The Haunted (Sleeping with Monsters Book 1) Page 9

  Daphne grinned at the old man with affection. “I think you’re pulling my leg.”

  “Scout’s honor, Ma’am,” he said, grinning back, and picking up her plate. “I called Mr. Gale. He’ll come by after work tomorrow. Seemed very pleased to get the chance to help us with the dresser.”

  “And I’ll be pleased to finally have it moved. Thank you Arthur.”

  “You’re welcome. Anything else?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “See you for breakfast then, Ma’am,” Arthur said, and left with a bow.

  Daphne sat at the table a while longer, listening to Arthur and Mrs. Dudley leave. The Master had been taunting her all day, and now it was his turn to be taunted, just a little bit. He couldn’t know what it was that she’d do, not one hundred percent – he could only hope that she’d do it.

  Daphne took herself on a tour of the house, intoxicated by the idea of what would happen if she let it, trying to stretch the anticipation out. Feeling regal, she looked around each room with a future eye – how new paintings would be commissioned and hung, new rugs rolled out, vast arrangements of flowers, the statues displayed like the works of art they were, always keeping a feel for the pulse of the house’s original grandeur and majesty. She would restore it to its glory days, and it would love her for it, it would love her, and it would love her baby.

  She made her way up to where her nursery would be and imagined a crib with a lazy mobile circling above it -- and then went into the green room, where she’d left the picture of the horse-girl. Daphne stared down at it. Had she been raised her whole life here? How lucky she had been, and how profoundly sad her ending.

  Just as Daphne lowered the photo she thought she saw a figure behind the girl in it. She blinked and squinted. Had it been there before? Was it there now? She wavered, trying to bring things into focus again, and then realized it was time to stop fighting what she wanted.

  In less than twenty glorious feet she was back in her bedroom again.

  Daphne undressed carelessly, dropping her skirt and shirt to the floor, leaving only her underwear and bra on. Then she rummaged in her closet until she found a scarf. It was sheer, but if she tied it twice, it would do.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, she lassoed it and knotted it behind her, so that it covered her eyes. And then deliberately she swung both her legs up and lay atop her mattress, arms crossed on her chest as if she were dead.

  The only question was how long would he make her wait? They’d been teasing each other since this afternoon, first his making her search, and then her taking her time, each pretending that they were fighting ending up right here…and yet here she was.

  So where was he? Daphne licked her lips, a little nervous – and then felt a hot hand on her arm.

  Hands trailed slowly over her body, enveloping her in his heat for long enough that she felt chilled when they were gone. She wished he were a blanket, that she could pull him over him and feel safe in him – but that wasn’t their kind of relationship. She had safe with Richard, and what had it gotten her? Taken for granted and cheated on.

  Better yet that she be with someone dangerous, someone who kept her on her toes. Someone that she couldn’t let her guard down around so that when she finally gave in it felt so much sweeter.

  The hands finally paused over her hands, taking them up, pulling her to seated, then to standing as she let them.

  Her heart started beating in her throat. This was really happening. The things she’d seen him threaten Becca with were promises for her. There would be a door, a table, chains, and – she paused in exhilarating fear and felt him near behind her, prodding her forward with his erection – and let out a gasp, and thought she could feel-hear the ghost rumble, like distant thunder.

  He spun her in several directions, and then moved to lead her, just as he’d typed, through a door and down a stair. She followed, bare feet on cold stone, down and down, her clit thudding between her legs with each step, her hips aching, need unresolved since this afternoon sparking into something sharper and more hungry.

  The ghost paused and she paused, and she was dying to take off her blindfold and look around. But then where would she be? And he might not deign to fuck her after that. He was in control – always had been. And she…she needed to be fucked. In such a brutal, primal way.

  The ghost pulled her forward again, until she felt something cold and curved across her hips. It gave a little, which was good, because the ghost grabbed a hand into her hair and brought her bending over it. Cushioned leather? She had just long enough to make a guess, before her hands were pulled down – and chains attached them to her ankles.

  Daphne fought after this. She wondered why she was fighting – why she hadn’t fought seconds earlier when she could have gotten away, and why it was important that she was fighting now, when she absolutely could not. Was she fighting for herself, or for him, or just to fight? Just to be forced to admit that she couldn’t get free, that she’d invited this upon her own fool self? Or because she needed to make sure the chains were tight to show herself that in his twisted way he wanted her, needed her, so much so that he made sure she couldn’t run?

  The chains rattled and she knew no one would hear them or her, panting awkwardly, blood rushing to her head, feeling dizzy and out of control before he’d even begun, knowing that her ass was stuck up in the air. And when she was done panicking, when the exhilaration of being trapped had begun to ever so slightly curdle with a hint of fear, he started.

  His hands were hot again, on her, pawing her back roughly, massaging the muscles that her awkward position pulled. He took hold of her ass and thighs like she were a piece of meat, kneading her with strong fingers, feeling the tension on her that this position caused.

  Daphne yanked on the chains again, and then she stilled. The only sound in the room was the sound of her panting breath, the cushion caught up in her stomach and under her ribs so she couldn’t fully breathe.

