My chest tightened with excitement, my stomach doing flips as Julian went to the clock on the dining room mantel and checked his pocket watch against it.
“Am I staying here tonight? With you?”
“Oh, yes, wildcat, you are staying. Do you remember our signal?”
Our signal. The word I would speak if the pain—physical or emotional—grew too much for me.
“Bluebell,” I whispered.
The pocket watch shut with a click and he turned. He was already hard, his dick a thick ridge straining against his pants, but the rest of
him seemed completely composed, completely in control.
“I hope you’ll keep that word close at hand, my wife.” His eyes glinted green in the candlelight. “Very close.”
My meal was brought in, and after my plates were laid on the table, Wilson bowed and left the room exactly as I had asked. I locked the door behind him and turned to face my wildcat, whose cheeks were deliciously stained with color. Color that I’d put there with my days of teasing and torture.
I walked over to her and lifted her chin with my finger, examining that blush like an artist would examine his painting, pleased with the effect the flush had against her skin, my cock swelling at this small thing.
I wasn’t blind—I’d seen the need building in her the past few days, like a geyser threatening to erupt—and it was entirely on purpose. Her words the other day by the stream, go ahead, had unlocked something in me, some determination, some need to master her that had laid dormant since George’s birth.
Go ahead.
It was almost like a taunt, a dare, daring me to try to make her want me, and I had never been one to turn down a dare. And so that night when I’d stayed up late in the library, determined to find a way out of this, I’d listened to the darkest parts of myself, the parts that could sense what she needed from me, the parts that delighted in the idea of giving her those things.
And bit by bit, I had resurrected my wildcat, summoning her back to life like a magician summons a shade. Night after night, she came back to me and George with more of that feral perfection in her face, and night after night, I witnessed her frustrated desire growing and growing until she was practically frantic with it.
I had coaxed her back from whatever place she’d gone, and now it was time to remind her of why she would stay.
I let go of her chin.
“Mrs. Markham—” I loved calling her that, calling her by my name, and I especially loved it in moments like these, moments laced with discipline. “—there will be no need for your dress either. Please take it off.”
Her breath caught, and she hurried to obey, fumbling with her buttons and ties as I sat and picked up my wineglass, adjusting my erection as I did so. I held the glass by the stem, pretending to watch the swirling liquid while really watching her. Her long neck, her strong arms. Her delicate shoulders appearing from the husk of her discarded dress. The compressed curves of her breasts and the narrow lines of her waist.
She was undeniably beautiful like this…but she was more beautiful naked. I wanted all of her newly ripe flesh available for me to squeeze and plump, I wanted to run my fingers over every inch of soft skin, I wanted to trace the marks on her stomach, knowing that I put them there when I planted my child in her belly.
“Continue undressing, Mrs. Markham. I’ll wait.”
I savored my wine—a good red, laid down by my grandfather—and watched her progress, watched as she shucked her snowy white nursing corset and lace-trimmed petticoats until she was fully exposed to me, the flush on her cheeks mirrored by the one creeping up her chest.
Finally, she stood completely naked, too aroused to be shy, too far gone in her own lust to question me.
Which was exactly what I wanted.
“Bend over the table, Mrs. Markham. No, not there, here. In front of me. I want to see your cunt while I finish my wine.”
Slowly she stepped in front of me and slowly she bent over, stretching her arms out in front of her so that her back was flat enough that I could have balanced my wine glass on it if I’d wanted to. The table was just high enough that she had to stand on the balls of her feet to bend at her hips, and I wanted to devour the lines of quivering muscle that ran from her calves to her ass and then press my face between her legs and devour the silky wet heat there. And then I would stand up, unfasten my trousers and stab into her without any warning…
I ran a palm over my throbbing hardness, letting out a silent breath and willing myself back to complete self-control. I had denied myself these past days along with her, and I was full to bursting with the need to fuck this woman.
But the need to punish her was stronger, and so I would wait. I would feed the monster before I fed the husband.
I took my time finishing my wine, enjoying how every moment without my touch, without my voice, seemed to unravel her. I could see her fighting the urge to turn her head and look at me, biting her lip to keep from speaking, which was a very good wildcat, very good indeed.
I drained the wine and set the glass down as I stood up. I had planned on eating my dinner at a leisurely pace, on making her suffer more, but I couldn’t sit still a minute longer with her like this: legs shaking, ass up, pussy so close and so, so inviting…
I unknotted my tie, grateful she couldn’t see how painfully hard I was, how my fingers shook as I yanked the fabric away from my neck. I managed to master myself enough to keep my hand steady as I ran it up her flank and over the curve of her ass, up to the delicate nape of her neck.
