The angrier she became on my behalf, the sadder and smaller I felt. ‘Free me, please,’ I said, my voice trembling with shame and confusion.
Immediately she set about releasing me. I rubbed my skin where the leather had left red marks. Misty held out my gown and I quickly covered my nakedness. I tied the sash at my waist and forced myself to meet her eyes. They were pitying. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘I’ll take you to your room.’
I would not have pity from anyone. I raised my chin. ‘No, I know the way. Please go back to bed. I’ll be fine. I just need to be alone.’
‘All right, if you are sure.’
‘Yes.’
‘Goodnight then.’
She turned and walked toward the door.
‘Misty?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you.’
I stood watching the fire and listening to her footsteps fade. Then I glanced at the bed, the shackles, the blood-smeared sheet. Going to the bed I ripped the sheet off and bundled it. I held it pressed against my stomach and felt cold and alone. I dropped it on the bed and walked to the window, and, pulling aside the disintegrating velvet curtains, looked out. It was a still night with a large, low moon in the sky.
I hugged myself and thought about my life. How long would I have to be here? I had to find a way to make him talk to me. I had to find a way to persuade him to bring my brother into this country. I had nothing I could use other than my body. So be it. In the reflection of the windowpane I saw myself. I appeared white and sad. Slowly, I let the dressing gown drop and watched myself in the glass. I looked at the ghostly reflection of myself until I was so cold my goose bumps scattered my body. I picked up my dressing gown and put it back on. My body ached.
I turned away from the window and, leaving the room, walked toward my bedroom at the end of the next wing. In my bedroom I took off the gown and stood under the spray of a hot shower. I touched myself between my legs curiously. My flesh felt sore and sensitive. I thought of him. How acutely aware I had been of him. I had heard nothing and no one, and sensed nothing but his every move and sound. He had commanded my entire attention.
He must be very strong. I remembered that when he had first entered my body the pain was so sharp it was like being stabbed and I had instinctively jumped away from him, but his powerful hands had tightened on my hips and held me so powerfully that I could move not even an inch while he had slowly filled me up. The sensation of being full and stretched was so foreign.
Maybe I was shocked that he had made me climax. The woman had tried until I was sore and she had never managed. Eventually I had learned to pretend. To make my body go rigid and to moan the way she did. It seemed to satisfy and please her.
I remembered again the way my orgasm had overtaken my body. So powerfully that I had been afraid that something horrible was happening to me. I had opened my mouth to shout out in fear when the sensation of falling away was suddenly replaced by an intense and indescribable pleasure I had never experienced before. Then hot lights behind my eyelids and my heart fluttering like a bird in distress. It had shocked me to the core.
I got out of the shower and rubbed myself with a towel and noticed the bluish-black finger marks Guy had left on my hips and thighs. They did not hurt. I let the dressing gown slide to the floor. In the mirror I saw that my mouth was swollen. I dressed in my nightgown, lay on the bed, and fell asleep almost immediately. As I slept, right at the edge of my awareness, I sensed someone come into the room and stand over me.
Chapter 13
I had slept badly, again hearing the baby crying and the woman weeping, and woke up early. The storm was well and truly over. I stretched and realized that I was still sore between my legs, but I was full of curiosity about my surroundings. I rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Weak sunshine filtered in through the tiny windows, but it was lovely and warm and I stood for a long time under a blissfully hot shower. Just as I had finished my toilette there was a knock on the door and Misty walked in.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ I released my hair from its topknot.
But she carried on looking at me anxiously, as if I was suffering from something terminal.
‘Don’t worry, I’m really all right,’ I said, with a confident smile.
She smiled back. ‘I was worried about you. You looked bad last night.’
‘I’m good this morning,’ I said very firmly. Pity I did not want. From anybody.
‘You know that I have to take you to the room again tonight?’
I shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Of course.’
‘Right. See you at breakfast.’
I got dressed and went downstairs. There were voices and sounds coming from the breakfast room, but even though I was ravenously hungry, I didn’t want to see anybody so I slipped out of the front door and went for a walk.
The air was crisp and it felt good to be outdoors again. But the same disrepair that was inside the house was reflected outside. Statues covered in lichen and moss, water features choked in weeds, and a rose arbor that was so wild and full of brambles and thorns that it was not possible to walk under it. It was sad.
I walked up to the tree that had come down in the storm. It was very pitiful. I tried to imagine what the tree might have seen in its lifetime of more than three hundred years and could not. I kept on walking until I came to a Gothic chapel cemetery. The door was locked so I could not go in.
By the time I went back it was nearly two. I had missed lunch and I was hungry, but there was no one around in the breakfast room. I didn’t dare go down to the kitchen because I didn’t think Mrs. Littlebell would appreciate it. In fact the entire castle seemed deserted and silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock by the main staircase. I wondered where Guy was and what he was doing. Or what Misty actually did for Guy.
In my room I found a ham and salad sandwich rolled up in paper and a Thermos flask of hot chocolate on a tray. There was a note from Misty saying that there was a coffee machine in the breakfast room that was kept on all day and I should help myself if I wanted any.
