Knight (An Impossible Novel) (15 page)

Twining the silvery chain of the necklace that Master had given me around my hand, I closed my eyes and thought of him.  I imagined that it was his fingers that were pinching me, stroking me.  He would watch me with those hypnotic eyes, a twisted, pleased smile on his lips as he manipulated my body, wringing pleasure from me as he desired.  His mouth would come down on mine, taking possession of my bliss as I moaned into him.  He would drink in my ecstatic scream as I came completely undone.

My cry of pleasure echoed through the bathroom, the acoustics magnifying the lustful sound.  I leaned back against the cool tiles, panting.  The warm spray of the water pinging against my skin made me shudder as it continued to stimulate my sensitized flesh.

Concern flashed across my mind as I wondered if Master had heard me.  I hastily shook it away.  I hoped he had heard.  I wanted him to realize what he had awoken within
me, how I had so desperately needed release after the intensity of what had passed between us that day.

A sly, slightly devious smile played across my lips.  I was manipulating Master.  The beast within him wouldn’t like that.

“I should turn you over my knee for this.”

My lower lip caught between my teeth at the thought.  Again, the idea tapped into deeply-buried desires that I thought had been extinguished completely by perverted abuse.  Master would help me reclaim that part of myself, just as he had helped me rebuild who I truly was.  My pussy pulsed back to life at the thought of him bringing me perfect pleasure as he possessed me completely.

I hoped that my next punishment would be more interesting than waiting on my knees.

Chapter 13

Master’s disapproving frown let me know that he had heard my cry of pleasure.  Was he angry with me for touching myself or was he displeased because he hadn’t been the one to touch me?  I sincerely hoped it was the latter.

But other than his disgruntled expression, he gave no indication that he was aware of my actions.  In fact, he spoke little that evening, and his taciturnity continued into the following day.  Mercifully, he kept me close, but some of the discomfited tension had returned to his muscles.  I wanted so desperately to ease it.  I couldn’t bear it if he retreated from me again, not after I had come so close to goading him into touching me.

For the first time ever, I allowed my own wants to supersede Master’s wishes.  At one time, I had found thoughts of manipulating him into changing his rules to be disturbing.  Now I went about formulating such schemes with willful determination.  I didn’t want to anger or disappoint him, but I couldn’t allow him to continue denying what we both wanted.

I can’t
allow
him?

I was shocked at the idea that I would demand anything of Master.  But although I was utterly devoted to him, I wouldn’t back down on this.  Once, I might have feared that my deliberate disobedience would cause him to reject me.  Now I was certain he couldn’t release me any more than I could willingly leave him.  And that bond would only be further strengthened once we had joined in the most intimate way possible.

Master was in the shower, giving me a rare moment of privacy in the apartment.  I usually dreaded the loss of his presence, but now I was grateful of the opportunity it presented me.

My fingers stilled when they touched the doorknob to his bedroom.  Master had forbidden me to enter his private space.  But if I wanted to prevent him from drifting away from me, then I needed to learn everything about him that I could.  Steeling myself, I turned the knob and pushed open the door, darting across the threshold before I could talk myself out of carrying out my plan.

My eyes roved over the room, greedily drinking in the secrets of the place Master had forbidden me to enter.  Unlike the stark, sparse living room, this space pulsed with a definitive emotive aura.  If the rest of the apartment reflected Master’s cool control, his bedroom housed his primal essence.

A king size, four-poster bed crafted of wrought iron commanded most of the space.  It had a severe beauty to it, the elegantly curling lines of dark metal rendered harsher by their
inherent rigidity.  An image of lying atop the black sheets with Master, our naked bodies entwined, flitted across my mind.

I tore my eyes from the bed.  I didn’t have much time, and I needed to explore as much of the room as possible before Master emerged from the bathroom.  I estimated I had about ten more minutes.  There were two large chests of drawers crafted in polished ebony that sat flush with the red-painted wall across from the bed.  I hastily opened the top drawer on one of them. 

My lips pursed in a small frown.

Socks.

I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, but it hadn’t been anything so ordinary.  Shaking off my disappointment, I rapidly inspected the rest of the drawers, making my way down from top to bottom.  All I found were Master’s clothes.  And while I loved the unique scent that infused them, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before.

