Blooming: Veronica (16 page)

“All the more reason to enjoy the evening now. Besides, I love foreboding weather.”

“You are deliberately trying my patience, brat.”

“Brat, eh? Where is your distancing now, sir? That word sounds remarkably like an endearment to me.”

“Is it a writer’s bane to confuse reality with fiction?”

She tossed her head. “I am no writer, not anymore.”

He let her argument go. “I have called you my darling many times, and you made no comment. I would classify that as an endearment, not brat.”

“If not an endearment, then I shall have no recourse but to accept your word choice as an invitation to be naughty.”

He snorted. “As if you needed one. You intend to have your way with me whether I like it or not.”

“You will like it, sir, if you but give yourself a chance.”

She used flirtation like a weapon, all bludgeoning power and no finesse. Stepping in front of him, she dragged his arm around to encircle her waist, his hand lodged beneath her unfettered bosom, within easy fondling range.

Tits. Titstitstitstits.

Only making a fist prevented him from giving into temptation and cupping one.

Or perhaps even both.

Chapter Nineteen

Veronica was not defeated. Mr. Bowdoin may have circumvented her evil plans thus far, but she could still turn this loss into a win.

Ordinarily, she wore a corset. Following her husband’s directive, she had gone without this evening, resulting in impending victory now. She could practically hear his teeth gnashing as he tried to resist her.

Her voice pert, her breasts more so, she wiggled her hindquarters, targeting an area of her husband’s physique that would surely wreak havoc with his equanimity.

“Give into your fetish, Mr. Bowdoin,” she cooed. “Go on. Do. I shan’t stop you. Even if you strip me bare, I shan’t say a word. I shall just put my cooperation off to wifely duty. Imagine, if you will,” she purred, “looking at my bare breasts, sir. Pulling my neckline down until my bosom pops out. You could pummel my tits to your heart’s content. Why, you could even turn me around to face the lit windows, thereby allowing everyone within the house a glimpse. How does that sound, sir? Lovely, I wager.”

“Vixen,” he grunted. “I shan’t do anything of the kind. I can point to a decade of celibacy to prove my mettle. What can you point to?”

“My nipples,” she said. “Two sharp points if ever there were. Go on. Look. I know you like to peep.”

“I do,” he said. “I told you so.”

But he made no move to do as she suggested, though she just bet visions of doing that and more frolicked in his head.

To make him see the error of his forbearance, she swished her hips back and forth against him, ending her attack by grinding her bottom into his loins.

His deliciously hardening loins.

“Do you know I have never seen an erect cock or any cock at all. And me, a married woman. On my honeymoon no less! My ignorance is criminal.”

“No, bullying me here is criminal. We could be arrested and thrown in jail. I shan’t place you in harm’s way like that.”

“You want to, though. You want to expose me. You want to grab my bare tits and squeeze. The growing erection against my backside tells me so. My, my, my, but you are starting to feel positively huge. How will all that possibly fit inside me, sir?” she asked with a pout in her tone.

Groaning, he tried to wrench away.

This time, unlike all the previous occasions, she would have none of his retreat. “You really should punish my bad behavior this evening, sir. A switch taken to my bare bottom would do the trick. Or…or…you could send me headfirst over your knee and spank me right here. A bench is there in the corner behind you.”

“Are you wearing drawers, young lady?”

“I forget. Oh, gasp, gasp, whatever shall I do? On the one hand, I must obey and answer your question, while on the other hand, how can I reply if I cannot remember? I know. I shall check and see.” Within his arms, she started raising her gown.

“No,” he shouted when the hem reached midknee. “Not here.”

“Where then, sir?” She giggled. “Out on the dance floor? That will give the guests something outrageous to talk about.”

“You provocative tart,” he seethed. “Go there, behind those bushes, to the railing.”

“Will you come quietly?”

“I always do. I never make a sound.”

“You will with me, Mr. Bowdoin. With me, you will shout the ceiling…or in this case…the sky down.”

