His hand landed on the other cheek. “Two, Master.”
Then they started coming in quick succession. Before she realized it, she was at ten. Her bum stung with a reassuring warmth that had her thighs pressed together, and an ache building in her pussy that only Stone could relieve.
He paused the spankings and wedged his hand between the very thighs she’d just been thinking about. “I see my pet’s pussy is quite wet.” Using his finger, he traced her soaked slit, teasing her sensitive flesh.
“Yes, Master.” She forced the words past her teeth as she resisted the urge to push back against his touch.
“Soon, pet. First, we must finish this business between us.” And then his palm landed again, this time aiming more toward the cuff of her backside and in toward her quim.
She continued to count with each blow until her backside was inflamed from his reminder. Her core dripped with need as her bare skin rubbed against the starchy fabric of the bedspread. A simple reminder of who was in control. “Twenty, Master.”
Her frame shook with relief that the spankings were over, but the need for release overtook her. The pulsing between her legs had grown almost unbearable as she waited for whatever he decided would come next.
“Stand, pet.” He helped her follow his direction. “Show me your bottom. I wish to see my handiwork.”
She turned so that he could see what she assumed was her beet-red bottom. It certainly felt like it must be such a color.
He ran his hand over the tender skin, stirring the flames again. “Tell me, pet, to whom do you belong?”
“You, Master.” She felt the truth of the words all the way to her toes and back again.
He continued to stroke the heated flesh. “Very good, pet. Now, this one may be harder. To whom do I belong?”
A new and different warmth ignited in her belly, right where she imagined the babe hovered. “Me, Master. You belong to me.” She could not hide her smile as she said the words aloud and relished them.
He chuckled behind her. “I should have known you’d be a quick study. Indeed, you belong to me, and I belong to you, pet. What we share here in the bedroom, and even beyond in the public areas of the house, will not survive if you do not believe the truth of that. Do you understand, pet?” He turned her around so they were face-to-face.
“I do now, Master.” Her heart skipped a beat as she looked into his gaze. She could have sworn that she saw something there that she had not seen before. Could he love her? Despite all their challenges, could he love her as much as she had come to love him? Just as she was on the verge of blurting out the words, he interrupted her declaration and took her mouth in a plundering, soul-stealing kiss that left her clinging to him as though he were the only thing keeping her anchored to the ground.
And then she was no longer anchored, but floated in his arms as he carried her to the head of the bed they had shared their first night at Hawksbury. There, he gently laid her out and stepped back. His coat came off first, then his vest. Next came his necktie, and Theo watched in disappointment as he tossed it aside. She did enjoy having him bind her hands as he did what he would with her body. But it seemed he had other ideas for their unplanned morning of reconciliation. In short order, he hauled his boots off using the jack by the bed, then dropped his trousers and shirt on the floor and crawled naked into bed.
Equally naked, they came together and kissed. She drove her tongue past his teeth and stroked the inner walls of his mouth in a brazen exploration that had her pulse racing again as easily as a feather catching the breeze. His hands roamed over her, exploring her dips and curves and even tracing over the small, firm mound that was yet her own secret. One she fully intended to share in time—but not yet.
* * *
Stone couldn’t believe he’d almost misunderstood her earlier demand. Contrition had addled his wits and made him miss her clear cues. His poor pet had been driven to strip naked and kneel before him to make her point. And what a glorious sight she made kneeling in the morning sunshine, her golden hair aglow like a nimbus as she waited for his command. His cock bobbed between his legs as need speared through him once again. Spanking her had taken all his restraint. He’d wanted to strip naked and plunge into her hot pussy by the tenth blow. By twenty, he was damn near ready to explode in his pants.
But now the field was wide open, and they could do as they pleased. And he had a personal favorite in mind to help repair the rift in their dynamic. He broke their kiss and rolled onto his back. “Come, pet. Straddle my face and let me feast on you while you suck my cock.”
Her blue eyes darkened and her nipples pebbled into small berries. With a nod, she scrambled over to him, swung a leg over his head, and lowered her glistening core to his lips. He slid his tongue out to trace the trail of moisture and moaned at the sweetness of her desire. Hungry for more of his wife, he wrapped his hands around her thighs and pulled her lower until he could see nothing but the red expanse of her arse as he sank his tongue into her.
“Oh, Master.” She gasped, and then her weight shifted forward and her warm, wet mouth engulfed his cock—or as much of it as she could manage. As he drove into her quim, she worked up and down his length to where her fist gripped him at the root. But then, as he swore she’d reached her hand, she swallowed deeply, moved her fist, and took more of him into the tightness of her throat. Unable to control his need, he bucked his hips, shoving deeper. Theo choked a bit, pulled back, and then repeated the effort.
With each swallow and suck, he filled her in a way he’d never done before, and his inner beast surged to the fore, demanding to claim her once more. To plant his seed in her belly and make a child as the ultimate show of his manhood, of his claim on his woman.
And with that notion buzzing in his head, he flicked her clit a few times before shifting her off his face. He sat up as she did, his mouth wet from her juices. He laid her back on the bed, tossed her legs over his shoulders, and plowed into her tight channel with a driving need to fill her. Pelvis to pelvis, he ground against her, wishing he could find a way to be one with her, to fill her completely.
