by Renee Rose
“My second is to forbid tantrums that involve you throwing any object.”
This time she detected humor in his voice and his lips curved slightly at the edges.
She felt her cheeks grow hot. “Yes, my lord,” she said, and curtsied.
A faint smile acknowledged her submission.
“Fetch my razor strap from wherever you flung it in there.”
Her knees went weak at the command. She obeyed, feet feeling clumsy. Awkward in her nudity, it took her some time to concentrate enough to find the leather strap under the mess of feathers and other thrown items. The sound of Teddy’s door opening made her jump upright to find Teddy’s valet halting in the doorway and taking in the sight of her, fully naked, holding the strap so obviously to be used for her punishment. Like any good servant, he immediately lowered his eyes, mumbling “excuse me, my lady,” as he backed out the door and closed it behind him. She stood rooted in utter mortification, imagining he was already informing the entire staff of her impending whipping.
Well, she deserved it. She certainly had treated them to quite a display with her tantrum. She bowed her head and carried the strap back to her room, handing it over with another curtsy.
He took the leather strap and looked up at her, as if considering. She felt her face grow hotter and a bit of moisture dripped on her thigh. Dear Lord, what was that? Was that what Teddy had described as her body preparing for sex? But why would the threat of punishment make her body willing?
“You’ll be bared to me when I punish you. You will accept your punishment without quarrel. If you fight it, I will repeat the same punishment the following day, which will be far worse on a sore bottom.”
She opened her lips, then shut them, not certain if a protest would be considered quarreling.
“You may speak, love.”
Love. He loved her. The memory of his words filled her with another wave of warmth, this time on the inside. It helped her remember this stern man was the same who had just held her. “But what if the punishment is unfair?”
“You may argue your case, but if I say enough, you will accept my decision.”
Talking about punishment made her feel even more awkward than being punished, and she suddenly longed to be over his knee, receiving whatever it was he thought she deserved, hopefully bringing the return of her husband’s good humor.
She gave another curtsy, bowing her head. “Yes, my lord.”
“You will not reach back and try to cover. If you do, I shall spank the backs of your legs instead, and I promise you will not like that.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Repeat to me the rules of punishment.”
Oh, heavens.
Her insides were pure liquid by now, and her knees barely held her up. Moisture continued to leak from between her legs.
She took a deep breath and willed her voice to be steady. “I will be bared to you. I will not quarrel. I will not reach back and try to cover.”
“Good girl.”
“Why are you being punished?”
“For throwing a tantrum instead of coming to you with my anger.”
“Thank you.”
He opened his legs and twisted them toward the bed, patting the knee closest to the bed. “Show me you are sorry.”
She never thought she’d be eager to place herself over his knee, but in this case, it was almost a relief to lie over his lap and hide her face in the bed. The relief did not last, however, as she remembered this was not a spanking with his hand or her slipper; this was a strapping, which he had promised would produce tears. He clamped his free leg over the top of her two legs, effectively pinning her in place. She tensed, waiting for the first stripe, but instead she felt his hand, rubbing a circle over her bottom in a warm caress. The wetness between her legs increased.
Confound it, why did she find this so arousing? It was going to hurt and it was utterly humiliating, yet she could almost drop her pride with Teddy. He had already seen her darkest secret and had not flinched. So what more was it now, to offer her obedience, her submission to him, the man who showed he loved her with both action and word?
A sharp slap brought her out of thought. Teddy began peppering her bottom with rapid smacks, causing her to wiggle under his grasp. He managed her easily, though, with an arm around her waist and his leg holding her legs down. She held her breath, then let it out with a cry, then held it again as the fire began to spread across her vulnerable flesh.
“Oh, Teddy!” she cried.
“Shh,” he said, though his hand continued to rain down on her sorry bottom. “Take your punishment, Phoebe.”
She clenched her cheeks and struggled, fighting the pain and the continuing onslaught.
