To Tame A Countess (Properly Spanked Book 2) (23 page)

“How does it feel now?” he asked. “Does it hurt inside you?”

“No,” she answered after a moment of consideration. “It only feels very naughty and scandalous.”

This seemed to please him. “Naughty and scandalous. Very good. Only imagine how scandalous you shall feel when I put my cock inside your tiny backside. Not tonight,” he said when her eyes went wide. “Tonight you must rest. But sometime soon I’ll let you see what it feels like. We’ll work up to it. Would you like that?”

She took a deep breath. “Well… If you think it’s possible.”

He chuckled and cupped her chin. “It’s possible, I assure you. In the meantime, let’s leave the bulb in your bottom a while longer so you can become accustomed to how it feels.”

His words sounded wonderfully provocative, and his arms were bracing and warm. Sometime soon? Perhaps by then she would regain her senses, or perhaps by then she’d be even more willing to please her wicked husband. She’d survived his ball, hadn’t she?

She looked into his eyes, wondering how far she would go to retain his affections. The way he looked at her this moment, she thought she would go quite a ways, in whatever direction he told her. Into forests full of tigers, or ballrooms full of haughty ladies and gentlemen. Into bedrooms where strange and singular things happened.

He had a way of making her face her deepest fears.

Josephine agreed to order gowns, shoes, hats, fans, and gloves in dozens of colors. She could not imagine why, except that Lord Warren preferred her to be stylish and bright.

When she wore her new clothes about town, to rides in the park, or shopping with Minette, people noticed and smiled at her—an entirely new experience. Many ladies complimented her on the recent ball, thanking her for the invitation and promising to call at Park Street soon. Josephine smiled back at them, even though, inside, she quailed in fear of being discovered as an imposter. The
baga lika
hiding amidst the quality, disguised in her fashionable gowns.

Perhaps that’s why she’d grown progressively fonder of her husband. He was the one person around whom she could be herself. He knew everything about her, even the most awful secrets no one else knew. He knew she was flawed and afraid, and that she was responsible for such a gross crime as her own parents’ death, although he insisted it wasn’t her fault. Sometimes she almost,
almost
believed him. At the very least, she considered herself preternaturally unlucky, the type of person who might cause mayhem at any moment if she didn’t exercise the utmost control.

And so she tried to control herself, and she practiced being the wife he wanted. She practiced smiling, she practiced walking, she practiced nodding just the right way, and she practiced holding her head with the proper degree of loftiness. She practiced addressing dukes and earls, and marchionesses and viscountesses, and practiced dining in the most polished manner of refinement.

She practiced conversation too, most often with Minette, who was always pleased to chatter on for an hour or three. They walked in the garden or sat at embroidery together, and Minette conversed so effortlessly, knowing exactly what to say and how to carry herself, and how to address servants in the exact right tone. Josephine marveled at it and did her best to copy it. She wished she was half as easy and carefree as her sister-in-law, to always do everything with such élan.

Lord Warren helped her practice conversation on other days, when Minette was off somewhere with her acquaintances. Her husband always used much more sadistic methods. Today, for instance, he held her upon his lap on a chaise in the smaller drawing room, her back pressed to his front, her skirts pushed up to her waist and out of the way to bare her legs. He twirled a riding crop between his fingers; three pink marks already decorated her thighs.

“What is the proper response when a dowager complains of poor digestion?” he asked.

She gazed warily at the crop’s flicky tip. “One might suggest she avoid fibrous foods and other roughage of that sort. Ouch!” She jumped as the rectangular tip connected with her left outer thigh, leaving a fiery sting.

“The words ‘fibrous’ and ‘roughage’ should be avoided in polite conversation, darling. They’d send most dowagers into a swoon. Try again.”

“Offer her some lemonade? Ouch!
Damn!
” The word slipped out, because he said
damn
all the time and she’d picked up the habit. She clapped a hand over her mouth but it was too late.

“Polite women don’t curse,” he said with another flick, this time on her right thigh. She squirmed from the sting but he only tightened his grasp at her waist. “I believe you’re getting worse at this instead of better. Everyone knows lemonade is terrible for digestion. A dowager would only go on about sour stomachs, and where would you be then? I’ll give you one more chance to come up with a reasonable answer.”