When I moved to the second dresser, I jerked the top drawer open almost irritably.  At the sight of its contents, I froze.  While the other drawers had been unremarkable, this one was jarringly exceptional.

No.  Not exceptional.  Terrifying.

Instruments that I associated with torture were carefully, lovingly, arranged in a horrifically perfect pattern.  The precision with which they were laid out might have been almost artistic if the materials hadn’t been so disturbing.  Amongst the array were a leather cat o’ nine tails, a cane, and – most upsetting of all – a coiled black bullwhip.

I stumbled away from the drawer in horror, reeling backwards until my knees hit the edge of the bed.  They folded, and I sank down on the mattress.  I had contemplated punishments that Master might mete out, had even excitedly anticipated the administration of a spanking to enforce his control.  But I had never imagined he would own such cruel implements.

Memories of torture inflicted by those instruments assailed my mind, making my body go weak as tremors wracked me.  I caught myself on my palms before I could fall back on the mattress. 
As I did so, my fingers brushed against something cold and hard, a tactile sensation that I recognized all too well.  I was touching a heavy link in a chain.  Perversely compelled to examine the full horror of it, I grasped the metal in my shaking hand, lifting it.  The steel clanked against the iron bedframe as the length of chain came free from where it had been hidden.  Attached to the end was a padded leather cuff.

My stomach churned, and I flung the chain away from me, my palm suddenly burning as though the metal had been sitting in a forge fire.  I braced my head between my knees, fighting
the urge to be sick.  How could Master possess such things?  He was kind, caring; nothing at all like the Bastard who had gloried in my agony.

Nothing at all like him.

That Bastard hadn’t wanted to take care of me.  He had wanted to break me.  He had taken pleasure from my pain and found joy in violating my unwilling body.

My fingers found the reassuring coolness of the tourmaline gem that hung around my neck.  Master had only ever tried to ensure my well-being.  His rules and commands were all meant for my own benefit, not his own pleasure.  I thought of his proud smiles, his words of praise as I reclaimed myself little by little.  He had found his pleasure in helping me, in guiding me. 
As a true Master should.

A true Master.

I had wanted a Master, once.  After years of secretly yearning, I had boldly pursued my desires.

My gaze fell back on the chain that was pooled on the bed beside me.  Hesitantly, I brushed my fingertips over it.  Once, this sight would have made lust stir within me.

“You want to be beaten, whore.  I’ve seen how much you enjoy it.  This is your fantasy.  That’s why I chose you.”

I flinched at the memory of that Bastard’s hated voice, the sick light in his eyes.  He had taken me precisely because I had once enjoyed BDSM.

BDSM.  Bondage and Discipline; Domination and Submission; Sadism and Masochism.

I had only just begun to explore that world that I had secretly longed to experience when he had abducted me.  He turned my desires against me, twisting them and tainting them.  One by one, he had robbed me of all of the dark pleasures I had once craved, chipping away at the foundations of my very self as he destroyed them.

Master had already returned my lust to me.  He had claimed that all he wanted was to take care of me.  If that was true, then he would help me recover the other precious things that I had lost, that had been cruelly ripped away from me.

A dreamlike calm washed over me.  One of Master’s rules mandated that I tell him if he wasn’t giving me something I wanted.  And I wanted this.  I
needed
this.  More than anything.  I wasn’t going to give up until I could make him see that.

Grasping the hem of my dress, I pulled the cottony material over my head and tossed it aside.  My underwear quickly followed.  I sank to the floor, my knees cushioned by the thick
carpet as I spread them wide.  My hands clasped together at the small of my back, and I squared my shoulders, thrusting my breasts out.

While the position demonstrated that I offered by body to Master, it was primarily intended to be a show of supplication.  My bare skin and the exposure of my most vulnerable places would communicate my raw need.  Torture had stripped me of everything that made me
me
, and I needed Master to help me rebuild myself from the basest level.

My posture was submissive, but rather than keeping my eyes downcast, I stared straight ahead, ready to face Master.  My breaths were deep and even as I waited patiently for him to come to me.  I sensed that I was on the cusp of something significant, something beautiful.  Master had freed me when he had first rescued me, but now he would heal me.

“Lydia?”  Master’s voice was touched by a hint of concern as it rang out through the apartment.  He usually found me eagerly waiting for him to emerge from the bathroom.

“I’m in here, Master,” I called out calmly.

