The Outcast Earl (25 page)

“Good.” He scooted forwards, pushing her dressing gown and nightdress up to her knees. He played for a moment with the lowest button on her dressing gown. Then his voice lowered even more and he fairly rumbled, “Lastly, you are to come to our bed bare. Nude. Naked. For me.” Abigail gasped, but he ignored her and went on, “If you choose otherwise, Abby-heart, let me assure you that whatever clothing you have brought to the bed is forfeit. I will remove it, however I choose, and chances are you won’t be wearing it ever again.”

At those words, Meriden made quick work of the button he had been teasing with the tip of the knife. He sliced it off.

Abby gasped, clenching the velvet bonds around her wrists. He sliced off a second button with ease. “I’m willing to indulge you and spoil you, my captive queen, but you must understand,” he explained in a low tone, as a third button flew off, “after you’ve spent an entire day lecturing, teasing and managing me to your heart’s content, I am going to have my pleasure with you, on you, and inside you. However I choose.” More buttons flew until the edge of the knife rested horizontally against the top button of her dressing gown.

“Do you understand me, Abigail?”

Abigail looked up into his face, the harsh lines accentuated by the candles and the darkened orbs of his eyes. She couldn’t have spoken just then. And she didn’t understand why her nerves endings were so wild. Swallowing hard, hoping he’d accept it, she gave a small nod.

He grunted and took off the last button, then leant back from where he’d bent over her and opened the lapels of the dressing gown, revealing the simple linen nightdress beneath.

Abigail couldn’t help the shiver that racked her, and Meriden’s lips flattened as he noticed. “I can smell your sweet arousal, you know,” he began, then paused to groan. “And you cannot know how very proud your submission makes me, how much I see you as the courageous, wonderful woman you are. There are not many women who could have done what you did today, and fewer still who are capable of being with me like this without breaking into a panic. And here you are, Abby-heart, not just surviving but blossoming for me, your body readying to welcome me in. What a precious gift you are.” He bent over and pressed a strangely gentle kiss to her forehead, and Abigail closed her eyes as she drank in the words, committing them to memory to think about them later.

Meriden broke the peaceful moment, however, by sitting up. His voice hardening again, he went on, “But your delicious taste is not going to tempt me now, no matter how much I want to spread your pretty thighs open and feast. I have plans for you, good plans, so that the next time you consider playing with me the way you’ve done today, you’ll at least understand the possible consequences.”

“Yes, sir.” The whispered words slipped out almost helplessly from Abigail. She felt reluctant to say them, but couldn’t stop them, and didn’t want to take them back.

Meriden’s face twisted, as if he wanted to shout exultantly and had to force some semblance of self-restraint into his reaction. Almost savagely, he fisted the front of her nightdress and ripped the knife down its front to the waist, scattering its buttons.

He had to scoot down her legs to rip the front of the skirt through, but then he was pushing it aside.

“You do realise that was my only dressing gown?” she asked, as he bared her from chin to ankles. The fabric still clung to her arms and bunched underneath her but Abigail could hardly claim he hadn’t been efficient or ruthless. It might be possible to replace the buttons on the dressing gown. The nightdress was another matter entirely. It certainly
was
ruined.

She shuddered in pure need when he rose up on his knees, still straddling her. He looked like a wild man, with his hair falling around his face and the first shadows of hair appearing on his jaw, leaving the long scar in sharp relief. The knife gleamed in his hand. “Why you should ever need such a garment is beyond my comprehension,” he grunted.

He tugged her hip earnestly. “Now. Turn over, mine.”

Abigail laughed softly, and tried, but she couldn’t use her hands. Meriden helped after a moment of watching her attempt it. He put the hilt of the knife between his teeth and used both hands to flip her over, pulling the yards of fabric from beneath her.

“Lie very still,” he said gruffly, and Abigail froze. He used the knife to strip the fabric from her lower regions, but then he had to bend forward and ease it along her taut arms, opening the sleeves. Ruthlessly he pulled at it, dragging every inch of it away from her and tossing the offending remains to the floor, both the nightdress and the dressing gown now thoroughly unsalvageable.

