Chandelier (Tarnished Crowns Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Silence hovers over the island.

  Voigt and the sisters have long since gone, departing fairly early, all smiles and half plans to meet again during the day to sail together. I knew those plans well; ones that wouldn’t be fulfilled because no one was really that enthusiastic.

  My bed is softer than normal and my head is clear. The orgasm that Ben fingered out of me made alcohol redundant and I reverted to water, needing to focus on something other than telling the world what he’d just done.

  The air conditioning is off; the balcony doors wide open and a gentle, cool breeze swoops through the room. I lie naked on the bed, remembering everything from the meal. He’d been motionless, his expression stone. Other than how he’d tasted me on his fingers, he’d given nothing away. It was almost as if it had all been in my imagination.

  I hear the sea in the distance, the gentle waves of the pool. No voices break the sound, the sweet bliss of emptiness. I slip between the sheets, feeling their coolness sooth my skin and I stretch out. It’s been a long time since I’ve shared a bed with anyone.

  My eyes close and my body remembers Ben’s touch, his welcome invasion and then there is the sound of a click as the electric lock opens.

  I sit upright, the sheet pooling at my waist, my breasts exposed even though I have no idea who I’m going to see.

  But I should.

  I should know he won’t let the day go without taking something from me.

  Ben is in his sweats, without a T-shirt. His hair is damp as if he’s just showered and the light catches flecks of water that have fallen across his chest.

  He heads straight for my bed, straight for me. Barefoot, he climbs on the mattress, his eyes fixed on me, then my breasts.

  “If you don’t want this, tell me now.”

  I push the sheet out of the way and get on my knees, turning to face him, parting my thighs so nothing is left hidden. My breasts are heavy, my cunt wet and swollen as it has been since dinner, and I can see the print of his erection through his sweatpants. He’s big and wide and more than I remember and I should be glad that it wasn’t him who took my virginity, but I’m not, because what’s a little pain? It only adds to the violence of pleasure.

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  He hasn’t touched me yet. I put my hands on his chest, slowly pushing my palms against the thick muscle, feeling his heat. Feeling his nearness.

  I don’t say anything. Instead I push my mouth to his and my breasts to his chest, feeling every millimetre of my nakedness, the night air wrapping me in its silk. His hands graze my backside, cupping my cheeks, spreading them slightly and I have no idea what he’s going to do to my body tonight but I know I’m not going to say no. Not tonight. I’m not sure I ever could.

  He tastes of mint and cigarettes. My skin is searched as if I’m hiding contraband by his hands. I’m being claimed. The kiss which, I owned, slips from my possession and becomes his.

  Thighs part, his fingers roughly move over my breasts. He pinches my nipples, pushing me to the edge of pain and I ache for him to be inside of me.

  Abruptly the kiss stops. His hands are removed. He creates distance.

  “You haven’t said no.”

  My own hands cup my breasts. Look at what you could be touching.

  “I’m going to fuck you. Are you on the Pill?” His voice is low, as if the words he’s using are assassins that can’t be named.

  “Yes.” I lick my lips. “But when do I get to fuck you?”

  Eyes blaze. There’s a pause and then I’m on my back and his mouth is on my nipple, biting, sucking. My hips buck but he grabs both my hands over my head and stops me from touching him, demanding more.

  I brace myself because this is going to be fast and brutal and hard.

  He moves his mouth to the other breast, repeating what he’s just done, my hands still fixed. I want to touch him, but I want to be touched more and his mouth is doing that.

  Teeth nip, his tongue licks and I spread my legs, bending my knees, hoping he takes the hint.

  There will be no words. We don’t need them; wasted pieces of air that complicate matters and bringing an ending where none is needed. My fingers curl around his, my nails digging into his skin. Hard.

  Ben’s head drops, golden hair falling between my legs and he gives me one long lick from slit to clit, applying pressure before he lifts his head.

