*
Everything sizzled and hurt. When Elizabeth thrust her hips helplessly toward Lord Everret’s mouth, the clamps on her nipples pulled tight, causing more frissons of pain and pleasure.
Her pussy vibrated and another orgasm rolled through her. She fought it, not wanting to give anything to this man who let another man touch her. The fact that the wicked pleasure whipped through again only made her fight harder…and lose.
With Joshua’s mouth on hers, everything narrowed to him. His kiss created a focus, a safety line she could grab on to. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He softened his touch, his mouth sliding erotically over hers and his fingers brushing her nipples until the tension rose again.
Marcus’s tongue still tormented her aching flesh and she sobbed with frustration and need. The friction of the man’s rough tongue on her distended clitoris rushed her toward the pinnacle again. She began to shake, another orgasm about to rip through her.
Joshua tore his mouth from hers. “Stop,” he ordered and Marcus froze. His warm tongue and Joshua’s touch were removed. She opened her eyes, not realizing until that moment that she’d closed them.
Her husband had stepped away from her and brought Marcus to stand in front of her. “Look.”
What did Joshua want her to see? She studied Marcus and noted nothing. Her confusion must have shown in her gaze when she swerved her stare to Joshua.
“I wondered why you had such control,” Joshua said to Marcus. “Then I realized you had a mate. That’s why arousing Elizabeth doesn’t bring out the Beast.” He focused on her. “And why you have no real desire to fuck my mate.”
Marcus’ expression was speculative. “She doesn’t know?”
Know what? Damn these Arundale men.
Joshua shot her an amused glance. “That I can’t be with another woman? No. I’ve told her there’s been no one else, but she doesn’t believe me.”
She squirmed when Marcus focused on her. “I see.”
Joshua nodded. “Now, I want you watch, Elizabeth. If you close those beautiful eyes of yours, I will punish you.”
Joshua glanced at Marcus. “You have a male lover?”
“How did you…?”
Joshua sighed. “Do you think I don’t pay attention, brother?”
Marcus stood beside Joshua, completely still and unmoving for a full minute, then nodded. “I will fetch him.”
“Don’t be long,” Joshua said.
Marcus walked out of the room and Elizabeth stared at her husband. Joshua’s eyes were the familiar luminous blue of his changed self. His elongated teeth and thicker chest only made him more attractive, not less.
“Please, Joshua,” she said finally, her voice hoarse. “Show me,” she asked. It was risky. She knew it.
Was she asking too much? The diaries had said that the Beast form was difficult to retract once the man was sublimated. But this was her way of telling Joshua that she did trust him. It was an act of surrender even if he didn’t realize it.
“You know what you are asking?”
“I do.”
He could lose control and hurt her. They both knew it. The Beast was unpredictable, animal instincts and no conscious mind. If he lost control, she would pay the ultimate price. Death.
But she longed to see him in his other form. It was as if he held something back from her and she needed to see it revealed. So many secrets had lain between them and she wanted them all gone.
Slowly, staring at her face the entire time, Joshua stripped away his clothes and laid them over a chair in the corner. His naked form touched her, held her captivated.
Before her amazed gaze, he began to change, shifting, bending, his human features twisted in agony. His hands stretched out, long claws replacing his capable fingers. His face changed, lengthened.
In less time than it had taken to discuss it, he became the Beast of Arundale.
She studied this form and gloried in it. Once she’d seen a picture of a wolf, in a book of stories from France. Joshua’s Beast form was like that only much bigger, more muscular and less hairy, standing on its hindlegs like a man. The nails of his feet clicked on the bare floor as the Beast approached her, sniffed her, growled in her hair.
Instead of being frightened, she longed to throw her arms around his neck and hug him. This animal had known such pain and suffering, just as she had. The Beast ran his tongue along her neck, then stepped back. The blue eyes glimmered and the muscles rippled.
Suddenly he lifted his head and howled loud and long. It was a mournful, erotic sound that rumbled through every cell of her body. The creature growled but its muscles began to change, to twist back into its human form. The struggle held her captivated.
