Page 61 of A Gentleman's Wager
Her response was a sluttish mewl of acknowledgement. She bit his shoulder as empyrean ripples spread across her body. Mark continued to press his thumb against her nubbin as he ploughed her hard. The rush through her veins grew fiercer. Tingles fanned across her body, interlaced, then pooled low in her belly. Only once had she ever come with a man’s prick in her cunny, and that because she’d worked herself into a frenzy while he entered her from behind.
Abruptly, Mark froze.
What in the devil’s name was he about now? She opened her eyes, harsh words ready on her tongue. He was right above her, his visage eating up most of the horizon. His eyes were wide with alarm “What?” she mouthed.
A shadow stretched over them. Bella swallowed hard, following the shade back to its owner. She recognised the long black leather boots seconds before Mark winced in response to the crack of a riding crop landing across his arse.
Turd in the teeth!
Mark spluttered an oath, then drove his teeth hard into his lower lip drawing a bead of bright red blood.
“Get off me,” Bella hissed. This was bad. It was very bad. Of all the people who might have stumbled upon her, Pennerley was surely the worst. He would… She didn’t know what he would do. Visions of him marching her off to Lucerne, or worse, marching Lucerne here filled her mind. “Get off.”
Mark lifted his hips, but Vaughan planted a boot on his backside and drove him back down and into her. “Continue. Let’s see what sort of stallion you really are, and make it good, else I decide to make you a gelding.”
No, this was… He could not.
Yet, Mark filled her to the hilt, and made no attempt to scarper.
“Get to it, boy.”
Bella listened to the angry growl roll at the back of Mark’s throat. His face had flushed the colour of ripe blackberries. Within her, the acute arousal she’d thought couldn’t possibly get any more demanding seemed to flare, leaving her head swimming like a drunkard’s.
“Do hurry, or you’ll have a queue waiting to throw up the skirts of this tuppeny whore.”
How dare he? Anger set her cheeks ablaze. She clenched her fists, but her retort transformed into a purr as Mark, driven deeper by Vaughan’s boot, found precisely the right angle to unravel her. She teetered on the edge of a magnificent precipice. In one direction the promise of bliss, the other unbearable torment.
Acutely aroused by the forced nature of Mark’s pounding, she gripped him tighter, chasing her release, but she ought to have anticipated Vaughan finding some means of frustrating her. The tail of his riding crop whistled through the air, connecting sharply with Mark’s flesh. She, untouched by the leather, nevertheless experienced a flare of fire across her abdomen as if she’d been the one struck. Above her, Mark snarled a curse but didn’t even attempt a rebellion. Gainsaying his betters would gain him naught. In any case, it seemed his cock as eager as her cunny to dance to the marquis’s tune. He swelled and thickened inside of her.
“You may consider this a reprimand for fucking above your station. A lady’s purse is not for the likes of you.”
Yet the actions Vaughan drove him to were entirely contradictory to that phrase. The repeated sting of the crop making Mark’s hips grind against Bella’s with increasing urgency. Soon, his brown eyes grew glazed, and a curious sort of serenity softened his face. Bella held him tight to her body. She was so close. He couldn’t… he wouldn’t… he’d promised her satisfaction. A whole damned guinea’s worth.
But his actions were no longer under his command.
Vaughan reversed the crop, and coated the supple plaited leather with oil, then prodded the handle purposefully between Mark’s cheeks and past the tight ring of muscle, drawing a moan of protest. Mercilessly, Vaughan twisted the crop. Mark whimpered. His eyelids dropped as his back arched.
“No!” Bella howled. “No!” She dug her nails hard into his skin, but it was all for nothing. Mark was finished, his short, hard release over before he even thought of restraining himself. He gave a final groan as the crop was pulled from his arse. Furious, Bella banged her fist against the wooden boards. Mark ignored her, and instead turned his head slowly to look at Vaughan over his shoulder.
“Get out.”
Unsteadily, Mark rose to his knees.
“Now. Faster.” Vaughan raised the crop, and when Mark hesitated, weaving as if punch drunk, struck him across the cheek. He blinked in confusion and put his fingers to the wound. A red welt marred the skin but hadn’t broken it. “Out.”
He didn’t linger. Mark grabbed his breeches and fled through the open hatch, not even sparing her a backwards glance. The crop flew over his head as he dropped to the stall below.
“Alone at last.” Vaughan turned his attention to Bella and her exposed pubis. “Delightful, disordered and certainly wanton.” He smiled thinly, then took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “I wonder what Lucerne would think of this little tableau. Do you know, he has some interesting thoughts on guests copulating with the servants?”
“What do you want?”
“Ah, there is a small matter that we need to discuss, you and I.”
“Then do get on with it instead of boring me with your pathetic power games.”
Vaughan shook his head and laughed at her. “What, hungry for more?” He tweaked her nipple through the cloth and Bella only just stopped herself from swooning. She grasped his coat for support, but the tickle of the thick fabric only made her more desirous.
“Actually, I’d rather be tupped by Charles.”
