PASSION'S MASTER

                       by JLW

     When Victoria St. Clare came to, she found herself
hanging by her bound hands wearing nothing but a thin
linen chemise.  Blinking against the headache banging
behind her eyes, she scanned her surroundings.  In the
flickering light of a whale oil lantern that hung,
swaying in circles, from the same wooden beam she was
bound to, she saw nothing but a small wooden chair, a
neatly-made bunk and a huge sea chest.  Not that there
was space for much else.  Her closet at home was bigger
than the ship's cabin around her.
     And it WAS a ship's cabin; she knew that from the
roll of smooth wooden deck under her feet, heard it in
the boom of heavy canvas sails flapping overhead.  So
she was somewhere at sea, in hands she knew to be
thoroughly hostile.  Still, the situation was better
than she'd expected.
     She hadn't expected to wake up at all.
     The look in Rafe's eye had certainly suggested
imminent and painful death when he'd turned on her after
running her husband through.  And having to chase her
down when she'd fled for her life certainly hadn't
improved his temper.  Witness the sharp, brutal punch
that had knocked her out when he'd caught her.
     Sighing, Vicky tilted her head back to inspect her
wrists.  The rope that bound them just missed cutting
off the circulation, but the rough hemp did succeed in
biting into her tender flesh.  Rafe was definitely not
in a charitable mood.  She shifted on her bare feet,
glad he at least hadn't left her to dangle.
     Vicky wondered if he would believe she'd arranged
his escape.  Probably not.  Being a bondslave had
maddened Rafe; being her personal bondslave had enraged
him.  It wouldn't matter that she'd forced Gordon to
lend Rafe to her solely because she wanted to give him
time to heal from that last brutal beating.  It wouldn't
matter that she'd arranged for Rafe to be left
unguarded, knowing he had to escape if he was to
survive--her husband had been determined to see him
broken and dead.  All that WOULD matter to him was the
shame of being owned by her, ordered by her.  That she'd
intended nothing but kindness would never occur to him.
     Vicky smiled grimly to herself at the bitter irony.
If she hadn't blackmailed Gordon into handing him over
to her, Rafe would be dead now and she wouldn't be
awaiting his vengeance.  Damn him.
     And damn Gordon.  Damn his corruption, which had
gotten them a titled lord for a bondslave.  Damn his
brutality, which had given Rafe a lust for revenge that
not even Gordon's death could satisfy.  And most of all,
damn Will Barton, Rafe's own very greedy brother, who'd
gotten them all into this mess to begin with.
     She'd learned the whole story from Gordon himself.
When her husband had been in London on business the year
before, Will Barton, a friend of his, had approached
Gordon about kidnapping Rafe.  Will evidently didn't
have the stomach to hire his brother's murder, but
forging an indenture for him was a different matter.
     It would have been kinder to Rafe him outright.
After an ambush put him in Gordon's unkind hands, months
of beating and starvation followed, until Vicky finally
discovered the scheme and engineered Rafe's escape.
     Last night, a year after he left the island, Rafe
had returned with a crew of mercenaries, attacked the
St. Clare plantation, and killed Gordon in a sword
fight.
     And now Vicky herself was the target of his rage.
     The cabin's tiny door banged inward on its hinges,
and Victoria jumped in her bonds.
     Rafe ducked into the room, the impact of his
personality instantly driving all the air from her
lungs.  Tall, heavily muscled, tanned as dark as some of
the St. Clare slaves, he looked so handsome that Vicky's
heartbeat stuttered.  Stopping short, he stared at her
helpless body for a long moment, his eyes shimmering
black in the lamplight as harsh shadows shifted under
the hard, precise angles of his face.
     Finally giving her a feral grin, Rafe sauntered to
the single chair and fell into it.  Vicky heard it creak
as he stretched out his legs and folded his hands across
his belly.
     She was suddenly aware of her own near nakedness.
Vicky knew perfectly well she'd had on her favorite
violet gown when he'd knocked her out.  She was NOT
going to ask what had happened to it.
     Because Rafe had an erection.
     Not just any erection, either.  A massive erection,
straining against his thin fawn trousers.  "Well, asking
him what he's going to do with me would probably be a
stupid question," Vicky thought, eyeing it.  She refused
to consider the fact that, not long ago, being alone
with Rafe and his erection would have been a dream come
true.
     "It seems," Rafe rumbled suddenly, "that we've had
a reversal of fortunes.  When last we met, I was your
property.  Now you're mine."
     "Really?  I don't recall being bought," Vicky said,
working for a cool tone despite the sweat rolling from
her bound hands.
