Release: Davlova: Book One (21 page)

“Thank you, sir.”

He nudged it, and I whimpered. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.” And it wasn’t a lie. It felt amazing. I found myself shifting my hips, moaning at the way it filled me.

“Wait until you walk with it.”

He pulled his hand free, leaving the plug in place. He moved to my side, wrapping both arms around my waist to kiss my neck. It was good he was holding me up, because my knees wouldn’t support me. I shifted and moaned at the way the plug teased me. I was shaking, desperate for him to give me more. I wondered again about the champagne. He had said he wouldn’t give me the drug often, but there was no other rational explanation for how aroused I was.

He used his hand in my hair to pull my head back, so he could look down into my face. “I love that look,” he said. “I love to make you desperate.”

Desperate.
Yes. That was exactly what I was. “You do it so well, sir.”

He laughed. “It’s quite gratifying to know that.” He traced a finger down my neck. “I’m tempted to suck on that pretty throat of yours until it’s as bruised as your eyes.”

I swallowed hard, thinking about how it would feel to have him biting at my neck. How it would feel to be pressed against him while he did it. “Please do.”

He glanced pointedly down at my erection. “Careful, love. You’re staining your dress.”

I wasn’t surprised. I’d been too turned on for too long. I looked down at the tiny wet spot my pre-come had made. “I’m sorry, sir,” I said, but he laughed.

“Don’t be.” He kissed my neck again. “You’re beyond beautiful. Ravishing.”

“Then ravish me.”

“Soon, darling.”

Finally, we were shown to our table. We didn’t have a window this time, and I was a bit disappointed not to be able to see the upside down sky, but of course a screen hid us from view. When the waiters had left, I stood waiting, hoping he would fuck me at last.

“Not yet, love,” he said from behind me. He unhooked the gold chain at my shoulder blades and pushed the fabric from my shoulders. The dress was tight enough across my hips that it didn’t fall to the floor, but it left my upper torso bare. He ran his hands down my chest, and I leaned back against him while he caressed me, teasing each of my nipples as he kissed my neck. He moved his hands down my stomach. The tips of his fingers slid under the waist of my dress and I tensed, straining toward him, hoping he’d keep going, but he laughed softly in my ear.

“I’ve never seen you so impatient.”

He let me go and steered me into my seat. I had to sit very carefully, with the plug still in me. He straddled my chair and began to undo his pants. “You’ve had your appetizer. Now give me mine.”

I was happy to oblige him. I sucked him with wanton enthusiasm, rocking gently in my seat so that the plug in my ass tilted back and forth. My first il had worn off, but I didn’t need a second. I gasped and cried around his cock. I writhed in my seat as he fucked my mouth, until at last he let me go. I was pleased to see that he looked as unhinged as I felt. His hands shook as he rebuttoned his pants.

“You almost made me forget my plan, little whore.”

I was still breathing hard. My cheeks felt flush. “Should I apologize, sir?”

He laughed. “Please don’t.”

He helped me bring the dress back up into place on my shoulders. The fabric felt sensual and cool against my fevered skin, but I hated to put it back on. I waited while he refastened the chain that held it in place, and then he took his seat.

The waiters brought food, but I barely tasted it. I knew I was eating too fast, being ungrateful, but all I wanted to do was get to the next part, whatever that entailed. Being fucked over the table, or back in the lobby, or again in the carriage. I would have let him take me in the middle of the city’s plaza at that point, as long as it meant getting to come.

“In a hurry, love?” he asked. The glint in his eyes told me he knew exactly what he was doing to me.

Yes!
I wanted to say.
I’m in a hurry to spread my legs and feel you inside of me.
But I was afraid if I admitted it, he’d make me wait longer, so I took a deep breath and made a deliberate effort to slow down. “No, sir,” I said. “I could sit here all night.”

A pointless lie. My voice shook. I couldn’t keep myself from rocking forward a bit to feel the plug in my ass move. I had to fight to keep my hands on the table rather than reaching down and stroking my aching erection.

