Pleasure and Purpose Read online

  He gave her no warning before he laid the first stripes across her shoulders. Pain bloomed like some dark flower, spreading out from the point of contact and through the rest of her body. By the time it reached her quim, the sting had become sweetness. She drew in a breath, "One, sir," and he struck her again. Aflogger, she thought as her flesh welted. Wielded with a masterful hand, the second stripes laid below the first, two, sir.

  "She takes it without a shout." Cillian's murmur tickled her ears, though he was out of her range of vision. "Make her cry out."

  "In good time."

  She braced unconsciously for the third strike, and it stung all the more for that tightening of her muscles. Not enough to loose more than a whimper from her throat. It was exquisite. Her clit pulsed and her hips moved forward of their own, seeking and not finding something against which to rub her swollen flesh.

  The flogger fell again and again until her entire back was on fire. She hadn't moved her fingers. She counted each one aloud. By the time he reached ten she was sobbing the words. He'd stopped before reaching her tender buttocks.

  "She's not even close to having enough," said Cillian authoritatively. "Edward. She can take more."

  She felt heat on her already burning skin, and a hand slid between her legs from behind. She moaned, pushing back against it. Fingers stroked her, found the bead of her clit and pinched it gently so her entire body jumped. Breath caressed her cheek.

  "This arouses you," Edward whispered. "You are so wet, I could slide inside you without any effort, all the way to your womb."

  He demonstrated with his fingers, thrusting gently in and out. Nessa shook in waves of pre-orgasmic pleasure. She would come in another moment, if he moved a finger over the ripe bud of her clitoris, but Edward knew how to hold her off.

  "Cillian thinks you can take more. Can you, Stillness? Can you take more from me?" Eyes closed, she ran her tongue across her lips before answering. ! "I can give you more, Edward."

  Tenderly, he smoothed her hair and rearranged it so the heavy I braid hung over her shoulder and across her breasts. Then he moved away from her, and chill air replaced the warmth of his ; breath.

  She did cry out at the next blow; her body had had time to acclimate to the pain it had already absorbed. This fresh insult over-r top the previous stripes was more excruciating and all the more E exquisite for it. She tasted the tang of salt, tears and sweat, and pain !

  exploded on her back and ecstasy burst inside her womb as he laid j another series of stripes over the first.

  Oblivion beckoned, and she embraced the stillness for which she'd been so appropriately named. Everything went away but for the hiss of leather in the air, the slap of it on her skin, the smooth workings of her inner muscles as her body responded. She heard Edward's grunt, and Cillian's low murmurs of approval. She heard them talking about her, admiring, praising, two voices rising and falling as the crop rose and fell, but she didn't pay attention to what they said. She was aware she counted, as she'd been ordered, but couldn't be sure if her voice cracked or whispered, only that each time a new line of pain seared her, she saw Edward's face.

  Her orgasm surged and retreated, flaring with every strike. Her fingers didn't move. She was coming, over and over, deep in that place where everything had become pleasure, r She heard the low rumble of laughter, sated, and smelled the l musky scent of semen. Not Edward. Cillian, then, had finished, and she moaned, waiting for Edward to fill her as heel promised to I do.

  "You've beaten the breath fair out of her." Cillian sounded amused. "Fuck the cunna before she passes out, Edward—"

  And then it all went bad.

  This time the crack of leather on flesh didn't result in pain. The cry wasn't hers. Edward shouted something, voice tight with fury, and Cillian replied. Stillness heard the crunch of fists on bodies, and she whirled in alarm.

  Edward, bare chest agleam with the sweat of his exertions, had knocked Cillian to the floor. He'd fisted his hand in the other man's collar, holding him still while he punched at his face. Bright blood streamed from the prince's lip, and she saw the red slash of a flogger's kiss on his cheek.

  "Edward!" she cried.

  He didn't turn. Cillian, quite capable of defending himself, yanked Edward down with a calculated move. The men, punching and shouting, rolled on the floor. She thought they might be trying to kill each other

  "It's your breath that should be stoppered, you foul-mouthed prick!" Edward shouted, punching. "You won't speak of her that way!

  Cillian wasted none of his apparently ill-deserved breath in insults. He dodged Edward's punches and landed a few of his own. Stillness shouted at them both again, but neither paid her any mind. Leaving the fracas, she went to Edward's privy chamber and brought a basin of water, which she threw over both of them.

  They flew apart, cursing and dripping. She tossed the basin to the floor, where it clattered loudly. Then the world tilted a bit again, and she reached for the support of the back of Edward's chair.

  Both men got to their feet, glaring, fists clenched, but well apart from one another. Cillian drew the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing crimson upon his lips like an overabundant application of cosmetic. "Your mercy, Edward. I didn't know—" But Edward wasn't appeased. "No more, Cillian! No more of this! No more serving you, no more pandering, no more living my life beneath the shadow! I won't have it!"

  "I never asked it of you!" Cillian's cry was sharp as a blade. "I only ever wanted your companionship, Edward, for things to be the way they were before—"

  "They can never be! Don't you understand? We can't go back! And I won't go on with this lie, yielding to your whims, doing whatever pleases you out of fear!" "I don't want you to be afraid of me!" In the silence left behind after the shout, the sound of dripping water seemed very loud. "I never did. It was my father who bade you attend me, my father who threatened you. I lied for you, Edward, because you were the brother of my heart, and I loved you. And you have ever hated me since."

  Stillness didn't know what to do. She looked from the prince to her patron and back again, but Edward's fierce pose prevented her from going to him. Wherever he was, it was a place she couldn't go.

  Cillian reached a hand toward him, but Edward turned away Cillian turned toward Stillness, his vivid green gaze bloodshot. The blood from his mouth had drawn a line down his throat and stained the pristine collar of his fine shirt. The welt on his cheek was already going purple.

  "Your mercy lady," said Cillian. "Serve him well, for he is in sore need of what you are bound to provide."

  Helplessly, Stillness watched as Cillian left the room, not looking back. Edward's shoulders hunched, and she watched, horrified, as he went to his knees, head cradled in his hands, and began to weep.

  She went to him, and took him to her bosom, heedless of the agony in her back when he clutched her with the desperation of a man who has no hope of ever finding peace.

  "Hush," she soothed, stroking his hair over and over. "It will be all right." We were boys," Edward told her as they lay together in his bed. "Alaric and I the sons of merchants aspiring to nobility and friends since boyhood, but Cillian, of course, the son of a king. I saw Cillian right away, for how could anyone miss him. That hair, the swagger, his sense of innate right to the best of everything." Edward smiled at the memory. "He was instantly loathed by most of the other lads, though none dared balk him. There were other rich boys there, but no other princes. He had many admirers."

  "But no friends," she murmured. "Until you."

  "The day I found him as part of a group teasing Alaric about the shabby condition of his best cloak, I punched him in the face for being a snotty bastard." Her chuckle sent warm breath over him. "And that's how you became friends?"

  "Nobody had dared stand up to him before that. At any rate, the day I bloodied his nose, Cillian declared me his boon companion, along with Alaric. And the three of us discovered we had much in common besides our nationality."

  "Your inclin