The Reddington Scandal (16 page)

She nodded. They’d had this conversation before.

“How shall I punish you?”

She chewed her lip. Was this a real question? Or rhetorical? She stole a glance at his handsome face. He seemed to be awaiting an answer.

“With a very small spanking?” she suggested.

His lips twitched, but he shook his head. “I don’t think so, kitten. Not a very small one. You disobeyed me and you lied. It was the lie that most offended me.”

She shook her head. “That was very foolish. I apologize.”

He nodded. “If you had not come clean immediately, I would switch you,” he said, threatening the implement that most terrified her. “I think I will spank you once for the lie and once for the dresses.”

She shuddered.

“Come, let’s go to the bedroom,” he said, nudging her to stand. He wrapped an arm around her to guide her out, as if he knew that her knees wobbled beneath her. “Don’t swoon on me,” he murmured in her ear. When they reached their room, he turned her around and unhooked her dress and corset. “Take off all your clothes and bend over the side of the bed,” he commanded, then left.

The air in the room seemed to leave with him. Kitty stood in the emptiness, needy of his presence despite her mounting fear of the two spankings he’d promised. With effort, she made the statue of her body move, stripping her clothing and bending over the bed as he commanded, cringing at the vulnerability of her position, her bared bottom facing the door so that anyone who entered or was passing by when her husband entered might see it.

* * *

Harry fetched a large wooden spoon from the kitchen, earning shocked looks from the cook and serving girl. He opened the bedroom door and drew in his breath at the intoxicating sight of his wife prostrate over the bed. It was this very view that had tempted him into taking her before they married, adding to the scandal surrounding their engagement.

His Lady Westerfield was maddening and frustrating and absolutely adorable. He loved her with his whole heart, and he regretted that his actions had hurt her. Still, he couldn’t allow her misbehavior to go unpunished. He shut the door and stood behind her, running his hand over the soft skin of her bottom. “How many strokes, Kitty?”

“Ten?” she suggested hopefully.

He chuckled. “I don’t think so. Let’s say fifty for the lie, and we’ll deal with the dresses when they arrive. You can put them on and prance around for me. Do you know what they do to horses to make them show better?”

Kitty turned to look over her shoulder, a wrinkle between her brows. “No.”

“They put a piece of ginger in their arse. It’s called figging. It makes them step lively. I imagine it will make for a memorable experience.”

“Har-ry,” Kitty groaned, burying her face in the quilt and squeezing her cheeks together. He smothered a laugh and gave her bottom a slap, the sound echoing through the room as her body absorbed the impact. He gave her several more slaps with his hand and then switched to the spoon, applying it swiftly, the small surface area making it necessary to repeat the blows in close proximity to cover the lower half of her bottom.

“Ow! Harry!” she protested. After twenty smacks, Kitty reached back with both hands, covering her reddened cheeks, forcing him to stop short to avoid striking her fingers. He lowered his aim and smacked the backs of her thighs instead, earning a howl of protest.

“Kitty, go stand in the corner,” he said.

Kitty scrambled up, looking remorseful. “I’m so sorry,” she pleaded, and rushed to hide her nose where the walls met, her chastised bottom showing the color from his spanking. “I’ll be good, I promise. I won’t cover.”

He smiled and had to steel himself not to go soft on her. After letting her wait for several minutes, he stood behind her. “You silly, silly woman,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her from behind. It took great restraint not to explore her bare breasts or stroke her silky skin, but her punishment was not finished.

“Go and climb onto your forearms and knees,” he ordered, guiding her back toward the bed, enjoying the blush that spread across her face. She obeyed, lifting her hips in the humbling position, her knees spread to reveal the tender pink heart of her sex. He closed his eyes to marshal his resolve and then began to reapply the spoon to her backside, the backs of her thighs, and even the tender flesh of her inner thighs. She yelped and whimpered, but true to her promise, held still like a good girl.

When the fifty strokes had been duly applied, he left her in position a few extra minutes to suffer in humiliation and anticipation of further punishment. When he touched her back, she jumped. He pulled her to her side and kicked off his shoes to curl his body around hers.