His quick footsteps pounded across the living room as he approached, his anger at realizing my location apparent in the string of muttered curse words that floated into the room.  The door banged against the wall
with the force of Master’s entry.  He froze when he saw me, his huge frame filling the doorway.  The fury rolling off him should have terrified me, but I was too captivated by the sight of him for it to register.

In his haste to find me, he hadn’t taken the time to get dressed.  My breath caught in my throat as the magnitude of his perfection struck me like a palpable thing.  Every muscle was precisely sculpted and defined, and they bulged and rippled as he flexed threateningly.  His nostrils flared, and his usually-full lips were pressed together in a thin line.  His strong jaw was clenched.

I watched in rapt fascination as a bead of water rolled along it, dripping down onto his bare chest to race in a wicked trail over his abs, only to be absorbed into the white towel that was slung low around his hips.  The bulge of his erect cock tented the material as he hardened at the sight of me.  I couldn’t help licking my lips hungrily.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in, girl?”  He hissed.  “Get up off your knees and get dressed. 
Now.”

Taking a deep breath to brace myself, I tore my eyes from the sight of his arousal to boldly meet his steely gaze.

“No.”  The word was clear, definitive.  “I don’t want to.”

His lip curled up in a snarl.  “I’m going to give you one chance to reconsider your answer, girl,” he warned.

“I already have considered my answer,” I responded steadily.  “I’ve considered it very carefully.  You ordered me to tell you when I want something that you’re not giving me, Master.  I’ve been disobeying that rule for days.  I want this.  I
need
this.  I need
you.
”

Master drew a deep, shuddering breath in a visible effort to calm himself.  “You don’t understand what you need,” he told me firmly.  “I know how that Bastard hurt you.  I know he made you feel like the only way you can demonstrate your submission is by offering your body.  I don’t want that from you.”

My expression hardened.  “Now you’re the one who’s breaking a rule, Master,” I informed him hotly.  “You promised you wouldn’t lie to me.”

“Fine!”
  He snapped.  “I want you, Lydia.  I want to spank your gorgeous ass until it’s glowing red.  I want to sink my cock between your perfect lips.  I want to chain you down and fuck you while you call me ‘Master.’  I want to make you come again and again until you beg me to stop, until you’re weeping from excruciating pleasure.  Is that what you want to hear?”  His eyes took on a feverish light as he gave voice to his secret longings, but his lips were twisted in self-loathing.

“Yes,” I said, a bit breathlessly.  “That’s what I want to hear.  That’s what I want, Master.”

Something between a groan and a growl slipped through his lips at my words.  “Can’t you see that’s the worst thing I could possibly do to you?  You’re confused, vulnerable.  You barely remember your own goddamn name.  You can’t make a decision like this right now.  So I’m going to have to make the decision for both of us.”  His hands clenched at his sides.  “And my decision is that you are going to stand up, get dressed, and never try something like this again.”

“Please, Master.”  I decided further defiance wouldn’t get me where I wanted.  “Please, just listen to me.  You’re wrong; I’m not confused.  Not anymore.  Being with you, seeing all this,” I gestured towards the open drawer and the chain on the bed, “made me realize just how badly I need this from you.  I remember…”  I shied away from the wealth of Lydia’s memories that were threatening to bubble to the surface, resolutely focusing only on the facts I needed.  “I used to want this.  I wanted to explore BDSM.  That’s why he…  That’s why that Bastard chose me.  He thought I would survive longer because I liked pain.  He took my greatest pleasures and turned them against me.  He stole everything from me.” 

The lines of Master’s face were taut with rage and disgust, but it was no longer directed at me or at himself.

Pressing my advantage, I plowed on.  “You’ve helped me reclaim so much of myself, Master.  I was nothing, no one, when you found me.  You say all you want is to take care of me,
to help me.  I know it’s greedy of me to ask you to give me more than you already have, but
this
is what I need.  Please don’t let him keep this from me.  Help me take back this part of myself, Master.  Please.”  The final word was a broken, desperate whisper. 

I realized my cheeks were wet with tears.  I had exposed myself completely, had risked the pain of Lydia’s memories to prove to Master just how badly I needed this.  It was essential to my healing, to my survival.  If he denied me, I might just die inside again.  I held my breath, my body trembling as I waited for his response.  It would save me or shatter me.