Vow of Obedience: Cavalieri Della Morte Read online

  We drive a few miles in silence, then Geraint sees a twenty-four-hour motel and pulls off the interstate again. It’s nearly four in the morning as he checks us into a room and takes the key from the gray-faced desk clerk.

  The carpet in the one room he’s rented is pink, tan, and yellow and clashes horribly with the blue-and-green curtains from a different decade. There’s one double bed. Geraint locks the door behind us and shoves the key into his pocket.

  “Use the bathroom and be quick about it. I’m fucking beat and I’ve got to tie you up before we sleep.” He takes off his jacket and T-shirt and tosses the T-shirt to me. “Sleep in that.”

  I clench the warm fabric in my hands, watching Geraint as he prepares his makeshift bed on the floor. I’ve become so used to seeing Jesus’ emaciated torso on the cross I’ve forgotten men don’t look like that under their clothes. Geraint is filled out with muscles and his flesh is smooth and looks warm to the touch. There’s a thin trail of hair from his navel down into his jeans, and it fascinates me. But even more curious is the silver crucifix on a long chain around his neck. Geraint didn’t strike me as much of a believer.

  He sits down on the floor with his back against the bed and rubs his hand over his face. “Hurry up, Catholic girl. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

  I go into the bathroom and get changed, drink some water, and use the toilet. Geraint’s T-shirt comes down nearly to my knees and is full of his scent. I’m surrounded by him. Locked in by him. There’s nowhere for me to run. No one who’ll have me. Nothing I deserve but the punishment I feel is coming.

  There’s a hammering on the door and I jump. “Get the fuck out here, Branwen, and get to bed.”

  I open the door and scoot past him, doing as I’m told. The room is dim and the only light coming in is through the half-open venetian blinds. Geraint hunkers down beside me on his heels, holding a length of rope.

  “Give me your hands.”

  I study his face as he ties my wrists together, my cheek pressed into the cool pillow. Clear brown eyes, dark hair, bristles on his cheek. His brows are like thick, black calligraphy marks, inked by a monk into a handmade Bible. There were paintings of saints all over the walls at the convent, and I studied them for hours. I envied their peace. Their grace. Without thinking, I reach out and touch Geraint’s lower lip with my forefinger, and it’s as plush and warm as it looks. He’s got that certainty too. He knows exactly what he’s doing and why, and nothing and no one can stop him.

  How does he do that?

  “You’re a funny little thing.” Geraint’s lips move against my finger. He ties the rope to the post beneath the mattress and stands up, staring at me in the gloom. Headlights from a car outside slide across his chest. I’m less than useless to him, and as soon as we arrive in Napa, he’s going to figure that out. If daddy doesn’t kill me, Geraint will.

  “Night night, Catholic girl,” Geraint mutters, and lies down on the floor.

  I stare at the ceiling in the darkness, seeing the severed finger in the fire; Cora lying on the ground, covered in blood. It’s all my fault. My sins have come back to haunt me, and there’s no way I’m getting out of this alive.

  Geraint

  I wake to the sound of weeping.

  For a moment, I don’t know where I am. There are bars of light and shadow on the ceiling, and a musty smell all around me. I’m lying on the carpet. What the fuck?

  Oh yeah. Branwen and I pulled into this cheap motel just outside of Sonora so I could get a couple hours sleep. I glance at the red numbers on the digital clock—five-forty in the morning. Jesus. I’ve only been asleep for an hour and a half.

  I stay where I am and scrub my hands over my face. I don’t want to feel sorry for Branwen. That’ll only make what I have to do that much harder.

  “Branwen,” I say sharply, staring at the ceiling. “Wake up.”

  She gasps awake and her crying stops. But only for a moment, then she’s back at it, the sound muffled in bedclothes. I count to ten and then get to my feet, staring down at her with my hands on my hips. I gave her one of my T-shirts to sleep in and she’s swimming in it. She’s got her face buried in the pillows and her shoulders are heaving.

  “Branwen—”

  She sits up and crawls to the edge of the bed, slipping off the mattress so her knees are on the floor. She rests her weight on her elbows and presses her bound hands together, gulping down her sobs.

