Trust Me (26 page)

“Beg me to mark you.”

“Mark me, oh God,
Jon, please mark me.”

He struck her. Heat
and sting spread across her flesh. The sound of the impact cracked in the
silence. Fire spread to her sex, electrifying her nub.

He laid down several
more blows, each touching a different place, until her entire bottom burned and
stung evenly.

He unbound her
ankles. She couldn’t move her legs but he was parting them for her.

He plunged a hand
into her hair, grasping the mass and pulling her head up. He kissed her, hard
and quick. Then he thrust into her. Hard. Driving himself completely home on
one swift, slick slide.

“Ah!” she cried out.

He gripped her hair
tighter. “You like that, eh?”

“Yes, yes…oh God…yes!”

With the one hand
clasped in her hair and one on her hip, he fucked her. Wet slickness, friction.
His cock harder now, growing thicker, stretching her, filling her. Pounding
into her. Intense waves of pleasure took her higher and higher. Unbearable anticipation
surged in her blood, she shook with it.

Everything inside her
pulled tight, so tight.

Then it released.

A firestorm of
spasms. Her inner walls squeezing on his shaft, over and over. The waves
radiated deep, deep into her belly.

Intense bliss. Behind
her eyes, white stars seemed to spark in the darkness of her mind.

She screamed and
screamed.

The warm, velvet
darkness overcame her.

****

When she awoke, her
hands were unbound. Jon was lying beside her, half sitting up on his pile of
pillows. His hair was damp, as though he’d had a bath.

Poor Toby, had Jon
really roused him from his bed, after giving him such an early evening?

Jon was staring at
her.

She smiled at him,
sleepily.

His expression went very
serious and he bent down and put his mouth to hers. Passionately. Roughly.
Taking her breath.

He rolled her over,
her arse touched the bed sheets and fiery pain sprang to life. Swift, stunning
desire flamed into her loins. Her cunt began to clench.

God, she’d never
known such sudden, intense lust.

He was entering her.

She cried out with
eager welcome and wrapped her legs tight about his waist. He positioned his
pelvis so that he brushed her nub with every thrust. Then he fucked her, simple
and direct. Nothing else was needed.

In a matter of
moments, they were both close to orgasm. She could feel it in his breathing,
and in the way his body tensed. She clasped his broad shoulders, dug her nails
into his flesh and let the shuddering spasms overtake her. Her cunt squeezed
his cock over and over and she felt the hot flood of his seed deep inside.

“Christ, how I love
you, wench.” He nipped her earlobe, sharply.

She squealed with the
unexpected pain and nearly wet herself. She leapt from the bed and ran for the
chamber pot behind the screen.

When she came back,
she stopped at the big wood frame mirror and looked at her bottom. Several red
stripes marked her olive flesh.

The marks of his
possession.

A secret between
them.

The most precious of
secrets.

“Well, what do you
think?”

She glanced back at
where he lay in the bed. His look was so warm and passionate.

“I think they are
beautiful.”

He reached out his
arms. “Come to me.”

She walked back to
the bed. When she was close enough, he took her by the hips and turned her. The
touch of his lips upon her marks stung slightly. It also felt delightful and
she laughed.

He traced the line of
one of them. “You must be careful, Anne. No one can know of this.”

“Of course.”

“I mean no one, Anne.
Not even Nellie.”

“I know.”

“You must bathe in a
shift or something.”

“But how shall I
explain.”

“Say being married is
making you shy.”

“She’ll suspect
something.”

“Yes, she’ll suspect
something. But she won’t know for sure.” He pulled away from her and then
patted the bed on her side. “Lie on your stomach.”

She obeyed him.

He slicked his hands
with oil and then smoothed it in on her flesh. “It is a dangerous thing, Anne.
It is the quintessential wicked risk.”

She caught her breath
as the gravity of his words sank in. He was exactly correct. No one could know.
It was dangerous. Or rather, it would be dangerous if others knew, for they
would never, could never understand. Indeed, she could never have understood
such a thing had she not experienced it herself. But now that she had, she knew
she couldn’t stop. The marks would fade, as they had before. The feelings, the
elation, would fade as well. Then they would hunger to feel them again. They
would indulge in this again.

“Others are not put
together like us, Anne. They cannot comprehend it.”

“Jon, how did you
know?”

“Know what?”

“About me, that I
would
…
comprehend it.”

“I sensed it. I
cannot explain it any better than that. But I was not sure. Not until I held
you and judged your responses. Then I wondered—no, I was driven to find out how
far I could push you.” He laughed softly. “And before I knew it, I was lost to
you.”

She grew silent and
lay still, savouring the sensation of his hands lightly stroking soothing oil
over her arse.

“Well, how did you
discover how
you
are put together?”
she asked after he was done.

“I knew a woman when
I was young. She did my laundry when I was in the Dragoons.” She heard the
smile in his voice, the wistfulness. “ Years before I met Rebecca, she had
fallen for the dreamy allure of a young redcoat and discovered instead the
reality of the unending grind of being married to an enlisted solider,
following the drum.”

“She was older?”

“Yes, I was twenty
and she was twenty-six.”

For some reason that
surprised her. It shouldn’t have. Every woman he’d been with besides her seemed
to be older than he was.

“She burned one of my
best shirts with the iron. I was prepared to be forgiving but she was almost
distraught with guilt. It was she who suggested a more corporal form of
punishment.”

