To Tame A Countess (Properly Spanked Book 2) (17 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t like Madame Lafleur. She was unpleasant and rude.”

“No,
you
were unpleasant and rude. Madame Lafleur was only trying to do her job. The job I hired her to do, which is to outfit my countess with an appropriate wardrobe for the season on very short notice.”

He drew her gown off, along with her stays, and set the garments aside. Her filmy shift followed next, so her entire back and bottom was bared to his gaze.

“Bend over,” he instructed.

“Please… Warren…”

He didn’t bother to argue, only pushed her forward with a firm palm planted between her shoulder blades. “You knew when you went too far, when you pushed past the confines of my patience, and still you continued to snap and whine like a sniveling child.”

“I’m sorry.” It was true. All of it was true. “It’s only that I don’t want new gowns. I don’t want to attend this ball so all the town may come and gawp at us.” She said this in the same peevish and whining tones that had gotten her into trouble so many times before.

“I don’t want to hear another word about the damn ball, do you understand?” He crossed to the table to fetch the ginger root and returned to hold it in front of her face. “You have pushed and complained and irritated me to the point that a regular spanking won’t suffice. This is going in your bottom as an extra measure of punishment, and then you’ll be paddled over my lap.”

The ginger was going…in her bottom? What on earth was the point of that? She remembered the blushing, bashful maid, and her words.
By Lord Warren’s instructions.
Had they known below stairs what he intended to do with it? It had been carefully carved into a phallic shape. She felt ill with embarrassment as he pressed the tip of it against her bottom hole. It wasn’t the first time he’d touched her there, for he sometimes pressed his fingers inside her there during the course of their love play. But this wasn’t love play.

She tensed as he forced her to spread her legs wider. He held her bottom cheeks apart and inserted the ginger all the way in, until the flange impeded further progress. It went farther inside than his fingers had ever been, and Josephine squirmed uncomfortably. It was certainly a punishment to be humiliated like this.

He left again, and when he returned he held her wooden hair brush in his hand. The cursed thing. She would have to hide it where he could never find it. He pulled her up by the arm and sat on the bed, and arranged her over his lap, a position she was coming to know well. The ginger in her bottom, by this point, had come to feel uncomfortably warm. She braced as he raised his arm to paddle her.

“Oh,” she cried. “Wait, it’s hurting me. The ginger. It stings!”

“I should hope so.” The back of the hair brush cracked against her bottom. She squealed and tensed, and then tried to pull away as the ginger burned her inner passage.

“Oh, please.
Please
,” she begged. “Something is wrong. It feels like my bottom is on fire.”

“The more you tense, the more it stings,” he explained. “If you relax, it won’t sting as much.”

“But how can I relax—ow!” He gave her an especially sharp crack. “Oh, please. Warren!”

“I perceive you’ve discovered the point of the ginger. You had your chance to curb your behavior earlier today, and you chose not to. You knew what the consequences would be. Honestly, Josephine, it’s been less than a month since we married, and you’ve had nearly a dozen spankings. You must understand by now that poor behavior will be met with consequences, at least in this house.”

“Oh.
Owww!
” She kicked her legs, trying to escape the hot progression of blows. “I know. I’m sorry!”

“Most ladies are pleased to have new gowns and fripperies. I had to marry the one who”—
whap, whap, whap!
—“takes any sort of kindness as a personal affront.”

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I should have appreciated your generosity.” Sometimes, if she apologized prettily enough, he took mercy on her, but he didn’t seem in such a mood today. The ginger stung her bottom relentlessly, but when she tried not to tense, the hair brush paddling felt so much worse. It was an impossible situation.

“Madame Lafleur is one of the best modistes in town,” he continued, cracking now at the tender skin between her backside and upper thighs. “One might expect one’s wife to be delighted with the prospect of a Lafleur wardrobe. Instead I had to pay Madame extra money to smooth over the feathers you ruffled. She has made Minette’s gowns for years and has always had our family’s custom. You nearly put that in jeopardy today.”

Josephine could barely focus on his lecture, the paddling hurt so badly. “Please, when will you take the ginger out?
Oww.
Please!”

