Delicious Pain - a BDSM Collection Read Online Free PDF Page A

was the Punishment Ledger in her carrier bag, and the trenchant cane she'd left behind her at the stall. She'd wanted it. Oh how she'd wanted it. But still, that atavistic twinge of apprehension at the time had made her leave it; her fear that sexy daydreams and hard rattan would turn out to be two very, very different things.
    Yet still she regretted her lack of spirit, especially when she saw Julian's expression as he leant on the car, waiting for her. His handsome face was a picture of both amusement and feigned disapproval. He'd never looked sexier -- or more dominant.
    "What's all that?" he enquired as she set the carrier down on her lap.
    "Just a few bits," Alice defended as he set the engine in gear and they pulled out of the car park.
    He shook his head and his lips quirked in a familiar, despairing grin. "Oh, really?"
    The journey home was spent in silence. Alice had expected a token lecture, just for form's sake, but instead Julian seemed to be as wrapped up in his thoughts as she was in hers of the ledger; his face was composed as he drove, almost on auto pilot, back to their house.
    When the car slid to a halt, Alice was first into the house, eagerly unpacking her treasures, but making sure to tuck the ledger into a drawer in the sitting room that Julian never looked in. When he finally joined her in the room, her husband eyed her thoughtfully, as if he knew she was up to something, but he didn't challenge her. He didn't reveal the contents of his own large box of goodies either, just waggled his eyebrows when she murmured "Oh, really," back at him. Alice suspected it was yet more tomes, bound volumes of Second World War memoirs or some such, that they'd have to find room for on their bookshelves. Their evening passed as normal, companionable and easy, but Alice's skin seemed to prickle in a vaguely pleasant way all the time, as if electrified by her husband's probing gaze.
    As bed time approached, Alice crept into the sitting room to retrieve the ledger, while Julian was in his office studying his finds. She still wished she'd bought the cane too, although she'd no idea how she'd have finessed it past him, as it would have been too long to hide in the carrier bag. Despite the absence of the implement, she looked forward to hearing how Mrs. Grayson had fared under its reign. She'd no real idea what it might be like to live in a disciplinary household, but her instincts suggested that the cane would be the ultimate sanction, the ne plus ultra of chastisement devices. She couldn't begin to imagine what it felt like, but as she pushed open the sitting room, she tried.
    "Oh, hell!"
    Hovering on the threshold, she could only stare. There, in his favorite easy chair, sat Julian. His hair was wet from his shower and he wore only a pair of black denim jeans; both his feet and his smooth chest were bare. He was calm and composed, and seemed to be reading casually. What lay across his lap made Alice gasp.
    It was the cane. The narrow discolored cane with its evocative curling handle and all the painful memories that were encoded along its shaft.
    "This makes rather interesting reading, doesn't it?" said Julian in a slow, almost teasing tone as Alice hovered, nonplussed. He glanced up briefly, then returned to his close study of the Punishment Ledger, his slender fingers caressing the cane as he did so.
    "Y... yes." The words seemed to stick in Alice's throat. Her mind was a whirling torrent of possible futures. She walked slowly to where her husband sat, then halted before him.
    "It seems that they had some pretty effective ways of dealing with domestic misbehavior back in the old days," he observed, his blue eyes dark, betraying humor and arousal, while his finely shaped mouth remained firm.
    Although she didn't need Julian's permission to sit down, something in his manner made Alice remain on her feet. There was nothing at all about him that was like Mr. Grayson -- the Edwardian disciplinarian was a stout and graying