CHAPTER THREE
Owned
Lorene’s Perspective
With a shiver of apprehensive dread I stumbled barefoot out onto the upraised stage. They’d stripped my dirty gown from me, along with my shoes until all I stood in was my chemise shift, with my hands bound before me by a rope that looked like it had seen much similar use.
The crowd gathered in this darkly illuminated dungeon of a place erupted with cheers as I was led out onto the brightly illuminated stage. The rope tied off to my wrists was wrapped securely about a pole mid-stage.
“All right, what a fine offering we have to be standing in the presence of here tonight lads. Would the interested buyers be presenting themselves to the ringmaster if you please. And gents, it’s a rich man’s game so no low bids as she is rumored to be unspoiled. Bidding is to start at 1000 pounds, so if you don’t have the coin, then you don’t have the right to play, but fortunately for all of us poor blokes we still get to watch and see.”
Forcing myself out of the deep shame I felt of being exposed to so many I brought my head up and looked about the place. What I saw only sickened me more.
Even in the dim light given off by the few lanterns illuminating the place I could see a Who’s Who collection of all of London’s high society gathered here tonight.
Men whose daughters, I had called among my friends.
Sons of highborn families who had pleaded for my hand in marriage.
All of them were about me in a display of the reality of a darkness inbred into my society that I had heard whispered about, but would never have believed in myself in that it could be as corrupted to the regard that my eyes were now telling me that it was.
My gaze turned to the ten men pressed together in a line that now stood on the platform with me. I knew all of them.
All of them had sought to claim my hand in marriage. I had rejected them all as foppish boys, but now I saw them as they truly were.
They were nothing but deviant desired demons in disguise. Speaking clearly I said, “May God curse you all for what you do in this place.”
My words carried and in the silence afterward raucous laughter erupted as if every demon in hell had spoken up together.
The first in line, one Lord Dirk of Kimberly, came sauntering forward. I did not know what to expect from this inspection of merchandise to be purchased, but I wasn’t submitting to it willingly.
His eyes fully focused on my breasts I let him come in just close enough. I kicked forward and my toes sank deeply into his groin.
He fell abruptly crying out in soprano and commenced writhing about on the floor. In truth, I think I had felt something explode under the impact of my foot and from the level of his ringing agony it must be so.
I felt no remorse as several ring hands came forward to drag the young squalling Lord away. The remaining nine Lords suddenly looked very indecisive in terms of wanting to approach me.
The ringmaster looked absolutely apoplectic. Apparently what I had done was bad for business.
He came up on me suddenly and I was too late to dodge his backhanded strike. I would’ve fallen, but his rough hands held me upright even as from the force of his blow both of my full breasts had popped free of the containment of my chemise.
I tried to cover myself, but found my hands jerked brutally against my stomach even as I was tied off to the pole more securely. In a matter of moments I literally couldn’t move.
Crying I watched as both tears and blood from my split lip fell to land down upon my bare chest. It was really impossible to accept what was happening.
Surely this was all just a nightmare.
The nightmare that I was living in suddenly got very loud. Men were screaming and there was explosive sounding noise.
Fire?
Looking about I beheld the place wreathed in flames. Who had started the blaze?
Shaking my head in order to stop it from spinning I tried to focus and see what was causing the chaos all about me. Flames licked hungrily about the place at all four corners.
Truly the place was about to become an inferno. Already there were figures encased in flames stumbling about crying out for help to others who in turn were madly looking about for any hole to escape down like rats anxious to avoid a trap cleverly set for them.
Rats were exactly what they were too!
I spit out blood and focused on the man approaching before me. The only young Lord, yet to flee for his life.
He was staring at my bare chest with a rapidity that seemed to suggest he’d never seen a female breast before.
Didn’t he hear all the mayhem going on in the place?
Didn’t he care about his own life?
Getting closer I saw him sickly reach out his skinny little chicken hands to touch me and I shuddered in the expected revulsion of what his touch upon me would feel like. This time the ability to kick him was taken from me by the ropes binding my legs to the pole behind me.
Even if I had been free enough to kick I doubted that I would’ve connected with much. Drool seeped out of the side of his mouth and desperately I struggled against my bindings as I groaned out, “Dear God please don’t let this happen!”
He was close now. A man’s hand appeared to grip down on the boy’s head and then another in the next instant, and with a swift jerk the young Lord’s head was staring to the side even as the snap of his neck sounded out loud against the backdrop of utter mayhem taking place all around.
