Best Erotic Romance

by Kristina Wright (ed)

  Cassie gestured at the fruit bowl. “In that case I believe it’s time to adjourn to your bed. You grab the fruit, I’ll bring the wine.”

  Samuel grinned. “You got it.”

  As they stood, wobbly and laughing, she clutched him to her. “I like you Samuel, I like you a lot.”

  He cupped the back of her head and kissed her deeply. “I like you too, a lot. In fact I think I fell in love with you weeks ago. Does that worry you…?”

  There was a challenge in his eyes. He really was a very intense sort of man, and that set her alight. “Not any more.” She ran her fingers along his jaw, sighing happily. “One thing I ought to say, though,” she added.

  A concerned look flitted across his eyes.

  “You must let me take my turn cooking.…otherwise you won’t get to know which meal turns me on most of all.”

  The concerned look disappeared and he grinned. “It just gets better and better.”

  She trailed her finger along his jaw. “When I like something this much I always come back for more.”

  HE TENDS TO ME

  Justine Elyot

  He hates it when I’m ill.

  He hides it well, replenishing magazines and tissues, haunting the pharmacy, inventing new recipes for hot toddies, but I know that this evidence of disorder in his world disturbs his equilibrium. Because Matthew’s world must be, above all things, perfectly ordered.

  My strep throat was not on the agenda for this month, and therefore all is awry and out of kilter. It’s worse for me, of course. I had to cancel a series of concerts, for a start. But Matthew has lost his control of the universe, which usually drives him to demonstrate his mastery of life a little closer to home. At my sickbed.

  I am accustomed to Matthew’s bedside manner, so when I arrived home on a rainy wintry night with unusually heightened color in my cheeks and greeted him with a croak, I knew what was coming.

  He leapt up from his writing desk and put a cool palm to my forehead, shaking his head and muttering.

  “You’re feverish,” he diagnosed. “Get to bed. Now.”

  Usually these words are enough to gladden my perverted heart, but when he says them without sexual intent they are even more powerful.

  I was happy to obey, crawling between the covers and shivering there until he appeared at my side with a thermometer—not the one we sometimes use in doctor and patient role plays, thank goodness—and a glass of hot water with honey, lemon, and a nip of brandy.

  “What have you been doing to yourself?” he asked sternly. He always accuses me in this manner when I fall ill, as if I have somehow invited the infection in.

  “Nothing!” I defended myself. “Germs don’t care what you do. If they’re out to get you, they will.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t flirting with them?” he said, his severity containing a more playful note.

  He made me open my mouth and stuck the thermometer beneath my tongue, muting me for the half-minute it took to get a reading.

  “Because if I thought you were giving those streptococci the come-hither, Loveday, I would be most displeased. And you know what happens when I’m displeased, don’t you?”

  I nodded, wanting to bite my lip but finding the gesture impeded by the slim glass tube resting upon it. I knew what happened when Matthew was displeased. But it wasn’t anything he could do to a person with strep throat, so I considered my bottom safe for the moment.

  He whipped out the thermometer and read it with a frown.

  “I think you’re officially ill,” he said. “We’ll have to add my current displeasure to your account. I’m going to give you three days, Loveday. For every day beyond that that you are coughing or sniffing or spending the most part asleep, there will be a penalty.”

  “That’s not fair,” I said, my voice coming out in the wrong register.

  He tutted and took my burning hands, stroking them.

  “When have I ever been fair?”

  It was a good point.

  “So you need to make sure you get well as soon as possible, won’t you?” he whispered. “No getting out of bed without permission. No trying to talk when your voice isn’t ready. No disobeying Dr. Rossington’s orders.”

  “No fun,” I mouthed with a pout, and he gave my hands a light tap of reproof.

  “Not until you’re better. Now get some sleep.”

  Swimming in and out of consciousness, I sometimes heard him on the phone, canceling engagements and giving explanations of my absence.

