Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) (22 page)

Lying in the bathtub in
the late afternoon, my hands shake with insatiable desire and the
strong sense that everything is about to change. While the hours
seemed to creep by this morning, now they rush past, leaving me
little time to prepare for – what?

I dry my hair and put
on makeup, darkening my lips with a red stain that will last through
deep kisses and blow-jobs. The corset is tight and hard to tie but it
gives me a perfect hourglass shape. I slip into the skirt and blouse
and strap on the heels, black lace booties so high I can hardly walk.

Standing before the
mirror, I stare at the woman I left behind in Paris when I went to
New York, and found again when I returned.

I’m ready early. I
pace the living room, pausing to look down into the street. At two
minutes before seven, the black sedan glides up to the curb and Marc
gets out. I wait to hear his key in the lock before I go to the
foyer. He doesn’t come in. He just holds his hand out to me.

“You’re beautiful,”
is all he says. He’s dressed in a tailored suit with a sleek gray
shirt that makes his eyes look turbulent and dark.

Henrik drives us to a
restaurant with no tables, just a long L-shaped bar with red leather
chairs. We sit beside each other with a votive flickering between us,
my ankle hooked around his.

I’m not allowed to
feed myself. “Tonight,” he says, “your whole world depends on
me.”

He gives me bites of
beef and scallops from our plates, twice slipping his arm around my
waist and kissing my neck. Instead of soothing my craving for him,
his touch only inflames it. Maybe I’ll never be satisfied, even
after he makes love to me. I was denied too long and now my desire is
permanent, a chronic condition I’ll never cure.

When we return to the
car, I slide across the back seat and reach for his belt buckle. He
laughs, letting me open his zipper and squeeze him to an enormous
erection before placing my hand back in my lap.

“Patience, Pet,” he
says.

“I’ve been nothing
but
patient,” I
say, kissing his ear.

“No,” he says,
taking me by the shoulders, “you’ve done everything in your power
to arouse me so I’ll bend to your will. A real submissive exercises
self-control. She waits to be summoned by her master, no matter how
much she wants him.”

“I waited until you
came to New York,” I point out.

“Yes, but since then
– and before you left Paris – you’ve been a disobedient
temptress, with me and other men.”

“It’s not fair to
say I’ve been with other men,” I say. “Except for that stupid
mistake with the waiter, and I’d had too much to drink.”

Though the inside of
the car is dark, his eyes glow whenever we pass a streetlamp. He
smiles. “You’ve tried to drive me insane with jealousy and
succeeded every time. I can’t help but admire your determination.
You’ve used every situation to your advantage, haven’t you?”

I drop my gaze. Though
I want to argue, I can’t. Everything he says is the truth.

“Give me your hands,”
he says. I hold them out. He kisses each palm and places my hands
back in my lap.

“Raise your skirt,”
he says.

I lift the hem, knowing
what he’ll see – parted thighs, garters clipped to stockings,
panties so tiny he could tear them off with a flick of his wrist. He
looks at me appreciatively but shakes his head.

“No. I want your skin
on the seat with nothing under you.”

I obey, feeling the
cool stickiness of leather. He slides his hand up my leg until he
reaches bare skin. “How does the seat feel?” he asks.

“Stiff,” I say.
“Cold.”

Though he presses his
fingers into the flesh of my hip, I know it won’t go any further.
He won’t fuck me until I’ve proven something undefined and
unspoken.

“Marc, I –” I
begin, but bite my lip to keep from saying more.

“Yes?”

I shake my head.

“Sweetheart, no
secrets,” he says. “We agreed at the start. It’s even more
important now.”

“Yes. No secrets.”
He must know what I’m thinking, though I don’t dare say it out
loud.
I love you. I’ll never
love anyone else.

“Turn around,” he
says. When I do, he takes my corseted waist in his hands, sliding his
fingers up my ribcage and along the sides of my breasts. I’ve been
aroused for hours. I could almost come from the feeling of his breath
against my neck.

I see a flash of red
out of the corner of my eye, and then he slips the silk blindfold
around my head.

“Is this okay?” he
asks, knotting it. His voice is tender. It’s the first time he’s
asked my permission since I came back to Paris.

