by Josie Litton
Not for food, at least. Nor was the absence of any such urge hard to determine. It all came down to a single word, the one he had murmured when he escorted her back to the abbey after she had showered in the luxurious bathroom he made available. The word spoken as he stood so close to her that she felt his breath like a caress.
“Tomorrow.”
Was it a threat? A promise? Both? It didn’t matter; she had been able to think of nothing else.
And now tomorrow had arrived. Could she possibly manage to think of something, really anything else? Breakfast, sunbeams, what she would do once she found Naomi. Surely, she could find occupation for her mind apart from him.
For now at least the other girls seemed to have no idea of what had happened after they left the classroom. She desperately wanted to keep it that way.
But first there was a further lesson to be gotten through, this one on the mechanics of anal intercourse which under normal circumstances would have commanded Natalia’s shocked attention. As it was, she barely managed to catch any of it. Something to do with butt plugs…lube…due care…blah-blah…
Strap-ons… What? She rallied a bit at that but most of it went right over her head. As much as she hated to admit it, she was deeply shaken. She could think of very little apart from how he had touched her--so boldly, so…effectively. She still felt swollen and aching.
And what he had wanted her to do, take him in her mouth, pleasure him in that way. That was devastating enough but worse yet, she very much feared that she would have enjoyed it. And then…that explosive burst of excitation from him, marking her in the most primitive way--
Having calculated that she could use his lust to her own advantage, she had ended up with it almost literally exploding in her face. Even hours later, she couldn’t believe he had done that to her. Or how she had felt, all the more debased for being so painfully aroused. How dare he make her respond so improperly? She was furious at him. He was the vilest, lewdest…
Squirming behind her desk, she stifled a moan of relief when Miss Sheridan announced a break but the respite was short lived. Too soon it was another round in the classroom and then--
“Time for your practice session, ladies. Your partners are waiting. Remember, practice makes perfect!”
With no idea of where to go, Natalia hung back only to find herself the recipient of an understanding look.
“Mister Belmont would like to see you in his office,” Miss Sheridan said gently.
His High-and-Mighty-ness just expected her to appear and service him? Her instinctive reaction was rebellion but she quelled it firmly. If there was evidence to be found concerning Naomi, the likeliest place to discover it was in his lair.
Straightening her shoulders, Natalia replied, “I don’t know where that is.”
“Mister Belmont’s office is on the top floor of the Odalisque, adjacent to his apartment.”
Oh, well, then she supposed she could find her way well enough. If she dawdled a bit, she could hardly be blamed. Even so, by the time she stepped off the elevator, Natalia was a bundle of nerves. The fluttering in her stomach was bad enough but the swollen, throbbing sensitivity between her legs was far worse.
Warily, she eyed the large double doors that stood open. No assistant guarded them. Apparently, anyone who made it that far could simply walk in.
Lucius was standing at the windows looking out over the street below but he must have heard her. As she approached, he turned.
Resentment flared in her. How dare he look well rested and fully in command of both himself and the situation after the tiresome night she had endured?
“Miss Bollinger,” he said, his eyes moving over her with slow deliberation. “How nice of you to drop by.”
She tilted her head and looked down her nose at him. “I’m attempting to comply with the curriculum, Mister Belmont, nothing more.”
A faint smile quirked his mouth. He hadn’t shaved that morning; a dark scruff of beard shadowed the chiseled planes of his cheeks and jaw. Rather than make him appear disheveled, it only served to emphasize the sheer masculinity of his appearance.
He was wearing a three piece charcoal gray suit and a different pair of handmade shoes. As he walked toward her, he adjusted his cuffs, drawing her attention to his powerful hands. A shiver ran through her.
“In that case,” he said, “let’s not waste any time.”
A look of distaste flitted across his features. “Kindly remove that bonnet. I’m thinking of doing away with the damn things altogether.”
Telling herself that she knew what to expect now and that she could manage it, Natalia did as he said. She’d been giving the matter more thought and had decided that she hadn’t been wrong the previous day; she simply hadn’t been sufficiently prepared.
The trick to getting the upper hand with Lucius Belmont was self-evident. Simply keep him sexually satisfied, which apparently was not in the least difficult. Perhaps he would even fall asleep afterward, affording her an opportunity to look around.
But instead of going on as she anticipated and telling her to remove her robe, Lucius said, “Have a seat, Miss Bollinger.” He gestured to a chair facing his desk.
At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than a large, high-backed tufted wing chair in oxblood leather. But upon closer examination, Natalia was startled to discover the heavy iron rings attached at intervals around it.
“I had it brought up from the club,” he said, correctly surmising the reason for her surprise. “Don’t worry, it’s quite comfortable.”
As much as she doubted that, she refused to let him unsettle her. But what he said next accomplished that in one fell swoop.
“There’s no need to take your robe off. Just pull it up.”
“Up…how far?”
“Just to above your waist.” When she hesitated, he added, “That’s not a problem, is it, Miss Bollinger? The fabric is quite thin. Rolling it up that far shouldn’t be difficult.”
