Chapter Six
When
Dominic woke up in the morning, after a surprisingly good sleep, he rolled over
to face Joely and groaned. She had
managed to work all of the covers down to her ankles, and they were tangled
there in figure-eights that looked as if they’d take a knife to get her free from. She was lying on her side, facing him, her
hair tumbling about her face, which looked even younger in sleep than it did
normally. Unable to resist, he looked
down, at her pale breasts, heavily resting against each other. Her pink nipples were puffy and soft, not the
hard, tight little peaks they would be if she woke up and saw him looking at
her.
He looked
some more. He could almost feel the
racing curve down through her waist and up over her hip. The Lamborghini loved
curves like that, and so did he. His
hand moved down and up, his fingers tracing the shape on his sheet. And those pale curls of hair, that soft
little triangle nestled at the top of her thighs. He sighed.
Well, wasn’t this lovely. He’d
hardly had time to wake up and he already had a hard-on. And lying there looking at her lovely, naked
body as she slept wasn’t likely to get rid of it. He was tempted to go into the bathroom and
deal with it in the time honoured tradition, but he didn’t. He looked away, looked up at the ceiling, and
willed it to disappear. It took some
time.
He pulled
his robe on, went to the bathroom for more pure purposes and walked back out to
wake her. The sound of the toilet
flushing had done the job for him, and her blue eyes were blinking at him as he
approached.
“Good
morning,” she said.
“Good
morning,” he responded with forced cheeriness.
“You’ve got yourself in a right mess there, girl.” He cursed himself as soon as he said it,
because of course she strained to look down at herself, then coloured up with
embarrassment.
“Oh,” she
said, wriggling to kick her feet free.
It didn’t work.
“Don’t
wiggle,” he said, sitting down on the bed.
Please don’t wiggle, he was thinking to himself. “I’ll untie your hands first and then we’ll
see what we can do about your feet.” So
Joely lay there, naked on the bed in front of him while he tugged at the rope
with fingers that were a little less nimble than usual. He tried to cover his own awkwardness by
teasing her.
“If there’s
anything more tempting than a naked woman with her hands tied, I don’t know
what it is,” he said. Joely coped
surprisingly well.
“Why,
aren’t you strong enough to deal with one who isn’t tied up?” she came back at
him fast. Far too fast for early in the
morning. He gave up and moved onto safer
subjects.
“Did you
sleep well?” he asked, trying to pry another knot loose.
“Yes,” she
said, blowing hair out of her face with her breath. “Did you?”
”Very well,” he said. The damned knot
wouldn’t come undone. Silence
reigned. And stretched.
“Nice
weather we’ve been having,” she said.
Dominic looked down into her face.
Just to her face.
“Pardon?”
he asked. She smiled blandly.
“Weather,”
she said. “The topic you move on to when
you’re uncomfortable and have exhausted all other avenues of conversation.”
“Are you
uncomfortable?” he asked stupidly.
“No, no, I
enjoy lying around naked in front of people with my hands tied so I can’t cover
myself,” she said sweetly.
“Well, you
should be right at home then,” he quipped in return. “Now stop distracting me.”
“Is that
what I’m doing?” she asked. One of her
legs was feeling tight and sore, and she wriggled to loosen it. That brought her hip up against his lower
body. “Distracting you?” Dominic’s fingers stilled and he looked down
again. Still just at her face.
“I have
several very good reasons why I’m not giving in to the temptation to put my
hands all over you at the moment,” he said.
“And if you’ll just stop moving against me like that, I’ll be able to
think sufficiently to recall some of them.
Even one of them would be good.”
Joely couldn’t help laughing. He
actually looked annoyed. He grinned at
her laugh. She wriggled against him
again.
“Behave
yourself, or I’ll take advantage of your position and tickle you again,” he
said. She gasped.
“I haven’t
been to the bathroom yet,” she pointed out.
“And I really need to go.”
“Then you’d
better keep still, hadn’t you?” he said.
“There, thank heavens for that.”
Her hands came free, and she brought her arms down with relief. They were very stiff.
“Now the
feet,” he said, doing his best to ski
Dominic
bent down and picked it up and looked in the direction in which she’d
disappeared.
“Well,
hell,” he said, shaking his head. If he
had to see her naked again so soon, he was going to be sporting an erection at
breakfast time. Not a good idea.
“Here,” he
said, tossing the robe around the doorway.
“You forgot this.”
”Thank you,” she said. “Don’t come
in. It’s no-need-for-bran time.” He laughed.
“Too much
information,” he said.
Breakfast
was now a routine. Dominic did his best
to avoid the people who wanted to put heapings of bran on his plate, but there
were too many of them for him to do it successfully, and he approached the
table with a very sour expression on his face.
Joely was stifling a laugh again.
She sat down next to Andy, who smiled and stroked her cheek for a while
before starting on her hair. He and
Daniel must have started early, because they finished well before she did. When Andy stood up, he bent down and kissed
the top of her head, and she looked up, surprised. As she smiled at him, Daniel’s hand settled
on the top of her head and stroked her hair, too, surprising her even more. His touch was even gentler than Andy’s.
“You’ve
definitely made a couple of friends there,” Dominic said once they were back in
their room. He hadn’t missed the
exchange. “I need toothpaste. Fuck, I hate bran.” Joely stopped in her tracks and looked at
him, her eyes wide.
“What’s the
matter?” he asked.
“You said
fuck,” she said. “The only time I’ve
ever heard you say that before was when I said it and you twisted my words in a
very lewd way.” He frowned for a second
or two and then grinned.
