Lord Savage (28 page)

“You might not be quite so grateful, Eve, when you learn what I’ve planned,” he said,
turning toward the table beside the bed. “I want you on the bed now, on your stomach
with your legs spread as widely apart as you can make them.”

Obediently I climbed onto the bed and lay on my stomach as he’d ordered. I’d become
very good at obeying him. I’d learned that the consequences of disobedience were too
painful to ignore, just as the rewards for obedience were so delicious that I’d have
been a fool to run counter to his orders.

I could hear him digging through the table’s drawer behind me, and my heart beat a
little faster, trying to imagine what he’d find there this time. Could it be the ivory
dildo again, or the oil that had heated my skin, or the handcuffs that he never had
used, or some other plaything altogether?

“This won’t work,” he said, his disapproval clear. “You’re not nearly open enough
for me.”

I tried to spread my legs more widely, stretching my hip joints, but that didn’t please
him, either.

“Not like that,” he said impatiently, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Come here beside
me.”

I sat up on my knees and nestled beside him, smoothing my hair back behind my ears.
In his palm were two perfect spheres of gold about an inch in diameter, connected
by a length of gold chain.

“The Chinese call these ben wah,” he said, holding them out for me to see. “I had
them made especially for you.”

I studied the balls in his hand, pleased that he’d thought far enough ahead to procure
them. He’d even had my initials monogrammed on the side of each sphere, swirling letters
etched into the gold. But what exactly were they for?

“Thank you, Master,” I said, finally deciding they must be a gift of jewelry. Presuming
that the chain was some kind of bracelet, I reached out to wrap it around my wrist,
but he pulled it back, out of my reach.

“No, Eve,” he said patiently. “The first place the balls must go is in your mouth.
Open for me.”

I opened my mouth and he popped the balls inside, where they lay heavily on my tongue.
Tentatively, I shifted them against the insides of my cheeks, making them bump against
each other. There was something shifting inside the balls that made them jostle and
quiver when touched, and I felt the vibrations reverberate on my tongue.

“Make them as wet as you can, Eve,” he said, watching the balls bulge against my cheeks.
“You’ll want them that way when I push them into your sweet cunt.”

I couldn’t smile, with my mouth so full, but my eyes brightened with anticipation.
I doubted he’d have much trouble with my quim accepting the balls, either, whether
they were wet with saliva or not. I could already feel the moisture gathering between
my legs, the telltale warmth of arousal blossoming low in my belly.

He patted his thigh. “I want you here, Eve, with your face to the floor,” he said.
“Lie across my legs with your ass in the air.”

With the gold balls still in my mouth, I draped myself across his thighs as he’d ordered,
my bottom raised and my head forward, my breasts falling forward and my hair hanging
down like a curtain.

He didn’t like that, and impatiently gathered my hair in one hand and shoved it over
my other shoulder so he could see my face. With his hands on my hips, he pushed me
a little farther forward until I was at last arranged to his satisfaction.

“There,” he said, his breath quickening as he flipped the hem of my costume up to
bare my bottom and all else besides. “Now spread your legs for me.”

I didn’t need to be asked twice. I’d come to love being shamelessly open to him like
this, displaying myself so that he couldn’t mistake his effect on me. It felt like
the most primal kind of seduction, without words or subtlety, as if Savage were not
just my lover but my mate.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, his palms gently easing my thighs farther apart. “There’s
nothing a man likes more than seeing a woman’s sex like this. Red, aroused, juicy,
like a ripe fruit begging to be tasted.”

He slid his fingers along my seam, teasing me before he finally parted the lips of
my quim. With the knuckle of his forefinger, he pressed lightly on my pearl, circling
it with exactly the right amount of pressure. I gasped, nearly letting the balls drop
from my mouth, and he chuckled.

“What a waste it is, Eve, for me not to take you when you’re this close,” he said,
his voice low and rough with desire. “You’re tempting me in every way possible, and
there’s nothing I want more than to bury my cock as deeply as I can in you. But not
yet.”

He cupped his hand beneath my mouth. “Give me the ben wah balls.”