  He brought cool cloths for my forehead and antiseptic lozenges for my throat. He was as efficient a nurse as anyone could wish for. Perhaps a little too efficient.

  When I staggered to the bathroom without waiting to ask his permission, it was made clear to me that I had transgressed. He waited outside the door for me and, on my exit, he took me by the shoulders and steered me back to the bed.

  “Since you can’t be trusted to do as you’re told,” he said, “perhaps I need to tie you to the bed. Hmm? Should I?”

  “No,” I whispered. “I’ll ask next time.”

  “You’ve got your phone. If I’m in another room, just send me a message.”

  “I will.”

  I collapsed into the blankets again and let them take me into their too-hot embrace.

  For two days I languished, but on day three, I began to rally. My voice was still more like that of a pubescent boy than a professional soprano, and my head still felt stuffed with wadding, but my spirits made a brisk reentry, and so did my libido.

  I picked up the mobile phone and began to text. I knew that Matthew was composing in the other room, but he’d had two uninterrupted days with his muse. Surely she could spare him for a little while.

  “I need a doctor,” I wrote, and pressed Send.

  He appeared in the doorway in a matter of seconds, his face pale.

  “Are you alright, Loveday? Why do you need a doctor? Are you feeling worse?”

  Feeling slightly guilty, I shook my head.

  “I meant you,” I warbled. “I need Dr. Rossington.”

  The color returned to his cheeks, and he raised a disapproving eyebrow.

  “You mean you just worried me on a whim?”

  “I didn’t mean to. I just felt the urgent need for some... medical attention.” I tried to look sexy, which wasn’t easy in an old-lady nightgown and socks, but it seemed to work because he came all the way into the room and stationed himself at the foot of the bed, arms folded, brow creased in that thrilling way I love so much.

  “Medical attention? Well, I think I can provide that. Take off your nightgown.”

  I pulled the sagging cotton over my head and peeled off the socks too, since he’d never expressed a kink for them, while he left the room.

  When he came back, he was carrying a basin of soapy water and a sponge.

  “Let’s start with a bed bath, shall we?”

  He pulled out the rubber sheet from underneath the bed and made me lie flat on it, its cold smooth texture immediately transporting me back to the other occasions it had been in use, bringing my reawakened sex drive to even more vivid life.

  I curled my toes and clenched my vaginal muscles, enjoying the sight of him rolling up his shirtsleeves before he reached for the sponge.

  He held it above me and I jolted, emitting a soundless squeal, as cold water dripped on to my naked breasts.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered. “Or I’ll tie you down. Keep perfectly still.”

  It was almost impossible not to squirm or shield my upper body as each drop fell delicately and with deadly impact onto my stiffening nipples or goosepimpling belly. I balled my hands into fists and tried to hold my breath—one thing I’m very good at—until he relented, poured some warmer water into the basin from a jug and loaded the sponge with soothing suds.

  They glided over my body, leaving their trail of foam, as Matthew washed me from my neck downward, moving the sponge with loving expertise between and beneath my breasts, round and
round the elliptical mound of my abdomen and then onward.

  “Let’s get you nice and clean,” he said, under his breath as if talking to himself. “And ready. Ready for your treatment.”

  My pussy hardly needed the sponge to dampen it; his words and his calm, authoritative manner had already set the juices flowing. But he washed between my thighs diligently, moving the sponge closer and closer until it parted my lower lips, dabbing the foam on and around my clit, making it sting just a little bit.

  I sucked in air and jiggled my hips.

  “Oh dear. You moved. Legs wider, please, I think we’ll need a little more attention to this area.”

  I didn’t want more soap on my clit, but I did as I was told, somehow making it through the extra cruel ablutions, though I don’t think I managed to keep as still as he required me to.

  “I hope I don’t need to tell you,” he said, picking up a razor and beginning to scrape away the three-day growth of hair from my genital area, “that you are forbidden to strain your voice. Any crying out or making a sound will be punished.”

