"Ironic," Thomas mused, seating himself and offering her the fruit plate. "My mother did the same."
Lauren's fork froze over the omelet. Her mysterious spouse was offeringinformation?Freely? Unfortunately, even though she kept silent, he didn't offer anything else and the conversation went back to safer, duller things. When they were nearly finished, he leaned back and eyed her speculatively. "You looked uncomfortable when I showed up," he finally said, "and Arabella looked a bit worse for wear."
Shrugging awkwardly, she tried to brush it off. "I think she just wanted to let her hair down, have a little fun. That's all."
Thomas was watching her, and that beautiful blue gaze of his was piercing. "You seemed uncomfortable with some of the things Arabella had said to you when we spoke yesterday. What in particular, darling?"
She felt like a butterfly pinned to one of those long display boards in the Natural History Museum in London. Lauren had toured through the museum on a school trip in high school, her first trip to Europe. Rubbing her hand over a suddenly aching forehead, she tried to decide what to say. Finally, exhausted, she blurted, "Arabella keeps asking me if you've hurt me yet." She looked up to see the same look of surprise and disgust he'd worn when she'd timidly offered herself, sobbing, on their wedding night. Plowing on uncomfortably, she persisted, "When she was uh, when she was helping me get ready before the wedding ceremony, she told me to..." the unreality of the conversation caught up with her. There was nothing in her life thus far that prepared her for such a bizarre conversation such as this, and with a man such as this.
"Yes?" Thomas's voice was cold but controlled. "She told you what, darling?"
"She told me that if I resisted you, you would- uh, you would like to- to hurt me, so she said to not say 'no' and just... let you." Lauren couldn't even look up from her plate. She could feel the chill of his rage and just gripped her napkin in her lap, wishing she'd never opened her mouth.
"Lauren." His resonant, deep voice was suddenly calm, almost caressing. "Look at me, lovely."
Swallowing against the whimper that wanted to escape from her throat, she looked up at her confusing, beautiful, terrifying husband. His eyes seemed to soften when he watched her bite into her lower lip.
"Baby," he said gently, "have I ever forced you into bed?" Her blonde head dropped, but she shook it back and forth.
"No."
"Have I ever hurt you in bed?"
"No." Lauren's head was still bowed, so she only heard Thomas's sigh as he pushed away his plate and hers, rising and walking around to her side of the table.
"Look at me." Unwillingly, her eyes rose to see him bending over her, helping her rise to her feet and then briskly hoisting her onto the long farm table. "Lauren. Darling. Look at me."
They were nearly eye to eye now, thanks to the extra height of the antique oak table and Lauren forced herself to meet Williams's gaze. "Arabella was trying to scare you. I don't know why..." his brow briefly creased, then Thomas smiled at her, a warm, reassuring smile that almost made her relax until she remembered who she was dealing with. "This explains so much about our wedding night," he chuckled ruefully. "I am sorry she frightened you, darling."
Lauren was startled to hear that he almost did sound regretful. "So, um, what was that stuff, I mean, what did she mean about safe words and titles and-" she died off again as she watched a flash of fury go through his polar gaze.
Breathing in, Thomas seemed to calm himself and when he looked at her again, his eyes were the warm color of the Caribbean. "My darling, part of what Arabella said was true," his jaw tensed for a moment, "but it was my right to discuss it with you." His fingers were sliding over the smooth skin of her thighs, bared from her new position on the table, the rasp of his calloused hands feeling oddly soothing. "I do enjoy dominating you in bed. I do enjoy being your Sir."
Brow creased, Lauren remembered him referring to himself as "Sir" as she was shaking from an orgasm, more than once. "What does that mean?"
Briefly, Thomas looked incredulous before he recalled who he was speaking to. His new wife's guileless eyes watched him apprehensively. "Do you know what a dominant-submissive relationship is?"
