“What?” Her voice cracked, high and shrill. She backed away from him in alarm, her hands splayed protectively over her backside. “I promise you have my attention. I am trying to be good!”
He caught her shoulders before she could flee. “You must trust me, darling. I know what I’m about in such matters.”
He turned her with firm hands and began to undo her dress and loosen her stays, removing everything but her sheer, silken shift. She trembled, cross, reluctant, frightened even, but along with all those feelings came another shameful surge of hot tension in her breasts and between her legs, in her body’s secret core. It was hopeless to resist him, wasn’t it? His power and his will frightened her, but also, curiously, aroused her. She didn’t want this, and yet in some sense it felt exciting. Which meant that she was barely more proper than a common trollop, or a whore.
Oh, no. She had thought herself better than this. He sat on a chair and was about to pull her over his lap when he noticed her tears.
“Why are you crying, Aurelia?”
She sniffled. “I’m crying because I feel terribly confused.”
He made a soft tsk, wiping gently at her cheeks. “Your confusion is only your mind warring with your body. Let me guide you. Don’t resist me, grasshopper, and we’ll see where we end up. Answer me. ‘As you wish, my lord.’”
She forced the words out, though her voice trembled. “As you wish, my lord.”
“Ah, that sounds very nice. Those are the proper sort of words to say when I give you instructions. Above all, you must be brave and willing to try anything I request. I won’t hurt you, I swear. In fact, you’ll enjoy great pleasure if you get into the spirit of things.”
The spirit of things? What on earth did he mean by that? She found herself guided, for the third time in her short marriage, over her husband’s lap. She felt the whisper of fabric against her skin as he pushed her shift up to her waist, baring her bottom.
“Feet on the floor, yes, that’s a good girl.” His palms brushed lazily for a moment over her naked cheeks, then stroked lower to caress the skin just above her stockings. “And keep those hands out of the way, or I’ll use one of your garters to tie them together and keep them still.”
“Yes, my lord,” she said, though she could barely imagine such a thing.
He made a low, pleased sound and landed the first spank. Oh, mercy, she would never get used to such treatment, and he intended to do this each evening, on a formally regimented basis? It defied belief, and yet her bottom stung with the reality of his intent. He spanked her twice on each cheek, pausing in between so she felt his palm rub across her skin. Oh, God help me. After that, he settled into a constant, painful rhythm of measured spanks.
Right away, it was difficult to keep her feet in the position he wanted. Little kicks and cries escaped her, high and shrill in the silence of his room. She wanted him to stop, but she also felt the most confusing sensation of arousal. The heat in her bottom seemed to spread between her thighs, and collect there in a tingly, heavy way. She prayed not to be molested, but her prayers were in vain. He paused in his onslaught and pressed his fingers to her quim. She flushed hot at the slickness gathered there. If he had commented on it, she would have died of humiliation, but he only resumed the spanking, delivering firm, crisp blows in a steady rhythm to her posterior.
“Perhaps you fear these spankings will become repetitive over time,” he said as his palm rained down. “But it will not be so. Very soon I’ll introduce you to other disciplinary implements. A paddle perhaps. A strap. A birch rod or switch, most definitely. A cane can be highly effective but perhaps best left for moments when you are very, very rebellious.”
Aurelia silently vowed to never be very, very rebellious, because the idea of being caned on her bottom terrified her. His palm alone caused her considerable pain. If he was trying to frighten her with threats of more severe implements, his plan worked.
He stopped and pressed the tip of a finger into her damp channel, so that she squirmed upon his lap. Then he pressed the same moistened finger against her bottom hole. She gasped at the shocking contact and tried to pull away, but his arm tightened around her waist to hold her still. She shuddered as his finger caressed and probed there. He forced her to endure these scandalous attentions as her cheeks throbbed from the spanking.
“Please,” she whimpered. “It is so improper.”
“Nothing is improper between us, now that we’re married. You must remember that, my love. I’m only thinking about the time when I shall introduce you to the pleasures of a ginger fig in your bottom. I’ve an exquisite crop of ginger grown here just for that purpose.”
