A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)

Bel had no answer to that. She had no more words in her head. She stared at the long swath of linen as he knotted it securely around her wrist.

“You will,” he said, hoarsely. “I swear it. You are my wife, and I mean to have all of you. I shall win you one piece at a time, if I must. Give me your other hand.”

She could not refuse him. She could not have refused him anything at this moment. Her desire only grew as he bound her wrists together, slowly winding the smooth fabric over her galloping pulse, then cinching it tight. Between her legs, she softened and ached.

“Lie down,” he told her. “Flat on your back.”

She obeyed him willingly, allowing him to position her body as he wished. He arranged her diagonally on the bed, then lifted her arms, stretching her bound wrists over her head. She felt a series of sharp tugs as he tied the loose end of the cravat to the upper left bedpost.

“Is it painful at all?” he asked, testing the knot.

She shook her head.

“I would never hurt you.”

“I know.”

Bel could not pretend to understand why her husband was lashing her wrists to the bedpost, nor why her body quivered with excitement as he did so. But what ever his intended purpose, she knew he would not hurt her. Of that, she had no doubt.

He placed a pillow beneath her head, and she looked down at her body, still clad in her sensible, light-blue traveling habit. With her arms positioned thus, her br**sts thrust upward, straining her buttons of her high-necked chemisette.

Toby’s fingers went to the row of overworked buttons, freeing them with a series of swift, deft flicks of his fingers. Once all were undone, he pushed the sides of the garment aside to reveal her stays and light summer shift. He undid the small closures of her skirt and tugged the garment down over her hips, knees, stockinged feet.

“There now,” he murmured. “Isn’t that more comfortable?”

Comfortable? Was he teasing her again? She was tied to a bedpost. And any relief that normally accompanied the shedding of clothing was more than offset by the sweet tension coiling in her belly. Her breath rolled in her chest, shallow and quick, lifting her bosom in rhythmic waves.

He slid one hand up her thigh to untie her garter, then slowly rolled the stocking down her right leg. His fingertips brushed her sensitive inner thigh, caressed the vulnerable hollow of her knee, then swept down to the tingling arch of her foot. She shuddered with pleasure, twisting on the bed.

He grasped her ankle firmly. “Now, Isabel. Can I trust you to remain still? Or must I use your stockings to bind your legs?”

“I…” Her voice faltered, and she swallowed hard. “I will be still.”

“Good girl. Spread your legs a bit wider, then.” His voice was dark and brusque—a tone she’d come to know well, from their nightly encounters. A tone she’d come to welcome, even adore. It thrilled her, to hear the impatient need in his voice. To know that he’d passed the threshold of tender solicitude and gone over to raw, masculine want. And it gave her so much pleasure, to obey his terse directives. When he spoke to her thus, he absolved her of the burden of choice. She could not feel conflicted over her own feelings of desire, not with her husband demanding her willing compliance. It was simply her duty to please him, and to accept the pleasure he offered her, and she delighted in doing precisely as he bid.

Only later—only afterward, did shame and regret creep out from the shadows. He removed her other stocking, putting her through the same slow, sweet torture as he drew the fine silk down her left leg and eased it over her foot. Sliding his hands back up to her waist, he undid the ties of her petticoat and whisked it down and away. He would not look her in the eye, but concentrated on his task as he placed his hands around her ribcage and rolled her slightly onto her side.

As his fingers yanked at the laces of her stays, a rush of air entered her lungs. Bel went dizzy with euphoria. The cravat chafed her wrists as she wriggled to help him remove the corset entirely. She was intoxicated with the delicious irony of it—how he was binding her and freeing her at the same time.

And now she lay naked, except for her simple, unadorned shift. The thin muslin was damp with her perspiration and clung to her skin, growing increasingly translucent. Toby repositioned her on her back and knelt between her outstretched legs, just inches from the place where she throbbed and ached for him. She could clearly see the outline of his arousal, so large and male, pressing against the fall of his trousers. Her body bowed as her hips arched toward him in an instinctive invitation. She was desperate for him to possess her body, to take his pleasure from her.

But that wasn’t what he had in mind.

“No,” he said gruffly, smoothing his palms over her waist and pulling her chemise tight against her br**sts. Her ni**les hardened with the tantalizing friction. “Not yet. I have bound you, Isabel—not for my own pleasure, but for yours. And I shall not release you until you have reached your peak—”

“Toby—”