Thoroughly Whipped

I glanced down at my wedding ring, glinting in the summer sun. We’d been married last year on this estate. And like we had planned, we split our time between England and New York. Harry had taken to running HCS Media as well as we’d always known he would—flawlessly. And I still wrote “Ask Miss Bliss.” She was my sarcastic wench of an alter ego, and I refused to give her up. But I also wrote features. I couldn’t have been happier.

“Lady Sinclair,” Harry greeted, wrapped me in his arms and kissed me. I was a ‘lady’ now. An actual title owning lady, which was the most hilarious thing on the planet. I moaned into his mouth, dizzy when he pulled away. “Did they get away okay?”

“They did,” I said and led him to our favorite place on the estate, our fairy-tale bridge. “And tomorrow the troops descend from New York for two whole weeks of carnage.”

Amelia, Novah, Sage, and Nicholas were coming. Nicholas now ran the New York office, and from what I could gather, gave the orders to Sage in the bedroom too.

I laid my head on Harry’s chest and waved to King Sinclair, getting in his ridiculously expensive sports car and driving away, off on another adventure. Or a day at the bowling club, I was never sure. “You’re looking particularly gorgeous today,” Harry said and curled a strand of my hair around his finger. “In fact, you’re glowing.”

“Must be from the thorough ravishing you gave me last night. I can barely move my legs today. I think you broke my pelvis with Private Harry.”

“For the love of all that is right and holy, please can you stop calling my member Private Harry.”

“Well, I have to say that Private Harry is better than member. What are you, eighty?”

“I’m reserved,” Harry argued.

“Reserved!” I snorted. “Tell that to my permanently red ass, which you’ve systematically spanked the shit out of for over two years.”

Harry’s lips twitched in amusement; then he gave me a hard look of admonishment. “Anonymity is key, Lady Sinclair. One must keep these things behind closed doors.”

I eyed him incredulously. “If ‘behind closed doors’ means a chain of sex clubs that now spans the world, bringing awful masks and annoying cloaks to the rich and perpetually wet, if you mean that ‘behind closed doors,’ then I understand.”

Harry growled and dropped a kiss to my temple, and I had a sudden attack of nerves over what I was about to tell him. As we walked over the bridge, looking back at the house, I let contentment wash over me and took Harry’s hand.

“Faith?” he asked, eyebrows furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

Taking a deep breath, I said, “Nothing’s wrong. I mean, quite the opposite. If you take away the sickness and sore nipples, that is—oh, and the fact that every smell makes me want to rip off my nose—”

“Faith?” Harry held my hands more tightly.

“I’m pregnant,” I blurted out. I watched Harry closely for his reaction. Shock quickly morphed into pure, unadulterated happiness, a beaming smile spreading over his face, making my husband look all kinds of impossibly beautiful.

Harry scooped me up in his arms and spun me around, laughing into my neck. Even now I could hardly believe he was mine. My own slightly sadistic, sexually deviant Prince Charming.

When he placed me back on my feet, he kissed me deeply and dropped his forehead to mine. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered, voice thick with emotion. “Faith. I…” He stumbled over his words. “I can’t believe it. I’m…I’m so happy.”

“As am I,” I said and let him kiss me again. When Harry broke away, he kept his hands on me like I was suddenly made of glass. He led us to a patch of lawn near the bridge. He sat down, gently guiding me down too and I lay down beside him, head upon his lap and his hand stroking my hair.

Then Harry’s hand left dropped to my slightly rounded stomach in awe. “A baby…” he said, voice filled with awe. “I wonder what it’ll be?” I almost cried at the new kind of wonder in his voice. “Boy or a girl? I wonder who they will look like.” I wanted them to look like him. Or at least inherit those blue eyes I was still obsessed with. I snorted in amusement, and Harry frowned. “What?”

“I’m more concerned about when they’re older and ask us how we met.”

“At work,” Harry said. “Easy.”

I shrugged playfully. “I don’t know, I mean I was thinking of going with the story that I was your sexual submissive and you my firm and well-endowed master.” I put on my best voice. “Well darling, your daddy locked me in some stocks, and after a good round of mind-blowing cunnilingus, he pounded the fuck out of me, and it was then I knew I was in love.”