I obeyed because defying him would have shattered me. Because the sound he made as he watched me unravel stole the last of my sanity.
I vaguely felt him shift, then heard the echo of rustling fabric from behind me. I had no idea what he was doing, but it was taking too long. If this was the punishment he had in mind, I think I would have rather been locked away.
“Please,” I begged, my face pressed to the cool wood desk.
The plea broke something in him. His body pressed fully to mine, his hand covering mine, guiding me again with slow, agonizing precision until my knees weakened beneath me.
I heard him moan then felt the thick hard length of him against my backside.
“Spread your thighs, Lucy,” he urged, and I did.
When he pressed himself inside of me, I cried out from the sheer pleasure of it. He pulled out then pressed in, slowly, filling me so completely that I nearly forgot to keep my hand moving between my thighs.
He stopped, his body trembling with restraint. “Keep going, love. Don’t stop or I’ll leave you aching.”
I did as I was told, obeying so that he wouldn’t stop again.
My moans echoed through the room, the sensation building so high that I begged, pleaded for release, yet I never wanted it to end. I wanted to live in this euphoria.
The pleasure built, I rocked back against him, meeting his strokes until at last the wave crashed through me. When the dark pleasure crested and shattered through every nerve like lightning, my very soul cried out his name. A single blissful tear slipped down my cheek, falling onto the desk.
Sylum carried me over the threshold of ecstasy until the last ounce of rapture was drained from my body. And only then did he take his own pleasure, filling me with himself.
And for one disquieting, intoxicating moment, I didn’t care whether he saved me or destroyed me, only that he never let go.
Chapter 15
“What did you hear?” Sylum asked, his tone casual.
I now sat across from him, my knees tucked under my nightgown innocently as if he hadn’t just taken me over his desk mere moments before.
“Enough to know that your aunt thinks I’ve gone mad… like my mother.”
He looked up then, his eyes meeting mine across his desk as he leaned back in his chair.
“And have you?”
The question cut somewhere deep, but his tone was neither accusatory or judgmental.
“No,” I replied firmly. Whether a lie or the truth, the word rolled off my tongue easily.
Sylum watched me closely, assessing, perhaps dissecting that singular word for a long moment.
“You should know that I wouldn’t care if you were,” he replied. “Nothing would change my feelings for you.”
The words struck something tender and terrible in me. My chest ached from the declaration. I opened my mouth—perhaps to thank him, perhaps to ask how deeply he meant it—but the moment shattered when the study door opened without so much as a polite tap.
The maid, Lydia, stood there. Her hands were clasped, posture flawless, eyes far too wide and soft to be innocent. The firelight gleamed against her fair hair, and caught the sheen of perfect, glowing skin. She dipped into a quick curtsy, but her gaze never left Sylum.
The atmosphere shifted instantly.
Sylum’s posture went rigid. The muscle in his jaw ticked once before he spoke.
“Yes, Lydia?”
Her name on his tongue had a softness to it. A familiarity. Something that made my stomach tighten.
I glanced at the clock on the mantle—nearly two… far too late for a maid of her station to be seeking out the lord of the manor… unless…
