She did as she was told, albeit gingerly and with more care than was strictly necessary.
"Unbutton your shirt. You're not wearing a corset, are you?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
Mari blushed beautifully. She'd taken to not wearing one since she certainly wasn't receiving and wasn't attending any balls. Most days, the only people she saw were him and the nurse, and only occasionally, the doctor who was overseeing his recovery.
And she knew that he thought she should throw out all of her corsets, which was something that he'd threatened to do for her before he was injured.
"Spanking you would tire me out, Mari, but don't make the mistake of thinking I won't."
"I would never think that," she returned pertly, but she took his hint and undressed herself, baring herself to the waist then, belatedly, jumping up—against his protests—to go lock the door.
"Smart girl," he complimented as she settled herself back down against him.
How he had missed the sounds of her pleasure—the sighs, the gasps, the stuttered breaths. She had closed her eyes in ecstasy the moment his fingers found those delicate points, his mouth following soon afterwards as his hand reached boldly under her skirts.
Mari's head had lolled back at the familiar sensations he was creating within her, but it snapped back up when his hand breeched the hem of her skirt, forcing it to ride his wrist all the way up to the juncture of her thighs. "Con!" she whispered, scandalized to be touched so by him, somehow, although it wasn't as if he hadn't done it before.
"Yes, my love?" he asked, watching the signs of desire rising in her beautiful face.
"Y-you shouldn't."
"I know," he confessed on a whisper. "But I'm going to anyway. I want you to cum for me, Mari. I need to see you in pleasure. You've worked yourself much too hard lately. You need to feel good."
Just as his hand found that special spot, they heard the sounds of the nurse's heels on the hard wood floors, louder and louder, as she approached the door to his room.
Con sighed loudly in agitation as Mari took the opportunity to jump onto her feet.
Was that a relieved look on her face? Con wondered, staring at her covertly from beneath hooded eyes. He wondered why she looked as if she had received some sort of reprieve, as the nurse knocked brusquely when she came to relieve her.
As Mari made her way out the door, Nurse Headley handed him his medications, and Con called out, "To be continued, wife."
His wife did not reply, didn't even look at him, and he didn't consider that a good thing.
Chapter 9
Her strange reactions to him caused him to redouble his efforts at getting better, pushing himself to do so as quickly as possible. Evan was no longer a viable rival—he was in jail, awaiting trial—but there was something else going on with his Mari, and he intended to get to the bottom of it—perhaps through the bottom of her.
Soon after they'd been so rudely interrupted, he began to get out of bed more frequently, and when his wife came up to see to him, she often found him in the little sitting area at the end of the room, sometimes having gotten there by himself through sheer determination. She scolded him for having done so, something could have happened—he could have fallen and opened his stitches again, resulting in another infection...
It was the stark fear he saw in her eyes as she mentioned all of the things that could possibly go wrong that gave him a clue to what she felt, but did not tell him. She was worried about him, to the point of wanting to overprotect him. It must have been a terrible shock to see him injured like that. And he knew from talking to the doctors and nurses in the hospital in Paris that she had been devoted to him the entire time, to her own detriment. He knew that she had refused to leave his side for so much as a second while he was sick, and all of them credited her care—largely—with his survival.
He knew he was going to have to show her—to prove to her—that he was getting better. That she need not worry about him so much. His doctor said he was doing better than they expected and cleared him to do what he felt he could, in the way of gradually regaining his strength.
She buzzed about the room, straightening things that were already straight, and the next time she flitted by him, he grabbed her hand, using it to tug her down onto his lap.
Mari looked surprised to find herself there, as if she hadn't thought that he'd recovered enough of his strength to do that, but he had. He'd recovered enough to kiss her breathless and to hold her still. Although, he also knew that she was remaining quiet partially because she didn't want to hurt him, and he was only too happy to use that instance of her extreme concern for him to his own advantage, his big hand stealing under her skirts to find the area he'd had to leave off tending to her several days ago.
"Con," she breathed, and he knew she meant it to be a protest, but it sounded much more like a plea. "No…"
"Yes," he countermanded quietly and made it so, not allowing her to avoid what he intended to do to her, bringing her expertly to the brink and holding her there, watching her slowly, reluctantly cede control of her body to him until he knew that she could think of nothing but the culmination he could give her.
And then he stopped.
She continued to grind herself against his hand until he withdrew it completely, and he saw a flash of her temper as she literally growled at him in frustration. He'd never done that to her before, and he hadn't planned to then, but it had come into his mind that perhaps she needed to be reminded of what he could do for her. She was a sensual little thing, always halfway there even when he knew she didn't want to be, such as after a spanking.
Perhaps a little denial would be good for her soul.
It was probably going to kill him outright, but he thought it might help her to come to see him as a man again—as her very capable husband—instead of her patient.
From that point on, he took every opportunity he could to touch her, and insisted on doing even more things that he knew made her afraid for him or nervous about what might happen. Such as the first time he came downstairs to eat, leaning heavily on their footman, Albert, and gritting his teeth as he did so, but he made it to find her fussing at the bottom of the stairs, white as a sheet and looking as if she might burst into tears if he so much as winced.
