The Devil's Touch (10 page)

Angelica felt the tempo of Lucien’s thrusts intensify until finally reaching a crescendo. He cried out and Angelica’s voice joined with him, their bodies locked together, riding the peak of his pleasure as his muscles seized then pulsed, and her own body writhed to receive him.

It was a long time before Angelica could speak, and her voice was small and bewildered.

“I don’t know what… what came over me.” She was horrified by the almost painful intensity of her own arousal. She lifted her eyes to his and saw a gleam of masculine understanding in his sardonic gaze. “I lost control of myself.”

“I liked it,” Lucien said.

Angelica looked surprised. “You did?”

He nodded. “Angel, when you lose control, it makes it easier for me to take control.”

* * *

By the time Angelica tottered sleepily from her bed the next morning Lucien was already dressed, had already eaten breakfast.

“Good morning.”

Angelica smiled shyly. “Morning.”

Lucien’s cell phone rang suddenly and he snatched it off the table.

“Lance.”

He listened intently for several minutes, his facial expression never changing. When the caller finished speaking, Lucien reached into his briefcase and found a thick sheaf of Xeroxed documents. He scanned them quickly. “No,” he said. “That is bullshit, Marv. Go back and tell those spineless bastards that they either sign before 9am or I will go out into the market and take bids on all my insurances. Understand?” He hung up on the caller and tossed his phone and the paperwork back into the briefcase. He glanced at his watch. Angelica sensed the restless energy in him.

“I have meetings,” he said. “I won’t be back until late.”

Angelica nodded.

“I’ve arranged for you to buy whatever clothes and lingerie you want from the boutique in the lobby. Ask for Rebecca. She’s expecting you this morning.” He handed her a hotel business card and she nodded again.

“Then I want you to do what you do best; research. Go online, read – do whatever you need to get a better understanding of what life as a submissive is all about, and what it takes to please a Master. We’ll talk when I get back.”

Then he was gone, striding purposefully through the door with his shoulders back and all his attention on the day ahead.

Angelica spent a long time in the bathroom before eating breakfast and dressing.

The boutique was like a small upmarket department store. Rebecca was a tall willowy red-headed woman in her late forties. She spent two hours with Angelica, and by the time she returned to the penthouse she had bought several elegant dresses and three sets of delicate lingerie.

After lunch she went online and for the rest of the day she immersed herself in the culture of submission. Her first task was to download several of the latest erotic romance bestsellers to the computer. Then she began to search blogs and forums, peeling away the superficial layers of misapprehension and gradually delving deeper into understanding the minds and the needs of women who submit – and the men who dominate them.

Angelica’s first shock was to discover just how widespread was the interest in the subject. The internet was brimming with sites where legions of women shared their own fantasies and desires, and lamented just how few men understood the skills required of a true Master. From bored middle-aged housewives to teenage girls – the instinct to submit sexually to a dominant man seemed to Angelica to be a social epidemic.

Then she turned to the bestselling fiction books she had downloaded. Some of these titles had been the catalyst for a huge upsurge in interest in submission, driven by women who had grown tired of courtesy and consideration in the bedroom. She skimmed them first, then started on the other books until, with a small shock, she realized it was late afternoon. Nightfall was fast approaching.

Angelica turned on lights and ordered a Caesar salad from room service. Then she went back to reading, scribbling notes with the stub of a pencil on a pad at her elbow.

When Lucien came back through the door it was well after 8pm. He looked weary. He had loosened his tie, unfastened his collar button, and Angelica could see the faint smudges of fatigue under his eyes.

Lucien took paperwork from his briefcase and carried it across to his desk, glancing briefly at the first page before dropping the bundle into a wire waste bin while he went to pour himself a large whisky. He brought the drink back with him. He shrugged out of his jacket and threw it carelessly across the sofa, and he stood beside Angelica in shirtsleeves sipping at the drink, his shoulders hunched as he stared over her shoulder to the computer screen.

