She still wore her undergarments, because in the past, Nik had always preferred to remove them himself. More often than not by ripping them from her body once his fingers had slipped inside the slit in her drawers and played with and stroked her nubbin and cunny until she was wet and begging for release.
Angelique had teased Nik in the past, and they had laughed together over the cost of constantly having to replace those ripped undergarments.
There would be no teasing him or laughter between them today, she accepted somewhat numbly.
Nor would there be an ounce of gentleness beneath the lust she had seen in his eyes earlier. As there would be no reasoning with the fierceness of his desire to claim and punish her.
For what, Angelique still had no idea.
Nik seemed to think she should, but she genuinely had no clue as to what he believed her to be guilty of.
She had not even looked at another man since Nik offered for her three years ago.
Why would she when she had fallen so deeply in love with her handsome and prestigious future husband?
Since their marriage, she had felt even less inclination to note the merits of other gentlemen. Nik’s unique and wholly possessive brand of lovemaking had easily held her captive within the pleasurable and sensual web of his lovemaking.
Six months without that connection between them had rendered Angelique totally bereft, with a hollowness inside her that she knew only he could fill.
But not like this.
Not with anger and accusations toward her of goodness knows what.
Perhaps she might still reason with him? Persuade him into talking to her rather than—
A single hasty glance from beneath her lashes showed the unrelenting coldness of Nik’s expression as he quietly entered the bedchamber and closed the door softly behind him. It was enough to tell Angelique that he was beyond being reasoned with or persuaded into doing anything he did not wish to do.
His mouth noticeably tightened after she gave him that one quick glance. “Did I give you permission to look at me?”
Angelique stared down at the slightly dusty boots that were now planted firmly in front of her. Nor was she impulsive enough to answer him until he had given his permission for her to do so.
It was the game they had played since the first night of their marriage, when Nik had explained that in the bedchamber, he wished for her to submit to him completely.
Her mother had, of course, given Angelique an idea of what took place in the marriage bed, but in none of those conversations had Lady Jacqueline ever mentioned the sexual relationship Nik had described to his bride as being his own preference.
But as a new wife, aged only twenty and very much in love, Angelique had been only too willing to learn what pleased her husband. As Nik had taken pleasure in discovering all that pleased her.
Until six months ago, Angelique had reveled in the intensity of that sexual relationship, finding unimagined pleasure as her husband introduced her to and satisfied her own newly released desires.
But in the past, it had always been a game, and not one that had ever caused her physical harm or continued outside of Nik’s bedchamber. Then, he treated her with the utmost consideration and respect, as was due his duchess.
Admittedly, Nik had never once professed to feel the same love for her that Angelique had quickly learned to feel for him, but the intensity and closeness of their lovemaking had always given her the confidence to believe Nik to be a faithful husband, at least.
Knowing how strong his sexual needs were, how he had always taken her at least once a day and more often twice, sometimes three times, his avoidance of her these past six months told her she would be foolish to continue to believe even that was true.
She did not believe Nik could have abstained from sex for all these months, which meant another woman now shared that intimacy with him.
Did the other woman hold his heart too, in a way Angelique never had?
The pain of believing that might be the case hurt more than any physical betrayal could have done.
“Answer me,” he snapped.
She moistened the dryness of her lips. “No, you did not give me permission to look at you.”
“And what should your punishment be?”
“Whatever you decide.” She answered as she knew she was expected to do. But then, unable to withstand the injustice of this situation a moment longer, she looked up at him imploringly. “Are you treating me in this cold way because I have not given you an heir?”
Nik looked stunned. “Why on earth should you think that?”
Her gaze avoided meeting his. “We have been married for three years, and no child has been conceived. I have seen doctors regarding my painful monthlies, but they can find no explanation for either that or why I have not conceived. But I know it is something that must cause you as much disappointment as it does me,” she added heavily.
“I am not disappointed, Angelique,” he scorned. “Indeed, I am relieved we do not have a child together.”
Angelique felt his rejection as if it were a physical blow. “Why are you being so cruel to me?” she choked. “If you have taken a lover, then it would be kinder if you were to tell me our marriage is over and be done with it rather than continue—continue this farce of a marriage.”
Nik closed his eyes briefly to shut out how broken and miserable Angelique looked. She deserved to be broken and to feel miserable, after what she had done.
As for them having a child…
He had, of course, been disappointed as the months and then years passed without Angelique conceiving their child. Now he could only feel relieved he would not one day have to explain the fate of their mother to his son or daughter.
He had come to Kent for one purpose and one purpose only, to acquire Angelique’s confession of treason. If she refused to give that to him willingly, then he would take it by force. He could not allow himself to weaken just because Angelique had managed to shed a few false tears to wet the long lashes surrounding those pleading green eyes.
His jaw hardened as he looked down at her dispassionately. She looked so achingly beautiful in her submission his cock was already hard and straining to be feet free from his pantaloons. Beautiful, but so fucking treacherous too. “Get up.”
