“How can I be gentle when you look like that?” he rasped, cupping one hand behind the nape of her neck as he positioned himself above her.
“I did not ask you to be gentle,” his little warrior answered, wrapping her ankles behind his back and pulled his hips aggressively toward hers. He groaned and entered her with a single thrust, his arrow to her bow, a fit so perfect it was divine.
“Oh, Balen,” she cried.
The sound of his name on her lips was like some primal call, and he began to thrust into her with abandon, plunging so deeply that he slid her up on the bed with each thrust until her head came in contact with the wall. Thrusting an arm behind her, he dragged her back down, continuing with his onslaught, but this time holding her shoulders so she did not travel. Instead, her body bowed from his force, creating a new friction on her nub of pleasure and she did not last more than three thrusts before she climaxed a second time, her cries so loud the entire castle would have heard them.
He palmed her welted bottom with both his hands and squeezed as he reached his climax a moment later, pumping his seed into her with a raucous groan.
* * *
The feel of his hands cupping her cheeks, squeezing the fresh weals brought an incomprehensible satisfaction to her. It felt so right—she felt so fully his—as if this was the necessary conclusion to his chastisement.
Balen lowered himself against her, supporting his weight on his forearms with his face buried against her neck. She squeezed her muscles as his length slipped out of her, already missing the feel of his intrusion. He rolled to his side, bringing her with him, keeping their bodies fitted tightly together, skin on skin, the moisture of sweat and the juices of their coupling slicking between them. He stroked her hair back from her face.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked tenderly.
“Nay,” she said softly, shaking her head.
He smiled his lopsided grin. “Good. Because I plan to take you like that as oft as I please.”
She basked in the warmth of his gaze. “I should like that,” she purred.
“Should you?” he asked, running a finger over her eyebrow, then tracing her cheekbones.
“Aye. I want children, Balen.”
“Of course we'll have children,” he said, answering her with a seriousness that made her heart sing. “You'll make a fine mother,” he said lovingly. He looked at her for a long moment and she blinked rapidly under his gaze. “I will be a faithful husband to you, Camilla,” he said in the tones of an oath. “I will be a good father to our children and do my best to make you happy.”
She could not move or speak, she was so overcome by emotion.
“Balen,” she choked.
He raised an eyebrow, suddenly stern. “And you'd best learn to take better care for your personal safety, else you'll find yourself over my knee more oft than not.”
She felt her cheeks grow warm, but she felt warm inside from the love his threat showed. “In fact,” he said, rolling to sit up in the bed and pulling her across his lap. “I think you've got another spanking coming tonight.”
He slapped her sore bottom and she kicked and jerked in protest. “Balen, stop! Why?”
“Why, my love?”
“Because you hid the fact that your husband was dead from me, that's why!” he said, smacking away. “Do you know how much I suffered, thinking this could never be?” The languor of their coupling made the pain almost feel like pleasure, the sting of his spanks blending the stripes from the arrow whipping into an overall burn. She squirmed over his lap, trying to dodge his large hand.
“And if you'd known?”
“I never would have left Falconworth in the first place!” He punctuated his statement with a volley of very hard spanks and she squealed.
“No, Balen! Please!”
He stopped and rubbed her hot flesh. “Have you learned your lesson, sweet Camilla?” he asked, the warmth in his voice causing her to melt into a puddle.
“Aye.”
“You'll not keep any secrets from me again?”
“Nay, my lord.”
“Mmm,” he said, rolling her onto her back and lying down beside her. “I am your lord, now, aren't I? Say it again.”
“My lord.”
His fingers found their way between her legs. “Again.”
“My lord,” she said, her voice thickened as she arched into his hand.
“My lady,” he said huskily, beginning anew his practiced pleasuring.
The End
Quite Decided
“No, Nicklaus. She's practically your daughter. Our legs only got so strong because she was constantly gripping onto our boots when she was a tot!” Talus reminded his cousin firmly. “She doesn't deserve this fate. How you could consider handing her over so that she can spread her legs and give up her maidenhood to that wrinkled, toothless old lecher is simply beyond my understanding!”
