“He will see no such thing. All he will infer is that my bride is willing to be trussed for my pleasure. It might even excite him. Do you think he will stroke himself to the sight of you, naked and bound?”
She inhales—and regroups. “I am a devoted wife; of course I will not wonder what some other man chooses to do with depictions of my naked person. I am far more concerned that you, my dear husband, might endanger your immortal soul by succumbing to such acts of depravity. Will you stroke yourself to the drawings you make of me?”
She is trying to arouse me.
And then what?
The answer arrives in a flash of blinding clarity: Then she will try to control me with my own lust.
I sit back in my chair. My lioness thinks fast on her feet—or on her back, as it may be. Until now her plan has been one of passive resistance, to navigate my carnal demands without having any part of her inner self touched—or sullied, from her point of view. But now she has a strategy of engagement. Now she is actively trying to shape this new reality of our lives. To her favor.
On the one hand, I cannot be more proud of her—the woman I love is ever one to take the bull by the horns. On the other hand, this could spell disaster for me.
“I may or may not stroke myself,” I answer. “But I do plan to create an entire portfolio of your nudes.”
“For what purpose?” She taps on her silken impediment. “Do you anticipate that at some point this will no longer be enough to hold me in my place? And you will have only the pictures to remember me by?”
My heart palpitates with an unspoken fear. Within reason, marriages of the upper crust are flexible and tolerant. After a few years and a pair of heirs, as long as she is discreet, no one will bat an eye should she take a lover. Or take up with the very same man who ruined her.
I rise and show her my sketch. “What do you think?”
She scans the drawing. Then her gaze travels along the length of her lanky person to her foot. At some point, perhaps for her own comfort, she has raised her left knee. And I have drawn her with the toes of her feet digging into the sheets.
This apparently displeases her. Does she see those tense toes as an outward sign of her nerves? She wants me to be openly panting for her, but refuses to display anything on her part except an arctic, frigid chill.
Or at least that is what she would try for.
And that is precisely what I cannot allow.
I finish the sketch and place it on her nightstand. “Keep this one. A honeymoon present.”
“Thank you. I’m sure it will make the evening fire extra toasty.”
The thought of my sketch going up in flame—no, that is not what makes my heart burn. It is that she has seen how I look at her when my guard is down and she will exploit that knowledge to the fullest, both to manipulate and to punish.
I shrug out of my jacket with more force than is necessary. She scrutinizes me, her eyes alive with interest. No, not interest—interest on her part would have my heart doing somersaults. Her eyes spark with speculation.
“So it begins again,” she murmurs as I toss aside my waistcoat.
I unbutton my shirt. “I am your devoted bridegroom. Of course I must please you whenever I can.”
“I’d be better pleased if you forgot I existed.”
“Perhaps you might have been, before we married,” I admit. “But now that we have made love, do you truly wish that I would so quickly lose interest in you?”
Something restless and troubled shadows her face, but she answers, “Yes.”
I wrap my hand around her ankle and massage her heel.
A strange light glitters in her eyes. “Please don’t be so polite. This is what you want, isn’t it?”
She slides her other foot across the bed—quite some distance away—and scoots that foot up, thoroughly opening herself to me. “Enjoy what you see?”
I cannot speak. Those long, long legs, those opulent pink folds, but most of all that ruthless brazenness—she knocks the breath from me.
“Don’t be so speechless,” she says, triumphant.
“I can be as speechless as I want to be when my bride bares herself to me.”
And if only she would do it without ulterior motives, I would be the happiest man in the world.
I lift the foot closer to me and kiss her just above her ankle. Without taking my eyes from hers, I kiss the length of her leg. And when I reach the end of it, I entangle my fingers in her curls; then I lower my head and lick her along her seam.
Her entire person draws taut. I lick her again, hungry for the taste of her, hungrier for the reactions I hope to provoke.
“That is enough,” she says hotly.
“That is never enough.”
It would be enough only when she grabs my hair, forces my head between her legs, and commands me to stay there until she decides otherwise.
“You are so pretty here, like an iris just short of full bloom. I want to open all your petals and”—I dip my tongue inside her—“drink your nectar.”