Rival Desires

by Annabel Joseph

  She would not cry. She would not give in to the crushing guilt she felt about her failure in this quarter.

  “You are not natural,” she said, the first excuse she could spout at him. “When it comes to intimacy, you want things no one else wants, things no proper gentleman should enjoy.”

  “I don’t believe that’s true, having more knowledge of sexuality than yourself.” He tightened his embrace as she tried to squirm away from him. “Perhaps I’ve been amiss in my tutoring. I can’t expect you to enjoy things you haven’t been taught.”

  As he said this, he moved his hips against hers, so she could feel that hard, thick part of him that marked him as male. It sent her into a panic.

  “Please, no,” she said. “I don’t want that. I’m still not ready.”

  “Very well. Then you must be punished for denying me my husbandly rights.” His expression deepened, his fingers moving up her spine as she tried to escape his embrace. “A bit of erotic punishment seems just the thing, since you’re curious about it.”

  She gaped at him. “I’m not at all curious. I’m not.”

  “You will be, by the time I’m finished with you.”

  With those frightening words, he swept her into his arms and carried her from the room, toward the great stone stairway in the outer hall.

  Chapter Ten: Erotic Punishment

  Wescott stopped at the door to his room to request some needed items from a footman. A cane, some fragrant oil, a stout ginger plug. The Abbey’s kitchen staff was used to such requests. As for Ophelia, she trembled in his arms.

  He would make it bearable for her, and yes, erotic, but there would be an element of punishment too. She must learn to submit to this marriage, and to him. If it took a certain amount of painful training to force her obedience, well, that was her choice.

  He set her down in the middle of his bedroom, hoping she wouldn’t make a scene and try to escape by banging on the door or some such nonsense. To his relief, she did nothing more than back away a few steps.

  “I don’t know what you mean to do with me, my lord, but I don’t...I don’t want it.”

  “You’ve made that clear.” He gave a show of casual control, but her pouting lips had him aroused nearly to a boiling point. “You’ll need to remove your clothes now, Ophelia, all of them. You may do it yourself, or I can call a maid to help you.”

  She waited, still trembling. “Why must I remove my clothes?”

  “Because it will make it easier to place the ginger fig in your bottom and cane you, as I have planned.”

  Her mouth fell open. “But you can’t do such things! What are you speaking of? You can’t mean to—”

  “Shall I call Rochelle?”

  He moved toward the bell pull and saw the choices flash across his wife’s expression. If Rochelle came, Ophelia might plead for her help, but that would only put Rochelle in an awkward position. Worse, the servant would know her mistress was being punished.

  “Very well,” she said, half in tears. “I’ll remove my gown. But I cannot undo the buttons.”

  He moved behind her to assist, easing her tiny pearl buttons from their loops. He felt a pang of guilt. She was so young compared to him, so small and afraid and inexperienced. He would not hurt her, not really. He was only showing her what intimacy meant to him, and therefore, must mean to her.

  “You may lay your gown across the divan,” he said.

  She obeyed, crossing to the dark furniture in her underthings. Her frilly froth of a dress looked out of place in his bedroom, which was hard and dark and masculine. How gracefully she moved, perhaps because of her stage training.

  “Remove the rest,” he said when she turned back to him. “I’m your husband now. You must learn not to hide your body from me during intimate times.”

  She didn’t want to follow his instructions, but she did, stripping off her stays, chemise, and stockings while sniffing back theatrical tears. Poor thing. She was right about one thing...her life would have been very different if she hadn’t married him. But she had.

  He removed his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves, going over his plans in his head. He might not seduce his way inside her tonight, but he would teach her the power he wielded over her. A quiet knock at the door told him the tools he needed were at hand.

  “You may stand behind the bed,” he said, “so the servants do not see you.”

  She scurried over to the head of his bed, to the long, obscuring velvet curtains, and waited there as a pair of maidservants laid the cane upon a table, as well as the tray containing the oil and an already trimmed and feathered ginger plug. When the maids left, pink flushes upon their cheeks, Ophelia stayed hiding behind the curtain.

