No Greater Pleasure Read online

  She lifted her chin, allowing herself anger. “If I have failed you, it’s because you’ve thwarted me at every turn. It’s because you find more comfort in your misery than you do from anything else!”

  She did not see the back of his hand, but even if she had, she wouldn’t have ducked it. His slap caught her full on the face and sent her staggering, then to her knees in front of him, holding her stinging cheek. Tears blurred her vision.

  “That is your place,” Gabriel said. “On your knees.”

  She tried to Wait, and could not do it. True patience failed her. Her heart remained selfish. The thorns had become too sharp for her to appreciate the beauty of the flower.

  “I am your Handmaiden. I am your solace and”—her voice faltered, but she kept on—“your comfort. I am what you need before you know you need it.”

  Gabriel put his hand to his crotch and rubbed himself without evident pleasure. “And if I need your mouth upon me?”

  She rose higher on her knees and reached without hesitation toward him, but her fingers stopped a breath from touching him. She looked up at him, unsure if she would find her voice until she actually spoke.

  “No.”

  “No?” His hand snaked out and grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling her upright. He shook her as a mother dog shakes its naughty pups. “You tell me no?”

  She put her hand over his to lessen the pain of his grasp, but did not otherwise try to get away. “I say no!”

  Gabriel pushed her down and took several steps back, away from her. “Get back on your knees.”

  She looked at him, her equilibrium shattered, self-confidence gone, her world tilted on its axis and spinning too fast. Years of training no longer mattered.

  “I will not.”

  “What’s the matter, Handmaiden? Have you forgotten your purpose and your place? You’ve been on your knees for me before.”

  She had, but not for this reason. Not for her humiliation.

  “You need not do this.”

  “And do you not understand, it has nothing to do with need, and everything to do with want! Are you not here to fulfill my every desire? Now, I tell you again, get on your knees.”

  She looked up at him and shook her head. “No, Gabriel.”

  This time, she brought up her own hand when his came down, and hers blocked the blow. The force of it reverberated down her arm, but she kept steady.

  “Submissive does not mean without defense,” Quilla said.

  Something indefinable glittered in his gaze. “Have you found your limits, Quilla Caden?”

  She did not answer, and after a moment he took his hand away. “I am not asking you to do anything you have not done before, and eagerly.”

  Still, she said nothing, and Gabriel stared at her. His gaze raked her from head to foot. “What sort of Handmaiden does not do her master’s bidding?”

  Quilla put her hand over her heart, which had physically begun to hurt. Now her silence was from inability to form words, rather than pointed refusal. She could not speak. She could not breathe. His words, the name he’d called her, hurt worse than his slap.

  He laughed without joy, his smile cruel and unflattering. He was again the man she had first met surrounded by gloom and the acrid stink of chemicals. Tears fell faster for what had been lost.

  “What sort?” He paused, contempt on his face making her cringe but not step away. “One who has failed.”

  Failed.

  Before she could say anything, had she words to speak, Gabriel leaned in close. Like a lover stealing a kiss he put his mouth to her ear. His breath caressed the side of her face; the brief, hot moistness of his lips brushed her earlobe.

  “If you will not get on your knees to suck my cock, then you will surely get on your knees to crawl for me.”

  She did not immediately obey. His hand on her shoulder pushed her toward the floor, and she ended up on her hands and knees. The bare wooden floor scraped her palms. A splinter gouged her, bringing blood to the wound not healed. He walked back, away from her.

  “Crawl for me,” Gabriel said. “You told me once you had never tested your limits. I would test them, now.”

  Trembling, Quilla put her forehead to the floor, hands by the side of her head, palms up. He had seen her Wait in Readiness, and in Remorse, and in Submission. Now she Waited in the fourth position, one she had never used. Abasement.

  “I plead your mercy, my lord—”

  “I said crawl !”

  The fury in his voice spurred her forward. Her gown tangled around her legs, making her lurch forward. Somehow that lack of grace made it worse, as though humiliation could be made worse by clumsiness.

  “Let me see those lovely legs. Lift your skirt.”

  She did, hiking up the length of material around her waist with one hand while she moved forward on the other. Now her knees scraped the floor, and that small sting was made tenfold worse by Gabriel’s laughter. She moved forward again at his demand, her stomach twisting in her gut. But she did it, perhaps helpless to not do it, and not because she was his Handmaiden.

  Because she loved him.

  “That’s it,” she heard him say. “Crawl for me.”

  She shook so fiercely she bit her tongue and tasted blood. That metallic ocean again—it made her stop. She turned her head to look at him.

  And then she got to her feet. Her dress fell back to her feet, the hem sweeping the dirty floor. She looked at her scraped and filthy palms, then up at him.

  “Get back on your knees,” Gabriel said. “For one task or another.”

  She shook her head. Her heart seemed to turn inside her chest, the pain of it sharp, like a knife. “No.”

  “No?” His voice had gone soft. Dangerous. His fingers tugged his belt from the loops, and he wrapped the buckle end of it around his palm. “You still tell me no?”

  She stared at him unflinching, though every inch of her felt as though she was shaking out of control. “I will not do this.”

  Gabriel slid the end of the belt through his hands, drawing it between them. “What of your purpose and your place? What of your duty, Handmaiden?”

  He sneered. This was not the man she loved. This was a monster. She sought any sign of the man she loved, but found none. Only a grief-twisted monster, and though she knew she ought to find pity for him, create excuses, there were none to be had.

  “You have failed in them.”

  She lifted her chin, facing him without tears. “ ’Tis my purpose and my place to bring you solace. To make you happy. What you are asking is not to do either, but instead to bring me misery.”

  A terrible smile turned his mouth ugly. “Perhaps ’tis your misery that will bring me solace.”

  She swallowed against a parched throat. “I am your Handmaiden. Not your whore, or your whipping boy. If I have failed—”

  “You have brought me nothing but misery!” he yelled. The belt snapped taut again between his hands. “And I would appease mine own through watching yours, but you refuse me even that!”

  He had broken her. She heard her own voice, coming as though from another throat, something far away and without emotion.

  “If I no longer please you, then release me.”

  “You will not do what I ask?” A hint of incredulity had found its way into his voice at last, and the belt slackened in his grip. “You will still refuse me? You will choose failure over pleasing me?”

  “If I no longer please you,” Quilla repeated, “then you may release me. You know how it must be done.”

  “And if I do not wish to release you?”

  She stared at him steadily, though her mind had gone as far away as her voice and she did not really see him. “If I no longer—”

  “Shut up!” The whistle of the belt striking the back of the chair emphasized his cry. “You’re not some bloody key-wound doll!”

  She said nothing, her spine straight, though everything inside her felt twisted. The landscape of her emotion had become a barren wastela