So he took a deep breath and pasted a smile on his face, trading Albert for a cane he detested and beckoning his wife over to him so that he could lean much more enjoyably against her, although he was careful not to give her too much of his weight.
He gave her just enough of it to feel as if she was helping him, when he could easily have made the journey himself.
He stayed downstairs for a few hours in his study as she hovered over him until he threatened to take her over his knee if she didn't sit down. She looked a bit hurt, but he didn't wish to pursue it further so he didn't offer comfort. He was of a mind that would merely encourage her.
It became a habit of his for a while to breakfast with her downstairs and spend several hours there, then go up to his room for lunch and have a nap that became shorter and shorter—except when Mari was with him, then it became entirely too long, and he got absolutely no sleep, but enjoyed himself enormously.
He'd tried to coax her to touch him as they lay there together for the first few times after he'd been injured, but he had finally had to out and out order her to do so in a very stern tone. As she did so, he slapped her bottom for her reluctance, feeling it warm beneath his palm as he warmed and rose beneath hers.
After pressing the snuffbox he kept in his side table into her hand, enjoying watching her discover what was in it almost as much as he enjoyed her touch. She was still so deliciously innocent in some ways, and it never failed to both charm and arouse him.
"Dip your fingers into it and then come stroke me. I ache for you."
Mari coated her fingers with the slippery stuff then formed a fist with them and slowly glided it over his engorged cock. She had missed seeing him like this, missed feeling that very fe
minine power, which was entirely different from anything else she'd ever experienced in her life. The idea that she could—and did—reduce this big, smart, accomplished man to a blithering idiot just by touching him like this...
It made her jealous of the powerful orgasm he experienced at her hands, twitching, thrusting, and arching within her relentless fingers—because he had yet to permit her to enjoy one of her own.
He'd touched her and teased her and kissed her breathless and nipped at her nipples, doing all the things he knew she loved the best, even stroking her occasionally, but he'd not allowed her full pleasure, and it had been more than a week now that he'd been torturing her like that.
She swore the next time he so much as looked at her with intent; she was going to fly into the sun, right then and there, no matter who was with them at the time.
But he didn't seem to be in any hurry to do anything but recover, which he was doing at a very rapid pace. It wasn't long before he insisted on spending some of his day—not downstairs, but at his office. Alone. Away from her.
A consummate strategist, he hadn't given her any warning about his intentions at all, the first day he'd decided to go.
He'd come down for breakfast, joining his wife, who greeted him lovingly but with a hand that had—out of long habit—crept to his forehead to assure herself that his temperature was normal. Con didn't criticize, didn't even comment. If it helped her feel better to do that for the rest of their lives, then it was a small, quite loving thing for a husband to accommodate in his wife.
Since he was no longer in need of her daily care, he had begun to turn the tables on her, and he didn't hesitate to mention when he found her doing something she shouldn't, or not doing something she should.
Such as eating.
They had both lost weight while he was ill, but she had much fewer reserves in that manner than he did. He had gotten skinnier, leaner. She had nearly become emaciated, and he didn't like it one bit.
So this morning, he took her plate away from her, when she was going to serve herself from the delicacies Mrs. Foster had created for them, and loaded her plate himself. Not quite as much as he wanted to, but with much more food than he knew she would naturally have chosen—a small amount of scrambled eggs, no more than a tablespoon of potatoes, bacon he dug through to find the limpest strips of because that's what he knew she preferred, and a piece of buttered toast.
Then he offered her his arm in a gallant gesture, escorting her to her seat at his right hand, putting the plate down at her place, pulling out her chair, laying her napkin in her lap and then pushing her chair up a bit. Then he made a plate of his own—quite overloaded—and joined her, saying without looking at her, "I expect you to eat every bite, Mari, or you will find yourself over my lap at the breakfast table, and you know that I don't give a damn who sees me do it."
She knew he didn't issue idle threats and made her way through the repast as best she could, feeling stuffed to the gills afterwards.
When she was finished—he having long since been—he stood and bowed low to her, offering her his arm again. She stood and took it, and he guided her back up the stairs they had just come down.
Nurse Headley appeared at the bottom of them, saying, "Your Grace, you have a doctor's appointment this morning at ten."
Con threw blithely over his shoulders, his eyes never leaving his wife's, "Please send word to the doctor that I shan't make that appointment and please reschedule it for later in the week. And call my office and tell them I won't be in today, either."
Mari opened her mouth to register a complaint about him skipping doctor's appointments and didn't even begin to contemplate that he had intended to go to his office today, but found his big finger over her mouth.
"Not a word, Mari, or I'll make you wait another week," he warned.
His words made her contract and she felt herself moisten, and somehow, she knew that he knew she'd done both of those things.
