Page 72 of A Duchess Disciplined

“Lay back,” William said, his voice throaty.

She hastened to obey, falling on her back against the bedlinens. Catherine spread her legs wide and lifted her hips, affording him a view of her wetness. He climbed onto the bed and held his member in one hand. William guided himself to her entrance. Catherine tensed and curled her fingers into the bedlinens as he pressed inside her.

“Take it all, my good duchess,” he purred. “You deserve this.”

William’s thighs trembled with the exertion of holding back, but he did not wish to hurt her. Instead, he grasped her thighs and worked himself in inch by inch. Catherine groaned and shifted her hips. Without warning she brought herself down on him, and he was entirely sheathed inside her. She gasped. Her thighs shook, and her inner walls pulsed madly.

Catherine tossed her head back and screamed. William grunted, as her waves of pleasure crashed over him, too. As she achieved thelittle death, he thrust into her. He quickened his pace, and with a startled cry, Catherine worked hard to match him. She met him thrust for thrust. William clenched his jaw, as sweat gathered along his body. The bed creaked in time with his thrusts, and with a roar, he spilled his seed into her.

He withdrew with a lewd, wet sound and gazed at Catherine. Her face was flushed, and her hair was wild. Catherine’s breasts shook with her ragged breaths, and sweat glistened along her soft, feminine body. He smiled in satisfaction. No one else would ever have this view of Catherine, utterly spent and under his mastery.

“Do you see what you have done to me?” William asked, straddling her waist. “You temptress.”

He put his weight down on his forearms and took her right nipple between his lips. William flicked it with the tip of his tongue, and Catherine gasped. “Oh, you cannot lick methere!”

He drew his head back. “I have licked you in far more intimate places,” he said, drawing a hand over her core.

Catherine’s thighs clenched together. “You are…quite experienced at this,” she said between pants of air.

“Soon, you will be quite experienced in this, too,” William said. “And I will be the only one who sees this part of you.”

She tossed an arm over her eyes. “Of course.”

“It is my favorite part,” he said, “seeing you so spent and disheveled in my bed. If I were not a duke, I would spend every hour of every day engaged in this amorous behavior with you.”

Catherine laughed shakily. “I am unsure that I could bear that, my husband. You are as spirited as a stallion.”

He cupped her breasts, content to play with her for a while longer. It seemed unbelievable that he had deprived himself of a wife for so long. Now, it was as if he could not have enough of a woman’s body.

“Besides, I might grow bored if we did this every hour of every day,” Catherine said.

“I doubt that. There are so many pleasures of the bedroom that I have not even shown you yet,” William replied. “I could keep it interesting. We would only have to be a little…creative.”

His mind was suddenly full of images of what else he might do with Catherine. He imagined taking her from behind and bent over the desk in his study. He thoughts of spiriting her away to darkened corners of ballrooms and secluded park benches and pleasuring her beneath her skirts.

Catherine lowered her arm and laughed a little. “I would like to ask for you to tell me about all your ideas, but I am unsure if I can manage any more stimulation this evening.”

“Understandable,” he said.

He rolled onto his back and gazed tenderly at her. She grinned at him. “I find it interesting,” she said, “that this is one matter upon which we can both agree.”

William laughed. “I suppose that is more than some married couples in the tonhave.”

Catherine propped herself up on one elbow. “I suppose so,” she mused. “Although I have wondered of late if our exchanges are necessarily adversarial. You keep likening me to your solicitor, and I have difficulty in believing that you do not derive some level of enjoyment from our exchanges.”

“I suspect that you feel similarly about my corrections,” William said. “You have not once complained.”

“I would not give you the satisfaction.”

He lowered his hand and dug his fingers into her left buttock. She shifted in the bed, as he caressed her skin. Catherine’s rear pinkened nicely with his slaps, but while he delighted in seeing that, he was a man who was well-aware of his own considerable strength. He took care never to strike her hard enough to leave marks that lasted for more than a couple hours.

“No,” William said. “Nevertheless, I am impressed with your strength of will.”

Catherine stifled a yawn behind her hand, and a wave of fondness swept over him. “Apologies, my husband.”

“The hour is late,” he said. “It is well past the time to retire. If you like, you are welcome to stay in my chamber.”

She nodded. There was a little shuffling, as they arranged the bedlinens and pulled the covers up over themselves. Catherine shifted towards him, and William pulled her into his arms. Their bodies fit together like two links in a chain, as if they were always meant to be together. He pressed his lips against her hair, indulging in the scent of rose oil.

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