Page 22 of The Auction

He drank in the sight of her, of this woman he’d longed for day and night for so long. She knelt at the foot of his bed, her back a blank canvas waiting to be painted with welts. From under the bed, he pulled a large case like the ones Kingsley kept in all his townhouse bedrooms.

“Hands on the top rail.”

Eleanor reached up and grasped the top of the metal footboard.

Daniel stood behind her as he handcuffed her wrists to the railing.

“I have very fond memories of this bed,” he told her as he pushed her hair off her back. “Maggie and I bought it together. She made sure to lay down and test the strength of the footboard and the headboard. The elderly furniture dealer was slightly horrified.”

“I wish I’d known Maggie, sir.”

“You remind me of her in so many ways.” Daniel knelt behind her and kissed the back of her neck and her shoulders. He ran his hand down her side and across her stomach.

Only when he said the words did he realize how true they were. Eleanor’s spirit, her sense of humor, her wild streak that gave him such pleasure to try to tame…so much like Maggie.

“I’ll take that as the compliment I know it is, sir.”

Daniel didn’t answer. Instead, he pressed his lips to the center of her back, kissing the elegant curve of her spine.

He turned his head and bit her, hard, in the center of her back.

She flinched and released a gasp of pain.

“Just marking my target,” he whispered in her ear before standing up and grabbing a stiff riding crop from the case.

He counted in his head a full sixty seconds before striking her the first time. She flinched, and the metal of the handcuffs rattled against the metal of the footboard. Music to his ears.

A welt six inches long and the color of fire burned across her pale skin. He struck her again, then again. A fourth time, then a fifth...At ten, she finally broke and cried out. At twelve, he stopped.

He dropped to his knees behind her and pressed his chest to her burning back.

“Did you enjoy that?” he said into her hair.

“Hurt like hell. I loved it.”

He reached up and unlocked the cuffs. He knew she’d have to leave sooner or later, and he didn’t want to waste a single second with her.

He lifted her off the floor and carried her to the bed. Just to hear that laugh again, he tossed her unceremoniously across the covers. As she was laughing, he grasped her ankles and dragged her hips to the edge of the bed.

No more laughing now.

He went down on his knees for her, spreading her thighs wide and opening her with his fingers. His lips sought her clitoris, and he sucked lightly on it. Her back arched. She pressed harder into his mouth. No woman he’d ever been with tasted quite like her…so sweet and tart at the same time, the scent of her more potent than any drug.

She moaned as he pushed his tongue into her. For the rest of his life, he’d remember the feel of her heels digging into his back and the warmth of her thighs against his face. Still, he couldn’t wait any longer. He had to be inside her.

Daniel stood up and lifted her legs over his shoulders as he pushed into her. He wanted to go slow, to savor every second of her. But he couldn’t hold back. He thrust into her, hard and deep, savoring the sound of her cry of pleasure.

Eleanor stretched her arms out to each side, and her head fell back in a posture of utter surrender. Daniel slid his hand up her body and took her gently by the throat. Her pulse beat hard under his fingers as he thrust into her again and again.

His fingertips found her clitoris and gently teased it. She responded just as he knew she would, as he remembered she would, grasping at the sheets with desperate fingers, hips lifting, her whole body going stiff for a brief eternity before her inner muscles began to spasm, clamping so hard around him they nearly pushed him out of her.

As Eleanor relaxed under him, Daniel only thrust harder, deeper. He held off as long as he could, not wanting to let go of this moment. She was his, if only for now. She was his, if only while she was under him. He wanted to mark her, write “MINE”all over her body. Since he couldn’t, he did the next best thing. He pulled out of her and straddled her hips with his knees. When their eyes locked, he finally came on her stomach.

As the tension slowly drained out of him, Daniel collapsed on top of Eleanor and gathered her to him. He sighed and closed his eyes as she lightly scratched his back. The simple mindless gesture of affection so painfully reminiscent of lovemaking with Maggie nearly did him in. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and tried to imprint this perfect moment into his mind forever.

“Yes,” he said, answering the question she asked an hour ago. “I missed you.”

* * *

---