Page 58 of Disciplined by the Duke
“I say you’re not.” He grasped her shoulders, her skin flaring to life where he touched her.
“Well, I no longer listen to what you say. As of this moment, I’m leaving your service.” She jutted her chin up, trying to look as though she weren’t about to break.
He raised one eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Yes.” She saw a folded bath sheet on a side table and ducked under his arms to snag it. Montague plucked it from her hands.
Wrapping the soft cloth around her shoulders, he gently rubbed droplets of water from her skin. Before she could sink into his touch like a cat curling into its master’s hand, he said, “How fortunate for me.”
“Fortunate?” Her breasts brushed against his warm skin, the fine hairs on his chest tickling her sensitive nipples. The heady sensation made her dizzy. “You’re that anxious to be rid of me?”
His smile was slow to stretch across his face. It was all teeth, a predator’s smile, and Liz shivered. Wrapping his arms around her, Montague used one hand to wipe her body dry. The flannel sheet scraped across her bottom, again and again, and she dropped her forehead on his shoulder. She should push away, leave, but her feet would no longer carry her. Each determined caress, every swipe of the flannel on her overheated body, stole a little more of her resolve. It felt too good in his arms to fight.
“No, my sweet little bird. I’m not ridding myself of you. Quite the contrary.” He pushed her hair over her shoulders to fall down her back, and began drying it. He brought the sheet to the back of her head, and kneaded her skull. Her eyes slid closed on a happy sigh. “But it is time you learned what you can and cannot do. Life is too fragile to waste on reckless behavior.” His voice was low and soothing, a contrast to his condescending words.
The fire popped loudly, but she barely noticed. The bath left her feeling languid, boneless. Or maybe that was Montague’s caresses. The duke swept her up and carried her into his bedchamber to a silk-covered love seat in front of a roaring hearth. She burrowed into his embrace.
“Now that you’ve warmed up, it’s time for your consequences.”
Liz jerked her head back, startled. She shouldn’t have been. Cause and effect. Actions and consequences. That was how he thought. How Montague lived his life. But she didn’t want to think about consequences anymore. Or what her actions would lead to.
The duke started to turn her in his arms, but she resisted. “No, Your Grace. I . . . I don’t want this.” Her breath was ragged, and she rubbed her thighs together restlessly.
Pressing his lips into a firm line, he examined her down to her toes and back, paying special attention to her pebbled nipples, her heaving chest.
Liz swallowed. He saw everything. Her words might lie, but her body couldn’t. Slowly, as though reaching for the reins of a frightened horse, Montague lifted one calloused finger, circled the puckered flesh of her breast.
Her core clenched. Drawing in a shaky breath, she tried to fight back her desire. How easy it would be to give in. To give her body over to him. Let him carry her burdens.
An impossible dream.
Montague looked up, stared unflinchingly into her eyes. Her vision tunneled to his face, his expression, and Liz’s heart tore open in her chest. This was no longer a man merely looking to give and receive pleasure. Concern for her was etched across every fine line. Affection in his every caress. Montague cared for her, his lying little chambermaid, the woman sent to betray him.
Anger flared, quick and deep. Her body burned with it. If he’d been like any other peer her task would have been easier. He should have been shallow, self-absorbed, an easy target. What gave him the right to make her fall in love? With a damned duke, no less. The unjustness of it boiled like water under her skin.
She lashed out, her palm striking his jaw, tried to push out of his arms. Wished she could crawl out of her own skin.
His expression never wavered. Pinning her hands together, he flipped her so her stomach lay across one thick thigh. He hooked his other leg around her own, trapping them. Her hair brushed the carpet, blocking most of her vision.
The sound of the slap rang out before her brain registered the sweet heat of the spank. She raised her torso perpendicular to the floor until his large hand spanned her lower back, pressed her back down. “Your Grace!”
“I don’t tolerate lies, Elizabeth. Not to me, and not to yourself.” Smacks rained down on both cheeks. She tried to escape. She thrashed against his hold. She tried to cover her bottom with her hands, but he batted them away and continued the spanking, relentless.
Each blow stung more. The heat on her bottom increased until her skin was on fire. She fought for what seemed like hours, against his control, against the desire she could feel trickling down her leg. So little in her life was in her control. She couldn’t stop her father. She couldn’t help her sister. The least she should be able to control was the sort of person she was, what she liked. She didn’t want to be the sort of person who enjoyed being tossed over a man’s knee. Why did she like this?
Nothing she said or did stopped his onslaught. Her flesh burned. Each stroke of his hand resonated deep inside of her, the vibrations making her clit tingle. Tension started to coil in her core, and she moaned.
The duke’s rough hand petted her cheeks, squeezed gently. “Now you’re ready for your punishment.” His soft voice reached into her clouded mind, and she realized his other hand no longer pinned her to his lap. She was draped over his leg, boneless. She didn’t know when, but at some point she had stopped fighting. “Now you’re ready,” he repeated.
“You ran into a storm, Elizabeth. You ran along the cliffs, in the slippery mud and rain. And you ran from my help, from me.” His hand continued to soothe the fire he had built inside her, rubbing her stinging bottom in calming circles. The heat, his touch, left her aching. Yearning for completion. “I protect what’s mine, and I expect you to protect what’s mine, as well. I expect you to take better care of yourself. Your disregard for your safety has consequences. Are you ready for your punishment?”
“Yes,” she whispered. She was starting to feel light-headed from hanging upside down. Light-headed and dizzy and coiled so tight with a swirl of dark emotions that she was ready to burst out of her skin. And she needed. God, she needed something. Something only her duke could give her.
His fingers trailed down between her cheeks and through her wet slit. She moaned again, too tired to hold anything in. He rubbed her desire onto her bottom. “Now we begin.”
She jerked when his hand slapped down before relaxing into it. Her mind focused on only one thing, the rhythmic strikes of his hand. Where before the spanking had been frenzied, irregular, now Montague established a pattern, rotating where he struck. Her back arched with each blow, her bottom reaching for that sweet pain. When she was in Montague’s hands, the chaos of her life fell away. There existed only the duke and her, pleasure and pain, actions and consequences.
Her sense of sound was the first thing to go. The room grew quiet, her ears shuttering out the slaps of skin on skin, the crackle of the fire. All she heard was the blood pounding in her head.