“Everybody plays their part. I didn't particularly want to marry Lucretia, and Benedict did his duty by marrying Chastity. Hell, you yourself married Helga, which I thought was the greatest of all hardships at the time. I don't know how you got her with child in the first place; such a thing would have been far beyond my own abilities, I assure you.” He ignored the look of hurt on Talus' face. Talus had never deeply loved Helga, and she hadn’t been the loveliest of women—inside or out—but he had been keenly grieved nonetheless when he lost both her and their child in childbirth.
“It's simply Wenda's time. I had her wait until she was eighteen—that's far kinder than I was with my own sister.”
“My ass,” Talus coughed. “You only married off your sister at sixteen because if you hadn’t, Abigail was going to find herself in the midst of a scandal. If I recall correctly, she had quite a healthy child within five months of her marriage… not nine.”
Nicklaus raised an eyebrow but shrugged. “I did have a feeling her intended was sampling the goods before her marriage, but it's not as if they weren't already betrothed. It was really only fortune that the match worked in her favor.”
“Of course the man being only twenty-five greatly helped with that,” Talus grumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “You've engaged poor Wenda, on the other hand, to a seventy-five-year-old man. She will be the sixth wife he has had! You know, he might die in the marriage bed! How would that make her feel? And if it doesn't happen on the wedding night, she will wake up to the skin of a dead man resting on her soon enough.” His protest didn't have quite the effect he wanted; Nicklaus thought it was funny. “May I ask, on her behalf, what that girl has done to upset you so much that you would give her this burden?”
Wenda was notoriously a handful, and as her oldest cousin and her guardian since her parents passed when she was young, Nicklaus had put up with quite a bit over the years. That being said, Talus had always assumed based on Nicklaus' reactions that every indiscretion merely endeared her to him even more, which was why she'd never been punished for any transgression.
“She hasn't done anything, I assure you,” he said, his voice still filled with laughter. “I love Wenda dearly; I made this match for her out of my wisdom and for her happiness! Her husband's estate will be within an hour's journey of her brother's. That should please her enough. Besides, who else? You've made it clear that you would not take her to wife.”
“Not any more than I would my own daughter,” Talus said, with Nicklaus' insinuation that he himself was in any way to blame for Wenda's less-than-desirable match already burning through him. Talus pursed his lips, still wondering why, out of all the men in the land, Nicklaus would look no further than Old Count Kesper to find a suitable husband for Wenda. Suddenly, the reason dawned upon him. “Lucretia put you up to this, didn't she?” Talus demanded. “She's the one behind this match, admit it!”
“I am sorry,” Nicklaus said, surprised. “I thought I was talking to my cousin, not the Grand Inquisitor.” He lifted his chin so that his valet could button up to his neck. After a moment of silence, he continued
, “It is true that Wenda tends to rub almost everyone she meets the wrong way. My wife is correct in calling her spoiled, and I know that you and I and my father have certainly made her so.”
“You and your father,” Talus corrected flippantly.
Nicklaus made a face of protest. “Hardly. It was you who bought her her first pony, not I. It was you who taught her to ride and you who taught her to hold a sword and aim an arrow. It was you who treated her like a son instead of the woman she is, and it was you that made her so damn difficult to match in the first place! If you had not done all those things, mayhap there might be more suitors for her hand. But nobody wants to marry a stubborn brat with a penchant for trouble, Talus!”
“The only reason she's become a stubborn brat, Nicklaus, is because you let me spoil her without giving me the right to take her in hand. I told you and your father until I was simply blue in the face: it is the sparing of the rod that spoils the child.”
“You know how my father felt about violence,” Nicklaus reminded with a roll of his eyes.
Talus certainly knew the man's beliefs weren't consistent! “I do know quite well, and so do you! We're the ones he sent to war for him, Nicklaus!”