An inhuman growl echoed in the room and through Elizabeth’s soul. It was the same sound a wild animal made when forced into captivity. But Joshua proved stronger than the Beast within.
The Beast subsided and Joshua appeared, on his hands and knees, sweat beaded on his skin. He raised his head and she gasped. His eyes were still that eerie blue, with primitive emotions swirling in them. The way he studied her, head to toe, made her body tingle and heat. He stood up and stalked her, circling her, like downed prey that he marked for the kill.
He stopped behind her and bent down, his whole body draped over hers, his cock pressed against the seam of her arse. His hands started behind her knees and ran over the ropes on her hips and the sides of her breasts. The scrape of his teeth on the tender skin of her neck made her freeze, then moan. His hands slid over her sensitized nipples and he flicked them with his fingers. She cried out and arched her back. It tightened the chain that connected the nipple clamps and the clamp on her pussy. She panted, unable to stop the overwhelming pleasure once it began.
“That’s right,” he said as his fingers dipped down to her pussy and touched the entrance. “Let me taste you. I’m going to fuck you hard, Elizabeth, until you forget all about your anger with me.”
“Joshua,” she whispered.
His teeth sank into her shoulder and she shattered, spilling her release on his waiting fingers. He groaned near her ear and she saw him lick his fingers as if he tasted sweet jam. “This is the taste that haunted me, tormented me, all those long years.” He teased her pussy with the head of his cock. “I thought I couldn’t have you, didn’t deserve you. But when I saw you the first day I came home—” His voice broke and she twisted her neck to try to see his face.
He kissed her, gentle and sweet. She melted, her soul preening in the loving touch. When he broke the kiss, it was only to press his lips against her temple. “I knew then, Elizabeth. You were mine and no one else could have you.”
“Why didn’t you come home in all those years?” she sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks. All those lonely years they could have been together, wasted. “I missed you so much, Joshua,” she whispered.
“I know, my love,” he said and brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m here now. This is what it means to be Lady Arundale,” he told her. “If you don’t want this, can’t be this with me, then I will free you.”
She froze. “Free me? To marry Melinda?”
His answering growl was menacing. “No, damn it. I will not chain you to this…this…sexual need unless you wish it.”
“Oh, Joshua,” she said with a sigh. “Don’t you know? Can’t you feel it?” How could he not know? Her response had been so evident, so clear.
“I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings, little flower, but many will respond to this but feel shame later. I want no regrets.”
God, she wished she could move, to strike him, to show him. “No regrets?” she snapped, and struggled against the restraints, which only served to create more pleasure from the clamps and the ropes. She moaned. “You are the one who seems to have regrets.”
“No!” he shouted, and turned her face to glare at her. “I only regret that I didn’t know the nature of this Beast within. Had I known, I never would have left you.”
She blinked. She opened her mouth to speak but the door opened and Lord Everret appeared with another man.
Lord Everret waved a hand toward the stranger. “This is Derek Ainger, my lord.”
“Has Lord Everret explained what I am?” Joshua demanded.
Derek was a blond man, slender but with defined muscles. He wore a black collar around his neck and nothing else. His cock was erect and his hazel eyes were focused on Lord Everret even when he spoke to Joshua. “Yes, sir.”
“This one time, Lord Everret will do what I demand. Isn’t that right, Marcus?”
The dark man bowed to Joshua, a mysterious smile on his face. “This one time.”
“I want you to fuck him. And I want my wife to watch while I fuck her.” Joshua’s voice was the low, deep growl of the Beast.
Elizabeth couldn’t deny that the thought of watching Lord Everret with this man aroused her. The tip of Joshua’s cock rubbed along the rim of her pussy. She shuddered. He whispered in her ear. “Would you like that, my love? To see Marcus thrust inside Derek’s arse?”
The gush of moisture told him what her words couldn’t. He chuckled, the sound rippling along the shell of her ear. Carefully, he eased his cock inside her, the ridges dragging along the clamp making her squirm and writhe beneath him.
