Beyond Temptation (11 page)

‘Bernice is asleep and we wouldn’t want to wake her,’ Amelia observed. ‘So you will remain quiet for me, won’t you?’

He nodded, unable to mask his suspicious frown.

‘Then bend over and show me your arse,’ she demanded.

He acted instantaneously. Her fingers slid from his cock and she watched as he bent over, like a naughty schoolboy preparing for the cane. Her smile widened as she glanced along the edge of the gravel-strewn path. For the first time since they arrived at Holbert Manor, Amelia felt her spirits rising.

She pushed his shirt away from his backside, stroking her fingers uncaringly against the rounded swell of his cheeks. She teased the tip of one finger against the rim of his anus and smiled as he muttered a word of protest.

‘I think you preferred
her
,’ Amelia told him.

‘No. I never liked her.’

‘I think Yale preferred
her
too.’

Christian shook his head. The gesture was lost on Amelia as she contemplated his backside. But, from the way his shoulders swayed, she guessed he was trying to tell her she was wrong.

‘Yale used to fuck her more,’ Amelia reminded him. ‘He used to make her pose as a principal model. I was always his second choice when it came to modelling. She was always his first choice. Doesn’t that tell you which of us was his favourite?’

‘He asked you to stay,’ Christian observed. ‘I think that speaks volumes.’

Amelia sniffed. ‘I think he’d tired of her desire to be dominant. Do you think he’ll get rid of me when I prove too dominant for him?’

Christian remained tactfully silent.

Amelia glared at his backside, despising his knack for self-preservation and annoyed by the fact that he was not letting her properly vent her rage. She glanced at the side of the path and wrapped her hand inside the sleeve of her leather jacket.

She reached down and plucked a flower from the edge of the roadside.

She knew that Christian had seen what she was doing because she heard him moan. The sound brought the warm thrill of arousal back between her legs.

It was like the flutter of an angel’s tongue dancing against her clit.

‘Bizarre, isn’t it?’ she began, speaking wistfully to herself. ‘The Welsh have their leeks, the Irish have their shamrocks, the English have …’ Her voice trailed off as she realised she had exhausted her knowledge of national symbols. ‘The English have something or other,’ she said quickly, ‘and the Scots have the thistle.’

Again, Christian moaned.

Amelia wasn’t listening. ‘They’re quite a pretty flower when you look at them closely,’ she observed. ‘This purple head looks so delicate and feather-like. But you only have to look at the leaves to know how dangerous it can be.’

Christian shivered.

His response could have been partly due to the cold. The weather wasn’t the most clement Amelia had ever experienced and the chill had seeped through the denim of her jeans. Christian wore only a shirt and shivered in the frigid breeze. But she doubted it was the weather that caused him to tremble.

‘Do you know what I’m going to do with this thistle?’ Amelia asked carefully.

Christian made a small sound that she didn’t understand. Not that it mattered. She could tell by his nervous expression that he knew exactly what her intentions were. His muffled grunt told her he was dreading what she had in store.

With a wicked smile, Amelia drew the head of the thistle against his balls.

Christian stiffened. His entire body was held rigid as he tried not to pull away.

‘Tell me that feels nice,’ Amelia encouraged him.

His breath was harsh. The strangled gasp barely contained his obvious unhappiness. ‘Nice,’ he gulped, wrenching the word from between clenched teeth. ‘That feels nice.’

She chuckled.

‘Then I’ll do it some more for you.’

Without waiting for his response, Amelia stroked the head of the thistle firmly against his scrotum. The prickly leaves caught in the protective hairs around his sac and she frowned. It pleased her that the spines on the stem scored red lines on the sensitive flesh of his inner thighs. She could imagine the pain was sharp and cruel and enough to bring tears to his eyes.

But, to her mind, Christian wasn’t suffering enough.

She brushed the stem against his anus, taking grim pleasure from his staggered sigh of discomfort. And, after brushing it against his ring for a second time, Amelia decided she wanted more.

‘Stand up and turn around,’ she snapped.

He did as she instructed, facing her with a wary expression. His hands hovered protectively over his erection.

