by K D Grace
‘Stop!’ The man said as she turned to run. And in spite of the hair raising along the back of her bare neck, in spite of the fear tightening her belly in a cold metal clench, she obeyed.
‘Ask Vittorio how the whip across his bare ass feels before you consider running.’ He said all of that without looking at her, but Vittorio’s eyes and the wide mascara-darkened eyes of Chiara were on her.
She stood unmoving. It was not the scent of fear rising from her pores that made her knees weak. It was the forest fire inferno of lust rolling off the man in the chair in waves that were nearly physical.
‘Come here,’ he said, still not looking at her.
Did lust always overcome fear? She didn’t know, but it certainly seemed to be doing just that for her as she moved in steps she was hardly aware of toward the man with the whip, sniffing as she went.
‘In this dungeon, I’m the audience, woman. I don’t need any help with that task.’ He still hadn’t looked at her. His grip on the handle of the whip tightened, but the cinnamon scent of his curiosity curled itself around the inferno of lust, and she knew he wouldn’t hit her, at least not just yet. ‘Liza Calendar, I presume,’ he said, still toying with the handle of the bullwhip.
‘Yes.’ Her voice came out rough and throaty as though she had forgotten how to use it.
He threw back his head and laughed, having no trouble finding the resonant fullness of his own voice. In the flickering light of the wall sconces his hair looked like burnt copper, curled around his ears and low on his neck in the dampness of his own dark wood-scented perspiration. ‘At last I meet the one everyone is speaking of in hushed tones, the Nose.’ Before she could respond, his arm darted out and snaked around her, pulling her down on his knee into the heat of his body. ‘So tell me, Nose, what do you smell?’ Before she could say anything, his hand fisted in her hair, and he pulled her to his mouth, nipping at her lips until they opened, until his tongue could battle its way in and steal her breath. When he pulled away, breathing hard enough for both of them, he said again. ‘What do you smell?’
‘I smell burnt sugar and the spark just before a flame, and smoke on dark wood. I smell dry summer earth and cloves and sunbaked grass. I smell –’
He kissed her again, and lifted her in one arm while he shifted the chair around with the other, making a loud scrape of wooden legs against stone before he shoved up her skirt and settled her astraddle the heavy press of his hard-on through his jeans. ‘My nose may not be as sophisticated as yours, but I smell your pussy,’ he said, rocking and raking himself up against the crotch of panties she knew were wet. He dropped his face into her cleavage and bit. ‘And I smell your lust.’ Then as if she weighed nothing he shifted her around so that she still sat on his lap but she could see the couple on the bed in front of them.
‘Chiara, Vittorio, this is Liza Calendar, Martelli Fragrance’s new nose, and I think it would be really welcoming of us if we let her smell you two fucking, don’t you?’
They both nodded, wide-eyed.
‘Leave the beads in her little asshole, Vittorio. You know our Chiara likes to have all of her holes filled.’ Liza watched as the man grabbed Chiara by her hips and shoved home. She uttered a stifled cry into the ball gag and Liza could see tears making mascara-blackened tracks out the corner of her eyes and down her face. As the two began to fuck, the man beneath Liza shifted and rocked against the damp crotch of her panties until she could feel the shape of his hard-on rubbing a wet trough between her labia. She had hardly been aware of her own shifting and rocking until his heavy hand moved up under her the slit of her gown and began stroke and tweak her clit.
‘Don’t. Please don’t,’ she whispered. ‘I’m here with someone.’
‘From what I could see, that didn’t matter much when you were with Fidelia. Oh yes, I was watching the action, lovely Liza. That’s what the cameras are for. Maybe you’d prefer that I turn you over my knee and spank you. Hmm? You did come into my dungeon uninvited after all.’
‘If Ms Calendar is going to get spanked, it’ll be me doing the spanking.’ Paulo’s scent cut through the coriander and sulphur of confusion that had engulfed her. Breathing in the lightning storm and desert of him gave her courage to shove her way off the man’s lap. She stumbled backward and would have fallen on her ass if Paulo hadn’t caught her.
