The Lesson Plan

by Jackie Barbosa

  This time, he didn’t hesitate; she could scarcely widen her eyes in surprise before he leapt forward and grabbed her by the elbows.

  This time he did what he’d considered on the road and threw her over his shoulder. She pounded his back with her fists and wriggled in a furious effort to escape, all to no avail. When he reached his destination, he shifted her from his shoulder to his lap as he sat on the chair she’d so recently toppled. He settled her across his thighs, face down.

  “What are you doing?” she cried, twisting to look over her shoulder at him.

  He smiled grimly. “What someone should have done long ago.”

  “You can’t mean to…” she gasped, but before she could finish the sentence, he raised his hand and brought it down across the firm swell of her buttocks. She jerked and let out a squeal that sounded more outraged than pained.

  “I don’t merely mean to,” he said coolly, “I am.”

  He demonstrated the truth of his words by delivering another open-palmed blow to her sweetly rounded arse, and then another and another. She squirmed and struggled, but he continued until he was certain her white cheeks must be reddened with the imprint of his hand. The sound of his hand slapping against her flesh filled him with a profound sense of satisfaction. He had feared losing control in this moment—when he at last had her at his mercy—but instead, he was filled with an almost preternatural calm.

  For once, he’d bested her. For once, he’d left his mark on her, however temporarily, instead of the other way around.

  His mission complete, he was preparing to shift her from his lap and into the chair when she whispered a single, muffled word.

  “Please.”

  “Had enough, have you?” He chuckled to himself. She was probably more shocked by the fact that he’d managed to catch her than by the spanking itself.

  “No,” she panted, shaking her head. “Please, don’t stop.”

  Conrad froze, certain he’d either misheard or misunderstood her. “What?”

  She shifted her hips, causing a spontaneous and near-painful rush of blood to his nether parts.

  “Don’t stop. It makes me feel…tingly and warm.” As she spoke, she tightened and relaxed the muscles in her thighs reflexively in what he recognized as an attempt to heighten the sensation she was feeling.

  Arousal.

  The space between his ears roared. He’d engaged in “games” of this sort with a number of intrepid—and expensive—courtesans in the past, but their spirited participation could hardly be considered entirely genuine, let alone spontaneous. Yet, unbelievably, lying arse-up across his lap and clearly enjoying being disciplined, was the woman for whom all the others had been proxies. The one woman he had always longed to capture and tame and possess. Because, when it came to it, the only woman worth having on her knees was the one who would be the greatest challenge to get there.

  It was that thought that gave him pause. This was too easy. Now it was Freddie who seemed to be giving in without a fight, and Conrad knew her better than that.

  She was clever and resourceful. Perhaps she was feigning desire in an attempt to throw him—her kidnapper, he amended mentally—off his stride and gain the upper hand. It was, in fact, exactly the sort of trick he would expect from her.

  Well, it wouldn’t work. There was, after all, an easy way to call her bluff.

  He pushed her from his lap. “Stand up and take off your breeches,” he ordered.

  Rising from the floor where he had unceremoniously dumped her, she blinked her confusion. “You want me to do what?”

  Crossing his legs at the ankle, he leaned back and folded his arms over his chest. The chair wobbled slightly at the change in his weight. “Remove your breeches. Drawers, too, if you’ve got any on.”

  “But…” She worried her lower lip, her brows drawn together in disbelief. “You mean, now?”

  He was amused by her sudden loss of bravado. It seemed she had been quite prepared to woo her kidnapper into treating her more gently, but now that he appeared likely to take her invitation to the logical conclusion, she was considerably less sure of herself.

  Perhaps now she would finally understand why her provocative clothing and behavior were so bloody dangerous. They made a man imagine things he shouldn’t. Do things he oughtn’t.

  Maybe now she would realize just how much trouble she was in and let him tie her up in the chair for the night as he had planned. She wouldn’t be all that much more uncomfortable there until dawn than he would be on the mattress. There was certainly no chance he would sleep a wink tonight. Not with his cock at full attention and his mind filled with images—both real and fictitious, though every bit as vivid—he’d likely never banish.

  “Oh yes,” he said firmly, nodding. “Now.”

  “Very well, then. If you insist.”

  It was Conrad’s turn to stare in disbelief. She couldn’t mean to… She wasn’t actually going to…

  But she did, and she was.

  Worse yet, he couldn’t look away. Not when she bent over and pulled off her boots one by one, revealing the taut curve of each shapely calf. Not when she straightened and unbuttoned the fall of her breeches with steady, confident fingers. And certainly not when she slid her thumbs beneath the waist of those breeches and dragged them downward, briefly exposing the creamy white flesh of her hips and the triangle of dark curls at the apex of her thighs before her white shirt draped down to cover them. Last to appear was the sleek musculature of her thighs, honed by years of tree-climbing and horseback riding to a sinewy leanness that might have seemed boyish were it not so easy to imagine those long, slender limbs wrapped around his waist while he buried himself inside her.