  I cursed my bedridden horniness. I might have known Matthew would be a terrible doctor. But despite my apprehension, my stomach was curling over and over inside, tautening into a knot of sheer lustful excitement.

  “Right,” he said briskly, discarding the razor. “On to your stomach.”

  This was always a dangerous position to be in if you were in Matthew’s vicinity, but I rolled over and presented him with my rear view. The warm soapy water spilled deliciously from my shoulder blades down into the hollow of my back, pooling in the crease of my buttocks. Matthew swabbed away at the cheeks he made such endless use of, wiping them clean and finishing with a deep cleansing sweep of the crack between.

  I heard the sponge splash back into the basin and then I blanched as Matthew’s fingers kept my bum cheeks spread.

  “Now, about that fever,” he murmured. “We need to make sure your temperature’s down before we go any further.”

  I repressed a whimper. A lubricated finger circled my quivering asshole, preparing it for the slow slide of the cold glass thermometer.

  “Most patients would have their temperatures taken with a digital ear thermometer,” explained Matthew, pushing it further in, inch by inch, and rotating it slowly inside my bum. “But not you. You’re different, Loveday. You need special treatment. It says so on your notes.”

  “Does it?” I whispered.

  “Yes, it does.” He held the thermometer fully in, his thumb and finger resting between my cheeks. “It says, ‘Patient needs firm handling at all times. Facilitate her swift recovery with frequent rectal examinations and strict discipline.’ The consultant seems very sure that this is what you need.”

  “Stupid consultant,” I whispered, just loud enough to be audible.

  “What was that?” Matthew withdrew the thermometer in one swift stroke, leaving my sphincter muscles trembling at the unexpected vacation. “I see from my thermometer that you are not too ill for a spanking, young lady. Disrespecting the consultant certainly merits one. In fact, I think he should be here to witness it...but I think he’s on another call. Never mind. You can imagine him here, and I’ll write up a report on your punishment for the notes, just so he knows.”

  I twisted my ankles and wrists, antsy and tense on my rubber sheet. I both dreaded and longed for the promised spanking, and I worked on my readiness for the first stroke, but instead he picked up the sponge again and wrung it out on my bottom so that the water flowed over the cheeks and down my hips, puddling on the sheet.

  When his hand fell, I nearly jumped up to my knees. I thought I knew the exact form and feel and weight and shape of his open palm, but this felt quite different, and it stung substantially more than I remembered.

  “Ha ha,” he chuckled delightedly. “That’s how it feels on a wet bottom. I’ve heard it’s more painful. So it’s true.”

  He continued to smack at my dripping bottom until it was dry—a long and intensive process throughout which it was impossible not to wriggle and kick and make pathetic squeaking noises.

  “There,” he said, rubbing the site of his evildoing. “A red, sore bottom is very good at aiding recovery for minxes like you. I think we’ll repeat that prescription thrice daily.”

  “Thrice?” I moaned. “But it hurts.”

  “The best medicines are hard to swallow,” lectured Matthew. “Speaking of which...but no. I can’t be sure the infection has cleared up yet. We’ll have to find another way of administering the dose.”

  “The dose?” I wanted to laugh. That was one way of putting it. If I panted, “Dose me up, doctor,” in the throes of orgasm, would that work for him?

  “The medicine you need,” he whispered, bending down to my ear. “The medicine you’re going to get.”

  “Can I ask for a second opinion? Ouch!”

  My bottom quivered in the aftermath of the unexpected smack. I supposed that was a no.

  He bobbed down under the bed again, looking for more devilish implements.

  “It’s an unorthodox treatment,” he said, coming back up. “I’m writing up my findings for the medical journals. It’s proving very effective, but it can be a little difficult to administer if the patients are too mobile. So...”

  He applied a leather cuff to my left wrist, chaining me to the outer post of the headboard.

  “...I think restraints are in order...but it’s nothing to worry about....”

  He repeated the process with my right wrist.

  “It’s all perfectly safe. Trust me. I’m a doctor. Now, get up on your knees and spread them.”

