Raising the Devil Page 4

  “How did Bolton take you?” he asked, teasing her sphincter with the jeweled plug, denying her the pressure she longed for.

  “Fast,” she groaned. “He was in me before I knew what he was doing.”

  “Good. Now I’m going to make you feel every inch.”

  He pushed the tip inside and she mewled like a kitten. “Yes. Please. More.”

  The pressure increased. Her sphincter widened over the flared plug. Then he stopped. It was a pleasant stretching, nothing compared to Bolton’s cock, but nice all the same. “Would you like the rest of it?” her husband asked casually, as if the jeweled toy he was inserting in her ass was a biscuit or a cup of tea.

  “Yes,” she begged. “Please. Push.”

  But he didn’t. She looked back over her shoulder at him. He wasn’t touching her. Wasn’t touching the plug. It was lodged inside her. All of it.

  “Is it enough for you, Catherine?” He used her name quite intentionally, she realized, because he wanted her to own this moment. Own having a jeweled plug in her ass. And own the answer.

  “No.”

  He strolled to the head of the bed where the black silk toy roll lay. “Show me what you need,” he ordered.

  She reached toward the black silk. The slight motion sent the weight on her pussy clamp swaying, made her ass throb around the plug.

  Stephen watched her hungrily. There were so many…objects. She wanted to try them all at some point. But at just this moment, she wanted to try one in particular. She feared his reaction, but she closed her hand around it anyway. Four inches of gleaming silver. It was tapered, like the one in her ass, but not smooth. This one rippled in three distinct waves, growing wider from the narrow tip to the widely flared based.

  She looked up at her husband, afraid of how he would react. He looked as hungry for this as she was. He caressed her face, rubbed her pendent nipples.

  “Put it in your mouth,” he instructed.

  She remembered Cartwright’s cock in her mouth earlier that night and shivered with the memory of that delicious humiliation.

  She opened wide and took it in, letting her saliva flow around it. He praised her while she fellated the plug, and the realization that her mouth and ass were impaled at the same time sent her lust higher.

  Then he took the object from her and sat at the end of the bed behind her upturned bottom. The first plug slipped out easily. The second went in, as he had promised, inch by delicious inch. When it was fully seated, she could feel it pressing against the wall between her ass and her sheath.

  She was so focused on the sensations in her own body that she didn’t notice Stephen opening the fall of his breeches and pumping his engorged cock. “I’ve been hard for you all night, my love. Watching them fuck you. A better man would cherish you now, be tender with you, but that isn’t what I need right now. Do you understand, Catherine?”

  She understood. It was why he was still fully clothed. And she was naked and kneeling. He needed to punish her after seeing her with those men. And he was hoping, perhaps praying, that she needed it too.

  “I want you to fuck my mouth,” she said, choosing the harsh words intentionally.

  “I’m going to come in your cunny,” he assured her. “Later. Because I need to be able to think this child could be mine. And I’m going to explore your delicious ass another time, because I think you want that as much as I do. But I need you to know before this begins that I love you with my whole heart.”

  In answer, she placed her hands behind her back, rose up on her knees, leaned over the side of the bed and went down on his cock.

  He hesitated a moment before fisting his hands in her hair, but when he did, it was with complete and utter mastery. He pushed her head down and held it there, his cock tickling the back of her throat so that she had to breathe through her nose and watch ropes of her spittle drip down around his balls. And she loved it.

  The noises she made were raw and uninhibited. Her ass throbbed in time with the bobbing of her head on his cock, and when he yanked her head up and she sucked in air in greedy lungfuls, she felt a triumph she had never known before.

  He moved so quickly then that she had no time to help or hinder him, flopped like a rag doll as he pushed her face into the mattress and removed the plug from her ass then flipped her onto her back to unclip her pussy.

  She shrieked from the pain of it, then nearly died from the pleasure as he pulled her to perch on the edge of the bed while he stood in front her and wrapped her legs around his waist. She gripped his shoulders so she wouldn’t fall back onto the bed and he speared her pussy on his cock in one hard thrust. His tongue dived into her open mouth at the same instant and soon she was flying, soaring, dying, in the most spectacular climax of her life.

  He came inside her in a pent-up rush and she locked her ankles in the small of his back and squeezed, wanting to savor every last drop. Then they were in each other’s arms on the bed and she was, at last, sated.

  The calm lasted for some time. Enough for her to doze and wake to find the room cool and her body sticky. He was awake, his arms protectively around her.

  “Do you think it worked?” she asked. They’d chosen the date carefully, but still…

  “If it didn’t, we’ll get a child another way. Tonight was magnificent, my love, but too dangerous to repeat.”

  She tipped her head up to kiss his chin. “All of it?”

  He smiled wickedly at her. “No, not all of it, you minx. Some things are safe enough, between the two of us.”

  She felt a twinge of disappointment, and it must have showed on her face. “Or perhaps,” he conceded, “with a guest. On occasion. Did you understand what Bolton was suggesting? What he wanted Madame R to do?”

  She licked her lips. “Yes.” It was like stepping out on a ledge, admitting these things. One had to tread carefully. “Would you like that?” She knew she certainly would. Her only disappointment tonight had been that Stephen had taken the plug out of her ass before fucking her.

