse, he continued. ‘Oh, I don’t blame you. I would do the same if I were you, especially after all that’s happened. But I had hoped …’ His voice drifted off, and once again she wasn’t sure he was still there in the room.
‘Hoped what?’
He forced a laugh that sounded almost painful. ‘Surely you must know what I hope.’
‘No, I don’t. I have no idea what you hope. I just assumed you were all bored and I was the entertainment, then behind closed doors while you fuck each other, you and Vivienne have a good laugh at my expense.’
His hand came down so hard on the table next to her that she could feel the breeze it generated. She yelped and practically fell out of the chair. ‘You can’t possibly believe that, Rita.’ Suddenly he was kneeling in front of her, grasping her hands in his. ‘You can’t honestly believe that I would rather be with her, that I would –’
Her laugh soured at the back of her mouth. ‘What am I supposed to believe, Edward? Vivienne couldn’t wait to get you off to her bedroom to fuck her when we first got here, even before you two tricked me in the dungeon. It all seems pretty clear to me.’
‘Jesus, Rita! What are you talking about? I was hauled off to the dungeon and prepared for her little joke as soon as I was turned over to May. Whoever it was in the bedroom with her, it sure as hell wasn’t me.’ She felt him move and figured he had sat down on the floor next to her. ‘As for the dungeon,’ he continued, ‘I had no choice. My part in this deal in order to stay close to you, is that I am to fuck her when she wants it, and that I am to show my appreciation for her kind condescension by coming when I’m expected to.
‘And in the meantime,’ his voice trembled with anger, ‘just in case I decide I might want to sneak off with you, she’s taken care of that too.’ He stood quickly and she heard the swish of clothing, then he guided her hand to his bare belly. There was a sharp intake of breath as he guided her fingers to rest, first against the hard leather and metal belted low around his waist, then still lower to the tight-fitting metal that caged his penis and balls unyieldingly.
With a groan that sounded feral and desperate, she tried to pull away, but he held her hand against the cage of the chastity belt. ‘This is my punishment for wanting you.’ Then he pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it. She could hear his heart beat in the raging of his breath. ‘This is my punishment for loving you.’
He gave his words no time to sink in, no time to find that place inside her that usually did a fair job of separating reality from fantasy. Once again he was on his knees, this time pushing her thighs open, exposing the tender inner flesh to the efforts of his insistent mouth sucking and nipping and kissing a path toward her pussy.
‘No Edward.’ She tried to push him away. ‘Don’t do this. I can’t reciprocate and you won’t be able to come and –’
‘Shshsh.’ He rose from his explorations and silenced her protests with a kiss. ‘I can cope with the chastity belt. I’ve done it before.’ He slipped a hand down over her pubis, pushed the slave gown aside and entered her with his middle finger. Her pussy grasped hungrily at him and she shifted her hips back and forth against him almost involuntarily.
‘There, you see?’ He whispered against her nape. ‘I can feel how badly you need it after all these nights when you’ve had to lie there alone on the floor with no one to hold you.’ He slipped his other hand inside the yielding top of the gown and cupped her breasts in turn, stroking her nipples with the pad of his thumb, ‘with no one to help you orgasm. And when I have to come with Vivienne,’ he nuzzled his way down to her breasts and suckled, then ran his tongue around her areolae, ‘I think of you lying there on the floor masturbating, and I imagine pushing my cock into your pussy and emptying all my pent-up desire into you.’ He inserted another finger into her cunt and stroked her clit in tight circles with his thumb, causing her to gasp and squirm beneath his touch. ‘I’m not sure the whole world could contain my desire for you, Rita Holly.’