“Oh yes,
the fucking lesson,” he said.
“Sorry. It’s a word I use fairly
loosely as an adjective in my normal life.
I don’t normally swear much in here, out of respect. It’s a measure of how much I hate bran that
it slipped out then.”
“What is
your normal life?” she asked. He smiled
as he tried to get past her on the way to the bathroom. She moved fast, diving for the toothpaste and
getting a hand to it before he could.
“Tell me,”
she insisted. He shook his head. “If you
want the toothpaste, tell me,” she said.
“Or else you can put up with the taste of bran all day.”
”I don’t think so,” he said, still smiling.
“I’
Morning
ablutions completed, Joely went out to make the beds. Dominic followed her.
“If I leave
you here for a little while, will you still be here when I come back?” he
asked. “You’re not going to make another
run for it?”
“It depends
what you’re going to be doing while you’re away,” she said, shifting his pillow
to give her more access to the sheet.
“I’m going
to be talking to Bernard, I hope,” he said.
“Convincing him to let you off the hook for the punishments, among other
things.” Joely looked up from the
bed. And smiled.
“Then of
course I’ll be here,” she said. “Thank
you, Dominic.” She straightened up, went
up on her toes, and kissed his cheek.
“He hasn’t
said yes, yet,” he said.
”That’s why I only kissed you on the cheek,” she responded. He grinned.
“You’re
getting too quick with the repartee, girl,” he said. “I’m going to have to think of something
really hard for you to work on today.
With that, he left the room.
Joely sat
down on the bed she’d just finished making.
Well, the opportunity had come a little earlier than she’d expected, so
what was she going to do about it? She
lay back on the pillow – on his pillow, and thought about it. She remembered him saying that there wasn’t
going to be anything between them while she was in the monastery. “Ha!” she said out loud, smiling at the
sound. She could still hear him saying
that there was nothing more tempting than a naked woman with her hands
tied. Well, if the hardness she could
feel when she moved her hip against his this morning was any indication, he’d
certainly been tempted. An idea sprang
fully formed into her mind. She weighed
up the pros and cons.
He could
say no. If he did, it would be
disappointing and embarrassing, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. He could say yes. And if he did…? Well, that was worth thinking about, wasn’t
it? She had it planned. He’d be hesitant at first and she’d have to
urge him on, show him that she wasn’t as innocent as he thought, that she knew
quite a lot about it all. She’d probably
have to play the lead role for some time until he became comfortable about
it. And then he’d probably treat her
like she was made of china, the same way Raoul had, which was nicer than the
“wha
It took
some doing. After she finished making
the beds, she took her robe off and looked around. If she put it down on one of the beds, she
might be tempted to pick it up and put it back on again and forget about the
whole thing. And she didn’t want to do
that. She looked around again. Then she smiled, balled the robe in her hand
and threw it up on top of the wardrobe, where Dominic had stashed his street
clothes the night before. There was no
way she could reach it there. She moved
on to Stage Two of her plan, undoing the white rope that was tied to the head
of her bed.
She made
two knots, what she thought of as noose knots, for her to slip her wrists into
behind her back, then she folded the cords together and dragged on them until another
knot slipped higher, into place. She pulled
it tight, then did it again, tugging and tugging until the knots were
secure. She couldn’t reach them with her
fingers, she couldn’t undo them in any way in fact. She’d done it. Smiling in satisfaction, perspiring a little
with the exertion and anticipation, she faced the door and waited for him. This was going to be good.
Half an
hour later, she was getting sick of waiting, and had sat down on the bed. She was feeling silly now, naked and bound,
her breasts jiggling around as she moved, even as she breathed. Whenever she looked down, she saw white skin,
lots of it, her exposed body, and she wondered what the hell she’d thought she
was doing. He’d resisted her for the
last few days, why had she thought he was going to fall for her now? She closed her eyes tightly, gritted her
teeth and told herself to get it together.
And she stood up again, just in time.
When she
heard the door opening, she made herself look down at the floor, a perfect
picture of penitence. Think “tempting”
she thought to herself. And then she tensed,
shocked, as she heard Bernard’s voice.
”You didn’t tell us that Joely was being punished, Dominic,” he said. Us? Horrified, Joely looked up and saw Daniel was
there as well as Dominic, who was standing just inside the door and doing his
best to control his expression. Joely
stood naked in front of the three of them, her hands useless behind her, a
blush creeping down from her face to her breasts. Her nipples tightened and she pressed her
legs together.
”It slipped my mind,” Dominic said. “But
the punishment is over now, so I’ll untie her.”
Keeping his voice bland and his face expressionless, he walked up to her
and turned her round so he was between her and the other two men. The only sign of what she thought was barely
controlled laughter was the fact that his hands were shaking too much for him
to untie the knots.
“I’ll get
them later. For now, I’ll put a robe
over her. Now, where did I put that
robe?” He was looking around quickly.
“You threw
it on top of the wardrobe,” Joely said.
”Of course I did,” he said. “How silly
of me to forget.” He reached up and
retrieved it, pulled it over her head, over her still tied arms. “There,” he said. “I hope you learned your lesson. Now we can talk.”
There was a
look in Bernard’s eyes that said he wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew
something was. He said nothing,
though. He sat down on the edge of
Joely’s bed, leaving the chair for Daniel.
“Joely,
Dominic has told us that you believe that some of the information your
stepfather gave us was incorrect. Is
that true?”
”Yes,” she said.