  We’ve done this before. He brought me to orgasm for the second time with his mouth and then we spent a day with me riding his face, desperate afterwards to feel a cock inside me.

  He’d never done it. Never fucked me. Made love. Had sex.

  For him it was a hard limit.

  That limit has just been erased.

  My right hand is released as he moves up my body and aligns his cock with my entrance, first sliding it up over my clit a couple of times. I shift my hand to his neck, gripping his throat lightly. No pressure.

  There’s a flare in his face. The challenge.

  Then he pushes into me without restraint or consideration for his girth or length or that fact I haven’t had sex for months.

  I scream.

  My orgasm makes him groan as he lands balls deep, filling me more than I’ve ever felt and I know I’m crying. With pain, but without it, there would be no feeling. Ben shifts himself upright, still inside me, not moving, and pushes my legs so my knees move up to my chest. He inches deeper and then moves out, beginning a pace that tells me exactly who is in charge right now.

  We both know who has won the battle.

  But this war has only just started.

  He pulls out slowly and rams home hard, quickening his pace and I’m paralysed, watching him, seeing how he can’t take his eyes off my face. This isn’t my body he’s screwing, it’s me. Every single needy inch.

  His slight change of angle hits the point inside me that turns the sky to silver starburst and I come again. Ben’s grip tightens, he clutches onto my hips and then I feel him fill me with his semen, doing what no man’s done before and coming inside me.

  I’m frozen. My nipples are hard stones and my body is still shuddering from my climax. I’m half aware that I’ve made enough noise to wake the dead of the island but I’m too spent to give a fuck.

  He pulls out of me and I feel that warm gush. I should probably feel guilty. Dirty even, but I don’t. I get to my knees and face him, keeping my kisses to myself.

  He’s still hard.

  “Don’t think I’m going anywhere.” He moves to the top of the bed, behind me, and then I’m lying against him, my back against his chest and his arms around me, not touching my breasts or between my legs.

  He’s holding me.

  I haven’t been held since I was a child.

  Connections that haven’t been made, relationships that have failed, the need to be touched but no one is allowed close enough: a tarnished crown bars the way. My title is wrapped with barbed wire.

  His cock presses against my back and I know that in a few minutes maybe, he’ll be back inside me and I’ll let him.

  Because with Ben I am safe.

  I’ll always defend you.

  I rest my head against his shoulder and glance up at him. The kiss that falls is golden and tender, soft like his touch and the tears fall without any chance to stop them.

  He wipes them away and the energy between us has changed. What should’ve happened before he left has been done.

  The world is realigned.

  I have no idea what the future is meant to hold, but for once, I have my present.

  Chapter Ten

  Thin curtains are blown by the gentle huffs of the wind. An island calm fills my room, but my bed is empty. The sheets are coated with man and musk and sex. My body aches.

  The space next to me is cold and for the first time I’ve ever known, I haven’t slept in the middle of the bed. I feel bereft.

  When I fell asleep, Ben was behind me, curled around my back and ass, his arm pulling me to him, his breath again
st my neck.

  The second time we’d fucked had been slow. Tender. He’d put me on top of him and guided me up and down his cock, using his fingers to help make me come and letting me set a pace that I needed.

  Then we’d showered and he’d entered me from behind, pushing me against the shower wall, the cold tiles a sharp contrast on my breasts from his warm hands when he’d soaped them.

  I’d gone to bed with him, fallen asleep in his hold. I didn’t expect him to be here this morning.

  There’s a knock at my door; Franklyn’s knock, which tells me some of our household have arrived. I reach for the robe and pull it on, although I probably don’t need to bother, given that Franklyn has seen me in a variety of states since I was seventeen.

  “It’s okay to come in.”

  He enters and looks about the room, judging without giving his impression. The island air will have rid the room of the stench of sex to anyone but me, but still, I’ve always been convinced that Franklyn has supernatural powers.

  “You’ve settled in well.”

  It isn’t a question. Franklyn doesn’t ask questions.

