Page 50 of A Bride for the Wicked Duke

Again, he spanked her. Harder this time. The sensation was unlike anything she expected. Yes, it stung, as that was the point. But it did not hurt. It did not cause pain. Rather, she felt the spike ripple through her body and touch at her loins. She felt herself turn wet instantly, her legs nearly giving out.

A third spank, the hardest one yet.

“Are you going to behave yourself? Nod if you are.”

She went to nod but paused, considered, and then shook her head.

He chuckled deeply; she could hear it coming from his chest. Then he spanked her again and her cry of pleasure was muffled. “Are you going to behave yourself?”

Again, she shook her head, pushing her butt out, tempting him to continue to punish her.

“This is for your own good.” He spanked her. “You will behave.” He spanked her. “You are a lady, and you will act as such.” Another spank, the hardest one yet, and her knees gave out as she collapsed into the doorway.

The duke pressed against her, pinning her in place. His body was heavy. His breathing was ragged. She could feel his heart beating inside his chest. Just as she could feel his manhood pressing through his pants as it rested between the crevice of her butt cheeks.

“You’re going to be a good girl from now on, aren’t you?”

This time, she nodded.

“I thought so,” he chuckled, his hand now massaging where he had spanked. “And every time you are with Lord Mildenhall, I want you to remember this moment. Will you do that?”

Again, she nodded.

He breathed on the back of her neck. His lips found her earlobe and he began to suck. Her body shuddered and she wanted him like she never had before. She was his to do with as he wished.Anything and everything! I am at his mercy…

Only then, as quickly as it had started, it ended.

The duke released her and stepped back. As he had done the last time, he turned on her and walked across the room as if from shame. He did not look at her, his entire body shaking as he tried to calm his breathing.

“Go,” he said.

“I…” She hesitated. “Are you –”

“Go!” he snarled. “Before you are missed.”

She gasped at the sudden rancor. Confusion enveloped her. She had no doubt now that the duke wanted her as she wanted him. She knew beyond questioning that their physical attraction was real, and whatever this was went beyond mere lessons in etiquette, as he liked to claim. But that only sought to make the matter all that much more perilous to her intrepid emotions and sense of righteousness.

The reason she had gone down this path in the first place was for the sake of her family and their debts. If she had not, her sister would be forced to marry someone beneath her, ruining her life in ways that Aurelia simply could not stand by and let happen. This was for Eveline. That was all it could be.

And yet moments like this one right now flew directly in the face of that claim. If Aurelia truly did care for her sister and her family as she knew she did, why did she continue to allow the duke to draw her in like this? Why could she not resist him? No good could come from what she and the duke were doing, and what was more, it was likely to lead to disaster.

But dammit how she wanted him.Even now as I flee from his office, if he was to call me back… I do not think I have the self-control to say no.There were the two halves of her brain locked in constant battle. The logical side that knew she needed to resist the duke’s lure, and the amorous side that could not stop thinking about him.

The journey back to the drawing room was a long and confusing one. Her buttocks ached from where he had spanked her. Her mind was one of confusion, not at all sure how she felt or what she should do.

And this confusion only compounded when she entered the drawing room to see Lord Mildenhall coming for her. He wore a big smile, his blue eyes danced with glee to see her once more. She had no doubt that if she wished it, he would continue to pursue her. But he wasn’t the duke, and that was one point she simply could not get around no matter how hard she wished it.

ChapterSeventeen

"Gerald, are you even listening to me?” Victor asked him.

“Of course I am,” Gerald said, even if he most certainly was not listening.

“Tell me then, what did I just say?”

Not only was Gerald not listening to Victor, but he wasn’t looking at him either. The two men were sequestered in Gerald’s study; Gerald sitting behind his desk, Victor sitting in front of it. Before them both were mounds of paperwork pertaining to their gaming house, as Victor had come here today so the two might get some work done – debts which needed to be sorted through so that they could be collected on. And where Victor had spent the last thirty minutes or so doing as he had come here to do, Gerald’s mind was keenly in other places.

He was looking past Victor of the moment, toward the closed office door. Unable to look away from it, it was all Gerald could do to keep his arousal at bay as he remembered two nights ago when he had Lady Hawkins bent over in front of that door as he spanked her.

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