Page 20 of Desire and Discipline
Fascinated, Priscilla stroked her fingers through the seed now cooling on his stomach and lifted her hand to inspect it more closely. Joseph watched, just as fascinated, as the tip of her pink tongue came out to lick it. He could not help but chuckle when she made a face. While he would have liked to finish in her mouth at some point, he was not surprised by her reaction to the flavor.
Catching him watching her, she blushed.
“It is not that bad,” she reassured him hastily. “Just…”
“Not very good either,” he teased, relaxing a little. This was very like them, despite the evening they’d just had. He found comfort in the familiar bantering.
Though there was no denying the new and the strange. Such as being in his bed rather than hers.
“We should clean you up.” Shifting on the bed, her filmy chemise moved with her, giving him hints of the pink nipples beneath it. She slipped off to fetch a cloth and dampen it in his water basin before returning to wipe his stomach clean of his seed. Joseph lay there, bemused, uncertain of what his role should be. Since she seemed intent on being the one to clean him, he did not try to take over from her.
“Now what?” he asked when she was done, leaving his stomach damp. He was not sure where they went from here. In some ways, nothing had changed… in others, everything had.
Priscilla blew out the candles on his nightstand and climbed back into bed with him, yawning. He shifted so they could pull the covers down, then she snuggled into him, the way she often did at the end of a normal night.
“Now we sleep,” she murmured, yawning again.
Turning so he could wrap his arms around her, Joseph held her tightly against him. Though she was still here, still with him, he could not help the niggle of fear that said she could change her mind. She could wake up tomorrow and regret everything. She could talk to her friends and wish she had a husband more like theirs, more commanding, more masculine…
All his life, he’d wanted to be like his big brother, but that had been one path he’d never been able to follow Elijah down.
Feeling her breathing turn slow and steady, Joseph knew that Priscilla had fallen asleep in his arms, as she always did, but they were in his room now. Would she awaken in the middle of the night and slip away as he did to her?
Suddenly, he wished he had never done such a thing. Wondering if she might leave his bed while he slept had no appeal. Was this how she felt every night? Did she ever wish he would stay till the morning?
If he was given the chance again, Joseph silently vowed he would do so.
The one thing he was certain of—that he had always been certain of—was that he did not want to lose his wife.
11
Joseph
Waking to his wife beside him was much nicer than waking to a bed without her. He inwardly scolded himself for having denied them both such enjoyment in the past.Married couples do not share a room.It had been another idea of how things ‘should’ be that he’d tried to follow. Perhaps because he knew that his darker desires were not what gentlemen were supposed to want.
They were not even the usual perversions of gentlemen of his stature.
Had he been trying to make up for that by rigidly adhering to other customs, even if they were not truly what he wanted?
The thought was lowering, yet it rang true. Even knowing his own brother and their friends shared rooms had not deterred him because he saw them as different from him. They did not want the same things he did. If thetondiscovered their proclivities there would be much gossip but no scorn. If they discovered what Joseph enjoyed… ‘unmanly’ was the least of the attributes they would assign to him.
It was not as though they could see where he was sleeping any more than they could witness his indulgences. And if his perversions were discovered, it was not as though sleeping in a separate room from his wife would save his reputation.
Unfortunately, he was only truly thinking this through now.
Priscilla stirred beside him, squirming in place, then stretching and yawning. His cock was already hard, as it often was when he first woke, and it throbbed in response to her movements. The use of her hand last night had not been nearly enough to satiate him… it was like having a craving but only having a lesser substitute at hand. It helped, but it did not satisfy.
“Good morning,” he murmured, a little hesitantly, wondering what else might have changed between them overnight. What she might think in the light of day.
Her gaze met his and brightened with happiness at seeing him, sending another pang of regret through him for always leaving her bed. If he had stayed previously, would he have seen her look at him this way then?
“Good morning.” She blinked. Looked around. Realized they were in his room rather than hers.Remembered.He could see it in her expression, the moment she shuttered her emotions away, the open joy disappearing in the blink of an eye. It made his chest ache.
“I am sorry.” He had already said it, but it bore repeating. Especially with the new revelations he’d had this morning. He was sorry for even more than he had been the prior evening. Sorry for lying to her. Sorry for denying them the pleasure of sleeping through the night together because of a desire to cling to social strictures as if to make up for his defiance of others. “I never wanted to hurt you. Everything I did was to keep from hurting you.”
“I understand that, but…” Priscilla rolled onto her back, away from him, though still within his arms. She stared up at the ceiling for a long moment before letting her head loll back, so she could meet his gaze again. “I would rather be hurt by something you tell me than something you do not.”
“I apologize. Again. I will not make the same mistake twice.”