  He moved a chair over beside the table and seated himself, patting his lap. “Come, little crosspatch.”

  “I don’t want to.” Her voice was muffled in the corner. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to put a ginger fig in your bottom to make you feel naughty and punished, and then I plan to stand you against the bed and subject you to the cane.” He picked it up and showed it to her. “Have you ever been caned, Ophelia?”

  “No,” she cried. “And I don’t wish to be.”

  “Hmm. But I think you need it. Come here and lie across my lap, so you can see how it feels to be gingered like a bad girl.”

  “I don’t want to,” she pleaded.

  He gave her his sternest Arlington glare. “Shall I drag you, then, and throw you over my knees? Either way, this is happening. If I must force you, you’ll receive twice the cane strokes. That’s an ongoing rule in this house. Refusal doubles the punishment.”

  “You are a despicable man.” She approached him with a quick, panicked gait, covering her breasts and her mons with her hands as well as she could. He drew them away as soon as she reached him and arranged her across his knees. She was so tense she could barely bend. “Easy,” he said. “If you fight me, it will go worse.”

  “But I don’t want this.”

  “Indeed, but wanting and needing are two different things.”

  He held her protesting form still with one hand upon her waist and reached for the ginger with the other. If she was one of Pearl’s wanton courtesans, he would have made a point of shaming her, spreading her cheeks and teasing her small hole before he thrust in the ginger, but this was his wife, and she was shy and afraid. He felt a perverse spark of lust, as well as protectiveness.

  “This will feel cold and uncomfortable,” he warned. “As it’s meant to. If you fuss and toss around as I punish you, it will become more uncomfortable still, so behave, and resign yourself.”

  She stiffened as he prodded the narrowed tip of the fresh ginger against her tiny arse hole. When he began to slide it in, she made frantic sounds of dismay. It was slim, too slim to really hurt her, but her embarrassment was evident. She trembled violently as he pushed it home, so it rested just inside her rectum, with a flange outside her bottom to keep it seated.

  “There,” he said, holding her steady across his lap. “Now, you may feel it tingle and burn. This is to remind you how naughty and stubborn you’ve been.”

  “It hurts,” she said weakly. “Please, take it out.”

  “It doesn’t hurt. You haven’t felt hurt yet.”

  He could see the ginger’s burn take effect in the moments that followed, because her pale, heart-shaped bottom cheeks began to twitch and tense. She reached back, but he caught her hand. “No, my dear. You’re not to interfere when you’re being punished. Keep your hands in front of you, placed right against the floor.”

  She obeyed with a moan, but it was, perhaps, a slightly confused sounding moan. As ginger burned and tingled, it also stimulated carnal feelings. He made as if to settle her more firmly in his lap, and brushed his fingers twice across the small, sensitive spot between her pussy lips. To his amusement, she trembled in response, moving her hips. Of course, as she squirmed, her arse squeezed the ginger, intensifying its sting. She let out a cha
stened gasp.

  “Please, my lord, how long will it...will it stay in?”

  “Call me Wescott.”

  “Please, Wescott, how long must it stay in? It burns so.”

  “That depends on your own behavior. Stand up now. Go to the bed and brace your hands upon it.”

  She moved where he guided her, with much less resistance than before. It never failed to amaze him, how punishing a woman’s arsehole made her so much more submissive. He’d have to remember that for Ophelia’s more ornery days.

  “Don’t shrink away,” he said, as she cowered against the bed. “You must present your bottom for caning, or the strokes won’t count.” He took up the solid rattan implement and gave her a couple soft taps with the tip. “You’ll receive only five strokes since this is your first time. If you don’t stand perfectly still and submit to each stroke, that number will increase to ten, then fifteen, and so on.”

