Page 40 of The Dove
“Enough, you little tart,” he groused. “If you think trying to make me come quickly will spare you what I have planned, you had better think again.”
He pushed her back onto the mattress, letting her roll over onto her side as he walked around to the foot of the bed, snatching loose one of the tasseled ropes tying back the bed curtains. He went to the opposite post and retrieved another, then moved around to the other side of the bed. She tried to scramble away, issuing a frustrated huff when he took hold of her ankle and yanked her back toward him.
Climbing back up onto the bed, he maneuvered her like a rag doll, forcing one of her knees to bend beneath her, and pulling her arm so that he could tie one wrist to an ankle. He repeated the motions on the other side of her body, until her knees were curled beneath her, legs spread wide, arse in the air. Tilted forward and forced to rest her cheek on the mattress, weight falling forward onto her shoulders.
Motionless. Defenseless. His.
Reaching down to begin loosening the braces from his breeches, he took in the picture she presented—all her most intimate places open and bared to him, her body contorted, forced to bend to his will.
He had just been about to touch her when he spied a foreign object on the counterpane—a small wooden box that had not been there when he’d first thrown her down.
Had it fallen out of her pocket?
Reaching out for it, he glanced from what was undoubtedly a jeweler’s box to Daphne, who stared at him over her shoulder, eyes wide with panic.
It was definitely hers.
“What have we here?” he murmured, slowly prying open the box.
A large, gaudy sapphire ring lay cushioned in black velvet, twinkling in the light from the lamp on the bedside table. He sneered, turning the box to show it to her—though he was certain she’d already seen it.
“An engagement ring. You accepted this?”
Squeezing her eyes closed, she shook her head. “Yes … I mean, no … I mean … he told me to keep it until I’d made up my mind.”
Plucking the little ring from its velvet housing, he tossed the box carelessly aside, holding the piece of jewelry between his thumb and forefinger.
“A cheap trinket hardly worthy of someone he claims to love,” he muttered before flicking it away from him, landing it on the counterpane just in front of her face.
He wanted her to be forced to stare at it while he made her regret accepting it … wanted it just out of her reach while he fucked her mindless.
“What a waste it would be for you to marry that sniveling little milksop,” he groused as he finished unfastening his suspenders from his breeches and began wrapping the pliant leather around one hand. “He would hardly know what to do with a fiery little thing like you. But I do, little dove.”
He closed his fist and cracked the folded ended of the braces against one palm, watching the effect it had on her. She flinched, her spine going tense, legs trembling.
“You are mine,” he declared. “Say it.”
“Damn you,” she growled.
Gritting his teeth, he brought the leather down upon her arse, sending the medley of her cry and the leather cracking against her skin through the air.
“Keep quiet, or I will be forced to gag you,” he snapped. “This ends when you give me what I want. Say you’re mine.”
He swung the braces again, flushing the soft skin of her buttocks pink.
“Do not make me break you, little dove,” he warned, his patience wearing thinner and thinner the more she denied him. “Say. It.”
“Sod … off,” she managed between pants, hovering on the edge of beautiful madness.
He heard it in her voice—the way her control had begun to fray, the urge to give in overcoming her instinct to fight him. Sweat broke out over his skin as he went back to punishing her, cracking the leather straps of his braces against her buttocks over and over again, leaving light welts, red and glowing, crisscrossing over pristine, porcelain skin. His cock grew harder, his body tightening and winding like the string of a crossbow. But his mind had cleared, the heaviness on his shoulders lifting as he poured it all onto her—his rage, his anger, his grief … the overwhelming muddle of emotions she made him feel. Emotions he did notwantto feel.
“This can end whenever you are ready, little dove,” he rasped between heavy breaths, his chest heaving from his exertions. “Just admit it to me … admit it to yourself.”
“I … I can’t,” she gasped, her voice broken, breaking off on a sob. “Please don’t make me … please, Adam.”
Seeing that they’d reached the tipping point, he paused, the leather straps held up in one hand. “Why not? It is the truth, is it not? All you have to do is say it.”
“If I say it … it becomes … real,” she cried, trembling and whimpering, her body covered in a light sheen of sweat. Her arousal practically dripped from her, wetting her thighs, making her pink inner flesh glisten invitingly.
