Once Upon a Time

by Luna Doerr

Was that what Charles wanted? He had certainly enjoyed spanking her the last time, but did he want some measure of pain as well?

  “Is anyone there?” he croaked.

  “Yes, I am here.” She lowered her voice in the hope he wouldn’t recognize it. She strode over to a lamp on the other side of the room. “I am going to give us a bit more light.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “You seem not to be in a position to negotiate.”

  That brought a slight curve to his lips. Erica paused again to drink in the sight of him. His body was strong and muscled, the lines of his thighs and arms drawn tight as if chiseled from some fine stone. How could he think he was ugly? Her body was tingling already with desire and want.

  “Your wife is a lucky woman,” she said.

  His smile disappeared. “We will not speak of my wife.”

  Erica crossed the room to him and ran her finger lightly down his arm from shoulder to forearm. She leaned in and kissed the softer skin on the inside of his wrist. He sucked in a breath.

  “If you have a wife, what are you doing here?”

  He grunted. “Isn’t that obvious? She would never go in for something like this.”

  Erica traced light circles on the palm of his hand. “Hmm. I don’t know. I think I should rather like to have a man strung up nude like this in my home. Better than some boring landscape painting, don’t you think?”

  “Would you now? And if you had such a man strung up in your home, what would you do to him? Merely admire him from across the room?”

  “He would certainly liven up a party.” She laughed and a strange look crossed Charles’ face. Instantly, she lowered her voice again. She had to be more careful. But she was liking this game. “I’ll tell you exactly what I would do,” she whispered. “First, I would touch every inch of your skin.” She ran her palm down his chest, stopping just shy of the trail of hair that began below his navel. “Then I would suck your cock into my mouth until you came all over my bare breasts.” Had she ever uttered such language before? No, but it was delightfully fun now.

  “Then I would take you down from that thing, bend you over the bed—” She walked around to the back of the frame and cupped Charles’ buttocks in her hands. “—and spank you for being a naughty man.”

  She walked around to his front and grinned at the sight of Charles’ cock standing stiffly upright. “You like that, I do believe?”

  He groaned again. “Suck me first.”

  She laughed quietly, tracing a light line down his cock from the head to the base. “You aren’t exactly in a position to give orders here, are you?” She cupped his balls and gave them a gentle squeeze. “I think you’ll just have to trust me tonight.”

  Damn, I think. Erica’s got some dominatrix tendencies in her. I laugh quietly to myself. Alaric is either going to love this or hate it. I read it one more time, then hit send.

  53

  Alaric

  I clap my hand over my nose to keep from snorting beer all over the table in the airport bar. Across the table Sim looks up from his phone and quirks an eyebrow.

  “What’s so funny?”

  I spin my laptop around so Sim can read. Caterine has finally responded to my email, and responded the way I had prayed she would. She’s written a new scene for me.

  By the time Sim finishes reading, he is grinning from ear to ear. “Little Caterine wrote this?”

  I pull out my phone and send her a text. “How do you know about a St. Andrew’s cross?”

  Her reply comes back a minute later. “Zoe’s extensive library of books.”

  I shake my head. “Apparently Zoe has been corrupting her.”

  “More than we did? Find that hard to believe.” Sim pushes the computer back to me. “I like the scene, though. Charles has to learn to trust his wife and what better way than through a little dominance and submission?”

  Trust a whore? Not bloody likely, Charles thought. That wasn’t the point of his choosing this room tonight. He’d never used this room before, though he had heard other men speak of it. In hushed tones, mostly. Charles had never been interested in pain as a form of pleasure. He’d suffered more than enough pain in the war.

  No, he didn’t see pain as pleasure and that wasn’t what he was here for tonight. He was here just for the pain. But the whore wasn’t giving him that. Instead she was running her hands and fingers all over his body. His biceps, his wrist, his ankles, his calves. She was torturing him with her light caresses and occasional licks and kisses. His cock was so hard, it was … painful.

  It was then he realized how out-maneuvered he’d been. Did the madam set this up? Talk to the whore before she came in? This wasn’t the pain he wanted. He wanted her to just strike him, not tease him with pleasure until he lost his bloody mind.

  Her fingers danced over his buttocks and he wanted to come, shoot his seed out into the room, but her touch was never quite enough.

  “Please,” he gritted out as she laid a feathery kiss just above his navel. Her mouth was so close to his cock, he could feel her warm breath on it.

  “Begging are we, my lord?”

  He hated that this whore called him “my lord.” He wasn’t her lord. And he hated it because Erica said it to him instead of using his given name. He wasn’t her lord either. He was her husband, damn it. He wanted her screaming his name when she came beneath him, not mewling “my lord.”

  He let his head drop back on his shoulders. Fuck. Why was it that every time he came to the madam’s now he was consumed by thoughts of his wife? This new girl even sounded a bit like Frederica. He tried to think if the madam knew who his wife was. Had she chosen this new girl for that very reason?

  Suddenly his balls were engulfed in a soft, wet heat. Fuck it all! She had put his balls in her mouth. “Stop right this instant!”

  His balls popped from her mouth. “Do you not like that, my lord?”

