Their Stolen Bride (Bridgewater Ménage 7)

PROLOGUE

MARY

“Up on your hands and knees, darlin’.”

The man stood beside the bed, naked as the day he was born, stroking his very hard cock. Clear fluid seeped from the tip and the wicked grin on his face proved he was having a very good time. He was attractive, slim, muscled, and his jaw was darkened by a trimmed beard.

The woman smiled coyly at him and did as she was told. She wore only a blood red corset, the top few stays undone and her abundant breasts spilling out.

I stood in the next room, looking through a small hole, my hands pressed against the wall, watching. Chloe, one of The Briar Rose’s many whores, stood beside me, our shoulders bumping, as she watched from her own secret spot.

The whore, now up on her hands and knees, thrust her bottom out and wiggled it, inviting the man to look at her pussy. While neither was shy and one was a professional, they had a way about them that indicated they’d been together like this before.

I’d been eavesdropping with Chloe over the past few months and could now tell such things. Yes, I knew the more vulgar terms for a man’s member, a woman’s secret place and more. Cock, pussy, ass, cum. Those words were no longer crude or salacious. I’d visited the brothel, at first innocently enough to bring used clothing as charity through the Ladies Auxiliary, but met Chloe and returned out of friendship. And, admittedly, because I was curious about what went on in a brothel. What went on between a man and woman.

I gasped as the man spanked the whore on the bottom, a bright pink handprint blooming on her pale flesh.

“See, Nora likes it,” Chloe whispered.

There was no doubt the whore knew of the peepholes, but the man who’d paid for a tumble with the plump Nora probably did not. They were meant as a safety measure—men were unpredictable and sometimes cruel—but I found them useful for eavesdropping. Miss Rose, the madame, seemed content with my reasonably innocent activities, just as long as I remained in hiding.

“She likes to be spanked?” I whispered back. I could see she did, with her surprised look, then hooded eyes. I liked it too, but I didn’t dare say that to Chloe, or to anyone else. The idea of a man’s hand striking my bare bottom made me wet between my own thighs, made my pussy clench, just like Nora.

Her pussy was pink and swollen and slick with her arousal. No doubt mine was as well, and I was just watching. I wanted a man to do that to me. Not the man with Nora, but some man. My man, whoever that may be. I wanted to glance coyly over my shoulder at him, see his wicked grin in return. I bit my lip to stifle a moan when he spanked her again, the loud crack of his palm against her flesh resounding through the wall.

I’d seen whores who were pretending with men, acting out their pleasure in exchange for money. But Nora didn’t need to feign a thing with him. Instead of putting his cock inside her—fucking her, as Chloe called it—he knelt on the bed behind her and put his mouth… there.

“Oh lord,” I whispered. Chloe covered a giggle with her fingers. I looked at my friend, all wild red hair and pink cheeks, and I knew my eyes were wide. That was something new to see.

“He likes pussy,” she whispered.

I put my eye back to the peephole when I heard Nora’s cry of pleasure. He was licking her woman’s flesh, sucking on it, nibbling, too. Oh my. His beard began to glisten with her arousal.

“That’s it, darlin’, come for me,” the man said. “Come on my fingers and then I’ll fuck you.”

“Yes!” Nora cried. The man wiped his mouth with his free hand and slid his fingers in and out of her as she writhed upon them.

It was hard not to squirm as I watched the man give Nora such pleasure. He was so eager to see to her come that he delayed his own need. I wanted that. I wanted a man who put me first.

The man spanked her again. The man’s cock was engorged and dripping, clearly in need of his own release. “Now, darlin’. Give it to me now.”

Nora did, crying out her pleasure. The look on her face was exquisite. Wild abandon. She thought of nothing but the bliss the man wrung from her body. The man’s wicked grin inferred his power over her body.

God, I wanted that. I ached for it. Needed it. But I wasn’t a whore at The Briar Rose. I was a copper heiress and I shouldn’t even know about fucking. I shouldn’t even know the word itself. But I did. Did that make me a wanton? Probably, but my life was so plain, so strict and dull, that visiting Chloe and discovering an entirely new world was the only thing that gave me amusement. Hope.

Hope that there was a man out there who would want me like this man wanted Nora. I wanted to be wild, not stifled. I wanted to allow every one of my secret desires to be shared with someone who would see to them, not crush them beneath the boot of polite society.

I wanted more than I’d ever get with my intended husband. If my father had his way, it would be Mr. Benson and he would never spank my ass, or lick my pussy, or even take me from behind as the man was with Nora. Instead, I’d lie on my back in bed, it would be dark and Mr. Benson would lift my nightgown and rut into me, filling me with his seed. It would be awkward and uncomfortable, sticky and messy; I’d see no pleasure. I’d see… nothing.

When the man and Nora had found their final pleasure, both of them vocal about it, Chloe and I turned from the wall. Another whore, Betty, stuck her head into the empty room where we’d been spying. “Mary, your man is here,” she whispered.

“Mr. Benson?” My heart skipped a beat at the idea he may have seen me. Highly doubtful, but unnerving nonetheless. “He’s here?”

The idea of watching my intended fuck some other woman made me nauseous.

Betty nodded, but she wasn’t excited. “Yes, and he’s taking a whip to Tess.”

Chloe and I glanced at each other and hurried after Betty. Panic filled me at what I would witness through a different peephole, for I knew then and there that if I married Mr. Benson, the pleasure Nora had found would never belong to me.

CHAPTER ONE

MARY

The surprise hiss of steam made me stumble as I stepped down from the train.

“Careful, Miss Millard,” Mr. Corbin said, taking gentle hold of my elbow until I was once again on solid ground. Even in the heat, I could feel the warmth of his touch through my sleeve.

The platform in Butte was busy, many alighting after a long journey from the east. It was the richest town on Earth and would-be miners were eager to find their own vein of copper and strike it rich.