“I daresay you have questions about me and my life, but I have no intention of answering any of them. You know what you need to know—that I have bought your submission, which you now owe me. I don’t want a companion or a conversationalist. I want a toy.”
Erin gasped. She knew she should have expected this attitude, and she tried to shrug it off, but it sounded so bald and shocking, expressed like that.
“Don’t look so stunned,” he said, more gently. “I’m careful with my toys. I always have been. I wouldn’t even break up my Lego, once it was constructed. I’m careful with everything. You could say that was the secret of my success, in a way.”
He drew a short breath and continued, perhaps sensing that Erin had seen an opening for more questions.
“The bedroom is directly underneath this room, down the spiral stairs. I have laid out an outfit for you. I want you to shower, change and meet me back up here when you’re ready. Are you hungry?”
She nodded, although she didn’t really know whether she was or not. Her body had temporarily forgotten its usual responses.
“I’ll have some food brought up from the kitchen.”
Brought up—there is somebody else living here. A servant of some kind.
She stood a moment longer, staring blankly at his tall, athletic figure in open-necked shirt and expensive jeans. He looked normal, if a bit on the gorgeous side. He really shouldn’t look normal.
“Are you waiting for something? The stairs are through here.”
He chivvied her out of the room to the stone spiral beyond.
He had been smiling at her, Erin recalled, using the knowledge as a token, something to make her feel safe.
The stairs led down to another huge circular room with a glassed-off wet room directly in the centre.
“The bedroom,” she whispered, but it was more than that.
It was the perfect all-purpose playroom. The bed area was decadently luxurious, all silk sheets, cushions, throws, mirrored ceilings, shelves full of lotions and oils and lubricants, but the opposite side of the room was harsh as a dungeon, filled with ominous dark furniture, iron loops set into the wall and hooks on the ceiling. It seemed Sir took his BDSM seriously and was no novice.
Erin had seen all this at the fashionable S&M club nights she liked to attend, but it seemed beyond bizarre to see it, out and proud, in somebody’s bedroom. A stranger.
Prowling around the rest of the room, she squealed when she came across a cage, about six cubic feet in size, filled with cushions. Was this where she would sleep?
The thought was terrifying and yet also incredibly exciting, taking her right into the secret heart of her fantasy life. She belonged to him. Whatever he wanted to do with her, he could do.
She was short of breath in the shower, realising with each new application of soapy gel that she was washing something that belonged to somebody else.
Her neck? His. Her breasts, with their perky, rounded nipples? His. Her thighs, belly, hips? His. Her bottom? His—and hadn’t he confessed to being a spanking fetishist? She hadn’t seen any implements, but that wasn’t to say that they weren’t all neatly stowed away somewhere. And her tingling, tight little pussy? Completely his. She had signed an agreement. If he wanted it, he could have it.
She groaned with arousal, wondering if she could get away with a sneaky spot of masturbation. She had not expected to be turned on—after all, she had thought she’d be servicing some septuagenarian oligarch for the thirty days of the agreement. But now she was more excited about the prospect of submitting to this enigmatic, attractive man than she was about submitting her MA proposal.
It was a bonus, she reflected, vigorously soaping her inner thighs, wondering if she should have shaved off her pubic hair before arriving. It had been a gamble. If he decided he wanted it off, it was easy enough to shave. But if he preferred the natural look, she couldn’t really grow it back in a hurry. So, for now, it had stayed. She hoped he would appreciate the respect for him implicit in her decision.
She stepped out of the shower, triumphing over her impulse towards self-pleasure, and wrapped herself in one of the many exquisitely fluffy towels on the rail. Where were these clothes he had mentioned? On the bed, he had said, but she hadn’t noticed…
Oh.
She knelt on the huge iron-framed bed and picked up what had looked from a distance like another exotic decoration to go with the many tassels and beads. But it wasn’t a decoration.
Now his choice of vocabulary—‘outfit’ rather than ‘clothes’—seemed justified. Because these really weren’t clothes. Not in anyone’s world.