A Taste of Bitter (Vincent Bisset de Gramont x Reader)
Summary: The Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont stands atop the world. He has done so from the moment he came into it, spitting a silver spoon onto the ground and demanding the attention of every person in every room. He never truly stopped demanding it, and it has never been withheld. But when he decides what he wants is YOU, he'll learn that demanding does not always get him where he wants to be, but perhaps can lead to receiving precisely what he needs.
WARNINGS: NSFW, spanking, anal fingering (m!receiving), BDSM dynamics but very toxic, sub!Vincent, dom!reader, Oral Sex, Pegging, anal play (m!receiving), dubious consent
word count: 15799
A/N: THIS IS A REPOST FROM AO3 BECAUSE I WANT A MASTERLIST. Apologies if you've already read it over there, but hey, there's a nice GIF with this one. :)
Full fic under cut, MDNI
Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont stands atop the world. He has done so from the moment he came into it, spitting a silver spoon onto the ground and demanding the attention of every person in every room. He never truly stopped demanding it, and it has never been withheld. He is an oversized, spoiled baby used to getting exactly what he wants. Mistakes are intolerable, and second chances are the refuge of men who fail. He presses the button to lower the tinted window of the car as Chidi hands him a rigid white cardboard box, the faint rustling inside familiar and pleasing.
He pries open the lid with long, deft fingers but frowns at the contents, pushing his index finger through the center of a pearly pink round.
“Chidi? What is this? This is not my usual order.”
“I will see this mistake is corrected, Marquis.”
“No. It is unacceptable. I will.” Irritation makes him snappier than usual as he pushes open the car door and storms into the patisserie, demanding to know what has happened to his order and who is responsible..
Madame Lavigne, the proprietor of the patisserie that Vincent has been frequenting for a number of months, simpers and bends at the waist. “A thousand apologies Marquis, our new maître pâtissier did not know the order, or the importance of your custom. She will be reprimanded.”
The woman calls into the kitchen at once, shouting your name. You arrive in a puff of powdered sugar and the Marquis is struck, instantly, enchantingly so. A few tendrils of your hair fall from your toque, and there is a smudge of cream on your cheekbone, just below your eye. The Marquis is delighted by you, the fresh, pink, puffy innocence of you, the sweetness that fills his senses.
“Please, accept my apologies for the mistake with your order, Sir.” You say, lowering your eyes.
“Marquis,” Madame Lavigne hisses and she blinks at her boss before turning back to him.
“Marquis. My apologies, again.” You mumble, sinking your teeth into your lower lip as a blush stains your cheeks.
“No apologies necessary, ma Cherie. You did not know, and now you do. I am a particular man, I like things a particular way.”
“Understood.” She smiles, tightly, and the Marquis wonders if it were the use of the pet name, or the instruction, that makes her go so cold.
The next morning, the Marquis picks up his order personally. Madame Lavigne hands it to him, but his eyes stray towards the back of the store.
“No need to worry, Marquis. I checked the order myself.”
“The maître pâtissier, she made these?”
“She did. But as I said, I checked them. She made only those you prefer.”
The Marquis is tight with agitation, but he cannot articulate it. Why does she hide away, when he so clearly came to see her? Is she not proud of her work? Her artistry? For she is an artist with confection, the macarons are lighter, gentler, somehow sweeter since her arrival.
“Tomorrow, I would have my maître pâtissier serve me herself.”
Madame Levigne frowns, but she does not argue. No one ever does.
This is why the Marquis is hurt and enchanted to find her surly and unfriendly the next morning as she hands him the box.
“Ma Cherie, how sullen you are today? Whatever is the matter?”
She just looks at him. “Nothing is the matter, sir. Marquis. Madame Levigne has checked the box again, there’s no need to worry.”
The marquis frowns. “I was not worried.”
“Good.” She says, shaking her head. “Then I bid you adieu.” And she turns on her heel, flouncing back into the kitchen and taking that intoxicating haze of molten sugar with her.
The Marquis frowns, delighted at her insolence, and consumes three macarons right there at the counter whilst he contemplates the next move in this game of cat and mouse.
Whilst the Marquis considers this, he is unaware that he is the mouse, and the cat watches from the kitchen, heat simmering in her heart as the Marquis licks ganache from his fingertips, signet ring glinting off the lights. When the bell over the door jangles, signaling the beast has finally left the building, she returns to her workspace and rolls out a round of fresh white fondant.
The next day, the Marquis plans to make a better impression. He is his most charming self, capturing her eyes with his and holding her in his stare as he recounts the moment he fell in love with sugar, eating sticky cinnamon buns and drinking strong coffee in Paris. The way the smog from the industrial district somehow permeated the air, staining the sweetness with smoke. How he likes to combine the bitter with the sweet.
She smiles, genuinely, and it is radiant as the sun. It pleases the Marquis, exceptionally, giddyingly so, and it causes him to skip several steps ahead in the game. As soon as he’s seated back in the car he calls the patisserie directly.
“I am planning a small soiree Saturday night, and I require a sizeable pâtisserie.” “Of course, Marquis, would you like to come in for a consult? I shall accommodate you any time…” Madame Levigne says.
“No. Have my maître pâtissier sent to my home for a private consult. Today, this evening.”
“I… will need to ask her, it is usually I who handles the orders.”
“Then talk to her. But I expect see her tonight, around seven.”
“I… understand, Marquis. Au revoir.”
The Marquis does not respond as he hangs up the phone. He needs to decide what to wear tonight, and there’s the irritating business with the Ruska Roma to handle besides.
***
You’re seething with barely contained rage, vibrating with it as you ascend the steps at the front of the Chateau de Gramont, but you smear a smile onto your face, shifting the box in your hands under your arm so you can pull the front of your dress down, just a tiny bit, to expose the swell of your breasts.
The Marquis opens his own front door, something done performatively for your benefit of course, he does not usually greet guests in this manner.
He wears a three piece suit of Cobalt with a shock of crimson silk peeking from the lining of his jacket, and his electric blue-green eyes dip to the top of your dress, as expected.
“Bonsoir, ma Cherie. Please, come in.”
You follow him into the foyer, keeping your eyes on his back, avoiding the ostentatious display of wealth and opulence on display around you.
“Please, hang your bag and coat.” You hang your coat in the foyer but keep your bag close, slung over your shoulder. He leads you into a dining room, where places are set for two at one end of an incredibly long table. He pulls out your chair and you sit, letting him push you close to the table, before he takes a seat next to you. His chair has a higher back and a plusher upholstery, because of course it does. You wedge your bag between your legs, securing it in place, before deliberately placing the white cardboard box on the table between you and the Marquis.
His eyes slip from your face to the box. “You must forgive my curiosity, but what do you keep in that box?”
“A present, for you.”
His eyes light up as his fingers reach for it. “Ah, a present. May I?”
You slide the box across to him and his eyes flick to you with the ghost of a smile on his face before he opens the lid. Four golden macarons, nestled in layers of black paper.
“Caramel?” He asks, and you shake your head coyly. “Butterscotch, then.” He says, lifting a delicate round to his nose and inhaling. “Ah, cinnamon?” You shake your head again and he tuts. “You must tell me.”
“It is a flavor of my own creation.” You say, pushing your chair back and perching on the edge of the table beside him. His eyes dip to your chest again and he shifts back in his seat. “I was so moved by your story of childhood, Marquis. The way you described it.” You take the macaron from his hand, letting your fingers brush against his deliberately. “I wanted to attempt something… special.” You hold the cookie to his lips and his mouth opens, accepting the treat. “See if you can identify…” You trail off as his eyes close, your fingertips sucked into his mouth as he savors the melting meringue on his tongue.
“Ah, cinnamon.” He says, and you nod, smiling. “Oh,” he continues. “And a coffee buttercream, wonderful.” He mumbles.
You cock your head to the side, waiting. And then his eyes light. “What is this?” He asks, swallowing, his tongue grazing lightly over your fingertips as he pulls his head back. “Something bitter,” he muses, running his tongue over his teeth. “Like smoke.”
You nod again. “You are remarkable, Marquis. Yes, liquid smoke, infused into the buttercream. I wanted to recreate the smog and the coffee and the cinnamon buns, all in one bite.”
“This is certainly a gift. That you thought of me, I am humbled.”
You give him what you hope is a simpering smile, demure, enamored. “I find myself thinking of you often, Marquis,” you mumble, feeling the blush stain your cheeks. Practiced, precise. “If it is not too… bold of me to say.”
The Marquis reaches for you, his hand brushing over your knee, under the pleats of your skirt. “And what do you think of me, Cherie?”
You lean in, feeling the Marquis’ hand slide further up your thigh, watching as his lips part on a huff a breath, his pupils expanding. “I think that you are dangerous, egotistical and spoiled. Je pense que tu es un vilain garçon et que tu as besoin d’être discipline.”
You watch his expression darken, obvious indignation laced with something else, something you had suspected from your many months of watching the Marquis. Boys who have everything handed to them on a silver platter simply long for discipline. For submission. And you were not going to deny the Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont a healthy dose of the retribution he had been so longing for.
