Hesitantly, she picked up one of the lengths from the floor. She only meant to wrap it up for when Jake came back, but the smooth texture of the rope and its even twist compelled her. She ran the length through her fingers and over her palms again and again, and it made her sigh deeply.
Marigold lay back on the bed, feeling a little foolish, but curious about that faintly prickly sensation and how it might feel on parts even more sensitive. It made her think of Jake looming over her, and, with a soft naked sound, she spread her legs and pulled up her skirts. After the long night that they had spent together, she had impulsively left off her drawers and her stockings. Underneath the skirt, she was entirely bare, and there was an undeniable excitement that came from dragging that length of rope over and over her bare legs.
She started simply by pulling the rope up and down her legs from shin to thigh, but then she grew bolder and spread her legs wide apart. The rope roused deep tingles of sensation when she draped it over her inner thigh. She felt almost faint with the texture of the rope against her sensitive skin, and that was even before she dragged the rope any higher.
Biting her lip and trying hard not to think about what she looked like, she pulled the rope higher still until the weight of it sat heavily across her sex. Her scant hair there offered little protection from the harsh kiss of the rope. What had felt so smooth when she was running it over her hands now felt almost painful.
It was that sensation that she craved, however, and, without another thought, she passed one end of the rope underneath her thigh. With a little bit of fumbling, she could tug the rope until it was snug up against her warming sex. She could already smell herself as she tentatively bore down on the rope. Slowly, her lips split over the harsh length until it was touching her deeply. When she adjusted the angle, it fell straight across the most sensitive bud at the top of her slit.
That roughness against her clit made her gasp, and then she heard a soft, low laugh from the door.
Marigold made a noise that she would later refuse to admit was a squeak, and she whisked the rope away from her private parts. At least, she tried to. It caught underneath the weight of her thigh, and, when she yanked, it hauled hard against her, making her moan out loud.
Jake stood in the doorway, one shoulder hitched up on the frame, looking so handsome it took her breath away. He looked like he had just washed, and now he was dressed only in jeans and a blue chambray shirt, his feet bare and his black, black hair swept back. It made him look surprisingly young, and there was a flash of mischief in his dark brown eyes.
“So the little miss couldn't wait for me, could she?” he asked, a note of playful menace in his voice. “Just couldn't keep your hands to yourself?”
“I didn't know I was meant to,” she retorted shakily, but she couldn't help feeling as if she had been caught red handed. The rope fell away from her fingers, and she scowled to make up for the red creeping up cheeks.
He stalked over to the bed, making Marigold feel as though she were a fawn that was being tracked by a wolf. She sat up to face him.
He pushed her back down with an easy confident strength.
Jake bent over her, and she couldn't keep herself from putting her hands up to push him away. He laughed and caught each of her wrists in his hands, and then he pinned them to either side. Trying to struggle against him was like trying to free herself from iron bands. No matter how much she writhed, she couldn't budge him an inch.
“I'm just going to let you wear yourself down,” he told her. “I can keep you pinned for hours until you're too tired to fight.”
“And then what?” she threw back. “What exactly are you planning to do with me?”
His soft laugh sent tremors of desire racing through her body. Almost against her will, she ground her hips against the bed before she realized what she was doing.
Jake caught her inadvertent motion.
Instead of coming to lie on top of her, the way she was hoping, he bent over her instead, bringing their faces close enough to touch. When she tried to reach up for a kiss, he pulled back. When she tried again, he did the same thing.
She could feel a slow simmer of her temper build up, and, when he dodged her lips a third time, she snapped her teeth in anger. Just before she could really let go and give him a piece of her mind, however, he pulled back to stand again.
“You stink,” he said calmly. “When was the last time you even bothered to wash?”
That, coming on top of his teasing, was all she could take, and she lunged at him, beating at his chest with her fists. For a moment, she thought she was making him fall back, but then he grabbed her again. She could have howled with the helplessness she felt and then he was turning her around wrapping his arms in front of her.
“You're trouble,” he told her softly. “I knew you would be trouble from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“What are you going to do with so much trouble in your arms, then?” she asked, her voice coming out huskier than she intended. She could feel his cock stir as she pressed her rear against him, and she did it again, deliberately.
“Well, first, I'm going to get you good and bare...”
Instead of taking her on the bed as she craved, he shifted her wrists to one hand and his free hand went to the fastenings at the front of her corset. He had them free in a trice, and then he was yanking her skirt down to the floor. She was now standing naked in front of him, and she trembled a little at what was to come.
“And now, I'm going to make it so that you can't take another swing at me.”
He reached for the length of rope on the floor. With a few quick, fluid motions, he bound her wrists in front of her with a long lead coming from the tie. He stepped back, hanging on to the leash.
When he wrapped the loose end around his fist and tugged, she could do nothing but follow along.
Mystified, she followed him into the kitchen, where there was an enormous copper tub dragged out to the middle of the floor. As if that wasn't enough, it was also filled with gently steaming water. Her jaw dropped.