“Fine, fine. So she was a favorite of my father, that was quite clear. Although it vexes Abigail and Bette a great deal,” Nicklaus conceded. “He didn't feel it was right to guide girls with a firm hand as he did with boys, and neither do I. He said as I will—a flower blooms prettier when it hasn't known the harsh hand of winter.”
“Very poetic,” Talus agreed with a nod, but his eyes were dark. “And quite foolish. Now you spurn her for growing up in the conditions that you and your father created!” He suddenly batted out with his foot and kicked a chair onto its back.
“Cool your blood, Talus!” Nicklaus snapped. “You are right that he is old, but he shall pay to me a good bride price. He may have another good couple of years left to shoot his dust within her to show for it, and then she'll be back home, elbow-deep in mud and horses and lord-knows what else! 'Tis an excellent solution for her, and she has but a short-lived price to pay!” He slapped Talus on the shoulder in a way which was meant to comfort him. “You think I would send her to a nunnery when she is widowed? I'm wouldn’t be quite so cruel as that… to the nuns.” He grinned then, apparently thinking himself funny.
After simply being stared at by Talus, Nicklaus straightened his shoulders and began to defend himself, dropping his grin. “See here, Talus, she's none of your concern. She's not even your true cousin or a blood relation! She's a cousin of a cousin to you; she's nothing and no one as far as you're concerned, and she's a far cry now from the young child that you used to buy toys for. She's a lady of this house—well, sort of a lady anyway—and she has duties! Land, wealth, and titles do not come from the sky, you know. Besides, keeping her just empties my coffers; she needs to be wed, at least for a while. I hate to be cold-hearted, but there it is.”
Talus conceded with a heavy sigh. “May her unhappiness be on your head, Cousin,” he said with resignation.
He left the room after that, stomping away. He planned to get on his horse and leave before the ball Nicklaus was throwing had even begun, but when he got to the stables and went to saddle his own horse (as he preferred to do) he heard a sniffle.
Curious, he stuck his head out from his horse's stall and saw Wenda brushing her horse's mane and petting its nose. His heart tightened. He had known Wenda since she was a babe still suckling at her wet-nurse—her father had died in battle and her mother a few months later, after giving birth to her. He had seen the girl fall from ponies and scratch up her hands and knees and take the thickest of abuse from her lady cousins and her aunt, but for all that was holy, he was certain he had never seen her shed the smallest tear.
He was absolutely no good at handling crying females; he had very little experience with it, and he didn't truly want to become proficient in it. Still, he did find himself wanting to provide at least some small measure of comfort to her, even if it was only his company.
She turned at the sound of the crunch of hay under his boot. She looked startled at first, but then seemed to calm when she saw Talus standing there. She wiped off the wetness from her cheek, and then spoke softly. “Talus.”
He didn't say anything; he only shifted uncomfortably.
“You know,” she gathered, her tone sounding flat and dry.
He nodded in the dim light; the sun was setting already. “Yes,” he replied honestly. He swallowed. “Is there anything I can do for you, sweetling?”
She smirked and huffed out something that sounded half like a laugh and half like a dry sob. “Can't you sneak up on him and scare the old man? At his age, he might die of fright before the wedding.”
Talus gave a small chuckle in reply and she turned back to her horse. “I was so stupid.” He wasn't sure if she was talking to him or talking to herself. “For years, I thought for certain that Nicklaus would pair me with Vesper or Ulf,” she said, referring to Nicklaus's younger brothers. “Not someone I didn't know, and certainly not someone like Count Kesper.”
Talus grunted, understanding that. He'd had a bad feeling when Nicklaus had married both of his younger brothers to wealthy women in the last year. Only Wenda was left, and there hadn't seemed to be any obvious choices.
“I thought the same,” Talus admitted, looking down at his hands. He knew telling her about how he'd fought on her behalf with Nicklaus all day would accomplish nothing. “You won't be married long, Wenda,” Talus reminded. “The man only has so many years left, and there's no pressure on you to bear him sons, since he already has plenty.”
She didn't respond.
