To Disappear (9 page)

His fingers trailed over her damp cheeks to her chin, forcing her to look up at him. She gazed through glassy, stunned eyes, her shame sinking even deeper as she saw his cruelly mocking smile. Then he leaned down and pressed his mouth against hers, pushing her lips apart, his tongue flickering obscenely to dance with hers in an attitude laced with dark possession. He nipped her lower lip with his teeth, causing her to gasp with pain, and then pulled away, his blue eyes glinting.

Without another word he turned and also left the room. Lydia sagged with relief, for she had begun to think he would subject her to further outrages there and then. She pressed her forehead against the table again – weary, agonized, and aching with unfulfilled longing.

Gabriel unlashed her wrists from the controlling grasp of his belt, and Lydia nearly sobbed again as her muscles relaxed painfully from the taut strain and she was finally allowed to cover herself with her dress. She felt Gabriel’s hands settle around her waist as he helped her from the table.

As she wearily straightened up a wave of dizziness swept over her, and she grasped his forearm to regain her equilibrium.

‘I’ll help you upstairs,’ he said, an arm slipping supportively around her waist, but Lydia pushed him from her defiantly, her eyes flashing with rekindled anger.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she snapped.

Gabriel’s mouth tightened with impatience. ‘Lydia…’

‘No, just don’t touch me,’ she repeated, and unconcerned now if he saw fit to add yet another punishment to her growing list, she stormed from the room and went upstairs, her body weak and trembling, the thin cotton of her dress chafing her scorched bottom. She sank onto her bed with relief, burying her face in her pillow as blessed solitude closed around her.

Gabriel stopped outside Lydia’s bedroom door, from beneath which a dim strip of light crept out onto the landing. He wondered briefly if she had been awake all night or if she had fallen asleep with the light on. The sky outside was just beginning to creep from black to gray, but the sun hadn’t yet begun its slow ascent over the horizon.

Twisting the door handle slowly, he opened it and looked into Lydia’s room. She was laying on the bed, still in her cotton dress, her back to the door and her skirt draped carelessly up over her hips as if she could not bear even the flimsy touch of cotton against her punished flesh. He could just hear muffled sniffles, and her shoulder quivered very slightly with little hiccups.

Gabriel knew the pain of the beating would have eased by now, and that it was shame and frustration that provoked her current distress. He entered the room, closing the door with a quiet click. Lydia tensed visibly as she heard him, her sniffles catching in her throat, and she fumbled to cover her exposed, blotchy bottom.

Gabriel murmured a mild reprimand as he gathered a fistful of her skirt and drew it back over her rounded hip. The evidence of Kruin’s cruel belt flamed against her pale cheeks, the raised welts contrasting sharply with the whiteness of her skin.

Gabriel skimmed his fingers over the backs of her toned thighs, causing a tremble to ripple through her body. He sat on the edge of the bed beside her and stroked over the flow of her hip to the dip of her waist. She didn’t move, but her muscles tightened at his touch.

‘Lydia.’

Her only response was another sniffle. Gabriel leaned against the headboard and slid his hand from her waist, lightly over her ribcage to the curve of her breast beneath her cotton dress. His fingertips lingered against the soft swell, and his penis stirred inside his trousers.

‘Look at me, Lydia.’ His voice was not harsh, but underscored with an undeniable layer of authority.

She turned slowly, her buttermilk cheeks still streaked with tears, her brown eyes watching him with a deep sense of apprehension.

Gabriel smoothed her tousled hair away from her forehead, his fingers sliding easily through the dark, silken strands. His hand moved to her neck and down the warm plane of her back, pressing against the ridge of her spine as he drew her closer to him.

Lydia stiffened as she feebly tried to resist the insistent urge of his grip, wincing as her bottom made contact with the coverpane.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to—’

‘Yes you do, Lydia,’ he countered insistently. ‘Yes you do.’

Lydia sniffed and tried again to pull away from him, but she was so drained of energy that she finally collapsed against his chest with a small moan of defeat.