  Heat suffused him as she stood and tossed the breeches to the floor. No drawers. With the tails of her coat hanging down behind her and her shirt front reaching to mid-thigh, she seemed not a whit perturbed by her state of undress. And God help him if she wasn’t the loveliest, most desirable creature he’d ever seen in his life. In all his lurid dreams, he’d never conjured her up to be as half as beautiful as she truly was.

  “What now?” she asked, her tone as placid as if she were asking him the time of day.

  So much for calling her bluff.

  He cleared his throat. For better or worse, he had to finish what he’d started. “Come here.”

  She took two steps closer but remained just out of arm’s reach. Saucy minx. She had to know he meant close enough for him to touch her.

  “Closer.” He made her come all the way to him, until their knees almost bumped.

  “What are you going to do?” Her voice quavered a little now.

  Conrad closed his eyes and steeled himself. “I’m going to find out if you were telling the truth.”

  “The truth about what?”

  “About how you felt when I spanked you.”

  Her expression turned quizzical. “How are you going to…?”

  He didn’t give her time to finish the question. Actions spoke louder than words, after all.

  After nudging her bare thighs apart with his hands, he slid one palm up between them. As soon as his fingers met the dewy, petal-soft flesh at her core, he knew. She hadn’t been feigning anything; her pussy was slick and the scent of her arousal permeated the air like a heady perfume. Her clitoris so swollen that she gasped, her knees wobbling, as he grazed the small bud with his fingertip.

  Conrad couldn’t suppress a groan of pleasure—or was it agony?—at this discovery. If a spanking could bring her to such a heightened state of arousal, what would happen if he touched her like a lover? If he were to strip her of the rest of her clothes, lay her on the mattress, and explore every inch of her glorious body at his leisure? But the question hardly needed asking, for the answer was apparent in the haze of need darkening her eyes until they were almost black and in the rush of moisture that greeted his continued exploration of her most forbidden territory.

  He couldn’t—shouldn’t—take advantage of her desire for hi
m. A desire that wasn’t even for him. The knowledge that it wasn’t he, Conrad Pearce, she was responding to, but a stranger, a criminal who was holding her hostage, should have been enough to dampen his own arousal to cold, wet ashes. Perversely, the knowledge inflamed him, because for as long as she believed he was a ruthless highwayman and not the safe, familiar neighbor she’d known since childhood, she was his to command.

  His to use as he saw fit.

  Conrad prided himself on his self-control. On his ability to keep a tight rein on his emotions, on his mental faculties, on his physical responses. He never fully surrendered; even in the throes of passion, there was always a part of himself he kept locked away. It was safer that way. He liked it that way.

  Or so he’d always believed. Until now. Because when the thread of his control snapped and he admitted to himself the futility of resisting the inevitable, he wasn’t sorry. Instead, he was glad. Relieved, even.

  Tonight, he was finally going to have Winifred Langston in every crass, carnal way he’d ever dreamed. Naked and spread out beneath him like a banquet, her hips lifting to meet his every thrust as he made her come for him, again and again. Naked and astride him, riding his cock with the same abandon she rode her horse. Naked and on her knees while he took her from behind, tunneling inside her until he pierced her wild and reckless heart. Until she was his.

  Only tomorrow would he consider the possible consequences of possessing a force of nature.

  6

  The moment of Conrad’s surrender was one Freddie was sure she would remember—and cherish—for the rest of her life. She hadn’t been sure she could manage it. Even when she was taking off her breeches, preparing to offer herself to him, she’d doubted her ability to breach his reserve and make him throw caution to the wind. Even when he’d slipped his fingers between her thighs and groaned with undisguised delight, she’d wondered if he would finally be able to unleash the truest angels of his nature.

  The angels that were devils.

  But when, instead of removing his hand from her sex and pushing her away as she feared he might, he began to stroke her sensitive, swollen flesh in earnest, she knew she had won.

  “God help me,” he muttered thickly, “but I can’t keep my bloody hands off you.”

  Exultation ballooned inside her, making her chest ache and her skin tighten almost painfully. She felt as if exhilaration would turn her inside out.

  He couldn’t keep his hands off her. Conrad Pearce couldn’t keep his hands off her. The man who never did anything without weighing the risks and benefits, who never took an action without considering the consequences, couldn’t stop himself from touching her.

  He wasn’t going to stop. Not until he’d finished what he’d started, and if she didn’t entirely understand what that meant beyond the most rudimentary mechanics, she didn’t particularly care. She wanted whatever he wanted, however he wanted it.

  “Open your legs wider.” The command rumbled from somewhere deep in his throat, dark and insistent and a little menacing. As if he would force her to his will if she failed to do as he ordered. The fact that the mask still concealed all of his face save his mouth and chin, preventing her from reading the emotions in his expression, only heightened the sense of danger.

  Fortunately, Freddie loved danger. Thrived on it, even.

  Although her legs had gone liquid and were therefore disobliging, she managed to maintain her balance while spreading them farther apart. Immediately, he slid his free hand behind her, seized a handful of her still-stinging backside, and angled her hips toward him. The position was awkward and difficult to maintain, but before she could voice an objection, he leaned forward and buried his face there.