“Oh?” he teased. “Then shall I order dessert?”

I swallowed hard. I tried to still my hips, because the motion of the plug was making it impossible to think. I licked my lips, although it did no good, because my mouth was dry.

“Well?” he asked.

I thought about what I wanted to say, which meant thinking about what I wanted him to do to me. I couldn’t speak. I whimpered instead. It was ridiculous, an animal response. His smile grew. “Speak,” he said.

“Please...”

He raised an eyebrow at me. He was having a great deal of fun. “‘Please’ what?”

“Anything!” It was a dam bursting, my last bit of reserve finally crumbling. I couldn’t pretend anymore. I’d beg if that was what he wanted. “Anything. Please. Anything you want to do to me, do it, but do it now.” My hands shook, and I rose from the table. I began to pull up my skirts. “Please. I don’t care what. I don’t care where.”

This time, he did smile, a slow, predatory smile that made my knees weak. “As you wish.”

He snapped his fingers and waiters come bustling from around the screen. I dropped my skirts but stayed standing on my quaking legs. If I sat again, the plug would move. If the plug moved, I’d come all over my dress without him even touching me. As tempting as that thought was, I wanted to do it right.

Finally, he tucked my hand back into his elbow. He led me toward the door. “You’re shaking.”

I nodded. My breath was coming faster as we left the restaurant. His carriage waited. I thought about the dark, warm interior. I thought about riding him all the way home, the way I had the first time we’d left La Fontaine. I thought about him on his knees in front of me earlier that night with his hand under my ass and his fingers deep inside of me. I whimpered and began to reach for my cock, but he stopped me.

“Almost there, love.”

“I can’t wait,” I said. It wasn’t a platitude. I honestly feared I might come before we made it to the carriage. “Oh, holy Goddess, I can’t wait!”

“You can, and you will.”

But the desperation was becoming too much. It was wrong. It was completely unnatural. I thought again of the champagne. “You drugged me!”

“Not this time.”

“You must have!”

He laughed. “I didn’t. This is all you.”

It’s all me.

Yes, it was all me. This was my natural response to him. I wasn’t just a whore, tricked into wanting whatever he gave me. I was Misha. Sexy and exotic and more ready to be fucked than I’d ever been in my life. Despite what had happened a few days before, I wanted him in a way that terrified me.

Not only that though.

It empowered me.

It’s all me.

Through all of this, I had somehow let him take control of me and my life and even my desire, but those three words brought me up short. They reminded me that I did have a measure of control. Somehow, that changed everything. It didn’t mean I had to deny how aroused I was. It didn’t even mean I had to turn the tables on him in any way. It was a simple matter of knowing that I wanted this. That it was fine for me to want it.

It’s all me.

His driver opened the carriage door, and I climbed inside. I felt the carriage shift as Donato came in behind me. The door closed, and before I could even take my seat, he was on me. He pushed me down onto the floor and bent me over the seat, pushing my face into the fur throw that covered the leather. He grabbed the thin chain between my shoulder blades that held my dress in place and pulled, tearing the silk. In one quick motion, he ripped the dress off of me, leaving me bare and quaking in front of him. I grabbed a handful of the fur on the seat underneath me.

I wouldn’t beg anymore. I didn’t need to. I simply braced myself, waiting for what would come, although I quivered from the deliciousness of the anticipation. “Hurry,” I said. Not begging.

Commanding.

“I’m trying, love,” he panted as he fumbled with his belt. “You have no idea how hard it was for me to wait this long. You’re the sexiest fucking whore I’ve ever seen.”

I arched my back, pushing my ass at him, trying to spur him on. He groaned in response.

Finally, he grabbed me. I felt a bit of pressure, and the plug was pulled from my ass, leaving me empty and unsated. Wanton and salacious.

