Droit De Seigneur (10 page)

Realizing that he was going to punish her once she arrived next to him, Amber did everything she could to resist him, and would even have gone for her knife, had he not beaten her to it, damn the man. Her trusty blade was thrown well away from the both of them, towards the door as she found herself sliding closer and closer towards him and the inevitable comeuppance he always delivered for whatever infraction she’d committed.

He was still lecturing, and she was trying not to listen. “On the contrary, as my wife I will hold you to an even higher standard. You wear my name. You are my countess, and in good time you will bear my children. I will be much stricter with you now that I am your husband.” Amber couldn’t stop thinking of the fact that he would obviously rather have married that simpering child who prostrated herself at his feet and whined, and her heart ached. Now she was tied, for all eternity, to a man who didn’t want her.

And she was only just discovering that she did want him, in fact, she was terribly afraid that she loved him, and that was the last thing she needed to know about herself. It had never happened before, and Amber had always considered herself immune.

Until him. Until a strong, autocratic, disciplinary, no nonsense man had literally ridden into her life and turned it upside down.

She ended up upside down in more ways than one when he’d tugged her close enough to catch her, sit down on the edge of the bed and throw her over his lap with very little ceremony.

In fact, he’d positioned her so far over his legs that she’d had to put her arms over her head to stop the top of her noggin from connecting with the cold marble floor, and Piers decided that he liked this position for her immediately, because it removed the problem of what to do with those wandering hands. Now they were busy trying to keep her balanced, and keep her head from crashing down onto the floor, while he could deal with the business end of things relatively unencumbered.

Piers drew a deep breath, his broad hand resting on her plump little bottom, covering most of it nicely. He wasn’t going to use any implements tonight, unless she did something untoward. As unsentimental as he considered himself, this was still his wedding night, and it meant something – if not to him, than at least to his new bride. He wanted to keep things on as intimate a level as was possible, and actually spanking her with his hand was just about as intimate as a spanking got, as far as he was concerned.

Chapter Seven

He lifted his hand to deliver the first swat, only to hear his wife say, “Stop, please, I need to ask you something!”

“A question that should stop me from correcting my woman? It had better be a very important question, or I’m going to think that you’re trying to delay your punishment, and I’m not likely to be very happy with that idea,” he warned, patting her nates in a manner that was already much too hard for Amber’s comfort, and the spanking hadn’t even begun.

Trying to control her breathing, and not pleased that she was nervous enough to be nearly panting, and now worried that he wasn’t going to consider that this was a particularly important reason to stop her correction, Amber never the less plowed on. “I need to know what I should call you.”

Piers’ eyebrows rose. “What you should call me?”

“Yes. What’s the correct mode of address – what do Norman wives call their husbands?

First name? Last name? Sir?”

He was laughing at her again, and she could hardly bear it, but she kept her emotions under tight check, not wanting to give him any more ammunition against her. “I don’t care what any other wife in this or any other realm calls her husband. The question is, what do I want you to call me.” Piers pretended to be giving the notion serious thought, then asked her something that astounded her. “Did you think I hadn’t noticed that you’ve never called me ‘my Lord’?” It was something she’d promised herself – when they lost the war – that she wouldn’t do.

In truth, she never expected her childish, personal vow to be put to the test; certainly not to the extent that it had been recently. He’d never made any prior objection, or called her to account for not using a mode of address that was deferential enough.

But he came up with it now?

“I hadn’t realized,” she answered, and his response was a swift round of smacks that had her trying to dance away from first contact, but the precariousness of her position, as well as his strategically placed arm that held her not too tight, not too loosely, prevented such a possible escape.

“Amber.” Just her name, delivered in a sober, somber tone that had her reconsidering more than her physical position. “I would suggest that you endeavor never to lie to me again, because I will know it, and the next time you do it, my response won’t be so soft on you.” That was soft? She thought, wishing with all her heart that she could reach back and rub her bum; even just one gentle swipe would help. But she knew better than to think that that was going to happen.

“So that is what you will call me,” Piers decreed, applying several vicious swats to the vulnerable under curve of her bottom, which was extremely accessible this way. “Is that understood?”

Amber could barely reply. It was as if she had a choice when she opened her mouth – she could either wail or scream, but she wasn’t at all sure she could control either enough to answer him coherently. And that only resulted in another round of swats to the exact same two tender spots as before.

Finally, at the end of a barely suppressed sob, she was able to say, “Yes!” before he began again.

To her utter dismay, that didn’t end the intolerable cracking against the wobbly baby flesh of the tender underside of her cheeks. “Yes, what, Amber?” he asked, obviously unhappy at having to prompt her.

But she was that far gone so as to be unable to remember that she should have ended her response by addressing him in the manner he was just requesting. “Yes, my Lord,” she breathed, collapsing over his lap, not bothering to worry about whether or not her head was concussed against the floor. Amber would have sworn she could hear the sizzling of her own flesh.

“Good. Now we can get on with your punishment for not obeying me immediately when I held my hand out to you.”

Despite the unfavorable comparisons she would have made within her own head between herself and the mousy Josette, she would have wailed at that pronouncement, but he didn’t give her a chance. Instead, he pulled her back up with one easy movement, then had her on her back on the edge of the bed, stripped naked before she could lodge a protest, with her legs held well back over her midsection, as if he was going to put a nappy on her rather than punish her.

But she was very wrong about that. He definitely punished her, and she knew, from the first stroke, that she never wanted him to put her in this position again.

Piers used his own weight to keep her legs well back, which exposed her bottom to his seeking palm, but it also exposed other, even more vulnerable and sensitive areas to that punitive hand, and he wasn’t being particularly careful as to exactly where it landed. Indeed, it seemed as if he was deliberately targeting her more sensitive areas at times, although it wasn’t as if he neglected her rump, either.