“You speak out of turn, ma Cherie,” he says, but his hand glides down between your thighs, long fingers ghosting over the front of your panties.
“I disagree, Vincent.” You say, and his lips quirk into a smirk.
“How, then, do you propose I am to be disciplined? For plying me with sweet delights and serving yourself to me upon the dining table does not feel like such punishment. For either of us.” He adds, pressing a finger more firmly against your center, probing, grazing over the soft cotton.
Heat coils in your stomach and you swallow, remembering your objective. You are not to be attracted to the Marquis. You are NOT. You are to break him, as he broke you the day he killed your father and banished your family into abject poverty. Killing him would not be enough, would not uncry the tears of hunger spilling from your brothers cheeks as you starved day after day. Cutting into his pretty, soft flesh would not bring the color back to your mother’s cheeks, pallid and drawn from endless nights servicing the men of the east end for instant noodles and powdered milk. Making him yours, erasing the Marquis and leaving the sniveling, crushed shell of Vincent for all the world to see, that would be retribution. Then kill him, or not. It wouldn’t matter anymore.
You slide from the table, coming around the back of his chair to dip your lips to his ear. “You are a man used to getting everything you want, aren’t you?”
He huffs a laugh, almost nervous. “You make it sound like this is a bad thing.”
“Oh no.” You say, tsking before licking the shell of his ear. He shivers, his fingers gripping the arms of his chair, and you see the shifting in the fabric of his tailored suit trousers. Tightening, as his cock grows. “But I do not believe it is good to be given everything. One might grow soft. Forget how to TAKE.” You grip his jaw firmly in your hand and turn his head to the side, catching his lips with yours in a kiss. He whimpers into it, needy, greedy, the taste of the macaron bitter-sweet on his tongue.
“I am not soft,” he whispers against your lips, and you smile. This is the challenge you needed from him. Your free hand slides down his chest, his torso long and lithe, fingers bumping over the gold buttons on his waistcoat to dip lower, cupping his stiff cock.
“Oh no, Vincent, you are not. Where it counts for something.”
His hips buck into your hand, his eyes darkening in a challenge. He expects he will fuck you, perhaps here on the table. He is wrong. “Take off your clothes.” You say, voice low but commanding.
His brows furrow for a moment at the cool detachment in your tone, but his cock pulses and he stands to his full height, towering over you as he removes his jacket, his waistcoat, unclips his suspenders, unbuttons his shirt, revealing his bare chest. No tattoos, no scars. To be expected, for a man who has always paid others to do his dirty work. Soft, spoiled man.
You watch as he unbuttons his trousers, pushing them to his ankles and stepping out of them. Just his briefs now, and even these are pristine, pressed, white against his soft thighs. Your mouth dries out at the bulge prodding against the fabric. You’d imagined the result of your revenge a million times, but never the… work. You’d practiced this, all of it, with sweet boys from the neighborhood, to make sure you’d be up to the task. But the Marquis is a presence, a behemoth of a man with eyes so unsettling large and bright that you struggle to keep hold of your thoughts.
“What will you do with me, ma Cherie?” He asks, a hint of a mocking smile quirking at the edge of his full mouth.
The question refocuses you and you narrow your eyes at him. “You will bend over this table, and I am going to spank you, Vincent. I am going to spank you until you beg for my mercy.”
There is no mistaking the throb of his cock for anything other than arousal as he thumbs his briefs down his legs and his cock bobs up towards the slight rounding of his stomach, leaking and red at the tip.
“Bend over.” You prompt, and he rolls his eyes before lowering himself, pushing the forgotten dinner service further along the wood as his torso lies flush, his cock pressed between his body and the cool surface. You reach out a hand to ghost your nails along the curve of his ass, the skin here milky and unblemished, as the rest of him is. You want to claw at his flesh, to bite it, perhaps, but the plan relies on discipline for you, as well. Hurt him too much, bruise his ego too soon, and he will close himself off. You must give him what he wants, what he needs, without taking liberties. A fine line to walk.
You hook your foot into the strap of your bag and drag it out from under the table, lifting it to the chair beside him and unfastening it. Vincent’s head turns to the side to watch, his cheek pressed to the wood. His eyes widen as you pull a wooden tennis paddle from the bag, and his lips part in a huff. “My Cherie, it is not fair at all that you came prepared to torture me. I have been nothing but agreeable to you, forgiving you so nicely for your mistake with my macarons.”
“Hmm,” you say, dragging the paddle over his ass before lifting it just a little, tapping it against his flesh and watching the way his thighs quiver with the motion. “And yet, from the moment I laid eyes on you I knew we would end up here.”
He whimpers, his ass lifting up towards you. “Please, ma Cherie,” he mumbles against the table. “Put me out of my misery.”
Oh, if it were that simple, Vincent, you think, as you bring the paddle down harder. This earns you another short huff of breath as a pink welt blooms on his skin. “Ten, I think.” You add and he sighs as though this is an inconvenience to him. You bring the paddle down again on the opposite cheek, leaving a matching welt. The symmetry is appealing, and you again must resist the urge to sink your teeth into the creamy flesh. Vincent’s hips grind against the table, his neglected cock leaking onto his stomach, and he’s feeling thoroughly frustrated and deliriously excited.
He expects that after the flogging, you will allow him to sheath his cock inside your cunt, or perhaps your ass, as that seems to be of interest to you, but he’s not in any true rush to hurry things along. By the sixth hit, Vincent’s ass is numb and swelling, but each forward thrust of impact drags him closer to his orgasm. It would be miserable to come like this, against his stomach on the dining table, but it seems more likely with each blistering thwack of wood against flesh.
You breathe heavily, running your hand over the masterpiece of welts on his skin. Blood blossoms just under the skin on some of them, dotting up like constellations, and you soothe your fingers over these, eliciting a hiss from the man writhing on the table.
“Ma Cherie, s'il vous plait.” He grumbles, his voice throaty with need. You deliver the last hit, the hardest hit, low, dangerously so, catching the delicate stretch of skin between his ass and balls, and he whines, fingers digging against nothing as they scramble for purchase on the wood.
You run your fingers over this new hurt, brushing the puckered skin of his testicles where they sit against the table before rounding the table to brush your fingers over his cheek, running your index finger over his lips. He sighs and parts them, sucking your finger into his mouth. You take this as permission enough, and return to the shock of his ass, so red and ruined now that you’re concerned you’ve taken it too far, but he’s not trying to get up. He breathes hard, expectant, and he doesn’t flinch as you press your finger against his hole, circling it with the slick of his own spit before you push it inside.
His spine arches a little as he wriggles, delicious little mewling noises spilling from his lips as he ruts against the table. But there is no give in the wood, of course, and pressing too hard against it hurts his cock, so he presses back, slipping your finger into his ass to the knuckle.
“One day,” you say, circling your finger a little, probing upwards, searching. “I will fuck your ass, Vincent. One day you will beg me to do it.”
He huffs again, indignant, but you ignore him and continue pressing, searching until you find the tight ring of muscle, and further, just…
Vincent’s body jolts as though you’ve shocked him as the pad of your finger brushes against his prostate. You smile, victorious as you press and nudge against that spot over and over, enjoying the desperate way his hips grind against the table. He wants to come so badly, feels that this denial is bitterly unfair and wholly unjustified. Roles reversed, he would let you come, after all. Eventually.
There is no room between the press of his body and the unmoving surface of the table, so you couldn’t reach around to grip his cock even if you wanted to. And a part of you DOES want to, wants to hear those mewls turn to full moans, maybe wants to see what his pretty mouth looks like when it forms those moans. You pinch the soft flesh of his hip in your palm and tug, and he allows you to drag him a little off the table, freeing his cock just enough for you to grip it tightly and tug down on it whilst you probe mercilessly at his prostate.
Vincent’s hips buck into your hand in earnest now, French obscenities spilling from his lips as his fingers clench and unclench into fists. You can see the tightening in his balls and feel the way his tight asshole flutters and clenches around your finger, making it harder to move, and you pick up your pace, alternating a prod to his prostate with a pump of his cock.
He comes quietly, whimpering and pressing his face against the wood to stifle the sound. His release paints the floor and the leg of the table, glistening against the polished wood. When he’s spent you withdraw your finger and take a step back to observe him as he tries to compose himself, his breathing ragged, a fine sheen of sweat coating his thighs and a flush to his back.
If you loved him, now would be the moment to go to him, to kiss him and hold him and tell him he’d done well. But you don't love him, so you watch him drag himself from the table on shaking legs and struggle to lift his feet enough to pull his briefs on. Vincent winces as the fabric brushes over the bruised skin on his ass and you repress a smile of satisfaction.
“How cruel you are,” Vincent whines, lowering himself so carefully into his seat but still wincing at the press of pressure on his swollen ass. “And how overdressed.”
You smile, leaning in, dipping your head to his and brushing his lips with your own. “Ah, of course, I should have remembered how you like sweet with your bitter, bitter with your sweet. Though, the mess you’ve made here on the floor suggests you found every bit of my discipline sweet, Marquis.”