“That is a
serious accusation,” he said. “And
something that concerns me, because it means that I may have unwittingly
subjected you to some treatment that you did not deserve.”
“That’s not
your fault,” she said. “He’s a
politician. He’s a good liar.” She knew she sounded sincere. And she knew it was because she was telling
the truth.
”Tell us what sort of relationship you have with him,” Daniel said. She turned to look at him, remembering his
soft touch on her hair at breakfast.
“He
controls every part of my life,” she said.
“From what time I wake up to what time I go to sleep. He chooses my clothes, decides what I can and
can’t read, determines where I can go and what I can watch on television. If it weren’t for the people who work in my
house, I probably wouldn’t even know that this is abnormal, because he keeps me
so shut away from the rest of the world that I have no basis for
comparison.” Bernard went to talk, but
she wasn’t finished.
”I have
only ever seen one movie in my life,” she said.
“A sex education film that he brought in for me to see when I was thirteen. I’ve never even seen any of my mother’s
movies. Justin believes that movies are
a corrupting influence. I’ve never read
a magazine, apart from political, financial or car magazines, and he clips out
pages he doesn’t want me to see.
Sometimes, rarely, I argue with him.
And when I do, he almost always hits me.” Daniel caught his breath at that.
“Why would we
believe this?” Bernard asked her, his voice steady. “Given that it is a very different story to
what he told me?” She gave it some
thought.
“I don’t
know,” she admitted. “Other than the
fact that you saw him raise his hand to me on the day I arrived here. When I insulted him – which I do when it gets
too much for me.” He nodded. Dominic looked surprised.
“Your
stepfather said you were prone to attacks of wanton destruction when you didn’t
get your own way,” Bernard said. “He
said you threw things in temper.” Joely
shook her head.
“The week
before he brought me here, he walked in on me in the bathroom,” she said. “I didn’t have time to cover myself, and he
looked at me in a way that alarmed me. No, he didn’t touch me like that,” she
spoke before any of them could ask. “But
I was very uncomfortable, both with the way he looked and what he said, and he
wouldn’t give me a towel, so I threw some of his toiletries at him. In temper,” she nodded at Bernard. “He was right there. I was angry and I was scared and I was
embarrassed. I’ve always been very shy
about my body.” All evidence to the
contrary, she was thinking, given the picture she’d presented to the three of
them when they came into the room.
“I don’t
know how he found out about this place, but if he heard that nudity was part of
it, he’d have known that it would be exceptionally difficult for me,” she
continued.
“He knew,”
Bernard said. “The son of one of his
political associates was a student here last summer. He knew quite a lot about it all when he
visited me. I raised the issue of nudity
with him as one of my objections to bringing a young woman here. He dismissed it and said that you were quite
relaxed about that sort of thing and that it wouldn’t be a big issue for
you.” Joely gasped at that.
“Well, he’s
been proven wrong on that point,” Daniel said.
“The child blushes dreadfully whenever she’s undressed.” Bernard shot a look at him, and the old man
stopped talking.
Bernard sighed
loudly. Then he slapped his hands on
his thighs.
“It seems I
have some thinking to do,” he said.
“Would anybody be able to verify your story that he hits you?” Joely shook her head.
“Some of
the servants, or the woman who does my makeup before big functions. But none of them will, because Justin pays
them. They don’t want to lose their
jobs.” Bernard stood up and walked over
to her. He pinched her chin lightly
between his thumb and forefinger.
“I’m
inclined to believe you,” he said. “Your
stepfather also said you were selfish, brazen and un-mannered.
Apart from your outburst at dinner when Duncan foolishly touched you,
and that episode in the hallway outside when Dominic caught you fro
“Thank
you,” she said, relieved beyond measure.
He smiled and patted her cheek with his hand.
“The way
you are with Andy goes a long way towards convincing me,” Daniel said, standing
up from the chair with some effort. “He
adores you, and he’s a good judge of character.” Joely smiled at him for the vote of
confidence. She watched them as they
walked to the door, watched Dominic open the door for them, nod as they left,
and then close it. And realised what she
was now going to have to deal with.
Dominic rested
his head against the door. Then he
straightened up and turned round to look at her. He opened his mouth and tried to talk, then
started laughing.
“I’m
sorry,” he said, trying to stop it.
“You are
not,” she said. After the surprise and
relief of the talk with Bernard and Daniel, it all seemed a little silly, and
she started to laugh as well. Standing
naked in front of them like that had been dreadful, but in hindsight, it was so
stupid.
“Why?” he
asked. “You have to tell me why, Joe.
We’ll talk about your stepfather soon, but first of all I have to know
why you trussed yourself up like that.
Not that I’m complaining, mind.”
He had a grin from ear to ear.
“No,” she
said. She couldn’t. If it had been just him, the why of it
wouldn’t have mattered. Hopefully, he’d
have been tempted and he’d have just gone along with it the way she had planned
and no questions would have been necessary. Now, it just seemed foolish. She couldn’t say it.
“Why?” he
asked, his grin fading. He walked over
to her, put his hands on her shoulders.
She could see that he wasn’t going to give up. She racked her brains for an acceptable
excuse and found nothing. Honesty seemed
the only option.
“wassagif,”
she mumbled. He leaned down closer, his
dark hair falling around his face.
“What was
that?” he asked softly.
”It was a gift,” she said again, turning away from him. His hands on her shoulders held her there.
“A gift for
me?” he asked.
”No, for Bernard, who do you think?” she responded, keeping her face turned
away. He was silent for several long
minutes.
