by Louisa Trent
He was a man in need of a quick fuck. The country was no place to find a loose woman, certainly no place to find a whore, and he thought I would do for both.
Fine. We would use one another.
Ungentle hands stripped my clothing away, dropped every article in a careless heap hither and yon all over the hallway floor. As each item fell, those homey red checkered curtains I had noted on the way in popped to mind.
This man had no respect for what citified drapery could do for a plain country farm house. Silks and satins dressed up both a window and a woman. And I was bare, no window treatment whatsoever.
Even so, I reveled in his roughness. He had always been so gentlemanly before. Almost irritatingly so. When I thought back to our times together, I recalled having initiated most of the erotic ones in one fashion or the other. And I had been the most agreeable of companions tonight. Not simpering like a virginal maiden, but obviously set on pleasing not only him, but both of us.
I was an independent freethinker, a woman used to being on her own, going it alone, but submission still pleased me. Oh, I was definitely getting something out of this reunion too.
Despite his gentlemanly leanings…Mr. Simmons had always been the very epitome of authoritarian dominance in the bedchamber. And anywhere else he happened to be. He always took over a room, seemed to suck the air right out of the space with the strength of his personality, which matched the strength of his person.
Now that I was naked, he seemed so very large, much larger to me than before. Of course, I was also barefoot, so that added to my new feelings of diminutiveness.
Not vulnerability, however.
Giving as good as I got, I attacked him. With my mouth. With my teeth. With my hands. And I left souvenirs of my adventuring behind. On the morrow, he would know where I had been today.
By anyone’s standards, the former circus strongman was huge. And powerful. I would not wish to be someone who had unwittingly found themselves on his dangerous side. Not that I had ever witnessed his dangerous side or even knew if it existed outside my own wild fantasies. Still, I was sure there were others who might have run into it, and to their detriment.
Mr. Simmons covered my naked breast with a tremendous hand. His touch was not reverent. Nor did I wish it to be so. As a result, my breathing went shallow with arousal. Writhing, I braced myself against the wall as he urged me on without words. Who needed words to spell it out?
Me. I did. Spell it out, Mr. Simmons!
But no. The man I loved was the strong and silent type, the hard to read sort not given to grandiose professions of emotion, a man of action not poetry.
He lowered his head to mine, said on a barely controlled growl, “I hated the thought of your going to other men. I visualized breaking their necks.”
Wait. That was poetry. Heartfelt poetry. His speechifying was nothing if not emotional, the bloodthirsty kind of emotional.
I would take it.
Keeping his palm over my distended nipple, Mr. Simmons moved to one side, thus giving himself an unobstructed view of my nude body. “I hated the idea of your whoring. Other men touching you like this for money sent me into a rage. I could kill those men with my bare hands. But you – I never could do anything but love you. Right from the beginning, I loved you.”
“P-pardon?” I managed to gasp.
“Long ago, I vowed never to stand in a woman’s way when it came to her getting ahead. Life is so fucking hard on females. Sometimes a woman has no choice but to do what she has to do to survive. Sometimes the only choice a mother is given is to whore or see her children, if she has any, starve and go homeless.”
Was he talking about himself, about his own mother?
“The way I figured it,” he continued, “all I could do was offer safe harbor while a whore went about the business of supporting herself. And it is not that I love you despite what you do, either. I plain love you. No ands, ifs, or buts. No conditions, no excuses. I love you, Emma.”
This was the longest I had ever heard him speak. And he did not appear to be finished. While I waited in absolute staggering amazement, the man of few words took a deep breath, and said, “This last year has been a dangerous time for me. I had all to do not to yank you out from under the influence of that bastard Claret. Call the man a patron of the arts, call him a dance connoisseur, call him whatever the hell you like to fancy it up, he was a whoremonger as far as I was concerned. And I hated him. If one of those fine gents he set you up with were ever to mistreat you, I would have killed that fucker on the spot and then hunted Claret down and slit his throat.
“Skunks like that take advantage of women, the same as in a Red-light District brothel. A better address is the only difference between them. But you seemed content and healthy there, and so what the fuck was I supposed to do, Emma, save keep a watchful eye on you?”
He washed a hand over his face. “And cry a bucket of tears over losing you every night. How could I have stood in the way of your dreams?”
He stroked my hair, as if it the strands were spun of gold, not black as chimney soot and messy as weeds and needing the sweat of my last dance performance washed away. What he was saying…how desperately distraught he looked…his suffering…all of it was just so incredibly romantic!
Nearly swooning on the spot, I gave a rapturous, “Oh, sir…”
“No! Stop feeling bad for me. Let me finish.”
I grinned. “I would not dream of stopping you. Do go on.”
“Letting you be was the hardest damn thing I ever did, swear to God. Because I love you so bad.” Up until then, he had been devouring me with his eyes. He looked away from me at that point.
My attempt to make eye contact with him failed.
Could a dominant man handle my bossiness?
Too bad if he could not!
I demanded, “Look at me, Mathew Simmons.”
He slanted me a sheepish glance.