‘You shouldn’t be doing this,’ he complained. ‘Yale has always said that we shouldn’t have marks or scars.’

His voice quickened as he warmed to this theme. She could hear that the idea had only just occurred to him but he was now prepared to hide behind it as though it was some sort of talisman.

‘Yale says that he can’t paint us if we’ve got …’

‘Yale isn’t here,’ Amelia reminded him.

Christian fell silent. He looked cowed and broken.

‘Move your hands,’ she demanded.

He tried to do so but fear made it impossible for Christian to leave himself defenceless. Each time Amelia took a step towards him, he held himself protectively again.

A warning light flashed in her eyes. She wasn’t used to being defied like this and she glared at him resentfully. She didn’t suppose her fierce expression was helping but she was beyond calming her own natural reaction to his disobedience.

Christian was beginning to infuriate her.

‘Stand still!’

He shook his head. ‘I’m trying, but you scare me.’

‘Spineless maggot,’ she murmured. Glancing over his shoulder, she looked at the motor home. The temptation was to go inside, secure him to a bed and punish him for this cowardice. But Amelia wanted to do more than that, and she was unwilling to forsake the sweet heather-scented aroma of the morning air. The slightly open door gave her an idea and she began to bark instructions at him.

‘Put your back against that door. Then grab the top of it.’

He did as she asked. A look of mistrust strained his features as he held himself exposed for her. Because of his height he was able to hold the top of the door without stretching too much but the position raised his shirttails away from his exposed cock.

Amelia nodded, satisfied.

She stepped closer to him. She could see he wanted to protect himself but, because his hands now had something to do, he was able to resist the temptation. The sounds of metal groaning against metal told her that the hinge was protesting at his weight, but that consideration didn’t weigh too greatly on her thoughts. She still held the thistle in a hand protected by the cuff of her jacket. She offered the flower to Christian like a lover presenting a token to her betrothed. The dusky purple head of the thistle drooped lightly at the end of the stem.

As she watched, she saw a glistening ball of pre-come growing over the eye of Christian’s cock. ‘Which of us did you prefer?’ Amelia asked innocently. ‘
Her
or me?’

He had been staring warily at the thistle but his gaze shifted to her eyes. Scared, he looked away. ‘Yale said we weren’t to talk about her.’

‘I want an answer,’ Amelia grunted.

She stroked the head of the flower along his shaft. He groaned and twisted. His cries for leniency turned into a plaintive wail. The hinges of the door moaned softly beneath their abuse but they held his weight, for the moment.

‘Tell me which of us you preferred.’ Amelia rolled the head of the thistle over his cock, watching his seed catch in the feather-like petals. With a light caress, she drew the stem of the flower down his shaft. As it dragged along his rigid length the razor-edged leaves scratched his flesh. ‘You don’t have to use names. If it’s me, say so. If you preferred her, you can say
her
.’

Christian’s muted cries were a formless sob. He beseeched her with his eyes, then turned away when he saw her unrelenting expression. ‘That hurts,’ he hissed. ‘It’s absolute agony.’

‘Shame,’ she replied. Her tone was indifferent. ‘Answer my question, Christian. Which of us did you prefer? Me or my lover?’

He shook his head. At the top of the door his knuckles had turned white. His shirtsleeves had fallen down from the cuffs and she was treated to the sight of his broad, muscular forearms. Every tendon strained as he employed a Herculean effort to remain beneath her torturous hand.

‘I prefer you,’ he gasped softly. ‘You know I prefer you. I preferred you then and I still prefer you now, even though you’re a bitch who treats me like a whipping boy. I prefer you.’

Amelia scowled. ‘Liar,’ she hissed.

With an angry flick of her wrist she swiped the end of his cock with the stem of the thistle. She had hit him harder with the cat the previous night and she knew from her own experience he had taken more punishing blows for the sake of Yale’s art.

But she doubted they had been more agonising.

Every muscle in his face was twisted in a shriek for help. He rose on tiptoe as his hands gripped tighter at the door. Beneath his cries, the distant growl of the weakening hinges was barely audible.

‘Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear,’ Amelia instructed. ‘Tell me the truth. Did you prefer her? Is that why you won’t say?’

