Curious, he hung his towels over the shower glass door and inspected it. His jaw slackened and his eyes widened as he read the piece of paper. She had written out a list of steps he was to follow. And what was more astonishing, with rules. She even stated what kind of sex play she wanted him to do.
I’ve created a hungry monster. The undiluted desire coursed even stronger and quicker through his veins while he donned the leather duster, raising its collar as instructed, and put on the low-cut leather trousers, already having problems closing it over his erection. I won’t manage this, Sophia. It will be torture.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror and shook his head at it. Alistair Connor, indulge her. At least, try.
He drew a very hot bath for them and dimmed the lights, exiting the bathroom in a state of high arousal.
The bedroom mood had been transformed with candles burning everywhere. In front of the windows, there were two extended armchairs facing each other, with black and scarlet velvets scattered over them.
Did she set all these while I was showering? Then he noticed tables near each armchair, with a long plume, a silk scarf, body oil, lube, and different vibrators. Alistair blinked, amazed. I did create a monster.
“Sophia, where the fuck—” did you find all this? Alistair couldn’t finish the sentence. Sophia had entered the room enveloped in a sheer gauzy black negligée that didn’t hide her sensuous black-and-red corset and hosiery.
His eyes were immediately drawn to the delicate black fur-lined red leather spiked wrist-cuffs and moved down to take in her matching ankle cuffs and Loubotin black varnished metal spiked stilettos.
He licked his lips as if feeling her womanly taste on them. Oh, fuck. This will be a night.
“Remember the rules, Husband,” she said, huskily, and paused in a nonchalant pose in front of one of the armchairs, leisurely undoing the ties of her robe and letting it slide to the floor, slowly and sensuously. “Now, it’s your turn.”
She saw a sinful grin spread wide on his delectable lips as his eyes skimmed over her from head to toe and back again. Sophia knew that look meant hot sex. She knew he was going to torture her to the highest peaks of pleasure that night.
After tempting me for hours and appearing dressed like this, you think we’ll only strip and lewdly jack off in front of each other? Oh-ho, nae. He pivoted, going back to his dressing room. He left it bare-chested, still with the leather trousers on, and expertly cracking a long whip on the floor.
“How dare you forbid me to touch you? I will have you whenever I want,” he said as he slowly walked toward her, cracking the whip very near her feet.
Oh. What have I provoked? Her eyes widened when he swiped it again in the air. She got distracted following its upward curve.
He was waiting for it. In a swift motion, he grabbed her by the waist and laid her face down on the extended armchair nearest her. Bending over her back, Alistair’s breath fanned her nape as he used the scarf to blindfold her. She shivered as darkness surrounded her and her breathing came out in pants. Trying to reassure her, as he untied only her thong, he cooed in her ear, “You want to play, Wife? We are going to play. Nicely.”
Sophia gasped, but she didn’t move. She didn’t know if she was aroused or frightened, or both at the same time.
“On all fours, you wanton woman,” he ordered in a dry voice, and appreciated the sight of her buttocks coming up in the air and her legs opening to show her waxed sex. He licked his lips when he noticed she was hairless once more. Perfect position.
He ran the plume over her as he arranged her hair off her face. “I want to see your expression when you pay for being so wicked.” Now! With a skilled movement, he quickly flung the whip high.
No! This is not what I meant! “Alistair Connor, no!” she exclaimed, hearing the quick whoosh of the whip. When it came down, she screamed, “RED! RED!”
But there was no pain when a loud crack sounded in the room, just her frightened gasps. Alistair had thwacked the floor beside her.
“Ah, what a pity.” He let loose a masculine, arrogant chuckle that reverberated in her. He twisted her words to a new rule: “I thought you wanted to see me pleasured. Don’t you want to play?”
Oh, my! You bastard. “I do. I—I want to play.” A rush of adrenaline filled Sophia, and she could feel wetness pooling.
“I’ll teach you how to play, then,” he whispered and his middle finger fluttered over her slit.