“I have never whored. And point of fact, Mr. Claret is not so bad. He took my foot coming down on his arse over that patronage nonsense very well. Also – I especially never whored for you. I schemed and I planned and I manipulated to get your attention, but I never did whore. And do you know why I never whored for you?”
“No.”
His tone was not meek. Neither was it strident. Where his angry voice a moment earlier had caught me by surprise, this was the man I knew and loved and accepted. Right now, he was confused. And glum. So I explained my meaning:
“I never whored for you, sir, because I loved you. Impossible to whore for the person with whom one is in love.”
I had accepted this tryst would not be about long-stemmed red roses, but I could not possibly have guessed it would be about something more profound.
“Love, sir, explains my bad behavior our last time together.”
“Bring on more bad behavior. Never have I been the victim of such wondrous fierceness as yours.”
Mr. Simmons ascribed to the equality of the genders in terms of employment. The progressiveness of his hiring practices told me so. His respectful treatment of women outside the work environment reinforced this attitude.
Inside the bedroom?
Lordy! Try any of that equality nonsense on me there and we would have us a good long talk.
None of this woman on top business for me there. Once I’d caught onto the gist of submissiveness, dark carnality won me over. Beset by professional worries and financial woes, I relished him taking charge behind the bedchamber door.
Or in the barn. He had a particularly nice one. After loosening him up, I was dragging him out to the hayloft.
And why not?
Thanks to him, my carnal tastes no longer shamed me. He had accepted me for who I was, and that acceptance gave me permission to accept myself, sexual quirks and all.
“Watch out, sir! I feel like misbehaving. Bring me to heel upon occasion and keep a whip handy, and we should do all right tonight,” I said, and not entirely tongue-in-cheek.
&nbs
p; His face darkened. “I agree to all your conditions, Miss Jones, so long as you agree to stay.”
“Certainly, sir. Why waste all this nudity?”
He kissed me tenderly. “I like how you think, but you misunderstand. I would like you to stay not just this night. Every night. After a late start on the morrow owing to our exhaustion, we make plans.”
“You will find no better planner than myself, sir. So excellent, as matter of fact, I am trying to cut back on all that and live in the moment. Spontaneity has its advantages. But, if you insist, we can take a step-by-step approach to the guided tour of your farm.”
“Certainly, we could do that. Although those are not the plans I had in mind.” After another kiss, a lingering, more impassioned one this time, Mr. Simmons swept me up into his arms and raced for the stairs.
While flinging my arm around his strong neck, I asked breathlessly, “I take it your master suite is located on the second floor?”
“Not my master suite, my love. Our bedchamber. Our farm. Marry me, Emma. This old place needs you. I need you.”
No advance thought necessary, I nodded. “Yes, Matthew. Indeed I will marry you.”
Epilogue
From a very early age onward, farm youth often found themselves in the enviable position of working outdoors, what with chores like milking cows, haying, and whatnot, strenuous activities that increased muscle tone, mass, and agility, which in turn aided in the development of strength and endurance, not to mention excellent coordination and balance.
Out on the dance floor, all this physical activity showed. I marveled at the boys and girls in my class. My, but they shone. Never had I had the pleasure of seeing such fine performers. Mad leaps through the air were nothing for these athletic kids. Our final recital of the year made me so proud. I was like a mother hen, strutting about, clucking as the children in “Mrs. Simmons’s dance class” bowed and waved at their audience of parents and relatives and neighbors. Honestly, it seemed like the entire town had turned out for the show.
Later on in bed that same night, my husband tucked in beside me, I was still talking about my students.
“Do you believe the dedication of those kids, Matthew? All to a one signed up for October’s classes!” Naturally, there was no summer program due to planting and harvesting crops.
“With you as their teacher, Emma, why would I not believe it? From the first day, their teacher – Mrs. City Lady – put them through their paces, and they loved the program and you because of it. You never talked down to them. You always respected their abilities. And tonight’s performance told the tale.”
“Whatever will I do for the summer?”
“Ride in with me to Boston,” Matthew said, moving me over onto his side of the mattress with a playful spank. “Plenty of kids in the Red-light District would welcome your undivided attention.”
I gave a determined nod. “I think I shall.”
“Now hush. Henceforth, all I want to hear from you are your screams.”
No need to raise my nightgown. I had worn nothing to bed since our wedding day ten months earlier. Scandalous, I knew. But not nearly as scandalous as what we had done to one another during that same length of time.
I was on my side now. Reaching around me, he palmed my breast, the one nearest him, and I sighed my pleasure.
“Christ, but your tit is as round as a melon. And the end! S00traight up.”
“Bite me as you put it in me,” I demanded.
“Not so fast. Beg me first,” he said, with absolutely no smile in his voice.
My husband meant serious business tonight. Already his cock was nudging between my legs.
“Pleeeeesese!” I cried forcefully.
“Will you be good? No heedless wiggles. Wiggles will end the fuck too soon. I aim to go at it a spell. At least, the first time. You need to mellow out, my love. Otherwise, you ain’t sleeping this night.”
“All right. I agree. No wiggles,” I said, but with a pout. I found wiggling most agreeable.
