Darker Than Love (18 page)

‘Ah, but that is where you are wrong,’ he replied.

He touched his fingertips to her cheek, turning her gently to meet his gaze. She looked at him steadily. His lips were set in an arrogant half-sneer, and his black, inky eyes glittered with callous joy. She saw in that expression how sure he was of his hold over her, of his ability to master her, body and soul. His confidence was unshakeable. It incensed her; it crushed her; and it thrilled her.

‘You see, in your innocence you think love the greater force,’ he said softly. ‘And, true enough, it binds many couples. Although there are plenty who do not even have that. But as man and wife, Clarissa, you and I will be bound by something so much darker than love, so much stronger.’

He moved her hand to his groin and held it against the warm sac of his balls. She massaged the pouch, delighting in the tight weight rolling within the shifting skin. Her fingers explored, stroking lightly and running along the bridge to his anus.

‘Suck me, Clarissa,’ he rasped. ‘Brinley was rather complimentary about your mouth. Show me what you can do.’

She flinched inwardly at the reminder and pitched him a hurt look. There was a moment’s reluctance in her eyes, only a moment’s, but it was enough. Marldon lunged forward and tangled a fist in her hair, tugging her towards him. She yelped, her body twisting, as she struggled on to all fours. He pulled her head between his bent, open legs and held it there, inches from his formidable, jutting member. Gnarled veins pulsed beneath the skin and she smelt his musky sexuality. The hungry power, so densely packed in his rigid organ, made her sex flush with longing.

‘Come now,’ he said with a touch of asperity. ‘I’m not asking for much. I merely expect you to get rid of what you’ve roused. It threatens my plans for you.’

Clutching her dark tresses, he forced her down. She
parted her lips to take him, and his taut, hard cock surged fiercely into her mouth. He clasped her firmly and thrust his loins upward, pounding relentlessly as if he were coupling with her. Clarissa’s throat contracted. Tears burnt her eyes. She clawed at his thighs, fearing he would choke her. Yet still, there was some part of her which relished his brutality.

Marldon stopped and raised her head. ‘Don’t try my patience again,’ he said. ‘I can usually control my lust, but seldom my temper. Now do to me as you wish. But make sure I come in your mouth.’

Clarissa licked teasingly along his shaft, from hair-collared base to smooth, swollen tip. She explored his glans, lashing around the circlet of retracted skin and probing the tiny opening. Her fingers stole in to caress his testicles, and she sank her mouth to the thick root of his phallus. She drew back slowly, indulging in the feel of him: the throbbing heat, the unyielding virility. She kept her lips tight to his girth, and her agile tongue moved ceaselessly.

Marldon glided into her caress with restrained lifts of his pelvis. ‘A little faster,’ he urged. ‘Go with me.’

Clarissa complied. She took him in sweeping gulps, matching the gathering rhythm of his jerking hips. Her arousal soared in response to his urgency, and she felt her labia thicken with honeyed humidity.

‘Yes,’ he hissed. His cock plunged quicker and deeper.

She kept pace, sucking and swallowing, firm and deep. She heard him groan, a husky sound of bliss, and it pierced her groin with stabbing fire. His balls tightened beneath her fingers and his prick throbbed to a sudden hard swell. He drove furiously and, with a grating shout, spent his release.

His cock twitched and pulsed, and his semen flooded over her tongue in hot, tearing spurts. Its pungency burnt in her throat. She drank deeply and Marldon gave a low sigh of contentment.

For a long time he did not move or speak, and neither
did she. She kept him in her mouth, lapping idly at his decreasing solidity.

‘I expect you’ll be wanting your pleasure now.’ His words were cold and functional but his tone was gentle. He curled tendrils in her hair with lazy, distracted fingers. ‘Come here,’ he murmured.

His eyes smiled drowsily into hers and he played his hands lightly over her contours, skimming her nipples and hip bones. This was a new mood for Clarissa, one she liked. Her body tingled with eagerness and she was glad she had pleased him.

She widened her thighs and tilted her hips to him.

Lord Marldon huffed a quick laugh. ‘Patience, patience, child,’ he whispered. ‘I want to take my time over you. We have an evening and a night ahead of us. I want to indulge your desires.’

Clarissa flexed her spine in anticipation of luxury. She reached out to him and slid her hand over his chest in slow, sinuous motions. His gaze roved over her pale curves.

‘You’re delectable,’ he said quietly. ‘Ah, what times we shall have together.’

