CONTENT ADVISORY (spoiler—beware!)

The following is an abduction fantasy that plays with power dynamics and light consensual non-consent. If you are not into the idea of seducing your kidnapper, this is probably not for you. 🖤

GODDESS ABDUCTED

The Erotics of Charlotte Street: Volume II

THE WITCHES were coming.

Or, that is, going— leaving Lady Constance Apthorp’s annual All Hallows Eve ball. 

Diana—or, that is, Lady Lydia Houghton, dressed as the goddess Diana, armed with a bow and quiver—kissed the white-powdered cheek of her ghostess (Constance, dressed head-to-toe in flowing white gauze) and accepted her thick black cloak from a footman. One could not let one’s one-shouldered tunic be soaked in the October drizzle outside. The wet silhouette of one’s breasts was not fit for polite society, even at two in the morning, even for a creature of myth.

“You’re certain your carriage is waiting?” Constance asked, peering outside into the cold autumn night. A line of conveyances snaked down the street in front of the townhouse, awaiting the costumed revelers stumbling out the door after too many dips into the cauldron of sorceress brew—which, if Lydia was not mistaken, had been composed mostly of gin.

“I asked the coachman to meet me at the corner, so we needn’t wait in the queue,” Lydia said.

“But you’re alone,” Constance protested. Lydia’s escort had retired early with a stomach haunted by over-consumption of soul cakes. 

“Perhaps Julian should escort you.” Constance gestured at her husband, who was clad in a full coat of armor.

“He’ll rust,” Lydia said with a wave of her hand. “I’ll be fine. Thank you so much for a most eerie evening.”

She stepped out into the rain and cut across the muddy street. It was difficult to see in the dark. No moon. Lamps extinguished by the hour or the rain.

She turned the corner and nearly bumped into an enormous highwayman. Or at least, an uncommonly tall and broad-shouldered guest of the Apthorps disguised as one. 

“Pardon me,” she said.

“Diana,” he said, his voice low. 

She could not make out his identity beneath his bandit’s mask.

“Are we acquainted?“ she asked.

He looked over his shoulder, as if to check for passersby, then darted his eyes back at her.

Then, without warning, he reached out and snatched her bow and quiver out of her hand.

“Excuse me!” she cried. 

He threw the weapon to the ground and clapped a huge hand over her mouth, dragging her against his chest. Suddenly, a knife was at her throat. 

“Silence,” the man whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She nodded. 

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hustled her into the mews a few feet away. Hidden inside it was an old coach. A cloaked man sat at its reins, clearly waiting for them, as he did not seem surprised by a shadowy figure holding a goddess at knifepoint. 

The highwayman yanked open the door of the carriage. “Inside,” he commanded in that same low, gravelly voice. 

She clambered in. It was black as the inside of a grave.

The carriage shook as the highwayman climbed in behind her. 

“Close your eyes,” he said. She did, and felt him lower the hood of her cloak. She made out the shadow of his hand, and then he was blindfolding her with a thick, soft piece of cloth. He jerked the knot against her head, tightening it against her hair. She let out a breath of surprise at the tug.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “Too tight?” 

His tone was rather gentle for someone who had just kidnapped her at knifepoint.

She nodded, and he loosened the blindfold so it was merely snug. Then he put his arm around her and pressed her into the side of his body. She could smell his scent. Soap and shaving oil. 

A very clean highwayman, apparently.

“Don’t move,” he said. She was not sure how she could, given how tightly she was molded against him, even if she were inclined to fight. 

Which she wasn’t.

She knew how it went with highwaymen. Cooperate, and you might be released. 

Of course, typically, one encountered them on deserted forest roads. Not on a corner of the Strand, a few yards from a long line of carriages. 

“I didn’t know there were highwaymen in London,” she whispered.

“Don’t speak, or I’ll be forced to gag you,” he replied. “And I’d hate to do that.”

It sounded uncomfortable indeed. She clamped her lips shut. 

They rode in silence over bumpy roads, his arm bracing her against the jerking of the carriage. 

After what seemed like hours, but was likely only a quarter of one, the carriage came to an abrupt stop.

The highwayman leaned into her ear. “The coachman is going to help you down from the carriage,” he said. “Then I’m going to walk you up four steps. Do not struggle and do not make a sound. We do not wish to hurt you. But we will if we must. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

She heard the door open, and a gloved hand clasped her own.