     "I don't either," he said pleasantly.  "Like you, I
was kidnapped."  Black eyes narrowed, taking on a
sinister light.  "In my case, though, I've taken care of
everyone who had a hand in the crime.  My brother is in
prison, and Gordon St. Clare is wormsbait.  Now it's
your turn.  And I don't mind telling you, I've been
looking forward to you most of all."
     "If you don't mind my asking, what exactly do you
have in mind?"
     Deliberately, Rafe gestured at the bulge in his
trousers.  "Do you really have to ask?"
     "Actually, yes.  I want to know how long I have
before you drop me overboard."
     "Don't be melodramatic.  I have no intention of
killing you."  Suddenly he was on his feet, stalking
toward her as she tried not to flinch.  "But I will own
you."
     "Now who's being melodramatic?"
     He eyed her bound wrists with an air of
satisfaction.  "Yes, I see your point.  But then, I
suppose justice always has a dollop of melodrama in it.
And I've wanted to hear you call me 'master' since St.
Clare tried to beat me into calling you 'mistress.'"
     Suddenly his broad brown hands lifted, reached for
her breasts.  She tried to shy back, but his square
fingers closed over her, warm and shaming.  "I always
knew you had lovely breasts," he said.  "But my
imagination seems to have shortchanged your reality.  If
I'd guessed the way your nipples tilt upward at that
saucy angle, just begging to be bitten, I could never
have kept my hands off you."
     "You..."
     "You know," he continued, ignoring her appalled
expression, "it's really unusual for breasts so large to
be so firm.  And your cunt...those pretty sherry curls.
I love the way one inner lip is longer than the
other..."
     "You stripped me while I was unconscious!"
     He grinned nastily.  "Well, of course.  I wanted to
inspect my property."
     "I'm not your property!" she exploded, goaded
beyond sense.  "And if you think you'll ever own me..."
     "I will," he said, softly implacable.  "Tonight.
I'll hear you say it, the word your husband could never
make me say.  The word he tried to beat out of me."
Rafe paused and smiled pleasantly.  "'Master.'"
     Vicky spat in his face.
     For a moment he stared at her, his dark eyes wide
with astonishment as she began to shake in fear at the
dimensions of her own gall.   Then his hands shot out.
She cringed, but Rafe's big fingers just caught the soft
linen of her chemise, dug into the fabric, pulled.  It
tore, the sound jagged as a scream.
     Then she was naked, the air cold on her breasts,
hemp strands gnawing her wrists, her shoulders aching
with the position of her lifted arms.  She watched his
eyes flick over her, voracious with erotic appetite, his
massive chest lifting and falling with each hungry
breath.  "I'm going to fuck you," he said, his voice
low, growling.  "I'm going to fuck your mouth.  I'm
going to fuck your cunt.  I'm going to fuck your ass.
And you will call me 'master' before the sun rises."
     She trembled as Rafe watched, sweet, white breasts
quivering.  Her nipples were budded and pink, like
furled roses.  Staring at them, he felt his balls ache.
She was finally his, just the way he'd been dreaming of
for months.  As helpless as he'd been when she had owned
HIM.  Waiting for him to do whatever he chose.
     And he'd choose to do quite a bit.
     The breasts first, Rafe decided.  Those nipples
were begging for his mouth, and he didn't want to
disappoint them.  He dropped to one knee, caught a
handful of quivering pale flesh and squeezed it gently
so that the nipple pouted out at him.  Staring at the
sweet rose nubbin, Rafe felt his mouth go dry as his
cock throbbed with the most urgent lust he'd ever
experienced.
     Forcing himself to move slowly, he took her nipple
into his mouth, closing his eyes as the scent and taste
of her exploded in his skull like cognac.
     How often he'd dreamed of this.
     During the hours he'd hung in chains, bound like a
dog, keeping his sanity only by dreaming of her.
     Through the beatings, when he'd used the thought of
her to defeat the bite of the whip.  In those fantasies,
she'd been bent and helpless as he plied a crop against
her lovely ass just hard enough to wring a breathless
plea.
     Later, hiking through the mosquito-infested jungle
during the hours of his escape, he'd imagined Victoria
in chains, bound in a variety of erotic poses while he
endlessly pleasured himself in her.
     Through the grace of God, the captain of a ship
docking at St. Clare Island that night was a friend from
his days at Eton, but even freedom hadn't freed Rafe of
his obsession with her.  Now, at last, he was on the
verge of realizing all those steamy fantasies.
     By enslaving Victoria.