“Why?” he
asked again. Joely looked up at him,
straight into those chocolate and whiskey eyes of his.
“You said
this morning that you were tempted by naked women with their hands tied,” she
said. “I wanted to tempt you.” The grin tugged at his mouth again, and he
shook his head.
“Girl, you
tempt me by breathing,” he said. “But I
swore I wasn’t going to take advantage of you.”
“I don’t
get a say in it?” she asked. His grin
turned rueful.
“I’m the
tutor here,” he said. “I’m supposed to
be the responsible one.”
“I’m a big
girl, Dominic,” she said softly. He
matched her gaze, eyes locking with eyes.
”So you are,” he said quietly. “And yes,
you get a say. What do you want to say?”
”That I wish I knew how to convince you to stop being responsible where I’m
concerned,” she said. “Despite the
embarrassment and the hard work and the teasing and the tickling and all of the
rest of it, I’ve had more fun here with you than I’ve had in my entire life up
to this point.” She looked directly at
him and smiled, a slow, unconsciously seductive smile. “And I want more,” she said, her voice soft,
almost husky. Dominic drew a deep breath
and let it out.
“I give
in,” he said. She didn’t know it, but he wasn’t giving in to her, he was giving
in to his own urges. He smiled.
“It was a
beautiful gift you had for me,” he said.
“But, just for future reference, you didn’t need to tie your hands,
Joe. I don’t need you helpless. Naked is more than enough, believe me. Which reminds me.” His hands shifted, grabbed at the robe and
pulled it up and over her head. She
protested a little, blushed a bit, but with her hands still tied, there was
nothing she could do to stop him.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered thinking that even if
she got him to this point, she was going to have to ease him along, take the
upper hand. The look on his face, a look
of appreciation, amusement and lust, wasn’t one she’d been expecting, and she
wasn’t sure how to react, what to do.
“Come
here,” he said, backing up to the bed and drawing her with him, his hands on
her hips.
“Dominic, I
don’t think…” she began, trying for some control of the situation.
“Now isn’t
that just like a woman?” he complained. “To give you a gift and then not let you play
with it.” He drew her in between his
knees as he sat down. “Now, where should
I start?” His golden eyes, almost
gleaming gold now, she saw, began to look her over, from her neck down.
”So many tempting places, where to begin, where to begin,” he said, speaking
nonsense. He looked everywhere, closely,
his hands on her hips holding her steady when she began to squirm under his
scrutiny. He looked up, met her eyes,
and smiled.
“Where
should I begin, Joe?” he asked. She took
a deep breath, feeling her breasts lift as she did. Oh, what the heck. Who needed to be in control anyway?
“Wherever
you like,” she said. “Why don’t you start
at the top and work down?” He
grinned.
“What a
good idea,” he said. He moved his hands
round to cup her bottom, pulled her closer still, bent his head and kissed into
her cleavage.
She’d felt
his lips on her there before, but the light of day made it different. Seeing his dark hair, his smooth face, the
flash of his eyes when he glanced up at her, made it so much more real, more
personal. The touch of his mouth on her,
the flick of his tongue, made her gasp and move within the boundaries of the
strong thighs that framed her. When he
began to suck on her, she heard herself moan, felt her hips rock forward.
“To hell
with this,” he said, looking up. “I
can’t lay you down on the bed with your hands tied behind you, and I’m
definitely planning on laying you down on the bed. Turn around.”
He was turning her as he spoke, and was tugging on the knots in seconds.
“How did
you do this?” he asked, the laughter in his voice mingling with something
else. Eagerness? Hunger?
Whatever it was caused a rumbling tingle low in Joely’s belly. She felt hi
“Now,” he
said, shifting so he was straddling her.
“Let’s do this properly.” He
lifted one of her hands up, looped the rope he was still holding round the top
of the headboard, and tied it quickly, before she had fully realised what he
was doing.
”Dominic, what…?” she asked, looking up.
”Just putting the ribbon back on the gift,” he said, teasing her. “Give me the other hand, Joe.” Without knowing why, and not at all sure that
she liked this, she did it, holding it up obediently for him to tie as
well.
“Good,” he
said, speaking in a deep voice, raising his eyebrows and pretending to twirl a
moustache. “Now I can really have some
fun.” And he did. Joely felt more vulnerable than she ever had
in her life, spread out naked on the bed in front of him, her hands tied and
that look in his eyes. And she also felt
more alive than she ever remembered feeling before.
He started
with her jawline, just under her ear, with soft, teasing kisses, presses of his
soft lips to her skin. Then he trailed
his tongue down over her neck in a curving line, making her catch her
breath. He kissed, touched and licked
every inch of her, caressing her from her forehead to her navel, dwelling
particularly on her breasts, under her arms, down her sensitive, ticklish
sides. He twirled the tip of his tongue
in her navel, laughing as she squirmed.
Her nipples were hard, wet from his mouth, almost painful. He leaned up and kissed each of them again,
relishing the movements she made as he did.
“Stop it!”
she said, making him laugh.
“You don’t
like that?” he asked, doing it again.
Lovemaking with Dominic was very different from her previous
experience. The playboy had been intense
and serious. The pool boy had just been
fast. Dominic seemed to be really
enjoying himself here, and in no hurry at all.
”Well, yes,” she admitted. “But I’d like
it more if you untied me.”
”Soon, my lovely,” he said, still in character as a melodrama villain. “But first….travelling down on the elevator,
going down, as it were, we arrive at the dining hall.” He’d moved down her body as he spoke, and his
face was now inches above the soft curls at the bottom of her torso.
