Savage Nights (The Savage Trilogy #2) (29 page)

“Oh, Savage,” I said, placing my hand on his arm in sympathy. “How cruel!”

“There were never any charges, of course, because there was no crime,” he said. His eyes were unfocused, looking back to another time through his memories. “But because there were so many high-placed meddlers who insisted on my guilt, the police tried their best to make me confess. It was not a pleasant experience.”

“That’s why you didn’t want to call them yesterday,” I said softly, understanding now. I understood, yes, but I couldn’t begin to imagine what he must have gone through. He’d already blamed himself for his wife’s death; to have the law and Society blaming him as well must have been unbearable.

“The police wouldn’t believe me if I accused Blackledge,” I continued. “Instead they’d think you were the one at fault.”

He let out his breath; I hadn’t realized he’d been holding it in.

“Something like that, yes,” he said, his voice flat and distant.

“That isn’t fair,” I said. “None of it. That you should be persecuted like that for—”

“You’ve only my word, you know,” he said, purposefully not meeting my eye. “Has it ever occurred to you that everyone else might be right, and that I might be lying?”

I didn’t hesitate. “No, Savage, it hasn’t,” I said. “I trust you too much for that.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t.” He pulled out his watch to check the time. “Surely these blasted puppets must be nearly done.”

I took his arm, though it wasn’t offered. “Don’t turn me away,” I said gently. “We need one another too much for that.”

Still, he would not look my way.

“Don’t resort to music hall sentiment, Eve,” he said. “You know what brought us together. Sex, and nothing more. That’s what we need. A good fuck.”

I’d heard him say much more explicit things than that, and I’d found them wildly arousing. But this time anger gave his words an edge that wounded me with their coarseness, exactly as he’d wanted.

I began to pull my hand away from his arm, but he caught it and held it, lightning fast.

“You’re not going to slip away from me again, Eve,” he said. “You’re going to stay, and you’re not going to say anything to upset my son. Then, when we are home, you are going to be punished until you give me exactly what I want. No, what I
need
. Isn’t that what you said we shared? Need?”

I shook my head, unsure what to say or do. Was this part of the Game, too?

“Did you see the crocodile eat old Punch, Mrs. Hart?” Lawton said as he bounded up to us. “He
devoured
him, exactly as he deserved for being so mean to Judy. That will teach Punch, won’t it?”

I felt the pressure of Savage’s hand, reminding me to pretend that the brightness hadn’t vanished from this day, that the trust I’d felt in him had been shaken, that though I knew I should return to the Savoy, I wouldn’t.

I wouldn’t leave him. No matter what he said, I couldn’t, because I knew he needed me. He
did
.

Nearly as much as I needed him.

“Yes, Lawton, Punch did deserve his punishment,” I said, my smile forced and brittle. “But I’m not sure Punch will ever learn, nor will Judy.”

13.

“I want you to go to the bedroom and remove your clothing, Eve,” Savage said curtly. “Every last stitch. Wait for me there.”

I nodded and left him alone in the library. At least he’d waited until Barry had taken Lawton away for his dinner before he’d given me orders. Of course I obeyed. It didn’t even occur to me not to, not today.

In hindsight I realized I shouldn’t have told him what Laura had said. Her waspish comment had been enough to unleash Savage’s old demons from whatever well-hidden place he usually kept them, and it was clear they’d still held their power over him. I’d never seen him look so utterly alone and bereft as he had this afternoon. There in the middle of the sunshine, with laughing children around him, he’d been trapped in the darkness of the past, and if I could ease any of that pain by being Eve to his Master I’d gladly do it.

Alone in his bedroom, I pulled off my clothes as quickly as I could, not knowing how soon he’d join me. I didn’t want to give him any excuse for displeasure by not having done what he’d asked, and I didn’t even take the time to fold or drape my clothes over the back of a chair. Instead I left a riot of silk and lace scattered across the floor, emerald green and black, to mark my path. I sat on one corner of the bed, where he’d see me as soon as he entered the door.