“Hurry,” I said again, more urgent this time. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”

And finally, he gave me what I’d been begging for all night. He pushed his cock into me and I screamed again, arching against him. “Yes!” He pulled the leash and my hair together with one hand, tugging my head back. He held his other hand on the small of my back, pinning me to the seat. He began pumping, not fast, but deep and hard, throwing all of his weight against me, moving in and out of me with a slow, torturous deliberateness that made me want to sob. His thrusts caused me to rub against the seat and I found myself bucking my hips, humping the carriage seat as he pounded me. The carriage was already moving, bumping down the road, the clop of the horses’ hooves setting our tempo, and I thought of the plug, of writhing in my chair as I sucked him. I remembered the smell of him. I thought of the yacht, the drug that was there but wasn’t here, the rhythm of rocking on the sea—a haze of images flashed through my mind as he used me, and I loved every single moment. I could admit that I wanted every stroke. I didn’t care that he was slamming into me harder with each passing moment. I didn’t care that he was pulling my hair and the collar both so hard I had to gasp to breathe, calling me a whore as he labored behind me. I didn’t care that he was fucking me with a passion that bordered on violence. I only knew it felt unbelievably good. So good that even though I’d begged for it to start, I didn’t want it to ever end.

I was determined to maintain some semblance of control. I held out as long as I could, although I was shaking, my hands clenched in the fur, my muscles trembling with strain of keeping my orgasm at bay. I waited even until Donato had finished, emptying himself into me. He lay against my back, still shaking from the force of his climax. He wrapped his hand around my cock.

“You’re perfect, little whore. Sigh for me.”

It wasn’t a sigh. Not that night. It was more like a scream, but he didn’t seem to mind, and I wasn’t about to apologize. It was exactly what I wanted.

What I
needed
.

Release.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I woke the next morning in my own bed, my limbs heavy, my mind groggy with the comfortable, well-sated haze of the night before. We’d returned to Donato’s house, where he’d taken me to his bed and made love to me with a tenderness that rivaled what he’d shown me on the yacht. Still, when it was over, he’d sent me back down the hill to Talia’s.

I didn’t mind.

It was early. Outside, the temple bells rang, somehow quieter in the fog of morning than they were in the afternoon. The market was beginning to buzz but didn’t reek yet of piss or grease. The light that fell through my window seemed pure, cool with dew, lazy as a cat on a warm stone. It caressed my face. It fell across my bed. It teased me into a blissful sensuality that had nothing to do with Donato.

It’s all me.

I threw the covers off to let the sunlight dapple my naked body. I arched into it like a lover. I let my hands roam over my sides and my hips, and finally I rolled onto my stomach and stroked myself to a glorious climax for no better reason than that I could.

It felt good, not just for the simple fact of having come, but because it felt like taking control. I left the mess on the bed to be cleaned by the maids. It was a whorehouse. Semen stains were what kept them employed.

I still thought of my clothes as new, but I realized, as I put them on, that they no longer felt foreign to me. The old Misha had worn rags and whored for coins, and afterward, he’d taken those coins and handed them over to somebody else. I was still a whore, but I had no intention of continuing to be their lackey.

I was Misha.

And I had a plan.

The first order of business was to escape my spy, now that I knew who she was. Whether he’d meant to or not, Donato had given it away the day before.
Tawny did well
, he’d said. He didn’t know my name, or Ayo’s, or the name of his own butler.

But he knew Tawny.

A quick word with Talia was all it took to ensure that Tawny would be busy with a client all morning, and once I was away from the whorehouse, she’d have no idea how to find me.

I went through the trenches, toward Anzhéla’s theatre.

It had only been a few days since I’d last walked the streets, but it seemed a lot had happened in that time. Yellow leaflets littered the streets. This time, they held more than a list of the atrocities committed by Benedict’s lackeys from the hill. This leaflet spoke of rumors. It hinted at a revolution, led by the yellow-robed preachers. It implied that the priestesses were tired of being ignored and had a new High Priestess, ready to take her place at the head of the Council. It even asked if this High Priestess wasn’t in fact the original High Priestess, ready to claim vengeance against those who had deposed her.