Under A Duke's Hand (11 page)

“Of course you can.” He’d gone prodigiously
hard just from kneeling over her. He took her hand and placed it
against his rigid length, and moved it up and down. “It feels good
when you stroke me like this, but it would feel even better with
the warmth and wetness of your mouth. Open for me, darling. I
promise I won’t hurt you.”

“But...” She held him off with a questioning
gaze. “I don’t think you ought to put it inside my mouth.”

“It’s a common enough activity in love play.
Didn’t it feel good when I used my mouth on you?”

“I’m not...” She swallowed hard. “I’m not
made like you. I don’t understand...what you expect.”

“I’ll show you.” He tried to be
matter-of-fact about it. Yes, he had a big cock, and yes, even the
ladies at Pearl’s sometimes balked about fellating him, but he
would be gentle with an innocent like her. He trailed a thumb along
her chin and nudged her lips apart. “Just lick the tip of it to
begin. Get it nice and wet, so your tongue can slip around the
crown.”

She balked, until he pressed himself to her
lips and took away her choice. He held the bedframe with one hand
and her face with the other, so she couldn’t shrink away. She gave
a tentative lick or two. Ah, God. Rapture.

“That’s right,” he said, pressing deeper.
“It’s not so hard, is it? No, be careful not to use your teeth.
Wrap your lips around me as I push into your mouth.”

Through some innate skill, or some miracle,
she provided the perfect degree of suction as he eased between her
lips. Her tongue teased along the underside of his cock. Exquisite.
Heavenly. Marvelous. “You have no idea how wonderful that feels,”
he said.

He pressed deeper still. He shouldn’t have,
but she looked so tantalizing peering up at him with her lips
stretched around his cock. She choked at the intrusion, and her
eyes watered. He withdrew at once and stroked her cheek. “That was
too much for a beginner. I apologize. Why don’t you lick it some
more, and cup my balls in your palm?” He showed her what he meant,
placing her hand at the base of his cock. His fingers covered hers,
guiding her when she was too tentative.

“Do you remember how I moved my tongue over
your pussy, over your sensitive little pearl? How I sucked it and
flicked it? Even though my cock is bigger, you can do those sorts
of things too.”

His wife complied, her technique sloppy and
disorganized. It thrilled him all the same. Pleasure settled in his
balls, a tensing urgency born of her submission. “Open for me
again, love. You’re doing so well. I’m so close to coming off.”

She screwed her eyes shut and opened her
mouth, and again treated him to that perfect suction. He eased his
cock between her lips, being careful not to push too deep. He would
not be
that
husband, even if every last nerve screamed at
him to thrust into her throat to the hilt. He stroked himself as
she sucked him, and sighed as her tongue teased the tip. In his
rising excitement, his fingers curled into her hair and tightened
against her scalp.

“Oh. God. Yes.” He couldn’t utter more than
one word at a time. With a growl, he withdrew from her mouth and
pumped his shaft, spilling his seed onto the front of her shift. He
couldn’t imagine what she thought of this, but it had seemed a
better idea than spending without warning in her mouth.

“Good girl,” he said. “You made me come.”

“Oh.” She sat frozen, staring up at him.

“You did that very well, especially for a
beginner. Or...” He feigned suspicion. “Have you done that
before?”

“No, never,” she insisted primly.

He leaned to kiss her mouth, which he was
certain had never sucked another cock. “I’m teasing. I know it was
your first time, and you did beautifully. It felt very
pleasurable.”

“Oh,” she said again, looking down at the
sticky mess on her bodice.

“I suppose you will want another shift. Why
don’t we take that one off?”

She agreed that would be a good idea,
although she seemed reluctant to touch it. He helped lift the now
not-so-innocent garment over her head, taking care not to get any
of the musky fluid in her hair. He threw it aside and wiped his
hands on his thighs.

“It’s better if my seed goes inside you,” he
said. “You can’t make babies any other way. I suppose we must have
relations again in a while, so I can come inside you as I ought
to.”

“I’m not sure we ought to indulge in so many
carnal activities in one night.”

