A Shimmer of Silk (7 page)

So immersed in the scene around of her, Deborah didn't
realize Oliver had come up behind her. "Onto the bed and on your back,
love, and put a hand on each bedhead." His deep voice both commanded and
soothed, and Deborah obeyed without thought. The action stretched her without
hurting. The slight pull in each arm heightened her senses and concentrated her
mind. Almost as if she was someone else, a voyeur perhaps, she watched as with
swift competence he fastened first one wrist and then the other.

"If you could see the beauty I see, Deborah, see how
perfect you look stretched out, for me to feast my eyes on. Truly, love, I am
blessed. Do you remember your safe word?"

Deborah dipped her head, mindful of his earlier diktat of
silence.

"Now you speak, love, ask questions."

"I remember it, My Lord.
Sauf
.
I feel certain it will
not be needed." Her breath hitched as he walked his fingers up her arm and
touched her nose in a strangely loving gesture.

"I hope not. Are you comfortable? Wriggle your wrists
and fingers."

Deborah did so, enjoying the slight friction her movements
created.

"Spread your legs." The command was absolute and
she responded in an instant. He was as swift to secure her. Deborah waited for
fear to flood into her, for her heart to race, and oblivion to overtake her. It
didn't; instead a frisson of the most exquisite anticipation started at her
toes and worked upwards. She yearned for his touch, to feel his hands caress
her, rouse her, let her experience those sensations so far lost to her. Le
petite mort may be a French name, but it was not one she had had the chance to
use. Her nipples tightened, and she wished she dare ask for his ministrations
on them. Her cunt was thrumming, her heart beating like a drum, and every nerve
end a pinprick of awareness.

Spread-eagled as she was her gaze returned
again and again to those ropes above her head.
They were enough to pull her out of her arousal.
Her distress must have shown in her eyes, because his face hardened. "What?
Deborah, tell me."

"Ropes, they held people aloft. I remember. They strung
them up … Papa, papa hid my face." She paused and licked her lips. Her
mouth was dry and her tongue too big for the space it had.

Without a word, Oliver lifted a carafe from the side table
and filled a glass with a deep, ruby liquid. He lifted her head with one hand
and held the glass to her mouth with the other. "Drink this." His
tone left no room for disobedience, even though she had no intention of not acquiescing.
"Sip it. Good French wine should be savored."

Did he think she didn't know that? Deborah opened her mouth
to give a pithy response and stopped. Why would he know? “I have things to tell
you, things I have revealed to no one before now. Things I have guarded with my
life. Now is the time to let them go, to share, to ask you to share my burden."

Oliver replaced the goblet on the table and sat down next to
her on the bed.

"At any other time, Deborah, a statement saying you
have to ask for such a commitment, would give you a rosy arse that made you
wince to rest upon. I take and share everything. It is my job to relieve you of
your worries. Together we will solve everything. Do you understand? Wish you to
be untied?"

"I understand, My Lord, I can but hope you do."
She switched from English to rapid, colloquial French, not noticing how her
accent changed. "I do not wish to be untied unless it is your preference.
I must begin to fight my demons. My name is
Aurore
. I
am … was French. I escaped the terror as a babe, but I remember things, dark
things,
bad
things." She shuddered so violently
the ties holding her shook and shimmered in the lamp light.

"Go on." His tone was even. One could even call
him disinterested if it was not for the muscles at the corner of his mouth that
jumped, and the white line above his eyes.

"What is there to say? Our house was burned. My parents,
my family, all perished at Madame Guillotine. Luc's parents bribed a guard for
my life. I am told they said I was their
daughter,
and
taken by mistake. Whether he believed them, or was greedy for money, I will
never know. People were starving. I was but a few years old, but I can remember
the fear, the hunger … the knives." She closed her eyes to block out the
shadows that reached out to her.

"Open your eyes. Look at me." His voice was harsh
and unyielding.

Deborah blinked. "Ah."

"Ah indeed. So the
knife play
?
To show they can no longer harm you?"

He understands.

"Yes, My Lord.
And to cheat death,
and gamble on my continued life.
Every time, I have
that split second where I don't want to intercept the blade.
Then I
remember
,
I owe it to those people who died to live.
But it is so, so, hard."

"The candles?
Fire eating?" As he
spoke he stroked her ankle and slid the back of his hand up her leg. The
sensation was akin to that of a feather passed over her. In spite of her
worries, if she had been a cat she would be purring. His touch elicited such
strong emotions.

"I think so. It helps me feel in charge, feel safe, and
able to do anything I wish. As the wax stings me it reminds me I am here, I am
the lucky one."

His fingers had reached her knee and were inscribing circles
over it. The
touch made her want
to clench her legs together,
to rub her quim and relieve the ache there. Fastened as she was, it was
impossible, and she moaned softly. With no hairs to coat, it would be so easy
to use her juices to cover her cunt, to use them for friction and to rub her
nub. Arousal built inside her, like a tidal wave, rushing ever on, overcoming
any obstacle in its way. She wanted, no needed to let it crash over her, to
explode in her cunt and destroy the fears. As she looked down her body toward
Oliver, she could see her cum glistening on the top of her legs, gravity aiding
its path.

"Do you want to be in charge?" If he had noticed
her squirming he chose not to comment. Instead, he stroked her upper leg, almost
circling it, before inching ever closer to the apex of her thighs.

"No, My Lord."

"Then stop trying to be." The slap to her quim was
unexpected, and she gasped. There was no pain, just a slow sting and tingle
that spread outward in increasing circles of pleasure. Deborah arched up into
his hand, silently asking for more.