  Yes, there! Her eyes widened with shock, but she didn’t once consider pulling away or putting a stop to it.

  At first, he merely nuzzled the curls at the apex of her thighs, a gesture that seemed indulgent, even sweet. Just when she thought, with some disappointment, that this was all he meant to do, one of his fingers found her entrance and plunged inside. And then…oh God…and then, his tongue delved in between the folds and traced circles over and around that tiny, aching bead of flesh.

  Her knees threatened to buckle, and she clawed for his shoulders to steady herself. What on earth was he thinking, doing such a thing? It was appalling, scandalous, indecent!

  And if he stopped, she would kill him.

  She arched her hips to meet his tongue and fingers, her entire body trembling with the unfamiliar pressure building inside her. Not that she hadn’t touched herself there before. She had, and she knew that the pressure would climb and climb until it eventually broke apart into a pleasurable release. But nothing she had experienced alone could compare to the sensations he evoked. Everything was hotter, brighter, sharper. The climax, when it came, might tear her apart.

  Digging her fingers harder into his shoulders, she clung to him for what was surely her life as the tension rose to something very near agony. The slapping sounds of his finger moving in and out of her and the wetness of his tongue sliding over her flesh were both obscene and desperately, terribly exciting. She feared equally that it would end and that it would never end.

  But, of course, it did end. Suddenly and violently. The first tremor took her by sneak attack, and then there was no stopping the rest. Defenseless against the onslaught, she twisted her hips in an effort to prolong the siege as wave after wave of pleasure shook her. Just when she thought it was over, Conrad added a second finger to the one already filling her, and another surge engulfed her, briefer but more intense than the first.

  Her body was still shuddering with tiny aftershocks when he lifted his head, slipped his fingers from her body, and wiped his arm across his mouth. “Take off everything else,” he ordered. “I want you naked when I fuck you.”

  Fuck. The word was wicked and evocative. She’d thought herself wrung out, incapable of being aroused again. She was wrong.

  With trembling fingers, she shed her coat and waistcoat and then began to remove her cravat. He sat in the chair, unmoving, his gaze—hooded by the mask—fixed on her. She paused when the length of linen was halfway undone.

  “Aren’t you going to undress, too?” she asked.

  One corner of his mouth turned up. “No.”

  “Oh.” She pursed her lips. Her knowledge of such matters was limited, but she felt fairly certain some degree of undress on the part of both parties was prerequisite to the undertaking.

  “I told you I wanted you naked. That’s all you need to worry about.”

  This answer did nothing to allay her confusion, but she went back to unwinding the cravat. It occurred to her that taking off men’s clothes in front of a man was strangely intimate. Not that she had the experience of taking off women’s clothing to compare it to, but nonetheless, it seemed to her they were sharing something they wouldn’t otherwise—as if her actions were a mirror for ones with which he was deeply familiar.

  That impression held until she pulled the baggy white shirt off over her head, revealing the one, unmistakably feminine item of her attire. Her stays. Tied at the back, they were also the one item of clothing she could not remove herself.

  “You’ll have to help me with this,” she said nervously.

  He nodded and made a twirling gesture with his fingers, indicating she should turn around. She breathed a small sigh of relief and presented him with her back. There was a quick tug on the laces and the garment, which she’d had her maid do up especially tight to better conceal her figure, slid to the floor. Released from captivity, her breasts tingled and swelled as blood rushed into them, bringing her nipples to immediate and almost painful attention.

  Freddie had considered her breasts little more than a nuisance since they’d blossomed, rather dramatically, to their current unwieldy size. After all, they mostly seemed only to get in the way, either by drawing attention to themselves when she dressed in ladies’ clothing—What was it about them that acted like a magnet for men’s eyes?�
��or by refusing to be easily concealed when she did not. But now, the ungainly beasts seemed to have some utility, for as she spun to face Conrad again, there was no mistaking the hitch in his breath when he saw her. She didn’t particularly care what other men thought of her breasts, but the fact that Conrad plainly liked them was quite gratifying.

  “The cap, too.” He was growling now, impatience threading his voice.

  She tugged it quickly from her head. Her hair, which had long since begun its inevitable escape from the pins she futilely used to secure it in place, tumbled in a thick mass to the middle of her back.

  For several long, unnerving seconds, he seemed content merely to look at her. She shifted from one foot to the other. Her skin prickled with nervousness. Did he expect her to do something? How did he imagine she would know what to do if he didn’t tell her? Thus far, he’d been very precise in his directives. If the rules had changed, he ought to have warned her.

  At last, he leaned forward in the chair and said, “Touch your breasts.”

  A pang that was equal parts lust and shame sliced through her belly and gathered in a thudding pulse between her thighs. She was already so wet there, from his saliva and her own body’s fluids, it seemed impossible that she could become wetter, and yet she did.

  “Don’t you want to touch them?” Her voice, thready and breathless, hardly sounded like her own.

  His lips curved in a smile that could only be described as wicked. “I want to watch you touch them first.”

  “But…why?” It was all so mysterious and confusing, this play between men and women. Nothing at all like she had imagined.