Cait and the Devil by Annabel Joseph

of their meal. Are you ready to come to the bedroom with me? Are you ready to bare yourself to my eyes? Are you ready to do whatever I ask?
    Yes, she was always ready. Always. He would help her from her chair and the feel of his hot, firm hands on her flesh at last, after a whole day of wanting him, was almost enough to make her eyes close with desire. She thought she would shame herself one day in front of everyone, unable to resist falling to her knees right then and there.
    For his part, he would only smile down at her.
    He knew .
    They would hurry up to his bedroom. Sometimes, out of the eyesight of others, they ran, pulling each other along. Sometimes he’d sweep her up in his arms and carry her. Once he tossed her over his shoulder to carry her like a sack, and she’d shrieked with laughter.
    The idea that he might drop her never came to mind. She only clung to him, howling with laughter until he told her, chuckling, to hush. She would do anything for him, and trust him to do anything to her. She knew that he would never hurt her, not in any way she didn’t wish to be hurt. Sometimes the things he did were difficult to bear, but she was happy to bear them for him.
    Obedience remained the currency between them, every bit as much as laughter and desire and love. In fact, it seemed that the love and desire came directly from the obedience, because the more obedient she was, the more loving he became. The more she learned and understood of him, the closer she felt to him as a wife. She remembered Henna’s words to her the first night she’d arrived at Inverness. It takes time for a marriage to take shape. Time and patience and understanding. And respect. Truer words had never been spoken. That’s why everyone loved Henna, because she was so wise.
    It wasn’t always easy being obedient. Sometimes she made choices that resulted in being spanked across his lap, or even being stood against the wall to bear strokes from his belt. It angered him most of all if she showed reticence or shame. Sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sometimes the things he did to her, the things he demanded of her were so intimate she couldn’t hide her unease. But she was learning every night, and she tried hard always to get better. It got easier and more pleasurable with every passing day.
    It always began the same, that wonderful moment when they found themselves alone together in his room. He would lock the door and turn to her, watching intently as she took off her clothes and laid them across the chest.
    Then he would indicate exactly what he wished of her, tell her very explicitly what to do. Sometimes he would motion her to the bed, order her to lie back and part her legs. Or he might have her lie on her stomach, or kneel and part her legs, and then he would pleasure her with his hands and his mouth. Other times he would snap his fingers and indicate that she was to kneel and take his member in her hands, and kiss and suck him until he released in her mouth. Many times he ordered her to assume his favorite position, kneeling down with her head on the floor, her legs spread wide in vulnerable offering to him.
    She would shiver and shudder when he made her wait in that position. And he did, almost always, make her wait, so that when he finally came near and knelt behind her, put his hands on her or pressed his cock to her, she felt something akin to relief. He would use the slippery, scented cream to pry her open between her buttocks in her most private place. She quaked from the terrible intimacy of it, but she soon learned that to cry or balk displeased him and resulted in punishment.
    “I’m not hurting you,” he would say quietly in warning. “You’re hurting your own self. Just do as I say.”
    And she’d try.
    He had teased and trained her over days and weeks, preparing her to take his cock. He let her know the day it would happen, the day he couldn’t wait any longer. She sat beside him at dinner that night in tense