Ellora's Cavemen: Tales from the Temple II (11 page)

“You know me, my sweet. Whatever you feel like fixing is fine with me.”

The look she shot him would have melted iron. Without a word, she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.

Jack listened to the sound of rattling pans. What was her problem tonight? He leaned back in his chair, the steamy scene on the computer screen momentarily forgotten.

If only Jessica could be more like the women he wrote about instead of the ones she wrote about. The women in his stories generally had strong, even tough exteriors, but inside just wanted a man to dominate them. While he couched his phrases in flowery-yet-specific terms, to those who understood the D/s lifestyle, there could be no doubt about the author who wrote such strong heroes. Heroes who intuitively knew what their lover wanted and gave it to them—even when the woman was too afraid to ask for herself.

68

Writers Unblocked

But Jessica’s heroines were always strong, independent women who knew what they wanted…and got it. The relationships she detailed were ones of perfect equality where responsibilities were shared and sex was…well…where sex was vanilla.

Ordinary, plain old sex couched in terms so intense as to make her readers blush with a sudden hormonal rush.

He grinned, leaning back in his chair and contemplating his wife’s qualities. Yes, the woman could write, there was no doubt about that. And she did it in her spare time.

Several times he had mentioned her staying home, but she always put him off. Jack dropped the issue, thinking her career as a teacher must give her something that staying home with him wouldn’t. His grin widened, putting deep creases in his cheeks. On occasion, she did take a personal day and stayed home to use him for “research”. He always willingly complied.

But then his smile faded and he sat up.

She had used him for research, but he had never used her. In any sense of the word.

Jessica was the love of his life. How could he ever tell her the demons that hid inside of him? The demons that peeked through his writing, but he was afraid to unleash, lest she turn from him in disgust.

For a moment he stared at the scene on the screen, the words detailing yet another of his fantasies—the heroine bound against her will, the hero winning her over with his ways, the inevitable sex scene where she gave herself to him of her own volition, his desires becoming hers.

Her bound breasts, round and firm in their bindings, excited the beast inside his soul.

Capturing the young London aristocrat had been a rare stroke of good fortune in a season of
despair. Captain John Blakemoore stared at the white skin of the woman bound in sea ropes
before him, her breasts turning pink as he twined the rough rope around them. Her submission
to his will was sweeter than the honey of the tropical bees that formed their golden syrup from
the flowers that thrived on the sun.

Fear glinted in the woman’s eyes—fear and desire mixed. The captain had worked hard on
this conquest, harder than he’d ever worked before. He never cared about a woman’s reasons; her
submission to him was all that mattered. The conquest. Forcing her to admit his domination over
her.

Only this time his heart had gotten involved and now he bound her tightly, tying her bound
hands to the beam overhead, stretching her slender body so that she was forced to her toes.

The glint in her eyes confirmed she was a willing prisoner. Her begging on the deck in port
in front of all the townspeople had been a particularly sweet moment of triumph. She was a
creature of passion as he was and he ached to take her now.

Instead, the torment of her body would take precedence. He would teach her how pain and
pleasure were closely mixed, and how one could easily lead to the other. His fingers reached out
to squeeze a nipple between his thumb and forefinger and the small whimper from her throat
made his cock hard.

69

Diana Hunter

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small set of clamps, designed at his orders and
made by a jeweler in Jamaica. Stretching her nipple taut, he clamped the metal onto her sensitive
little bud, then let go and watched her squirm.

She danced in such a delightful way, tears forming in her beautiful eyes. And yet, she did
not ask to have it removed. Its companion dangled from the other end of the chain and when he
picked it up to attach it to her other nipple, she hesitated only a moment before thrusting her
breast forward and into his hand.

With a grin, he repeated his actions, first stretching the nipple out until she gasped, and
then attaching the clamp and letting her breast fall to bounce off her chest.

“More,” she whispered into his ear when he leaned down to kiss the white sweep of her
stretched arm. Through the sheen of tears, she pleaded her submission. “Let me give all of myself
to you, John Blakemoore. Let me surrender to your will.”

No. His beautiful wife would never submit. Jessica would leave him instead. With a muttered curse, Jack Blackburn shut down the program and stalked out of the room.

* * * * *

“Oh, Andi, I get so tired of trying. Why bother anymore?” With the receiver crammed between her ear and her shoulder, Jessica busied herself about the house, dusting and straightening as she went. These Saturday no-mind jobs, as she referred to housework, relaxed her and gave her a chance to think. Usually she mulled over some thorny story problem, but today, her sexual frustration was the only thing on her mind.

And when Andi called, that frustration spilled out onto her best friend.

“Well, it’s affecting my work… Do you know, I actually wrote a scene today that…”

Her voice trailed off. No, she could not even tell her best friend her fantasies. Even as she wrote the pages this morning, her cheeks burned with shame and humiliation. How could she want to be treated this way?

“Never mind, it wasn’t well-written anyway.” She sighed as she dusted a photo of her husband. Jack grinned that rakish grin of his, his arm around her shoulders in a protective embrace. She remembered that moment. Jack had received a book award and the two of them attended the ceremony. As they were leaving, a fan came up to her and had been rather pushy about getting an autograph. His eyes, however, had not been on her face. Instead, he had leered at her breasts, the tops of which showed in the scarlet slinky dress Jack had purchased for her. The nakedness of her cleavage made her uncomfortable, yet Jessica wore it to please him. Only recently had she begun to recognize her giving in as an indication of her submissive tendencies and it still confused her.

Jack had put his arm around her, drawing her close, and she had seen a flash of anger in his eyes. It had surprised her; she had never seen him angry. In fact, it was the 70

Writers Unblocked

only time she had ever seen such a strong emotion from him. But the photographers were there and by the time they were in the hired limo, his demeanor was placid once more.

