Her hands slid into his jacket, his hard muscles moving under her fingers as she stroked his chest. As if encouraged by her own explorations, his hand very carefully slid up to her breast.
This time she didn't panic. This time she just let the pleasure of the foreign sensation wash over her. It felt so strange, but so good to have someone else touching her there. His finger ran over the hard bud of her nipple and she whimpered into his mouth, her knees weakening, as her entire body responded. It felt like a fire was moving through her, starting at her center and spreading through her limbs, making her more needy than she'd ever felt before.
She was rewarded as his hand tightened on her, his body pressing against hers, and they began moving towards the bed. Excitement spiraled inside of her as his hand slipped into the front of her bodice, touching the bare skin of her breast and intensifying the sensation. She shuddered, her hands clutching at him as she was dimly aware of the bed coming up behind her.
Pushing his jacket off of his shoulders, she mourned the loss of his hands on her for the moment it took to shake the garment from his arms, and then moaned as he wrapped her even more tightly within them. The physical sensations were so sharp, so intense, and so much more than she'd ever imagined. Her body was being swept away by these unfamiliar caresses, her inexperience making her mindless as she processed the novel surge of passion that was driving her.
When Felix's mouth left her lips, leaving them swollen and aching, and moved to her neck, she gasped aloud as he feathered kisses over her sensitive skin. Nothing she'd heard, nothing she'd seen, could have prepared her for how it felt. There was something intensely intimate about it, making her knees quake even more, as she realized that his arms were truly the only thing holding her upright.
She had the sensation of being lost in a whirlwind, and her dominate thought was joy at his desire... at his interest.
Experienced rake that he was, she didn't even notice that he'd undone the buttons on her dress until it suddenly gaped and fell, leaving her in her corset and chemise. Heat rose in her cheeks as his mouth trailed down her collarbone, her gown in a puddle at her feet. Not wanting to be the only one unclothed, she insisted on tugging his waistcoat and shirt from him.
He raised his eyebrow as she helped pull his shirt over his head. "Are you sure you know what you're doing, sweetheart?"
"I know enough," she replied tartly, her body still thrumming as she stepped back into his arms. She looked up at him, her chin lifting in challenge. "Am I doing anything wrong?"
The smile she received in return was wicked. "Absolutely not."
His lips fell to hers again as he began the work of removing her corset, and Gabrielle's body thrilled to the touch. With his chest bare, she could run her fingers through the wiry hair there, exploring the differences between his hard, muscular body and her own much softer one. The flat discs of his nipples had tiny, sensitive bumps at their center, and he groaned when she brushed them with her fingertips. A strange rush of power swept through her, making her explorations even more earnest.
******
The eagerness with which Gabrielle had undressed him threatened his resolve. He knew she was an innocent. Her gasps and trembles at his touch, the way she seemed unsure about exactly how to touch him, her blushes as he kissed and undressed her was proof enough of that, but he hadn't expected her to reciprocate. The passion that she was showing both pleased and concerned him.
If he couldn't bind her to him by something more than duty, would she eventually turn to someone else to share this passion? Would her affections one day be lavished on another man? Felix couldn't bear the thought.
He wanted all of this, all of her, focused on him, for the rest of their lives. So he used every trick he'd ever learned, dragging his mouth and fingers over her skin as he removed her corset and chemise. When he picked her up and placed her on the bed, completely nude, and paused to admire her form, she blushed bright pink.
The swell of her breasts were tipped with dark pink nipples, begging to be suckled and touched. The cream of her skin was unblemished, save for an adorable trio of tiny moles at her hip, mere inches from the enticing thatch of dark brown curls on her mound. She pressed her legs together as her blushed deepened, one of her hands moving to cover her breasts.
"No, sweetheart, don't hide from me," he said, leaning down and placing his knee on the bed, leaning forward to press his hand against the mattress on the other side of her body so that he was hovering over her. "I want to see every beautiful inch of you."