Joshua held still, his fingers digging into the flesh around her hips. “Keep your eyes open, wife. If you close them, Marcus will tell me and I will punish you.”
She clenched her muscles and felt his answering pulse. Her gaze stayed focused on the two men in front of her.
Lord Everret yanked on a leash connected to the collar around Derek’s neck until the man dropped to the floor on his hands and knees. Then he jerked open his breeches. “Suck me, Derek. Do it. But don’t make me come. Don’t you dare make me come,” Marcus said. “I’m going to spew into that sweet arse of yours.”
Elizabeth saw the movement of Derek’s throat when he swallowed, then slid his tongue around the base of Marcus’s cock. She watched, fascinated, as Derek licked the other man’s impressive length.
Lord Everret stretched out his hand and retrieved a crop from the wall. Elizabeth hadn’t noticed that the wall opposite her had several items hanging on it. When Marcus struck Derek’s buttocks with the crop, the man moaned. The swish of the whip and the way Derek’s face twisted into a mask of pleasure made her pussy throb.
Red marks appeared on Derek’s skin and Lord Everret stared hungrily at them. His free hand twisted in Derek’s hair. The kneeling man moaned when Lord Everret forced his cock into the other man’s mouth. The crop swished faster, harder, and Derek’s cock lengthened, bobbing up from between his legs.
Joshua leaned down and whispered dark things into her ear. “Look how Derek’s cock weeps, a bit of his seed dribbling from the tip. He loves Marcus’s cock in his mouth.”
Unable to look away, she stared at them and marveled at Lord Everret’s control. The man knew exactly when to slow the crop to extend their pleasure. Suddenly, Derek slid away and dropped even lower, his lips pressed against Lord Everret’s booted foot.
“Good boy,” Lord Everret purred, a low rumbling sound that made Derek shudder. “Turn around. We don’t want Lord Arundale to come before his wife is pleasured, do we?”
Derek shook his head and turned around, his buttocks facing Lord Everret. “You have a beautiful arse, Derek. And it’s red and hot from my attention.”
When Lord Everret slid his hands over the stripes on Derek’s back, the prone man groaned loudly. Lord Everret drew a bottle from the pocket of his trousers pooled around his feet and dripped liquid over Derek’s lower spine and buttocks. He used his fingers to slather the other man’s tight entrance with the liquid. Then he cupped his cock in his hand and spread the stuff all over his hard length, closing his eyes as he did so.
Lord Everret’s eyes snapped open and Elizabeth noted that they were the same bright blue as her husband’s when the Beast was near. He’s my kin in every way. Yes, Lord Everret was Joshua’s kin. Somehow, that made the whole thing even more titillating.
Impatiently, Lord Everret thrust inside Derek’s arse. Fast and hard, he pistoned against the other man. He reached around and grasped Derek’s cock, pumping it in time with his thrusts. The whole thing made Elizabeth tremble and shake with arousal.
Then her husband began to move inside her, in time with Lord Everret’s pounding. She watched the two men as Joshua slammed inside her, scraping the clamp on her distended clitoris and driving her higher and higher.
Sensations drowned her, the feel of the clamps on her nipples, the slide of his hard length along her clitoris and way his cock hit the opening to her womb all combined to overwhelm her. “Joshua,” she screamed, and arched her back, seeking relief, desperate for release.
His hand twisted in her hair and he jerked her head up. “Come for me, wife. Do it now!’
The orgasm that rolled through her wasn’t those pleasant tremors she’d experienced with her fingers, but a tidal wave of emotion. Pleasure, pain, life, death—all blurred in that moment as she was swept away, wiped clean. A keening cry was ripped from her and hurt her throat with its force.
Her muscles contracted, squeezed, kneading the flesh within her. Adding to her intense pleasure, Derek threw back his head and cum spewed from his cock and onto the floor in a shower of white liquid. A growl from Lord Everret followed almost immediately, signaling his release inside Derek’s arse.
