Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
“To an extent.”
“What?”
August took another drink, restraining himself from swallowing the entire rest of the glass. “To be honest, I’ve had some difficulty forgetting she is Lady Elizabeth Drake, Wescott’s little sister. She’s bright and entertaining, and beautiful, but she’s still, you know…”
“Lisbet,” said Marlow. “I know how you feel. I had the same inner turmoil with Rosalind. Short-lived, thank God. Elizabeth’s all grown up now, you know. Not the child we remember.”
“My brain knows that, but the rest of me…”
Marlow watched him, thoughtful. “Surely you’re attracted to her, August? She’s a rare one, with those striking green eyes and long, black hair. And her…well. I shall not speak lustfully of your wife, but she’s made with all the requisite features and curves that entice the opposite sex. She possesses them in abundance.”
August gave him a wry look. “Trust me when I tell you, I know it. I see. I feel passion for her that I never felt for my mistress, or the girls at Pearl’s, or any other—” He shook his head. “Even Felicity. My love for her was nothing like the way I love Elizabeth. My love for my wife is truer, deeper, more mysterious and powerful, yet I don’t seem able to do the things I wish to…” He put his drink down and held his head between his hands. “The things I passionately wish to do to her.”
“Whyever not?”
“Because it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“August. You are married now.”
“No.” He raised his head again, his cheeks hot. “I can’t.”
His dreams of late had become unbearable, dreams of Elizabeth naked, splayed out beneath him, submitting to the most disrespectful sexual practices his mind could concoct. He pictured himself fucking her hard, grasping her hips and driving himself inside her until she screamed. He fantasized about whipping her sexy, full breasts or hurting her nipples until she cried out for him to stop. He dreamed of pillaging her pussy and then her arsehole, one after the other, even if it upset her. When he hugged her, kissed her, slept beside her, and particularly when he spanked her, it fed these hungers and brought him dangerously close to losing control.
But they must remain just that—hungers, unsated.
“You don’t understand,” he told his friend. “You can’t understand.”
Marlow sat forward in his chair. “I most certainly do understand. Do you think I haven’t had these same crises, felt this same aversion to foisting my deviant needs upon my innocent Rosalind? But our wives are not as fragile as you think, particularly in the throes of passion. If you please her, if you excite her—”
“Indeed! And if I horrify her?”
Marlow relaxed back with a quelling sound. “You’ve always been too honorable. You will not horrify her. If you begin slowly and expose her little by little to the harder things, you won’t upset her at all. Elizabeth is a very unflappable sort of person.”
“Elizabeth is a highly perceptive person, and I worry she already senses something is wrong with me.”
“Wrong with you?” Marlow tsked, running a hand through his white-blond, somewhat disheveled hair. “Please, cousin. If something’s wrong with you, something’s wrong with all of us, and our marriages have been rolling along pleasantly enough. Why, Rosalind is the mother of my children, and it bothers me not at all to make her do the most reprehensible things, for it brings us both pleasure. Don’t blush.”
“I’m not blushing,” said August. “I’m merely worried for Rosalind.”
“Ha. You needn’t worry. Trust me on that.” His cousin emitted a low, suggestive growl, then drained the last of his drink. “All I’m saying is that intimacy is not wrong in marriage, and these things you want to do to your wife, they can happen on a continuum. One step at a time.” He frowned, studying August. “Have you taken any steps at all?”
“I’ve spanked her. Many times.”
“Many times? In the one week you’ve been married?”
August rose to pour Marlow another drink. “I spanked her before.”
“Before you were married?” Marlow’s mouth hung open a moment. “You spanked her when she was betrothed to Fortenbury?”
“Even before that,” August admitted. “You mustn’t tell the duke, ever, but they began shortly after I became Elizabeth’s piano tutor.”
“You sly dog.” Marlow took his replenished drink, looking at August with stunned respect. “I never would have known. No one would have known. How did that even happen?”
August began to pace, trying to remember what had made him turn her over his lap the first time. “It was some sense that she wanted punishment. She knew of our reputations, of course. Someone as perceptive as her…” He turned back to Marlow. “I made up something about her mistakes, her poor practice habits. She suggested consequences…and it went from there.”
“The little minx.” Marlow laughed, shaking his head. “And here you are, worried about horrifying her. Why, she’s the perfect candidate for our preferred lifestyle. And why not? Look where she came from. Everyone knows the duke spanks his wife.”