“Such dramatics,” he said, landing some smacks to the sensitive skin of her upper thighs. She gasped and bucked upon his lap. “Didn’t your father ever spank you this way for being a bad girl?”
“No!” she wailed. “I’ve never been a bad girl.”
“I beg to differ.”
He gave her three more solid cracks and then righted her, setting her on her feet. When she tried to set her shift in order, he tore the rest of it off her. If he’d ordered the garment, he’d destroyed it too. She stared at him, her bottom throbbing and her knees trembling. When she reached to cover her breasts, he made a sound of denial that stopped her.
“It’s my body, Aurelia. It’s not yours to cover any more, is it?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. No one had warned her that marriage might be this way. In her wildest nightmares of life with Lord Townsend, she hadn’t imagined this. “I want to cover myself up,” she said plaintively.
“That may be so, but I get pleasure from looking at you naked, so if I take your clothes off, you’ll leave them off. If I want to kiss and suck your breasts, you’ll let me kiss and suck your breasts. If I want to push you back and take you, you’ll spread your pretty little legs and damn well let me do it.”
Each word was delivered with cool, crisp inflection, until the quiver in her knees became a shake.
“Now, apologize for resisting me, on our wedding night of all nights,” he said. “Say it prettily, my love. ‘I’m sorry, my lord husband, for resisting you.’”
What else could she do? She couldn’t bear to be spanked again, and she knew that’s what would happen if she didn’t comply with his command. She wiped the tears from her face. “I’m sorry, my lord husband, for resisting you.”
“Look at me, Aurelia.” He waited until she managed to drag her gaze to his. “Let’s be clear about things from the start. If you resist me in this again, you’ll be punished. If you whine, if you disobey, if you act disrespectfully, you’ll be punished. If you annoy me, you’ll be punished. Fair warning, my darling. Do you understand?”
She stared into his dark eyes. She was so unsettled, so frightened, so traumatized, she couldn’t think for a moment. “I don’t want that to happen again.”
“Then you must behave, mustn’t you?” His gaze softened the slightest bit. “It was silly of you to resist when I was only trying to give you pleasure. Husbands and wives do these things. They kiss and caress. They make love. How do you think I felt when you pushed me away?”
“Angry,” she managed, when it became clear he wanted an answer.
“Yes, angry. Frustrated. Rejected. Now you have a sore bottom because of it. Turn around.”
She did, aching with shame. For long seconds he made her stand there and endure his scrutiny. She flinched as his cool hands traveled over each throbbing bottom cheek. “You’ll sit prettily for a couple of days. A helpful reminder for you.” He turned her back around. “Lie on the bed and spread your legs now, and try to behave as a good wife should.”
She swallowed hard. She had been taught her whole life to keep her legs closed, to be pure and prim. Didn’t he understand how difficult this was?
At her hesitation, he gave her a warning look. “I’ll get a whip next, and you won’t sit for a week.”
“I’m so afraid.” The words burst out of her, weak and humiliating.
“You’re afraid because you’re resisting. If you’d let it happen, you’d find it’s not as bad as your maiden’s fears.” He let out a sigh. “Has no one educated you about sexual intimacies in marriage?”
“I was educated,” she said, sniffling. But that education didn’t mention tearing clothes, and spankings, and whips.
“What would your parents think about the way you’ve conducted yourself this evening?” he asked. “You’re here in my beautiful home, my own lawful wife, and you had to be spanked like a naughty child for refusing my touch. I’m nearing the end of my patience.” He pointed to the bed.
Aurelia crawled onto the counterpane, certain he was staring at her hot, aching bottom. When she tried to slip under the sheets, his sharp voice stopped her.
“No. Lie on top. Spread your legs as I told you.”
She looked over at him. He’d taken off his robe and turned to drape it over the back of a chair. His buttocks were sleek and tight. His entire back looked powerful, bunched muscles radiating strength. Then he turned.
Aurelia’s breath hitched in her chest. From her mother’s vague description of the aroused male anatomy, she’d expected something more of the size of a finger. Lord Townsend’s member looked the size of all her fingers put together, and then some.