“When two people are married they must work together,” he said, never stopping the lesson he was meting out with his hand. “Turning your back on me only makes problems worse.”
She thought of what Kitty had said about his father—how much he had stayed away to avoid his mother, and she realized this was an important issue for Teddy. But what he asked of her seemed almost impossible—it seemed she only knew how to pretend a problem didn’t exist, or she completely lost her temper. In her family, they’d swept problems under the rug, covering them up with cheery lies. What if she had told her sister about Reddington? Or complained when Maud made her angry? It seemed absolutely impossible to imagine.
Teddy stopped the spanking and rubbed her smarting cheeks. She remembered how he’d forced her to talk the night the prostitute had come into his bedroom. He’d held her over his knee and spanked, questioning her until she’d admitted what she wanted from him.
“Teddy, what if I cannot?”
“Cannot what, my love?”
“Can’t talk to you when I’m angry?”
He continued stroking her bottom, which was beginning to burn even more now that he’d stopped. He squeezed her cheek and shook it a bit, then slapped it.
“Oh!”
“Well, you will learn, little dove. Even if it’s over my knee.”
She felt tears stinging her eyes and Teddy began to spank with his hand again. It hurt more after the break, and forgetting his rules, she reached back instinctively to cover her bottom.
“No, Phoebe,” he reminded her. The pain of his hand smarting the backs of her thighs caused her to cry out and snatch her hands back, tucking them under her torso so she would not be tempted again.
* * *
He wanted to spank her long enough with his hand first, so he did not have to strap her overly long to produce tears. Dragging out the beginning of the spanking by asking her to take off her own clothing and repeat the rules also helped bring her closer to surrender. Judging from her question, she was thinking about her punishment and what she might have done differently.
He stopped spanking with his hand and picked up the strap. He considered making her count the strokes out loud, but he wanted her thoughts to remain where they were, not fixed on a certain number. He brought the strap down, making a stripe at the top of her bottom, just where the cleft began. She howled in pain and he feared the entire house would know he was chastising his wife. But that could not be helped. He laid the second stripe just below the first, and the third fell right in the center of her bottom, across both cheeks.
Bent over his lap as she was, he could not apply the strap with the full swing of his arm, but even so, the leather was leaving puffy raised marks where it struck. He continued making neat lines down her bottom, the last coming across the backs of her thighs, causing her to moan, “No, no, no, no. I didn’t reach!”
He smiled. “You’re right, little dove, you didn’t. I will sometimes still spank you there to make an impression, but your protest has been heard.”
He striped his way back up her bottom and her moans grew louder.
“I’m sorry! Teddy! Please! Oh! No!”
He striped back down, and she grew quiet again. Eighteen strokes so far. She was close, he could tell. He applied the strap t
o the juncture where her bottom met her thigh, the place where she would remember his spanking every time she sat. He struck the same place over and over again, five times, six times until he heard a sob. He dropped the strap but continued to spank that same place with his hand, first the right side, then the left, listening to the sound of her tears erupting in great heaving sobs. He spanked her for another minute, giving her time to release her tears, then rubbed her bottom lightly. It was a deep plum color, with striated marks from the strap.
To his surprise, she pushed herself up immediately, wrapping her arms around him and burying her wet face in his neck. He kissed her head, running his hands over her bare back, the feel of her skin intoxicatingly soft. “Phoebe,” he murmured softly.
“I love you, Teddy,” she said in his ear.
He pulled her legs around his waist so she straddled him, his sex rock hard from the feel of her naked form against him. She felt it and moved her hips so she pushed the moist slot of her sex over his bulge. He groaned. He had not planned to urge her into sex so soon after her punishment, but she seemed to want it. He hurried to free his length from his trousers, letting it spring out. She wasted no time positioning herself over it, clearly not requiring any encouragement or instruction on the new position.
