The Dollhouse Society: Margo (8 page)

“Do you mean that?” I said softly against his mouth. I couldn’t seem to stop kissing him.

“More than anything, Margo,” he said, cradling me against him, touching my hair, and for the first time in my life I felt really safe, protected. Like nothing could ever hurt me.  “But there is one thing I would like to ask.”

“Yes, of course. Anything!” I told him, still riding our wave of euphoria.

He went to one knee the way a courtier should and reached for a ring box in his tuxedo pocket. I felt my heart catch as he opened it for me to see. It was a beautiful ring, set with a moonstone, traditionally a wedding gift that the Romans and ancient Greeks offered their most beloved. “Will milady let me protect and service her both as her courtier
and
her husband for the rest of my life?”

I felt my eyes fill with tears. I felt them close up my throat, steal my voice.

“May I take that as a yes?” Robert asked, a wry twinkle in his eyes.

I extended my hand and he set the ring on my fingers. Then he kissed it to the roaring applause of the whole Society.

***

About the Author

Eden Myles lives in the rural northeast with her family and two demanding cats. She is a vixen with a laptop and the head whip-cracker at Courtesan Press. To see all of her titles, visit
http://courtesanpress.wordpress.com
.

***

Bonus Story

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

by Jay Ellison

“Fuck, yeah, that feels so good,” Devon said. He ran both wet hands down Malcolm’s back, massaging the slick, strong muscles there and grunting as Malcolm wrecked yet another upward thrust deep inside his body. Shower water beat against Malcolm’s back, creating a shimmering veil of droplets that caught Devon in the face each time Malcolm’s powerful thrusts forced Devon’s back up the slick, tiled wall of their walk-in shower.

Malcolm nipped the front of his throat. “Like that, my pet?” he growled familiarly and pressed his smile into the side of Devon’s throat as he worked them both up to climax, hard and fast, the way Devon preferred. He was not a patient man by nature. He worked hard and fast, and he came hard and fast.

“Bloody hell,” Devon groaned as Malcolm sucked in a bite of supersensitive skin just under his ear and slid his greedy hand around Devon’s ramrod stiff cock. Through half closed eyes, Devon watched their shadows merging and writhing on the wall opposite. Then he dropped his eyes to the man he loved, the water beading and sluicing in rivulets down the cleft between Malcolm’s pecs, wetting the mat of curly dark hair there, sprinkled with virile silver.

Malcolm had never much favored his own appearance. He thought he was too fat, too hairy, too old, too much of everything disagreeable, though Devon had repeatedly tried to assure him he was perfect, everything he wanted, everything he needed. But Malcolm was a stubborn old git—perhaps not traditionally handsome, but still beautiful inside, generous, loving. And he could fuck like a bunny, even for a man in his mid-fifties. Devon sometimes had trouble keeping up with him, especially when he got into the adult toy chest they kept in their bedroom.

Devon’s eyes then dropped to his hand resting on his gentleman’s shoulder. Over the nearly ten years of their relationship, Malcolm had bought him so many items of jewelry that almost every one of his fingers bore a ring, all of different, but equal, significance. Except the ring finger on his right hand, which was deliberately bare, though Malcolm had never questioned Devon’s eccentricity. Perhaps it had not occurred to him that Brits wore their wedding rings on their right hands.

Malcolm gripped his ass as they fucked, massaged the firmness of his flesh. Devon raised his hips and Malcolm plunged home—deeper, harder, than even Devon was used to. He gasped at the depth and intensity. It had been a very long time since they had enjoyed such rough sex outside the Dollhouse. Devon came with a lunge in that moment, grunting and gripping Malcolm’s shoulders, his come gushing against Malcolm’s thick but solid belly, and Malcolm growled and came deep inside his body, filling him, subjugating him, loving him as only Malcolm was capable of.

Out beyond their penthouse apartment, they heard the bells of St. Patrick’s ringing, indicating midnight. Christmas Eve was officially over, and Christmas Day had begun. Devon wondered if anything would change between them today…after he asked Malcolm to marry him.

