“Hold your dress up,” he ordered. “Don’t let it go.”
He took her hips and pushed inside her. She was so tight, so inexpressibly satisfying to conquer. She gave a light, breathless whine as he stretched her open with his thick length. At the same time, he manipulated her most sensitive flesh, trying to bring her the same pleasure he felt. It wasn’t long before she melted against him. He clasped her tight, encircling her in his arms. He tipped her chin back and kissed her, once, twice.
She didn’t kiss him back. She seemed altogether lost in the moment, which wasn’t a bad thing.
“Does this feel good?” he asked quietly. “Do you like this?”
She shook her head, but it wasn’t much of a shake. It was a very weak denial.
“You mustn’t lie, remember,” he said, sliding a hand down to squeeze her still-heated arse. “If you lie, you’ll have to learn your lesson all over again, and I’m sure you wouldn’t like that. Answer me. Does this feel good?”
He stroked and teased her little button until she was practically dancing on her toes. “It feels g-good. Yes.”
That whispered admission resonated through his straining muscles straight to his balls and cock. He was going to bring her to climax, his glacial little dormouse, whether she wished it or not. He drove up inside her, stroking and urging her, using her breaths and shudders to judge how to touch her to bring her to her peak. Here his experience served him, for she was, like all women, easily manipulated with the right touches and the right words. He was slow and patient, studying her reactions and using everything he learned to drive her pleasure higher.
When she stiffened against his front, gripping his cock and gasping in the throes of satisfaction, he let out a groan and bucked into her, filling her with his seed. She pressed her hands against the wall as her tight sheath milked him of every last drop. He held her close, reveling in her beautiful surrender. Her skirts stayed bunched between them as he thrust into her with one last surge. Ahh…
A successful punishment session, this, for more reasons than one.
He stepped away from his wife and let her skirts fall back to her ankles. She stayed facing the wall as he straightened himself and refastened his breeches. That finished, he turned her about, and used a thumb to force her gaze to his.
She looked confused, flustered, and utterly devastated.
“You would have learned how at some point,” he said, stroking his thumb across her cheek. “I would have taught you, little grasshopper, whether you wanted to learn or not.”
She stared at him a long moment, then turned her face away. “I am not an insect.”
“But you are a woman, aren’t you? A woman with desires and feelings, as much as you endeavor to deny that fact.” He released her and walked toward the door. “I expect you downstairs at the dining table within ten minutes time, Aurelia. I am positively starved.”
Chapter Seven: Dinner
Her husband stood from his seat at the head of the table when she arrived. Aurelia crossed to her place at his right, feeling the weight of his dark gaze as if he touched her with his very hands. She wondered if any of the servants had heard her screaming earlier. She felt that all of them must know of her shame, but one person certainly knew, and that was Lord Townsend.
She nodded at him as she took her seat. He murmured a greeting in return and watched her shift helplessly, trying to find a comfortable way to sit. Her bottom ached. There was nothing for it. At least he’d given her time to compose her appearance—and her scattered thoughts—before the meal commenced.
Aurelia was certain her lady’s maid had heard her screaming, but the old woman pretended she hadn’t, as any experienced servant should. Aurelia was glad. She didn’t want to talk to anyone about what had happened, not yet. She was still coming to terms with her husband’s actions afterward, and her own body’s traitorous display. The things he had made her feel, both good and bad, defied understanding.
As the servants began the choreographed niceties of the dinner service, she slid a glance at him. He watched her with a studious expression, his lips drawn down in a frown. She was grateful for the food set before her, because it gave her something to do besides make conversation.
Because what on earth was there to say?
“Have you found Townsend House a comfortable home?” he asked abruptly in the silence. “I mean to ask, are your rooms all they could be? Do the servants meet your needs?”
She paused, fork in hand. “Admirably, my lord.”
He made a soft sound. “Will you call me Hunter, damn you? There’s no one else here.”
“Will you refrain from cursing at me, Hunter?” she replied with as much heat as she dared. If she angered him again, she wasn’t sure her backside could endure the result. She speared a sauced potato and chewed it woodenly.
Her husband wasn’t angry. In fact, he seemed amused. “I like when you’re not such a mouse. Yes, I’ll try to stop cursing at you.”
“And using indecent language. It’s very lowering. I’m certain you wish to be thought a respectable gentleman.”
“Like your father?”
She clamped her lips shut, not wishing to enter into a spat. In her peripheral vision she could see Lord Townsend’s mouth curve up in a faint smile. Now and again he made some unobtrusive gesture that brought a footman running to deliver this and that. She sat very straight in her chair and tried to dine as elegantly as he did, but he had some power, some size of presence she lacked. It didn’t help that her bottom ached, and that she burned with embarrassment over the way he’d handled her. Those same fingers that beckoned the servants had been thrust up inside her—and her body had welcomed it.
She almost choked, remembering the humiliation. He glanced at her. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, even though she was not all right.
“Do you wonder where I’ve been these past few nights?” he asked.
She pretended not to hear the question as she placed her silverware atop her plate. “I believe I have finished. May I be excused?”
“No.”
She drew in a deep breath and let it out. Yes, she had wondered where he was, but she didn’t really want to know. She didn’t want to be taunted with his extramarital adventures. “I’m sure it’s none of my business where you were.”
“Oh, but it is your business.” He put down his silverware too and took a great drink of wine. “You remember that you gave me permission to seek companionship outside our marriage?”
She nodded, swallowing hard.
“I had intended to do it discreetly, for your honor, but your father has denied me such...dalliances.”
She stared at him. “Denied you? How?” She imagined her father standing at the door of some house of ill-repute, barring her husband’s way.
He drank more wine, tilting his head back before he swallowed it. “He has convinced every madam and courtesan in London that it behooves them to turn me away.” He lifted his glass to her, as if in a toast. “I am therefore obliged to be scrupulously faithful, whether I wish it or not.”
“It was none of my doing. If my father has done this—”
“Your father did it,” he said, cutting her off. “And I don’t blame you, my dear, but I find myself in an untenable situation. Thanks to your father’s interference, there is only one female available to cater to my vulgar appetite for pleasure, and that female is you.”
Aurelia felt hot and cold and...flabbergasted. “Well, I have allowed you to my bed, haven’t I? I’ll do my wifely duty whenever you insist upon it.”
“Ah, your ‘wifely duty.’ And grudgingly too,” he mocked, raising his dark brows. “Any man would feel himself replete. No, I’m speaking of more than wifely duty. Surely you realize there is an entire world of pleasures to be explored outside the banality of the marital act.”
She wished she could disappear, she truly did. “I’m afraid I do not realize, my lord. I am very sorry that we do not share the same moral inclinations a
nd desire for indecent pleasures. I am very sorry that we are trapped in this marriage, but I don’t know what you wish me to do.”
He leaned closer, and waited until she dragged her gaze to his. “I wish you to change, Aurelia. I wish you to agree to satisfy me in whatever ways I desire, no matter the state of your ‘moral inclinations.’ In light of the servants milling about, I’ll not describe the finer points of my requirements.”
Amidst the outraged shock, a frisson of fear curled in her belly. “What you suggest would be impossible. Even if I agreed to...to satisfy you in whatever ‘vulgar’ ways you are talking about, I would not know how.”