He gasped when she lifted her hips and sheathed herself over him, her moist heat enveloping his shaft all at once. He cupped her swollen bottom, pulling her into him and she responded eagerly, grinding faster and harder. He began to lose control, the rhythm growing rough.
“Yes, Teddy,” she urged him and he exploded into climax, yanking her against him and holding her there until he’d filled her with his seed. She did not climax, but did not seem to mind, leaning forward to kiss him. It was an aggressive kiss, the first she’d initiated, and he reveled in the gift.
“Are you sorry you married me now?” he teased.
“Yes, I shall be sorry every time I sit tomorrow.” Her face grew serious and she stroked a finger down his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
She shrugged. “I need you.”
“I need you too, Phoebe.”
* * *
Later that night, she sat brushing her hair, dressed in her nightgown. Her bottom was sore from her spanking, but her heart overflowed with warmth and a desire to please her husband. “Are you going to teach me about the ‘cada orificio’ tonight?”
Teddy choked on his warmed milk and gave her an enormous grin. As it had been, they’d stayed in bed until supper, Teddy giving orders for their room to be put back to rights.
Her heart beat against her ribs, quickened by her own boldness and his reaction to it caused a flush of heat to spread across her skin.
“I’d love to,” he said, his voice low and seductive. “But first, I think I’ll call for a bath. It is more pleasant if we’re freshly washed.”
The tub was duly sent for and filled and he dismissed the servants.
“You will bathe first,” he said, lifting the hem of her nightdress, stroking her bare flesh as he slid it up her body and over her head. She caught her breath when she saw the dark, hungry look on his face. She slid into the warm water and sat down. Teddy knelt beside her, picking up the washcloth and stroking it across her chest, then circling her breast with slow, sultry attention. Watching, she could see the emphatic thump of her heart in the way it moved her peaked nipple. She rested her elbows on the edges of the tub and allowed her head to fall back. Teddy continued his caressing, stroking the cloth over every peak and crevice of her body until he reached the juncture between her thighs. There, he abandoned the cloth, allowing his fingers to glide over the sensitive pleats. One leg jerked in reaction, but she let her knees fall open to him. Teddy teased her, just lightly brushing her intimate folds with feather touches, enough to make her jump and jerk and yearn for more. Heat flooded her inner core and she found herself panting, uncomfortable in a needy sort of way.
“Does she want more?” he murmured, sensing her mounting distress.
“Who? Oh!” she cried, realizing he was personifying her sex. Embarrassed, she bit her lips, unable to answer him.
“Step out of the bath.”
She stood so quickly she saw stars, but Teddy took her arm and steadied her as she stepped out of the tub and he toweled her off with an attention that made her feel as if she’d had too much wine. When she was dry, he said, “I’ll just be a moment,” and stripped out of his clothes, stepping into the water.
She stared at him, realizing it was the first time she’d seen him or any other man in full nudity. His chest was broad, dusted with hair, muscles standing out in bold definition. His manhood was thickened and ready, lengthening even more when he observed her focus. She knelt beside the tub, gingerly reaching her hand in the water to grasp it. Teddy drew in his breath as his length surged in her hand, growing well past her wrist. Emboldened by his reaction, she met his eye, wondering what to do next. His eyes were dark as he wrapped his hand over hers, showing her to grip at the base, then move it down the length of his shaft, over the mushroom head and back up again. She continued after he released his hand, fascinated by the hot pulsing under her fingers, and the power she seemed to wield as she coaxed shaky breaths from her husband.
“Enough,” he said abruptly, his voice low and guttural. She sat back on her haunches, watching him stand up out of the bath and quickly dry off. He climbed up on the bed, sprawling back on his elbows. “Come, little dove.”
She swallowed, feeling a sudden case of nerves. She crawled up over him, grasping his cock again and slowly lowering her head. “That’s it,” he whispered as she tentatively opened her lips. She placed just the end of it in her mouth, wondering at the contradiction of soft skin over a hard organ. “Yes, Phoebe. Go deeper,” he urged.
