Dark Mercy (3 page)

“Is this…representative of what goes here?” she asked, struggling to find words.

“Everyone has different desires, and we cater to them all,” Richard said.

The woman’s moans sounded from the speakers mounted on either side of the room. The more urgent her cries became the farther Geoffrey Stark drew back the silk scarf. Soon it was pulled so brutally tight that the woman struggled not to be dragged away from the source of her pleasure.

Cassandra stood transfixed as the woman looked up at her tormentor with wide pleading eyes.

“Is she in pain?” Cassandra asked.

“No more than she wants to be. This is her fantasy, and she can stop it at any time.” Richard inched closer. He was nearly pressed against her now. Cassandra knew exactly how inappropriate this was. She shouldn’t be alone with him. She should be putting as much distance as she could between them, and fighting to regain her reason.

She should be, but she wasn’t.

“Does that happen? Do people ask for it to stop?” she asked.

“Not often, but sometimes. All she has to do is say her safeword, and it will all stop.” Richard moved behind her. His breath was hot on the exposed skin of her neck. “But she won’t. If I know anything, it is the look of a woman that has found ecstasy. Look at her, Cassandra. What do you see?”

Cassandra focused on the woman. Her eyes were wild with passion. Her chest rose and fell with each panting breath. Every inch of her body was stretched tight, pleading for release, as the man between her legs lapped at her clit.

“Let me come, sir. Please let me come.” The woman’s voice echoed in the cramped room.

The man wrenched up on the silk and forced the woman to stand. He bent her over the armrest of the couch, handed off the reins, and unbuckled his belt.

Cassandra gasped as Richard pressed his chest against her back. Cassandra propped her palms against the flat panel of glass in front of her. She started to turn her head to the side as the man in the next room lowered his pants, but Richard wrapped his fingers around her ponytail. He held her head still.

“Watch her, Cassandra.” Richard’s lips caressed the sensitive flesh of earlobe, and she shivered. “Don’t turn away.”

“It doesn’t seem right, watching this without her consent.” Her voice was a ragged whisper.

“She knows we’re here. That’s part of the fantasy. She wants you to watch as much as you do.”

“But I don’t—” All of her protests stopped the moment that Geoffrey’s cock sprung free. It was long and thick, and Cassandra felt a shock of shame at the primal want she felt at the sight of it. She swallowed a moan when, in a single thrust, he buried it deep inside the woman’s cunt.

Richard kept his grasp on her hair. There was no pain. Not yet. Deeply buried desires rushed to the surface, making her wish that he would pull tighter. Make her squirm. Make her scream.

His lips touched the back of her neck. She pushed back against him. Her ass pressed into his groin. Cassandra felt the hard outline of his cock through his clothes. Her pussy clenched.

As Cassandra watched the scene in front of her, Richard rubbed his other hand over her waist and stomach, up to the curve of her breast. She wished her would stroke against the painfully hard peak of her nipple, but he stopped short.

Desire sharpened to a fine point inside Cassandra. The woman’s moans became her own. But as the other woman inched closer to release, Cassandra’s frustration only grew. Every nerve in her body felt alive, craving the stimulation she dared not ask for.

“Is that what you want?” Richard asked as the man began to pull his cock all the way out before slamming it home again.

Cassandra wet her lips. She nodded. True, her breath was ragged, but she couldn’t deny that it was cowardice that kept her from answering him aloud.

“Liar.” His voice was cold. His grip on her ponytail tightened. A bolt of hot pain flashed across her scalp as he jerked her head back. “You hunger for something darker. Much darker. I sensed it in you as I watched you standing outside the Arsenal. I saw it the second that you walked into my room.”

Cassandra closed her eyes, but the sound of the woman’s pleasured cries invaded her ears, wearing her down.

“All those secret desires, Cassandra, all the ones you’ve been afraid to admit to, you want me to fulfill them, don’t you?”

Cassandra tried to nod, but her held her too tight.

“Say it,” he whispered in her ear.

“Yes.” Her voice shook as much as her body.

He released her hair and wrapped his hand around her upper arm instead.

