TH-Girl-ARE-epub

by EdenBradley

  The Master pulls back, and he’s panting almost as hard as Christopher. He gives a nod toward the back of the room, and the two large men come up and take Christopher off the cross, half carrying, half dragging him out the door. The Master runs a hand through his hair before he wipes his hands once more with the handkerchief. Then his gaze rests on each of the other Girls, then the Boy, and finally on me. My heart hammers in my chest, my pulse hammering in my clit.

  Please notice me.

  Don’t notice me.

  He gets up and stalks toward me, and I’d shrink in my seat if that were physically possible with these wooden dildos so lusciously buried in my body. He leans over me, his sapphire eyes boring into me.

  “That little scene excited you,” he says. It’s a statement, not a question.

  I nod the tiniest bit, bite my lip.

  He leans closer and I can smell him again, that elegant scent filling my head. He strokes my cheek, his fingertips brush my lips and it takes every ounce of discipline I have not to kiss his fingertips.

  He whispers against my hair through gritted teeth, “You. There’s something about you watching me do these things. Knowing you want to watch, knowing it thrills you, that makes it… Be careful, little Girl. Be careful what you wish for.”

  He gives me a small shove as he straightens and moves back to the front of the room, keeping his back to us.

  “Class dismissed,” he says, then walks out.

  I am left with my mouth hanging open in shock. Something about me? Me? And how does he know what I wish for? But of course he knows. It’s his job to know. And I am crushed and frightened and so hopeful my heart is soaring all at once. I stare at the front of the room, my gaze searching madly for…something. I don’t even know what. Some trace of him, perhaps? But what I find are traces of the beautiful Christopher: several tiny drops of blood on the floor. And I want to touch them, to lick them up, to absorb them somehow.

  He is not for you. You are the Master’s.

  But I can’t help the craving that is driving me mad. The craving for them both! I am not supposed to feel this way. Not to this degree—for either one of them, not even the Master, so soon.

  It’s nothing. It’s lust.

  But I’ve felt lust before, many times, and it didn’t feel like this.

  By the time the blond slave Boy comes for me I’m shaking all over, and when he puts his hands on me, simply to lift me off the wooden dildo, I am so close to coming again—or still—that I resist him for a moment.

  He laughs. “What’s this? Don’t want to leave your seat?”

  I shake my head mutely and let him snap the leash back onto my collar. As we move down the hallway I keep my gaze on the floor, the patterns of the wood grain making me a little dizzy.

  “Boy.”

  I look up at the sound of the Master’s voice, my heart racing.

  “Give her to me,” he demands, putting his strong, beautiful hand out for the leash, which the Boy gives over to him with a small bow.

  “Yes, Master.”

  My heart races. Is he angry with me? Did he see me looking at Christopher? Did I do something else wrong?

  He pulls me along behind him without another word, and I can barely keep up, he’s moving so quickly. We reach the end of the hall at the front of the house and he marches me up a flight of wide, carpeted stairs to the third floor. At the top of the flight he turns and presses on the back of my neck.

  “On your knees, Girl.”

  I go right down, the idea of being on my knees and crawling for him making my limbs go warm and loose. The ivory carpet is soft, and scratchy at the same time as I follow his polished black boots. I love that he wears these big, bad-ass boots with his European-tailored slacks. It’s divinely decadent to me, reminding me of the contrast that is kink at this level—an alluring combination of pure luxury and dirty wickedness.

  I have no idea where he’s taking me, but I don’t care as long as I can be with him. Unless he plans to lock me up somewhere in an attic room, alone, to suffer.

  Please, no.

  But in a moment we move through a pair of double doors into what can only be his private rooms, the space is so enormous and luxurious. The floor is a dark wood with lovely Persian rugs in deep red, black and gold. I don’t dare look up to see what the rest of the room looks like, but it smells expensive. It smells like him. When the Master stops and turns to me, I immediately bow down, my forearms resting on the floor, my ass in the air.