  “What would you say to me if you could?” she whispered.

  The hands grasping her paused, as if in thought. And then he took a step towards her and she could feel the heat of his erection against the cleft of her ass.

  And that, she supposed, nearly upside down and lost and confused was all he really needed to say.

  Chapter Thirteen

  He reached between them and pushed his cock down so that it slid between her legs, and his head rubbed up against her clit. Behind her his thighs lined up with hers and he leaned over her, covering her with his heat, then scratched fingers down her back while pulsing himself against her, chaste by only the most technical definition of the word. It was like he was trying to merge with her, become one with her, envelope her inside him.

  And then it was his turn to be inside her. He repositioned himself, and she wasn’t fully wet, but he slid in anyway, all hot and hard. She grunted gutturally at being entered like that, and then it was like a faucet turned on inside of her, she was a fountain, she felt it covering him and then running down the insides of her thighs.

  What followed wasn’t sex. Not compared to any kind of sex she’d ever had before. She didn’t know what it was – she only knew that he wanted her and he’d chained her up and he was going to fuck her until she couldn’t take it anymore and then possibly beyond. Her hair was dragging on the ground and all she could feel was the stone with her toes, her ankles with her hands, the bar beneath her hips and his cock ramming into her, bruising her against the bar again and again.

  All this time he’d always helped her come -- made her come – but she’d never once managed to satisfy him. The time in the bathroom that Richard had interrupted hardly counted – maybe this was what he needed to get off, to be totally, utterly, in control.

  At the thought of her finally taming him, even if it took this -- she spread her legs wider to withstand his assault. He made a sound at this, or she thought he did, and then she started shouting with each of his thrusts. Animal sounds – lost sounds -- because s
he knew no one would hear – and if no one could save her now, neither could they condemn.

  “Fuck me,” she shouted out, an exclamation – but he took it as a command. The friction between them, his heat sliding in and out, the fact that she was trapped here and couldn’t get away – she wanted to get her hands free, desperately, she needed to rub her clit, she wanted her pussy to wind around him and make him hers – but she wanted him to come more, and harder, than he ever had before in his life – or the next. “Fuck me fuck me fuck me,” she cried, her voice rising in a whine.

  Hands grabbed her hips roughly, riding himself inside her in time with her words.

  “Don’t ever stop – just keep fucking me --“ her body vibrated with the words, with him ramming into her, her pussy being filled again and again.

  His hands left her, and they must have grabbed hold of the bar she was slung across because she felt the whole thing rattle as he yanked back, making her whole body sway, limp as a rag doll.

  “Fuck fuck fuck,” she whispered, her pussy quivering on the edge even without her clit, and behind her the ghost shuddered, bodily, three final times, hauling her back across the beam she lay on, to finish spearing her with his hot cock. She imagined she could feel his cum inside her, blazing a hot molten trail, before sliding out again.

  She couldn’t breathe. She just lay there, chained, and whimpered. She wasn’t angry or sad – there was no room for thoughts anymore, inside of her head. Heat pulled away from her, left her standing and cold, wetness flowing between her thighs, and she had a dizzy thought that he might leave her like this and never let her go – but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered right now, not anymore.

  The chains holding her wrist to ankle fell free and hands almost helped her to standing before she fell through them, on weak legs, to the ground with a thump.

  Warmth enveloped her again, more gently now, holding her from behind, an arm underneath her gravity swollen breasts and bar-bruised waist. He rocked her, the ghost, slowly, as though she were a child, and from some well deep inside she started crying. Honest, frustrated tears – crying for everything she’d lost with Richard, all the time and all the hope, every time she’d been ignorant and dumb and played a fool. It was like the Master’s cock were a stick and it’d stirred up the very bottom of a very deep pond inside her, one that would never be all the way clear again. Daphne knew she’d never manage to be as innocent as she once had been. It was like growing up, and it felt awful.

  She curled forward, sobbing, and the Master held her, stroking back her hair from her face, his heat the only solace she had in the darkness. It wouldn’t matter how long she cried, or how hard, or how ugly she’d be afterwards – she wasn’t going to scare him away. The knowledge of that was her only tow-line back to sanity from the raw and unbound place she’d been.

  When she could breathe again, she felt his fingers on her face, slipping underneath her blindfold, touching the trails of her tears. And then that same hand lowered down between her sprawled open legs and touched her softly there and she gasped.

  She would have thought any fire there had been entirely quenched by her crying, but no – her tears had only washed everything clean. She was in a place beyond trust or fear, a land of pure openness, and she moaned with his next touch.

  She felt him rumble behind her, pleased with her release – pleased to be retaking control again. He didn’t need the chains and he didn’t need the bar, he just pulled her back into his arms. One hand cradled a breast and rolled her nipple between finger and thumb and the other rubbed at her clit.

  She crossed her arms over his, holding herself tighter to him, pinching her other nipple, feeling the curve of his body behind hers, the heat where his stomach met her back. His fingers played inside her now, brought out her wetness and circled her with it, teasing at her most electric spot, before darting back inside, taunting her, listening to her gasp.

