Lord and Master Trilogy

by Jagger, Kait

  Normally, it would have distracted her, his jovial banter in a mixture of Swedish, English and Finnish. But tonight Luna found it… restful. Companionable. By the time she said goodnight at just after midnight and walked up to her attic, she’d caught up on all her work.

  *

  She felt him before she saw him, she was sure of it. It often happened that way – a little feeling she’d get, like the electrical charge in the air before a thunderstorm.

  Luna was sitting in her office on Friday afternoon, going through the results of test screenings for the ad campaign with Mika and his market research consultant. The consultant was droning on about market segmentation and customer demographics and, frankly, much of his jargon went straight over her head. It was Mika’s meeting anyway, she reasoned to herself, half-listening to the two men talk whilst simultaneously reviewing next year’s draft annual operating plan.

  She was jotting down a question in the margin of one of the spreadsheets when she felt it, the hair on her neck rising, a little shiver going down her spine. She shifted in her chair and felt it elsewhere as well; a stirring, an awakening. And so it came as no surprise when she heard him enter the outer office a few minutes later, saw him drop his leather bag on the coffee table and sit on the sofa. From her vantage point at the small conference table in her office, only his legs were visible; dark grey trousers and black brogues stretched out in front of him. His mobile rang and he answered it. Then, as if he knew she was watching him, he crossed his legs in that – her pen hovered above the spreadsheet and she suppressed a shudder – that way of his, that made her blood thrum.

  Luna looked away. And gave herself an internal shake. And tried her best to shut out the sound of his voice, the cadence, the music of it. Later, after Mika walked their guest out and returned to flop down next to him on the sofa, she moved to her desk and tuned out the conversation in the outer office, phoning the estate’s accounting firm to talk through the spreadsheets.

  She heard Mika depart shortly thereafter but stayed where she was, continuing to work as the skies outside darkened. Not a sound from the outer office now, though she caught a trace of his cologne, unfurling its way from the settee to her nostrils, and from there straight to her groin.

  Eventually the pendulum clock on the wall chimed five o’clock, and Luna switched off her desk lamp. Swivelling her chair toward the bay window that overlooked Arborage’s floodlit lawn, she stood and inspected herself in the ornate mirror behind her desk. She was tucking a stray wisp of hair into her bun when he appeared behind her in the reflection, leaning casually against the doorframe. He’d shaved off his beard, she noted with a mixture of regret and anticipation.

  Their eyes met in the glass. He pushed back his starched white cuff and consulted his watch. A moment’s silence. And then his voice, laden with intent: ‘I’ll give you a thirty-second head start.’

  He didn’t have to say it twice. She was running by the time he got to ‘you’ and out the door by ‘start’. She raced down the corridor towards the deserted main hallway, barely pausing as she passed under the scaffolding and ran up the stairs. If he thinks I can’t run in these Ferragamos, she grinned to herself as her heels clicked against the marble steps, he has another thing coming.

  She got to the landing, poised to make a beeline for the attic staircase, when their head of housekeeping loomed into view carrying a stack of fresh bedding. On sight of Luna, her eyes took on the ‘sad spaniel’ look that Luna had learned was a harbinger of doom. She slowed down and smiled pleasantly, hoping against hope that she could dodge this bullet. But then the older woman opened her mouth.

  ‘Lord Wellstone told me you wanted to speak with me, miss?’

  ‘Did he?’ Luna replied, coming to a full halt. ‘I don’t think I—’

  ‘He said you don’t want my girls cleaning in the attic?’

  Oh, that devil.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want you to, precisely,’ Luna began.

  ‘They already leave the Maid’s Chamber off their cleaning rota, as per your request,’ the housekeeper went on, adding tremulously, ‘If you aren’t happy with the standard of the girls’ work…’

  ‘Not at all!’ Luna exclaimed, placing a hand on her chest for emphasis. And suddenly there he was, walking sedately up the stairs as Luna stumbled on, ‘It’s just – his Lordship and I – we don’t… I don’t expect your staff to tidy up after us.’

  ‘But that’s their job, miss,’ the housekeeper insisted, flashing an adoring smile at Stefan as he made a show of manoeuvring past them, sliding a surreptitious hand along Luna’s posterior and murmuring, ‘Ladies,’ before carrying on up the attic steps.