“One step down,” an Irish-accented voice whispered. It must be the coachman’s.

Gingerly, she found her footing and stepped onto the ground.

The highwayman was close behind her. His massive arm wrapped back around her shoulder. “Walk straight ahead,” he said under his breath. He stopped her after a few feet. “Step up.”

She carefully obeyed as he guided her up the four steps. She heard a rap on a door.

“Key?” Someone—a woman—inquired.

There was movement beside her as the man held something out, and then the woman’s voice said: “Follow me.”

The man took Lydia’s hand. He led her around a corner and down a long hallway. She felt thick carpet under her feet. She smelled beeswax and something astringent, like pine.

They paused, and she heard the click of a key in a lock.

The man ushered her through a doorway. “No disturbances,” he said—she assumed to the woman.

She felt a whoosh of air—the door shutting behind them—and then the sound of metal sliding on metal. Locks. More than one.

“I want you to take off your wet cloak and drop it down to the floor,” the man said. The room was cold, and she didn’t want to. But she also did not want to feel the chill of the knife on her throat. She shrugged the thick wool off her shoulders and shivered.

Her costume was little more than a column of white lawn draped over one shoulder. Her arms and décolletage were exposed to the air.

“Step forward,” the man said, touching her lightly on her bare shoulder. His fingers were warm. “This way.”

She let him guide her. “There’s a chair just behind you,” he said, stopping her. “Sit.”

The chair was comfortable, plush and upholstered in velvet—a relief after the hard bench in the jostling carriage.

The man pressed her arms down against the arms of the chair. “Hold still.”

She felt leather straps being tightened over her wrists.

She was trapped.

And freezing. She shivered.

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “You’re cold. Here, lean forward.” 

She did, and something soft and warm fell over her shoulders. A blanket. The man wrapped it around her bare skin, covering her up to her neck.

Something scraped—a fire steel?—and then she heard crackling. Soon after, flames. Firelight flickered through the dark fabric wrapped around her eyes. 

She heard the footsteps of the man walking back to her. 

“Are you warm enough?” he asked.

His concern was touching, given the circumstances.

She nodded. 

“I’m going to take off your blindfold. Remember, I won’t hurt you unless you resist me.”

She nodded.

She felt his hands untie the cloth. It tangled in her hairpins and she let out an involuntary cry at the yank.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and she wondered if any man had ever apologized to her so many times in a few minutes. He carefully took out the pin and smoothed her hair.

It was oddly comforting, to be treated so delicately.

The blindfold swept down out of her eyes. She squinted, the light coming at her like an assault. A small room came into focus. It looked like the inside of a cabin. It had no windows. There were three bolts on the door.

In front of her was a fireplace—the room’s only light save for a single candle burning on a table in the corner. To the side, a large bed was covered in furs.

It was rustic and masculine. A bed fitting for a highwayman.

He came to stand in front of her. She gasped when she saw him in the light. 

He was huge. White-skinned, dark-haired, and even larger than she had imagined—broad and so tall that his head nearly brushed against the wooden beams of the ceiling. His jaw was square, but his chin had a dimple. His lips were surprisingly full for a man. She could not entirely make out his face beneath the black mask he wore, but she could see that his eyes were a striking shade of hazel. His face was stubbled in the same dark brown hair of his head, which fell down past his ears. 

She did not need to see his whole face to discern that her captor was handsome. 

The kind of man she would want very much, were he merely a guest at the Apthorps.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He shook his head. “That’s not important. What’s  important is that you are Marianne Compton. Richest heiress of your generation.”

But she wasn’t.

She shook her head at him. “No. I’m not. You’re mistaken.”

He laughed. “Don’t deny it. Blonde, tall, dressed as Diana. Exactly as they said you would be.”

It was true that she and Marianne looked alike. They’d been amused when they both showed up to the ball in nearly identical costumes. In fact, there had been four Dianas at the Apthorps. Lydia had cursed her lack of creativity. Next year she’d go as something less comely. Maybe a crow. Or, better, a cow.

She shook her head no at the man more adamantly. “Sir, you have the wrong Diana. My name is Lydia. Lady Houghton.”

The side of his mouth curled up, as if in amusement.

“If you were, you’d have been escorted by Lord Houghton. It won’t help you to lie,” he said. “I’m holding you for ransom. I have no desire to hurt you. I’ll let you go as soon as I get my demands.”