  Promptly I obeyed, slipping about on the wet rubber sheet until I was positioned for optimum obscene display.

  “If you make a sound,” he cautioned, “the treatment will be ineffective and I will have to use something stronger on that sore bottom of yours. So complete silence for this, understand?”

  I nodded, full of joyful dread.

  “It’s called orgasm therapy,” he told me. A smooth bulb-shaped presence made itself felt at my cunt. “Come-vales-cence.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible,” I groaned, and then I squeaked as the bulbous head of the vibrator was shoved unceremoniously forward, breaking through yielding flesh and lodging inside.

  “I said silence! That’s five strokes of the strap for you, later.”

  I held my breath and concentrated on the easy passage of the silicone intruder up to its full length, where it rested for a while before beginning to buzz gently.

  Matthew’s fingers, now sheathed in surgical gloves, manipulated my clitoris, bringing it to its swollen point of no return, making me gasp silently and strain against my bonds. His exact and precise knowledge of my most intimate places frightened me sometimes. It was as if he had a book stored in his head called How to Touch Loveday, every word of which he had memorized. Heat rushed to the spot, and the slow vibrations inside me brought me to a first rapid climax. Mixed with the intensity was an edge of panic as I wondered if orgasmic silence was possible. Why hadn’t he gagged me? It would make things so much easier. Oh. That was why.

  I bit my lip, pulled at my bonds, let the tremors build up and radiate through me, concentrating on feeling myself at the center of them rather than expressing them in my habitual broken yowls.

  “You’re coming, aren’t you? That’s good. Very good. Let it out. That’s right. But we haven’t finished yet.”

  He switched up the setting on the vibrator, placed a buzzer on my clit, and moved his soaked gloved fingers up the crack of my bum to find the unoccupied hole. I wanted so badly to cry out when he began the loving, unhurried business of lubrication, but I held back, my thighs shuddering, cunt in turmoil, sore throat totally forgotten, while he circled and probed, circled and probed, over and over and over.

  “I think this is where the dosage will be given,” he pronounced.

  A low sound would have escaped me, if my faulty throat hadn’t provided salvation. My head was
in thrall to my body, my instructions and resolutions on the verge of being forgotten. I had to remember to be quiet. I had to make sure the treatment worked.

  His fingers spread my tight-furled asshole, preparing it thoroughly, examining its depth and width with scientific care.

  “Yes,” he said. He was struggling to stay calm, I could tell, and I was struggling not to come, wanting to save myself for the moment of possession.

  Over the buzzing and the insistent roar of my blood in my ears, I heard the unbuckling of belts, the lowering of trousers, the removal of undergarments and then he was behind me, holding my flanks, nudging up against the vibrator at first then parting my cheeks.

  “Take your medicine,” he breathed, then his impossible width amazed me anew by edging through my anal defenses, gathering lube on the way.

  I puffed and clenched my fists, trying not to resist, trying to wrap myself up in the dark comfort blanket of total submission, feeling and knowing myself to be his in every way. Penetrated in every orifice except the one I had to keep such stringent control of, I slid down inside myself, becoming a creature of sex and surrender, a helpless patient having to accept that my doctor knew better than me.

  The dosage was strong and the side effects included some discomfort and a few pangs, but the best medicine has unpleasant features, so I accepted it willingly, pushing myself back to take his entire length, showing him my trust.

  “That’s good,” he said, beginning a slow thrust, rubbing up against the vibrator in my other hole with each push forward.

  I came again, my body defeated and dominated, and then once more before he granted me the vital injection. He used me hard, leaving finger marks on my hips and my bottom burning, but the exhaustion I felt on his withdrawal was oddly invigorating—it was no longer the exhaustion of sickness, but of healthy exertion.

  While I lay on the damp rubber sheet, trying to remember what was supposed to be wrong with me, he kissed the length of my spine and then arose, disappearing for a moment.

  When he came back, he patted me down with a towel before uncuffing me, helping me to my feet and removing the rubber sheeting.