Taking his hand, she drew him to the tight grouping of potted evergreens. The containers formed a living screen between the house’s glass windows and the main area of the balcony, an L-shaped protector from the elements.

“Have you ever tasted a woman, sir?”

“Yes,” he rasped as she took him inside their little bower. “I love how a woman’s flavor lingers on the tongue.”

“Poor me. I have never had anyone sample me. Not so much as a droplet
from there
has ever crossed a man’s lips. Will you amend that sad deficit tonight? Say no if you are against furthering my experience. I am not all
that
wicked. I shall stop provoking you if you tell me to.”

“You are not wicked at all, Veronica. But you are suffering wickedly. Allow me to help.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you! And I know exactly how you may assist me.” She flicked two fingers across the placard of his trousers.

“Wait. Drawers first,” he moaned. “You never told me if you are wearing any.”

“So sorry,” she murmured, anything but. “I shall correct my oversight at once.”

Facing him, and increment by increment, she pulled up her new gown, revealing knees, then thighs, then her newly shaven privates.

Bare as the day she was born.

Apart from her new piercings.

“Your cunt,” he began, and she heard him swallow on the word, an erotic word she used in her book and which she absolutely adored but which she never dared to speak aloud except at a particular book reading he had attended. “Your cunt is wet,” he continued. “I can see the glistening in the light cast from the house. And I can see your plump clit too, now that you are shorn.”

“I look like a little girl. Does that attract you, sir? Is that why you insisted the tailor make me bald down there?”

“No. Little girls have never attracted me. And with that gold barbell piercing the hood of your clit, you hardly look childlike. Your arousal is what I longed to see. Spread your legs wide, darling. For me. No one else. Just me. Show me.”

She opened her thighs. For him. Just for him. And as he looked, she realized this was not a straightforward triumph. A Pyrrhic victory was all she had achieved. No mistake, her teasing had affected him, but his response equally affected her. Remaining neutral was impossible when she wanted him inside her so badly.

“Beautiful, so beautiful,” he crooned. “Now your titties, please.”

She was not the only one with power here. He was at her mercy, but she was equally at his. This thing, whatever it was, between them went both ways. Her hold on him was the same as his hold on her. Neither of them had full control over the other.

My, how she hated that. “No titties.”

He backed up to the marble bench she had indicated. “Now, you really have been bad, darling, teasing and then not delivering. Come to me and accept your punishment.”

“Providing you use the flat of your hand, not your stick. No buffer between us this time.”

“Agreed.” After removing his coat, he rolled up the sleeves of his immaculate shirt.

She walked to him, more sulky than sultry now, and rounded over his knees, bottom up, head down. “Do the honors, sir, before the blood rushes to my brain.”

The chilly night air feathered across her raised hips, but he soon warmed her exposed flesh.

His hand came down on her buttocks with a resounding
swat.

“Ow!” she protested.

“Too much?” he asked, praying she would say it had not been enough.

“No, damn you. It was only the surprise. I have never been spanked before, you see.”

His hand came down again, harder this time, the smack making an incredibly sharp sound that reverberated through her, the rebounding heat of his discipline making her squirm.

Her cunt, yes, her
cunt
, went from dripping wet to sopping wet, her passion flooding her, the copious moisture trickling down her thighs. Could he tell? Could he tell how juicy she was? Goodness! Would the evidence of her wanton desire leave a telltale mark on the leg of his trousers?

Heavens, she hoped so!

His hand came down again, the palm slightly cupping her bottom cheek as it made contact before slowly lifting.

He wanted to keep his hand there. She could tell. He wanted to have his fingers linger.

But no. Duty came first.

He spanked her again, and she moaned full-out through her gaping mouth, anticipating, hungering, for the next rousing, stimulating, highly exciting spank.

She waited for the next, but nothing happened.

When he continued to delay, she complained, “Whatever is keeping you?”

She found out.

He fingered her, a back-to-front entry as she hung over his lap. First, he touched her clitoris, a tender regard.

“Sore?” he asked, a rub across the barbell lodged inside her.