  “It’s unlikely we’d get away with the Madame R charade again, especially in the intimacy of a three-person encounter. But we might approach Bolton, discreetly. It is something he seeks out from time to time.”

  The idea of it thrilled her. Then she realized something. “Stephen, how long were you standing there when Bolton was…”

  “Fucking your ass?”

  “Yes.”

  “The whole time. I thought it was odd, his reluctance to fuck you before dinner.”

  “You must have understood, before I did, what he was going to do.”

  “Oh yes. But you were twitching with need before he even walked in the room. After Cartwright left you wanting, how could I possibly deny you?”

  Fear shot through her. He knew about Cartwright. “Stephen,” she began.

  But he kissed her firmly on the lips. “I trust you, Catherine. I would never have embarked on this night if I did not. I watched Cartwright gag you with his cock tonight and felt not one pang of jealousy. I would have intervened if you’d been in distress, but I could tell you enjoyed it. And I must admit, I rather enjoyed watching you give him his marching orders.”

  He was not jealous of her former fiancé. Her husband was a remarkable man. “And Bolton, did you enjoy watching him…?” She didn’t know if she could use the word for what Bolton had done to her.

  “Bugger you? Indeed.” He planted a kiss on her forehead and rose from the bed. “Watching you lose your anal virginity was a revelation. I never wanted to take it, in case you regretted the venture. Now, I had the privilege of watching it happen without the risk of bungling the job.”

  That cut it. She threw a pillow at him. He caught it and laughed, and then she was laughing too. “Where are you going at this time of night?” she asked, watching him button his breeches.

  “To heat water for a bath. I don’t want to wake the servants, but you are sticky as a sugared bun. And probably sore to boot.”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “I am.
”

  “Nap, then. I’ll bring the tub up, and the kettle when it’s hot.”

  She rolled on her back, luxuriating in being free after so many hours of bondage. “I could get used to you waiting on me.”

  He leaned over the bed to favor her with another kiss. “It will be my pleasure to wait on you again, so long as you work for it.”

  And then he was gone and she was stretching like a contented cat and settling into the bed for another nap.

  When she woke again the room was pleasantly warm and deliciously scented. Cinnamon, she thought. She sat up, expecting to see the tub steaming beside the fire, but the fire was out, and the tub was nowhere to be seen.

  All at once it came to her. Something was deeply wrong. Stephen was not here. She knew his presence, familiar, comforting, could sense it even at the other end of the house. But Stephen was not in the room. And she was not alone.

  She reached for her wrapper at the foot of the bed, but an amused voice forestalled her. “You needn’t bother with the robe.”

  The room was warm, but the voice—musical, seductive, unearthly—chilled her to the bone. The stranger was sitting in the chair facing the fire, and she both feared and longed to see what he looked like.

  “Who are you?”

  He stood and turned. She wished she’d put on the robe. She felt more naked and more vulnerable than she had surrounded by half a dozen leering men downstairs. Because this was not a man. No matter how much like one he looked. There was something too perfect about his high cheekbones, his full lips, his flashing black eyes and equally dark hair. Something too tall and broad about his shoulders, too long and slender about his hands. It almost hurt to look at him.

  “Think, Catherine. You know who I am. You invited me.”

  “No. You’re not one of Stephen’s friends. And the party is long over. Please leave.” She longed to scream for Stephen, but she did not like the idea of him encountering this…creature. That was what he was. A thing. She knew it in her bones. She pulled on her wrapper with as much brisk, businesslike nonchalance as she could muster while he lounged by the hearth watching her. She was going to march to the door and show him out.

  That was when it hit her. Who and what he was. She had invited him. “No,” she said, willing it to be different.

  He smiled, pleased with her sudden understanding. “Oh yes, my sweet Catherine. You called, and here I am.”

  She did scream then. She screamed for her husband. And the sound died softly against the walls as though they were muffled in cloth.

  She backed away from the thing, toward the window.

  “Stephen can’t hear you. Nor can anyone else. We exist, for the moment, in a world apart. And will do so, until we have concluded our business.”

  “You’re the Devil.”

  He shrugged. “I’m a devil. A demon. One of many.”

  “But Stephen said he’d done this before. That it is all nonsense. That the Devil never appeared.”

  “Well, I’ve certainly never appeared to him. Or any of his friends. After all, they didn’t do the work required to attract my interest. It would be unfair to reward them with a visit.”

  When she thought about it, it made perfect sense. There was nothing particularly wicked or clever in setting up such a debauch, nothing taxing about participating in one. For the men. “You appear to the women.” Which meant she had some bargaining power here. He was here to see her. She’d summoned him, after all. She tied her robe and came to sit in the chair opposite his by the fire. He sat as well, grinning with delight.

  “Are they always this surprised to see you?” she asked.

  “As a rule, yes. Most of them engage in such activities for one of two reasons. Money, of course. Or lust. But in my experience you, Catherine, are unique. You entered into this with your husband, as partners. For a child. And discovered a good deal about yourselves in the process. I find it quite refreshing.”