  She’s trying to pray. She was praying all those months ago when I found her and she’s still doing it now. If praying was going to fix anything, it would have happened by now. I go over to her, hook an arm around her waist, and haul her up off her knees. I don’t like seeing girls on their knees unless I put them there myself, and I don’t like them crying unless I’m the one to make them do it.

  “Stop fucking doing that.” I sit down on the bed and settle her in my lap. She’s soft and warm and though she struggles weakly, I don’t let go.

  “Baby. You’re going nowhere.”

  She slumps tearfully against me, her breath shuddering. What the fuck did she do? She’s, what, eighteen, nineteen? What could she possibly have done to warrant so many tears?

  It’s a three-day drive to Napa and we’re not going to make it if I don’t get some goddamn rest. I’ve not slept properly since Arthur told me Trefor was dead and I’m running on fumes.

  “You’re trying to find forgiveness but that praying shit doesn’t seem to be helping, does it?”

  Branwen frowns at my blasphemy. Please. As if I’m afraid of damnation. I cup her chin in my fingers. “What is it you people say? Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned? Why don’t you try, ‘Sorry, daddy, I’ve been bad.’”

  Her eyes go round with shock.

  “You heard me. I can give you punishment, baby. I can make you very, very sorry.”

  Branwen, predictably, doesn’t say anything, but she’s gazing at me with mingled curiosity and alarm.

  Slowly, I close my hand around her throat and squeeze. Her pulse pounds beneath my fingers, wild and panicked. I press on the arteries, making the blood rush to her brain. Making it just that little bit harder to breathe.

  “You fucked up, Branwen,” I snarl, my face close to hers. “You fucked up real bad. Everyone’s so disappointed in you.”

  Her eyes fill with pain and tears. I’m breathing life into her worst fears, the cruelest goddamn thing I could do. I know how terrifying I must seem to her, with my hard, angry face and my hand wrapped around her throat. I’m a mean motherfucker at the best of times and I’ve just amped it up to a fifteen. She grasps my wrist with her bound hands, trying to pull it away, but I don’t relent. Not for a second.

  “Everyone is talking about the things you’ve done and they fucking hate you for it. Are you even sorry for it? The people you’ve hurt?”

  She nods emphatically, tears tracking down her face. Her eyes are so earnest and pleading, as if she’s trying to convince herself of this as much as me.

  I narrow my eyes and lean in even closer. “You’re a goddamn liar, Branwen.”

  Without another word, I flip her over so she’s face down in my lap. I know how to make her very, very sorry. I palm her ass with my hand. She’s wearing only white cotton briefs beneath my T-shirt. They’re so fucking cute. I started getting hard as soon as my hand closed around her throat but seeing her soft, plump behind gleaming in the moonlight makes my cock like iron in my jeans.

  Guess I’ll be sleeping later.

  Her skin looks so pale against my rough, tanned hands and I stroke her lovingly. Fuck, she’s soft. I want to continue petting her, maybe roll her briefs up tight into her ass and plant kisses on her powdery skin. The thought of hurting her seems a damned shame.

  For about a second.

  “You’re just so pretty, and I have to make you hurt. I don’t want to, but I’m gonna have to. For your own good.” Branwen’s problem is, she’s been saying over and over that she’s sorry, but before you can be forgiven, you have to
be punished.

  Branwen makes a little whimpering noise and tenses in my lap. I raise my hand and give her a smack, then press my palm over the spot, instantly soothing it. She gasps and wriggles in my arms like I’ve branded her with a red-hot poker.

  Grinning, I hold her firmly until she settles. What a little baby. I hardly touched her.

  A minute later, I spank her again, harder this time and just enough to raise a red mark on her skin, then stroke the spot. Oh, but that does look pretty. It’s still barely anything but Branwen is fighting to get away. You’d think I was beating her with a cane on wet skin the way she’s acting. I grab her and pin her in place and I can feel her chest heaving against my thigh.

  “I’m being so gentle with you and you’re still flinching like a baby. Hold the fuck still.” When she doesn’t respond, I give her a little shake. “Is that a, ‘Yes, daddy’? Do I have to say that for you too? You fucked up, baby, so now you have to be punished. That’s how it works.”