He switched on the light. In the dark, he would not be able to see me come. And he did so enjoy watching me writhe as I climaxed.
After taking my leg in hand, he bent the knee up, and then slipped into my well-moistened passage from behind. He was driving into me before my next heated breath.
As the grandfather clock downstairs tolled midnight, he was still driving into me, almost an hour of unrelenting thrusts before fingering the nubbin at the top of my notch.
“Such an excitable cunt,” he whispered into my ear. His dirty talk always triggered my submissiveness.
Oh, God. I was purring now, writhing now, coaxing him to do me long and hard. Harder. Harder!
Never missing a beat, he dragged me up onto my knees on the messy bed, pretty linens forgotten, until I was facing the mirror on the wall he had deliberately hung within viewing distance.
“See us?” he asked.
Mesmerized by the sight of his magnificent body pounding into mine, all I could do was nod.
While I watched unblinking, he squeezed the tip of my breast hard, so very hard, then reached for the switch stored under the bed.
“We come first, together, then I do you,” he growled.
It was too much. Just the mention of his intentions set me off. I climaxed on a raw cry of surrender, and then went utterly limp, hanging over his arm, like a limp rag.
“All fours,” he told me, and I knew our flirtatious play was done for the evening.
My loving husband was now my dominant lover, and I absolutely must do what I was told, a lesson I had learned the hard way.
Early on, I tried to become a different sort of wife, a homespun and respectable wife, and in that mindset, I had refused him what I craved. Consequently, I had gone without for all the following month. Oh, we still made love, proper missionary love, and the frustration had nearly killed me. Thereafter, he made me promise to be myself in bed.
No sparing me, he placed his hand on my arse. “Head down on the bed, hips up.”
“Yes, sir, yes, sir,” I rasped on a torment of dark desire. “Please. No stopping.”
“Will you be a good girl for me?”
“Better than good, sir. I promise to be myself.” My gaze went to the mirror, intent on the scene reflected in the glass, a naked and highly aroused woman, a man raising his muscled arm, a switch lodged in his fist.
Like a lover from hell, he rose up behind me, his expression fixed on me, as if I were the only woman in the world. “Yourself, eh?”
“Yes, myself,” I wept. “Always myself with you, sir. And you must promise me the same.”
“I do,” he said raggedly, the same as he had said at our wedding ceremony…after giving me a bouquet of red roses, a dozen in total, not one blossom missing.
The End
Thank you!
I hope you enjoyed VIRGIN ENCHAINED! This is my thirty-sixth full novel, one of my Guilded Age novels and the fourth in the Virgin Series. To check out my other books, read excerpts, and subscribe to a new release e-mail notification list kindly visit me at www.louisatrent.com.
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I write in a number of genres from historical to contemporary or futuristic, dark and brooding to light and comical, some futuristic, time travel and paranormal. My website has synopses and excerpts. If you enjoyed this novel you may enjoy another Gilded Age novel, SPOILED. This ward/guardian romance is a realistically-voiced, hard-edged romance with an innocent heroine corrupted by a dark and dominant hero and a qualified happily ever.
Enjoy.
Warmest regards,
Louisa
Prologue
The year 1873…
All the hell went on in the Scollay Square section of Boston:
Opium dens, illegal saloons, backroom gambling, r
ed-lit brothels. You name it, and Emmett Condon had seen it.
Most likely, he’d had a hand in it too. He had more than a passing acquaintance with every vice known to man…
Except he was only twelve and stood barely five feet.
Keeping his lice-ridden head bowed low, his filthy hands stuffed deep in his raggedy twill pockets and whistling tunelessly under his foul breath, he strutted along Endicott Street. He might have newsprint where his boot soles used to be, but he had not a fucking care in the whole goddamned world.
Because why?
Because he worked for himself. Always had. That way, he owed no one nuthin’. And that was the way he aimed to keep things.
While passing by the usual bawdy establishments and peg houses, he shuddered. Naive farm girls and trusting small town boys wound up in those sorts of places. After looking for respectable employment in the city and finding none, they sold themselves there rather than rot in some poorhouse beyond city limits.
Shit. If not for his street savvy and sticky fingers, he might have met the same fate. But trusting and naïve? Those words never had described him. If he sold his arse on the street, he got one-hundred percent of the take. No one got a cut. That was just sound business.
In this area of Boston, bands of whoremongers — mostly transient sailors with some homegrown gents thrown into the mix too and all of them hankering for a taste of fresh chicken — roamed the streets. To avoid their soliciting, Emmett ducked between two adjacent brick buildings. Both had seen better days. Then again, what had not in this blighted slice of hell?
Never mind all that, this half-block alley was his territory. His second home if ever he’d had a first. Rank with the sour stink of piss and vomit or not, this section of the city was all his. And no one but no one shouldered their way into his action and lived to tell the tale.
Emmett moseyed on over real quiet-like to a drunkard sprawled face-down in a clogged gutter. Still whistling, he toed him. Once. Again. When the rummy kept snoring away, insensible to petty thieves like him, Emmett glanced over his shoulder.