Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
Francisco
The limo glides to a stop in front of the chateau. The driver appears to open the door, and I reach in to help her stand. She still wears the beautiful white dress. She hasn’t complained about it once. I have the suspicion that if I dragged her across the French countryside in those three-inch heels, she’d only give me that same mild, complacent smile.
That’s what I wanted in a wife. That’s what I demand.
So why do I have the impulse to ask her what she really thinks?
“Shall I carry you over the threshold?” I don’t wait for a response. Her arms reach up to clasp my neck, as if I might drop her. Instead I toss her into my arms. Despite the exuberance of fabric surrounding her, she’s light. I climb the stone steps leading to the wooden doors, which stand open to herald our arrival. When we reach the marble floor, I set her down, lingering with my hands on her waist so she can get her balance.
Her cheeks are pink as she looks back at me. There’s a smile fighting to get through. A real smile, and I realize how badly I want it. Then she schools her expression back to calmness. “That was sweet,” she says.
I nod to the line of people waiting. “My butler. The housekeeper. You can meet with them tomorrow to discuss your requests.”
Her eyes widen. She gives them a small wave. It’s the first sign of uncertainty I’ve seen from her. Apparently Mrs. Bradley did not inform her only daughter that she’d oversee staff. I suppose that comes from living in hotels most of her life. There’s a general manager to handle that. “Hello,” she says.
There are bows. Curtseys. A chorus of, “Hello, Your Grace.”
Her eyebrows raise. “Your Grace?”
“They take after the English customs,” I explain, but I’m too impatient to wait. Strung too tight with lust over waiting through the wedding ceremony and reception. Waiting for the months to go by planning the wedding. Always waiting for her.
I could have approached her at the charity gala. Perhaps invited her out for coffee. Possibly I could have had her in bed that night, but I don’t lose control. I don’t give in to my passions. Everything is regulated, even sex.
A wave of my hand, and Lila appears in front of us. “This is your lady’s maid.”
“Lila St. Charles,” she murmurs, her eyes downcast.
“Pleasure to meet you,” my wife says, her tone polite and kind and completely unsuspecting. She doesn’t know how close she and Lila will become. Lila is one of my very special employees. Her skills extend beyond cleaning and service.
“She’ll assist you with whatever you need,” I say. “And prepare you.”
Blue eyes snap to meet mine. Prepare you . She senses the strangeness of the words. Good. She’ll have to learn quickly, since she came to me with no experience.
A virgin. Christ.
“Come,” I say, taking her elbow and leading her up the grand staircase. Perhaps if I were a better man I would sit her down in my office and explain how this will go. If I were a better man I would give her an option to walk away before we consummate the marriage.
I’m not a better man.
The door to my room stands open. The furniture is dark and stately.
We continue walking. Her rooms are lighter, white with champagne gold accents. A bath has already been drawn in the clawfoot tub. Water steams, swirling with rose petals. A large bed is in the middle of the room with pale blue silk sheets and a canopy. A round antique table sits to the side, surrounded by matching blue-satin chairs. Light streams in from the window, barely blocked by the translucent white fabric covering them.
Lila trails behind us, her hands behind her back. She’s well trained.
My wife is not, but that’s part of the fun. I’ll enjoy training her.
“Lila will service you now,” I tell my wife. “Stand still. Lila, you may undress her.”
It’s a test, of course.
My wife freezes in the well-lit room, her hands by her side. She wants to push Lila away. She wants to demand that I leave. There are a hundred conflicting desires flitting across her beautiful face. This is beyond some inner boundary of hers. Beyond what she imagined our wedding night would be like. She did not think another person would be in the room.
Little does she know.
“Did you think I wouldn’t see you naked?” I inquire softly.
She flinches. “No.”
“Or that I’d only come to you at night, when it’s dark and you’re under the covers?”
A flush stains her cheeks, but she lifts her chin. A queen could not be more imperious than she looks now. Her arms lift away from her body. She might be at a dressmaker’s for all the concern she shows. “Lila, you may begin.”
