Chapter 19
Bridget put her hands on her hips and stared at her husband with a look of bewilderment.
After their guests had left, she had thought that he might throw himself upon her, but he had not.
Instead, he stood sullenly in the banquet hall.
For the first time, he seemed to lose his stony composure.
He raked his hand through his hair and shook his head. “You are impossible,” he said.
“Me?” Bridget asked. Outrage seemed like a good disguise for her unfulfilled desire. “You did not need to make everyone leave!”
“I did.”
“I thought you ignored other people’s whispers,” Bridget said. “I see now that you do not. Are you going to apologize for criticizing my behavior so harshly? For holding me to a standard which you cannot obtain yourself?”
“Not everything is about you, Bridget.”
Bridget? The informal address sent a jolt of pleasure through her. He spoke so informally about her and so soon. She had only been his wife for a handful of hours!
“Well, Lewis,” she said, drawing a warning glare from him. “It is highly unfair that you hold me to such an absurd standard. You expect everything from me, yet you offer nothing in return.”
They stood several feet apart, but at her words, he stalked slowly closer. Bridget’s breath hitched. His steps were careful and measured, as though he wanted her to notice once again how massive he was. When he was a hair's breadth away, he halted.
“Is that so?” His voice was dark and sonorous. “And what would you like, my wife? Do you even have the words to express what you desire?”
The scent of his familiar cologne filled her nostrils, accompanied by the warmth of his body.
They were alone, and they were wed. Bridget took a trembling step backwards, her back striking the wall.
His Grace followed her. He stood so near that Bridget had to crane her neck backwards just to meet his eyes.
His blue eyes were dark and cold, like a winter’s night, and Bridget suppressed a shiver.
He raised a hand and stroked her cheek with his knuckles, and Bridget’s breath caught in her throat. His hand was massive against her face.
“I asked you a question,” he said. “Do you have no words to share, my wife? I feel as though you ought to. After all, you seemed so inclined to talk at breakfast.”
“Th-that was different,” she stammered.
“Oh?”
He let his hand drift lower, brushing over the side of her neck and down her shoulder. Bridget shivered, as he reached the top of her gloves. His fingers stroked down the length of her arm, so warm that she felt him even through the silk material.
“Why is it different?” he asked.
Bridget tried to find a reply, but her thoughts scattered before her like fallen leaves tossed in the wind. “It just is,” she rasped.
He seized a handful of her skirts and pressed himself flush against her. Bridget gasped. His body was muscular and strong beside her own, and no man had ever stood before her like that, keeping her pinned to the wall with his weight and will alone.
“I give you nothing, Bridget. That is what you said.”
She swallowed hard.
He twisted her skirts and drew them up. Bridget gasped and instinctively brought her legs together, as cool air swept over her stocking-clad calves. Then, her knees.
“You cannot mean to…here!” she exclaimed.
“I am the lord and master of the house,” the Duke said. “I will take my wife wheresoever and whensoever I desire it.”
With a strong pull, he swept the skirts up to her waist, exposing her thighs and her womanhood to himself and anyone who might happen by. Bridget groaned, as that familiar ache coiled between her legs. She pressed her spine hard against the wall behind her, trying to anchor herself.
“What are you doing?” Her voice scarcely rose above a whisper.
“Giving you nothing,” he said.
Her husband caressed the inside of her thigh, raising gooseflesh on her skin. Bridget’s breath quickened, despite her resolve to maintain composure. He trailed his fingers idly over her thighs. His touch was barely there, and it was maddening. She wanted more of him.
Her hips jolted forward against his thighs, and her face flushed with mortification.
Bridget’s knees grew weak. If it was not for the wall and her husband, she doubted she would be able to keep herself upright.
His fingers trailed up her thigh and over, and all the air left Bridget’s lungs, as he caressed her sex.
She tried to stifle a moan, but it emerged sounding like a strangled cry.
“Oh!” she gasped.
He slowly stroked her womanhood, and Bridget’s hips bucked again. Soon, a dampness spread between her thighs. The ache, which had been a tolerable throb, grew tighter and hotter. She writhed against the wall, desperate to—
To achieve some end, to soothe the ache, to find something that her body desperately wanted.
“You are a very na?ve, young miss. I do not imagine you know how your own body works,” His Grace said, lowering his head to plant a hot kiss on the side of her neck. “But I do. Shall I tell you what is happening?”
Bridget grasped his shoulders, her nails digging into his fine jacket. “Y—yes!” she gasped.
“When a woman is pleasured thusly, her body begins to yearn,” the Duke answered. “She longs for a pleasure that we call le petit mort. It is an intense experience.”
Bridget’s thighs quivered, and a little needy sound erupted from her throat. Her body seemed to move without conscious thought, as she drove herself against him. Bridget forced her core against his hand, trying to force him to move more quickly.
He chuckled and rubbed a spot on her sex, and Bridget gasped. A wave of sensation crashed over her. His Grace continued stroking that spot, his thumb making quick circles over her.
