The Plume: The Second Anthology by Ella Ardent Read Free Book Online

do
so.”
    “I never deny you!”
    “You always deny me.” The Count smiled.
“Worse, you deny me the only thing I’ve ever wanted, and you do so
every single time our paths cross.”
    Athena propped her hands on her hips, looking
skeptical.
    But interested. The Count would take what he
could get.
    “And what is that?”
    “You.” For once, he spoke directly, liking
how Athena flushed at the single word. “Simply you, little dove.”
The Count sipped his drink as she stared at him. “Why else would I
have even come to this place?”
    Athena’s eyes flashed. “You’ll never be
inside me again. I’ve made that mistake once and I won’t...”
    “This isn’t about sex,” the Count said
crisply, interrupting her tirade. “It’s about love.”
    She was startled and hesitated for a moment.
“What do you know about love?”
    He smiled, knowing the expression was rueful.
“More than I expected. Of course, I only realized my mistake once
it was made.”
    “You had to think about it for a long time,”
Athena said tartly. “It’s been fifteen years.”
    “I am not accustomed to asking forgiveness.”
He arched a brow. “You can tell, because I do it so badly.”
    She laughed then, surprised by his remark. He
felt a keen sense of pleasure that he had caught her off-guard.
Then she leaned closer to him, then, her eyes dancing. “I don’t
believe you.”
    The Count caught the back of her neck in his
hand and held her before him, their noses almost touching. He let
his fingers slide into the thick weight of her hair and felt the
softness of her skin beneath his palm. He was so aroused and – for
once – he didn’t hide his thoughts from her.
    And Athena was surprised again. He watched
her gaze rove over his face and knew that she wasn’t as immune to
his touch as she would have preferred.
    “Then I shall have to convince you,” he
murmured, speaking so low that only she would be able to hear
him.
    He bent closer to claim her with a kiss, but
Athena twisted out of his grasp.
    Cheating him of his desire, one more
time.
     
    * * *
     
    The guards were rough, but they didn’t really
hurt Louise. It was all theatrics, which was something she
understood well. No one got hurt at the Plume. Everyone played out
their fantasies. And it all looked so good. She was so excited that
the redhead had fulfilled her dream, even for two hours.
    Maybe she didn’t have to be a member to have
her fantasy come true.
    She let herself pretend that she had been
kidnapped by sex traders. Just the idea made her heart pound. What
would they do to her? What was the cross? She almost couldn’t bear
the uncertainty.
    Although it made her wet and hot.
    The rope binding was rough and the guards had
strong hands. They wore black leather hoods, like executioners,
hoods that had some kind of mesh over the eye holes and the mouth.
Their gloves came up to their elbows and were made of the same
black leather, and their black boots came up to their knees.
    One had fantastic tattoos all over his body –
at least over all of the skin that Louise could see. She would have
loved to have examined the ink more closely, because it looked as
if the same artist had done all of the work. They were simply blue,
without additional colors, several of them tonal portraits. She
wanted to know what all the images meant, why he had chosen them,
what his story was.
    Another had skin tanned gold – or maybe he
was Asian – and had his nipples pierced. The third was just big and
buff.
    If they’d had capes – and if their erections
hadn’t been leading the way – they could have been super-heroes.
Every one of them was built and pumped. They also were shaved to
smooth perfection and Louise thought that more than one of them had
oiled down.
    Their dicks were huge and hard.
    Except for the woman. Louise was titillated
that one of her guards was a woman. She was smaller and finely
built, her breasts bouncing above a black leather corset that
locked around her