My Lady Series Bundle (25 page)

“My name is Chloe and you will only call me Chloe unless I give you permission otherwise. You, I will call slave, my pet, or my cock!” Then she was there beside him with the barrel of the pistol circling his navel . . . slowly. “Do you understand?” she whispered, even as she licked his nipple with the flat of her tongue and it shivered becoming hard and beaded. He trembled. “Nod your head please,” she murmured, moving her soft wet mouth over to the peak of his other already hard nipple. He nodded, yet kept his eyes closed and his head tilted back, fighting his groans of pleasure as she licked and played with his nipples.

She stopped to blow cool air on them before she licked them again with the tip of her tongue. He did groan then, an eruption behind the gag. His cock was swollen and pounding, his sacs were taut and heavy with need. The silk of Chloe’s dress feathered across the crease in the head of his dick. He shuddered, feeling a drop of his seed seeping from the slit and grow cold against the air. He twisted against the ropes at his ankles and wrists, expanding his tense muscles to hardness with his emotion. If he had been free, he would be fucking Chloe like a raging stallion in rut. His iron control was gone . . . tied helplessly before his lover’s revenge.

“A man like you are, Raven, can only be truly held by one thing,” Chloe murmured, stroking his flinching buttocks with both hands now, she must have set the pistol aside. “I do not wish you to speak,” she continued to murmur. “Unless I request it. If I remove the gag will you honor my request?” Her fingernails scraped from the bottom curve of his buttocks, up over the muscular sinew, to the hollow of his back. He groaned nodding his head to her request.

“Good,” she whispered as she pulled the gag free from his mouth. He kept his head tilted back and licked his dry lips. He felt Chloe’s fingernails scratching over his chest, across his nipples, down his belly, and over his thighs as he clenched his jaw to keep from saying anything . . . even a groan. But that was impossible because one escaped his throat against his will.

“How does it feel to be tied, my pet?” she murmured.

Harrison dropped his head, seizing Chloe’s gaze with his. He knew that she could see his intense emotion. His need. He could not hide behind his usual cold facade. It had been ripped to shreds. “Like you own me,” he rasped . . . and then she was kissing him.

She grabbed his mouth with her mouth as she held his head between her hands. The pressure of her hands worked his head in the direction she wished to go, as she slanted her lips over his and hungrily ate at his mouth. She moaned, little sounds of need and passion, in the back of her throat as her sensuous body pressed upward against his so she could take his mouth with her tongue. And he let her. He did not try to pull away from her greedy mouth or conquer her with his own tongue and lips. He simply allowed her to conquer him.

When she broke away, they were both gasping for air as she slowly slid down his body until she was kneeling before him. “I will
make
you beg,” she cried, digging her fingers into the tight flesh of his pelvis as she gazed up at him over the thrust of his thickly engorged cock.

He wanted to say something desperately, yet he did not. He had given his word, his honor, his love. But there was such anguish in Chloe’s brown eyes . . . and such need, and then her mouth was on the flanged head of his dick with her pink lips sliding deep over the thickly swollen shaft.

“A-,”
he tried. “God!” he choked with his hips bucking forward, following Chloe’s mouth as she retreated, and then she sucked him in slowly again.
“Aa.”
The sounds he made were of tortuous pleasure as he tried not to speak the carnal exclamations clogging his throat. He was mindless, twisting his ankles and wrists against the ropes, arching his hips forward, following Chloe’s mouth. His lover, his revenge, his life. And he knew if she stopped he would die!

But she did not. She suckled him with increasing urgency, digging her fingernails into his buttocks from behind, as she pumped her mouth over him faster and he hissed harshly as he ejaculated. “Chloe!”

His cock felt like a pump, it pitched his seed so many times into Chloe’s mouth as he jerked in ecstasy. If not for the ropes holding his wrists, he would have fallen, like a wrung out rag, to his knees. So it was sometime before he became aware that Chloe was beating her fists on his hipbones as she still knelt at his feet crying, “I could not stop! I could not make you beg! I wanted you! I want you!”

