‘Suck.’
I closed my lips around his fingers and sucked them. They tasted funny—not disagreeable but different from anything else I had ever tasted.
‘You’ve never tasted yourself, have you?’
I shook my head.
He came really close to my ear. ‘Do you like the taste?’
I blushed and he laughed.
‘I love the way you taste,’ he said, and disentangling his hold on my hair he pushed me back on the pillow. He spread my legs until they were wide open and kissed me gently right in the center of my pussy. For a second I was shocked by the gentle kiss. I felt my heart soar recklessly. This was not sex. This was something more. Then I felt him freeze suddenly.
‘You have a very, very beautiful pussy, but what I really want is not cuddles and softness—’ he said and using his thumb and fingers parted my soaking wet folds, ‘is this.’ He thrust into me so suddenly and with such unexpected force and brutality that the breath was knocked out of my lungs. ‘And this.’
I gasped for my next breath and clawed the sheet.
‘I’m never going to fall for your innocent, butter-wouldn’t-melt mouth or your greedy little pussy.’ He plunged in again. Very hard.
I whimpered.
‘The only thing you can ever be is my blindfolded bitch.’
He slammed into me with such force that the bedsprings screeched, my head lifted completely off the pillow, and my entire body slid away in a rush. ‘And this is what you will get every day. A good hard fuck in the orifice of my choosing.’
The words were ugly, and I suddenly knew why he had frozen after the gentle kiss. He had remembered that he must not be kind to me, I was just a piece of meat. I should have been hurt or at the very least insulted, but I was too strangely excited by the hot, hard flesh buried deep inside me to care. No matter how much he wanted not to care, there was something between us. It was thick and strong and undeniable.
Shamelessly, I pushed my hips toward him. I didn’t want it to stop And it didn’t. Again and again I was filled with his cock and fucked until… Ah… My body began to flood with delicious sensation. I felt my eyes roll back in my head with waves of ecstasy, and this time I didn’t hold back—the sound that came out of my mouth was his name.
I screamed his name.
Chapter 15
It was raining the next day so I played the piano in the morning and afterwards I spent the day in the library. It was unheated so it was cold and musty smelling but I kind of enjoyed being surrounded by thousands of books. Ever since we were young my mother had instilled a great love for books in us. I dusted off old tomes. Some of them were full of mildew and silverfish. But I found a book I liked—The God of Small Things by Arundati Roy. I took it down and went to read it in the saloon. Misty was there.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hi,’ she said and smiled tightly.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. Just work problems. Anyway, you are requested to join Guy for dinner tonight in the dining room. Dinner will be served at eight p.m., but please go earlier so you don’t keep him waiting.’
I stared at her with surprise. ‘Guy wants me to have dinner with him?’
‘Yes. As usual Mr. Fellowes will serve. Do you know where the dining room is?’
‘Yes, I’ve been in it.’
‘Good.’ And she smiled again, but uneasily.
*****
I dressed in a black shirt, a pair of black trousers, and the sensible black shoes. Then I brushed my hair until it shone. I looked in the mirror. I looked pale and colorless. I bit my lip to redden it and pinched my cheeks. Then I went down the stairs. The flowers in the huge vase had been changed. The whole place was lifted with the fragrance of lilies. The grandfather clock said that it was seven forty-five. Mr. Fellowes was already there, dressed in his customary gravedigger suit. He nodded formally toward me. His eyes were purposely blank but I felt the curiosity in his gaze.
‘Come in, Lena,’ he said. I walked into the red room with the long table that could seat sixteen. It had been set for two. There were logs burning in the fireplace.
Mr. Fellowes pointed toward the chair that was beside the head of the table. ‘That is your place.’
I walked to it and sat on the leather chair. Then I looked up at Mr. Fellowes and said, ‘Will you teach me how to use all these utensils? I have never used anything but a fork and knife.’
Something flashed in Mr. Fellowes’ eyes that he quickly suppressed. He came around and stood beside me. Gravely and patiently he taught me about soup spoons, butter knives, side plates, working in from the outside, bread never being cut with a knife, the best place for the napkin being in your lap, and the four o’clock position that knives and forks must be placed in on the plate to signify that one is finished eating.
He coughed politely and looked at his watch.
‘Nearly eight?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Isn’t this so strange, Mr. Fellowes?’
He frowned and stiffened. ‘You’ll never find a kinder man than your master,’ he said.
I stared at him, surprised by the loyalty and passion in his voice.
‘Thank you, Mr. Fellowes.’
