The Pearl at the Gate (2 page)

Janie reaching between her own legs, rubbing and slapping her cunt as the last five slashes of the birch fell on her arse, crying out, body jerking and flailing until the table beneath her shook.

Janie falling to her knees, kissing the birch twigs and asking, “May I kiss the rod now, Mr. Johnston?”

Johnston
nodding. Janie reaching up to unbutton his pants. The rod springing out into her hand, red and thick, the end purple. Janie kissing it, taking it into her mouth. Johnston straining forward, grunts and harsh sounds ringing in the cottage as he held her head and thrust. Pulling back, it made a wet sound leaving Janie’s mouth.

Janie tipping back on to the rough dirt floor, spreading her legs. Johnston falling on top of her, plunging that thing into Janie’s body.

“Yes, give it me.” Janie screeched, bucking her hips to meet Johnston’s thrusts, locking her legs around his waist. “Give me all that fat cock. Fuck me.”

As Johnston pulled away, ordered Janie on to her knees, Jenesta reached under her skirts and found the wetness of her own cunt for the first time…

There was no sound, but the air in the room changed, swirled around Jenesta’s overheated body. Lost in a strange fusion of past and present, wracked with a firestorm of lust, Jenesta opened her eyes and turned her head toward the door.

The sense of unreality expanded, fractured under the weight of her discoveries and the sight of Roake standing there, his strong face frozen, pale, his body visibly trembling.

Chapter Three

He could not feel his legs.

The thought came as a distant aside as Roake stood in the doorway of the east wing room and felt the world die around him.

He was too late.

Jenesta sat in front of the sea chest, his journal on the floor, her face white as chalk. She looked so innocent in her modest, light-pink nightgown and wrapper, her hair braided and tied with a ribbon falling down her back. Her arms were tight around her waist as if to hold herself in one piece.

If she let go, they could fall apart together.

She knows.

It was obvious from her shocked blank eyes, motionless features, the book cast aside in disgust.

She knows my dreams, my desire for her.

Roake’s stomach roiled, a frigid mist rising from his toes, rushing to swamp his entire body. He tried to turn away, but could not. Jenesta’s eyes held him in place. They demanded something of him, although he was unsure what it was. An explanation? A reason? Reassurance that this was just a nightmare and they would awaken in the morning as though it never happened?

He almost laughed, but even that froze in his chest.

Impotently, he searched for something to say and the strength to say it, but all he could think was
She knows
.

Jenesta got to her feet, a spill of silk and pearls falling from her lap onto the carpet. She was shivering and her hand rose to clasp the top of her robe. Still she said nothing, only watched him with those wide, unfathomable eyes.

She knows.

As the thought entered his head once more, Jenesta stepped back, moving away from him slowly, carefully.

At the motion, something wild and hot flared in his belly, broke through the fog holding him in place. With it came deep hurt and anger, mixed with acceptance of grim inevitability.

It was already over—their marriage, his futile hope she would bring him peace and give him the family he so desperately craved. She had destroyed everything, except the dreams he now knew would haunt him until he died.

Jenesta already knew his twisted cravings. There was no reason to hide any longer. She owed him something for the destruction she had caused.

She would pay with this night.

His feet moved of their own accord, matching her steps with the awakening instincts of the hunter.

Jenesta’s breathing sounded loud even above the rain driving against the windows and roof. Roake stalked her, lengthening his strides so, for each one she took, his brought them a little closer together.

“Why did you come in here, madam?”

Jenesta’s lips trembled open, but no sound came from them. She was almost to the far wall. Another step and she would feel the stone behind her—know there was nowhere left to run. Roake followed, taking an extra step to stop less than an arm’s length away.

“My instructions were clear. Why did you defy me?”

Her silence provoked him to action, propelled him into his fantasy. One swift movement and the lawn wrapper and nightgown tore beneath his hands to hang in rags from her shoulders.

Jenesta gasped, her face flooding with color, but before she could react further, he closed the distance between them, roughly cupping her breast with one hand as the other made short work of the remnants of her garb.

She leaned away and slapped him across the cheek.

The sound that emerged from Roake’s throat was a growl of triumph, of vindication. Jenesta’s heart leapt with joy.

Yes, my love. Yes.

She was challenging him—had been from the first step hinting at retreat—wanting to give him all he dreamed of and achieve fulfillment of her own dream in return.