“Don’t you enjoy our carnal activities?”

“I... Well...” She shook her head. “No, I
don’t enjoy them very much, if you wish to know the truth.”

He laughed and hauled her over his lap, and
laid a couple good wallops over the birch marks from the night
before. “A lie like that deserves a sound spanking.”

“Ow!” She squirmed to look up at him.
“Please, it wasn’t a lie.”

“Wasn’t it?” He squeezed her bottom and slid
his palm between her legs. His fingers came away wet. “I think it
was a lie.” He spanked her a few more times, playful smacks as she
fidgeted across his thighs. “Lying is a very bad habit, and
certainly a punishable offense. You remember what I told you.” He
paused to molest her again, drawing some of the moisture from her
quim up between her bottom cheeks. “Bad wives earn bad
consequences.” He pressed a fingertip against the tight, pink bud
of her arsehole to drive his point home. She tried to wiggle off
his lap, but he held her fast. “Apologize for me now, very
prettily.
‘I’m sorry I lied to you, husband.’
”

“I didn’t lie,” she insisted. “I told you my
feelings were very confused.”

“Why confused? Don’t you like to feel
pleasure? Tell the truth, Guinevere.” He nudged her off his lap and
onto her back, and laid over her. The spanking and this intimate
contact had him going rigid all over again. “Say it to me.
I
love to be fucked.
”

“I can’t say that.” The poor woman was
scandalized. “That is a terribly coarse word.”

“Say it, or I won’t let you come for the rest
of the week. In fact, I won’t let you have your pleasure for the
next six months.” That was a bluff. He enjoyed her abandoned
reactions too much to deny her. He was playing with her, or trying
to. He wished she would smile instead of looking on the verge of
tears.

“All right then,” he said. “If it’s too
difficult for you to admit it, give me a kiss instead. None of
those reluctant ones either. Kiss me the way you kissed me in the
meadow, like a wanton fairy queen.”

He waited. He didn’t pucker his lips or bow
his head to her, or do anything but gaze at her expectantly,
forcing her to take the first step.

She shifted beneath him. “If I kiss you, then
what will you do?”

He pressed his thickening cock against her
quim. “Surely you know the answer to that. Do you want me to make
you feel good, Gwen? Very, very warm and aroused and good?” She bit
her lip and turned away. “Answer me,” he prompted. “Or kiss me.
Either one.”

He waited. After a moment, she turned back
and reached to trace a tendril of his hair, a tentative gesture
that seemed deeply erotic. Her fingers trailed along his neck. She
kissed him, whispery-soft, at the side of his lips.

“A promising start,” he murmured. “Give me
more.”

She blinked at him, then tilted her head to
kiss him on the mouth.

Let her lead. For once.
It was hard to
stay still, to not to push her arms back and drive inside her the
way he wished. The way
she
wished, whether she could admit
it or not.

“Show me what you want,” he said. “If you
can’t say it, show me. Arch your hips and let me come inside you.
Marital intimacy is not a shameful or repulsive thing, and there is
nothing wrong with you for enjoying it.”

“But I don’t enjoy—”

“You do. I’ve felt you coming, Guinevere.
Don’t tell lies.”

He pressed into her pussy, kissing her lips
and chin and neck and shoulders, all the lovely, compelling
features that comprised his wife. He went gently this time.
Sometimes he liked sex raw and roughshod, but sometimes he liked it
sweet.

“You’re so sweet,” he whispered. “Let me hold
you.”

He gathered her close, sinking inside her
warmth. She was so tight and hot, so wet. He loved the way she
squeezed his cock, loved the maddeningly erotic way she moved her
hips, but he also loved the way she clung to him. Beautiful, sweet
girl. He didn’t want her to suffer, not when they could make one
another so happy.

He toyed with her, maneuvered and manipulated
her until she climaxed in a trembling heat, and then chuckled when
she refused to meet his gaze. “You love to be fucked,” he taunted
softly. “You little liar. You naughty girl.”

