CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
“Do you truly ask in earnest?” she murmured in disbelief. “Have you?”
“You answer my question with two of your own.”
“I have never been struck in the whole of my life.” She was curious to know his history. “And you?”
“Once, as a boy, I received the tawse across my hands.”
“And that is all?”
“An instructor cannot administer that which he himself has not received. For an instructor to apply a punishment, he must understand it intimately.”
She tried to imagine a grown and virile man receiving a lashing across his bare bottom. The imagery stirred the heat within her.
He brushed his hand over her derrière. “How do you enjoy your punishment thus far?”
Again he posed a nonsesensical question. “Not at all. Do you expect that I should answer in the affirmative?”
“Many enjoy a good whipping and beg for more.”
She scoffed, then moaned for his fingers slid along the copious moisture collected between her legs.
“Do you wish to be spanked further?”
She groaned. “Only because you have offered a reward. Ah!”
The tawse bit into her rump.
“Stay still,” he commanded, “or the tawse may land where I do not intend.”
She braced herself for the remaining five strikes. She hoped he would be quick.
“Ah!” she cried out again.
Four remained.
He stroked the tawse over the burn.
“Ahhh…”
Three.
She waited in dread for the next blow, but it did not come.
“Please,” she gasped.
“Do you wish to speak your word of safety?”
“No. I wish for you to spank me.”
“Truly?”
“Yes!”
“Then I must oblige.”
Two! The punishment was nearly over.
She came near to cursing on the next wallop.
One! Relief was secondary to the agitation swirling in her loins.
“Well done,” he said with sincerity.
My reward, she wanted to urge.
"We will finish upon the bed,” he said.
“Are we not finished?” she asked after he had scooped her up.
“Are you satisfied to end now?”
She would have been perfectly content, but now she was curious. “If there is more to the lesson, I am ready.”
Now that her lust had been satiated, she was conscious of her nudity. She made a move to pull the bedclothes over her, but he stayed her hand. He moved onto the bed next to her. The bulge at his crotch caught her eye.
“Is there—what—rather, should I return the favour?”
“These lessons are for your benefit, not mine,” he replied almost as if he were vexed with her.
“But…”
He closed her mouth with his. She thrilled at the pressure of his lips over hers.
Would she ever tire of kissing? No two were alike and held a myriad of possible characteristics and sequences, from short and sweet, slow and gentle, to long and passionate, fast and forceful.
When his arm encircled her midsection and pulled her closer, her arms went around his neck.
She liked the warmth of his body and the scent of his shaving pomade.
What little she had learned of kissing through their exchange, she attempted to return.
It seemed to incite him, for his kisses became ardent, hungry.
He grasped a buttock. She would have yelped in surprise if his mouth did not muffle hers.
He squeezed her arse, and before she could comment or object, he had rolled atop her, pinning her body beneath his as he continued to explore the depths of her mouth.
Her nipples dug into his chest and she could feel his protrusion hard against her thigh.
She was suddenly quite curious about the object.
Upon instinct, she moved her leg and rubbed against it.
He went instantly to his knees. Propping himself up, his body hovering above hers, he moved his attention from her mouth to her breasts.
He flicked his tongue at a nipple, then covered it with his mouth.
She groaned when he began to suck. The heat between her legs churned.
She watched as he teased the sensitive bud till her back arched and she thought she might go mad.
He trailed kisses down to her navel and farther to her—
Surely he did not intend…
Heart thudding, she clenched her thighs together. But he parted her knees and settled himself between them. She shut her eyes, embarrassed and hardly able to believe that he was in such an intimate area. At first she felt only his breath there.
“Calm yourself,” he instructed. “I mean only to kiss you here.”
The force of her dream came rushing back to her.
Only it wasn’t Darcy between her legs. It was a skilled lover—nay, instructor.
His earlier actions had pushed her arousal beyond where she could truly halt herself from seeking that joyful end.
But could she enjoy the action when her dream had left her soured of the vision?
“What is amiss, mademoiselle?”
Given his location, she could not look him in the eye.
“Nothing. Rather, I simply feel a little uncertain…”
“Do you require the safety word?”
