That was certainly it. She saw a dashing gentleman. She saw the canvas was indeed quite small. She saw the man in the portrait was seated on a chair and that he wore hunting attire and in his hand he held a riding crop.
It was a very accurate title for the painting.
So it was to be the crop this time? He'd warned her of that, too. She'd never had a lover beat her before, consensually or otherwise. Her mother had never spanked her. She'd had her bottom pinched by a boy in a bookshop once, and she was ready to slap him when she saw he was no more than fourteen. She'd gotten her revenge by telling on him to his mother, who'd been drinking tea in the café while her son pretended to look at books. The mother had dragged him from the shop by his ear and Mona had smiled all the while. A good memory but not erotic. She didn't imagine she would enjoy being beaten by a riding crop, but who knew? She never thought she'd enjoy frolicking with nymphs or being sold on the auction block or having a bottle stuffed inside her either. And yet she had enjoyed it.
She'd enjoyed it all.
As Malcolm had given her no instructions for what to wear for their Sunday night assignation, she wore her favorite fall dress of crushed red velvet-ankle length, skin tight, backless. She pinned her apple-red hair up in a chignon and let tendrils fall down her neck. If that wouldn't please a man such as Malcolm, nothing would.
Midnight came at last.
Mona went to the gallery, and spent a moment petting sweet, sleepy Tou-Tou in his bed before heading for the back room. She didn't want to seem afraid, so she opened the door without hesitation.
Malcolm was waiting.
He stood in the center of the back room, his back to her. He'd dressed like the man in the portrait. Hunting attire. White breeches, a green velvet jacket, and brown leather riding boots that clung to his thighs like a second skin. He was magnificent, resplendent, utterly desirable. His hair looked a shade longer and a shade lighter, and it was curled on his head in the consummate Regency style.
In his right hand he held a long wooden riding crop with a leather tip.
Mona ignored the crop. She cared nothing about it. She walked to Malcolm, almost ran, and he took her into his arms and kissed her passionately. His mouth was warm and tasted of spiced wine and cigars. She couldn't stop kissing him.
"Beautiful girl," he murmured against her lips. She wanted to tear off his fine white linen cravat and lick the hollow of his throat. She would have kissed it and bitten it. She would have drunk wine out of it. She hadn't given that hollow a second thought until it was covered and hidden from her view.
"I want you already," she said as she grasped the back of his coat and pressed her breasts to his chest. He kissed the tops of her breasts, swelling out of her dress. He ran his fingertips over those soft swells and she shivered and sighed. Her nipples needed sucking and her clitoris needed licking and her pussy needed his cock. She was pleased they would be all alone tonight, their first time all alone together in months. She had things she must ask him, but she knew she couldn't until he'd spent his lust on her. It would be hours, she knew, if the pattern held.
She could wait.
Malcolm had looped the leather cord of the riding crop over his right wrist, and she felt the tip of it tickling her backside as he kissed her mouth. He lightly scored her back with his fingertips, caressing her skin along her spine, cupping her bottom before tickling his way up to the nape of her neck again. He kissed her earlobe, kissed her collarbone. As he kissed her neck, he pulled the strap of her dress down her shoulder to bare her left breast. He held it in his hand, squeezed it as he kissed her mouth. He cupped it in his palm and looked down, smiling at it like a prized possession.
"So lovely," he said. "So young and ripe." He teased the tender red tip with his thumb, tracing the edge of the aureole. Her nipple hardened quickly. It was a red marble under the pad of his thumb. He toyed with it to make her moan. "Tell me what you feel, Mona. Tell me what I do to your body."
"I feel desire."
"Tell me much more than that. How does your nipple feel?"
"Hard. It feels as hard to me as it does to you," she said breathlessly. "A woman can feel when her nipples are this hard."
"As a man can when his cock is hard."
"Yes, I'm sure it's something like that. When you touch my nipple when it's soft, I feel pleasure. But when you touch it when it's this hard, the pleasure is magnified. Ten or twenty times. It's hard to stand, hard to breathe. I ache, Malcolm."
"Where do you ache, Mona? Tell me everywhere you ache." He whispered the order and kissed the top of her breast. His soft hair tickled the bare flesh of her chest. She would die if he made her wait for him to take her.