Oliver pushed her firmly flat onto the bed. "Not yet.
We still need to talk. So, where does the fire eating come into all this?"
The tone was level, soothing.

If it hadn't been for his questing fingers that gently
circled her nub, she would be relaxed. As it was, she was a mass of overloaded
senses. Every nerve end buzzed and sent tiny shockwaves of pleasure through
her. Could she really stay so aroused and not come? The gentle pinch on her nether
lips reminded Deborah she hadn't answered him.

"I consume the fire, it does not consume me.
Ahhhh, so good."
He had slipped one finger inside her,
followed by another and was circling her channel. Deborah clenched her cunt
muscles around them, holding them in place, silently begging for more.

His fingers stopped their sensuous movements as he tapped
her mound three times in quick succession, each one harder than before. The
stings prickled and zinged. "No coming, no demanding, or dictating. Behave
or I stop.
So knives?"

"Ah." Her brain wouldn't work. One minute he was
lifting her high, creating a flow of red-hot lava to course through her, the
next changing her pain level limits and erogenous zones. Then demanding answers
to questions that in her sensation induced fog she could scarce comprehend.

"Deborah." Just her name in a tone so devoid of
emotion it gave her goose bumps—for all the wrong reasons.

"I know not if I
know
this or have heard it spoken about, you understand. Adults forget children
listen and remember." She shuddered as those memories rushed up to claim
her. A ruthless determination she hadn't known she possessed enabled her to
clamp them shut. "When our house burned, it was sheer chance we were not
inside. We escaped the area, with loyal servants near us on our journey. I was
in a cart, under some sort of vegetables with my parents and—" She gulped.
"And my older brother.
They, the soldiers of
Napoleon, used knives to dig through the vegetables and find us. The others
were killed. Luc's parents, who had been following as peasants, saw them lift
me out. With great presence of mind, they claimed me as their own, cruelly
taken by my parents."

Oliver's look of comprehension and sympathy was almost her
undoing.

"Yes, well, whether they believed maman, as I called
her I don't know, but when they handed over all the money they possessed they
left me with the … well I will say
Dalmians
, for
indeed we have used that name for so long, it is now ours. For many years we
lived in a tiny hovel, for we had nothing. It was not a life as such. It was a
day to day scramble to survive. When I was about eleven, I believe, I pulled at
a candle and the wax dripped over me. It was strange, but the pain made me
realize I was there, not dead, not used as I had heard others were, but loved
and safe."

"So each drop that touches you reaffirms that?"

She sighed. "It seems so. However, never before have I
felt as I did when you were the one to anoint me thus."

A kiss on her mound, so swift, so light, it was as if he had
brushed her with a feather, once more set her juices flowing.

His laugh was triumphant. "So from now on, we will work
to replace all those negative memories with positive, loving ones. Do you trust
me?"

Chapter Eight

If ever a man had waited more anxiously for a reply, he
would be amazed. He ached with the effort to remain impassive. To untie her,
cuddle her, and promise her the world was not the way to continue. Oliver knew
his limits, his needs, and he hoped hers. The look in her eyes gave him
optimism. As did her answer. It was one of hope.

"Yes, My Lord."

He nodded, trusting his exultation didn't show. "I will
push you,
Deborah,
make you take things further than
you ever thought possible. But it will be for us, our desires. Ignore all you
have ever heard about domination and submission. This is us; Oliver and
Deborah—or would you prefer I call you
Aurore
?"

"Perhaps, when you have set me free from my past, My Lord?
Then I can truly be myself once more." That made sense to him.

"Then, my love, let's start to create our future."
With less than his normal grace he stood up and went to the hook that held the
cat’s cradle of ropes high above.

A shudder rippled over her skin as she followed his
movements, and she swallowed.

"You trust me." He reminded her in a harsh voice.
No matter he wanted to untie her, hold her, and promise her anything. Those
feelings would not sustain him for long. "Anything I do will be beneficial
for both of us.
Both
of
us."
He stared at her, willing her to keep her eyes on him as he
wound down the harness to a foot above her head. Her eyes were wide, but to his
pleasure, she didn't invoke her safe word. She just stared.

"I do trust you, My Lord. If it seems that I do not, I
apologize. My faith is in your superior knowledge."

"Liar."
He spanked her quim once more,
hard enough to draw a sharp exclamation from her, which she cut short.
"You resent it, are scared of it, and hope to put your faith in it. Am I
right?"

She bit her lip. "Yes, My Lord."

"Better. Have you seen one of these in use?"

"Er, I think so, though it was not like this. In the
entertainment room here on the night we came to be judged fitting to
perform." Ah, yes he had forgotten that a harness exhibition had been on
that evening. Felton had asked his opinion of it, and it was there, he had seen
Deborah, and knew she had to be his. Her subsequent brief act in front of the select
few, who chose the entertainment, had reinforced his decision.

"And?"

She wriggled, rubbing her arse over the linen cover, as if
to test the restraints she was held by. Oliver thought it was more to reduce
the feelings of arousal in her cunt.

"And, I wondered," she said, in a low voice.

"Louder, Deborah, I can scarce hear you."

Oh ho, the look in her eyes was pure rebellion. He lowered
the ropes to set the ties in motion, so they swayed gently a foot or so above
her body. Her gulp was audible.

"It scared me until I saw how much enjoyment the lady
had. I could see her arousal slick on her body. When her partner set the
harness in motion, and spanked her each time she came toward him, I … I almost
came." She finished her sentence in a rush, and looked away from him, as
if in shame.