Clockwork Captive
Authors: Anh Leod
CLOCKWORK CAPTIVE
Enslaved in a gentlemen's club by her father's debt, and branded by the clockwork piercing at her throat, Liza Flaherty knows she has few options. Until the night she recognizes Brace Howell...
From the instant Brace sees a photograph of Liza at the club, he knows he must possess her, though he has no idea a secret binds them together.
When they meet, he sees her scars from sex marred by violence, but he has sexual healing in mind. He has one goal, to rescue the captive and make her his forever.
What others are saying about Anh Leod
"Anh Leod has the ability to weave words to create very explicit pictures within the mind." — Alternative-reads.com on “Cherokee’s Playmates”
“Anh Leod is a spectacular author...” — Romance Junkies on “Lucky Number Seven”
“Even though this story is short, the reader becomes engaged with the characters from page one. You want to know what happens and which decisions they make. Plus, the love scenes sizzle with unspoken passion that the reader can feel teeming from each page.” — Whipped Cream Erotic Romance Reviews on “Playing Lycan Games”
“Anh Leod has written a sexy tale of love, lust and passion. There were times when I forgot the characters were shape-shifters who moved between werewolf and human form. The romantic aspects of this well-written story filled my mind so completely it didn’t matter to me what the pair was, just that they find happiness.” — Romance Reader at Heart on “Bijou’s Bonds”
Clockwork Captive
By Anh Leod
Copyright Anh Leod 2012
Amazon Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
CLOCKWORK CAPTIVE
COPYRIGHT 2012 by Anh Leod
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Coffee on Sundays Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by David Hiestand
Coffee on Sundays Press
Visit us at
http://www.coffeeonsundays.info
Publishing History
First Amazon Edition, 2012
Published in the United States of America
CHAPTER ONE
He liked her exposed throat, was enticed by the way the tender column arched.
Her eyes, half-closed under thick brows, challenged him. The shiny brass medallion at her throat heightened the lush texture of her skin, the glossy golden tone.
Her breasts drew his interest, perfect globes forming into pert rosy nipples at the tips. He imagined sucking them, laving them, biting them. How would she taste?
Mrs. Teagarden’s Gentlemen’s Club featured many girls on the walls, captured by a photographer. No smiles were in evidence since the exposures took so long but this particular girl encouraged him with the promise of ecstasy to come. His cock, in agreement with his brain, hardened to half-mast beneath his trousers.
“You like ‘er, Mr. ‘owell?” The proprietress slithered up next to him, her scarlet hoop skirt brushing against his legs. Her accent indicated Cockney origins, though she worked in this better part of London now.
Instinctively, he stepped back, repulsed by the painted former whore. Compared to the fresh young beauty depicted on the wall, Mrs. Teagarden was a crone.
“I’d like to meet her,” Brace said. He’d meant to spend the night drinking and gambling in the lower rooms, but the portrait had caught his eye. His friends were late and he’d decided to wait for them in the hall instead of entering the raucous game room, full of strangers and cigar smoke. Something about this girl dared him to change his plans.
“Six shillings for the ‘our, sir,” she said, holding out her hand avariciously.
Her open greed did not say much for the class of this establishment. Nonetheless, he found himself fishing in his pocket for the exorbitant fee, then followed her up crimson-carpeted stairs to the second level. All the while, he berated himself for foolishness. He’d never paid for a woman’s favors before. What was it about the portrait that made him lose all sense?
Mrs. Teagarden knocked firmly on one of the thin doors on the left side. “Liza! Gentleman caller.”
Brace heard soft footfalls, and then the door opened. Liza, if that was indeed her name and not a whore’s moniker, appeared, her dark face floating above a thin white gown. She enchanted him instantly.
Her black hair twisted into a braid that looped over one shoulder, curled around the curious medallion at her throat. The portrait downstairs had not flattered this young woman, no, it hadn’t done her justice. Her lips, for one thing, were impossibly puffy and glossy, reflecting the gas light hissing from the corridor wall.
Something about her slight welcoming smile set him at ease, assuring him that his shillings were well spent. He felt his shoulders relax.
“He paid for an ‘our, dearie,” Mrs. Teagarden said with satisfaction, as she pulled a slender, intricate silver key from her cleavage.
When she put it to Liza’s ornament, he realized the medallion was a clock. The proprietress poked at it for a moment with her key, then tucked it back into her dress.
From the girl’s raised eyebrows, Brace knew their trade didn’t normally extend to an hour. But, he could easily last that long, even if he didn’t have additional delights in mind. His cock pressed eagerly against his smallclothes, reminding him of how long it had been denied female comforts. He’d spent the summer working long hours and walking with friends the rest of the time, attempting to get out of London as much as possible. No time had been spared for women. But now autumn weather turned his associates to indoor delights. They could gamble without him for one night.
