A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor (Tempting Monsters Book 1)

by Kathryn Moon

  I nodded, the movement a little jerky, and Jonathon patted both thighs to remind me to spread them.

  "Close your eyes and feel," he murmured. "Keep your mouth relaxed and shout as much as you want."

  I sighed, following his orders, my lips parting. He struck the inside of my left thigh with both wands first, my shout high and involuntary, and then moved quickly to the right. He paused, letting me catch my breath, and then repeated the strikes, a little higher up.

  Bite, bite, breath. Higher. Bite, bite, breath. Higher.

  I was whining, squirming and shaking, and I didn't know if Jonathon had turned the shocks down or if I was growing accustomed to the snap of the electricity, the clench. The higher the wands rose, the more the spasms moved into my cunt. I was dripping, clenching, gasping, the wet squish of my sex gaping and begging buried under the moans and whimpers and sobs rising from my lips.

  "Look at me, Esther," Jonathon hissed, breaking his rhythm.

  My eyes opened, head shaking, and for a moment I couldn't find him, everything out of focus.

  "You're saying no," he said, arching an eyebrow. "Chanting it."

  Was I? I was. I'd been moaning the word on repeat, but I hadn't meant it for him to stop!

  "Don't stop," I corrected quickly. "Don't. Please."

  He nodded, immediately pressing the rods to the top crease of my thigh at my hip.

  More wetness. More pain. More clenching on nothing.

  "Breathe." A thumb pulled at my bottom lip, and I caught a gasp, eyes opening wide again. "Beautiful, good girl. You're going to come in three more shocks. It's going to hurt. Are you ready?"

  I nodded, and it felt like my brain was wobbling around in my skull. I didn't even care about coming. I didn't care about the pain. It was this mindless place I'd found between the pleasure and the bite that I was now craving.

  I stiffened at the next shock, so high and close to my sex, I thought for sure I would come. But it was so brief, and then it was gone, my chest heaving for air.

  "Again," Jonathon murmured, touching the other side of my weeping sex, watching me carefully as I seized and shook. He was tense, almost vibrating, and his eyes were as brilliant as lamps, Mr. Tanner nearly rising to the surface as he worked on me.

  "Last one," he whispered.

  Oh Christ, he's going to shock my—

  I screamed as the wands kissed against my engorged clit. Wetness rushed out of me in an uncontrollable gush, and Jonathon dropped the wands with a clatter to the floor, arm wrapping around my waist as my hands, my arms, my legs trembled and I went limp.

  It wasn't release but possession, and I thrashed in his grip as he hauled me off the ledge of the platform. Auguste hurried out from the wings, and I thought together they would haul me away, but instead he moved to the odd seat, rotating it and bending it in a new direction to make a table.

  Jonathon draped me onto the flat side, his arms stiff and shaking, my back to him. The wood was cool and polished, and I sighed against it as the trembles ran through me, back and forth. There was a rush of fabric and then a tear behind me, and my lips curled softly.

  "Mon coeur, you're well?" Auguste whispered, brushing damp curls off my face as Mr. Tanner snarled behind me.

  I tried to lift my head, but Auguste's hand cupped the back of my neck, pinning me in place. I growled and pouted, and he pinched my skin.

  "I'm fine, let me see him."

  "Shh. Do as he says," Auguste said.

  And then he stepped back, turning and heading for the wings. He was halfway across the stage and Mr. Tanner's thick fingers had just circled my hips, when I saw Auguste pause in place, eyes on the audience. He moved at double speed toward the shadows, and behind me, a low voice like stone rumbled.

  "Are you ready to get fucked, little girl?"

  Chapter Eighteen

  A Finale

  “Christ, yes!" I snapped back.

  The audience hissed and laughed, but Mr. Tanner grunted, clapping a hand against my ass. I yelped and then wiggled in his grip, searching for his cock.

  "Behave," he growled, but I knew he was pleased with me when two massive fingers plunged in and began to fuck me eagerly.

  I moaned, head rolling, eyes on the audience watching me. Seeing him. My weak hands wrapped around the edge of the seat I was spread sideways over, back arching my hips up for his taking, and the growl softened into a purr.