She could smell the sweet, masculine scent that she was unable to resist and then it was gone. The plume touched her in different places as the whip cracked on one side and the other without hitting her. From the pleasure of the unknown, her heart beat more and more erratically and her desire coiled even tighter inside her.
Abandoning the plume and the whip, Alistair knelt behind her. He filled his hands with warm oil, running them over her stocking covered thighs and around to the small of her back, and over her corset. He relished the feeling of smearing her lingerie and skin with the oil. “You’re so sexy, Sophia. You make me so hard, I can come from teasing you.”
Sophia felt his hands caressing her in an agonizing torment. The role-play pushed her under heavy desire and she thought she would come at any moment. She begged, unable to hold back anymore, “Do what you wish, but make me come. Fuck me.”
“Nae, you scandalous woman. I’ll fuck your ass, but first I’ll taste you.” He slapped her thighs and more gently her clit, enjoying her small cries of pleasure. Spreading more warm oil, his fingers massaged her sensuously while he coated her anus with it and his finger pushed in her ass smoothly.
“Ah, yes! Another. More,” she moaned, hot as she never had been before. When his leather-covered knee pushed her legs wider and she felt his hot breath on her sex, she gasped and jerked, searching for the climax that was so close and yet not there.
Lust jetted strongly in his veins and he thought of giving in to what she had just asked, but he controlled himself. Without stopping fingering her anus, the tip of his tongue toyed with her clit. Then he delved it all, deep into her. “Mmm, Sophia. You taste good.”
“Ah! Yes, yes. Tongue and fingers,” Sophia screamed. She was his prisoner, gladly chained in the darkness, with his whims. She shoved her head back, impatient. “Fuck me with your hard dick.”
“Fuck! I love this. Keep talking,” he murmured in her folds, as he plunged his tongue inside her and moved it to her clit, enjoying her desire in long, unhurried laps again and again. Fierce excitement rolled in heated waves in Alistair’s veins as Sophia’s dirty words mixed with moans and cries of pleasure. When her legs started trembling hard, he introduced a curved vibrator into her, turning it on. He could feel his penis getting engorged and his balls tightening as he grabbed her round ass and coated lubricant on himself. “Now, relax.”
She lay down, readying herself for his invasion, and stretched her arms backward. Pushing his trousers down to his knees, she scorched her nails on his strong, muscled thighs.
“You do know how to please me, Sophia,” he groaned. His hand gripped her hip firmly. The sight of her beautiful and smooth ass as he dipped himself slowly into the tight welcome of her body was erotic and a potent fuel to his desire.
“Oh,” Sophia let out a long moan as she felt his careful stretching; pure delight filled her when he kept his pace.
He set a languid rhythm, his fingers barely skimming her clit, until the rest of his arousal breached her in one last thrust. The silk and lace of her oiled corset rubbed his chest and nipples; her velvety skin stimulated his penis, creating a delicious friction that was only enhanced by the throbbing of the vibrator. “Aye, that’s it. Nice and slow.”
“Make me feel good. Fuck me hard, Alistair Connor. Make me come, screaming.”
Releasing her hip, he cupped one of her breasts, rolling the nipple between his thumb and forefinger over the flimsy oiled corset, and his hand moved from her breast to her clit and back again, taking her higher and higher.
“Y
ou feel incredibly tight and soft. I’m going to fuck you to Heaven. All night long.” Alistair’s big body was tense as a violin string, the muscles bunching. He slapped first one of her thighs, then the other and bent more over her to kiss and nip her shoulder.
After what seemed an endless bliss of torture, in the throes of passion, Sophia clenched her muscles around his arousal, demanding, “Damn you, Alistair. I want NOW!”
“I’m coming so hard! Come with me,” he grunted loudly as she tightened and relaxed her muscles around him. He grabbed her shoulder and hip, increasing his rhythm, even more aware of the erotic feelings, totally losing his control.
The result was immediate. Sophia felt as if she had melted into Alistair and they had turned into just one person. She rode an endless wave of pleasure, cries of rapture leaving her mouth, as his entire body shook in heated ecstasy and his loud grunts became a husky, short shout.
