Author's Warning: That scene we all secretly wished had happened at some point or another... No specific verse, but you will get the violent picture soon enough.
Shriveled against the damp prison wall, Marguerite could escape no further from the shrill death cries that still sounded through her cell's door. Strange, she laughed morbidly into the tops of her knees as she curled into herself tighter, the door seemed soundproof when she pounded on it hours ago, yelling and screaming at the guards. Now, she knew just how haunting screams from the lower prisons freely pierced their way into her hell of a prison cell.
Through the death-bearing din, the jingle of keys sank her drowning heart even lower. She could almost sense the fidgety hands that grasped them. She thought she could hear his deep voice rumble as he sighed her name.
"Marguerite," he called, warming her with years of his unfulfilled longing. The cold snap of the latch killed the last remnants of decency and hope in her heart. She knew that tone of his voice. She knew what he sought from her, what he lusted to take from her by force. She knew him. And as the sickening realization sank into her innards, she spat inwardly at herself. At the quiet acceptance she found waiting inside for what was inevitable to come.
Her dark eyes lifted from their hiding place behind herself. Slowly, the prison door opened, and just as slowly, Chauvelin's grin spread to one side, twisting his swarthy cheek with his usual rakish violence. Marguerite knew that leer well.
To her surprise, he was not alone; two guards followed a pace behind him, their torches illuminating her loathsome little cell, from the muddied hay in the corner, to the broken and stretched cot upon which she now cowered. But, she shuddered as her eyes became adjusted to the sudden light. The guard flanked to the right carried something else in his hands. Something long and leather. Like the tail of a cat, swinging mindlessly from his grip, the sight of a whip stopped all breath in her lungs.
Chauvelin drew to a halt just against the edge of her cot, so close, she could smell him, she could feel his anticipating breath over her face. "Lady Blakeney," he pronounced her title with an unfeeling chill. "These men are here to try and convince you, one last time, to tell us all you know about the Scarlet Pimpernel." His slate eyes peered into her, sparks of desire undeniably burning so close to her. He narrowed his gaze down upon her. "And should you prove unwilling still, I will have no choice but let them have their way with you, ma chère."
The smallest of sneers twisted from above her drawn up legs. "Don't lie to me, Chauvelin. Even you once called me the best actress in all of Paris," she whispered with all the force she could muster, meeting his shadowy eyes. "I know an unconvincing performance when I see one."
"Do you forget, Marguerite, just how powerful I have become?" he snarled, his hands knocking her legs away from her face. But his snarls burned all the louder in his throat at the arrogant smile he uncovered across her gleaming cheeks. Cheeks that even now, surrounded by the granite and stone of prison, shone with perpetual, unpluckable rosiness. He growled all the fiercer, "If you force my hand, I will have no option but to follow my duty. I will torture you, Marguerite."
"Nothing you have not done to me before, Chauvelin," she spoke with muted bitterness, with a sad strength that even surprised herself. "The whip, I mean," she nodded towards the ever-dangling strap.
His smirk trembled as he drew all the more menacingly upright. "Then you do remember me from time to time, it seems," he rasped with pleasure. "Good." His stance spread, his arms folded smartly over his chest, Chauvelin's face darkened as his leer widened all the more. "Regardless of our past, Citizenne, I must ask you one more time..." His voice deepened and crecendoed to underscore his demands. "Who is the Scarlet Pimpernel?"
Marguerite sidled to the edge of her cot, and throwing her legs over the side, she hung her head demurely. Her dark hair poured over her shoulder as she let forth a long-held groan. "Oh Chauvelin," she sighed, "I suppose if I must tell you, I must." She shuddered again. "But only if I can whisper it in your ear."
His weight pressed against her side, the warmth of his body suddenly beside her. The very sinews that touched her shoulder and drew her hair back quivered with heightened rapture. She could smell his thrill, sense the vision of so many dreams fulfilled in his mind. "Tell me, Marguerite," he whispered, his husky breath hot on her cheek as he waited for her reply.
With a breath, she turned her head, bringing her mouth closer to his pulsing neck and his anticipating ear. For a moment, she lost her breath, the sight of that raven black hair catching her surprise. She forced herself to brush a stray lock of his dark hair ever so gently away from his cheek. "You've waited a long time to be this close to me again, haven't you?" she whispered, almost touching the folds of his ear with her lips. With a chuckle, she let her mouth barely brush the flesh of his earlobe. Though he remained silent, the tangible clench of his jaw was answer enough for her. "Then it's a real shame, Chauvelin," her voice softened all the more, "for I will never tell you who the Pimpernel is."
