Mercy by Annabel Joseph Page B

pretty smart girl.”
    “I hope I’m good enough for you.”
    He took a deep breath, a very loud one. From the look on his face I half expected him to stand up and walk out. But instead he reached across the table. “Give me your hand.”
    I did, and he took it, and we could both feel it shaking in his grip.
    “Don’t be afraid.” He spoke so quietly it was hard to hear above the hum around us. He turned my hand over in his palm, studying it like there were secrets there. “Just always tell me the truth. Okay? Always.”
    “I will.”
    “Are you finished?” he asked, letting go of me. “I’d like to go somewhere more private before we really talk.”
     
    * * *
     
    We went out to his car, and again his driver was missing in action. The first thing he did was roll down the windows.
    “Lucy Merritt, if you ever show up to see me again smelling like a French whorehouse, you’ll be sorry you did.”
    How embarrassing. I was already a fuck up. He kept the windows down the whole way to his house. When we arrived he pulled me to the sink in his kitchen. “Wash it off. I want to smell you, not some perfumed-up whore.”
    I tried to wash all of it off, which wasn’t easy, partly because I was so distracted by his spectacular house. It was difficult too because it was mostly on my clothes, but I did my best. I guess it was all right, because when I came out, he sniffed me and muttered, “Good enough.”
    Then he took my arm and led me to a door in the hallway. “We’ll always play in the basement,” he explained. We made our way down the carpeted stairwell, and I guess I expected him to take me to a dungeon of sorts. Black and forbidding, tricked out with crosses and beams and chains hanging from hooks in the ceiling. But the room he took me to wasn’t a dungeon at all. It actually looked more like an art salon. Or a really cool and modern funeral home, done in crisp and textured neutrals.
    He told me to look around, to look at everything. I walked around but I didn’t dare touch. The walls were upholstered with fabric, velvety drapes in taupe. There were huge, comfortable sofas that I tried out, sitting down on them, and as it turned out, that was the only chance I’d get. I didn’t know it yet, but only Matthew ever sat on them, while I knelt or lay supine at his feet, or bent over an ottoman with my ass in the air. But they were very nice and comfy, the matching ottomans scattered around the room in several heights and sizes. He pointed out the eyebolts near the bottom of each one. “I’ll strap you to these when I beat you or fuck you, sometimes.” I just nodded when he said it, like that was perfectly great. Oh, wow, Matthew, bolting me to an ottoman. That’s a spectacular idea.
    When I was done drooling over the cushiony sofas and ottomans, he took me over to a large armoire in the corner. It had drawers full of leather restraints, straps and cuffs, sex toys and paraphernalia that made my eyes go wide. The many things he showed me in that armoire both shocked and titillated me. I was so hot by that time, I wanted him to take me then and there. I was really close to begging for it but I managed to keep quiet, the obedient little slave. He showed me paddles and crops and canes, and tooled leather straps just as thick as the paddles. He showed me delicate but painful looking clips and clamps. He put one on my finger to give me an idea how it would feel. It pinched a little, but nothing I couldn’t bear. “It will feel different on your nipples and your clit,” he cautioned me. I swallowed hard. Of course it would.
    Then he showed me dildos and butt plugs and other toys that terrified me. They were far too large to ever fit up inside me. “You’ll like these best of all,” he said with a smile. He showed me a shelf full of lubricants, all different types. Scented, flavored, heavy duty, light duty. He showed me one bottle with a gleam in his eye. “This kind will make you itch, for when you’ve