Submit to Desire
Page 11

“You’re a narcissist. Come on—just a peek?”
Kingsley arched an eyebrow at her. “Very well. If you insist.”
He strode from the bathroom. Grabbing her towel, Charlotte followed him into his bedroom.
She stood in the center of his room while he started to undress. Today’s look was more Edwardian than Victorian. His jacket had five buttons and she watched with eager anticipation as he brusquely undid all of them. Tossing the jacket aside, he unknotted his tie and pulled his white shirt from his trousers. She gasped when he shed the shirt and stood bare-chested in front of her.
“Oh, my God.” Charlotte covered her mouth in shock.
“You were warned.”
She reached out and tentatively touched his chest. His body was what she imagined—lean and muscled and tan. But she never imagined this.
“How?” She looked up at his eyes.
“I was in the French Foreign Legion in my early twenties. Bullet wounds.”
“You were shot?”
“Four times. Thankfully all were small-caliber and missed vital organs. Especially my favorite vital organ.”
“Thank God.” Charlotte tried to laugh but it wasn’t easy staring at the four small holes that riddled Kingsley’s stomach and chest. “Was this from a battle?”
“Two are from a skirmish. The other two are friendly fire.”
“Friendly fire?”
Kingsley grinned at her. “Not terribly friendly, really. My CO found me with his wife.”
Now Charlotte did laugh. “Then you deserved it.”
“Hardly. That poor woman was begging to be tied up and defiled. Literally—she begged me.”
“You’ve always been this bad?” she asked as she ran her hand up and down his bare chest.
“Au contraire. I’ve always been this good.”
Kingsley took her by the wrists and led her to his bed. He opened the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a length of rope.
“Have you ever been hit by a man, Charlie?” Kingsley asked as he pulled the towel off her and threw it aside.
“No. Dad yelled but he never hit.”
“And your boyfriends? Never even spanked?”
She shook her head as her heart started racing. Was he going to actually hit her?
“Your lovers have been vanilla,” Kingsley said. “That’s a tragedy. Did you even enjoy f**king them?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “They were nice. I had orgasms. It wasn’t terrible. Just—”
“Boring? Unfulfilling? Bourgeois?”
“All of that, I guess. Simon told me I was crazy to keep dumping such great guys. He said he’d take them if I didn’t want them.”
Kingsley took Charlotte’s wrists and tied them high to the bedpost. Water from her shower ran down her back and her legs all the way to her ankles. The water droplets itched and tickled but she couldn’t reach down to wipe them off.
“You would have been crazy to stay with men who didn’t understand you. Compromise is one thing. Denying your true self is another. Now…” He stood behind her. “I’m going to do something to you that is neither boring nor bourgeois. I’m going to flog you for five minutes. And if you make it through those five minutes without saying your safe word, I’ll give you an orgasm. And then I will flog you for eight minutes. And then I will give you another orgasm. And so on and so on. I’ll add three minutes to each beating. And the game only ends when you safe out.”
“What if I don’t safe out?”
“Then we’ll be here for a very long time,” he whispered into her ear. “Because there’s nothing in the world I enjoy more than beating a beautiful woman and then bringing her to climax. Now where did I put that cat?”
“Cat? You have a cat?”
“Cat of nine tails, Charlie. Now be a good girl and just stay put while I find a few things.”
Charlotte was fairly certain Kingsley knew exactly where everything was. He just wanted to leave her tied up naked and waiting, letting the anticipation scare her. She heard what sounded like a trunk opening and then she felt him standing behind her again. Something landed on the bed. It was brown leather with a six-inch handle and nine leather thongs. It didn’t look terrifying. But it didn’t look fun, either. Something else landed on the bed—a tube of lubricant. One more thud—a rather impressive-looking vibrator. She blinked as Kingsley brought his hand around and waved a stopwatch in front of her face.
“Five minutes.” He set the alarm. “Ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re trying to get me to f**k you by calling me ‘sir,’ aren’t you? It will work. But not yet.”
Before she could say anything else, the flogger was off the bed and he’d landed the first blow on her back. She flinched at the sudden burning pain. It was shockingly sharp, but not unbearable. She breathed through her nose in short desperate bursts. She was determined to not to say her safe word. It wasn’t so much that she wanted the orgasm. She wanted to prove to Kingsley she wasn’t boring.
When she heard the chiming of the stopwatch alarm she sagged with relief. Kingsley pressed his bare chest into her burning back. The flogger landed on his bed again.
“Did you enjoy that, Charlie?”
“No,” she said, still panting.
“Good. I hate beating masochists. They take the fun out of it by actually enjoying the pain.”