His eyes flash at the use of his title, the formality of it after Vincent this and Vincent that, but he doesn’t argue back, just watches you as you pluck another macaron from the box and press it to his mouth.
***
You’re unsurprised to receive a personal summons to the Marquis' soiree on Saturday. The call comes just minutes after a cool, formal interaction at the counter, where you passed him his daily order without a smile and wished him a pleasant day. His mouth had twisted into a frown and he had shut the door with much too much force, the glass panes rattling in the wooden frames.
“Of course, Marquis. Of course. She will. Exactly to your specification.” You listen, knowing precisely what he’s asking, telling Madame Levigne.
On Saturday afternoon you watch as Frederic loads box after box of decadence into the back of the delivery van. When the last box is loaded he turns to you, frowning. “I will go with you.”
“Thank you.” You say with a smile. Frederic is a good man, and he’s nervous about the Marquis. He needn’t be. “But Madame Levigne has made things quite clear. I am to go alone. I will be alright.” He nods, but the frown remains as he helps you into the cab.
The Marquis does not answer his own front door this time. Instead a member of his staff, a tall, broad man with a neatly trimmed beard escorts you into the kitchen whilst a porter brings your van around to the service entrance and unloads the boxes.
“Will you tell the Marquis that I have arrived?” You ask the man watching you from the doorway.
“The Marquis is aware.” He says nothing further and you frown.
“Then, may I leave?”
At this the man’s lip twitches and he turns his head, speaking low into an earpiece.
“The Marquis wishes to speak with you in his study. Follow me.”
You roll your eyes to his back as you follow, irritated at the presumption. But this is expected. He is snubbed from your earlier interactions at the patisserie and now he is sulking. How quickly he’s forgotten his lesson.
He’s looking out of a floor-to-ceiling window when the guard announces your presence, and he doesn’t turn right away as you step into the room.
“Marquis de Gramont, sir, I have delivered all that you ordered and checked them myself. They will be perfection for your soiree tonight.”
“Oui,” he says softly, before turning to you with a slight smile on his face. “Ah, ma Cherie. How lovely you look, even in your veste et toque.” You shrug, pressing invisible creases from the front of your white jacket. You could have changed before coming here, but you knew this is the fantasy for him. This is how he pictures you.
“If that is all, I should be going.”
He shakes his head, crossing the room to stand in front of you, to tower over you. He is a clear foot taller at least. “Non, ma Cherie, you cannot leave. My guests are important people, influentials from all over Paris. I need you here, for what if a guest wants to ask you about you? What shall I say, if you are not here? Ah, ma Cherie, my petite maître pâtissier, she has delivered her treasures and disappeared into the night? Non, it is impossible.”
“Marquis, I cannot stay. I must get back to the bakery, I must return the van or Frederic will be concerned and-“
Something flashes in his eyes, anger at both your denial and the use of another man’s name. The Marquis simmers, imagine that you will use another name so freely when you seem to have conveniently forgotten his own.
“Your flavor concoctions are so unique, your desserts so inspired. You must stay. I want to show you to them all, the culinary prize that I myself have discovered.”
His words make you bristle, the implied ownership in them clear and infuriating.
“I cannot, Marquis. I am not fit to attend such an evening, with such important people as you say.”
“I will triple the overtime rate Levigne pays you. Double that again, if you need it.” Well. Heat flushes you, shame and fury warring for dominance in your senses at the disgusting entitlement of the Marquis. Trying to buy you, always buying people taking things that did not belong to him. But the money would be useful, it would help. No doubt at all that it would help, to send it back to your brother.
So you nod, a slight incline of your head. His smile is smug as he rubs his hands together. “Excellent. I hope you will not mind, I took the liberty of purchasing a dress for you. You cannot possibly wear your uniform tonight, no matter how fetching you are in it.”
“Of course, Marquis,” you say, demure, lowering your eyes. This pleases him, he hooks his fingers under your chin and tilts your head to look at him.
“You will look magnifique, ma Cherie.” He drops your chin and bends over his desk to press a button on the intercom, murmuring softly into it. Moments later the door opens and man enters with a dress bag. He hangs it on a hook next to one of the Marquis jackets and unzips, letting the dust bag fall to the floor and reveal the gorgeous cream, tight satin dress within.
“Some privacy,” you say as Vincent watches you from his chair. He sighs, his lips turning up into a playful smirk as he spins in his chair to face the window. You pull your uniform off, glad you wore the white lace bra and panties today as you drop the dress over your head and pull it into place. It fits like it was sewn to your measurements, though you’d expect nothing less than perfection from the Marquis.
The chair spins with a light squeak as he turns and you stand like a living doll as his predatory gaze rakes your body, resting on your breasts and the ruches of fabric over your hips. His eyes drop to your feet and he smiles. “Prepared for all occasions, ma Cherie. How clever you are.”
Your suede pumps have barely more than a kitten heel, but they complement the dress.
The Marquis bores you with a tour of the chateau, pointing out precious works of art, most of them stolen or otherwise acquired, and you nod, eyes wide as though you’re impressed and enamored and overwhelmed by his wealth and status and culture. But you’re not. The Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont disgusts you. The absurdity of his wealth whilst your family and so many others fight for scraps in the gutter just a few miles away disgusts you.
“Excuse me, sir.” A suited man interrupts the Marquis as he lectures you about a sculpture on the second floor of the chateau. “The guests are arriving downstairs.”
The Marquis nods, dismissing him, and holds out an arm for you to take. You slip your hand through and wrap your fingers around his forearm. “Are you prepared, ma Cherie?”
“For what?” You ask, and he reaches his free hand up to brush your hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear.
“To be enchanting.”
You take the summons seriously, working round the room with a glass of champagne in your hand. Some of the guests are familiar, either through distant memory or pictures you’ve seen in the papers. High-ranking politicians shake hands with members of prominent high table families, and this is how the world works.
“You look out of place here,” a man says on your left. You turn, flashing a coy, charming smile as you recognize the shock of dark hair. Salvatore, son of Luca Falcone of the Cosa Nostra. Your first friend, first kiss, even. There is no spark of recognition in his eyes as he smiles at you, suggestively with his crooked boyish charm.
“I feel it,” you reply, returning his smile warmly. “But the food is supposed to be exceptional.”
He laughs, dipping his head conspiratorially towards you. “Between you and I, I hear the Marquis has quite the sweet tooth. I hope you are in the mood for pastries.”
You grin openly now, a laugh spilling from your lips. The sound surprises you and Salvatore blinks, smile softening as his cheeks flush with pride. But the sound also draws the cold, possessive eyes of the Marquis, though of course his attention had never truly left you. The room seems to shift around him as he glides across the floor with commanding grace to stop in front of you. His eyes never leave your face, don’t spare so much as a glance at Salvatore as he greets the Marquis with a bow.
“You must come with me.” He says, reaching for your arm as though he would pull you away from the man who had dared make you laugh.
“In a moment, Marquis. I am speaking with…” you trail off expectantly.
“Salvatore Falcone,” he says, “but please, we are finished.”
The Marquis reaches for you again and you step back, out of his reach.
“There is a problem with the labelling, in the kitchen. You must assist.”
“I am certain that your house staff are more than capable of resolving the issue, Marquis.” You say, turning back to Salvatore, who looks as though he’d like the ground to swallow him whole.
He blinks, feeling the dismissal. You think you’ve won as he starts to turn but he stops, spinning back to face you as the contents of his wine glass tip and spill down the front of your dress, splattering crimson across the cream satin.
His eyes widen, mouth slackening in shock that he’s done this as wine seeps through the fabric, clinging to your stomach and cooling against your skin. There is a glimmer of something sharper in the shock on his face, and it is to that you appeal, excusing yourself from the men to glide towards the corridor. You feel his eyes on you the whole way and you turn as you open the door, crooking your finger at him just once before disappearing from the room.
He follows of course, follows you into his own office. You are standing by the floor to ceiling bookcases, running a fingertip along the spines on the rows of ancient volumes, when you hear the soft click of the door closing behind him.
“Ma Cherie, I am sorry, I do not know what happened –“
You cut him off, holding a hand up. “Do not pretend this was an accident, Vincent.”
At the use of his name his breath hitches and he shifts from one foot to another. You can see the slight tightening at the front of his trousers, too, and you turn from the bookcase and walk towards his desk, perching on the mahogany surface.
Vincent watches you, swallowing thickly. You crook a finger at him again and he crosses the room, stopping abruptly when you place a hand on his chest. “I do not know what came over me,” he mumbles, head bowed, “I-“
“You are so spoiled! Pourri gâté. You could not stand to be dismissed even for a moment.” He does not deny it, just sucks his bottom lip into his mouth as his eyes rake over your ruined dress. “On your knees.”
At the command, his eyes lift to yours, pupils dilating as he lowers, folding his long body gracefully at your feet and looking up at you through his lashes, expectant, mouth opening to release that tortured, swollen bottom lip from his teeth.
“You’ve made a mess, Vincent.” You purr. “The least you could do is try to clean it up.”