  Yes, he liked that. That was the problem.

  He gasped when she took his cock into her mouth and began sucking on him gently. He thrust his hips hard into her face, eager to come and get this over with. But she slid her mouth off him until he stopped. Over and over, she repeated this. Sucking him soft, then hard, then stopping altogether. Charles was going mad, he was certain of it, from the way she took him to the brink of orgasm over and over without letting him have that ultimate release. Why was she doing this? Normally the whores wanted to get things over with quickly. Perhaps there were different rules for this room?

  “Are you going to let me come?” he growled. “I won’t pay you if you don’t.”

  She clicked her tongue in annoyance. “So little faith.”

  But he felt her undo the ropes around his ankles, then he heard the sound of a chair being dragged closer. Then his wrists were free. He was surprised to discover how shaky his legs were. He had no choice but to lean on her arm as she lead him to the bed. She bent him over the edge of the mattress. At last, he was going to get the pain he was paying for, then he would toss her on her back and fuck the daylights out of her.

  It took her forever, it seemed, to choose an implement and the anticipation was killing him. Part of him hoped it wouldn’t be a whip. Some of the men he’d seen come out of this room had barely been able to walk down the stairs. But if she chose a whip, so be it. He had experienced worse in the war.

  He heard her light footsteps draw near and instinctively he pushed his ass toward her. He needed the pain she was about to administer, craved it in his heart. He braced for the first blow, unsure whether it would be the sharp bite of a whip or the wide flat pain of a paddle. Instead, he felt her hands settle on his buttocks, then her breath as her face moved close to him. Then her tongue on the skin at the base of his balls. Just one soft lap of her warm, wet tongue. He shouted into the room as the most powerful orgasm he’d ever experienced shattered inside his body, his seed soaking into the bedcovers. His body was wracked with pleasure, wave after wave it came and he began to fear it would never end. H
e was going to die here in a brothel room, his ass in the air, his hips locked in a neverending cataclysm of lust.

  Damn it! This wasn’t what he had wanted. He wanted to push up from the bed, rip off the blindfold and grab the whore, but his stunned body refused to cooperate with his mind’s commands.

  “Sometimes the worst pain is being refused what you want by the person who is supposed to attend to your desires,” she said. “My lord.”

  He heard the door to the room open and a soft swish of fabric. Then she was gone.

  “Aww man, you didn’t have her spank him?” Sim asks, closing the laptop as the flight attendants come through first class one last time before landing. We’re heading to Dulles, where Sim will catch a connection to Bangor and Maine. I’m planning to go back to my mother’s house in Middleburg.

  “Did you want her to?”

  “It would have been different,” Sim says, smiling up at a pretty flight attendant. “I’d be happy to act that out with Caterine if you need to see it in order to write it.”

  I punch him lightly in the arm. “If anyone is going to beat your ass, it’s going to be me.”

  Sim leers at me, then sits back for the landing.

  54

  Caterine

  “So how did last night go?” Erica’s sister asked. “Did it work?”

  Patience had encouraged Erica to go back to the madam’s.

  “Oh it worked alright. He was pretty frustrated and angry when I left,” Erica replied. She poured more tea into her cup. “Though he requested the top floor room, which is—ah—”

  Patience smirked. “Oh, I’ve heard the gossip about that room. You’d be surprised how many men like it.”

  “I don’t know. Charles didn’t seem to like it in the end. I think he wanted me to just hit him, which I couldn’t do. I think he wanted to be punished for going to the madam’s. He got very angry when I mentioned his wife.”

  I look across the living room at Zoe, who is knitting a scarf. For whom, I’m afraid to ask. I know Zoe and Sim are still in touch, talking on the phone and sexting each other. I tried to warn Zoe that Sim doesn’t really do relationships, but my friend seems to be deaf to my hints.

  “I think I’ve written myself into a corner,” I say, thinking out loud.

  “Why do you say that?” Zoe answers, not looking up from her yarn and needles.

  “I don’t know how to get Charles to stop going to the brothel. Deep down, he doesn’t want to go. What he really wants is Erica, but he’s not letting himself admit that. He doesn’t trust that he can live without the things he does with the whores.”

  “Well then, Erica has to show him that he can get those things at home.”

  I snort. “But how to get him to believe that she likes those things? He thinks they’re not appropriate for husband-wife relations.”

  Zoe does look up from her knitting now. “I can’t believe we’re discussing this guy like he’s real.”

  I’m quiet for a minute, thinking. “There’s a lot of Alaric in Charles.” I bite my lip, not sure how much to say to Zoe. I don’t want Zoe sharing everything with Sim. “I think he’s getting tired of writing these books, but he doesn’t know how to stop. Or if he can really live without them. Don’t tell Sim I said that.”

  “Sim already thinks that. He thinks Alaric was tired of the book writing business two books ago.” Zoe puts down her knitting. “Maybe Erica needs to show Charles that she trusts him completely. It sounds like he wants to be a real husband to her, but doesn’t want to cause her pain by making her do what he thinks only whores do. Or making her look at his scars.”

  “Zoe, you’re a genius.”

  “I’ve been told that.” Zoe laughs. “No, actually I’ve never been told that. But whatever.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Patience said, setting down her tea. “Where is Charles right now?”

