Her Grace's Stable: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 2 (15 page)

The muscles slowly relaxed around her ribcage. Drained, she put herself together as well as she could. She couldn’t do much about the deathly pallor of her cheeks, but she tucked the bloody evidence away and smoothed the dampened strands of hair off her forehead. She pressed the call button and Mr. Chumlee’s thin, sharply angled face immediately appeared on the screen.

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“Send Cole to my study as quickly as possible and ready a carriage for him. I need him to run an urgent errand.”

“Of course, Your Grace. He’s en route to you now.”

Sorry Arthur
, she thought, allowing her head to fall back against the chair wearily.
I have no choice but to bring our personal battle to a head.

Tonight.

Arthur was both disappointed and relieved to find Lady Blackmyre alone in the ring. If he acted on his desires with Cole, how could he refuse the mistress who’d brought them together? Besides, everything Cole experienced or heard would be shared with her. She was too deeply entrenched in everything the man said or did or felt. Eventually, she’d reel Arthur in through the other man and then where would he be?

Trapped beneath the mistress’s boot once and for all.

It was a very pretty boot too. Despite the iron heart powering her formidable will, she somehow managed to look fragile. Her translucent skin matched the pristine white of her shirt, and she’d chosen to wear her hair loose down her back, gathered in a simple ribbon. Feminine and soft, her siren call set a fire in his blood that was just as compelling as the urge to roll Cole beneath him.

He wanted to wrap his big hand around her throat and drag her to the ground. He’d take her here in the dirt, wild and out of control.

Clenching his hands into fists, he fought back the raw desire rising in him. This is what he’d feared for so long. The more games he played, the more violent his needs became. He’d killed the last woman he’d gotten his hands on. Granted, she’d been torturing him for days before he’d finally broken free. He’d done his best to split Cole in half—his own words.

How can this little slip of a woman think to keep me in control when I could flatten her with a single blow?

That old, familiar rage began boiling to life in him—the urge to destroy everything in his path until he was free. She’d never bound or penned him in any way. She’d certainly never used pain to drive him insane. He was free to go whenever he wished. But he felt chained, as trapped as surely as if she’d locked him in a dungeon.

He should have stayed in his old life. At least then he’d been safe. He’d never even thought about hurting someone. Granted, there’d never been fireworks between him and Kitty, but it’d been normal. Safe. He could have married her and given heirs to her House.

While I died a little more inside every single day.

“What do you think?”

He jerked his gaze to Blackmyre’s face, unsure what she meant. She inclined her head at the table. A pile of glossy black hair lay curled on top.

His heart skipped a beat and then leapt into a frantic gallop that left him lightheaded. She’d done it. A tail.

“As full and long as it is, I’m afraid every black horse in Londonium must be running about bald.” She picked it up, letting him see all that glorious length, combing her fingers through it. “Only the best for my magnificent stallion. All you have to do is ask me for it.”

Fury ignited with his lust until he seethed, a mass of conflicting emotions that made absolutely no sense. He wanted that tail shoved up inside him, burned to be a pony, a real pony like Cole. Yet he hated it. He hated what it represented. He hated her.

I never wanted this.

I never wanted her.

Which he knew was the biggest lie he’d ever tried to convince himself.

“Come stand at the ready for your harness. If you want anything else, tell me.”

Rage made him grind his teeth and clench his fists, even while he went to stand where she indicated.
No speaking. No tail. It’s as easy as that.

The bloody thing held his gaze like a poisonous but glorious cobra he dared not take his eye off.

Her hand came up to his face, startling him enough that he nearly shied away as he hadn’t done since the beginning. Not offended, she merely smiled and showed him the bit. “Would you rather have a halter today?”

He opened his mouth wide, showing his teeth. Laughing softly, she slipped the bit inside, uncaring of that sharp threat. His gums throbbed almost as badly as his groin, aching to bite her again. He’d loved biting Cole, pinning him beneath him. Biting her had been a victory. He’d managed to rattle her control.

Naturally, I ought to do it again.

Without pausing to think, he darted his head down toward the expanse of creamy throat tempting him.

A sharp jerk on the bridle kept him from his target. Metal clanked painfully on his teeth, leather squeezing his head.

“My, my, someone’s feeling naughty today.” As soon as he ceased trying to lower his head, she released her grip on the top of the bridle and let it settle into place on his head. “You don’t get the martingale then.”

She turned away, giving him her back, and headed to the center of the ring.

Damn it, I hate it when she does that. She ought to keep her eye on me. She ought to fear me.

Like a meek little pony he followed, simmering at his own inability to strike out. Automatically, he started at a quick clip to her right as they always did, but a sharp snap from the whip sent him wheeling the opposite direction. He glared at her with the one eye she allowed him. When he tried to look at her full-on, she gave him another warning flick with the whip.

Play by her rules or the game is over.

Pressure boiled higher. His heartbeat thundered in his head so loudly he couldn’t hear his steps. The tinkling of his harness would have helped provide a calming music, but she’d withdrawn that small pleasure. At any time, she could take off his bridle too. She could throw the whip down and walk out of the ring, leaving him here alone.

He wasn’t a stallion—as she called him—if she wasn’t here.

She makes me the pony. Without her…I’m just a violent, damaged man.

The whip caught him in the shoulder and he snarled out his frustration. She made him change directions, back and forth, snapping that whip tantalizingly close but never hurting him. Just a lick. A sweet warning. When he wanted that throbbing sharp cut across his shoulder.