Angelica looked up at him.

“So, what did you discover about submission?”

Angelica showed him the thumbed pages of her notebook, covered with line after line of her neat rounded handwriting. In some places words and phrases had been underlined.

Lucien finished his drink in a single gulp and sprawled in a leather chair, his legs thrust out straight in front of him and crossed at the ankles, his hands buried deep in his pockets. “Tell me,” he said.

Angelica turned on her seat to face him and she began to share her thoughts, occasionally referring to her notes, but otherwise speaking from the memory of what she had learned.

“I had no idea so many women around the world were so fascinated with domination and submission,” she said. “When you told me about your interest I couldn’t believe any woman would be interested in submitting herself to a man’s sexual pleasure. Now, after what I have experienced, and what I have read today, I can’t understand how any woman
wouldn’t
want to submit.”

Lucien grinned. “There will always be the hairy-armpitted feminists who will provide a vocal minority of shock and derision,” he said. “But you can’t convince everyone.”

“I was one of those feminists,” Angelica admitted. “Without the hairy armpits. But my ideas on the subject were based on my ignorance. I know that now. I didn’t understand – and what we don’t understand usually scares us, so we reject it.”

Lucien grunted, but he was silently impressed. Angelica’s mind was quick and she was willing to learn and re-form her opinions based on new information. Lucien knew a lot of people who were older but less wise.

“And it seems to be a phenomenon that spans the whole world and every adult generation,” Angelica added. “Women worldwide seem to be discovering submission as an erotic fantasy.”

Now Lucien shook his head in disagreement. “You’re talking like submission and domination are things that your generation invented,” he said. “These people aren’t discovering something new, Angelica. We’re talking about a sexual revolution, but by its very name revolution suggests revolving. Master and submissive have been the roles of men and women since the dawn of time. It’s just becoming fashionable again.”

She nodded, conceding the point, but then came back at him with a new thought, and they talked on through the evening.

Lucien was surprised at the way Angelica was able to present her arguments so coherently, so thoughtfully. On many issues they disagreed, and they jousted and joked until the point was lost, and a new subject arose that sparked more debate and discussion.

“It seems to me that women are willing,” Angelica said. She checked her notes and then went on. “There are many forums and social media sites on the internet where women openly share their romantic desires for a man to sweep them off their feet and make them submit. And it’s the subject of every erotic romance book I downloaded…”

“But…?” Lucien prompted her, lowering his chin onto his chest thoughtfully.

“But the men in their lives don’t seem to fit the bill – either romantically or emotionally.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning there aren’t enough men like you in the world, Lucien.”

Angelica smiled. Lucien didn’t – and Angelica realized quickly that she had touched on an issue that Lucien Lance felt strongly about. He sat up in the chair before he spoke.

“The world went to hell when men started wearing make-up,” he declared. “Suddenly we had a whole generation of men putting ‘product’ in their hair and spending their days in front of a mirror or in some kind of support group talking about their feelings and sobbing on each other’s shoulders. You can’t kill off every lion in the jungle and then complain when you feel frisky.”

Angelica bridled. “You’re blaming women? You’re saying women are to blame?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “That’s completely sexist!”

“Yes,” Lucien agreed. “Maybe it is. And maybe it’s arrogance – but I make no apologies for being right.”

There was a spark of defiance in Angelica’s eye. “Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true.”

Lucien came up out of his chair. “Yes. It does,” he said, and prowled across the room and hauled Angelica out of her chair. She seemed to melt in his arms. She looked up into his face and saw the hunger in his eyes. “Oh, my…” she whispered.

Lucien kissed her fiercely, and his hands were all over her body. He cupped her breasts in his hands and Angelica came up onto her toes and arched her back for him.

He took her then, pushing her up against the floor-to-ceiling windows, her palms flat against the cold glass, standing with her legs spread wide and with his hands on her waist as he plunged himself into her from behind. She thrust back her hips for him, feeling completely filled as she gazed out at the breathtakingly beautiful view of the city’s twinkling lights.

