To Tame A Countess (Properly Spanked Book 2) Read online

Again, his extravagant laugh. He brought a small, nondescript box to the bed with him, and the canister of slippery oil he used when he fingered her bottom. A flush rose in her cheeks. He set these aside and kicked off his breeches, and fell upon her, easing off her dressing gown and shift, and spreading her hair upon his pillow. His bedding smelled fresh and starchy, and rather intoxicatingly like him.

  He touched and teased her beneath the covers, kneading here and pinching there, exploring all the places that most delighted her. He sucked at her nipples so her whole body trembled with arousal, and then used his knees to spread her thighs. “Keep them open, darling,” he said. “Stay open for me.”

  “Oh…” She always felt nervous when he did this. He shushed her and placed a palm over her most heated place. She arched her hips against the contact, feeling the familiar slide away from propriety to wilder cravings. “Oh, please stroke me there,” she whispered.

  “Of course. I love stroking your pussy.” His fingers played over her folds, seeking her most sensitive center and coaxing it to life. As he explored her, he dropped kisses along her neck and shoulders, light, teasing kisses punctuated by the occasional lick. Sometimes he took her like a thunderstorm, pounding and holding her hard, but this was more like…a summer rain. Humid, lazy, relaxing, and so wonderfully warm she felt she might melt right there in his arms.

  “Warren,” she sighed. “Come inside me, please.”

  “Soon, lovely. But first you must do everything I say.”

  Oh goodness.

  “Turn onto your tummy. No, you’re not going to be spanked. Don’t tremble so. Why would I spank you when you’ve been so good?”

  She buried her face in the mattress as he cupped and squeezed her bottom, still sore from her punishment earlier. “You spank me all the time just for the fun of it,” she pointed out.

  “Do I?” He gave her a couple of crisp smacks. “Like that, you mean?”

  “Yes.” It hurt her bruised cheeks, but she squirmed at the sudden heat flooding her middle. How wanton and licentious she’d become.

  “You want me inside, I know.” He rubbed her shoulders and her back. “Your little quim aches for me.”

  “Oh…” She sighed in agreement, too ashamed to look at him.

  “And your bottom’s still marked up from this morning.” As he said it, he pinched one of the lingering welts. “Let’s play with your pretty arse a bit. But no spanking, I promise.”

  She barely knew how to go on when he bespelled her like this, with nothing more than his intention and his shocking words.

  “You beautiful thing,” he said, dropping kisses along the back of her neck. “I want to be inside you always, everywhere.” As he said this, he slid his fingers down to her quim and breached her. He moved one finger deeper into the slick proof of her arousal, then slid it upward, back and forth across her bottom hole. She tensed as she always did when he touched her there.

  “Easy,” he said. “Don’t fight it. Let me inside, my love.”

  He pushed his fingertip against the tight bud. She made a soft, anxious sound.

  “I know, I know. You’re always this way at the start, but then I make you feel good, don’t I? Let me show you what I’ve got for you.”

  He fetched the box and the lidded canister. She turned on her side and he showed her an oblong, ebony bulb of sorts, nestled in a bed of pewter-colored silk. It looked smooth and finely worked…and a bit frightening.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “A training tool, I suppose, for perverts and libertines. I thought we could make use of it.” As he spoke, he reached for the canister and dipped his fingers inside, coating them with the slick, fragrant oil. He took the bulb from the silk-lined box and rubbed the oil all around it. “Does this remind you at all of the shape of the ginger?”

  Josephine had hoped that wasn’t where this “training tool” was intended to go. Oh dear.

  He smiled at her flustered look. “Don’t pull faces. I promise this won’t sting like the ginger. On the contrary, I believe you’ll feel quite transported with pleasure before we’re through.”

  “I don’t know. It looks awfully big and hard.”

  “Well, you ought to be used to big and hard things by now. Turn over again and lift your bottom. Keep your hands out of the way.”