  Five minutes later, after she’d professed her undying love for the housekeeping staff and raised a white flag on the matter of them continuing to clean the attic rooms, Luna burst through her sitting-room door. ‘You cheater,’ she accused. Stefan quickly raised a hand to her and she saw that he was on his mobile. Wincing an apology, she removed her heels and went to sit on the sofa.

  ‘I see,’ he was saying. ‘No, of course. I appreciate that—’ He held the phone away from his ear and Luna could hear a man’s voice raised in anger on the other end of the line. Loosening his tie, Stefan allowed the rant to continue till it eventually spluttered to a halt. And then he said calmly, ‘Alastair, can I ask you to ring back in five minutes? Thank you.’ He clicked the disconnect button on the phone and turned to face Luna.

  ‘That was Alastair Trelawny in Cornwall,’ he said, ‘saying you’d phoned him this morning to reject his proposal.’

  ‘I didn’t phone him,’ Luna disagreed. ‘He phoned me, pressing for an answer. So I gave him one.’

  ‘Without consulting me.’

  ‘I didn’t think I needed to,’ Luna said with a frown. ‘You asked me to go visit his property and make my own assessment. As you suspected, it isn’t in our league. It would be madness to even contemplate entering into a partnership with it.’

  ‘I wish you had talked to me before giving him your answer,’ Stefan said quietly.

  Luna stood and faced him. ‘And yet you tell me all the time that you expect me to make my own decisions,’ she said, her white-blue eyes flashing. ‘That you aren’t a micro-manager and you trust me to run the estate as I see fit.’

  Stefan exhaled loudly and rested his hands on her shoulders. ‘I do trust you,’ he said. ‘But by doing this without talking me through your rationale, when there was every chance he might get straight on the phone to me…’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘You’ve wrong-footed me, Luna.’

  In the face of his reasoned, logical demolition of her argument, Luna felt her anger fading. She lowered her eyes. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I should have put him off when he rang this morning. Spoken with you first. Would you like me to talk to him again?’

  ‘No,’ Stefan said. ‘I’ll do it.’ Without looking up at him, she gave a quick little nod. ‘Now,’ he continued in a warmer voice. ‘What was it you were saying about cheating?’

  Luna’s shoulders stiffened under his hands. ‘Nothing,’ she said, and began to pull away from him, only for him to draw her back.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, taking her face between his palms. ‘What happens down there,’ he cocked his head in the general direction of their office, ‘is nothing to do with this.’ He kissed her brow. ‘And this.’ He kissed her lips. Then pressed his forehead to hers, as if to gently ram his point home. ‘Okay?’

  Luna relaxed a little against him, and nodded again. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good,’ Stefan said, pulling her into his arms. ‘Because I have learned a lesson this week, Miss Gregory: absence does not make the heart grow fonder. My heart was already extremely fond of you. It needed no reminders.’ He lowered his hands to her waist. ‘No,’ he said, voice deepening. ‘Absence only serves to make my bed lonelier, my arms emptier and my cock harder, for
want of you.’ He placed both hands on her arse and flexed himself against her, to validate his claim.

  ‘I would remind you,’ he summed up, ‘that you lost the race up here. You owe me a forfeit and I intend to collect. So if we are finished with this discussion, min arg flicka—’ His phone rang and he made a brief, irritated noise, growling to himself, ‘Five minutes, I said. Is this his idea of five minutes?’

  Luna disengaged from him and went into the bedroom as Stefan reverted to calm, rational Swedish mode. ‘Sorry about that, Alastair.’ She sat on the edge of the brass bed and began to remove her stockings. Ever the multitasker, Stefan watched her continue to undress whilst he conducted his phone conversation, following her with his eyes as she went to her wardrobe and donned her crimson velvet robe.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m in agreement with Luna on this,’ he said when she moved to her bedside table and opened the top right-hand drawer of her apothecary chest, depositing her earrings there. ‘Your proposal has merit, but it isn’t the right move for us now.’ Luna shut the drawer and walked back into the sitting room. ‘Yes, well,’ Stefan laughed genially, looking her up and down with carnal approval. ‘That’s what I pay her for.’

