Chapter Eleven

 

I hadn’t realized I’d been asleep until I awoke.

Strong fingers were rubbing my back, my shoulders, my thighs, massaging a warm oil into my skin and kneading my sore muscles. My eyelashes fluttered open, making a soft whispering noise against the bedsheets. I was on my stomach in Mr. Markham’s bed, and everything I could feel ached—ached in a way that was so delicious and satisfying that it barely hurt at all.

“Keep resting, wildcat,” Mr. Markham said, his hands now on my calves. “Let me take care of you.”

“You already have,” I murmured into the bed, fighting the heaviness of sleep to stay awake. The clock on the mantelpiece indicated that it was late evening; I’d been asleep for a few hours at least. “Let me take care of you again.”

I could almost hear the smile that I knew had to be on his face. “I know you want to. But I would also be a very bad teacher if I didn’t help my student recover from her lesson. Now this will hurt for just a moment, but then I promise it will make much of your pain go away.”

And then I felt his fingers trail down my back, tracing the line of my tailbone as it curved into my ass and the sore, soft flesh between my legs. I tried to stir, my body shying away, but he kept one hand on my back. “Stay still for a moment,” he said, authority coloring his words. I stayed, but I couldn’t help squeezing my eyes shut as I felt more oil—a different kind, gauging by the temperature—slide down my skin. And then a single finger pressed against the tight entrance of my ass, pushing in slowly but forcefully. My breath caught—it hurt—and I tried not to cry out.

“Shh,” Mr. Markham soothed, the hand on my back now gentling me, like I was a skittish horse. “Shh. Let me take care of you.”

The finger worked in and out of me, and it was only after a minute or two of the tear-inducing pain, that I realized he wasn’t getting ready to fuck me again. He was coating me with oil, inside and out.

“This will numb the pain significantly,” he said. “I promise.”

And he was right. Within a handful of minutes, the raw pain faded, replaced with a tingling warmth.

“Better?” he asked, climbing off the bed to wash his hands in the nearby basin.

“Much,” I said.

When he came back to me, he held a small glass of a reddish brown liquid. He helped me sit up and bade me to drink it, which I did, although it tasted terrible. He gave me cold water to wash the bitter taste out of my mouth.

“Have you ever had laudanum?”

I shook my head.

He seemed a little surprised. “It will dull the pain and help you sleep, but it may make you sleep very deeply or with very vivid dreams. Don’t be frightened if that’s the case—I will be here with you.” He helped me settle back into the bed. “I must leave you for a time—I am expecting a visitor—but once I finish speaking with him, I promise I will be with you for the rest of the night.” He swept a tender kiss across my cheek and then left.

I wished he would stay, but at the same time, I was happy to have a moment to myself, not because I wanted to be away from him necessarily, but because I still needed to process the events of today. The running, the catching, the fucking. All of it, so full of love and turmoil and pain.

Had I known that Mr. Markham could be so barbaric? Surely I had—there was nothing about anything he did that led me to believe he was a gentle soul, deep down. But I would be lying to myself if I didn’t admit that I had been genuinely frightened of him last night, genuinely trying to get away, mere seconds away from uttering our signal. He had hurt me—on purpose—had punished me and had been aroused by doing so. No gentleman did that. No gentleman grew rigid and thick at the thought of a woman sobbing underneath him.

But Mr. Markham did.

I rolled onto my side, watching the fire, feeling the pleasant burn of laudanum pumping through my veins, feeling the sweet ache in my pussy and the tingling numbness of other recovering parts. Why wasn’t I running away then? Why hadn’t I told him right after that it had been too much, too painful, and that I was leaving? Why did I want it to happen again?

Did that mean something was wrong with me? Was I the truly twisted one in our engagement?

The thought followed me as I spiraled down into sleep. The sleep was as thick as marsh mud, a gloppy clinging sleep that made me wakeful and fretful and sweaty. I twisted in the bed, sweet dreams of kisses and clouds morphing into visions of a frozen field, of Mr. Markham laughing over Violet’s corpse. Visions of him fucking her as violently as he had fucked me, visions of him fucking Molly, of him fucking Brightmore. It’s not real, I would manage to think as I clawed my way back to consciousness, but then I would tumble right back down into the nightmares.