He frowns, his head tilting to the side. “Ma Cherie, I do not know what you mean, please, I am s-“
You take his chin in your hand and guide his head towards the center of your dress, the center of you. His upturned nose brushes against the fabric and he pulls back to look at you, eyes widening. You nod, threading your fingers in his hair and guiding his head back towards you. You don’t release him until you feel the heat of his breath through the fabric.
“Use your tongue, Vincent,” you whisper. And he does. Hesitantly at first, just the point of his tongue pressing against your stomach through the soaked fabric. You shudder a little, the heat of his mouth and the wet cling of the satin sparking in your blood. “Good,” you whisper, running your fingers through his hair. “Lower.”
He whimpers as he dips his head, below the slight swell of your belly and between your legs, pushing his face against the fabric to find the heat of your cunt. He sucks wine from the satin there, the fabric lightening from crimson to pink, and his hands slide up the backs of your calves as you lean back against the desk and sigh into the wriggling, prodding pressure against your clit. Your fingers itch to yank the fabric up around your waist and let him bury his tongue deep inside you, but you force your eyes to open, to look down at him. A pretty boy, flushed and moaning, his broad shoulders shifting under the weight of his torso as he sucks and licks at your cunt through your dress, soaking it with his saliva. This is a physical stimulation, it will pass. You can go home tonight and take care of it yourself, but you will not let the wolf past the door. Never. Never.
But the white hot coil of pleasure keeps building low in your stomach and your hips buck towards his face, desperate for more contact. His hands slide higher, the tips of his fingers brushing against your clothed entrance from below and you sober at once, pushing the sole of your foot against his chest and shoving him backward.
Vincent sits back on his heels, his face flushed and swollen mouth parted as his chest heaves harsh breaths through his lips. His eyes are glassy and dazed, pupils blown so wide with lust that the blue-green of his irises have been eaten away to little more than the suggestion of color. And his cock is hard, painfully hard, tenting insistently against the fabric of his trousers.
“I have another,” he says, his voice a low sound in his throat. Vincent wouldn’t like to admit it, but he’d purchased no less than eleven dresses for you, in case you had not liked the one he chose. He was delighted that you’d been happy with his selection, of course, but he would have presented each dress in turn and spent an hour watching you try them on if it had pleased you to do so.
“Fetch it.” You say, sitting back on the desk and pressing your thighs together to alleviate a little of the intense pressure.
He goes himself, barely managing to adjust the front of his trousers before he’s stumbling out of the room and back down the hall. He returns a few moments later with an armful of satin and silk and lace, and he presents each one in turn.
You choose a simple, tea-length burgundy dress with a lace bodice, peeling the ruined satin from your skin and slipping the new dress over your head. You don’t make Vincent turn away this time and he watches as each inch of your skin appears, swallowing thickly as the new dress cascades over the curves of your body.
“Am I redeemed, ma Cherie?” He asks in a low murmur, his fingers reaching to toy with the lace neckline on the boddice.
“Hmm. This dress is not half so comfortable as the last. Does it feel fair to you, that I must suffer this discomfort whilst you remain perfectly fine, Vincent? After making such a mess?” His hand drops from the fabric and he shakes his head slowly, a blush creeping up his cheeks.
“How can I make it right?” His voice is a soft, agreeable whisper.
“Bend over the desk,” you say and he hesitates for just a moment. His ass is still so sore from your previous discipline, he’s not sure he can take any more.
“I won’t hit you at all.” You say, and he nods once, trusting you, as he unbuckles his belt and reveals the masterpiece of purple, green and yellow bruises over his flesh. His belly meets the wood with a slight huff as he settles against the surface and you notice that this time he’s far enough back that you could reach his cock if you wanted to. Presumptuous of him.
You lift your clutch bag from beside the desk and remove a thin device and a discreet tube from the confines. You lube up the sleek shaft liberally before sliding it between his cheeks and his breath hitches.
“Ma Cherie, please, I’m not prepared for-“
You cut him off as you slide it home, the flared base sitting flush between his cheeks and he whines, bucking away. But there’s nowhere to go.
“You will wear this through dinner.” You purr into his ear, running fingertips over his bruised ass cheeks. “You will not take it out until I say so.”
A whine rolls from his throat. “But this is- I am conducting important business tonight, I need to-“
“You need to learn to behave, Vincent. I won’t tell you again. Get up.” You tap his bruised ass with a little more force and he winces before standing. His cock is half hard still as you pull his trousers back up, buttoning them and tucking in his shirt properly.
He looks so upset that you reach for him, brushing tender fingers along his jaw and coaxing his face to yours for a gentle kiss on the mouth. Meaningless, of course, but it seems to soothe him enough to get him to nod. Trusting you.
You walk to the door and he follows, pausing only a few times to get used to the feeling of something pressed up inside him.
Almost the moment you return to the ballroom, a bell rings in an adjoining room and you’re ushered into the dining room for dinner.
The meal is boring, a trio of poultry dishes and steamed vegetables on a bed of plain white rice that is altogether too bland. You pick at your food and watch the Marquis instead, conducting business conversations with confidence, all those in earshot hanging on his every word. Vincent has sat you too far away to listen in, and you bristle at the snub. Deliberately so, as far as he is concerned you have no place in his business, you exist outside of it, for him only.
His eyes flick to you quite suddenly, too quickly for you to look away, and his mouth stretches into a satisfied smirk when he catches you. Arrogant bastard. Sighing, you drop your eyes to your plate as you slip your clutch bag open, clicking a button on the slim remote hidden within.
You wait a full, agonizing ten seconds, counting the numbers in your head, before you look at Vincent. His eyes are pinned on you, his face flushing pink, mouth dropped open. You smile, wide and innocent, and lift a deliberate mouthful of food to your lips before clicking off the device.
Five minutes later you do it again, increasing the intensity of the vibration and this time, when his eyes rake over you narrowly, you let him see the tiny controller in your hand.
Your new source of entertainment is endlessly delightful. You watch him, waiting for those around him to ask questions, holding off until he has a moment to pause, consider. And then as soon as his mouth opens you press that button, varying the intensity in waves, and watch as his jaw slackens and his eyelids flutter. More than once a guard drops a hand to his shoulder, murmuring in his ear and he shrugs him off, waving his hand dismissively.
By the end of the meal he is a disheveled mess, his bottom lip obscenely swollen from biting into it. The plates are cleared and tray after tray of your creations are brought in, to low murmurs of appreciation. Colorful macarons, puffed pastries drizzled with chocolate and caramel, beautifully layered mille-feuille and candied fruits cover every service. It is ridiculous, and much too much for the number of guests, but the Marquis pushes to a stand, presiding over the table. “With complements to my maître pâtissier, perhaps the greatest in all o-“ he coughs as you click the button on your remote, blinking at him innocently as he struggles to compose himself. “In all of Paris,” he finishes, his voice lower, rougher than before. “Bon apetit.”
When the ordeal is finally over and the guests depart, you sit at the empty table and wait for him, shredding apart a strawberry mille-feuille with your fingers.
Vincent enters, stands awkwardly in the doorway, watching you. As you suck cream from your fingers he starts to get hard and presses the heel of his palm against his crotch.
You notice this and raise an eyebrow. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Please, ma Cherie. It is enough, no? Have I not proven myself a most contrite étudiant?"
You beckon him forward and he kneels at the side of your chair so you can push your cream covered fingers into his mouth. He sucks greedily on a moan, his hand still desperately rubbing at the stiff bulge in his trousers.
“Would you have me remove it, Vincent?” You ask and he nods. You pull your fingers from his mouth and drag the wet digits across his cheek, cupping his jaw and watching his face contort as your free hand presses the button on the remote concealed in your palm and the deep buzzing begins. His eyes flutter shut and his lips part, a low, pathetic whine emitting from his throat.
“Please,” he whispers. “It is too much.” He palms himself harder and you sigh, kicking his arm away from his own body.
“And yet still you take these liberties.”
His eyes narrow and he huffs, pushing to stand beside your chair. His crotch levels with your face and you lick your lips slowly, tilting your chin up to look at him. “I will not be spoken to like a child.” He seethes. “I could have you fired. Could have you locked away where no other would ever lay eyes on you again, I could-“.
You press another button on your remote, and Vincent cuts himself off with a gasp as the vibration inside his asshole intensifies. With your other hand you flick open the buttons on the front of his trousers, then the zipper. By the time his attention returns to you you’re tugging his hard cock from the waistband of his briefs.
Vincent finds it hard to focus, near enough impossible to rest his eyes on the throned demon before him, but at the feeling of your hand circling his length he forces himself to look, to watch, as you squeeze his cock and drag your dry palm up to the head. Fiendish, whoreish behavior, and he is rapt, fixated on your hand and the wide faux-innocence of your eyes as you click, click, click that infernal device into a pummeling frenzy inside of him.
“Vincent.” You purr and he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. “You and I exist outside of everything. You hold the world in your undeserving hands, but you do not hold me. You shall never have me, cannot own me. It is I who owns you.”
Vincent wants to argue, he does, but you wrap your filthy mouth around his cock then, pushing the foreskin back with your tongue and sucking the head so deliciously that words fail and all he can do is groan, and nod, and give you everything.