He struggled for composure shaking his head from side to side. ‘I didn’t like her,’ he whispered. He spat the words through strained snatches of breath. ‘She was hard and cold and cruel.’

Amelia considered him for a moment. ‘Don’t you think I’m being a little cruel right now?’

He shook his head from side to side. His eyes were glassy with the threat of tears but she could see he was staring at her with a ferocity that could only come from someone telling the truth.

‘You’re just having fun,’ he gasped. ‘You’re hard, and you’re horribly cruel. But you’re not cold. You could never be cold.’

She frowned, suddenly annoyed with him. It had been irritating when she thought he was lying. Now, when she saw that he had understood a truth she had never been able to grasp, Amelia felt stupid and cheated.

‘You could just be saying that.’

He shook his head. ‘Yale needed a dominatrix for his paintings,’ he explained. He was regaining a little of his composure, although his nervousness was apparent in the glistening beads of sweat that speckled his brow. ‘Your lover was harsh, cruel and just plain nasty. You’re cruel, but you do it in the right way. You dominate with restraint.’

Amelia frowned. She was no longer sure she was still following him. But she didn’t think it mattered. She had received the response she wanted.

‘You’ve just given my cock a mild lashing with that thistle,’ he panted. He licked a nervous tongue against the sweat on his upper lip. ‘Your lover wouldn’t have been happy to just do that. She would have stamped it up my arsehole with one of her stiletto heels.’

Amelia nodded and considered him thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure if I agree with everything you’ve said,’ she began quietly. ‘But I do know one thing.’

He studied her uneasily. Amelia figured he had heard the ice in her voice.

‘You’ve just been talking about her,’ she reminded him. ‘And Yale expressly forbade anyone from talking about my lover.’

With a vicious swipe of her wrist, she thrashed the head of Christian’s cock with the thistle. She saw the prickly edges lash mercilessly against the swollen purple flesh and heard him bite back an anguished roar. Ignoring his cries, she continued to hit him with the flower, enjoying his muted pleas for her to stop. She caught the tip of his cock repeatedly, grinning when she saw that the blows weren’t spoiling his arousal.

On the contrary: the harder she struck, the more rigid his cock stood.

Amelia threw the thistle to the floor and began to rub Christian’s cock in a slow, punishing wank. The glistening ball of pre-come had now become a slow, clear stream. He moaned beneath her touch and she knew his orgasm was close. She moved her hand faster up and down his length.

He almost screamed when he climaxed. Instead of saying anything articulate, Christian simply groaned as she dragged him beyond the point of control. His cock twitched twice and she watched a stream of white liquid shoot from his shaft onto the gravel. Amelia noticed that his feet were no longer touching the driveway and realised, too late, that he was holding himself on the door.

She heard the protesting shriek of the hinges as metal sheared against metal. Christian was oblivious to the noise, still holding tightly to the door even when it fell to the floor.

With a frown, Amelia glanced from the door to the back of the motor home. Bernice stepped into the space with a curious, sleep-weary expression on her face.

Amelia ignored her. She stared at the back of the motor home.

Without the door, the opening looked like a gaping wound. Glaring at Christian, she cursed angrily.

‘You fucking idiot. What the hell did you do that for?’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ Christian complained. ‘I was only –’

Amelia didn’t allow him to finish his sentence.

‘Yale won’t be happy about this. You might end up receiving a punishment.’ She glanced at Bernice and said, ‘Pass me Yale’s mobile if it’s still in there. We need to organise a repair.’

* * *

‘No.’

Even though it only came out as a whisper, Robyn wondered how she had managed to give voice to the word. She wanted Yale as badly as she had ever wanted any man. It was almost second nature to give in when that impulse touched her. She had given in when she saw Dominic at the dinner party. She had been giving in since the beginning of her marriage. Habit and reluctance made her refusal that much harder but she said the word anyway.

‘No.’

‘I don’t think you mean that.’ Yale reached forward to caress her neck. His mouth was inches away from hers. His warm smile illuminated the dark unfathomable depths of his eyes. ‘You’re saying no, but every gesture you make seems to scream the word
yes
.’

Robyn wished she could tell him that wasn’t true.