Larissa
“Are you ready?” Sebastian comes into my room when my belly is still coiled tight like a spring, ready to snap.
I niggle my lips back and forth on a shrug.
“What’s wrong? Your punishment too harsh? Did the plug leave you hurting?”
His brow tugs tight, sincere concern darkening his eyes.
I’m gathered into him as he lowers himself into the chair by the window. He’s so big. I easily snuggle into his lap like a little girl.
I am too embarrassed to tell him what I’m thinking, so I just huddle back against the crook of his arm, pulling my legs to my chest.
The friction from his suit pants against my still sensitive lower region taunts me.
“Tell Daddy what’s wrong, baby.” He pinches my chin between his thumb and forefinger, directing my eyes so I melt into his emerald ones. The slope of his crooked nose is suddenly fascinating. “Are you hungry? You want breakfast before you go outside to do your painting?”
“No. I don’t know.”
Lies. I am hungry, but I do know what is wrong.
“Don’t do that. I know you well enough by now. You must always, always be truthful, even when it is hard. You don’t keep secrets from me. Now, tell me, do you not want to go outside? See the new paint set I bought for you?” He strokes my hair, and I feel the warmth of his breath on my forehead.
My cheeks burn hot, then the warmth moves toward my ears as I try to form the words.
“I—” I shudder on a breath. “I want to touch you. I wish I could kiss you.” I blurt it all out so quickly, it sounds more like one long word.
A low chuckle vibrates under my cheek, and I immediately wish I had lied.
There was no way a man like him would want me in that way.
Everything he’s done so far has been to teach me. To train me. He doesn’t want that kind of relationship with me.
I am just part of his program.
His lips press to my ear. “I would love to kiss you. But if I do, you must promise to please Daddy, too. Do you promise?” His whisper makes me swallow hard and take a deep breath of relief.
I nod against him. Suddenly, I feel like I have just been asked to prom by the most popular boy in class.
“First,” he raises my face again, “a kiss. I have not kissed a female in decades, Larissa, so you will forgive me if I’m not as practiced as you may think.”
His words and his lips ignite a multitude of microscopic sparks as he presses the soft warmth of his mouth against mine.
Never in this lifetime or a thousand others would I have imagined a kiss so perfect. He kisses my bottom lip, drawing it between his own as his jaguar-green eyes stay locked onto mine. The heat in my cheeks quickly moves outward, then down my neck, racing like lava over my chest.
His tongue presses inward, opening my lips as it swoops inside to dance with my own. I swirl around him, feeling like a princess awakened by her prince’s first kiss.
He tastes like sweet tea and a hint of peppermint as his tongue winds with my own.
My head swims. I feel detached, floating, his hand pressed into the back of my neck, holding me centered and secure as my passion begins to overwhelm me.
Never have I imagined wanting to give myself so completely to someone. I have never felt anything close to this desire. It’s so deep, so primitive, that any and all other needs fall away.
The whole world lives inside this kiss.
Right here. Right now.
When he finally pulls back, I’m panting, staring into the face of a man I feel is a mixture of the father I never had and a lover I never dreamed of.
I haven’t considered his age really until now. Until this all felt so…real.
How old is he?
I shake away the thought. It doesn’t matter. He’s a marble sculpture that belongs in the Louvre, yet he kissed me.
Me. He said he hasn’t kissed anyone in…decades. I’m melting and wet and hazy like this is a fever dream.
“It has been so long since such a pure, innocent spirit has been here. The girls who arrive at my doorstep are hardened, lewd, and petulant. You, my little finch, you have changed things here.” My heart feels like it grows two sizes as he looks down and kisses me again.
Both hands wrap around the back of my neck, holding me firm and secure as our kiss ignites.
It’s tongues and breaths and dreams until I can’t stand it another second, and our kiss breaks with me wide-eyed, a hardness under my rear end and the flow of my arousal soaking into the fabric covering his thighs.
“Tell me. Has a boy ever touched you? Kissed you?” He pulls back, his eyes intent and wild with something I haven’t seen before.
Jealousy.
“None. I’ve never—” Suddenly, I feel ashamed.
It’s not jealousy. He wants to be sure I know what I’m doing. Surely he won’t want me, an inexperienced girl. I have no idea how to please a man. Especially a man who looks like Sebastian.
I brace myself for the inevitable rejection, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, his lips turn up at the corners, the little lines around his eyes deepen.