He smoothed a finger over her lips and she sucked softly on it. Her hand travelled up to his face and stroked over his features. She traced the slope of his nose, over the slightly raised bridge, down its straightness. She swept along his cheekbones and drifted to the line of his scar, wondering, wondering. Her finger followed the silvery ridge almost parallel to his jaw, then dipped down to his neck.

‘How did you get such a mark?’ she enquired, her voice scarce more than a breath.

Marldon smiled. A sparkle of glee replaced the tenderness in his eyes.

‘From a woman, would you believe?’ he said. ‘A lover. She slashed me while I was sleeping.’

Clarissa drew back her hand and looked at him aghast.

‘She didn’t try it again,’ he added, rising from the bed. He picked up his shirt and began to dress.

‘Where are you going?’ pleaded Clarissa. He had promised her pleasure. He could not leave.

‘I’m taking you somewhere special,’ he said, stepping into his trousers.

Clarissa leant to gather her shift from the floor but Marldon lightly kicked it away.

‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘You’ll only have to take it all off again.’

‘I can’t go anywhere like this,’ she hissed, crossing her arms over her breasts.

‘It’s only the servants,’ he scoffed. ‘And they’ve already seen most of it.’

‘No,’ said Clarissa, pulling the coverlet to hide her body. ‘Don’t let them watch us. I don’t like it.’

‘You do,’ he replied, shrugging on his waistcoat. ‘But don’t let that concern you. Tonight, Clarissa, they will not be watching.’

Chapter Eight

CLARISSA HESITATED IN
the doorway, fingers linked over her groin, and gazed upon the small room before her.

It was a windowless octagon, its ebony-panelled walls inlaid with tall plate mirrors. Sconces, carved into naked figures, held purple waxlights in outstretched arms, and a patchwork of dead animals, sleek and black, covered the floor. The only item of furniture was a low couch, its frame scrolled silver, its upholstery midnight satin.

Lord Marldon put a hand to the small of her back. A shiver started there and chilled through her body.

‘Go on,’ he said, easing her forward. ‘There’s much to admire.’

Her bare feet padded soundlessly across the silky carpeting. The room ran to infinity in the depths of the mirrors, and so did Clarissa. She saw her every movement, her nervously darting eyes, her fruitless attempts to turn from her reflection. Somewhere in the distance she was a tiny thing, a fluttering insect trapped in a confusion of candle flames.

Marldon closed the door. In the glass Clarissa saw the ebony panel beside it. She whirled to look, hoping it was an illusion, a trick of the light. It was not.

Hanging from the wall at six points were sturdy leather plaits attached to broad leather cuffs. They dangled limply, the lower two trailing across the floor, patiently awaiting their next captive. Clarissa drew a sharp breath and cursed herself silently. She should have known better. When Marldon said he would indulge her desires, he meant the desires he read in her, not the desires she knew.

She turned to him, full of trepidation. ‘What do you intend?’ she whispered.

Alec began folding back his shirtsleeves and smiled. In the mirrors, a hundred cruel faces gave a hundred cold smiles.

‘You have too much control,’ he replied evenly. ‘No, let me correct that. Too much self-control. At times it deserts you, but that is nothing special. It happens to us all. Ecstasy and desire are great equalisers. Everyone is overwhelmed; everyone is debased to mere carnality.’

He paced the room, hands clasped behind his back, addressing an imaginary audience. ‘You see, I do not wish to have a woman who governs herself. When I see such a person, I want to strip her of that protective shield. I want to remove everything mankind has toiled to develop, the things we believe elevate us above the animals: dignity, self-possession, the revered intellect, the sacred soul. I want to reduce her, degrade her to nothing but flesh and appetite. Strange, isn’t it, the way some things appeal?’

He turned to Clarissa. ‘Sit there,’ he said. He nodded to a mirror which ran from ceiling to floor.

Clarissa knelt before it, her guarded eyes following his reflection.

‘On your arse, miss,’ he ordered. ‘And open your legs.’

Clarissa acquiesced. Her compliance dismayed her but rather this, she thought, than be shackled. Marldon crossed and knelt behind her. His hands moved around to cup and fondle her breasts.

‘Look at yourself,’ he urged.

Reluctantly, she did so. The subdued orangey light tinted her pale skin, and her crinkling nipples peeped through Alec’s caressing fingers. Her sex, so flagrantly exposed, seemed to glare back at her, commanding attention. It nestled within her parted white thighs, a deep-pink lily fringed with fine black curls. It pouted lasciviously. It flaunted its wetness.

