A Measured Risk (38 page)
When she reached him, he took her hand. She laid herself across his knees. He pulled her and settled her to suit himself. She didn’t resist. It had been her decision to defy him. It was now her decision to take her punishment.
She understood. He’d gone easy on her before. However, this was the moment of her real surrender to him. She’d lost her centre of gravity; it felt like being precariously balanced. But he wrapped one leg around her ankles. He held her shoulders with one arm. “I’ve got you.”
She felt herself melt, go even limper within his hold.
He ran his large hand over her buttocks. “God, I missed your gorgeous arse.”
Air rushed over her flesh. Followed by the sharp crack his hand. Pain bloomed in its wake. Mercy, he hadn’t been jesting. It was real punishment. Painful desire exploded within her as the shock jostled the silver balls. He struck again. And again. Each time, he struck a new spot, even the crease between her bottom and her upper thighs. Ten times he laid his hand upon her and then he stopped.
She pressed her face to his leg and burst into tears. She ought to have been mortified. But she wasn’t. Her arse burned like fire and it was safe to cry over it. Here alone with him.
He kept silent, caressing her back and her hair until her sobs abated.
“Nan, do you know why it had to be this severe?” His deep, firm voice seemed to come from a distance, somewhere beyond the blood rushing in her ears. “Because you disobeyed an order that had to do with your personal safety. And because you didn’t trust me. You must trust me when I tell you something is important to your wellbeing and safety. Do you understand?”
She sniffed and gulped, “Yes.”
“I imagine you’ll have cause to remember my words during the ride tomorrow. Do you think you can stand now?”
She sniffed again and nodded.
He eased her off his lap then supported her as she stood. He caressed her face with his eyes. “You’re a good girl, Nan. I don’t think this will be a frequent occurrence.”
She wiped at her eyes with her arm. “No, it won’t.”
It wouldn’t be, because she knew how much he wanted her voluntary submission and obedience.
“Sit on your heels on the floor and spread your legs,” he said.
She instantly obeyed him.
“Good girl, now let the balls come out and hand them to me.”
She did as he bade with gladness. The orbs rolled out, pressing on her inflamed pleasure points with painful effect as they did. She winced. God, she never wanted to see the horrid little objects again. He sat them aside. “You can wash them later and return them to their pouch.”
He reached out and touched her swollen folds. Her wetness was audible. “God, you’re soaked. I can’t wait to sink my cock into you.”
He put two fingers inside her, his motions forceful, rough. She adored it, crying out with the relief of it, closing her eyes and shuddering all over as her inner muscles hugged his digits. He removed his fingers and she moaned in protest. Her empty cunt clenched and clenched and clenched. “Go and lay on the bed, on your stomach.”
She could hear him undressing. Every inch of her body felt aflame. Ready for him. Ready for his cock, erect and huge. Her cunt contracted like mad with the eagerness to be filled by him. Possessed. Claimed for all time.
He flung himself down on her and, his strong thighs straddling her hips, his weight pressing into the feather bed. He impaled her suddenly, savagely. She screamed, pure emotion and release. It felt good to be wild like this. It was safe to be wild like this.
He thrust back and forth with a feverish, merciless hunger, filling her with a delicious, unbearable helplessness. Soon she panted, obsessed with one need and one need alone—to come for him. To come all over his cock. Her head thrashed wildly on the pillow, mindless words of love and desire spilling unheeded from her lips.
He took hold of her hair and pulled her head back in those last moments before white-hot pleasure took her spiralling away.
* * * *
She came back to her senses to feel him massaging smoothing, cool oil into her burning buttocks. Between her legs, his semen seeped out slowly. There would be no going back now. She had no Greek sponges. There would be children and suddenly she couldn’t wait to feel his child quicken within her.
“Are you all right, Anne?”
She laughed softly. “I think so.”
“When we meet your sister, you must keep your expectations realistic.”
“I know.”
“Do you, Anne? Are you even aware of what you expect?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I do not want to see you hurt by your own longings for family connection. Your sister has been raised by her nanny. She will be attached to her. She will also be frightened at times by all the unknowns here. She won’t know us. She may fear us. Resent us. We must give her space and time.”
“Yes, of course, Jon, I understand perfectly.”
He stopped massaging her and shortly she felt his lips upon her oiled flesh. “I know you do, love, but you’ve been hurt so much by life, I can’t bear to see you hurt over this matter.”
Gently, he laid his cheek upon her still tender arse and they fell silent.
Yet still something nagged at her. “Jon.”
Again, he pressed his lips to oiled flesh. “Yes, love.”
“Well…” She chewed her lip.