“…where the
special is…yum. My favourite. Natural blonde, served just the way I like it
- with no dressing.” Laughing, Joely
wriggled as he opened her legs wide and settled in between them, his golden
eyes dancing as he looked back up at her face.
She couldn’t believe she was lying here like this, with him looking at
her there. It felt weird – exciting but
weird. She hadn’t had this experience
before.
“Waiter!”
he said. “My meal seems to need a bit
more preparation! Oh, on second
thoughts, don’t bother the chef. I’ll do
it myself.” He began kissing the inside
of the tops of her thighs, long, soft licks into the hollows at the very top of
them. Then, as her legs widened, he
turned his head and began to delicately feast on her.
“I am
definitely going to want second helpings,” he said, making her laugh
again. Then he got serious.
Every touch was unbearably intimate on an excruciatingly sensitive part of
her. His fingers, his lips, his tongue
were everywhere, and just when she thought it couldn’t get any hotter, he’d
find a new place and prove her wrong. He
took her up, moving after her whenever she shifted her hips to evade him,
smiling against her when she protested or gasped. And then he stopped.
Joely
waited for the onslaught to start again, and when it didn’t, she forced herself
to look down. He smiled serenely at her.
“What are
you doing?” she asked. His face was just
above her, his lips wet.
“Well, I
seem to remember that you asked me to stop before,” he said. “I didn’t respond at the time, but obviously
I should have. So, I’ll just let you rest
now, shall I?” Joely looked at him, her
eyes narrowing. She didn’t know what it
was she wanted, but she wanted something.
And she certainly didn’t want him to stop now.
“You are a
tease,” she said. His smile turned
mischievous.
”You think?” he asked. She wriggled
again, the tension unbearable. His body
kept her legs wide apart, exposed…wanting.
“Dominic,”
she said, warning in her voice.
“Yes?” he
asked innocently.
“Do it,”
she said.
”Do what?” he teased.
“Oh God, I
don’t know,” she admitted, tipping her head back in frustration. He moved swiftly up her body, the rough
material of his robe tormenting her sensitised skin. He reached up and undid the rope that held
her wrists. Then he pulled the robe up
over his head, the loose material tickling against her as it went. He lay back down, warm and naked against
her.
”We’ll do whatever you want,” he promised, drawing her face to his. He kissed her, his tongue just touching the
lines of her lips at first, then delving inside to taste, to seek out the soft
parts in her mouth. Joely felt the heat
building between her legs, and the ache inside her loins as he pressed his body
full-length against hers and kissed her deeply.
One of his hands smoothed down her side, down and up the curve of her
waist and hip.
“I knew it
would feel like that,” he smiled, lifting his face. “I was drawing your curves
on my sheet this morning.”
“You were?”
she asked, breathless. One of her legs
appeared to be trying to slide up over his hip of its own volition. She decided not to stop it. He nodded.
“So you do
want me?” she asked. “I don’t want you
to do this just because you’re feeling sorry for me, or because you don’t want
me to feel bad about throwing myself at you like…” She didn’t finish the sentence, because he
groaned, rolled his eyes and started kissing her again, hard.
One of his
hands moved down again, sure and purposeful, settling in between her legs. Joely gasped against his mouth.
“Dominic,”
she said. He lifted his face, his breath
warm on her wet lips.
”Yes?” he said.
“It’s
getting very hot down there, and it feels strange,” she said. “Is that normal?” He blinked, his amazing eyes confused. He lifted his head a little more.
“Have you
never had an orgasm?” he asked.
”I’m not sure,” Joely admitted.
Dominic’s jaw dropped.
“I’m
sorry,” she said quickly. “Is it a
problem?” He shook his head before he
started talking.
“No,” he
said. “But Raoul Curtez just dropped in
my estimation. He’s going to have to
turn his playboy license in.”
“I might
have had an orgasm,” she said, not knowing why she felt the need to defend
Raoul, other than he was one of the very few men who’d been prepared to defy
Justin to get to her.
”Joely,” Dominic said, his face inches from hers. “You’d know, sweetheart.” A few minutes later, with the assistance of
his clever fingers, he demonstrated his point.
And then,
with a restraint he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of, he started again,
taking her up a few more levels with kisses and slow, sensual touches all over
her body.
“Have I
mentioned how much I love your backside?” he asked, kissing it, his tongue
dancing patterns on it while she giggled.
“No,” she
said. Then she laughed some more as he
traced the words “I love your bum” on it with the tip of his finger. She let him open her legs wide again, then
lay still, wondering what he was doing, and why whatever he was doing was
taking so long. She wanted his touch on
her again. She wasn’t to know that he
was taking deep breaths, trying to slow himself down.
“What are
you doing?” she asked.
“Looking
for any remaining green paint,” he said.
“You can’t be too thorough about these things.” He was very, very
thorough, his fingers and tongue sweeping over her again from the different
angle. Joely found herself lifting her
hips up to give him greater access, even though it felt squirmy and not
entirely comfortable. It was as she
started rocking under his touch that he decided he couldn’t take any more.
“That’s
it,” he said, grasping her hips and rolling her over. “I’d love to spend hours doing this, and I
will, Joe. But right now…” He positioned
himself between her legs, opened her wide and looked down the length of her
naked body. “God, you’re beautiful,” he
gasped, and moved slowly but surely inside her.
