Red Skye at Night (26 page)

“A versatile belt,” I murmur my comment.

“Very. So it should be—it cost over a hundred dollars.”

“Fine quality leather. Very flexible. You have an eye for a bargain, Sir.”

“Perhaps that’s why I was prepared to pay so much for you?”

His remark stings, though I have no reason to suppose it was intentional. Even so… “Sir, I offered to give you your money back.”

“You did, and I refused it. Like I said, I am one hundred percent happy with the deal I struck. Your driving skills are worth every penny. This, though…” He rakes my body with his eyes. “This is priceless.” He dips his head to lay his mouth across mine, his lips dry, brushing, teasing.

I open my mouth, and his tongue slides inside, stroking my inner lips, my teeth, tangling with my tongue. I strain against my restraints, desperate to hold him, to run my fingers through his hair, to feel him between my hands.

It isn’t to be. The belt is secure and I’m going nowhere. Harry shifts and positions himself between my thighs, my body now cradling his. His erection is poised at my entrance, the thick, bulbous head of his cock nudging between my pussy lips. I’m ready, so completely ready, prepared, wet, slick, open and waiting. Harry breaks the kiss, raises his head to catch and hold my gaze.

“You are mine. This, all this, mine alone. Yes?” His voice is low, more a growl than speech.

I stare back at him, his eyes boring into mine. “Yes.” My voice is little above a whisper, and so charged with emotion I don’t dare try for more than the single word.

“Tell me. You. Are. Mine. Tell me.” His eyes are hard, implacable. He will have the words, will insist on hearing them.

“I’m yours, Sir. All yours. Only yours.”

Harry nods, and plunges the full length of his cock into me. I let out a scream of not quite pain but something close. He is rough, thrusting hard, each driving stroke pitching me up the bed and against the bar. He grabs a couple of pillows to stuff behind me to protect my skull, but that’s his only passing nod at consideration for my comfort. He’s fucking me hard, his energy relentless. The belt may not have been wielded in punishment, but this pounding is getting on that way.

I could protest. I could ask him to slow down, to be more gentle. I could tell him he’s hurting me, frightening me, that I’m sore. I do none of those things. Instead I lift my legs, hook my ankles together behind his waist, lock my gaze on his and squeeze.

“Christ, girl, so tight. So fucking tight. Hot.
Shit!”

Harry doesn’t break eye contact. His hips are like pistons, his cock filling me with every powerful stroke. He slips his hand between us to grip my clit, pinching it hard between his thumb and index finger. I scream, moments before I come again.

Harry slows the pace, settling instead for shorter, rapid strokes. His thumb is now caressing my clitoris, the action soothing, seductive. I arch my back, my head tilted backwards. Harry at last breaks eye contact as he lowers his head to suck my nipple, first one, then the other.

“Oh God, Sir, that’s wonderful. Harder, can you suck harder? Bite me. Please…” I shouldn’t direct, he’ll have his retribution later, I know it. But right now I’m beyond caring.

Harry obliges, scraping his teeth across the sensitive tips before tightening his jaw around the pebbled nubs. He uses his teeth to hold each nipple in place as he flicks his tongue across it. I’m writhing under him, wild now as he piles on the sensation. My pussy is quivering, my tits connected by crackles of electricity to whatever magic he’s wreaking with my clit. It’s enough, too much. My senses disintegrate in a flash of pure white light as my orgasm erupts again. My pussy is convulsing, my limbs shaking. I forget to breathe, to think even, as my body throbs and hums with the sensations he is evoking. There’s a scream, it must be me. I open my mouth again but can only manage a strangled sigh as the pleasure peaks and pulses, turning my insides to jelly.

At last I lie still, allow my legs to drop back to the mattress. Harry disengages his mouth from my breast and buries his face in my neck instead.

“Christ, girl, you’re lively.” His voice is a low rumble, almost a growl, though I detect the hint of amusement in there too. As if I needed the reassurance that he’s loving this as much as I am. He is still fucking me, though his strokes have become more gentle, more measured. What his thrusts lack in power is amply compensated for by the finesse I have come to know from Harry. He angles his cock, connecting with my G-spot on each in-stroke. He circles my clit with his thumb, slowly now, luring the last dregs of sensation from me, the final tremors of response.

“I’m done, Sir. I can’t…”

“Can’t? I wonder…” Is he never satisfied, never defeated? My words are a challenge, he seems determined to prove that I can. That he can make me.