  "Good girl," he said, pulling his fingers free. He didn't tease me, and he didn't teach the audience, just nestled the thick and seeping head of his cock against my cunt and began to nudge.

  The last time Mr. Tanner fucked me, he'd already been inside me as he shifted, forcing my body to stretch to accommodate him as he grew. Now, he had to coax me to open for him. I released my breath as I had before being shocked and reached one hand back to help spread myself for him, earning me a grumble of approval.

  "Ah, fuck yes!" I gasped as his fat cockhead forced its way in, filling and nestling, the burn of the stretch echoing up to my core. I was plenty wet though, and with a few nudges, he was sinking deeper, the burn softening to a pleasurable point of pressure. "Oh yes, sir! Please, please, more!" I cried out.

  The audience was stirring, watching my beast of a man take me, hearing me beg for it. They wanted a girl like me. A girl who would whine and plead in earnest, who would come and ask for more.

  Mr. Tanner rocked gently, teaching my body to take his incredible girth and depth, until he was fully seated, balls nestling against my hips.

  "I want to see you," I whined.

  His movement stuttered as he pulled out, hands pinching on my hips, fingers no doubt accidentally marking me with a bruise for tomorrow.

  "Please, sir. Please, I want to touch you. Kiss you."

  Someone in the audience moaned. I rocked on the cock filling me, rising to my elbows and fucking myself onto the mass of my lovely wonderful monster.

  "I missed you," I whispered. "Let me see you, sir."

  "Fuck me," Mr. Tanner growled.

  I pressed my lips together, brow furrowing, and put all my focus into riding the incredible cock inside of me. I was so wet from the events of the night that it made the movements easier, although Mr. Tanner was close to stuffing me and there was more friction than with my other men. I loved it. I loved my time with each of them, but there was something now that I wanted badly from Mr. Tanner.

  They want to be fucked well and accepted. I want to do it, I thought, gasping with the effort, palms splayed below me as my hips rode and twisted and rocked on Mr. Tanner's length, his cock pounding in my cunt, filling me to the brink, arousal leaking slowly out with every thrust.

  "Please," I begged again. "Please, let me touch you."

  Mr. Tanner snarled behind me, hands tightening and holding me still. I thought he might spank me again. Briefly, I worried I'd actually angered him and he would stop altogether.

  He yanked himself out of me, and I sobbed with the loss before going breathless as I was torn up from the table and tossed around.

  Electric green eyes glared back at me, my body held to a massive broad chest, coarse with copper curls.

  "I'm not your gentleman, little girl," Mr. Tanner sneered up at me.

  My eyes were wide, lips parted. Mr. Tanner, with his harsh, almost animal features—squared and overly large, brutish, grimacing teeth peeking up from behind his pronounced bottom lip—flinched as my gaze swept back and forth. His muscles were over made, too large, too cut, bones too pronounced. To say he wasn't ugly would've been a lie. It didn't stop me from wanting to look, and it wasn't horror or pity running through me. It was a soft familiarity, for all I'd never gotten to look at the man in front of me. My monster.

  I leaned in, and Mr. Tanner's arms around me tightened as the whole theater seemed to hold its breath. I kept my eyes on his, even as they crossed, and nibbled on his lower lip, suckling on it, waiting for his grimace to ease. He rumbled, hold softening, and parted his mouth for my kiss. I growled, taking his face in my
hands, plunging my tongue into his mouth, finding a depth of flavor that was earthy and dark and addictive.

  Mr. Tanner's growl answered my own, his tongue overtaking mine, swirling around, drawing me deeper, not a battle but a quick and thorough domination. There was no question of who would master the other in a fight, and I moaned, sinking drowsily into the embrace, letting him feast from the kiss.

  My back landed back on wood, Mr. Tanner's weight lowering to cover me, and I paused him with a tug on his earlobe. I tore away from the kiss, gasping for breath, and called out brightly so the room could hear.

  "No. I want you on the floor. I want to fuck my monster."

  There was a gasp from beyond us, and Mr. Tanner's grin was feral and crooked, but he lifted us and tossed the seat to the far side of the stage with one sweep of his massive, bulky arm. He managed us easily, spinning me and then lowering himself to the floor with me held above him.

  The spotlight was on him fully now, the light turning his hair to pretty shades of flame, highlighting the exaggerated hollows and rises of his form, his pure size. Including the cock I'd just been riding.

