“What? Dominant?” he asked matter-of-factly.
“Yes.”
He took a sip of wine. “I was probably about sixteen. I knew a little about my family history, but it was abstract until I started reading Sade’s books. The more violent parts always seemed ridiculous, not anything a normal person would even consider. But some of the images stuck in my head. I used to fantasize about dominating a woman who got pleasure out of it, even though it scared her.”
“Do you think it was just…who you were?”
“You mean, did the books influence who I was?” He shrugged. “I wish I could answer that. I’ve always thought that it’s innate, this tendency in my family that I can’t get away from.”
I’d never seen him so relaxed or so open. Today, everything was off the record, and he knew it. “How did it start for you?”
“In the beginning?” He squinted slightly, as if wavering between keeping it secret and telling the truth. “I met a girl at university who let me tie her hands, but she never liked it. She knew it wasn’t just a game to me. I liked playing on the edge every time.”
“So you stopped? You said you’d been…repressing it for years.”
His face shadowed with the memories. “There were other women after her. It got a lot heavier before I put a stop to it. That was a time in my life –” He shook his head. “I prefer not to think about it, actually.”
“Why?”
He began turning a dessert spoon over and over with his fingers. “Because I hurt people. I have a lot of regrets. Around that time, everybody on my mother’s side of the family seemed driven by some crazy impulse. My mother had lovers and her brother was sleeping with his students, girls no older than twenty. He was fired from his teaching job and his wife divorced him. Then I found out my grandfather had been visiting whorehouses for years. I looked at these people and I wanted nothing to do with them. I even stopped seeing my mother for a while. I did everything I could to change who I was.” He set the spoon down. When he looked up at me, his eyes were clouded and his jaw tight.
“Did it work?” I asked.
He gave me a sardonic smile. “I thought so. Then I met you, and I realized I haven’t changed at all. For eight years I’d been doing an excellent job of deceiving myself.”
I felt a jab of regret. Marc had found peace in his life, and then I’d come along. With my frustrated desires and desperate need for adventure, I had revived a painful obsession he’d snuffed out a long time ago.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If I’d known…”
He put his hand over mine. “It isn’t your fault, Sophie. I initiated everything.”
“But I’ve gone along with it. I’ve enjoyed it.”
He let out a long sigh. Under the table, he pressed his leg against mine. “That you say that…it makes it even harder to deny myself. It’s too easy to slip back into my obsessions.”
“In a few days, I’ll leave and you can go back to your old life,” I said.
He thought for a minute, his gaze resting darkly on my face. “Is it possible to go back to my old life? It doesn’t exist anymore. I can’t undo what’s happened, and neither can you.”
“We can stop,” I said. “We don’t have to go on like this.”
He leaned across the table and gave me a very soft but possessive kiss. “Yes, we do, and you know that. Neither of us has a choice.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Though we made it to the apartment, we got only as far as the living room before he tore my blouse open, sending buttons spinning across the floor. This time, he made me stand in front of him with my skirt raised so he could spank me. He sat in a leather chair fully dressed, like an angry but very aroused professor.
“You’ve excited me more than you should have,” he said, holding my wrists in front of me. “You’re much too seductive.”
I could imagine how much like a schoolgirl I looked in my flats and pleated skirt, my net panties pulled to my knees. “Lift your skirt higher,” he said. “Don’t hide yourself.”
“Should I take it off?” I asked.
“No. Leave it on.”
Palm flat, he spanked me, pausing between strokes to admire my bright red flesh. “Does it hurt?” he asked, his voice quiet but deep and silky-smooth.
“Yes.” I shivered from the pain, which spread outward from the point of impact in burning ripples.
Probing a rough finger between my legs, he smiled. “It hurts and it excites you. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you like being punished.”
I bit my lip against the pain. “I don’t even know what I’m being punished for.”
“Of course you do. You teased me all afternoon. Enjoyed the looks you got from other men.”
“You made me go out without a bra,” I couldn’t help but retort.
His laugh made me feel like a silly child. “And you loved it, didn’t you?” He slapped me again, this time on both cheeks at once. “Turn your back to me,” he said. “Bend over, just a little. Lift your hips. Really show me your ass.”
I felt fear like a thin trickle of ice water over my skin. Julia was right, this was not fiction. Marc had said he had regrets, that things had spun out of control. Was this what he meant? Or was it only the start of something more dangerous?
I heard him lower his zipper with one hand while he smacked me with the other, over and over until I thought I might faint. I wasn’t enjoying it and still I was getting wetter for him, anticipating what he’d do next.
“Please stop, Marc,” I said, knowing it was useless.
“I didn’t hear you,” he said, lightly pinching me on one side and then the other.
“Stop. It’s too much.” My breath hitched in my throat. I whimpered but stayed where I was.
“It’s too much?”
“Yes.”
“You’re free to walk away but you don’t,” he said. “Why is that?”
It was true. He wasn’t holding me back. A few steps forward and I’d be out of his reach. “I don’t know,” I whispered.
“I do. You enjoy being spanked by me. It arouses you more than you can admit.”
