The Duke's Bedeviled Bride (Royal Pains Book 2) (5 page)

“Have you ever used this on yourself?”

“Which?”

“The big rosewood one.”

“Nay.”

Relief gusted through her. He’d have to be out of his senses to insert aught so large in his anus. She returned Goliath to its place, shut the drawer, and moved to the next. Inside was a carved ivory
Godemiché
of a more natural size. There was a hole in the tip of the glans and some sort of stopper in its base. Picking up the device, she made a more thorough examination. The weight suggested the phallus was hollow. She tugged on the knob of the stopper and out popped a base with a wooden stick resembling a spurtle for stirring porridge. She studied the object with intense curiosity.

“Why is there a stick inside the ivory one?”

“Maggie, pray can we move this along?” Impatience sauced the question, enflaming her irritation. “My cods are turning as blue as your eyes.”

Mistress Margaret rocketed to the surface of her psyche, snapping her leash.
Godemiché
still in hand, she strode to the wall of whips, liberated a riding crop from its peg, and went to where he hung upon the cross. Fury broiling her innards, she drew back her arm and let the crop fly. He jumped when the tongue struck his buttocks with a satisfying snap.
 

“You will keep a civil tongue in your head when addressing me, you wriggling maggot—or pay dearly for your impudence. Do you understand me?”

“I do, Mistress Margaret,” he replied with all due humility.

“Good.”

Triumph surged through her, a heady opiate. She cracked the crop across his buttocks a second time to emphasize her authority.
 

“What was that for?”

“Good measure.”

Tucking the whip into her armpit, she returned to the cabinet and opened the next drawer. Inside was a blown-glass
Godemiché
with long blue silk ribbons tied through a pair of holes in its base.

She touched the delicate streamers, bewildered. “What are the ribbons for?”

“You’ve found the glass dildol, I trust?”

“Dildol?” Tearing her gaze away from the fascinating object, she glanced at him over her shoulder.

“The English word for a
Godemiché
,” he explained.

“I see.” She filed the word away for the future. “And the ribbons?”

“They make it possible to attach the device to your person.”

She picked up and examined the object as she contemplated his inference. “You mean I can wear this as if I were a man?”
 

“Aye. More or less.”

The picture of herself taking him from behind whilst wearing the glass phallus set her pulse to racing. Yes. Oh, yes. Better still, she would make him wear a mask whilst she beat and buggered him. Mistress Margaret would have her pound of flesh.

At the very least.

Setting the dildol back in its drawer, she rounded on her husband. “Where is the mask you had me wear after you won our bet?”

The day after they’d married, they’d challenged each other to a self-pleasuring contest in the garden. The prize was making the loser do whatever the winner wished that night. After winning, he’d tied her to the bed and covered her eyes to heighten her other senses. The pursuant pleasures had been glorious.

“In my bedchamber,” he answered.

“Do you have another blindfold anywhere hereabouts?”

“Sadly, I do not.”

Discouraged but not defeated, she crossed to the pile of clothing they’d left on the floor after disrobing and rifled through the pieces until she found his fine linen handkerchief. At the cross, she rolled her pelvis against his buttocks as she covered his eyes with the folded triangle of cloth. ’Twas not as pretty as the Venetian mask, but should do as well.

After tying the ends securely at the back of his head, she sank her teeth into the flesh of his shoulder—hard enough to hurt, but not to break the skin. At the same time, she slapped his ass with her open palm. The crack sent a quiver of satisfaction through her body.
 

Returning to the cupboard, she set the whip on top and untied the drawstring on the neckline of her shift. The laundry-softened linen slid down her body before pooling at her feet. Stepping free of the fabric, she picked up the
Godemiché.
 

“How do I tie it on?”

“Set the base against your mound of Venus, pull the ribbons around your hips—snugly—and then tie them together at the base of your spine.”
 

She did as he instructed, thrilled to the brink of giddiness by the result. She had a phallus! A lovely glass one which shimmered in the candlelight like a fairy’s wand. Stroking the dildol’s cold, hard surface appreciatively, she moved to the wall of whips, selected a flogger, and returned to the cross.
 

“Spread your legs, you faithless cur.”

As she issued the order, she dragged the soft tails of the flogger across his buttocks. God, but the man had a gorgeous behind. How she would enjoy exploiting its every virtue.

She moved against him and eased her phallus into the crevice separating his cheeks.

He tensed and emitted a gasp. “Use the pomade or olive oil, eh?”

Defiance swelled inside her, hot and thick. “Why should I?”

“Because, if you fail to lubricate the device, ’twill hurt like the devil.”

“Do you not enjoy pain?”

“Not the pain of torn tissue in that particular region.”

With a
tsk
of disappointment, she withdrew, returned to the cabinet, and poured a puddle of hair oil into the center of her cupped palm. As she applied the lubricant to her lovely yet insensate phallus, she returned to the cross. Parking her well-greased phallus betwixt his cheeks, proceeded to squeeze, pet, and pinch the surrounding flesh to her heart’s content.

He bore her abuse with infuriating stoicism.

Determined to get a rise out of him, she brought her free hand down hard on one clenched flank.

Crack.

“That is for kissing Lord Hardwick.”

When he made no response, she struck the opposite buttock with the flogger.

“And what was that for?”

“Letting the earl suck you off.”

“Strictly speaking, he did not suck me off. He merely teased me into a state of acute arousal.”

Resentment surged through her. Reaching up, she grabbed a hank of his hair and pulled hard enough to jerk back his head. Taking his earlobe betwixt her teeth, she said in a near-growl, “You will not correct me. Is that understood?”

