“You spoke with her?” she asked.
“Briefly. Now I want to know—why?”
She shook her head. “Why? Because I love you. What other possible reason could there be? I couldn’t endure the thought you would seek out a whore over a wife that had never denied you your sexual rights. I thought you were more than satisfied with me.”
He slid his arm across the back of the couch, cupped her shoulder and pulled her near, cradling her with his body. “Tell me what else.”
“And then I saw you.” She faced him, tears brimming at the edge of her eyes. “You were with that couple. You were watching and taking your pleasure. I thought I had lost you.”
“Why did you decide to come into the room as one of her whores?”
“She convinced me.”
“Madame DuPuis?”
“Yes. She confided in me that you had never…never penetrated one of her whores. She said you were deciding whether you were ready to be unfaithful and that you were deciding whether or not you loved me more than breaking your vows. More than having sex with a stranger.”
“So it wasn’t curiosity?”
“What woman could possibly be curious about such a thing? Well, Anne of course, but I mean a real woman, one who believes she’s done right by her husband. Never. There is nothing interesting there, not for a woman who is getting her orgasms from her husband, along with the love I thought we shared.”
Love? Because she loved him?
What a simpleton!
Once he confessed the truth of his temporary impotence, she’d have responded with that same love. She would have convinced him. She would have straddled him and rode him until his prick was ready to burst.
He should have known it was temporary, a condition of the mind more than the body. How different things would have been had he marched up to DeLacy and decked him. He should have been the one to knock DeLacy into the flowerpot. He would have sported an erection fit for battle. He would have backed her against the wall and fucked her while DeLacy watched just so he’d have an idea what a real man did with his woman.
Simple. Simple. Simple.
He grasped her by the waist and hauled her into his lap. He searched under the voluminous skirts until he found her leg and then assisted her in straddling him. The hand under her skirts traveled with unerring accuracy toward her cunt, the convenient, slitted undergarments not giving him pause.
Heat radiated from her core, drawing him like a man finding his way through a Highland winter toward a scorching, flaming hearth fire. He guided his fingers along the soft folds, circling, touching, pinching. Then, sliding his thumb in her vagina, he worked her. His middle finger slid backward.
She lurched toward him, her expression melting. Lust he knew. He slid the long, tapered finger to her ass, pushed with slow force until he penetrated and filled both warm, tight entrances.
Clarissa’s eyelids lowered as she watched with glazed passion. With his free hand he worked at the buttons of his trousers and lifted his cock free of his small clothes. She pushed up on her thighs, giving him room. Access.
He gripped the base of his penis and pointed it toward her cunny. He moved the one hand quickly, moving behind her, caressing her ass.
“Take me, Clarissa. Take every inch of this cock,” he said. She slid down, and at the same time, he inserted the same finger into her ass. “And know that as you do, I love you.”
She rocked upward, already mindless. Michael surged in and out of her, keeping her off balance and unsure while his cock filled her in front and his finger exerted sexual tension from behind. She squirmed. She rode. She tried to get away from him. She tried to buck and claw her way closer, deeper.
“I love you,” he whispered.
As she sank yet again, Clarissa gasped. Michael wished he had a dildo handy to set her ass on fire and bring her to a crashing orgasm quickly. Then again, there was intense pleasure in the buildup of a long, drawn-out affair. A symphony or a trumpet blast. Both were good. Each in its place.
He worked a second finger into her bottom. Clarissa, fully impaled, stopped moving. Her breath came in hard rasps. “Oh, Michael.”
“That’s it. Are you going to come?”
“I don’t want to. Don’t make me yet.”
“You know you want to.” He exerted enough pressure on the wall of her anus, he thought he could feel his own cock on the other side.
She gasped. Her back arched.
“Ride me, Clarissa. Or better, I’ll give you an orgasm now and another one in a few minutes.”
A tiny mewl escaped her. His words were exciting her. “That’s it, stay where you are. Do you like this? My cock deep in you, with my fingers in your ass? Or do you like it when my cock is in your ass? I need to know. I plan to have this monster prick buried in you, front or back, for the rest of the summer.”
The tight clenching happened so quickly, he gasped. “Oh, yes. That’s good.”
He wasn’t going to come with this orgasm. He was going to give her a second tupping momentarily.
She spasmed. He knew those pulls against his erection like he knew his own heartbeat. Strong at first, then tapering off to pleasant beats that encompassed his cock.
Michael’s rigid erection slipped from her swollen cunt. He scooted up on the couch and pulled Clarissa’s legs from the straddle position so that her knees where almost under his armpits. “Lean back, Clarissa. I’ve got you.”
He guided his cock from her cunt toward her ass. Rock-hard and ready, he had no trouble pushing through that muscled barrier, slowly sliding inch by inch into her ass.
In this position, he knew he could go deep, but wasn’t sure how much she could take of him. The weight of her body helped him push deeper. “Clarissa, tell me how it feels?”
She groaned, her eyelids fluttering. One of her hands had fallen back to brace against his knee.
“Tell me, Clarissa. I need to know if you like it when I do this to you?”
Her jaw clenched. She shook her head. Already on hair-trigger, she tensed trying to prevent a second rush to orgasm.
“That’s it. Fight it.” He canted his hips to withdraw and then slid back in. The tight rim of her ass felt like a vise caressing his cock with his movements. He started the rocking motions he liked in this position. He hoped Clarissa could hold off until he’d exhausted himself or his penis was rubbed raw. He lost himself in the tight push-pull.
