She screwed her eyes shut and opened her mouth, and again treated him to that perfect suction. He eased his cock between her lips, being careful not to push too deep. He would not be that husband, even if every last nerve screamed at him to thrust into her throat to the hilt. He stroked himself as she sucked him, and sighed as her tongue teased the tip. In his rising excitement, his fingers curled into her hair and tightened against her scalp.
“Oh. God. Yes.” He couldn’t utter more than one word at a time. With a growl, he withdrew from her mouth and pumped his shaft, spilling his seed onto the front of her shift. He couldn’t imagine what she thought of this, but it had seemed a better idea than spending without warning in her mouth.
“Good girl,” he said. “You made me come.”
“Oh.” She sat frozen, staring up at him.
“You did that very well, especially for a beginner. Or...” He feigned suspicion. “Have you done that before?”
“No, never,” she insisted primly.
He leaned to kiss her mouth, which he was certain had never sucked another cock. “I’m teasing. I know it was your first time, and you did beautifully. It felt very pleasurable.”
“Oh,” she said again, looking down at the sticky mess on her bodice.
“I suppose you will want another shift. Why don’t we take that one off?”
She agreed that would be a good idea, although she seemed reluctant to touch it. He helped lift the now not-so-innocent garment over her head, taking care not to get any of the musky fluid in her hair. He threw it aside and wiped his hands on his thighs.
“It’s better if my seed goes inside you,” he said. “You can’t make babies any other way. I suppose we must have relations again in a while, so I can come inside you as I ought to.”
“I’m not sure we ought to indulge in so many carnal activities in one night.”
“Don’t you enjoy our carnal activities?”
“I... Well...” She shook her head. “No, I don’t enjoy them very much, if you wish to know the truth.”
He laughed and hauled her over his lap, and laid a couple good wallops over the birch marks from the night before. “A lie like that deserves a sound spanking.”
“Ow!” She squirmed to look up at him. “Please, it wasn’t a lie.”
“Wasn’t it?” He squeezed her bottom and slid his palm between her legs. His fingers came away wet. “I think it was a lie.” He spanked her a few more times, playful smacks as she fidgeted across his thighs. “Lying is a very bad habit, and certainly a punishable offense. You remember what I told you.” He paused to molest her again, drawing some of the moisture from her quim up between her bottom cheeks. “Bad wives earn bad consequences.” He pressed a fingertip against the tight, pink bud of her arsehole to drive his point home. She tried to wiggle off his lap, but he held her fast. “Apologize for me now, very prettily. ‘I’m sorry I lied to you, husband.’”
“I didn’t lie,” she insisted. “I told you my feelings were very confused.”
“Why confused? Don’t you like to feel pleasure? Tell the truth, Guinevere.” He nudged her off his lap and onto her back, and laid over her. The spanking and this intimate contact had him going rigid all over again. “Say it to me. I love to be fucked.”
“I can’t say that.” The poor woman was scandalized. “That is a terribly coarse word.”
“Say it, or I won’t let you come for the rest of the week. In fact, I won’t let you have your pleasure for the next six months.” That was a bluff. He enjoyed her abandoned reactions too much to deny her. He was playing with her, or trying to. He wished she would smile instead of looking on the verge of tears.
“All right then,” he said. “If it’s too difficult for you to admit it, give me a kiss instead. None of those reluctant ones either. Kiss me the way you kissed me in the meadow, like a wanton fairy queen.”
He waited. He didn’t pucker his lips or bow his head to her, or do anything but gaze at her expectantly, forcing her to take the first step.
She shifted beneath him. “If I kiss you, then what will you do?”
He pressed his thickening cock against her quim. “Surely you know the answer to that. Do you want me to make you feel good, Gwen? Very, very warm and aroused and good?” She bit her lip and turned away. “Answer me,” he prompted. “Or kiss me. Either one.”
He waited. After a moment, she turned back and reached to trace a tendril of his hair, a tentative gesture that seemed deeply erotic. Her fingers trailed along his neck. She kissed him, whispery-soft, at the side of his lips.
“A promising start,” he murmured. “Give me more.”
She blinked at him, then tilted her head to kiss him on the mouth.
Let her lead. For once. It was hard to stay still, to not to push her arms back and drive inside her the way he wished. The way she wished, whether she could admit it or not.
“Show me what you want,” he said. “If you can’t say it, show me. Arch your hips and let me come inside you. Marital intimacy is not a shameful or repulsive thing, and there is nothing wrong with you for enjoying it.”
“But I don’t enjoy—”
“You do. I’ve felt you coming, Guinevere. Don’t tell lies.”
He pressed into her pussy, kissing her lips and chin and neck and shoulders, all the lovely, compelling features that comprised his wife. He went gently this time. Sometimes he liked sex raw and roughshod, but sometimes he liked it sweet.
“You’re so sweet,” he whispered. “Let me hold you.”
He gathered her close, sinking inside her warmth. She was so tight and hot, so wet. He loved the way she squeezed his cock, loved the maddeningly erotic way she moved her hips, but he also loved the way she clung to him. Beautiful, sweet girl. He didn’t want her to suffer, not when they could make one another so happy.
He toyed with her, maneuvered and manipulated her until she climaxed in a trembling heat, and then chuckled when she refused to meet his gaze. “You love to be fucked,” he taunted softly. “You little liar. You naughty girl.”
Chapter Seven: The Letter
Gwen’s hand hovered over the paper, the pen trembling in her fingers as she searched for the right words. Mama,
she prayed silently. Help me, please. Help me know what to say so Father will let me come home.
She’d been at Arlington Hall nearly a week, submitting to the duke’s endless scrutiny, her French maid’s harassment, and finishing lessons with Lady Langton, a doddering old scold who made Gwen want to die.
No matter how hard she tried, Gwen could do nothing right. The walls of her husband’s palatial estate seemed to squeeze in around her until she couldn’t breathe. She snuck to her private garden whenever she could, only to be pulled back inside for lessons, or styling, or a change of clothes, or luncheon, or tea, or formal dinner, or some other pointless activity.
Then night would come and the duke would visit her bed, and stroke her and bedevil her until she lost all sense and participated in the most scandalous activities. She only realized her embarrassment afterward, when he was slumbering beside her in blissful repletion. It was an awful feeling, that lonely, shameful aftermath. It was not her fault the duke knew the precise ways to stimulate her sensual humors. And every time he lay with her, there was more chance she would fall pregnant with his child.
Gwen had never thought it possible to miss her home so much. She missed her privacy and peace of mind. She missed wearing comfortable clothes and being who she was, a simple baron’s daughter. She missed having control of her own body. She missed her afternoons with Effie, feeding her apples and brushing her patchy coat. She prayed every day in her garden for fortitude, and for deliverance, but it didn’t help.
It was time to take matters into her own hands, now, before it was too late.
Dear Papa, she wrote in Welsh.
I know it was important to you that I wed the Duke of Arlington. I would not write this letter if I was not in desperate circumstances.
I’m afraid our marriage is a failure. The duke regards me as little better than a savage, and treats me as such. He fears I will humiliate him before his friends, and so he is trying to remake me into a completely different person.