Even though we arrived at Broughton Castle at night I could see how different it was. Guy had restored it to its former glory. Inside it was beautiful. Mrs. Littlebell started crying when she saw me and Ceba jumped on my chest and nearly tumbled me. Mr. Fellowes smiled at me.
‘I’m glad you’re back,’ he said gruffly.
‘There are more staff now, but you can meet them all tomorrow,’ Guy said to me. Then he turned to Mr. Fellowes. ‘Where is she?’
‘In the saloon.’
‘Come,’ Guy said softly, his hand on the small of my back.
‘Who is in the saloon?’ I asked, bewildered by all the mystery.
He took me outside the door and turned to me. ‘Prepare yourself, she is much changed. I’m sorry, but she is the only one I could find.’
I composed myself and opened the door and there she was. Standing by the piano. Emaciated and haggard beyond her years. Who knows what horrors she had suffered? We stared at each other. Tears began to pour down my face. I brushed them with the backs of my hands.
‘Sofia?’ I whispered finally.
‘Lena,’ she called, and though her face was ravaged, her voice was exactly the same. I ran into my Sofia’s arms as if I was a child again.
*****
He closed the door to our bedroom and walked toward me.
‘I’m really sorry I broke your heart,’ he said.
‘It’s all right. Sometimes it’s good to be sad. Anyway, my heart is yours to break. Just don’t break it too hard.’
‘Oh, my darling, darling. I will never break your heart again. I’d rather gamble my entire fortune away for you. There are so many things I regret in my life. But the one thing I do not regret is buying you. That day when I put you in chains and took you like an animal I spilled my soul into you and became blended with you.’
Our faces began to move toward each other. As if we had done it a thousand times. But we had never kissed. This would be our first kiss. I was barely able to breathe.
Our lips touched. Feather-light.
I felt a shock go through me right down to my toes. It was like diving into an erupting volcano. I was on fire. I opened my mouth and suddenly his hands came around and, grasping me by my upper arms, he almost lifted me off the ground as he pressed me against his hard body. His mouth crashed down on mine; his hand went to my hair.
This was no gentle kiss.
This was the kiss of a starving man who suddenly comes upon a banquet. He sucked my lower lip, he pushed his tongue into my mouth, and, finding my tongue, sucked it into his mouth. He growled even as he claimed my mouth. My knees went weak and I became lost in the most incredible kiss. My heart was racing and between my legs that familiar ache to be filled began again.
He lifted his mouth and looked into my eyes. Desire shone in them.
‘Blindfold me,’ I said softly.
He shook his head gently. ‘Not this time, baba. Let there be nothing between us. This is a joining of our souls.’
I stared at him in the glow of the silk covered lamps. He looked so perfect he was almost unreal. Like a bronze statue of a Greek God.
‘You’re too beautiful to be real,’ he said.
‘Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing about you.’ I had tried to be light and casual, but my voice had come out sounding shaky and nervous. He was so familiar and yet so foreign.
An expression of sadness crossed his face. ‘You’re the Beauty here. I am the Beast. I brought you to my castle. Kept you against your will.’
‘You were never the Beast. You were always my hero.’ Gently, I curled my fingers around his gloved hand.
He froze.
‘I love you. All of you.’ Gazing into his deliberately blank eyes, I slowly removed the glove and looked down at it. There was no other way to describe it. His hand was claw. I raised it to my lips and kissed it as it was the most precious treasure in the world.
He smiled softly and dragged his misshapen thumb along my lower lip. My body’s reaction was instantaneous. I felt as if I was on fire. I stepped towards him and pressed myself against his hardness.
‘I can feel you trembling,’ he said.
‘Do whatever you want to me,’ I whispered.
‘Oh fuck,’ he groaned, and closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. ‘You make this so hard. I want to be an animal with you. Throw you on the bed and fuck you senseless.’
‘Be an animal then.’
‘No, not this time. Not after I have raged and wept for you all this time.’
His hands snaked around my body, and lifted me clean off the floor. He laid me on the big bed, and before I knew it my jeans had been tugged off, and my panties were scraping the soles of my feet. He pulled my top over my head and with astonishing expertise unclipped my bra, and threw it behind him. The sheet was cool and silky underneath me. My lips parted. I was waiting.