Her eyes widened at this change in their usual game. “You wish me to stand?”
“That is what I said, yes.”
She rose slowly, gracefully, to her stockinged feet, gaze lowered as she waited for his next command.
Which Nik was only too happy to give. “Lower your drawers to mid-thigh and bend over the end of the bed.”
The frown cleared from her brow as she moved to obey the familiar instruction, expecting, no doubt, that Nik was about to spank her bared ass before taking it. And he did intend punishing her, just not with the spanking she believed he would.
Nik could literally feel himself begin to shake as he stared at the naked globes of Angelique’s ass as she knelt beside the bed with her drawers down her thighs. It had been so long since he’d gazed upon those tempting orbs. She was not plump by any means, but neither was she slender, and the full cheeks of her bottom were pale and unmarked. For now.
“Arms stretched out in front of you,” Nik rasped as he used his booted foot to part her legs wider still, until he had revealed the swollen and slick nether lips between her thighs to his heated gaze. “Do not move,” he instructed as he unfastened the fold of his pantaloons to draw out his cock. One of his hands began to slowly pump the long and engorged length, pleasure coursing through him as he stared down at the wetness of Angelique’s cunny and the tiny rosette of her bottom. Both of which he knew intimately.
But not today.
As he had said, today was not about Angelique’s pleasure, and Nik needed to ensure his own release before her real torture began. He would never physically harm her, or any other woman, only wished to punish her for her duplicity and betrayal.
Angelique had no idea wha
t Nik was doing behind her, nor did she turn to look at him. She knew better than to do so. But it was painful, bordering on agony, to hear the rustling of his clothing, followed by the sound of flesh moving against flesh, and to realize Nik’s hand was pumping his own cock.
The implication being he could not even attain an erection for her now without pleasuring himself first.
She held back a sob at the knowledge, feeling totally exposed, her fingers tightly gripping the brocade bedcover as she waited for whatever came next.
The seconds and then minutes of waiting stretched to an unbearable level, the only sound in the room the increasingly wet sound of that flesh against flesh before it eased, only to begin again seconds later. Her husband made not a sound as he pumped himself time and time again to the brink of release before stopping, waiting several long seconds, before starting the ritual all over again.
Angelique was unable to prevent her own arousal as she imagined Nik’s fingers about that thick and engorged length as he stroked and pumped his cock, the bulbous tip slick with his juices. Her breasts were swollen and aching, the nipples painfully hard, her clit a burning throb. She could feel the juices dripping down the insides of her thighs, wetting her drawers where she had pulled them down to expose herself to him.
There was no warning, no sound from Nik, before hot pulses of his cum suddenly splattered onto the base of her spine and the cheeks of her bottom before dripping down to mingle with the juices on her thighs.
He aimed the last of those fierce jets directly onto her swollen and sensitive clit.
It was so raw, so debased, his cum so hot against her pulsing flesh, that it instantly sent Angelique into the maelstrom of her own sobbing release.
A hard slap instantly landed on her left bottom cheek. “I did not give you permission to come.”
The pulsing of her clit continued. “I—I cannot stop—”
“You can.” Another slap landed on her other bottom cheek. “You will,” he warned as her body continued to quiver and shake in continued release. “I said stop, Angelique.” The third slap landed directly between her widely parted thighs.
Angelique had been too long without physical pleasure. Those hard slaps to her bottom cheeks prolonged the ecstasy of her release as she came a second time.
“So fucking disobedient.” Nik breathed heavily as he knelt behind her and one of his hands rubbed the result of his release over her bottom cheeks and then lower between her aching and sensitive thighs. “Come again, and I will take a strap to you,” he warned.
His fingers coated her nether lips with his cum before he pushed two of them into the wetness of her cunny and began to stroke and pump them rhythmically against the sensitive bundle of nerves inside her.
“I cannot stop. Nik, please!”
“You will receive one lash across your ass for every time you come without my permission,” he bit out grimly. “So far, that number stands at two.”
Despite Nik’s threats, Angelique was unable to stop her response, her breathing becoming a choked sob as she climaxed a third time.
“Three.”
“But you are deliberately—” She broke off as Nik’s sure and stroking fingers succeeded in sending yet another pulsing release ripping through her.
“Four,” he grated.
Angelique was now so lost in that whirlpool of never-ending climax after climax that she could only give a groan of protest as Nik’s fingers were suddenly removed and she could no longer feel the warmth of his body along the length of her spine.
She remained as she was as he rose to his feet, her head turned to watch while he pushing his still-hard cock inside his pantaloons before refastening them. He crossed the room to wrench open the door, the first indication Angelique had that someone had been loudly knocking upon it.
“Yes?” he demanded of the person out in the hallway.
“I wish to say goodbye to my daughter— Good God, what are you doing to my darling Angelique?”
Angelique closed her eyes when saw her mother standing in the open doorway of the bedchamber, knowing exactly what Lady Jacqueline must see.