“Yes,” I say, and I
mean it. Enough time has passed that I no longer think of how Trevor
used it to silence me.

“Is it tight?”

“Very.” I reach up
to touch the soft folded fabric. “Where are we going?” I whisper.

“You’ll know in a
minute,” he says, taking my hand. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” I say,
though tonight, I’m not sure I really do.

“Remember, when
you’re with me I’m in control. You’re completely safe.”

He leans forward to
talk to Henrik. When he sits back he kisses me, his tongue soft and
urgent against mine. The kiss gives me hope that my lesson will
happen now, in the backseat. He’s so hard through his trousers, so
primed to spread my legs and take me, but a kiss is all he’ll
allow.

He tugs my garters to
make sure they’re fastened and says, “I think you’re ready.”

The car slows and eases
to a stop. Marc gets out, taking my wrist in his hand. I feel
unsteady as I step onto the pavement in my heels. He smooths my skirt
and tightens the ties on my corset, grazing each of my nipples with
his fingertips before kissing me again. Then he lets me go.

I turn my head to
listen, hearing his footsteps move farther away. “Marc?”

“It’s okay,
Sophie.”

The car door opens and
shuts. I extend a hand into empty space.

He’s probably just
talking to someone before coming back for me. He
is
coming back for me, isn’t he?

“Don’t take off the
blindfold,” he says. He’s back inside the car, speaking through
the lowered window.

Suddenly sick with
fear, my voice rises. “Where are you going?”

“No questions,” he
says. “Stand where you are and stay silent. Then do as you’re
told.”

“As I’m told?” I
say, but my words are lost in the noise of the engine starting.

“Silence,” he says.
“Don’t touch the blindfold. Listen to your instincts.”

“You can’t just
leave me here. Marc? Don’t go, please.”

He doesn’t answer. I
hear the window slide up, and the car slowly drives off.

I’m alone in
darkness.

I see my heart beating
in a rhythmic white pulse behind my eyelids. A minute goes by, maybe
more. I reach out to steady myself but there’s nothing to grab
onto.

Then there are
footsteps, light and quick.

“Who is it?” I say,
but a hand closes over my mouth.

I feel hands on my
waist and wrists, pulling me across pavement and through a door.
There’s a sudden absence of noise, as if I were in a soundproof
room.

“Who are you?” I
ask. “Where am I?”

I hear movement and
quiet whispers, but no one answers.

“Please,” I say.
“I’m scared.”

“You should be,”
comes a woman’s voice, so close to my ear that I jump. “It’s
what we want.”

She has a clipped
British accent that makes me think of a boarding school headmistress.
I can imagine her caning a disobedient young student and taking great
pleasure in it.

Someone starts to
undress me, unzipping my skirt and yanking it over my hips. Nimble
fingers unbutton my blouse and open the front. I hear murmurs of
approval and then the blouse is stripped off. I feel myself being
evaluated by greedy eyes.

“No,” I whisper, as
the ties on the bustier are pulled apart by impatient hands.
“Please.”

“Begging is useless,”
says a man with an unusual accent, “but we enjoy it anyway.”

As air touches my naked
breasts, I try frantically to cover myself with my hands.

“Bind her,” says
the woman with the cruel voice, holding my arms behind my back. I
feel cold metal against my wrists and hear the sound of handcuffs
locking.

“You can’t do
this,” I say. My voice is a hoarse whisper.

“Of course we can,”
says the man.

“Marc wouldn’t like
it,” I say.

“We’re following
his instructions,” says the headmistress. “You know that.”

“I don’t believe
it.”

“Deep down,” she
says, “you do.”

Suddenly there are
hands on my hips, holding me still. In an instant my panties are
snipped off with scissors or maybe a pocket knife, leaving me exposed
and near tears. They must see that the panties are damp, a fact that
will only encourage them more.

I can’t be excited by
what they’re doing to me. Damnit, I won’t be.

But the feeling of
vulnerability, standing in front of strangers in only stockings,
garters, and high heels, is shamefully thrilling.