“I’ll take it out when I believe you’ve been punished enough, and not a moment before.” She tried to scramble off his lap after an extra hard crack, but was only gathered back again, her arms bent up and across her back. “Nothing so far has made a lasting impression on you. Perhaps the ginger will help.”

It was helping all right—helping her take leave of her sanity. Her bottom cheeks throbbed, feeling afire with the unending volley of spanks. She cried and sobbed, begging for respite. Finally, he put down the brush. When he righted her, she got shakily to her feet. She hated this part most of all, when he made her face him in tearful remorse, and promise to do better.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” he asked.

“I’m sorry. I’ll apologize to Madame Lafleur for my rudeness. I will send her a note.”

“Indeed you will. And you shall do something to put me in a better temper, my dear. Right now, in fact. On your knees.”

She wiped away her tears, sinking down and resting her aching bottom cheeks on her ankles. Warren stood and undid his breeches, exposing his stiff, outthrust sex. He took the breeches off, and his shirt too, so he stood before her tall and naked, his male form so daunting and yet so attractive. Defined muscles rippled in his torso as he urged her forward, pressing his shaft to her lips.

She didn’t dare balk from this duty, or turn away. No, she had been taught exactly what she must do when he put her on her knees. She kissed and licked the swollen tip, wetting the velvet skin, gathering moisture in her mouth for when he pressed himself inside her. If she couldn’t do anything else properly, at least she could do this.

“That’s right, my girl,” he said, directing her in a thickening voice to lick the base of his shaft, to kiss, to mouth, to caress all the mysterious male parts of him. His legs shook a little as she applied herself to the task. “Open up, now, Josephine. Take me in your mouth.”

She obeyed, making her lips into the round, soft shape he preferred. He held her head between his hands, allowing her little choice in controlling the depth of his thrusts. “Kneel up,” he said a minute or two later, as he drove deeper. “Now you’re putting me in a better humor.”

She supposed that was a good thing, but her backside still throbbed from his paddling. She whined softly against the intrusion of his shaft as the ginger root ached inside her bottom hole. Sitting straighter on her knees had intensified the burn again, and she had to concentrate hard to pleasure her husband without nicking him with her teeth. He was so terribly large, and when he thrust too deep inside her, she had to fight the urge to pull away.

But when she managed to take him deeper, he groaned and sighed, and made such noises that she tried even harder to satisfy him. At last he made a rough sound and stopped her. He sat back on the bed, pulling her with him, and spread her thighs over either side of his lap. His shaft reared up between them. He squeezed her hips, lifting her. The ginger set up a new, sharp sting.

“Oh, it hurts,” she cried. ”Won’t you take it out now?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, settling her down over the head of his cock. She grasped his shoulders to have something to hold onto, some feeling of control as his shaft parted her inch by inch. She felt wet and shivery and sore, and stuffed to the hilt by his manhood and the ginger seated inside her. He seemed to go on forever. When she tried to rise off his formidable length, he pulled her down again. She buried her head against his neck, not certain if she felt good or bad or frightened to death.

“It hurts,” she said softly.

“Does it? Or does it only feel…unusual?”

She wanted to cry. She wanted to move on him and kiss him, and offer him her breasts to pinch and bite. He always did this to her, made her feel animalistic, and hotly ashamed of her longings.

“Will you take it out? Please?” It was too much. Too much fullness, too much pleasure. “Please, my lord.”

“Why would I take it out? You’ve two shafts inside you now, haven’t you? You’ve two lovely spaces to put things, not counting your mouth.”

He was scandalous. She knew it and yet she participated so willingly, night after night. “The ginger,” she said, finding it hard to catch her breath. “It’s so hot and stinging. I really feel it there.”

“Do you think you’ll be a better girl, now that you know how it feels to have ginger in your bottom?”

She wanted to say
yes
, but she knew the answer was probably
no
. At her hesitation, he chuckled and gripped her sore, reddened arse cheeks so she tensed on the ginger again. The burn had lessened, but it was still there. He angled his hips, moving inside her in a slow, sensual slide. She couldn’t help but respond by moving her hips too.

He tightened a hand on her waist, guiding her. The other hand withdrew the evilly carved ginger—and then pressed it back in.