“You did this?” she asked, touched. In Bristol, save for the rare occasion when she and her sister could scrape together the money for the public baths, she had largely kept herself clean with a rag and a kettle of water heated on the cook stove. Sometimes, when fuel was scarce, the water might be as chilly as the sea. The bath in front of her seemed a terrible luxury, and it almost made her nervous.
“As I said, it seems to have been a little while since you bathed.”
When she might have flown at him again, he tugged the lead hard, lifting her wrists above her head and holding them there.
Trapped like that, she could only writhe angrily.
“That's not very nice,” he admonished her. “Do you really want to make me angry?”
A mutinous part of her wanted to shout yes, but another part, the part that craved this man's touch and his strength, yielded graciously.
“No,” she said softly. She was rewarded with the barest brush of Jake's lips against hers.
“That's a good girl,” he murmured.
In a heartbeat, he had scooped her up in his arms.
While she was still shrieking from the surprise of that, he was lowering her into the warm water. She gasped at the heat, but soon she grew accustomed to it. The heat sunk into her bones as she sat down in the tub, and she felt a part of her uncurl and relax. She tried to reach into the water with her hands, but she quickly realized that she was still bound and that Jake was still holding the lead.
“What am I meant to do now?” she asked, jerking her head at the ropes. “I thought you said I stank.”
“You do,” he said cheerfully. “I'm not sure if I can trust you to do a good job, you see.”
Instead of freeing her, he looped the free end of the rope to the hook at the front of the tub. It bent her forward slightly, but if she propped her elbows up on the rounded copper edges, it was comfortable enough.
“Relax,” he said, picking up a
wash cloth. “I just want to make sure that my woman is perfectly clean for bed tonight...” He dipped the cloth in the water, and then he ran it gently over her face and her neck.
She could feel him wiping away the sweat and the grime that she had been living with for days, and, though perhaps she should have been embarrassed, it only made her feel like something treasured and loved. She wanted him to take time with her, to open her up, and then the washcloth dropped to her breasts and the bath became significantly less innocent.
Marigold moaned softly as the washcloth massaged first one breast and then the other. When she glanced down, she could see that her nipples were already standing up proudly.
“Jake,” she said softly.
He growled with pleasure, cupping a clean breast in his bare hand. “You're gorgeous,” he said, “now be quiet while I work.”
She subsided obediently as the washcloth traveled down her belly and over her thighs. When it ghosted over her sex, she pressed her legs together.
With a chuckle, he moved on to her knees.
She was both relieved and oddly disappointed. She instinctively felt the need to shield that part of herself from him, but she also wanted his touch there. He cleaned her legs tenderly, but then she realized why he was fine with letting her keep her legs closed.
“Go on, now. Up on your knees.”
Assuming that he wanted more access to her back, she knelt up, but then he was pushing her forward. She was supporting her weight on the elbows that were planted on the edge of the tub, and while it did give him access to her back, it also gave him access to her rear. The tub was slippery and wide enough that she simply could not keep her knees together. She had to spread them, and that must have been what he wanted, because he ran the wash cloth over the curve of her buttocks before sliding it around her inner thigh.
“You can't,” she said faintly, but his sure movements told her in no uncertain way that he certainly could.
He took his time with it, moving with agonizing slowness. As she bit her lip, he slowly inched up to her sex. It was hard to tell where the water ended and her own wet response began. When his fingers, covered in the rough fabric of the washcloth, found her slit, she knew it didn't matter.
She moaned with embarrassment when he swept the fabric from the very front of her slit all the way to the back, pressing her buttocks apart to do so.
“Don't...” she muttered, but when he pressed his hand against her rear, she couldn't stop herself from groaning and pressing back against him.
“Don't what?” he asked challengingly. “Don't make you cry out? Don't make you feel good?”
When she had no response to that, he chuckled and threw the cloth aside. He replaced the fabric with his own fingers.
She moaned as he spread her cheeks wide, and she realized that he was looking at her more intimately than anyone ever had before.
“You're beautiful here,” he told her firmly. “Perfectly made, as if you were created with me in mind. You were just a virgin yesterday, and you have no idea what's waiting for more.”
She shivered at his words, involuntarily tightening against him.
He responded by sliding a quick finger inside her.
The water made it easier than ever, and she gasped at the speed as much as at the sensation. He pulled it out again just as quickly, making her cry out in dismay.
“There are places where I've not even touched you,” Jake continued. “For my father, who's a well-respected man back east, people smile and nod, but behind my back, I know that they call me a savage for my mother's blood.”
He squeezed the globes of her rear in his large hands, and she groaned. He was strong enough to leave bruises, and she thought she might get around to protesting as soon as it stopped feeling so damned good.
“They might call me a savage, but you might be surprised at the invitations I get from some of those high and mighty townswomen, and you would be positively shocked at what they want me to do...”
