He wrapped his fingers in my hair and yanked my head to one side, and then he bent forward and scored the skin there with his teeth, biting and sucking and nibbling from my ear to my collarbone until I was slumped against him, knees weak and panting hard.
And just as quickly as it started, it stopped, his wicked mouth moving away from my neck. I whimpered again, but he paid me no mind, tugging a dress over my body and deftly wrapping my hair into an elaborate bun, which he quickly pinned up.
“I have some business to attend to in Scarborough today, so I won’t be back until dinner,” he told me, stepping away and eyeing my form, as if to admire his handiwork. “Bessie Knope, the nurse, will be here shortly before dinner, and I’ve already directed our housekeeper to acquaint her with the house and George’s nursery when she arrives. All I require is that you be in the dining room at seven. Understood?”
“Yes.”
He gave a short nod and grabbed his jacket from where it had been slung over the chair. He walked out of the room, pausing only to drop a tender, affectionate kiss on the sleeping George’s forehead, and then I was alone.
Bessie Knope ended up being precisely the person I would have myself hired to take care of George. She was a plump, patient woman in her fifties, and when she took a squirming George into her arms and started crooning to him in a soft, playful voice, the pair bonded so quickly that I almost felt jealous. But any jealousy I might have felt was immediately quashed by the insatiable, unbearable lust that had dogged me all day. More than anything, I wanted Julian to come home, drag me into the library, and fuck me until I was too sore to walk.
That’s not what happened.
At seven, right after nursing George and handing him off to Bessie, I sat in the dining room, my heart pumping fast. I wanted Julian—I wanted Julian’s body—but I was also nervous. Wary. A little frightened of him even. And that made me want him all the more.
But when he came in to the dining room, he came in with a packed basket of food and handed it to me, along with a pocket watch. I looked up at him, confused.
“Your hour…or rather, my hour…tonight will be spent alone by the stream in the woods.”
I blinked, still not understanding, and he smiled.
“You have spent every waking and sleeping moment with George since the day he was born. But I remember a woman who longed for freedom, for the outdoors, for time to ramble and explore on her own. So tonight, you are your own dinner partner and your dining room is the forest you love so much. I’ll see you in an hour.”
“You don’t want…?”
He took me by the hands and helped me up, pulling me tight to him. “What I want,” he said into my hair, his chest rumbling against my cheek, “is for you to do as I say before I spank your ass for disobedience. Now go.”
Heat flared in my core at his words, but the stern expression on his face told me not to test him, at least not yet—although I’d be lying if I didn’t say a part of me wanted to. Wanted to say no, just to see what he’d do. Wanted to defy him right up to the moment he held me down and pushed his cock inside me.
Then I heard a squawk from George—he and Bessie were in the parlor—and even though it was a happy squawk, it still brought everything else crashing down on me. The exhaustion, the exhilarating joy, the feeling like every nerve I had was scraped open and exposed. What was I thinking, gallivanting off for dinner by myself when I should be with my baby? Or if not with him, then attending to Julian’s neglected needs?
My husband saw my hesitation, and a stormcloud came over his features. “Go,” he said, and his voice brooked no argument. I went.
When I came back an hour later, Julian was reading the paper in the library while Bessie rocked a sleeping George nearby. I’d spent the first part of my hour away fretting and feeling guilty, but then the summer evening had been so sticky and hot that instinct had taken over and I’d gone for a long swim, and as I entered the library, I felt cooler and fresher than I had in weeks.
Julian folded the paper down and looked over the top, smiling when he saw my wet hair, and then flipped the paper back up to continue reading. And later that night, after George was asleep, rather than let him stay curled next to me, I tucked him in his cradle and turned to Julian expectantly…only to find that he too was fast asleep.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Would he be angry if I woke him up? Would he be angry if I took care of this need myself?
But I didn’t want that. It wouldn’t be the same, not without him, not without his muscled form moving over me, driving into me. Not without his fingers twined in my hair and his low rasping voice in my ear.
So instead I settled myself against the pillow and stared at him, for the moment content simply to run my fingers along his naked chest, to trace the perfect, stern profile of his face with my eyes. This man, this grim, brilliant, attentive man. What was his plan, sending me off by myself? How had he known that I would enjoy it so much?
I fell asleep that way, staring at him, timing my own breaths to the slow measured rhythm of his and feeling more like myself than I had in a long while.
The next few days passed in a similar fashion. I would wake up, nurse George, and then be dressed by my husband. He’d abandoned the casual touches of the first day, and now was shamelessly torturing me—rubbing my clit before he pulled on my stockings, tweaking my nipples before lacing up my corset. But again, at night, rather than use our hour alone for dealing with the lust that he created, he sent me off alone. One night to read, another night to walk in the garden, another night to nap in front of the library fire.
And after four days of this, I was done. Done. Arousal clung to me like a haze, and I couldn’t shake it off. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t reason, all I could do was watch Julian like a starving predator as we went about our days. Watch the narrow hips under his pants, the tight forearms when he rolled up his sleeves. The stubbled line of his jaw as he answered letters and bounced the baby on his knee while he read.
That evening, I sat in the dining room at seven, fully expecting to be sent off on my own again and dreading it. The hours by myself had been amazing—relaxing and clarifying and peaceful—and each time I’d returned to my family, I’d been so incredibly grateful for Julian orchestrating all this. But now that I had regained my equilibrium, begun to remember who Ivy was beyond being George’s mother, I remembered who else Ivy was. She was Julian’s wildcat, and without him, nothing felt right.
“Mrs. Markham,” Julian said to me as he walked in the dining room. “You may stand. That chair will not be necessary.”
Confused, I stood.
He turned to our new butler. “Please arrange for my dinner to be brought in, and my dinner alone. Mrs. Markham shall eat hers later. And after the meal is served, I’d like this room cleared, and there are to be no interruptions for the next hour.”
If the butler found anything odd with these directions, he didn’t show it. Instead, he hurried to obey, the door swinging shut behind him.