  “The island is as good as I remember.”

  “Good. Your brother left this morning. He told me to say he’d call you at some point, but to enjoy the rest of your holiday.”

  This was news.

  “Lennox has gone home?”

  Franklyn shakes his head. “London.”

  “Why?”

  This was never on Lennox’s agenda.

  “One of Goldsmith’s cabinet have put forward a suggested motion around a wall between the two countries. Goldsmith’s returned from wherever he was summering and your brother has gone to represent your father.”

  Dad was in Australia. Probably in the middle of nowhere and away from the madness. This was a golden opportunity for Lennox to make his mark.

  “Has Elise gone with him?”

  “No. She doesn’t know yet that he’s gone.”

  I narrow my eyes, wanting the full story.

  “Elise is staying in the visitors’ lodge. I don’t believe she’s awake yet.” Franklyn’s eyes give nothing away.

  I don’t push. There’s no point. In an hour or so, Elise will find out from one of us that her beloved has taken flight without her. I should feel sorry for her, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

  Franklyn leaves me to get ready for breakfast, a platter of fresh fruit and a pot of coffee left out on the table when I emerge from the same shower where Ben took me from behind just a few hours ago.

  I’m sore and my body has marks that weren’t there yesterday, but none of that matters. This morning carries the ghost of the night before, its echo the memories that are already slipping into the past. They have to.

  I see him from the balcony. He’s sitting outside by the pool, his laptop in front of him, wearing a white shirt and thin khaki pants. His glasses hide his eyes and he looks orange in the sunshine.

  He doesn’t look up.

  Even if he senses I’m there, he keeps his eyes focused on his screen and then his phone.

  And then Elise.

  She stands by the pool, a black kaftan barely covering long tanned legs, her dark hair curled and dripping down her back. She says something to Ben and he looks up, his focus on her.

  Then she moves over, taking a seat next to him, trying to look at his screen.

  He closes the laptop. Focuses on her.

  I see her smile; I know she’s smiling. She flicks her curls over her shoulder and the kaftan slips down, exposing skin.

  They start to talk. I watch, not imagining what they’re saying because I don’t need to. I know Elise’s game; I’ve studied it. Considered using it.

  Two yachts pass out at sea. A group of seagulls cry. In another country, a war breaks out.

  I pull a sundress on over my bikini and head through the master suite and downstairs to the pool, hearing the sounds of Elise talking but not Ben.

  “I remember you were such a good friend to, Blair. She used to talk about you tons. I think she had a little crush on you.” There’s a giggle and a promise and probably a stroke of his forearm.

  I’m right, she’s still next to him, her hand on him, a finger tracing the outline of a tattoo.

  Ben doesn’t stir when he sees me. He doesn’t move away or shove her off. Instead he lifts his head to me and it doesn’t matter that Elise is still talking because there’s only me and him in the world.

  “Blair! What are you doing today?” She shifts away like he’s on fire, or she wants me to think she thinks he’s on fire.

  “Reading by the pool and then sea swimming. Join me if you want.” Elise does not sea swim.

  She giggles. “I might see what Lennox is doing then.”

  She doesn’t know. I look at Ben but his eyes are on his phone.

  “Lennox has flown out this morning.” No point in dressing up what my shitty brother has done.

  “Flown out where?”

  “London.”

  “Oh.”

  I can tell she wants to make a comment that suggests she knew this was the plan all along, but she’s unsure as to how.

  “Why don’t you bring your book to the beach later when I’m swimming?”

  She nods. “Thank you. I may just stay by the pool.”

  There’s silence and it’s awkward.

  I let it reign.

  I leave Elise on the beach later that afternoon when I’m tired of swimming and need some shade. There’s a pocket of trees nearby which offer shade and the chance for a change of scenery, and I need to get away from Elise’s silence which is festering between us.