I opened my mouth and the balls dropped into his hand. I’d already guessed where they
would go, but I wasn’t prepared for the sensation of having him slowly push first
one sphere and then the other deep inside me, with the chain left to dangle outside
my body.

Although the balls slipped easily into my channel—they were much smaller than Savage’s
cock—he stirred them lightly with his finger, making them knock against each other.
I whimpered as the vibrations rippled inside me, and automatically I clenched around
the balls, my muscles striving to hold them tight.

He chuckled at my response. “You like those, don’t you?”

“Yes—yes, Master,” I stammered. “Although the feeling is—is unexpected.”

“Then it’s exactly right.” He gently lifted me off his knee to stand. “Better?”

“You know it’s not,” I said irritably. Inside me the balls were not uncomfortable,
but I was acutely aware of their weight and their jittery vibration as they shifted
against the fleshy walls of my passage. “That is, no, Master.”

He smiled. “You will grow accustomed to the sensations, I think, and then you’ll come
to enjoy them. Take care to hold the balls tightly, too. You wouldn’t wish to have
them drop out and roll across the floor, would you? Ah, here’s Barry with your dressing
gown now.”

Barry bowed and entered, my pink dressing gown over his arm and my beaded, heeled
mules in his hand. He began to come toward us, but Savage put his hand up to stop
him.

“Eve, go to Barry,” he said, rising and reaching for his robe. “Walk across the room
to meet him.”

It seemed a curious request, even from Savage, but I saw no harm to it, and began
walking across the room. Three steps, and I stopped, startled. As I moved, the gold
balls within me moved, too, like a tickling caress from within that I’d no way to
ease.

“Go, Eve,” Savage said, knowing perfectly well what was happening to me. “No dawdling.
Fetch your dressing gown and slippers. Now that we’ve decided to visit the picture
gallery upstairs, I’d like to go there directly.”

With fresh resolve, I let Barry help me into my dressing gown. I slipped on my mules,
and held my hand out to Savage, trying not to think of the golden spheres, and utterly
failing.

Savage knew it, too. “Patience, Eve, patience,” he said gently as he led me through
the door. “The more you can control your own response, the more intense your release
can be. Consider it as another test.”

I sighed restlessly. “Yes, Master.”

He stopped and kissed me. “You will do it for me, Eve,” he said with unexpected gentleness,
“and you’ll do it for yourself. I’d never ask you to endure anything if I didn’t believe
you’d the strength to succeed.”

I took a deep breath and nodded, determined not to give in to the vibrating balls
but to do what Savage had said. I wouldn’t fail him in something as simple as this.
Besides, he couldn’t expect me to endure this all day. At some point, he’d have to
remove the torturous little spheres, and then reward me as well as himself—perhaps
even in the picture gallery.

Yet, by the time we’d walked the length of several halls and up two different staircases,
I was flushed and clinging tightly to Savage’s arm. I hadn’t realized the effort involved
in keeping the shifting balls in place, or how I’d had to keep consciously contracting
the muscles of my channel as I walked. My body ached with a kind of half arousal,
desperately poised on the very edge of longing and frustration. I was grateful we
hadn’t seen any of the other guests, and only the occasional footman or parlor maid
who’d discreetly turned away as we’d passed.

Now I stood with Savage in the arched doorway of a long, narrow picture gallery, and
I was too on edge to care about a single one of the paintings that hung in heavy gold
frames all along the walls. The rain that drummed on the leaded-glass skylights matched
the relentless thrum of desire in my veins. With an agitated sigh, I sank onto one
of the wide, cushioned benches in the center of the gallery and tried to pull Savage
down with me.

“You wish me to be patient, Master,” I said, unfastening the silk frogs that fastened
my dressing gown. “You wish me to wait. But, oh, Master, I cannot wait, not when I
have you beside me, and I can never be patient with these wretched toys of yours inside
me.”

Yet, he resisted, standing instead of joining me on the bench. “You must wait, Eve,
and you must be patient, or I’ll never give you what your truly want.”

“Then I’ll pull them out myself,” I said impulsively. “You can’t torment me any longer
like this.”

I reached between my legs to search for the gold chain that held the spheres together,
intending to yank them free. But as soon as my fingers found the chain, his hand closed
tightly around my wrist to stop me.