“You are pulling my hair,” he complained, “which hurts rather fiercely.”

“’Tis but a trifling compared to what else I have planned for you, you adulterous swine.”

She bit down on his ear until he squealed like a piglet. With delight pulsating through her, she reached around him, groping for his penis. To her surprise and consternation, he was limp. Hoping to remedy the deficit, she petted and pulled his malleable flesh with oil-slick fingers until his withered member telescoped.

“Pray, what is the matter, dear heart? Does the prospect of being buggered by your wife not excite you?”

“I confess, it does not.” His voice was as tense as his gluteal muscles.

“Yet, you will allow me this liberty?”

“Aye, within reason.”

“That reminds me.” She kissed and nipped his shoulder blade. “You never did confess how many men you’d buggered in your wilder days.”

He laughed, nervously. “And I never shall.”

She pulled his hair and moved her hips to drive the glass cock back and forth along the cleft of his buttocks. “Under the circumstances, do you think defiance a wise course?”

He made a choked sound, half chuckle, half cough. “Aye, well. Probably not.”

“I told you I meant to bring you to heel.” Woozy with omnipotence, she took a breath and drew back, preparing to implement her punishment. “Did you believe it an idle threat?”

“Upon my soul, I did not.”

“Good. Because, rest assured, I meant every word.”

Releasing his hair, she took the glass phallus in hand and docked the rounded tip against his anal rosette. Indignation flared in her chest as images flashed of his role in the
ménage a trois
. After Lord Hardwick finished with him, he’d played with the courtesan’s cunny before sticking his cock in her mouth.
 

Yes, he’d refrained from penetrating his partners—allegedly for her benefit—and claimed to love her, but she did not see how a man in love could be so faithless. Not in a million years would she dream of being so disloyal to him.

She’d given him her innocence—and her heart—and he’d repaid her devotion with treachery. He’d also concealed from her the possibility the king might dissolve their marriage. Had the monarch seen fit to annul their vows, she might have found herself on the streets, damaged, penniless, and unprotected.

As her outrage erupted into a blaze, she thrust her hips, driving the tip of the phallus through the taut ring of his sphincter. He stiffened and groaned—with pleasure or pain? Determined to make him pay for his misdeeds, she pushed deeper.

“Does it hurt you?”

“Nay,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

Though she knew his denial to be false, she said, “What a pity.”

“You desire to give me pain?” He sounded surprised, the cur.

“Indeed.” She pushed still deeper, marveling as his tight rosette swallowed the glistening
Godemiché
. “Measure for measure.”

His body clenched in protest, but did not expel the invader. “I was under the impression you were aroused by what you witnessed.”

“My physical reaction is beside the point.”

“Is it?” His voice was as tight as his rectum. “How so?”

“’Tis the heart, not the body, from which vengeance springs.”

Gripping his narrow hips with both hands, Maggie pumped the dildol until she tired of the activity. Apart from the fleeting exhilaration of gaining the upper hand, the act itself afforded little pleasure.

“I envy you your penis, you know.”

“Do you? How so?”

“Because, had I a real one, all this exhausting thrusting would lead to a reward.”

“Are you not enjoying yourself?”

“Are you?”

“Not especially.”

She heaved a sigh. “Nor am I. Truth be known, the idea of buggering you in revenge was much more inspiring than the actual deed.”

“Then desist and try something new,” he suggested, sounding nonplussed.

“I believe I shall.”

Withdrawing from him, she returned to the cabinet, untying the
Godemiché
as she went. She set the device atop the cabinet beside the crop and looked through the last of the drawers. Finding naught tempting, she strode to the wall of whips. A selection of floggers of varying lengths and several riding crops, some with rabbit-fur tongues, met her inventorying gaze. Curious, she removed one and petted the soft tip as she imagined its uses. Yes, this might do for later. For now, however, she wanted something to both punish and pleasure.

“Remember, dearest, this is supposed to be about trust,” he called out from the cross.

“Is it?” Dark delight skittered through her anew as she returned the crop to its peg. “Well, I trusted you to protect me and look where it got me.”

A collection of young birch branches in a ceramic container caught her notice. Each switch consisted of two or three twigs tied together with leather thongs. Striding over, she selected the stoutest from among them and pulled the branch through her hand, feeling scratchy bristles and smooth wood.

Naught works so well as a good birching to warm the blood and revive the flesh.

Icy wind gusted through her as the memories rose of the frequent beatings she’d been subjected to at the hands of the sisters of St. Teresa’s. When applied to bare flesh, birch switches stung like hornets and burned like tinder.
 

Her husband deserved no less. If he could not behave of his own volition, she would put the fear of God in him—by the same method the sisters had instilled divine awe in her.

To test the litheness, she lashed the air, delighting in the fearsome hiss the switch made. Shuddering with anticipation, she rounded on her crucified husband. Moving toward him, she licked her lips and cut the air once more.

Oh, yes. This would serve her purposes perfectly.
 

Stepping closer, she ran her free hand over his posterior, savoring the firm, fleshy composition of his magnificent hindquarters. With breathless reverence, she traced their rise from the small of his back to the tops of his columnar thighs. Beneath the fine dark hair flocking his cheeks was a clean canvas upon which to paint her stripes. From caressing, she progressed to patting, squeezing, and pinching, softly at first, then hard enough to cause pain. Though he bore her mistreatment steadfastly, his every muscle remained clenched.

He heaved an impatient sigh. “Pray, do get on with it, Rosebud, or I shall run mad from the waiting.”