When they were safely ensconced in his room, the door locked with a resounding click behind him, he stripped her of the clothes that Danvers had just put her into, strewing them all around the floor. Then he laid her down on his bed with exquisite care as she struggled—but not too hard—in his arms, wanting to protest against him doing that, but finding that finger again at her lips.
As much as she didn't want him to hurt himself again, she also didn't want to find out what was going to happen if she continued to speak.
Taking her hand, he kissed each of her fingers gently. "Oh, Mari, I have missed you so. I'll never be able to properly thank you for taking such wonderful care of me, but you can stand down from that now. I'm almost a hundred percent, and it's time for things to return to the way they should be between us—with me taking care of you."
And he proceeded to put actions to his words as she blushed at his extravagant praise.
In short, he allowed himself to worship her in a way that he hadn't, until then. The sight of her stricken face as she'd run to him on the field—to him and not Holyoake—still fresh in his mind, he poured everything he had and everything he felt into showing her how much he loved her. Yes, he'd made mistakes—miscalculations about her and about himself, and try as he might, he was going to make mistakes in guiding her in the future, too.
But he adored her, and he couldn't believe that, when the chips were down, she chose him, and then she stuck by him, going well above and beyond the duties of a wife in that situation. Even the best women he knew would have stood back and let the professionals do their jobs.
But not his Mari. She stepped in and learned everything she needed to in order to take care of him as well—or perhaps even better—than they did themselves. Not technically better, because she hadn't been trained as one, but as someone with what he liked to think of as a tender feeling for him. He wasn't so vain as to think she loved him. It was too soon for that, if it ever happened. But she felt something for him, even if it was just the loyalty of a wife for her husband.
He'd take that.
He'd take anything he could get from her. He wasn't at all too proud to count the smallest of smiles from her as signs that she cared for him.
And what she'd done was the biggest sign he'd had yet.
So now, he was determined to do for her.
Con put every considerable lovemaking skill he'd ever learned—in whorehouses around the world, as well as the bedrooms of some relatively famous courtesans—to use, beginning by merely touching her lightly, delicately all over, watching the gooseflesh rise in the wake of his hands and fingers.
He relearned every hill and valley, every crease and line, massaging her scalp with his fingers, kissing her toes, and gently molesting every inch of her between. Then he began again, from the bottom up, halting, lingering, lavishing the more intimate areas with longer attentions, but careful not to stir her up too much just yet.
Then he turned her onto her stomach, and her hands automatically went behind her to cover her bottom.
He had found that a scolding tone worked wonders with her, and he employed a powerful one now, keeping his tone and volume low as he warned, "Mari. Where should those hands be?"
Her hands moved immediately to hide themselves under the pillow beneath her head, but even though she'd complied, she still wasn't allowed to ignore a question from him—even one that seemed to her to be rhetorical, and especially not the ones he made her not want to answer.
"Con..."
There would be no reprieve, she knew, no matter what she did or said, and before she could answer him, she felt a sharp swat to her exposed behind.
"Under my pillow—they're under my pillow."
"They are now," he intoned gravely. "But they didn't start out there, did they?"
"No! I don't want to be spanked!"
He was unmovable, the way he knew she needed him to be. "What happens when you disobey me, my lovely wife?"
She squirmed and wiggled, never actually getting anywhere. He'd never allow her to escape him or a p
unishment he'd deemed she was due.
"I get spanked," she whispered.
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, it began, and although it was just as painful as all the others he had ever given her, it was somehow different, too. More sensual. His free hand wasn't just holding her in place, as it often had to do. It was insinuating itself between legs that it had tapped open, even as he continued to punish her, ignoring the sniffles and cries its partner elicited from her and moving to press two fingers firmly into her as she gasped from that abrupt invasion and not the swats he was administering. His thumb settled onto her clit and began to rub lazily back and forth, as her cries of distress mingled with those of the bliss he was also making her feel.
Swat after swat, spank after spank, he continued to probe gently, flicking relentlessly. She was on the edge of her culmination almost instantly, but he simply kept her there, making her think that she was finally going to be granted release.
Eventually, though, the fingers between her legs drifted away as he increased the frequency and strength with which spanked her, until the agony he was subjecting her to completely overpowered the titillating distraction he'd created between her legs and she began to sob.
With no warning, Con rolled Mari onto her back, replacing his fingers with his mouth and lips and burying his head against her cleft, suckling and dragging his tongue over her relentlessly, until he could feel that she was seconds away from orgasming.
That was when he lifted his head from between her legs and caught her eye. "Cum, Mari. Cum on my mouth."
She could see that his mouth and beard were shiny with her own juices, and as soon as he returned them to claim her again, she began to convulse and scream at the same time, actively trying to escape his hold—it was too hard, too intense to bear.
But he wasn't about to let her deter him from bringing her every single powerful spasm he could. He held her down to do just that, sending her flying much too close to the sun again and again, never letting up, never easing off, taking all of what she had to give to him, forcing her to surrender herself and her pleasure to him totally and completely.
Man and Wife: A Sweet Historical Love Story Page 10