“No, never mind, Andi. I’m just being cranky, that’s all. Seriously. I just need a good fucking, that’s all.” She laughed, shocked at her own use of language. “I know, too much information.”

She set the picture down, free of dust, and moved on. The conversation also moved to safer topics and Jessica felt as if she had dodged a bullet. It was hard enough admitting these feelings to herself. How could she ever admit them to anyone else?

Only later, sitting at her computer once more and reading over the graphic scene she had written, did Jessica finally confront what she had spent years running away from. As an independent, woman who made a good living for herself and her husband, she was a thoroughly modern American Woman; but just under the surface lurked another woman. That was the woman who wanted to submit, who wanted to be taken care of, who wanted to live on the edge of virtual slavery. While she didn’t take care of the money, Jessica felt it was important for her to provide her share. Thus, she worked as an English teacher at the local high school, even though she’d much rather stay home and write full-time like he did. So why would a woman who rarely gave in and who was in total control of herself want exactly the opposite when it came to the bedroom? It didn’t make sense.

Or did it? Wasn’t the giving up of control in essence, also the giving up of responsibility? She controlled every aspect of her life, from what to have for dinner to what book she would write next. She did the lion’s share of the housework although Jack had his set of chores as well. Outside was his responsibility; inside was hers. An equal sharing of household management. These duties she did not want to shirk.

Indeed, she enjoyed most of them.

So what was it? Why had her dreams always been haunted by men who persisted when she said no? Why had she come so hard yesterday afternoon when she imagined him flogging her? Why was she now so aroused at the scene she wrote this morning?

With an oath, Jessica closed the scene on her laptop and dumped the file into the computer’s trash bin. She could never show that to anyone. Jack put her on a pedestal.

He loved her deeply and he would never, ever consent to what he would see as a brutal attack on his own wife. This was just something she would have to accept. Determined to quell those desires once and for all, she pushed herself away from the screen and went to find the mop. Didn’t matter that she just mopped the kitchen earlier in the day, she was sure it needed it again.

* * * * *

71

Diana Hunter

For several moments, Jack stared at the strange file that suddenly appeared in the folder he and Jessica shared. While they each used their own computers, the two were networked and information they both needed to access was kept in this shared folder.

But the one labeled, “Jessamyn’s Submission” did not sound like a document the two of them would both need. Obviously it was a story Jessica was working on, but why had she put it here?

He shrugged. She had never asked his opinion on anything she had written in the past, but they often discussed points that gave them trouble. Must be she was having difficulties with this piece. Determined to be helpful, he double-clicked and opened the document.

What was there about this pirate captain that stole her heart so? Captured on her way to
meet her fiancé, why had she chosen him? His oversized white shirt hung in graceful folds from
massive shoulders bronzed by years of seasons in the southern sun. In his callused hands, he
caressed the leather of a many-thonged flogger in the same manner his fingers caressed her skin
the first time he took her.

A taking? No. A giving. Lady Jessamyn turned her back on her London upbringing and
gave herself to this captain of a pirate ship. Despite his rough demeanor, his harsh words to her,
his threats; she had seen the vulnerable man underneath…the man who could also love with a
passion deeper than any of those landed London fops could even imagine.

And now she was his. Completely. Stretched naked before him in his cabin, her bound hands
tied to the rough beam overhead, her eyes watched him run the leather straps through his hand as
he surveyed his property.

Property. It was what she was in any case. Whether the property of a fop, or the property of
a pirate captain, who it was that owned her was the only part of her life she could control. And
she had. Her cheeks blushed as she remembered the morning she knelt before him and asked him
to keep her. He told her to beg him in front of the entire crew—and she had. Her humiliation
stripped the pride from her and her arousal caused her cheeks to flush. She became the Captain’s
woman. And she would have it no other way.

Now the flogger fell on her stretched and bound breasts, breasts turned a deep pink from the
constriction of the ropes that encircled them. Her head fell back and her eyes sparkled with the
passion ignited by the sting. Barely able to touch the floor with her toes, she fought to keep herself
still as his blows, some soft and gentle, some hard and stinging, landed on her tender flesh.

He shifted his position now, coming to her side and coloring the skin of her bottom. The heat
rose and she knew her cream flooded the small slit that separated her legs. And when his finger
suddenly plunged into that slit from behind, Jessamyn moaned and pushed herself back, wanting
to feel his touch inside her body.

Jack read the passage through twice, his cock hardening at the image the words provoked. An image not so very different from the one he, himself, had written earlier.

Had Jessica seen that passage? Had she peeked? And what was his sweet little wife 72

Writers Unblocked

doing writing such incredibly violent scenes? Jack read the short page again, too stunned to accept that his wife might have similar desires to his own.

Jessica’s humming came to him through the open doorway and, feeling like a boy with his hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar, Jack clicked the program closed in a hurry. She might have left that in the folder for him to find…or she might not have.

Staring at the now-empty screen, Jack’s analytical mind turned over the problem. If Jess had taken his idea and rewritten it, she would not want him to find it. But what if she had been harboring these feelings of submission for these past two years? Could she have put that there on purpose? Jack’s blood quickened at possibilities too life-changing to contemplate just yet. He needed more information.

Affecting an air of nonchalance, he sauntered out into the living room where she was busy tidying up. Saturdays were housework days, and she had changed her weekday suit for jeans and a simple oxford shirt. All business, Jessica’s hair was pulled back, the red scrunchie a mismatch for her maroon button-down shirt rescued from the back of Jack’s closet. The oversized shirt gaped when she leaned over the low coffee table and Jack grinned when he caught an innocent glimpse of her white breasts hanging free from any confining bra. It was a sight he could look at all day.