Lila works first at her gloves, pulling back the satin to reveal slender forearms. I turn an armchair in front of the fireplace to face Isabella. Then I sit and cross one leg over the other. Patience. Control. Command. No amount of wild lust will consume me.
Isabella keeps her eyes on mine while Lila moves behind her. The process of deconstructing the dress happens in stages. The wedding gown comes away first, lifted carefully over Isabella’s head and laid over one of the satin-backed chairs to wait. Then her petticoat comes away. It gave her gown its dreamlike shape for our ceremony.
Next comes her delicately embroidered corset.
My bride’s cheeks pink up at the loss of the corset, but she doesn’t look away. Neither do I. I’m marking time by the rise and fall of her chest.
“Stop,” I say.
Lila’s hands drop to her sides, her eyes going to the floor. “Come closer.”
Isabella glances at Lila, then takes a few tentative steps toward me. Watching her move in the corset and nothing else briefly tests my commitment to patience.
I gesture to Lila to continue. Her hands are efficient on the laces, and my bride stays straight-backed and blushing as the material comes away from her skin to reveal her breasts. Pink nipples. Creamy skin that will mark beautifully. I could tie her hands behind her back and hurt them now, but that’s not for our wedding night.
She’s starting to wonder when I’ll touch her, my perfect bride. I can see it in her eyes. She’s remembering my mouth between her spread thighs, hidden from her by the lace of her dress. There’s nothing to hide her from me now.
Another test. For her, and for me. A less-disciplined woman might not be able to stand the wait. Might disobey me and climb onto my lap before I’ve commanded it.
Isabella doesn’t. She stands before me in only her heels. A tremble in her arms suggests that she would very much like to cover herself. I wish she would so I could punish her now instead of waiting. It’s a powerful wish, and one I won’t indulge. She’s not ready. My cock disagrees. I overrule.
“Bathe her,” I say, gesturing to the steaming tub. “There’s lavender oil. Use it over every inch of her skin. Then dry her well.”
It’s torture to watch Lila’s clever hands working over my wife’s slippery skin. It’s an exercise in restraint, which is of course the entire point. Proving to myself that I can wait.
When the bath is done, the maid dries Isabella with a plush white towel.
I rise from my chair and put a hand on her elbow. My bride allows herself to be guided to the bed. At the edge, she hesitates. Her teeth worry at her bottom lip. The serene expression she wore as she came down the aisle slips back into place.
Isabella does not ask the question I know she wants to ask.
“On the bed,” I tell her. “On your back.”
Her cheeks turn a deeper red, and I wonder how long she can hold out before she finally blurts out her burning question: Is the maid going to watch us consummate our marriage?
No. She will not.
However, what comes next will probably shock her more.
Isabella’s knees spread under the pressure of my palms. She keeps her hands flat on the comforter. I run my fingers over her slick folds. Her arousal is obvious and intoxicating. More intoxicating than it has any right to be. I keep my mind on the task at hand. “You’re wet,” I comment. “But not ready. Lila.”
Lila steps forward without hesitation and kneels between Isabella’s knees. Isabella pushes herself up on her elbows. “What is this?” Fear sings in her voice, but her curiosity hasn’t gone away. She does not close her legs. “Sir.”
It sounds so pretty on her lips. “On your back. Lila is going to prepare you for me.” I use the same words intentionally. This is the way my bride will learn the shape of my expectations. The range. “Knees wide. Get her ready, Lila. Dripping.”
There’s a battle on Isabella’s face. Her breathing quickens and hitches as Lila puts a hand on each of her thighs and leans in close. “Wait,” she says.
Lila pauses.
“Yes, my dear wife?” I ask, my tone mild.
“She’s not… you.”
I stroke my wife’s beautiful blonde hair back from her cheek. “No, she’s not me. I tasted you once tonight, and though you were delicious, now your maid is going to prepare you for me. She’s going to make you wet and slick for my cock.”
My wife flushes hard. “I don’t know what to think.”
“You don’t have to think. Only feel. Are you going to be a good girl for me?”