Her body was limp and hot, her breasts yielding pillows against his muscled chest. A feral scent rose from her – the fragrance of erotic emissions mingled with the perspiring warmth of her skin, a bouquet that belonged to her alone.

With one arm around Lydia’s quivering body, Gabriel began to unfasten the buttons of her dress. She made a little mewl of protest, but only shifted a little as his fingers released the dainty pearls from the scooped neckline to the hem of the skirt. He parted the folds of cotton, revealing her snowy, burnished body.

Gabriel’s erection grew harder as he gazed at the soft crests of Lydia’s breasts and the plump apex of her thighs. He cupped her breasts in the palms of his hands, flicking his thumbs over her nipples as he recalled how luscious she had looked spread out on the table with the fleshy orbs of her buttocks thrust towards Kruin in coerced offering.

He smoothed his hand over the gentle hollow of her tummy to the satiny cleft of her vulva. Her thighs remained pressed closely together until a terse word from him persuaded her to reluctantly part them. He dipped his fingers into the heat between her legs, unsurprised to discover that her sex lips were still damp and swollen with arousal.

Lydia stirred with a little gasp when his fingers began to gently squeeze and manipulate the secret folds. Her head turned away as if she could not bear to watch the erotic plucking of her feminine charms again. Her hair fell across her profile like a satin curtain as she buried her face in Gabriel’s chest.

Her breasts heaved when his thumb traced a circle around her swollen button, then he submerged his forefinger deeply into her humid passage. Her wet heat fastened deliciously around his finger, and then her hips squirmed slightly as if she wished to impale herself upon the digit. Pressing her face against him, her sniffles melted into tiny cries of pleasure.

Gabriel felt Lydia’s body tensing with the effort of attempting to retain control over her naturally sensual inclinations. He knew she had reached the breaking point of her self-control, that she had exhausted her strength in trying to endure both Kruin’s fierce punishment and his heartless use of her body.

He rubbed the slick bud of her sex, splaying his fingers on either side of it as he stoked her inner fires.

‘Oh, please… yes, please…’ Her husky words were lost against his shirtfront as her fingers curled tightly into it, her panting so rapid he could feel the warmth of her breath through the material. She let out a pleading moan, her inner flesh clenching around his finger in a vice-like grip. Gabriel pressed his lips to the top of her head and worked his fingers more deliberately.

‘Come, Lydia,’ he commanded. ‘Come now.’

She cried out with relief, quaking into violent shudders of rapture that caused her to clamp her legs around Gabriel’s hand so that she might milk every last sensation from her sex. Her hips squirmed with wanton delight and warm fluid flowed over his fingers, and his arm tightened around Lydia’s body as she crested the wave with a deep, lascivious moan.

‘Oh, God…’ She sagged against him, her voice filled with gratitude as she fought to regain her breath. She pressed her forehead against his chest again and whispered something so low in her throat he didn’t catch the words.

He pressed his fingers underneath her chin, lifting her face to look at him. Her eyes were dark with satiation, but buried deep within the brown depths was a lingering expression of shock and apprehension.

‘What did you say?’ Gabriel asked.

‘I said…’ Her moist lips quivered. ‘I said thank you.’

Gabriel smiled slightly and stroked her hair. ‘You’re welcome.’

Lydia twisted, her hand moving to try and drape her dress back around her nakedness, and as she did so her arm brushed inadvertently against the hardness in his trousers. She started for an instant, but then paused and stared hesitantly at the swollen bulge.

Without looking at him, her cheeks reddening with a developing blush, she slid down the zipper of his trousers, then her graceful fingers trembled a little as she slipped them into the opening to fasten around his stiff flesh.

Pulling his erection into view she paused for a moment, and then her face lowered, her lips parted and then closed tentatively around the turgid dome, her tongue dabbing at a seepage of liquid from the tip.