“Oh!” Bridget exclaimed.
She bucked against him like a wild thing, all thoughts of how much she disliked this man and their marriage gone in a hazy cloud of desire.
The ache between her thighs grew hotter and hotter, and her body trembled.
Bridget moaned shamelessly with no other thoughts than to achieve that wave of pleasure that her husband had promised her.
He withdrew his hand. Bridget’s racing thoughts seemed to halt in an instant. “Do not stop!” she cried.
Her poor sex pulsed with need, and she moved her hips to no avail. When she tried to touch herself, her husband seized her wrists and held her fast.
“I give you nothing, remember?” he asked.
“That was—you are unkind!”
“You are unkind. I am only letting you have a small taste of your own behavior.”
Bridget whined and shifted, trying to numb that ache by rubbing herself against his thighs, but nothing happened.
The Duke clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and gathered her wrists easily in one hand.
He held them over her head, while his free hand caressed her breasts until she moaned.
His Grace trailed his hand lower, his fingers skimming over her stomach and hips.
Bridget scarcely dared to breathe, as he reached her sex once more.
He slowly caressed her core. Bridget’s body responded at once.
She quivered against him and arched her back away from the wall, as best as she could with his holding her wrists.
The ache returned and grew deeper with every stroke of his fingers.
A whine tore itself from Bridget’s throat. She was nearly—
He halted his movements once again, his hand merely cupping her overly stimulated sex.
“No!” Bridget exclaimed, tossing her head back.
Her husband’s eyes gleamed with victory. “If you want to have any pleasure tonight, you must persuade me.”
She groaned. “What do you want? I will take back what I said earlier. You do give me something.”
He hummed and moved his fingers once more, tracing her softness.
Bridget quivered. There was something hot and wet between her thighs, evidence of how little she could control her own body.
Sweat gathered behind her knees and at the small of her back, and heat rushed to her face as the result of her labors.
Her husband’s fingers were merciless, bringing her quickly to that same edge. Bridget shook. Her knees trembled, and her hips jerked forward. She strained in his grasp, and—
She cried out, as he stopped his movements a third time. “But I thought…” Bridget trailed off. “I thought you would…”
He shook his head. “Oh no. I do not think you deserve pleasure after that scene today. Did you really believe that a little, quick apology would mend everything?”
It was too much to endure. Tears sprang to Bridget’s eyes, and her lips trembled. “Your Grace—”
“Lewis will be fine.”
“Lewis.”
He smirked. “Now, I told you to persuade me. What will you try next?”
Her heart was in her throat. “What do you want?”
His Grace—Lewis, she was supposed to call him—hummed. He let his fingers trail over her thigh, as if he was contemplating the answer. Bridget let out a faint, little whimper. Lewis must give her this pleasure. He could not possibly be so cruel as to continue to deny her.
“I want you to beg for it.”
She gasped, the absurdity of the statement shaking her to the core. Her first instinct was to refuse. How could any man of the ton think of making such a wretched request to a lady?
“I cannot!” she protested. “You must ask for something else. Anything else! I promise I—I can be a good duchess.”
Bridge squeezed her thighs together, trapping his hand between her legs. Still, he refused to move his fingers and bring the pleasure she so desperately wanted.
“Beg for it,” he said, “or you shall not have it. I will keep bringing you to the very edge again and again until you relent. You may think your will is stronger than mine, but I can assure you it is not.”
Bridget roughly rubbed her core against his hand, sobbing with need. Her sex ached, and her thighs trembled. “Please,” she whispered. “Please.”
“Is that begging?” He arched an eyebrow. “You shall have to do better than that.”
Lewis traced his thumb once more over that spot that made her body pulse with need. It felt like a reward, and Bridget leaned into his touch, craving more.
She could not beg but she needed to go over the edge.
Bridget was out of her mind, trying to think of how she might have her release without doing something so utterly degrading.
If she had not been so desperate, she was certain that she would have found something, but her body was so hot.
Need curled in her core. “Please, please,” she rasped.
“Please, Lewis. Let me have my pleasure. I will do anything for you.”
“Good girl,” he purred.
His thumb traced circles over that spot once more, his pace frantic. She groaned and bucked against him. The pressure inside her knotted tighter and tighter, and then—
White stars danced in her eyes, and Bridget’s body trembled.
She cried out as pleasure crashed over her in waves.
It was divine. Exquisite! Bridget felt as though she was more herself than she ever had been, and once the wave had passed, she let herself relax against the wall.
Her breath came in heavy pants of air, her chest heaving.
Her husband’s eyes gleamed, his expression dark. “I know precisely what to give you and when you need it,” Lewis said. “You would do well to remember that, Bridget.”
Abruptly, he released her wrists and turned away. Bridget grasped the wall behind her and took great heaving breaths of air. Her body was lax and calm with the last lingering remnants of pleasure still coursing through her.
Bridget’s husband was…
Beyond anything she had imagined.