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

  His voice trailed off. He never actually asked a question, only set about untying the ribbon at the neckline of her ivory shift. Like the black gown, it was only an everyday thing, not fine or suited for a wedding night. He didn’t seem to care as he traced along the gathers and parted the placket with roughly masculine effort. His hand seemed as big as her whole chest.

  Don’t think of that. Don’t think of how big he is! She had only just emerged from her heart-racing terror and had no wish to plunge back into it again. No, this felt too pleasant, his stroking and caresses. He peered down at her, studying her face. Did he see the effort she made to keep the hysteria at bay?

  “I would like to see your whole body, and admire it, and shape it with my palms, darling. May I?” His words sounded so pretty, so like poetry, that she couldn’t bring herself to say no. She leaned forward so he might gather her cotton shift and draw it up over her head. He laid it beside her as if to say, there, it’s right there if you need it.

  “Lie down now,” he said, pressing her back by the shoulders. “Yes, just like that. Let me play with you a while.”

  Play with her? Oh goodness. He dropped kisses down the line of her throat, wet, wicked kisses that lingered and heated her skin. He caressed her breasts, even though she shrank back and tried to push his hands away. He merely used his mouth instead, licking across the tip and laughing softly when she made a shocked sound at the sensation. The teasing touch made her hips move again, made her whole body arch to him. He licked the other nipple in a slow, lazy swirl that caused unsettling amounts of sensitivity. Then he closed his teeth and bit down upon the tip.

  “Oh!” She tried to squirm away but he trapped her with his legs. “Oh, did you mean to do that?”

  “Yes, I did mean to. I adore those lovely, frantic noises you make.” When she scowled, he grinned at her and went back to the languid teasing. And my, it felt very fine, though her one nipple ached with extra intensity. Then he held her down and bit the other, in a blooming eruption of pain. “I had to make them match,” he said when she protested. “I can’t nip one and not the other.”

  “I wish you would stop nipping altogether.” Were these the wild humors her mother had warned her about? Gentlemen shouldn’t bite ladies. She was about to tell him so when he distracted her by kissing lower, along her torso to her trembling waist. He blew against the curving flare of her hip in the most tantalizing way and peeked up at her through his lashes. “The first time I saw you, I wanted to touch you here. I wanted to hold you and…” He smiled. “Well, I’ll show you in a bit. Is anything hurting yet?”

  “No,” she said, having forgotten about wild humors for the moment. “It feels rather…nice.”

  “It gets better. Let me show you.” As he said it, he pressed her legs open, persisting when she would have closed them. “There’s a secret, lovely part of you here.” He delved his fingers through her nether curls while she shuddered at the intimate touch.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” she said.

  “Oh, but I should. You’ll see.” He moved his fingers to a particular spot, a spot she’d become more aware of as he kissed her and licked her nipples. He teased at it now, a soft touch that set off an explosion of heated, enervating…warmth. No, warmth was not the word for it. It was rather more exotic and tingling than that.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Making you feel good, I hope. Are you still breathing? Keep your legs still.”

  She did as he asked, only because he seemed to know all about this marital rights thing. He knew exactly what he ought to do and really what she ought to do too, which seemed a formidable talent indeed. She watched him, waiting for further instructions, but he’d moved his head lower, to nestle his lips against the place where his fingers had caused such an uproar. He parted her and kissed her there, and Josephine lost all power to speak.

  Why, he was marvelous. The things he could do, with such deftness and confidence. He licked her center, massaging the tiny bud that ached between her legs. She tossed her head from side to side, wondering how on earth he had learned to do this thing that rendered her speechless and powerless to resist. She had never felt such intense sensation, such thick and heady pleasure. She thought to herself, My mother was so wrong. This isn’t the kind of hurt that causes pain and agony. This hurt is something else altogether. It was longing and agitation, and tactility, and nagging, spiraling need.