No, but the sense of exposing her private parts to him certainly was, more so even than if he had told her to remove the robe entirely. She couldn’t have said why that made her feel shamefully vulnerable yet it did all the same.
Perhaps it was the awkwardness, tugging the robe up both front and back, holding it clutched in her hands. She had to squirm around before it was done.
“Very nice,” he said, surveying her with deliberate attention to the gap exposed between her thighs. “Sit down.”
She did so, aware of the sensation of the leather against her bare skin. Gripping the bunched up robe, she kept her legs pressed firmly together and glared at him.
“I fail to see the point of this.”
His grin made her heart skip. “You will.”
Natalia watched with growing apprehension as he withdrew several lengths of white cord from the desk drawer. Approaching her with them in his hand, he said, “Draw your knees up , Miss Bollinger, and scoot your lovely bottom down to the edge of the seat, just so.”
Becoming more alarmed by the moment as to his intentions, she reluctantly complied. Only to regret it when he leaned over her, placed one large hand on either knee and firmly pushed her legs wide apart. At once, she tried to close them again only to discover that he could prevent her from doing so with humiliating ease.
Short of introducing him to certain skills she did not wish him to know she possessed, she had no choice but to quell her concerns and wait to see what developed.
With a mocking smile, he looped the white cord around each leg above the knee and tied the ends to iron rings at the base of the chair. When that was done, he secured her ankles together and fastened that rope through a third ring in the center. The net effect was to truss her up, legs bent and spread wide, humiliatingly exposed below the waist yet above it still laced into the white robe in a charade of modesty.
“You’re the devil,” she spat.
He looked startled for a moment, then gave a wry laugh. “You have no idea, Miss Bollinger.” Rath
er ominously, he added, “But you will.”
Stepping away, he kept his gaze on her as he removed his jacket and laid it neatly over the back of an arm of the nearby couch. Returning to stand before her, he began rolling up his sleeves.
She tore her gaze from his tanned, ripped forearms and said, “I thought the whole point of this was to practice. How am I supposed to do that while I’m stuck in this chair?”
To her dismay, he went down on his haunches directly in front of her and ran his hands lightly up her calves. His touch was gentle but its effect was out of all proportion. She felt a jolt in her lower abdomen as inner muscles suddenly tightened.
“The point, sweet Natalia, is to please me.”
A treacherous curl of excitement unfolded in her, only to be resolutely ignored. “I fail to see--”
She broke off as his hands moved higher, stroking her inner thighs before wrapping round to squeeze her buttocks and lift her to him.
“Exquisite,” he murmured in the moment before the tip of his tongue flicked over her distended clit.
To her dismay, Natalia squealed. It was a ridiculous sound but she couldn’t help herself. The sensation was so--
He did it again! More forcefully, the flat of his tongue stroked all up and down her slit. Bolts of pleasure lanced through her body. In an instant, her nipples hardened painfully.
“What are you doing! No, don’t! You can’t…”
But he could and too damn well. Holding her fast, he pursued her ruthlessly, sucking, licking, even lightly biting! The devastating torment was her undoing. Try though she did, she had no defenses against it. Too quickly, she was soaring to what promised to be a shattering orgasm, far greater than any she had ever given herself. It was almost upon her…
And then it wasn’t. One instant she was on the edge of release and the next she was… Still very much there but with nowhere further to go. Stuck as it were.
Lifting his head, Lucius said, “How does that feel, sweetheart? A bit frustrating…?”
The horrible realization dawned that he’d done this intentionally. At first, in her state of heated confusion, she couldn’t imagine why. Unless…it was some twisted form of payback for his own unseemly behavior during their previous encounter. How like a man of his ilk not to acknowledge that she had been the offended party. Or simply not to care.
“You unspeakable cad! Let me go!”
“In due time.”
With insulting ease, he reached up and tugged on her nipples through the thin silk of the robe. The sensation teetered on the edge between pain and pleasure but her response was nowhere near so equivocal. Almost at once, she was again on the verge of coming.
Lucius withdrew his hands and stood. Surveying her with satisfaction, he said, “Please me and I’ll let you come. Don’t and…” He shrugged, making it clear that he had no particular stake in which she chose.
Fighting for breath, she said, “I don’t even want to! It’s just an urge like…sneezing.”
His mouth dropped open. He stared at her in shocked amazement for a moment before he burst out laughing.
Lucius Belmont, spawn of Satan if not the Devil himself, laughed so hard that he ended up bent over clutching his knees. When he finally straightened, he had to wipe his eyes.
“Damn,” he said, “I swear I haven’t laughed like that in years, if ever.”
To her horror, he patted her bottom affectionately before walking over to his desk where he proceeded to sit down and to all appearances, begin working.
Staring at him in disbelief, Natalia said, “Excuse me but I’d rather not remain like this.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t. So let’s see what we can do about that. Touch yourself.”
“W-what…?”
“You heard me. Touch yourself the way you do when you want to…sneeze.”
She couldn’t… She wouldn’t… Was there truly no end to the depths of his depravity?
But if that was the only way to escape...
Slowly, she stretched a hand down between her legs, all the while acutely conscious of his gaze. Hesitantly, she flicked a finger over her swollen clit, shocked as she did to realize how wet and hot she was. Another stroke, a little harder… She was so close…
“Stop.”