My lover has delivered
me to them because it pleases him, and this idea arouses and
frightens me at the same time. It’s much different from what Trevor
did to me, for the simple reason that I agreed to this. Because I
want so much to satisfy Marc, even if it means giving up all control.

Two people – women, I
think, by the feel of their hands – grasp me by each arm and lead
me out of the room and into a hallway.

“Where are you taking
me?” I ask. I struggle against them, but they’re too strong and
too determined.

“Marc!” I shout. Is
he trying to show me how dominant he can be by getting others to do
his bidding? What if I’m wrong, and he hasn’t orchestrated this?
What if he’s abandoned me to strangers because it’s what I
deserve?

The women pull me up a
short flight of stairs and force me to stand in place. I use all of
my strength to try to break free. “Stop,” the headmistress
orders, pushing me down into a chair. “Back straight. Knees apart.”
She pulls my thighs open and ropes my ankles to the chair legs.

“You’ll never
escape now,” she whispers, running a sharp fingernail down the side
of my neck. I hear heels clicking as both women walk away. Their
footsteps get more distant, and then a door shuts behind them.

After that, there’s silence.

For several minutes, I
think I’m alone.

Every sense, every
nerve, is on fire. Goosebumps rise on my skin and my nipples harden.
I’m helpless, at the mercy of people I can’t see or resist.

As I catch my breath,
fear turns to fury. Right now, I despise Marc almost as much as I
love him.

When he said that
nothing stood in his way, this must be what he meant. And I have to
admit he was right – submission is more than being tied up and
spanked, playing at something dangerous while staying safe. It’s
the unexpected, a dark descent into the unknown.

I hear something. I
hold my head still, listening. There’s the rustling of fabric and a
sensation like wings beating the air near my skin.

I feel fingers on the
knot of the blindfold, and it falls from my face. I look to my left
in time to glimpse a woman slip out of the room holding the
blindfold, her long black cape trailing the floor.

I blink, my eyes
gradually adjusting to the candlelight. Candles flicker in hurricane
lamps on the floor around a bondage table. In shadow at the back of
the room sit two young men, each well-built and good-looking, each
dressed in a dark suit. They stare at me, their eyes feasting on my
breasts and spread legs.

Marc is terribly,
insanely jealous – surely he doesn’t want them to use me, one
after the other until they’re both satisfied. But if not, why did
he bring me here? Why did he tell me to do as I was told?

Maybe this is his way
of discarding me. If he really wanted me he wouldn’t let strangers
display me for anyone to see. Is this the trust and caring he spoke
about? Is this how the new Marc gets his pleasure?

One of the men gets up
and walks toward me. He’s tall and bald, with a square jaw and soft
blue eyes. Kneeling in front of me, he unties the rope around my
ankles and tells me to stand. I do, barely rising to his broad
shoulder.

He lifts a hand and
touches my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You’re
stunning,” he whispers.

He sounds Eastern
European, or Nordic. I look up at him, allowing his fingers to soothe
me. He brings his other hand to my waist and lets it rest there, his
fingers firm and strong.

Through his pants, his
erection presses against my hip. He’s not as large as Marc but he
desires me. Marc can resist me for days and weeks at a time, but this
man will take me right now if I allow him to. He may take me even if
I don’t.

The fantasy is so vivid
it’s almost as if it’s happening. Just a brief touch, a seductive
kiss, and he might fuck me on the table in front of the other man.

He leans toward me,
holding my chin in his fingers. His other hand trails up my belly and
stops just below the curve of my breast. I arch my back
involuntarily, craving a warm, caring touch.

It would feel so good
to be wanted, to be given what I’ve needed for weeks. His full lips
part. Half an inch closer and our mouths will touch. His thumb and
forefinger reach for my nipple just as a realization comes to me with
absolute, startling clarity.

I take a step back. “I
understand now,” I say, shaking my head. “I know what you’re
doing.”

“Is something the
matter?” he asks.

“Yes, it is.”

How did I not see it
sooner? This is why Marc refused to touch me. It’s been his plan
all along: to deprive me, leave me blindfolded and disoriented in the
hands of strangers, and present me with two handsome men who would
fuck me in a second. Alone and starved for the sexual attention I
need almost constantly – it’s the perfect condition for
infidelity.