The intimacy of his tone was like that of a lover. She wished he was that to her, rather than her captor. If he was, she would have license to run her fingers over the rough line of his jaw. Scrape the soft skin of her cheek against his face, feeling his whiskers.

“What is it you want?” she asked him.

“Your jewels. I’m going to write to your uncle demanding he leave them in an alley known only to me if he wishes to see you alive ever again.”

“I have no jewels,” she said firmly. “And even if I was Marianne, which I’m not, no one would believe I’ve been abducted with merely a note. Marianne is independent and often stays with friends overnight. Her servants are accustomed to her leaving home, and her uncle would search high and low before handing over such a fortune.”

“I’ll include a lock of your hair with my note as proof.”

He stood and came toward her, producing his knife. “Be still,” he said quietly. 

She didn’t fear him, despite the knife.

Something about him was gentle. Perhaps it was the slow, deliberate way that he moved. Or the warm timbre of his voice. The care with which he had untangled the blindfold from her hairpin.

He took the tendril that had fallen from the pin and, with a quick, deft gesture, sliced it off.

She inhaled sharply.

He held it up to the light. “You have beautiful hair.”

She was not sure whether to thank him.

Did one thank their abductors for compliments?

Why not?

“So do you,” she replied.

His eyes flashed and his mouth curved up, revealing pleasure in her observation. 

She liked that. That she could flatter him.

It made her certain of what she would do.

“Very well,” she said. “I am Marianne. I admit it. But there is a flaw in your plan. A thousand girls in London have blond hair. My uncle will have no way of knowing it’s mine. You’ll need better proof.”

“Like what?”

“A letter. In my hand. He’ll recognize my script.”

The man smiled. “You’re very clever. You just want me to unlock your hands.”

“I do. I wasn’t going to complain, given the circumstances, but to be honest, these straps are very uncomfortable.”

“Abduction is not meant to be comfortable.”

She smiled at him. “What is it meant to be, sir?”

He smiled back. “Terrifying.”

“Yes,” she lied, “I’m very scared. That is why I’m willing to write a letter ordering the release of my own jewels. Jewels, I might add, that were left to me by my late mother. It’s quite cruel of you to take them.”

He shrugged. “You’ll buy new ones. You’re unsettlingly rich.”

“I’m sorry you are unsettled,” she said. “But that does not change the fact that you will get nothing without a note in my hand.”

“Fine,” he said. He dug in his pocket, produced a key, and unlocked her hands. 

She rubbed her wrists. They were sore from the pressure of the leather. 

“Stand up,” the highwayman said, pointing to a corner, where a quill and ink sat atop the small table.

She did not stand. 

“Quickly,” he said. 

She smiled at him, and leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs in a way that allowed the tunic to fall open, revealing her thigh.

“Sir,” she said, “I’m afraid you’ve miscalculated.”

He inclined his head at her. “And I’m afraid for your life if you don’t stand up and walk to the desk.”

She didn’t believe him.

“No,” she said firmly. “You won’t hurt me. My life is your only bargaining chip. If you kill me, you’ll get nothing. Which means I have leverage.”

He leaned against the wall, looking slightly amused.

“You wish to negotiate with a highwayman?”

“I most certainly do.”

“And what is it you want, Marianne?”

She stood up and walked toward him, letting the blanket he’d wrapped around her shoulders fall down. 

There was a chill in the air, despite the fire. Her nipples were hard. 

She knew he could see them beneath the thin fabric of her gown. Roman goddesses, after all, did not wear stays. 

She hoped the wantonness of it distracted him.

She wanted him to picture her naked. To desire her.

The way she wanted him.

She’d always had this fantasy. To be kidnapped. To be taken by an outlaw. 

This was her chance.

“If you want me to write your letter, you’ll have to do what I ask of you,” she said.

“And what’s that?”

“Kiss me.”

“That’s easy enough,” he said. He bent down and gave her a peck on the cheek. 

“No. Not like that,” she said. “Kiss me with passion.” She paused, and put a hand on his chest. “Ravish me.”

He looked down at her hand, then up into her eyes. “You want me to ravish you?” 

She smiled at him serenely. “Yes. Isn’t that what highwaymen do to young maidens?”

“Only the scoundrels,” he said. “I’m an upstanding bandit.”

She laughed at this. “If you’re so upstanding, let me go.”

“I can’t do that. Not without the jewels.”

“Then do as I ask.” She took the back of his head in her hand, drew him down, and put her lips on his.