Marigold grit her teeth and she kicked her legs hard enough to get a good splash in Jake's face. She was rewarded by a yell. Glancing over her pale shoulder, she managed to catch his eye.
“You're not going to be taking any more invitations from those townswomen you were talking about. Not while you've got me living here, you understand?”
The moment the words were out of her, she felt stripped, as if she were taking some kind of huge risk, but Jake only chuckled.
“I would never take an invitation from any kind of woman like that,” he assured her. “The kind of woman I like is a lot more open about her 'savage' impulses. The woman of my dreams is willing to take all of me when we're underneath the open sky and mounted on the back of a horse. She's willing to let me tie her down so that I can have her in whatever way I like best, and she's... open to new ideas.”
As he spoke, he ran the tip of his finger over her rear hole, making her yelp and try to pull away. Despite the initial shock, she could not deny that there was pleasure to it, and she listened, fascinated as he talked.
“I've known women back east who prefer to use this hole. It prevented pregnancies, they said, and it made them feel a kind of pleasure they never knew. Can you imagine me stretching you here, opening you up so that you can take my cock?”
She could imagine it, and the image terrified her even as it aroused her. She bucked hard.
Jake laughed, and he laid a hand on her rump, calming her.
“Not tonight then, I see. It seems that my darling is a little skittish. There will be plenty of time to seduce you into seeing my way, after all.”
She was going to ask him what he meant by that, but he was already pressing his fingers inside her slit, probing deep and sinking straight in from the warmth and the lubrication that was already there. She moaned deep in her throat and pressed back against him, craving more and more.
“That's two fingers,” he said softly. “Look at you moan just for that.”
She realized that she was riding his fingers. For a moment, she was appalled at how she must look. She was half-in and half out of the water, arched like a showgirl, and she could imagine her pale, wet bottom rising out of the bath like the most perfect target for Jake's wickedness. She knew that she was giving him a show, but she just couldn't seem to stop moving her hips as he thrust into her lazily with his fingers.
He paused only to add another finger, pressing it inside her and making her convulse around them. He hissed when she did it, so she did it again.
“God above, you're tight,” he said. “So good, darling, and no one has ever had you but me...”
He started slow, pistoning his arm so that she could simply flex against him. The feeling of fullness from three of Jake's fingers was enough to make her want more, and though she tried to make him speed up, he refused to give her anything but that deep and steady movement.
Jake knew her body better than she did, however, and though it seemed to go on forever, she started to feel a trembling shake her thighs.
“I... I can't!” she cried in shock.
“You absolutely can,” Jake grunted from behind her. His hand sped up, and now she could feel the entire strength of his body behind it.
Her bound hands gripped the edge of the tub tight, and she was pushing back against him. She could feel the now familiar pleasure starting to build up in her belly, and she tightened convulsively around her lover's fingers.
Quicker than she believed possible, lightning coursed through her body, making her wail. She threw her head back, crying out loudly, but his fingers didn't stop. To her distant shock, he kept thrusting his fingers inside her body, driving her forward with an almost brutal strength.
Before, Marigold would have said that to be touched so soon after her climax would be sensitive past the point of pain, but now when it was actually happening, she could only surrender yet again. She relished the stretch of his fingers and the strength with which he was driving them forward. He was faster now, as if assured of what she co
uld take and what she really needed, and he forced her to a second climax, longer and even more intense than the first. It drew out farther and farther, and she thought the pleasure would tear her apart.
It didn't however, and when she collapsed against the side of the tub, her entire body tingled. It was as if Jake had woken her up entirely from bottom to top, leaving her feeling completely worn out but glowing with the light of the sun.
He flexed his fingers inside her, and the sensitivity made her whine.
“No,” she gasped. “Please no, I can't take another, Jake, please!”
He seemed to consider for a moment, and then he drew his fingers out of her slowly and easily. She sighed when they were gone, and a part of her already wanted them back. She wondered if there was something strange about her, that she seemed so thrilled by acts that might shame a decent woman, but all she knew was that this man made her body thrum with pleasure.
“All right, that's a good girl,” he said soothingly, running his wet hands over her back. He lifted her out of the water, but instead of drying her off, as she half-expected him to do, he urged her to bend over the full tub. The ripe tips of her breasts touched the still-warm water, making her whimper. Humming gently, Jake tapped his bare foot against the inside of her leg, making her widen her stance.
“Jake,” she moaned softly. “I can't take more...”
“No, but do you want more?”
She started to shake her head no, but then his fingers were trailing over her hips, gentle, sweet and slow, and she found that yes, there was something in her that wanted more. Shutting her eyes tight, she nodded, and she felt him step behind her.
He hadn't bothered to do anything besides unbutton his jeans, and she shivered as she felt the rough edges of the denim graze the soft wet flesh of her rear. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw a look of intent concentration his face.
“You're dripping,” he murmured. “Oh Marigold, this is going to be so sweet for you.”
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