  Moments later, she walked down the carpeted hallway of the private wing, past numerous bedrooms she and Stefan had tried and rejected in recent months, with beds that were too soft, or windows that let in too little light, or that just didn’t feel right, to Luna at least. She continued past Lady Wellstone’s suite, left untouched on Luna’s express instructions in the event of the Marchioness’s return to Arborage. Then past other family bedrooms: Helen’s and Isabelle’s, their deceased brother James’s, and Florian’s, which Mika was currently using.

  At the end of the corridor, she entered a long, narrow linen closet that smelt evocatively of starch and rosewater. A heavy brocade curtain hung at the end of the closet, which Luna pushed aside to reveal a hidden door. She extracted a mortice key from the pocket of her robe and turned it in the lock.

  The bedroom beyond was small by comparison to the others on this floor, with only a single lead-paned window overlooking an interior courtyard. A maidservant’s chamber, the head of housekeeping and others surmised, though Luna thought otherwise.

  When she and Stefan had stumbled in here late one night, tipsy and giggling after returning from a party in London, she’d taken one look at the narrow wrought-iron bed, murky forest-green walls and dimly illuminated art nouveau sconces and said, ‘Um, I’ll take a pass on this one. We’re never going to fit in that bed.’ Somewhere between her saying that and getting to the door, however, Stefan opined as how he thought they could both fit in the bed, and what followed was a night of torrid lovemaking that surprised them both.

  Since then, it had become their… go-to room, when forfeits were due, or punishments being meted out. Or both.

  He’d been in here recently, she could tell. There was a small pile of silk cushions in the middle of the bed that she hadn’t seen before, and new candles in amongst the numerous older ones they’d accumulated, hardened rivulets of melted wax pooled together on the windowsill. She struck a match and lit one of them, then lay down on the narrow bed to wait for him. For he sometimes liked to keep her waiting…

  When she woke later she was on her side, facing her reflection in the window. The candles on the sill were all lit now and his hands were in her hair, methodically removing hairpins. Luna stretched slightly and his mouth dropped down to her temple. ‘Am I boring you, Miss Gregory?’

  Her reflection’s eyes widened. ‘Just conserving my energy,’ she croaked, throat hoarse with sleep. She cleared it and added helpfully, ‘A catnap.’

  His chest rumbled against her as he removed the final hairpin and unwound her hair. ‘I see. Well, we want you well rested. On your knees, please, Luna.’

  Suddenly very much awake, she rose and knelt atop the bed, felt the mattress dip as he knelt behind her and slipped his hands around her waist, loosening the sash on her robe.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he murmured when the robe slid away and she was kneeling naked before him. ‘Hands at your sides now, beside your knees. And I think…’ His arms descended over her head and Luna’s chin trembled at the sight of his white silk scarf, wound between his hands. ‘…blindfolded tonight.’ His fingers flexed and the fabric stretched taut between them. ‘Yes. As it’s a forfeit.’ The scarf loomed toward her and, for a millisecond, Luna’s instincts kicked in. She flinched and jerked her head away. But then she heard it, a chiding, tsking noise behind her. So she pursed her lips and submitted, shutting her eyelids as the silk slid, then tightened against them.

  ‘Admit it,’ he whispered next to her ear, every last hair on her head rising in response. ‘You lost on purpose.’ Luna clamped her mouth shut, knowing he was goading her, trying to provoke a response. ‘Took it nice and slow up the stairs,’ he prodded. ‘Stopped for a little chat.’

  ‘You know perfectly well—’ she burst out. And stopped herself.

  ‘I know perfectly well what?’ he drawled lazily. ‘That you were dying for me to pass you on those stairs?’

  ‘I was not.’

  ‘That you were wet with longing for me? Are wet with longing?’ She felt his hand on her sex, his fingers insinuating their way into her. His chest rumbled again. ‘Good lord, Luna. Even for you—’ he inserted a finger into her and met zero resistance, only soft, slick yielding, ‘—even for you this is very wet.’

  ‘You cheated – ha—’ Luna gasped as he removed his finger and lightly rolled it over her clitoris.