  He’s silent for several long moments, then he says, “Very nice. Where did you learn that little trick? It pleases me, that you do this without me having to ask. It shows a certain level of devotion. To submission, if not to me. Are you devoted to me? No, don’t answer that.” I feel him moving around me, the slight pull on the leash as he paces, then I hear him blow out a long breath. “Do you know why I brought you to my rooms?” he asks, his voice a quiet murmur. “Well, neither do I. Fuck.”

  What is this? I don’t understand what he’s saying to me.

  “Come here.”

  He tugs on the leash and I follow him on my knees to a seating area with a long sofa and two large chairs on either side, all done in masculine brown leather, diamond-tucked with brass studs. He sits on the sofa.

  “Kneel, Girl.”

  I do so, in classic slave pose: head bowed, palms upturned on my spread thighs. I love this position. It reminds me that I have given myself to him, handed over my power completely.

  “Very pretty.” He tucks a few fingers beneath my chin. “But I want you to look at me,” he orders.

  When I do, his eyes are like a shock as they meet mine. They are so impossibly blue, and there is such intensity there. I don’t know what to think of it.

  “Tell me your name,” he orders.

  It takes me a moment to find my voice. “Girl.”

  “No, I mean your name.”

  My name in this place is Girl. What else could he possibly want? Then it hits me. He actually wants to know my name. Who I am. And I panic.

  Chapter Six

  “I…” I stop, shake my head. “Master…?”

  He runs a hand through his dark hair, tension in every line of his body. “I know it’s on the contract. I knew it when I paid for you, when I reviewed your medical records. But I want you to say it.”

  “Is it…is it not Girl, Master?”

  “Not right now. Tell me.”

  Shaking my head once more, my hands clenching, I have to force the words out. “It’s Aimée.” It feels strange on my tongue. It feels as if I’ve done something terrible.

  “Aimée,” he repeats, his shoulders dropping a little. He pats the sofa next to him. “Sit with me.”

  I climb up slowly, warily, sitting very stiffly, my eyes on the floor. He unsnaps my leash, then my collar, and I want to cry. Is he so displeased with me? I turn frightened eyes to him.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not releasing you.”

  A tear escapes then, making him smile a little, just one corner of his lush mouth, and for the first time all day I feel as if I’ve done something right, even if it’s only crying for him. And this man’s smile is every bit as stunning as the rest of him.

  “Aimée, I want you to talk to me. That’s why I took your collar off. You are still mine.” He pauses, watching me, his gaze searching my face, but I don’t know what he’s looking for. “Do you want to be?”

  I hadn’t realized it was up to me. And perhaps it’s still not.

  “Yes, Master! Please.” I am trembling all over.

  “Then talk to me. I know this is…unprecedented under the circumstances. But this is my House, and I make my own rules. Understood?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Good girl. Are you cold? Here.” He takes an angora blanket, woven in shades of maroon and gold, from the arm of the sofa and wraps its softness around me, his fingers pausing on the bare skin of my shoulder.

  It occurs to me that he understands how difficult it is for me to t
alk with him while I am still a naked slave, after the terms of this place have been ingrained in me for the last week, or however long I’ve been here. Deeply ingrained, which is his clever intent, and my mind is having a terrible time wrapping itself around this sudden shift.

  Suddenly he leans in, his face very close to mine. “I must tell you this—that I don’t know exactly why I brought you here, why I feel the need for you to talk to me as if you weren’t simply another one of my slaves. But you aren’t.” He sits back and drags tense fingers through his hair. “Goddamn it, you aren’t. And I’m as confounded by this as you appear to be.”

  I’m really shaking now. I don’t know what to think, where to look, except at him. He is too handsome to be believed. So utterly masculine. Still exuding dominance like a pheromone. When he takes my hand I nearly yank it back. But I would never do such a thing.

  “Aimée, don’t be afraid. I need to know you. Tell me something…”

  “Tell you what, Master?”

  “I don’t know. Anything. You were born in Paris, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Where in Paris?”

  “Saint Germain-des-Prés.”