His body was tossed to the side and I found myself staring into the eyes of the man from the ball. The man who had haunted many a dream with his presence.
Gasping for air I breathed in hard as I took in the sight of him with what felt like relief. Relief?
Why relief?
I didn’t know, but I was simply glad to see him. He didn’t belong here.
The only reason he was here was because of me, intrinsically I knew that. I could prove my thoughts, just the same I knew what I did.
He was God’s miracle for me to escape this place. The reality of that was a bit of a hard thing to swallow, but I accepted it.
I watched his hands rise. I didn’t flinch, though as I felt the fullness of both of my breasts lifted.
The palms of his hands were warm and rough in a way that made my knees shake. God so help me this man’s touch did not feel wrong at all.
In fact, it felt like the fullness of my breasts had been crafted to be a palm full for this man’s large hands. At some point my eyes had closed, but now they opened as I felt him with gentleness ease first one breast and then the other back into my chemise.
He brought the fallen straps of my chemise back up onto my shoulders. Reaching with a thumb, he wiped away the blood splattered upon the upper slope of one of my breasts away.
Gazing into his eyes, the eyes I remembered so well from that night, along with everything else he’d said and made me feel I whispered, “Thank you.”
His head inclined forward and in slow-motion regard, I watched the dissent of his face as he lowered it to kiss me. The contact of his lips on mine hurt, but somehow it didn’t matter.
I felt the raw maleness of the man before me through his lips on me and with a shudder I hopelessly surrendered to it. My mouth opened and the hot taste of his tongue filled my mouth and in that very moment I accepted the fact that this man owned me.
His kiss upon me didn’t last long, but it didn’t have to as the message had been swiftly perceived.
He pulled back and for the first time he spoke, “Want to get out of here?”
“Please!” I whispered with urgency and in seconds I was cut free from all my bindings.
He didn’t lead me about then. No, he dipped down and in the next moment I felt his shoulder at my waist and then he was folding me over it.
With a gasp I found myself draped over his broad shoulder, even as my face pressed against his back, with my long undone hair dancing about his thighs. There was no easy way to grow accustomed to the feel of one of his large hands splayed across the back of my bare thighs as he held me securely in place.
He began to run and I gripped onto his waist upside down as my breasts threatened to break free of containment all over again.
The noise and havoc going on everywhere about me didn’t seem to register. All I felt was him.
His hand.
The power of his muscle corded back.
The long strides of his legs carrying me away from danger.
The smell. The smell of him, especially seemed to enslave me.
I was out of my mind clearly and helplessly I stayed there as my future even now was being written by a different hand.
Adam’s Perspective
The dark tunnel gave way to lantern streetlights and breathing heavy from exertion I stepped out into the cool night air. With relief I saw that the carriage was still there.
Looking about I saw no one. Moving to the carriage I opened the door.
Setting her bare feet onto the floor I helped her stand up and gain her balance. She quickly sat down and I could well imagine why with all the blood rushing from her head.
What a glorious head of hair it was too. I’d never seen her hair free before and I liked it.
Taking my cloak off I leaned into the carriage enough to wrap it around her. She caught a hold of it and pulled it about her tightly.
She wouldn’t look at me and worriedly I gazed at her, but I had no time. I forced myself to close the door.
Jumping into the driver’s seat I set the carriage horses to running. Like a bat out of hell I steered the horses around hairpin corners and down long alley streets.
I didn’t care who I disturbed in the late-night that had fallen upon the city. I had one chance and it was quickly fading away, with every passing second of time.
The docks appeared up ahead and I brought the excited horses to a stop with a liberal use of the carriage’s brake bar. Jumping down I opened the carriage door and looked inside.
Her intense hazel eyes that had more mysterious fire to them than a tiger’s eye jewel settled on mine and honestly, I said, “You’re either with me or you’re not. I have to leave the country and I may already be too late to make it to my boat, but that’s a chance that I have to take. I….”
Without even half the explanation out that I’d been ready to give as to why she should come with me, I was treated instead to her soft exclamation of, “I’ll go with you.”
A suppressed flame lit up warmly inside of me and catching my breath I fought against my own jubilation to say, “You know what that will mean, right?”
“Yes.” She whispered back.
“Say it then. I want to hear it from your lips.”
She looked away and then back to me with new tears in her eyes. Her lips opened and emotionally she said, “It means that I consent to be your woman. There I said it okay!”