He lifted his head. “Well what?”
She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow with her hand under her cheek. “It’s this obedience thing. I want to renegotiate the terms.”
“Do you?” He didn’t sound particularly surprised.
“I cannot always be obedient. Not completely. Not
all
the time.”
He laughed softly, tracing a fingertip over her nipple. “Of course you can’t. It would be most undignified for Lady Ruel. And of course we’ll negotiate it. We shall always negotiate everything
,
within reason. It was only non-negotiable for the time at the cottage. But you must always remember something, Nan.”
“What?”
“In our bedchamber, you shall always be my little wench.”
And she wanted it no other way.
New
from Total-E-Bound Publishing:
Alex’s Angel
Natasha Blackthorne
Released 27
th
February 2012
Excerpt
Prologue
Philadelphia, PA
August 1793
A quarter to two in the afternoon. With her stomach knotting, Emily Eliot tore her eyes from the clock. She’d have to hurry, else Grandmother would get a megrim over her being out for longer than it took to walk to the baker’s and back. She hated making Grandmother ill.
Thud, thud, thud.
Emily’s heart echoed the rhythm of the printing presses as she drew up her courage. She took a deep breath and approached the man who was leaning so lazily against the worn walnut desk.
“Good afternoon, Mr Sawyer. I’d like to discuss my book again.”
He blinked several times, then grinned. He wasn’t too old or too ugly, but his reptilian smile repulsed her to the very pit of her soul. “Now, sweeting, I have explained it repeatedly—if you’d only be a little more agreeable with me, I’d look a little more favourably on this book of yours.”
Her mouth fell open. What—had he just made an improper suggestion? After she had so patiently explained the last time that she was uninterested in—in… Well, in what he was interested in? He’d seemed like such a rational person. Why must he be so insensitive? She gaped at him.
He peeled an orange with his ink-stained fingers, filling the air with a sharp citrus scent that mingled with the odours of paper dust and fresh ink. All the time he leered at her.
Leered
at her while she was here to see him on a matter of such importance.
Crawling sensations tingled over her skin and she resisted the urge to shiver openly. She still wasn’t used to dealing with men on her own and certainly not men who regarded her so salaciously. But for the sake of her mission, she’d have to press on. She wiped her sweating, shaking hands on her skirts and took a step closer.
“Mr Sawyer, please don’t tease me. You said I might return in two months and ask if you had changed your mind about printing my book.”
He lifted his sandy brows as he paused with an orange segment held to his red, overripe lips. “I believe that what I said was for you to wait at least two months before coming to pester me again.”
Pester him?
Pester him?
How could he suggest that her work was so insignificant? It was only the most pressing issue facing the United States at the moment. Her book was a collection of stories telling the tales of some of the mariners from the
Dauphin
, a ship out of Philadelphia that had been captured by the Barbary Pirates in 1785.
She’d had to wait so long already, for accomplishing this work had been no small feat under the watchful gaze of her grandmother. She owed a great debt to Mr Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, who had answered her very first enquiry and generously supplied the names and addresses of the mariners’ relatives. Over the past two and a half years, through letters, she’d managed to interview the families of the captured men. She had also done detailed sketches of them, from their family’s descriptions. But gathering the information like that had taken so much time. More time than she could have imagined when she’d embarked on her course.
Now it was taking every ounce of faith she possessed to persevere with trying to get her work distributed to the populace. All she lived for was getting her book printed, but she’d never imagined it would be like this. She’d been sure that the need for her work would ensure its rapid publication. Yet to her vast shock, she’d been rejected by every printer she’d contacted.
“Well, Mr Sawyer, it is
very
hard to remain patient when I know that my book will bring a personal perspective that the people of the United States will no longer be able to ignore.”
He stared back at her silently, blinking a few times. Had he even heard her? Didn’t he know it was rude to refuse to answer? Goodness. Writing letters had been a lot easier than facing printers in their shops. She straightened her spine.
“Mr Sawyer, how could anyone with any human feeling remain passive while our countrymen are still held in Algiers, in shameful slavery?” She couldn’t help letting some of her disapprobation leach into her tone. “It has been almost a decade and still our country refuses to act.”
“Indeed, it is terrible business what those Barbary pirates have done, but our country is young and money is limited.” He rolled his shoulders up and tilted his head to the side. Then he relaxed. “Without a navy and without large sums to pay their ransoms, I just don’t see what more can be done.”
He popped a piece of orange into his mouth and chewed it slowly.
