To Disappear (3 page)

‘What does it mean?’ she asked. ‘
La Lierre et le Chêne
?’

‘Ivy and oak.’ He looked at her then, his eyes touched with a hint of compassion. ‘Remember, Lydia, that’s what you must strive to be.’

Before she had a chance to question his enigmatic statement, Gabriel stepped aside to let her precede him into the house. Although he had told her that she was to obey any order he chose to present, he appeared unable to rid himself of certain vestiges of chivalry.

Lydia’s bare feet padded on the hardwood floor as she entered the solarium, where all the breakfasts and lunches were served. Plants filled the glass annex, giving it an aura of a lush jungle.

Preston and Kruin were already sitting at the solarium’s glass table, which was filled with assorted dishes prepared by an elderly woman who appeared three times a day in the kitchens. Lydia did not know the woman’s name, or even what she looked like, as she arranged the table and disappeared back into the kitchens before anyone arrived to eat.

Like a spirit in a haunted castle, Lydia thought, as she settled in a seat next to Gabriel and reached for the crystal glass of lemonade that had been placed at her setting. She wondered if the cook knew what went on here, or if she simply didn’t care.

Whatever the situation, the woman managed to prepare perfectly delightful meals, with today’s lunch consisting of cold roasted pheasant; wild rice dotted with pine nuts; avocado salad; soft, fresh rolls that burst with steam when one split them open; and individual cups of meringue custard dusted with a sprinkling of nutmeg.

Preston ate heartily, his dark eyes dancing with amusement and anticipation as his gaze kept straying to Lydia. He rambled on about several newspaper articles he had read that morning, making a point to mention the police’s continuing search for, as they put it, ‘the fugitive embezzler’.

Lydia paled, her fingers clutching the cloth napkin in her lap. ‘What else did they say?’

Preston smiled, his tongue flicking out quickly to capture a grain of rice that clung to his lower lip. Lydia found the gesture somehow obscene, and turned her attention to her food, which no longer appeared appetizing.

‘Merely that they’re searching for you, Lydia.’

‘They won’t find me.’ As much as she had come to dislike Preston, she silently willed him to confirm her statement.

Preston laughed. ‘Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry. Of course they won’t. Not here.’

Lydia’s gaze met Kruin’s from across the table. He ate with the precision of a musical conductor, with no wasted energy and every movement edged with purpose. He returned her look steadily and then, to her great relief, shook his head in an almost imperceptible movement.

For Lydia it was enough. She returned to her lunch with renewed enthusiasm.
Nothing would happen, nothing could happen, all she had to do was live here with them and concede to their desires
.

No matter how base those desires were.

A little shudder rippled through her body.

Gabriel glanced at her. ‘Are you cold?’ he asked politely.

Lydia shook her head. She dipped her spoon into the creamy golden custard, the flavor of which melted as lightly as sunshine on her tongue. Before she could take a second mouthful Preston pushed his chair back and stood, dropping his napkin to the table.

‘Now,’ he proclaimed with authority, ‘let us go into the drawing room for some entertainment.’ He flashed another smile at her. ‘Lydia, won’t you accompany us?’

She stared at him, wondering if he was giving her a choice, but before she could respond Gabriel and Kruin were also standing, their gazes fixed on her. Apprehension seized her, her legs trembling slightly as she stood and turned towards the drawing room.

Ah, how he had wanted her like this. How he loved to see her buttermilk cheeks burn with humiliation. Preston Severine knew that his imagination could conjure up only a fraction of the scenarios he would enact with her. She presented an infinite array of possibilities, many of which had burned through his brain as a teenager.

They were the same age, had grown up together in the heart of New Orleans with its sagging, bright buildings and wrought-iron fences. Lydia came from a wealthy ancestral family with a huge home in the French Quarter, while Preston lived with his mother in a one room flat infested with winged cockroaches. Lydia’s father, determined that his daughter would not be coddled, insisted she attend public school along with the majority of other children.