He jerks his hips forward, trying to push more of his length inside your mouth, but you squeeze the base of him and pop off the head of his cock, tsking and shaking your head.
He whines again, lifts his foot as though he’s going to stomp it, but he knows exactly how that will work out for him, so he doesn’t. He waits, as patiently as a man with no patience can wait. It’s almost a relief when you push out of your chair and tap your palm against the surface of the dining table. This he knows.
Vincent lowers his stomach to the surface, turning his head to press his cheek into the wood and listening to the gentle sounds of your heels as you circle him. His cock leaks in anticipation, glistening beads of precum dripping from the tip and sticking on the floor. Click, and the vibration in his ass stops. He almost whines again, almost misses it, but he holds his body still, presses his full lips together to stop the sound.
“Good,” you whisper. He winces just a tiny bit at the intrusion of your fingers probing the puckered flesh of his asshole as you hook around the flared base of the plug and gives it a tiny tug. It doesn’t come loose, Vincent’s muscles draw it back in automatically and he does whimper then.
You pause, huffing out a breath of amusement. “You want more?” You ask, tapping against the plug and sending little jolts through his body as the angle shifts, driving the tip of it against his prostate. He jerks away, against the table, the little silver dessert forks clattering. “Ah,” you murmur, gripping the plug more firmly and pulling it back an agonizing inch before driving it back in, and up, into that spot.
Vincent moans, his jaw slackening and a thin string of drool leaking from his mouth and sticking his cheek to the table. He’s sure his cock is leaking just the same, but there is no room to be embarrassed as you fuck the device in and out of him, pulling back a little more each time, driving it a little deeper, right into that agonizingly pleasurable spot.
A click and a whir and you’ve turned the device back on, the wretched, hateful vibrations liquifying Vincent’s insides and shredding his resolve to behave with dignity. He writhes against the surface, his cock brushing repeatedly against the edge of the table. His hips dig painfully into the wood, the soft flesh swollen and bruising, but he cannot stop himself from rutting against it, desperate for relief.
But you are relentless, pumping the device in and out, punishing his prostate with each shallow thrust. You could go harder, could make him squeal if you wanted to, but it isn’t time for that. Unlike a certain spoiled Marquis, you know how to wait, to watch, to anticipate ahead of victory.
“You want to come, Vincent?” You ask, running your fingers over the bruised ruin of his ass.
“Oui, s'il te plait,” he whimpers. “Ah, ma Cherie, please.”
His cock is pathetic, leaking steadily and blooming crimson at the head as it twitches. You take it in your palm, brushing your fingers over the head to spread the sticky fluid down his length whilst you continue to rail his ass with the plug. He looks good like this, flushed and quivering and soft spread out for you. But, ah, heat on your leg as he comes, shooting ropes of seed to splatter on your calf and the suede of your shoe.
You turn off the vibrations and withdraw the plug from his ass in one long pull, watching Vincent’s asshole gape for a moment before his legs seem to buckle and he slumps fully against the table.
“Merde,” you hiss, turning your foot from side to side to examine the splash of cum on your shoe. “Once again, Vincent, you have made a mess.” Vincent’s spine tightens, dread pooling in his stomach as he comes down from his orgasm and processes your words. On legs that shake like a newborn foal he pushes up from the surface, feeling the soft squelch in his asshole as sweat and semen dries sticky on his crotch and thighs. He reaches for his trousers, grimacing only slightly at the dark patches of fluid inside them as he pulls them over his sensitive cock.
“Ah,” he mumbles, seeing the ruined shoe you hold out to him. Vincent looks instead at the expanse of bare calf, his semen dripping prettily down over your ankle, and he thinks again how he has not seen you naked. Has barely been allowed to touch you. And how it is not fair. “I will have your shoes cleaned, ma Cherie.” At your severe expression he smirks, reaching for you and brushing his fingers over your cheek. “Or I will buy you new ones. To Louis Vuitton Maison Champs-Élysées, we will go tomorrow.” You cock your head to the side, eyes cool and calculating, and Vincent feels his abused cock stir again. “Ce n'est rien. Rien du tout.” Vincent doesn’t know why, but it’s the wrong thing to say.
Your rosebud lips press into a harsh line and you point to your shoe before tapping the heel of it on the ground in front of you. “Spoiled, selfish boy.” You sigh, relishing the way his eyes darken and his face heats. “You think you can simply buy your way out to trouble. This is not so with me, Vincent. Not so.” You step towards him, sliding your fingers into his hair and pulling harshly on the strands.
Vincent hisses, the pressure forcing him to bend at the waist as he dips his head towards yours. “How can I make it right?” He asks, and you smile. How quickly he is learning to bend to your will.
“You can clean them yourself,” you whisper, leaning in to brush your lips against his. His eyelids flutter shut, his mouth searching greedily for yours, for any shred of comfort or approval you’re willing to offer him. You run your tongue along the seam of his lips, repressing the urge to bite down on the flesh and hear him whine as you pull away, dropping your hands to his shoulders and pushing him, easing him down. He complies, dropping to his knees even as they scream in protest, every inch of him sore and spent and begging for a soft bed. He places his palms flat on the floor to support his weight as he looks up at you through long lashes, blue-green eyes shining with desire even as a blush stains his cheeks. The Marquis does not kneel, and yet here he is. But you are not finished. “Lower, Vincent.” You say, tapping your foot against the floor. “You will lick it clean.”
Vincent pauses, hesitates, his eyes dropping to the mess drying on your shoe as he weighs his options, and you wonder if it’s too far. But his breath huffs out in a ragged puff as he lowers to his belly, a smile curling at his lips like he can’t quite believe he’s doing this, that he’s degrading himself in such a manner. His tongue darts out to lick a long stripe up the length of your shoe, dragging the smear of semen along the rough fabric before he pulls it into his mouth from the surface. Wetness pools in your underwear, the vindication of the moment flushing you with pleasure at the sight of this hateful man brought so low. It isn’t enough, not nearly enough, but it is beautiful all the same.
When there is nothing left on your shoe but the dampness of Vincent’s saliva you push your toes against his chin, forcing his head back up to look at you. A tear pools at the corner of one eye and he rubs the back of his hand across his mouth, as though he can erase the taste of himself from his tongue. He looks upset now, shamed without the cloud of lust, and you sigh, dropping to your knees in front of him and cupping his face in your hands. “That’s it. That’s good. You did so well, mon amour.” The words feel wrong in your throat but they have the desired effect, his face lights, his lips curving into a hopeful smile as he presses his mouth against yours in a breathy, needy kiss. It is so deliriously simple, keeping him docile. He needs so little of your affection to thrive.
“Have you forgiven me, ma Cherie?” He asks, his smile twisting into a smirk that sets a kindling of fury in your stomach.
“No,” you say with a sigh, pushing against his shoulders to stand and lifting your foot to examine your shoe. “I have not forgiven you.” Not for any of it, you think.
“Please,” he murmurs, rising to his full height and reaching for you to wrap a long, muscular arm around your waist. “What can I do? What more can I do?”
“I don’t know, Marquis.” You say, twirling out of his grip and reaching for the bag you’d stashed underneath your chair. “I suppose you will need to spend a little time thinking on it, no?”
The Marquis lets you leave, leaning back against the table on exhausted, burning thighs. You are a mystery to him. The first instance he had allowed, giving you a little taste of power to draw you closer, showing you what he could offer if you would submit to him. He hadn’t expected to submit to you, not so easily, but you were so delightful. Such a refreshing little surprise, he had been unable to help himself. Tonight had been his, orchestrated carefully to see what you would do in his world, and yet somehow you had gained the upper hand once again. Once again. Vincent worries the signet ring on his finger, shifting his weight from one sore ass cheek to the other and wincing at the soreness between them.
“Chidi?” He calls, and his bodyguard opens the door, stepping inside. He has been there the whole time, of course. He is never far. “The girl. I have been… remiss. Find out who she is. Find out everything. Leave nothing out.”
***
The first gift is waiting on the countertop Monday morning. You don’t question how it got there, though you’re the first one to arrive and the door is locked without signs of forced entry. A beautiful box of chocolates from Jacques Genin, tied up in black tissue with a golden monogrammed G printed upon the lid. No note, because the Marquis does not feel the need to announce himself. You open the box and slide your finger over the shiny shell of a cube, struck through with a swirl of cool green. The shell cracks satisfyingly under your teeth, your mouth filling with a rich, pistachio ganache. A decadent treat, to be sure, but a weak attempt at gaining your favor. You open the box completely and place it on the counter behind you, inviting your colleagues to eat as many as they like through the morning.
The box is half finished by the time the Marquis enters and you hand him his order. As though orchestrated by the fates, Frederic slides into the gap behind you at that moment, plucking a praline from the box and popping it into his mouth.
“Merci pour les chocolats,” he says over his shoulder to you, before ducking under the countertop and bussing a nearby empty table. The Marquis’ face is rigid, his eyes cold and wide with shock and fury.
“Those were for you.” He says tightly and you smile.
“Ah, from you? So lovely, thank you Marquis, sir.”