She resisted the urge to shake her head. Initially, he had seemed like a kind person. How could he just stand there and say those things? Didn’t he care about what his countrymen were going through? Apparently not. Unfortunately, in her experience, his apathy wasn’t atypical. Her shoulders sagged. It was so hard to see what needed to be done so clearly and yet to have others be so blind and deaf to her message. But she couldn’t give up.
Clearly she’d have to try harder.
“Please, Mr Sawyer, you must listen.” The words rushed past her lips, their urgency pressing hard on her. She took a deep breath and made a concentrated effort to slow down. “The long-term lack of concern over this issue is what has allowed those men captured in eighty-four to be held for all these years. My book would really help people to see this issue in a more personal light. People need to see those men as fellow citizens, with families who love and need them—not just as names on a list.”
“Young lady, I’ve told you repeatedly what I need. The public wants to read stories of captivity, torture, ravishment, a little allusion to sexual depravity…heaving bosoms.” Mr Sawyer’s gaze dropped to her bodice. “Though for myself, I prefer more tender fruits.” His leer was unmistakable.
She gasped and fought a sudden wave of dizziness. Every time she’d come here, he had pushed the bounds of decency a little more. However, no man had ever spoken to her so bluntly as he had just done. For one thing, they would never have dared with her formidable, sharp-tongued grandmother always close by. But here, today, Emily was alone and she’d have to fend for herself. She crossed her arms over her small breasts and squared her shoulders.
“We could discuss a compromise.”
“A compromise?” she asked warily.
“Aye, a compromise.” He pushed away from his desk and walked towards her.
The predatory glint in his gaze sent gooseflesh rising over her neck. She quickly retreated several steps, until her back hit the wall.
“If you would agree to meet with me tonight, for a late supper, I would gladly print your little stories in my bi-weekly gazette.”
From the look blazing in his beady, lead-grey eyes, she had no doubt what he meant and it had nothing to do with eating supper. That look was so intense, it ought to have frightened her, for no man had ever looked at her with such open lust. But instead, anger burnt through her. This vile man was proving everything Grandmother said about the world and its dangers correct. She hated him for that. However disgraceful a feeling it was, she couldn’t help but resent Grandmother’s protective, fearful ways. She didn’t want Grandmother to be right.
Dear heavens, had she really been stupid enough to come here today and expect to be taken seriously? But, then again, no other printer in Philadelphia would even give her the time of day. She just
had
to get her book printed. She had to do it for sake of the men still suffering in foreign captivity. It was her life’s mission.
“Well?” Mr Sawyer’s voice broke into her thoughts.
Taken unawares, she wasn’t quick enough to stop him from taking her hand into his ink-stained, hot, dry one. She suppressed a shudder of revulsion and slipped it out of his grasp.
Yet hope flared in her breast—it wouldn’t allow her to let go of the possibility that she’d misunderstood. Oh, fancy chance that she could ever slip out past Grandmother for such a late night meeting. The very thought of trying sent quavers through her limbs. But she’d have to do what she’d have to do to get her book printed. The captives were counting on her.
“You’d really print my book, if I—I went to supper with you?” Her voice shook so hard she could barely get the words out.
“Well, that’s where the compromise comes in. As far as printing a book with the woodcuts needed to reproduce your illustrations—as good as they are—I’d need to see an interest from the public for more of your work. It’s just too expensive of an investment. I will run your little stories as a series, one man‘s story every two weeks.”
Her mouth fell open and for a moment her brain wouldn’t function. Then the full outrage of his suggestion hit her. “B—but my work without the illustrations will lose its impact! It’s just not the same at all! Without the faces to put to the names, the work seems more distant, less real. I just can’t agree to publishing anything less than the whole work as I intended it.”
“Then we remain at an impasse. If you change your mind, come back and see me. Otherwise, I am a very busy man and, to put it bluntly, you’re wasting my time.”
Emily left the printer’s shop, as she always did, in a state of shock. How could anyone with any sense of patriotism or compassion not jump at the chance to bring fresh sympathy to the issue of the Americans still languishing in Barbary?
Her father had been one of the mariners on board the
Maria
of Boston. He had been taken into captivity and had eventually died of the plague. There would be no chance now for his freedom, but there still was a chance for the other men. She’d do whatever she had to in order to see that they got that chance. But she’d never, ever see her work chopped up piecemeal or slanted to appeal to base tastes.
It must be very hard for a man like Mr Sawyer to live with his own conscience. His sleep must be haunted with all manner of nightmares. Well, she had no time to waste on pity for that. The nation needed her work, to wake it up—to save its very soul. And small, short-sighted minds like Mr Sawyer’s were keeping it from being printed.
She’d exhausted every avenue she could think of—what else could she possibly do?