Harrison’s mind sharpened, yet not quickly enough as he watched Chloe crawl up onto the bed sobbing. She seemed so lost, he was having trouble understanding. He said her name once but she cried harder so he fell silent until he realized that she had cried herself into an exhausted sleep.

The room was cold. Too cold for Chloe’s sheer silk dress and he worried over it as he watched her sleep. For himself he would endure, but for her? He could understand her need for revenge. He could even understand his own ragged need to let her perpetrate her revenge on him. But something was wrong. Perhaps they were both lost after what he had done. So lost. He would not be surprised, especially for her. He had been surprised for himself. Yet this was something else. Chloe had seemed nearly confused.

In the end he could not stand it. He was not noble, and he would never be noble. So instead of staying where he was, as his conscious demanded of him, to receive Chloe’s revenge, he lifted his arms up over the top of the bedpost and pulled the ropes free. He could untie his ankles but not his wrists . . . not entirely true because being mobile through the cottage he could have found a way. But he left them as a small atonement to Chloe’s revenge.

He crawled up on the bed behind Chloe, curling his weight and heat around her and he pulled the corner of the bed quilt up over both of them. He relaxed for the first time in weeks with her being so near to him. He could perhaps sleep again as he had not been able to do for the weeks he had been away from her. She was his balm, even after all that he had done to her, she comforted him like no other person in his life had ever been able to do.

Could he really allow this revenge she was seeking? It would destroy her as it had destroyed him. He had learned that too late, and even as much as he deeply needed her revenge to cleanse himself . . . he could not do it. He loved her too much. He had simply gone crazy for a moment at the beginning, thinking of the healing Chloe’s revenge would give him. But now he could not allow it.

C
hloe screamed, feeling the collar . . . the tug of the leash as large indistinct shapes moved closer and closer around her. Taking away the light! And then she felt their hands!

“Chloe!”

Chloe screamed again, then she cried, “Raven, help me!”

“Good God, Chloe, I am right here,” Raven rasped. “Hush, baby girl, I am here. You're dreaming.”

Chloe sobbed as her eyes popped open and she shoved on Raven’s muscular chest. It was as though she were breaking through the crest of a wave as she sat upright and began gasping. Her mind did not fully comprehend that she was gaping at Raven, when she cried, “Did they rape me? I don’t know! I don’t know!”

“Jesus,” Raven expelled.

It was at that moment that Chloe realized where she was and what she might have said. Nausea overwhelmed her in an instant and she slapped her hand over her mouth as she tumbled off the bed trying to find the chamber pot quickly! Sometime during her violent retching Raven was there helping her, holding her up until she sagged weakly unable to heave anymore even though her senses rolled unsteadily. Raven lifted her and carried her to the bed laying her down, and then going to find a cool damp linen which he pressed to her temple.

“You are loose,” she murmured stupidly

Incredibly Raven smiled. A smile unlike any she had ever seen before on his chiseled aristocratic face. It was genuine and warm and it even deepened the color of his black irises. “Actually, Chloe, I was in the midst of a fierce temper tantrum, because I had just discovered that you have stranded us here.”

Chloe watched Raven’s lips with each word, then she barely whispered, “You were trying to leave?”

“No, Chloe,” he murmured as he stroked her cheek. “Not without you. But I needed to show you that I could. Only it seems that you are one step ahead of me.”

Chloe did not understand what Raven was saying and the gaps frightened her again. She rolled onto her side away from him with a small moan. “Leave if you wish. I will tell you how. I won’t hold you here.”

“Not now, Chloe. Now you need to tell me if you still feel ill.”

“Yes,” she hissed lowly.

“Just now or has it happened before?” Raven asked, smoothing the hair back from her ear.

“Two days . . . mornings.” Chloe realized at just that moment that it was morning. She had slept the entire night . . . and Raven had gotten loose, gotten dressed. Now he wanted to leave.

“Then we need to get you to a doctor,” Raven began.

“No!” she exclaimed. Sitting upright and swaying before Raven steadied her. “It passes. It is only the nightmares,” she finished on a murmur into Raven’s shoulder from where he held her.

“Chloe,” Raven expelled roughly, grasping her face between his big hands, but his touch was gentle as he made her look at him. Look at his intense, sharp black eyes. “They did
not
rape you. Do you understand, no one raped you?”