I waited, and I waited. I watched the shadows lengthen in the Square outside the window and the color drain from the sky with the coming dusk. I suppose I could have looked at the clock to see the time, but somehow the hour itself didn’t matter. I sensed that the waiting was part of my punishment, too, and I’d bear it along with whatever else he contrived for me.

I stared from the window, thinking. He was like a complicated puzzle to be solved, and each small scrap of himself or his past that he grudgingly exposed was another piece to fit into place.

Now I realized that it wasn’t just his wife’s madness that he feared had been passed along to his son. Savage feared that Lawton had inherited his father’s violent temper, too. To have his son dismissed from school for fighting must have seemed an ominous sign, and having to face the school officials on Lawton’s behalf would have been a terrible reminder of Savage’s own ordeal with the police after his wife’s death. He’d accused me of making excuses for the boy when I suspected Savage feared he would do the same himself.

That was likely why he’d been so hard on Lawton, not wanting him to repeat his father’s own misdeeds. Now that I’d seen them together, I didn’t doubt that he loved Lawton, yet there was a desperation to that love that made it so painful and so sad as well.

I was so lost in my thoughts that when Savage finally opened the door I started and gasped from surprise as I twisted around to face him.

He didn’t join me at first but stood in the doorway, quickly taking in my scattered clothing on the floor that proved my haste. He nodded, approving.

“I’m glad to see you’ve obeyed me at least in this,” he said. He’d changed his clothes, too, into the loose linen trousers and jersey. His feet were bare, and the heaviness of his cock was outlined through the soft linen. His expression was impassive, carefully betraying nothing.

“You say you trust me, Eve,” he said. “Now is your chance to prove it.”

“Yes, Master,” I murmured, and began to rise from the bed. “Will you be using the swing again for my trial?”

“Stay where you are,” he ordered, going to the large chest beneath the windows. “The swing was about sight, and watching your correction reflected a hundred times over. This one is about patience.”

So the long wait had been part of my challenge. At least I’d passed that much of it. Not asking questions would likely be part of the test, too, trust and patience, and even as my curiosity—and my excitement—rose I waited for him to explain.

“Trust, and patience,” he repeated, returning from the chest. In his hands were a black scarf and a coil of thick black cords. “I know how much you like to watch, Eve, but since this punishment will be about pleasing me, not you, I’m going to make sure you don’t see any of it.”

Dropping the cords on the bed beside me, he folded the scarf into a long rectangle.

“Close your eyes,” he said, and when I did he covered them with the scarf, wrapping it tightly around my head and tying it in the back. The pressure of the scarf across my face was unsettling, and the darkness was as complete as if I were blind, and instinctively I raised my hands to the scarf to loosen it.

“Don’t touch it,” he barked. “You are not supposed to see. That is the reason for the blindfold. Now climb into the middle of the bed, and kneel there.”

Not being able to see made me clumsy, and I moved awkwardly across the bed on all fours, not knowing if I’d reached the center of the bed or not.

“On your knees, Eve,” he said, correcting me. “Put your hands behind your back. Cross your wrists.”

I did and felt him wrap the cords around my wrists, holding them together. The cords must have been silk, strong but soft against my skin. Tentatively I tried to move my hands, flexing against the bindings: tight, but not cutting. He’d tied me at Wrenton once, and I’d learned then that as long as I didn’t fight against the cords they’d leave no mark on my skin.

Of course I’d learned that the hard way. When he’d fucked me, I’d been unable to keep still, and the cords had left bruises that shocked my maid. But no matter how I resolved now not to repeat my folly, I suspected I wouldn’t be able to keep still this time, either.

“They’ll hold,” he said, reading my thoughts. “You needn’t worry about that.”

He pulled my ankles together, and automatically I widened my knees to keep my balance.

“That’s good, Eve,” he said. “Exactly what I wanted from you.”

But I hadn’t expected him to tie my ankles together, too. I felt the cords tighten around them, pressing into my tendons. My knees pressed into the soft mattress, and I arched my back to steady myself.

“Very good, Eve,” he said. “You anticipate my wishes so well.”

I felt the mattress give as he climbed on it beside me, and my heart quickened, sure he would take me now. Without thinking I blindly turned my face in his direction, my lips parted in anticipation, and he laughed softly.

