9. Elyse
Elyse
Sinclair brushes past me and shuts the connecting door behind us. It closes with an ominous thud, and suddenly I’m a bird trapped in a cage, my chest tight with panic. I tear my gaze away from the contraption and up to Sinclair.
“You okay?” he asks. I guess the cool-girl game face I was hoping to portray isn’t so strong.
“Yeah.”
“Have you seen one of these before?”
“Um—at a ren faire, maybe?”
He gives a low chuckle. “Figures. It’s called a pillory.”
“I thought they were called stocks,” I say faintly, surveying the contraption.
It’s one of those waist-high wooden frames that medieval villagers used to get locked up in for bad behavior: a horizontal plank, split in two for access, with holes for the wrists and the neck.
This being Alchemy, it’s made from beautifully polished wood, and the circular holes are lined with what looks like padded red satin.
Nope. Doesn’t make it any less terrifying.
“Stocks are similar, but they just restrain the ankles,” Sinclair says.
Somebody knows their medieval kink. That’s probably a gigantic red flag right there. I don’t say anything, just stare at this ancient punishment—and humiliation—device. I sense him turning toward me.
“You didn’t check restraints as a hard limit.”
“No,” I agree, though this feels like a bait-and-switch situation. I was expecting to be on a freaking bed with maybe some handcuffs, but I’m quickly realizing that there’s no place for naivety with a guy this slippery.
“Do we have a problem?”
“No,” I repeat, braving a glance at him. His expression is stern.
“Elyse, I’m not in the business of ignoring women’s boundaries. Believe me, this will be a lot more fun for both of us if you feel comfortable.”
We’re way beyond comfortable, my friend. In any case, only one of us will be having any so-called fun tonight.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. “I’ll try it.”
“Do you know why I requested this piece of equipment?” he asks me.
I really hope that’s a rhetorical question.
There’s no way I’m entering into a guessing game with him.
I wait. “I want to fuck you on it, sure. But I also want to take my time and get to know your body, and I thought this would be a novel way to keep you still while I do so. What do you think of that?”
I’m unsure what I think because my brain is shattering into tiny pieces, as if it’s made of delicate glass and Sinclair’s words are a vat of boiling water.
If I thought this dude’s apparent awkwardness would stop him from saying the most outrageous things to my face without batting an eye, then clearly I’ve majorly underestimated him.
“Okay,” I say, jerking back to look at the thingy. I can’t meet those searing blue eyes anymore. I have to forcibly stop myself from gathering the neckline of my robe more tightly together.
“‘Okay.’ What a spectacular declaration of consent.”
I start to shake. I can’t help it. I feel so small and vulnerable next to him.
He’s in his billionaire uniform of black slacks and a crisp white shirt, neck open, and I’m far too close to being naked.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” I whisper, willing myself not to cry in front of him.
It’s true. I don’t. What is he expecting—that I put on some kind of performance? Turn into a porn star for the evening?
“Hey.” He’s in front of me in a flash, standing between me and it, tipping my chin up so I’m forced to look at him.
He smells really, really good. His cologne is subtle.
Refined. Herb-based, maybe? Axe it is not.
“I don’t need anything from you,” he says.
“I should have made that clear. I’ll do everything.
You don’t need to do a thing here. But I do need your consent. ”
For a moment, I wonder if he’s planning on kissing me. It was a limit on the list, but I didn’t check it, obviously. If he’s going to pay me ten grand, he can kiss me. The only problem is that my mouth has gone dry. My eyes dart to the clock on the wall. It’s already nine-oh-five.
“Forget the time,” he says, looking at my mouth. “I’ve come here for quality, not quantity. If it takes a while for you to get comfortable, then it takes a while. Got it?”
He doesn’t kiss me, just watches me intently until I say, “You have my consent.”
He nods and releases my chin, taking a step back. “Good. Then take off your robe.”
I knew it was coming, of course, but it’s still a shock.
I look down and pull the silk tie loose easily, despite my still-shaking hands.
It’s only the first step in what will be a grueling hour, but I didn’t expect it to feel quite so uncomfortable to strip off, stone-cold sober, in front of a total stranger.