***

When Devon Grayson was sixteen years old, and Malcolm Sloan thirty-six, Devon tried to lift his wallet. Malcolm was standing in line for an early screening of
The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
in Times Square with his date Richard when the young ruffian lurched into him from behind. Malcolm, a native New Yorker, immediately knew what that meant.

“Shit,” he breathed under his breath, and Richard looked over at him in question. Malcolm clapped his trouser pockets, turned and searched the crowd with narrow eyes. He spotted what looked like a young fence with canary yellow hair elbowing through the crowds of people.

He considered pursuing the kid for exactly one-point-five seconds, then realized he would never, ever catch the kid. He wasn’t in bad shape, but the kid was lean and determined, and he moved between passersby like greased lightning. Instead, he reached for his cell phone and put a call in to the police.

He didn’t expect anything to come of it. Nothing usually did. But he had recently been promoted to VP of Harper House, the second biggest publisher in New York (in fact, he was here tonight to celebrate his promotion with Richard) and he didn’t anticipate that when he told the police his name, they would scramble like dogfighters to retrieve his lost property.

Two hours later, as he and Richard were sitting down at a private VIP table at the Royal, a very exclusive bistro on Central Park West, his cell rang again. The police had caught the pickpocket.

Malcolm went downtown to retrieve his lost property. The Chief of Police was there, and he treated Malcolm like royalty. For Malcolm, who had spent over ten years as a middleman, editing and marketing his way up the ranks, the reaction was strangely intoxicating.

“If you want to press charges, we’ll send the bugger up the river. He already has a rap sheet a mile long,” the Chief informed him. His mouth was virtually watering at the prospects of sticking it to the kid.

Malcolm gave it exactly three seconds of thought. He had always been a decisive man, the main reason he had climbed to the top of the dog pile in this town. He knew what he wanted, and he wasn’t afraid to go after it. “No,” he said, though he had no idea what exactly was prompting him to be so compassionate tonight.

Maybe it was the promotion, the buoyant feeling of power he was experiencing, and the gnawing feeling at the back of his mind that with great power comes great responsibility, as clichéd as that sounded. Maybe it was just his upbringing—he had been raised by a single mother who had worked as a hotel maid for forty years to give him an education and a chance at a better life than she’d had. He felt he still owed his mother by doing something good for others.

Whatever the reason, something about the situation bothered him. “No. I’d like to see the kid.”

The Chief raised his bushy eyebrows in surprise. “As you will,” he said and led Malcolm out into the holding cells.

They had put the pickpocket in the drunk tank instead of the pen. Malcolm soon realized why.

He was young, and rail thin, and poor, and ragged. A strong wind could have knocked him over, and he wouldn’t have lasted a minute at the hands of an angry New York rough. He looked cold in an Army surplus jacket that didn’t really fit his rangy limbs. His nails were black with grime and his knuckles broken and bleeding from the cold. His combat boots were full of newspaper. Malcolm immediately knew he had made the right decision.

The kid gave Malcolm a wary look as the Chief let him inside the tank. Three other drunks lay snoring against the walls, but none of them stirred as Malcolm approached the boy sitting on the bottom bunk, scraping at the grime on his thumbnail.

For Devon Grayson, Malcolm Sloan epitomized everything he hated in this world. The bloke looked bloody rich and arrogant, the typical New York Wallstreet type, forgettable in a crowd, of medium height and build, with brown hair professionally tousled and grey eyes. He was built solid, and doing the best he could with his negligible good looks, but he didn’t look especially dangerous. Still, Devon shrank back on the bunk as the man approached. He had learned through hard experience that looks could often be very deceiving. You couldn’t trust anyone, not even your old man.

Malcolm offered the kid his hand and his name. “We weren’t properly introduced when you stole my wallet,” he said and Devon stared at the offered hand. Generally speaking, people avoided touching him unless they absolutely had to, or they were paying for it.

“Whatever, gov,” Devon said dismissively.

