Authors: Jena Cryer
Tags: #erotica, #kidnapping, #sex, #bdsm, #bondage, #slave, #slavery, #kidnap, #master, #pony girl, #forced, #collar, #ponygirl, #leash, #pet play, #pup play
His Black Pearl
A Thrall Series Novel
Jenna Cryer
Copyright 2013 by Jena Cryer
Smashwords Edition
Cover art copyright Alenavlad
The characters and events in this book are
fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is
coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Prologue
I’m hot.
Not a single light burns in our hotel room,
but this darkness is more scorching than any blaze. I keep waiting
for the air conditioner to kick in, but even though its clanking
rumble echoes through the background, nothing but stale, muggy air
surrounds me.
God, it’s sweltering.
I know I’m going to have to get up, but a
part of me just wants to stay in bed as long as I can. I’m
exhausted. These long days of sight-seeing are almost too much for
a stay-at-home girl like me, but hey, I’m not complaining. This is
Italy. Florence. The very cradle of the Renaissance. Ever since I
was a little kid, I’ve been dreaming of coming here, and I’m not
about to let any number of baggy eyes or blistered heels keep me
from seeing every last bit of it I can.
I just wish the nights weren’t always so
humid.
A bead of sweat tickles its way down my back,
and I reach up to swat it away.
Only I can’t.
My arms are pinned behind me, and no matter
how hard I wiggle, I can’t get them free. Oh, Lord, how tangled up
am I? I’ve always been a restless sleeper, but to become this
wrapped up in the sheets is almost comical.
I squirm for several seconds more before I
finally give up. The room is pitch black, and I’m trapped. I
really, really don’t want to ask my cousin for help—Lord knows
Erica will be teasing me for days over this—but the longer I
writhe, the more I know I don’t have a choice.
I suck in a deep breath, ready to call out
Erica’s name.
Only then do I notice the gag.
Gag?
My eyes go wide.
Is that…Is that a ball in my mouth? Oh, God,
it’s crushing my tongue. I try to spit it out, but my jaws are
stretched open so far already and my lips ache from the constant
strain. Several minutes pass before I even notice the thick leather
strap securing it in place, but by then a simple gag is the least
of my worries.
I can’t move.
Oh, dear God, I can’t move at all.
I struggle as hard as I can, but I’m not
wrapped up in sheets. No, only leather could have the sharp bite I
feel now, and the more I fight, the more chafed my bare skin
becomes.
Wait a minute. Bare skin?
I’m shaking hard now. I never go to bed
naked. Never. Someone must have undressed me, and that means…that
means…
Oh, sweet Lord, I don’t even want to think
about what that means.
I suck in a deep breath.
I’m on my knees. My hands are bound behind my
back, and my chest is lashed to a hardened mattress. My breasts
spill over my thighs. The left side of my face is pressed tight
against a satiny pillow, and when I try to move, I can’t. I just
can’t.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God!
I sob into my gag.
My eyes are wet, but the moisture just pools
between my lashes. I wonder why at first, but then I notice the
pressure.
A blindfold.
Sweet Lord, how stupid must I be not to
realize I’m wearing a blindfold.
How stupid…or how drugged?
I shiver harder.
I can’t imagine a stranger ever slipping
something into my water bottle, but what other explanation is
there? Erica and I only visit the places recommended in our
guidebooks, and even then, we don’t go if there aren’t at least a
few other tourists present.
I always watch my drink. I never leave my
food unattended. I haven’t even gone anywhere alone except for the
one time Erica refused to leave that old perfumery behind Santa
Maria Novella, and even then I only went to that one leather shop
and—
The leather shop…
Images of scratched wooden counters and a
creaky leather chair fill my mind. I remember the shopkeeper. He
was in his fifties, Italian. A light graze of stubble covered his
chin and a hint of gray touched the hair at his temples, but he
still had the body of a much younger man. His hands were strong and
callused, and his lips…
How do I know anything about his lips?
The floor jerks beneath me, and when I bounce
into the air, my back hits rough wood.
A box.
I’m in a box.
I think I’m about to hyperventilate.
I breathe in one musty breath after the next,
and still the ground quakes. What’s going on? This can’t be an
earthquake, can it? It feels too tame, too familiar, almost like
when I used to ride in the back of my grandpa’s pickup truck. But
surely…
We hit another bump, and I can’t deny it
anymore. I’m moving. What I thought was the rumble of an air
conditioner is actually the growl of an engine. For a second, I
wonder if I’m in the back of a van, truck, or car, but I don’t
really guess that matters. No, I’d say the fact that I’m naked,
gagged, and blindfolded inside a crate takes precedence over
pondering the make and model of my chariot to Hell.
I giggle once before I start sobbing
again.
This can’t be happening.
Oh, Lord, this can’t be happening.
I’m on vacation. I just graduated college.
For God’s sake, I’m supposed to go to medical school in the fall. I
can’t become some psycho’s fuck toy now. Mom and Dad would be so
disappointed.
I snort and almost choke on my gag.Leave it
to me to worry about letting down my parents at a time like
this.
