“I’ll take it out when I believe you’ve been punished enough, and not a moment before.” She tried to scramble off his lap after an extra hard crack, but was only gathered back again, her arms bent up and across her back. “Nothing so far has made a lasting impression on you. Perhaps the ginger will help.”
It was helping all right—helping her take leave of her sanity. Her bottom cheeks throbbed, feeling afire with the unending volley of spanks. She cried and sobbed, begging for respite. Finally, he put down the brush. When he righted her, she got shakily to her feet. She hated this part most of all, when he made her face him in tearful remorse, and promise to do better.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. I’ll apologize to Madame Lafleur for my rudeness. I will send her a note.”
“Indeed you will. And you shall do something to put me in a better temper, my dear. Right now, in fact. On your knees.”
She wiped away her tears, sinking down and resting her aching bottom cheeks on her ankles. Warren stood and undid his breeches, exposing his stiff, outthrust sex. He took the breeches off, and his shirt too, so he stood before her tall and naked, his male form so daunting and yet so attractive. Defined muscles rippled in his torso as he urged her forward, pressing his shaft to her lips.
She didn’t dare balk from this duty, or turn away. No, she had been taught exactly what she must do when he put her on her knees. She kissed and licked the swollen tip, wetting the velvet skin, gathering moisture in her mouth for when he pressed himself inside her. If she couldn’t do anything else properly, at least she could do this.
“That’s right, my girl,” he said, directing her in a thickening voice to lick the base of his shaft, to kiss, to mouth, to caress all the mysterious male parts of him. His legs shook a little as she applied herself to the task. “Open up, now, Josephine. Take me in your mouth.”
She obeyed, making her lips into the round, soft shape he preferred. He held her head between his hands, allowing her little choice in controlling the depth of his thrusts. “Kneel up,” he said a minute or two later, as he drove deeper. “Now you’re putting me in a better humor.”
She supposed that was a good thing, but her backside still throbbed from his paddling. She whined softly against the intrusion of his shaft as the ginger root ached inside her bottom hole. Sitting straighter on her knees had intensified the burn again, and she had to concentrate hard to pleasure her husband without nicking him with her teeth. He was so terribly large, and when he thrust too deep inside her, she had to fight the urge to pull away.
But when she managed to take him deeper, he groaned and sighed, and made such noises that she tried even harder to satisfy him. At last he made a rough sound and stopped her. He sat back on the bed, pulling her with him, and spread her thighs over either side of his lap. His shaft reared up between them. He squeezed her hips, lifting her. The ginger set up a new, sharp sting.
“Oh, it hurts,” she cried. ”Won’t you take it out now?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, settling her down over the head of his cock. She grasped his shoulders to have something to hold onto, some feeling of control as his shaft parted her inch by inch. She felt wet and shivery and sore, and stuffed to the hilt by his manhood and the ginger seated inside her. He seemed to go on forever. When she tried to rise off his formidable length, he pulled her down again. She buried her head against his neck, not certain if she felt good or bad or frightened to death.
“It hurts,” she said softly.
“Does it? Or does it only feel…unusual?”
She wanted to cry. She wanted to move on him and kiss him, and offer him her breasts to pinch and bite. He always did this to her, made her feel animalistic, and hotly ashamed of her longings.
“Will you take it out? Please?” It was too much. Too much fullness, too much pleasure. “Please, my lord.”
“Why would I take it out? You’ve two shafts inside you now, haven’t you? You’ve two lovely spaces to put things, not counting your mouth.”
He was scandalous. She knew it and yet she participated so willingly, night after night. “The ginger,” she said, finding it hard to catch her breath. “It’s so hot and stinging. I really feel it there.”
“Do you think you’ll be a better girl, now that you know how it feels to have ginger in your bottom?”