She looked away, feeling panicked. Trapped. She’d been taught the mechanics of sex but never imagined the relative size of things. Lord Townsend would tear her asunder with that thick shaft, and he wouldn’t care. That was the worst of it. He didn’t care about her, he only cared that she respected and obeyed him. She could not, could not, make her legs part. They seemed to draw together of their own accord.
He stood beside the bed, tall and threatening, with that great, thrusting sex organ bobbing obscenely toward her.
“I’m waiting,” he said.
She thought he could wait until he died. She couldn’t open her legs and offer herself to be plundered.
“You prefer the whip then?” he asked in a patient voice. “Either way, this marriage shall be consummated.”
She didn’t want the whip. She flinched at the threat in his stare and inched her legs apart. She supposed it was enough to mollify him, for he came to the bed and pressed them the rest of the way open, one palm braced on the inside of each thigh. He knelt between her legs, coming over her so his own body weight and breadth kept her spread open. She could feel the broad, hot tip of him against her most private place.
I’m afraid. Don’t hurt me. Please don’t make me do this. She didn’t say any of the thoughts spinning in her mind because she knew he would disregard her pleas. She tried to think of Lord Warren. Surely he wouldn’t have been like this, heavy and rough, and impatient, and demanding. He never would have spanked her for resisting...but she wouldn’t have resisted him. She looked up into the face of her husband, guiltily. He’d spank her again if he knew she was thinking about his friend.
And she didn’t want to think of Lord Warren right now. He was too lovely to attach to this moment. “Please, just do it,” she whispered. “Don’t make me wait.”
“Oh, but I think I’ll make you wait.” As he said it, his mouth dipped again to her breasts. She felt disgusted and powerless, being pawed and stared at and slavered over like some East End prostitute. She closed her eyes and laid her head back on the pillow, determined to endure whatever he did to her. He tongued her pebbled nipples, circling them, then he nibbled the sensitive skin surrounding them.
She wanted to disappear. She wanted to feel nothing. But he wanted her to feel.
He continued to tease and suck her breasts until some simmering heaviness developed in response. She didn’t feel the heaviness in her breasts, but lower, in her belly and between her legs. Now and again he’d stop and caress her neck and shoulders, pressing kisses along her skin. He kissed her cheeks and her ears, using his fingertips to tease behind them the way he had in Arlington’s garden. She wanted to be a proper lady, a good wife, but she felt so lost. The more he touched her, the more the hot heaviness within her grew.
He shifted his pelvis closer, so his rod cradled within the folds of her quim. She tried to lift away from him, but then he contacted some part of her that ached in a completely novel manner. Now each time he touched her nipples with his tongue, she felt a longing there that had her shifting her hips.
“You see, my little innocent? It’s not all bad, is it?” His fingertips whispered down her cheek, brushing at lingering tears.
But it was bad. It was horrible, because she didn’t love him. Even more horrible—her body betrayed her, warming to his caresses. He shifted again, probing at her with his thick member, and she realized that she was wet down there, as if welcoming him to press inside. He moved his hips, tensed them in a sinuous way and slid back.
He meant to enter her now. Panic overwhelmed her. “No,” she pleaded. She pushed at him, not even meaning to do it. He caught her hands and pulled them hard over her head.
“Yes,” he whispered back, pressing them to the upholstered headboard. He gritted his teeth, his expression intent. He surged forward with a firm, abrupt thrust.
Aurelia cried out, straining at the shock of his entry. He persisted, holding her hands hard, sliding his body over hers as he seated himself deep inside her. It hurt. It stung terribly as he stretched her. She arched her hips but it accomplished nothing, only wrested from him a guttural groan.
“Be still a moment,” he gasped. “Lie still, Aurelia.”
She lay still as a corpse. She never wanted to move again. Any movement only reminded her of the stretching ache, and her vulnerability, and his coarse domination. He touched her deep inside with that thrusting part of him. He was joined to her, within her, and it seemed to cause him as much anguish as it caused her.