Then there was only an amazingly fulfilling freefall from the highest peak they had reached so far, freeing them together into a chaos of ardent passion.
He waited until his legs stopped trembling to disrobe themselves and carried a boneless Sophia in his arms to his bathroom. After testing the water, he stepped into the tub, reclined, and settled Sophia between his thighs.
Sophia hummed, enjoying the warmth. The slick rubbing of their bodies and his hands soaping her with her vanilla scented soap, made her feel she was in heaven.
Alistair stayed quiet for a few minutes as he mused how Sophia was the only one with the power to unman him.
It had been a long while since he’d last given in to his violent urges. And yet he hadn’t missed them. Not at all.
What he missed was what he’d never had before.
Intimacy.
This feeling of closeness.
Of belonging.
She was the first to break the silence. “I was scared for a moment. I really thought you would hit me.”
Even after you’ve said over and over again you don’t like pain? “Beauty, never. You can be assured of that.”
Sophia turned sideways in his arms and asked shyly, “Why didn’t you follow the rules? Didn’t you like them?”
“Sophia. It was fucking hot, but you set my imagination on fire more than two hours ago. Then, you made me horny just thinking you would find it sexy to see me stripping. You made me feel fucking powerful when you shared a fantasy of yours with me. I could already taste you and I needed to feel myself hammering inside you. When you appeared dressed that way, fucking hell, I was desperate to touch and pleasure you. Next time, we’ll try your idea. In fact, I’m eager for it.” Alistair himself could hear a different passion in his words. Her innocent request that they strip and masturbate following each other’s orders until they come had driven him to such arousal that it showed him he could enjoy sensuous experiences to its maximum.
“Mmmm, I’ll imagine another scene to see you stripping,” she whispered sensuously on his lips.
“See that you do.” He chuckled. But it was in a serious tone that he said, “But never forget, no matter what you do, I’ll never hurt you. I’m your slave. I’d let you whip me even if you misbehave.”
She tilted her head backward to look into his eyes. “I don’t like you saying that you’re my slave.”
“I don’t think you understand,” he breathed, shaking his head.
“Explain it to me, then,” she murmured.
“You, you’re my prison, my freedom; my hell, my paradise; my anything, my everything. You’re where my heart found its home.”
Chapter 15
Northumberland County
Ells Hall
Saturday, January 29, 2011
1:50 p.m.
She was glad Gabriela hadn’t insisted on coming with them when Sophia told her they had to go Ells Hall for the weekend to solve a few problems at the resort. The little girl had preferred to stay in London with Ariadne under Alice’s supervision.
What Sophia didn’t tell her was they were going to visit Nathalie’s grave and that it was her death anniversary.
She knew that it was going to be a difficult weekend and it had seemed too much for her little daughter to understand.
Impotently, she watched as Alistair’s eyes glazed.
“Snow is coming,” he said, apathetic, staring out the window.
She looked up at the gray sky. Trying to cheer him, she said, “Looks like it’s going to clear.”
“It’s deceptive. I can tell.” He opened the window and the wind billowed the curtains. “I can smell it in the air. The cold, its freezing cold…” his voice waned, his eyes glazing again.
She enlaced his waist under his leather jacket and mechanically he returned the embrace, putting an arm over her shoulders.
Sophia sighed inwardly. Her husband was so tall that he towered over her, so broad she felt engulfed by his body; his hands were so large that they encompassed her waist easily; but in that moment, his heart was small and his soul was threadbare.
She ached to protect and soothe him. But she knew that only time would tame the pain.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” she said gently and stepped in front of the window as if she could shelter him from the blowing wind, laying her head on his chest. “I’ll be here with you. You’ll not be alone.”
But she is alone. He put his chin on top of her head. Staring at the horizon, he repeated, “The snow is coming.”
For the rest of the day they moved like ghosts through the house. It had been closed for tourism for the whole week and all the staff had been sent home. Only Erskine had refused to go.
