Bound to Be a Groom (10 page)

On their first liberated walk in the park, Sebastian confessed that it all felt surreal. After years of garnering nothing but his parents’ disapproval, it turned out that she, a supposed slip of a girl, had thrown the world at his feet.

She had worried that the rumors of her illegitimacy were still floating about nearly two decades later, but when they arrived in Madrid, a sealed envelope was awaiting them. The barrister of her mother’s husband, the illustrious Conde de Floridablanca, wrote to impart that on his deathbed the eighty-year-old
conde
had decided to be generous. He hadn’t left her a peso, but he had finally given Anna something he viewed as far more valuable: legitimacy.

The piece of paper that declared Anna’s paternity was more than enough for Sebastian’s parents, who had feared their rebellious son would never find
any
woman to meet his vague but exacting standards, much less a virginal, convent-raised daughter of the aristocracy. Being illegitimate was hardly something new, it seemed, and the de Montizons were more than willing to turn a blind eye to her questionable birthright.

On their next walk, Anna worked up her courage. She wanted to be honest regarding her ambivalence about fulfilling her wifely duty, in the most traditional sense of the word.

They were walking slowly along a winding path near the lake when she finally blurted, “I’m hesitant, Seb.”

“You? I don’t believe it! What could possibly give you pause? Tell me.” Sebastian looked down at her with those knowing eyes of his. His kindness was turning into something precious and reliable.

“I don’t feel comfortable doing the actual . . . thing.”

She could tell he was repressing his mirth.

“Go ahead and laugh,” she said, throwing her arm out in defeat. “I know I’m being entirely ridiculous. But I just . . . I don’t know. It’s not what I
want
to do, and I don’t want
you
to be awaiting that singular act or for us to be dancing around the matter.” She sighed. “How is it that I want to do so many things but not that one?” She shook her head. “I’m all in a flurry.”

“Anna, look at me.” He stopped walking and lifted her chin so she was looking into his eyes. Even so, she tried to avoid his penetrating stare. For all his submission in her arms, he still had a persuasive nature when he chose to exert it.

“What is it?” she asked, her eyes darting this way and that, like a child who was being forced to confess an infraction.

“Whatever we do in the bedroom—or don’t do—you will be my wife in every way that matters to me, Anna.”

She looked down at the tips of her new, splendidly embroidered slippers that peeked out from the silk hem of her dress near the gravel path.

Sebastian held her chin more firmly. “Look at me, Anna.” She lifted her face to his. “You do believe me, don’t you?”

“I’m trying, but—”

“But what?” He looked so crestfallen.

“But I fear you will have demands.
Rights
, even.”

He reached out and touched the column of her neck with the tip of his gloved hand. “It is you who hold dominion over me,” he said quietly. “Surely you must know that by now. Where or how our bodies are joined—if at all—is entirely in your hands. If Pia brings you pleasure, your satisfaction brings me joy.”

She trembled at the mention of Pia.

His voice was warm and close to her ear. “I have dreamt of the three of us together. Of both of us pleasing you.”

The touch of his glove, the heat of his breath, and the power of his words—the power he was ceding to her—caused a sharp spike of desire in her gut. “Oh, Sebastian. You are precious to me.”

“I will do everything imaginable to remain so.” When his hand pulled away, Anna realized his touch was beginning to become essential to her. Yes, she had control—he gave it to her willingly, joyfully—but the more he craved her domination, the more she was beginning to crave his submission. Anna smiled at the irony of need as they resumed walking through the leafy paths of the city park.

The day before their wedding, a gift arrived. A long, thin box wrapped in exquisite Italian paper was delivered to Anna’s room with a note from Sebastian.

Everything imaginable. Yours, S.

When their wedding came to pass the next day, everyone was unequivocally delighted.

Anna and Sebastian were married in the family chapel in front of the de Montizons’ closest family and friends. Most of the guests stayed for only one glass of celebratory wine and then departed. His parents were extremely strict in terms of their religious beliefs, so the nuptials were far more serious than celebratory.

After the small reception, Anna and Sebastian, his two sisters, and their parents enjoyed a delicious family meal, replete with old recipes that had been passed down through many generations of de Montizon women. Anna looked around and realized she had a family for the first time in her life.

Tomorrow, at last, they were set to depart Madrid for Burgos. It would take two nights and three days to cover the distance, but by week’s end, Pia would be in her arms. Or perhaps, she hoped,
their
arms. Sebastian made these wild dreams seem so easily attainable, not only because of his wealth or power but because he showed her how it was possible to ask for what one truly wanted. And she wanted Pia. Her heart thrummed with joy as every hour brought them that much closer to one another.

“So, where shall you live, my son?” Sebastian’s father asked across the table at their wedding meal. Now that Sebastian had unexpectedly lived up to paternal expectations, the
conde
was quite lenient in terms of the particulars of what Sebastian planned to do with his future. The family owned endless hectares of vineyards in Spain, as well as sugar plantations throughout the Caribbean and two ships that traveled between the two. “Will you go to the New World as you’ve always wished?”

“That is one option Anna and I have discussed. My friend Marco has recently sent word that he has arrived safely in Cartagena, and the city is ripe with opportunity.”

His father nodded his agreement. “I remember young Marco from your school days. Very industrious. He would make a good business partner, I suspect.”

“I agree. But first I want to see more of Europe.” Sebastian took a sip of wine. “I am taking Anna to London for a few months, then from there perhaps to the Americas. Do you think you will like that, my dear?” He turned to look at her, as if he had nearly forgotten she was even seated at the same table.