Carefully, I took the meat out of the sandwich and wrapped it up in the paper the sandwich had come in. Then I sat on the bed and ate the meatless sandwich. I finished the hot drink and thought about going downstairs to see if Misty was about, but I must have been more tired than I thought because I fell asleep. By the time I woke up it was already dark outside.
I switched on the lights and went downstairs to the saloon. Misty looked up from some papers. ‘Hello, you’ll be pleased to know that the piano has been tuned.’
‘Good,’ I said.
‘Will you play something for me?’
I went to the piano and opened it. The smell had changed. I closed my eyes for a moment. Memories flooded my brain. Tears came to my eyes. I opened my eyes, and damn it, but water started to leak from them. I didn’t want Misty to know that I was crying so I didn’t wipe them away. They flowed down my cheeks and dripped onto my jeans while I played. It was an old, sad song that my mother had taught me.
When I had finished Misty stood from her chair and came to me.
She was holding a box of tissues. ‘You really are very good. I don’t think I have ever heard anyone play so well outside of a concert.’
I pulled out a couple of tissues and wiped my face and blew my nose. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t forget I have to take you to see Guy again tonight.’ Her eyes slid away from mine.
As if it was something I could forget. ‘Of course. What time?’
‘Same as yesterday.’
I nodded.
*****
Misty came for me at nine forty-five p.m. I was waiting for her on the bed. She knocked and I stood from the bed and followed her down the corridor back to the room. I went to the bed and took my dressing gown off.
‘Lie on your back in the middle of the bed,’ Misty told me.
I did as she asked.
‘Open your
legs a little.’
I flushed with embarrassment, but I did as I was asked. She put the leather restraints on my ankles and chained them to the bedposts. Then she did my wrists. After securely blindfolding me she left. After she had gone I tested my hands and legs. I could only curl my hands some, but I still had a lot of movement in my legs. I took a deep breath and waited.
Soon I heard his step in the corridor. I heard him open the door and pause there. He came farther into the room and circled me like a predator. I sensed it—the power and the sheer strength of him. It was a long, torturous time before I heard him again.
‘Spread your legs.’
Heat licked my skin as I moved my legs farther apart.
‘Bend your knees and let your legs drop open sideways.’
More movement. This time closer. I felt his hand on my shoulder and I jumped. A bolt of electrified energy like I had never known rattled through my body and made my hair stand on end. It was so powerful he could not have not felt it too. He removed his hand and the room became deathly quiet. But the silence was not empty. In it lived danger, desire: his and…mine. The excitement emanated out of his body in strong waves that were almost physical in nature.
The mattress gave way. Again I had the impression of a very large man. I felt hot breath on my skin, then the tender brush of lips on my neck, burning as they made contact with my flesh. I smelt wine and spices. A decadent, exotic, old world smell. Fingertips trailed down my body. A wave of pure pleasure ran through my entire body. My sex throbbed with need.
A hand ran through my hair, butterfly kisses burnt a trail down to my shoulders, my hair, lower down to my chest, on my breast, and then his wet hot mouth took my nipple into it. My breath escaped in a rush. The sensation was a tingling… A warning.
You cannot resist this.
My belly clenched with the fire in it. Between my legs I became wet with thick juices. I had never felt like this before. The woman had tried everything. Her fingers, her tongue… Nothing had moved me. My body—the meat and bones that I was—arched on its own. No matter what the logical part of my brain thought, my body wanted to submit to this man. It was begging for him to take me.
‘That’s right,’ he encouraged; the words were low and base, as if they had come from somewhere deep within him.
A large hand landed on my waist, firm and totally in control. His leg slid between mine and his knee, hard and hot, pressed into my sodden center. I could not help it, my bones felt as if they were melting. I lost my head. My hand came up to touch him. It was only tentative, weak, unformed, a gesture just born out of lust, but it stilled him like a bucket of cold water on a pair of mating dogs.
I felt his teeth on my nipple and his hands shove between my legs and grip me viciously. I went limp, like those insects that play dead when you poke them with a stick. I didn’t know why, but I knew instinctively that I should.
He let go of my nipple but not my sex. ‘You are here to be touched, not to touch,’ he ground out.
Gravity grabbed hold. I no longer flew. I felt myself drop and curl with shame. I wanted to huddle and hide myself. But I couldn’t. My body was splayed open. My most intimate area exposed and his to do with as he pleased. My limbs felt heavy. A starfish in the mid-sun.
I nodded. It would never be the same again.
He moved so that his bulge pressed between my legs. Trapped under him a spark deep within caught fire. My body started to flush. I felt his body move, the muscles coiling. Then he was blowing on my open, exposed sex. My breasts heaved with my quickening breaths. My sex blossomed with heat, grew, opened up to welcome him.
Without warning his silky mouth was on that little bud of my sex. My body arched uncontrollably and I gasped out loud. Lazily he swiped his tongue along the entire pulsing crack as I shivered with a strange need. I wanted him. I wanted him deep inside. Like last night.
He inserted a finger into me and wriggled it around. ‘You are too tight, but in the next few weeks I will use you and stretch you until having my cock inside you becomes the most comfortable thing you can imagine.’