“They didn’t,” Chloe whispered with tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. “The opium. I could not remember, Raven.”

“Sweetheart,” he uttered emotionally, and then he pulled her back into his warm safe embrace where she clung to him. “I will tell you all that I know happened, Chloe. But first we need to take you to a doctor . . .”

“No!” Chloe exclaimed, wiggling away from him.

“But you just said, Chloe, that I could . . .”

“I have changed my mind,” Chloe interrupted blithely, while holding her stomach and glaring at him. “I do that a lot lately,” she finished with an impatient wave of her hand.

She knew what she needed she needed some dry crackers and hot tea. It had worked the other two mornings that she'd been sick after her nightmares. She certainly did not like the way Raven was staring at her with his hard chin flattening arrogantly. He was about to become the master again and she could not have that . . . yet.

“I cannot argue when I feel so sick, Raven. At least bring me some hot tea and crackers. It has helped before.”

Surprising to her, he did it without any more argument and when he came back with the tea and dry crackers, she boldly asked him for hot water for a bath. It was interesting to watch him at those domestic duties . . . interesting and soothing somehow. She had not known that Raven could brew tea and heat hot water for bathing. Most nobles were inept at such menial labor.

“I have not given up,” he said as he stood beside the small copper tub he had filled with steaming water.

“I know, Raven,” she replied lightly, swinging her legs off the bed. She felt much better now after a cup of tea and four of the dry crackers. Even better it seemed because the burden of what had happened to her at Kant’s hands had been lifted from her confusion. She had not expected to feel such relief, but she did because that meant that Raven had not left her because she had been used and raped. He had other reasons. She wondered what they were, even as she felt hope because she might be able to guess what they were.

She walked over to him slowly and turned her back to him. “Could you help me with the hooks, Raven?” she asked sweetly.

Raven growled just a bit in the back of his throat, and then put his fingers on her back. Chloe smiled. She had not known whether he would stay or leave for her bath. The Raven she knew would stay. After he unhooked her gown, he retreated to a chair by the blazing fire he had built in the fireplace. She did not turn but slowly removed her clothing. The gown first then her chemise slithered slowly over her hips. She was naked except for her stockings and garters. The room was silent except for an occasional pop from the fire until she lifted one foot to prop it on the edge of the brass tub, and then she bent over slowly to remove her stocking.

Raven’s harsh intake of breath sounded behind her and she peeked over her shoulder at him. “What are you doing, baby girl?” he asked in a strained rasp.

“Only getting ready for my bath, of course,” she answered demurely innocent. Rising then to switch legs and bend over again. “You did not offer to help me so I must do it myself,” she finished.

“What I find amazing, Chloe, is that you would flirt with me at all,” Raven said lowly.

Chloe turned to face him, fully nude now in the firelight. “Flirting, Raven? I have never flirted with anyone before.” She stepped into the tub. “I believe I like it.” She paused. “With you.”

Raven looked abruptly angry, possibly betrayed, and then he looked down at his hands. “Not even with Sebastian’s father, Chloe? Surely you flirted with him?”

He meant to hurt her,
Chloe thought, he meant to try and push her away. Perhaps he was being noble? Yes, her Raven was being noble, saving her from herself, he thought. Still, he did not realize what they had found together was so rare, and so special. She could not conceive of being anything else but Raven’s woman . . . and yes, his sexual slave, always . . . of the heart, mind, and body. She trusted him with it all and loved him.

Chloe slowly dipped a hand down into the steamy water. “I never flirted with Sebastian’s father. It was a desperate thing between us. People were dying all around us in the war. I was losing the plantation. I could not hold onto it because of the war. Robert, that was his name, Robert Talbert. Robert was part of Massachusetts’ militia. That is where my stepfather built his plantation after he retired.”

“You are American,” Raven said.

“Practically, we lived there for ten years before my stepfather died of old age. He had been much older than my mother when they married. But I lived in Paris when I was a baby. I don’t remember it, and then Hong Kong, England, and eventually America. I only left Massachusetts because I lost the plantation in the war and I was pregnant. I came back to England because my stepfather had left me some property here.”