  “I believe he has gone out riding.”

  “Perfect. Then we have time.”

  An hour later, Erica was tied to her bed, her wrists and ankles stretched out toward the four corners. She was nude, save the feathered mask she had worn to the brothel. Patience had the most wicked gleam in her eye.

  “This is going to work.” She clapped her hands together.

  Erica wasn’t so sure. “If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow, please come untie me.” There was a very good chance her husband would not be amused by this in the least.

  Then Patience left to ride out into the fields to find Charles and tell him that his wife needed him immediately. Erica had no doubt that would bring Charles running, especially coming from her sister, but discovering that there was no true emergency could easily spark his temper.

  She waited patiently for a long while, fighting the urge to simply drift off to sleep. Then she heard the front door downstairs open and slam shut. The heavy footsteps of Charles’ boots pounded up the stairs. She’d been nervous before, but now her legs were trembling. This was a terrible idea. Why had she agreed to this?

  The door to her room burst open and Charles was there, breathing heavily, his face glistening with sweat, his hair blown back by the wind and his hurry to get there.

  “My love! What is the matter—” It took him a moment to process what he was seeing. His eyes took in her naked form, lingering a few seconds longer on the darkness between her legs. Then his gaze locked onto her face.

  “Where did you get that mask?”

  “It is my own.”

  “And why are you tied … no. No no no.”

  “Yes, my lord. I am the new girl.”

  “No!” Charles was shouting now and stomping around the room. “How could you? How many men were you with?”

  “Just you.”

  “Why? Why would you …” He raked his hand roughly through his already wild hair. “You could have been hurt there!”

  “I needed to learn what they do for you that I cannot do here at home.”

  “And what did you learn, pray tell?”

  “That there is nothing they do that I cannot.” She waited for a response, but none came. “And I learned that I enjoy the same things you do.” He sucked in his breath harshly. “Did you not like the new girl?”

  He whirled around to look at her, his eyes dark with despair and desire. His trousers were full with his hardness. Would he lie to her, deny that he had liked the new girl? Or would he finally be honest with her? He was conflicted. But how to get him to reconcile those two sides of himself? Those two sides of her?

  “Charles.” He met her gaze through the mask. “You are my husband and I love you as such. I have always loved you, before the war and now. But I have desires. And as my husband, you are the person who is supposed to attend to those desires.”

  She watched as a lifetime of emotions passed over his face. Then the anger seemed to evaporate. He rushed to the bed and climbed onto it. Fully clothed, he straddled her nude body. His jaw was tight, fighting tears as he realized finally what he had been doing to her. Finally, he understood the pain he had been causing her.

  “How shall I attend to your desires?” he asked.

  He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it onto the floor. Her eyes dropped to the bulge in his trousers, as he shed those as well.

  “Do what you think will please me, Charles. I trust you.”

  She cried out as his lips closed around her breast and his tongue began to slowly tease her nipple. His fingers stroked her ribs, sending shivers down her spine.

  “You are a wicked woman, Frederica,” he said before latching his mouth onto her other nipple and teasing that one, too.

  “You like wicked women,” she countered and felt his lips curve into a smile against the swell of her breast.

  He slid his hands beneath her and gently squeezed her bottom. “I like punishing them, too.” He trailed kisses up to her lips. “And if ever a husband was justified in punishing his wife, I am that man.” He crushed her mouth in a punishing kiss that left her gasping for air. “But you are never—ne
ver—to go to the madam’s again.”

  “I will go there if that is where you go,” she replied defiantly.

  He kissed her hard again. “I promise I will never go there again.”

  “I will spank you if you do.”

  He sucked in a breath, then placed his lips next to her ear. He curled his tongue lasciviously around her earlobe, then whispered, “I believe I have plenty of spankings already earned to keep us busy for a good long while.”

  When he drew back his head, his eyes blazed with unbridled lust. She smiled. “I like wicked men.”

  “You like a wicked man,” he corrected her. “Singular.”

  He trailed his fingers down her stomach, the rest of his body following until he was settled between her legs. He placed a soft kiss on her mound before parting her pink folds. She cried out again as his warm tongue licked and stroked her over and over. She had fantasized about this so many times, his tongue on her most intimate spot. She had thought it would feel like madness, and it did. Already there was a desperate desire building along her spine. She was desperate to thread her fingers through his hair, hold his head against her, but her hands were restrained. She thrust her hips toward his face.

  “Please, Charles. Harder. Please.”

  A sound that was half growl and half laugh vibrated between her stretched legs. “You don’t seem to be in a position to negotiate, now are you love?”

  But he indulged her, lapping and sucking at her flesh with as much greediness as she felt. The ache between her legs was unbearable now and he sensed her imminent release. He held her hips firmly against the mattress, so barely any part of her body was able to move. She screamed as the orgasm burst open inside her and still he didn’t let her move. It was madness, utter insanity the way it felt, this pleasure seizing her body and not letting go.

  Her thoughts were still blurry and unfocused when she felt him undoing the ties holding her ankles fast. He rubbed her calves, then pushed her legs up to her chest.