As he kissed and fondled his way down over her belly, his grunts and groans were the sounds of pleasure and not the frustration she had expected. ‘My God,’ he whispered as he lowered his face to nuzzle in between her legs. ‘I’ve dreams about the way you smell, the way you taste, oh such lovely dreams.’ His tongue flicked over her distended clit and she whimpered and lifted her arse off the chair offering him her cunt like some animal in heat, and he responded in kind, licking and nipping at her swollen labia until her lips pouted their full invitation to his advances. Then he lifted her feet onto his shoulders so she could bear down on him, positioning her bottom exactly where he wanted it. Then he ate her like a feast, his own little grunts and gasps defying the restraints of the chastity belt as she humped his mouth shamelessly until there was no breath left in her, no strength, no thought that didn’t involve his mouth on her pussy. But instead of backing off when her cunt began to shudder with orgasm, he pressed in closer, opening his mouth wide, as though he would devour her vulva whole, raking across the folds and valleys of her with his teeth. He wriggled his tongue deeper into her, and drew his lips tight around the hard rise of her clit, keeping her whole body at a plateau where orgasm thrummed nearly continually over her distended clit and up her spine.
He moaned as though the pleasure were his own, cupping her buttocks in his hands, drawing her still closer, stroking her anus with an insistent finger, which became bolder in its pressings until it fucked her nether hole like a penis while the waves of pleasure washed over her again and again.
***
Some time later, she didn’t know how long, but when the world calmed around her again, she lay on the wooden floor wrapped in his arms, the hard press of his chastity belt against her thigh. She struggled to move, but he pulled her back to him.
‘She’ll find us.’
‘She can’t come in here. Only I have access. And it’s still early. She never rises before noon, especially not after she’s taken sleeping pills.’ He kissed her ear and cupped her breast. ‘We can stay just a little while longer.’
‘You wrote that, and did the sketch?’ She nodded to where she assumed the table was, but it could have just as easily been toward the door.
‘Yes. The sketch, well I come from a long line of artsy folk. As for the rest, I’m the historian of the London Coven.’
‘Then you’re witches?’
‘Of course not. When we chose to call ourselves covens it was an act of defiance really, a way of thumbing our noses at the church, at the powers that be, at the powers that wanted to control what a person believes, what a person does with his or her body, who a person makes love with.’ He chuckled softly. ‘Of course no one knew any of this but us. We were a secret society, and still are after all these years.’
‘How many years?’
‘Lots. Possibly even more than any of us know.’
‘And this isn’t the only coven.’
‘There are others, all organised the same, all overseen by a high council.
‘Then there are members who aren’t on the council?’
‘Yes, people from all walks of l
ife, bankers, scientists, housewives, lorry drivers.’
She took a second to let the thought of a housewife dominatrix sink in before she spoke. ‘Vivienne called me Rita Ellison Holly. Why?’
‘Because I recruited you, you share my name. It’s always been that way with The Mount. I can give you a basic overview of the history and how we work if you’d like. You’ll get all that when you’re finished with the initiation, but if you’re not planning to hang around, then you might as well know now.’
‘I don’t understand. I’ve researched everyone here at The Mount, and granted I couldn’t find much, but I found a little something on everyone. Everyone but you. For you, I found nothing. It’s like you don’t exist.’
‘I don’t. At least not right now.’ He forced a pained laugh. ‘But I keep hoping that will change soon.’
‘That makes no sense. How can you not exist? You’re right here, next to me in my arms, and –’
‘And you’ve never seen my face.’
His words unsettled her, made muscles that had nothing to do with sex knot. She remembered Vivienne referring to him as the monster behind the mask, and in spite of the warmth of the room, she felt cold.
He placed his fingers against her mouth. ‘We won’t speak of this, not now. But I hope the time will come when we can.’
She snuggled back against him, revelling in the shape of his body, wondering what it would be like to be with him without the chastity belt, to stay wrapped in his arms all night. ‘Why are you telling me all this if you know I’m going to write an exposé?’
She felt him shrug against her. ‘Maybe it’s time we were exposed. Maybe we deserve nothing better.’
She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.
