Sexy as Hell Box Set (84 page)

So, you’re going to let them win again…

I took a deep breath.
Fuck this. Fuck them.
“I’m afraid that if I go ahead and do this…this
thing
with you—not just tonight but for the next God knows how many nights—that it’ll come to an end at some point and I’ll be…”
Say it. Tell him.
“Broken all over again. And I wouldn’t be lucky enough to find another man like you who was prepared to fix that mess—and it would be one
hell
of a mess.”

He reached across, put his arm around my shoulder and drew me close. I could have melted, could have let the tears fall, but that force, the bastard, was still in residence. Seemed it didn’t want to let go of me any time soon. So I remained rigid against him, the prickly woman he was so used to, the one he’d always expected me to be.

“We need to find some privacy,” I said briskly, all business. “Somewhere to act this out. And while we’re trying to find it, I’ll tell you what you need to say to me.”

“Perhaps you’d like to go to the shed,” Victor said. “To carry out this…thing.”

There was very little conviction in his voice, and I knew the shed wasn’t somewhere he wanted to go tonight. Oh, there were lots of places he didn’t want to go, physical and metaphorical. Most were a necessity, but the shed, I could let that one slip. It was the mask that was important—the mask, the words and what he did with his hands.

“No, I don’t want to wreck my new dress.” I stood and smoothed it down my thighs. “Come
on, we’ll find somewhere, a private room, these places always have them.”

I left the darkness, the sounds of pleasure, lust and carnal indulgence fading as I stepped past the curtain.

In the bar, low music was now playing and there were several more couples dotted around. I didn’t even bother to try to decipher if Helen or Geoffrey were there. They weren’t on my radar, not anymore. All I could think of was that mask, that night in the shed when I was eighteen, that feeling of being absolutely full, invaded, owned.

I shuddered and was glad when Victor rested his arm around my shoulders and tucked me against his body.

“Over there,” he said. “Look, there’s a small set of stone steps.”

He steered me towards them, and we walked upwards, winding around one and a half spirals. At the top I released the ornate brass handrail and looked at the square hallway. Muted red lights cast burgundy shadows over stone walls and a wooden floor. A woman in a mask sat on a stool, legs crossed and an
iPad in her hand. She flicked her black curly hair over shoulders when she saw us and straightened her back. I noticed she wore a thin black collar with a silver hoop at the front for a lead attachment.

“
Buona sera, benvenuti nel covo piacere
,” she said.

“
Grazie
,” Victor replied.

“Hello,” I said.

“Ah, you are English?”

“Yes.” I nodded, relieved that I could communicate with someone. “Do you have any private rooms?”

“Yes,
Senora
, we have several on the very top floor, but we have lots to offer before you get there. Scenes to get you in the mood whether you simply want to observe or prefer to participate. Perfect to enhance your sex life.”

I shifted from one foot to the other and resisted
tutting. As if I needed a lecture in scenes and spicing up my sex life.

“What scenes?” Victor asked.

The woman nodded, her white mask catching a shard of light from a candle on the wall behind her. “We have the main ballroom, dancing, of course, and whatever else that leads to. Then we have an orgy room, no dancing required. One more level up and pain-play is the order of the night in a variety of rooms to suit your mood, sensual, sexy use of whips, canes and—”

“Yes, yes,” I said. “We’ll take a look after. Can we go straight up
to the top floor?”

“Oh, well, yes, just keep going.” She pointed at the steps we’d just climbed. To the right of them was another archway and another staircase.

“Let’s just take a look at the ballroom,” Victor said, not following as I’d moved to the steps.

“What?”

“Just for a minute.” He paused. “Just give me a minute, will you?”

“For what?”

“To, you know…” He glanced at the woman. “Get my head around what you just told me.”

Shit. He was backing out. I’d gone too far.

He reached for my hand, pulled me close. “I’m still up for it, but let’s not rush. Like you said, this is about fixing your mind not your body. We can take our time, make sure we’re both in the right headspace.”

I swallowed, nodded, let the heat from his chest and shoulders caress my bare arms. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”

He nodded and I wished to hell I could see his expression behind his mask, but that’s what this was about, wasn’t it? Not being able to read his face just like I hadn’t been able to read that bastard’s in the shed.

“Just through there.” The woman pointed to a black door with brass furniture. “Enjoy.”

She held a smugness about her now, as though she’d persuaded my man to do something I hadn’t wanted him to do. What the fuck did she know? Making him go into a ball was a walk in the park compared to the other things I’d asked him to do. Soon, if I had my way, he’d have his whole fist in me.

The ballroom was elegant with warm, golden-coloured walls, several low slung chandeliers and a small raised stage. On the stage, also in masks, were three musicians
—a guitarist, a pianist and a singer. The singer was female and wore a wide black ballgown that looked like a leather Cinderella dress.

There were plenty of dancers in various states of undress, and on large couches it was clear that
the dancing on the floor had indeed led to more. A naked woman, just to my right, was bent over with her spine bowed deep. A man wearing a silver mask was shunting into her from behind, gripping her hips and slapping his belly up against her buttocks. The feathers on his mask juddered and shook with each sharp penetration. Just beyond them a threesome had formed a tangle of limbs, seemingly all joined and rocking in synchrony. Their masks held serene expressions despite their wearers sweat-slicked movements that more than hinted at a growing urgency. I could imagine their frowns of desperation, the tension held in tightly pressed lips as a build to orgasm stacked up.

My clit tingled, as it always did when I watched people having sex. Despite the grotesque images beginning to swirl in my head, I was getting turned on, just by being in here. I guessed that was good. I needed to be wet for Victor. I just hoped he could keep his end of the bargain.