  “Oh, please,” she sighed, grabbing handfuls of his light blond hair, and this time she wasn’t pleading for him to stop. She was pleading for him to keep going. His lips and tongue curled around that tender, needful place, driving the pleasure higher. To her shock, he pushed a finger inside her, stretching and working her quim’s opening until her hips bucked.

  “Please,” she begged. “Please!” She had no idea what she was begging for, but he must have, for his fingers pressed inside her harder, deeper.

  “Let it come,” he said, in between stroking and kissing her there. “You needn’t wait.”

  Oh, she had no ability to wait, or regain any semblance of control. She felt so curiously frantic and full where he caressed her, and hot and wet and wild with urges she’d never felt before. She threw back her head as his fingers and mouth caressed her, and then the fullness peaked and seemed to overflow. The lower half of her body tensed inward and contracted in an undulating sort of wave. She knew that word, ecstasy, but until now she had never really felt it. Her body squeezed and shivered, the warmth of his tongue soothing at first and then so sensitive she pushed him away. He laughed and drew back, kissing her body, part by part, region by region, all the way back up to her lips. She tasted her scent on him, wondering at the piquant flavor. So many mysteries she’d never known. The biggest mystery of all was that a man’s touch could make her feel this way.

  “It didn’t hurt at all,” she said when she got her voice back.

  His fingertips played against the top of her stockings, tracing the garters. “There’s more.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t be alarmed.” He kissed her again, as if to give her strength. “It doesn’t hurt any more than the first part, which you seemed to enjoy very much. Well, perhaps it will hurt just a bit the first time, but nothing like having your arms and legs lopped off. And it only smarts at the very beginning of the first time, or so I’m told.”

  She froze, her contentment ebbing away. “You’ve never done this part before?”

  “No, I have,” he said, working at the front of his breeches. “But never with a virgin. So, you and I must make our best attempt to muddle through. Do you know how men are made, Josephine?”

  He pushed his breeches down and off and knelt back, so she could see the entirety of him. She tried not to look shocked. He was huge in front, and stiff, and thick.

  “You remember when I slipped my fingers inside you? Inside your pussy?”

  She flinched at the bizarre word. “My…pussy?”

  “Inside you, where you were hot and wet? Well…”

  She worked the rest out herself, and shook her head. “I can’t imagine that will work.”

  “It will work just fine, aside from the initial pain I mentioned, which is possibly just a myth.”

  She continued to stare at his swollen organ. If he were to lessen in size, all of this would make more sense. A finger was one thing, but that rod of his was the size of five fingers. Perhaps six. Seven? The more she gazed at it, the greater and harder it seemed to grow. “Is it necessary to do this part?” she asked, swallowing hard.

  He made a fist of his hand and stroked it down the length of his swollen shaft. “It most certainly is. Would you like to touch me? I don’t want you to be afraid.”

  It’s a bit late for that. Panic sheared along her nerves. This was the hurt she had heard whispers about. This was the hurt her mother warned her against. Men are brutes. They can’t help it. You must protect yourself from them at all cost.

  “Do you trust me?” he said. He took her h
and and placed it upon his upthrust organ. It was warm and velvety in texture, but so hard beneath. He stroked her hand up and down it, which only made her more aware of its outrageous size.

  “Oh, well,” she whispered. “I’m sure it won’t fit.”

  “Will you let me try?”

  He came down over her again, his legs and hips warm against hers, no longer encased in his breeches. The muscles she had noticed and admired were now pressed right against her. He dug his knees into the bed and she braced, but he only smoothed the length of his shaft along the hot, wet crevice between her legs.

  “It will feel strange at first to have me inside you,” he said against her ear. “But it will feel less strange when you give it some time.”

  “How long will it hurt?” she whispered.

  “Only a very, very short time.”

  *** *** ***

  Warren sometimes liked to hurt women. In fact, he’d developed an extensive repertoire of techniques to make women writhe in erotic torment, but he didn’t want to hurt Josephine tonight. Not now, not her first time. He held himself carefully above her as he nestled the head of his cock against her virginity. “Look at me,” he said, thinking to distract her with a kiss. He touched his lips to hers, catching her breathless pants of terror in his mouth. Now that she’d seen his prodigious size and knew exactly where he intended to put it, it was probably best to get the deed done rather than make her wait.