He does. My final climax is muted, slow and sensual, soft where the others were forceful, seductive where before my response was demanding and insistent. And none the less beautiful for being understated. My shivers are delicate, the trembling of my body exquisite, the brush of Harry’s lips across the lobe of my ear quite bewitching.

“Sir, I love you.” The words are out, slipping past my unguarded lips in a moment’s lack of concentration. I’d bite them back if I could, but it’s too late.

Harry pauses. “I love you too, sweet sub of mine.” He kisses my ear, then stiffens, holding his body rigid as he drives his cock deep once more. His semen pumps into me, hot and wet, his breath harsh now against my neck as his own climax puts a stop to any further conversation.

Chapter Fifteen

There’s an awkwardness between us, a new guardedness that was not there before, not even in the first day or so when I was still clinging to the ridiculous belief that I had no wish to sleep with Harry.

I could almost regret my careless remark. Almost. I might, if it weren’t true. If the knowledge weren’t eating me alive. I know he won’t stay in the UK. I know he’ll be leaving soon, flying back to Winnipeg to a life full of work, of family, of belonging to a place, to people I’ll never meet. He’ll take Daisy with him, so I won’t have her either. He might return, his business might bring him back. Or he might return from time to time especially to see me, though he seems much too hands on to want to develop a long-distance relationship. Separation would doom us. Distance would destroy our fledgling connection.

We leave early, checking out of the hotel before seven thirty. I’m sorry to leave our secluded mill—it is a truly beautiful place, full of wonderful memories. Maybe I could manage to come back sometime, though I dismiss that notion as soon as it occurs to me. It would be painful, quite desolate without Harry.

There’s little conversation between us as Harry takes the first turn at the wheel, heading toward Inverness. I stare out of the window, watching the purples and golds rush past me, the glowing colors of the heather that blankets the moorland in the extreme north of Scotland. There are greens too, many shades of green. And browns, greys, the smoky skyline, the lush hedgerows. And always the dark gray of the tarmac snaking ahead of us, heading south.

A couple of hours into the journey, Harry pulls into a lay-by where a mobile kiosk offers coffee or tea to wash down the ubiquitous bacon or sausage sandwich, that mainstay of the Highland traveler. I’m still contemplating haggis, but perhaps not today. We choose bacon sandwiches, and Harry sweet-talks the woman behind the counter into throwing in a couple of rashers for Daisy. We avail ourselves of her Portaloo, and soon we’re on the move again, this time with me driving.

We stop for a pub lunch in Golspie, a tiny coastal town looking out over the Dornoch Firth. The roads are still reasonably fast and we’ve made good time. We sit at a table outside, Daisy curled around Harry’s shoes as we chew on Highland beef hotpot and thick-cut chips. Harry finishes first, then leans back to peruse me as I push my food around my plate. I shift in my seat, nervous. I know something is coming. He has That Look.

“So, you love me then. Or was that the orgasm talking?”

I squirm. The Big O certainly featured somewhere in my ill-judged outburst but I don’t think it can be held solely responsible. “You were about to come too. You said it as well.”

“Ah, but I’m a man. We think with our dicks. It’s a well-known fact.”

“
You
don’t.” I can’t keep the scorn from my voice. Harry is about the least testosterone-fueled individual I’ve ever met. His control is superb, his will iron. He’s relentless, never less than totally focused however lust-filled the moment.

“So, you believe me then? You believe me when I say I love you?”

I shrug, but he does have a point. “I suppose. Yes, yes I believe you. Sir.”

“And you? Did you mean what you said or was it an in-the-moment thing?” His tone has lowered. He leans in across the table to take my hand. Only then do I realize it was shaking.

“I meant it, Sir. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. Not sorry that you love me, or that I fell in love with you. I’m not even sorry that I told you. I might not have, or maybe not so soon, but you sort of started the ball rolling and here we are.”

Yes. Exactly. Here we are.

“But it’s no use, is it? I mean, you’ll be going home. Flying out in a few days. I’ll probably never see you again.”

“I could stay longer.”

“What would be the point? You’d leave eventually. You’d have to. Your work. Your family.”

“True, I do need to go back sometime. My life is in Canada. So tell me, Hope, what is it that holds you here, in Britain? Family? It can’t be work—people need taxis the world over. You could be a driver anywhere. You’d have to learn to drive on the right, of course…”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t just up and go to, to…”

“To Canada? Winnipeg? Why not? Do you have family ties here? Obligations? Tell me. Oh, and before you go on I should mention that you’ve already earned yourself a painful session over my knee for calling your Dom ridiculous, so do have a care.”

