But when he slid his hands down her arms and began to pull them behind her, she stiffened and tried to yank away. It didn’t alter his grip in the slightest, and he brought them behind her with a little more insistence, a reproving jerk.
“Are you looking for another beating, my lady?”
“Typical.” She sniffed. “A brute seeks capitulation with force and violence.”
“I see.” He released her wrists, putting his hands on her shoulders as he bent over her, spoke against her hair and the thin substance of the hood in a husky voice. “Should I do it like one of your pretty, fawning courtiers? Please put your arms behind you, my lady. I’m going to bind your wrists there.”
“You said you were going to give me food.”
“I am going to feed you. From my fingertips, same as I would my beloved falcon, to teach her who her Master is, who she can expect to care for her.”
“I’m not a child, incapable of feeding myself,” she said indignantly.
“You are most definitely not a child,” he observed, his eyes coursing down her back to her buttocks, pressed into the mattress. Her breasts hung full and tempting in her forward position. “Obey me and put your hands behind your back. Or you’ll earn another punishment. A worse one.”
Her mouth tightened mutinously. “Worse than taking my body against my will? I’m unimpressed. And owe you no obedience.”
“I would rethink that.” His tone laden with stern warning, he tightened his hands on her shoulders, bringing her up straight. Putting a firm hand to her chin, he brushed her lips, her jaw, with his thumb. “I have a device, a metal ring, that I’ll put inside your mouth. It will open your lips, stretch them wide, and keep me from the danger of your teeth. I’ll put you on your knees like a slave in truth and make you service my cock that way. Last time. Obey me. Give me your arms.”
Her jaw had tightened to the point of cracking. He wondered if she was going to test him that far, but then she tossed her head, a whatever, fuck you gesture that had him biting back a smile as she put her arms behind her back.
He ran his hands down her arms, indulging a squeeze over her wrists before he clipped the wrist cuffs to one another, wrapping the dangling jesses around them, under and over, to reinforce the binding.
He eased her back to the pillows, ensuring they supported her upper body and provided a yielding cushion for her cuffed wrists, so she wasn’t uncomfortable lying on them.
Rising from the bed, he stood at the end, studying his queen. With her legs spread wide on her “perch,” he had a perfect view of her still glistening pussy, the damp folds. Her arm bindings had the intended effect, lifting her breasts high before his appreciative gaze.
He returned to her side, stretching out on his hip next to her. As he stroked her breasts, she bit her lip again, her breath shortening in an absorbing way.
“Nothing to fear from being touched, my lady. Not by me. Especially when I’m touching something this magnificent.” He curved his fingers over them. Stroked, kneaded.
When he finally closed his fingers on the nipple and squeezed lightly, she arched up as if he’d bitten her in passion.
She’d climaxed not long ago, but he was pleased to see she was well on the path toward that cliff edge once more. He was still at the top himself, his aching cock ready for whatever he was going to do, and not being subtle about its frustration with his pace. He ignored it. He wanted to hear her begging again before he took her.
“When my child takes hold in your womb,” he observed, savoring how valiantly she struggled to stay quiet when he thumbed her nipples, “your breasts will get even fuller and heavier. I’ll suckle them, keep them bound in nothing but the lightest silks as you move around my palace, your ripe body mine to view as you swell with my child.”
“What if I get cold?” she managed.
His answer was simple. No need to use many words when a blunt, irrefutable statement would do.
“I’ll warm you.”
The slave returned with the food and drink, quietly left it on the side table, and disappeared again. Picking up the glass of honeyed mead, Matt brought it to Savannah’s lips. “Drink, fierce queen. Keep up your strength against your captor. You might gain the advantage yet.”
“You assume I don’t already have it.” She sipped. If her hands were free, would she have put them around his to steady the cup? Maybe.
“You have to sleep sometime,” she said. “I’ll gut you with your own dagger and escape.”
“I look forward to that attempt. I’ll disarm you and retaliate by piercing you with a different kind of weapon, over and over, until you have no strength in your limbs to run.”
She set her lips to a thin line when he brought food to them, but he persisted, brushing it in a caress against her mouth until she relented.
He would never allow her to eat with her own hands again. Watching her mouth close over each morsel, sometimes over his fingers, as he gave her bits of bread, meat and cheese, spawned a wealth of different feelings. All good. The pleasure of having her take food from his hand was too intense to imagine denying himself the future indulgence.
But he was no fool. The way her tongue was occasionally brushing his skin was either unintentional, 0r his captive was trying to win his trust with deceptively innocent seduction tactics.
His cock had very strident opinions and desires about her, but it would never override his brain. When she at last shook her head, telling him she’d had enough, he tested his suspicion.
“You seem to be getting more relaxed with me, my lady.” Setting aside the plate, he slid his hand up her thigh. “Perhaps you’re more willing than you portray, your rebellion merely an act, meant to provoke me toward what we both want?”
Her backbone stiffened instantly, as he’d expected. “I am merely regaining strength. I’m immune to your touch, my lord, same as if I was covered in ice. Encased in it.”
“An interesting theory to test.” He brought a napkin to her lips. When he nearly got bitten for his trouble, he tsked.
“I don’t mind reddening your luscious backside again, my lady. Or introducing you to that ring gag I described.”
“I’m not afraid of your punishments.”
“No, I expect that’s not what you’re afraid of.”
The fears of a woman like her lay behind doors in her heart, rooms that held raw and vulnerable needs. Those needs had always been locked in the dark. A woman who shrank from nothing else could be paralyzed by the lights of love and trust. By the thought of someone who would care for her, not out of obligation, but because it was the most important damn thing he’d ever done or wanted in his entire life.