He ran a slow hand over my stinging skin as if admiring his handiwork. Then I felt his lips on me, soothing and gentle. He kissed the backs of my thighs, my hips, and the base of my spine.
“Ass out toward me,” he said, pushing against my lower back. “Just like that.”
I braced for another slap but felt only his tongue, licking between my legs in long, firm strokes. The sudden sensation was so powerful I could hardly stand. He held my hips steady in his hands, licking my entrance, biting my backside, fucking me repeatedly with his tongue. My eyes fluttered closed and my lips parted. His mouth was nothing less than pure ecstasy. I was on the brink of a nerve-shattering orgasm when he pulled me down onto his lap, penetrating me in one long, hard stroke. I distantly heard my own cries of bliss as he forced me up and down with driving intensity, his lips against my ear.
“I love spanking you,” he whispered between moans. “I love your perfect ass.”
He put me on my knees on the floor and took me from behind, slapping me with every stroke. Pleasure and pain mingled into a feeling of raw, animal possession. With a growl of pure lust, he pushed my legs together so that each thrust was as tight as he could make it. No virgin had ever felt as ravished as I did at that moment.
Fifteen minutes might have gone by, or an hour. I couldn’t think, or speak, or do anything but feel. My clitoris was swollen and throbbing, aching for his tongue. When he finally pulled away I was quivering uncontrollably, barely able to catch my breath. He lay on his back beside me, his pants unzipped and his chest heaving.
“My God, Marc,” I muttered.
“Yeah,” he said. “And we’re not done yet.”
“I hope not.” We turned our heads and smiled at each other. I realized that I was lying in the early evening light with my blouse open and my skirt up around my hips, feeling none of my usual modesty.
&nbs
p; “Can you move?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I think so.”
“Come on,” he said, getting to his feet. “I have something to show you.”
He took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom, where he stripped off my clothing and shoes. After instructing me to sit, he pulled an ornately carved walnut box from under the bed and opened the top. Inside were a leather riding crop and a beautiful braided whip coiled like a sleeping snake.
Lips quivering, I glanced up at him. Here it was, the inevitable next step. Not someday, not tomorrow, but now.
“Have you used these before?” I asked, touching the crop with a tentative fingertip.
“No. Not until tonight.”
“Tonight?” My voice was a broken whisper.
“You did well with your introduction to spanking. I’m impressed with your stamina.”
“I don’t think I have any stamina left.”
“Oh, but you do, my little Pet,” he said, reaching out to stroke my face. “You don’t mind if I call you that, do you?”
Pet. My own term of endearment. The word almost broke my heart with its sweet intimacy. “I like it,” I said.
“I think it fits you perfectly. Now, kneel on the bed. All fours, as if I were going to put a saddle on you. Which I may yet.”
I knelt naked on the bed in the fading sunlight, my backside toward him. He stood silently and looked at me, coolly assessing the crimson marks he’d left on my skin. It occurred to me that only yesterday, I’d been on the train returning to Paris. It seemed that I should have known what was in store for me, but I hadn’t had the faintest glimmer.
“Am I your master?” Marc asked in a cool, business-like tone.
I frowned. No man is my master. I was too strong, and I’d been through too much. So why did I want to give him everything, to let my guard down for the first time in years?
He trailed the end of the crop along my thigh. The leather tip tickled – a perilous deception, I knew. It would take only a flick of the wrist for it to become an instrument of pain. I shivered, knowing he would use it if I gave him the wrong answer, or the right one.
“Yes,” I whispered. “You’re my master.”
It was true. I could try to lie to him and to myself, but he’d been my master from our first night together. He’d been my master when I was a country away, trying desperately to forget him.
“But you resist me,” he said, his tone ominous. “Instead of submitting to being spanked, you tell me to stop. Is that how a woman talks to her master?” The crop’s edge caressed my spine and the nape of my neck.
“No, but –”
“You’re arguing with me again,” he said. “Though I admit I enjoy a challenge. I like a woman who makes me work for what I want. And I want this very much.” His voice was suffused with shameless lust. Lust for me. Of all the women in the world, I was the one he’d chosen. That knowledge was almost enough to soothe my anxiety as the crop trailed across my shoulder, down to my elbow and the back of my hand.
“You understand the purpose of this, don’t you?” he asked.
“There’s a purpose?” He ran the cool leather tip over my hard nipple and the curve of my breast.
“You experienced it a few minutes ago in the living room. When pleasure follows pain, all of your perceptions are enhanced. Every nerve ending is primed for sensation. You felt it when I licked you, didn’t you?”
The crop slid between my legs, the smooth, hard handle slipping into my wetness and pressing against the delicate flesh. “Yes,” I gasped. “I felt it.” My pelvic muscles contracted as he gently pushed the handle in and out of me and rubbed it over my clit. Another minute of this and I would come whether he permitted it or not.
“You’d like to feel that pain and pleasure again, wouldn’t you?” he said, tracing the handle over my backside.