“A bit. Complete healing will take additional time.”

“Too sore to continue?”

“Never. It is only that the jewelry is highly…stimulating. The barbell magnifies the normal sensitivity.” Her bottom began to move. Just a little at first. Then an extravagant amount.

Before, she had squirmed. Now she writhed.

“I see,” he rasped and increased the pressure.

“Oh, dear, dear, dear,” she sobbed, her hips gyrating. “A bit of a sting. I…I…like it.”

“Enough for now. Until you heal. More might rip the clit’s hood.”

“But—”

“Shh. I said enough.”

In compensation, he pushed a thick finger inside her.

“Wet as the rain soon to fall,” he said and squeezed in two additional digits.

They felt so good, so right.

Too good, too right.

She unsuccessfully swatted his hand, did manage to push away. Only briefly, before he hauled her back over his knees again.

“My ass waving in the air is not at all how I envisioned this tryst,” she whined.

“You did offer,” he said and began moving three fingers now up inside her. Up, then out. A slippery penetration.

Of course, he had to comment on it. “Your readiness can be heard inside the ballroom.”

“You embroider the facts, sir. The orchestra is playing,” she wheezed, just as the number ended.

He chose that precise moment to increase the speed and depth of the fingering. Knowing the guests inside the hall might indeed overhear them provoked her to greater heights of arousal. He must have known the effect his statement would have on her, and that was why he made it. The supercilious swine.

“Let it happen,” he said.

She sniffed. As if she could do anything to prevent it. Wave after wave of unanticipated pleasure washed over her. Sensation threatened to drown her. Her lungs about to burst for want of air, she could no longer speak, argue, deny what was about to happen. Moving with his strokes first, then pushing back against his strokes later, then bucking like a mare put to the saddle for the first time, she knew with certainty that she was about to scream.

He must have realized it too. Just as her release triggered her vocal cords, he pulled her upright onto his knees and smothered her hoarse cries with his mouth, thereby saving her already tarnished reputation from wrack and ruin.

Afterward, while she watched, her husband placed his fingers in his mouth, the ones he had used on her, and cleaned off her juices. With noisy relish.

She had never thought to see such a thing, hear such a thing, especially not done by a staid man like Talbot Bowdoin.

Chapter Twenty

“Your turn next.” While he stared at her, unable to turn his gaze away, his bride fell to her knees between his spread feet.

Clever girl. She found his cock, released his cock, examined his cock, breathed on his cock,
kissed
his cock, and he arched his jaw to the moonless sky, surrendering to her siege, giving himself over into her hands and lips, and Christ Jesus, her tricky tongue.

Ridiculous. She had no need to do this. He had never asked for or expected repayment in kind for sexual favors, which were his pleasure to bestow. For that matter, he had not thought there would be sexual favors. He had cast himself in the role of her publishing mentor, yet here he was on the receiving end of her sexual coaching. Did she think he had need of her instruction?

He did not! His experience far surpassed hers. She had been on her knees once on a grimy pier; he had been on his knees too many times to recall each instance, but there had been plenty.

All forgettable.

He would not forget this time.

Granted, her mouth was not as expert as other mouths that had claimed the same piece of geography as she claimed now, but after ten years of nothing, her
something
felt damnably good.

Better than damnably good. Her mouth felt like homesteading, like she had settled in for keeps, not as though she were doing a temporary staking before moving on to a new region to explore. He had never before had a partner give him a permanent thick or thin commitment. And to be just, neither had he ever committed himself to more than a night with any one, two, or a dozen partners.

Is that what had been missing before, the locked-key imprisonment of marriage?

Locked key. Sounded ghastly. Hideous. Like a ball and chain, rope and noose, a death sentence.

The prospect of a lifetime of bliss sounded more palatable. But he had not expected bliss, had given up on the notion. Until he read her book, understood how she thought, her inner thoughts, not the public way she presented herself to the world.

There had been no need to read between the lines. She had put herself into every word, infused herself in every phrase. So foolish. So rash. So brave.

So goddamned ballsy.