Natalia scarcely heard him, so intent was she on finishing what he had started.
In a voice that cracked like a whip, Lucius said, “If I have to come over there, I’ll take a wand to that delightfully swollen pussy. You’ll be screaming for relief but I promise, you won’t get it.”
She stopped. The threat that he would torture her in such a despicable way was too believable to ignore. No matter how painful her arousal, she couldn’t risk it.
Satisfied, Lucius went back to whatever it was he was doing. Strung out on a knife’s edge of sensual torment, Natalia occupied herself thinking of all the terrible things she would enjoy doing to him.
The needy, aching pressure deep inside her was just beginning to ease when he said, “Again.”
“W-what?”
As though he thought her slow-witted, he said, “Touch yourself. Again. But this time, use two fingers.”
Terrible things, long drawn out until he was pleading for mercy.
Rising from his chair, he said thoughtfully, “You seem to need a bit more incentive.”
Alarmed, she cried out, “No, I don’t! Stay right where you are!”
But he was already on his feet and withdrawing a small case from the desk drawer.
“These are new,” he said with a note of anticipation that filled her with dread. “I’ve been meaning to ask someone in the club try them out but you’ll do just as well.”
Natalia shook her head. “No!”
He arched a brow. “I’ll tell you what, we’ll compromise.”
Having clicked open the case, he removed the first of what she saw at a glance were two round, dark objects an inch of so in diameter. Nothing about them was immediately concerning yet her apprehension redoubled.
“Rather than apply these directly to your nipples, as they’re intended to be, you can keep the robe on. That doesn’t sound too terrible, does it?”
Of course it did. Anything he did was bound to be horrible. Hadn’t she already discovered that when he’d put his mouth--
“Aaah!” Something had latched onto her nipples through the thin silk of the robe. Something that felt eerily and most disturbingly like--
“Oh, my god, are those…suckers?”
Lucius withdrew a small leaflet from the case and consulted it.
“Apparently so. At least, that’s how they’re described here. ‘Inspired by the palpitating tentacles of the tiny o. wolfi, the smallest member of the family of Octopodidae. Each separate tentacle contains thousands of miniscule suction cups.’ Isn’t that amazing?”
“Tentacles! They’re octopi?” He was insane. She would inform the proper authorities and he would be hauled off to an appropriate institution.
“Don’t be silly,” he replied. “I’d hardly keep living creatures in an acrylic case, would I? No, these are a very clever bio-mechanical adaptation.”
He stepped back a little and observed her. “As I believe you’re noticing, they’re designed to stretch, twist, suck, squeeze and bite each nipple. They’ll do that continuously with varying degrees of intensity until I remove them.”
“Take them off now!”
His smile was the pure distillation of evil. “Not quite yet.”
Her hands flew to her breasts. She would damn well do it herself.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Lucius said quickly. “The only safe way to remove them is with this.” He gave her a glimpse of a small remote controller before sliding it into his pocket.
She scarcely heard him, so intent was she on ridding herself of the devilish devices. But the moment her fingers latched onto them, a low level electric shock zinged through her body. At once, her hands fell away.
“I did warn you,” Lucius said, retur
ning to his desk. “Buck up. Five or ten minutes ought to be sufficient to get a sense of what they can do. I have every confidence you can manage that.”
One minute was too much! Already, her nipples were hypersensitive. Worse yet, they appeared to be wired directly to her clit. She gasped as a jolt of pleasure far more intense than the small shock she had received tightened every muscle in her body.
In the haze of ecstatic anguish, Natalia snatched at a silver lining. The joke was on him. With the fiendish tormentors at work on her, she would come in no time at all.
Except just as she was about to, the suckers loosened. Not entirely and they certainly did not come off but the abrupt easing of all that tugging, flicking and squeezing stopped her once again right on the edge.
“Tell me,” Lucius said, turning the remote controller he had just wielded idly between his fingers, “what are your plans for after the auction?”
Breathing hard, she could only stare at him in disbelief. Now he wanted to talk? With her trussed up like a chicken in heat?
“Arabella tells me you have no purpose in being here other than to acquire a large sum of money. I’m curious what you intend to do with it.”
She tipped her head back and groaned. Her nipples felt on fire. Beneath her bottom, the leather chair was humiliatingly slick with her juices.
“Why would you care?”
“Indulge me.”
“I thought I already was.”
That wrung a chuckle from him. “Indeed but I really do want to know.”
“Take these horrible things off me and I’ll tell you.”
“You aren’t really in a position to bargain,” he countered and turned the devices back on.
Mere minutes later she screamed when he stopped them again, leaving her once more right on the edge. She was panting, flushed from head to toe and desperate. But she was damned if she would give into him.
“Your plans, Natalia,” he said. “What’s your real reason for being here?”
“M-money! That’s all.”
“To do what with? Put under a mattress? You strike me as far too sensible for that.”
“F-for…” She tried to think of something, anything that would satisfy him. She wasn’t going to be in the auction; there wouldn’t be any money. But she could hardly say that.