And so Lydia and Preston had attended the same schools, explored the swamps together, played ball in the street until she eased into womanhood. Then she began to shed the remnants of her childhood, painting her features with cosmetics and flirting with older boys.

When Preston sought her romantic attention she laughed and called him a child. He was too young, she said. She needed someone older, more experienced, a man, not a boy. He still smarted from those remarks.

Slowly his obsession with her had grown. He watched her walking down the street, her budding breasts pressing against her shirt, her hips beginning to round out the fabric of her skirt. Her hair flowed like a waterfall, and her lips seemed more succulent with each passing day.

Preston began wondering about the changes to her body, the hair growing between her legs, and the size of her maturing breasts and nipples, and as his own body began sprouting hairs, as his voice deepened and he woke each morning with a stiff penis, his curiosity about Lydia grew even more explicit.

Thoughts of her naked, aglow with perspiration, riding his youthful erection with heaving fervor… how such thoughts overpowered his days and nights! How many times he had rubbed his penis mercilessly, imagining it thrusting into Lydia’s glistening pussy, her eyes half-lidded with lust, her mouth open and gasping. And then he had spurted all over his own clenching hand, feeling a rush of embarrassment over his pathetic fantasies.

Nothing he said or did had caused young Lydia to look at him with anything more than irritation or a condescending smile. As she became aware of her family’s position in the world and in relation to everyone else, she developed a supercilious demeanor that only served to excite Preston all the more. He began to imagine what it would be like to bring her down a notch or two, to see her haughty expression melt into one of lust, to rip her designer clothes from her body and expose her trembling flesh.

And now, finally, years since they had departed for university, Preston had Lydia right where he wanted her.

He closed the door of the drawing room, and a magnificent satisfaction settled inside him as he gazed at her and knew she was his to do with as he liked.

He adored the flash of anxiety on her face, the evidence of her awareness as their personal… what was a good word? He disliked the term ‘slave’, for that carried such a negative connotation, and there was nothing negative about their little agreement. Plaything, maid, servant – none did justice to Lydia’s true role as theirs to mould and command as they saw fit, to teach her to take pleasure in her position and to revel in her surrender as they reveled in their authority.

And she would, Preston knew. She had been staunchly in control for her entire life, her future always hers to direct and manage. She had been proud, imperious, assertive. And she had the intense intelligence to be able to skim vast amounts of money from a large corporation for ten years without incident.

Until now. Until she had been forced to contact him in the desperate hope that he would be able to help her. Oh, he would help her. He would definitely help her. Her identity beyond the perimeters of
La Lierre et le Chêne
no longer existed. Now she was nobody except Lydia.

Amusement sparked in Preston’s blue eyes as he watched her standing uncertainly in the middle of the room. He focused his attention on the lower half of her body.

‘I think we’d all like to see your shaven cunt again, Lydia,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Why don’t you pull up your dress and show it to us?’

Two spots of hot anger and embarrassment appeared on Lydia’s cheeks. She didn’t move for a moment, which gave the men cause to think they might have to think of a creative punishment. They all stirred at the thought, and found themselves to be somewhat disappointed when she reached for her skirt and began to slowly draw it over her legs.

Three hungry gazes stared at the shorn apex, and her plump labia lips nestled so invitingly between her thighs that Gabriel stroked the tip of a finger down over her smooth mound and between the folds, making her start with surprise. He murmured his approval of the satiny feel of her skin before he moved away from her and settled into an overstuffed chair.

‘You’ve been a little disobedient, haven’t you, Lydia?’ Preston asked. ‘So we’ve all decided that you require punishment.’

She looked ill at the very mention of pain. Her skirt slipped from her hands, falling about her knees in swirling folds as she stared at him in shock.

‘You can’t…’

‘Can’t we?’

‘You didn’t tell me you were going to hurt me.’

‘Ah, Lydia, we would never hurt you,’ Preston replied gently. His blue eyes indicated sympathy as he stood and approached her, placing his hands on her shoulders. He turned her around and lifted her skirt to exposed the rounded globes of her bottom, the enticing sight of her flared hips parted by the shadowy crevice. He stroked a hand over the fleshy mounds, making her shudder in response.