She wanted to say yes, but she knew the answer was probably no. At her hesitation, he chuckled and gripped her sore, reddened arse cheeks so she tensed on the ginger again. The burn had lessened, but it was still there. He angled his hips, moving inside her in a slow, sensual slide. She couldn’t help but respond by moving her hips too.
He tightened a hand on her waist, guiding her. The other hand withdrew the evilly carved ginger—and then pressed it back in.
She gave a small moan. The ring of her bottom ached now too, a mild sting, but strong enough for that part of her body. As he moved his hips, and his shaft, in incremental movements within her, he moved the ginger in and out too.
“Ohhh,” she said. She meant to complain but the noise sounded like something else. Like mindless, wanton pleasure.
“Do you like that?” he whispered against her ear.
“No,” she insisted weakly.
He made an amused sound and lifted her higher, so he drove deeper. He teased her bottom with the ginger, pushing it in and out again. His fingers traced the welted, paddled skin around it. “I think you like it,” he said. “Does it still burn?”
“Yes.” It burned and she liked it. He filled her and controlled her and she liked that too, which made her feel ashamed. The servants knew about the ginger, and her husband knew what type of woman she was—what if everyone else came to know? She pressed her head harder against his neck and shoulder.
“Move for me, Josephine.” His rasping voice compelled her to do what her body struggled against. She tensed her thighs and rose along his thick shaft, then sank down on it again, excited by the feeling of fullness. The spot he caressed so often with his fingers and his tongue and lips felt swollen to four times its size. She ground it against his pelvis, arching her hips.
“Again,” he groaned. “Yes. Keep doing that. Ride me while I punish you with this ginger in your arse.”
“Oh,” she said. Not oh no, as she ought to have. Or oh stop. He pressed the ginger in and out, making her thighs and buttocks shiver as she rode him with ever more enthusiasm.
“Someday, I think I’ll put my cock inside your bottom,” he said. “I’ll put my great big cock inside your arse hole and make you ride me just like this.”
“No,” she whimpered, while she thought with excitement of how that might feel. He grasped her, pressing into both her spaces with hotter rhythm. She ground against him when she could, and reached down to caress herself when she couldn’t.
“That’s right,” he said. “Make yourself feel good. Don’t stop until you reach your crisis.” His voice lowered a bit. “I won’t stop either. Remember how this feels, how naughty and delicious it feels to have something driving in and out of your bottom.”
This was depraved. It simply had to be, but she didn’t care. The ginger had lost much of its sting, and it stretched and stimulated now, rather than hurt. He pushed it inside her one last time and left it, and grasped her hips and ground her down on him. She clung to his shoulder with one hand and stroked her sex with the other. When her climax arrived, the intensity of peaking pleasure shocked a ragged cry from her lips. She felt as if everything inside her bore down and pulsed, and then exploded. Warren captured her cry in his lips, holding her tight, murmuring yes, yes, yes.
Somehow her punishments always ended this way.
Once her racing heart calmed, her husband rang the servants for a bath. They set it up in the dressing room, and the same blushing servant girl poured the hot water into the tub. Josephine was embarrassed. Warren wasn’t, and sat about waiting in a flagrant state of undress. Once the maid left, he picked Josephine up
and deposited her in the tub, then climbed in with her so the water rose to the edge and splashed over it. She fussed over the wet floors but he drew her back down.
“It’s perfectly all right to be outrageous and decadent sometimes, my dear. The floors have survived many decades and will survive many more.”
“You are more outrageous than me,” she said as he poured water down the back of her hair.
“Perhaps. But I’m working on you, and getting places, I’d say.”
His use of the word “places” was no doubt intentional. How could he be so relaxed and unashamed after the things they’d just done?
“You enjoy our outrageous activities,” he persisted. He stroked his hands over her breasts, trailing warm water across her skin. “Just as you’ll enjoy your new gowns when you receive them, and just as you’ll enjoy the ball. These tantrums are silly, as is your resistance. Everyone should see what a beautiful woman you are, and that we are happy together.”