     Her maidenhair was soft under his fingers, soft as
the secret flesh it tried to hide.  Damp velvet lips
opened like an oyster for his touch, uncovering the
pearl of her pleasure.
     Stroking it in gentle circles of his fingers, Rafe
suckled each of her breasts in turn, nibbling and
licking until he was rewarded with a breathless moan.
He looked up to see her head lolling back as she hung in
her bonds, weakened by the pleasure he was inflicting.
Smiling to himself, he moved his hand to sink a finger
into her interior, finding it slick and hot with growing
passion.  He inserted another finger and began to pump
as he abandoned her breasts to kiss his way down her
belly.
     Helplessly, Victoria moaned again, dizzied from the
airless heights of pleasure.  She'd expected a simple
rape, a cruel thrust of thickness into her dry core, not
so very different from the nights her husband had come
to her.  Instead, Rafe's was a strange revenge, all fire
and delight.  "Women must line up," she thought muzzily,
"to be his victims."
     And now he was doing something she'd never
experienced in all the years of her marriage.  His
sinuous tongue had found its way to her core, snaking
between her dewing lips, flicking, thrusting, while his
broad fingers filled her.  Helplessly, she pushed her
hips into her tormentor's face.  Her thighs trembled
spasmodically.  A searing, lovely tension filled her,
and she strained toward him, toward something
unimaginable she instinctively knew he could give her.
His fingers sank deep as his tongue swirled around her
pearl, and ecstasy began to swell in her belly...
     And he stopped.
     "Victoria," he said, his voice hoarse.  "Do you
want me?"
     "Oh, God!  Yes, oh, please..." She barely
recognized the whimper as her own voice.
     "Then say my name."
     "Raaaafe!"
     "Lord Rafe."
     "Lord Rafe!"  Why was he torturing her?
     "Master Rafe."
     The words ate through her passion like acid as she
understood.  The sweet pleasure was a trap.  "You
bastard."
     He pulled away from her.  "That attitude won't get
either of us what we want."
     Victoria stared at him bitterly, unable to believe
she'd come so close, only to be denied.  She wasn't even
comforted by the knowledge that it hadn't been easy for
him; his face was drawn, reminding her of the times
she'd seen him after a beating.
     Suddenly, violently, he began to undress, jerking
at his fine stock, sending the pearl buttons of his
shirt flying as he ripped it open.  She sucked in a
breath at the sight of his massive dark chest, muscle-
knit and covered in soft thick hair.
     Impatient, he reached for the fly of his breeches
to free his erection, huge and purpled with blood and
lust.  As she watched with growing hope, he kicked off
his shoes, then shed his breeches and small clothes.
     Rafe reached out and grabbed her thighs in both
hard hands, then picked her up off the floor with no
effort at all.  In one brutal movement, he spread her
legs and impaled her on his massive cock.
     Victoria gasped as he entered her, stabbing into
her hungry tissues, sating and tormenting all at once.
     And then the agonizing delight started again.
Rafe's muscular body worked against hers, chest hair
deliciously teasing her nipples, his big, rough hands
kneading her ass as he filled her over and over again.
     For the first time in her life, Victoria knew the
pleasure a man's organ could give a woman, and it amazed
her.  Lust swelled along her nerves until she ground
against him, riding his thickness, straining for the
ecstacy that once more danced just beyond her fingers.
     Rafe ground his teeth, dying to let himself go
completely, to shoot his burning sperm into her until he
pumped her full of it.  She felt so hot and deliciously
slick, and he burned for the release he'd waited for
through two years of slavery and patient revenge.  Yet
he knew he had to master himself if he wanted to master
her.
     And he DID want to master her.
     So, though it was the most agonizing thing he'd
ever done, he stopped.
     "Say it."
     This time she didn't need an explanation.  Instead
she said a word he hadn't even known she knew and tried
to force herself against him.  He made himself tighten
his grip, stopping the pleasure.
     "Say it."
     "Go to hell!" she cried.
     Rafe jerked out of her, ignoring her scream of
frustration just as he stifled his own.  Striding to his
breeches, he found the sheathe he'd abandoned in the
heap of fabric.  Drawing the knife with a slither of
steel, he turned toward her.
     Victoria cowered, but he reached for her anyway,
letting her fear provide some small balm for his own
frustration.  With a quick pass of steel, he cut her
bonds.
     In no shape to stand after being bound so long,
Vicky collapsed against him.  Rafe picked her up and
carried her to the bunk, then turned toward the sea
chest at the foot of the bed.