  Christ. If I'd seen it before, I never would've believed we'd managed the act. It was pulsing and dark, weeping with white fluid, the tears of arousal running down into the curls at the base. I swept one up on a finger and looked down at the open gaze of Mr. Tanner, his heavy brows unable to shadow the glow of his stare, and watched that delicious long tongue flick out over his own mouth as I sucked him from my finger.

  "Ride me, little one," he said, and there was the faintest hint of a plea in the words.

  "Gladly," I said brightly, positioning myself over his cock and working him back into me with a steady bounce. We both moaned as he filled me again, and I kept up my fucking, reaching back to find leverage with my palms on his raised knees.

  Our skin slapped wetly, the sound echoing around the stage, and there was a chorus from the dark audience, others enjoying the same pleasure we took with each other.

  "You are mine," I breathed to Mr. Tanner, smiling as his breaths began to pant. "This cock is mine," I said a little louder, a whine rising in my tone. "Oh God, it feels so good, sir. You make me feel so good."

  Mr. Tanner groaned, and the sound echoed in my cunt, his hands wrapping around my waist and making me bounce harder, faster.

  "Yes, sir! Yes, just like that. Use me, sir, I'm yours!"

  Growls were rising from the seats, my voice bouncing with a lusty shout at every impact of our bodies together. I pushed forward then, my hands pressing to Mr. Tanner's broad chest, leaning down briefly to bite his throat. He bellowed and began to buck into me, and I threw my head back to shout my praise.

  "Yes! Fuck, yes. Oh God, you're so big. Fuck me, sir. I love your fat cock!"

  Mr. Tanner chuckled, but he didn't stop, and I grinned down at him until his next thrust made my eyes cross.

  "Yes!"

  I wanted the entire theater to know how good Mr. Tanner fucked me. But more importantly, I wanted him to feel that same pride of being desired I'd felt when I'd stepped under the spotlight.

  "Oh, fuck, sir! Don't stop, please! Please, yes!"

  Mr. Tanner grunted and growled as he fucked me, filling me until I felt the force of him in my entire body. My eyes opened wide as the orgasm began to swell, my stare out on the audience. They were churning, touching one another, fucking and kissing and watching. I had done this. I had made this frenzy, and the knowledge rushed as fast and as deep as Mr. Tanner's cock.

  And up from the audience, a figure rose, tall and well dressed, face shockingly clear in the shadows, strangely plain as if it'd been half-erased, already forgotten.

  "Oh, god, sir—Sir, I'm going to—" My eyes widened at the terrible, amazing pressure building in me, even as the stranger held my gaze.

  "You come on this cock like the good little girl you are," Mr. Tanner snarled, and my heart and cunt throbbed with equal delight.

  There was one man in all the audience who wasn't participating. He stood, watching me, the edges of his features blurred, eyes blank, smile oily. Fear and pleasure hit me at the same moment, an impossible familiarity in the man's face and a beautiful breath-robbing storm of euphoria rushing through me.

  I came with a scream, Mr. Tanner shouting with me from the floor, holding me fast to his hips as he filled me to the brim with heat and it splashed out between us.

  He sat up, blocking the sight of the man in the crowd, taking my mouth in a claiming, possessive, tender kiss. I sank in, clutching tight to his shoulders, shivering and shaking in his arms with the aftershocks and with an unexplainable terror.

  "There is someone watching," I gasped, body stiff, as Mr. Tanner released me to catch my breath.

  One eyebrow arched, his lips quirking, but with a glance over his shoulder, he had me lifted from the floor, marching quickly to the wings with me still wrapped around him. His chest hummed with a low growl and one hand raised, tucking my face to his warm shoulder.

  "Birsha," Auguste hissed as we reached the dark of wings.

  "I saw," Mr. Tanner growled.

  "Here, blankets," Auguste murmured. "The carriage is just outside this door. We need to go now before—"

  "My dress is in the box," I said, trying to lift my head but unable to break Mr. Tanner's hold.

  "You didn't like it anyway," Auguste said, but his voice was too strained to be really teasing.

  "Let's go."

