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Part 3

“Can I trust you, little one? If I ask you to do something, will you?” He kissed me briefly, firmly on the lips. “Will you do a simple favor for me?” His kisses deepened, interspersed with demands for obedience, until I wrapped my hands around his head to keep his mouth upon mine, and thrust my tongue past his lips. I arched my body as closely into his as I could against the soft bedcovers, frustrated greatly by the fact that my hips were pressing against nothing. Leaning forward had brought his hips almost to the level of my waist, and I could feel him growing hard against my stomach. I wanted him to unfold along my body, to be able to press myself against him, to perhaps find some relief for the almost painful, hot emptiness that was beginning to spread low across my hips. He unwrapped my arms from his head and pulled his mouth away.

“Just say you’ll do what I ask, and I will give you what you need, my sweet,” He rasped. I nodded frantically, desperate for his kiss again. “Say the word, precious, you must say it. You have to invite the evil in or it can’t cross the door...”

“Yes,” I moaned, pleading with him. “Yes, I will do whatever you ask.”

He chuckled, an unexpectedly deep sound rolling from his chest. I could feel it rumble from his body across mine, setting up an answering, and painful, tingling in my breasts where they were pressed against his chest. Taking the coil of his belt off his hand and putting it under the other pillow, he pulled my arms up behind my head, and wrapped my hands around the metal of the ring. He held them both there with one of his strong hands, and rewarded my obedience with another of his deep, satisfying kisses. I felt the warmth of the silk handkerchief that had been used to pad my cuff earlier wrap itself around my wrists, through the ring, and the end was tucked firmly into the grasp of my fingers. Surprised at the lack of a knot, I glanced up. In a flash, the weight of his body had left mine and he had me rolled over onto my stomach. I squeaked in surprise, and then felt his hands run up and down my back. He leaned back down to my ear and whispered, “I do hope you’re not fond of this dress.”

A line of icy fire ran down my back, along the line of my zipper. I shivered lightly from the resulting chill that spread all the way to my toes. Diogenes flipped me back over, and I got a glance at the wicked knife he held in his right hand. Casually, he placed the tip of the blade along the seam on my right shoulder. I could feel the blade sink through the fabric and the stitches, and the familiar silver white heat trailed along the skin. After he repeated the operation on my left shoulder, he peeled the dress down. He moved down my body, grasping and lifting my hips as he slid the fabric down and over my legs. I shivered again, even though the knife was resting next to my torso on the mattress. He skimmed his fingers back up along my skin, raising goosebumps everywhere he touched. There was a slight smile on his face as he looked over my body. He picked up the knife again, making my heart race as he slid the blade along the skin of my abdomen. He hooked the blade under the thin strip of fabric between the cups of my bra, and then he twisted. The fabric snapped as the blade scraped my skin. I shrieked as a single drop of blood welled between my breasts. An intense excitement spread over Diogenes’ face before he leaned down and pressed his lips to the wound. Long fingers spread around to cup my breasts as he began a rhythmic sucking against my skin, like a vampire drinking from its victim. Pain from the cut swiftly gave way to pleasure as his long, agile fingers teased and warmed my breasts, pressing gently down on my nipples and pushing the soft skin on the inside of my breasts against the wiry hair of his beard, and a line of icy pleasure shot between his lips and the growing warmth between my thighs. It pulsed in time to the motions of his lips, and I gripped the ring hard, harder as he shifted his body to lie fully along me, pressing his leg between mine. Gently, he began pressing his thigh against me in time with the motion of his lips and tongue on my chest. I began moaning softly again, heedless of my situation, of Agent Pendergast, tied to a chair not 50 feet away, not even of the fact the man wringing such exquisite sensation from nerves I though long dead was most likely a mass murderer. All I was aware of was the pounding of my heart, the pressure of the pulse in my neck, the feel of his hands and mouth against my flesh, sensitized beyond the point of pain to where it again became pleasure.

One of his hands left my body, and I heard a thump next to my ear. My eyes opened to see the knife imbedded in the pillow, his hand still on the hilt. A hot thrill ran through my entire body, bringing a moan from deep in my chest. This seemed to please him, and he began trailing kisses and tiny nips along my collarbone, up along the tendon in my throat, to the spot right behind my ear lobe that, when he licked it gently, tightened all the muscles in my body in a spasm of pleasure so intense I screamed.

He laughed, pulling his face away from my throat, and wrapped his strong hands around the base of my skull, caressing the delicate skin he had just kissed. “There, my pet,” he whispered, “now I shall concentrate my attack against your better nature.”

Diogenes pulled up far enough to insinuate his other leg between mine, and I wrapped myself around his waist. I pulled his hips down against mine and wouldn’t loosen my grip. He gazed down at me, almost gently, and whispered, “Now, now, pet. I need to be able to move freely.”

I rolled my head against the pillow, “No, no, don’t pull away, please, don’t stop...”

He gently massaged my scalp, running his fingers along the flesh still vaguely tender from his blow to my head. Strangely pulsing and sweet pain radiated from that place, stopping my words and wringing a gasp from me. My legs loosened, knees falling away from his ribcage as I became lost in this new sensation. Diogenes began to softly shush me, his lips barely touching mine, saying, “No, no, my sweet, I am not going to pull away. At least, not for long. I just need to get a better, ah, grip on things.”

He pushed himself up to kneel between my thighs, and pulled the belt out from under the pillow. I writhed a little, twisting my hands against the ring in the headboard. He noticed this motion, and cast his good eye over me. Before I realized it, he had snapped the other pair of cuffs—perhaps the original pair I’d worn, since they came from the bed near my shoulder—around my wrists, and looped around the ring. A blazing hot streak of panic shot through me from the base of my skull to my feet. He rolled me over onto my stomach again, sitting next to me as if my spine were a keyboard he were playing, and his hand began running down my back in long, smooth strokes, as if I were a cat or a restive child he was soothing.

