Free The Mammoth Book of Erotica presents The Best of Lucy Taylor by Lucy Taylor Page A

That possibility terrified her, too.
    “Wait,” she called out, catching up to him. “Before you go – I want to know – I want . . .”
    She hesitated, felt an unfamiliar heat creep up her cheekbones.
    “I know exactly what you want,” he said, and took her hand. They traveled along narrow, rutted roads leading through the countryside of Tuscany, sometimes cutting through untilled fields and deserted orchards. Occasionally they passed through abandoned villages, where dogs and livestock roamed at will. Along the roadside, the corpses of those who had fallen while trying to escape lay bloated and putrescent.
    The first night they camped in an open field with others fleeing the plague. The second night, after Gerard had led them on a circuitous route along the ridgetop of some hills, they came to an abandoned town where the only signs of life were feral dogs that roamed the dusty streets and wild-eyed rats that held their ground almost until the last instant, then skittered away as Gerard and Gabrielle approached.
    Gerard picked out the most luxurious of the deserted houses. Like a lord and lady returning from an outing in the hills, he and Gabrielle made themselves at home.
    “Who lives here?” asked Gabrielle, looking around the beautifully appointed rooms.
    “We do, now.”
    “Whose house was it?”
    Gerard shrugged. “Whoever it belonged to, they’re gone now. Like everything else, the house belongs to whomever takes it.”
    That night, when Gerard moved on top of her, Gabrielle found herself aroused, but strangely distant. It was as if she watched herself from a corner of the room, moving beneath this man, arranging her body to accommodate his, but somehow profoundly absent. She let him penetrate her body, but knew that he could never touch her heart.
    “You don’t want me,” he said finally.
    “I
want
to want you. I want to feel something. I just – don’t.”
    She turned away from him, finding no way to describe the sense that vines and briars encased her body and leaves of deadly nightbane numbed her heart.
    “Have you ever loved anyone?”
    The question seemed unfair, humiliating. “Of course I have.”
    But she saw he knew that she was lying.
    Later that night, she dreamed of her mother. Saw her father bending down to wipe her mouth with a wet cloth and stroke her face. Her dead mother’s eyes were open. Her father reached down and gently closed them, placed the cloth across her mother’s face.
    Something was wrong. She was awake now, but couldn’t get her eyes open. A rag or cloth was tied around her head. When she tried to remove the blindfold, her wrists were seized. She was roughly shoved onto her belly and her arms bound behind her.
    She knew about the bands of rogues and thieves who preyed upon those fleeing the cities. Surely it was such a miscreant who had her now.
    “Gerard!” she cried out. “Help me.”
    “Silence,” he hissed. “Not one word or cry or I’ll gag you, too.”
    He pulled her up off the bed and dragged her into another room, where he shoved her up against a beam or column and bound her there face-first.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Just because we’ve fled the plague doesn’t mean we aren’t going to die. I want to make the most of every moment. I want you to learn to love me. I’m going to
make
you love me.”
    So saying, he bent her over, kicked her legs apart, and entered her from behind. This time he made no effort to be gentle. His ramming hurt her, but when she squirmed and tried to pull away, he withdrew from her and forced his way into her other orifice, wringing forth screams of pain.
    He gripped her hips and forced himself in deeper.
    “You want this, don’t you?”
    “No!”
    “Tell me you want it harder, deeper!”
    “No, I hate it! Stop!”
    “Tell me you want more!”
    Finally, desperate to appease him and end the torture, she whimpered, “Yes, please, harder,” her voice choked with tears.
    When she said that, he thrust one more time,