“Then come with me.” He didn’t have to use any of his coiled strength to guide her. She followed him willingly. Once they reached the main floor, he tried to continue down the stairs. Only then did she pull back.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Down.”

“What’s down there?” He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. He was in control. His fingers didn’t even have to tighten around her arm to draw her down into the dim light of the Arsenal’s basement.

Cassandra stepped onto the poured concrete floor of the lower level. All the other floors may have been renovated to opulent comfort, but not this one. The walls were little more than exposed stone and wood beams. The only light came from single bulbs dangling from wires overhead. A hundred and fifty years ago this had been the Arsenal’s dungeon. It still was.

“Is it ready?” Richard called out down the narrow hallway.

Cassandra peeked out from around his shoulder to see Marcus leaning against a far wall.

“Of course,” Marcus said. He stepped away from an old metal door as Richard approached. Cassandra wasn’t tall enough to see through the small barred window cut in its center. Rust flaked from the hinges as Richard pulled on a bar that locked the door from the outside. It looked incredibly heavy, but he opened it effortlessly.

Cassandra’s mouth fell open as Richard ushered her inside. This was the Iron Room. She’d seen it a thousand times in her mind, though she’d never known its name. It was the center of every forbidden fantasy she’d ever had.

The floor was bare, the walls reinforced with iron plates. Other than the single chair in the corner of the room, the wood table laid out with an assortment of tools, and the single chain dangling from the ceiling, the room was stark. It was nothing more than a stripped holding cell.

“Do you know where you are?” Richard asked. His tone was as intense as his stare.

Cassandra nodded slowly as if she were under some erotic spell.

“And you know what is going to happen? If you don’t want it, say it now.”

Of her own free will, Cassandra stepped into the center of the room. The sound of her speeding pulse rushed in her ears. Her hands shook, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t try to hide it.

“I want this,” she said.

“Good. So do I,” Richard said with a predatory gleam in his smile. “Ready her for me, Marcus.”

Richard turned his back to her as he began to unbutton his shirt.

 "Leather or metal?" Marcus asked, but the question wasn’t directed to her. She’d given up her right to choose.

"Leather, I think, Marcus. She needs something alive against her skin."

Marcus pulled a pair of tanned cuffs bound together with a short chain off the table. There was no judgment in his eyes as he walked toward her, no surprise either. It seemed that everyone but her had known this would be the outcome of her visit to the Mercy Club.

“What is your safeword?” Marcus asked.

Cassandra shook her head. “I don’t have one. I’ve never needed one before.”

“Then just use the traffic signal. ‘Red light’ means stop. Easy enough to remember?”

Cassandra nodded.

Marcus lifted her sweater up over her head, exposing her favorite bra. Pink with silver embroidery, it was jarringly out of place in this dark place. Her breasts strained against the soft material. Cassandra sucked in her belly as Marcus undid the clasp on the back of her skirt and slid it down her legs.

Marcus lingered there a moment, on his knees, his face even with her groin. He closed his eyes, and Cassandra grew even wetter, knowing that he could smell her arousal. He stood and grasped her hands. He gently wrapped each wrist in a leather band. When he was done, he traced his hands up the column of her arms.

The leather warmed quickly as it came in contact with her skin, even as it held her immobile. She twisted her hands in their prison, but the bindings didn’t give an inch.

"How does she feel?" Richard asked. He pulled off his shirt and draped it over the back of the chair. Cassandra’s eyes went wide at the sight of the clearly defined muscles of his chest and abdomen. The aura of strength and control that he exuded was more than just an illusion.

"As soft as she looks," Marcus said approvingly. He moved behind her and gave Richard an unobstructed view of her half-naked body.

Cassandra moaned as Marcus cupped her breasts from behind. She leaned back into the heat of his body. She was primed for contact, but this was nothing more than a tease. She tried to rub her nipples against the flat plane of his palms, but the material of her bra was too thick.

Richard tsked slowly from across the room. "You know it won’t be that easy.” His accent was clear now.

Cassandra felt like crying as Marcus's hands petted her body, staying away from all the places that she longed for him to touch, the places that would bring her sweet relief.