“Or what?”

“Or you get the crop on your silly little behind. Think.”

“I’m trying to think,” she said. “But it’s not very easy, with that horrid thing hovering over my kneecaps.”

“I’m not striking anywhere near your kneecaps,” he chided her. “And believe me, there are much worse places I could crop you if I wished to be horrid.”

As he said this, he stroked the tip up the inside of her thighs, to the simmering spot at her center, the spot that always wanted to be touched ever since she’d married him.
Oh, please, my God, not there.
He stroked her with the edge of the crop, back and forth, as threatening as he pleased.

She flushed, trying to close her legs. He forced them open again. “What have I told you five times already? Leave them apart.”

“Someone will come in. One of the servants will see me like this.”

“No, they won’t. And if they did, they would only understand what I already know. That you are a very poor conversationalist in need of constant correction.”

Her burst of laughter transformed to a yelp as he cropped her very, very near that most sensitive place. “You mustn’t,” she begged. “You really, really mustn’t strike me there.”

“On your pussy? Say it.
Please don’t strike me on my pussy, my lord.
Put a bit of begging into it.”

More laughter bubbled up in her throat, mingling with fear and surging lust. “Please don’t strike me on my…my pussy, my lord.”
Damn
was easy to say, but
pussy
was harder. It was a naughty, ribald word, like calling his thing a cock. Thinking of his cock did nothing to calm the lustful urges blooming inside her. She could feel him stiff and hard within his breeches, pressing against her back. “Please, I’m sure it’s not at all proper to spank me there.”

“On your pussy?” he prompted.

“Yes, on my pussy,” she said, shame-faced.

“I’ll spank you wherever I like, as often as I want.”

Why did it excite her when he said such things? He parted her legs wider, so she felt even more helpless and vulnerable. She moaned, turning her face against his neck.

“What is it?” he said. “Does your pussy need a strict cropping? Is that why you’re so squiggly and squirmy?”

“No.” Her outraged
no
sounded rather similar to a
yes
. “You’re supposed to make me feel good there, not bad.”

“We’ve talked about this before. It’s more exciting if I make you feel good and bad at the same time.”

This session was quickly diverting from its original purpose. “What of the dowager and her indigestion problems?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we be focusing on that?”

“Who cares about dowagers and their goddamned digestion? There are other things that need to be taken care of right now, like your naughty pussy.”

“Oh, no. Warren!” She protested as he stood her up and walked her over to a nearby chair with great padded arms. He lifted her skirts and made her sit with her bottom on the upholstery’s rough, embroidered surface. That accomplished, he tugged at her legs, forcing her to drape one knee over each arm of the chair so she was spread wide open.

“Please,” she whimpered. “This is so wicked. I’m afraid of what you’re going to do to me.”

He stood and looked down at her over his straight, aristocratic nose. “Perhaps you ought to be a bit afraid. It’s going to hurt like the devil.”

Josephine made as if to get up but he pressed her back again with the tip of the crop. “Be a brave girl for me, and I’ll reward you afterward. Arrange your legs as I positioned them. Wider.”

She eased her bottom forward so she could hook her legs securely over the chair’s arms as he wished. As a result, her most private core was on flagrant display. “You say I must be proper,” she groused, “and then you make me behave in this manner.”

“For me only,” he replied. “You’re never to behave this way around anyone else.”

As if she would. Her whole body flushed and shook with embarrassment as well as fear. He took up the crop again, trailing it up and down her inner thighs, to the tender juncture between her legs. She gathered up her skirts and buried her face in them. Oh, it was so humiliating, the way he made her feel! The tip slid against her womanly slickness, to that place so sensitive the tiniest contact made her gasp.

She peeked up at him from behind her rumpled skirts and petticoats. “Please. Warren…”

“Please what?”

“Please don’t hurt me.”

He drew back the crop and delivered a direct flick to her aching button. “Oh, my mercy,” she gasped, burying her face in her skirts again. “Oh, please, no.” It hurt, of course, but it also felt shockingly good. She was appalled at herself, at her indecent urges and cravings.
Don’t stop
, she thought secretly.
Please don’t stop.