Their breathing was the only sound in the room.
Long, long minutes later, Michael’s balls tightened and lifted. He got into her as deep as he could, burying himself to the root. With a quick move, he touched Clarissa’s swollen clit and with a few tight rolls and playful tugs had her surging again.
He, too, bucked a few times, spilling cum, letting her contractions wring him dry.
She pushed his cock from her body and he repositioned them into a more comfortable cuddle.
Michael kissed her tear-stained face. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
Clarissa finally opened her eyes. “Michael, I haven’t decided if I’m ready to forgive you yet. You haven’t explained anything about why. And I have to understand.
“And for all of that, I need to know why you humiliated me so. No one would treat someone they love the way you treated me.”
“Clarissa, it’s in the past. Let us move on. Forward.”
“Because you’ve shoved your manhood into me twice without apologizing, because I’ve enjoyed it, you think all is well? There’s more to a marriage than fucking each other into oblivion, but evidently that is enough for you.”
Clarissa escaped from his grasp and stood, swiping at her dress, trying to look presentable. Her high color, her mussed hair and heaving bosom all worked to betray her. Had he forced the issue, he had no doubt he could rise to the occasion, given a moment to recuperate.
“Look at you,” she said with evident disgust. “Already planning our next escapade. You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”
* * * * *
His property!
Huh. What had happened to him this past year that sex had become so all-consuming for him now?
Curiosity?
Bother
. If she was curious about anything sexual, she would have asked her husband, not prostrated herself in front of others and performed intimate acts that should have been for them to decide together.
Clarissa’s strides increased with each angry thought. The folly was up ahead. Since she’d been home, she’d spent several afternoons sitting near the lake trying to come to terms with the change in their marriage.
Michael had never been so upset to send her away before.
She had never been so close to losing complete faith in him.
The afternoon grew cool as the sun descended over the trees. She shivered.
At the sound of footfalls, she turned to see Michael standing at the entrance, holding one of her shawls.
“I thought you might need this. Looks like a storm is blowing in again.”
Wind whipped through the folly and a bit of dust swirled around.
She reached for the fringed shawl but he stepped forward and draped it over her shoulders. He kissed the top of her head.
“You come here a lot when you’re upset with me.”
“Do I come here so often that my secret is out?”
“Enough. I’m surprised you haven’t taken up residence with my recent errors.”
“Michael, I’m weary. Can we discuss this some other time?”
He positioned himself beside her, all the while staring toward the lake. “It’s lovely this year. I saw a herd of deer as I walked down the trail.”
“They’re out almost every night around dusk.”
“It’s good to be home.”
“Yes,” she said.
“The boys have grown.”
Clarissa giggled. “Have we grown into a couple who has nothing to say to each other?”
He glanced down at her. “No, I’ve just grown old while you’re still beautiful, vibrant, all that is desirable to a man.”
“You’re not old. Louis Ederline is old.”
“All right, I’m not young.”
“No, because when we are old, as we both will be in the far, far distant future, we will live in perfect harmony. Our flaws will have been smoothed over, our days will be spent boasting of our prodigy and spoiling our grandchildren. So you see, we are nowhere near old.”
She faced him, searching out his features, trying to discern all of his past secrets and new thoughts. “But until recently, I thought we had reached near perfect harmony. What happened, Michael?” she asked. She sought out his gaze, but he still looked outward.
“I’ve been thinking about my apology,” he said.
Clarissa folded her hands.
“It should definitely be in proportion to the offense and you should be the arbiter of when the apology is sufficient. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“A sincere apology is all that is necessary.”
“And the assurance it will never happen again?”
“Correct.”
“But would you ever be able to forget the humiliation I caused you?”
Michael stared at her then, his gaze traveling from her breasts, along the curves of her neck until he looked at her lips, then searched out her eyes. Clarissa blushed, the sheer decadence of her behavior still nearly stopped her heart when she thought of it too deeply. Add to that what Michael had compelled her to do in front of others—it was enough to force her to a convent in fear of her everlasting soul.
“No, as I thought.” He clasped her hand. “So first, the words.”
“Then?” she asked with curious hesitancy.
“Then the penance to be meted out at your pleasure. So let me begin.” He half-turned and dropped to his knees in front of her. He cupped both of her hands between his larger, warmer hands. His lips grazed her knuckles.
Tears sprang from her eyes and thick droplets coursed down her face.
“With all my heart, I beg your forgiveness, Clarissa. You are my life and I have not treated you like my cherished wife and caretaker of my soul. Because of this, and because I know you aren’t ready to forget, at least forgive me.” He kissed her hands again.
She bent, resting her cheek against the top of his head. She sniffed. If there were words to describe the love she had for this man, she didn’t know them.
“Only you can do me hurt,” she whispered. They held each other until a strong boom of thunder crashed in the west.
Michael eased away. “We’d better head back or the boys will send a search party if we’re late for dinner.”
* * * * *
Clarissa felt the tangible retreat of tension. During dinner, her smile came readily as Michael and her sons told stories of derring-do.
Even William, who had been sullen and uncommunicative since his decreed punishment, participated with his own enhanced version of his hard labor. Harry and Andrew disputed the more exaggerated tales since they’d plagued him unmercifully, taunting him from the hayloft or teasing him as they sat on a fence while he was knee-deep in muck.
At the end of one diatribe, he pleaded with Michael. “Please, Father, haven’t I been punished enough?”