  “Ah. A child of privilege. Your family is wealthy? That always makes for a very particular kind of slave. Maybe that explains your perfect posture, the grace of your movements.”

  He runs a fingertip along my collarbone, up the side of my neck slowly, and I want to lean into him. I want to purr. Except that I’m still too shaken up by this turn of events.

  “Or maybe that’s simply you,” he says. “Tell me how many Masters you’ve had, what your kink life has been like.”

  “I have been owned twice before. Once, briefly, by a Mistress in Paris, once by Master Graham, who sent me to you.”

  “And in the time between?”

  “I’ve played at the clubs. I’ve bottomed for many people. But it never fulfilled me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have a need to be owned, Master.”

  “What else?” he demands, and I know I can’t be so brief with him. He truly wants to know.

  I fold and unfold the edge of the blanket between my fingers, but when I see him noticing I stop. “I’m…not sure I’ve ever thought it all the way through. When I was with my Mistress in Paris, I was too young to appreciate it.”

  “Sometimes when we’re very young, we need to get out and try different things, experience life. Experience submission on a variety of levels.”

  “Yes, that was exactly how I felt.”

  “You look surprised that I would understand. But I was once in the same position, you know.”

  “You were a slave?” I cannot keep the shock from my voice.

  He glances away, runs his hand over the high arm of the sofa, and I see the muscles in his forearm flex, making the dragon tattooed ripple over the bone and sinew. The black and gray detail and shading is exquisite. “Yes. A long time ago. In this very House.”

  He remains quiet, pensive, and I don’t dare disturb him. I want to know this story too badly, and I’m afraid if I speak, if I move, it will break the mood, and he won’t tell me anything more.

  Finally, his gaze still turned away from me, he says, “The Training House has been owned by several generations of Masters and Mistresses. It was run by Master Stephan when I came here. He was a remarkable man. Tall, with long, blond hair he wore slicked back. Very European. He was Austrian. And I was only nineteen years old, so I understand being too young for such confinement. I came and went a few times, and he allowed me back every time. By the time I was twenty-two we were lovers. I don’t know that I was ever a proper slave—not in the way the others were. I don’t know that I truly had it in me. Well.” He turns back to me, and I’m not certain why he’s trusting me with all of this, or with the rawness in his expression, the shadows in his eyes. “We were together for six years when he became ill. Cancer. For the next two years I took care of him, as well as the House. During that time I expanded my skill set and my knowledge of domination, although he’d had me Top other slaves for his entertainment many times over the years. He’d had me fuck them, Girls and Boys, in front of him for his pleasure. Sometimes we’d take another slave to bed, sometimes entire orgies. But I’m not interested in that any longer. I haven’t been for some time.”

  His gaze is burning into me. And I find I’m holding my breath, trying desperately to take in this information while he is mere inches from me, distracting me, my body on fire, my emotions cycling through so fast I can’t grab on to any one thing and make sense of it: yearning, fear, sympathy, hope, despair.

  “Aimée. I don’t know what it is I’m looking for, but I felt the moment you arrived in my House I’d found…something. And it’s driving me mad.”

  He stands and the panic takes over once more as I watch him pace the floor, his hand buried in his curling black hair.

  “The thing is, I don’t know that I ever really loved the man. How terrible is that? How unfortunate for us both. Surely he knew.” He comes to me, kneels down in front of me. “I couldn’t stand it if that were the case with you. If you were never to serve me because you loved me in some way and not simply because of a contract you’d signed. If serving me fulfilled only your need to submit, and not some true desire for….”

  I can feel my jaw dropping. My heart tumbles in my chest and the only thing I can get out is a harsh whisper. “Master, I serve you because I need to. I came here because I needed to serve, but after that first day, I think only of you.”

  And I have just lied to my Master. Because after today I am also thinking of Christopher. But at this moment, it is the Master in front of me, and I want…everything. I want him to touch me, to hold me, to hurt me. I want to do anything he asks of me, demands of me. I do have love in my heart for him. And I realize this connection was forged the moment our eyes met in his study downstairs, when I was simply a nameless Girl. Can I ever be that for him again?