Much later,
many sweaty, gasping, head-thumping, hip-thrusting, wet, hot minutes later,
Joely tried to shift her head away from its uncomfortable position jammed up
against the headboard and found that Dominic was very heavy. She ran her hands down his back, feeling the
sweat on his skin, the heat of it. She
could also feel his back moving as he drew in deep breaths.
”Dominic,” she said. “I think my neck is
going to break if I don’t move.” He
lifted his head from the pillow and smiled.
“Well we
can’t have that,” he said, lifting off her enough to let her wriggle down. The move reminded the
“Mmmm,” he
said. “Give me a year or so to recover
and I’ll take you up on that invitation.”
“That may
not have been an invitation,” she said.
He smiled again.
”That was an invitation,” he said. He
was already hardening inside her.
“Well,
you’re obviously coming to the party,” she grinned. He rolled his eyes, then leaned down and
kissed her, his lips soft and warm from the previous hundred kisses he’d given
her.
Once he’d
stopped, he put his head back down on the pillow again and they surveyed each
others faces from a comfortable distance of about two hairs’ breadths.
”You’ve got a pierced ear,” Joely discovered, inspecting his earlobe. He nodded.
”I do. But I normally just wear a gold
ring in it, not fancy diamond studs like you had.” She played with his earlobe.
“I was so
embarrassed that day,” she said.
”I know,” he said. “I felt bad for
you. But I was interested anyway. Especially when I got to see this lovely
little body. I felt like cheering,
because I knew how much time I was going to be spending with you. Then, of course, I got to know what a pain in
the arse you are.” He grinned as she
glared. And he took that as an excuse to
kiss her again.
“This has
not gone the way I planned, I’ll have you know,” she said. It seemed odd to be conducting a conversation
with him still occupying that place between her legs – the place that had
surprised her with how much pleasure it had shared with the rest of her
body. Odd, but natural, in a way.
”No?” he smiled again, a lazy, satisfied smile.
“How’s that?”
”Well, I thought you’d be a bit reluctant, so I’d have to encourage you and
take the upper hand for a while,” she said, feeling silly as she said it,
particularly when he grinned broadly.
“Oh
please,” he said, rolling the
“Shut up,”
she said, laughing anyway. She was lying
on him now. He was rock hard inside her.
”I will,” he said, sounding scared. “I
promise, I’ll do what I’m told. But
please, Joe…” Seeing the nonsense in his
eyes and loving it, she played along, pushing herself up to a seated
position. His hands stole up to cup her
breasts.
“Be gentle
with me,” he breathed.
They missed
lunch altogether, spending the entire morning locked in each other’s arms on
the bed. Finally, temporarily sated,
they lay still, entwined together.
Dominic stroked Joely’s arm, long, soft strokes, while she trailed her
fingertips over his chest.
“So tell
me, why did you throw the robe on top of the wardrobe?” he asked her.
“So I
couldn’t get it back,” she said. “I
thought that I’d back down if I could get it back, and I knew if I put it
there, I’d have to go ahead.” He
grinned.
“You had
second thoughts?” he asked.
”I had twenty-second thoughts,” she admitted.
“But I didn’t want to chicken out.
I want to live, Dominic. I’m sick
of spending my life locked up in a mansion.
I want to break out and enjoy myself.”
”And I was
the starting point?” he asked. He
shifted his hand, caught a handful of her hair and scrunched it up, releasing
it and watching it bounce into curls.
”More than the starting point,” she said, turning to kiss his jawline. It was rough again, although he’d shaved that
morning. “Much more.”
“Good,” he
said. “So throwing the robe up there was
the point of no return for you?”
“It was,”
she agreed.
“Good,” he
said again, knowing somewhere inside himself that he’d crossed one of those
points some time in the last couple of hours too.
……………..
There was
always the chance that Bernard may come looking for them, so they reluctantly
unpeeled themselves from each other and the rumpled bed and cleaned up. The bath looked tempting, but neither of them
wanted to risk being caught in flagrante, and, as Dominic pointed out, the only
way they were both going to fit in that bathtub was if Joely sat on him. On a specific part of him, to be precise.
“Was that
what you had in mind yesterday when you asked me to join you in there?” she
asked him. He shook his head.
“I wasn’t
thinking at all,” he said. “And I felt
like beating my head against the bathtub as soon as I’d said it.”
”I could tell,” she smiled. “I’m not sure
which of us looked more surprised.”
To be safe,
to get away from the beds, Dominic took her outside for the rest of the
afternoon, to a place she hadn’t been before.
It was an odd little courtyard, with a tessellated wall around it.
”This looks like it should have arrow holes,” she said. “And hot oil to tip down on invaders.”
“You’d have
to be quick,” he said. “The invaders
could step over the wall in some places.”
He beckoned to her and she looked down over the side. She could see what he meant. The ground sloped up to the wall, and a tall
person could probably haul themselves up with no difficulty.
“This is a
private courtyard for Bernard and a few of the others,” Dominic said. “They brought me here a couple of times to
work. I laid the flagstones here.” Joely looked down. The flagstones were huge.
“They must
have been so heavy!” she marvelled. He
nodded.
“They
were,” he said. “I was sore for days
afterwards. And my tutor didn’t give me
massages.” He smiled as he said it.
“Who was
your tutor?” she asked.
“A monk
named Michael,” he said. “A little man,
short and skinny, but with a will of iron.
I could just about blow him over, but he always found a way to make me
do whatever he said. He’s away from here at the moment, visiting family. His
father died, and he’s helping his mother.”
“So, what
are we going to do here this afternoon?” she asked. The words sounded suggestive, and the look he
gave her was loaded, as was his smile.
