Excerpt of Lick of the Flame by Louisa Crane

*The Castle Dungeon*

SOFTLY HE SAID, “Put the whipping stool in the middle of the floor, Charlotte.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Because you want me to.”

He knew. Somehow, he knew everything.

She looked toward the door, still half-open; anyone could come down here and walk in on them. Before she could voice that concern, Darius crossed to the door, pulled it shut, and tugged a rusty steel plate down over the little window. He took a key from a hook on the wall, twisted it in the keyhole, and stowed it in a pocket of his breeches.

Charlotte felt both more secure now and more vulnerable. A stranger, someone she’d met mere minutes ago, had just locked her into a torture chamber. The situation should fill her with foreboding. There was a certain measure of that, to be sure, but mostly what she felt, God help her, was an intoxicating thrill of arousal underscored by a sense of rightness, a sense that she deserved whatever this enigmatic stranger would do to her, and more.

Rejoining her, Darius nodded toward the whipping stool as if to say, Go ahead.

She lifted the stool, which was remarkably heavy, and set it down in the middle of the floor.

“Take your clothes off,” he said.

She turned to stare at him.

“It has long been customary,” he explained, “when punishing females, or attempting to coax confessions from them, to make them undress. It tends to have a... humbling effect.”

Charlotte met his eyes for a moment, then looked down, her gaze lighting on the French fly of his breeches, stretched tight over a bulging erection. She felt suddenly starved for air; her heart thudded in her ears.

Darius noticed the direction of her gaze, but seemed unperturbed, perhaps even slightly amused. “Strip,” he said.

Charlotte took a deep, tremulous breath, and set about unlacing her bodice.