‘Well, let me amend that,’ he continued. ‘We would never hurt you unless you truly deserve it. And you are clearly in need of some discipline to remind you that you want to be here.’

Lydia swallowed hard, her eyes flashing with a rising bubble of rage that threatened to burst forth. Preston’s hand slipped down underneath her bottom, splaying over her upper thighs and cupping the fleshy cushions in his palms. His groin brushed against her bare buttocks in a movement edged with lecherous enjoyment.

‘Come, love, Kruin will do the honors.’

Nervously, Lydia’s eyes slipped to Kruin, whose brooding eyes watched her with a hint of dislike and coldness, his body as rigidly unyielding as the high-backed, oak chair upon which he sat. Lydia wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.

‘Lydia.’ Kruin’s deep voice reverberated in the room. ‘Come here.’

Of the three of them, Kruin’s orders were the most difficult to disobey. Lydia moved slowly, as if she knew what he would do to her but was unable to prevent it. At his instruction she settled over his muscled thighs, wincing when he lifted her skirt and arranged it with almost meticulous care over her back.

A smile lifted Preston’s lips as he settled into his chair. Lydia’s back arched forward in a graceful curve, her hips pressing against Kruin’s thighs. How he adored seeing her like this, her pride reduced to being the recipient of a punishment as base as a spanking. The pale globes of her buttocks fairly quivered, as if trembling with dread for the discomfort that would surely result from Kruin’s large hand.

Preston shifted, feeling his penis start to expand at the thought of Lydia’s anxiety. Oh, how he wished he could be the one to administer her first punishment. He would love to feel her helpless weight over his thighs, the growing furnace of her buttocks as he rained his palm over the smooth cheeks until they glowed and burned with the rosy evidence of his control.

All in good time
, Preston reminded himself, still unable to prevent the stab of envy when Kruin landed the first loud slap on Lydia’s rounded backside.

She gasped in surprise, perhaps more from the shock of it rather than any actual pain, but her body jerked forward to escape the inevitability of a second blow. Kruin’s hand came down again, the accompanying smack of flesh against flesh resounding through the room with a sharp tone of finality.

A pinkish warmth glided upon Lydia’s bottom cheeks as Kruin prepared for another blow, one that caused her to cry out in discomfort, her hips squirming enticingly against the man’s legs as she struggled to escape. Kruin’s other arm clamped over her waist, holding her weight down effortlessly as he spanked her again and again, each strike eliciting a wail of pain from its recipient.

Preston’s prick throbbed hotly inside his trousers, aching with the desperate need for relief as he imagined what it would be like to shoot his creamy seed all over the flushed, reddened buttocks of their captive. He very nearly spent at the thought, his gaze fixed hungrily on the writhing movements of her graceful body, her face growing as red as her backside, her eyes brimming with tears and shame.

Her hands scrabbled at the plush carpet as she searched vainly for something to grasp onto to pull herself away, but Kruin’s grip was inexorable. His hand began to tattoo a rhythmic pattern on her lush cheeks, even as the twin mounds wriggled around frantically to escape the scalding stings of his broad hand.

Preston and Gabriel exchanged looks of amused satisfaction as they noticed the certain moisture that began to seep from between Lydia’s silken thighs, bathing her smooth vulva with feminine liquids. Kruin even broke the pattern of slaps momentarily to dip a finger into the wet channel, evoking another cry of shock and embarrassment from Lydia as she tried to instinctively clamp her thighs together.

Kruin landed the next blow with more force, as if in rebuke for her trying to deny him access. Lydia’s dress gaped forward, her exposed breasts swaying like ripe fruits, topped with nipples so hard that Preston experienced a raging desire to close his lips around them and suck. He rubbed the hard bulge in his trousers fitfully, feeling fluid oozing from the tip in a desperate bid for total release.