The Bride of Larkspear (5 page)

I do not know whether she tries to resist. If so, her resistance crumbles before my need. I am ruthless and relentless. I know now exactly what she likes. And I do everything that makes her tremble and jerk.

Her free hand claws the sheets. Her foot digs into my shoulder. Her pelvis lifts off the bed.

I dig my tongue into her and she comes, screaming.

T
WO MINUTES PASS. THREE.
To my amazement, we are still in an embrace, my head on her thigh, her hand in my hair, both of us breathing heavily. Against my better judgment, I begin to dream of the day when I never need to leave her arms.

Her hand drops away from my hair. My pride prods me urgently: I must get up before I am shoved off. But it is difficult; I want to stay where I am, comfortably ensconced, nothing between us but warmth and closeness.

I force myself to get off the bed.

Unlike yesterday, she is not turning inward in the aftermath of her pleasure. Instead, she observes me closely. I can’t quite interpret her expression. There is that light of speculation again. But more than anything else she evinces a sense of readiness.

For what?

“I suppose you will wish to fuck me now?” she asks, the decorousness of her tone completely at odds with the indelicacy of her words.

Now I understand: She is ready to pounce on her opportunity to turn
me
mindless with pleasure.

“Darling, I am always ready to fuck you,” I answer, my voice only a little unsteady. “I have been ready to fuck you for years upon years.”

I unfasten my trousers and my linens and let them drop at my ankles. My cock juts out, eager and hard. I give it a casual tug.

Her eyes widen.

My hand, in a solid grip, moves up and down the shaft of my cock, once in a while closing over the glans. “Come, darling, open your legs again.”

Her eyes never leaving mine—or perhaps I should say, her eyes never leaving my cock—she slides open her legs. “Am I still as pretty there as before?”

“Prettier.” All plump and swollen from the pleasures I wrested from her.

“Are you going to fuck me now?”

The way she utters those words, both a dare and an invitation, makes my cock twitch in my hand. It wants to bury itself deep in her exquisite cunt.

“Have I not pleasured you enough this morning?” I counter. “Do you want more?”

She, of course, will never admit to such needs. “I am a devoted wife who thinks only of her husband and does not wish for his desires to be unmet.”

Her voice has the barest quiver of breathlessness to it. Hope, my old enemy, rears its naive head again. I ignore it. “Who says my desires will be unmet?”

“You will resort to your own hand when I lie here, all docile and accommodating, with my thighs wide apart, and my pretty, pretty cunt laid bare?”

Jesus. Had she wrapped her mouth about my cock, I could not be more aroused. “Yes, for a change,” I manage to say.

“Why?” Her free hand dips down, her fingertips lightly caressing her slit.

In my mind’s eye I see myself yank that hand out of the way and pound her with my cock, my hands gripped tight on her hips. I almost forget why I stand at the side of the bed, touching myself.

Then I remember it is because I am not ready to venture into the lioness’s den when she has her teeth and claws out.

“Because I am a pervert, as you tell me.”

I am rough in my motions, at one point slapping my cock before grasping it again and tugging hard. Her gaze flicks from my cock to my face and back again. Her feet clench; her bound hand grips onto the bright red sash that holds it in captivity.

Her pelvis undulates—slightly but noticeably. Noises escape me. I imagine myself balls-deep inside her. I imagine her legs wrapped around mine. I imagine her telling me, in so many words, that she has never known such pleasure, that she can never get enough of my cock.

Of me.

I expand to ridiculous dimensions. My other hand grabs onto the bedpost.

“Do you know what would make it even more satisfying?” I murmur. “Go ahead; play with yourself the way you did earlier. Rub your fingers on your pretty cunt. Spread it open for me. Slip a finger—or better yet two fingers—inside.”

She swallows, but doesn’t miss a beat. “And after I do that, should I lick those fingers and taste what you have tasted? Perhaps give my nipples a twist, too? Would that cause you to ejaculate all over my bed?”

I almost do. I can’t keep quiet anymore; my grunts echo harshly against the walls of the room. I yank my cock hard, then harder.

“You want to fall upon me, don’t you?” Her voice is low and seductive. She licks her lips deliberately. “You want to fuck me like a stallion in heat. And you want to come in me. You are dying to pump me full of seed and see it dribble down my thighs.”

With a growl, I climb onto the bed. Her eyes are brilliant with both calculation and arousal. “Can’t wait any more, can you?”

“No.” I grind out the syllable.

Now
she closes her eyes: She is thinking of someone else—or wants me to believe that she is doing so. I’d half expected just that, but still it hits me like a fist. I draw a couple of heavy breaths, then move forward to straddle her, but not in the correct place for penetration.

Though her eyes remain closed, confusion flickers across her face.

“I am not going to fuck you, not this time,” I tell her. “So you might as well open your eyes.”