Her teeth sank into the yielding flesh of his earlobe, and she tasted blood for a second. He screamed, slamming her down to the cot again before she had a chance to do the same and run. "You bitch," he roared, "I'll flay you alive!" With a snarl, he bolted from his seat, wiping the blood that soaked his neck. "Bring her to her feet and bind her!" he barked to the men as he retreated across the cell.
Suddenly, four dry hands were at her, grabbing and lifting her every which way, twisting her arm and tweaking her shoulders right out of their sockets. She stumbled before them, thrown about. The next thing she knew, her face pressed against the coldness of prison wall. Two snaps sealed rings of iron around her wrists. Two more trapped her ankles, spreading her legs apart and forcing her hips against the bricks of stone. In the unseen distance behind her, a sickeningly taught snap shook her frame with the reality of fear.
With another crack of the whip, she heard his rolling, rumbling chuckle just inches behind her. "Suddenly, my threats become all to real, don't they, Marguerite?" he sneered, as he stepped forward. Pressing his body along hers and into the wall, he forced the air from her lungs, his cold hands already waiting at the back of her neckline. The fabric of what remained of her dress was taught in his grip. "One last chance to tell me what you know, or I will break you," he snarled hotly into the crook of her neck. "I'll warm you in ways you've never imagined." He ground his hips against the swell of her ass, letting her know just how eager he was to pry the last screams for mercy from her.
She had almost forgotten just how hot he burned for her, just how large he grew for her. And all the same, she laughed along the stone wall. "I've been to busy as a married woman to imagine anything, Chauvelin. But I'm sure you have. You've imagined it over and over again, haven't you?"
"Is that a no, darling?" he sneered, his fingers eagerly starting to rend the weak fabric along her back.
Each tear sent another twist of fear through her core, but Marguerite forced a cold laugh. "What do you think, darling?"
Her dress, he ripped right down through its thin skirt, the fabric sliding down her arms and baring her back to the cold of the prison and the heat of his gaze. Both of his hands ran their hair-raising attention ardently over every inch of her bare skin. And then the whip cracked once more, his hands feeling the unbidden tremor of fear shake her body. Turning around was useless against her iron holdings, but at least now she knew he did not hold the whip. The realization gave her enough comfort for a boisterous laugh. A laugh that made Chauvelin withdraw from her half-naked body with an audible snarl.
"Still the same old Chauvelin," she laughed again, "making others do the dirty work for you." She heard shuffling and stomping behind her, but she only laughed again.
But, her laughed dried on her lips as she her the whip snap louder than before, cracking somewhere just to her right. Unseeing, she somehow knew Chauvelin's hand held the leather in his twitching grip. "Leave us," he barked savagely, his voice ripping through the stone of the cells, scattering the two guards in a matter of seconds.
With a heavy thud and a shift of the bolt, Marguerite knew they were alone.
He paced slowly, step by step, letting the weight of each footfall die away before taking another. The sounds stopped, and by instinct, she braced herself just in time. One lash ripped across her mid-back, sending a flame of white pain tearing through her. But she bit her teeth firmly together. Not even giving him the satisfaction of a scream. Not if she could help it. With hardly a pause, he lashed her again, straight over the swell of her cheeks. And another that let the tail of his whip gash right between her spread legs. Cutting into the senses and tenderness that lied there at the peak of her thighs.
Then, she screamed, her voice breaking with the pain that ebbed and flowed through her veins.
"You do have a tongue, then," he chided with a growl before cutting her across the back again with another crack. "I was afraid you had lost it," he chuckled, "which would be a shame, since I recall just how skillfully you once used it, ma chère."
"All you'll have are memories," she sneered, forcing some semblance of defiance into her voice. But it was soon lost as he sent the tail of his whip cracking into that spot between her legs once more, and she cried out in anguish again.
"I give you two choices, Marguerite," he snarled as he crossed to her shaking body again, undeterred by her blood to wrap himself against her again. Growling into her ear, his hand reached around and gripped her breast in his merciless hold. "You can either scream the Pimpernel's name, or my name," he ordered as he kissed and bit along the alabaster lines of her neck. "Which do you chose?"
She turned her head to face him, scraping along the rubble of wall to meet that familiar gleam of hunger in his un-slaked eyes. "One I will never tell you, willingly or unwillingly. The other, I will never choose to scream again."