She felt her lips curving up in response. Everything seemed to have innuendo.
“It’s a bit
open for what I’d like to be doing,” Dominic said. “So how about you pot some of those
plants?” He nodded over to where a
punnet of seedlings was sitting, not far from some large, soil-filled clay
pots.
“I can do
that,” Joely said.
She’d
barely started before he decided to join in, bending down, unnecessarily close
to her and helping her to remove the seedlings and dig small holes in the soil
for them. Every time she turned, his
face was close to hers, his lips almost touching her own. Three times they gave in to temptation and
kissed, the heat building almost immediately.
Three times they made themselves stop.
“You’re
addictive,” he murmured. They were so
lost in each other that the noise from outside the wall took some time to make
it through to them. Voices, approaching
up the hill. Dominic heard them first
and sprang to his feet, looking through one of the gaps at the top of the
wall.
“Shit!” he
said. “Photographers.” He said it in the
way others might say “rats”. He looked
around, back at the door, judging the distance.
Too far. No way would they make
it without being seen.
“Duck down
close to the wall here,” he said quickly.
He flipped the hood of his robe up.
Joely dropped to the ground and crawled to the shelter of the wall,
knowing that it wasn’t going to save her.
Somehow they’d found out that Justin Williams’ stepdaughter was here,
and now they had her trapped. And as
long as they thought there was a chance that she was there, they’d climb the
wall and come looking for her.
Hell. They had bad timing, was
all she could say. And then she looked
up, stunned.
“Well fuck
me,” Dominic said loudly. “What’s a man
got to do to get some peace from the paparazzi?” He didn’t sound at all annoyed, and his Irish
accent was loaded with humour. Joely
heard the shocked voices from the other side of the wall.
“It IS
him!” said one of them.
“Is that
you, Dominic?” called a male voice.
“No, it’s
Elvis,” he replied, tipping the hood back again. “You’ve finally found me, right here at the
Heartbreak Hotel.” There was some
laughter. Then the questions came thick
and fast.
“What are
you doing here?”
“Why aren’t
you in Greece?”
“Are you
drying out from substance abuse?”
“Is Helena
Miller with you?”
Dominic
laughed loudly.
“I’m here
having a rest from the world,” he said.
“Including you lot, I might add.
I’m not in Greece because the movie has been delayed; no I’m not drying
out from substance abuse, and does this look like a place Helena Miller would
be in? It’s a fucking monastery,
fellas. Oh, and lady, I see. How are you, Dianne?”
“Better for
seeing you, Dom!” a female voice replied.
He laughed again.
“What a
charmer,” he said.
“Is Joely
Roberts in there?” a voice called out, and Joely shrank against the wall.
“Joely
who?” Dominic said back.
“Roberts,
the daughter of Justin Williams,” the voice answered.
”Daughter?” Dominic responded. “Let me
point out again for those of you who missed it the first time that this is a
monastery. Perhaps you should try at the
convent down the road.”
”There’s a convent?” one of them asked.
“Isn’t
there always? I’ve been trying to get
these guys organised to have a panty raid there, but they won’t be in it,”
Dominic lamented, raising a laugh from his listeners.
“How long
will you be here, Dom?” called the female again.
“Why, do
you want me to wait for you to come back, Dianne?” he asked in a suggestive
tone. “As long as it takes in that case,
my love.” As the laughter lifted again,
he continued. “I’ll be here until I’m
ready to leave,” he said. “I don’t know
how long that will be.”
“I guess
when you make thirty million a movie you can take a while off if you want to,”
someone called out.
“I guess
you can,” Dominic agreed. He laughed.
“And if you expect me to fall for that, you can forget it, Neil. What I earn is up to me, whoever pays me and
the tax man. Have some manners. Did I ask you how much money you got paid for
that photo you took of me with Claudia?”
“I lost it
anyway,” the man said back. “She sued
me, remember?”
”Well naturally,” Dominic replied. “You
can’t just take a photo of Claudia’s tits without paying her. Those are expensive tits, after all.”
“At least
you didn’t sue me,” the man said.
”Of course not,” Dominic responded. “You
only got a shot of my bum, after all.
I’m hardly likely to sue you for publishing a picture of my best
feature, am I?”
It would
have continued forever if the reporters and photographers had their way, but
Dominic called an end to the impromptu press conference.
“I have to
go now,” he said. “Fields to plant,
manuscripts to illustrate, champagne to bottle, nuns to ravish – the work of a
monk is never done, you understand.”
They kept calling out to him, but he waved his hand at them and backed off.
“No, fuck
off the lot of you,” he said, his Irish accent making it sound more like an
endearment than an insult. “Except you,
Dianne, my darling. Just slip out of all
of those uncomfortable clothes and meet me at the front door in five
minutes. Bring the camera. And a tripod.”
To more
laughter, he walked away, far enough away to be out of their sight, then
beckoned to Joely to follow him, fast.
She crawled quickly to him, then stood up and the two of them ran for
the door. They’d barely got it closed
behind the
The door
locked and they set out along the hallways.
“You’re an
actor?” Joely asked.
“I am,” he
replied.
“A famous
one, obviously,” she said.
”Obviously,” he agreed.
“I did
mention that I don’t go to movies or read magazines,” she said defensively.
“Obviously,”
he said again. He grinned at her. “I can’t tell you how much damage it did to
my ego when you didn’t recognise me, Joe.
Fortunately, my ego was big enough to withstand the blow.”
“Thirty
million for a movie?” she asked. His
grin stayed in place.