  Her wavering protests were ignored as he turned her and made her arch her backside in a lewd fashion. Again, he breached her bottom hole with his fingertip. It went easier this time, with the slick stuff to prepare the way. She lay very still, grasping the sheets in her fists. Why did she surrender so easily to his indecent trespasses? She supposed it was because, as he said, there was always pleasure before he was through.

  Next, she felt the cold, hard tip of the bulb at her backside. She squirmed a bit, until a sound from her husband stilled her. You ought to be used to big and hard things by now.

  Oh, but this was so strange. It felt like stretching, and pressure. As he eased the shaft into her, he moved his other hand up and threaded fingers into her hair. When he pulled it, tugging her head back, she felt the pain in her quim, all the way to the wet, aching core of her sex. He tugged harder, in slow degrees, until she could barely control her jerking hips. At the same time, he pressed the ebony shaft deeper and deeper until he finally drove it home. She felt its fullness and presence inside her, held in place by its prominent flange.

  He released his hold on her hair and pushed her back over. He spread her open with his knees as she clenched on the solid intrusion. “How does that feel?” he asked, gazing down at her with his vivid eyes.

  When she didn’t answer, he parted her pussy and stroked across her sex, manipulating that little button that made her squeeze even harder around the shaft impaling her. She felt overwhelmed with sensation. She couldn’t say anything but a shocked, “Oh.”

  “Is that a good ‘oh’ or a bad ‘oh’?” His lips curved up in a grin. “It’s not so bad, is it?”

  Josephine shook her head. It didn’t burn like the ginger, that was true, but the bulb felt hard and unforgiving. She found herself tensing upon it again and again, unable to stop the instinctive inner movements. Warren leaned back, his huge cock held in his fist. “Are you ready for me?” he asked with an edge of tension. “Do you want me inside you now too?”

  “I don’t know.” She already felt so full. She eyed his prodigious girth. “I’m not sure that…both…”

  “Yes, both,” he said. “You can take it, Josie. It’s going to feel so good.”

  Josie. No one had ever called her by a pet name before. She thought she rather liked the sound of it. Her husband moved forward, rubbing his cock against her slick entrance, and then began to press inside. She’d had only the vaguest sense of her nether anatomy before marriage to Lord Warren, but she had a much greater understanding of it now. She worked to relax, to accept his thick length alongside the stout bulb seated in her other passage. He went slowly and carefully, so there wasn’t any pain, only a great deal of stretching and accommodating. She felt a hot sense of surrender, a fearful kind of pleasure in the act.

  “Yes, that’s it,” he said when he was fully seated. “I like this very much. You feel so exquisitely tight.”

  She squeezed her muscles and he gasped, withdrawing halfway again. He eased forward, making a guttural sound. His entire body seemed to vibrate as he arched over her. “Such a good, naughty girl,” he whispered. He caressed her with one hand while he braced himself on the other. Each time he touched her breasts or nipples, or stroked her neck, or nibbled her ear, she squeezed on him again, thinking how much better it felt each time.

  The fullness was turning to something else altogether, some delicious bliss at being so coarsely and deeply possessed. As her arousal surged, his talented fingers slipped again between her legs. Oh, he had only to touch her there. She threw her head back and groaned at the dexterous pleasure of his touch. Her nipples drew tight, forming pointed peaks. When he pinched them—oh, so brutally hard and so tightly—
she nearly lost herself.

  “Yes, my dear,” he crooned. “I know. I told you it would feel good. Oh, God.” His words cut off in a stifled curse as she squeezed on him again, her muscles taking over, seeking her body’s desire, seeking to grip and caress and stroke. He drove her to the top of a peak and then over it, so she threw out her hands to clutch the covers. Ecstasy consumed her, a beautiful, encompassing aftermath capping a summer’s storm. He pressed deep within her, so hard and so fast that another series of spasms sent her shuddering from head to toe.

  He collapsed on top of her. She ought to feel discomfort—he was still quite hard, and she was still quite full inside—but all she felt was a great reluctance for him to leave. After a few moments, he withdrew from her as carefully as he’d pressed in. She waited for him to take out the ebony bulb too, but he didn’t.

  “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.

  Chapter Fourteen: Lessons

  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 ther
e, 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…”