Dr Casswell's Plaything (22 page)

She was about to protest when he reached out and snatched her wrist. ‘Well?’ he demanded, his fingers closing hard. ‘What did you really want, Anna? There is no reason on earth for you to be in here, unless of course you’re checking up on, what? The linen? The housekeeping? What are you doing in here?’

She blushed and tried in vain to twist her arm free. ‘I – I – please, Rigel, you’re hurting me!’

Casswell bundled her over to the pile of papers on his desk. ‘You were extremely interested in getting your hands on the first translation of the diary,’ he stated for her. ‘Was it your idea or your brother’s idea to come in here and steal them?’ He paused and looked down at the pages. ‘Or have you already copied what’s here?’

Anna’s fearful expression gave the game away, and Casswell shook his head in disgust. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘You know I would have made sure all interested parties had a copy – this research is funded by a whole committee of people just like your brother. What is this all about, Anna?’

She stubbornly refused to respond, so his anger resurfacing and getting the better of him, Casswell caught hold of her hair and pulled her face close to his, and in amongst her fear he could see an intense and compelling flash of desire.

‘Tell me,’ he insisted, her face no more than an inch from his. He could smell the mingled scents of her subtle perfume and the soft musk of her skin. She mewled at the pain as his fingers tightened in her hair, but he was without mercy. ‘Tell me,’ he growled, jerking on her wrist. ‘I will not be disobeyed or ignored.’

‘It – it wasn’t m-my idea,’ she blurted through a stifled sob.

‘Whose was it then?’

Anna sobbed. ‘I didn’t think you were coming back tonight, so I was going to take the disks and copy them and then I started to read the transcript…’ she stopped, seeming to realise she’d said too much. ‘He’ll kill me if he finds out you’ve caught me.’

‘Your brother?’

Anna nodded as best she could, given that Casswell still had tight hold of her. ‘Yes, Uri and the museum trustees and that little shit Mustafa Aziz. They want the glory of finding and translating this book.’

‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Casswell snorted. ‘They’ve know about it for years.’

‘Yes, but you know they couldn’t translate it – and this one together with the others you’ve already deciphered, and your reputation, guarantees that they’ll make a lot of money.’ She paused as his fingers loosened their grip, and then she slowly pulled away. ‘Rigel, please take me with you when you leave. I hate it here. I want to learn about those things in the diaries… about the pleasure and the pain.’ Her colour intensified as she looked into his face, and her eyes filled with tears.

He stared at her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Uri would never allow you to go with me, and besides, you are of no use to me, Anna.’

She flinched as though he had hit her. ‘How can you say that? Is it because I can’t type?’

‘No, Anna, it’s because you have no integrity or sense of loyalty,’ he stated bluntly. ‘You are ready to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds if it suits you.’

The statuesque blonde gasped as the candid words registered, and then she launched herself towards Casswell like a banshee. Her face was contorted with fury and indignation, but before she could set foul of him he caught her wrists and held her at bay without too much difficulty.

‘Anna,’ he said sternly, ‘if you really want to leave Uri, then do it yourself. If you come to England of your own volition then I’ll help you. I’ll even try to find a master to teach you all the things you so desperately desire, but I’m not taking you away from here with me. The situation is fraught enough without that.’

As she gradually began to relax he pulled her closer. ‘And now,’ he said, his mood quieter, ‘you’re going to pay for this intrusion.’

‘Pay?’ she said, her body instantly stiffening.

Casswell nodded. ‘Oh yes. But I’ll not say a word to your precious brother about your being caught stealing my work. I doubt that his punishment would be quite the same as mine.’

‘Dr Casswell wants to see you.’

Sarah looked up sleepily into Chang’s inscrutable face, for an instant unable to work out where she was. Since arriving back from her encounter with Mustafa, she had showered, eaten supper in her room and, having given up trying to make sense of the day’s events, curled up on the bed and slept fitfully.

Her dreams were littered with intense images of twisting shadowy alleys and barred doorways as she ran back and forth trying desperately to escape an unseen pursuer. It was almost a relief to be woken up.