  He pressed tentatively against her, grasping for control. Her heat and tightness, her very virginity fired his blood so much that he wished to thrust inside her to the hilt, but she wasn’t a courtesan, or a whore. She was an innocent, and she was afraid.

  He spread her legs wider with his knees. She trembled as he kissed her again, and then he began to ease himself into her tight sheath. Even with the moisture of her arousal, it was a challenging task. She dug her fingernails into his skin and went rigidly tense. He held her close, kissing her jawline, nuzzling her cheekbone and temple when she turned her face away.

  “It hurts,” she said in a soft whine. “It hurts a great deal.”

  “Just for now, I promise. Give it a moment. You’ll grow accustomed to me.”

  He had no doubt she felt very uncomfortably impaled, but he was uncomfortable too, for very different reasons. Namely, his balls and cock felt about to explode.

  “It’s so tight,” she said, tilting her hips in tiny increments.

  “Oh, yes. I know,” he replied through gritted teeth. “It’s very tight, and very hot. And very…” He moved in the same small, controlled way she did, feeling her pussy’s caress in every screaming nerve. “Is it getting any better?”

  “A little.”

  He slid deeper, then out again, more a movement of his hips than a genuine thrust. But oh, how he wished to pound inside her, all the way out and all the way in, so powerfully and roughly that he lifted her from the bed. “You’re mine now,” he said, touching his forehead to hers. “I’m inside you.”

  Her hands had begun to relax on his shoulders. Now they tightened again. “Is there more?”

  He muttered something like “Oh God” or “Bloody hell” or something else quite graceless and inappropriate. He couldn’t remember the words past the time they left his lips. He could only think about the movement of her hips, the welcoming ease in the tension of her thighs. He slid halfway out, shuddering. “Are you ready for more?” he asked when his sanity returned. “I want to move inside you. It feels so good to move inside you.”

  She said nothing, only drew him forward with her hands. He wished to be slow, to be dignified and controlled, but her beautiful sighs made it difficult. Her hair spread beneath him, over the pillow, and her legs opened wider to accommodate his thickness.

  “How does it feel now?” he asked.

  Her answering moan was the most beautiful music he’d ever heard. He caressed her breasts and rolled her nipples between his fingertips, thrilling at every abandoned reaction. How was he to survive this? How was he to survive her? What began as slow, controlled lovemaking quickly devolved into something baser and more intense. He dug his knees into the mattress and surged into her, driving deep and wreaking every last bit of sensation from his steady thrusts.

  It was not only him losing control. Josephine proved to be as uninhibited and sensitive as he’d hoped. Now that he was inside her, she urged him on, arching and grasping at him. He kissed her everywhere, feasting on her eager responses. He nipped at her earlobes and licked her neck, and tugged her nipples into his mouth, suckling until she cried out and squeezed around him again.

  “Yes,” he gasped. “Do what feels good. Surrender to your body’s needs.”

  “Oh, please, help me.” She held his shoulders and pressed against him, seeking a release she’d only just come to know. He postponed his own needs and worked with the signals of her body to give her the help for which she begged. She was almost there. He could tell by her trembling limbs and her gasping breaths.

  “Oh, my. It’s— It’s so close.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t stop.”

  “Never. I won’t stop, kitten. Take whatever you need.”

  Her nails raked over his skin, and for a moment she held her breath. Then she let it out and gripped him harder, panting against his neck. The rhythmic pulses of her crisis undid the very last tethers of his control. He pounded into her the way he’d wished to from the beginning. She clung to him, so they were pressed together in shared rhapsody. He felt wrung out by the force of his release, so when the tremors finally left him, he collapsed atop her. Intermittent ripples of pleasure still teased along his cock.

  When he could think again, he smiled at her dazed expression and stroked his thumb across her cheek. “You see? It worked after all.”

