Enamoured (The Enslaved Duet 2)

“I only meant this; I was born with inherent value because people enjoy beautiful things and my body grew into a pretty vessel others could admire and lust at. Over the past few years, I’ve learned that people think a pretty girl is hollow, and they will try to fill me up with their desire and their greed, with their power and control like a puppeteer with a doll. I’m not so strong I’ve never succumbed to the headiness of their longing for me, not so sure I didn’t allow myself to be bent and reformed in a shape that suited them because it benefited me, but also, sometimes, it turned me on.”

I peered up at her through my lashes and saw her intensity, as if she was a lightning rod readily absorbing every single one of my electric words.

“There is power and sensuality in submitting to a formidable man,” I said with a brief shrug, turning back to the mirror to unravel my long black hair from the big red curlers they were held in. The curls spilled like wet ink over my bare shoulders. “There is also sadness, stupidity, and at the darkest spectrum of it, danger. This is what I meant.”

I watched Giselle swallow thickly in the mirror behind me. “You’re speaking of BDSM, right?”

A one-shouldered shrug that sent my hair sliding sensuously over the bare skin above my corset. Even talking about the act of dominance and submission set my womb to aching, my core fisting in a yearning, mournful clench.

“In all its forms and many expressions,” I agreed before sliding her a coy glance. “Is this something you are interested in, Gigi?”

Her blush flared across her face like a neon warning sign. She prevaricated, stepping closer to filter her charcoal-stained fingers through my hair to break up the curls.

“You know the man I told you about from Mexico?” she started quietly. “He made me feel as if the door to my pleasure could be unlocked as easily as saying ‘yes, sir.’”

She shivered slightly behind me, either in remembrance of a fantasy or with anxiety at divulging such a sinful secret.

I reached back to grab her arms and wrap them around my torso in a backward hug. I could see the uncertainty in her eyes, the same questions and longings I had struggled with for so many years.

Was there weakness in submission?

Shame in pain?

I knew the answer was no because I had been broken and reformed around that simple concept. It was a natural expression of desire that went beyond the sexual. In submission, I found self-assurance, generosity, and peace for the first time in my life.

As much as I wanted to reassure her, it wasn’t a question I could answer for my sister.

Sexuality was too individualistic to blanket with bromides.

So, I hugged her arms tight to my tummy and stared into her beautiful face in the mirror.

“I’m happy to hear you have found a man who excites you, especially after that dullard Mark from Paris.” She giggled at my words, and tenderness suffused my chest like fumes from a chemical high. “Just remember the power of no. The Dominant is not the only one who makes the rules, si?”

She bit her lip and nodded, her gaze caught on something tucked in the farthest reaches of her mind. I took advantage of her distraction to entertain the real possibility that had been lingering at the corner of my preoccupied thoughts that Sinclair could very well be the man Giselle had found in Mexico.

I knew he’d once dabbled in the scene because he was the one who had urged me to try to find another Dominant when I confessed I’d been involved in a relationship of the kind in England.

I knew Elena detested kink with a bitter kind of verve that would take years of therapy and/or a very strong, resilient kind of man to temper and reform.

Sinclair wasn’t that man. They didn’t have a relationship of trust and passion, but of drive and mutual admiration.

But Sin was the type of man who would fall head over heels for the siren’s call of my beautiful, vivacious sister, and he was just sinful enough to indulge in that desire even when he shouldn’t.

“Be careful, hmm, bambina?” I called to her softly.

She blinked, refocused, and then frowned as the doorbell rang, heralding the arrival of my escort for the evening. Her eyes dropped to the high cut of my corset, her gaze tingling over the branded skin of my bum before they cut back to mine.

“You too, Cosi, you too.”

Cosima

The opulence of a New York City high society function was not dissimilar to those of the upper crust elite and the Order back in England. The women were filled, covered, and sparkling in millions of dollars’ worth of plastic surgery, and brand-name designers and jewels while the men all wore a variation on the classic suit and tie as if individuality was frowned upon in such circles. It was. This was the major reason that Mason Matlock, one of the wealthiest men in New York and the heir to a coffee chain franchise, used me as a very pretty beard. Bigotry was frowned upon, but still, those who were too different often felt the brunt of society’s sharp tongue, and Mason didn’t want to have to deal with the fallout. His mother’s family was also Italian and Roman Catholic, so I had clear understanding of his situation. I didn’t think he was a coward for hiding, not when I had been hiding for so many years. We all had our crosses to bear, and I was happy to help my friend carry his once in a while.