“You will put ginger...inside my bottom?” she asked in a mixture of horror and disgust.
He laughed. “That, and other things. You’ll come to love it as I do.”
“I won’t,” she cried, tears gathering again in her eyes. It seemed too monstrous to think about. It was almost a relief when he began to spank her again, the steady, sharp whacks of pain a distraction from all the anxiety roiling in her brain. He spanked her for quite a while, but it wasn’t like the first two spankings, where he’d been angry and rough in his discipline. This was more of a controlled endeavor, and when her entire bottom was hot and throbbing uniformly, he stopped.
“There,” he said, “I think that will do. Stand now, and take off your shift for me, darling.”
She held back the tears, relieved that the spanking was over, at least for today. She fumbled with the ties of her shift as her husband regarded her with frank attention. It embarrassed her to disrobe while he remained dressed, but she did as he asked and inched the garment up over her head.
“No,” he said. “Not like that. Not as if you are reluctant and ashamed.” He pulled it back down to her hips. “Try again. Take it off as if you’re excited to reveal your body to me.”
She stared at him. How on earth was she to do that?
“Or, if you feel you need more spanking first...”
“No,” she said quickly. “I shall try again. It’s only that—”
“No excuses. Do as I ask, Aurelia. Take off your shift without any reluctance or shame. Your body is beautiful, you know. Your curves, your femininity. You should present it as such, with none of this shrinking and blushing.”
No reluctance or shame. What a novel idea, and how impossible. She tried again to do what he asked, lifting the shift more gracefully this time, letting the fabric linger over her hips and breasts before she pulled it off and dropped it, with feigned indifference, to the floor. She tried not to...what had he said? Shrink? She stood straight and tall, and attempted to smile at him. She couldn’t quite manage it. She could barely hold his gaze, intense as it was.
After a moment, he smiled. “Not perfectly done, but better. We’ll practice every day, won’t we? Now turn around and show me your red, spanked bottom, my love.”
Why did he keep calling her his “love”? The only thing he seemed to love was humiliating her, but it was pointless to balk at his instructions. She turned and presented her back to him, wringing her hands at her waist.
“Now bend down very prettily and remove your garters and stockings.”
Aurelia sucked in a breath. Something in his voice, perhaps the low steadiness of it, had the unwilling arousal beating again in that spot between her legs. Dear God, if she bent forward, he might be able to see it, that naughty, throbbing, heated, secret spot that ached for something she couldn’t understand.
“No,” he said sharply when she tried to crouch down instead. “Bend forward at the waist. Roll them all the way down and then hand them back to me.”
Well, there was nothing for it. He was going to insist on her behaving like a lewd woman. She bent forward, fully aware that he would stare at her bottom and nether lips in all their exposed glory. From the approving sound he made, he enjoyed this. She bent forward—twice—to remove her stockings and hand them back to him. When she finished, he made her turn around.
“Let’s see if you can undress me with equal sensuality and grace. Go slowly. Start by unbuttoning my waistcoat.”
Bother. There were two dozen or more buttons, exquisite and small. She fumbled with them, wondering how one unbuttoned one’s waistcoat with sensuality. But then she finished and, with a little of his help, pushed it back off his shoulders. She got the first inkling that undressing a man could indeed be a sensual task. Why, the singular breadth of his chest, and the appealing muscularity of his upper arms...
“I like your expression, Aurelia,” he said quietly. “As if you like what you see. Do you like it?”
She didn’t want to answer. She was embarrassed to answer, but she said, “Yes, my lord.”
“My neckcloth now.” His voice had grown huskier still.
She reached to remove the pearl pin at its center. “Where shall I put this?” she asked.
He regarded her through half-closed lids. “Between your lips.”
He watched as she put the pin in her mouth, pursing her lips around it. His voice, his expression made it seem that she did something erotic. She applied herself to the folds of his cravat for the sake of distraction, but she could feel his gaze on her. Her fingers brushed of necessity against the strong column of his neck, shaded with a hint of stubble. His jaw moved. Tensed. It looked very...masculine.