“Come here,” he said, sweeping me onto the dance floor and forcing me to remove my attention from the fornication that had made my heart beat quicken.

“This is good,” he said, pulling me close. “This is sexy as fuck. I can feel my cock twitching.”

“You like it?”

“Yes, it has a sultry feel. The music, the atmosphere, the sounds and scents of pleasure.” He ran his hand up my back. “What you’ve asked me to do is extreme, but I will do it—on one condition.”

I gripped his suit then forced myself to relax the hold. I didn’t want to damage the fine material. “What’s that?”

“That we make it sexy, romantic.”

I laughed. “I don’t think we can make fisting romantic.”

“Why not?”

“Victor, it’s pretty invasive.”

“When I tipped you over my knee, paddled your bum, put a vibrator up your arse and then fucked you until you passed out, that was invasive and sexy, and dare I say it romantic.”

“How do you reckon on the romantic?”

“It brought us closer, it opened up a new way for us to be together. A way that I’ve nurtured and cherished ever since, if I’m honest with myself.”

I blinked rapidly, glad of the mask and the fact it hid a sudden urge to let emotion get in the way of our conversation. “Yes,” I said, testing out the reliability of my voice. I didn’t want to show that I was struggling with this—not yet, not when I didn’t completely have him on board. “It did.”

“So tell me.” He swayed us to the music, some lazy jazz piece and not at all Italian-sounding. “What exactly happened?”

I pulled in a deep breath, tipped my head so I spoke into his ear and let it pour out. It had to, it was the only way, like pulling my thumb from a hole in a dam. I had to be brave. Running from it was no good, it would only follow and wash me away. I had to stand my ground and hold on to what I could for support.

Victor.

“It was the second week,” I said. “Late at night. The air was hot, muggy. It had been one of those rare English days when the sun had shone until the grass had given up and gone yellow and the fat flies trapped in the shed with me had died, belly up. It was Conner who came to the shed in the mask. I knew it was him because he was taller than the others, skinny too. But he was strong, and fast. He was the one who I always felt would hunt me down with the most skill had I managed to hop over the wall at the end of the garden and make it down the alley to the main road. I would never have been able to outrun him, not in a million years.”

Victor held me a little closer. Said nothing.

“It was a pig mask. An ugly cartoon one. In fact, it might have even been a cartoon character with a name, I don’t know. I just remember the piggy nose, the overly big smile and the cut-out eyes. It was pink, too pink, and on top of the bald head was a little blue moulded hat, set at an angle.

“Ray had been guarding the shed, sitting smoking on a bench opposite, and when Conner walked in he flicked the fag he’d been puffing on into a barrel of water—drainage from a greenhouse—and followed him. I’d been peering out of the window, but when they came in, I backed, as usual, into the corner. Conner spoke from behind the mask, told me they’d had a bet.” I paused, swallowed. I’d never spoken these words, not even let my mind think them. “They’d had a bet that I couldn’t take a whole pig’s trotter up my cunt. He thought I could, but Ray said I couldn’t. He wanted to prove Ray wrong.”

I shuddered, and Victor pressed a kiss to my hair. He was tense. I knew hearing this was hard for him but I had to go on. He had to know. I set my attention on a couple peeling each other’s clothes off in a slow, seductive way, who were delighting, it seemed, in every tiny bit of flesh revealed. That helped, made me feel better. It was the way I wanted Victor to undress me, later, after this.

“I was horrified, of course. At this point they’d fucked my mouth, licked my arse and fingered me, but nothing more than that. It was more mind games, telling me what they’d do. I hoped this would be another one of those things, an empty threat, but it turned out it wasn’t…”

“Shh, you don’t have to tell me anymore if you don’t want to,” Victor said, the warmth of his breath on my head a sweet caress.

“Ray held me down,” I said. “Conner, still wearing the ugly mask, ripped off my knickers and…and well, he just pushed into me. Didn’t stop until—”

“Fucking hell, I could kill that bastard a hundred times over and still not feel he’d suffered enough.”

I pulled back. Stared up at Victor’s elegant mask. “Please, don’t say that, it’s happened, he’s gone, I just want a new memory of that sensation with you. What we did in the shed last night, it was healing, it was like an exorcism or something. I can think of being a dog now, and instead of it being like a metal chain trying to drag me to the bottom of the ocean, it’s a sexy, intense, special moment between us. Not conventional, I know, but that’s how my mind works.”

“Then we should just do it,” he said. “On another condition.”

“What’s that?”

“If I hurt you then you must tell me straight away. The last thing I want to do is cause you any more pain, that won’t be healing.”

“It will hurt, but you hurt me in a good way, Victor.”

He didn’t answer, and I got the impression he wasn’t at all convinced on this one.

On the floor of the private rooms we were given a large silver key to room four, and as Victor turned the lock I was aware of dampness in my underarms and on my cleavage.

I was anxious, yes, but the heaviness in my pussy, the tremble in my belly, also told me I was more than ready for Victor. I longed for his touch, yearned for it, and right now I was getting pretty damn impatient for it.

The room was miniscule, only big enough for a double bed and one small table holding a bowl of lube and condoms. A high window had drawn black curtains covering it, and a black lampshade hung from the ceiling, its light providing a shadow-inducing glow. The bed was set with black and silver sheets and a huge stack of matching cushions piled against the unevenly plastered wall.

“Shall we talk some more about it?” Victor asked. “So you can tell me
exactly what they said.”

“
I’ll tell you, yes, but it was more about the feeling of helplessness.” I went on to relate what they’d said.

“I wish I could kiss you,” he said, touching his mask. “So you know this is me and not that bastard.”