He kissed her, gently.

“There,” he said. 

She pressed herself into him. “No,” she said. “I want much more than that.”

She put her tongue in his mouth and, after a brief hesitation, he met it. His gentleness left him, turning into an intensity that surprised her.

His hands—those enormous, warm hands—moved to her buttocks. He lifted her up to sit on top of the table, then kissed her again. She could feel hardness at his groin. She inhaled his smell of soap.

She put her hand into the top of his breeches and slid her fingers inside. The heat of his body shocked her. The hardness. She grasped the length of him and traced it up and down.

“This is wrong,” he said raggedly, not letting go of her. “Just write the letter.”

She caressed him, and he closed his eyes and groaned.

“I’ll write the letter once you take me,” she whispered.

“Christ,” he groaned, pushing himself into her hand. And then, very suddenly, he pulled away.

“Are you a virgin?” he asked.

“No,” she whispered. She unbuttoned his falls, releasing his cock. “Are you?”

He laughed ruefully. “Not even a little.”

She smiled. “Then you know what to do.”

“I’m afraid so.” Even as he said it, he was rucking her gown up to her waist. The cold air against her burning flesh prickled her like she wanted his whiskers to. She wanted to feel them on her thighs. On her cunt.

She opened her legs to him and leaned back. “Touch me.”

He did, cursing. “You’re so wet. Can I…” He stroked her, the pad of his thumb rubbing over her folds.

“Yes,” she whispered. “My God, please, yes.”

He slid a finger inside her pussy. She cried out at the tease of it.

“I want your cock,” she said. She felt no need for preamble. This was urgent. .

But he shook his head, smiling a little. “First, I need a taste of you.” 

The gravel in his voice made her want what he wanted.

“Hurry,” she whimpered, as he dropped to his knees in front of her. He pulled her forward and she wrapped her legs over his shoulders and let herself be opened by his tongue. 

He kissed her greedily. His mouth on her clit was so shocking and good that tears sprang into her eyes. His stubble rubbed against her flesh and she writhed against it, loving the way that it prickled her most sensitive places. The heat and the friction and the urgent exploration of his tongue had her moaning, pushing herself against his mouth. Desperate for more.

“Your cock,” she whimpered. “Please give it to me. Now. Please.”

He dragged his face out from between her legs, kissing her thighs as he rose.

“You’re certain?” he asked, holding his cock in his hand. It was as big and thick as the rest of him.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

She leaned back on her elbows and he took her by the knees and opened her for himself. And then he entered her. 

She threw back her head and raised her hips to take him in deeper. He stroked long and deep, hitting exactly the spot where she wanted—needed—to feel him.

Pleasure spiraled around her, numbing her mind to all but his rhythm. 

Suddenly, he stopped moving. 

She opened her eyes, unable to fathom why he would stop at such a crucial moment. He panted above her, looking at her intently.

“Please, don’t stop,” she gasped out. “I’m so close—“

“I know,” he said. “And you’re the most cock-raising thing I’ve ever seen in my bloody life.”

“Then make me come,” she pleaded. 

“You mentioned bargaining chips, Marianne,” he drawled. “Well this is mine. Write the letter. Right now. And I’ll fuck you so well you’ll beg me to make you my hostage forever.”

Arousal flooded her at the idea of it. At being his captive, in this little room, fucking him whenever she wanted. He’d taken back his power. She was in his thrall. She felt like she’d taken opium. 

“I’ll write it,” she said. Her voice trembled.

He eased her off the table and onto her feet and secured a piece of paper from inside a drawer. 

“Now then,” he said. “Write exactly what I tell you to.”

As she picked up the quill, he bent her slightly over the table, so she had to scoot the paper forward in order to write.

“Dear Uncle,” he murmured, pressing his cock against the small of her back.

She scratched the words out on the paper distractedly, moving to brush him with her skin as she wrote. 

“I’ve been taken captive” he continued, putting his hands between her legs to widen her stance. “By a highwayman.” 

At those words, laced with his nearness, she shivered so hard that ink splattered onto the page.

“Don’t make a mess,” he chided into her ear. His breath was hot and sensuous on her neck. “Or I’ll make you start afresh.”

“What next?” she whispered.

“My captor says that he will kill me unless you do what he asks,” the highwayman said as he put his cock to the entrance of her pussy, from behind. She slid her hips back to grant him easier access, but he edged just out of range. “Uh, uh, uh,” he murmured. “Keep writing.”