“You shall have the run of his estate. He's not likely to tell you 'no' very often, if at all. Many husbands might try to harness you, Wenda, but Kesper is not able. You shall spend your days riding bareback on your husband's vast grounds and—”
“And he shall ride me bareback at night, I know.” Talus straightened at her words, stunned. He had thought her mostly innocent of any knowledge of what happened in the marriage bed. She turned at his silence and said, “Lucretia and Chastity,” by way of explanation. Those were two women who would have been very pleased at the match, indeed, and who would have enjoyed the ability to make Wenda fear it by talking of what she would have to endure.
“Marrying who you were bid has always been your duty, Wenda,” Talus reminded. “Much like mine was to go to war and carry my uncle's banner for him when he called me to. I assure you, battle is every bit as unpleasant as marrying an old man. And remember, I wasn't happy with my own marriage arrangements twelve years ago.”
She paused for a moment, her body completely still as a sudden flash of thought seemed to light up her eyes. She lifted her chin, fixing her piercing blue eyes on him. “Why don't you marry me, Talus?”
His eyes widened. In the past, Nicklaus had certainly urged him to do just that, but it was the last thing he had expected to hear from Wenda.
Maybe because of the way the lamplight flickered across her cute nose and freckled skin, Talus finally allowed himself to imagine it—making love to her, squeezing her apple-sized breasts roughly into his callused palm as he took her hard from behind like a wild horse…
Talus wasn't a gentle man, and he knew it. Within the next year or so he hoped to marry some very spoiled and selfish, yet beautiful chit who would bear him sons—some naughty thing who he would take, and take hard, forcing her to slake his lusts without remorse. With Wenda, there could only be remorse—how could he just rut on the poor girl? “No, Wenda. I helped to raise you,” he reminded her.
“So?” she asked.
“So? So, firstly, I'm old enough to be your father. Secondly, I practically am your father. In fact, not many fathers have spent as much time with their daughters as I've spent with you. What am I supposed to do with you in the marriage bed?”
“You're only five-and-thirty,” she said with an eye roll. “That is less than half the age
of the man I'm currently betrothed to! Secondly, you wouldn’t have to take me into the marriage bed. You could do what you will in your room, I could do what I will in mine,” she conspired, giving him a grin as if she thought she was quite wise for devising this plan.
He raised his eyebrows, astounded by how selfish the plan sounded. “Absolutely not, Wenda. Just because you don't want a husband in your bed, doesn't mean that I don't want a wife to warm mine. Believe me, girl, you do not want to be that woman. I'm a harder man than you've seen, and I'd require my wife to bear me sons.”
“Then I'll bear you sons,” she amended, desperation growing in her tone. “You love me, so why wouldn't you marry me?”
“I don't love you in that way,” he growled. And he didn't want to start—it wouldn't take much. Even now, her bodice was pushing up her delectably round bosoms… No, Talus! he reprimanded himself. Stop thinking of this!
And then she said something that made his blood boil even while dread raced through his heart: “I'm quite decided, Talus.”
He only barely kept himself from hitching his breath.
She was the most stubborn creature in existence! She had never before failed to get something that she was “quite decided on”! Talus had even used to boast that Wenda had never known a bit of fear in her life; as soon as she could walk, she would launch herself towards the castle's hunting dogs with open arms and giggles. She raced horses, hunted, and said whatever she wanted to say to whomever she wanted to say it, all without a single glint of fear in her eyes.
He found himself snapping his arm out and firmly capturing her chin in his hand. He was not gentle; he had to be hurting her face with his rough fingers and tight grip, but she stared straight on at him, not intimidated, even when he growled, “You listen here, girl. That will not happen. You will not ruin the relationship we have; you would not like it. I would bring you to heel. I would pound you with my manhood until you couldn't walk out of the bedchamber! It is not the life you want, it is not the life I want for you, and I can assure you that the life would be long. I am not an old man yet.”
Lords and Ladies: Two Medieval Spanking Novellas Page 6