Hell, he wanted to touch every inch of her, worship every inch of her. Gabrielle blushed again as he very slowly lowered his mouth to hers, adjusting himself so that he was straddling her thighs, but keeping his weight well away from her. Inside his breeches, his cock was fit to burst, and it didn't help when her delicate fingers reached up to stroke his bare chest again, her fingers seeking out those spots that she'd already discovered.
Felix had never bedded a virgin before, but he hadn't imagined her being quite so brazen - especially after the night before. Had his efforts today really changed her that much? Or had she just had enough time to resign herself to being his wife?
Although she didn't feel resigned... but her inexperience also meant she possibly didn't quite understand what he was doing to her body. As an accomplished rake, Felix had dallied with quite a few ladies who had never experienced passion or pleasure in the bedroom and he knew that they found their first experiences with it to be overwhelming. Was Gabrielle simply responding physically because he was her first?
The questions whirling in his brain were the only things holding his lust in check as he caressed the soft curves of her body, his teeth nipping at her lower lip, his tongue pressing inside of her mouth. Beneath him, Gabrielle shuddered and arched, moaning into his mouth as he stoked the fires of her passion higher. She was incredibly responsive. When her nails dragged down his chest, the sharp sensation left him shuddering.
Moving one hand down between them, he felt her belly quiver as he traced a pattern over her silky skin, moving ever lower to the juncture of her legs. Shifting his weight, he slid one knee between her thighs, parting them. Gabrielle's body stiffened and then softened, and then stiffened again as he slid his fingers through her curls. She whimpered, her hips arching - which was not quite the reaction he had expected, but which he was quite pleased by.
The delicate folds of her pussy were dripping with her arousal, the stiff bud of her clit swollen and hard under the pads of his fingers as he dragged them around the sensitive nubbin. The startled cry she let out had him grinning. The sensation of self-pleasure was very different from having someone else touching such intimate areas. There was no way to predict how they might touch, how they might move.
He let his finger slide lower, ignoring the way her hips lifted, searching for more contact with the tiny bud, and move lower to her virginal hole. One finger pressed inward and he groaned at the tightness as she clamped down around him. The incredible slick heat made his cock ache to be inside of her, to feel that tightness wrapped around him. Gently he pumped his finger, stretching her opening, using his thumb to tease the swollen bud of her clitoris, making her gasp and arch with pleasure. The barrier of her virginity was still intact and he nearly groaned at the thought of being her first and only. Gabrielle was his.
Having her writhing beneath him tested his self-control more than anything else he'd ever experienced. He focused on pleasuring her, on her every gasp, her every shudder, finding her most sensitive spots, anything to district himself from the urges of his own body. This was about her... about pleasuring her, showing her what he could do for her, showing her what their marriage could be.
Curling his finger inside of her, he stroked, and she screamed against his lips, his mouth muffling the sound of her ecstasy. His cock pulsed, fluid leaking from the tip and rubbing uncomfortably against his breeches. Her body spasmed around his finger as he stirred it inside of her, expertly drawing out her pleasure as t
he heel of his hand pressed against her swollen pleasure nub.
******
Ecstasy rioted through Gabrielle's body, more intense and more powerful than she'd ever experienced before. Felix's fingers on her, inside of her, were a revelation. The man was wickedly sinful, making her melt with his kiss, making her explode with his touch. She sobbed against his lips, tears leaking from her eyes at the sheer intensity of the pleasure ripping through her.
She could feel him inside of her, stroking and pressing, as the rest of his hand circled against her sensitive flesh. The sensations sent her soaring, making her writhe with abandon beneath him, clutching at his shoulders, until the climax finally ebbed and she began to breathe more freely again. Her grip on him loosened as his movements slowed, and she rubbed her palms against his skin, luxuriating in the strangeness of touching a man totally bare.
As his finger slid out of her, she smiled up at him, ready for the next part.