  She doesn’t answer. I grab a fistful of her hair, gripping tightly and she makes a little mewling noise. “I asked you a question. If you take your punishment like a good girl, daddy will forgive you, no matter what you’ve done. Do you want that?”

  Finally, she gets it. I’m offering her the holy grail, and she believes I can do it because I’m bigger and scarier than anything or anyone she’s ever known before. In this moment, I’m as powerful as her so-called God. Branwen nods, as much as she can while I’m holding her hair. I let go of her completely—her hair, the arm I have clamped around her hips—and she stays right where she is, splayed across my lap.

  “Good girl,” I murmur, slipping a finger into the elastic of her underwear and easing it up to expose her ass, first one cheek, then the other. “Now I can get started.”

  I can tell she’s never had anything like this done before. She’s terrified of every smack, her hands clenched on the blankets, but stubbornly refuses to let out even a squeak of pain. I’m gentle at first, slow deliberate smacks, watching her flesh quiver. Then I amp it up, spanking her harder, making it burn, and the heat and pain work their magic on her.

  She starts to sob, broken. Pitiful. Giving in to it. “Good girl. Let it all out.”

  I don’t know what she’s done but it doesn’t matter to me. Branwen’s melting over my knee and it’s so fucking perfect. I suppose I should feel bad about getting off on this. Her tears. Her pain. But they’re just so beautiful. Especially her tears. There’s just something so perfect about seeing a pretty girl cry. Making her cry. And then kissing it all better again.

  “You fucked up, baby, and this is your punishment.” I tell her this as I hit her, harder and harder. But she’s not wriggling now. Her hands are loose on the covers and her tears are a slow trickle. She doesn’t need to say it. I can see the words in every line of her body. Yes, daddy. Sorry, daddy. I deserve whatever you give me, daddy.

  Powerful pleasure surges through me. Yes, you fucking do, little girl.

  Her thighs have parted and I can see a clinging wet patch over her pussy. I stop spanking her and gaze at her for several minutes, loving the sight of her. I could help her up now, get a cool washcloth from the bathroom, and bathe her face. Tell her she’s a good girl. Tell her she’s forgiven, and then we could both get some rest.

  But suddenly, I’m not at all sleepy.

  With two gentle fingers, I rub the wet spot on her underwear in circles. She’s so fucking slippery beneath. I imagine it so clearly, sinking three knuckles deep into her pussy and finger-fucking her hard.

  “Did you take a vow of chastity too, baby? Did you decide to keep that sweet little pussy all to yourself?”

  Her thighs quiver, but for a very different reason than before. I’m slow about it, getting my fingers beneath the elastic of her underwear and rubbing gently through her folds. I can practically feel her pulse beating against my hand. When I find her clit, she almost forgets her vow of silence and moans, before choking it off quickly.

  “There’s a good girl,” I whisper, rubbing on her clit, bestowing sweetness now. “You took your punishment so well.”

  I watch her as I rub her in firm, fast circles. I’m not giving her a chance to think, only feel. She’s too fucking sweet to be praying and crying all the time, not unless I’m the one making her cry. Even then, she should do it like this, over my knee where I can keep an eye on her. Not alone in the dark, on a cold, stone floor. She’s not made for a nunnery. She’s made for this, to be someone’s sweet little girl he can punish and cherish and turn into a panting, sobbing, sorry puddle of need whenever he likes.

  I spread her legs wider and pull her underwear aside so I can get a better look at her. So sweet and pretty and untouched. Mine to do with as I want. It doesn’t take much to make her come, just a few minutes working her clit, never letting up for a second. Telling her what a good girl she’s being. All that heat from the spanking is centered in her core and making her so deliciously sensitive. I want this from her so badly, as much as I want her tears. As she climaxes, I watch her flesh quiver and clench and I find I’m breathing almost as hard as she is.

  She’s still and silent after her orgasm. Spent, in the most beautiful way possible. But there’s one more thing I need to do, and I need to do it now, while she’s still vulnerable.