  He reaches for me and cups my cheek. Tears sting my eyes.

  “Why do you cry, when I’m not punishing you?”

  “Because I don’t know how to cope with this tenderness from you.”

  He watches me, and murmurs, “Perhaps you’ll simply have to learn how, my Aimée.”

  Oh! I do my best not to burst into tears, but it happens, anyway. And then more tears as he pulls me from the sofa onto the floor with him, into his lap, and the blanket slips away as he kisses me. And oh, his kisses are delicious, his lips tender, then his teeth biting hard enough to hurt. And I understand that I will be able to take the tenderness because with him, it will always be countered with pain. I stop struggling as my heart surrenders.

  He draws both my wrists behind my back as he continues to kiss me: my lips, my neck, where he bites me harder, and it hurts enough to make me pant in pain and pleasure. Lovely. Excruciating. Then he’s using the pressure points just under my collarbones to hold me still, and he lets my wrists go while he runs the other hand over my body. And this is so completely different from any way he’s touched me before, from any way I would have ever expected him to after the rigid harshness of his command that I’ve known since the first moment I saw him.

  Is this some dream? Am I alone on my white pallet, eyes closed against the moonlight, imagining the Master wants me? Me, not a nameless, faceless slave—the slave I came here to be, but which I don’t want to be at this moment.

  His hand caresses my side, slips down to the curve of my hip, and it’s like being touched by a lover. There is still command there, but oh, his kisses are soft and sweet in between the hurting little nips of his sharp teeth.

  He forces my thighs open a bit, his hand demanding, yet sensual. And it’s like some kind of mad mind fuck, being caught in this strange in-between state. Am I the slave girl? Am I myself? Maybe I don’t even know who that is anymore. Which was what I thought I wanted. But now…

  Tentatively, I bring my hands up and lace them behind his neck, feel the heat of
the tender skin there, burying my palms under the curling hairline. And my heart twists in my chest because he feels so utterly human. Vulnerable.

  I can’t stand it. It is everything I never knew I wanted.

  He presses his lips harder to mine, as if he silently understands exactly what I’m thinking. His tongue is hot and sweet, tasting the tiniest bit of mint beneath a flavor that is simply him—like leather and strength. Intoxicating. As intoxicating as his hands, which are really exploring me now, sliding over my flesh: my stomach, the small of my back, then up my spine, leaving chills in the wake of his touch. I am covered in goose bumps. Soaking wet. I want to spread my thighs wide for him, welcome him in. Beg him for it. But I am still mostly a good Girl, so I remain quiet, passively accepting his kisses, his touch, except for the little gasping breaths I can’t help.

  Soon he’s pressing me down on my back on the soft rug, the weight of his body over mine, the buttons of his shirt pressing into the soft flesh of my breasts. We’re making out like teenagers, except that there is nothing innocent about it—about him as his panting breath fills my mouth, as I breathe it in. He uses his knees to kick my thighs apart and I want to scream at him to fuck me.

  Please, please, please…

  Shaking all over, my clit is pulsing with a desire that is stunningly sharp. A small sigh escapes me when he lowers his head and takes my aching nipple into his mouth, drawing it in, sucking hard, swirling his tongue over the sensitive tip. Then biting down hard enough to make me cry out.

  “Ah!”

  “Did that hurt you? You must know I meant it to,” he murmurs, his voice a low, rough rumble I can feel in his chest. “You know we both wanted it to. Needed it to. There are certain things we understand about each other, even with so much still to discover.”

  He turns his face and rubs his soft hair over my breasts, and it feels unbelievable. So, so good I have to hold my breath in fear that he’ll stop. Finally I dare to take his face in my hands, running my fingers through that thick, lovely hair. But he immediately takes control from me, pinning my wrists over my head with one hand, kissing and sucking at my throat, using his lips and teeth to press, to constrict my breath, which always renders me helpless—it’s the hard surge of desire as much as it is surrendering to his control. It’s everything at once.