She completed the sentence. 

He gave her a taste—just the tip—of what she craved. 

“Please” she begged him. 

He stayed where he was, with his cock just barely inside her, and drew his hands to her breasts. He had yet to touch them, and now, with his fingers so near her nipples, she could not stand for him not to caress her there. 

She dropped the quill on the desk so she could use her hand to guide his where she wanted it. “Oh, please. Please.”

“Quill,” he said kindly, removing her hand and placing it back around the feather.

“Give him whatever he asks,” he instructed her to write.

She wrote the words, and he edged himself a little deeper inside of her as a reward. 

He put his lips to her neck. “I’m desperate,” he whispered. “So very desperate.”

And she was, she was, as she willed herself to find the presence of mind to spell out the words.

“Sign your name, Marianne,” he said.

She did. She signed the name that was not her name with all the life she had in her.

“Good girl, my little captive,” he said. 

And then he plunged inside her. 

All the way.

She braced herself against the desk as he drove the length of his cock up and up. He was so big, with his body wrapped around hers and his cock as deep inside her as it could go, that it was like she was part of him.

He drove up and pulled her down to meet him, digging his fingers into her legs as he thrust hard and fast. 

And she broke apart.

She broke utterly apart.

She screamed as she collapsed down onto her elbows. He caught her. He covered her in kisses as she writhed and bucked, fucking her more slowly to ease her down from the spire of her release. He held her as she whimpered. 

He stayed inside her, unmoving, as she caught her breath.

“You’re all right?” he murmured.

She put her hand on her pussy and stroked her still quivering quim. 

“You didn’t come,” she gasped out. “I want to make you come.”

He smiled. “I didn’t say we were done.”

In a single fluid gesture, he picked her up and carried her over to the bed. He set her on the nest of furs.

“Lay down,” he instructed. 

She did, and he came down beside her and held her against him, her back to his front. She opened her legs to him—still quivering and sticky with her wetness—and he slid back inside her.

He stroked her quim slowly as he fucked her deep and long.

She came again.

And as her body contracted all around him, he began to shake, and then moan her name. 

Or not her name.

“Marianne.”

He withdrew himself and spilled his seed upon her back.

She didn’t mind. 

She wanted her captor to mark her.

And he had.

Her thighs were tender with the places that he’d gripped her, and her quim ached, and she knew she’d have love marks on her breasts.

She didn’t care. She’d let him tattoo her with his name if he wanted to.

She’d give him all the jewels in the world.

He stirred, got up, and wiped his seed off of her back.

He kissed her on the temple.

He was still dressed. Still wearing his mask.

“If I leave you here without binding your wrists, will you be good, and go to sleep until I return?” he asked.

“Don’t leave me,” she murmured. Despite her soreness, she could think of other ways they might while away her captivity.

“I have to deliver the note to get my ransom. Or you’ll be trapped with me forever.”

She sighed in pleasure at the thought. “I wouldn’t mind.”

He shook his head. 

“Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

And then he sealed her letter and slipped it in the pocket of his coat. He withdrew an iron key and unlocked the door. 

He was gone.

She quickly fell asleep. 

When she awoke the room was empty. The fire had died down. Her captor wasn’t there.

She stood, stretched, and found the cloak she’d worn last night in the corner by the door. She donned it, stuffing her wild hair under the hood.

The door was unlocked.

She put on her muddy slippers and stepped out into a dim, empty hallway lit with candles. 

She padded toward a foyer,. A pale young woman stood behind a desk there, with a wall of keys behind her. She nodded at Lydia. Lydia nodded back. The girl came and unlocked the front door, opening it into the dark of early morning. 

A carriage waited outside with the Houghton crest. Her husband’s crest.

She stepped inside quickly, not wanting to be seen exiting the door marked with the number twenty-three.

Inside, her husband was sprawled on a leather-padded seat, looking tired. He was so handsome, with his huge frame and dark eyes. The hair that fell around his ears. That cleft of that dimple in the middle of his chin.

She sat beside him and curled up against his arm.

He still smelled like her.

Like them.

“How was the rest of the Apthorp’s ball?” he asked.

“Delightful,” she said. “So good I think I will entice Constance to hold another one as soon as possible.”

“Be careful,” he said. “You never know who will be lurking outside on The Strand at night. You could be abducted.”

THE END