‘She’s a guest here at The Mount and doesn’t have clearance to play. You know that, Angelo.’ He slid a protective arm around her and she breathed in great gulps of his scent, now mixed liberally with the metal and heat of anger.
The sounds and scents of orgasm erupted from the couple on the bed who were just too far gone to hold off any longer no matter if the roof fell in around them. And in all honesty no one was paying attention anymore. Angelo stretched his long lean body out in the chair and folded arms tattooed with multi-coloured dragons across his chest. ‘She doesn’t have clearance to invade my dungeon either, does she?’ He raked Liza with a wicked gaze followed by the heavy scent of lust that took her breath away. Her own scent spiked in response. ‘You know the rules. She has to be punished.’
‘What happened, Liza?’ Paulo asked, still holding her protectively.
‘It was the smell.’ It pissed her off that her voice came out shaky and forced. But she held this Angelo’s gaze. ‘I was walking in the garden and I smelled it, this place, the lust, the pain, the pain that somehow felt good, smelled good.’
For the tiniest of moments, the arousal rolling off Angelo peaked with the bramble scent of intrigue before the heavy heat smell of need took over again. He pushed himself to his feet and with the gate of a predator came to pace in front of them, his eyes locked on Liza. ‘Paulo, you need to teach this woman something of dungeon etiquette unless you want me to stretch her out on that bed and play with her.’ With a nod of his head, the man on the bed, who had been kneeling silently waiting for Angelo’s permission, began to undo the bonds around the woman’s ankles and wrists and rub the circulation back into them. ‘You’ve both been good tonight,’ Angelo said without looking at them. ‘I’ll reward you by letting you watch how a Dom punishes his misbehaving sub.’
‘I’m not his sub –’
Before she could finish, Angelo raised a shushing finger to his lips and held her gaze. ‘Best you keep your mouth shut, Ms Calendar or you’ll get yourself into more trouble.’ Before anyone could do or say anything else, there was a wave of scent, lust, concern, curiosity, and the sound of multiple feet on the steps as the entire High Council, minus Coraline Martelli, stepped into the dungeon. Fidelia held up a hand to silence everyone.
Angelo’s eyes were nearly black in the flicker of gas light, but he held Liza in a gaze that made her want to bury her face in Paulo’s chest. ‘Well, Paulo? You said if anyone was going to spank her it would be you.’
‘Angelo, she’s our guest and you know she’s already been spanked,’ Fidelia said. ‘You can use one of us as a whipping boy.’
‘No!’ Liza was surprised at how strong her voice was this time as she stepped out of Paulo’s protective embrace. The inhale of her breath sounded like a sob, but it was a sniff, a chance to take in all of the scents that she wished she could bottle. ‘No, Angelo is right. I wasn’t invited. I’ll take my punishment.’
There was a murmur from the High Council and a raised eyebrow from Angelo and, for a second, the room was dominated by the alum scent of surprise that settled quickly to cinnamon and cloves laced through with the smell of excited pussies and cocks. Liza closed her eyes to better take it all in, realizing that her own scent was far more metallic than usual and Paulo’s scent was more like hot ash. Is this what it smelled like to be exposed, to be uncomfortable, to know that she was about to get more uncomfortable? When Paulo laid a questioning hand on her shoulder, she opened her eyes and her gaze locked on his – dark and dangerous, pupils dilated. She smelled the rainwater scent of understanding. The nod he gave her was barely perceptible.
‘Once you’re mine, you’ll do exac
tly as I say, Liza Calendar. You won’t speak unless I ask you to. If you do you’ll make your punishment harder.’
‘She needs a safe word,’ Alessandro said. ‘I doubt that she’s ever played in a dungeon before.’
‘Does she even know what a safe word is?’ the fairy queen asked.
‘I know what a safe word is,’ Liza said. Her eyes were opened just a slit as she took in the smells around her. Losing herself in the orgy of scent seemed to sharpen her other senses too. She noticed a nod pass between Paulo and David, and David disappeared back up the steps. Then Paulo turned his attention to her.
‘I don’t need a safe word.’ She curled her fingers in his hair and pulled him down to where his nose rested on the pulse point of her throat. ‘My scent will tell you if I need you to stop.’