This is insane. I’ve done a million lingerie shoots.
I strip off in front of photographers and God knows how many of their crew members all the time.
But not like this. Never like this.
What will he think?
Will he like what he sees?
What he’s paid for?
The robe swings open, exposing a strip of skin between my breasts and down over my stomach and beyond. My hands go to the lapels.
“Look at me while you take it off.” It’s not a request, but his voice is gruff. I look up at him and shrug the robe off my shoulders, the silk snagging on my nipples as I do. It slithers down my arms and I catch it with my fingers before it can fall to the floor.
His eyes are all over me. I feel his gaze as viscerally as if it were his fingers, his tongue, on my skin. He swallows as he raises them back to my face, his pupils drowning out the blue. “You’re extremely beautiful,” he says. “Throw the robe on the bed.”
I ball it up and do as he says. With a last, hungry look, he turns away and lifts the top half of the pillory thing up and over until it hangs vertically on its hinge. Open, the contraption looks a little less scary.
He turns back to me. “Let’s get you into position so I can enjoy you properly.”
Here goes nothing. Oh my dear Lord. I will never be able to go to a ren faire ever again.
I step forward, raising my arms so I can gather my hair up in one fist. He fixes that blue gaze on my exposed breasts.
It’s only as I bend forward that I realize how very low this thing is.
Tiny thong aside, my ass is going to be on full display for him, which I’m sure is the entire idea.
Again: oh my dear Lord.
I bend forward, laying my throat against the cool satin lining the neck hole. It is indeed padded. I release my hair so it hangs in a curtain to my left and find the other nooks for my wrists.
“How’s that?” he asks.
“It’s fine.”
He brings the upper half back over and it clunks heavily into place.
Shit. Suddenly a lot less fine. I twist my hands.
There’s room around my wrists, but not much.
Not enough to pull out. The satin, padded though it may be, constrains my throat.
I may have to rely on pure ab strength to hold myself at this angle.
“I have a support for you,” he says, and I crane my neck as best I can to see what he means.
It’s standing up against the wall and looks almost exactly like one of those collapsible suitcase racks you get in hotel rooms, except that the support part is made from a single wide strip of leather.
He opens it and slides it under my upper stomach.
It’s exactly the right height for me, which means it’s holding up my middle. A brief wave of relief crashes over me.
“How do you feel?” he asks from where he’s standing, behind me and off to the left.
I feel exactly like a rabbit caught in a trap.
I feel uncomfortable and exposed. One of the weirdest parts is having my view limited.
I can see the ground below me, and even his shoes, but not directly back—the wooden plank stops me from dipping my chin properly.
I can see the far wall in front, but if he came to stand in front of me, I wouldn’t be able to tilt my head up enough to see his face.
I’m hyperconscious that my ass is on display.
It’s the strangest position I’ve ever been in.
I bet John Gage didn’t put Diana through this in his stateroom. Sylvie and I have always had a strong view that he was a dirty, skillful bastard, but this is a whole other level of depravity. Clearly, our imaginations are a lot more limited than we realized.
I don’t say any of that, obviously. “I feel okay.”
“Good.” He skims a couple of fingertips lightly down the bumps of my bare spine, stopping just before the waistband of my thong. I’m not expecting it, and I startle. “Safe word?”
“Uh, raven.” It takes me a moment to conjure it up. Must do better. Got to keep it close at hand.
“Say it if you need it.”
And then he’s touching me for real, hands squeezing my waist and then sliding up my sides.
Reaching one arm around, the stiff cotton of his shirt sleeves brushing against my back, so he can find both my breasts.
Cupping them, weighing them where they hang freely for him.
He rolls my nipples. Pinches them hard. A sudden flare of white-hot pleasure lances through me, taking me by shock, and I gasp without meaning to.
What sounds like a pleased little huff from him.
“I see. It’s like that, is it?” He doubles down, pinching and rolling and squeezing and kneading, and my gasps turn to little staccato noises in the back of my throat.
In this position, it feels as though he’s milking me.
I have a view of my bare feet with their pale-pink-painted toenails and of his highly polished black shoes and black pants off to the left, but I can’t see his hands on me. The wood blocks my view.