There was still a war to be won with this woman, but I had what I needed for the moment. I pulled her out of the carriage and holding her in my arms before me, I focused hard on simply not focusing on her.
It was hard. The sweet weight of her in my arms was intoxicating.
She wasn’t a little skinny slip of a girl. No, she was an honest to goodness full figured beauty of what a woman should be.
In a word she was my Eve and she’d just said as much. A resistant Eve to be sure, but my woman just the same.
The knowledge and the responsibility of that drove me to perhaps greater lengths to survive, if all I’d had to look out for was just myself. Dumping her none too gently into a moored off rowboat I untied it from the pier and climbed in after her.
As she righted herself in the stern of the boat I found the oars and pushed off from the dock gangway. Gaining my bearings I began to row.
I rowed like I never had before in my life. She was literally thrown back by the force of the boat moving and in silence, she watched me with widely open eyes as I did my best to save both of us.
Away from the lantern light of the dock area it became too dark to see her, but I could smell her. Her scent was a heady liquid aroma that I ached to daily consume as much as I ached to ease my desire within the tightest corridors of her body.
She was mine!
The strength of my passion drove me to exert myself harder and with a growl I sent the rowboat fairly skipping across the waves. An hour passed by and awash with sweat, I stopped rowing as I peered about.
We were now in the open ocean at the bay’s mouth. Was I too late?
“Aye, if ever it was a man to make a boat fly twould be you captain laddie. The boys and I were placing bets on who would be reaching the shores of the New World first.”
With relief I set the oars down in the boat and leaned out over the side to claim the rope that had splashed down in the water. Tying it off the boat was then quickly hauled into the side of the darkened ship.
Turning I reached for Lorene, but she was already there. Grabbing a secure hold of her I helped her get started up the side of the merchant ship.
“Aye lads the captain be knowing a true treasure of cargo when he sees one that is to be sure.”
“O’Flaherty if you don’t shut your gob up, then I will for you.”
“Aye aye Captain.” But there was humor to be felt in both of our voices even if it couldn’t be seen in the dark of the night.
“Shall we be off for home, then Captain?”
“Yes, we stop for no one or any hail to heave to. Got it?”
“Aye, that I do, Captain. I do. Unfriendly waters we be in.”
My hand closed over Lorene’s shoulder in the darkness and I directed her forward. I knew my way about this ship well.
They called me, Captain, but truly I hadn’t been a captain of this ship in close to seven years. O’Flaherty had run it in my stead and now I trusted him to pull us clear of a land suddenly opposed to everything American.
A cabin door was up ahead and I reached past Lorene to open it. She stepped into the room and I closed the door.
I heard her gasp slightly as I brushed past her. She was scared of me now just like she had been that night at the party.
To be truthful, I didn’t blame her. My passion for her was extreme.
I’d desired many a woman, but there was just something about her that said there would never be any limit to the number of times that I wished to ram my cock into her as deeply as it would go.
I was known by many to be a hard man and also a passionate one, but I knew the value of mercy. The girl was scared. It was true that I wanted her and right now more than ever, but she’d been through hell.
“Lorene.”
Silence beckoned my query.
“Honey about five feet to your right is a chair. How about you sit down in it.”
“You can see me in here?” Her voice had a definitive quiver to it.
“No, but I can smell you.”
“Do I stink?” She exclaimed.
A soft burst of laughter made its way out of me before I could shut it off.
“Goodness no. No, you smell like a woman. Not like just any woman, though. No, you have the essence of a woman that was born to be mated.”
I could’ve hit myself. So much for not scaring the girl.
I heard her feet move and then the creak of the chair as she sat down. Then I heard her begin to cry.
Going forward in the dark I reached out a hand and felt at her porcelain smooth cheek. It was wet with tears.
“Are you that scared of me Honey?”
“Yes.” She said with an honesty that I liked.
I realized something then. This was a strong woman.
Being obsessively gentle right now and putting off the inevitable would do me no good. It was important that she learn who was her master quickly before she got her feet beneath her and decided to fight against what she had herself agreed to becoming and that was to be my woman.
Steeling myself against any raised attempt to resist me as well as the sound of her tears I went about the task that would end with her being impaled by me and wholly unable to say that she wasn’t my woman. I didn’t feel proud of myself for what I was about to do and behave like, but I resolved just the same to see things through.
I wasn’t a monster by nature, but from her perspective, I could well imagine that I would soon seem like one.