     When Victoria saw him rise from the chest with yet
another length of rope in his hand, she tried to get up
and run.  Unfortunately, her numb hands and trembling
legs wouldn't allow for either flight or fight.  In
seconds, he had her bound again, this time wrists to
ankles so she was drawn into a ball.  Then he shoved her
up onto her knees, shoulders to the mattress and ass in
the air.
     She wondered if he was going to beat her.
     "Now," Rafe said, panting, standing back to gaze at
the white lush curves of her lifted rump, "I'm going to
show you a trick your husband showed me."  Without
taking his eyes off her, he moved back to the open sea
chest, rummaging through it to come up with a riding
crop and a small glass jar.
     "It was after St. Clare had whipped me--the fourth
or fifth time, perhaps, I hadn't been there long," he
continued, rising to walk toward her.  "He brought a
female slave in while I hung there bleeding, ordered her
to her hands and knees and sodomized her while I
watched."
     Fighting the sick feeling rising in her belly,
Victoria said, "Gordon always was a disgusting bastard."
     "True enough," Rafe agreed pleasantly. "He boasted
he'd had every female ass on the island.  Except for
yours.  Which was when I decided that one day I'd be the
one to bugger you."
     "Is that threat supposed to break me?" she said
breathlessly as he sat down behind her.  "Do you expect
me to call you master to save myself?"
     "You can if you like," Rafe said casually,
unscrewing the jar and dipping his fingers into it.
Vicky smelled a whiff of perfume, guessed it was some
sort of ointment.  "But it won't do you any good.  I've
been planning this for a long time."
     Then she felt his hands on her ass, spreading her.
A single thick finger traced her perineum, teased her
rear entrance with a feathering touch.  Began to press.
     "Do you remember Clea?" he asked.  The finger was
slowly forcing its way into her, the pressure
frighteningly painful.  "For some reason, she loved
taking a man's cock in the garden gate.  Unfortunately
for her, though, Gordon never cared for anyone's
pleasure but his own."
     Victoria gasped, feeling the suddenly massive
finger begin to move in and out, even as his other hand
sought out her pearl and began to pleasure it with
skillful strokes.  The invasion was painful, alien, yet
she felt a strange bubble of heat begin to rise.
     "So one day, when we were working together, she
invited me to take her," Rafe went on, still stroking
her.
     "I had the pleasure of spreading Clea's pretty
brown cheeks several times after that, but I always shut
my eyes and pretended it was you."
     "What are you doing?" Victoria demanded, wishing
her voice didn't sound so breathless as his finger slid
in and out.
     "Greasing your ass," he explained coolly.  "You
have no lubrication here, and I want a slick ride when I
take you."
     "It hurts."
     A second finger joined the first, forcing its way
past her anus.  "Only if you fight.  If you relax, you
can find pleasure in what I do to you."
     Victoria felt the bed give under his weight as he
moved to kneel behind her.  She cringed.
     "You can't stop me from doing this," Rafe said,
suddenly bending over her until his breath puffed warmly
into her ear.  "I'm going to fuck your ass whether you
fight me or not.  If you yield, you'll find yourself
liking it.  If not, it'll hurt like hell.  And if you
think your pain will stop me, think again."
     Something thick and hard began to dig at her.  At
the same time, she felt his fingers caressing her cunt
as his other hand caught her breast.  Breathing deeply,
eyes widening, she forced herself to concentrate on the
pleasure.
     His cock felt so much larger than it had before,
massive and hot as it slowly drove into her.  It hurt,
but his fingers circled her clit, stoking so gently, so
sweetly, that she felt pleasure began to rise through
the tide of pain.
     Then he began to withdraw, pulling out as slowly as
he entered.  Vicky was surprised at the strange delight
it caused.  He reversed his stroke, pushing into her as
he squeezed and rolled her nipple.  Her breath caught.
     This is Rafe taking me, she thought.  Rafe, whom
she'd watched with secret heat when he'd bathed in the
stream near the plantation, peering at him from the
bushes like a spying child.  Rafe, whom she'd dreamed
of, longed to take as a lover.
     Rafe.  Who now hungered to own her.
     Somehow, as his cock stroked her asshole in a
searing combination of pain and pleasure, the idea of
being his slave held a certain heat.  Tonight he'd taken
her in ways she'd never dreamed of, and Vicky had loved
it all, even this last alien delight.  To move such a
man to obsession, to drive him into such acts of
possession...