His expression is serious—he means it about the spanking. I sigh—this Dom/sub discipline thing is difficult, I make so many mistakes.

Harry squeezes my hand, still resting in his. “You are getting there, honey. You’re learning, and each time you accept a punishment you learn more. You’re a superb submissive. It’s one of the things I love about you.” His Dom telepathy must be on overdrive, he always knows what I’m thinking, especially when I’m doubting myself.

“Just one of the things?”

“Yes. You’re also sweet, gorgeous to look at, resilient, determined, a decent driver…” He pauses to grin as I bristle, then goes on, “Courageous, sexy as hell, kind to animals, independent. Need I go on? What’s not to love?” He waits for my smile then squeezes my hand again. “Enough fishing for compliments, Miss Shepherd. Tell me about your family.”

“I don’t have one—at least, not like yours. It’s just me and my dad. And a half-brother.”

“Does your dad live in Leeds? I thought you said you lived alone.”

“I do. My dad moved to Devon. He was a police sergeant, retired three years ago after getting in his twenty-five years. He had a good pension and decided to invest his lump sum in a pub. It’s in a little village on the edge of Dartmoor. They do all right, food, bar meals, that sort of thing.”

“They?”

“Him and my step-mum. He married Linda when he left the job. She already had two children of her own—teenage boys. And now they have a baby. Aaron. He’s two. My half-brother.”

“You didn’t want to go to Devon?”

“Not really. Me and Linda, well, she’s okay, but we’d get on each other’s nerves if we lived together. She talks a lot. She’s a brilliant cook, though. Aaron’s sweet. I go down there a couple of times a year, to visit. Stay a week or so, stuff myself with Linda’s meat and potato pie and her apple crumble, but I’ve soon had enough and I’m glad to head back.”

“What about your mum?”

I shake my head. “She died when I was seven. Hit and run. My dad brought me up. Like I say, it was just the two of us, till Linda.”

“That must have been hard. Sharing, I mean, after you’d had him to yourself.”

I shrug. Sometimes I think so, but mostly I accept that time has moved on. “Me and my dad, we were close. Not so much now. He stuck by me when I needed him. Now it’s his turn to live his life. If I’d asked him to stay in Leeds I think he would have, but it didn’t seem fair. He wanted to go to Devon, he wanted the pub, and he wanted Linda. I could manage on my own. And I do. I do fine.”

Harry shakes his head, his expression incredulous. “You talk as though he did you a favor, bringing you up. What else would he do? He’s your father, for Christ’s sake. That’s what fathers do. They take responsibility.”

“Like Doms.”

He grins. “Yeah, I suppose. A bit like that, though my attitude toward you is not what I’d describe as paternal. And I’m not thinking of fucking off to Devon.”

“Canada’s even farther.”

“I haven’t gone yet. You know I don’t want to leave you.”

“You’ll have to. You can’t stay, and I can’t come with you. I’d be lost in Winnipeg, a fish out of water. I’d know no one.”

“Except me. At first.”

I shake my head, groping in my pocket for my car keys. “It’s no good. A pipe dream. I belong here.” I get to my feet. “We need to be going.”

Harry remains seated, watching me, his gaze level, considering. At last he nods, and stands up. He takes my chin in his hand, cupping it, lifting my face to his.

“This conversation is not over, Hope. And I’m driving.”

* * * *

We reach the Cromarty Firth, drive along the coast for a few miles then pick up the road heading west, across the Highlands toward the Western Isles. Civilization, such as it has been for the last few days, is behind us, the landscape empty, barren, and quite utterly stunning. The road is narrow—twisting, turning, always rising. It’s like driving toward heaven. I’m just glad we’re doing this trip in the summer—I doubt this road would be passable in winter.

There’s little traffic out here, which is just as well as the road is single track for long lengths of it, with passing places hacked out of the hedgerows, just a slight widening, enough to keep things moving. The scenery is, of course, dramatic—the majestic mountains of the Highlands rising around us. It’s easy to visualize the contours of this place carved by ancient glaciers shifting and sliding through previous ice ages, leaving their indelible mark. It’s timeless, changeless, yet ever-shifting. The light transforms the colors all the time, one moment brilliant greens, the next muted grays. It’s a rugged place, intimidating, but haunting. The stuff of legends, of folklore, magical beasties and enigmatic heroes. I glance at Harry, imagining how he’d look in a kilt, his face painted in blue dye. Not bad, I suspect.