PETALS AND THORNS (7 page)

Seeing she focused on him once more, the Beast released her breasts and reached between her thighs, delving into the soaked folds of her sex. Unbearable tension immediately shot through her, and Amarantha found herself pressing shamelessly against his fingers.

46

“You've done well, my bride,” he whispered. “If you do as well with your second punishment, I will reward you by showing you what your body yearns for.” He stroked her a moment more and, when she quaked under him, stepped back.

He busied himself with releasing her from her bindings, first unhooking her gloves from the chair and helping her to straighten up, then undoing her ankles.

Amarantha swayed on her feet, and the Beast gathered her into his arms. She cuddled into him, feeling absurdly protected and comforted. He seemed like a man, warm, strong, and—oddly enough—loving. His hand slid down over her exposed bottom, soothing the agitated skin. Amarantha moved under his touch like a petted kitten.

“I don't even know who I am anymore.” His chest muffled her words.

“You didn't know who you were before,” the Beast answered. “You were only a construct, a puppet operated by your father and sisters.”

“And now I'm your toy instead?”

“Never that, Amarantha. This intimacy we share is as much yours as mine.”

Turning her by the shoulders, the Beast set her back from him and coaxed her to look over her shoulder at her backside in the mirror. Her bottom and thighs glowed bright red against the white silk.

“See?” the Beast murmured. “Beautiful.”

She struggled with it, seeing herself bearing the marks of punishment even as her sex wept for him to touch it and her tortured breasts rubbed against his clothed chest.

Amarantha peered up into his cowl, trying to see the mask-shadowed face.

“How intimate is it if I never see your face, my lord?”

The Beast sighed. “An excellent question. But I find I cannot yet take that risk. Now, let's see to your final punishment and then, perhaps, if you continue to be so delightful, a bit of pleasure. Hands behind your back, please.”

47

With a shuddering sigh, Amarantha turned, placing her wrists together behind her back. A shiver ran through her at the click of the rings hooking together.

What would he do to her next? Anticipation flowed through her, hot and immediate.

He held her back against him for a moment. The Beast cupped her breasts, weighing them and fiddling with the nipples, so she wriggled. Then he slid questing fingers into her sex, drawing a gasp of longing from her.

“Ah, Amarantha, you exceed all expectation. Shall we?”

With a solicitous hand at the small of her back, just above and between her bound wrists, the Beast guided her through the splintered doorway and into her sitting room, so cheerfully normal with its warm fire and cozy reading chairs. She tried to suppress her hesitation when he led her out into the long hallway outside her chamber.

Not that she hadn't been this naked in the hallway, and not that there was ever anyone but her, the Beast, and his magic servants. Still, she felt even more exposed with her skirts raised up front and back, her breasts bobbing over the top of the corset as they walked through the formal manse with its carved wood and expensive carpets.

The Beast escorted her to a small drawing room with very little in it. A large, Beast-sized leather armchair sat before yet another cheery fire. A delicate table perched next to the chair, a full snifter of brandy on a lace doily sitting on top. It looked so civilized, so genteel, until Amarantha saw that the chair faced an elaborate brass lattice set in front of a mirror that took up the entire wall.

“Another mirror,” she muttered.

“I don't like to miss anything,” the Beast assured her, “and I'm learning that it arouses you to see yourself as well.”

Unaccountably, Amarantha blushed at that. The Beast chuckled and tweaked her nipple, then busied himself with the apparatus. He adjusted several bars into place, glancing back at Amarantha as if gauging her height and reach.

“Do you…attach…many women to this thing?”

48

“Jealous?”

She didn't reply. Jealousy didn't seem possible under these circumstances. She only had to last out the week, and she'd be free of him forever. Free to marry a normal man she could look in the face and who would bed her in the dark, without the bindings and the teasing.

“Step over here, my dear, if you will.” The Beast beckoned to her. “And no, my life is an isolated one. I have not had the pleasure of feminine company in some time.”

He unfastened her wrists and steadied her onto the lower bar of the structure so that she faced the mirror on the back wall. It looked like something her gamekeeper might stretch skins on. Indeed, the Beast pulled her gloved wrist up to one corner with a stout, black leather strap and the other wrist to the other corner.

