Page 14 of The Nightshade's Bride
“If you ask me,” Ada purred, running two pale white fingers along my chin, “you should be lucky he married you at all, after the whorish way you behaved.”
My cheeks burned. I had notintendedto be whorish, and I began to realize how foolish and naïve I had been, to ask a man I barely knew about how to please men.
“You can be assured, I will never have ratafia again,” I said stiffly, and left the room.
Gideon was not present at dinner, so Ada and I made desultory conversation.
It felt like there were more servants than before, bustling around Ada, bringing us delicious plates heaped with roasted pheasant.
I could not stop thinking about what changes had been made since the day I first arrived. In addition to the servants, therewas an expensive new stable of horses, and I had seen workers repairing the broken windows outside.
Certainly Gideon loved Grayspires.
Perhaps it was the way of the world, I tried to remind myself as I lay in bed later. I should ask for a fire to be lit in my room, but I had been such a bother to Ada already that day that I didn't want to risk making her angry at me.
But as I shivered, I could not convince myself.
There was somethingwronghere. Something rotten and strange.
Then I heard a heavy tread outside my door. The doorknob turned, and I smelled his familiar scent–deeply masculine, a hint of smoke and leather, and something else, a spicy, unusual aroma I couldn’t place.
Gideon.
"I see you have chosen to be disobedient," he grated out, startling me with his words. "You were told to mind your business.”
With one harsh motion, he strode to the bed and flipped my body around so I was nose-first in the cushions.
Ada had told him about our conversation!I felt betrayed and angry.
Why would she do that?
My heart pounded as he entered me roughly, my hands gripping the bedclothes so I would not be bounced off onto the floor.
“I just want to know who the woman is,” I cried. “I know she was here.”
“And who are you to have any say in what I do or don’t do?” Gideon asked, his voice silky-smooth with malice. “If a wife displeases a man, he is free to go and do as he pleases.”
That angle did not occur to me, and I clutched desperately at the sheets.
"Speak, little mouse," he snapped.
"Does that mean I have to behave or you might–might find other women?” I whispered.
"Perhaps.”
He was thrusting into me with a hard, rhythmic motion, grinding the front of me against the bed over and over, and I began to feel that disconcerting heaviness between my thighs.
"I expect you to be a quiet, good wife. I did not marry you for your looks or because I was in love with you, Deliverance. I married you because I’m a gentleman who didn’t want to leave you to the usual fate of all whores and sluts. You have a wet cunny. Your job is therefore to bear me children. Otherwise, you must listen and do what Ada says and raise this cunny to me when I want it. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir," I said resentfully.
So that is what my marriage was to be! No tenderness or love. So why was my skin tingling with anticipation of what was to come. . .
His thrusts were like to burst me apart, those two heavy sacs between his legs landing hard against my thighs as he tipped me into the air.
Closing my eyes tightly, I waited as his rough hands gripped me cruelly on my already-sore behind, and just as I felt the powerful deluge of his release fill me, I began to shudder, full-body convulsions that made me cry aloud with the shameful pleasure.
How could it be cruelty giving me pleasure and not tenderness?
