Page 22 of His Brazen Tart
He followed his threat with a swift swat to her backside, causing Joan to flinch and then giggle. She recovered quickly and leaned in close. Piers’ head rocked back on instinct, his lips tingling at the remembrance of a kiss. He grew lightheaded while grappling with the realization that he had opened this door by kissing Joan while in the throes of passion. It was something he never did, as it denoted a certain level of intimacy he preferred to avoid. But then, a sharp sensation pricked through his middle when her lips merely brushed along his cheek. While he was distracted, she plucked the cigarillo from his fingers and then sat back on his thigh, lifting it to her lips.
“I find it curious,” she mused before drawing a deep inhale.
Piers watched in disbelief as she savored the tobacco with a low hum of approval, then released the smoke through parted lips. This was obviously not her first time partaking, but it was certainly the first time Piers had ever witnessed a woman doing such a thing. He found it oddly arousing, his cock jerking at the way she pursed her lips and stared at him through the smoke with lowered eyelids.
“What’s curious?” he asked, gripping the bottom cheek he had slapped and giving it a light squeeze.
“I never would have thought I could enjoy being spanked.”
He grinned. “I would say you more than enjoyed it. After the punishment you received tonight, you were so wet I nearly drowned.”
Her mouth twisted in a wry smirk. “What can I say? You’re as good as you claimed to be.”
Piers took his cigarillo from her and took another slow drag before putting it out in the crystal ashtray on the windowsill. “Now that you’ve had your first spanking, I imagine you will go out of your way to vex me to earn yourself another one.”
Instead of laughing or making one of her sly remarks, Joan dropped her gaze and fiddled with one of the buttons of his breeches. They were the only clothing he had donned after leaving the bed. The proximity of her hands to his voracious cock might have been distracting if not for the unease written on Joan’s face.
Concern prompted him to lift her chin so she looked at him. “What is it?”
She bit her lip in a moment of hesitation, but then met his gaze. “You aren’t the first man to spank me.”
Piers frowned. “Your father, when you were a girl? It was a common enough punishment for me.”
“No,” she said with an abrupt shake of her head. “Not my father … my husband.”
A half-dozen questions flitted through his mind, but Piers kept his mouth closed. Something in the weight of her words told him that she didn’t mean that she’d been spanked sensually.
“It is perfectly acceptable for a man to discipline his wife,” she said, her voice low and strained. “Gregory never let me forget it. He didn’t strike me often, but each time he did, I was told I had brought it on myself. I wasn’t the perfect wife he had purchased with his fortune, but he would ensure I became what he needed to gain entry into higher social circles. My husband was creative in the ways that he would punish me; locking me in my chambers, chastising me verbally, taking away my allowance, cutting off any contact I had with friends. But when he was feeling particularly cruel, he spanked me. At first, he used his hand, but eventually decided that harsher measures were needed. He once sent a servant for a tree branch, which he used on me until I was so bruised I could hardly sit for days.”
Piers felt as if he’d forgotten how to breathe for several seconds. His chest burned and his vision grew hazy as he imagined this beautiful, vivacious woman being treated with such cruelty and disrespect. He might enjoy inflicting pain with pleasure, but he had never injured anyone and didn’t take satisfaction in humiliating anyone. To think that she had been so horribly abused made him want to hit something. But because she was so close, and the man who had hurt her was dead, he was left feeling helplessly impotent.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, for lack of anything better to say. It was poor consolation, to be sure. “You should never have been made to endure that.”
She shook her head as if shoving off the phantom memories. “No, but I had no choice. Once we were wed, I became Gregory’s property. He was free to do what he wanted with me, and I was powerless to stop it. I think … no, I am quite sure, that it wasn’t the pain he inflicted that satisfied him. It was how easily he could humiliate me. He would take me over his knee like a child and scold me. He once disciplined me with two footmen still in the room. They wouldn’t look directly at me, but still …”
Piers grasped her arms and pulled her closer, until he could see the darkest of the blue striations in her eyes, and the pool of tears she so valiantly held at bay. “He was the weak one, Joan, not you. Only a coward raises his hand to a woman, and only an ass blames others for his own shortcomings.”
Joan’s lips quivered, but her tears never fell. She smiled. “I know that. I always did. That didn’t stop me from being miserable. It didn’t stop me from wishing every day that he would die.”
Piers snorted. “It appears God heard your pleas. Good riddance to him.”
“Perhaps,” she replied. “But I still cannot make sense of it. Not long after Gregory died, I rifled through the books in his personal collection. He was also so bloody protective of them, and never wanted me to see what was in those pages. I found the most salacious writings and … and erotic drawings. I never realized such things were done, but …”
“They intrigued you,” Piers filled in.
“They did. The engravings of women being spanked were the most interesting. I think that might be because of the way they were depicted. Their faces were pure ecstasy.”
Piers slid his hands up her arms and shoulders, until he cupped her face. “There is nothing wrong with you enjoying what we do. It doesn’t mean that what you endured wasn’t painful and horrific. My spanking you is different. You are always in control, and you know what to do whenever you wish me to stop. My aim is not to hurt you, but give you pleasure.”
“Why, Sir Piers, I do believe I just saw a pig fly past this window.” When he frowned, bemused by her joke, she grinned. “Surely the end of the world must be near, for you have just admitted that you aren’t truly the one in control.”
Piers laughed, and realized he had done so more times since meeting Joan than he had in years. He wasn’t a man given to frivolity, but Joan made him wonder what it might be like to follow her example. He had removed himself from society so he wouldn’t have to play by their rules, but Joan lived amongst them every day. She flaunted her independence and her lack of regard for the opinions of others. Many scorned her for it, but others adored her. She never seemed to notice the sentiments of any of them regardless.
He gave her another tug so that she lay against him, her head nestled beneath his chin. It disturbed him, the ease with which she curled up against him, and how thoughtlessly he wrapped his arms around her. He had made mistake after mistake since meeting her and now began to fear he was in over his head. He had expected to enjoy her company and her body, as well as the money she was paying him to pleasure her.
Piers had never expected to like her. He had never anticipated that she would make him want to remain locked away with her, just the two of them, for what remained of the night.
He hadn’t expected his answer to her question regarding the intimacies between submissives and dominants to be a bald-faced lie. It had never been this way with anyone else.