“Master?”
He groaned as she wriggled her hips. “Yes, pet?”
“Is that…” She licked her cock-swollen lips. “Is that me on your mouth?”
Fuck, is she trying to kill me? “Yes, pet.” He ran his tongue over his lower lip and tasted her sweetness once more. “I still have your juices on my lips.”
Then she reached and traced his upper lip, scooping up whatever moisture remained, and carried her finger to her own lips. As she sucked her finger into her mouth, he lost all control.
“Bloody hell, woman.” He pounded into her, shuttling his cock in and out of her soaked pussy as she pinched and played with her own nipples.
And then her pussy clamped down on him hard, and she cried out, “Master!”
The tight clutching rhythm of her cunny pushed him over the edge and had him shooting his seed deep into womb. He continued shoving deep inside her, letting the zinging pleasure of release rip from his balls to his cock and out through his extremities as he found a level of release he’d never before experienced. Pleasure born of love and the unhindered sharing of two souls.
It had turned him into a bloody poet.
Spent, he slumped forward onto his wife’s breast and lay there, helpless as a newborn babe. But the pillar of strength beneath him held him and stroked his hair as though she never wanted him to leave. And he sincerely hoped that was the case, because she would be stuck with him forever. He needed to sort out how to tell her, how to give her the property next to her orphanage and make her understand. Because a simple declaration of love would not suffice to express the magnitude of what he felt for this woman. He would sort it all out when he got back to London, right after he stopped whoever was after him. For the moment, sleep was required, so he closed his eyes as he lay there still joined with his wife and napped.
Chapter 29
The next afternoon, their part
y arrived home after leaving exceptionally early. Despite a night filled with making love to his wife, he was eager to return home to put certain wheels in motion. As he escorted Theo upstairs, Parsons followed him up. “My lord, there is a gentleman at the door who wishes a word with you.”
“Please tell him now is not a good time. My wife and I have just returned from a long journey and do not wish to be disturbed.” Stone turned from his longtime employee expecting his directions to be followed without question.
Parsons cleared his throat. “My apologies, my lord. But I believe the man is your dead brother.”
He and Theo both stopped and turned to stare at their servant. “Pardon me?” Theo paled and pressed her hand to her heart.
“The man currently in the front salon claims to be and looks remarkably similar to my lord’s dead brother,” Parsons calmly reiterated.
“I see. Well then, I suppose I shall be down in just a moment.” Stone nodded at Parsons and then turned to hustle his wife to their rooms.
“Stone, I wish to go with you. There is no reason for us to go to our rooms.” Theo tried to stop walking, but he refused to even consider such a thing.
“Absolutely not. I have no idea who that is sitting downstairs. I shall not have you put at risk unnecessarily. Once I know what the man is about, I shall call for you to come down, but until then, you will do as I ask and remain in our rooms.” He moved her forward, brooking no further resistance, and to his great relief, his wife complied with his wishes. And then a cold wash of fear swept through him. If it was his brother, what of Theo? Would he want her back? Would she want him back?
“Do be careful, dear.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and slipped into their rooms, leaving him once again stunned.
Her easy affection always seemed to surprise him, and in the moment of uncertainty, it comforted him. Perhaps one day he would become accustomed to such intimate displays. But for the moment, he had other issues to sort out, starting with who was sitting downstairs in his parlor. If it was his brother, what did it mean? Considering he had no suspects, merely a string of events that had ceased to be accidents in his mind, could his brother’s surprise return be his first big clue? A rather large pit opened up in his gut at the thought. They had been so close growing up, and never in all those years had Stone coveted the earldom. The notion it might be Odey behind the many attempts saddened him. One never wanted to think a family member—let alone a brother—might want one dead.
Drawing a deep, steadying breath, he determined to be on about finding out the truth and not wallowing in murky possibilities. The first step required him to see exactly who was downstairs. With a sense of great purpose behind him, Stone strode downstairs and into his front parlor. There a man stood with his back to the door, staring out the window.
He approached the right height for Odey, but he appeared a bit wider across the shoulders than Stone remembered. Granted, it had been nearly eight years since Stone had bought his commission and headed off to India, and three years since his brother had died. A man could change in all that time. Stone certainly had.
“Well, don’t just stand there and stare, ’Chilles. Mother would certainly not approve.” The man turned from the window, but his features were still cast in shadows by the late-afternoon sun.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.” Stone stepped closer, but sought to maintain enough of a distance between the man and himself should he need to take action.
“It’s only been seven or eight years, brother. Have I already faded from your memory?” The man stepped even closer and shifted out of the shadows to reveal his face.
Stone stopped cold as a ghost rose before him in the form of his dead brother. Certainly, the man was older than he remembered, his face sunbaked from long hours outside, little lines fanning out from the creases of his eyes. Either laugh lines or markers of hard living; only the stories behind them would tell. All the blood rushed from his head to his feet as the last three years rushed at him, reminding him of all he had lost and gained. How could one feel both fear and joy in the same moment? “Dear God, it is you.” The words escaped past his frozen lips, a mere whisper.