“I couldn’t take the chance you would let go of the ring, pet.” He patted my shoulder, almost paternally. “You just let me worry about this, hmmm?”

He began stroking my skin again, slowly, gently, until I began to relax. I rested my forehead against my forearm and allowed myself to be lulled into a comfortable place. My skin had just begun to warm from the soft, massaging strokes when the sting and slap of his belt across the mid-back jolted me into full awareness. I gasped aloud, my hands releasing the ring as my fingers flexed in shock. But not quite pain; really, much more surprise and sting. He chuckled and caressed the newly created tender spot as my skin twitched under his hand.

“See? You let go. Very bad of you.” This time, the sting came across my calves, and I gave a cry of surprise. This time, he used his whip hand to stroke the swollen flesh, and the rasp of the buckle against my skin was vastly more arousing than I could ever have imagined. I moaned into the pillow. “Yes,” he murmured. “It is distressing to find this within yourself, isn’t it.” His fingers massaged and soothed the quivering flesh, and tears sprang to my eyes, partly from pain, partly shame. As he continued alternating strokes from the belt and strokes from his hands, I could feel my body begin to react and come alive in a way it never had, and I was keening with pleasure with each breath. By the time he unwound the belt from his hand, I was breathing heavily and my cries had settled into rhythmic moans, more from excitement than the sting. I could feel him drop the belt beside me on the mattress and lean over my raw back to press his lips gently in the center of my back, where the hasp of my bra usually rested. The heat of his skin and rasp of his beard against my sensitized skin sent me bucking off the bed. He trailed his fingers lightly along the red and swollen flesh, causing my body to clench tightly in a spasm of pleasure. This brought on a chain reaction of excitement as the tensing muscles rippled under hyper-sensitive skin, causing ripples of icy tingles to shoot along my nerve endings, which all seemed connected to the nexus between my legs. If he had kept the gentle strokes up, I would eventually have climaxed. But just as I got to the point of release, as my overloaded nerves were just at the point of cascading into nothingness, he took his hands and lips from my body.

For several long moments, I panted into the pillows, feeling his weight on the mattress next to me. I calmed down, stepped back from the brink. Then Diogenes leaned over again, and gently blew across my back. Instantly, seared nerve endings flamed to life again, and I literally screamed in pleasure. He sat back on his heels and let my skin warm up again, and my level of arousal again subsided from a conflagration to a stinging simmer. Several times he repeated this, the settling point of my excitement getting higher each time, leaving me closer to the brink. The frustration was, disturbingly, as exciting as when he would touch me, and I found myself longing both for his breath against my back and the sweet tension of the wait.

I was perched on the edge of orgasm when Diogenes leaned down to hiss in my ear, “Give my brother a message, my pet,”

I was panting and whimpering with need, desperate and sweating and wanting, only wanting.

“Tell him, As you like it.” One more searing, heart-stopping kiss after rolling me over, and he was gone. I cried out, a jagged, pained sound, ripped from the deepest parts of me. I began to sob in the excruciating pain of frustrated release. Spasm after spasm rolled across my body as I rocked side to side in desperate grief for what I almost had.

“Gwen!” Cool hands soothed me, strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me up from the pillow. “Gwen! Come on, Gwen, speak to me!”

Wrapped in Aloysius’ arms, I sobbed as if my heart would break. It felt as if my body were hyper-sensitized and swollen from unsatisfied need. I buried my nose into the fabric of his suit, pressing myself into his body, attempting to find what I had come so close to in his brother’s arms. “Please,” I gasped.

“Please what, Gwen? Tell me how to help you?” There was an edge of panic to his voice, he hands running up and down my arms as if to warm me. I couldn’t find words to tell him that the problem was that I was already too warm, far too warm... .

I reached up and wrapped my hands around his head, pulling his mouth down to mine, plundering the warmth behind his lips in a desperate search for what his brother had denied me. At first he froze, and then he began attempting to extract himself from my embrace, but desperation gave me strength. I felt him begin to relax into my kiss, strong arms snaking around my torso, lithe hands stroking along the sides of my breasts as some of my emotion began to transfer to him, and he began warming to the embrace. Slowly, he took control of the kiss, and I lay back against his arms. I could feel him lower me onto the pillows, and welcomed the weight and heat of his body. I shifted my arms down to embrace him and pull his torso tighter to my own, pressing my exposed breasts into the silky nap of his suit. I could feel one hand slowly moving from where it had been cupping my breast, and slide down to my waist. I murmured against his lips, a near-silent plea for something only he could give me. I lifted my hips against his in a sinuous motion, and finally, finally! I could feel one long slim hand gliding along swollen, sensitive flesh to rest against the moist heat between my legs. It only took two or three gentle motions against the nerve center there before I erupted from the kiss with a high-pitched cry. I fell back against the pillows, whispering his name over and over.

Aloysius reached down to lightly kiss his name from my lips. His hand smoothed the hair back from my forehead, and then he checked me gently—viewing the marks his brother had left on my flesh. I could feel cool lips kissing the bruises and strap marks on my back and legs, caressing and lightly nibbling on the cuff marks on my wrists, all the while murmuring soft reassurances. Eventually, I was gathered up and wrapped in the sheet. Aloysius cradled me gently to his chest and carried me out of the warehouse into the watery daylight. I opened bleary eyes and blinked, surprised it was still daytime.

I was taken to his car, which was parked around a corner. Gently, he laid me down in the back, smoothing my hair again, and kissing my forehead gently just as his brother had.

“Gwen,” he whispered gently against my forehead. “Gwen, what did Diogenes say right before he left you?”

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