‘With your lack of experience, you have to have one, or you can’t play in my dungeon,’ Angelo said.
For a second she said nothing, then she whispered into Paulo’s ear, ‘bouquet then. If we must, then let it be bouquet.’
There was a louder murmur among the audience, and there was the scent of several other people joining the gawkers, including Coraline Martelli. Feeling somehow outside herself, Liza turned her attention to Angelo and spoke with lowered eyes. ‘I’m sorry that I trespassed in your dungeon. I humbly accept my punishment.’ She was surprised that her action sharpened the hot rock, heat-lightning scent of his arousal. But she had little time to think about it before she found herself enveloped in Paulo’s lush thickening scent as he slid out of his jacket and handed it to Alessandro, then placed his arm around her and led her away from the chair, undoing his tie as he went. ‘This is going to get really intimate really fast, let me know now if you want to back out.’
She sucked in a deep breath and shook her head just enough that only he saw. His own breath came out harsh and tight, and he spoke between barely parted lips. ‘Helluva a way to research the new line.’ He was still speaking when he looped his tie over a pipe that ran the length of the room. Then he caught her wrists in one large hand and bound them. She offered a gasp of surprise as he secured, hoisted, and tightened until she stood with her arms stretched over her head, not on her toes, but without her heels she would be. Her heart raced and, for a second, she fought back a surge of burnt-coffee anger, forcing herself to remember that she had given him permission for this.
With both hands, he grabbed the bodice of her dress where it covered her breasts, and with a swift, efficient move, ripped it all the way down until it hung like an open bathrobe, exposing the red lace thong. Her pulse raced in a wave of cold, metal fear that accompanied the hiss of tearing silk and the collective catch of breath by the audience that now filled the dungeon. She wore no bra. She felt a wave of shame wash over her like stagnant water. Her face burned, and she closed her eyes, but only long enough to take in the smorgasbord of scent. Then she opened them again and focused on Paulo.
For a long moment he stood inspecting her, his gaze moving over her body in a caress that made her skin goose-flesh, then warm, as though it were heated just below the surface. He turned her slightly so that her audience could view the red welts on her bottom, almost as though he were demonstrating why he chose the method of punishment he had. From the implements hanging on the wall, he selected a crop not unlike the one Fidelia had used. Then with the flat of his hand he slid her legs apart as far as he could and still allow her to keep her balance. He ran the pliant tip of the crop around each of her nipples until they jutted like pebbles in front of her. His gaze on her was neutral, distant, as though she were an experiment that interested him. An experiment that interested both of them, she thought. But his scent gave him away. He was smoldering ash and summer storm agitated. He was cinnamon and aniseed, he was dark, rich earth, deep, dangerous and wanting … wanting her. She moaned involuntarily as he brought the tip of the crop up between her legs, up the valley between her labia, circling it around the nudge of her clit, teasing her through the thong, and her own scent was a riptide lapping at his. How the hell could no one else smell what was going on?
With a move that startled her in its swiftness, he brought the crop up with a tap that was more of a shock that pain against her clit. She tensed, her belly goose-fleshed, and her pussy gripped at its own juices. Holding her gaze, he moved forward and slid the flat of his hand into the front of her thong and down until his middle and index fingers could scissor into the wet trough of her and his thumb could press against her clit. He gave her a knowing smile when her eyelids fluttered and she bit her lip. Heat flashed up over her breasts and climbed her neck.
Then without warning he dropped his mouth to her nipples, suckling first one and then the other to hard tips that chilled in the dry air from the saliva he’d left on each. And when they were hard and tight and so sensitive that it was all she could do not to whimper each time he suckled, he pulled back and brought the force of the crop down with a sharp snap against first one engorged nipple and then another. She bit her tongue and held her breath to keep from crying out, but the tears that forced their way out of the corner of her eyes she could do nothing about. Then he cupped each breast in turn and brought the crop snap-snap-snapping up against the underside of each while he tweaked her nipples between thumb and forefingers.
‘That’s my girl.’ His breath was hot against her sternum, ‘That’s my girl. Take your punishment just like you deserve, then afterwards I’ll make you feel better.’