She stiffened beneath his touch. “I think you care overmuch about appearances.”
“And I worry that you don’t care enough.”
“What does it matter what people think of me, or you?” she asked. “I’d much prefer to be left alone.”
For a while, there was no sound but the faint splash of him bathing her back, and her front, and the place between her legs. “I fear you are as unconventional as your parents,” he finally said. “I suppose you wish to board a ship and escape these shores, and sail to every exotic port you can find, so you can behave in any manner you like.”
Josephine pulled away and rose from the water. “I certainly do not.”
“If you wish to remain in England, you must follow English rules,” he said, his voice sharpening in measure with hers. “You mustn’t be careless of gossip, for my sake, if not yours.” He glowered at her as she wrapped herself in a towel. “I beg you to remember, I married you as a kindness, at great detriment to my accustomed way of life. I have an interest in politics and social reformation, so the regard of the ton is important to me. I’m also a peer with a number of material and financial obligations. I can’t allow your disdain for societal rules to endanger my interests or my career.”
Cold rivulets of water ran down her shoulders and back. “If I’m such a detriment to you, why don’t you get rid of me?”
“What a capital idea. Shall I throw you from the tower, or push you out the window?”
She pursed her lips at his jest. “Either would work. Then you could marry someone more suitable, some simpering mouse who follows all the ‘English rules.’”
Warren toweled off with considerably less modesty than she did. In fact, he stood quite naked, his broad shoulders and rippling torso displayed to intimidating effect. “Do you truly wish to argue and be disagreeable, and anger me again, Josephine?”
The tone of his voice, coupled with the memory of her latest spanking, prompted a wary response. “No, my lord.”
He moved closer and traced a fingertip down her cheek. How could he be so frightening and yet so gentle? “I don’t want to throw you from any towers,” he said. “I’d miss you terribly when you were gone. I only ask what any man would ask of his wife, that you respect me, and protect the honor of my name. I mean to respect and honor you too. Have I bullied you, or abused you in anger, or ignored your basic needs? Have I forced my attentions upon you without your consent?”
She stared into his piercing blue eyes, and knew he had done none of those things. He’d spanked her, yes, but only when her behavior fell outside the bounds of polite comportment.
He took her arm and turned her around. “Lift the edge of the towel, if you please, so I may inspect the damage to your bottom.”
She did as he asked, feeling exposed as he crouched down to examine what he’d done to her.
“It appears you’ll survive,” he said. “And you won’t cut up at Madame Lafleur again, will you?”
There was only one acceptable answer, no matter how cross she felt. “No, my lord.”
He released her and launched into yet another lecture. “I suppose you don’t enjoy having a hair brush taken to your backside. I’m sorry for it, but you may expect these disciplinary measures to continue as long as your attitude or behavior calls for them. I didn’t sacrifice the pleasures of bachelorhood to join myself to a scold and a shrew. I don’t require you to become a simpering mouse; I only ask that we show consideration to one another in this marriage.”
You’re a hypocrite, she thought. Was it considerate to be overbearing, haughty, and self-interested, and constantly paddle your wife? But she didn’t want another punishment, so she kept her lips shut tight against those condemnations and obeyed with stiff docility when he ordered her to bed.
Chapter Eleven: Missing
The ball was a day away, and it seemed to Warren that Josephine had finally resigned herself to her new role as his countess. She’d been docile as a lamb during the final fitting of her gown, a lovely work of pale green with voluminous skirts and tiny pearls and flowers on the bodice. They’d spent a few hours in the ballroom, practicing how to dance. She proved naturally graceful at following his lead.
Very much as she did in bed.
Perhaps at some point she’d realize things like bondage, sado-masochism, and sodomy were not standard marital practices, but he hoped by then she’d be too corrupted to care.