  I take my hands away and growl, “Get on your fucking knees.”

  She scrambles off my lap and down onto the floor between my parted legs, looking up at me with huge eyes, her lips parted with alarm and her expression tinged with fear again. I could almost come she looks so perfect.

  I lean down close to her and say, “You did a bad thing, baby.”

  She sucks her lower lip into her mouth, and I see it at last. True repentance. She knows what she did and she’s truly sorry. What a little lamb I’m going to make of her, the perfect tool to bring her father down.

  “A bad, bad thing.” I stroke my fingers down her cheek, my touch possessive and benevolent. “But daddy forgives you.”

  Branwen

  Daddy forgives you.

  For five months, I’ve been chasing forgiveness like a dream and never caught up to it. Never felt like I would atone. But now as I look up into Geraint’s face, I can feel it washing over me.

  He forgives me.

  Tears pool in my eyes as bliss rocks through me. It’s like golden, holy light, bestowed on me by a heavenly creature. Geraint’s fingers are cupping my chin and I angle my head until his fingers brush against my mouth. The two fingers that touched me so lovingly between my legs. I take them into my mouth and suck them, slowly, my eyes locked on his. I curl my tongue around them and rub the pads of his fingers.

  I waited for him so long, and he found me. He is my savior. His fingers in my mouth are like the communion wafer, except Geraint doesn’t dissolve away to nothing. I want to stay here forever. I want him to keep doing this to me, punishing me and forgiving me until I really, really believe it, deep in my core. I want him to burn away all my wrongdoings. For him to be bigger, stronger, and more terrifying than everything I’ve done.

  I need him to do that for me. I need it so badly.

  As he watches me suck his fingers, his eyes darken and his lips part in fascination. Does he like that? A hot, electric feeling rushes through me at the thought that I might be pleasing him. I want him to know how grateful I am. I can’t say the words but I speak them hard with my eyes as I gaze up at him.

  Thank you, daddy.

  I can see how his eyes have slipped from his fingers in my mouth to my breasts. The T-shirt he gave me to wear is soft and thin and it’s rubbing against my hard, sensitized nipples.

  Geraint’s legs tighten around me, and he reaches down to me with large, strong hands, and pulls me up against him.

  Geraint

  I lay her back on the bed and untie her wrists. “You don’t need to be tied up right now, do you, baby?”

  She shakes her head, her gaze locked on mine. Having power over someone is easy. You just
have to figure out what they want most in the world and then make them believe you’re the only one who can give it to them.

  I push my T-shirt up her body and my breath catches as I get a look at her breasts. Full, sweet, and round, with dusky nipples as tight as rosebuds. I suck one into my mouth, watching as her mouth opens in shock and pleasure. Her hands are gripping the sheets and one by one, I pick them up and place them on my shoulders.

  She needs to learn how to touch me too.

  I kiss down her belly, feeling her eyes on me as I go. Her underwear needs to come off this time. As I pull them down her legs, I take a good look at her pretty pink pussy, anticipating what it’s going to feel like against my tongue when I claim it as mine.

  Branwen spreads her thighs for me and I can’t help but smile. She wants me to claim her so badly. My tongue finds her clit and she’s so fucking sweet. Her hips rock against my mouth as I lick her—needy little movements from a needy little baby.

  I ease a finger inside her pussy and she’s as tight and scared as a virgin. I won’t go deep. I’ll fuck her so I can tell her daddy how I deflowered his precious daughter right before I kill him, but not tonight. I lick lovingly around my finger lodged inside her and then up to her clit again, and pulse slowly in and out of her. A promise of what it’s going to feel like when it’s my cock, not my finger.

  “Are you going to do what I say on this trip? Exactly what I say? I don’t want to have to hurt you, babygirl, but I will if I have to.”

  She nods quickly, whimpering.

  “Everything I say, even if you don’t understand or like it?”

  She nods again, and I put my tongue back on her clit. Girls taste so much better when they’re being good. Her thighs are quivering by my ears and I know she’s getting real close. I wonder if she’s even come before tonight. Good little Catholic girls are probably told they’ll burn if they ring the devil’s doorbell.