She does—and regards me with suspicion.

I stare at her. “Tell me who you were going to imagine me as.”

She only pants, but does not speak.

“Tell me. Tell me everything you imagine—his build, his weight, the expression on his face.”

She remains mulishly silent, her eyes fastened to my hand, still gripped hard onto my cock.

“You weren’t thinking of anyone, were you?” I demand, propelled by an intuition I cannot explain. “You only had eyes for me. And even when you closed your eyes, it was still me you saw.”

She stares back at me but does not deny my words. Then she yanks on her restraint; her breasts bob, the nipples pink and erect. And it all becomes too much for me. My scrotum pulls taut. I shudder. Ropes of my seed arc across the air and fall upon her chest.

Her breath bellows, as if she’s run a footrace.

I hang my head a moment, half-dazed by the force of my orgasm. Then, as she looks on, panting and scandalized, I rub my seed into the skin of her breasts. Her lips quiver as I coat her nipples, making them slick—and even harder.

“I’ll order you another bath.” I get off the bed and pick up my clothes. “Tonight I will bring the blindfold back. And you can let your imagination run free.”

Chapter Three

W
HEN I WALK PAST THE
bath an hour later, I hear the sound of water.

Part of me thinks she must be scrubbing her skin raw to get rid of any remnants of our not-quite-lovemaking. A different part of me fantasizes that underneath the innocent prettiness of all the floating flowers, she is frantically touching herself.

Perhaps neither is true. Perhaps both.

Hope is not just a chronic condition. In my case, it may very well be an incurable one.

I wallow in Grisham’s company for a short while, before Mr. Donaldson, my gamekeeper, comes to take him for a round in the woods. I would have preferred to keep Grisham to myself, but Mr. Donaldson has a handsome bitch Grisham is wild about. Far be it from me to keep him away from his beloved.

I try to read some of the correspondence that requires my attention—a task no man should bother with while on his honeymoon. But all I can think about is her.

Have I made any headway with her at all?

I open a locked drawer in my desk and take out a photograph of hers that I’d pilfered from her brother’s estate. He and I are close friends, and he would most likely have given the photograph to me, had I but asked. But I conceal my love for her the way others would a case of leprosy. Or worse, syphilis.

The photograph had been taken years before and shows her at her favorite pastime, reading. It is impossible to make out the title of the open book in her hands, but I have decided long ago that it is
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, her favorite for its delightfully imaginative absurdity.

In the photograph she wears a light-colored frock. I know the dress. She hasn’t worn it in years but I remember it well, made of apple-green chiffon for summer, with puffed sleeves that narrow dramatically at the elbow.

I love the pinned-up braid of her hair in the picture. I love the tilt of her neck. I love her fierce concentration. I love…

I sigh. I love everything about her, including her talent for breaking my heart. In fact, I realize belatedly, it is one of the reasons I admire her. She does not accept the mocking, smirking, antagonistic version of me, because that me is nowhere near good enough for her.

Indeed, why would she want a man who always presents as if she is beneath him? Why would a wife grow to love a husband if the only interest in her he professes is one for her hard nipples and hot cunt?

What do I do then?

I sketch her as she is in the photograph, young, beautiful, and, above all, content.

The picture was taken before she’d fallen in love with the man who did not have enough spine to defy his family and marry her. Nor did he subsequently prove to have sufficient principles to leave her alone. She saw him from time to time at parties and soirées, an unhappily married man who still loved her and whose wife wanted nothing more than that he should take a lover so that she would have the freedom to do the same thing.

At what point my beloved decided to throw all caution to the wind I do not know. But I can say with some confidence that her affair did not make her happy, any more than our lovemaking has made me happy. Yes, there are moments of thrill and elation that are enormously addictive, but the rest of the time is spent hurtling oneself at the wall that is reality.

Her reality was that he could not share her life, no matter how much they both wanted it. And my reality, though I am still reluctant to accept it, is that she might never love me, no matter how well I fuck her.

If all I do is fuck her.

From my open window I suddenly hear her voice—she is thanking someone. When I reach the window, it is to see her ride away on a bay gelding, her person leaning forward in the saddle, her pace swift and hard.

I finish my sketch, mark it with the date, and go up to her room. Before I reach her nightstand, I notice that there is a burned piece of paper in the otherwise clean-swept grate.

My previous sketch.

It is another moment before I gather enough courage to leave this new sketch on her nightstand, with a silent prayer that she will understand it to be a gesture not of further antagonism, but of goodwill and esteem.

F
OR DINNER I ASK FOR
our places to be set across the width of the table, rather than at either end. My bride, in a closely fitted, shoulder-baring gown of hunter green velvet, raises an eyebrow at the arrangement but makes no comments.

“Can you blame me for wanting to be closer to you?” I ask as we take our seats.