When he finally stopped, he informed her that she was wearing the brand of his hand in various degrees of carmine red all over her backside, which was exactly what she could expect –

and worse – if she didn’t obey him instantly.

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll talk about some new rules for you.” As he spoke, he arranged her, as if she was some tableau he was setting up to paint.

Amber didn’t like the sound of that, but she wisely held her tongue. She would have thought that, with her elevated position as wife and countess, that she would have fewer rules, rather than more. Apparently her husband didn’t agree.

And she didn’t think she was very excited about the idea of finding out exactly what those rules might be. She was very afraid that they were going to curb the majority of the freedoms she currently enjoyed.

When he’d finished, she was lying on her back in the middle of the fur covers, completely naked. He had arranged some furs under each leg, and then cocked each to the side, so that they were spread but supported and, he hoped, relatively comfortable. Amber was mortified by this position, but knew that if she moved, she risked another punishment.

As it was, she couldn’t keep one of her hands from drifting down to try to cover that which he had so completely exposed. He hadn’t told her not to, so she wasn’t technically disobeying. But she knew it wasn’t something he would want her to do.

Piers was beside himself with desire. It was all he could do not to fall on her and ravish her, hard and quick, and purely for his own pleasure. But he wanted more from her than that, more, he knew, than he could ever have expected from that simpering fool downstairs. Still, he would have chafed at being required to marry anyone.

To have her at his mercy like this, spread before him like the buffet William had compared her to . . . But then he looked up and saw the fear in her eyes that she was bravely trying to ignore and felt a twinge in his heart. That wasn’t something he was accustomed to, and he did his best to ignore it, although it did prompt him to press the chalice to her lips again and encourage her to drink deeply.

She nearly drained it all, but he saved the last swallow for himself.

When it was gone, he returned to the end of the bed and mounted it, crawling towards her like a great beast to settle between those beautiful legs, simply staring down at her in wonder.

He’d seen his share of quims, but none of them had truly belonged to him. None of them would be producing his children or sharing his life. This woman would be with him until he drew his last breath, and, if he let himself think of it, there wasn’t a better woman for him in the world.

But right now, he could smell her. She’d not had time to bathe just before the ceremony, as he had, what with all the women cackling about her, most of who only indulged in an annual bath themselves. But she had been bathing when William happened upon them, and now she simply smelled of the essence of herself, mixed with the flowers and lotions the women had used on her.

She smelled wonderfully enticing, deeply earthy and sensual. He wanted to eat her up, and that was exactly what he intended to do.

Amber could feel his breath on the essence of her. She wasn’t sure if that was one of the effects of the drink or if it was merely that she felt unbearably exposed. She could feel that she was wet, the way he liked her to be wet, but that way was almost as embarrassing to her as if she had lost control of her bladder. It came as the result of her punishments, and wasn’t something she could control. It made her feel an ache that only he could fulfill, and he’d only done it that once. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted him to do it again, and she wasn’t even sure if that was what he intended to do from his current position.

She hated not knowing what was happening. It was an unusual position for her. She had always been the one who was in charge at home – well, besides Da, but she ran the house. She was the one people came to about how to do things. She knew everything.

Here, now, she knew nothing of what was to come. Some form of pain and pleasure, she was sure, but that was about it. Nothing she could say yes or no to. He was in complete control of everything about her, even more so, it seemed, than when she was his servant. Being his wife made her even more chattel than being his servant, and he had legal access to do with as he pleased to her body.

And she knew that was exactly what he intended. To do what he pleased.

Her bottom throbbed, even against the softness of the furs beneath her. And he was going to be even stricter on her now that she was his wife?

It didn’t bear thinking of, and that was good, because he chose that moment to descend upon her, using his broad shoulders to block any attempt she might make to close her legs against him.

“You are mine even more completely now, wife,” Piers said. “I can, in good conscience, claim that which I hadn’t before, because I own it in exchange for my name and my position. I warn you not to be cavalier with either.”

Amber had no idea what he was talking about, except that he was warning her not to besmirch his name or his title, and she had no intentions of doing either.

But she was entirely unprepared for what he did next. The entire of that part of herself that only he had touched was enveloped in his mouth, and she felt the broad, insistent flat of his tongue dragging itself over that kernel of need that only he seemed to be able to stir to life within her.

Her bottom was nearly entirely forgotten in that instant. There was only his skilled mouth and her eager, mindless body. His first assault tore a tortured groan from her before he came up for air, and he counted that as much a victory as he would have any long, bloody battle fought with swords and knives.

She was a proud one, his wife, used to doing what she wanted and having her own way –

in some ways, she was as brave and loyal as any man he’d ever known. If she’d been a man, he would have been proud to count her among his friends. But as a woman such as she was, he liked that he could wrest that control from her at whim, whether it was a throaty scream from one too many overlapping applications of his palm to her bottom, or a groan such as that one, torn from the back of her throat because of the pleasure only he bestirred within her.

Piers lapped his way up her body, still not allowing those restless legs to find each other and close him out, but also not allowing himself the luxury of finding his release within her, despite the impetus of dragging his swollen cock upwards towards that which it most coveted.

He, too, prided himself on his control.

He took her mouth with his, still smelling of her, not allowing her to demure. His hands found her breasts and worried those nubs till they were sensitive and just slightly sore, ripe and ready for the affections his mouth was watering to bestow. Piers wasn’t sure whether she enjoyed her breasts being fondled almost as much as her little quim, but he knew he wasn’t going to neglect either part of her.