“Your Grace!” I plead. “You have made yourself quite clear, I assure you!”
“I am pleased to hear it, my lady.”
I go limp across his lap, relief filling me, but when he speaks again, unease quickly replaces it.
“I fear, however, that there is a much sterner lesson to impart.”
Duke Gregor
I did not expect my business to conclude with dispensing well-earned chastisement to my future wife, but I am far from unhappy to have her over my lap. I suspected her heavy gowns would make it impossible for her to struggle against my discipline, but either she is uncommonly strong, or my hand is more motivating than I have believed.
Her previously creamy skin is blushing in the wake of the onslaught of slaps, and she is enduring them as well as a highborn lady would. Which is to say every new smack brings forth a cry of distress. I do not heed her cries, nor her pleas for mercy. After all, I am certain that any lady in her position would do the same, only to go on behaving like a miscreant once the pain from her backside fades. I intend to leave my lady with a sufficient reminder of what I expect, so that even on our wedding day she might remember I am not the man she wishes to cross.
A soft rose blush covers her entire bottom now, and I have found my rhythm. Her skin seems to bounce up to meet my hand for the next smack, as though even her backside knows she is deserving of the chastisement I mete out.
“Please,” she gasps in a breathy cry. “I beg you to show me mercy, my lord.”
I intend to—but not yet. My hand doles out the lesson she sorely needs, and though she kicks and squirms, I hold her firmly in place across my knee. The smacks I deliver to her quivering, hot flesh are painting her bottom a deeper shade, and her cries grow louder with each new assault.
She is crying softly now, and though she struggles to free herself from my hold, she will soon surrender. I can feel her efforts weakening as she endures punishing slaps from my large hand.
I am not a soft man, as Lady Freya is discovering far sooner than I expected. While other men might capitulate to the whimpers and pleas of a chastised woman, I do not have to work to harden my resolve. I want her to be my wife; indeed, that has been my singular desire since I first laid eyes on her. But she will beminein word and deed. And if that means a sore bottom? So be it.
My strong palm lands again and again—lower this time, ensuring she will think of me when she has cause to sit.
This new pain brings most unladylike howls from her lips, and she redoubles her efforts to escape. I tighten my hold—if she manages to evade my discipline, she will certainly derive no pleasure in what will follow.
I smack her repeatedly, until I can observe the outline of my hand upon her naked flesh. Then I rest my tingling palm against her back once more.
The lady does not seem to realize I have stopped her smacking. She cries with a loud, keening wail that, under other circumstances, I would find most heart-rending. But I have little sympathy for tears that have been earned.
“My lady,” I say, attempting to break through her soft sobs. “We must speak now.”
She sniffles loudly, utters another soft cry, then says, “Y-yes, my lord?”
I am both surprised and pleased to note her temperament is already much improved. Without a word, I put my hands on her waist and lift her to sit upon my knee.
She gasps, her lovely eyes widening—whether in discomfort, or by my show of familiarity, I can scarcely guess.
“I regret the need to rebuke you so soon, but you will recover, I assure you.”
The lady’s eyes grow wider still. “I… I do not understand, my lord.”
I conceal my pleasure, noting how before her chastisement the slip-ups have been a slight, and now I sense they are her unconscious yielding to my authority. Authority that I have even now, but that will soon be acknowledged by all the Beau Monde as her rightful husband.
“What do you not understand, my lady?” I return in kind. I can be gentle with her now that she shows herself ready to yield.
Her last remaining defense dissolves, and she rests against me, leaning into my body. My manhood is fully awake and straining toward her, but I have not forgotten my honor. Or the valet who stands with perfectly erect posture in the corner, pretending to not see or hear what goes on in the room.
Judging it wise to get her off my lap, I press a single soft kiss to her temple, then set her on her feet.
She faces me with surprise and confusion warring across her lovely features. “Have I… done something to displease you, my lord?”
The question buoys my spirits in a way few others could. Her first chastisement has gone better even than I imagined. I reach up and pull at a hair that has escaped the chignon at her nape. “On the contrary, my lady.”
I rise, and she immediately steps away. Judging by the emotions playing on her face, she wishes to say more. Indeed, there is much to say, but I fear I shan’t be able to control myselfin her presence much longer. It is best to part ways now. I take her hand in mine and bow low, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of it. “Though I leave you, my thoughts shan’t stray from you, my lady.”
Indeed—even as I leave the sitting room, finding lord Denham waiting just outside, and bid a good day to him, and a wide-eyed, suddenly silent lady, my cock strains painfully at my breeches, ensuring I shall think of nothing else.