I dreamed I was in a cage, a circus cage, the walls made of iron bars and placed in the middle of a wide tent. There were faces in the crowd, faces I knew—Silas and Molly and Gideon and Helene and the others—and there was a cage next to me. Violet was inside, gripping the bars and staring at me with a tear-streaked face.

Footsteps echoed, boots on the hard-packed dirt of the ground, and Mr. Markham came into view. I could see only his legs, long and firm, and a whip dangling at his side. I knew—somehow—that if I didn’t perform, if I was an unsatisfactory pet, that I would feel the whip. I looked at Violet, now sobbing, and I also knew that something worse than punishment might happen. If I disappointed Julian, would I be abandoned? Killed?

Except—how disturbing—there was a part of me that craved this fear. In fact, it barely felt like fear at all because it was so energizing, so electrifying. God, what was wrong with me?

The whip struck the ground and I jumped, starting to shudder with dread and excitement as the keys jingled. I was about to be let out. I would have to perform…

I jolted awake, the sheets twisted tightly around me and sweat making my hair stick to my face. Adrenaline spiked through me and the laudanum made it impossible to think clearly, and I couldn’t tell whether the walls were made of stone or iron bars and I could hear the keys still jangling, jangling…

But it was the clatter of hooves in the courtyard. Mr. Markham’s visitor.

I decided to get up and get a drink, which I did, groggily and shakily, my hands and limbs feeling too weak to hold my glass. The laudanum. It worked well. I leaned against the window, resting my tired head against the glass, as a small man with white hair climbed easily off his horse. Nobody came out to greet him, but a rectangle of yellow light cast on the dim driveway told me that the door was opened. The man strode right in, his posture respectable and polite but his steps determined.

It was the man from the hotel in York. The one who had known my name.

I made a decision despite the growing murkiness of my thoughts, pulling on the scarlet dressing gown and belting it tightly, moving to the door as quietly as I could. A thousand questions raced through my mind. Did Mr. Markham know this man? Had he known him when he’d seen him in York? And how did the man know me? And, above all, why hadn’t Mr. Markham told me that this visitor was the same person we’d seen in York?

Was he trying to keep it a secret?

But I only made it as far as the door before my knees grew too weak to support my weight. I held on to the door handle for a moment, trying to summon the strength to keep moving, but there was no hope. I’d taken more laudanum than I thought, perhaps, because I could feel the blackness at the edges of my vision, the tumbling of my thoughts growing erratic and dreamy, and I managed to find an armchair nearby before I collapsed and knew no more.

It was morning when I woke—early morning, gauging by the rosy light filtering in through the curtains. I was no longer in the armchair but in bed, a long, muscled body pressed against mine. I was gathered in his arms, my face to his chest, and I could tell by his breathing that he was awake. Awake and unhappy.

I tilted my head back to look up at him.

“Good morning, wildcat.” A small smile curved on his lips. “You slept like the dead last night.”

It had felt that way, although the lingering tendrils of nightmares still brushed at my mind—leering faces and whispered threats, Mrs. Brightmore’s scowl and Mrs. Harold’s honeyed voice, Molly’s sharp eyes and Julian’s rasping words. Cages and whips. Fear and lust and shadows. The prickling feeling of being watched by unseen eyes. If the dead dreamed, surely those were the kinds of dreams they had.

“What’s wrong?” Julian murmured. “Your face—it has gone distant just now.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I whispered, even though I knew that wasn’t quite true. But I wasn’t sure what, exactly, was wrong. Save for a feeling. A glimmer of intuition.

He brushed the backs of his fingers across my cheek. “You’ve gone somewhere in your mind, Ivy. Come back to me.”

I took a deep breath and did as he asked, refocusing my thoughts on him and him alone. He lowered his lips to mine and I softened into him, letting his breath entwine with my own, molding my curves as tightly as I could against the lean lines of his body.

He pulled back. “You were such a good pet last night,” he said, his concerned murmur slowly changing back to his usual commanding tone. “You let me fuck you so hard. And you liked it, didn’t you? You liked it when I took your ass. You came so beautifully, wildcat. I could feel every squeeze and flutter of your perfect body.”

I nodded, pressing my head against his chest once more, feeling my breathing start to speed up. My dreams came back to me, the sneaking fear that someday I wouldn’t be able to perform, that I wouldn’t be able to be this good pet that he wanted. And with it came the twisted longing to be totally at one with him, even his darkness.