So I can charge her. See how many times she can catch me with that whip before I’m on her. Does she think the whip will keep me back if I’m determined to get her?

Rivulets of sweat dripped down his chest and his trousers felt like they were shrinking, binding him tighter and tighter. His breathing sawed in and out, a loud, rough growl of air that he couldn’t control.

Lady Blackmyre held her arms out to either side, her signal for him to swing around and come to her.

He stalked toward her as ordered, but he couldn’t understand why she dared call him in. Steam rose off him in waves, a shimmer of aggression and violence she’d have to be blind not to see.

“You’re awfully nervous tonight, Arthur.”

It was all he could do not to wrap his hands around her throat and shake some sense into her. His face hurt from keeping his mouth clamped shut. In fact, his whole body hurt.

She checked the bridle, her lip caught in her teeth. Another taunt of something he couldn’t have. “Is it pinching you to put you in such a nasty mood?”

He snapped at her fingers but missed, which only infuriated him more. He shouldered into her space and nipped at her throat again, but all he caught was a bite of shirt.

She stabbed him in the chest with the whip handle. “Back up, Arthur. You have to respect my space as I respect your limits.”

Lowering his head, he pushed his body closer, ignoring the scrape of the leather-wrapped handle digging into his gut.

“Oh, I see. I’m sorry you’re displeased with the tail. Don’t worry, pet, you don’t have to wear it. I thought you liked Cole’s or I never would have ordered one for you too. I’ll send it back first thing in the morning.”

He threw his head back and strained not to yell at the top of his lungs. Even knowing she had to be playing obtuse on purpose just to piss him off didn’t help curb his temper. Too many passions raged inside him. Fury and desire trampled his pride, destroying all the achievements he’d won over the years. To be brought so low, and so needy, by the thought of a silly horse tail…

His hands dropped to his trousers of their own accord. He yanked at the closure, ripping material to get some relief. He didn’t care if she reprimanded him for using his hands. The schoolmistress had whipped him bloody for such an offense.

Lady Blackmyre merely watched, her brows arched coolly and that damnable smile flickering on her lips. “You’re going to have a hard time getting those trousers off when you’re wearing boots.”

Growling, he dropped to the ground and dragged his boots off. His stockings. Worked the tight legs loose so he could stand and strip the itchy, miserable cocoon off his body. The linen drawers were cooler but he stripped them off too.
Might as well give her the entire show.

He’d make it clear with his actions that he didn’t want to leave. He certainly didn’t want her to send that bloody tail back.

Tapping her index finger to her pursed lips, she made a slow circle around him. “Very nice, Arthur. Those haunches! Such power and strength. And such a lovely, thick cock. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a pony better hung than you. No wonder Cole felt like you were tearing him apart.”

That’s nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you.

He flinched at the thought, relieved that he had never spoken to her. The head of his cock brushed his stomach and his breath hissed out. The relief he’d given himself before even thinking about coming to the ring felt like days ago, not an hour. His ballocks felt like they hung down to his knees, swollen with lust.

He didn’t want to court her. He didn’t want to make love to her in a civilized bed as a polite and proper partner.

He wanted to fuck her as hard and long as he could, and if she screamed and struggled, all the better.

What’s wrong with me?

Chapter Fourteen

He’s almost ready to break.

She took no pleasure in watching him fall apart. Forcing him to break his word could destroy a man. She had to believe that Arthur was stronger than that. In the end, he would understand why she’d been so hard on him. Why she’d refused to give up on him.

If I don’t make him fall apart, I can’t help him put the pieces of his life back together.

The toll was almost as hard on her as it was for him. If he was a mass of sweaty, straining muscle and the promise of rumbling violence, she was ice, hard and cold and sharp as she had to be. She wanted to cup his cheeks and bring his head down to hers, not torment him. He wanted to be a pony so badly he couldn’t take his eyes off the tail.

That tail represented everything for him. He wouldn’t be a pony without it. He’d never be complete. Yet she refused to give it to him until he broke, which he believed would destroy him utterly. Live incomplete the rest of his life, wishing he’d had the courage to submit to her fully, or murder his ego and confidence? The dilemma was tearing him apart and it hurt her to watch it. To cause it. Because every single verbal, physical and mental prod was deliberate.

I have to take him where he’d never willingly go. No one else in his life can do this for him.

She gave him a flirtatious wink and headed for the table.

He followed, bumping into her, his excitement driving him to dare rub himself against her. She allowed it, though it made her blood pulse heavily in her veins. It was all too easy to think about letting him fall upon her, all rage and violence and magnificent power thrusting between her thighs.

Concentrating on keeping her breathing as regular and easy as possible to avoid a coughing attack, she picked up her newest implement of torturous delight. From a thick leather belt, the craftsman had hung varying lengths and thicknesses of chains. Arthur heard the musical clamor and trembled against her. As she buckled the leather about his waist, the cold links of metal fell about his cock, a sweet torment that made his breath a heavy growl in his throat.

But she kept her touch clinical. No physical touching, no sexual inference, no matter how much she wanted to measure his girth with her hand.

The belt kindly provided rear access for his tail. She placed her palm in the small of his back, high enough to keep her promise. He vibrated with anxious excitement.

“I had this made especially for you. Do you like it?”

He gave a little shimmy with his hips that tinkled the chains all about him, drawing another rough, desperate sound from his throat.

“I take that as a yes. Good. I’m pleased that you like it.” She pressed against his back for a moment, letting him feel the hardness of her nipples. “I’m just sorry you don’t like that glorious tail. It would look incredible surrounded by all that silver chain.”