  I wish she’d open up about Lennox, talk to me the way she sometimes used to when we were younger, rather than putting on this pretence that’s only going to break all our hearts. Instead, she’s talked about Ben and how he’s grown, how he looks like a man and if he’s single – the second woman in twenty-four hours to ask me the same thing.

  Ben hasn’t messaged me or spoken to me since we fell asleep in bed. He headed to the main island shortly after Elise found out about Lennox and I have no idea when he’ll be back or why he’s gone and I’ll probably not find out. But what we did last night haunts me.

  Tree grow denser. The light is dimmed by the leaves that form a canopy and I lose myself in a world of far away from the reality of my life. Thoughts of woodcutters and knights in shining armour creep into my head as I hear the crunch in the undergrowth but see nothing.

  “Didn’t your mother teach you about the Big Bad Wolf?”

  I jump, almost walk into a tree.

  I know the voice. I smell the musk that’s spread all over my sheets. Probably still over me.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I’m meant to keep an eye on you.”

  I turn around, my back to the tree, pressing against it. He’s wearing suit trousers and a shirt. The top button of his shirt is undone and his tie is in his hand and he’s running it through his other palm.

  I’m vulnerable here. I want to be vulnerable. His eyes aren’t leaving me.

  My mother once told me that once you’ve gone all the way with someone you can’t go back to just holding hands.

  I don’t want to go back to just holding hands. Not after last night.

  Ben wraps his tie around his hand and pulls tight. My head spins at the thought of where that tie is going to end up. He steps towards me, slowly, looking me up and down and I feel naked.

  “Take your top off.”

  “No.”

  He laughs. “Take your top off. I want to see your tits.”

  “Take your shirt off; I want to see your chest.”

  He does it straight away, more obedient than me. The look when he drops the shirt on the ground burns me.

  I move my hands to my back where the tie is, undoing it slowly, trying to kerb my shaking hands. My breasts ache and I know between my legs is becoming wet, my body readying itself for what’s about to happen.

&n
bsp; The air under the trees isn’t as warm as on the beach, although its humid. My skin reacts as soon as it’s exposed, to the temperature and Ben’s eyes.

  “And your bottoms.” He unbuttons his trousers as he speaks.

  I drop them and stand there naked, exposed. My centre aches and I reach down to touch myself, knowing he’s watching. I spread my legs slightly, rub two fingers over my clit, feel the build-up grow and the explosion imminent.

  “Fuck.”

  His cock is exposed, hard. The whimper I suppress sticks in my throat.

  “Turn and face the tree.”

  This time I do as he says without bartering.

  He reaches me slowly, taking his time. The palm of his hand hits my ass with a sting, pushing me into the trunk of the tree. I hold it to keep my balance and maybe keep some sanity.

  “Hands higher.”

  I know what’s coming. It’s been too long since anyone has played with me. Since I’ve played with anyone.

  His tie is cool and silky as he binds my hands to the tree, tight enough so that I’d struggle to break free. I pull against them and receive another slap to my backside. His groan heals the pain.

  I expect him to fuck me immediately, to enter me roughly, as his hands are on my hips. Instead I’m startled when I feel his tongue lick through my folds and he starts to suck and drink, angling himself so he can softly attend to my clit, not enough to get me where I need, just enough to tease.

  The whole of the island could be there watching and I wouldn’t care. My senses are being played with; the rough of the tree bark, the silk of the tie, the grip of Ben’s hands and the softness of his tongue as he runs it from front to back. A finger plays at my anus and I see stars.

  “I’m not ready.”

  “I know. But you will be.”

  His chest slides up my back as he stands. A finger enters me, then a second. He pumps roughly and then withdraws. I’m empty for bare seconds before his cock pushes into me and he starts to move, his arms around me, one hand playing with a breast, the other slipping between my legs to my clit.

  The tree is my scaffold. My legs are boneless and all I can be aware of is Ben rutting into me and the roughness of the bark and his fingers on my skin. I’ve combusted and I don’t want this flame to go out.