Only then did he send the knife skidding after it. Abigail heard it hit the floor, but then he cupped her bottom cheeks in his hands and she couldn’t control the moan that rose to her lips.

She wriggled then, and she could feel him lift up and over her until his breath was in her ear. “Are you comfortable, Abby-heart?” he asked, shoving the pillows to the side so that Abigail could lay her cheek flat on the sheet. He traced the bonds at her wrists with his fingers, then he pushed her up the bed a few inches so that her arms were not so tightly stretched.

He is really rather too clever for his own good, she inwardly muttered.

Meriden stroked up her arms and over her shoulders then. She felt his fingers in her hair, tugging at the ribbon. Annie had braided her hair into a long, thick tail, then had twisted it up, tying it in place with one of the pretty ribbons Abigail always used. This one was pale blue, and the long length pulled loose easily.

Meriden grunted when her braid uncoiled, and gave a distinct snort. “I ought to make a rule that your
hair
be bare and undressed too,” he said, disgust in his voice. “But then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of taking it down myself.”

Even as he spoke, he had already untied the end and was smoothing out the heavy locks. He wound his fingers through the curls, fondling them, then he tenderly parted them away from the nape of her neck and pressed a hot kiss to the bare skin there. Then he kissed an inch lower, and lower again. His lips, indeed, were imprinting their hot mark again and again down her spine.

By the time he slid back so that he could caress the small of her back with his lips, Abigail was shaking uncontrollably. His next words, whispered against the place where her bottom cheeks met her waist, caused that unmistakable wetness between her thighs to surge and heat again. “Your pretty little rump is mine, too, Abby-heart. And I’m going to take my time getting to know it now, with my hands and my mouth and my eyes. All you have to do is enjoy it. We’ll attend to your punishment in a bit.”

Abigail groaned into the sheet. Meriden grabbed a pillow, then slid his arm beneath her to position the stuffed sack below her hips. She felt him move down and off her, then push apart her knees. Despite the uncontrollable arousal she was beginning to recognise, she flushed. The position was mortifying—face-down, hands helpless and stretched over her head, her bottom lifted up, her legs open, and Meriden settling himself between them.

She could hardly think about it, and shuddered at the mental image.

Behind her, he growled, a low deep sound that echoed through the room.

With fingers from both hands, he pinched her lower cheeks, hard. “Damn it, Abby, you are too fucking perfect.” She gasped and uttered a low whimper, but it only seemed to inflame him further. “Fuck learning you first, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking,” he muttered. “I must be a glutton for punishment myself.”

“I don’t understand,” Abigail gasped as he cupped her cheeks, then spread them apart. “What are you doing?”

Ruthlessly, he slid his thumbs through her wet juices, then shocked Abigail by rubbing them around a place between her bottom cheeks that she’d never expected anyone to attend to besides herself. “I’m going to play with your lovely little pink rosebud here,” he rasped. “No place on a woman’s body has a single purpose. You’re about to find out another use for this treasure.”

Abigail moaned. He let his thumbs drift down again and lubricated them in her arousal. One thumb pushed against that place he’d called a rosebud. She cried out in shock and arched, but his thumb slid inside smoothly.

A burning sensation ripped through her senses, then settled into fascinating warmth. He withdrew the thumb and pushed it back in, and Abigail felt her reality fracture again. And again. She couldn’t contain the almost constant gasps and whimpers that echoed in the room, and couldn’t seem to reach her senses out beyond her bottom to see, hear or feel Meriden behind her.

When he pushed his second thumb in alongside the first, she nearly screamed and bucked against his hands. He held firm, the first thumb embedded deep inside her, as he pulled the second thumb out and pushed it back in.

Abigail’s heartfelt moan sounded desperate and shameless.

Above her, Meriden made a noise deep in his chest and paused in his ministrations, both thumbs inside her, stretching her. “Listen to me carefully, Abby-heart, as I’ll only say this once. If you think to deny me again—by a locked door or some other nonsensical trick—you will find yourself just like this with something longer and harder than my thumbs inside your bottom. There is no part of your body that is not mine now, to have when and how I want it. And I’m happy to demonstrate the point as often as necessary.”

