Part II
Kiss me and you will see how important I am.
Sylvia Path
3 CHAPTER THREE
Chadwick Wadleigh was a haunted man.
All those years with Sheila... Her young, willowy body, a body he knew as well as his own, disappearing within soft green seawater. He could see her know… laughing and playing the exotic dancer for him.
She had finally succumbed to the cancer.
And his memory of her was also a torture that played on endless rewind...
The yellow plastic bucket and shovel, her pink toes wiggling in sand.
How aptly he and his wife had named their first and only child.
There are times when you look at those you love, and your stomach shrinks into a little ball of fear, because you suddenly realize you might lose them one day... But then you shrug it off, you know when it happens it will be so far into the future it won't matter, it will be when you're old and grey and too tired of and sated with life to notice...
But you, you son of a bitch, you bastard, you walked away... Scarred, but still.
You walked away.
Chadwick – or Chad, as his beloved family had called him – proceeded to pick up a marble figurine from the fireplace ledge and smash it into the opposite wall. Tracing his scars with a long index finger, he silently cursed himself.
He was indeed a monster.
When the mask is worn too long, poison blossoms like a porcelain heartache.
Now he held Kayla… He was driven to do it. He had to from the moment he’d seen the picture of her face… He just knew it…
The release did him good. There was chemistry between them though he had only just met her. She had given him the mind-blowing experience he craved… Kayla had done this... And somehow he was grateful for it…
Her body under his, her responsiveness, how very wet her heavenly femininity was, slick and opened for him...
He had to have her again, and soon.
* * *
The following day, Kayla was bewildered to find Sir Wadleigh had left instructions for her to eat her meals in the privacy of her own room.
That evening, instead of Chona entering her room, a man's face appeared in the doorway when Kayla answered the knock. He introduced himself as Eli.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Kayla,” he spoke evenly, though it seemed entirely untrue. “I am the overseer of the acquisition of your wardrobe during your stay at Wadleigh Castle. Your dresses will be fashioned solely out of lace, silk, and satin, and only dark colors shall be worn. Tonight, your attire will consist of this.”
He held out an exquisite garment, a mermaid scoop sleeveless crystal burgundy satin dress. Gold cascading earrings and a lush gold-rose bracelet finished type of ensemble.
“Th-thank you,” Kayla answered nervously, taking the items from Eli's grasp as carefully as she would an infant.
“You're welcome, miss. And now I shall leave you, and Miss Tilda, Mr. Wadleigh's personal maid of many years, will assist you in your dressing.”
Kayla felt a pang of insecurity. Had she fumbled so badly in her preparations last night that the man felt it necessary she be assisted in dressing herself?
At that moment, Kayla was surprised to see not an older woman enter the room, but a girl almost the same age as herself.
“Hello, miss,” the girl bowed submissively. “The lord wishes your hair to be bound tonight. I will assist in your coiffure.”
As she worked, the girl hummed a haunting, foreign lullaby-esque tune, sad and wistful. Strangely, Kayla felt soothed.
When she looked into the mirror after Tilda's work had been finished, she could not believe her eyes. She looked like an exotic princess, so regal, so elegant.
“And now,” Tilda spoke quietly, “I am to leave you. Good evening to you, Miss Kayla.”
* * *
Another literary passage floated through Kayla's head. She remembered her Patrick McGrath.
A tissue of sounds filled the room... That which we call silence.
It was true. Silence was deafening. Her master was making her wait this time. Drawing it out, being softly cruel.
Her body ached and yearned.
Then, the unmistakable whisper from the shadows. Kayla...
His breath, hot and fast, at her neck. He was whispering those sexy nothings in her ear again. Raising her arms with black leather gloved hands and crossing them over her head.
It was then she heard the tiny click.
Kayla realized she was bound and helpless then, a slave to this man's every whim.
“I need to be inside you again, sweet, beautiful Kayla. I need to cum with you, to make you mine.”
His hands were fevered at her flesh. They cupped her aching breasts, squeezing hard. But then he seemed to pause in his own vehemence of passion, his mouth frozen at the back of her neck. He trailed his lips down her spine, working his way to bathe her right hip in a glistening trail of saliva. His hands in their leather gloves came to rest at her hips and he squeezed them tightly at her skin, holding her there as if she would vanish beneath him, fly away unless he pinned her trembling form down to earth.
A butterfly quivering in the palm of her master's hand...
It was then he moved around to face Kayla. In one terrifying yet raw sexual movement, he tore at her dress and it separated and left her body in one clean slash.
Her current physical state offered him her breasts in a prime position, raised by the position of her arms in their bind. Relief and anguished pleasure coursed through her as his mouth tore softly across each nipple. He squeezed her breasts tightly together and swiped both nipples with his hot, slick tongue simultaneously. Unbuckling his pants and releasing himself with smooth if not fevered alacrity, he lifted Kayla's right leg and bent it at her knee. In one fell swoop, he let himself slip inside her moist femininity.
They both moaned softly together, in a sweet juxtaposition of mutual relief and newly inflamed hunger. He seemed to test her body, moving inside her tentatively. “Do you like me moving inside you this way, Kayla?" he spoke as he began to thrust high and deep inside her.
“Yes, master,” she managed to choke out. His scent filled her nostrils, sandalwood and something painfully, deliciously male.
“Oh, so good. I definitely approve,” he seemed to be teasing, but his lips were grim and set with determination. As he pummeled her softly, he whispered, “Kayla, look into my eyes. See how much I want you.”
She stared within the hypnotic orbs that peeked through the holes of the midnight colored mask. Her soul was suddenly washed in waves of crystalline blue. Shades of passion danced across his jawline.
And Kayla knew at that point she loved him. She didn't care what lay underneath his mask, she wanted to heal his past and love his pain away, as he loved her with his thick, stiff manhood, up and down, side to side in now slow, deliberate agony.
He cried out suddenly, bursting inside her as she felt herself contract in hot, undulating waves of pleasure.
They panted together, their eyes still locked. She reached towards his mask. “Please, master, show yourself to me,” she whispered. “I will not judge.”
What could only be a sense of hope flickered briefly within his eyes. But he flung himself away from her. The sudden absence of his body inside hers felt piquantly, heartbreakingly empty.
“Kayla...” he grit out, turning away from her. A tempest of emotion roiled inside his quaking body, and she was truly afraid. In barely contained fury, he said, “Don't ever, ever try that again.”
And with another click, she felt her hands release.
And whirling away from her on his heel like a thief in the night, he vanished.
And those tiny fibers that indeed wove together to form the blanket of silence that filled the room did not provide warmth. In fact, she felt cold, so very cold.
And like a bird cocking its head to one side, Kayla listened for any sounds that could comfort within the falling of her tears.