‘You don’t have to call me my lord,’ muttered Joss, sounding slightly embarrassed, but by the look of him he was pleased by the implied compliment to his domination skills.
‘Oh, I like it,’ she said. ‘It’s so rarely one gets to say it with true accuracy. I do beg your indulgence, my lord.’
‘All right,’ he said with a chuckle.
‘She’s unpierced?’
‘For the moment,’ he said, never taking his eyes off me, so he saw the little start, the sway of my skirts, the widening of my eyes that his words occasioned. ‘What’s that, sweet? Do you have something to say? I didn’t hear you ask permission to speak.’
It wasn’t worth contending the issue here and now. We would discuss it later, in private.
‘No, sir.’
He leaned back in his chair and gave me one long, louche going-over with his greedy eyes before bending forwards again and sliding a hand between the folds of my skirts.
I let out a little cry.
He had taken a swift and firm hold of my bare sex, right here, in front of this stranger.
Of course, she could not see it, because the skirts draped themselves around his arm, concealing the naked truth, but it was obvious that she would know what he was doing.
‘Perfect,’ he said, moving his hand so his palm rubbed between my lips. ‘Completely accessible.’
I stood, unsteady on my wide-planted feet, so very, very close to releasing myself from my position and jumping back, hands crossed over my skirts.
But I didn’t stop him. I didn’t move. I let the situation cloak me, cover my natural reluctance and bring out the enormous erotic charge of it.
‘We’re among friends, Lulu,’ he whispered, so that O couldn’t hear. ‘Be brave.’
I shut my eyes and felt it all. The wetness and heat of my sex as Joss manipulated it in this basement room in front of a stranger. The dress, a kind of enchanted thing, making my body feel twice as full and ripe and rich with wanton desires. My nipples, out on show, begging to be touched.
Joss used his other hand to stroke them, first one, then the other, while he continued to probe the soaked folds below.
I wanted to buck, to moan, to fall into him, but I maintained my stance.
‘What a treat for a little submissive,’ purred O. ‘To be pleasured by her master in the presence of another. Oh, you lucky, lucky little slut.’
‘I think she might come very soon,’ said Joss.
He was right. Everything was tensing and shutting up, ready for the gush.
He took his hands off me and smacked my thigh.
‘But that’s not allowed. Not until later. Come on. Let’s go upstairs and sort out the hair and make-up.’
I was still half-drugged with frustrated desire as he clapped a hand on my shoulder and steered me out of the room, O at our side. I could barely take in the surroundings or the stairs or the people who passed us on them. All I could think of was how cruelly my climax had been taken from me.
But this was submission. I was voluntarily subordinating my own desires to his. I had known the score all along. I couldn’t complain about it now.
* * *
O piled my hair into a tumbling French knot, praising me all the time, while Joss watched from the bed.
‘How long have you and his lordship been together?’ she asked me.
‘A year,’ Joss interrupted swiftly before I could answer.
‘He’s training you very well,’ she said. ‘You’re wonderfully obedient. Mal will be trying to make bargains with you, my lord. I’m sure he’ll think Lucy here would make a nice little addition to our stable.’