Stand and Deliver (6 page)

“I wil not try to escape.” Her voice was breathless with excitement, but stil she held herself motionless, al owing him to do with her as he pleased.

“You wil forgive me if I do not take you at your word,” he said as he finished tying the silk strips with tight knots and tested them to make sure she could not wriggle out of the bonds.

As soon as he was satisfied that she was tied tightly, he began to work on the remainder of her clothes, removing each piece with agonizing slowness and rebuking her when she moved.

When she was naked at last, he bent down to kiss her once more. “You have been a good girl,” he said approvingly. “You deserve a smal reward.” He flicked his tongue lightly over her nipples, noting with satisfaction how hard and tight they were.

As his tongue touched her, she gave a startled squeak and arched her back into him.

“That was not so wel -behaved,” he admonished her.

“You deserve a double punishment. A touch of my whip should cure you of your disobedience.”

“You are not going to whip me?”

“Aren’t I?” He reached down and picked up the whip from the side of the bed, flexing it in the air with a vicious swish. “Now, raise your legs in the air so I can whip those smooth white buttocks of yours.”

“No.”

“I thought I had made it clear to you that disobedient girls get punished. Now raise your legs as I asked you to.”

With a sulky humph, she raised her legs just a little.

“Higher.”

Slowly she obeyed him, raising her legs so he could see the white of her buttocks in the faint moonlight from the window.

“Good. Now hold them there.”

With a smack, he brought the whip down on her bared ass.

She gave a gasp of indrawn breath, but did not lower her legs.

“Good girl,” he said. He bent his head to her pussy and gave her clit a light lick, then ran his tongue over her cunt.

She was dripping wet, her musky juices running down the cleft between her buttocks. “That is what girls get when they are good.” He raised his head and brought the whip down sharply on her buttocks again. “And this is what they get when they are naughty. Do you understand the difference?”

“I wil be good, I promise. I wil never be naughty again.”

He smacked her again, and then again, but though she cried out with each blow, she kept her legs in the air. “I see you are determined to be good.”

“I am.”

He turned the whip around, holding it by the top of the handle and pushed the tip of it into her cunt. If he were to fuck her now, he would not have the self-control to take it slowly. He’d thrust into her hard and deep and hurt her. But the whip handle was smal and slight and would satisfy her need to be fil ed while he licked her. “Am I hurting you?”

“No.”

He pushed it a little way further into her, leaving the tail of the whip hanging out of her. “Good.”

She gasped as it entered her. “Mmmm, yes, very good.”

Another nudge and it was buried inside her, her pussy muscles closing around it and hiding it from view. The sight of it made his bal s ache with the need for release.

He took his cock in his hand and knelt over her, stroking himself.

He was past being able to think of anything but his own desire for her. She would have to wait until he was satisfied before he attended to her needs.

“I’m going to come al over your breasts. And then I’m going to lick your clit and fuck you with the whip handle until you come.” Slowly he stroked himself with one hand, enjoying the tension slowly building up inside him. With his other hand, he stroked her body, enjoying the curves of her breasts, the swel of her hips, dipping in between her legs to tease her clit with feather-light touches and to tug gently at the tail of the whip.

His cum was rising like a river in flood, threatening to spil its banks. Giving in to the urgency in his blood, he stroked himself faster and faster until he could hear nothing but the pounding in his ears and feel nothing but the desperate need building inside him.

Beneath him, Bess lay at his mercy, unable to move, her wide eyes watching him as he pumped harder and harder.

His orgasm overtook him, stripping away any vestige of his self-control. Throwing his head back and giving a strangled cry, his seed erupted on to Bess’ white breasts in a flood of absolute pleasure. Spurt after spurt of cum covered her, until final y his cock hung limp and wet in his hand, boneless with satisfaction.

Tempted though he was to col apse on top of her in exhaustion, he needed to make her cry out with the same pleasure before he was done.

Her face was flushed and her lids half-closed. By the erectness of her nipples and the trickle of juice that was escaping her cunt to drizzle onto the sheets, the sight of his orgasm had excited her too. “Did you like that?” he asked her, rubbing his cum into her breasts with a gentle circular motion. “Did you like having my seed spurt out on to your breasts? Did you like watching me take my pleasure, feeling my wetness cover you?”

Her only answer was a soft moan, and she raised her hips in the air and let her legs fal open in a wanton invitation.

The tip of the whip handle, glistening with her juice, was just protruding from between her cunt lips. He pushed it inside her further and was rewarded with another moan as she thrust herself against his hand, forcing it stil higher inside her.

“You want me to fuck you with the whip?” he asked, tugging it gently out again. “You want me to tease your pussy with this nice wooden handle until you come?”

“Please.” It was barely a whisper of sound.

“I like a woman who knows how to beg.” He bent his head to taste her clit as he slowly pushed the handle back inside her. “You deserve a reward.”

Her clit was swol en and distended. Gently, he eased the makeshift dildo in and out of her as he sucked on her clit until he felt her orgasm begin to overtake her. “Come on, sweetheart,” he urged her. “Let yourself go and I wil catch you.”

Her arms strained against her bonds as her back arched off the bed, her face contorted in a breathless grimace. She held her breath for the space of a dozen heartbeats, and then let out a wordless cry. He felt the convulsions of pleasure rip through her body as if it had been his own.