Odey grinned, and then the men were hugging and slapping each other on the back as they greeted each other. After long seconds of merely absorbing the moment, they parted, and Stone dragged his brother to sit down, but they both came up short as Theo swept into the room.
His wife, not unlike himself, had turned rather pale when she saw who had arrived. She stood in the doorway, her hands trembling as she took in the moment. “I-I see it is truly Odey who has returned, and not some imposter.” She glanced uncertainly from him to his once-dead brother and back again. Then she took a small step toward them and stopped. Again, she looked from one to the other before taking another step, and another until she had slowly crossed to them and embraced his brother in an awkward welcome.
Stone cleared his throat. “I do recall having requested that you remain upstairs until I called for you.”
“And I did try to stay, but you took entirely too long, Stone.” She all but ignored the fact he’d been trying to keep her safe. For heaven’s sake, it could have been some derelict trying to rob them at gunpoint and she would have walked in and possibly gotten herself killed. “Besides, it is, in fact, Odey, so no harm done.”
“This time, pet,” Stone ground out between his teeth.
Theo stiffened further, which was hard to imagine, and turned an alarming shade of red. “Stone, do not take that tone with me.”
Odey glanced awkwardly back and forth between them. But Stone had little compunction about his proclivities in front of his brother, who not only shared them but had been with him as they discovered their preferences. “Odey is well aware of my proclivities, and even shared in many of them, once upon a time. So no need to hide anything before him, pet. And since you will be punished later, I doubt he will be unaware of them by morning.” He slashed a grin at his wife, who scowled at him.
She then proceeded to ignore their conversation, and went on as though none of it had occurred. “Sit, Odey. I must say, while I am shocked, it is good—” She hesitated, seeming to trip over her words. “Well, what I mean to say is…I am sure Stone is pleased you aren’t dead.”
Stone sat and joined his brother and his wife, but not before he picked her up and sat her on his lap. Unwilling to examine the need to stake his claim on Theo before his brother, he naturally accepted the impulse and moved on. It could stem from any number of things, such as their recent reconciliation, the fact his brother was once her betrothed, or even that she was so recently hurt and he was still feeling rather overprotective of her person. “Yes, brother. How is it you aren’t dead? And why am I just learning this? I am certain you have a story to tell.”
Odey nodded. “Indeed, there is a story.” He glanced at Theo and then back to Stone, letting yet another awkward moment stretch out. “I understand that you are, in fact, Stonemere now.”
“I am.” Stone hesitated as he waited for his brother’s response. Did he want the title back? Stone considered the idea, however briefly, but rejected it out of hand. The title might have been forced upon him—even unwelcome at the time—but he had found the adjustment far easier since marrying Theo. His gut churned with all the sudden uncertainty.
Odey let out a huge sigh that sounded awfully relieved. “Thank goodness. I stayed away so long to give Parliament the time needed to sort it all out. I have yet to hear of a lord being recalled once a writ is issued. But these are modern times, and one can never be sure.”
“Do you mean you did not wish to be earl?” Theo sounded as surprised as Stone felt at that revelation.
“I did not. Not for many years. I had tried to tell Father on one occasion, but he merely assumed it was youth and fear of responsibility driving my lack of interest.” Odey shrugged. “And then you went and bought a commission, ’Chilles. I was alone with the full burden of the earldom’s future bearing down on me like a
locomotive. I decided to do something drastic, so I signed up to sail as a crewman to the Far East. I left Mother and Father a note so they wouldn’t worry, but stated clearly that I had no intention of taking the title when the time came.”
Stone’s heart ached at the notion that his brother felt so deserted and desperate that he signed up to be a crewman on a silk run. Such a long and dangerous journey should not have been his only other option. “Obviously, something went wrong along the way.”
“It did. But at first, it was wonderful. Certainly, it was hard work. Hard work like I had never experienced. But at the end of the day, I felt as though I had accomplished something useful.”
“That I understand.” Stone missed that feeling from his army life, at least before Cawnpore. He reached around his wife and held her closer, needing her scent and feel to ground him in the moment, and not in his horror-filled memories.
“Then one morning, a terrible storm rolled in, and amidst the struggle to keep the ship upright, I was knocked overboard.” He paused and looked down at his hands wrapped tightly around each other. “I heard later that the ship went down and all aboard were lost.”
“That was when we believed you were killed.” Stone heard his wife’s little sigh as he squeezed her gently.
Odey looked up and smiled ruefully. “Yes, well, that was also when I decided that my being dead might be easier for everyone. At least until I heard Father had died.”
Stone saw the guilt flash over his brother’s face. “It wasn’t your fault. The doctor had advised him to relax more, maybe even retreat to Stonemere Abbey and get away from the city. But apparently, Father, as usual, ignored the advice.”
A small measure of relief seemed to flit through Odey’s gaze, but he certainly carried a fair amount of guilt. “Nevertheless, by the time I had received word of his passing, it was far too late to return. And then there was the hope the title would pass to you uncontested and all would be as it should.”
His Hand-Me-Down Countess: The Lustful Lords, Book 1 Page 23
