“There,” he said. “See? You are already mine. You opened your mouth for me, and you’ve opened your legs for me. I imagine in the eyes of the church, you’d be wrong not to accept my offer at this point. You already belong to me, so why fight it any longer?”
He was right, of course. Why was I resisting? I’d packed all my worries with their murmuring voices away, there was nothing in between me and what I most wanted…
I pressed my tongue against the underside of his cock, enjoying his groan as I did, loving the way his breathing grew faster and his eyes grew darker as he held my head and fucked my mouth. I closed my lips around him, increasing the suction, and reached up a hand to stroke the parts of him that weren’t in my mouth.
“Your mouth feels so good. So warm and soft. Look up at me, darling.”
I lifted my eyes once more, not breaking my rhythm. I sucked as hard as I could and cupped and squeezed as much as I dared, loving how powerful he looked at this moment, both hands now on the back of my head as he used me to chase after his own orgasm.
I felt him thicken even more in my mouth. “I’m going to come,” he growled. “And you’re going to take it. Because you’re mine.”
My only response was to suck harder, to tongue him more, and after a few more thrusts, he grunted, shooting warmth down my throat in long pulses that took more than a minute to start fading in strength. Once he finished, I let him slip from my mouth, and he swiftly buttoned himself back up with steady hands, the slight flush in his cheeks the only betrayal of what he’d just experienced.
Perhaps there was a hint of a pout to my face, because he said, “I’m not touching you until you say yes.”
“You can’t seduce me into marrying you.” I knew I would say yes, it was on the tip of my tongue, but there was something incredibly arousing about his frustration, about his need to hear me accept.
He lifted me from the couch and deposited me on the large reading table in the middle of the room. He disappeared for a minute, and I propped myself up on my elbows to watch as he went to the desk and retrieved a pair of metal shears, which glinted dully in the light.
He walked toward me, and for a moment, all I could feel was the distinct fear that I was trapped alone in a room with the man who had been accused of killing my cousin and what if I was next? I shut that thought in another box. Mr. Markham wouldn’t hurt me. At least, not in a way that I didn’t want.
If he saw my fear, he made no mention of it. Instead he put the shears to the hem of my dress and began cutting. I made a noise of protest, but a swift, sharp look from him made me stop. So I did nothing but watch as he destroyed one of the few things I had brought to Markham Hall, one of the few things I truly owned in this world.
“If I had my way, I would destroy all of these rags,” he said. “They hide you. They dull you. You are too beautiful to wear such hideous things.” The shears went snip snip and my fear starting melting into something lower, something deeper. They snipped up to my waist, and then Mr. Markham laid the shears down, took hold of the two edges, and ripped the dress right to the top, giving an extra rip to tear cleanly through the tired lace neckline. I wore only my corsets and petticoats now, the latter of which he removed after tugging the shredded dress off me and discarding it in a heap on the floor. My other underthings were cut away as well, until my legs and hips and sex were completely exposed, though my corset still bound my breasts.
“Oh the things I want to do to you, wildcat. Sometimes I have to remind myself that we have all the time in the world…but I’ll be damned if I still don’t want to spend every minute making love to you.” He went over to an end table. “I want to eat your pussy until you can’t think coherent thoughts and you forget how to speak. I want to play with you in public; I want to make you come at the dinner table or in the middle of a crowded ballroom. I want everyone in society to see how gorgeous you are when you’re being pleased. I want everyone to see that pretty little mouth wrapped around my cock.” He took a lily from a vase on the table. “But mostly I want to fuck you. I’ve fucked many women, Ivy, and I’ve never fucked one like you. Your cunt is perfect—did you know that? Hot and wet and so goddamned tight. And the way you beg for it, the way you snap between fierceness and frenzy—well, it’s almost more than I can bear.”
He walked back to me, holding the white lily. Its stem arced gently, weighed down by the large petals.
“I’m still waiting for that yes,” he said.
“I know,” I whispered, desperate from his words, and then froze as I felt the cool, silken skin of the petals brushing against my bare folds. After being so aroused with no stimulation, the sensation was almost overwhelming. My head fell to the side. “Oh.”
The flower swept up to tickle my clitoris. My toes curled.
“You’re wet, wildcat,” Mr. Markham observed. The flower left and then there was a sharp flick as it struck my clitoris. I moaned.
“Now,” he said. “Will you say yes?”
I nodded.
“I need to hear you say it.”
But I couldn’t at that moment, because he bent down, his head between my legs, and I could feel his warm breath everywhere—on my thighs, on my folds, on my sensitive bud. My mind seemed to leak out information, leaking out everything I knew and everything I was, filled with only one thought: I need him to touch me.
He blew on me, and goose bumps raced up my arms. “Please,” I said. “I need you.”
“Not good enough,” he declared, straightening. He undid his pants and pulled out his cock, which was hard again, hard and glorious, and I moaned once more.
“Please.”
He stroked himself a couple of times, watching me as I watched his hand, moving over that wonderful thing that I now needed with such desperation it left me breathless. Then he grabbed my hips and jerked me roughly to the edge of the table so that my legs hung off the edge and so that the tip of his cock was less than an inch away from my opening. I squirmed, trying to get closer to him, but he planted a wide hand on my stomach and pushed down hard enough that I couldn’t move. Then he did something unexpected and ran the head of his cock up my folds, from my wet entrance to my swollen clit.
“Oh Julian,” I whispered. “Please.”
“Say it,” he said, with another rub against my clit. My body shuddered with need. “Say it or I swear to God, I’ll make you watch me stroke myself. I’ll make you watch as I come on that snowy white corset of yours, and then I’ll leave you here to suffer alone.”
One more rub, this time with his cock spending extra time pressing against my bud, and I finally caved. “Yes,” I cried. “Yes, I’ll marry—”