Then Joshua exploded inside her and she went crazy underneath him. The wall of pleasure splintered and every single muscle of her body tightened. On and on, her release rolled over her. Elizabeth convulsed and shook, earthquakes continuing to rattle through her one after another until they seemed to have no end. Blackness crowded around her vision and she thought she was going to faint.
How long she continued to shake, she didn’t know. Slowly, she realized that Joshua was draped over her, his hot breath in her ear, his skin slick against her spine. He kissed her neck and whispered, “You belong to me, Lady Arundale.”
Tears burned under her eyelids. She wanted so desperately to believe him. But could she? Movement in front of her captured her attention. Lord Everret stroked Derek’s hair and whispered incomprehensible things she couldn’t hear. There was something tender and loving in their embrace and she wondered what they were to each other. Was Derek only a means to relieve the Beast inside Lord Everret, or something more?
It was in that moment that she realized it was a question she had hidden in her own mind, about herself. Was that all she was to Joshua? A means to relieve the Beast?
Lord Everret slid away from Derek and gripped the leash. “Come, Derek.” They left the room and Lord Everret only glanced back once to stare at Joshua.
When Joshua removed himself from her, she shivered from the lack of his warmth and the friction on the clamp that held her clitoris. Naked and satisfied, Joshua knelt in front of her.
“Do you believe that you can trust me?” His gray eyes were stormy, worry lines on his brow.
“Joshua…” she started. What could she say? She was confused, off center.
He cupped her cheek. “Poor little flower.” He kissed her gently. “Don’t answer now.”
First he reached down to the clamp on her clitoris. “My love, take a deep breath. This may be painful.”
She inhaled deeply and he unclipped the metal from her pussy. Pain ripped along her nerves and she wondered if she would scream from it. Then Joshua’s tongue slid over her sensitive nub and pleasure mingled with the pain until she orgasmed again. It seemed her capacity for this play was immense.
He moaned as he licked away the drops of her release. Then his tongue slid over the exposed skin of her belly and reached her right nipple. He undid the clamp there and she hissed in a breath. He licked away the pain in a heartbeat and gave the left nipple the same treatment.
Then, gently and carefully, Joshua undid the knots that Lord Everret had tied in the rope. Soon she was free, her skin chaf
ed in places where the rope had bitten into her skin. Joshua’s mouth traveled over every mark, owning them, soothing them.
She touched him, the one sensation denied her during the entire tableau. He shuddered beneath her fingers and she twined her hands in his hair to kiss him. Surrendering, she opened everything up to him.
Part of her realized he’d always owned her, that she’d been his from the moment he’d kissed her under his father’s apple tree. Years ago she’d handed Joshua her heart, her soul and her body. Nothing had changed. She’d loved him then and she loved him now.
His hands were tender and sweet as he held her close. Though she was on her feet, her knees shook so much it was Joshua’s strength that held her upright. He led her to a chair and she sat in it. Somehow, he obtained a glass of water and handed it to her. “Drink this, little flower.”
The water sloshed a bit, her hand trembled so badly. But she managed to get some of the liquid down her parched throat. The room stopped spinning and Joshua’s concerned face came into her vision. “What?”
“Perhaps this was too much. I should have been more careful.” His brows knitted into a frown.
Elizabeth had nothing to say. She couldn’t admit she’d loved every heart-wrenching minute of his touch, his attention. But it had meant nothing.
She closed her eyes. As much as she wanted to give in to the temptation to crawl into his arms and stay there, she knew the price to pay if she gave herself to him again. Already she had stepped too close, basked in the warmth of his lust, ignoring the ache in her heart.
With as much dignity as she could, she rose to her feet. “Shall we go?”
For a brief moment she saw a flash of pain, a twist of his lips, then all emotion disappeared from his features. “Of course.” He handed her shift to her and she dressed in silence. What could she say? She loved him, but she’d never survive abandonment.
It was easier to keep him at a distance and stay safe from that pain.
Even as she entertained that thought, her heart denied it. It wouldn’t work. She stifled a sob and kept her face averted from him. The pain, the desperate loneliness swamped her and she wallowed in her misery, hoping her face revealed nothing.
Wolf of Arundale Hall Page 12
