“What are you waiting for?” she asks.
Do I imagine it or is there a slight tremor to her voice? It would seem that she has misinterpreted my silence as a deliberate undertaking to make her wait while I concoct my next set of nefarious plans.
Her breathing accelerates.
Her nipples harden.
All at once I am euphoric again. “I am only contemplating how wrong you will prove, my dear. You will come to like many aspects of me, and you will come to worship my cock.”
I brace my hands on either side of her head and invade her mouth with mine, tasting the very tip of her tongue. She shivers, then holds perfectly still.
“Why pretend you don’t like it? I will not think less of you for enjoying my lovemaking,” I whisper against her lips, knowing very well that it is her self-respect that worries her, not my opinions.
“Mine is but the response of the flesh, nothing for you to crow about.”
“Then it is nothing for you to fret about either.”
I had a tray of fruits from the estate’s walled orchard sent up to her room. The tray now sits on her nightstand. I reach for a raspberry that was picked only hours earlier. It is tiny yet plump, a lovely deep red. I rub it against her lips.
“What is this?”
“Something delicious and succulent. Like you.”
She opens her mouth and takes the raspberry—not a submissive gesture, but an aggressive one, depriving me of what she thinks of as my implement of torture. I watch as she chews, then swallows. A tiny smear of raspberry juice remains on her lower lip. I lick it, tasting the tart sweetness.
The corner of her lips turns down, but not before another quick tremor passes beneath her skin.
“Would you like another?” I am not sure whether I am asking about berries or licks.
“Why such tenderness?” she demands archly. “I am already naked, fettered, and blindfolded. Go ahead. Have your way with me.”
How I would love to descend upon her like a famished wolf. My body is certainly primed, my cock hot and hard, my muscles straining against my own control.
“No,” I say. “I am going to play with you a little longer.”
And give her so much pleasure that she will never stop thinking about it.
I kiss her again, caressing her nipple as I do so. Then, fingers splayed, I explore farther afield. Her belly is soft and lovely, her hips made to drive a man mad.
“Spectacular,” I murmur. Then, catching myself, I make my tone cavalier, like that of a rich man displaying a new acquisition to his friends. “Everything first-rate.”
“Do you know?” comes her voice, cold and sharp as the edge of a stiletto. “I was beginning to like this blindfold. And now you had to spoil it with your voice. Kindly remain silent, will you? I want to be able to go on imagining that you are someone else altogether.”
My hand stills. There is indeed someone else, a disastrous someone else, the very reason she had to marry me.
“Don’t stop.” Now she is the one goading me. “Keep going. This is our wedding night, after all, and I’d feel like a terrible wife if you didn’t relish fucking me.”
My anger swells, a poisonous pain. My cock, too, swells to an almost monstrous size. It will be all too easy to ram myself into her and ravage her like a conquered city—and prove once and for all who rules her.
My hand tightens on her hip, but I pull back from the edge of barbarity. I understand the stark fear that one’s heart’s desire has moved beyond all reach. I understand the pain such fear engenders. I understand the resultant urge to lash out against the most convenient target at hand.
I have often behaved that way in the past. I might have behaved that way this very night.
I kiss her throat. “You’d like to pretend that I am someone else, no doubt, but I don’t believe you can. You are all too aware of my identity, of the fact that I am his diametrical opposite.”
She clamps her teeth over her lower lip. Perhaps my words worry her; perhaps the calmness of my tone does. It doesn’t matter: I rejoice in every reaction on her part, however minute.
“And even if I were to be as silent as you wish, you will still know that I am not him—my weight is different; my scent is different; the texture of my skin is different.” My hands are calloused from years of rowing; she cannot possibly fail to take notice. I trace the lower edge of the silken blindfold, following the contour of the bridge of her nose. “What really distresses you is that you respond differently to my touch.”
Her teeth cut deeper into her lip, almost enough to draw blood.
“What is the difference, darling?” I try my damnedest to keep my eagerness out of my voice—and do not altogether succeed. “Do you come harder? Longer? More uncontrollably?”