Luckily, they seemed one and the same.

Roake leaned into her, pressing her back to the cold stone. Yet she hardly felt the chill. Her body was aflame.

His voice rasped harshly into her ear. “Did you look at my journal?”

Jenesta forced her reply past the yearning clogging her chest. “Yes.”

“So you know what I have to do now, don’t you.”

It was not a question, but she wanted to answer, wanted him to know she was complicit in what was to come. “Yes.”

His movements were swift, sure, as he pulled her away from the wall and across the room. Using his foot, he tugged the chair out from beneath the desk. His hand curved tight around her arm, no hint of gentleness left in his touch. Jenesta stumbled as her feet tangled in the silk on the floor, and the pearls rattled, rolling off the edge of the carpet onto the floorboards. Roake paused with his hand on the chair, looking down at the pearls.

His gaze swung to her face. Roake’s eyes were the color of an approaching storm, wild as lightning slashing in the sky. Yet something else flashed behind them—it looked like sorrow or fear but she could not tell precisely.

Inexplicably, he murmured, “One night.”

The chair was flung roughly aside and Roake pushed her toward the desk, his hand braced on her back to position her facedown on the smooth surface. Then he grasped her hands and pulled them out to the side, curving her fingers around the edge of the wood. He leaned into her, overwhelming her in his power. Jenesta shuddered, surrounded by his hard body, the tang of his distinctive scent, his rigid cock pressing into her arse through his trousers.

His voice rumbled like distant thunder as he asked, “Did your tender sensibilities allow you to read past your punishment for slapping me?”

Jenesta shook her head, the want too strong to allow a reply. Roake’s breath was hot against her cheek and fanned the flames rising to scorch her from the inside out.

“Good.” His rough voice held such anticipation, Jenesta moaned. Roake chuckled, and ground his cock into her, sending shooting spasms from her cunt to her breasts and all the way to her fingers and toes. “The element of surprise is always a benefit. Stay exactly where I have placed you, Jenesta.”

Slowly, he straightened, and stepped to the side of the desk so she could watch him take off his jacket and cravat. Jenesta trembled as he lifted his arms above his head to strip away his shirt, drinking in the sight of his broad muscular chest that tapered to a sculpted belly. Soft golden hair arrowed down to disappear into his bulging breeches and she clenched her fingers tighter around the wood, desperate to touch him, knowing not to move.

She looked up to his face and Roake smiled, but it held no resemblance to the warm salute he had given her that morning.

Now she knew why he had drawn the self-portraits in his journal the way he had. There was a beast inside him, and now it was awake. The answering untamed spirit in her revelled to see it, a low keening wail issuing from her throat as it called to him.

The flush deepened across his cheeks, his face going still for a moment. Then he answered her challenge, stepping behind her, out of sight.

“One night,” his voice came to her as a whisper, warm moist breath brushing over her thighs, “One night.”

His mouth was on her, sucking, nipping, his tongue rough and commanding as it slicked over her flesh, stabbed at her cunt. Jenesta screamed, riding the waves of sensation emanating from his ravening lips and teeth, her entire body jerking, wanting more.

Roake lifted his head and chuckled, his fingers pulling the cheeks of her arse apart, thumbs sliding into her cunt, slipping up and down, spreading the wetness. When he touched her arsehole, she tried to move away, but he only chuckled again and held her in place to press and play with his wicked thumbs.

“No, Jenesta. Tonight I can do whatever I choose, and I choose to possess you in every way I can.”

Roake slid a finger into her cunt, twisting it in and out, his hand slapping against her flesh with each insertion. The roughness of his movements only served to push the tension inside higher, and Jenesta writhed, spreading her legs wider. She tried to protest as Roake withdrew his finger, but before she could, he plunged it into her arse.

Jenesta cried out, trying to pull away from the fiery sensation of his slick, hard digit invading her tender flesh. Roake kept his finger deep inside her, his other hand caressing along the straining muscles of her thigh.

“Relax, Jenesta. Relax and you will discover a new, exciting experience.”

Following his command was difficult, but she willed her body to stillness, and then to relaxation. Roake murmured his pleasure and, once more, slid his tongue around her cunt, flicked across her most sensitive spot as he slowly pushed his finger a little deeper.