But his kiss was gentle, not passionate, and when he sat up on his knees it was with an air of finality about it. He shifted to the side, removing himself from between her legs and sat beside her instead. Gabrielle watched him, confusion rising, as he trailed his fingers down her stomach and her leg, a gentle caress, but not the kind she was looking for. There were marks on his broad shoulders from her own passion, reddened crescents where she'd dug her nails into his flesh, but they didn't mar the perfection of his body at all. Those lean muscles, decorated with dark hair that trickled from his chest down to his stomach, shifted as he moved, leaning his weight onto one hand as he looked down at her. She lay frozen, unsure of what to do now and feeling strangely vulnerable.
"Did you enjoy that sweetheart?"
Gabrielle narrowed her eyes at him. The wry tone in which he'd asked that question...
"It's not over." She rolled onto her side to face him, stifling the urge to cover herself up. With the way he was looking at her, covering her body would not help her cause. There was a hunger in his dark eyes, one that she recognized, and she could see the stiff, full shape of his manhood even though he was still half dressed. He wanted to do the rest of it, so what was stopping him? She didn't like the way he'd just pulled away.
"It is for tonight." The gentle way he said it did nothing to assuage the fury and hurt that suddenly lanced through her. The languid satisfaction in her muscles vanished, all of them tensing as she realized he was rejecting her. That he didn't want to do what she'd seen the Marquess and Cordelia doing.
"Get out." The ice that was sliding through her veins was clear in her voice. She rolled away from him, grabbing for a pillow, wanting nothing more than to cover herself now. Whatever had caused the hungry look in his eyes, it obviously wasn't what she'd thought. She'd been wrong about him again.
The corner of his lip quirked upwards, infuriating her further. Did he think this was funny?
"We're in my room," he said.
Sliding off the side of the bed, still hugging the pillow to her front, Gabrielle sidled around the large piece of furniture, refusing to meet his eyes. She felt so humiliated and stupid for thinking that he wanted her. For thinking that she should try to be his wife. Bleakness rose up inside of her, making her chest tight, and she beat it down, because she wouldn't let him see her cry.
"Gabrielle," he said, sighing, as he moved to block her way. She stared at a fixed point in the middle of the chest she'd been admiring only a few minutes earlier. It wasn't that nice a chest now that she thought about it. Since she had nothing to compare it to, it was quite likely that there were much nicer chests out there in the world. "What's wrong?"
"Wrong?" she spat the word at him. The pent-up emotions in her chest seemed harder to contain than usual. The passion she'd just shared with him, the openness, left her feeling raw and unshielded. His words scraped at her emotions; rejection and fury welled in response. In fact, she hadn't felt quite so emotionally undone since Cordelia's wedding, when she thought he'd been threatening to beat her. Now she knew the difference between a spanking and a beating, but at the time she'd been frightened, miserable and alone. Furious, miserable and alone didn't feel much better. "What could possibly be wrong? I'm married, but not a wife. I let you... let you do that to me, but you still don't want to, to..."
Her voice ran out, and she felt her cheeks turning even pinker, now from embarrassment instead of the wave of anger she'd been riding.
Felix crossed his arms over his chest. Gabrielle gripped the pillow she was holding tighter, leaning against the bedpost, shifting her gaze to his shoulder.
"Exactly what don't I want to do?" he asked, his voice deceptively mild. There was a hardness underneath it that she recognized from her encounters with the Marquess. Somehow, for some reason, he thought she'd done something wrong.
Her anger boiled over.
"The marriage act."
"How much do you know about the marriage act?"
The heat bloomed in her face, and this time she couldn't tell if it was embarrassment or her ire. "I know that wasn't it."
"And how do you know that?" His voice was hard now, uncompromising.
Gabrielle's gaze dropped to his bare feet. It was definitely embarrassment coloring her face now. Somehow she'd ended up on the defensive... guilt suffused her. She knew she shouldn't have spied on the Marquess and Cordelia the way she had... but she'd been too enthralled by what she'd witnessed - too excited by it to try and sneak away. It hadn't just been educational, it had been fascinating. Arousing.
"Gabrielle. Tell me, now."
