He returned to her side. Too close to her side. His adored, offended, ashamed little princess. His wife, eventually. How could he ever love her more?
“May I put my skirts down a moment, to wipe my eyes?” she asked.
“No. Let me take care of it.”
He had her turn toward him, though she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and brushed away her tears, thinking how different it was to punish her, because he loved her so much. The other women were playthings, sexual vessels, and, usually, enthusiastic participants in their own “punishments,” squealing and shaking their bottoms, begging for more. Rosalind was quietly remorseful.
“Does it still hurt?” he asked, willing her to look at him. When she didn’t, he took her chin and caught her gaze. “Does it still hurt, Rosalind?”
“A little. Yes. More than a little.”
His fingers left her chin and stroked her cheek. She’d stopped crying. Now she regarded him warily.
“Are you going to kiss me?” she asked.
“Perhaps. I want to.” His breath caught, he wanted her so badly. “I won’t, though. I doubt you wish me to kiss you just now.”
“I am not sure I could be kissed…like this.” Her breath caught too, with a little sigh. “May I put down my skirts?”
“No. When I say so, you may.” He put an arm around her, unable to keep from touching her at the end of it. “I’ll hold them up for you, if you prefer.”
“It’s only that I feel so exposed with them up. I suppose that is part of the punishment.”
He leaned close to her, so close she nearly rested against his chest. “This is after the punishment,” he said quietly, “when I think to myself that you took it very well.” He gave her bare bottom a pat. Just one. It was all he allowed himself, though he would happily have groped and squeezed her for the remainder of the day. She stared at him, knowing he wanted to kiss her. Not knowing the rest of it, innocent as she was.
“This is why your parents rejected my suit, Rosalind,” he said in a tone of confession. “Why all the ton’s best families kept their daughters well away from the Viscount Marlow’s degenerate clutches.”
“Men may spank their wives,” she said. “Though they are not meant to enjoy it. The men, I mean. But you do. Don’t you?”
She blinked at him, trying to understand, but she was not depraved enough to manage it.
“I enjoy it when I feel you’ve been taught a lesson,” he said. “There is a push and pull to it, I suppose, a proper sort of rightness to discipline within a marriage. At least I mean for there to be. I don’t know how to explain it, but yes, I enjoy spanking you for missteps and misbehavior, and then holding you afterward. I’m afraid to say it will always be so in our marriage.”
She trembled in his arms as he continued holding her skirts above her bared bottom. She studied him, trying to decide if he was a dangerous monster or still the dashing beau she’d worshipped from afar. He could see she did not know, that she had not decided yet.
“What if I am very good?” she asked. “Perfect and good all the time in our marriage? Would you still wish to spank me?”
His answer was the kiss he hadn’t meant to give her, not when she was hurting with her bare cheeks still exposed to his room. It was a hungry, frustrated, lust-sick kiss. He held her neck and bent her head back with the force of it, grasping her skirts in his other hand. My wife, my love, with your firm, shapely, supple arse cheeks to spank and expose for as long as I decide. Mine, you are all mine.
That’s what he said to her with his deep, yearning kiss, gripping her close to him so she couldn’t get away. It’s too late for you now, he thought. Even if you’re developing misgivings, I won’t let you go.
But I will take care of you. I’ll never leave you or wish for another. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. I will protect you to my dying day.
Did she hear all those thoughts in the intensity of his kiss? She clung to him until he remembered himself and pulled away. Finally, he released her bunched-up skirts and let them fall over her injured bottom cheeks which now bore ten paddle marks in pink.
“I think…” She swallowed hard, her hands resting upon his chest. The tension increased and she pushed him away. “I think I would like to return to my room for the remainder of the evening. To think about your punishment, and what…what I’ve done.”
“Of course. If you wish.”
Her lips pressed into a little line. “I’m sorry again about the cards. Perhaps we ought not to play anymore.”
“We could play, Rosalind, but just not cheat.”
Her gaze slid away from his. We could be married, Marlow, but just not do spankings. She didn’t have to say it for him to read it in her expression.
He understood her feelings. She’d always been a golden sort of child, flawless and well-behaved, so it had to be difficult to learn that discipline would be part of their lives going forward. He wasn’t willing to go without it, not when she made such a perfectly titillating victim.
Well, he needn’t spank her every day. Perhaps every other day would be enough. She was upset but he was starting to feel better. In time, they’d work things out between them, especially once he was able to introduce her to the intriguing and pleasurable activities that followed kisses. And spankings.
He’d allow her to slink away now to lick her wounds in private. They had an entire married life to look forward to, a life that would be worth the price of this shaky, uncomfortable start.