A short, hesitant nod.
I glance at Lila to give her permission to continue.
At the first stroke of her pink tongue, Isabella closes her eyes.
I pinch one of her nipples. Hard. Her eyes fly open. “I want to see you.”
More than that. Lila’s tongue on Isabella’s flesh sends lightning strikes of need to scorch the earth of my mind. Of emotions. Isabella makes a soft sound, her thighs trembling, because Lila has given up her tentative licks and pressed her face into Isabella’s slit. She devours her in hungry strokes, the slip and slide of her tongue loud in the quiet room.
Another moan from Isabella. Her hips move up off the bed, and a small piece of my restraint snaps. “Enough.”
Lila pulls away and stands, her eyes on the floor, her hands behind her back. Her chin is coated with my wife’s juices. Isabella looks from me to her and back again, lips parted and desperate.
“Leave us,” I mutter to Lila, and she exits the room gracefully and silently.
It takes everything in my body and in my soul not to leap over Isabella like a wild animal. The urge is there, and strong. I won’t indulge it, or the sharp jealousy that pierces my chest. I wanted to embarrass my pretty bride, and I did. I wanted to push her toward one of her boundaries, and I did. I might also have pushed us toward one of my own.
Between Isabella’s knees, I use my hips to stop her from closing her legs and unzip my pants. It’s a visceral relief. I’ve needed this since I touched her after our ceremony. Since I kissed her in front of all those people in the church. Since her mouth was on me in the car.
I thought that would sate me, but I’m aching for her.
“I’m going to take you now.” My fist is wrapped tight around my length, and I bring the head to her opening with great care. “There will be pain. You will bleed.”
Isabella searches my face, panting. “And you’ll—like that?”
“Yes.” I’m not going to lie to her.
She’s tight. Her opening grips me at first touch. Isabella inches her thighs apart, her expression determined. Her hands close tight on the bedspread. I sink in another inch.
Isabella arches. I can see the pain in her eyes. The shake in her thighs gives away how much I’m stretching her. An experimental thrust makes her breathe out hard. Giving in to the pain. Mastering it, if only a little.
I don’t let that happen.
I put my hands on her hips and drive myself in to the hilt, tearing through her virginity with all my pent-up want. Isabella cries out, her cunt clenching. She’s mine now. She’s been mine since I met her across the boardroom, but she didn’t know it yet. Her blood streaks my cock when I pull back, stains the insides of her thighs. I loosen my grip on control. Let myself stroke into her in the rhythm that my body wants.
It’s the same rhythm her body needs. I’m intending to circle her clit with my thumb. Intending to force her to orgasm around the pain.
But Isabella does it herself.
Her fluttering muscles coordinate around my cock, pulsing and pulsing, and her blue eyes stay on mine as she comes. It’s such an exquisite mix of pleasure and pain that as soon as it’s over I drag another one out of her as I reach the crest of my own release. Isabella’s tight cunt milks me through her second orgasm, and mine rushes out to meet her. She hisses at the heat, at the way I’ve buried myself deep to paint her womb with my seed. I am half over her now, and her lips are mine to take, so I take them. A shuddering kiss. Isabella is the one shaking underneath me.
She needs more.
I drag my tip through the hot spill inside her, but I don’t pull all the way out. I make her come again with my body taking up space in hers. Claiming it. If nothing else, my bride will understand this—I will take everything, every inch.
After a long moment, Isabella’s eyes close. Heavily. Against her will.
With a clenched jaw I lift her into the bed and tuck her in. There is so much more I want to take from her. So much more I want to give her. Pleasure and pain. But the wanting feels perilously close to the fevered emotions that ruined my parents.
I do not indulge it.
My wife sleeps through my leaving. I can’t fall asleep for hours. She’s everything I could have imagined in a wife. More. The problem is how much I love it. How much I’m coming to crave it. Memories of screaming and throwing things and photographers flashing cameras on the lawn haunt me. I wanted us to have a calm, orderly, mutually beneficial arrangement.
Emotion has no place in a marriage.