She glanced up at his face and, seeing the dark, animal desire there, opened her jaw and took him deeper. His groan served as her encouragement. She slid her mouth back up, then tested the effect of her tongue on the head of his cock.
“Oh, Phoebe,” he groaned.
She smiled, flicking her tongue faster, watching as a tiny drop of fluid beaded up. She lapped it up, tasting a salty tang, then continued circling the entire head of his cock before she opened her mouth and took him in again, earning another deep groan.
“Phoebe,” he said hoarsely. “Turn around.”
“Pardon?” she asked in confusion, turning to look behind her.
He sat up and reaching for her. “Give me your legs.”
Still perplexed, she crawled toward his head. His hands took her by the waist and directed her until she was lying upon his chest backward, her bottom facing his head, her mouth at his cock. She bucked when his tongue hit her sex. “Oh!”
A gentle slap fell upon her very sore bottom. “Keep sucking, darling.”
She made a small whimpering sound as she opened her mouth to take in his length, unable to concentrate when his tongue slid between her outer lips. “Oh, Teddy!”
Another slap. “Focus, little dove.”
“How can I when you are distracting me so?”
Three slaps in the same spot made her yelp. “Naughty wife. Do as you’re told,” he commanded, gripping her hips firmly so she could not move and applying his tongue with vigor. She squirmed and slid her own mouth over his sex with equal vigor, her enthusiasm growing as the need built within her.
When his finger pressed inside her, she froze, listening.
“Go on, naughty girl!” he laughed.
“Oh!” She returned to her duty, hardly able to track what she did as her mouth plunged over his long, hard shaft while his finger plundered her sex. When another finger pressed into her back hole, she lost her mind completely, her head bobbing, so she took him deep into her throat before pulling off with a cry. Teddy had given a cry of his own and he continued his assault on her nether region—a finger thrusting into each hole, his tongue teasing her frantic sex until she nearly screamed from the sensation and the crashing
climax that shook her to the very center of her being.
Wasting no time, Teddy slapped her backside again, slipping out from under her and pulling her to her hands and knees. In a moment he was plunging into her so deeply she thought she’d split in two and then his triumphant cry echoed through the room.
Chapter Seven
In retrospect, she should have recognized the gray mare tethered in the stable. Returning from a carriage drive the following day, her hand clasped firmly in Teddy’s, the idea of a guest came as a pleasant surprise, and she alighted from the carriage with a smile.
Standish greeted them at the door. “Lord Reddington is here to see you, my lord. He has been here all morning, insisting he wait for your arrival.”
Teddy’s face snapped closed. “Go upstairs to our bedroom, love. I will see to your brother-in-law.”
She nodded, mounting the steps slowly, her mind whirling. What could Reddington want? The last they had seen him had been that horrible night when Teddy had nearly choked him to death. Could it be he’d come for some kind of revenge? She paused at the top of the steps. If so, she must intervene.
But Teddy clearly hadn’t wanted her within listening range, or he would have suggested she wait in the parlor rather than sending her all the way up to their room. She clutched her fingers, paralyzed with indecision. The memory of Reddington’s apoplectic face when they’d last seen him spurred her to action. She took the stairs back down swiftly, and stood outside Teddy’s study, listening.
She heard nothing. Turning the handle slowly, like a thief entering a darkened house, she opened the door just a crack and peered in. What she saw made her throw the door open and bolt through it.
Teddy was on his knees, bleeding from his temple, a pistol pointed inches from the middle of his forehead. His expression was one of cold fury.
No.
Her heart beat in her throat. “What are you doing?” she gasped.
“Killing your husband, Phoebe. Demanding satisfaction.” There was something decidedly wrong about Reddington. He didn’t look angry, he looked crazed. His cheeks were flushed and he was sweating profusely, moisture running down his sideburns and wetting his collar and cravat.