Especially his darkness.

“And now I will reward you,” he said. “You deserve to be spoiled.”

Anticipation started to stir in my belly. “How will you reward me?”

“You choose.”

“Then I want you to fuck me,” I said without hesitation. I had none of these bothersome worries and anxieties when he was inside me. When we were together, our union felt so safe, indissoluble.

He laughed to himself. “I know, but that’s not how this works. Today, I want you to do whatever you want with me. Today, I want you to take your pleasure selfishly. Use me however you like, because today, my mouth and cock and fingers belong only to you.”

I bit my lip, confusion warring with my growing desire. He’d always been the dominant force in our affair, the one who shaped and directed our encounters, the one who determined when and how my orgasms would come. It was an alien feeling, being in control in bed. But my slowly throbbing clit and tightening nipples were not about to complain. I blinked away the last of my laudanum grogginess and then pushed him onto his back. The sheets pulled away from his shirtless body and I could see how hard he was in his trousers, a rigid outline that was mine to explore and use today.

But I was sore—deeply sore—and I knew I would need to be ready for him. So instead of climbing on top of him, I positioned myself above his shoulders on my knees, so that my bare cunt was a mere inch from his face.

“Yes,” he groaned, not waiting for me to lower myself, but instead raising up and capturing my sensitive flesh with his mouth, sucking and nibbling at turns. His tongue flicked over my clit, lightly at first, before moving to lick at my hole, plunging in and out. After the exhaustion of last night and with the honeyed influence of the opium still fogging me, I couldn’t support myself much longer, and my knees slid down so that I was now riding his face. I tried to raise myself back up, certain that he was uncomfortable, but he wrapped his arms around my thighs, trapping me to his face as he fucked me with his tongue.

He made noises of deep satisfaction, noises of deep hunger, as if this were the only thing he ever wanted to do, and it was those noises—and the very prominent display of arousal behind me—that sent me over the edge. I bucked shamelessly against his face, forgetting about his comfort, forgetting about dignity, just riding his mouth as I quivered and clenched and panted, riding his face so hard that I could feel his stubbled chin grating across my flesh.

I slowly stilled, looking down into his aventurine eyes as I did, leaning back so that my weight rested on his chest instead of his face.

“Oh wildcat,” he breathed. “You don’t know how difficult it is not to flip you over and fuck you right now. Just tasting you makes me hard. But having you take my mouth like that makes me dangerous.”

He wasn’t lying. His eyes blazed and his body trembled ever so slightly, as if he were fighting to restrain himself. I slid off him and then off the bed, indicating with a gesture that I wanted him to stay there. I wanted to look at him for a moment. At the expensive trousers tented by his cock and at the sharply muscled lines of his stomach, with that line of dark hair that led from his navel down past the line of his pants. His lips still wet from me.

“You look a little wild right now, Ivy. What are you thinking about? Do you want to ride my face again? Or would you like to sink onto my cock and ride me that way? I know that beautiful cunt will be hungry until it’s filled. How will you let me fill it?”

I stepped forward and tugged down his trousers. “Quiet,” I told him. “You’re distracting me.”

He grinned, grinned like a man getting his pants taken off by a naked woman. “Good.”

I climbed back on the bed and straddled him. “I’m going to fuck you until I come,” I told him. “But this time, you aren’t allowed to come until I say.”

His smile faded, a dark and savage look replacing it. “Do you think that’s wise, wildcat?”

“You said this was my reward, that I could do with you as I wish.” I slid my wet cunt along the underside of his shaft, which earned me a low hiss. “I’m choosing to use you. I’m going to use that thick cock to make me come, and then maybe I’ll think about letting you climax.”

And with that, I guided his dick into my cleft, sinking down and groaning softly. Despite the delicious orgasm I’d just had, I was still very sore from last night and there was a sting of pain raking along my pleasure, pain from the rough fucking he’d given my pussy and also from the pressure this position exerted on the other part he’d fucked.

He moved his hips underneath me, and I slapped his chest. “Stop it,” I said. “Stay still.”

