The Virgin

Chapter Three

"Someone's quiet," James said as he lifted her off her feet and laid her onto her back on the bed. The soft sheets tickled her, making her aware of every nerve in her body. "Are you nervous?"

"I was thinking about tomorrow."

"Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself," James said.

"Yes, Father. I've read Matthew, too."

James set a basin on the nightstand by the bed and soaked a small white towel in water.

"Good. Now stop worrying and hold still while I set you on fire."

Sophie held completely still.

Fire-play wasn't so much about pain as it was fear. Fear and its mirror twin trust. She closed her eyes while James painted her stomach with an ice cold gel that smelled of rubbing alcohol. He took each of her wrists and buckled them one by one to the headboard with leather cuffs.

James lifted the candle off the bedside table and moved it slowly up and down her body six inches from her skin. When he inflicted his sadism on her, he did so intently, with reject for the act and respect for her willingness to serve him. Playing with fire was dangerous, and it was rare that James asked her to submit to this sort of play. She knew him. When troubled or under stress, he centred himself with sadism.

He could pretend he wasn't worried about tomorrow, but she knew better. It was on his mind as much as hers.

Outside the castle, the storm battered the windows and the walls. But the eye of the storm was their bed. All was quiet if not calm. James brought the flame to the edge of the S, and at once, it flared into life.

Sophie breathed in and didn't exhale. She could see the fire, smell the bitter smoke, but strangely could not feel it. The fluid formed a barrier between the fire and her skin. As if the fire was a tongue lapping at her skin. But it did scare her, and it was real fear. Real fire meant real fear. Real fear meant Jame was burning in his own fire. His breaths were shallow with barely controlled desire. His eyes were all pupil now, black as night, and in the inky depths, she could see the fire reflected. Not once did he look away from the flame, and neither did she.

James stripped himself of clothes even as he watched the fire burn itself out on her.

He wrote on her again with the gel, set it alight, and watched her burn.

When the fire was nearly but not quite out, James straddled her hips and stretched out on top of her, using his own body to snuff out the last of the fire. He was aroused, brutally hard, and she felt his election pressing against her thighs. She opened her legs wide for him and pushed her hips into his. He entered her fully, sliding through her wetness all the way to her core. Sophie pulled against the bonds on her wrists, moaned, and exhaled as he pulled out and thrust into her again.

This was bliss. How she has missed him these weeks, she'd been away. She loved Sam, loved the days and especially the nights she spent with him. She and Sam understood each other perfectly. She was a Dominant herself, and when she had Dam on his knees in front of her, his lips on her ankles, her welts on his back, that was his Sophie. But that Sophie was only one half of her.

"My little one," James said into her ear as he moved inside her, filling her up. "My precious Sophie."

And this Sophie was her other half.

He kissed her breasts, sucking deep on the hard tips, and massaged her c******s until the room filled with the sounds oh her cries of pleasure, her cries for release. He didn't let her come yet. He ordered her not to come. An impossible command . He was inside her, thick and heavy, pushing hard and deep. She spread her legs wider, dug her heels into the bed, and breathed into her stomach as she stalled off her building climax.

"Tell me you love me, and I might let you come," James said, punctuating the command with rough thrusts that made her flinch with both pain and pleasure.

"I love you, my sir, with all my heart."

"Tell me you want me."

"I want no one in the world as much as I want you. I love your body, your c**k. I want you to come inside me. Please..."

"Tell me a secret you have never told me, and I'll consider letting you come."

"I f****d a Nun at my mother's convent," Sophie said, and James stopped moving. He pushed himself up and stared down at her.

"What?" She said, batting her eyelashes up at him in feigned innocence. "You asked."

"Lesson learn." He lowered himself onto her again and kissed her once more. The kiss was wild now, as wild as the night. He bit her lips and pushed his tongue into her mouth as he rammed into her with ruthless unforgiving thrusts. It was exactly what she needed. Her back arched, and the muscles in her back coiled tight and a spring. She felt ecstacy drawing together, pooling in her stomach. Then she rose and rose, higher and higher, until she reached that throbbing peak, and her body went still and stayed that way for a long moment.

With a final cry, she came with a shudder that racked her entire body. She crashed back to earth with a thousand flutters of her inner muscles that left her shaking underneath James. He ignored her climax as he sought his own, thrusting into her, faster and harder until he released at last, filling her with his heat.

Still coupled together, Sophie wrapped her legs around his back and relaxed her breathing. She loved this moment when she could feel the wild racing of his heart against hers. Bliss engulfed her, peace and contentment. And then James spoke.

"You f****d a Nun at your mother's convent."

"This is what you get for making me earn a orgasm by telling you a secret. It was the first thing that popped into my head."

James pulled out of her and looked down at her again. Then he laughed, a bright big laugh, big as the castle. Even as he unlocked her wrists from the bed and chafed her hands that had grown cool while in bondage, he still laughed.

"I will never read the end of you." James said. "Every time I think I've seen it all, you lead me to a hidden door and open it."

"In my defence," Sophie said, "She was beautiful, and I hadn't had s*x in a very long time."

"When was this?" he asked as he slid off the bed and pulled his trousers back on. He didn't bother with his shirt, and that was fine by her.

"That year," she said, and didn't have to say anything else, James knew what 'that year' was, what it meant. They didn't talk about that year, never talked about that year. In fact, they did their best to pretend that year never happened.

"I see."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't mean to bring it up. I have no blood in my brain when you're inside me."

"I'm not angry." James poured water into a porcelain basin and brought it over to the bedside table. He dipped a white cloth into the water. With it, he wiped the residue of candle wax off her body.

"I would have told you, if you'd asked," She said as James rinsed the cloth in the basin. She opened her legs for him, and he cleaned the semen off her vulva and inner thighs. "You never asked," she reminded him.

"It was a hard year for all of us," he said.

"I never asked you what you did while I was gone."

"Suffered," he said, meeting her eyes.

"Now I know why I didn't ask."

"It sounds like you didn't suffer the entire time you were gone."

"You know me. If I'm not having s*x, I go a little insane."

"What's your excuse for the rest of the time then?" He asked and she play-punched him in the arm. He captured her by the wrists and kissed her again, entirely against her will. Well mostly against. She pretended it was against her will anyway.

After he released her arms, she claimed out of the bed and found her suitcases. The castle was full of guests now, and all day she'd been working, answering questions, making decisions, and putting all the finishing touches into place. If someone came knocking on her door, a destiny possibility, she should probably have some clothes on before she answered it.

She slipped into a pair of black and white silk pajama pants and a matching lacey camisole top. She kept her collar on for no reason other than she'd missed it. From Sam she'd leaned the fine art of starting a fire in a fireplace, and she went to work stacking her kindling.

"so do I get my prize?" She asked.

Before he could answer, the door flew open, the rusty hinges screaming in protest. Robert rushed in and slammed the door behind him.