“You did not like them?” He asks, pinning one hand to his hip.
“Oh no, I thought they were adorable.” The word lands exactly as you mean it to, he flinches, lips drawing back from his teeth.
“Adorable,” he repeats as though the word tastes bad in his mouth. “I see.”
“Please, have one,” you say, injecting as much warmth into the words as you can. You spin to the box before he can answer, plucking up a honey-filled square and holding it out to him. It’s a challenge, and his eyes flash as he dips his head to take the chocolate into his mouth, his tongue tracing the seam between your fingers with a lurid lick as he withdraws.
Traitorous heat curls in your stomach again, remembering the feeling of this specific tongue lashing against your center, but you offer him a polite smile. “Passe une bonne journée.”
He nods, bowing his head as he turns to the door, but you don’t miss the way his hand tightens on the lid of the box, crumpling the corner and likely massacring the delicate biscuits inside.
Just after the lunch rush, a courier enters with a clipboard and asks for you by name. You nod, already anticipating another stunt, and watch with rapidly expanding horror as he delivers a florists’ worth of long stem red roses. There isn’t enough space on the counter for them all, so he piles them on the ground in front of the register, and then on the tables.
“This is not acceptable,” Madame Levigne seethes, “where shall our customers sit?”
“I will get rid of them,” you mumble, ignoring the snag of pain on your palm as you catch thorns.
“Is this all him?” Frederic asks as he stumbles over a pile of bouquets on his way to help you.
“I believe the chocolates did not send enough of a message.” You say, and he sighs.
“The Marquis?” Madame Levigne asks, her tone sharp. “He sent these to you?”
“Yes, and the chocolates before.”
She purses her lips, scanning the mounds of red and green. “Then you must not throw a single one lest you offend him. We shall put them in the back, in the réfrigérateur.”
You roll your eyes but obey, following Frederic into the back with your arms full of the fragrant blooms. This was beyond proving a point, it was decadence to the point of gluttony and it did not impress you nor endear him to you. Not that anything could, you supposed.
You managed to convince Madame Levigne that you had no room for more than a dozen roses in your tiny apartment and left the rest to wilt in the fridge as you made your escape at the end of the day. You were already dreaming of a hot bath and an early night. The white box propped against your door should not have been a surprise, but it was. Of course it was inevitable that eventually the Marquis would become curious enough to look you up, and you hoped you’d covered your tracks well enough that he would find your assumed identity and dig no further.
You pull open the silk bow right there in the hallway, unwilling to take anything inside your sanctuary until you’d examined it. Your face flushes at the black lace nightgown and robe, the sheer stockings. All beautiful, and all presuming an intimacy that you did not yourself feel for the Marquis. Did he honestly believe this game was a dance towards something more? Pathetic. Perfect.
Regardless of the motives of the sender, you dress yourself in the gorgeous bedclothes that night, skin soft and warm from soaking in the bath for altogether too long. You look yourself up and down in the mirror and think, yes, this is it. This is what I will wear when I take the final piece from him. Or perhaps, if he is agreeable, you will make him wear it. The thought of his soft, thick white thighs squeezed into the stockings and spread for you sends a jolt of heat into your core and you sigh, dropping onto your bed and sliding your hand up under the nightgown to touch the slick heat between your thighs.
It was sick and wrong to think of him, but god, years of thinking of nothing but revenge, of delving into his world of darkness and depravity in order to make yourself a match for him has warped everything inside you. You think again of his tongue, the darkness in his eyes as he licked at your center, the brush of his fingertips against your underwear. How good it would feel, how easy it would be to make him service you. But the mocking smirk of his mouth in the moment of victory – no! You could not allow it. Never allow that. He could not be allowed to give if it meant taking from you. But knowing and feeling are different things, and your mind skips on, thinking of the bruised expanse of his ass cheeks and the pathetic whines and whimpers he makes as you brutalize him. You come against your own hand, imagining his tongue licking you clean in the manner he’s becoming so accustomed to, and sigh as you roll over to sleep.
You awake to a knock on the door, and a delivery service worker stands impatiently on the other side. You open the door without thinking, still muffled with sleep, and his eyes widen as he looks down at you. You follow his gaze, jumping back with a shriek as you remember the sheer stockings, the lace nightgown. He must think you’re a prostitute. You grab the bag from his hands and dart back inside, slamming the door and pressing your back against it before remembering the lock and latching it securely.
He's not there when you look through the peep-hole and your fingers crinkle on the paper bag in your hands. Another gift, of course. A selection of pastries, savory croissants and sweet jam tarts. A peculiar gift for a person who works in a patisserie, but thoughtful, you suppose. You sit at the little table in your kitchen and eat one, savoring the buttery flavor as it melts against your tongue.
The breakfast picks up your mood somewhat as you shuffle onto the bus an hour later. You’d changed into your uniform as usual, but left the stockings on, under your comfortable black slacks. You packed the pièce de resistance in your bag, too. Intuition tells you it might come in useful to have this with you if the Marquis intends to continue his attempts at getting your attention and redeeming himself for his behavior on Saturday. It’s sooner than you expect, but you will be ready.
There is an obnoxious car parked outside the front of the patisserie and you roll your eyes at the black-tinted windows as you pass it. It’s too early to be him, and you wonder whether one of his friends from the party has decided to pay you a visit. How would the Marquis feel about that? It would be interesting to see.
The driver steps out and calls after you. “Mademoiselle, s'il vous plait. Wait.” His accent is thick and he clearly struggles with English, so you turn to him. “For you.” He says, gesturing to the passenger seat.
“I did not order a car service,” you say, reaching for the door handle. “And I am late for work.”
“No, you… the car. And I am yours. For your use. Whenever.”
I blink at him. “The Marquis?” You ask and he nods, relief flooding his face.
“Oui, mademoiselle, oui. For as long as you desire. I am at your disposal.”
You wrinkle your nose. “Well, I do not desire. I have legs, and I’m perfectly capable of using them. Go away.”
You don’t mean to be rude to this man who is just trying to do his job, but you are incensed. He splutters, tries to speak again, but you close the door behind you and stride purposefully for the counter, ducking underneath and disappearing into the kitchen.
When the Marquis arrives, his mood arrives with him like a black cloud. His gift must have returned, then.
“Bonjour, Marquis, sir.” You say brightly, sliding his order across the counter. “All there, checked by Madam Levigne.”
He doesn’t reach for the box as his eyes narrow into a glare. “What was wrong with the car?”
“The car?” You ask innocently, blinking at him. “Nothing, Marquis, sir.”
“Then,” his brows furrow like he’s genuinely confused, like it had never occurred to him that a person might not want a car service following them around. “Why did you return it?”
“I have no need of a car. And it was blocking the view of the patisserie from the street. Ugly thing.”
“I have the same model,” he says and you smile, like yeah, Vincent, I know. “It is the finest, the most expensive car in Europe.”
You shrug. “Will that be all, Marquis?” You ask and his face tightens as he steps forward, leaning half over the counter.
“I am trying, ma Cherie. To play your games, to be patient. But I have my limits.”
You cock your head to the side, eyes narrowing. “And what happens when you reach your limits, Vincent?”
He swallows thickly, eyes flitting to your mouth for a moment as he licks his lips subconsciously. “It would be best if you did not find out.”
It is your turn to swallow, a sliver of fear skittering down your spine. However compliant Vincent is when you get him alone, he is still the Marquis. He could still have you killed without so much as flinching, and then where would your family be?
“Will that be all?” You ask again, hoping your voice doesn’t shake. He holds your gaze for a moment longer before sighing and stepping back.
“Oui. I suppose, for now, it is all.”
He leaves without another word and you hold your breath until the door closes. It is only when you hear the car start that you let your shoulders slouch and you see that he left his order on the counter.
The Marquis flips through the dossier with growing agitation. It was unthinkable, that he had been so deceived. You were pretty, of course, but it was no excuse. You had bewitched him with confection and cunning and he had submitted himself to your will. The man in the picture is not familiar to him, though Chidi assures him that he had been employed by the Cosa Nostra before turning pentito and giving mafia information to the police. The Marquis had not been the Marquis then, his father had regrettably still been alive and he’d been sent all over the world on ridiculous blood missions as a representative of the family. Dirty, messy work, and he’s glad to have it behind him.
The Marquis has only the vaguest of memories from that time, the visit to Sicily was one of many, the bearded Italian in the picture only one face in a sea of men on their knees. And yet, it was not a coincidence that you are here, and that you have made no mention of your lineage. The wide innocence of your eyes is a fallacy, but the hunger that heats in them is not. The Marquis knows how to read people, it is an invaluable skill for a man in his position, and he knows what he’s seen in your face.
That the hunger may be for revenge rather than for him is something he had not considered, but it made little difference. The game would change now, the board set. The next page contains pictures of you as a child, smiling with arms around a dark-haired boy. A brother. The Marquis scans the information – the brother lives still, you have him sequestered away in a group home in Northern Italy. It will be simple enough to fetch him, if you make things difficult.
“Oh, ma Cherie,” he mutters to himself as he runs a finger over a picture of you leaving the patisserie. Oh, how he is going to dissect you.
