“Must you?” she asked, but her defeated look said she'd already accepted the inevitable.
“'Fraid so—you heard the prince.” He took her wrist and guided her gently across his lap. Her skirts were thick—offering far too much protection. He pulled them up over her legs to bare a pert little bottom. She squeezed her cheeks together when the air hit them. He rested his hand on the soft orbs.
He tried to remember whether he'd ever whipped a woman before. The way his cock had gone rock hard made him doubt it. He would surely have remembered such an experience. He doubled the sword belt and touched it once to her bottom to perfect his aim. Then he cracked it down with about a quarter of his strength. She jerked in response, but made no sound. He continued, giving her a few seconds between each stroke to recover before delivering the next one, watching the way the her skin turned from cream, to a light rosy blush, to a deeper crimson as the lines of the belt started to stand up in puffed striation. She still hadn't made a sound, but she wriggled plenty, which did not help alleviate his intense arousal for her. He ended the whipping with five much harder strokes—their foster father had always done it that way—to show how much worse it might have been. They got a sound out of her—she cried out with each one, her voice starting to take on the sounds of sobbing by the last one. He lifted her to stand in front of him and rubbed her hot cheeks. Her skirts were still up, so he was caressing her bare bottom, which was completely improper. He jerked his hands away and allowed the skirts to fall down to her ankles. The moment his hands left her skin, they itched to touch it again—her tantalizing curves igniting a hunger deep within him.
She had tears glinting on her lashes, and her chin quivered, but surprisingly, she didn't look angry with him, confirming his impression that life had been hard for her—as if she'd come to expect pain and humiliation. She lowered slowly to kneel between his knees and stunned him by reaching to free his erection from his leggings. “You don't have to do that,” he choked, but her mouth was already opening, and the part of him that desperately wanted her mouth on his cock disabled the part of him that knew it was wrong.
“You want it,” she murmured, and he gasped at the feeling of cold air on his moistened cock.
He let his head fall back and forced himself to breathe. “Aye,” he grunted, knowing full well she was playing him, and not caring in the slightest. She tightened her lips and rubbed up and down just over the head of his penis several times, then opened her mouth wider and took as much of his length as she was able. The head of his cock bumped the back of her throat, but she didn't gag or choke. She sucked hard on the out-strokes, using her fingers to massage his ball sac and the fleshy area behind it. His cock jerked in happy response to her attentions, and he groaned. Though he'd just had a whore several hours ago in London, he felt like a young man who'd never been touched by a woman before. It took her no time at all to bring him to the brink of ecstasy, and he warned her before he spilled his seed, but she kept him in her mouth, swallowed, then sat back on her haunches and studied him, still without a smile.
He stroked her head, then buried his fingers in her hair. It was starting to come free of its braid, and he worked to unwind it, the silky waves spreading over her shoulders like a mantle. “You didn't have to do that,” he said hoarsely.
She shrugged. “I chose to. And you wanted it.”
He shook his head. “Aye, but not like that.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?” she said, standing from her crouch.
“I mean, I would want it to be freely offered, not given by a woman I've captured and beaten, who has no other options than to suck my cock.”
He'd always had a habit of saying the exact wrong thing to a woman. This was no exception. A look of pure fury darkened her face, and she swung her fist in an arc, hitting him in the mouth. He allowed the blow to fall, partly because he figured he must deserve it, and partly because he thought it was amusing that she would try to hit him.
She packed more force than he would have guessed was possible for such a little thing. His lip split and blood ran down his chin. Her eyes widened when she saw the blood and panic flitted across her face. He snatched her up quickly when she started to bolt. She thrashed around as he held her by the waist and he considered whether he ought to spank her again. He didn't want to. He sat back down on the stool and pulled her onto his lap, holding her tightly until she stopped struggling.