"So be it," he sneered, his voice gravely in the dryness of his throat. "You forget that I have made you scream before. Our history is rich with my name sighed with pleasure from your throat." His fingers loosened around her breast, stroking their cold and firm touch over its fullness until it teemed and strained into his palm. "You may have forgotten, but I have not."
She bit her lip to keep silent. Feeling his hand at their side drop the heavy handled whip to the ground, feeling his eager fingers join their mate in teasing her other breast into a painful peak. He scratched his way down to her hips, ghosting over her stomach, her muscles clenched and quivering under the tips of his fingers. Her hips bucked unbidden against him as he slid his touch into the slick folds between her legs. Toying and teasing, he played her against him tighter, circling her pearl until she bucked against him again and again. As if to goad his fingers to touch just the right place.
His laugh warmed her shoulder, his breath sopping with his desire. "There is no way to act now, no way for your body to pretend it does not miss me. You are hotter and more eager than ever for me." He began to stroke her harder and faster, slipping his touch deep into her warmth and relishing her body's surprise with each time. Pressing his ear to her jaw, he listened to her breath whistle and pant as he forced her towards her climax. Her mouth trembled as he ground against her, his own needs building and aching in delicious, unbearable discomfort. Working his finger inside her again, he felt a moan in her throat, but she swallowed it whole. He held nothing back, his attentions, his rubbing, violent and slick in just the spot he knew would melt her into him. "I will make you scream yet, Marguerite," he groaned.
Just as he felt her thighs tremble beneath him, at their slightest shaking, he stopped. He pulled away from her, leaving her aching and shy of release. He trapped her, imprisoned her pleasure from freedom. And, all the while, he laughed as she panted and threw her head back in burning frustration. "You always were so cruel, Chauvelin," she groaned with bitter breathlessness.
"Cruel, but at least not heartless, like you," he panted in reply. "There are limits to even my cruelty."
"What do you mean?" she questioned, filled with sudden and stifling apprehension. Chains fell away from her ankles, and she looked down to see his riveting gaze peering up at her, a small leaden key in his hand. He stood beside her, his taught, chiseled body naked. How like him to strip while her back was turned, she laughed bitterly to herself.
Catching her eye as it scanned his body, his devouring leer returned across the thin lines of his mouth. "Just say the word, and I'll finish what we've started," he rasped, holding the key tauntingly close to the irons around her hands.
"I still won't tell you who the..."
"I don't care," he snapped, unlocking one of her wrists with a sudden jerk. He grabbed her hand and kissed it with the searing heat of his lips. "Not now. Not just now." With another click, he freed her from the granite wall, restraining her only by her empty hands, which he clutched tightly in his own. Slowly, he pulled the remnants of fabric and dress from her arms, reverent to the body he bared beneath. Pushing and leading, he forced her backwards by her arms still, and she stopped only when she felt the edge of the prison cot against the back of her calves.
Silently, he nodded to her, gesturing his order for her to lie down for him. Breathless and unbreathing, she did as he wanted, afraid of the burning ember of violence that still sparked in the gray darkness of his eyes. Afraid that at any moment he would ask her his questions again, now that her guard was down and her folds were unsatisfied and slick.
But, his silence continued. He pressed his mouth gently upon hers, hesitating as if frightened it were another dream. She tasted real enough, smelled just as he remembered, felt warm and yielding and aching as he imagined her time and time again. His mind whirred as his body teemed with plasure, trying to retain every second of her beneath him. The way her breasts swelled soft under his hands, the way her chest rose and fell in time with him. The way her hands, slick with her own wetness, guided him into her again.
He filled her to the hilt, and she groaned at the satisfaction. Her nails dug deeply into the sinews of his back, cutting painfully, clawing and scratching into his flesh, but he did not care. So long as he thrust into her, so long as he breathed her scent and tasted her mouth. He did not care. With a hitched breath, she closed tightly around him, spasms of pleasure and heat pouring from her body into his. His breath stopped short as he spilled himself into her, melting and dying and panting with all too real agony and bliss. He swallowed his breath as he looked into her eyes, still as dark and gleaming as ever.
"You know, Marguerite, I still remember each and every time you laid with me," his voice deep and still above her. "I savor your taste in my dreams, in my mind I relive your breaths and kisses and screams." His fingers traced down the line of her neck, sweeping her long dark hair over one shoulder. "Do you ever spend a fraction of a thought on me anymore?"
"That was always your mistake," she breathed. "You assumed I cared about you from the beginning. But you know, you can't stop caring about someone who you never cared about before."