“Don’t be so eager,” he said. “Recall that half of this challenge is to test your patience.”

After a warning like that, I wasn’t prepared for him to lick my nipple lightly, then draw it between his lips to suckle. He flicked his tongue over my sensitive flesh, teasing it until it hardened, then sucked with more intensity until I felt the pull of it deep within my womb. He then moved to my other breast and repeated teasing me with his tongue while keeping the first nipple taut by pinching and tugging at it with his fingers. His mouth was wet, his tongue soft and teasing, and his hair fell forward and flicked against my breast. He didn’t touch me anywhere else, and craving more, I arched against his mouth and moaned, twisting against the cords that held me away from him.

But instead of giving me what I wanted he pulled away. I cried out softly in protest.

“Patience, Eve,” he whispered close to my ear. “That is what I wish to see from you now. Patience.”

His fingers on my breast again, I sighed happily. But instead of his mouth or tongue I felt something hard and cold, something tightening around my nipple. Whatever it was fastened around the base of the tip with a little click, enclosing it and squeezing it tightly in its grasp. He repeated this with my other nipple, clipping the ring around it, and then hung something—a chain?—from one to the other, so that it fell softly across my rib cage.

The squeezing sensation of the rings around my nipples stopped just short of being painful. They held me suspended at the same point of arousal that Savage’s tongue had done, turgid and stiff and aching for more. Even the slightest movement made the chain suspended from them swing against my rib cage and tug the rings on my nipples with extra pressure I arched my back further to try to keep the swinging chain still, whimpering at the sensation.

“Beautiful,” murmured Savage as he rose from the bed, making the mattress shift again so that I nearly toppled over, spreading my knees farther apart to keep my balance. The small motion sent the chain swinging again, and I gasped at the fresh pressure on my swollen nipples.

“It’s a pity you can’t see yourself now, Eve,” he continued, his voice now behind me. “You’ll just have to imagine how you look from my description of your new adornment.”

“My adornment, Master?” I repeated uncertainly.

“Yes, Eve,” he said, and I heard the pleasure in his voice. “I had those rings on your nipples made especially for you. I know how fastidious you are about your jewelry, so I made sure these would be to your taste. They’re white gold, as is the chain, and the outsides of the rings are outlined with diamonds. There’s a small diamond pendant suspended from the center of the chain, too—that’s the weight that you feel. It’s in the shape of a perfect, sparkling drop, though I shall leave it to you to decide whether that makes it a drop of dew, a tear, or perhaps a drop of semen.”

“Yes, Master,” I whispered, struggling to keep the chain from moving.

He’d described the jewels so well that I imagined them easily on my body, and from how they felt I could picture my body, too, my eyes covered with the black blindfold, my wrists and ankles bound with the black silk cord, my skin so white and my nipples red from the diamond-studded rings around them, my dark hair tangled down my back.

That was how I must look to him and how he’d made me look. He’d created that image for us both, and I found the idea that he’d done that to me incredibly arousing.

I was his Innocent, to do with what he pleased. I was his Eve.

“Yes, Master,” I breathed again, the chain with the diamond droplet trembling against my chest. “I am yours.”

“You
are,
” he said, his voice rough as he made the two words sound more like a declaration. “Now bend forward.”

I took a deep breath and leaned forward, whimpering as the chain and the pendant began to swing freely.

“Lower,” he ordered. “I want your cheek to touch the bed.”

I sank forward as he bid until I felt the linen of the sheet beneath my face. I turned my head so my cheek lay upon the bed, exactly as he wished, my hair falling forward across the blindfold. My breasts now pressed against my bent knees and the chain fell between them, which brought some relief to my aching nipples.

Where before I must have looked like an offering to him, now I must look bowed and subdued, a conquered supplicant. At least that was how I felt, bent there before him with my body sorely aroused, and completely at his will.

“Now stay there until I tell you otherwise, Eve,” he said roughly. “Do not move. Show me patience. Do not move at all.”

I held as still as I could. I’d expected to have to remain like this while he’d prepared to join me, and my ears strained for the sounds of him undressing. Instead I heard nothing beyond the beating of my own heart.