The Duke's Bedeviled Bride (Royal Pains Book 2) (20 page)

Taking a centering breath, he refocused on the sensations pulsing through his groin. Mistress Wakeman had given up the sponge and now had her hand wrapped firmly around his girth in a way that called into question her status as a novice.

 
Opening his eyes, he placed his hand over hers. “Like this,” he whispered, moving her hand up and down under his. “Hard and fast. We are past the point of no return, so let us proceed apace toward the finale.”

He released her hand and closed his eyes, leaving her to continue alone. As pleasure besieged him, he thrust his hips to help move things along.

Taking the hint, she squeezed and pumped with added vigor.

As his enjoyment escalated, a low groan escaped from deep in his throat.

“Do you like it?” Maggie asked in Mistress Wakeman’s voice.

“What’s not to like?”

Warm moisture kissed the head of his cock. Assuming she’d picked up the sponge again, he opened his eyes a crack. It startled him to see her bending over him with her lips around his glans. He watched in a breathless stupor as she danced her tongue over the tip and around the reddened collar.

 
“God help us both,” he muttered and closed his eyes again.
 

Ecstasy swam through him as her warm, moist mouth closed around more of his length.

Teeth clenched, he flexed his hips, serving her a heartier portion.
 

Rather than object, she took him still deeper, sucking and swirling her tongue in ways that stole his breath and addled his brain.

“Sweet Jesus,” he rasped. “How far can you go?”

To his astonishment, she took him so deep he could swear he felt her tonsils grazing the head of his prick. How was such a thing possible? Did the lass have no gag reflex?

Meanwhile, the pressure in his cods was building to the breaking point.

“Mistress, I’m nearing climax,” he warned. “If you do not want me to come off in your mouth, you’d best desist at once.”

She did not desist. Instead, she bared her teeth and scraped them along his blood-gorged flesh. Sweet holy Jesus. That was enough to pull his trigger. His cods discharged, firing hot blasts of pleasure up his shaft. To his amazement, she swallowed his ejaculate without a bit of fuss.

She then sat up, licked her lips, and patted his thigh as if she'd just lanced a painful boil. “Feel better?”

He blinked at her in wonder. “Aye.”

“I thought you would.” She got up and returned to the basin. “An excess of the seminal humor can throw the body out of balance. In such cases, extraction of the surplus generally proves restorative.”

He gaped at her, dumbfounded. Then, finding his voice, he said, “Are you telling me you did what you did just now for medicinal purposes?”

“Of course,” she said, squeezing the sponge. “I do the same for many of my male patients." Smiling his way, she added, “I am told I have a gift.”

Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and all the Saints and Martyrs.

He’d assumed when she’d called herself a virgin she was an innocent, like his Rosebud, but he’d clearly been mistaken—and all at once felt very differently about Mistress Wakeman than he had before. She was still a lovely person and a gifted healer. And no one could call him a prude. But, health benefits aside, he could not hold in the same high regard a woman who made a practice of curative cock sucking.

Did Jones the apothecary know of her gift? Did her father? Aye, well. Perhaps that was why they’d arranged the marriage.

“I would concur,” he said, still stunned. “You are indeed very skilled at, erm,
seminal extraction
.”

 
She recommenced washing him, starting with his genitals. The water had grown cold, but he did not mind overmuch. At least it helped keep his libido in check. The sponge made its way up his body. Belly, ribs, chest, shoulders, neck, face. As she washed his hair and ears, her scent filled his senses.
 
Fresh-baked bread and something herbal and fresh.

He closed his eyes and conjured Maggie.

Warm breath caressed his mouth. A tongue traced the outline of his lips. He parted them, inviting her tongue inside, but she seemed content to keep it light. He was not. He could hold back his feelings no longer. His arms went around her and pulled her down on the bed, down on top of his reborn erection. He thrust against the solid warmth of her fabric-layered body, seeking the sanctuary of mutual affection.

“Maggie. Oh, Maggie. God, how I want you.”

She abruptly withdrew. “Who the devil is Maggie?”

Oh, shit.

He opened his eyes to find Mistress Wakeman looking down at him with daggers in her eyes. He offered her a sheepish grin. “The woman I plan to marry.”

Her glare softened ever so slightly. “Do you love her?”

“Aye. To a nearly unbearable degree.”

Her brow furrowed. “Does she know how highly you regard her?”

“Nay.”

“Then tell her, you fool,” she said, turning back to the basin. “No woman with any sense would turn down a man of your charm and comeliness.”

He heaved a sigh, sat up, and pulled up the bedclothes to cover himself. “If only it were that simple.”

“How long have you been carrying a torch for this Maggie person?” she asked.

He released a sigh of frustration. “From the moment I first clapped eyes on her.”

“I envy you that kind of love,” she said, turning to him with a smile. “I shall probably never experience it.”

“Save your envy,” he said, downhearted. “I might deserve it if she returned my feelings, but for now they are unrequited—a plague I would not wish upon my worst enemy.”

* * * *

The first part of Maggie’s plan worked like a charm. All within the castle apart from herself and Mrs. McQueen now slept the sleep of the dead. She’d dispatched the housekeeper to bind the others whilst she kept guard over Hugh. Fortunately, he’d succumbed in the chair in the library—only a few steps from the chamber behind the bookcase.

Whilst she waited for Mrs. McQueen to return, her mind harkened back to a Shrove Tuesday play Hugh had taken her to see in the village a few years ago. Shrove Tuesday, a moveable feast celebrated by many faiths, marked the day of indulgence preceding the fasting of lent.