I couldn’t bear to break the exquisite tension between us, even if it meant enduring the same pain I’d felt earlier – or worse. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”
He teased me endlessly, running the crop over every inch of my naked body. When the slap finally came, a shudder went through me and I cried out. Marc rubbed his hand over my hip, taking away the worst of the sting.
“I love watching the redness bloom on your white skin,” he said. “You respond to the crop just as quickly as my tongue.”
When he struck my ass I pressed my lips together, refusing to cry out again. This was a different pain from spanking – sharper, with a deep, lingering burn that crept under my flesh. Only the impressive evidence of his arousal and his warm, reassuring touch kept me from begging him to stop.
After five brisk swats, he positioned himself behind me, pushing my legs together until my knees touched. “You’ve been very good,” he said. “And you’ve aroused me so much that I can’t wait anymore.”
With one hand gripping my hip, he drove into me with long, rough strokes, letting me feel his full length by withdrawing before he plunged inside me again. Just when I thought he was almost finished with me, he stopped to make me suck him and then re-entered me from behind. This time, every hard thrust had a potent urgency I felt to my toes.
He struck me twice with the crop, then let out a deep groan that could have been from agony as much as pleasure. For almost a minute he shook against me, his fingers knotted in my hair, the crop discarded on the bed.
Afterward, he lay back against the pillows and held out his arms. I slid over to him, letting him wrap his body around me. “Pet,” he whispered, kissing the space between my eyebrows, my earlobes, the hollow of my throat. “I’ll let you come soon. I promise.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered.
“Of course it does.”
Tears of relief and confusion filled my eyes. How could I crave his affection after he’d hit me that way? Somehow I respected him even more, and myself no less. Maybe it was because, deep down, I knew the choice was mine.
“Why do I have a feeling you’re not usually this passionate?” he asked.
“Usually? Try never.”
“Why? None of your lovers knew what you liked? Not that I want to think about your other lovers, believe me.” He winced, gritting his straight, white teeth.
“You really want to hear this?” I’d never told anyone, not even Trevor. Not even the therapist I saw after my father died.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
I took a long breath, not wanting to tell him the story but unable to keep it inside. When I spoke, my voice was quiet and calm, as if I were describing something that had happened to someone else.
“I had a boyfriend when I was in high school. We got really close – physically, I mean. It was a first crush kind of thing, and I couldn’t think about anything else. A few weeks after I lost my virginity to him, my mother was killed. My relationship with my boyfriend was ruined. I felt ashamed for wanting something physical that seemed so selfish and shallow. All that time I’d spent with him, I could have been with her. It took me a long time to get over the guilt. Even when I did it wasn’t the same. It was like I’d shut down and couldn’t get past it. Until now, I guess.”
Marc was staring at me intently. “Why now?”
“I’m not sure. Something about you, what we do together.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s incredible.”
I shut my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly feeling exposed and embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to tell you too much.”
He cupped his hand to my cheek and forced me to look at him. “I want to know everything. Don’t hold anything back from me. Ever.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
But holding back was all I’d done for years. I might be losing some of my sexual inhibitions, but in my heart, I was no closer to letting someone in than before. A few brief, blissful days with Marc couldn’t change that.
Lying there in his arms, I wondered if a lifetime would be long enough.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I w
oke the next morning, startled from sleep for the second time in an hour. The first time had been Marc’s alarm beeping loudly on the nightstand. Now it was a buzzer, blasting at three-second intervals like an air horn.
“Marc?” I mumbled, rolling over.
It wasn’t quite eight a.m. His side of the bed was empty, the pillow still bearing the imprint of his head. I touched the spot lightly, already missing him. I had a vague recollection of him whispering something about seeing me after work, and then kissing me on the lips and forehead. It felt like it had happened an hour ago, but it could have been only minutes.
The buzzer sounded again, longer and more insistent this time. Maybe Marc had left his key behind, or a delivery man was ringing up from the lobby.
Throwing on my robe, I walked barefoot to the foyer and peered through the peephole. The hallway was empty. I pressed the buzzer and waited sleepily at the open door. What if Marc had decided to tour the prison with Eleanor and me after all? How different, and sexy, the day would be with him along.
The elevator rattled to a stop down the hall. The door slid open, but Marc didn’t step out. Trevor did.
“Sophie?” he said, pulling a wheeled suitcase behind him.
Suddenly wide awake, I clutched my robe tightly over my chest. My heart throbbed against the backs of my fingers.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“My flight landed an hour ago,” he said. “Julia told me where you were.” His hair was shorter than I remembered and his t-shirt wrinkled from traveling, but otherwise he looked as he always had. Tall. Small-eyed and heavy-jawed. Handsome in the smirky, college-boy way I’d once found attractive but no longer did.
“Why did Julia tell you anything at all?”
“Don’t blame her. I called her to see if she’d heard from you. I dragged it out of her and got on the next flight.”
“You need to go,” I said, starting to shut the door. “You can’t just show up like this.”
“Is he in there with you?” he asked, his voice getting louder.
“What? No.”
Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 1) Page 13
