My body belonged to me once. Not anymore.
He planned this before I even knew his name. He made the life I’ve always known vanish as if it never existed, and now I’m his helpless captive, forced to play my part in his sadistic fantasy.
It could have been a fairytale… A wealthy, handsome Duke sweeps a poor orphan girl from America off her feet and brings her to a beautiful estate hidden away in the English countryside.
But this isn’t the Victorian era, and I’m not Richard Payne’s bride or his guest. I’m his prisoner.
I know it is all a sick, twisted game. But what I know doesn’t matter. My delusions will be cured by pain and punishment and nothing will stop him from using me as shamefully as he pleases.
I’m his ward now. Perhaps one day soon he’ll have made me forget I was ever anything else…
Author: Zoe Blake
eBook Price: Kindle Unlimited/$4.95
Length: 57,300 words
Excerpt
“Elizabeth, you are my ward and under my protection. As you are now in my custody, I determine where you reside and I have decided the only appropriate place for you is at my estate in Wolverhampton.”
“Lizzie! My name is Lizzie Larkin. Stop calling me Elizabeth. And I’m not your ward, or whatever you called it. I’m a grown woman!”
“Your name is Lady Elizabeth Adelaide Fitzhubert Childes Larkin. Your family’s estate borders one of my own in Staffordshire. Upon your parents’ demise, you became my legal ward, subject to my complete authority.”
“This is insane! I want to get out of this thing! Now!” Diving for the brass handle of the carriage, it easily swung open. I caught a glimpse of a rough stone gravel road racing by right before I prepared to jump.
A strong arm wrapped around my waist and hauled me back inside. The air rushed out of my body as my stomach made contact with his hard thigh. To my complete humiliation, he had dragged me face down over his lap. I felt a cold rush of air as he flipped the opera coat to one side, exposing my bare ass. Goosebumps raised on my flesh, as his possible intentions dawned on me.
“What are you doing?” I screeched. “Let me go!”
“Giving you your first lesson in obedience as my ward,” he ground out.
His flat palm came down on my ass with brutal accuracy. My mouth dropped open. For the barest of moments, I was too shocked to even feel pain but then it came in a hot burning wave. Despite my cries, he didn’t stop. He spanked my other cheek, then returned to the first. It was a strange sensation to have my skin feel both chilled and hot at the same time. He was relentless. Hot pulses of prickling pain radiating from my upper thighs to my lower back. I was certain I wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week.
Just when I thought the punishment was over, I was thrown onto the soft leather bench on the other side of the carriage. Richard’s knee came down on the side of my hip while his other knee pressed in between my legs. The slim protection of his opera coat was gone as it lay twisted beneath me.
My eyes widened in horror as Richard shrugged out of his jacket and loosened the cravat at his throat. His hands then went down to the fastening of his trousers.
“I’ll scream again!” I warned.
“None of my servants would dare come to your aid,” he growled.
His cock sprang free and I couldn’t suppress a whimper. It was a massive, pulsing thing that intimidated me as much as the man who held it within his grasp.
Richard reached for my exposed breast and pinched my erect nipple. Biting my lip, I tried not to cry out.
“When I dropped you off at that asylum, the doctors warned me that often hysteria in young women was brought on by sinful thoughts and deeds.”
“You were the one who put me in that terrifying place?”
I couldn’t deal with what was happening now as well as process what had happened earlier. It was all too much. One moment I was at the cast party, the next I’m in some sick asylum being tortured and now it was almost as if I had been thrust back in time to the Victorian era. It was complete madness. This was all some sick dream, a nightmare. Soon I would wake up in my own bed. Please god, let me just wake up!
“It was for your own good but now I see you need a stronger hand. A man’s hand.”
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