  She gazed back very soberly, as if her world still didn’t make sense. It must be strange to go from dreading an act to enjoying it so thoroughly—more thoroughly than any typical English miss. “How courageous you were, even when it hurt,” he praised.

  “You were right. It didn’t hurt very long. It only felt a bit…astonishing.” She squeezed around his cock, so his thoughts went hazy and unfocused.

  “Dear Josephine. Be merciful, would you?” He eased from her before he was tempted to begin all over again. As much as he wanted to, he imagined she was tender.

  “Oh,” she sighed. “I feel empty now. How peculiar all of that was. I never knew…” Her voice trailed off, her cheeks reddening to a blush beneath his gaze.

  Yes, she hadn’t known a thing, but he hoped that would serve them well in this marriage. Her lack of knowledge had been matched by an equal lack of reservation once things were underway.

  “Was it as pleasing for you as it was for me?” she asked shyly.

  He wanted to eat her alive, devour her, chain her to his bed and never stop fucking her, although to say so might alarm her at this particular moment. “You pleased me immensely,” he said instead, kissing her brow and each of her eyes, and the tip of her nose. He nuzzled her cheek, breathing in her fresh, drowsy scent. “Will you have that dinner tray now?”

  “I think…” Her breath caught as he moved lower to nibble her jaw. “I think I would rather stay here…with you…a bit longer.”

  He smiled against the delicate velvet of her throat. Thus was heroism rewarded.

  “Just a moment, darling. Let me snuff the candles first.”

  Chapter Seven: Wonderful

  Josephine floated in weightless and billowing pleasure. She arched her hips so he would touch her there, in that lovely place he had helped her discover. So warm, so wet… She tossed her head from side to side. So intense. The sensation was so intense she almost couldn’t bear it. She tried to close her legs but they were pressed open again.

  I want you, he said. His voice sounded low and rough, and far away.

  She blinked her eyes, slowly coming awake. Lord Warren was with her in bed, naked. His head was down between her thighs. Oh. Ohh. The tingling ple
asure was coming from him; the warm wetness was his mouth and tongue. It felt so good it hurt her. It was too much!

  She tried to reach down to him, to tell him that he was making her feel too good, but her hands wouldn’t work. She couldn’t move her arms!

  “It’s all right, darling. I’ve got you.” He leaned up over her, so she could see his great, thick shaft and all of his muscular body. It was broad daylight, and both of them utterly naked.

  “My arms won’t work,” she said.

  “That’s because I’ve tied them to the bed frame with one of your stockings.”

  “Oh.” As she looked up, he moved back down and lowered his head to her…what was that scandalous word he had used? Her pussy. He really mustn’t kiss her there, not now in the brightness of day. She tried to close her legs.

  His only answer was to place his palms on the insides of her thighs and push them open wider. Really, frighteningly wide.

  “I’m not sure you ought to… Oh, my goodness.”

  He touched his tongue to her center, right at the place that ached the most. She bucked her hips up, straining at her bonds. His tongue teased down, down, down, until she was absolutely certain he was licking an indecent part of her body.

  “Please, you must stop that,” she begged.

  “I’ll stop when you come.”

  “W-what does that mean?”

  He paused in his licentious efforts and gazed up at her. “You remember.”

  Oh, yes. She did remember. “But how am I to manage that?” She tugged at her bound wrists. “You’ve tied me up.”

  He grinned. “Isn’t it exciting? Now you can’t stop me from doing whatever I want to your body. These honeymoons are a fine thing.”

  She watched in helpless captivity as he lowered his head and resumed licking her in a voracious way. Each touch, each heated gust of breath built on the one before it. She began to feel so full down there she thought she must explode.

  “Please, untie me.” She wanted to touch him, to guide his head to the exact places it was already going. He ignored her pleas and used his fingers to part secret flesh, manipulating the folds. She could feel how wet she was. “Please, let me go.” It alarmed her to feel so powerless.