Perhaps, she thought to herself. Aloud, she said, “Proceed first.”
He kissed the down at the base of her pelvis. When he flicked his tongue at the wanton little rosebud between her folds, she nearly leaped off the bed.
“Are you all right?”
She let out a haggard breath, then nodded.
He licked her there once more, appraised her reaction, and licked her a third time.
She trembled with every touch. How lewd and naughty was the act!
How provocative! His tongue tickled at first, but the lapping of the warm, moist, thick and uneven flesh against hers soon ignited that sublime agitation.
The strokes of his tongue were a wholly different sensation, and he never seemed to fail at finding the spot that excited her most. Pleasure reverberated through her legs.
A few times he allowed his tongue to slide lower, and she found the pressure along her slit produced an ache inside her most sacred place, a desire for more pressure.
She had not thought she could be aroused so quickly after spending but a few moments before, but when all resistance had subsided and she could fully glory in his skills, it seemed the swell of her previous tide assisted a new one in lifting her higher and higher till her toes curled and her fingers dug into the sheets.
She cried out as she reached her climax.
He held her in place as he wrung the last of her spasms from her body, till his touch became jarring and uncomfortable. When the final shudders had subsided and she could catch her breath, she stared at the canopy above in amazement of her own body.
“Would you care for a third or is the time now short?” he inquired.
A third time? Was that possible?
She flushed to see the glisten of her wetness about his mouth and chin. She glanced at a clock upon the far wall and sat up quickly in response.
“I ought to return before my absence calls attention,” she said.
He went to retrieve her clothing and lent her the assistance of a chambermaid. Oddly, she felt more embarrassed dressing before him than she had felt when he had disrobed her.
“No cosmetic can enhance the loveliness in a woman more effectively than the glow of spending,” he said after he had finished buttoning her dress. “Pray, do not dwell in shame. You are entitled to the pleasures of your own body.”
“Thank you for your compassion—and the lesson. Perhaps your concern would be lessened if you were not so accomplished an instructor.”
He stiffened.
“Ah! Someone who despises compliments as much as I!” She smiled.
He seemed to relax.
“Do not worry of me, sir. I am quite capable of handling myself and do not intend to torture myself with guilt and shame, even if I may not be indifferent to them.”
He shifted in awkward silence.
“Your handkerchief,” he presented at last.
To relieve him of his unease, she presented him her hand. He held it for a moment longer than necessary before placing a kiss upon it.
“Thank you for the lesson,” she said, feeling more herself. “Good night and God bless.”
He only nodded.
She took her leave of him, thinking her instructor a rather strange fellow.
*****
“Where have you been, Eliza?” Maria worried when Lizzy had returned to the Parsonage. “That was quite a long ride. I had become a bit frightened being alone, and in a home not my own.”
Lizzy apologized and hoped that it would not happen again.
Fortune seemed to smile upon her, for Mr. Collins and Charlotte had not arrived before her, and she soon learnt that after Easter, Mr. Collins was to spend two days in the neighboring parish that had recently installed a new rector, and Lady Catherine had recommended Mr. Collins bestow some of his earned knowledge on the good cleric.
Ever eager to please his patroness, Mr. Collins could not thank her ladyship enough for the compliment.
It was decided that the ladies, moreover, would make a day of perusing the local millinery and haberdashery.
Lizzy said nothing, for she had every intention of begging out of the excursion.
With a giddiness uncommon to her, Lizzy wrote of this news to Abby and it was arranged that Lizzy was to have her third lesson in a few days’ time.
Pleased with the impending opportunity, Lizzy enjoyed with increased fervor the company of those at the Parsonage, agreeing with Charlotte and Maria’s admiration of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s manners and their sentiment that he must add considerably to the pleasures of their engagements at Rosings.
It was some days, however, before they received any invitation thither—for while there were visitors in the house, they could not be necessary; and it was not till Easter day, almost a week after the gentlemen's arrival, that they were honoured by such an attention, and then they were merely asked upon leaving church to come there in the evening.
For the last week they had seen very little of Lady Catherine or her daughter.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the Parsonage more than once during the time, but Mr. Darcy they had seen only at church.