***
There is caramel drying in your hair from a piping bag explosion and you want nothing more than to soak in the bath for an hour. Or perhaps two. But your wrists are tied to the chair you sit in, your ankles as well, and you can do nothing more than glare and bite down on the leather gag in your mouth as the Marquis watches you from across the desk.
There had been no more gifts that day, and your unease had grown with every passing hour of supposed peace. The Marquis had been desperate for your attention all this time, his silence made no sense. The hand covering your mouth as you exited the patisserie that evening had been almost a relief, things were in motion again.
“You look rather lovely tied up, ma Cherie.” He says, eyes raking you predatorily. “Perhaps I should have done this earlier, under different circumstances.” His mouth smirks mockingly at you, but his eyes are sharp and cold. He knows. The surety of it settles in your stomach like a stone. No matter how well you covered your tracks, how foolproof your new identity was supposed to be, the Marquis has found you out.
“Vincent,” you start, injecting as much sultry playfulness into your voice as you can, considering your predicament.
“No, not Vincent,” he says, pushing up from his chair and rounding the desk to stand in front of you. He braces his hands on the arms of the chair, fingers just barely grazing against your forearms, and the chair skids back an inch under the force of him. “You use my name as if we know each other. But we do not.”
His cheeks are flushed with anger and your stomach rolls over, heat coiling like a sickness in your core and sending a throb to your clit. You really are broken, to be finding this arousing.
“Is it time for us to be honest with each other?” You ask, and he tilts his head to the side.
“You think I have been dishonest?” He asks, his breath ghosting over your lips. You lick them, and his expression darkens.
“All your life, mon amour,” you murmur. He flinches as though you’ve hit him. Good.
“I am not the one in the chair.” He says, straightening and running his thumb down the side of your jaw before stepping back to lean against his desk. Your eyes drop to the mahogany surface, remembering the last time the two of you were in this room together.
“Untie me and we can change that.” You say and he huffs out a breath, something like a laugh but crueler.
“You think me an imbécile. Non.”
“I am just a girl,” you say, batting your lashes at him. “What threat could I possibly pose to a man such as you, Marquis?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Playing the innocent does not suit you.”
“Have things really changed so much? Was it not my perceived innocence you were drawn to? Wanted to take from me?”
He grits his teeth, tapping his fingers against the desk in irritation. “I wanted you, it is true. And you wanted, what?” He asks, flicking his hair out of his face where a lock has come down over his forehead.
“Revenge,” you say. The word hangs in the air between you, but the Marquis smiles. This is a motive he understands and had suspected.
“Vengeance,” he says softly, smiling. “Oui.”
“You killed my father. I have never forgotten your face, though I doubt you remember his.” It feels like the deepest catharsis to say the words out loud. His face does not change, there is no flicker of emotion in his eyes. He knows it all, then.
“I do not remember him. Or the dozens like him. Your father was excommunicado, and the house of Gramont was commissioned with the hit. That is all there is.”
Rage blooms in your body so thoroughly it vibrates in your bones and you dig your nails into the unforgiving wooden arms of the chair. “He was my father.”
“He was a traitre. He swore an oath to the Cosa Nostra and broke it. You do not cross the High Table, ma Cherie. You grew up in this life, whether you choose to remember it or not. The rules are the rules.”
This is not what you want to hear. This is not what is supposed to happen. The words the Marquis says cut through you like blades, because there is truth to them. Harsh, stark truth. Your father was a criminal. And there had been policemen in the house in the weeks leading up to his murder. And you’d been forbidden from seeing any of your friends again, had been pulled out of school. Bags by the front door, like you were going away.
“He just wanted to protect his family.”
The Marquis shrugs. “And I did not kill his family. I could have.”
You swallow the rising bile in your throat, knowing this, too, is true. He could have exterminated the whole line to prevent his son from rising in vengeance and no one would have questioned him. No one suspects the daughter, but killing the women would be considered clean up and perfectly acceptable. You feel a blush creep up your neck and bite down on your tongue as wretched tears spring unbidden to your eyes. Crying will do you no good at all. Weakness does not move the Marquis.
You glare at your own knees, willing the tears to retreat and dry up, but you hear the faint squeak of his desk as he moves, and then his shoes enter your field of vision. If you look up now, you’ll be level with his crotch.
“I still do not quite understand your plans, ma Cherie.” He says, his fingers finding your chin and lifting it, forcing your face upwards to look at him. He tsks at the tears on your cheeks and swipes at them with his thumb. “To seduce me? To make me fall in love with you so you could break my heart?” His words drip with contempt and you bite down on the inside of your cheek.
“Impossible, you have no heart. You took from me, Marquis. I simply wanted to take from you, as well.”
He presses his lips into a hard line, his finger and thumb tightening on your chin to the point of pain. “Ah,” his voice is liquid poison. “I have not even begun to take from you.”
Your heart stutters at the sound of his zipper lowering and you can do nothing at all but glare at him hatefully as he tugs his cock out of his briefs and guides your face towards it. He grips the base of his cock, pumping his hand along the length a few times as he presses your closed lips to it. “You will do this,” he says, his voice low and thick with desire. “Or I will perhaps call for your brother, and he will do it whilst you watch.”
Your lips open, horror churning in your stomach at the words, the mere suggestion of something so heinous, and his cock pushes unceremoniously into your mouth. Your tongue bumps against the underside of his length as he pushes himself further and further into your mouth, and your throat spasms, bile trying to force its way out of an exit that no longer exists. Tears burn anew in your eyes and you try hard to breathe through your nose as he pulls half way out before thrusting back in, the chair skidding back with a sharp sound as Vincent’s fingers leave your chin to tangle in your hair and pin your face against his hips.
God, how you want to bite down. But he has threatened you with the one thing in the world you value the most. So you hollow your cheeks, sucking hard on his cock, using every skill at your disposal to bring him to a climax so this can be over. Vincent gasps, his thrusts losing their rhythm momentarily as a jolt of pleasure shoots through him. Your mouth is perfection when it is filled with cock instead of lies. Even the watery glare you give him is perfection, encouraging him to thrust harder, faster, to bruise your throat so you will remember exactly what it feels like to be taken by the Marquis de Gramont. “Bien, ma Cherie. Très bien.” You do not deserve his praise, but Vincent is delirious with the feeling of your mouth after so much denial, so much rough treatment at your hands.
You pull your head back, laving your tongue against the slit on the head of his cock and Vincent allows you to take a little control, giving your throat a momentary reprieve so you can tease and taste his most sensitive part. You look up at him, heating your gaze, and he sucks his full bottom lip into his mouth to stifle a moan. Your cunt aches, primally unable to tell the difference between desire and distress, and you wish you could press your legs together to squeeze against your throbbing clit. Every part of your plan centered on control, controlling him, and gaining the upper hand for just a moment kindles new resolve in you. You push forward, sliding his cock further and further into your mouth until the head meets the resistance of your tonsils and you swallow, allowing him to drop into the spasming tunnel of your throat. Vincent comes with a cry, his hips trying to withdraw so he can buck against you but you swallow again, holding him in your contracting throat. It burns, feels like you’ve swallowed a hot poker, but the contortion of bliss and agony on his face is worth it. The hand on your head tightens in your hair and pulls, so you relax your throat and release him, your lips dragging over his sensitive cock as he withdraws and stumbles back.
“Une beauté du diable,” he whispers, running a hand through his hair.
You smile at him beatifically. “You think me the devil?”
He shakes his head, tucking his cock back into his briefs. “You act as though you enjoyed that.”
“I did.” You say. It wasn’t completely untrue.
“You act as though you desire me.”
“I do.” You say, and he sighs.
“How am I to believe it? When you came to me under false pretenses?”
“Did I?” You ask, shaking your head. “I did not invite myself here. Twice. You pursued me, Marquis.”
He chews his lip, a light blush staining his cheeks. “What am I to do with you now, hmm?”
You frown. “Are you asking me? You are in control here, you said so yourself.”
“Merde,” he spits, pushing off the desk and pacing to the window. He braces a hand on the wall, bowing his head for a moment, before turning back to face you. “I should kill you.”
“Hmm,” you say, non-committedly.
“Non?” He asks.
“Again, are you asking me? Are you so desperate to surrender control again, Vincent?” His face flushes further at the use of his name.
“In my position, what would you do?”
“You mean, if you were the one tied to a chair and I was the one who had just fucked your face?”
He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, but nods.
“I would bend you over this desk and fuck you until you begged for my forgiveness.”
He scoffs, surprise and pleasure evident on his features as he steps closer, his paces slow. “You ask me to fuck you, now? Do you think me so stupid as to forget it all the moment I sink into your pretty cunt?” He drops to a crouch in front of you and presses his lips to yours, his mouth hard and unforgiving on yours. Nothing like the soft, needy brushes of lips you’ve given him before.
“Worth a try,” you say on an exhale and he smirks. “Or you could bend over the desk and take the discipline we both know you are desperate for.”