‘And just so you know, you were never only the entertainment. Everyone who has been with you loves you. We all love you. We want you to be a part of us.’
She struggled to breathe. ‘If you love me, then why don’t you just be with me? Why do you let her do this to you?’
‘I can’t tell you that yet, but I promise if you finish the initiation, she’ll no longer hold sway, and then we can be together. I know that sounds like an excuse, believe me, I know, but it’s the best I can give you right now.’ He placed a soft kiss on the back of her neck. ‘Please trust me. Please just try to hang on just a little longer.’
‘And the exposé?’
His sigh was warm against her neck. ‘Darling, nothing you could do would make me love you less, but consider this; I’m not the only one who will be hurt by this exposé, and the person who will probably be hurt by it the least is Vivienne.’
He helped her to her feet and walked her back to her pallet of pillows on the floor. ‘Get some sleep, my love, and I promise you, we’ll get through this.’
It was nearly three days before they had the chance to speak again, and that only fleetingly, but it was enough. Vivienne was checking out the wine cellar for a special vintage for some VIP arriving unexpectedly, and Lorelei was called away on business. May, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on her, was in the shower. Rita caught Edward on his way to the history vault. With trembling fingers, she passed him the flash card, anxious to be rid of it. ‘This is for you. Alex dropped by the house and picked it up for me.’
For a second he stared down at the tiny piece of plastic and metal before closing his fingers around it in a grip so tight his knuckles shown white in the afternoon light. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’ She swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘All I ever really wanted was to see your face, and I don’t want the first look I see on it to be disappointment.’
He scooped her into his arms and kissed her, whispering in a breathless gasp against her ear. ‘I love you, Rita Holly.’
Then they heard the front door open and Vivienne complaining about the mess the wine cellar was in, and they both fled their separate ways, Rita seeking the far corner of the flat, hoping Vivienne wouldn’t holler for her until she had her emotions under control again.
Chapter Twenty-two
‘No one will believe this story was written by any of the Talkabout staff,’ Owen said. It took him a second to realise that the harsh rasping sound was his breath, and he was now wishing like hell that he’d given the steak and kidney pie a miss at lunch. Indigestion was the last thing he had expected when he arrived at the hotel room which had become the venue for his regular rendezvous with Lorelei.
He sat stiffly at the table staring at the monitor of his laptop, but no matter how long he glared at the words of the document, they didn’t set any better with his internal editor. His cock, which until minutes ago had been ready and anxious to play, was now unusually limp. He forced his attention back to Lorelei, but even her outrageous curves swathed in mauve silk couldn’t make the story on the monitor look any better.
She was saying, ‘The magazine will, of course, be given a chance to retract the story and offer an apology to The Mount. I’m sure they won’t want to take us on in court.’
‘I don’t understand. Why are you giving me this story if you’re then going to turn around and sue Talkabout for printing it?’
‘It’s not for you to understand, Owen. All you need to know is that it serves our purpose.’
He shoved a sweaty hand through his hair and bit his lip until it hurt. ‘This will end my career, you know that?’
‘Oh come on, darling, don’t pout.’ She fondled his tie, tugging on it until it reminded him disturbingly of a noose, then she giggled softly. ‘You’ve been well compensated, in lots of ways.’ She nodded to his crotch, which suddenly felt extremely vulnerable. Then she added, ‘You’ve made sure Rita Holly gets the credit for the story?’
‘Yes.’ He pulled the tie away from her and tugged at his collar, which seemed unusually tight. ‘Just like you asked, but I’m her editor, no editor with half a brain would print this story.’
Lorelei rolled her eyes. ‘Oh please, Owen, like you care about the magazine’s reputation. We know how much you hate your boss, how much you think this job is beneath someone of your talent. What better way to get even with the bastard? Don’t you see the beauty of the plan?’ She opened the chic leather brief case on the dressing table and rummaged through it. ‘It’s nothing personal, and anyway it won’t be you that we’ll be threatening, will it?’