She'd rather die than tell him. Because if she did tell him, she might die anyway - of embarrassment. What if he told the Marquess and Cordelia? The Marquess couldn't punish her anymore... could he? Would Felix let him?
Thinking about the possible consequences of confession made Gabrielle's lips tighten, and she shook her head, unable to lift her head to look him in the eye.
Making a noise rather like a growl, Felix stepped forward and grabbed her so quickly that Gabrielle squeaked in surprise and dropped the pillow she'd been clinging to. The next thing she knew, Felix was sitting on the edge of the bed and she was over his lap, his hard member digging into her side and one hand holding her securely in place.
"What are you doing?!" She squirmed, trying to get away; she splayed her hands on the floor as her balance teetered.
Her husband's hand rubbed her bottom and Gabrielle sucked in a breath as the vulnerability of her current position hit her. She was naked, with her bottom tilted up - the same position the Marquess' chair had put her in for spankings, but so much more intimate and so much more terrifying.
"Gabrielle," he said, his voice soft but somehow even more threatening than before. "Tell me how you know about the marital act, or I will spank you until you do."
This was the second time Felix had threatened her with a spanking, and unlike the first time she wasn't terrified by the mere prospect. Discipline in the Marquess' household had taught her the difference between a spanking and what she'd thought a beating would be. Gabrielle's bottom had paid the price for misbehavior more than once in the past few months - with a wooden paddle and Cordelia looking on, no less. She was sure that she could take whatever her husband would mete out; deep down, she knew that he wouldn't ever really hurt her. It made his threat less effective.
Especially because she didn't see a paddle anywhere in sight.
Clamping her lips together, Gabrielle shook her head and wriggled, trying to get away... but his hand held her tightly against him, his arm like a bar across her lower back as his fingers curved into her opposite hip. There was no escaping, which meant that she would just have to bear it.
SLAP!
SLAP!
Ouch! It stung, but at the same time, Gabrielle felt almost like laughing. Her husband's hand was no match for the paddle the Marquess had wielded. There was no deep, throbbing burn; it was lighter, sharper, but much more bearable than the spankings she'd received before.
Almost as if he'd heard her tho
ughts, Felix's hand came down harder, on exactly the same spot he'd already spanked on each cheek - the very center.
SMACK!
SMACK!
Gabrielle gritted her teeth. Those two had hurt more than she'd expected after the first smacks, but certainly still not enough to make her confess her sins. She could only imagine how much worse the punishment would be for spying on her guardians! Besides, this still didn't hurt as badly as the paddle.
SMACK!
SMACK!
"You can make this stop at any time, you know," her husband said, his voice silky and coaxing. "Just tell me how much you know about the marital act and how you came by your education."
Gabrielle couldn't help it. She laughed. "You think a few swats to my bottom will make any difference to me?"
******
There was his feisty bride. Felix couldn't help but grin at her challenge. He wondered if she realized how much she was enjoying her current predicament. While she'd made a few half-hearted moves to escape his hold, she hadn't truly struggled. And despite her taunting words, he didn't think she was looking for release - it was more like she was testing him. Trying to find her boundaries, prodding him to react. If he let her go now, she would never respect him or his dominance over her.
Not that he had any intention of doing so anyway, but it made his resolve to tame his bride even firmer.
"Very well then," he murmured, tipping her forward even more. She shrieked as her legs kicked involuntarily, her bottom raising even higher in the air than it had before. "A spanking it is."
While she may have been disciplined under Philip's hand, that was a very different thing from being disciplined by a lover or a husband, as she was about to find out. Felix didn't waste anytime; he immediately aimed his hand for her sensitive sit-spot; the crease between the delicious curve of her bottom and her thighs. The first four swats he'd landed on the center of her cheeks, which now carried two bright pink splotches on the creamy mounds. His cock was hard as steel, pressed against the soft curve of her body, as he admired his handiwork.
Gabrielle's Discipline (Bridal Discipline Book 3) Page 7