He didn’t look happy but he obeyed. I took advantage of this and began rocking myself against him, not moving up and down, but grinding my clit against him as hard as I could, moving faster and faster. I could see the muscles jumping and twitching in Mr. Markham’s arms and chest as he fought himself from grabbing me and fucking me on his own terms. It was so deliciously foreign, having control, and I felt almost giddy as I ground down harder and faster, reaching up with both hands to hold my sweaty hair off my neck, which lifted my tits higher. His gaze was glued to them as I moved, as I became less graceful and more ferocious with my movements, my thoughts dying away as some primal part of me took over. There was only the building tightness low in my belly, only his thick cock spurring me on towards an encroaching summit.

“That’s it,” he growled. “Come, kitten. Come on me. Let me see how much you love my cock.”

I did love it and I did come, slow spasms of pleasure gathering and gathering as I bore down on his thick member, impaled myself on it like I had nothing else to live for, like there was nothing else but this one perfect part of this perfect man that I loved. And then, like a firework imported from the east, I ignited. Lit up and blew up in explosions of red and blue and gold, crying out as my womb clenched and squeezed around him.

He waited—impatient and hungry but still as a statue—as I rode out my pleasure on him, rode it hard and heedlessly, not caring what I looked like or sounded like. I slowly slumped forward, half lying on his chest with my face near his ear, his stone-hard organ still buried inside me.

His voice was low. “Wildcat. I’m feeling quite vicious at the moment. Are you going to let me come?”

“I want to see it,” I said, moving off him.

“What?”

“I want to see you come. I want to see you fill me with it.”

His cock throbbed. “Is that so?”

There was a mirror attached to the table that held his water ewer and basin. I moved a chair in front of the mirror and then angled the mirror to the side so that I would be able to see its reflection if someone were in front of me. I sat on the edge of the chair and spread my legs. “Come here.”

He was there in a moment, his hair tousled and his manhood almost painfully veined and purpled as he knelt in between my legs.

“Put it inside of me,” I ordered.

“Christ,” he muttered and closed his eyes. “I can’t—when you talk like that—” He gripped my thighs, not moving. “I almost come when you say things like that.”

“I don’t care,” I told him honestly. “Do what I tell you.”

His jaw clenched and his eyes burned with something that looked very close to anger, and then he stabbed inside of me with one brutal stroke. I arched my back and whimpered with delight, with need. He stayed inside me for a moment, waiting for my next command.

“Make yourself come,” I said breathlessly. “But come hard. I want to see it spilling out of me.”

“Shit,” he swore, drawing himself out and then slamming back into me. Ruthless thrusts, barbaric thrusts, and God, nothing had ever felt better. Each slam pounded against my clitoris and each stroke dragged his wide crown against something inside that made me toes curl.

“Are you going to come again?” he asked, still pounding into me. “You like it when you’re fucked hard? You need it, don’t you? You need to be fucked by me all the time. Such a naughty kitten, needing to come so much.”

My fingernails were scratching his neck now, his shoulders and his chest, not in protest but in the helpless animalism he always brought out in me.

“I’m going to…” Even if I could have breathed, I wouldn’t have been able to finish my sentence, I was so far gone.

“Watch,” he said. “This is what you wanted, right? You wanted to see yourself filled up with cum. So look, wildcat, because I’m going fill you up good.”

He used one hand to grip my jaw and turn my gaze on the mirror, which showed me his tight ass pumping between my legs. I pulled my legs up, bracing my feet on the edge of the chair and exposing my pussy. Mr. Markham didn’t miss a single thrust, didn’t adjust his rhythm in the slightest. He kept fucking me, and now I could properly see the wide, slick cock pushing in and out of my pink folds.

“Here it comes,” he growled, and then his thrusts went long and violent, his head dropping as he pumped into me. I watched in the mirror, entranced at how my body responded to him, the way my cunt welcomed him to the root even as I could see his full load beginning to spill out of me. He grunted and shuddered, finally looking down at where we were joined, swallowing hard as he saw his seed dripping out of me.

“Did you like that?” he asked, reaching between us to stroke my clit. My orgasm—held temporarily at bay by my fascination—began to surge forward again and I rocked against his hand and his still-hard penis. “Do you like it when I come inside of you?”

I nodded, unable to speak.

“Good,” he said, his voice possessive and uncivilized. “Because I’m going to fill you up every day for the rest of your life.”

And then I exploded once again, filled with him, held by him, every part of me his, and yet still I wanted more.