‘Now touch yourself,’ he whispered.

Clarissa shook her head. ‘No, I cannot,’ she breathed. ‘Not when you are watching.’

‘Yes, you can,’ he said in a soft, cajoling tone. ‘I’ve watched you before. Remember?’

‘But then I did not know it,’ replied Clarissa, bitterly resentful.

‘Touch yourself,’ he repeated. ‘Keep your eyes where they are and spread your sex for me.’ He rolled her nipples between thumb and forefinger, teasing her arousal, challenging her to disobey. ‘Or I’ll bring in one of the servants to do it,’ he added.

Clarissa flashed an alarmed glance at his reflection but Alec did not see. His gaze was fixed on her secret place. She dared not refuse him, for without doubt he would summon a servant. Drawing a deep breath of courage, Clarissa touched timid fingers to her moist, tender flesh and splayed her labia for him. She saw flattened glossy lips, smooth and crimson, and the dark hungry shadow of her vagina. The lewdness of the image she offered dismayed and enthralled her.

‘Push your fingers inside yourself,’ he said. ‘Touch your clitoris. Make yourself come.’

‘I cannot,’ she insisted. ‘I won’t be able to … to come.’

‘Try,’ he snapped, massaging her breasts with a sudden harshness.

Clarissa whimpered in objection then inserted a finger into her humid passage. Awkward and embarrassed, she began driving slowly. Marldon watched her avidly in the glass, a vague smile playing on his lips. With lazy
enjoyment, his hands caressed her pale orbs, scuffing their rigid tips. Clarissa’s lust swelled with heavy heat.

Tentatively she slid in a second finger and moved her thumb to her engorged and needful clitoris. It tingled lightly in response. She teased and fretted the sensitive tissue, but could not push her arousal any further. Desperate to fulfil Alec’s vile command, she tried imagining herself elsewhere, alone. But it did not work. Her discomfiture held her pleasure in check.

Lord Marldon shook his head disparagingly and gave a reproachful tut. ‘What’s the problem, Clarissa?’ he enquired. ‘You were eager for satisfaction not long since. Is it because I’m watching, or because you are?’

She looked at him askance. ‘I don’t know,’ she said ruefully. ‘Both.’

‘You must learn to let go,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps a third party will help you find a little distance from yourself.’ He rose to his feet.

‘No,’ implored Clarissa, twisting round to him in a panic. ‘Don’t let anyone watch. It’s hateful. I’ll try harder, I promise.’

The earl turned a boss on one of the mirrored walls and it opened partially, revealing shadows of a closet. ‘An inanimate third party,’ he said, shutting the door.

He returned and knelt at her buttocks, an object in his hand. Reaching his arms around her, he weighed the thing in upturned palms. It was a column of stout, phallic ivory, sleekly carved with a rounded end. It gleamed in the half-light, obscene and threatening. Clarissa uttered a faint squeak of horror.

Lord Marldon gripped the tool at its root and stroked its smooth blunt crown across the upper curves of her bosom. ‘You will use this,’ he said, brushing a taut nipple with the cold ivory shaft. He swept it up to her throat then slowly trailed it down, nosing its tip through the valley of her breasts and over her belly.

Clarissa shivered as the phallus, stern and hard, lingered at the curls of her pubis. Her sex flushed with
desire, and a thick, hungering beat blossomed there, urging her to take the foul object, to push it high into her aching depths. Marldon drew the dildo back up her body then clenched it upright in his fist.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Use it.’

Spots of colour burnt in Clarissa’s cheeks and she took the fake cock with a petulant snatch. Lord Marldon moved away. He sat beneath a mirror, watching, waiting, smiling.

Clarissa held her breath and nudged the hard domed head at the flagrantly wide portal of her sex. Her body yearned for the crude invasion and she could not suppress a gentle moan. Her lust guided her. Swiftly, she dropped back to lie on the floor, spreading her bent legs. The soft carpet caressed her skin, silk slipping on silk.

Her hips lifted and she eased the dildo into her hot, receptive well, taking the full measure of its strong, solid length. Its inflexible girth stretched her and she groaned wantonly, feeling her moisture slide over the cool, polished bar. She drew the tool back then pushed high, again and again, delighting in the thrust of unyielding rigidity.