He stood over me never taking his eyes away from me while he removed his pullover, his jeans, and his black briefs and stood in all his naked glory. I stared at him greedily. I could hardly believe how beautiful he was. He really was so toned. So perfect. So erect. And so straight and enormous. My gaze moved back to his eyes and the look in them sent shivers down my spine.
He moved and his knee was between my thighs. I slid down the bed and pushing my clit against the hard bone of his kneecap, ground myself against it with wanton abandon.
‘My little wildcat,’ he growled, and moved his hand to cup my breast.
‘Only with you,’ I gasped.
Twin flames leapt into those beautiful eyes. ‘God, I want you so much I can hardly control myself.’
I reached up to clasp his neck and his mouth descended on mine. It was not a kiss it was a whirlwind of lust and passion. My tongue was swept up into his mouth and inside his mouth it was sucked on with such intensity and sensuality that I felt as if I was being eaten alive. As if he was feeding off me. I got lost in the delicious sensation of melting and melding with him. The connection became so powerful and fierce that my hips began to writhe involuntarily, pushing into his knee and rubbing desperately against him. When he broke the kiss I stared up at him with wonder. I was breathing hard and my chest heaved. Some sense of loss must have showed on my face.
‘You’re like a fucking drug,’ he muttered.
His touch was delicate but sinuous as his hands brushed down my body to stop on either side of my labia. He spread the fleshy lips wide open and looked down at my opened sex. When our eyes met again, his were dark with desire. He dipped a finger into the swollen wetness.
I cried out.
A second finger followed.
‘Yes,’ I moaned, as my muscles tightened involuntarily around his fingers. It had been so long, but my body had not forgotten him. It craved him. I craved his cock deep inside me.
‘Enter me,’ I begged.
He began to finger fuck me with excruciating slowness. My hips lifted off the bed and pushed up against his hand. It was delicious and it was a torture. I did not want my first orgasm after all this time to be at the end of his hand. I tried to hold back.
‘Please, I can’t take it anymore. Just take me,’ I whimpered. I felt almost delirious with need. My head rolled from side to side against the sheet.
‘You can take more,’ he said, and carried on.
I rose to my elbows and he leaned in and sucked my nipple. My head fell back.
‘I don’t want to come like this,’ I pleaded, hoarsely.
‘You won’t. I know exactly when to stop,’ he murmured as I felt the silky head of his cock push at my entrance. Gently, gently he fitted the thick hardness inside me. And pushed. I had forgotten how big he felt inside. How right and how perfect. For a second I wondered how I had ever survived without him. He paused to allow me to stretch to accommodate him, and the gentleness of the man broke my heart.
‘Don’t stop,’ I cried with longing, pulled in deeper.
And he didn’t. He plunged into the very depths of me. So deep I think I lost a little of my
sanity. I simply tightened my grip on his shoulders and hung on while he thrust into me like a man possessed, with all the pent up emotion he had stored inside his being. My mind emptied out and became blissfully blank. There was nothing left, but our bodies mating with feral abandon. It was the most beautiful sex we had ever had. So beautiful I cried while he was still inside me.
‘Am I hurting you?’ he asked with a frown.
‘No. Don’t stop.’
And then the best part—we came in unison.
Both of us calling each other’s names. I could hear the hoarse, wild sounds travelling along the empty corridors and the vast rooms. I clung to his bulky upper-arms and gave in to the little death that transported me to ecstasy.
*****
I woke up early, Guy’s body warm and curled around me. My first thought was that we were fitted together perfectly, like two pieces of a jigsaw. We were made for each other. I sighed softly with happiness. It was almost like a dream. Slowly I turned my head and looked at him in the dim light. His eyes were closed, the dark lashes fanning his cheeks. There were still scars on the sides of his face where the surgeons had grafted on the new skin and the skin itself was a slightly different color, but to me he was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on. I felt a wellspring of joy burst forth in my being at the thought that he was mine, mine, mine. He belonged to me as much as the blood running in my veins belonged to me.