His breath hitches in his throat as his eyes darken. Vincent does want it, wants to go back to how things were before he knew what a traitorous little whore you are. But he can never submit to you again, it would be insanity. You will try to kill him, he’s certain. Though… it would solve the problem. If you try to kill him, he will have to put you down, absolved of any responsibility. It would be inevitable, and he would not need to feel the least bit bad.
“And what would discipline look like, now we see each other clearly?” He asks, his voice gravelly with desire.
You lean forward, coaxing his mouth back to yours and sucking his bottom lip into your mouth. “I made you a promise, do you remember it?”
His brows furrow as he thinks, before his eyes snap to yours. “Non.”
“Oui,” you sing. “But only if you beg me to do it.”
“I will not.” He mumbles, shaking his head. “Never.”
“A shame,” you sigh, dropping your head back against the chair. “When I am so good at it.”
It’s not necessarily true, you only practiced it once, but the man really had seemed to enjoy himself.
“I don’t want to.” He says, but he isn’t moving away from you, and his cock is hardening again as he thinks about it.
“There is no need to be scared, mon amour,” you purr. “Discipline does not have to be punishment. Have you not enjoyed our time together?”
Heat flushes Vincent’s face and fills his cock as he remembers the sting on his ass from your paddle, and the pleasurable stretch of your fingers. He’d enjoyed the humiliation of dinner a lot less, but afterwards had been a different story, when you’d used the cursed device to make him come.
“I won’t beg,” he says, his bottom lip pouting out insolently.
“Alright, you won’t.” You say softly.
He regards you carefully, his face smooth and unreadable, but his chest heaves with excited breaths. “Je suis stupide.” He says on a sigh before reaching to hook his fingers into the zip ties at your hands and feet, snapping them open. You rub at the sore spots on your wrists where the plastic had been digging into your flesh, but there’s no real damage. Considering how you thought this was going to go, you can’t really believe your luck. The plan has to change, the stage is not set how you intended, but this was never about the audience, not really. You would know. It would be enough, had to be enough.
“Take down your pants and bend over the desk, Vincent,” you say, using the low, commanding tone that has him whimpering and yanking at his trousers with shaking hands.
As he lowers himself to the surface, Vincent can’t quite believe he’s allowed this to happen again. But his cock aches painfully already, leaking against the wood, and his asshole clenches in anticipation of… he’s not sure what, exactly.
“My bag,” you say, and he turns his head to the side to catch your eyes.
“By the door.” He mumbles. You don’t want to turn your back on him, wondering if this is a trick, so you walk backwards until you’re a safe distance from the man before you spin and run for the door. Your hand seizes around the strap and you return to him, walking deliberately slowly as you unzip the bag.
It’s lucky that none of your colleagues snoop, or they’d have been traumatized by the contents. Lucky, too, that whoever had abducted you had thought to bring it along. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
“This was all inevitable, Vincent,” you say as you squeeze a generous amount of lube onto your fingers. You run your index finger along the puckered seam of his asshole and he shudders, pressing his cheek into the desk. “I have thought about this moment…”
“Is it…” he cuts off as you push a finger inside him. “How you imagined, ma ch-cherie?”
“Some things the same… some different,” you muse as you push deeper, to the knuckle, and crook your finger inside him, stretching and searching. You add a second finger, slipping it snugly in beside the first and Vincent hisses. “This is going to hurt a little bit.”
“It’s fine.” He spits, but the discomfort is edged in his voice.
“I know,” you soothe, angling your fingers up past the muscles to brush against his prostate. “You are the big, bad Marquis Vincent Bisset De Gramont.”
He shudders, a low moan rumbling from his throat and you bare your teeth at the back of his head before withdrawing your fingers completely and fixing the harness into place around your hips. You wonder if you should have chosen something bigger, considering the size of the cock he shoved down your throat earlier, but it’s too late for that now. You lube up the length of it, stroking the slick over it as you watch him quiver and shuffle on the desk.
You give him your fingers again, stroking and prodding against his prostate over and over until he’s little more than a whimpering, writhing mess beneath you.
“Please,” he whispers, and you stop, your own breath hitching.
“Please what, Vincent?” You ask, your voice a whisper too. You are so close to hearing it.
“Please, more. I need more,” he mumbles. You can see the blush creeping up his neck, know his face must be stained with it too. The shame of begging.
“You need more?” You ask, running the pad of your finger against his prostate again. “More than this? What do you need, mon amour?”
“I need you… to fuck me. Please. I need it.”
Music. It is vindication, sweeter than any symphony.
“Comme tu veux,” you murmur. “As you wish, Vincent.”
You withdraw your fingers, stretching them apart to make sure he’s as prepared as he can be. He whimpers at the loss of the contact but his breath hitches as you line the head of the silicon cock up with his hole, pressing lightly. You run a finger down his spine and he arches into the touch as you push into him slowly, an inch at a time. It’s much gentler than you want to be, gentler than he deserves, but you can’t summon the anger you need to make him suffer. It’s like the hatred that has fueled you for so long guttered out when the truth of the matter was laid out between you, and now there is… you aren’t sure, and this isn’t the moment to think about it. Vincent isn’t breathing, his body tenses as you seat the toy completely inside him and wait, your hips almost grazing his own. You give him a moment, wait for his breathing to resume and his spine to relax a little before you pull out half an inch and press back in.
He groans, shifting against the wood, and you suck your bottom lip into your mouth as you pull out a little further, pressing in gently. “Bien,” you say and he sighs. You pull out half way this time before pushing back in, angling up slightly to search for his prostate. You don’t find it on the first thrust, but judging from the way Vincent’s body shoots forward you certainly hit it on the second.
“Merde,” he whimpers, voice high-pitched and breathy. “Again, please.”
You oblige him, fucking into that spot over and over as he jerks up off the desk to meet your thrusts. “So good for me,” you mumble and he whines, trying to force his hand down between his legs to reach his cock. You beat him to it, spitting into your palm before wrapping a hand around his length and pumping him in time with your thrusts. “You like it, don’t you?”
“Oui,” he whimpers. “So much. Please.” The sounds he is making are obscene, sinful, and will likely play on a loop in your head every time you touch yourself for the rest of your life. You pull out almost all the way before thrusting back in, your thighs burning with exertion as his ass cheeks quiver under the force of your thrusts. You can see his balls tightening, know he’s close and you tilt your hips up again, pummeling against his prostate until he babbles a strangled sound that could be your name, your real name, and you have only a moment to process how fucked up that is before he’s coming, hot spurts over your fist as his asshole sucks greedily at the toy, halting your hips mid-thrust. You hold still, squeezing every last drop of release from him. When he drops boneless to the desk you withdraw the toy gently, slowly, enjoying the little whimpers and whines he makes as you leave him empty.
The wetness between your thighs is uncomfortable, and you wonder for a moment why you orchestrated a revenge plan that involved SO much blue-balling your own libido. Vincent turns his head to look at you, his eyes drinking in the sight of the strap-on cinched around your waist and thighs. He looks vulnerable. Still aroused, but vulnerable and unsure.
“Did you… was that okay?” He asks and you swallow hard as you unclip the contraption and drop it to the floor.
“Oui, mon amour.” You say with a sigh and he closes his eyes, a satisfied smile curving his mouth.
Even now he is so unsure, so desperate for you to take the lead. This would be the part where you’d pluck the camera from its hiding place and show the world the mess you’d made of the Marquis, but there is no camera. No audience. Just you, and just him.
Just a man manufactured by a system of criminality and brutality and a woman forged in fury and tragedy. And none of it matters. He is not redeemed, you are not revenged.
Epilogue
Northern Italy is warm this time of year, and your brother squeals in excitement as he brings you a misshapen volcanic rock, presenting it like fine jewelry, before running back to play in the marshy land where the shore meets the sea.
You open your phone, scrolling through social media feeds. The patisserie is doing well without you, though more than one customer has commented on a change in the quality of macarons and Frederic says Madame Levigne is telling people you had a terrible accident to explain your defection.
You check your emails next, heart hammering a little unevenly at the unfamiliar string of numbers and letters serving as an anonymous senders address. You wipe your hand on your towel and open the email. No text, just an attachment.
The sound of screams, ghastly, tortured, pathetic little things, and the camera focuses on the men making the awful noises. On their knees, bloody, some missing fingers or ears. A bloody pile of signet rings at the foot of the person holding the camera. You know who it is before he turns the phone, but the sight of him still sends a chill down your spine as Vincent wipes a splatter of blood from his cheek. “Pour toi, ma Cherie.” He says into the camera, before the sound of gunshots crackles through your speaker and you close the video quickly.
In his own way, the Marquis is trying to make it up to you, has been sending you videos just like this for weeks. He is killing every member of the Cosa Nostra involved in your family’s downfall. You have recognized some of them, including a police officer you’d seen in your father’s study on multiple occasions who had apparently been the one to give the mafia your father’s name, long before he had even provided any information.
“You watching James Bond?” Your brother asks, poking his salt-slick head between you and your phone.
“No, sweetheart.” You say. “Just something a friend sent me.”
“You don’t have any friends,” he says in that painful, truthful way kids do, and you grin at him, ruffling his hair.
“Perhaps I have just one.”