Something in his tone
prompted her to ask, “You agreed so easily?”

“No, I didn’t. I
never thought the camp women should be subjected to the whip the same as the
men. The whip often maims. Military discipline is harsh. But then she explained
how it would be quite different if I used only my hand. And by the time she
stopped explaining, I was too aroused to refuse.”

“Did you know, before
that?”

“Vaguely, perhaps.
I’d had daydreams that I felt were wholly brutish. I would indulge such fancies
in my mind and then, later, deny to myself that there was anything there worth
examining. I was confused. A week spent in the afternoons with her in my cot
and I was no longer confused. She was experienced, not at all shy about making
suggestions. She showed me just how she liked to make love. That she wanted to
be dominated and controlled.”

Afternoons? She
recalled what he’d said earlier about this Becky having fallen for a young man
in a red coat.

“So she was still
married to this other redcoat? The enlisted man?” Anne couldn’t contain her
shock.

“You’re too
inquisitive, my darling.”

A little frisson of
hurt swelled in her chest. “I can’t believe you’d disrespect another’s wedding
vows.”

“Anne, you must
understand. Her husband was quite a bit older, and he’d given her up for the
bottle long before. Believe me, anything I took from her was nothing he ever
missed.”

“But still… well, did
he know?”

“He did. It wasn’t
something spoken of openly. But when he was felled at Badajoz, when he lay
dying, he called for me. He asked me to take care of her and I promised I
would.”

“Did you?”

“I kept her with me
all through my service and I brought her home with me. I gave her a small
house.”

“But you didn’t love
her?”

“No, but we understood
each other well. Carnally. We were friends.”

“What happened to
her?”

“I pensioned her when
I went back to London, when I left you after Eastwood Place.”

“Oh.”

How casually he’d
said it, that day he’d returned from London.
I have dismissed my mistress
.

Anne thought of being
‘dismissed’ by him. Forever. With just a promise of financial security to keep
her warm. A flare of pain flashed through her. She couldn’t help asking. “Was
she hurt?”

“No. I don’t believe
so.”

“But you don’t know.”

“Anne, we weren’t
pledged. I never promised her anything but financial support. I never gave her
any hope of exclusivity. We weren’t in love. I have never been in love with
anyone before you.”

Anne couldn’t help
it, something still bothered her about this subject of a young Jon and his
older seductress, Rebecca. “But you made an adulteress out of her.”

“What about her
needs? Do you wholly discount them? Why was her husband’s right to neglect her
more important than her right to be appreciated as a woman?”

“Two wrongs don’t
make a right.”

“Not everything in
life is as black and white as you would like it. You must become comfortable
with ambiguity.” He laced his fingers with hers and squeezed her hand. “Don’t
think too hard on these matters, Anne. Not everyone finds love or acceptance in
marriage. It is the nature of matrimony. People seek security and material
comforts foremost. They wed to please their parents or to ensure a favourable
alliance for the sake of their family or others who depend on them. It is the
way of the world.”

How like Jon to be so
unapologetic about adultery. She had known he was like that. She had to accept
those parts of him. She fell silent, still uncomfortable with the turn of the
conversation. And then another thought began to gnaw at her. “You did—did like
last night—with Cherry?”

“Are you asking if I
used my crop on her?”

“Well, yes.”

He shook his head.
“No. I have done that with just two women. Becky and you.”

“I cannot picture
Maria submitting to a spanking.”

He chuckled softly.
“Maria and I did not mesh entirely in our carnal tastes. But we became friends
and I trusted her. I had something she wanted—my position and title—and she is
a very practical woman. I wanted to have children with her. I thought that was
all I sought from a wife.” He caressed her cheek. “Until you taught me to want
more.”

“You really used your
crop on-on… Mrs Howland?”

Yes, he had. That and
many, many other things. Things designed to humiliate, things that caused more
pain. He had done them because Becky had enjoyed them, needed them. But those
same things would break Anne’s proud, stiff spine, leaving no protection for
her sensitive, all too wounded soul.

Anne would never
understand how he could take pleasure in fulfilling Becky’s more exotic needs
and yet still be satisfied now with his wife’s differing needs.

He had not fully
understood it himself, at first. But now he did. He saw himself differently.
He’d thought that he needed a high level of novelty, acts that were extreme,
excessive.

But he’d discovered
that with Anne, his pleasure was more about being in complete control of her
experience, driving her to her personal limits. To the limits of her arousal
and pleasure.

And that her limits
were different from Becky’s made no difference.

No, that wasn’t
completely true.

Everything with Anne
was more intense, more satisfying.

But she wouldn’t
understand. Not yet. She thought in such absolute terms. She would hear
‘different’ as ‘lesser than’.

So instead of
explaining, he took her hand. “Anne, I never loved Becky.”

“You were fond of
her.”

“Yes, deeply fond.
But I was not in love with her. I enjoyed our sexual relations very much. I
shan’t lie to you about that. But it cannot compare to what you and I share.
Being in love makes a remarkable difference.”

Emotion flared in her
eyes, making them brighter, taking his breath. “Yes, that’s a very apt word for
the experiences we have shared. Remarkable.”

He smiled and took
her hand and pressed it to his cheek. “Soul shattering.”

Her eyes shone with
even more brilliance. “Foundation-shaking.” She took a deep breath.