     He was thrusting steadily now, yet slowly, forcing
her to feel every inch of his cock as his fingers drew
pleasure from her nipples and her clit.  The
enthrallment of it caught her, and she whimpered.  She
felt a sudden desire to move under his thrusts, to seek
an even harder penetration of his massive cock.  Feeling
him begin his downward thrust, Vicky lifted her hips to
better experience the deliciously burning length.
     When Victoria began to grind backward onto his
cock, Rafe was astonished.  He'd fantasized that she'd
love it, but he hadn't really expected her to.  Yet now
his former owner was whimpering in pleasure as he fucked
her virgin asshole, and it was the hottest experience of
his life.
     He began to ride her harder, fierce with hunger,
listening to her sweet moans as her rectum surrendered
to his thrusting cock.  The orgasm he'd delayed so long
built in his balls with each luscious stroke.
     Suddenly he saw her back stiffen as she gasped out
his name.  Recognizing that she was about to come, Rafe
jerked himself out of her ass.
     And demanded, voice hoarse, "Who am I?"
     "Rafe, please!"
     "WHO AM I?"
     "MASTER RAFE!" she screamed back.
     Rafe plunged his cock brutally back into his
slave's tight, submissive asshole.  He came on the third
stroke, dimly aware of Victoria screaming out her own
pleasure.

     Much later, he left her briefly, coming back with a
washbasin and a wet cloth.  Still bound hand and foot,
Victoria marveled at the tender way he cleaned her
sticky body.
     Then, as Rafe was washing his own, he looked up at
her.  "Who am I?"
     She froze, suddenly remembering what she'd yielded
to him in the heat of lust.
     Staring into his dark eyes, Victoria discovered she
couldn't bring herself to say those words again.  "Rafe.
You're Lord Rafe."
     Rafe's eyes narrowed, and for a moment she shivered
at the rage that crossed his face.  Before she could
move, he got up, pulled her back onto her knees and
reached down beside the bunk.
     When he straightened, there was a riding crop in
his hand.
     "Rafe, no!"
     The crop began to snap against her bare rump, once,
twice, then faster, again and again.
     Yet though Rafe pulled back his arm and made the
whip whistle through each stroke, he pulled it at the
last second.  There was scarcely any sting at all.
     Victoria stared at him over her shoulder,
bewildered.  He had to know she could easily withstand
such punishment.  Yet if he really wanted to beat the
words out of her, she knew perfectly well he could do
it.
     What did he intend?
     As she watched him, Vicky saw Rafe's face begin to
darken as he stared at her twitching rump.  His sated
cock, swinging limply, began to slowly grow, arousing
delicious memories of all the things he'd done to her
tonight.
     "I'd find more pleasure as Rafe Barton's slave than
as anyone else's wife," Victoria thought suddenly.   And
not just because of his erotic skill, either.
     The fact was, she loved him.  Had loved him since
the days she'd watched him endure the worst Gordon could
throw at him, unconquerable, retaining his nobility
through beatings and starvation.
     She loved him enough to stay with him any way he'd
have her, as wife, mistress or slave.
     "Master Rafe."
     Rafe froze in mid stroke, his gaze flying to meet
her.  He smiled.
     And gave her three hard cuts across the ass.
Victoria yelped.
     Tossing the crop into the corner, Rafe advanced on
her to snap the ropes that bound her as easily as if
they were thin twine.  Then he hauled her off the bed
and dropped her on her knees in front of his swaying
cock.
     "Beating your ass has given your master a hard on,"
Rafe told her.  "Suck it."
     Victoria obeyed without hesitation, taking the
broad, purple head into her mouth and tonguing it
lovingly.  Cream begin to trickle between her inner
lips.
     "We're going to be married," Rafe said, thrusting
into her clinging mouth, "as soon as we reach England."
     Astonished, she tried to pull her head back in
order to look at him, but he tightened his grip on her
hair.
     "I've been in love with you a long time, Victoria,"
Rafe told her, then smiled.  "Almost as long as I've
wanted to own you.  And when one of the houseslaves told
me what you'd done to make sure I could escape, I
realized you had to care something about me."
     He began to hunch strongly against her face,
forcing her to take still more of his shaft.  "But let's
get one thing straight.   You'll be the mistress of my
household and the mother of my children, but in the
bedroom, you'll still be my slave."
     Tightening his grip, Rafe pulled her eagerly
sucking mouth away from his cock.  "Victoria, will you
marry me?"
     She smiled up at him lovingly.  "Yes, Master Rafe."
     He pulled her mouth back to his cock, and she began
to lick and suck him so fiercely that his knees almost
buckled.
     Gulping her master's come a moment later, Victoria
grinned around her mouthful of cock.