Her daughter bent over the bed, ropes of Stonewell’s cum all over her lower back and her bared bottom, the redness of the latter showing she had recently been very soundly spanked. Her exposed pussy lips would be red and slick as evidence of the releases that had followed that spanking.
Angelique’s humiliation was complete.
Chapter 3
“You will remain outside in the hallway, madam,” Nik instructed coldly as Lady Jacqueline attempted to brush past him.
“But— What are you doing to her?” The older woman glared at him. “I always thought there was more beneath that cold and controlled demeanor than you chose to present to the world,” she added accusingly. “But I did not imagine it could be such depravity as this.”
“Then it must please you immensely to learn my needs in the bedchamber exceed even your expectations,” Nik challenged, nostrils flaring as he held his emotions in check.
If Angelique believed him unmoved by her ready response to him, then she was mistaken. Hearing Angelique’s cries of ecstasy, feeling the way her cunny spasmed and gripped his fingers when she came, had caused his cock to harden a second time.
Luckily, Lady Jacqueline’s pale green eyes narrowed on his face rather than his groin. “If you think I am leaving my daughter here with you after what I have witnessed, then you are mistaken!”
“Mother…”
Nik turned sharply to glare at Angelique as she quickly crossed the bedchamber. Her drawers were pulled up and had been refastened to cover her punished bottom. “Did I say you could stand or adjust your clothing?”
Her cheeks became flushed. “We are no longer alone, Stonewell—”
“Did I say you could stand or adjust your clothing?” His voice was no less menacing for its softness.
“No. But—”
“Why did you never tell me what a brute he is to you?” Lady Jacqueline demanded of her daughter.
“It would have made no difference if she had.” Nik was the one to answer the older woman, arms folded in front of his chest. “Angelique is my wife to do with as I please. My property,” he added pointedly.
The older woman’s jaw tightened. “You—”
“You sold your daughter to me when I paid you twenty thousand pounds the day before our wedding,” he reminded her softly.
Angelique’s pained gasp and the sudden pallor of her cheeks confirmed what Nik had always suspected; she hadn’t known about the large sum of money he had settled on her mother three years ago.
He hardened his heart against his wife’s obvious anguish. If he had chosen to keep secrets from her, then they were in no way as dire as the ones she had been keeping from him. “Get out and take your lover back to London with you,” he told his mother-in-law harshly. “And think yourself lucky I have not banished you both from all my homes. Yet,” he added in soft warning.
Jacqueline Kingston gave her daughter one last, apologetic glance before stepping away from the doorway and fleeing down the hallway.
Nik slammed the door behind her with such force, the sound was still echoing around the room as he turned to face his wife.
Angelique’s cheeks were still deathly white, her eyes shining like twin jewels against that pallor. “You bought me.” It was a statement, not a question.
Nik’s mouth twisted. “Once I became your husband, you became mine anyway.”
“But you paid my mother twenty thousand pounds the day before our wedding to ensure it took place.”
He raised dark brows. “Was there any doubt that it would?”
Like any bride, Angelique had been beset with doubts on her wedding day as to whether or not she was doing the right thing in marrying such a cold and aristocratic gentleman as Dominik Sinclair, the Duke of Stonewell. Yes, she believed herself to be in love with him, but he was still twelve years her senior, and a personal friend of the Prince Regent, wi
th seven even closer male friends, the Sinners, who were almost as imposing as he was.
Angelique had found it difficult to believe someone as young and inexperienced as she would fit in with such a sophisticated lifestyle and friends. Although the question as to her youth and innocence had perhaps been answered once she discovered what her husband’s requirements were in the bedchamber. Even some of the more experience ladies of the ton would balk at Nik’s total dominance in his bedchamber.
It now pained Angelique immensely to recall it had been her mother who had talked her out of those bridal nerves, for Lady Jacqueline’s own ends, she now realized. If Angelique had refused to go through with the wedding after all, then her mother would have had to give Stonewell back his money.
Angelique had suffered three years of her mother’s unrelenting presence in their marital homes, along with Lady Jacqueline’s often outrageous behavior in company—she frequently spoke out of turn and had the scandalous habit of riding about London unaccompanied by a maid or groom—out of loyalty and familial concern for her widowed mother.
Knowing what she did now, Angelique regretted those three years of her mother’s constant company.
As she now saw her mother’s compliance to Stonewell’s instruction for her to leave as being yet another betrayal.
A betrayal that was confirmed when Angelique heard the sound of gravel crunching on the stone driveway as a carriage departed, knowing it could only be her mother and Sir Cedric Holmes leaving for London.
Angelique had always known how her mother had hated their straitened circumstances after her husband died five years ago. She remembered the struggle they had both faced to maintain a place in Society.
But this, Lady Jacqueline literally selling her daughter into matrimony, was surely beyond forgiveness.
Wicked Sinner Page 2