“You are a gift.” He kisses me on each cheek, then my nose, my forehead, the part of my hair, and I’m swimming in the warmth of him.
“How do you know Hoover?” I ask, the sudden need to understand how I got to him from there a detail that feels demandingly necessary right now.
He takes a deep breath through his nose, then shakes his head. “It’s a long story, and I won’t allow him to ruin this, baby. Come, I am taking you somewhere no other girl has gone when they’ve been here.”
He sets me on my feet, his hands guiding my waist to turn around, then encases my hand in both of his, pulling me behind him toward the door.
I follow him down the corridor, then down a flight of stairs, and then he leads me to a solid white door, and I follow him through, my eyes widening as we step inside.
A canopy bed bigger than anything I have seen before stands in the center of the octagonal room. Four sides of the room are windows from the floor upward, until they meet the carved white molding along the ceiling.
Without another word, he leads me to the silky cotton of the white bed, his hands pressing into my tiny waist and lifting me to sit facing him as he steps closer, opening my legs with his body, and cupping my cheeks in the heat of his hands.
I wanted him before, but now I have no idea what magic he has unfolded upon me, but there is nothing in this world I need more than to have him inside me. I am desperate for him to take me for the first time.
His eyes captivate me as I feel his fingertips lower and pull the slinky yellow fabric of the dress up and over my head.
“I have to warn you. Gentle is not my specialty. But you must trust me when I tell you, I know what you need.” His voice darkens as his wild, green eyes drink in every inch of my naked body.
He lowers his eyes and hands to graze over my shoulders, down my arms, until his thumbs trace lightly around the deep pink circles that harden under his soft touch.
Through my lust, I vividly remember that he is utterly a stranger to me. Fear punches in my gut, but that same fear swells inside of me like a hungry bear. My body flows with liquid desire as his hands move over and cup my breasts, sending a thick, ripe, fear-filled shiver into my belly.
My throat feels tight, my muscles aching as he caresses and then pinches at each hard peak. Jolts of panic and wondrous temptation ratchet my newfound lust higher and higher.
“Do you understand what it means to be mine?” His deep voice shakes me as I feel so small sitting naked on the bed.
“You will take care of me?” I hear myself, but every ounce of my focus is on his fingers as they ignite a trail of ice and goosebumps from my breasts upward, over my chest, and wrapping around my neck.
“Yes. I will take care of you. But it is more. So much more. Are you truly willing to give yourself to me completely? To leave behind who you were and allow me to teach you, to mold you into something I’ve only ever dreamed of until now?
You will be my focus, my charge, and I will provide for you in ways you never imagined. ”
His eyes drink me in, from the top of my head down, resting for a long moment between my legs before his lips raise at the corners, and I see a flicker of danger behind those green eyes.
“I think so. I’m not sure what it means.” I feel myself sink into the soft white bedding as his gaze challenges me. I am suddenly small, helpless, and frozen under the soft but firm clutch of his hands at my throat.
“I provide a very special service for my clients. People like your parents. I train girls to be good again. To allow themselves to be utterly and completely given to the care of another. There are men all over the world who wait years for one of my girls.”
My chest feels like a strap has been tightened down three notches too far.
“What do you mean? The girls…you sell them?”
“No. Of course not. I am simply a teacher. When a young lady in my care has successfully completed her training, I send her back to her parents, or whoever sent her to me, a new woman. Obedient. Willing to please.”
It is hard to look at him. I have never seen a man so impeccable, so perfect, except on the covers and glossy pages of high fashion magazines. Even his voice is otherworldly, like a seductive lullaby I have waited my whole life to hear sung.
His explanations only fuel the already out-of-control fire that burns down in my belly. It clutches at me like ten tightening fists, coaxing out of me a desire so deep I am not sure that I will ever climb out.
The question from before nags at me again.
“So, my parents... I mean, my mom and Hoover... They know you?”
Daddy tips his head to the side, a sympathetic glint in his green eyes.
“Yes. I know Hoover. We have a…” He hesitates, and I sense that he’s wondering whether to go on. “We’re family,” he says finally, and the warmth in the room turns to a chill.
“Family...” The word catches in my throat. “You’re related to Hoover?”
Daddy takes a long moment. Licks his lips slowly, as my heart falls to my feet. Then he squeezes my shoulders, leans down, and kisses me tenderly, soft and sweet.