‘He’s back?’ she said, with a real sense of relief.

Chang nodded.

Sarah hurried to get up from the bed; she wanted to tell Casswell about Mustafa’s deceit and the awful liberties he’d taken.

Chang helped her, and then looked her up and down with the slightest hint of appreciation in his expression; she had been sleeping naked in the oppressive heat. Without another word he took a leash and collar from his pocket – familiar objects that she had not seen since leaving England – and the gesture was unmistakable. Tonight Sarah was being taken to Casswell’s bedroom as his plaything. She would be a toy for his unadulterated pleasure, and it made something deep in her tummy flutter with delight.

She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror; her hair was naturally tousled from sleep, and her smooth skin had a warm glow to it, the soft curves of her body a stark contrast to the black studded leather collar. The image made Sarah’s pulse race; whatever else happened to her this was where she felt closest to the indefinable hunger that drove her, the dark energy that Casswell had recognised in her when they first met. She truly was his.

Chang led her to Casswell’s room. Naked and barefoot, her eyes chastely lowered, Sarah was every inch the perfect submissive, and inside her heart soared, for this was where she belonged, with Casswell, as his lover and slave.

Casswell sat relaxed on the sofa, dressed in a black silk bathrobe, barefoot too, and cradling a brandy. Sarah’s heart tightened. He was as handsome as he was cruel, and she knew beneath the robe his body was lean and tanned. Excitement gripped her at the thought of his caress.

She shivered. Nothing she experienced at the hands of any other man came close to the passion and the desire experienced when in Casswell’s company… or his bed.

He indicated that she should turn around for him, and she did so without an instant’s hesitation. Sarah knew from experience how much he enjoyed looking at her body, touching and stroking and admiring his prize possession. He beckoned her closer, so she backed up close, and following his unspoken instructions, knelt on the floor on her hands and knees, so he could pet her like some favoured animal.

He smiled and ran his fingers through her hair and then something – a movement or a noise, it was hard to decide exactly which – caught her attention. Sarah looked over her shoulder, and saw to her surprise that Anna Weissman was in the corner of the room. She gasped as she took in the details.

Naked, tied, her legs spread wide, the elegant blonde hung from a hook in the ceiling. She was trembling, her large eyes wide with fear and anticipation. It was a state of mind and body that Sarah recognised only too well. The trussed woman refused to meet the kneeling girl’s stare.

Sarah would have known Chang’s handiwork anywhere. He had shaved Anna’s sex mound, and smooth and naked, it looked vulnerable and exposed and at the same time like some erotic, ripe fruit. He had oiled the blonde’s sleek skin too, until it seemed that she glowed from within. Her wrists were tied above her head, exposing her breasts to perfection, and her feet were parted wide and held by a metal retaining bar and ankle straps. She looked quite magnificent, hanging there in the soft lamplight like a living trophy.

For a terrible, insecure instant Sarah’s heart sank – could it be that she had lost everything? Had Anna taken her place?

And then Casswell’s dulcet tones seeped into her fears, soothing and reassuring. ‘Miss Weissman needs to be punished,’ he said gently. ‘I caught her this evening, trying to steal our work. It seems we’ve been set up.’ As he spoke he handed Sarah an ornate riding crop.

She looked up at him with uncertainty in her eyes, feeling the braided handle cradled in her palm, catching the subtle fragrance of the well-worked leather. Sarah was not sure how she felt about what he was proposing. It had been one thing to whip the unknown girl in the nightclub – but to do the same to Anna Weissman? To her surprise, she felt tears welling up in her eyes. This was against her nature, but his gaze did not falter.

‘If you do not do it,’ he said with calm assurance, ‘I will hand her over to Chang.’