The play, called
Perceforest
, told of a girl cursed at birth by a jealous goddess. One day, the goddess pronounced, the girl would prick her finger on a piece of flax and fall into a sleep from which she would never awaken.

Zelladine, the heroine of the play, grew up, took a lover called Troilus, and eventually fell under the enchantment. Whilst she slept, Troilus crept into her room and was so overcome by her beauty, he had sex with her insensible form. Nine months later, Zelladine, still asleep, gave birth to the child he put in her. The child, seeking to nurse, sucked the sliver of flax out of Zelladine’s finger, breaking the spell.

Hugh had defended Troilus for raping Zelladine, which, even back then, infuriated Maggie.

In the present, the desire to throttle him within an inch of his life galloped through her veins. She fought it, fearing her blows might awaken him. Better to wait until she could restrain him. Better to wait until he was sensible enough to suffer as he’d made her suffer.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Mrs. McQueen returned, assured Maggie the others were bound and gagged, and, with no small effort, helped Maggie hoist Hugh to his feet. Draping his arms over their shoulders, the two women carried him through the bookcase passage into the flagellation chamber. Inside, they laid him on the bed and tied his wrists and ankles to the bedposts.

Maggie checked the bindings to be sure they were secure before pulling down his breeches. She then crossed to the wall of whips to select her instruments of torture.

The housekeeper, standing by, asked, “What are you going to do to him?”

Maggie scanned the options before reaching for the cruelest-looking whip: a flogger with knots tied in the ends of its stiff leather tails. Taking the scourge down from its peg, she said with a smirk, “Every diabolical thing my mind can conceive.”

“Should I stay and help?”

“Only if you have a strong constitution.”

Anxious gaze on the door, Mrs. McQueen said, “Perhaps ’twould be better for me to keep an eye on the others.”

Maggie smiled approvingly. “That sounds like a very good plan.”

After she exited, Maggie returned to Hugh and cracked the whip across his crotch. “Wake up, you festering pile of excrement.” She regarded his insensate form with the most loathsome of sneers. “The time has come to pay the piper.”

To her consternation, Hugh did not wake up; he merely groaned as she laid into him with the scourge. By the time she was finished, a cross-hatch of angry red marks painted his flesh from neck to knees.

Maggie felt better.

Liberated.

Empowered.

Vindicated.

At least more so than when she’d been in his thrall. Those who said revenge was sweet were not far wrong. Beating him whilst he remained oblivious, however, was not nearly satisfying enough. She wanted to hear him scream. To hear him beg for his miserable life like a dog. To hurt and humiliate him the way he’d hurt and humiliated her.

Harrowing scenes of the things he’d done to her flashed through her mind. Striking her sex with the crop, forcing her to suck his cock, making her wait on him at table, kicking her down the stairs. Rage welled up inside her, thick and molten. She tossed the whip aside and strode to the cabinet of curiosities. A thrill of satisfaction scudded through her as she opened the drawer containing the
Godemiché
she’d earlier nicknamed “Goliath.”

“I have a phallus, too,” she murmured, unbothered by his deafness to her words. “I simply keep mine in a drawer.”
 

She took the gargantuan dildol to the wall of pegs, liberated a buggy whip from its peg, and took her tools to where her insensible prisoner lay. She walked round the bed several times, sizing up his anatomy whilst working out a strategy. She would show him consideration equal to what he’d shown her.

None, in other words.

Taking aim, she raised the whip and snapped the tail against his bollix.
 

“Wake up, you despicable fiend.”

His eyes opened, but remained hooded for a moment before opening wide.

Good. At last, he comprehended his predicament.

He jerked on his restraints. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Getting my revenge,” she said with a smirk.

When he caught sight of the mammoth dildol in her hand, his eyes opened even wider and, for the first time, she saw fear flicker behind his gaze.

“What do you mean to do with that?”

Setting the whip on the bed, she ran her fingers over the object in question. “Can you not guess?”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he said.

She lifted an eyebrow in challenge. “Would you care to place a wager on that?”

Moving around to his face, she aimed the dildol toward his mouth.

“You bitch,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “I insist you untie me at once.”

She laughed as wickedly as she knew how. “Know this, you maggot-infested wound on mankind: whatever you suffer at my hand will be naught compared to what Robert will do when he learns how viciously you abused his pregnant wife. Do you honestly think he will let you live when he learns of your plots and misdeeds?”

As images flashed of Hugh forcing his cock into her mouth, she climbed on the bed on her knees. “Open wide,” she said, raising the dildol over his face, “and thank your lucky stars I’ve not castrated you—though doing so remains a distinct possibility.”

“Jesus, Maggie,” he said, thrashing his head from side to side. “I was only having a bit of fun. Can we not let bygones be bygones?”

Fury rose inside her like a wall of fire. She climbed atop him and sat down hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. “I did not find it the least amusing, you spawn of Satan. Now open your mouth, and prepare for a taste your own medicine.”

When he refused to obey, she slammed the
Godemiché
against his lip-shielded teeth. He flailed beneath her to thwart her effort, but she relented not. Finally, he tired of the fight and opened his mouth, admitting the bulbous tip of the
Godemiché
. He bit down on the wood in an effort to halt the dildol’s progress. Maggie, having none of it, shoved Goliath deeper. She Would not be satisfied until he gagged. She only wished she could make the thing ejaculate.

She fucked his mouth for several minutes before growing bored with the exercise. Now what?
 
Beat him some more? Punch and kick him? Throw him down the stairs? Much as she’d like to do all of those things, her options were limited. If she untied him, he might regain the upper hand. And no punishment, however tempting, was worth losing control.

Perhaps she should kill him here and now and be done with it.

Distress shot to the surface of her psyche like a trout striking a fly.