  Mr. Tanner wrapped a pair of blankets around us both, and I got one last glance of the red curtains closing, the ridiculous mess of garments and tools we'd left behind still glowing on the stage floor, before we were out in the shocking cold of night, diving from the alley door of the theater and into our carriage.

  The carriage rocked as Mr. Tanner forced his way inside, but he pulled me right back to his lap, Auguste sitting across from us and knocking on the carriage roof. We jerked forward and I caught a deep breath, looking back and forth between my men.

  "Who the hell is Birsha?" I asked, the sudden clatter of hooves echoing in the alley.

  Auguste stared over my head at Mr. Tanner, and I felt the great bulk of the man holding me shrug in answer before Auguste spoke. "Birsha is—was the king of Gomorrah."

  My brow furrowed, and I squeaked as Mr. Tanner shifted me on his lap, one massive hand cupping my sex, two fingers dipping into my cunt as if to plug me. "Gomorrah, like…?”

  "Sodom and Gomorrah, yes," Auguste said with a nod before smiling and tilting his head. "I thought you said you didn't pay attention in church."

  I snorted. "I did when it was about sin. But I never heard of Birsha."

  "Most of the kings were put to death—" Auguste started before being interrupted by Mr. Tanner.

  "Birsha was put to death."

  “—but he saw what was coming, or was warned, and he made his arrangements. We thought he was a vampire for a time, but whatever his immortality is, it wasn't offered by my kind," Auguste said, glancing out the window.

  "Are we being followed?" Mr. Tanner asked.

  "We might be followed?" I asked, stiffening. Mr. Tanner wasn't teasing me with the fingers inside of me, but the carriage ride was bumpy and the gentle friction was nice, drawing out the warm feeling from my crashing orgasm.

  "I don't see any sign of him," Auguste said, although he didn't sound reassured.

  "What would the king—"

  "Former," Auguste corrected.

  "The former king of Gomorrah want with me?"

  Auguste and Mr. Tanner just laughed. "The same thing we all do, mon coeur," Auguste answered with a grin, although it slid into a frown as Mr. Tanner growled.

  "Gomorrah was not unlike that theater, little one. Or Rooksgrave. Except its specialty was rape," Mr. Tanner said, letting me twist on his lap so I could see him better. My hand raised to cup his rough jaw and he sighed, blinking slowly at me. "After his kingdom was razed to the ground, Birsha built a new one. He owns houses all around the world, but their nature is very
different to the one you know."

  "Rooksgrave likes to arrange their clients with girls who will suit them and vice versa. Birsha's houses are free-for-alls and there's no limit on what a client can do in pursuit of their own pleasure," Auguste said, eyes watching me for fear. "You are exquisitely hedonistic, but Birsha would use your willing spirit against you. He would take pleasure in destroying your joy."

  I sank against Mr. Tanner's chest, trying to draw up that eerie impression of a face I'd seen in the dark, but it was foggy now. Still, I remembered the sudden clarity of terror I'd felt in the moment.

  "Could he be responsible for the wraith in the grotto?" I asked.

  Auguste stiffened, but Mr. Tanner just hummed, the vibration from his barrel chest soothing me as I curled into him. "Rooksgrave and some of its sister houses have been fighting attacks from Birsha for centuries. I don't know if he doesn't like the competition or if he just likes smashing pretty things," Mr. Tanner said, his free hand coming to rest heavily at the back of my neck. "If he wanted to strike at Rooksgrave, stealing one of the girls would be a good start. And when he found you…the target would only be larger. We should warn Magda," he added to Auguste, who nodded.

  "Maybe the sphinx was right about you leaving Rooksgrave," Auguste murmured, but he was looking at Mr. Tanner instead of me.

  "Birsha has the resources to attack in two places, you know that," Mr. Tanner muttered.

  "I'm not sure I know Amon well enough yet to let him dictate where I go," I added.

  "You don't like him?" Auguste asked, eyes narrowing.

  "I do. But he doesn't like Ezra, and I think he looks at Booker solely as a servant or a tool. I know that there are five of you, but I want things to feel equal, or close to it."

  Mr. Tanner's fingers dug up into my hair, jostling pins free, and my breath caught in my chest as he nuzzled down, pressing a kiss to the crown of my head. "The doctor will have to clear his schedule," Tanner growled.