‘Not at all,’ he replied formally, and stepped back to wait by the sideboard. I felt nervous energy coil in my belly. I clasped my hands in my lap and took a deep breath. A few minutes later I heard steps and the clicking of Ceba’s nails on the stone tiles.
The door opened and he stood in the doorway. I had guessed that he was big, but he was taller and broader than I had imagined. That raw prowling energy rushed ahead of him and touched me like a finger. Misty’s words flashed into my mind—a masked man projects mystery and ancient allure.
His mask, made out of some malleable material, was skin-colored, and left exposed only his hair—raven black, rakishly long, carelessly styled, and curling at his collar; his mouth, his lips, lush and beautiful; and…his eyes.
I felt as if I had been kicked in the gut!
My heart was thumping so hard I heard the blood roaring in my ears. Unable to tear my eyes away I gazed at him in a trance-like state. It was not the color—which was the most dazzlingly beautiful molten gold, beyond anything I’d ever seen before—but the fierce, almost animal-like intensity of them. So intoxicating they made my head swim. At that moment I would have willingly surrendered anything he wanted. Both my body and my mind felt as if they were under a spell, no longer in my control. As aroused and helpless as one of Count Dracula’s victims!
For those few breathless seconds, we were no longer in the red-walled great dining room of the castle, but somewhere else, somewhere magical. There was no one else there except us. No Mr. Fellowes, no Ceba, or Misty.
Only me and the slowly roving, devouring, hypnotic eyes of a masked and powerful stranger poring over me. I felt overwhelmed. It seemed incredible that while I was blindfolded this tall and magnetic man had done sinfully delicious things to my naked body.
Then his lips moved. ‘Good evening,’ he drawled, his tone velvety and full of dark promise.
I shivered. His voice always stirred something inside me. Images of us coupling. A strange desire to be taken in forbidden ways.
My lips parted as the breath rushed out of me. ‘Hello.’ My voice sounded high and small.
Mr. Fellowes left the room unobtrusively, and Guy came forward, pulled his chair out and sat. Ceba settled himself with a grunt by Guy’s chair.
My eyes were drawn to his throat—darkly sensual against the white of his open shirt. He was wearing a black dinner jacket, but when he lifted his hands and put them on the table I noticed that he was wearing a black glove on his left hand. My gaze strayed to his right hand. It lay large and manly on the surface of the table. I remembered well the shape and the imprint it left on my body.
‘I heard you at the piano today. You play very well,’ he remarked.
Surprised by the
compliment, I looked up and found him watching me intently. Unable to hold his gaze I dropped my eyes to his lips, and that was worse because I suddenly remembered when he had kissed me between my spread legs. Heat flooded into my cheeks. Oh God! What an obvious fool I was.
‘Thank you,’ I choked finally.
‘Where did you learn to play?’
My hand fluttered nervously up to my throat. ‘My mother taught all of us to play.’
‘I thought your family were very poor.’
I dragged my gaze back to him. ‘We were, but my mother was once the daughter of a very rich man. She lived in a fine house in Moscow and taught music and English. The piano was a relic of those times.’
‘What happened then?’
‘She married my father,’ I said simply.
Mr. Fellowes returned carrying a tray. ‘Cream of asparagus and mint,’ he announced with a flourish and placed a bowl of thick green liquid with a cream swirl on its surface in front of me.
‘Thank you,’ I murmured, and watched him go around and place another bowl in front of Guy. Dipping the spoon into the smooth hot liquid I brought it to my lips. I had never tasted asparagus before. It was delicate and delicious.
I picked up the bread roll on my side plate, broke a small piece and buttered it.
‘Tell me about your father.’
‘My father was a hunter. He hunted elk, chinchillas, hares. Anything really. Once he shot a brown bear.’ My voice was flat and dead.
‘What kind of man was he?’
I put down my piece of bread and stared into my soup. ‘What is it that you want to know about my father?’
‘I want to know your history. I want to know how you came to be on the dark net waiting for a buyer.’
I bit my lip to stop it from trembling with the sudden hatred I felt for my father. ‘After my mother married my father something happened. Something bad and they had to leave Moscow in a hurry. The only thing of value they took with them was my mother’s piano. They moved to a tiny village adopting false names. And that is where we were all born, at the edge of a forest. Never meeting people, never going to school or on holidays, never having friends come around. And every year my father sold one of us because he believed it was his right to do so. After all, he had fed and sheltered and cared for us. Eventually, it became my turn.’ I glanced up at him.