Anna flushed with pleasure. She loved playing the part of his shy wife when they were among company. For some reason, it made the demands she was preparing to place upon him in the bedroom that night that much sweeter.

“Yes, my lord.” She kept her eyes downcast but caught the
conde
nodding in silent approval of his respectful, obedient daughter-in-law. The older aristocrat raised his glass to his son, man-to-man.

After the meal, Sebastian’s mother and sisters showed Anna to the large guest suite that was to be hers and Sebastian’s for their wedding night. The three women helped her brush her long blonde hair and change out of her formal gown and into one of the satin lingerie sets that had been sewn the previous week. After they all made sure she was powdered and buffed and burnished to perfection—and that she was seated elegantly beneath the starched white linen sheets and coverlet—they each gave her a single kiss on the forehead and wished her every happiness in her married life.

A few long minutes later, Sebastian entered the room through the adjoining door. He locked both that door and the one leading to the hall. Anna felt a corresponding wave of anticipatory pleasure roll through her when the bolts slid home. Finally, he was hers to do with as she wished.

Watching his deliberate approach across the room—his strong shoulders and powerful legs nearly vibrating through the rich blue silk of his dressing gown—was like watching the world change from a cold, lifeless planet into a garden of Edenic delights. He moved like the prophetic lion, tightly coiled and powerful, but in his eyes she saw the lamb. When he reached the bed, Anna whipped back the sheet and stood up.

“Now our marriage truly begins,” she said. “Take off your robe.”

Her words sliced through him like a hot knife. Sebastian’s muscles contracted in a quiver of anticipation. As she walked toward him, he undid the knot at his waist and let the heavy silk fall from his shoulders to puddle on the floor at his feet. The late-summer night was cool, and the small fire in the grate crackled in the background. Standing naked and vulnerable in the middle of the room, with nothing but Anna’s eyes upon him, Sebastian was fully alive for the first time in his life.

“You are so beautiful, Sebastian,” Anna said.

He nearly whimpered.

She trailed a single finger down the center of his chest, then lower, down the middle of his abdomen where his muscles twitched on contact, then finally stopping and pulling away right before she reached the thatch of hair around his stiffening cock. The line of her touch stung his skin, as if she had cut him down the middle with a surgeon’s scalpel.

He watched her through lowered lids as she circled around him, touching him lightly here and there, wherever it pleased her. “This is how you should always be. Available to me like this.” When she palmed the turn of his bare arse, he hissed out a breath.

“Very nice,” she whispered. She rubbed him in a soft circular motion, heating the taut round muscles with a constant, firm touch. “Very nice,” she repeated.

When she stepped away to retrieve something from her wardrobe, he exhaled, taking a moment to contain his fervor. A few seconds later, he startled at the sound of one quick swipe through the air. The fine, swooping hiss connected with nothing but empty air and his passion.

“Don’t forget to breathe, my pet.”

His intake of breath tasted like the sweetest water from a clear mountain stream. Then she swatted the small crop through the air again, closer to him, close enough for a small gust to move around his body. She walked in front of him and tapped the riding crop against the palm of her opposite hand.

“I see you received my gift,” he said, no longer caring that his voice sounded desperate or needy. He wanted her to see how much he
wanted
. How much he wanted her.

She smiled and narrowed her eyes. He stared at her breasts beneath the thin satin of her nightgown, then lower at the silhouette of her bare legs, outlined in front of the fire. “I did.” She stretched out the two words.

“Do you like it?” he ventured.

“I suspect
you
like it.”

His breathing was shallow.

“Am I right?” She trailed the soft leather end along his shoulder and down the length of his arm. A trail of pebbled skin followed in its wake. His eyes closed. “Am I right?” she asked again, her voice taking on a hint of menace.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Open your eyes, darling.”

He did.

“I have so many . . . ideas.” She dragged the stiff length of the crop along the inside of his thigh, then higher so it skimmed the sensitive skin between his bollocks and arse.

His breath thinned, and his cock throbbed.

She moved the crop in a slow back-and-forth motion across his perineum.

His breath stopped.

“I see.” She pulled the crop away, and he missed it immediately. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips, a gentle swipe of her mouth over his, far too gentle. He whimpered. “I know, darling, you want me to be
firm
with you.” She kept up that maniacal gentleness with her lips, but on the word
firm
, she pinched one of his nipples, and it rocked through him, straight to his cock. He reached up to pull her into his arms, but she wheeled out of reach. “No, no, no. That is
my
wedding present to you.”

“What is?” His voice was a mixture of pleasure and a kind of exquisite fear. A delightful, anticipatory, shuddering dread.

“No hands.”

“Oh God.” His fingers and palms began to tingle, then clenched closed.

“But first you need to undress me. Look and touch all you like. For now.”

“Oh God,” he repeated, already approaching a level of wordless pleasure. He watched as she set the crop down on the end of the bed, making sure it was precisely aligned with the edge of the mattress. She turned to face him.

“Take your time removing my bedgown, and then set it neatly on the chair by the fire.”

“Yes, Anna.” It felt so right to obey her completely. He did as she said, kneeling to lift the soft silk up from the hem, then letting his big hands smooth up her legs, over her slightly rounded hips. He paused there, with the silky fabric bunched in his hands and enclosing her waist. He looked up, supplicating.

She smiled at him, then stroked her fingers gently through his hair. He shuddered at her touch. “May I kiss you here?” he pleaded.

She contemplated him, her thumb tracing his brow, his lips. “Would you like that very much, my dear?”

He groaned and inhaled her scent, so close to his face. “Yes. Yes, please.”