Chapter
Seven: The Letter

Gwen’s hand hovered over the paper, the pen
trembling in her fingers as she searched for the right words.
Mama
, she prayed silently.
Help me, please. Help me know
what to say so Father will let me come home.

She’d been at Arlington Hall nearly a week,
submitting to the duke’s endless scrutiny, her French maid’s
harassment, and finishing lessons with Lady Langton, a doddering
old scold who made Gwen want to die.

No matter how hard she tried, Gwen could do
nothing right. The walls of her husband’s palatial estate seemed to
squeeze in around her until she couldn’t breathe. She snuck to her
private garden whenever she could, only to be pulled back inside
for lessons, or styling, or a change of clothes, or luncheon, or
tea, or formal dinner, or some other pointless activity.

Then night would come and the duke would
visit her bed, and stroke her and bedevil her until she lost all
sense and participated in the most scandalous activities. She only
realized her embarrassment afterward, when he was slumbering beside
her in blissful repletion. It was an awful feeling, that lonely,
shameful aftermath. It was not her fault the duke knew the precise
ways to stimulate her sensual humors. And every time he lay with
her, there was more chance she would fall pregnant with his
child.

Gwen had never thought it possible to miss
her home so much. She missed her privacy and peace of mind. She
missed wearing comfortable clothes and being who she was, a simple
baron’s daughter. She missed having control of her own body. She
missed her afternoons with Effie, feeding her apples and brushing
her patchy coat. She prayed every day in her garden for fortitude,
and for deliverance, but it didn’t help.

It was time to take matters into her own
hands, now, before it was too late.

Dear Papa
, she wrote in Welsh.

I know it was important to you that I wed
the Duke of Arlington. I would not write this letter if I was not
in desperate circumstances.

I’m afraid our marriage is a failure. The
duke regards me as little better than a savage, and treats me as
such. He fears I will humiliate him before his friends, and so he
is trying to remake me into a completely different person.

She wished she was a better writer, so she
could explain how devastating this was. She felt like she was
losing herself.

Papa, I don’t know how much longer I can
survive his exacting authority. He is impossible to please.
Sometimes I believe he truly despises me, and when I do not behave
as he wishes, he punishes me in a brutal and unfeeling manner.

Well, perhaps that was making things sound
more dire than they were, but she must convince her father to come
to her rescue. The duke did punish her with the birch that once,
and the marks had stayed for three whole days.

Even worse than the punishments is the way
my husband subjects me to his lewd whims. He commands me to do
things which no gently reared woman should endure. I cannot
describe them here; decency will not allow it. When I try to resist
his advances, he forces me to his will.

She stopped again.
He’s never forced you
to do a thing
, her conscience whispered. She was the weak,
wanton one who melted whenever he touched her. But he was indecent
with her. That was not in question, and if her father knew it,
perhaps he would find some way to extricate her from this match.
They were leaving very soon to go to London, and once they were
there, she knew she would never get away. They would attend an
audience with the king and queen, and the duke would paint a rosy
picture of their marriage and expect her to do the same.

And that would be that. A lifetime with this
haughty, unfeeling aristocrat who didn’t love her.

Somewhere out there, she knew there was a man
who would love her, a man who would treasure her for who she was.
She was not a bad person; she was only in a bad marriage. She
couldn’t bear to think this was her eternal lot in life.

Papa, if there is any way you can free me
from this nightmare and bring me home, I beseech you to do it.

With much love (and desperation),

Your only daughter Guinevere

Perhaps it was a little over the top. There
was nothing to do for it now. She must post it before her husband
discovered what she was about. Even if it was written in Welsh, he
would find a way to read it. She made sure it was well sealed and
went to find the housekeeper with the missive secreted in her
skirts.

* * * * *

Aidan looked down at the note in his hands,
then back at his servant. “You’re certain that’s what it says?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

The man’s tone sounded apologetic; he’d
blushed red to his collar. Aidan had been blindsided by the
contents of his wife’s letter, and having this man witness it made
it even worse.

“That will be all,” he said by way of
dismissal, and the footman—who had been recently hired for his
knowledge of the Welsh language—bowed and left the room.