I take a deep breath.
Right now, all I need to do is remember. That
old shopkeeper is at the center of this. He has to be. He’s the one
who tempted me into his shop. He’s the one who smiled and flirted
and gave me that black pearl.
The black pearl…
I can’t believe I forgot about it, but yes,
that’s what started it all. A single black pearl. I might still
have my freedom if not for that tiny little treasure, and just
thinking about it brings back a wave of terror I almost wish I
never had to remember.
Chapter One
“Adair Bartlett. Such beautiful name for such
beautiful woman.”
I blushed at the old shopkeeper’s flattery,
and shook my head quickly. No, I wasn’t beautiful. I had frizzy
brown hair and skin far paler than any native-born Texan should
ever condone. My clothes were wrinkled. My jeans were too baggy.
And my short-sleeved T-shirt was purposefully one size too big.
If not for the rather prominent swell of my
chest, I doubt the old man would have known I was a woman at
all.
But still, the flattery was nice.
I was standing inside a leather shop just a
few blocks south of the Florence train station. Alone. I should
have known better, but the old shopkeeper was so nice, and besides,
my cousin was still shopping at the seventeenth century farmacia
just a few streets over. She’d made four trips to the monastic shop
already, and though I still thought the frescoes were gorgeous,
there was only so much time I could waste looking at scented
oils.
And anyway, I still hadn’t found my leather
souvenir.
Since beginning our grand tour of Italy,
Erica and I had sworn to pick up one cheesy, Italian-made trinket
from every city we visited. I already had a feathered mask from
Venice as well some Murano glass beads, and since coming to
Florence, Erica had snagged a leather purse and jacket. She’d tried
to coax me into haggling with the street merchant for a pair of my
own, but I hadn’t. Blowing through a few hundred euros might mean
nothing to my cousin, but as the daughter of a police officer and a
pharmacy technician, I’d learned to be much more frugal. No way
would I ever blow through my spending money, especially not after
the fortune my parents had already spent on the plane tickets.
“Don’t worry about it,” my dad said after
enduring nearly an hour of my guilt-ridden protests. “I’ll foot the
bill. You just go have fun. You know you deserve it.”
I’d almost argued, but well, it was Italy,
and he really did want to give me a good graduation present. I was
the first Bartlett to graduate college, and I’d gotten my
bachelor’s in chemistry—a choice neither one of my parents ever
could understand—as well as a letter of acceptance from Vanderbilt
Medical School. Of course my parents had been thrilled. Everyone in
the family was excited.
Everyone but me.
“Bella?” The shopkeeper stepped out from
behind his counter. “What wrong? Sad eyes not belong in such
beautiful face.”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just…I’m fine.”
And I was.
My life was wonderful. I was smart and
successful. My future was the envy of most of my class, and as for
my present, well, I was on the trip of a lifetime, so enough said.
I had absolutely nothing to complain about. I should have been the
happiest woman in the world.
Only I wasn’t.
I was alone. My whole life I’d been adrift in
a sea of people who knew exactly who they were and what they wanted
while I never had managed to make a single decision on my own. My
twelfth grade counselor was the one who recommended I major in
chemistry, while my mom was the sole reason I’d chosen to apply to
medical school. She’d always dreamed of having a doctor in the
family, and how could I let her down? I was her good girl. I was
the one she could always depend on. I couldn’t just turn my back on
my family’s expectations, especially when I had no idea of what I
actually wanted to do with my life.
The shopkeeper clucked his lips before taking
my chin in his hand. “Don’t worry, mia bella. Old Pietro here now.
He know just what to do.”
He opened a cabinet door behind me before I
could even speak, and the clank and rattle of heavy ceramic
overpowered all of my objections. This man was a stranger. It
wasn’t his place to fix me. For God’s sake, I’d been trying to do
that on my own for years now, and nothing ever worked. I was just
destined to be sad, that’s all. I’d come to accept my fate long
ago, and nothing this old shopkeeper could do would ever change
that.
“Ah, look here, bella.” He withdrew a dusty
mortar and pestle from the depths of his cupboard and held it out
before me. “Is truth in here. Truth and happiness. Just watch old
Pietro show you. Then we see sad eyes go bright.”
I forced a smile even though a small part of
me wondered if I was about to become the victim of some Italian
scam. Just what did he intend to do? His hands grabbed tiny vials
of herbs and oils from the shelf above him, and he dumped them into
the mortar seemingly at random. Only after the bowl was half-filled
with a heavy amber tar did he pull a jagged black stone from his
pocket and press it into my hand.
“Here, bella. All need is one kiss, then
wishing stone know what make you happy. Now go on. Kiss. Kiss.”
I still couldn’t figure out why the owner of
a leather store would have a miniature pharmacy housed in the back
of his shop, but I went along with the game anyway. After all, what
harm could there be? The shopkeeper looked like he was having fun,
and I couldn’t deny my own excitement. I wanted to know what he was
going to do next. I had to know. So I pressed the stone to my lips
and prayed for all the happiness I never could find on my own.