No, not corrupted. He didn’t wish to think of his wife in terms of corruption. Certainly, he’d had to pay women a great deal of money to perform the services Josephine now happily performed, but Josephine was an innocent to the core, so innocent and earnest and raw that he didn’t feel capable of enjoying other women anymore. Most men did stray within their marriages, but for him, her erotic surrender seemed a fantasy unlikely to be surpassed by anyone else.
If only her surrender extended beyond their marriage bed. Though his wife was perfectly aware of the dinner hour, Warren waited with Minette alone at the table, the soup going cold. With the ball the following night, they had much to discuss. He beckoned a footman and directed him to send upstairs for his absent wife.
After a few minutes, the man reappeared.
“My lord, the countess is not in her rooms.”
“Well, where is she?” He glanced at Minette. “Do you know where Josephine’s gone?”
His sister shook her head. “I haven’t seen her since breakfast. I believe she wasn’t feeling well. Nerves, you know, about the ball. Perhaps she’s gone for a walk in the garden?”
After twenty minutes of searching failed to produce his countess, Warren experienced the first pangs of alarm.
“Where can she be?” asked Minette, her large blue eyes shimmering with tears.
Warren questioned the staff, who couldn’t remember when or if Josephine had left. His mind turned with unhappy possibilities. Had she run away? Had she only slipped out for a walk, and had some mischief done to her? The more he considered such a scenario, the more worried he became. His wife was a damned nuisance sometimes, but she was his responsibility and he cared for her. He rather suspected he was growing to love her, a realization that terrified him almost as much as the fact that she was gone.
He sent word to Townsend, August, and Arlington that Josephine was missing and asked if they could join the search. They responded at once and set out to various areas of town to ask if anyone had seen a lady fitting her description. Warren grilled the servants, down to the quietest kitchen maid, and then took to the streets himself, riding through surrounding neighborhoods. Had she called on a friend? Had she walked or taken a hack? Had someone abducted her? Were they holding her for ransom?
I want a cottage, just big enough for me. I want it to be in some quiet town, with a garden and a…a little fence.
Had she run away from him? He had to consider it. No. She wouldn’t dare. Something had to have happened to her, something unexpected that had detained her. Unfortunately, he was accomplishing nothing wandering about town. Perhaps there was news
at home. Perhaps she’d even showed up, out of breath, having gotten lost on an unauthorized afternoon stroll. He turned his horse for Park Street when a familiar voice hailed him in the misty night.
“Ahoy, Warren.” The Earl of Stafford rode up, his mouth curved in a half-smile of mockery. “I hear you’ve misplaced your wife.”
He scowled at the man. “If I have, it’s none of your affair.”
“You look awfully worried. But when you marry a madwoman, what do you expect? Have you checked the docks? The scurvier parts of town?”
“I’ll knock you off your horse, you bleeding bastard. See if I won’t.”
Warren hadn’t the time or inclination to stand about trading barbs with Stafford. He continued on his way, only to have the bloody idiot fall into step behind him.
“Go on, then, if you’re not going to help look for her,” Warren snapped over his shoulder.
“Why should I help? I didn’t marry her. You did. You stole her right from under me, and you call me a bastard.”
“She was never under you,” Warren said, trying to erase that imagery from his mind.
“She could have been, if not for your interference. I never would have told you about her if I knew you’d take her from me.”
“I didn’t take her from you. She was never yours.” The sharp words came out like a cracking whip. “We fell in love. Lord Baxter approved of the match, so we decided not to wait.”
“Of course, that’s the drivel you’ve been putting around, but no one believes it.”
“Speaking of drivel that no one believes, if you continue to disparage my wife’s name—”
“I never would,” Stafford said, feigning horror.
“If you continue to disparage my wife’s name with your whispers,” he continued, talking over the man, “then rest assured every future heiress you angle after is going to know the precise nature of all your crimes.”
“What crimes?” He flicked his bejeweled fingers. “I’m no worse than you, my lewd fellow. Might explain why your doting wife took herself off to God knows where.”
To Tame A Countess (Properly Spanked Book 2) Page 14