Malcolm blinked. The kid was giving him a bored, worldly expression, but his eyes told another story. He could tell the kid had been there. He was scared. And hungry. And bitter. Under all the grime and flippant bravado, the kid was frightened half to death that Malcolm would put him away, where he’d be roughly processed through the system and probably spend the next six months being violated by his cellmate. “You’re British,” Malcolm said in an attempt to calm the kid.

“What difference does it make?” the kid asked. “You like dicking limeys?”

Malcolm sat down beside the kid, who immediately inched away. “I’m just wondering why you’re so far from home. London, isn’t it?”

“You some social worker?”

“No.”

“Then why the fuck to you care?”

“Settle down, punk,” the Chief said from the other side of the bars.

Malcolm turned to him and said, “Could you leave us alone a moment?”

“With him?” The Chief looked appalled.

“Do you really think he’s capable of doing anything to me?” Malcolm asked.

With a shrug, the Chief walked away.

Malcolm turned back to the kid with the canary yellow hair. Under the grime and panic, he was cute, and he had beautiful, cornflower blue eyes. He resisted the urge to pat the boy’s knee. He didn’t do jailbait. “Look, pet, I know you’ve probably been through hell. But some advice? If you’re going to pick a pocket, you might not want to dye your hair Tweety Bird color. It makes you stand out.”

“Sure, gov,” the kid said, staring at his feet. “You pick pockets?” He made it sound sarcastic, but Malcolm could tell he was genuinely curious.

“I used to, when I was younger. I didn’t have much to eat, growing up.”

“I know how that is. Your folks beat you too?”

Malcolm felt a spike of sickness in his belly. He wished there was something more he could do, but he wasn’t sure what that was, and he’d decided taking the kid home with him would be very bad. With a sigh, he dug out the thousand dollars he had secreted away in a hidden compartment of his coat pocket, kept there as emergency money (say, for instance, for when someone lifted his wallet) and laid it on the bunk beside the kid. “Buy yourself some food, some better clothes, and go to a shelter tonight, all right? There’s one down on Madison Avenue, near the Laundromat. I just know there will be snow tonight, and you’ll be cold out there, and I don’t want to worry about you. Will you do that?”

The kid looked at the money but didn’t immediately touch it. He said in a low voice, “You didn’t answer my question, gov. Why the hell do you care?”

“Jesus, kid,” Malcolm said as he stood up. “Why wouldn’t I?”

The kid looked up. Malcolm knew from the police report that his name was Devon Grayson, he was sixteen years old, and he had an arrest record for pickpocketing, assault, and prostitution. Jesus. Malcolm feared what would become of him in this town.

Impulsively, he brushed his thumb across the grime on Devon’s cheek. “I gotta get out of here before I break the law.” He winked at Devon. “Try and make something of yourself, kid.”

That night, as Malcolm made love to Richard on his new king-sized bed in the new penthouse apartment he had rented, he felt the satisfaction of having done a good deed—of having done the kid right.

Devon.

Devon Grayson. A sixteen-year-old juvenile delinquent from the East End of London.

He did not expect to ever see Devon Grayson again. In fact, he knew it in his heart.

But he was wrong.

***

When Malcolm Sloan was forty-one years old, he came home early to his penthouse apartment one day to find Shane, the guy he’d dumped Richard for three years ago, in bed with their housekeeper, Juanita. Malcolm wasn’t sure what hurt more, the fact that Shane was a cheater or that Shane had sworn on his mother’s grave that he was gay, not bi, and definitely not straight.

“Malc, wait!” Shane, a marketing exec originally from Kentucky, shouted.

Malcolm threw his briefcase at Shane’s head. Shane ducked in time, and his briefcase collided with a bedside lamp, knocking it to the floor.

Malcolm felt a wash of relief. Despite his lover’s infidelity, he didn’t really want to hurt Shane. It had never been his way. He even felt a little ashamed for reacting so childishly. His mother, God rest her soul, had once told him that a real man knows how to control himself as well as his environment. The philosophy had served him well in life. Maybe not in love, but definitely in business.