Roake began a slow thrusting motion with tongue and finger and Jenesta cried out in shocked enjoyment as pain and pleasure conspired to push her to ecstasy. Roake’s hoarse grunts and moans penetrated into her soul as deeply as his fingers and tongue penetrated her body.

Then he was gone, leaving her shuddering on the edge of coming, gasping, bereft.

“Pearls are my favourite gems.” Roake’s voice was low, almost contemplative, coming over the sound of her own harsh breathing, the soft clink of the gems as he lifted them from the floor. “The night we met, you wore a strand around your throat and I remember thinking I would like to cover you in pearls, rub them over your skin and see which was smoother.”

He parted her nether lips and touched her lightly with his fingertip right on the spot that wanted his touch the most. It pulsed with frantic need, each beat sparking out to shudder across her skin and insidiously tighten the desire deep within. Jenesta moaned, pushed back, wordlessly begging for more, harder, but Roake did not comply. His finger shifted to maintain the light, torturous pressure.

“In the East, I have heard this little bit of flesh called The Pearl at the Gate to Heaven. To satisfy a woman, the pearl must be convinced to emerge, coaxed from its hiding place, made to weep tears of pleasure. Other men may seek diamonds, but to me this is a gem beyond price.”

Jenesta closed her eyes to the flickering candlelight, whimpering as Roake teased her flesh. Her pearl. Now she had a name for that repository of sensation too wicked and wild to be borne.

“Pearls for my pearl.”

Roake lifted his finger away and slid something into her cunt. Jenesta jerked and gasped as the smooth, cold object slipped inside her body. Immediately it warmed, nestled into her as it softly stretched her inner flesh. Another was inserted—and then another. He was filling her with pearls, placing each tiny spirit inside, where they seemed to come alive, vibrating against each other, echoing lust back and forth.

Exquisite layers of sensation piled one upon the other—the slip of each gem entering her body, cold turning to heat, the increasing fullness inside as the insertion pushed those already within deeper. The hardness of the desk beneath her contrasted with the softness of Roake’s careful ministrations. She was powerless to resist him, yet the rasp of his breathing, the tremors occasionally rippling from his hands into her skin, spoke of her power over him. Roake was as enthralled as she, as unable to stand against the force of their desire.

“A pearl for each measure of your punishment. How many should I choose? What is fitting punishment for what you have done?” Roake slid a gem inside her, pushing it higher with his finger. Jenesta bit her lip as his words percolated through the fog of her lust, halting a moan before it could emerge. A thrill of anticipation clenched deep and the pearls shifted, quivered. Jenesta whimpered again, felt Roake’s answering shudder through his fingers.

His voice was a low growl, his hands unsteady as another pearl slipped into her and he got to his feet. “You defied me deliberately and now you will have to pay my price.”

With a quick tug, Roake took back the last pearl he had given her body a split second before his hand came down on Jenesta’s soft, bare, arse. She cried out as the sudden sharp sting and shift of the pearls inside flashed through her blood. Roake let the string dangle loosely for a brief moment before he pulled another gem from her and his palm connected with her flesh again. And again, and again, each strike positioned perfectly, timed with expert precision to fall immediately after her cunt’s reluctant release of one sphere.

For a moment, she thought she might swoon—the pleasure-pain more than she had dreamed. She was afire, writhing, crying, tears pooling under her cheek, wanting, pushing up on her toes, desperate for more. He gave it to her, spanking each side of her arse until the heat of her skin matched the fire blazing inside.

One by one, the gems popped free, dangling down to titillate her throbbing pearl as the crack of Roake’s palm on her arse echoed through the room. Each release and slide and fall of his hand pulled her deeper into the vortex of desire. He rested his hand on her, fingers clenched on her tender skin. How many more pearls were left inside her? How much more could she take before she exploded from the immensity of her passion for him?

The string tightened. The next pearl caught at the entrance to her cunt, hovered there. Jenesta held her breath, vibrating with anticipation, waiting for the sweet signal as it slipped to freedom, the welcome shock of her punishment. Roake was still, holding her with his power. She couldn’t wait anymore. She needed, wanted, screamed her desire.

“Please, Roake…”

He didn’t know what she begged for, but having Jenesta prone before him, screaming his name, was taking him to the brink of release. The pearls stretched taut between them, her cunt squeezed tight to hold the gems in place. Slick with her sweet juices, the string vibrated with each tremor that wracked Jenesta’s body.