Entertainingly, her expression twisted into one of disgust. "Like those shittyShades of Greybooks? God! Ugh!"
Thomas laughed uproariously before he stopped himself. "Not quite, lovely. Tell me, why did those disgust you?"
Lauren leaned back and stared at him judgmentally, "Seriously? They were shit! I tried to read the first one and had to give it up- god, her pitiful characters and that insipid dialogue?" She shuddered, suddenly making him adore her even more. "Ugh! No one talks like that. I mean, I may have been-" He watched with amusement as his bride shut her mouth abruptly. ('I might have been a virgin,' was what she'd been about to say, and his barely concealed smirk told her he knew it.) "Anyway. They sucked. I may not be an expert in Dom/sub relationships, but I can't picture anyone talking like that with a straight face-"
She was cut off abruptly as Thomas suddenly kissed her greedily, all tongue and teeth until the girl was gasping and flat on her back. "My clever girl," he crooned approvingly, "such a good girl." He watched as she shivered involuntarily. "You are, of course, correct. It was utter shite." Kissing her again with a certain arousing degree of savagery, he smiled against her mouth as Lauren went limp. "But in a true relationship between a Sir and his beautiful girl..." his hands were moving again, spreading her thighs as he slipped between them and stroking up her neck, down her arms and suddenly unbuttoning the front of her sundress. "In a true relationship, it is the submissive, darling, who has the control. Just as I gave you the first time we were together." His hands were tickling lightly around the cups of her bra until it somehow disappeared and then circled her nipples, his eyes suddenly dark and intent as he watched her reaction. "It is a Sir's responsibility to take care of his beautiful." Here, his lips pressed against one stiff nipple, and then the other. "Perfect." Kiss and a flick of his tongue, enjoying watching her startled gasp and how his wife's back arched. "Darling."
Lauren's eyes were closed, but she could feel his mouth against her breast, the feel of the words his lips were shaping against the painfully sensitive nerves in her nipples. "So, you are a Dom and you want me to-" To her consternation, Thomas pulled his warm mouth away from her breasts as she whined involuntarily.
"I will never force you to do anything, lovely," he was leaning over her, hands stroking along her thighs and pushing her skirt higher, carefully not looking at her bare breasts, pink nipples gleaming wet from his mouth. "But, yes. I intend to be your Sir. To care for you and pamper you. I will give you all sorts of delicious new experiences if you will trust me to guide you." To Lauren's embarrassed relief, he bent his dark head to kiss along her neck and back to her breasts again.
Without even thinking about what she was doing, her hands came up to cradle his head as Thomas toyed with her breasts again, running his tongue over her skin and his sharp teeth making her yelp. "Do you want to, you know, hurt me? Like she said?" Her voice came out smaller than she preferred, and Lauren's eyes were pleading with him to... what?
With an effort, he pulled back, stroking her skin as he smiled at her. "Not in the way she means, little one. Do you remember me sliding my cock up you the first time? Rubbing against the top of you?" Thomas patiently pulled her hands away from her beet-red face. "It's like that, baby. It can hurt, just as much as it feels good. I will never give too much of one without the other, and you will come like the good girl you are. Every time."
He could already feel the strong muscles in her thighs loosen, the tight abdominals relax against his roaming hands. Lauren wasn't trying to pull away, she seemed more transfixed by his words. Gritting his teeth against the need to rip off her panties and shove himself inside her, Thomas forced himself to calm down. "Would you like your Sir to take care of you? You needn't decide anything tonight, darling. Just... let me make you feel good. Can you do that?"
Could she? Lauren watched the shades of blue sweep through his gaze. Her mysterious husband was far too good at schooling his expressions, she had no way of truly knowing how he felt. But his eyes... furiously cold, sometimes warm and almost caring, and now an alluring calm that made her want to bathe in him, in his vision of what they could be.
"Just," she stopped and licked her suddenly dry lips, "just for tonight? Nothing is written in stone?"