Much later he took her to his bed, and discovered that she had shaved herself for him.

And in the early hours of the morning Angelica discovered – to her wondrous dismay – that Lucien had been right about one thing at least.

Now that she was shaved smooth, the Devil’s Touch felt even more intense.

The next evening Lucien returned later, but in a more upbeat mood. He came through the door brimming with energy and he listened attentively as Angelica told him about the research she had done in his absence. She demonstrated two kneeling positions that submissives adopted in the presence of their Masters, and he laughed lightly when she blushingly described some of the more outrageous scenes she had read in a particular novel.

She was wearing a simple blue tank-top and black lace panties. She wore no bra, and her hair was bundled atop her head so that Lucien had an unobstructed view of her breasts and hardened nipples as she moved about the room. The panties were brief, the fabric sheer, and he watched her covertly, surprised at the clench of arousal he felt at the end of such a long day.

He caught her arm as she came past his chair and she stopped instantly, a small knowing feminine smile touched at her lips.

“You’re very beautiful, Angel,” he said. “Do you take after your mother?”

Angelica turned to him. He pulled her down on to the chair’s leather armrest and his hand fell possessively across her thighs.

“I don’t know,” Angelica said softly. She looked down into his face and shook her head. “She died when I was four. I never really knew her.”

“Your father raised you?”

“Yes. I’m originally from New England. My father and I moved here after mom died. He sold electrical goods. He worked himself to death so I could get an education.”

Lucien frowned. “You have no family?”

“No.”

“How did you get involved in this business – and how did you get involved with someone like Duncan Charleton?”

Angelica made a sad, pained face. “I was doing temp secretarial work for a company. When the bank needed additional staff, the agency sent me. Once I started there, I never left. The work kept on coming and so I was offered full time employment.”

“Working for Duncan Charleton?”

“Yes. He was my boss – but it wasn’t what you think. It didn’t happen that way.”

Lucien went to the bar and poured himself a drink. He was starting to come off the adrenalin high that followed a full day of tense negotiations. Now, quite suddenly, he felt tired and lethargic. He crossed to the windows and stared down at the city far below. He could still see the soft smudge of one of Angelica’s palm prints on the glass from where she had stood the night before.

Angelica watched him in silence for a long time. He was an impressive man. His presence was almost a physical thing. She’d never known a man like him.

“What about you, Lucien? Are you like your father?”

He turned back to her then, and there was a reply on his lips but he paused, and instead of speaking immediately he sipped at his drink, swirling the whisky.

“No,” he said at last.

Suddenly Angelica regretted the question. He had come home happy and vital, and now she had stirred regrets and memories within him and she wished she could take the moment back. She sat motionless and saw a haunted look pass like a shadow across his eyes. Angelica felt suddenly chill.

“My father was a big man,” Lucien said. “When I was a boy he was larger than life. I idolized him. He was tough as teak. Some of the stories he told me…” he broke off for a moment and shook his head ruefully. “And I believed everything he said. The Old Man’s word was like the Gospel. Then, when I was older, I woke up one day and suddenly, somehow, he seemed to have changed. I didn’t understand at first. He looked the same, but he wasn’t the same. Finally I realized that I was the one who had changed. I’d grown up. That’s when I realized the Old Man wasn’t tough, he was weak. He wasn’t strong, he was weak. He wasn’t always right – he was weak. Loneliness made him that way. It destroyed him. It destroyed Lance Corporation. The Old Man’s loneliness was his weakness. He couldn’t stand on his own, so he bought friendship and companionship – and paid for it with everything we owned.”

“Is… is that why you are the way you are? Is that why you’re so driven? Why you became a Master?” Angelica whispered.

Lucien stared back down into his glass for a long time as though the answer might be there. “Perhaps,” he said without looking up.

There was another long silence before he finally lifted his eyes to Angelica.