  He thought he heard her utter a whispered prayer. How he wanted to fall on his wife as she held the edge of his bed, her bottom tense and trembling, her feet restless upon the floor. He wished to strip off his clothes and thrust inside her pussy while the ginger burned and tormented her arse, and ride her that way until the fierce desire inside him was released. But no, she would be afraid of him in truth then, afraid of how passionate he could be.

  Instead, he drew his arm back and delivered a short, crisp stroke of the cane. It was barely a tap, but on a virgin bottom like Ophelia’s, it doubtless felt awful. Her legs buckled and she let out a shocked cry.

  “Oh, no. No.” She fell to her knees and turned to him. “Please.”

  He’d left a faint stripe across the perfect center of her cheeks. How lovely it looked with the ginger peeking out in the midst of it, but her gaze was awash in pain.

  “Stand up,” he said. “You’ve four more to go. Nine more, if you won’t cooperate.”

  “I can’t. I couldn’t.” Her voice shook. “Please, my lord. I mean, Wescott.”

  When he did not relent, she got to her feet and stood against his bed again, a cowering ball of reluctance. The second stroke connected, leaving another pretty mark across her bottom. Her reaction was the same, a collapse, pleas, and tears shimmering in her eyes.

  “You’ve only had two strokes,” he scolded. “Five isn’t so very many to bear.”

  “Please, I can’t. The ginger burns so, and my bottom feels as if it’s on fire.”

  She covered her striped cheeks, begging him not to continue. He pretended disappointment, tapping the cane against his leg.

  “If you will not submit to your punishment, you will have to placate me in some other way.” He placed the cane on the bed in front of her, as a reminder and threat, and sat to her side, sliding his hand down against her mons. She was hot and wet, perhaps from angst, or perhaps from some burgeoning sense of the erotic. When she moved her hips away, he made a sound in his throat.

  “No, this is your only other choice besides the cane. Stand still. Let me do as I wish.”

  She still held onto the bed’s edge, and looked straight ahead, avoiding his eyes as he slid his hand lower, parting her with his fingers. He found her hidden button and massaged it slowly, drawing moisture from her quim to slicken his touch.

  She shifted, trying not to be affected. Her breath quickened, but she said nothing, just held tight to the bed. He rubbed her buttocks with his other hand, tracing over the pink cane welts that must still hurt. She gritted her teeth as he massaged her both places, giving her pain and pleasure in equal measure. His cock strained against his trousers. This was as excruciating for him as for her. It was also wonderful.

  “Unbutton my shirt,” he ordered, giving her a quick spank when she hesitated. She set to the buttons, trying to concentrate on the task as he continued to tease and caress her hidden pearl. “Now take it off me,” he said when she finished.

  He ceased caressing her so she could remove his shirt. As she stared at his chest, he eased closer to her. The poor thing didn’t know what to do with her hands. “Unbutton my trousers now,” he said.

  She met his eyes, because looking at his trousers seemed too much for her sensibilities. He’d gone rigid beneath the buff fabric, his cock a bulging, obscene outline. He smothered the impulse to laugh as her fingers skirted the obvious protuberance. Ignoring it would not make it go away. As she unbuttoned his falls, his cock emerged, quite in his wife’s face. Well, let her see what she did to him.

  “Touch it,” he said in a low voice. “Stroke it with your hand.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Do it.” He took her hands and placed them on his length. “You know how to touch things.”

  She gave in and moved her hands beneath his, with the softest, most teasing glide of her fingers. “It’s too big,” she whispered. “I don’t like it.”

  “You are honest to a fault.” He huffed out a breath. “Stay where you are, crosspatch. Don’t move. I’m not finished with you, or this erotic punishment of yours.”

  He went to the tray to fetch the vial of slick oil. He smoothed some onto his fingers, and over his straining member. “There,” he said. “You must rub it into me now.”

  She stared at him, her small fingers clasped before her chest. Her upturned nipples taunted him. She was so much more lovely than she knew, so much more lovely than a prudish woman like her had a right to be.

