“Good,” Gideon said, gripping the bottom of my robe and dragging me over on top of him.
“What are you doing?” I choked out, but a sharp slap on my thighs had me instinctively spreading them wide.
“What do you think, slut? I’m fucking dying for some cunny so open these legs.”
He held me trapped over his face as he pressed histonguedeep inside me, laving along the wet edges and ridges until I was squirming and overheated, shoving at him to get him to stop because I felt so twisted tight with a heavy, unbearable pressure between my thighs.
But of course he wouldn’t.
He never did.
He suckled and nipped at me until the tight knot of pressure inside me burst, and I looked down with astonishment to see liquid squirt out of me and coat his beard.
My hips seemed to move of their own accord, grinding over his face until the spasms were done and then it took only a moment for him to drag my wet cunny down still further so he could spear inside me with his prick.
“What happened at Grayspires?” I asked, but when I heard the answer I did not know whether to believe him or not. He was a liar and a manipulator and a villain, but he washere.And his beloved Grayspires was not.
Day by day, Gideon grew stronger, defying the monks that had predicted his death from the injuries.
And then one morning when the first spring buds had begun to hang heavy on the trees, I came upon Bartholomew carving a wooden leg.
“What is this?” I asked in astonishment. “Is this for my husband?”
“He has given a–very substantial donation to the church,” Bartholomew said. “And we have been—instructed to do all that is possible to make him comfortable.”
“A donation of money, I suppose?” I said caustically.
“No, strangely enough,” Bartholomew replied. “It was all his personal effects. He had jewelry, pins, and watch fobs of his own that were stored in town and thus survived the fire. All donated.”
“Hm,” I said, a bit impressed despite myself, but refusing to admit it. “Well, do not put much store by that. Mr. Nightshade does nothing without profit.”
But it seemed the donations had changed their minds. Now Mr. Nightshade was welcome at St. Mary’s Abbey anytime he chose to come.
But one day he was simplygone.Vanished from the infirmary without a word to anyone.
Wild theories and conjectures spread through every street of St. Mary’s. What had happened to him? Many speculated that the Devil himself had finally come to bring my wicked husband home.
When Bartholomew asked if I believed the rumors, I shook my head.
“If the mouth of hell opens up for my husband, I truly believe he will be there trying to drag me down with him.”
But as the spring days stretched on, and he did not return, I began to wonder.
Maybe he had finally forgotten about me.
“Good,” I said. “I hope he never comes back, the lying cheating bastard that he is.”
I could convince Bartholomew to abandon his vows and run away with me, pay a lawyer to declare my marriage annulled on the grounds of deception and degeneracy.
Only it would be no fun without Gideon around to defy, I reflected as I collected a handful of tree bark for some nourishing bark tea.
And then suddenly a bag was placed over my head and someone was picking me up, someone for whom it was no difficulty at all to hoist a heavily pregnant woman up and put her gently but very firmly into a carriage.
A familiar scent of leather and tobacco, mixed with a slightly unfamiliar spice, greeted me as I was plopped down unceremoniously on a velvet seat.
Then the bag was removed from my head, and across the carriage from me sat my husband. Half of his face was still puckered with scars, the gaping hole where his left eye had been he kept uncovered, and his wooden leg was still sprawled carelessly out as he had always sat, so I could see the thick bulge in his pants.
“What are you doing?” I cried. “You’ve justkidnappedme!”