  ‘You are weeping for me,’ he exulted, reinserting his finger into her and cupping his palm over her mons.

  The dam burst. ‘You’re the one who’ll be weeping,’ she retorted, twisting away from him. ‘The next time it’s your forfeit.’ He laughed at her then, actually laughed. And Luna half-raised her hand to the blindfold.

  ‘Put your hand down,’ he commanded. Her hand froze, hovering in mid-air. ‘Put it down, Luna,’ he repeated, extending his finger inside her, arching his palm against her. She dropped her hand and he immediately got down to business, withdrawing his fingers from her and grasping her wrist, winding something mildly abrasive around it. Rope, possibly, or thick twine.

  ‘While I was in Croatia,’ he began in a casual tone, ‘I saw a gypsy pony hobbled on a patch of land. I haven’t seen anything like that in a long time.’ His fingers worked against her wrist. ‘It’s considered cruel, here in the UK. In Sweden too.’ She felt him tying the twine off, playing with the tension on it, tugging her wrist backward. Then he moved to her ankle, winding the twine around it as well. ‘Hobbling has its uses, though,’ he went on. ‘Occasionally trainers will use a hobble, to correct a problem with a horse’s gait.’

  He moved to her opposite side and began repeating the process of binding her ankle to her wrist. ‘Or one might hobble a mare,’ he added, ‘to prevent her from kicking a stallion while he’s serving her.’ Ah, Luna thought, it was going to be one of those kinds of forfeits. She felt a trickle of wetness slide down the inside of her thigh.

  He finished restraining her and it was… uncomfortable. He’d left some slack between her wrists and ankles, but her hands were suspended slightly behind her, and to maintain her balance she had to tighten her thighs to the point of discomfort. She felt the bed rock and lift, heard him unzipping his trousers, slowly undressing. And lowered her head. Feeling aroused. And exposed. And vulnerable.

  Perhaps he read her mind, or saw something in her posture, for his arm encircled her collarbone then, and his lips came to rest on the back of her neck. ‘Stellaluna,’ he whispered softly against it, placing his other arm under her legs and lifting her, tilting her downward till her cheek rested on the mattress. He moved behind her and arranged the pillows under her knees and stomach, raising them up till she was at an angle to the bed, with her weight resting on her shoulders.

  ‘Better?’
he enquired.

  It was better, with the pressure off her thighs and wrists slack against her ankles. She nodded against the coverlet and heard him inhale. ‘This is…’ he trailed off, running his hands along her bottom to her hips. ‘This is an extremely gratifying sight, Luna. I cannot begin to tell you.’

  She felt him moving against her backside, rubbing the hard, heavy length of himself against the cleft of her butt. ‘I need to be inside you, just for a moment,’ he said, his voice low. She pictured him gripping his cock by its base, guiding it into her, then felt its head part the mouth of her vagina, which contracted against him in greeting.

  ‘Stop,’ he said tightly. ‘Stay still.’ Luna forcibly relaxed her muscles and he nudged further into her, then withdrew, then re-entered. ‘Shall I tell you what this feels like?’ he asked, withdrawing again. ‘It’s like I’m being eaten… consumed by you.’ He parted her again, slowly. ‘Like you’re sucking at the tip of my…’ He made a long, slow, pleasured noise, and Luna involuntarily tightened around him.

  He cursed at this, immediately pulling out of her. Mewling in protest, she stretched out her fingers behind her into the empty air, lifting her wrists from the mattress till they strained against their tethers. The mattress bounced abruptly beneath her and warm hands clasped her bottom. And ohh yes, warm mouth and teeth, latching onto her, butting into her sex. Lapping and suckling, groaning at her taste.

  His fingers moved to her outer labia, pulled them apart, sliding back and forth between them and her inner folds as his mouth delved further, rhythmically thrusting against her. Luna’s hands fisted atop the coverlet as the twine abraded her wrists, and she rejoiced once more at the exquisite torture of being bound by him, trapped in place, completely at his mercy. This is what I am made for, she thought. What WE are made for. And it was… too good. Not just her clitoris, but everything around it pulsing at his every bite and lick. Too good, the thrusting and his fingers, now pinching her labia. Too good, too… too…