Her heart thumped and chills ran up and down her body.

“I can happily draw this out for hours, Abby. And I could, if I wished, make it uncomfortable for you. Or I can make it pleasurable. You and your actions and your attitude tell me how I need to have you in this bed, and whether I ought to indulge you or not.”

He wiggled his thumb and slid it out, then reached lower to slide one long index finger inside her vagina. Abigail shuddered. It wasn’t enough. She rocked against the pillow, squeezing his finger and, inadvertently, his thumb as well. Meriden only chuckled and slid his finger free.

To her shock, he dragged it up and pushed it into her rear, first just to the length of his thumb, but then farther. As far as he could. “Good girl,” he said then. “You do feel the pleasure in it, hmm? What do you want, Abby-heart?”

Abigail tried to find her voice, her breathing shaky. “More,” she said, the word breaking on the single syllable.

“More what, sweetheart?” he asked, stroking the finger out, then pushing it back in.

“
Le petit mort,
” she finally gasped.

“You want to come for me?” he asked, repeating the movement of his hands. “Can you, just from this, I wonder?” he said, more deeply, almost rhetorically. “What a sensual little innocent you are.” He did it again, then stilled. “Say to me,
Please fuck me there until I come
.”

“Charles,” Abigail said desperately, “I can’t—”

“You can.” He slid his finger in again, very slowly. “It’s not drawing room language, but you’re not in a drawing room. With me, here, you can say any naughty thing. No matter how depraved you think it is.”

Abigail shuddered, her mouth dry, practically licking the sheet as she tried to think through the escalating nervous energy racing through her.

“Please,” she started, then halted, moaning as he withdrew his finger. “Please f-fuck me.” His finger moved and she quaked again. “There,” she gasped, unable to keep from anxiously pushing her bottom back now. He pulled out his finger and thumb until the tight ring in her rear started to push them out. “Until I come,” she finished in a rush, and screamed when he slid both back in.

He did it over and over, until she caught the rhythm and began to thrust back against his thumb. She was frantic, but couldn’t seem to push herself over the invisible peak she knew was there. Tears leaking from her eyes with the sheer need of it, she finally sobbed out, “Please,
something
. More. No more. I can’t.”

With a grunt of acknowledgement, Meriden pulled out his thumb, continuing to push in and out with the long index finger of his other hand. His left hand now free, he reached beneath her, his index finger sliding through her slit and underneath her to lodge firmly against her tingling nub.

Abigail screamed, and cried as she pressed her face into the softness beneath her to stifle the noise. Her body jerked, convulsing as the climax roared along her skin and nerve endings. She hardly felt Meriden withdraw his finger from her rear, but sank to the bed in blissful oblivion.

* * * *

Barely able to move from the stiffness in his legs and cock, Charles struggled to his feet. His fingers were covered in the sweet juices of her arousal and climax. He leaned against the foot of the bed, knowing Abigail was too dazed to help him, even if she could handle any more sexual revelations that night.

Charles shoved down his breeches just far enough for his cock and already contracting scrotum to escape. Jerkily, he shoved his shirt up over his head and grasped his cock in his own hand.

It wasn’t the perfect end to the night, but he’d told Abby the truth. He absolutely refused to fuck her as brutally as he would have tonight. Charles wasn’t sure if his temper was under control even now. He turned his head, looking at her body slumped on the bed, her skin glowing in the candlelight. She was so damnably tempting. He wasn’t sure if her body or her mind drove him mad, and the combination might kill him before the month was out. Just looking at her, her bottom still lifted up over the pillow, her legs spread open and her pussy gleaming—

His mind blanked as he ejaculated into his shirt. When it ceased, he sank down to the rug and let the release soothe his tense muscles.

Cleaning up took longer than he would have liked. What he would have liked would be to climb directly onto the bed and cuddle Abigail against him. Still, caring for her afterwards had its own, less physical compensations. Retrieving his knife from the floor, he cut the velvet strips, loosening her arms from bondage. She was still sunk in her own world, half asleep, but she moaned quietly and let her arms stay where he had laid them, velvet still tied around each wrist.