“Just over
thirty million,” he said. “But I’m well worth
it.”
“I see what
you mean about the ego,” she said.
They turned
the bend in the hallway and stopped.
Bernard was standing there. At
the same instant, they both realised that they’d been talking when they
shouldn’t have been. Joely shut her eyes
and screwed up her face. Dominic looked
stricken. Bernard shook his head at both
of them and beckoned. He turned away,
still shaking his head. They couldn’t
see that he was smiling.
They
followed him to his office, both of them cursing themselves and imagining
untold retributions. It was only when
he’d shut the door behind them that they saw his smile.
“You’re a
bad influence on him,” he said to Joely.
“He hasn’t talked in a public place since he was a student.”
”It wasn’t her fault,” Dominic said quickly.
“A group of paparazzi came up the
hill. It was just bad luck that we
happened to be in the only spot where they’d be able to get to us.”
”Other than the opening in the wall where you had Joely wash that black beast
of yours,” Bernard said. “Or the door in
the kitchen garden.” Joely closed her
eyes. Wouldn’t they have got some nice
photographs if they’d come along yesterday while she was washing the car or
painting the wall?
“I wonder
how they knew to look for you here,” Bernard said. “Either of you.”
“Some boys
came by while Joely was washing the car,” Dominic volunteered. “They didn’t see her, but they did see
me. I changed my accent and denied being
me, but they must have realised and said something to someone.” Or else one of about two hundred people in
the club last night had, Joely mused.
Both of them must have been recognised.
Bernard nodded.
“Wait here
while I go and arrange for Duncan to deal with any who are still hanging
about.” He walked out of the office.
“I can’t
believe I talked in a public place,” Dominic said. “What an idiot.”
”I did it too,” Joely reminded him.
“We’re both idiots.” He sighed,
looked at her and smiled.
“We’re both
distracted,” he said. He looked at the
door. “I wonder if I can barricade that
with something so I can have you on Bernard’s desk?” Joely laughed.
“You do
like living dangerously,” she said. “So
tell me about that movie the boys were talking about yesterday. The pilot one, with an alien village.”
“It was a
biggie,” Dominic said. “It did over four
hundred million in the first weekend.
Usual sort of story. Boy meets
girl, girl turns out to be an alien, boy destroys planet in his rage, then
spends the next ninety minutes atoning for his sins and rescuing strange but
lovable creatures from unpleasant villains.
Oh, and boy gets girl back again, naturally, and settles down with her,
presumably to produce half-alien babies.”
“It sounds…
intriguing,” Joely said, wondering if she’d missed much by not seeing movies
after all. He smiled.
“I may have
trivialised it a little,” he said.
“There is talk of Academy Award nominations. You know what they are?”
”I’ve heard of them,” she smiled back.
“I haven’t ever been able to watch them, but I know what they are.”
“You’ll
watch the next ones with me,” he said.
“Live, in the place where they’re recorded. That’s a promise.” She believed him.
The door
opened and Bernard walked in. He wasted
no time in getting to the point.
”Through my contacts and networks, I managed to speak to the butler at your
house,” he said to Joely. “He confirmed
that your stepfather hits you.” Joely
couldn’t have been more surprised.
“Kenneth
put his job at risk?” she asked. Bernard
nodded.
“He doesn’t
think highly of your stepfather,” he said.
“And he’s felt badly that he hasn’t done anything to help you in the
past. He said that he doesn’t know you very well, but that you seem like a
timid little thing. I did wonder whether
we were talking about the same girl.”
Joely smiled.
“So,”
Bernard said. “I’m left with a bit of a
dilemma. Your stepfather paid a lot of
money for you to stay here for a minimum of three weeks, but he got me to take
you under false pretences. The ethical
thing for me to do is to contact him, give his money back and insist that he
remove you.” Dominic was trying to
interrupt. Bernard stopped him with a
raised hand.
“But I
don’t propose to do that,” he said.
“Unless it’s what you want, Joely?”
She shook her head.
“No, I
didn’t think so,” he said. “So instead,
I thought we might just offer you our hospitality for the remainder of the
three weeks, and spend some time working through what you are going to do when
you leave us, how you are going to deal with your stepfather in future, and so
on.”
Joely was stunned. Where had the stern,
disapproving Bernard gone?
“That would
be wonderful,” she said. “Thank you so
much.”
”It’s the least we can do,” Bernard said.
“Having subjected you to all manner of indignities that you did not
deserve, we need to make it up to you. I
would ask that you continue to wear the white robes, however, and to observe
our rules of silence. Although it will
be a courtesy in your case, rather than a punishable offence. Unlike Dominic here, who is most certainly
going to have to pay for breaching the silence rules.”
Dominic
looked down at his hands.
”Not another caning,” Joely said quickly.
Bernard looked steadily at her, then smiled.
“No,” he
said. “But he can take a class three
punishment instead. He deserves it and
he knows it.”
“A class
three?” Joely looked at Dominic, who held up three fingers.
“Oh,” she
said, a smile tugging at her lips. “You
mean…”
”You get to feed me my dinner tonight, Joe,” Dominic said. “Duncan isn’t the only one in this place with
a funny sense of humour.”
They both
stood up to leave.
“And one
more thing,” Bernard said. “You can have
your own room now, Joely. You no longer
have to be watched day and night by Dominic.”
“Oh,” she
said. “Ummm…”
”Only if you want to, of course,” Bernard said.
“I might
think about it for a while,” Joely said.
“A little while.” He nodded,
keeping a straight face. He waited until
the door closed behind the