  “So refreshing that you are going to grant me a reward? For my wickedness?”

  “More of a contract. This is how it works. You summon me. I come. We bargain until we reach an agreement. I grant you a favor beyond the reach of mortal man and you agree to perform some service for me in return.”

  “What kind of service?” It all sounded so reasonable. But so did bargains with fairies and other tricksy creatures.

  He paused and she could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “Normally, when women summon me through an act of the flesh such as the one you took part in tonight, they prove themselves creatures of greed and lust. And normally, the service I require fits their base natures. But you are different, Catherine. I have been searching for a woman like you for a long time. You are capable of appreciating the darker passions, but you are not ruled by your appetites.”

  “I think you are flattering me in order to get what you want.” She knew better than to accept. “But it won’t work,” she said. “I am content. I want for nothing.”

  He shook his head disapprovingly. “Oh Catherine, Catherine. Think again.” And he reached out and placed his hand, large and warm, over her belly. “I can give you a child.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. His hand remained there, rubbing warm circles. There was power in his touch. She could feel it. All she had to do was agree, and one of the seeds planted tonight would take root and grow in her belly. She could have a child. Images flooded her mind. An infant suckling at her breast. Stephen running through the grass with a laughing toddler. Watching her child grow.

  She pushed the images away. This creature was a demon. It was evil. She must not bargain with it. “No.”

  But he sensed her resolve weakening. He got down on his knees before her. “You are afraid of what I will ask in return. Let me give you a token of my goodwill. So you know you can trust me.”

  He parted her robe and placed both hands on her belly, then leaned forward and flicked his tongue across her navel. She felt the jolt of it deep in her womb. “What have you done?”

  “Helped nature along. You are pregnant, Catherine.”

  “But I’ve agreed to nothing. Entered into no bargain with you. And now I have everything I want.”

  He smiled. A demon’s smile shouldn’t be so beautiful. A demon’s hands shouldn’t feel so very good on her. And she ought to be afraid now, because he seemed so very, very sure of her. “Not everything, Catherine. I can give you more than a child. I can make certain that it is your husband’s. It doesn’t matter what I ask for in return, does it?”

  It didn’t. She would agree to anything for this. To have Stephen’s child. She nodded.

  “Then we are agreed?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  She expected to feel something this time, but when he kissed her belly it was with the gentlest brush of his lips. Then he looked up into her eyes and said, “It is done. This child shall be his. And the next one,” he said, standing and placing a soft kiss on her brow, “shall be mine.”

  Epilogue

  The demon kept his bargain. Nine months later, Catherine delivered a boy. Healthy and handsome. And Stephen’s. Beyond a doubt. He had known it from the moment his son was placed in his arms. He’d held the child up and exclaimed, to the amazement of the midwife, “By God! He is mine!”

  It was there in her son’s eyes. They were Stephen’s eyes. And there in his contented smile as he sucked at her breast. They were a family, at last.

  It was a year to the day of the debauch during which their son had been conceived when she and Stephen fell into bed and became lovers once more. She’d recovered from the birth miraculously quickly, but Stephen had demurred resuming relations right away.

  She’d worried, of course, that his reluctance to touch her was due to disgust over her behavior at the orgy, disgust at his own behavior afterward. Even though they’d made love many times after that, before she grew too large with child. Now that she was the mother of his child, he might think differently.

  But now she lay sweaty and content in
his arms and her worst fears were forgotten. Then, after they had dozed for an hour, when they lay together like spoons, he dispelled her remaining fears. “I’ve invited Bolton down for next weekend.”

  That woke her instantly. She worried for a moment that he would misread the sudden tension in her body, think she did not welcome this. Then he slipped his hand between their bodies and entered her with his fingers, groaning with satisfaction to find her moistening at the thought of being shared with another man.

  “You continue to amaze me, Catherine,” he said, following with his cock where his fingers had led. “With another woman, such play might turn sour, ruin the intimacy of a marriage, the love.”

  “I love only you, Stephen, only you.” Her voice came in gasps, because he was deep inside her and moving now, but she knew he heard. And that it was true.

  “I know, my sweet. Sharing you with other men only makes you more passionate when we’re alone. More adventurous,” he said, pushing a finger deep into her ass and describing, in delicious detail, what it would feel like when he took her at the same time with his friend.

  Afterward, Stephen dressed and left to tour the home farm, leaving Catherine naked and sleepy in their bedroom. Where, a year ago, she had bargained with the demon.

  “Motherhood suits you.” This time the musical voice did not startle her. She opened her eyes to find the demon staring down at her. He was even more painfully beautiful than she remembered.

  And he was right. Motherhood did suit her. She was ready to fulfill her end of the bargain, to give this creature a child, but she knew she would love any child she carried, no matter who—or what—the father, and could not bear to be parted from her babe. So she asked him, “What will become of your child after it is born? Will you take him away from me?”

  He smiled now, untied his cravat and lifted his shirt over his head. “Ah, Catherine, we are back to bargaining. What if I told you that you could keep the child? If I decided that it would be enough for me to know that some part of myself walked always in this world, enjoying its pleasures?”