The proprietress pushed him into the small chamber with a none-too-gentle hand at his back. The room smelled fresh at least, free of those body odors that steamed from the very walls in some brothels after so many years in service to human pleasures. He stumbled and reached out to gain his balance, but Liza stood right in front of him. His hands landed on the toothsome breasts he’d admired in her portrait.
The feel of her warm, barely-covered flesh under his hands pleased him. When her eyes widened, only a few inches from his own gaze, he realized she was older than he’d expected, close to his own age of twenty-two, and her amber-brown eyes looked familiar somehow.
That cat’s gaze narrowed on his as he squeezed her breasts, testing the firm warmth, before releasing her. His cock jerked as her flesh slid from his fingers.
“My apologies,” he said quickly.
“No need for that. You’ve paid for the privilege.” Her expression softened.
He was hard as an oak tree already, but with the hour ticking away at her throat, he had time to taste the alluring female scent drifting up from her spicy cunny. Why spend himself quickly when he had time to anticipate? And he’d enjoy it more if he could entice his partner to take her pleasure as well.
With a challenging stare of his own, he slid to his knees in front of Liza as the door closed behind him. He grasped the hem of Liza’s plain, floor length gown and rucked it up to her knees.
“You needn’t be a supplicant. You’ve paid for your time,” she said, lifting her chin toward the narrow cot on the right side of the room. Her voice held no hint of common origins, yet he wasn’t quite able to place the accent. She’d moved about, most likely.
He exposed her knees. “Does this offend you? I’m not used to paying for a woman’s time.”
“Of course it doesn’t offend me. And a woman is a woman whether she’s paid for or not, Mr. Howell.” Her eyes widened slightly as she said his name.
He liked the sound of it on her lips and for some curious reason she smiled as if she liked it too. “Then I’ll do what I please. As you said, I’ve paid for the hour.”
She touched the medallion at her throat.
As he lifted her shift to mid-thigh, he asked, “Am I your first customer this evening?”
“It’s early yet,” she said noncommittally.
“Do you service the male staff before the guests arrive?” He knew how she earned her living, but he’d at least like to know he was her first of the evening. Strange that he cared. The shift was at the top of her thighs now and he could see a hint of black curly hair between her legs.
She shifted, as if made uncomfortable by his question. He noted faint marks striping the insides of her thighs.
“You’ve been whipped, and often. Is Mrs. Teagarden a harsh mistress?”
“My patrons enjoy such things,” she said, her mouth pulling to one side.
“Really? I’ve found it is the men who enjoy being beaten. All those brutal schoolmasters from our youths, I imagine.”
Her eyes sharpened for a moment as if waiting for him to continue, but he couldn’t make polite conversation when he was staring at the treasure between her legs.
“A certain class of men enjoys aggression,” she said. “They like striping my inner thighs, then listening to me cry out as their skin slides against mine while we fuck.”
He swallowed hard at her crude language. Her inner fire attracted him. He put his hand to his trouser-front and adjusted himself. “Do you like the pain?”
She smiled, though he didn’t think emotion reached her eyes. “I tolerate it well. See?” Bending her head toward his, while still holding his gaze, she let out a low moan of pain.
An erotic thrill coursed through him at that musical moan, even if it was mere artifice. The dark, sexual tone heated his blood and his hand shook where it held cloth against her upper thigh. No wonder she specialized in the perversion.
“One would almost think you craved it,” he said.
Her breasts rose as she inhaled deeply before her head turned to a small highboy in the corner.
The room was so small she could open the top drawer without moving closer to it. A small selection of crops of varying widths rested inside.
“What excites you?” she asked. “Any of these?”
He couldn’t suppress the slight shudder. Moans were one thing, but the whips revolted him. This delightful creature deserved pleasure, not pain.
“Not that.”
She closed the drawer with an air of satisfaction softening her lips, as if he’d passed a test. “No? I wonder why you chose me.”
“Your portrait in the hallway below challenged me.”
“Most men want to master the girl in that portrait.”
“I don’t think like most men. I want this.” He lifted her linen to her waist, and buried his face in her crisp muff.
She gasped. Her hands found the back of his head. He was sure shock and not design had motivated her quick movements. Wanting to continue to surprise, he tasted her slit with the tip of his tongue and stroked down until he found her channel. It rewarded him with a drop of musky fluid. He lapped it up, delighting in her individual taste, pulling her against his mouth with his hands on her naked buttocks. She felt firm, velvet-soft, and warm under his palms, and enticed him further with a tiny gasp of pleasure.
He didn’t think she’d been a whore long. Her responses to his offered pleasure were too untutored for that, despite her scars.
Testing her again, he speared her channel with his tongue, stretching her open. Then he slid his fingers up the insides of her nether lips until he found the tiny pearl at the apex. When his tongue found her there, she gasped again and ground against his mouth. He grasped the backs of her thighs, only to find her trembling.