He stretched her legs to fasten them to the bottom corners. These straps wrapped entirely around her wrists, and with her legs so widely spread, Amarantha couldn't really support her weight on her toes. She was suspended, pulled in four directions.

She struggled in her bonds, pulling against them.

“Shhh…” The Beast stroked her cheek. “Patience, my sweet. You'll forget the strain of your bonds soon. I'm afraid the dress must go, however, lovely as you look in it.”

Amarantha's eyes were dark violet pools in her pale face. Her hair still swept up in ebony coils, impossibly formal compared to the decadent tatters of her gown that displayed more than it hid. The Beast began slicing it away in strips with careful claws. It seemed to take forever. As always he drew it out, reducing her clothing bit by bit, until a confetti of white silk covered the crimson rug and Amarantha wore only her boots, gloves, and the corset around her rib cage and waist. Then the Beast cut the stays of her corset so it fell away, leaving her stark naked, edged in white and black leather, strapped to a brass frame.

And she'd thought she didn't recognize herself before.

49

The Beast positioned a pole in front of her with a horizontal bar that he slid between her legs and adjusted to just brush the wet lips of her sex.

“To keep you occupied.”

“Will this be very bad?” she whispered.

The Beast fondled her breasts, bending his cowled head to lightly suckle each turgid nipple.

“Yes. This will be difficult for you.” He swirled his slightly raspy tongue over her nipples, moving back and forth between them so that she moaned and moved her sex over the cool brass of the bar pressing there. “Fortunately”—she could hear the smile in his voice—“you need do nothing but hang there and accept your punishment. The same rules apply as before.”

She watched him walk to a cabinet on the wall and take out a long whip. She felt the wild tremble of fear take over her body.

The Beast stopped at the armchair and, turning away from her, sipped from the brandy.

He set it down and studied her. “I would say I regret the necessity of this, but it has been some time since I've whipped a beautiful young virgin. And I doubt it will take much to make an impression on you. You respond so honestly.”

He whipped her as he'd spanked her—in rhythmic, steady strokes, unrelenting and endless.

The first scream ripped out of her throat, and she never caught her breath enough to scream again. As he'd promised, she forgot entirely about the strain in her wrists and shoulders. As each lash landed, her body convulsed until only the slick brass pressing into her sex seemed real.

Amarantha didn't think she'd lost consciousness, but as before, the punishment had stopped some time before she realized it. The girl in the mirror stared back at her, hair finally tumbling askew, breasts heaving like the panting of a hard-worked animal, white skin sheened with sweat.

50

The Beast, dark and still, sat in the armchair, sipping the brandy in the depths of his hood. As if he'd been waiting for her to notice him, he stood and came over to her. He held the brandy to her lips, and she sipped, the sweet smoke of it evaporating on her tongue and sliding down to burn of her throat. He set the snifter down and detached the bar that had pressed against her sex.

She felt bereft of it, but the Beast slipped his fingers into her folds. She pumped her hips for him, somehow more full of need than ever, despite it all.

“Watch.”

The Beast knelt down and pressed his cowled head to her belly. His cat's tongue slid into her, slipping and swirling around her pearl, then sucking hard as if he would consume her in a great gulp. Frantic, Amarantha writhed, feeling all of it—the pain, the pleasure, the helpless longing—swell up and crash through her in wave upon wave. Red and black pulsed through her mind, and she was nothing but sensation.

And then he was releasing her from the bonds. Her limbs shook, depleted. The Beast cradled her, limp and exhausted, against him. He once again carried her to her bed and set her on the edge of it. With utmost care, he worked her gloves down, massaging her arms as he went. He did the same with her boots. Then took the pins and braids out of her hair and brushed it out as she swayed.

He tucked her in, brushing her cheek with a softly padded fingertip.

“My beautiful bride,” he murmured. “I don't think we need to tie your hands tonight, as I believe you to be well sated at the moment. But when you wake, you'll be stiff and sore. Soak in a hot bath and meet me in the atrium as the sun sets, so I can tend to you.”