  He played her and she let him. She gave into it as she’d never given into anything before. She relaxed and let him have utter, utter, control, even moreso than she had while she’d been chained. She willed herself into the experience and then released any hopes she had, any desires, any needs, as she felt his fingers pinch and pull and fill her up. She heard her own voice as from a great distance, and it was like he’d turned her into an instrument, one only he could play. She responded to everything he did, moaning, gasps, panting, whines, muttered prayers to don’t stop, never stop again –

  And then she was there, closer to coming that she’d ever been aware of before, not a sharp bright edge to fall over but a wall of delicious light to push through, radiating out from her over her entire body, from fingertip to fingertip, from toe to head --

  And then she hit the hardest orgasm she’d ever had in her life on the other side. Her body roiled like she’d been flung on rocks, curved over and pulled tight, muscles taut and then utterly released, again and again. She was shouting, she heard herself shouting, she knew she was shouting, and then she relaxed into a moan, falling through, falling down until she remembered where she was, on the ground in a secret dungeon being held by a particularly talented ghost.

  And at last she laughed. Her voice was strange and harsh from all the other sounds she’d made tonight, but the joy was genuine and it burbled up from inside her, a secret place that she never knew she had and she thought she might never find again. The ghost – the Master, her Master, her beloved Master, stood himself and then carefully helped her to stand. Then he pulled her up stairs, made sure she was steady, and led her through her own house until making her stop on what she knew was tile and drew her a hot bath.

  Daphne stepped into the tub gingerly, and felt the steam of the water replace the heat of his hands, and reached up for the blindfold to tug it down. She was alone, except for the swirl of steam where she thought he had just been.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Ma’am?”

  Daphne woke to Arthur’s polite knocking at her door in the morning.

  “Did I oversleep?”

  “You did, Ma’am,” Arthur said, through the door.

  “I’m so sorry –“ she scrabbled for her phone with one hand. No signal, but it’d been an excellent alarm clock – up until she’d forgotten to set it.

  “It’s all right Ma’am – I just wanted to see if you were well.”

  “I am, Arthur. Just a little too much wine after you left last night was all.” And…other things. Had everything really happened? Or had it all just been one elaborate dream?

  “Shall we be seeing you for lunch in about an hour then, Ma’am?”

  “That’d be perfect, Arthur.”

  With him away from her door, she could think.

  What proof did she have that last night had even happened? She kicked off her sheets and found out – her arms and legs were stiff, and her pussy and hips were sore.

  God. It had been real. All the magical oddity of it. She’d never been like that before, and it’d never felt so good for her – she could still remember the sensation of that orgasm, like she’d been falling through time and space – her hands wound in the sheets just thinking of it.

  Could it be like that here, every night?

  If it was, would she survive it?

  She looked around the room, as though the Master might be looking in and then laughed at herself. Richard’s escapades – whoever he was doing, wherever he was -- had nothing on her.

  Daphne took another shower, at the end of which she only felt like she’d worked out hard the day before. She carefully dried her hair and put on just enough make-up to look ‘natural’, whatever that was for someone who was getting regularly fucked by a ghost.

  She took a seat at the end of the table, as Arthur brought her lunch.

  “You look lovely, Ma’am.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re positively glowing,” he went on.

  “Must be all the beauty rest,” she said distractedly, pulling her chair in.

 
Daphne spent most of lunch toying with it. After last night…what did she owe the Master? She couldn’t fall in love with him – he wasn’t really there. But he made her feel, so intensely – was he just using her? Was she just using him? Why did she have to think about it so much now?

  The last, she knew the answer to, at least, if she were honest with herself. There was only one reason she’d asked Jason to come over and it had nothing to do with moving the dresser. After last night she felt the owed the Master if not monogamy, then an explanation.

  “Not hungry, Ma’am?” Arthur inquired, after a polite time had passed.

  “Not really. A little nauseous is all.”

  “Do you need a doctor? We could go into town –“

  “Oh, no, that’s all right –“ She bit the inside of her lip. “I’m fine now. Just come and get me when Mr. Gale arrives, please.”

  “Of course, Ma’am.”

  Leaving Arthur behind with dishes, she slunk out into the hall – and then into the library, where the Master’s portrait was staring down. She stood in the middle of the room and knew he was here, even if he wasn’t touching her.

  “Please don’t be mad.”

  If last night was him in a good mood, she didn’t think her body could stand it if she made him angry.

  “You do understand what I want here, don’t you?” she asked him, and swallowed. “It’s not that I don’t want to stay here – because I do. You know I do. I want to be with you. But -- I also want a child -- and you can’t give me that. Please don’t be mad.”

  Daphne got the sensation of electricity around her, like she was standing on a hill in the middle of a thunderstorm. She turned around to look over her shoulders, feeling like he might be standing there. Then she shook herself and took a strong stance.

  “I’m not asking for forgiveness – or permission. I’m just asking you to understand.”

  Before lightning could strike her or the portrait come to life, she heard the melodious chimes of the doorbell being rung from the back door, and she raced to pretend she’d been waiting upstairs this whole time.