‘Well, Rita Holly sure as hell doesn’t have any money. She’s a nobody.’
‘That’s right, she’s a nobody. She’s irrelevant. She’s just serving a purpose.’
‘Like I am.’
‘Yes. Like you are. Only she doesn’t know it. You do. You’ve known it from the beginning.’ She pulled a file folder from the case and handed it to him.
‘What’s this?’
‘The lease to your villa in Majorca. Yours to enjoy as long as you live. A bonus for your full cooperation. You do like Majorca, don’t you? I took the liberty of including a few photos.’
And she had. There was a pool, a view of the sea. There was a master bedroom bigger than the whole Talkabout office suite. And in spite of the situation in which he found himself, he suddenly had a hard-on.
She handed him a first-class plane ticket. ‘You fly tomorrow, before the magazine hits the streets. Your accounts here have been closed and the money transferred.’ She handed him a sealed envelope. ‘Here are your bank documents.’
For a second, he could do nothing but stare down at the new life The Mount has so effortlessly, and efficiently, arranged for him. At last, he managed a breathy half-whisper. ‘How did you do this? How did you get my information?’
‘That’s not your concern, but you would do well to remember just how easily it was all taken care of.’ She closed the briefcase with a resounding snap. ‘What is your concern is this. That you never set foot on British soil again.’
Before the shock of her words could even knot his stomach, she unzipped the silk dress and stepped out of it. ‘You are never to speak to anyone about anything that has gone on betw
een us.’ She waved a dismissive hand before kneeling on the floor in front of him and unzipping his trousers. ‘Oh it’s all right if you mention the time you came to The Mount with Rita. People saw you there, after all.’ She eased his cock out of his trousers and gave it a deep-throated suck that made the whole encounter seem even more surreal than it already was.
Then she pulled away with an ice cream cone lick to the length of him, and slipped out of her bra. ‘You are never to mention to anyone where you got the money. Is that clear?’
He nodded. He’d didn’t much like bossy women, but God, she was so exquisite, and such a delicious fuck, even when she was manipulating his life like it was some sort of computer game. He forced his attention back to her lecture. ‘Good. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, your long-lost auntie died and left you her fortune.’ She cupped her heavy tits around his cock, and in a mix of horror and arousal, not quite sure if his luck was good or bad, he began to thrust. How could he help himself?
She chuckled softly. ‘There, you see? The whole arrangement is growing on you, isn’t it?’ As if to emphasise her words, she began to tongue the head of his cock, creating a seesaw of irresistible sensations each time he thrust.
‘I have …’ Lick, thrust, ‘family here …’ Lick, thrust suck. ‘Friends,’ he grunted, cupping the sides of her tits to tighten their grip, feeling like his balls would burst from the weight of their load, and wondering how he could be aroused when his world was crumbling around him …sort of.
‘Your friends can come to you.’ Lick. Lick. Thrust. ‘Remember,’ suck, thrust, ‘you can afford to fly them to your villa whenever you want.’ She stood and slid out of her knickers in a move that was as business-like as her handling of the contents of the briefcase, and Jesus, it was such a turn on! The woman was destroying his career, and she would, no doubt make him come, in the process, and he would absolutely not resist. Was that sick, or what?
‘Vivienne’s given you a win-win situation.’ He returned his attention to the mouth that had been sucking his cock and tried to concentrate on her words. ‘Surely you can see that, Owen? She even arranged to have your belongings shipped to you. And my cunt.’ With her long mauve nails, she opened her slit making certain he got a good look at the juicy pink swell of her, then she rubbed her thumb rhythmically over the growing nub of her clit. ‘My very horny cunt is all yours until the limo comes to take you to the airport.’ With that she positioned her pout above his cock and wriggled down onto him, squeezing and kneading with her girlie muscles until he couldn’t think straight, until it was all he could do to hold his wad.
