His by Carolyn Faulkner (best historical fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

obey him to the "t". But he knew that her heart wasn't in it. Finally, he'd ended up scouring the country for a replacement for the Jaguar, which she had never once driven. And one evening he'd met her at work and guided her down to the parking lot, where a reasonable facsimile of the car she'd been driving sat, complete with the high mileage count - although not quite as high as hers had been. He hadn't told her that before he'd brought it to her he'd had it gone over with a fine toothed comb by his own mechanic, and everything that even just might have needed fixing had been replaced or updated or upgraded, mechanically speaking.

It was the first time he'd been able to make her cry when hadn't involved giving her either a sore butt or a screaming orgasm, and it seemed that he had been forgiven for a sin he didn't understand how he'd committed.

But this evening, he'd literally held his breath for her response to his somewhat unorthodox proposal, and he'd been amazed when she'd simply lain there not saying anything. The silence had stretched out almost uncomfortably, and he had come up with his somewhat forcible proposal on the spur of the moment. He'd really expected that she'd say yes right then and there - there was a line of women out there who would have killed to be in her place, he thought angrily for a split second.

But not really in her place. Not with all her interests, her few restrictions, and her darned near perfect submission, to say nothing of her wonderful body and quick mind. She had rapidly become the focal point of his life, and had come awful close to replacing his business, which no one and nothing had ever been able to do in his lifetime. He wanted her with him permanently, and not just on her say so alone. He wanted her bound to him in every possible way, and if that entailed marriage, then he was more than willing to take that step.

The next thing she said blew him away as much as his original proposal had done to her.

"I want a pre-nup."

Chapter Five

Her breasts were killing her. She thought they were going to fall off - worse than that, she thought they were going to stay attached. He had bound them at the base, as usual commandeering a pair of her own stockings and looping them around each breast in a figure eight that he cinched tight and tied off between her breasts, then tacked each of them individually. Not only were they each very tightly bound, but her now almost nonexistent nipples had also been previously clothes pinned, so that now, only the barest tips of them remained between those terrible wooden jaws.

This was a very different situation from their usual. Not in their location, which was their bedroom, where she'd been punished and her limits had regularly been tested since they'd met. And not in circumstance - she had been spread eagled and attached to the recessed hooks in the ceiling more times than she could count. A long, thick spreader bar kept her legs well apart, and her ankles were also anchored to recessed hooks in the otherwise immaculate hard wood floor.

She wasn't going anywhere. Raina was subject to whatever whim came into his head at the time.

The difference this time was that he was mad.

He'd been mad since she'd mentioned a prenuptial agreement. Not that he had wanted to have mentioned it first, and had to talk her into it, which should have been the case and probably would have with any other woman but Raina. But because she had mentioned it first, and even spoken - as far as he was concerned, as if she thought that if they ever ended up parting company, which he didn't intend, he would somehow try to come after her for money, or her business.

He had flatly refused to sign one, even if it was drawn up by his own lawyers. He knew that this could simply be a trick, some sort of reverse psychology on her part to get him to be just that much more generous with her, to make him think that she wasn't after his money.

But the bald truth was that he'd never thought she was a gold digger. She was doing too well on her own - granted, she didn't have the blue blood, blue chip money that he did from generations of ancestors profiteering in various industries; she was nouveau riche, and her millions couldn't compare with his billions. But he'd never thought that she looked at him as a dollar sign. Hell, the woman never spent any money of her own - except on the cooking gadgets she insisted on collecting or the occasional piece of Waterford that caught her eye - much less his own. She'd always taken him to task when he'd tried to spend any of his own money on her, complaining - genteely, because that's what he required, but complaining none the less - that she had her own money and had no need of his.

For some reason, though, her suggestion that she would be requiring a prenup before she'd say yes incensed him. It was as if she could trust him with her body and soul - and did on more intimate occasions than he could count - but she couldn't trust him financially.

She should have known him better than that, and he was struggling with himself not to take it out on that very pretty hide - and he was losing. Badly.

He often inflicted pain on her just because he wanted to - not when she'd done anything to deserve it, but because he could, and because it always amazed him that, even though her bottom was striped to within an inch of its life, she would still be literally dripping wet when he cut her down