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punishment.”
    “No, no—I don’t want to damage you.” His hands wandered along the curve of her hips to her waist, then up along her sides to the splayed swell of her breasts, flattened against the mattress. Everywhere he touched, he kindled shivers of delight. He had to lean over her to reach that sensitive spot and the wool of his trousers stung her abraded skin. Awkward, constrained by her bonds, she rubbed against the hard bulk prodding her buttocks. His sigh of pleasure only added to the heat building between her thighs. More of his weight settled upon her back. If only he were naked!
    “Miss Alcott, I’d love to thrash your delectable ass until it’s twice as red as it is now. But it’s too much—much too much for the first time.”
    “I deserve it, sir—ah!” He had wormed his hand beneath her body to capture her swollen nipple in the pincer of his fingers. “Oh!” He ran his tongue down her spine to leave a wet, tingling trail. “And—ah—oh, sir!” He’d pulled back far enough to slide a finger into her soaked depths. Although he kept well away from her clit, the stimulation still had her teetering on the edge of climax. “I—oh!—I can handle it, sir. It’s not my first time.”
    The admission tumbled out before she could stop herself.
    “What? What do you mean?” His growl suggested anger, but his fingers continued their slippery dance among her folds. She fought the waves of release threatening to engulf her, struggling for clarity and control. Men were so possessive. How could she explain that Dmitri was long gone, that now, tonight, she belonged solely to Andrew?
    “In Paris—I had a lover, a master—oh, please, don’t stop…”
    He’d pulled his hand abruptly out of her weeping pussy. The sense of loss was devastating.
    “I’ll do what I want. Go on, slut, tell me more.”
    She squirmed against the ropes that kept her from touching him. Their welcome bite helped her to focus.
    “He was a poet. Russian. He knew—knew me in a way I’d never experienced. I didn’t understand at the beginning, but he showed me, taught me…”
    “I knew it, damn it all! I felt it, the first time I saw you.” Tears welled in her eyes at his harsh tone. “Did he whip you, this master of yours?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Cane you?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Torture your nipples? Gag and blind you? Suspend you from the ceiling? Stuff his fist into your anus? Mark you with his blade?”
    Shame flooded through her at this litany of sins. Even Andrew MacIntyre was appalled by her secret desires.
    He grabbed her rear cheeks and pulled them apart, as if to inspect her most private parts. Her juices painted the insides of her thighs, clear evidence of her perverse excitement. His nails dug into the welts he’d inflicted. Sweet torment winged through her helpless body.
    “Speak up, slave. I want an answer. Which of these obscene things did your so-called master do to you?”
    Olivia fought a paralysing sense of humiliation, unable to reply. “All of them, sir,” she whispered finally, terrified of his reaction but compelled by the force of his will. “All of them, and more.”
    Andrew abruptly released his hold on her, backing away so that she could no longer sense his heat. Was he leaving, abandoning her in this compromising and uncomfortable position? Had he gone for his knife, to cut her free and dismiss her? She craned her neck, but he was out of her line of sight. She heard quiet rustling as he moved about the enormous room. Was he retrieving an even more painful instrument with which to punish her?
    “Sir?” she ventured, well aware that slaves were not supposed to speak unless specifically instructed to do so. The quaver in her voice revealed her desperate need. She didn’t care. “Please, sir… I’m sorry…” There was no answer.
    Her heart spiralled down into a pit of gloom. A vision of her future stretched before her, bleak, sterile and unsatisfying. She recalled her despair when