Amarantha nodded, unable to keep her eyes open. The last thing she felt was a tender kiss on her forehead.

* * *

51

“Sore” wasn't the word. Amarantha woke from tumbled dreams of riding on the back of a great cat through the forest, grinding herself in wanton sexuality against its velvet fur as they flew through the trees in soaring leaps.

Movement felt excruciating. It hurt even to open her eyelids. She felt pummeled and wrung dry, yet curiously replete. The way the Beast's mouth had moved on her, how her body had stretched so tightly, so immobilized, and then the crashing release of that massive tension—the thought sent shimmers of delight through her. She had exploded clear through her skin somehow and had become something made of pure light and pleasure for a few moments.

But now she had tumbled into flesh again, battered flesh that badly needed tending, as the Beast had predicted. Not that it took much foresight, given what he'd put her through.

With a groan, Amarantha dragged herself out of the cozy bed. A storm had come in, and snow fell in drowsy flakes outside, muffling the world. The fire in her bedroom hearth crackled in comfort, and a hot toddy wafted whiskey steam from her bedside table. She cradled the mug in her hands, grateful for the warmth and the soothing ease of the honeyed alcohol through her bloodstream. Naked, her ebony hair tumbling around her, Amarantha wandered to the washroom.

Their invisible helpers had cleared away last night's wreckage and restored the doors. The vanity chair perched in front of the mirror, demure and sweet with its gold curlicues. The brass key even sat in the lock again, a promise of something.

In his arrogant way, the Beast might say that she had only one choice, but that wasn't the case at all. Amarantha began to understand her husband's games.

She eased into the steaming tub, hissing at the heat, the sting of the water on her tender backside. Amarantha hadn't looked in the mirror to see how he'd marked her now. She didn't need to.

The afternoon sky deepened to dusk while she soaked and dozed, daydreaming about nothing in particular.

52

When she thought sunset might be nearing, Amarantha washed her hair. She stepped out of the tub, dried herself with the fluffy, warmed towels, and combed out her long hair. Her shoulder muscles creaked and protested, and Amarantha found herself smiling in dreamy satisfaction in the mirror.

The short, transparent robe and nothing else hung on the hook. She slipped it on and padded through the quiet house, looking for the Beast.

He sat in the great chair in the atrium, where he'd scrutinized her on their wedding day. His head leaning on a knuckled paw, he seemed to be absorbed in a leather-bound tome propped on his knee, so he didn't hear her enter the room. Snow flurried outside the glass. The mounds and towers of red roses steamed in vibrant contrast. A padded table sat in the center of the room, draped in white cloths and scattered with rose petals. A copper brazier nearby glowed, and the room smelled of rosemary.

“I didn't know you read,” she said.

His cowled head lifted, and the Beast set his book aside.

“You thought perhaps I spent all my time prowling the gardens and devising ways to torment beautiful young women?”

“Eating babies, marauding the countryside?” she suggested, and he chuckled, coming to her and taking both of her hands in his. His great paws dwarfed her slim white hands, and he bent his head over them, kissing the skin, then turning them over to place soft kisses in the nest of her palms. The kisses shivered through her.

“Are you well, my bride?” the Beast asked, gruff voice concerned. Amarantha wanted to kiss his hands in return to reassure him.

“I am well, my lord. Sore, yes, but I feel…wonderful, actually.”

“Well, let's see what we can do about the soreness, then.”

He led her to the table and helped her shrug out of her robe. Uncertain what to do, Amarantha sat on the padded edge. The Beast coaxed her into lying facedown and gently moved her still-damp hair so it trailed over the edge of the table.

53

She gasped at the sensation of hot oil on her back. Then she subsided with a pleased groan. The Beast rubbed the oil into her skin, kneading the muscles into elasticity. He seemed to know where she hurt most, working through her shoulders to the tips of her fingers, then down her hips and thighs to her toes. She melted under his clever fingers, listening to him tell her about the book he'd been reading.

He didn't quite agree with the author's perspective, thought it conflicted with several other lines of thought from other books on the topic. If Amarantha wanted to read them, he'd be interested in whether she agreed.