Gabriel’s jaw tightened as he watched her cheeks hollow and her tightly stretched lips descend upon him with a slow, luscious sink of her head. Her tongue worked with artful swirls, her hand creeping between his legs to cup and caress his firm testicles.

She shifted onto her knees in order to better dispense her erotic ministrations, raising her whipped bottom, the dawning sun beginning to peep through the window, inflaming the pattern of red welts on her buttocks with such a lustrous, inviting sheen of gold that Gabriel could not resist stroking them.

She flinched, but did not cease suckling his sturdy phallus, bathing it almost devotedly with the heat and moisture of her lips and tongue. Gabriel traced her bruises with his fingertips, and then stroked up the arched curve of her back. With a jerk of his wrist he pulled her unfastened dress off, a motion to which Lydia provided assistance as she shifted her arms to let the printed cotton fall from her body.

Gabriel’s eyes tracked over his captive’s full nakedness as she crouched next to his thighs. Her head was lowered in submission to his prick, her hair cascading over her shoulders as she continued to work him in and out of the slickness of her mouth, her soft breasts molding to his thigh, her torso washed a deep gold from the breaking sun.

So dedicated to her task was Lydia that she failed to notice when Preston pushed open the bedroom door. He stood there for a moment as he took in the explicit scene before him, and then a jealous anger hardened his lean features.

As his verdant gaze met that of the other man, but Gabriel did not move his hand from Lydia’s naked back, sustaining the gesture of both protection and possession.

‘Well, well, well.’

The sound of Preston’s voice caused Lydia to jerk upward with a gasp of shock, her eyes clashing fearfully with his, but Gabriel pressed his hand more firmly against her back to indicate that she need not move or worry.

‘Preston, you’re not welcome here just now,’ he said, his voice icy. ‘I suggest you leave.’

The two men stared each other down with sparks of irritation lighting the air between them, until Preston broke first and stepped back. His eyes darted surreptitiously to the standing column of Gabriel’s erection as he grasped the door handle.

‘Excuse me, then,’ he said flatly as he left and closed the door with an audible click.

Gabriel gave Lydia, who was looking at him with trepidation, a comforting smile. With a murmur of reassurance he placed his hand on her neck and pressed her back down to his groin as she resumed her bathing of his bursting shaft, her mouth quickly proving too much for him to withstand, and with a groan he ejaculated copiously over her lips and chin and hands.

Wiping her mouth she gave him a shy smile as she sat back on her heels, and Gabriel tucked away his softening penis, fastened his trousers and leaned over to press his lips against her temple.

‘Don’t worry about him,’ he murmured. ‘He’ll never really hurt you. He’s too obsessed with you.’

Lydia’s eyes widened. ‘Obsessed with me?’

‘He has been for years, since you were children, apparently. Didn’t you know that?’

‘When we were teenagers, I… I knew he held a torch for me, but I didn’t think much of it.’

‘He’s kept track of you ever since,’ Gabriel said. ‘He always wanted to know where you were, what you were doing, who you were with.’

A dawning fury lit in her eyes. ‘How on earth did he keep track of all that?’

‘You were enough of a public figure, so that some things were well known,’ Gabriel disclosed. ‘Others he discovered mostly from private detectives. That’s why it was so easy for you to contact him. He already knew you were in trouble.’

‘Oh, no.’ Lydia pressed a hand to her head, feeling nauseous with what she was hearing. ‘I can’t believe this. Is he sick, or something?’

Gabriel reached out to tuck a stray lock of her dark hair behind her neat ear. ‘It’s all right, Lydia; as strange at seems, he’ll protect you to the death. Why do you think he offered to help you?’

Lydia shot him a glare. ‘Because he wanted to fuck me, of course,’ she said bluntly. ‘And disgrace me.’

‘He wants to control you, yes, but he will allow no harm to come to you. Especially not from people who want you imprisoned.’

She smiled without humor. ‘I’m imprisoned here, aren’t I?’

‘And who made that choice?’

Lydia looked down, rubbing her fingertip over a small scar on the back of her hand. ‘I did,’ she finally said.