Sarah glanced across the room again. Casswell’s manservant was watching and waiting by the door, his expression totally impassive, although Sarah could guess the direction his thoughts were turning. She knew very well that whatever punishment she administered, it would be nothing compared to what the duplicitous blonde might expect at the hands of Chang, although she also knew, without a shred of doubt, that even though she had no desire to hand Anna over to the oriental, this was not what she was made of. She searched Casswell’s face again, hoping he would offer her some clue, some glimmer of what he was thinking, but his eyes were dark and unreadable.

‘Well?’ he pressed.

Sarah knew exactly what she had to do, although with Casswell she always had the choice. It was implicit to their unspoken arrangement; it was the reason she trusted him with her body and her soul. His cruelty, his love of dominance, his love of her, was a magical bond that she both loved and dreaded; the mixture of light and dark, the passion and pain were as compelling an enchantment as she could ever imagine. But she also knew where her passions lay, and it was not in beating Anna Weissman.

Each to their own – let Chang do what he had a natural gift for. So without a word she handed him the whip back.

Casswell smiled, and on silent feet Chang came over and took the crop from his master. On the other side of the room Anna whimpered in fear. Casswell beckoned Sarah to move beside him so he could touch her as he sat and watched the entertainment unfold.

She stood as he ordered, and watched as across the room Chang drew the whip up and back and brought it down across Anna’s buttocks with a terrible and deadly accuracy.

The blonde screamed and spun slightly. Her voice was heavy with a mixture of indignation and pain. A great blush of red rose on her skin, marking the kiss of the whip like a photographic image.

‘You bastard, Rigel,’ she moaned as the crop bit again. ‘I hate you. I hate you!’ She writhed and tugged at the leather straps as she babbled.

In Casswell’s company Sarah had seen many scenes like this before, but this was perhaps the first in which she truly had a vested interest. The elegant ice-cold blonde contorted and twisted against the leather and the leg irons, and Sarah could not help but wonder how much of Anna’s behaviour and intervention had been at her brother’s behest.

The blonde’s body glowed like spun silk under the lamplight, glistening with a subtle mixture of sweat and oil as Chang continued relentlessly with her punishment.

The whip cracked repeatedly, the sound filling the room. Anna shrieked, she mewled, and she swore like an alley cat until gradually she became lost in the maze of pain, the sounds slowly changing to something more instinctive and less coherent.

Chang was relentless, each stroke as accurate and cruel as the one before.

And all the while Casswell stroked Sarah, almost as if he was settling her, comforting her, consoling her. She moved under his touch to let him have greater freedom with her. His fingers idly made their way over her breasts, and then down the smooth plain of her ribs and belly until he could cradle and explore the gentle mound of her sex and those soft, wet, fragrant lips between her thighs.

His touch was driving Sarah wild with desire, and eventually he looked up at her and she knew exactly what he wanted. She sank gracefully to her knees, curled up between her legs, and unfastening the waist-tie of his robe, took his throbbing cock into her mouth. How different from doing the same to Mustafa; this was an act of worship at a revered and adored altar.

She sighed with pleasure as her senses filled with the smell and touch and taste of him. He was already wet, his erection warm and salty on her eager tongue. Sarah wriggled closer, cradling his heavy balls with one hand. She loved this so much, the act of obedience and submission making her heady with desire. First she licked the crown, teasing around the rim with the tip of her tongue, sliding his foreskin back, tracing spirals around the sensitive head before drawing it deep into her mouth, while her other hand worked up and down the swollen, rigid shaft. The first strokes were long and slow, not too tight nor too intense, but a breathtaking counterpoint to the light brushing and nibbling and sucking of her mouth around his glans.

Casswell groaned softly and lifted his hips towards her face, and all the while she was honouring him with her lips and tongue she could hear the cut and hiss of the whip and the muted cries of Anna Weissman, although as the seconds passed she became so involved in pleasing her master that the sounds faded to a distant corner of her mind, and so she was shocked when a few minutes later she felt a hand slide apprehensively between her thighs. She shivered and, with her mouth still full looked up at Casswell with wide, enquiring eyes, as a finger slipped into the wetness it found there. Although she was in no position to turn, she guessed from the gentleness of the exploration and the knowing touch, that it was Anna Weissman.