She took his hand and pulled it up to cover her breast, holding it place with her own. “Your naughty wife is very sorry,” she said, her voice thick. He chuckled and pinched her nipple.

“Tell me that you still love me,” she said, rolling to face him.

“Of course I still love you,” he murmured. “I’m sorry that I hurt you with those letters. I just—didn’t understand what they meant to you.”

The tears she had not wept during her spanking now welled in her eyes. That they had come with his apology and not with his punishment made his heart constrict. “Please don’t cry—it pains me to see you cry.”

“I can’t help it,” she sniffed, the tears rolling from her eyes on a diagonal down her face.

“All right, all right, cry, little kitten. Get it all out,” he said, stroking her hair and arms, holding her close until she began to press her hips against him in a way that did not seem to reflect sadness.

He nuzzled her neck and she looked up at him, eyelashes wet, but eyes hungry. He reached around and cupped her bottom, feeling the heat from her spanking. “This is the bottom of a very naughty wife. Do you know what happens to naughty wives with sore bottoms?”

She giggled. “What?”

“This is what happens,” he growled, roughly squeezing her punished cheeks as he rolled on top of her, smothering her mouth with the promise of a heated kiss.

* * *

The delivery of three beautiful ball gowns might normally have been an exciting occurrence, but in this case, Kitty groaned. “Take them upstairs and put them away in my trunk,” she ordered her maid.

“You don’t want to try them on first?” her maid exclaimed in surprise.

She glanced over her shoulder toward the study where her husband was reading, hoping he hadn’t heard, only to find him leaning in the doorway with a satisfied smirk. Her heart did a backflip.

“No, not this time, thank you,” she said quickly.

“Leave them on the bed,” Harry instructed the maid, then gave her a heavy-lidded gaze. “I am looking forward to seeing you try them on for me.”

She squeezed her buttocks together, remembering clearly what he had in mind. “I had hoped you had forgotten about that. Surely you’ve forgiven me by now?”

He walked forward and put his arms around her waist, brushing a kiss against her neck. “Certainly, darling. But that doesn’t mean I won’t follow through on a promised punishment.”

Just the word ‘punishment’ made her heart beat harder against her ribs and she clicked her lips nervously. “When? Today?”

He smiled broadly, enjoying her discomfort. “Right now. As soon as I make a visit to the kitchen.”

She lifted her chin, realizing there was nothing to do but make the best of it. “Fine. I’ll be waiting upstairs for you.”

Perhaps it would not be as horrible as it sounded. But she found herself stomping her feet a bit on the way up the stairs. She couldn’t believe he was actually going to stick ginger up her arse like a horse!

Her maid was waiting for her, the dresses laid out on the bed. One was a navy, another a maroon. The last was a dark green. She had given the dressmaker specific design elements to include, and they had turned out perfectly.

“Shall I help you out of your day dress, my lady?” her maid asked.

She sighed, turning around to offer her back. “Yes, please.” When she was divested of the dress, she told her maid that Harry would help her with the rest. Fortunately, it was not such an odd pronouncement, as it was a quirk of her husband’s that he preferred to be the one to undress and dress her. She smiled thinking of the dark intensity, the almost reverence with which he disrobed her, as if unlacing her corset was a privilege to be savored. Yes, he sometimes punished her, but it was with that same passion and was always followed by the most tender care.

He’d been looking forward to this punishment, which had irritated her on her way to the bedroom, but now made her soften. It couldn’t be so horrible if it caused such a gleam in his eye. She looked at herself in the glass and pulled the pins from her hair, rubbing her lips together to bring out their natural color. She did not remove her corset, since it would be needed for trying on the dresses, but she did remove her drawers, leaving only the stockings and garters on below her waist. Then she curled up on the bed between the dresses to wait.

Harry opened the door and leered appreciatively at the sight of her. His eyes had gone dark and she could see a bulge tenting his trousers. “That’s my kitten,” he murmured.