She gave a small moan. The ring of her bottom ached now too, a mild sting, but strong enough for that part of her body. As he moved his hips, and his shaft, in incremental movements within her, he moved the ginger in and out too.

“
Ohhh
,” she said. She meant to complain but the noise sounded like something else. Like mindless, wanton pleasure.

“Do you like that?” he whispered against her ear.

“No,” she insisted weakly.

He made an amused sound and lifted her higher, so he drove deeper. He teased her bottom with the ginger, pushing it in and out again. His fingers traced the welted, paddled skin around it. “I think you like it,” he said. “Does it still burn?”

“Yes.” It burned and she liked it. He filled her and controlled her and she liked that too, which made her feel ashamed. The servants knew about the ginger, and her husband knew what type of woman she was—what if everyone else came to know? She pressed her head harder against his neck and shoulder.

“Move for me, Josephine.” His rasping voice compelled her to do what her body struggled against. She tensed her thighs and rose along his thick shaft, then sank down on it again, excited by the feeling of fullness. The spot he caressed so often with his fingers and his tongue and lips felt swollen to four times its size. She ground it against his pelvis, arching her hips.

“Again,” he groaned. “Yes. Keep doing that. Ride me while I punish you with this ginger in your arse.”

“Oh,” she said. Not
oh no
, as she ought to have. Or
oh stop
. He pressed the ginger in and out, making her thighs and buttocks shiver as she rode him with ever more enthusiasm.

“Someday, I think I’ll put my cock inside your bottom,” he said. “I’ll put my great big cock inside your arse hole and make you ride me just like this.”

“No,” she whimpered, while she thought with excitement of how that might feel. He grasped her, pressing into both her spaces with hotter rhythm. She ground against him when she could, and reached down to caress herself when she couldn’t.

“That’s right,” he said. “Make yourself feel good. Don’t stop until you reach your crisis.” His voice lowered a bit. “I won’t stop either. Remember how this feels, how naughty and delicious it feels to have something driving in and out of your bottom.”

This was depraved. It simply had to be, but she didn’t care. The ginger had lost much of its sting, and it stretched and stimulated now, rather than hurt. He pushed it inside her one last time and left it, and grasped her hips and ground her down on him. She clung to his shoulder with one hand and stroked her sex with the other. When her climax arrived, the intensity of peaking pleasure shocked a ragged cry from her lips. She felt as if everything inside her bore down and pulsed, and then exploded. Warren captured her cry in his lips, holding her tight, murmuring
yes, yes, yes.

Somehow her punishments always ended this way.

Once her racing heart calmed, her husband rang the servants for a bath. They set it up in the dressing room, and the same blushing servant girl poured the hot water into the tub. Josephine was embarrassed. Warren wasn’t, and sat about waiting in a flagrant state of undress. Once the maid left, he picked Josephine up and deposited her in the tub, then climbed in with her so the water rose to the edge and splashed over it. She fussed over the wet floors but he drew her back down.

“It’s perfectly all right to be outrageous and decadent sometimes, my dear. The floors have survived many decades and will survive many more.”

“You are more outrageous than me,” she said as he poured water down the back of her hair.

“Perhaps. But I’m working on you, and getting places, I’d say.”

His use of the word “places” was no doubt intentional. How could he be so relaxed and unashamed after the things they’d just done?

“You enjoy our outrageous activities,” he persisted. He stroked his hands over her breasts, trailing warm water across her skin. “Just as you’ll enjoy your new gowns when you receive them, and just as you’ll enjoy the ball. These tantrums are silly, as is your resistance. Everyone should see what a beautiful woman you are, and that we are happy together.”

She stiffened beneath his touch. “I think you care overmuch about appearances.”

“And I worry that you don’t care enough.”

“What does it matter what people think of me, or you?” she asked. “I’d much prefer to be left alone.”

For a while, there was no sound but the faint splash of him bathing her back, and her front, and the place between her legs. “I fear you are as unconventional as your parents,” he finally said. “I suppose you wish to board a ship and escape these shores, and sail to every exotic port you can find, so you can behave in any manner you like.”