One finger became two and my body strained against the leather restraints.
I felt his ridged abdomen brush against my stomach as he rubbed his hard length along my soaked slit. Then he placed his great erection at the center of me and threaded it into me. The pain was sharp and stabbing, as he forced me to accept his massive, swollen cock. My head pressed back into the pillow and my body shuddered as I opened my muscles and willed the silky hardness in. The thick, mushroomed head of his erection buried itself deeper still into my flesh. Until I was stretched to bursting. No more was possible.
‘Ohhhh…’
‘Did you think about this today?’ he growled harshly.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you want it?’
I felt him push against the wall. ‘Yes.’
‘Who’s your master, Lena?’
‘You.’ And at that moment it was as if my brain had been reprogrammed, overridden. All thoughts had been deleted and replaced only with the feel of his skin, the sound of his voice, the need to have him inside me.
He laughed, the sound rich and full of satisfaction.
And then he went for it. Ramming into me. Hard. Like a bull. Blindly. Again and again. My body jerked with the force and power in his thrusts. A bead of sweat landed on my stomach. In the darkness I heard the guttural groan of his climax as his body shuddered and he pushed even deeper. I ate that last pain even though it was like a fist inside me. He blasted deep within me. Filled me with his hot seed.
For a long while he lay on my body. Then he withdrew and I felt his eyes on my exposed arousal. I felt his seed leaking out of me. Using only his fingers he rubbed the folds of my sex softly, smearing our juices. The barest contact. It was frustrating. I wanted to grind my hips into his hand. The torment was unbearable. I felt desperate for his touch. My hips jerked into his hand. The wet hunger would not be denied.
‘Do you want satisfaction?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I whispered instantly.
His fingers began to play with my sex, strumming it like a guitar. Then hard, fast little circles. In seconds it became too much, and that thing that had been building inside me spilled over and I began to spiral into the dizzy pleasure that was more vast than anything I had ever known. A low growl emitted from my lips. Feral. Insatiable.
I rushed toward its violent nature, not caring if I drowned in it or was lost or hurt inside it. It raked me from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers and toes. The other side took me apart and when it returned me I was not quite the same woman that had gone so willingly into it. For a while we were both still and silent. Connected on some mysterious level that neither of us could deny.
‘The answer to the question you asked yesterday is simple. You are mine. You will always be mine and only mine. And while I am alive you will never have another man in your body.’
Then I felt cold air where his body had touched mine. I heard the rustle of clothes as he picked them off the floor and dressed.
‘Please cover me before you go,’ I begged.
I heard him pick up my dressing gown from the table where Misty had left it and bring it to me. I waited until he spread the material on my body and when I felt sure enough of his position I shot my hand out and caught his wrist, the chains rattling. I was being disobedient, standing at the edge of his displeasure, my hold tenuous.
I imagined him looking down at me, surprised, frowning.
‘When I was young,’ I began, ‘my mother told the story of a very poor man who found an injured crane. He took it home and nursed it back to health. After he released it a beautiful woman appeared on his doorstep. He fell in love with her and married her. She told him that she could weave wondrous clothes of the finest silk that he could sell at the market, but he must promise never to watch her making them. She made the clothes and the man became rich by selling them. He asked her to weave more and more, even though it was obviou
s that her health was declining. In his greed to see her secret so he could reproduce it in some other way he peaked at her while she was weaving. To his shock, he saw a crane plucking feathers from her own body and weaving them into the loom. The crane turned to look at him with sad eyes. Then it flew away never to return.’
I paused.
‘The story affected me deeply. I am not like that greedy man. I would never peek. You don’t have to chain me. I would never take my blindfold off.’
I released his hand and he stood for a long while over me, watching me. Then he left as quietly as he had come.
Chapter 14
Even though the bed was soft and warm I had slept badly. Again I had dreamed of the woman in green. She had stood at the doorway desolate, mournful, and lonely. Somewhere in the castle a baby was crying.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked her.
‘I’m waiting for her,’ she said and disappeared.
I woke up with a start. My room seemed unnaturally cold. I had pushed the blankets away in my sleep and the cold had seeped into my skin. I shivered and pulled them around me. It was five in the morning and the castle was quiet. I wondered what Nikolai would be doing. It was probably not even morning for him. I tried to imagine him in the log cabin and the images felt old and distant. I must find a way to keep my promise.
I lay on the bed and thought about Guy. About the way he made me feel. I touched myself, just on the bed the way he had. A frisson of desire ran through my body. It felt good. I realized that I knew so little about my own body. I did the same things he had done to me and eventually the climax came, but it was not as mind-blowingly explosive as it was with him.
I got out of bed. I planned to walk to the cemetery. I had only seen it in passing while trying the door of the chapel. It was a spooky place and I had not lingered yesterday, but for some unexplainable reason I wanted to read the headstones. I got dressed quickly in warm clothes and my walking boots and set out early. A walk before breakfast would do me good, clear my head. It was a chilly day. There was no wind or clouds, just sub-zero temperatures. There were ice crystals sparkling on the road. My breath rose in visible puffs.
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