He walked straight to her, leaning over the bed to press a hard kiss on her mouth as his hand delved inside her corset to seek her breast. Then he pulled abruptly away, shaking himself, as if not wishing to be sidetracked. He tossed one of the dresses on top of another to make room for himself and sat down, patting his lap. She crawled over it obediently.

His hand came down on her bottom with a loud crack and she jumped. He continued to pepper her backside with spanks.

When he struck her thigh, she protested, “Harry! Unfair!”

He gave a low chuckle. “Yes, kitten, but I could not resist. Besides, you might prefer it to what is coming next.”

She squeezed her buttocks together so tightly her legs lifted straight out.

He gave her cheek a pinch and held it. “None of that, or I’ll give you a slippering. Relax this,” he said, shaking the pinched flesh.

She released the muscular contraction slowly.

“That is it,” he encouraged warmly. He kneaded her bottom, causing the tingling warmth he had created on the surface of her backside to spread into her core. She opened her thighs slightly in hopes he might reward her there. Instead, he parted her two cheeks, spreading them wide. She flinched and started to squeeze again, but he slapped her right between the legs, smarting her sex with the reprimand.

“Ooh!”

Before she could recover, her cheeks were parted and a hard, cool object was pressed against her anus. She froze, listening intently.

“Relax and open for it,” Harry commanded.

Instead she started to squeeze again, but he pressed insistently so that she was forced to open to avoid pain. It felt better the moment it entered, with the same satisfying and slightly frightening feeling of having his finger there—a feeling of being too full and too excited all at once. There was a slight burning around the ring of her anus where the ginger touched her flesh, but it was not too uncomfortable. If this was all he had in mind, it was not so bad. Still, she didn’t want him to think it was a failure, so she made a few more ‘oohing’ sounds and rolled around on his lap, enjoying the feel of his hardened cock beneath her.

“It takes a bit for it to start working,” he said, dashing her hopes that it had failed. “So I think I’ll spank a little more while we wait.”

“No!” She kicked her legs. “My lord, I don’t require more spanking!” She changed her tone to a more suggestive timber. “Perhaps you could think of something
else
?” She spread her legs wider on his lap.

He rewarded her with another slap directly on her sex, which had grown moist with the stimulation of her back hole. “Ah, I think you like that,” he remarked, slapping her there again.

“What makes you say that?” she snapped, but her body had already betrayed her. Not only had she not closed her thighs, but she was arching back at him, as if eager for any kind of touch there, even if it was a spank. He obliged, delivering several more swift slaps, which jostled the ginger, creating more of a burn, as well as more arousal.

“Harry!” she gasped.

* * *

Harry stroked his wife’s beautiful bottom, letting his hand caress the backs of her thighs and travel back up again. “Yes, kitten?”

She didn’t answer, but he could tell she was growing more and more aroused, perhaps as the sensation of the ginger was beginning to increase. He knew from the stable hands that it took a half an hour to take effect for a horse. He had no idea if it was the same for humans, but the idea of keeping her draped over his lap for thirty minutes certainly had its appeal.

He allowed his fingers to dip between her thighs, not surprised to find her folds swollen and slick. She moaned and pushed back eagerly. He chuckled and gave her another light slap there, knowing by the way she’d groaned his name she was already looking for release. But he planned to make her wait. Which didn’t mean he couldn’t tease her a bit. He slid his fingers between her legs again, circling the sensitive bud and spreading her juices around. She writhed against his cock, which strained with excitement. Sliding two fingers deeper within her, he pushed in and out a few times before withdrawing completely, eliciting a grunt of protest. His handprints had already faded from her bottom, so he set to work leaving new ones, at the same time moving the ginger in and out of her back hole with his other hand.

She grew more and more agitated, not even protesting when he slapped the backs of her thighs, which she hated. She clawed at the covers, rubbing her face in it like a cat with catnip. He had to purposely calm his breath, so great was his desire to forget the rest of her punishment and simply skip ahead to his reward. With a great effort, he stopped spanking and thrusting the ginger and ordered her to stand.

It took her a long time to obey, and he guessed her mind had been far away by the way her body trembled. A sheen of sweat had gathered on her low back as the ginger heated her insides.