  “Why must I do that?” she asked.

  “Because I’ve said so. Here.” He poured more oil into his hands and then onto hers, coating her fingers. The oil’s perfume was subtly exotic, flowery but musky, the scent rising between them. His balls ached, and his shaft was near to exploding. “Stroke me,” he insisted. “And don’t stop until I tell you to.”

  As she anxiously handled his length, he put his hands back on her, sliding his fingers to her mons and lower. While the ginger continued to tingle in her arse, he fingered her quim, shoving a finger up inside her. She rose on her toes and tried to twist away. With a patient sigh, he put her hands back on his cock, showing her how to stimulate him. Whenever she stopped, he gave her a spank or two until she started again.

  Meanwhile, he played between her pussy lips, trying to draw her attention to the pleasure within herself. She caressed his granite-hard shaft in fits and starts, but he gave her no respite from his own skilled touch. Soon, her hips rocked in conjunction with his movements. Her breath shortened, coming out in little gasps.

  “Yes,” he said. “This is your penalty, if you won’t take your caning. You must show me how naughty you are.”

  “I’m not naughty.” Her words were a plea, a whimper. She pressed her forehead into his chest as he redoubled his assault.

  “You’re very naughty, I fear.”

  She didn’t stroke him anymore, but he didn’t mind in the moment. He pinched one of her nipples, and was rewarded with a harried sigh, and another lovely jerk of her hips. He pinched it harder when she tried to squirm away. He could have lifted her onto his cock now. She could not have resisted, but he decided to play with her instead, to show her what he could do even if she wouldn’t let him bed her.

  “Do you like that?” he asked. “Shall I continue?”

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “You shouldn’t.”

  Even as she said it, she bucked her mons against his hand. His middle finger slid over her center, wet and slick with her own juices in addition to the oil, and his other hand molested her without quarter, even pressing the ginger more deeply into her arse. She could barely stand, but he made her. This was a punishment of sorts, after all.

  You see, he thought, drawing her ever closer to release. You see what I can make you do, little crosspatch? You see that you will be mine? You’ll be mine if I wish it.

  Her trembling reached an apex. She let go of the bed and braced herself against his chest, moaning as his fingers pushed her over the edge. When she came off, it was as if she frightened herself. She hid her face, muffling cries of erotic agony against his chest. A lo
vely punishment, this. He thought so, if she did not. When she pulled away from him, her crisis ended, his cock still rose between them, straining even more.

  “Stroke me now. Don’t stop.” He added more oil and forced her to move her hands along with him, their fingers tangling upon his shaft. He could see in her gaze that she thought his cock was great and imposing, some fearful, curious thing. Again, his carnal side wished to lift her and impale her immediately, to come inside her and spend his seed. But he wouldn’t. I will be inside you, he thought, but not until you welcome me. Not until you crave me. I won’t force myself in.

  He held his wife’s hands upon his cock and shoved into them, letting her feel his member pulsing as he reached his satisfaction. His seed spurted with great force, falling on his stomach and chest, and on her hands. Some landed on the bed. Every nerve fired with pleasure, until he felt wrung out. He’d been too long without release, and his prickly, prudish wife fired his blood to hell for some inexplicable reason.

  But he did not do much for her. She regarded him with barely veiled disgust, as if she’d received no pleasure at all a few minutes earlier.

  “It’s a perfectly natural biological function,” he said in his defense. “Your satisfaction, too.”

  She stood beside him, so close and yet so far away. Ah well, it would take more than sensual satisfaction to cure what was wrong between them. At least they’d shared a few moments of bliss.

  He relieved her of the ginger in her bottom and sent her to his washroom to clean up. Afterward, he made her climb naked into his bed. Did she consider that a punishment? Probably, but he chose not to ask. He wanted her near him after they’d shared such heady, perverse acts. If she had nightmares—of the fire, or of his “awful” cock rising up before her—he might as well be right there next to her to soothe her terrors away.