She was wet with thoughts of him making her better, and his eyes widened and his nostrils flared. She knew he smelled it, her desire, her need for him, the strange pleasure she felt in the pain he dished out to her so lovingly. Once again he slipped fingers into her thong and felt her, all swollen and wet. A murmur from the audience suddenly made her aware of the fact that they had something to do with what she was feeling. Their presence made the experience and the scent different, more intense somehow. But there was little time to dwell on her audience. Paulo hooked his fingers in the sides of her thong and hauled them down her legs, squatting in front of her as he did so, moving so that his breath brushed her tightly trimmed pubic curls before he slid the thong off one foot and then the other, steadying her with one hand on her hip. For a moment he knelt there, breathing her in. Then he cupped her ass cheeks gently enough not to hurt, but firmly enough to remind her that she had been punished before. He drew her to his face and placed a kiss against her mons, then moved low enough that his tongue flicked over the hard node of her clit, and this time she moaned out loud. Before he stood, he ran his tongue down the inside of her left leg and lifted it until he cupped the heel of her shoe, which he then slipped off and tossed aside. For a long, delicious moment, he bathed her foot with his tongue and his lips, pausing to suckle her toes until she writhed against her bonds. Then he repeated his efforts with her other foot, if anything, lingering even longer. It was only when he settled her weight back onto her feet that she realized what he had done. He had forced her onto the balls of her feet by taking away her heels. The acrid smell of her discomfort filled her sinuses.
Again he took up the crop and whisked it back and forth between her thighs to make sure her legs were as far apart as they could be. And just when she had regained balance and had convinced herself not to think about the burn she could already feel in her calves and in her arms bound over her head, he ran a splayed hand along her throat, over her sternum and down her belly to curl his fingers against her mons. His mouth clamped on hers in a possessive kiss. Just when he pulled away leaving her breathless, he brought the crop down with a sharp snap against the upper front of her right thigh and she swallowed back a curse, breathing hard through her nose at the harsh sting of it. Before she could breathe through the pain, he brought the crop down on the other thigh and the room around her blurred out of focus in front of her watering eyes. One hand snaked up the back of her neck and pulled pins from her hair with a calm efficiency she could scarcely believe, as he took her mouth again and ran the threat of the crop u
p the backs of her thighs. The kiss was deep and leisurely, with his tongue trailing like velvet against hers, against her hard palate, against the backs of her teeth. Once her hair was free, he ran his hand through it, loosening it, fluffing it, spreading it over her shoulders. Then the crop came down again hard and fast against the fronts of her thighs until there was the beginning of a lattice of red marks. Then without warning, he repeated his efforts against just the tips of her nipples until they stung and, once again, he took them into his mouth and suckled until she felt the effects down deep in her core. ‘You won’t disturb Angelo in his dungeon again, will you, Ms Calendar?’ His voice was harsh, his words cut through with his efforts to breath.
‘No, Mr Delacour. I won’t,’ she replied, her own voice nearly as breathless. A half a dozen more stinging smacks across her thighs and he dropped the crop to the floor. Then with a single slip of a knot, he loosened the tie until her arms fell free, and he guided the dead weight of them around his neck before she could stumble. Holding her gaze, he undid his fly, then lifted her into his arms. ‘I’m going to fuck you now, Ms Calendar, because you’ve made me horny.’ Somewhere a long way off Liza could hear the murmurs of the council and she could smell the intense wave of arousal rolling off all of them. But when Paulo lifted her onto him with a single thrust and wrapped her legs around him, her focus was completely and totally on the man in her arms. It didn’t take long for either of them to come, and then what happened afterward seemed vague to her. She remembered Paulo giving instructions to David – something about zip-lock bags, then he slipped his jacket around her, lifted her into his arms, and carried her up the stairs and out into the silky-rich Italian night. He carried her through the maze and up the travertine steps flanked by the roll and tumble of fountains. The valet had his car ready, and Paulo eased her into the passenger seat of the midnight blue Porch, shutting out the star-studded night sky. He leaned in and kissed her before he closed the door and settled in next to her.