On and on her body shuddered, lost in the grip of pleasure, until she could hold on no longer. As the waves died down, she sank back to the bed, no longer fighting her restraints.

As her orgasm faded, he slipped the whip handle out of her, then reached up and untied the ribbons of silk that held her fast.

Freed from her bonds, she col apsed on to the bed, dragging him on top of her. A contented purr escaped her as they lay entangled together on the bed. “No wonder high-born ladies get a thril out of being kissed by highwaymen,”

she murmured, her voice ful of sleepy mischief. “If their men folk knew exactly where and how you had kissed them, I fear you would not live long.”

He smacked her rump with the flat of his hand. “A highwayman’s stock in trade is more than his brace of pistols, my dear. He also needs a ready tongue.”

Underneath him, he felt her shiver, as if she was remembering exactly how ready his tongue had been on her body. “I suppose I am only the last in a long line of women to fal for the charms of your tongue.”

There had been few enough women before her, and even fewer that meant anything to him beyond a quick romp between the sheets. Admitting to such a truth, however, would do his reputation little good. A man needed a few secrets. “Unlike other lesser folk,” he said loftily, “highwaymen do not kiss and tel .”

Jack lay awake in the dark, his body sated with Bess’

loving. He could not get enough of her. Even now, rich coaches galore packed with wealthy passengers were rumbling past him on the road to the west, but stil he lingered at the inn for another night, idling away his hard-won coins.

After al , what did it matter if he took a wel -deserved holiday? There would be time enough to get back on the road and add sufficiently to his savings before the ship on which he had booked a passage sailed to the Americas.

Nor would it hurt to let the hue and cry after him die down a little before he became active once again. His fence, miserable old skinflint that he was, had paid handsomely for the last haul of stolen jewelry. Enough to keep your average highwayman in wine, women and song for a month or more.

If the rascal y soldiers thought he had given up the game, or gone to ground somewhere in the stewes of London where they could not find him, so much the better.

His eventual return to his profession would be made that much easier.

He shook his head in the darkness. Excuses—that was al they were. In the depths of his heart, he knew as much.

He didn’t want to ride off and leave Bess alone in the inn, vulnerable to any il -intentioned man who came along and spouted words of love in her ear. She was his woman now —and he did not like to share.

A life outside the law. That was al he could offer her.

Uncertain at the best of times, and at the worst? He shuddered. He had long ago accepted the risks he must run, but Bess’ neck was too pretty to be stretched by the hangman’s noose.

“You are not sleeping?” Bess’ voice tickled his ear and her warm hand stretched around his body, hugging him tightly to her. “What is on your mind?”

“I should be out on the road tonight, not curled up in a warm bed with you.” Guilt made his voice short.

“Are your pockets that empty already?” She gave a sleepy chuckle and nuzzled into his neck. “For sure, you have not emptied them on my account. You have not bought me so much as a length of ribbon for my hair.”

True enough, he had given her nothing but a few pretty words in exchange for her innocence. She had made a poor bargain of it. “Do ribbons matter so much to you?”

“What use is having a highwayman for a lover if he wil not buy me presents?” she teased. “I had just as wel take up with a farmer lad who cannot look beyond his plough.”

His hand curled around her fingers and held her fast.

“You would be better off with a farmer’s lad than with me.

He would be able to give you many things I cannot.”

She gave a contented sigh and wriggled her body close to his, her lush breasts pressed against his back. “I don’t care about ribbons or other presents. Or about farmer lads, either. I only care to have you in bed beside me.”

That was one thing he dared not give her. “I cannot dal y another night. I must be away come morning.” If he did not leave soon, he would lose any desire to go at al . That would be a fatal mistake. With a price such as he had on his head, staying more than a night or two in one place was as good as putting a gun to his own head and squeezing the trigger.

“Your pockets real y must be to let.” Her body stiffened against his almost imperceptibly and her voice was noticeably cooler. “What’s the vice that empties them so quickly that you must be off robbing coaches every night with nary a break in between times to catch your breath?

Gambling? Drinking? Or women more demanding of presents than I am?”

“I wil not be robbing coaches forever.”

“I have no doubt of that.” By now her voice was tart enough to curdle milk. “Jack Ketch wil catch up with you eventual y and stretch your neck on the gal ows.”

“I am going to the Americas.” The words slipped out before he had the sense to stop them. “The next ship leaves in a sennight and I shal be on it. Once I reach the Americas, I shal become an honest man and work for my bread in an honest trade.”

She sniffed disbelievingly. “If you do not hang before then.”

His face twisted in a grimace. “You need only send word and a posse of soldiers wil be waiting at the ship to take me away in chains.” Would he never learn that his safety lay in silence? Women, of al creatures, were not to be trusted. He ought to know better than to entrust his plans even to his lover. Especial y not to his lover.

“I would not do that to you, Jack. You should know you can trust me that far.” Her hand was warm on his chest, caressing the wariness out of him. He wished he could believe her. “But stil I fear for your safety.”

So did he. A careless word in the wrong ear and Bess might have him hanged, for al she might not mean to.

“Must you rob more coaches?”

“I have no other trade, no skil but my knowledge of horseflesh.”

“What wil you do in the Americas, then, if you have no skil s? Take to robbing coaches there?”