Sophia felt awkward, even ashamed, at how much she wanted to see him running on the treadmill, lifting weights or punching the bag, venting his pain and frustration like the fierce Alistair she knew. The one who was never depressed, who had rarely showed insecurity, and nothing close to despair like that. She was controlling herself not to bury his face in the hollow of her neck and lull him, until he felt whole once more.
When the snow had started to fall and darkness descended over the manor, his state worsened degree by degree as if he were freezing from inside out.
It seemed he wanted to shrink into nothing and disappear in the smoke that left their Alec Bradley’s Prensado cigars. Absently, she puffed while he drew great pulls.
The abundant sweet smell of the cigar was utterly lost under the heavy dust of sorrow.
Alistair refused to eat dinner, saying he was not hungry. He stopped in front of the beautiful double wooden doors that lead to the whisky cellar and without looking back at her, threw them open, climbing down. He returned as she was finishing her clam chowder, with the exuberant Lalique crystal decanter of the sixty-four year old Macallan whisky.
Serving himself a tall glass, he sipped while she pushed her honey lamb around her plate until she decided she couldn’t eat anymore. She accepted a strong coffee from Erskine, bidding him good night.
Silently, they retired to the library where he sat in its darkest corner all alone in his big armchair, nursing his whisky.
Sophia climbed the stairs to the mezzanine, trying to give him some space and marveling at all the books she could choose from.
Within the utter silence of an unvoiced existence, serving as an unexciting renewal zone for dust motes and impressive Highland claymores, a rare edition of Fernando Pessoa, in Portuguese, called her. Sophia reached for Book of Disquiet, about the absurdity of living and the inability of man to understand his own existence.
She held it to her chest as she made her way downstairs to read it to someone who was questioning his own new life and now disconnected guilt.
Sophia didn’t notice but as she randomly read the four-hundred-and-eighty-one passages with its unarticulated speech, Alistair’s plucked strings resonated within the momentarily empty and withdrawn chambers of his soul.
“And this is so dispassionate and so perfectly matched to the title. Listen. ‘In these random impressions, and with no desire to b
e other than random, I indifferently narrate my factless autobiography, my lifeless history. These are my Confessions, and if in them I say nothing, it’s because I have nothing to say.’ I have nothing to say…” she parroted the last phrase, waiting for a word of his or a sound of recognition as he had been doing.
Even though he was gazing at her, he could not see her.
In fact, only his body was there. His soul was in a painful universe of its own, closeted to any gentle gesture that could bring him comfort.
Alistair was in a world of unlived memories, unshed tears, unfelt kisses, untouched caresses, untold stories, untraveled journeys, and so many unloved days.
Sophia closed the book and put it on the table between them. She knelt beside him, the back of her hand touching his cheek lightly. “Meu amor. Let’s go upstairs. You’re tired. You’re not even listening.”
He shook his head slowly to one side and the other. “I was. ‘Each of us is a speck of dust that the wind lifts up and then drops.’ Dust. That’s where we all are bound to return to.”
I picked up the wrong book. Sophia eyed the nineteenth-century Joshua Wilder tall-case clock. “Come on, Alistair Connor. It’s past eleven.”
“Go.” He chose another cheroot and lit it. “I’ll just finish this and follow you.”
I won’t get through to him tonight. Sophia stood up, and resignedly left him alone with his untouched whisky. Maybe it’s all that he needs. Space to brood in peace.
But she knew that wasn’t true.
Alistair was not brooding.
He was mourning.
Sophia sighed, looking at Gabriel’s Daytona Rolex. Five to midnight.
Deciding she didn’t want to sit quietly waiting for Alistair, she shed her wrap and put on her warm clothes again.
In the unlit castle, she climbed down the large dark stairs seeking him.
In the library, hisses and a few cracks indicated the fire was dying. A spark in the ashes reflected on the Lalique bottle of the Macallan whisky. The caramel liquid seemed to sway. Next to it, a glass showed Alistair had only half drunk it.