The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

She sounded as if she was in pain. Slowly, knowing she was willing him to caress her, knowing she was holding her breath, he lowered his head and kissed her.

She screamed.

She was his now, completely his, and she was in a bad way, his stubborn, big girl. He felt the pleasure ripping through her, felt the building tension, the urgency nearly crested. He lifted his head.

“Helen.”

She was beyond herself.

“Helen.”

She tried to focus on his face, but it was difficult. She wanted his mouth on her, something that only he had done to her, and it was immensely exciting and she couldn’t begin to imagine how horrible it would be to go through life never feeling this sort of wild madness. And now she knew what it was and how it felt and how it made you just want to yell and yell, and continue yelling until you exploded or simply collapsed.

She felt his mouth on her again, hot, his tongue making her scream. And then, suddenly, he was gone.

She lay there, twitching and jerking and arching as far as the soft ties on her wrists and ankles would allow, until the pleasure gradually faded. She looked over at him as he sat in the chair beside the bed, drinking some more tea and reading the Gazette.

He wasn’t even looking at her. She wanted to cry, but of course she wouldn’t. She wanted to kill him, but of course, at the moment, she could not do that either. Perhaps she could curse him to death. But there were no words coming out of her mouth. She just lay there, feeling the pulses of pleasure slowly fade, leaving her empty and cold and ready to murder him. So that was his discipline. He called it not quite ecstasy, the bastard.

Objectively, his punishment was incomparable. It was a Level Ten, at the very least. Hollyhock bunches were nothing compared to this.

She wanted to stab him in his black heart. With her father’s sword. She jerked on her left wrist. To her astonishment, she was suddenly free. She lay there and blinked. The damned tie had simply slipped loose. Now the other wrist. Surely she couldn’t be so lucky as to free that one too. How had she moved her wrist just then, just before the knots had slipped loose?

She’d turned her wrist inward, then given a sharp jerk. She did it again. The knots slipped open over her other wrist. She did the same thing with each ankle. She was free. His head was buried behind the Gazette. He wasn’t paying any attention to her at all.

She felt fury pump through her and a high degree of admiration and respect for his discipline methods. He had driven her to the brink of madness, then left her. Yes, it was very effective, but surely he could be watching her face, perhaps even teasing her. But no, the miserable wretch was reading. Very slowly she sat up, shook off the cravats, and without a word, with no warning at all, she jumped from the bed and onto him, flinging him backward. The Gazette pages scattered over the floor. The chair toppled and they fell over together, she on top of him.

24

SHE GRIPPED HIS HAIR and banged his head several times against the rug. It was unfortunate that the damned rug was so thick and soft. She wasn’t making any headway at all. She banged him again. “You bastard,” she yelled right in his eye. “You wretched bastard. I think your discipline was disgraceful. I would rather be walloped on the side of the head with a beam. I would rather be forced to eat boiled turnips with no salt, which is a nice solid Level Three punishment. But not what you did, this despicable not quite ecstasy discipline. I hated it. Do you hear me, Spenser? I hated it.” She smacked his head down again against the rug.

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He was laughing.

She reared up, still beyond herself, and stared down at him. She banged his head yet another time. He was still laughing. At her.

“You made me wild and then you had the gall to leave me.” She was sitting on top of him now, leaning over, her hands around his throat. Her ripped nightgown hung loose, nearly falling off her shoulders. “You clod, you left me and came over here to read your newspaper. A bloody newspaper. You even drank tea. I am going to mash every bone in your wretched body.” She started with his neck. She was trying her best to choke him to death. She just might succeed. Helen had very strong hands. Her breasts were nearly touching his face.

He grabbed her wrists and pulled her fingers off his throat. He grinned up at her like a man who had just filched a packet of silver and discovered, to his utter amazement, that it was gold. “Will you declare that I am the master of discipline? That you are only a very distant second to me? Just look at you, Helen, trying to kill the man who so perfectly disciplined you.”

She stopped cold. She sat up on him. Her nightgown still hung around her, nicely open, and he just looked and slavered and enjoyed. “You’re right,” she said slowly. “It was a two-part discipline that was more than effective. It was devastating.” She leaned down and kissed him. Then she bit him, then licked where she had bitten. She felt his hand on the back of her head bringing her back down to him. Because he had no shirt on, her breasts were against his warm flesh.

He kissed her wildly, without restraint for perhaps thirty seconds. “Oh, no,” he said into her mouth, grabbed her arms and shoved her back up. Her eyes were slightly crazed, her lips parted, as were his.

“No, just stay there, Helen, even though you are crushing me into the floor. Now, dearest, I have to say this. You misled me. I had believed you possessed of one of the premier brains in all of England—at least that is what you led me to believe. I must reevaluate that now. Ah, I forgot that you are, after all, a woman, with all the drawbacks, all the problems, all the lacks inherent to your charming, albeit occasionally incompetent sex.”

She started to come down to kiss him again, then she paused and frowned. “Whatever are you talking about?”

He shook his head, disappointment written all over his face. He sighed, then said, “Well, you see, that took you much too long.”

She grew utterly still. She splayed her palms on his bare chest, a very nice chest with crisp hair. “What took me too long?”

But she knew, oh, yes, she knew. He loved her hands on him. He wondered if she could feel his heart speeding up. He said, “It’s the little half flick that you do with your wrists, that quick turn inward, that does the trick. The knots just slip right off. Yes, it took you a very long time to find the answer.” Then he reached up and cupped her bare breasts in his palms. “Just beautiful,” he said. “Now, before you have your way with me, do you agree to marry me?”

She just sat there on top of him, her nightgown hanging off her, her hair tousled around her face, disbelieving what he had done to her. She had never known a more beautiful man in her entire life. All of him was beautiful.

“I mean this, Helen. No more ecstasy, no more insane desire. I won’t make love with you again until you promise you will marry me.”