“Oh, please stop,” she cried aloud as he flicked her again, and again. Her world was dark and shameful, her face hidden from view, but she knew he saw everything. He gave a sharp stroke to her left thigh, and her right. She cried out and drew her legs in closer to her body, as if she might close herself up tight.

“No,” he said. “Put them where they were.”

With a sigh, she draped them back over the chair’s arms.

“Scoot forward. Open yourself to me. This is what you need, Josephine. To be disciplined and taught a proper lesson.” He slid the crop’s long leather handle through the tingling folds of her center. “Look how you respond to it. More than anything, that tells me this is what you need.”

She gritted her teeth as he continued to crop her pussy and her inner thighs, sometimes standing before her, and sometimes behind her or at her side. He flicked her until she was frantic, not from the pain of it, although it was sharp and stinging enough, but more from the arousal of feelings. He was her husband, exercising marital rights she’d never imagined existed, and she did nothing to stop it. She hugged herself tight and kept her legs open for his torturous ministrations even when she must strain to do so. How long would this go on? Why did he want this? How could something so terrible feel so exquisite?

And what about the dowagers’ digestion, for God’s sake?

She dreaded being discovered in this ignominious state by the servants, but no servants came, or even knocked. Josephine thought they must know very well what was going on within the lord and lady’s drawing room, from the rhythmic thwacks of the riding crop and her wailing cries. Perhaps they listened at the door, scandalized. Perhaps they busied themselves elsewhere so as not to hear. After Warren spanked her or disciplined her, the servants would never meet her eyes, except for her pale, freckle-faced lady’s maid, who blushed furiously for hours afterward.

“Oh, it hurts,” she whined, wiggling her feet. “I think you’ve stung every inch of me twice over.”

“But you’re not nearly finished,” he said, raising his brows. “Your pussy wanted cropping, but it wants something else too.”

“No, it doesn’t want anything else,” she insisted. “It’s really perfectly content.”

“Is that so?” He held the crop a moment, kneeling before her. She peeked over the tangle of her skirts just as he leaned to touch his lips to her nether folds. “Oh…damn,” she burst out, as he sucked at her swollen button. “Oh, Warren, you must…not…”

He leaned back a bit, enough to swat her thighs again with excruciating firmness, and then he went back to licking and kissing her pussy, flicking his tongue against her in the same way he’d flicked the crop against her. She grasped his hair, transported by his voluptuous talent. The sensation was so intense she could hardly stand it.

“No, no,” she whined, but again, it sounded more like,
yes, yes
.

“You know what I’m waiting for,” he murmured against her skin. “When you give it to me, I’ll stop.”

Stop what? The licking? Or the hurting?
The implement assailed her again, sharp flicks wherever arousal pooled. She kicked her legs, thrashing beneath the crop, or was it his mouth? He hurt her, then soothed her, then hurt her again, while her heightening need threatened to undo her. She balled her skirts in her fists, pressed silken material to her mouth. Oh.
Ohhhh.
It felt so fine when he licked her there, in that deft and steady way.

She keened through her teeth when the climax overcame her. She felt his hands tighten on her inner thighs as he teased her, on and on, drawing out the pulses until they gentled and let her breathe again. Her thighs and quim stung, but they tingled with ecstasy too.

Warren stood and tore at his buttons, pushing back his coat and waistcoat and opening his breeches. He impaled her roughly, just as she was, legs spread and hooked over either arm of the chair. The position admitted him deep, as he stretched her even wider than she was already stretched. He bucked against her, his scent overtaking her senses, his hot breath against her ear. The pleasure that had already wrung her out began to resonate again, building along with the frenzied pace of his thrusts.

“Oh, Warren, that feels…very…good…”

“
You
feel very good, my naughty girl. Yes, take all of me. Move your hips for me.”

She clung to his shoulders and his hair, grabbing what she could to bring him closer and deeper inside her. She growled, or perhaps it was him. He went rigid, pressing fast and hard within her in the throes of his completion, and Josephine cried out in a second, shattering release. Somehow, she found the energy to unhook her knees from the chair and wrap them about him instead.