Tuition

~Kat~

It took a long moment to realize what had been asked of me.

My chilled fingers curled around the hard length of cane and like my own feeling of dread, it too weighed greatly on me. I could do naught more but stare at it and the tanned hands that left it in my care. My body ached, both the assault from Barton's punishment and now that which I had endured strapped to the table. Stripes of heated flesh reminded me that this mewling aristocrat had added to them, but what had enraged me more was her assumption that I was hers.

My gaze lifted and I knew I was glowering. Thinking logically, I knew that aside from my rather vague working contract in this home, there was nothing tying me here, especially not in the manner of which my work experience here over the last few days had transformed into.

Nothing except him. I didn't need a formal contract, a list of rules, or a safe word like Alice had grumbled about continuously this morning. There was nothing written, nothing spoken and agreed upon, and yet...I knew who he was to me. Even if I wasn't sure I understood it yet. And she – even if she was his sister – was not my mistress.

Even thinking the word made fury spark through me.

Yet still, I could not bring myself to move. My eyes met hers, ball-gagged and arse-flashing pearly white beneath black leather, she looked pathetic even as she tainted the room with her venom, daring me to strike and then suffer the consequences once she was free. It was not fear of retribution that stayed my hand though. Nay...It was a thought; an epiphany of pure viciousness that I should even have been ashamed to admit was conjured by my mind. And yet I smiled all the same.

I recalled Wren's conversation with the Earl, word for word as I tentatively took a step closer, a small blush stole over my bare flesh as my heels clicked on the smooth floor and the movement drew the guest's eyes to me. I tried to recall his words to me, and satisfied that when he had handed me the cane he had not specifically asked me to use it, I leant it against the table and faced her from the other side of the cross.

She was quite simply furious. Her face sported a rather fetching panda-look; beads of perspiration dotted her forehead and caused her hair to sick to her skin unattractively. I sank to my knees, but not in supplication, for she was the one who was bound and in no way deserving.

"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured. Or in this case, she is to be injured."

With Bailey, it was not her body I would attack. It was her indifference, her contempt I sought to crumple, it was her pride I would injure, and as I let my hands drift beneath the cool beam of wood to pull her hips forward, she soon found I was more determined than her to accomplish my goal and bring her to heel. My nails left half moons on her skin as I dug in and brought her to my mouth. I toyed, languorously teased and retreated as she fought her bonds. The ball gag muffled what I knew were commands, demands, and when I released her mouth from its confinement, I joyously ignored them still. I played with her on my time, listening to the sound of her breathing grow laboured, felt the quickening of her body as I filled her first with one finger and then two and circled her clit with my tongue. I did what the headmistress had done to me, and though that lady had sought to give me pleasure and an ending, I merely tormented. I learnt swiftly what brought her closer and closer, and soon she stopped her struggles, she stopped her commands and began her entreaties, her body pliant as I put my newly learnt skills to use. Wren's words rang in my head and as I left Bailey hanging from that edge once more with my fingers, her vicious tongue now begging mine to continue.

"Make me come..." She almost whispered.

I let my gaze drift to the Earl over her hip.

How better to destroy her pride, than to be denied.

"Make me come..." She almost whispered.

I let my gaze drift to the Earl over her hip.