"Would you give me permission to love you, sir?” she asked Malcolm.
"You may tonight,” he said, the slightest smile on his lips to show how secretly pleased he was. "You won’t love me next time I come to you, so enjoy it while you can.”
She laughed softly into the pillow. Hard to take such a threat seriously from a man who was using his own linen cravat to tend to her wounds.
"I don’t believe that,” she said.
"What did I warn you about saying things like that?”
"I know, I know, sir. Men like you take it as a challenge.”
"You only love me tonight because of the beating. You understand that, don’t you?”
Before tonight, she would have said "no,” that made no sense, there was no logic to it. He’d done something to her mind as well as to her body. By the end of her beating, she couldn’t tell the crop apart from his kindnesses. They were one and the same to her so that every strike of the crop was tender as a kiss and every word of tenderness made her crave the crop.
"Now I understand,” she said, because now she did.
When he’d finished with the water, he brought out a clear glass bottle of golden oil. It smelled like crushed wildflowers and warmed her skin even more as he rubbed it into her sore flesh. He massaged her entire body—back and legs, shoulders and arms—then bade her roll onto her back again so he could do the same to her front. He lingered long over her breasts, using both of his hands on each one. She gave herself up to his hands, let him mold her like clay. She had no will over her own body. She willed only that Malcolm’s will be done.
Malcolm slicked the warm oil all over her stomach and hips and thighs. He brought his hand between her legs and nudged her thighs open. He glazed her clitoris with the oil and stroked circles all around it. It swelled under his touch and pulsed against his finger. She felt that deep delicious hollowness inside her again. He filled it with his fingers when he slid them up into her sex, the oil allowing him deep penetration. It was bliss to spread her legs far apart for him so that he could have his way with her. She watched as his fingers disappeared inside her body one by one, probing and parting her from within. Mona panted through her nose. She knew she mustn’t come until his cock was inside her. If he didn’t put it there soon she’d be forced to beg him for it.
"Do you have children?” she asked.
He laughed softly. "I have four fingers in your cunt and you’re asking me if I have children. Do you think I’m checking to see if there’s room for one more?”
She grinned broadly, too tired and aroused to laugh.
"I only wondered,” she said.
"Does it matter to you?” he asked.
"I’m nosy. And you’re a mystery.”
"I have children, yes. Though not so young anymore.”
"Do you love them?”
"I love them though they’ve disappointed me.”
"How so?”
"They’re…respectable,” he said. "Respectable and well-behaved. Good citizens of the realm. They’re boring. Except the youngest. He takes after me.” His words made her grin drunkenly. "Are you happy to know that?”
"I am,” she said. "Although…I don’t know why.”
"You’re open,” he said.
"I know I am.”
"Not like that though…” He glanced down at his hand that was in her cunt up to the thumb. "I broke you open tonight. Up here.” With his free hand he tapped his temple, indicating his mind. "And here.” He tapped his chest over his heart. "You feel close to me.”
"I do,” she said.
"It’s the intimacy of captor and captive. There’s nothing like it.”
"Am I your captive?”
"You are tonight.”
"Can you keep me forever?”
"I wish I could,” he said, and she believed he meant it. At least tonight he meant it.
"But you can’t?”
He shook his head. "But…if you want, you can keep me.”
"What does that mean?”
His smile turned him back into that handsome devil she knew and loved.
"You’ll see,” he said. "Now close your eyes and keep them closed.”
She didn’t want to obey this order; it was too enjoyable to look at him. But she couldn’t refuse him. Mona closed her eyes and relaxed into the soft sheets. She heard the brass headboard rattle as Malcolm slid his body on top of hers. She sensed movement but kept her eyes closed even as she felt him crawling up the bed, over her. First he removed her pillow and laid her flat on her back on the bed. He then lifted her arms and put them over her head. Her arms were slack, her entire body loose and yielding. He was twining the linen cravat around her wrists, securing her to the brass slats of the headboard. Never before had she engaged in bondage with a lover. She should have guessed Malcolm would be her first. She heard fabric rip as Malcolm moved off of her and to her ankles where he used the other half of the cravat to tie each of them to the slats of the footboard. Nothing about being restrained by him scared her. Quite the opposite, she felt swaddled and secure. It was restful to be tied spread-eagle to the bed. She was absolved of all responsibility, absolved of all sin. What could she do? Nothing. She could only lie there passively as he did whatever it was he wanted to do to her. And whatever he wanted to do with her was what she wanted done.
Malcolm crawled over her again. She felt the naked tip of his cock graze her stomach. Her vagina contracted in hungry need for it. But he didn’t move down and push it inside her like she wanted. He straddled her head instead.
"Open your eyes,” he said, and when she did it was to find him holding the dripping tip at her chin. He didn’t have to tell her to take it into her mouth. He placed his hand under the back of her head and lifted it with all the gentleness of a nurse raising the head of a sick patient to drink some water. She did it willingly, wrapping the tip with her lips and sucking. A small burst of semen shot into her mouth and she swallowed it eagerly. It was merely a taste of what was to come. He’d been erect for well over an hour now. Surely he was as ready to orgasm as she was. He slowly fucked her mouth. The only thing more erotic than the taste of him on her tongue was the feel of his leather boots against the sides of her breasts. As much as she relished his naked body, she was pleased he’d kept his clothes on, baring only the organ he needed to fuck her. He was resplendent, and she wanted to know what it was like to be ridden by a man who wore boots for the job in question. God, he had turned her into a whore, hadn’t he? A whore with no shame in her whoring, that’s what he’d made her. He’d cracked open something in her, some dormant, latent proclivity for pain and punishment and being treated like a possession. She could never go back to the way it was before. Whatever it would take to keep him in her life, she would do it. This devil, this angel, this man. She almost wanted him to make her pregnant. It would be a tie to him, a tether. She pushed the thought from her mind. These were dangerous dreams. What had he done to her?
At this angle she couldn’t do much more than lick and suck the tip, but she gave it the full measure of her attention and adoration. She worshiped the organ in her mouth. She served it and its needs, its desires, its wants and thanked it that what it wanted tonight was her.
Malcolm had one hand on his cock as he guided it in and out of her mouth, one hand atop the brass headboard. She loved to hear his ragged breaths. He sounded like he was close to his breaking point. She craved his semen, wanted it inside her—any hole would do. But he kept fucking her mouth, not coming, torturing himself with pleasure as much as he’d tortured her.
Mona sucked it as deep as she could, pulling on it with her mouth, and Malcolm let out a groan of abject ecstasy.
"Fuck…” he breathed and Mona would have smiled if her mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied.
Malcolm slowly eased himself from her mouth and moved down her body until his knees straddled her hips.
"Wicked girl,” he said. "You almost made me spill all over your face.”
"Oh no,” she said. "Anything but that.”