"Is she ready for me?" Richard asked. His gaze demanded that she look only at him, even as Marcus's touch was near driving her mad.

Marcus dipped his hands down past the elastic band of her panties. She cried out as he pressed single finger between her lips and against her clit. Then it was gone. Cassandra felt like sobbing.

"She doesn’t need any help from me. She's wet, sir. Practically soaking."

“Then give her to me.”

In one swift move, Marcus released his hold and pushed her forward. Cassandra stumbled off balance. She barely had time to catch herself with her bound hands before she fell to her knees at Richard’s feet.

“That will be all, Marcus,”

A moment later, the door closed, and the resounding clank of the bar falling into place echoed in the room.

There was no escape now.

“What do you want, Cassandra?” His voice was the definition of controlled.

“That,” she said, her eyes fixed on the outline of his erection in his pants.

“Say it.”

Cassandra’s gaze flashed toward the floor. “Your cock,” she said in a rush.

"If you want it, you’ll have to earn it," he said.

He popped a button and his cock sprung free. It was just as big as it had felt in the mirror room. Bigger than Cassandra had ever dealt with before.

Cassandra inched forward on the hard concrete. She opened her mouth, and wrapped her lips around his shaft. He hissed in a quick breath. The sound spurred her on. She bobbed her head further down his cock, sweeping with her tongue to ease its passage into her mouth. But he was so big, and she was unpracticed. There was only so much she could take.

"More," he said. He wrapped his hands around the back of her head and pulled her down. The crown of his cock pushed against the back of her throat. Her throat convulsed, and her eyes watered, but his moans of pleasure spurred her on. Her pussy clenched as a wicked thrill ran through her.

She tried again. Her cheeks stretched wide, but she could still only swallow half of what was before her.

Her body was on fire. It demanded release.

She reached down with her bound hands to relieve some of pressure herself.

"No,” he said the second her fingertip grazed across the sensitive nub of her clit.

He pulled out of her mouth. He reached down and grabbed the chain. In one smooth motion he lifted her to her feet. He drug her to the chain hanging in the center of the room.

"You do nothing here without my permission."

"May I please touch myself?" she asked.

"No."

He wrenched her hands above her head. The chain groaned as he attached her manacles to the hook. Cassandra had to stand on tiptoes to keep from dangling above the ground.

"When you come—and you will come, Cassandra—it will be because of me."

He pulled down on the cups of her bra until her breasts were exposed. Her nipples puckered painfully in the cold air.

"I'm sorry. Let me suck your cock again."

Richard shook his head. "You disobeyed me."

Cassandra shook her head. She pressed her legs together. The juncture of her thighs was slick with wetness. The lips of her pussy rubbed against her swollen clit, so alive that any friction sent pleasure coursing through her.

"And you keep disobeying me.”

He turned away from her, leaving her literally dangling. He returned a moment later with a short black whip in his hands. Cassandra looked down at the heavy fall of leather tassels in his palm. How many times had she wondered how those lashes would feel?

He moved behind her. Cassandra waited for the first crack of the whip, each moment longer than the last. She bit into her lower lip. She closed her eyes.

She cried out when it finally fell, more in surprise than in pain. He didn't start hard, but almost caressed her back with the tails. Slowly, he increased the speed and intensity, until the sting was real.

Cassandra mouth fell open as the jolts of electric fire spread across her back. Her pussy clenched with every lash. Her clit throbbed with every strike. There was no hiding from the sensation. There was no running away from it. The whip kept coming, again and again, until it had banished every stray thought from her head, and the only thing she could do was feel.

"You like digging for secrets. But you have your own, don’t you?"

Richard's voice was the only thing that broke through the haze of sensation.

"Don't you?" he demanded. There was no anger in his voice, only control.

"Yes," she admitted weakly.

God, she wanted more. Another beat of the whip to blot out the reality of his words. She wanted the pain he gave her. It was as keen as pleasure, almost indistinguishable. Cassandra had never begged anyone for anything in her life, but she was so close now. The lash swept away the last bit of fight in her.