“I decide when to remove the ben wah,” he said, his face so close to mine that I could
see the darker flecks in his blue-gray eyes, and every lash around them. “I decide
how long you will remain in this ‘torment,’ as you call it. You will be patient, Eve,
and you will wait, because I wish it. Not you.”

Not so long ago—only a matter of days, really—I would have rebelled. Now his dominance
seemed not only right but undeniably arousing. Only Savage truly knew what was best
for me, and only Savage cared this much about my pleasure.

“Yes, Master,” I said, my voice husky with longing. “I will wait. For you, I will
be patient.”

He smiled, and kissed my forehead, gently, a gesture of tenderness, not mastery. “I
knew you would, Eve. Because of that, I’ll grant you a brief respite here, and permit
you to regain your composure.”

“Thank you, Master,” I said. Sitting still, the balls quieted, and I felt less feverish.
I could be patient, especially for him. “You are … kind.”

“Kind?” He cocked a single dark brow. “Not so long ago, you damned me as cruel.”

“I was wrong,” I said simply. “You are most kind, Master.”

Now he frowned, almost a scowl. “You would find very few, if any, who would agree
with you.”

“I only care for my own opinion, Master,” I said. “And I—I believe you are kind.”

Abruptly he turned away, going to stand before a painting as if it were the most fascinating
artwork imaginable. But I knew better, because I knew him. From the way he was standing,
his legs widespread, his shoulders slightly hunched, and his hands tightly clasped
behind his back over the flowing silk of his robe, I was certain he’d no idea at all
of the subject of the painting he was staring at so assiduously.

Earlier in the week, I would have been unable to resist going to him or putting my
arms around his shoulders to try to comfort him. Now I knew better than to do that,
too. He was far too complicated a man to find solace in a predictable hug, and I respected
that in him. He would come back to me when he was ready.

Perhaps even more important was how my self-confidence had grown. Being his Innocent
had made me stronger. I
knew
he’d come back to me, and I knew he wouldn’t be able to keep away from me for long—any
more, really, than I could keep apart from him.

I couldn’t explain it, because I didn’t really understand it myself, but there it
was just the same. It bound us together as tightly as the silk cords that he’d used
to tie my wrists and ankles: elegant, even beautiful, bindings that would not break
or give way no matter how sorely they were tested.

Unconsciously I circled my thumb to meet my forefinger around one wrist, mimicking
the feel of the cords as I remembered how he’d made me his prisoner. There was so
much to remember between us now, and nothing I wished to forget.

“I’ve told Carleigh he should take down this wretched simpering Cupid,” he said, perhaps
to me, perhaps to no one. “It’s not remotely a Titian, but an appalling copy from
some hack of a studio, yet Carleigh insists on keeping it hung here.”

So this was how he would draw back from me today, behind a lecture on art forgeries.

“Perhaps the subtleties escape his lordship’s eye, Master,” I said, striving to make
my conversation every bit as bland as his. “Perhaps he sees no difference between
a true Titian and a forgery, and takes as much pleasure in the one as the other.”

“Carleigh wouldn’t know a Titian from an orangutan’s ass,” he declared with disgust.
“He wouldn’t even know what this rubbish was supposed to be if it weren’t for the
thoughtful placard one of his ancestors pasted on the frame. I could put this side
by side with my own Titians, and no matter how he squinted and screwed up his face,
he still wouldn’t see the difference.”

“You own a painting by Titian, Master?” I asked, thinking of the paintings that hung
in his rooms here at Wrenton. I’d heard enough dinner conversations between dueling
millionaire collectors at home to know that works by Titian—or any other of the Old
Masters—were the prizes they all craved, and that they were almost impossible to find
at any price.

“I own three,” he said proudly, at last turning back to face me. “My great-great-grandfather
bought them in Rome, spiriting them across the Mediterranean under Bonaparte’s nose.
They’re not here, of course, but at Thornbury.”

“Is that your country house?” I asked, unable to keep back my curiosity. It wasn’t
so much that his life was one vast secret—and it was—but that he volunteered so little
to me, keeping everything locked tightly inside himself.